Why Backpacking Is Fun

I know. I said there'd be no more blog posts this week, but I had to toss this one in just for fun. I took my little digital camera with me on the backpacking trip, and had the inspired idea to record a few quick video segments with it.

This is one of them. It's late last Friday afternoon, at the end of six hours of uphill hiking, the last two of which have been in the rain. I am wearing an army green poncho. My backpack has a trash bag over it to keep my stuff dry. I am in short sleeves because, up to this point, it has apparently been too much trouble to stop walking, remove the waterproof bag, dig into my backpack, locate a long-sleeve shirt amid all the other stuff, and then pack up again.

Also? It's 43 degrees outside, according to our thermometer.

Did I mention I was soaking wet, too?

This is one of those videos my wife sees and asks, "Um, tell me again: Why do you like backpacking so much?"

Back from Backpacking

This will be a short posting week here at ye olde blog. I spent last weekend backpacking with friends in Colorado and will spend the next weekend with the family at Sea World and Fiesta Texas in San Antonio. These days in between are dedicated to getting everything done in a really short amount of time.

In the meantime, you can read a daily recap of my backpacking trip at my family blog. You won't know anyone involved, and it's kinda gross how I'm wearing the same clothing in every photo taken over a four-day period, but there are some pretty pictures to look at. And it will make you long for a wilderness experience of your own. So enjoy: Day One. Day Two. Day Three. Day Four.



I spent four days living off only 25 pounds of stuff, carried in a little bag that fit on my back. There are some lessons in simplicity to be learned in that.

Also, thanks for the feedback on the video blog from Monday. I'm thinking of some more stuff to do for those, so maybe it'll be a weekly occurrence. A raisin, if you will, to spice up the oatmeal.

Not that it's the best marketing idea to refer to one's blog as "oatmeal." Unless, of course, you like oatmeal. Which I do.

Have a great week, and I'll see you on Monday.

Look, a Video Blog!

Office lighting is SO unflattering. I usually look a lot more Brad Pitt-like.




So...you like the video? Should I do this more often? How much of my Texas accent comes through?

(Comments are welcome.)

Photoshopping the Headlines: Dolly

Hurricanes are no laughing matter, especially for those affected by high winds, evacuation, and flooding. But sometimes their names are pretty funny. And I can't help it. All day yesterday I saw headlines about Dolly "lashing" Texas -- or whatnot -- and I kept picturing a giant cloned sheep with a whip in its mouth.

Today, I saw this headline: "Dolly Dumps Heavy Rain on Texas Coast." And, unbidden, a new and equally horrific image popped into my mind. So I did a quick-and-dirty Photoshop recreation of it.

Headline: Dolly Dumps Heavy Rain on Texas Coast

Visual:



Maybe this should be a series: Crappy Illustrations of Timely Headlines.

Or maybe not.

My Notability Is In Question

We're all guilty of the crime of self-Googling. You've done it. I've done it. We've all done it. Maybe we flat-out Google ourselves manually (which sounds dirty but usually isn't), or we get all advanced about it and set up Google alerts with our names in it, or we just troll around friends' blogs looking for shout-outs. Don't even try to deny it.

So I was self-Googling the other day and, for lack of something better to do, I clicked on the 7th link on the first page of results.

It was my Wikipedia entry.

My heart nearly broke.

Before I tell you why I was saddened, I need to be honest about my Wikipedia entry: I wrote it. Yes, it's true. I broke the 1st law of Wikidom, and wrote most of that entry about myself. I did it back in 2005 while anticipating the release of Pocket Guide to the Bible. Surely having written four books and contributing to a few national magazines makes a person notable, right? And shouldn't notable people be in Wikipedia? Then why wasn't I in Wikipedia?

Then a better question occurred: If Wikipedia was user-driven, then why shouldn't I, as a user, just, you know, kind of introduce myself? So I wrote this quick, simple entry and listed my books. It was humble, subtle, straight-forward. I hardly thought about it. It was over and done with in, like, three minutes. Yes, it was a sin. But it was a minor sin, like coveting your neighbor's iPhone.

Other than some coding and categorization, my entry stayed mostly the same in the years since.

Until recently. Apparently it's been too long since the page has been updated, or since I've released a book, or since I've been interviewed in any legitimate publications. Because when I clicked over to it the other day, I discovered the page had been tagged with this notice:

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This article may not meet the general notability guideline or one of the following specific guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirection, merge or ultimately deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion.
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My very existence is "likely to be considered for...deletion"?

That's never fun to hear.

Miscellaneousness

There are three things I am loving today, and they are as follows:

1. MacGyver. Farhad Manjoo -- former "Machinist" columnist at Salon who just recently joined the team at Slate -- writes about the equal doses of brilliance and lameness that come from rewatching "MacGyver" episodes on DVD as a grown-up. "But to adult eyes 'MacGyver' is often too goofy by half," he writes. Noted. I loved Mac as a burgeoning teenager. There were reruns on a couple years ago, and I ended up watching an episode with fresh, adult eyes. The goofiness was high. In that ep, MacGyver actually resuscitated a heart-attack victim using a microphone cable and silver candlesticks. Kids, don't try that at home.

But the Bigfoot episode? Still awesome. The complete series is out on DVD.

Addendum 1: Read a comprehensive list of the problems he MacGuyvered his way out of here.

Addendum 2: I own a Swiss Army Knife.

2. Mark Hurst, author of the self-published (and successful) book Bit Literacy, reveals the secrets of the book publishing industry -- and the reasons he decided to self-publish instead of go through the mainstream channels. He makes some very good points. Aspiring authors will want to read this. Especially the part about how "you, the author, can't be in it for the money -- it doesn't pay enough. You should write a book because you believe in it." Don't write a book for the money. Just...don't.

Addendum 1: Here's some stuff I've written about writing and publishing industry.

Addendum 2: Here's some more.

3. Graph Jam. If you love pie charts, and you love pop culture, and you love Demetri Martin, then you will love Graph Jam.

Addendum 1: I'm serious. Go tool around Graph Jam. It will make you happy.

Swim, Bike, Run

I was about to start off this post by saying, "Not to toot my own horn, but..." and then I stopped. Because I realized I was, in fact, about to toot my own horn. Because any time someone starts a sentence like this...

I don't mean to brag, but...

or

I don't want to sound disrespectful, but...

...then they are lying. What they're doing is trying to soften the fact that, yes, they really do intend to brag and they really are about to say something disrespectful. It's just that they realized it before the words came out and are trying to soften it a little. But they don't fool me.

And anyway, isn't the act of blogging pretty much a way of tooting one's own horn anyhow? One of my tags on this blog is "shameless self-promotion" and it's one I use for almost every post. This blog? More self-absorbed than a reality-show contestant in a hall of mirrors.

(I have no idea what that means.)

Anyway...I competed in and finished my first triathlon this weekend and I feel the need to tell you about it. It was a sprint triathlon (350-yard swim, 12.7-mile bike, 5K run). It was hard, and I hadn't trained sufficiently for it, but it was fun and I finished. And now I can walk around feeling healthier and more accomplished than anyone else. I want to have conversations like this:

Me: "Hey, man. What did you do this weekend?"

Friend: "Oh, nothing. Slept late. Watched the British Open. Drank some beer."

Me: "Cool. I ran a triathlon." (Zing!)

...but I don't. That would probably be going too far in the name of horn-tooting. And I've gone far enough already.

Action shot:


If you're so inclined, you can read more about it at Prayers for Blowouts or my family blog.

Wonder Loaf

One of my favorite TV shows growing up was The Wonder Years. For a variety of reasons, one of which may or may not have involved having a crush on Winnie Cooper. One of the things I always loved about the show was the opening song. It was Joe Cocker's live performance (at Woodstock, natch) of the Beatles' hit "With a Little Help from My Friends."

Everyone, sing it with me:

What would you do if I sang out of tune?
Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song.
I will try not to sing out of key...

And other than the few snippets of chorus that rounded out the theme song on the show, those first lines were all I'd ever heard of Cocker's performance. I knew the Beatles' recording of the song, of course, but had never heard the full, live version. Until just the other day.

And that's probably a good thing, because the lyrics above are pretty much the only words you can understand when Cocker sings it. Seriously. Dude's pretty gravel-voiced anyway, but his singing at Woodstock is so garbled as to be savant-like. Either he was completely stoned at the time (odds are good) or he filled his mouth with marbles right before hitting the stage, thinking they were mushrooms (a possibility), or he sang the entire song with a live gerbil tied to his tongue (probably not).

Anyway, all of this is just to introduce the following YouTube clip, which is the complete performance of Joe Cocker singing the Wonder Years theme song at Woodstock. And hilariously, it includes fun captioning to help you decipher his sweaty, gerbil-laced grunting. As with most of the good stuff on YouTube, I'm pretty late to the party, but I laughed a LOT when I first watched this.

Something else to watch for: You know how dorky the air guitar looks when you're sober? It looks even worse when you're stoned. Far, far worse. Frightening, even. At times, Cocker seems to be a few fried neurons away from an outright seizure.



May your day be filled with almond love.

Listy, Afterlife-Related Goodness

Anyone up for some advance, listy content from Pocket Guide to the Afterlife (one of three Pocket Guides to release next summer)? More than any of the other Pocket Guides I've written, this one -- about heaven and hell and all the other stuff different cultures believe about life-after-death -- really lends itself to list-making.

And it's well-documented that blog readers like lists.

So here's one of the lists from the final listy chapter of Pocket Guide to the Afterlife. Enjoy.

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Twelve Activities That May Be Signs of an Impending Death Should They Occur in Your Dreams, According to the Tibetan Book of the Dead:

1. Being disemboweled by a fierce black woman, causing your entrails to spill out

2. Eating feces

3. Wearing black clothes of yak hair

4. Being trapped in a wicker basket

5. Being dragged by a black rope attached to the neck

6. Being trapped inside a very tall, red-colored, moat-surrounded castle

7. Being decapitated and having your head carried away by someone else

8. Repeatedly picking red flowers

9. Being dragged along by a crowd of dead people

10. Being surrounded by crows, or villains

11. Dancing with a host of ogres

12. Jumping headlong into a pit

-----------

When I was a teenager, I had a vivid dream in which my parents were cats, and we lived in an underground home with dirt walls, and it tunneled into an amusement park, and somehow I ended up being pursued by a herd of cattle through that same amusement park. As far as dreams go, it was horrifying. I'm pretty sure it meant something profound.

But I'm glad to know it didn't mean my demise was imminent.

Dream interpretations, explanations, and recaps welcome in the comments. Have you dreamed any of the 12 things above? Let me know. We'll pray for you.

Chicago Weekend Recaps

We're back from Chicago. If you want, feel free to read all about our trip at places other than this blog.

At the sports blog Prayers for Blowouts, where I'm a contributor, I recap the two Cubs games we watched.

At our family blog, where (not surprisingly) I'm also a contributor, I recap just about everything else. Including a lightning storm right outside our plane on Thursday night.

Day 1. Day 2. Day 3. Day 4.



(Thanks, ChangeEffect!)

Chicago Weekend

Some of you are new here, but if you've were reading this blog back in January, you probably remember that I won a contest put together by the good, creative folks at ChangeEffect in Chicago. (Thanks again to those of you who voted for my story.) The victory prize was a weekend trip to Chicago to see the Cubs play.

That weekend is this weekend.

My wife and I are pretty pumped about it. We're staying in a swanky hotel, catching a couple of Cubs games (hey there, Rich Harden), meeting up with some great friends, and other than that we have absolutely no schedule. Which is always nice.

I'll update you on it when we get back. Until then, have you seen the famous dancing Matt's 2008 video? Dancing Matt always makes me happy. Keep it up, Matt.

Best. Infographic. Ever.

Saggy pants. Personally, that's a fashion trend I've never understood. I've tolerated it, sure, because what can a person do when some hip teen can hardly walk around because his zipper keeps getting caught in his shoestrings? I've laughed at it, too. Because, man, that looks dorky. But I've never thought "There's something that the police ought to crack down on."

Then again, I've never lived in Flint, Michigan. Apparently this daunting social problem is even worse there. To the point that the law is now categorizing it as indecent exposure. As in, there's so much crack showing at the top of your baggy pants you might as well be wielding a pipe wrench. So wearing baggy pants has been declared a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 93 days in jail or fines up to $500.

Here's the breakdown:

• Pants pulled completely below the buttocks with underwear showing = disorderly conduct
• Saggy pants with skin of the buttocks showing = indecent exposure
• Saggy pants, not completely below the buttocks, with underwear exposed = a warning

Still not quite sure whether this applies to your fashion habits? Fear not! The Detroit Free Press has created the most awesome infographic I've ever seen in all my years of looking at newspapers. Here it is:


Saggy-pants-wearing members of the Blue Man Group? Watch out.

(H/T: Gawker)

The Wittenburg Door

I grew up Southern Baptist -- and I still attend a Southern Baptist church -- but my faith journey has taken me through a lot more wide open ecumenical spaces than the narrow Southern Baptist road. I guess I'd describe myself as "Southern Baptist" in church attendance only. In reality, I'm an episcomethodemerging Christian. (Note to self: Trademark that word.)

My journey out of my early faith, which had a lot of fundamentalist texture to it, happened in the early 90s, once I began reading outside my conservative religious safety zone. I replaced Max Lucado with Brennan Manning. And Chuck Swindoll with Henri Nouwen. And one of the best books I found to really challenge what I believed was a weird paperback book called The Door Interviews. It was assembled by Mike Yaconelli, the legendary editor and founder of The Wittenburg Door, and published in 1989 by Zondervan. Pretty much it was an assortment of snarky interviews with religious heavyweights from the late 1970s and 80s. Serious topics. Real theology. But disguised as light-hearted interviews. The voices here, and their passion for God, really challenged me.

(You can buy a copy of this book for less than a dollar -- plus, like, $3.99 shipping -- here in the used book section of Amazon.)

That's what I've always liked about The Wittenburg Door (the world's "pretty much only religious satire magazine," sort of a Mad Magazine for religious people) -- beneath the quippy goofiness and the much-appreciated sarcasm, there was some good stuff. Necessary stuff. Challenging stuff.

The folks behind the Door have been good friends to me, too. Senior Contributing Writer (and fellow author) Becky Garrison has been a friend for several years and introduced me to my literary agent. Senior Editor (and, as a Baylor prof, a legitimate historian) Robert Darden was kind enough to endorse Pocket Guide to the Bible and Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse.

Becky let me know over the weekend that the print publication of the magazine has been temporarily suspended. One of the major backers of the print version is in hospice care, which means the future of the magazine -- both its print and online versions -- is in jeopardy. The folks who put out each issue are working behind the scenes to raise money to keep things going, mainly in the form of a major email campaign to establish a non-profit board of friends to sustain the magazine at various financial levels -- instead of relying, as Becky says, on "a single angel" to take each issue to print. If you want to help The Wittenburg Door stay in business, email doorbus [at] earthlink.net and let them know.

A lot of people who aren't comfortable in a regular church maintain some form of faith by reading The Door. I know it was helpful to me. If you're so inclined, spread the word, send some money, and do whatever possible to keep The Door from closing.

Hey! See how I made that clever pun? That's some genius stuff right there.

Biting the Facebook Bullet

So I'm on Facebook now. I've been putting it off for a long time. I registered for MySpace back when Facebook was still open only to college students and everyone was on MySpace. I did it mainly to promote my books and all that stuff. Then Facebook opened, everyone jumped to that side of the fence, and MySpace became the home of 14-year-olds and spammy "check out my pictures" hotties and creepy old people.

And everyone -- especially fellow authors -- kept telling me I needed to get on Facebook, if only for the marketing and publicity and ability to connect with writers and editors and potential endorsers. (My friend Matthew Paul Turner is a tireless advocate of Facebook as a writer's paradise.) But I just didn't want to put in the time to building another profile page and friending people and wading through all those requests.

But, nevertheless, I had a little free time the other day. So I signed up, and now I'm caught up to the year 2006 like the rest of you. We'll see how it goes. I've heard it's a recklessly addictive medium, a hopeless distraction from writing and other real work, but a great way to keep up with people and meet editors and otherwise make connections.

If anything, it'll get MPT off my back.

Are you on Facebook? If so, hit me up. Tell me you read this blog and I'll friend you. (Or however the lingo goes. I'm such a n00b.)

Other ways I'm behind the times:

1. I've never watched a full episode of American Idol. I refuse to do it now, if only just to continue the streak.

2. I've never been much into debit cards.

3. My cell phone is five years old.

4. I send and/or receive approximately 4 text messages annually.

5. I have never sold anything on eBay. Bought stuff, but never sold.

6. Manual screwdrivers: I like 'em.

Freelance Writing Is Not Glamorous

Just in case any of you are aspiring to the life of freelance writing because you think it's a totally glam occupation full of interesting projects, here's a list of some of the topics I've gotten paid to write about lately.

• Childhood Obesity (Did you know more than 25 percent of Texas children are obese? Put that Wii down, kids, and go play some real tennis.)

• Nutrition for Old People (Tell your grandparents that experts recommend a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet that contains plenty of antioxidants, vitamins C, E, and B-12, and omega-3 fatty acids. Just so you'll know.)

• Things You Should NOT Blog About (This was for a singles magazine. Thing #1: Don't give out too much personal information. Brilliant!)

• How to Buy a Used Car (FYI: Acura, Honda, Lexus, Toyota, and Subaru are known for having better-than-average reliability.)

• A Mulching Tractor That Cuts Down Unwanted Scrub Brush on Ranchland (This was more exciting than it sounds because it was the voiceover for a video script, and because that tractor thing could turn a tree-sized shrub into mulch in about ten seconds.)

Sometimes my wife looks at me funny when I make random statements about the environmental impact of salt cedars on a Texas ranch's watershed, or about the virtues of eating fish three times a week when you hit 60. She thinks I'm just a font of useless information. But she's wrong.

I'm just a freelance writer. I get paid to write knowledgeably about all kinds of miscellaneous stuff.

So I learn about it. I write about it. Once I'm finished, those facts stay in my head about three days, during which I take advantage of every opportunity to warn my children about the increasing risk of diabetes among inactive kids in Texas. Then I forget everything I learned and move on to the next project.

I'm a freelancer. That's how I roll.

Things I Might Blog About Today

I can't decide what to post today. When indecisive, it helps to make a list.

1. Stopforwarding.us is a helpful website if people keep sending you dubious forwards, unhelpful urban legends, unwanted photos, or letters about how the long-dead Madilyn Murray O'Hair is about to infringe on my religious liberties. If everyone sent people anonymous "stop it!" messages every time they ended up on the receiving end of forward spam, the world (and my in-box) would be a better place.

2. Next time it's my birthday, I'm totally using my camera to do this. The Longbrake: always coming through with awesomeness.

3. I am participating in this triathlon in September. It's my first triathlon. I'm a swimmer, so that shouldn't be too tough. But the 10-mile bike part has a serious uphill climb and, 5K or not, I don't really like to run. Unless being pursued by deadly creatures. So I'm training for it most nights, and it's making me tired. Last night I ran three miles. This morning I will ride my bike seven miles. Wheee.

4. Looks like Mugabe's not going anywhere. Things aren't looking good for his opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai. That's bad news for the people of Zimbabwe.

5. Have you bought your customary small book about the Bible in preparation for your celebration of Independence Day? Purchasing a Pocket Guide is a long, honored 4th of July tradition in many parts of this great nation -- along with flags, fireworks, and the grilling of meats. Buy your super-cheap signed Pocket Guide to the Bible today. Use the buttons on the sidebar to your left. Act now, because there are only 8,600 left in stock.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. Who are you?