All In Due Time

My tasks include a couple that involve developing my spiritual side, namely finding a new home church and reading the Bible start to finish for the first time. Both are works in progress.

I've visited a church near me a couple times and I've really enjoyed it so far. It's non-denominational, which is what I've grown to want in a church over the last several years. I grew up Catholic, and my family converted to Baptist when I was 12. From that point to when I had moved to Maryland, my family (myself included) had steadily attended Baptist churches. Gradually I found non-denominational churches to be more appealing, and I found myself learning a lot more from other churches. I stopped going to church a couple years ago - not because of any loss of faith, but simply stopped going.

I've also been reading my Bible regularly for the first time in a very, very long time. I'm still in Exodus, but there are plenty of stories that I am reading all over again as if they're being read for the first time. My Bible also has footnotes to add historical context to all the passages. It's been enlightening, to say the least.

All that brings me to this morning. I didn't go to church this morning (talk about irony, given the theme here), but I did watch Joel Osteen instead. Osteen is a minister based in Houston, and I've seen his sermons once or twice before. Today's message was centered around when it's "your time." There's a time to be free of debt. There's a time to find the right job. There's a time to find the right relationship. There's a time to be healthy in body, mind, and soul.

Osteen's message was just the kind of message I needed to hear. How fitting is it that I needed to hear a message about timing, and I happened to flip channels and noticed his program was just starting. The key is to understand that the right time is when God has already deemed it, and it will not come one second late.

Human beings are naturally impatient. We want what we want yesterday, and it's easy to hope for or ask for things simply because we want them without taking into account the impact or consequences. I've certainly been guilty of wanting things done on my time table instead of what God has in store for me in the past. I'm sure I'll need to be reminded of that fact throughout my life. Today, though, I know I'm one day closer to understanding the plan God has for me. I may not fully know what the plan is, but I'm okay with that.

Does This Make Me Metro?

I am ready to officially add another task to my list.

#74. Get a massage.

Yes, this probably sounds gay. I'm aware of this. I've also accepted it. I've realized over the last few years I've been slowly becoming more and more metrosexual as I go along. I try to dress well. I go to a salon to get my hair cut. I'm cooking more often, and trying to experiment with different recipes as I go along. Cooking may not necessarily be a sign of a metrosexual, but I can think of several guy friends who hardly ever cook at all outside of grilling.

That brings me to now. I've been going back and forth over getting a massage lately, but today as I was getting my hair cut, I was offered a free massage at the salon. I couldn't say no. I set up another appointment for my massage.

This could end up being a regular thing, depending on how it goes. And that brings me back to my headline: does this make me metro? I'm definitely not going to get any pedicure and/or manicure at all, but massages make for a big step. I wouldn't have thought of myself ever becoming metro, but it may not be so bad.

To be continued...

Deja Vu All Over Again

When winter had first rolled around, I had a bad feeling we were in for a rough winter. There wasn't a significant snow storm in the area in about 6 years, and the law of averages said the time was right. As much as I had expected, I certainly wasn't ready for this bad of a winter.

The Baltimore/DC/Northern Virginia area has been pounded with snow since last weekend, and I spent most of the weekend sitting on my couch flipping channels on television. I dug out my car Sunday morning after a total of nearly 30 inches of snow fell between Friday and Saturday. I managed to make it to work Monday morning as usual (mostly because this happens to be the busiest time of the month in my office), and then quickly found news of the weather reports for this week.

Another snow storm. Another 20 inches of snow. Three days after the last storm.

This time, however, I didn't have the luxury of going grocery shopping early. I found milk by blind luck at a gas station's convenience store of all places, and grabbed a few other small items at a grocery store. It sure bears an eerie resemblance to my weekend, but this time I don't know if I'll be able to make it in the office tomorrow morning. I have the option of working from home, and I have to say the concept of working in my PJ's sounds alluring. I might end up doing that tomorrow, despite living only 10 minutes from my office.

I can honestly say I've had my fill of snow for the next several years. A little goes a long way, and it's a bad sign when 5 inches of snow no longer feels like anything major. Spring may be 6 weeks away, but it sure feels a whole lot further out than that.

One Down, 100 To Go

My headline may be a little misleading. My list so far obviously has 73 things, well short of the typical 101 tasks. However, I'm going to continue operating on the presumption that I'm going to eventually add the remaining tasks to make the complete 101 projects.

Anyways, I can now officially cross one off the list! I successfully went all of January with no fast food at all. I started cooking more often as well, which certainly helped me through the month. I'm not going to sit here and say to all of cyberspace that I'm never going to have another McDonald's value meal, but I kinda like moving away from having it more than a couple times a week.

I still do want to continue phasing out less healthy foods, i.e. chips, assorted junk food, etc. That's the true test of my limits. My real weakness for snack food includes chips and chocolate, so I will need to create a strategy on how to at least reduce those foods in my kitchen. I'll post another update in the future on how that strategy comes together.

Dinner Is Served

My close friend Autumn got me a crock pot as a housewarming gift for my place. It ended up being a Christmas present in a way since I finally got it on Christmas Eve, and she made a point for me to take it since she was (understandably) tired of looking at it. I was definitely looking forward to using it since cooking was something I wanted to do more often, and here are the first results of using the crock pot.

I give you meatloaf stuffed with cheddar cheese. Rice on the side, as well as mixed vegetables. I know, I know - mashed potatoes are supposed to be on the side of meatloaf, so I committed a bit of a dinner faux pas. Still, the dinner turned out pretty darn well if I say so myself.

While it's far too early for me to do anything like cook for Thanksgiving dinner, I'm actually looking forward to using the crock pot more often. I already found my next recipe in mind - lamb chops cooked in red wine sauce. I think this is a good step up from spaghetti or pasta, and I might even use cooking with the crock pot in some fashion on my list of tasks as well.

Thanks, Autumn!

P.S. Speaking of food, a quick update on my "no fast food for 30 days" task: I have a week left and still going strong. I don't even see myself caving as soon as the period ends either, and I think my blossoming cooking habit has played a big role in that. I'm finding myself looking forward to cooking dinner now, as opposed to loathing the idea of cooking for one. Who knew?

Get Over Yourself, Jason Whitlock

Jason Whitlock is a regular columnist on Fox Sports. He's had a long career of sports reporting, including a stint on The Sports Reporters Sunday mornings on ESPN. His perspective includes frequent discussions of racial topics and his distaste for Charlie Weis (though his attitude towards Weis isn't terribly regular anymore since Weis was recently fired as head coach at the University of Notre Dame).

Every week during the NFL season, Whitlock writes a column of 10 NFL truths. Below is an excerpt from this week's NFL truths:

8. It's mind blowing that ESPN's Mike Greenberg could accidently say "Martin Luther Coon" on national radio and TV on Martin Luther King's national holiday and ESPN take no punitive action.

I don't have any doubt that Greenberg regrets his mistake. I don't think his error necessarily paints Greenberg as a bigot. I don't think Greenberg should lose his job. But he should be required to do more than offer up a weak written apology. A short, paid suspension was warranted.

My tongue slips all the time. It's hard for me to fathom the King to Coon slip. King to Queen, King to Ding, King to Bling and King to Ring I totally get. King to Coon is off the table.

Greenberg has no discernible talent as a radio talk show host. ESPN pays him to say nothing and keep the "Mike and Mike" brand as non-controversial as humanly possible. He screwed up.

*** ***

I will be open and honest about my feelings for Whitlock. I don't like him. This isn't the first time he wrote a piece that I vehemently disagreed with (Interestingly enough the last piece he wrote that I thought was completely nuts was centered around race as well). He may be entitled to his views and opinions, but this is the second time he completely missed the point.

It's pretty clear that Greenberg had a simple slip of the tongue on the air. What most likely happened was he had essentially blended the words "King" and "Junior" into one term and caught himself halfway through it. It was simply unfortunate that blending the words together ending up sounding like "Coon." Sure, Whitlock realizes that Greenberg isn't in fact a bigot or racist at all. I'm also glad that he isn't calling for Greenberg to be fired. Had he made either statement I would be far more annoyed than I am. However, he's taking a simple slip of the tongue here to an extreme.

He's actually recommending that ESPN suspend Greenberg??? For how long? A day? A week? On the grounds of what? Greenberg wasn't making any kind of joke when he misspoke. He doesn't need to go to any sensitivity training. He certainly doesn't need to be suspended. Whitlock is taking up the Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson torch here by overreacting. All Greenberg needed to do was issue a simple apology (which he did, as Whitlock had acknowledged), and everything would be forgotten.

Whitlock still has a bone with ESPN after being fired from the network 4 years ago. He is entitled to his opinion over whether or not Greenberg is a decent radio personality. I think Greenberg is fine; my beef with his morning show is how he and Mike Golic repeat segments two or three times during the course of each show they do, but that's no fault of theirs. For Whitlock to take his beef with ESPN out on Greenberg is unprofessional and unfair.

To further make my point, flip the situation around. Suppose a black sports radio personality made a comment about a white person whose last name was similar to "Cracker." Would Whitlock be crying for the radio host's suspension? I doubt it. It would most likely be seen as funny for a moment, and then we'd all go on with our lives. Maybe Whitlock should have thought about that before jumping to such wild conclusions.

There's a Reason Why "Fan" Is Short for "Fanatic"

Talk to virtually any die hard fan of any sports team - college or pro - and that fan will tell you about some completely non-sensical, illogical, and absurd superstition he or she has to support a team. There's a reason why people are called "fans," and the title of this blog pretty much shows that. We do really stupid things to show support of our teams. I am no exception.

One of my major superstitions in showing support for my teams is to refuse wearing the team colors of my team's opponents. For instance, if the Ravens are playing against the Steelers, I will absolutely not wear black and gold on the day they play one another. Or if the Orioles are playing the Red Sox, I won't wear red. Every now and then I'll catch myself wearing the colors of my teams' opponents, and I'll feel sincerely guilty about it. I have to wonder if I somehow cursed my team by wearing the opponent's colors.

All that leads me to the Ravens in the playoffs this season. I have been a Ravens fan since I had first moved to Maryland 11 years ago, and I quickly understood the superstitions fans have. I stayed home for their first playoff game against the Patriots, which they promptly kicked in the teeth. I wore my Ray Lewis jersey and focused on the game entirely while sitting on my couch, enjoying every moment of it.

The win meant the Ravens had to travel to Indianapolis for the divisional round. I then faced a dilemma. Do I stay on my couch, recreating my positioning for the Patriots game as much as possible, or do I travel up to Baltimore to hang out with my circle of friends and party with them for the game? In the back of my mind, I sincerely had feared I would be cursing the team in part by not doing the exact same thing I had done for the first playoff game.

And what happened? The Ravens lost the game. Badly.

I know this superstition makes no sense. I know that explaining it to anyone else makes me sound like a lunatic. I know that my whereabouts or clothing I'm wearing on a given day has absolutely no real effect on my teams. But that's also part of the fun of being a fan. And there are plenty other fans out there who have their own superstitions, I'm sure. It's a time-honored tradition, and I look forward to passing my crazy traditions to the next generation.