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“Jane, stop this crazy thing!!” Kids growing up in the 1960’s were very familiar with George Jetson’s distress call. The poor guy had taken his dog for a walk and somehow ended up trapped on Astro’s doggie treadmill. The Jetsons was a cartoon born of the “space age” era, a time when we thought technology had the potential to vastly improve, if not perfect, our lives.

Some of that vision has definitely come to pass. From medicine to food production to transportation to entertainment, almost every domain of human endeavor has been transformed by great technological advances. We may not have the Jetsons’ instant “food pills” or flying cars, but we do enjoy the microwave, stunningly complex medical diagnostic machines, and even the iPod.

Is Technology Neutral?

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The change of seasons is of course a gradual process. We may glance at the calendar and see that Autumn officially begins on September 21st, but our planet Earth has other ideas.

While the slow shift of the seasons is a given, perhaps it’s the structured nature of our lives that builds the perception of discrete changes. Consider the start of a typical school year. Fall does not begin at the end of the third week of September, but right after the Labor Day weekend. Winter starts the day after Thanksgiving. We break for that holiday with the remnants of Halloween candy and Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin in our little heads and return to school ready for Christmas, now only a month away. (more…)

Life is funny. Life is profane…and serious, confusing, heartwarming, scary, joyous, amazing, and overwhelming.
Overwhelming. That’s where things can get interesting.

The human mind and spirit, though buoyed by a seemingly endless array of coping mechanisms, can still be pushed to the breaking point. When life’s difficulties weigh too heavily on us, the support of family & friends, faith, meditation and even therapy become all the more important.

Me? I like to write, preferably about music. While the act of listening to music can indeed have a healing effect, there’s something about the creative process – in this case, the parsing of the music and the effort at description – that provides a kind of mental getaway. (more…)

Sometimes, you make a plan thinking that you know what’s in store. Mostly, things pan out fairly close to expectations. Then…there’s the “what just happened” sort of journey.

Recently, my wife and I volunteered to help out some close friends with the (possibly harrowing) logistics of their first week at home with their second newborn. The very real chance of a serious heart-related birth defect put us all on edge. Actually, it put us on edge. What they were going through, I can only imagine. What we offered was relief: caring for their two-year old daughter if surgery and further hospital stays became necessary, cooking, cleaning and plain old moral support. It’s just the kind of thing that friends should do. (more…)

Can you think of any ominous numbers? The obvious answers are thirteen (as in, Friday the 13th) and 666 (The Mark of the Beast). For guys, there’s another number: fourteen. Specifically, February 14h. Valentine’s Day. The day when the pressure is on. There’s the card, the gift, the dinner. It’s got to be “right.”

It all started out so sweetly and innocently. You’re six years old and your set of crayons is a prized possession. A folded piece of construction paper, a heart-shaped cutout, some glue and a quick “I Love You” with a freshly-sharpened bright red crayon – a Valentine to your mom.

Looking back on it, this is a guy’s most carefree moment with regard to relationships. That effortless & unconditional love binding us to our parents is our first anchor point for a definition of those “good ‘ole days.” (more…)

The anniversary. Such a weighty and meaning-filled word. If we’re lucky, our basket of anniversary memories can become quite full over time: that first-month celebration that seemed so important to your girlfriend, your first wedding anniversary, your last, that lovely book-hunting trip to Wales for your 10th, your parents’ 50th…your 50th.

Anniversaries need not be confined to wedding commemorations. Oh yes, we humans just love celebrations so life’s signposts can be revisited: high school or college reunions, a decade on the job (and how rare is that these days?), the first anniversary of the launch of your magazine. While these events might lack the intimacy inherent in marital reveries, they nonetheless seem to fill in important plot-points in our respective stories.

Now, the tricky thing about this life-as-story concept is that ‘they’ are always giving advice on how to go about the telling. This is particularly true when it comes to anything related to weddings, future or past. (more…)

It was one of those little metal cylinders. You know the ones: at various intervals a tab sticks out. When it slowly turns on its axis the tabs collide with and then release the metal spring ‘fingers’ pressed against the cylinder’s face. This release produces a shimmery, bell-like tone.
A music box.

Mine was tucked into the back corner of the pale yellow plastic church we put on display during the holiday season. The church had a steeple, fancy windows on three sides and a light that shone from the inside. Wind up the music box with the key hanging from the back and it would play a chimey “Silent Night”. (more…)