Last year, a dear friend of mine (Boyan the Bard) also turned 40. For his birthday, a small group of talented and loving friends from our college years got together to celebrate. Back in college, we were a tight knit group of martial arts zealots who shared a vision of impacting the world in our own unique and individual ways. Over the years, we have kept in touch and continued to encourage one another through life’s endeavors. For his birthday, my friend tasked the group wi

When I was young – probably spanning from age 4 through 7, I acquired an adoration for baby chickens. And who doesn’t love a cute baby animal? Be it a dog, cat, chicken, etc., many of us seem to be charmed by the cuteness factor behind the baby critters of this world. I was no exception to this. There was something about baby chickens. Their little peeping sounds, their fluffy little yellow bodies, the way they moved...I just loved that about them. Chicks became somethin

Justice, karma, comeuppance. Whatever you believe in or want to call it…much like love, it isn’t always on time. ... You didn't click on that link, did you? Well then, I'll simply imbed it right here! This has been on my mind a lot lately. Justice, I mean. I think in part because of recent news stories such as: R. Kelly being sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking going as far back as the ‘90s. Ghislaine Maxwell being sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role

There is a lot we get to control in life. But I'll argue that there is a LOT that we don't get to control. That's simply what it costs to be complex creatures living in a world shared by other complex creatures and complex situations. We kind of operate in this strange, delicate equilibrium (on our good days) that's surrounded by a chaos that we often just kind of shrug off and merely understand as "normal". Or maybe that's just me - maybe for some people, everyday just pl

Short answer: BECAUSE I CAN. Long answer: (DEEP BREATH) A long time ago, I decided to start putting slashes in my zeroes when writing them. At the time, I thought it was kind of cool. Nobody seemed to be doing it and it was a clear way to differentiate the number zero from the letter O. And there was something oddly satisfying about drawing the perfectly aligned diagonal line through a zero (to this day, it's still hit and miss as far as aim goes, but I suspect that's a condi

"Let the weak die and nature will sort itself out." "If you're healthy, you have nothing to worry about." I remember reading the occasional comment on the internet saying things along those lines. This was not the worst pandemic the world has seen or likely will see. The problem isn't that these kinds of statements are only right sometimes. The problem is that these statements are a very two dimensional statement about a problem that exists in a very multi-faceted reality.