So, I’ve been reading a book on this vacation called The Dilbert Principle. It is a satire of life in the business world and advice on how to navigate your office environment while doing as little actual work as possible. Quite interesting.

Well, I woke up this morning with sore arms from my attempts at getting up on the slalom ski yesterday. Hmmm…slalom sounds kind of like shalom which reminds me of Matis Yahu. Speaking of Matis Yahu, they are going to be in Columbus at the beginning of August…that will be one rockin concert. Anyway, enough of that rathole. I actual got up on the ski this morning and realized how absolutely weak my arms are. All that typing and mousing at work only strengthens my wrists and fingers…definitely not my arms. Andy has much more stamina out there than I do.

This morning we had a nice little study on the first part of the first chapter of Colossians. I enjoy hearing other people’s insights and their views on what it is telling us.

At the moment, we are listening to Hotel California and waiting for Sarah and Korey to finish cooking up their meal for tonight. Mmm…steak and cookies. Nawm Nawm Nawm. Well…more on the Canada vacation later. Plus, we should have a video montage to show at the end of the week. If only we had that Macbook Pro, we could be editing it right now. I’m really not a mac fanboi…I swear.

After dinner, Leigh and I went for a walk and she showed me a cool fishing pond where Korey had caught a bunch of fish earlier. We had a “debate” about how far it was. After running again this morning, I think she was right.

Sarah and I played a couple of games of chess later that evening before going out to fish. I won one game and then she won the next. Andy then showed us how to cast the one fishing rod…each of us caught a fish on practically every cast. They must have been hungry after the storm. Here fishy fishy fishy.

I woke up this morning at 6:30 to the sound of an alarm eminating from my phone. I thought to myself that by the end of this week, the melodic tune will not sound so welcoming if it is always that “early” in the morning. I dressed and finally lumbered out of the house at about 10 till 7 to begin my run. Paranoia set in as I thought of all the bear stories Korey had conveyed yesterday and of all the bear sightings I had heard of near this cottage we are staying in. However, the voice of J.C. Hutchins relaying his experience and hardships of writing a novel was enough to keep me distracted from the thoughts of being mauled by a mama black bear. Fifty-seven minutes and thirty seconds later, I was back at the cottage doing my cool-down exercises.

After a short talk and canoe ride with Korey down at the lake, we decided that we had been up long enough and it was time for breakfast. Food tasted so good after all that physical activity. The combination of nutrition and the beautiful weather (in contrast to yesterday’s rain) was enough to make me feel rejuvenated and ready to attack the day head-on.

We had a short Sunday service at the cottage consisting of a couple songs and people sharing their thoughts on where they were in life. I thought to myself that I have been rehashing the same thoughts and feelings for the past few years, but I wonder if it is necessary to continue on and make it through this period of life eventually. After all, Moses was like 80 or something when he finally started leading the Israelites out of Egypt.

The rest of the day was filled with jet-skiing, tubing, water skiing attempts and relaxing on the dock. It was very restful…just like a vacation should be. Andy, Jocey and Dad arrived around 4:30.

In the evening we watched Stranger Than Fiction and we all passed out shortly after that.

We arrived to rain and the scent of bears. It was three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and we had been traveling since early in the morning. Korey could barely tolerate the 8am time of departure that morning, but he was gracious enough to let us sleep in a little bit. After a long questioning session at the border and a few scares of almost hitting people on the road we had finally made it. It was disappointing to see that it was cold and wet, but we found a time to go outside and ride the jet ski and canoe around a little bit.

We also got a chance to talk to a few of the local Canucks. One guy at the shell station was very friendly and brought to mind my stereotypical view of Canadians. He joked around with us about things as if we had known him for years.

Later on in the evening, we played some euchre and got whooped by Sarah and Korey. Then Leigh read us the Precious Moments version of David and Bathsheba.

A new video is up: Circles. This was just a project to play around with some of the features of our video camera.

I’ll preface this post by saying that I know I write a lot about bodily functions, but I just had to get this question out to see if it is just me or if other people have the same strange issues. Do you ever have those months where every fart that comes out is more like a shart? Man, this has been one of those months for me. I can normally let them rip like it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. I like to say it’s all talk and no action. Maybe this recent action from the back section is signifying something more in my life than just a little brown in the trousers. Maybe it’s telling me to start doing more and thinking less…well, maybe not thinking less, but less over-thinking. We’ve all had those times when we’ve been in a room full of people and wonder to ourselves, should I release the pressure and possibly cause some embarrassment, or tolerate the pain and save face. It’s in decisions like this (well, maybe ones that have a little more meaning to them) that I need to just take some action and do things without having my driving motivation be one of “What will other people think of me?” or “What if I embarrass myself?”. I’ve found that it’s OK to have a good shart every once in a while. It lets me know that I’m still human…that it’s OK to make mistakes. Anyway, here’s to less disclaimers on my thoughts, less excuses and more action.

On a lighter toot…err note, I watched Last Comic Standing last night with Leigh. It’s so much fun watching these people deliver their short comedy sketches to an audience. I realized about halfway through that most of these people have been doing comedy for at least a few years. It was a reminder to me that it would be fun to write at least a couple of short comedy sketches of my own. I’ve been thinking a lot about it and trying to see the comedy in different situations. So, I think it’s getting to be time to start doing the actual writing. I’m a very serious person in both real life and in my writing, so it will be hard. I think different writing styles keep things fresh though, so I’m looking forward to it.

Three more quick thoughts. 1. We went to a groovy coffee shop this evening. It used to be an old church in Powell and now they have live music, coffee and other consumable items. The walls were covered with amazing paintings and photography. 2. I got a djembe this weekend which I have been playing on quite a bit in the past couple of days and expect to be beating on quite a bit more in the days to come. We had fun driving through Worthington during the arts festival while I was beating on the djembe with the windows rolled down. Only a few people stopped and stared. 3. Speaking of the Worthington arts festival: Leigh and I saw (and heard) the end of a jazz concert there yesterday evening. The drummer was absolutely amazing. It’s always inspiring to see someone play like that.

What is it that really forms an opinion? How much of our opinions are influenced by the media and by things we hear in conversation? Is it possible to have a completely unbiased opinion? I think the opinions of many people are influenced in some way by what they see on TV, hear on the radio and podcasts or read in newspapers, magazines and the Internet. If I stop and take a look at where some of my strongest opinions have been formed, I see that they often stem from a conversation I engaged in or something I read. Slashdot, for example, is a website that is filled with people spouting off thoughts and ideas about tech, and one from which I have often used as a starting point to form my own opinions. There is however a problem with deriving one’s own opinion from the opinions of others. Well, actually there are a couple of problems. The first is that eventually…if I may use a slippery slope argument…eventually it becomes harder and harder to think rationally for oneself. The more you rely on other’s opinions and ideas, the harder it becomes to make decisions for yourself. You become so wrapped up in aligning your thoughts and motivations to the most “widely-accepted” viewpoint that fear of failure or rejection creeps in to the decision making process.

So, how do we keep this media-saturated culture from being the authoritative influence on our thoughts and opinions? One way is to create media content yourself. This content can be in any form you like. Writing is one form of media that can be created by anybody with a pen and paper or keyboard and wordprocessor, and does not have to take a lot of time out of everyday life. It is even a good thing to get other’s opinions on the content you have created. As you begin to learn and apply the creative critisim you receive from others, you will begin to overcome the fear of rejection as you realize that someone else’s opinion is just that…an opinion. You can take it or leave it. It may be a bad opinion (in your mind), or it may have pointed out something you didn’t notice on your own. One other thing…don’t be afraid to get a second opinion. Also, do not borrow or steal other’s content and call it your own. Just create something that flows from your thoughts and emotions. Anyway, I have received parts of this advice from three separate sources, so maybe I am not being too original myself, but I have also begun to try to apply this in various creative outlets, so I have experienced some of it for myself.

A second problem with basing your opinions on ones found in media sources is that there are a lot of dumb people who can “talk good”. I believe we are often swayed by what sounds good in life and not what we believe is true for ourselves. We also tend to treat the opinions of a particular person or group (maybe a friend, talk show host, or political party) as the gospel truth. Even if what they relay to us at times does not seem to fit with our beliefs (and everybody believes in something), we shrug it off as “Oh, they must know what they were talking about because they have had good advice in the past”. The opposite is true too. I have often discounted a person’s opinion because I didn’t like what they had to say in the past. What do we do about these problems? Do we attempt some research on our own to come up with our own opinions? Do we keep silent when we really don’t know much about a topic? Do we call people out when they are perpetuating media-driven theories as fact? I’ll give you my opinion…Yes, Yes and Yes. Do I follow these rules in practice? Probably not always, but you can help by calling me out when I don’t.

Check out Leigh and Terri’s dance (filmed at their recital).