Mr. Angry Face

hehe....I can't help but laugh at people who get angry for no aparent reason...or who let their environmental conditions get them all riled up to the point of explosion.

I had a phone call this morning that ended up with the person on the other line venting very angrily at me...evidently something I didn't do was the straw that broke the camel's back.

So I figured I'd write a little self-help post for how to 1) deal with anger and 2) deal with angry people.

If you are Mr. Angry Face:
1) make sure you don't stop breathing
2) go ahead and start communication with whoever is making you angry - better to be
honest up front than hurt because you were afraid of conflict
3) seek proactive solutions, not face-saving excuses
4) make sure you don't stop breathing


If someone else is making Mr. Angry Face at you:
1) make sure you don't stop breathing
2) ask them nicely: "Do you think you can you calm down and talk to me normally?"
3) put yourself in their shoes: if you want the conflict to resolve, you've got to give them some sort of credibility in the argument, or it's always going to be an argument.
4) make sure you don't stop breathing

For either of the above categories: if steps 1-4 do not work for you, please either 1) consult the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's section on "what to do with angry Vogons"
or
2) sock your anger oponent directly on the nose

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Into the wild...

"But there are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction. Usually they are not experts: their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have. Determination and faith are their strongest weapons. At best such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad..." -
Walt Unsworth - Everest

So some books on the "I've read them lately list" are: Into the Wild and Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer) as well as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Nothing too "out of the ordinary" here because they're all best sellers.

Just thought that I'd get some thoughts down about the Krakauer books. I guess Into the Wild really spoke to me the most...if for nothing else...simply because the 24-year-old kid who leaves family and society to seek out "the wild" of Alaska ended up getting some pretty bad press for evidently being a nut job.

He abandons mom, dad, and sis and leaves for what would become 2 years of adventure around the midwest-western US. He meets some great people along the way and experiences what many of us would consider to be true freedom...then he gets his heart set on Alaska and stops at nothing to get there and prove it to himself that he can make it on his own. He dies after 113 of living in the Alaskan "bush" - in reality only about 30 miles from Healy Alaska. The cause of death was some poisonous fungus that grew on some seeds he collected...so he wasn't necesarily stupid to the point of death...he was simply unlucky.

Still in all...one trend that shows up in the story is that every time he gets close enough to someone to build a solid relationship...he bales out. Parents, close friend Wayne Westerberg, Ron Franz, Jan and Rainey, everyone. Is that normal? Does true freedom require isolation? Can happiness and freedom coexist in reality if "true happiness" requires someone to share it with?

I relate to this guy none-the-less. Not so much in his need to abandon his loved ones...but in the groaning deep within his belly that calls him to experience the unabridged, viceral world. At what point in my miniature adventures would people have called me crazy, mad, or even mildly eccentric for a need to escape from the safehouse geometric prison of modern society to the unpredictable organic of "the wild"?

High Fidelity

So I just saw High Fidelity last week with John Cusack and Jack Black.

I've grown to respect John Cusack a lot over the past few films I've seen him in. He has a real easy way about his acting, and in High Fidelity, it was done a bit like Ferris Bueller...direct camera delivery from the main character as the story progresses.

Really good movie. One of the cool things I took from the movie was how music can truly be such a soundtrack for our lives if we let it.

So since I was broke on Valentine's day (and since both Kelley and I don't put too much stock in a national holiday for balloons, flowers, and chocolate) I made K-time a "mix tape". It was really just a playlist for her iPod, but the songs told a bit of a story of us over the past year.

Putting together the right playlist truly is just as much of an art as writing your own song. You've got to pick tunes that say what you want musically as well as lyrically for your specific situation. For Kelley's playlist I narrowed down her iTunes library to about 50 songs to choose from. The final list was 17 songs and took me through an emotional rollercoaster that let me relive the past year of our lives as I listened to the music. Pretty cool.

So now we're off into the freedom of a 3 day weekend...and I'm interested to see where the music will take us.

Pipe Dreams

It's not all over yet, but the cold is starting to break a little...reminding me of one of the sweetest weeks ever this past summer at the beach...

That week of surfing truly left an impact crater on my heart, mind, and soul. As plans drift towards getting kelley out of her current job and into sewing, we've been planning some much-needed "away time" for the summer. A study abroad is in the working courtesy of the Gregory clan, as well as yet another fantastic week at the beach courtesy of the Bateman tribe. These are exciting indeed and it's always good to get to hang out with the folks, but I think I might have gotten Kelley excited about another idea as well.

In an effort to trim down our "heavier loads" physically, we're working out to lose a few pounds each so that we can truly enjoy a week chasing the waves on the carolina coast. With her not working and me on summer vacation, how cool would it be to throw the dogs in car, the board on the roof, and hit the road for some camping and surfing....heading to wherever the waves are. That much exposure might even get me ready to catch my first tube.

Until then, the pipe dreams will carry me through the doldrums of spring term.

Launching KG THREADS (and other stuff)

My wife is deep into the process of starting up her own business. It's really way into the beginning stages right now, but it's fun and it's showing at least some progress! She is making handbags of all different shapes and sizes and has been selling them around the northeast area of Columbia, SC. She's REALLY good at it and the cool thing is that this whole business thing might allow her to quit her current job.













Today we oficially started her new website, http://www.kgthreads.com


Check it out and let me know what you think!

In other news: I was elected as Teacher of the Year for Spring Valley High School. I'm still not sure how to react to the whole thing. It is such an honor, but for some reason I'm hesitant to go shouting it from the rooftops. Putting it on my blog (that maybe 3 or 4 people read) is a big enough step for now! :)

Listen to the river

Back when I was at Furman for undergraduate studies, I sometimes had a weakness for skipping out on western civ or poli-sci and hopping in the Jeep for a day of fly fishing in the middle saluda river up in Jones Gap State Park. Jones Gap is a valley in the mountain bridge wilderness area, and a river runs through it. The river, more like a creek, is home to native rainbow trout. I've only gotten the small dumb ones to bite, but I've heard tall tale of anglers pulling 14 inchers out of the Middle Saluda in Jones Gap before.

It's been over 6 years since then and for a while, my fly fishing went dormant. I explored other avenues of life and forgot about my passion for listening to the river. Over the past 2 weeks, I've found that passion again, this time in Columbia at the lower Saluda below the Lake Murray dam.

Unlike the spinner fishing I grew up on, fly fishing is much more about preparation and awareness. Hours of tying flies on Friday night make the trip to the river on Saturday that much more worth it...especially when you pay attention to the insects around you so carefully that you can tie on a fly that almost resembles them...

...and then it happens. A rainbow trout rises, popping at the surface to bite the Blue Wing Olive fly that you spent so much time perfecting the night before...

...as the line tightens against the fish you feel the world slow its spin...the wind through the trees and the sun off of the river seem to harmonize in a chord that only you can hear...and for just a moment, the world seems perfect...

it's the kind of perfection you experience in your wife's embrace

or from the look in a baby's eyes

I plan to keep listening to the river for a while, and see where it might take me.

Chicken Joe

So quite possibly one of my new favorite movies is "Surf's Up". Sounds like a cheesy Disney cartoon flick, but it's filled with so much philosophy that I really dig.

One of the main characters finds his way from being an up-tight, fame-hungry, out-to-prove-his-worth-to-the-world surfer...to a pretty laid-back guy just looking for some fun.

The other character that I can relate with is Chicken Joe. Quite the oposite of our high-strung hero, Chicken Joe has made an art out of relaxing and playing it cool.

So let us learn from Surf's up a bit.

Recently I've been spending my Christmas vacation at home...much unlike the Christmas vacations of the past, which have been filled with adventures here or there at break-neck speeds. Most of the time those adventures made me much more tired at the end than I was willing to admit.

During the break I spent a lot of time working on little projects around the house that ended up being very fulfilling in the long run...and I think I made my wife happy as well...which is always good for the soul!

All this to say "thanks" Chicken Joe. I'm a little older now...a little wiser hopefully, and a little more able to know that the trail will be there when I need it, but for now, it's good to sit back and enjoy the homestead for a while.