8.25.14

Breakfast - 2 frosted blueberry poptarts
Lunch - PB&J and Potato Chips
Dinner - Protein Bar and Crackers & Cheese

Pops

Last weekend my Pops came to visit me in Nash to celebrate his 51st birthday. We had a stinkin' blast. #FSB

My dad's a killer guy. Everyone loves him. He's always done a great job of holding a strong position in the community as someone of encouragement, passion and leadership. People respect him for sure.

But at the end of the day, he's still a dad. And dad's are a little… well… they're dads. Read my post about my 18th birthday for reference.

It's funny, when you're growing up as a child you never stop to consider the individuality of a dad (or a mom). You view parents as people who are supposed to provide, teach and support you. You come to them with your problems because they are supposed to help give you advice and lead you to a solution. You never stop to think that maybe this person has their own problems and maybe they need someone to give them advice. Does that make sense? Its like when you're 8 and you argue with your best friend over who's dad is strongest or who's mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies. You argue cause your parents are perfect to you. They're super heroes.

But then you grow up.

You start to realize how individual all humans are. That we all walk a very personal path down the road of life -- we all have our own problems and we all have our own dreams; even parents. 

So this past weekend I decided to get to know more about my dad and who he is, outside of him being my parent. I asked him what his goals are and what his dreams are. No surprise, he had a very specific answer.

It's never too late to get to know your parents more.

I'm not going to write about my dad's dream because that's his and he'll be sharing it with the world soon enough. But I want to encourage anyone reading this to start asking people about their dreams, specifically those your senior. Because dreaming never stops. You'll dream in your 20s, you'll dream in your 30s, and you'll continue to dream for the rest of your life.

Don't stop dreeeeaaaammmiinnnggg, hold on to that fffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllliinnnnggg.

Yeah, I know that was terrible.

8.15.14

Breakfast - 2 frosted blueberry poptarts
Lunch - Logan's Roadhouse fried chicken, mac & cheese, and mashed potatoes w/ gravy
Dinner - 2 cookie butter rolls

Slang

I love words. They're fun. Even the weird, bizarre ones. Like people seem to unanimously hate the word "moist" and that to me is fun. It's fun to say "moist" and watch people cringe.

One thing I was thinking about the other day is how words become relevant. Like, how certain words or phrases are infused into everyday dialogue through pop-culture. 

"Epic Fail!"

"I can't even…"

"YOLO"

"Turn down for what"

These aren't new words, they're just strung together in a way that makes them current and fresh. Often times syllable emphasis and tone play a big role as well. It's the silliest thing.

I always wanted to be the guy that created the phrases or words. I wanted to be the trend setter. So I would go for it. And naturally they all mostly failed. But what I realized is that slang exists in microcosms. 

I remember when the youth group would go on summer camp trips and we would encounter other youth groups from different parts of the country. We would exchange slang like fashion; what's in and what's not. Like, I remember the summer we picked up "pitiful." Teenage humor was always rooted in negativity, unfortunately, so "pitiful" was a pretty memorable summer.

Despite the harshness of the pitiful-summer, I still recall this time of life with a smile on my face. What I realized the other day is that we were all just trying to be cool. So we would take that "in" phrase and apply it to everything. Whatever that phrase was, was cool. So we just wanted to say it as much as possible to be cool. And the joy always came from saying it so much out of context, that it eventually came into context. 

Example: "Bro-core"

What the heck is bro-core!? To this day I'm still not sure. But for us, it apparently was some kind of hat. Yes, a hat. An oversized flat bill skater hat that we all wore approximately 3 times before realizing how stupid it was. A "bro-core" hat. Mine was black plush velvet (so bro-core).

Eventually everything else became bro-core too. Like, instead of hardcore, if something had a more "bro" nature to it, it became bro-core. "We're going to the beach Friday after school. Are the babes coming? Nah, keeping it bro-core." Or, "Did you see the movie Old School, dude?! Totally, so bro-core." If you went to high school you know exactly what I'm talking about.

But without fail, the circle-of-slang would eventually kick in.

Much like the circle of life, slang runs it's course through pop-culture relevancy. There comes a very distinct moment when slang and cool phrases die out. How does one calculate this exact moment? Easy.

The second an uncool kid starts saying the phrase it becomes uncool. Cause eventually the uncool kids start saying the phrases in efforts to up their coolness, which of course never actually works. Same situation for parents who are trying to be hip or "with it." I remember my dad using the word "epic." Nails on a chalk board. No. Just no. So the phrase dies out one eye roll at a time, and this is the circle of slang. It's inevitable. Sigh…

But it's all part of it. And we all have our roles to play in it as well. Cause...

"It's the circle, the circle of slang" #EltonJohn

8.10.14

Breakfast - 2 frosted blueberry poptarts
Lunch - ritz crackers & cheese
Dinner - hopefully McDougal's fried chicken


Unexplored

I do this thing where I leave certain things untouched and unexplored. 

I love exploring. I think most people would agree. The whole exploration thing is about delving into the unknown and discovering something new. Who doesn’t want to do that? But you have to admit, half the fun of exploring is just the excitement you get from the anticipation of the potential opportunity at hand.

Have you ever gotten ready for an adventure and been uber thrilled to do this thing, only to be let down by the actual exploration? “Man, this trail looked so promising. Kind of bummed it didn’t really lead anywhere.” Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t, but hopefully you get the point.

For me, I intentionally leave certain things unexplored because I'd rather hold onto the excitement of possibility than experience the disappointment of certainty.

I'm guilty of building things up to be perfect in my mind. I want to believe in perfection and I want to hold onto perfection. Leaving things unexplored is how I maintain this perfection.

You don’t explore it because if you did you’d find out that it’s not right; that it's not perfect. It’s the safety net you never want to lose.