A Parting Word

So spake the Seraph Abdiel faithful found,
Among the faithless, faithful only hee;
Among innumerable false, unmov’d,
Unshak’n, unseduc’d, unterrifi’d
His Loyaltie he kept, his Love, his Zeale;
Nor number, nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind
Though single. From amidst them forth he passd,
Long way through hostile scorn, which he susteind
Superior, nor of violence fear’d aught;
And with retorted scorn his back he turn’d
On those proud Towrs to swift destruction doom’d.

The Disturbance of Spring

I have heard it said that there is a disorder in the season. Numbing but sharp, like the sting felt after falling on black ice during a pre-dawn walk, it arrives at its yearly destination, our lives, before we’ve had a chance to gather our defenses. Walking, if not staggering, from the season of the Savior’s Birth and carols of auld lang syne alike, we’re expected to redouble our efforts towards something greater during this time. Resolutions and promises and plans soon lose footing in the January snow, however, as the darkened skies of a February midnight and the indignant winds of an early March morning leave us with the incomprehensible sense of dejection and isolation.

Prophesying to no one in particular, if not playing out some forgotten sage’s prophesy, there is neither hunger nor thirst in this desert, yet no satiety nor quenching alike. Grinding teeth before a defining hour. Walking around amidst grey faces in a crowded shopping center. Killing time to do it again the next day. Before retreating to a cubicle screen of lamplight narcissism, amidst onerous apprehension that the slow arriving hours might just bring the disturbance of the spring.

This is no disorder but rather order. Encountered, met again, recorded then forgotten. Awakened in perennial curiosity for the words of a poet, who, with each word reread, reminds us of the lean lethargy between seasons, sunlight and clouds. Apathy and exuberance. It is amidst these gusts and raindrops in which we hope, we pray for, the  sensation of warmth to overcome us. Like a brother’s embrace after years apart. This, I do remember.

Time during seasons and in places far removed from the brackish waters and the morning traffic. Before dozing off at highway speed and counting calories and minutes and calories per minute and miles per hour on the treadmill in a pre-dawn tug-of-war. Places, and faces, far removed from tired countenance at the noonday, irrecoverable boredom on the clock and the whispering folly of failure. And, the sinking feeling that this is, apparently, the long looked forward to of life grown up.

Looking back amidst trivial temptations, but lost in the silence of 40 cold nights. I have lost track of days and hours and seasons and faces in the hope, in the waiting. For a greater death, and the disturbance, the cry, of spring.

The Big Cheese

 

There’s this woman at my work. Let’s just call her “Sandie”. On the surface, we really have nothing in common. She has spiky hair and a thick South Carolina accent. She doesn’t eat sweet stuff. She views a Saturday afternoon watching football with her significant other as, well, not the most fun or worthwhile thing to do on a Saturday afternoon in the fall.

Sandie has an eclectic taste, literally. I can respect that, even if I don’t get on board with her breakfast spreads featuring various crackers, hummas, and cheeses. It’s always an interesting sight walking by her office though, especially when she’s just back from the store. Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes, when she’s down the hall doing something else, I’ll even stick my head into that office and check out her stash of snacks.

She’s pretty much got all her bases covered. There are crackers, of course, and definitely chips (she seems partial to Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion, although also seems to be a Ripples fan.) In the nature of any good perpetual snacker, she also maintains a steady stream of Cheetos.

I never thought myself a big cheese snack guy, but I’d be telling tales out of school if I didn’t admit I sometimes snag a few puffs from the big bag on Sandie’s desk. There’s just something that seems natural –in, you know, a chemical engineered way — about the finger licking, buttermilk and cheese culture tang  that enrobes those puffed corn sticks. It satisfies a basic human need to suck on ones own finger, and quenches that innate craving for cheese in powder form.

Thanks to a sample bag of Herr’s new Crunchy Cheese Sticks, I’ve been able to quench that craving without robbing Sandie’s office. If you’re looking for the crunchiest cheese snack around, look no further. These things are delicious in that go-in-the-basement-and-devour way that we all seem to retreat to when gluttony rears its head. They’re not health food by any means, but I can appreciate the commitment to baking in the cheesy, salty flavor without the use of hydrogenated oils. But mostly, I can just appreciate the crunch. 

I’ve always been a big fan of the exotic flavors of snack Herr’s has put out, munching on everything from ketchup to Sloppy Joe to Hot Dog chips. But when it comes to cheese sticks, this is one case where deviation isn’t needed. Just keep me away from my keyboard when eating on them, because there’s no way your fingers are going to escape this bag without a complete and orangey makeover.

A free sample of these snacks was provided by Herr’s. Not that free stuff influences my opinion. If it sucks, I have no problem telling you.

Eric’s Jimmy Johns

I remember the first time in which I definitively decided I no longer wanted to be a freelance sportswriter. It was about a year ago, actually, and it was Ash Wednesday. Because I do not hope to turn again repeated in my mind, and, as if emboldened by the spiritual challenge of a new Lenten season and the words of the poet’s conversion, I felt ready to move past an onerous stage of my life. I had already left behind one writing gig — a food one, for a site where the readers could have cared less about the things that bring real purpose and joy to living — and knew I wanted to leave the uncertainty and anxiety of the one job I continued to hold onto. Yet like the frustrated sinner looks up with tired eyes to a change they can only half-believe in, I faced the lonely and sobering question of ”now what?” when reembarking towards complete unemployment.

I had a glimmer of hope though, and consider myself blessed to have had a job interview that day. It wasn’t much — a sentence-long email response from an online application I had filled out for a local soft serve ice cream chain — but it was something. And when you only know one routine and identity for so long, something can mean a world of difference when trying to break the cycle. Especially when your living thousands of miles from friends, and especially in an economy where nothing seems to come easy.

That was the day I first met Eric.

There’s a lot I could say about Eric. A former Division I quarterback, young father, and the quintessential small business owner who you can’t help but root for, he immediately struck me as theperfect boss. Even at minimum wage and even straddling that line between part-time and full-time status. So I signed on to work as a minimum wage ice cream guy,  pulling day shifts with high school kids who asked me what school I went to then looked on in awe when I told them I was done with college. Jaw drop. Mouth open. Clearly, they hadn’t connected the dots that just because you’ve gone to college and done”stuff,” doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be destined for anything less than your ideal world afterwards.

I wasn’t complaining. Those days of working at Rita’s Frozen Custard might not have been ideal, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t I love them. The interaction with the customers. The swirling of soft serve machines and dishing out smiles. The regulars who left me small tips for going a little overboard with the hot fudge, and even the high schoolers who’d gossip about this or that amidst slow shifts. I felt young. I felt funny. I felt…my God, I felt fun. Even the really rainy days in the spring, when customers were sparse and it was just Eric and I in the store for eight hours. He was a cool boss — is a cool boss — and despite my many screwups, he always gave me another chance. He could see  I liked working for him, and  I could see he loved cultivating his own little piece of the American dream. To me, the guy’s fearlessness to start his own business was an inspiration, and his hands on leadership by example was a testament to the virtues which seem to elude so much of the work force.

I bring this up because when I was working for Eric he was in the process of applying for franchisee status for a Jimmy John’s sub shop. I had never eaten at a Jimmy John’s before, but Eric talked about it like it was the greatest chain ever. “Every day I ate there,” he’d tell me, recounting those lean economic years after college in which he lived with his parents while saving up money. He’d tell me about the business model, explaining the popularity of the chain and the case studies for how other sub chains (Quiznos) had fizzled out with local franchises. It certainly seemed exciting, and even though I left Rita’s Italian Ice and working for Eric after obtaining a full-time desk job, I remembered his plans to open that Jimmy John’s.

Well, it finally did open, and having gone months without saying hello to my old boss, I figured I’d check I’d congratulate Eric while finding out what was so great about the chain with the cult-like status.

The sub I bought was $5.57 after tax and did not come with cheese, as many condiments as I wanted, or my own personal instructions to the kid behind the counter making it. Smaller than a Subway footlong, it was wrapped up tighter than a Aaron Rogers spiral and delivered, as they say, freaky fast. I mean, literally before I finished digging out the chain from my wallet fast. Caught off guard by the speed of service — which on that particular day wasn’t of prime importance for me — I paid for my sandwich and nearly walked out before actually doing what I came to do. Turning around amidst competing orchestra’s of rock music and customer chatter, I stepped over towards the owner – my old boss, Eric –  to congratulate him on his new store. I shook his hand, he went back to making sandwiches and working with his young staff, and I left. I walked back into a snowy Saturday of having nothing on my mind but dreading going to work on Monday.

I couldn’t get those thoughts out of my mind, so I dug into my #2 Big John with no mayo, add hot peppers, cucumber, and Dijon mustard even before I got back home from running errands. It was o.k. but just o.k. The bread — which I had heard so many great things about– tasted plain, perhaps a bit stale, and felt altogether skimpy on the topside, while the tomatoes were an unnatural red and the hot peppers were about as hot as the sunshine on an otherwise cold February day. The Roast Beef was  a notch or two above Subway, with striations of fat and whole muscle tendons indicating it was clearly deli quality (meanwhile,  the portion was more generous and filling.) But it tasted under-seasoned, and even the Dijon couldn’t help it much. I guess the point is to have it with mayo, but one would hope its still possible to get something tasty these days without an extra 100 calorie blob of white goo. In either case, I don’t think it makes or breaks a sandwich. Like I said, it was an o.k. sub.

There are very few occasions in which I’m satisfied with my purchases when eating out anymore, and maybe that’s one of the reasons for why I feel a tinge of regret every time I do. With the exception of a #1 at Chick-fil-A or an Einstein Brothers bagel, the experience of eating out always just leaves me feeling like I’ve wasted money on something I could have made better. A part of me feels this way about Jimmy John’s. But not Eric’s Jimmy John’s.

 No, there was something different about his store, if only for that day and only that time. I could feel the energy in there. From the music to the goofy murals of various pissing scenes in the guys room, the whole place just screamed a college town vibe. I should have expected as much. Before Eric, the only association I had with Jimmy John’s was from my time in college, when I used to interview the coaches from Utah State in their offices during “off hours.” I don’t know if it was just coach Gary Andersen’s preference or if they all really loved it, but there wasn’t a day when a Jimmy John’s sandwich didn’t pass through that office. Judging from the crowd in Eric’s store on Saturday, something tells me more than a few local businesses around me will soon be experiencing similar scenes.

Jimmy John’s makes an o.k. sandwich. I probably won’t buy one again and I know I can find better value, but that’s o.k. Sometimes, it’s not about what I think of the taste and it’s not about my feelings about the money. It’s about people, and those of us who are brave enough to get up every morning and do what makes us happy while chasing a dream. In Eric’s Jimmy John’s on Saturday, I could see that. I could sense that feeling of accomplishment from him and his staff, and not letting detractors or anyone else stand in the way. I knew they were taking care to be real people who knew their customers, and not anonymous “artists” who can hardly surmise a few English words.  Walking out of the store by myself, at war in my own mind about so many things — about the blog I no longer feel compelled to write, about the job I never seem to be at peace with — I can’t help but look back at that storefront. Towards a man chasing his own piece of the American dream, and wondering if I have the same kind of courage to turn again from a “sure thing” to something that really helps give me meaning.

Zahn Does It Again with Scoundrels

I try to keep my office decor eclectic and inviting, with a personal touch and nostalgic aura that would disarm even the most surely of guests*. Aside from being known as the guy who stands at his desk, I’ve also cultivated a reputation around our publishing company as being the guy with the cereal box collection and the guy who tapes random articles and stories to his door.

The stories come and go. One week it was the now infamous “Death Star Petition.” Last week it was my review of McDonald’s Grilled Onion Cheddar burger for The Impulsive Buy. But for the different comings and going on my door, I always make sure to keep one piece of paper taped up.

It’s a letter I received in seventh grade. I remember the day I received it like it was yesterday. I was in class — ok, so I can’t remember which class — when the nefarious intercom buzzed into our classroom from the school office. The secretary on the other line called my name with the five words no 12-year old worth his prepubescent awkwardness wishes to hear. Report to the Principal’s office.

Even before the prerequisite “ummmhhhh” arose from my classmates, my mind had already begun to replay the previous hours and days of school. Rewinding through every conversation and interaction, I couldn’t for the life of me venture a guess as to what my transgression was, leading me to the only assumption applicable for a twelve-year-old in said situation: I was dead. Dead freaking meat.

Except I wasn’t. What initially sparked my concern for being the second most horrible thing in my day** ended up being the kind of experience a person never forgets.

The reason for my summon was a letter from science fiction writer Timothy Zahn. The author who essentially launched the renaissance of Star Wars fiction known as the Expanded Universe with his 1991 novel Heir to the Empire, Zahn also happened to be my writing idol. As it was back in those days of “grade level” or “challenge” reading classes, I had, at some point, been identified as exceptional when it came to words and my ability to write them, read them, and manipulate them in order to make myself appear far more intelligent than I really was***, and had thus been granted an independent project for my reading requirement. I decided I wanted that project to be writing science fiction novella. Aside from actually writing the thing, the person managing this little form of a get-out-of-class-free card made sure I researched the steps of publishing. Psh. Like I was actually about to put myself through that. Instead, I used the assignment as an excuse to write my favorite author. Aside from gushing over his work, I put the question straight and to the point: how does one become a great writer?

His answer came on that fateful day when I was called to the principal’s office to receive his return letter. In it, he wished me the best, filled me in on his future projects, and he left me with the most unfailing writing advice I have ever received.

To be a great writer, you have to write.

It’s been over a decade since Zahn left me with those words, yet when it comes to constantly perfecting his own discipline, you can’t say the man doesn’t practice what he preaches. Scoundrels, his latest Star Wars novel, was released on the first of the month, but I haven’t been able to finish it before now. Let me start by saying I wasn’t so much expecting to like Scoundrels as I just wanted to read it for the sake of crossing another Expanded Universe title off my list. Sure, Zahn has been my favorite author since that faithful day twelve years ago when his kindness made me the coolest kid in school, but Scoundrels just didn’t sound like my kind of Star Wars book from all the promotional material I had read up on. For starters, there’s no Thrawn. There’s no Mara Jade kicking down doors, and there’s no smooth talking Talon Karrde smuggling Force-knows-what in and out of the Kathol Rift for those weirdo Aing-Tii monks. The Hand of Judgement — so prominent and just plan badass in Zahn’s last two novels, ain’t there either, and the always Imperial yet likable Gilad Pellaeon doesn’t even get a cameo. Alas, the book’s lack of turbolasers-blazing, high space opera action puts it in league with some of my least favorite Expanded Universe novels (I’m looking at you, Traitor.)

Yet for all the new characters and decidedly non Galaxy Far, Far Away imagery and references (seriously, did Han really eat an apple in the book?), Scoundrels stands right up their with New York Times Best Seller Heir to the Empire in creating a character driven story which leaves the reader coming back for more. And in the Ocean’s 11 style plot of heist and thievery, I’m reminded that my zest for reading great Star Wars novels isn’t just a zest for escaping into another galaxy, but a vitality of imagination driven from the words of a truly great writer. This is a book not only for the most illiterate of Star Wars Expanded Universe fans (who’ll appreciate the storytelling, deep character profiles, and descriptive scenes Zahn creates) but also those who’ve grown tired of the apocalyptic yet predictable nature that the post New Jedi Order has left us with. While set amidst the Original Trilogy, Zahn manages to create something fun and exciting but also invariably new. Opening up this new world of Star Wars that doesn’t preclude but doesn’t ground itself only in Jedi versus Sith, Rebel verses Empire, Zahn gives us what we all crave in our own politically charged, pointing-fingers world; an escape from the formulaic.

Obviously I’m endorsing this book, but one warning is in order. A few weeks ago I was listening to a Podcast which warned not to turn to the last page of the novel, and even though there were times during the scheming, plot twists, and character general mess that takes places with a cast pulled from every wretched hive of scum and villany across the stars, I took special caution not to reconnoiter into the book’s concluding pages. Boy am I’m glad I didn’t. If you’re a hardcore Star Wars fan – or even if you’re just familiar with the movies — the final ‘reveal’ will be something you will never see coming.

And if you’re anything like me, once you read that last line you might just stand up and give this book a long, decidedly worth-it, slow clap.

———————————————————————————————

*Like the idea of nuclear deterrence through proliferation, I used to think this essential, as the sight of my office space would dissuade even the most surely of bosses from unloading on me after I screwed up. However, after experiencing bosses who are far from surely, I mostly just keep all my junk in my office for show and tell purposes.

**Let’s just say I sucked at math. A lot.

***At the time, I did not think this to be the case. I, actually, was quite certain my work with the gifted and talented program made me intellectually superior to my classmates. For the record, I ended up taking Algebra a combined three times in my life and never got out of it with higher than a B-. Go figure.

Respecting Life

 

One can appeal to reason,

To science, natural law, or first held fact.

Another to hope, faith, love

from above.

A dignity and conscience inscribed,

 in the Divine spark of newborn eyes.

Speak the words only,

of society’s past and present, rising and falling in epochal reflection.

Shadows of what could have been and echoes

of laughter that never was.

A symphony of voices ceasing

(paraphrases)

offer no justice to the violent, bloody act.

Hearts don’t change through politics.

Minds don’t embrace love through indignation.

Yet in a child’s smile, the random acts of spontaneous joy

A mother’s embrace at two, fifteen, and yes,

Even twenty four years olds like.

Perhaps in these flickers they will see. Perhaps you will see

The reason for why I proudly call myself

Pro-life.

Cheez-Its Provolon(e) are Okey Doki(e)

My cousin Michael and I consider ourselves to be something of baked cheese snack aficionados. We both agree that there is a superiority of flavor of Cheez-Its compared to Cheese Nips, and we both  find validity in the statement that Whales kick the shit out of Goldfish. “Slightly sweeter and crisper,” as Michael opines, and I agree (Plus, a whale could totally take a goldfish in an open-water battle.) Yet while we share many similar beliefs when it comes to baked cheese snacks, we differ on the hierarchy of Cheez-It flavors.

We were wandering around Target the other day when Michael spotted a box of Original Cheez-Its and lamented the fact that his mother never purchases the original, ubiquitous orange flavor. “White Cheddar is good and all,” he said, “But nothing beats these.”

I disagree. Personally, I tend to think highly of the Duoz Sharp Cheddar and Parmesan flavor, which combines sharp but sweet, salty, a bit funky, and the always necessary  lickable coating that makes serving sizes the joke they are. But after trying the new Provolone flavor, I may just have to reconsider what my favorite Cheese-It flavor is.

With Mozzarella and Italian Four Cheese flavors of Cheez-Its already in existence, I can understand those who may affirm a certain pessimism towards another Italian inspired Cheese-It. I assure you that such pessimism is misplaced, because the Provolone Cheese-Its are sufficiently unique to warrant the attention of any baked cheese snack connoisseur.

The first element of the flavor to capture ones attention is a pronounced and enjoyable smoke flavor. The cracker itself is far from mild, with a moderate sharpness and salty flavor which also benefits from a distinctly sweet flavor on the backend. I consider it to be everything I want in a Cheese-It, and the kind of small cracker which has enough flavor to be enjoyed either singularly, or in massive handfuls stuffed into one’s face. For those of you into flavor science and understanding what makes stuff just yummy, I submit to you the snack enhancing three-word ingredient which adds that meaty-salty-goodness to these: MSG.

No word yet on its melting capabilities, but this will be one I’ll be coming back for.

Cheese-It Provolone

• Price: $2.50 (Giant)
• Rating9.0/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100%

Cruller Luther Burgers

Wegman’s 80/20 Ground Beef. A French Cruller donut. A Utah State basketball game on ESPN3. Knowing what I like is what I like and not worrying about why I like it. Sometimes, a rainy Friday night in the house isn’t so bad.

Portraits from My Past: Colin

I can remember before he was on your TV screen. Before he was flexing his muscles in a mock kissing motion, hardly stopping for breath after outrunning eleven. I knew his voice before quarterback controversy talk on Gameday and the precipice of Lombardi’s silver reflection — inviting, pulling, calling — is there any reason to think he’ll be denied?

He was off-guard that day we met. Shifting uncomfortably in that generic pink hotel ballroom, he had been shuffled, once again, in front of the usual assortment of fat old bald guys holding onto the last vestiges of a profession. Not that I wasn’t going down the same path in my own way, or that those fat and balding men hadn’t stood in my very place years before.

He wasn’t like them though. Not so calculated and formulaic. I mean he was confident, to be sure, and brimming with a smile that could stretch all the way back to Reno. But he was still just a kid. He was still out of place. He was, I remember, like me.

He graces the screens of Sportcenter and has even been selected in the Major League Baseball draft. I once made a comment on an ESPN message board, and participated in an online MLB fantasy player draft. We are, in a nutshell, polar opposites in appearance and accomplishment.

I can’t tell you if Colin remembers who I was. I can’t say he didn’t forget that day. But from my past there’s a portrait, framed in time and in space, that has been painted in my mind’s eye. I pull the watercolor from the shelf of a cagey mind on long days. It gives me pause to smile, a chuckle amidst wordless seas lost in anxiety. And when I watch Sportcenter after a long day of work, the picture in my mind matches the young man on your TV screen. I see Colin, and I smile.

On Pizza with the Boss and Joy

Joy is the simplest form of gratitude

- Karl Barth, as read in Between Heaven and Mirth

My boss surprised me by taking me out to lunch today at a local pizza place in Annapolis. I enjoyed the pizza slice he bought me — an artisanal looking but firmly New York-style white pizza with liberal amounts of drizzled olive oil and fresh mozzarella — but even more than that, I enjoyed his company. It was an unexpected gift, and not one I probably deserved after getting behind in so much of my work. Yet even though I was stressed from the job, and even though I felt like going out in the middle of the day would leave us farther behind, it strikes me that I enjoyed our lunch and that I enjoyed his company. It also strikes me that because I enjoyed it, I was able to put all the worries and concerns of the world behind me for the next few hours, and able to concentrate on catching up. Isn’t it amazing? Joy might be the simplest form of gratitude, but from it springs the simplest expression of gratitude; thanks. It would seem that when we acknowledge an inherent gift that we feel we in no way earned, we find ourselves giving back. Not out of reciprocation or guilt, but rather, out of joy and mirth. True charity, I think you could say, is born from such gifts.