Be present in the moment with friends and loved ones. Always.

Choose experiences over things. Choose people every time.

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I promised him I would get him taken care of. We got him some food, which he had trouble keeping down, and kept him safe until the Arizona Humane Society could come and pick him up. With his injured (and still bleeding) neck wound I was nervous about taking him anywhere myself. The Humane Society took wonderful care of him, fixed up his wounds, checked him for diseases, and kept him warm and safe.

I also promised him I would find him a loving home. I’ve been calling the Humane Society every few days to get updates since this happened. They named him Iko. They had him on a bite hold for a while, which he came off of with flying colors. He was sweet and gentle, and they were hoping to get him up for adoption once they figured out why he couldn’t keep his food down and they got him fixed.

Sadly, the reason for Iko’s eating problems was that he had megaesophagus, which prevents dogs from swallowing correctly and from keeping food down. It was likely a result of something that happened in his time on the streets, and there was nothing they could do to fix it. He was deemed unadoptable as a result, and put to sleep.

I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my second promise to you, Iko. I would’ve come to play with you one last time if I’d have known. I know they took good care of you there, and you were safe and warm… but I wish I had been able to help you find the long life of love you so wanted to share with someone.

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We went to see the Mr. Rogers documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?“, last weekend, and ever since I’ve been trying to figure out what to say about it. I cried at least five times and I wasn’t alone. Snuffle-snorts were pretty much happening throughout the whole theater.

It wasn’t just that Mr. Rogers took on Congress when he needed funding, or that he turned right around with that money and made shows to comfort children in the face of war. It wasn’t just that Mr. Rogers quietly and relentlessly showed children that race didn’t matter. Or being scared. Or being different. It wasn’t even that Rogers… a Christian minister… was strong enough to follow his own advice to change his own views on homosexuality and show a dear friend how much he was loved.

It was how cleanly and boldly that single theme ran through this man – Love.

Fred Rogers showed it so purely and tirelessly that he baffled people. Some felt uncomfortable while others made up rumors about him to explain it away. It wasn’t that he was trying to get a reaction out of people. It was that he loved so freely from shame or embarrassment that people didn’t know what to make of it.

Which is really far more of an issue with us than him. This movie is describing the story of a man with sight to the Valley of the Blind.

I was talking about this topic with a friend this morning and wondered if we each made a list of all the people we Loved, then marked off next to each name the ones we had actually clearly and sincerely said “I love you” too, what percentage of the list would be marked off. Half? Less?

Fred Rogers would have aced that test.

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But I always have odd bits to say, so I’m making the rounds of my different sites and getting them current a little at a time. I figured I’d start with this one since it was my personal site and the one I miss the most. I loathe just making a generic post like this, but I spent too much time trying to figure out something exciting and that’s usually the worst possible way to get something moving. Sometimes you just have to take a step forward and trust your next foot will find a place to land.

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One morning as I walked into work from the parking lot I saw a strange mound of stuff propped against the wall of a building. It looked like a pile of garbage. As I watched, the pile shifted position and I saw it was a homeless man with his possessions piled all around him. He was on the other side of a chain link fence, but I asked if he was okay. He angrily waved me away and pulled his stuff back around him. When I came out later he was gone.

The next night when I arrived at a restaurant the hostess seemed a little down. I asked her how she was doing. She gave a quick reply and I think was a little surprised when I asked her more questions. I got her to laugh, and she said today not everyone had been so nice to her. I told her I’d be there for the next hour and to send anyone over to me that gave her grief. As we were leaving she gave me a big smile and said “Customer of the day!”

sonder, n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.

Sonder | The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows from John Koenig on Vimeo.

This is far from a new realization for me, but with those two encounters the difference really struck me between my two small roles in their lives.

And the roles they had in mine.

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People love lists. They’re handy for both remembering and reference, and they feel like efficient, compact, helpful things to have around. Shopping lists, for example, are super handy.

Unfortunately, lists have taken on dark side. A big trend on Facebook and the rest of social mediaville is to share lists of things other people do. “Ten Habits Of Highly Organized People“, or “Seven Habits Of People Who Are Disgustingly Rich,” or “Eleventeen Habits Of People So Happy You Want To Slap Their Smug Faces Ever Time You See Them.”

If you do this, or know someone who does this, here are some valuable tips on this practice.

1. Habit Lists are just wimpy self-help books

Self-help books are an easy replacement for actually doing work. If they really had the solution there would be one in each category and call it done. Instead people buy them over and over. They’re mental snacks, like a Twinkie. But lists aren’t even a full Twinkie. They’re Twinkettes.

2. You have no idea who wrote that List

Look at the byline. Do you know this person? No. Don’t give them any credibility just because their list looks pretty. Trust me, any idiot can pull together a bunch of points on a list.

3. Lists never have enough info

They’re supposed to be short and sweet so people share them. Truly valuable information is complex and takes a while to read and understand. These lists always stop short of telling you what you really need to know. There’s a way to fix this, but I’m out of space to explain.

4. The art is often better than the List

Ever noticed all these lists have an inspirational picture attached of someone climbing a mountain, watching a sunrise, or eating hundred dollar bills for breakfast with their coffee? Some of them are actually quite good, even though they have nothing to do with the list. Save the picture if you want, because it’s often the best thing on the page.

5. Nobody reads the whole List anyway

Once, Lulubelle the whale decided to ride a bicycle. But she couldn’t because she has no legs and would crush the bike to pieces. But really she was safe from being embarrassed by a horrible bicycle debacle because nobody reads all this text anyway, especially in the middle of a list. It just looks good to have a lot of items, but people just skim them. You owe me twenty bucks if you actually read this.

6. Lists never changed anyone’s life

All the Smart, Sexy, Strong, Rich people that are quoted on those lists… have you ever seen one say “I got here because of a List I read on the Internet?”

7. Wisdom isn’t in Lists

Habits follow action. We are what we repeatedly do. To become better at something you need to get out and do it. Experience it. There is no shortcut or quickstart guide. There may be great books to help you learn new things, but they’re not in bullet form on a website.

8. Follow your path, not theirs

If you look at the most successful people in any of these list categories, from Happily Married to Rich, rarely did any of them get there the same way. For any rule one of them followed ten others did it entirely the opposite. They’re successful because they followed their own path and discovered what works for them. Do the same.

There you go! I hope my list has been at least as helpful as some of the other lists you have seen out there!

Stay tuned for my next installment: Ten Popular Social Media Article Title Trends That You Have To See To Believe But Will Restore Your Faith In All Of Humanity One Person At A Time As You Weep Openly!

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While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

There is no world beyond this one. I don’t find that frightening; it just makes the time we have here all the more precious. It also means the only ghosts that wander the earth are the memories of people we keep and cherish.

So it is on this day that I make special time to recall those people I’ve cared for who are no longer with me, but whose spirit will always be a part of my life.

Happy Halloween.

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Sometimes vacations don’t seem worth the time.

You spend so much time getting things settled before you leave, then spend so much time catching up when you return that you end up feeling more stressed than before you left. But they’re so important to have.

I heard a great analogy once that may be old news for people who love music, but was very revelatory to me. It was that in life, like in music, it’s the rest that gives shape to the song. It’s not the notes but the silence between them. Without the pauses, however brief, a brilliant song simply becomes a long, screeching tone.

For me that silence needs to be both mental and technological. I get away from not only all my projects and work, but also from my email, networks, and social sites. We head up to Garland’s Lodge in Oak Creek Canyon outside of Sedona for about a week. We rent a gorgeous wood cabin among gardens, flowers, hiking trails, and apple orchards. What we don’t have is any network connectivity even if we wanted it. No wifi, no cellphone reception, nothing.

It’s really tough, especially for the first day. I almost feel like I’m detoxing, where even if I don’t think “I need to check my email”, like a addict I find my hands flipping my phone on out of habit. And it’s not just me. Several times I’d be sitting on our porch writing on my laptop and other people at the lodge would walk by and be shocked. “You have internet!” they’d exclaim and then scurry off to see if their iPhone or laptop could capture the same magical wi-fi-fairies I apparently had. Funny.

We even got trapped at the lodge for a full day when a rainstorm in the canyon made the road impassible for our car. Sitting on our porch, listening to the rain come down, drinking a bottle of wine… guess how much I ended up missing the internetz? Not a jot.

I wrote on several different projects, and read multiple books. I studied human anatomy, and worked on my rusty drawing skills. I picked apples, visited chicken coops, smelled flowers, and watched hummingbirds.

This coming Monday I start a new job in an industry I know little about but am incredibly excited to learn. It’s a new verse in my own personal song, and I’m glad I was able to take a good rest before it begins.

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The branches of my family tree hang low from supporting a lot of overweight people. I’ve worked hard to keep myself from falling into that same category, but I’ve been far from perfect. For the past decade or so I’ve been about 35 pounds above where I was in college. I’m fortunate that it’s fairly well distributed, rather than hanging out together and giving me a massive gut, but it still adds up.

Over the past months I’ve had several friends try wacky diets like Beer and Eggs, or an All Smoothie diet,and for a while I thought just hearing so much about their menus would put me off my appetite. No such luck. I also have friends who play with Paleo and other trendy diets to different degrees of success. The problem I’ve had with all of those methods is that they tend to be temporary “dieting” rather than really “changing your diet ,” which often leads to gaining some or all of the weight back when it ends.

But they nonetheless spurred me to tackle my own weight in the most boring, uninteresting way possible: eat less and exercise more.

Eat less – I used the MyFitnessPal app for the iPhone and tracked every single thing I ate two two weeks. All of it. Every sugar packet in a cup of coffee, every piece of toast, and every single beer. The app gave me a calorie target and that detailed food tracking helped me hit it. I learned what 1,700 calories a day really looked like. I also learned that I couldn’t track everything I ate for long or I’d go nuts, but I did it long enough to retrain myself on what a “full meal” is. It changed my behavior.

Exercise more – I got back into running and biking, and tracking it in RunKeeper. If I don’t run, bike, or walk one of our dogs for a mile or more, then my fallback is a drill of the 7-Minute Workout. There’s just no way, no matter how busy I am, that I can’t find 10 minutes to run through that routine, so I am now doing something physical every day. The result has been not only better cardio and overall conditioning, but I’ve had far fewer back pains in the past two months (I was in a bad car accident in college and have had problems ever since).

Between the two things I started losing weight. I dropped a bunch right away, then it settled into a nice, slow, continuous trend. I weigh myself twice a week just to make sure I’m on track, and don’t kill myself for a cheat day once in a while. Of course, those cheat days don’t add up to much because I just can’t eat anywhere close to what I used to. Then just last week I hit the 20 pound mark, and I feel great! I still eat all the things I love (just less of it) and I’m down two pants sizes in the process.

Pretty dull, eh? No fancy theories and no crazy formulas. Just eating better and exercising and changing my habits, but nobody would buy a book about that.

Maybe I’ll say I got the idea from aliens… hmmm…

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This past weekend I spent a fantastic few days in Seattle courtesy of Visit Seattle and their 2 Days In Seattle program. It’s a pretty clever program – they pay for people from around the country (world?) to come and visit for two days, with no strings attached. We got airfare, a hotel, and some spending money, and they just asked us to use the hashtag #2DaysInSeattle if we were so inclined.

As is my wont in such things, I squeezed every drop out of it I could. We took the earliest possible flight up and the latest possible flight back. We walked, bussed, and trained around that city until our legs were sore. We also decided to skip some of the traditional attractions like the Space Needle and a Mariner’s game in favor of asking some of my friends up there was it is really worth doing. Here are some of the highlights:

Pikes Place Market – Yeah, it’s touristy, but it’s almost required. I loved it more for the sheer insane energy of the place than the crazy crap you can buy in some of the shops. Had some amazing clam chowder in bread bowls (this trip was not a good thing for my diet because i was trying out to see if does beyond diet work and visited the first Starbucks store (a.k.a. Patient Zero). Oh, and we ran into the horribly nasty but colorful gum wall.

Starbucks – I guess I should mention this by itself. I’m not a Starbucks hater, but I will always opt for local coffee if I have an option. Still, it was bizarre to see how many Starbucks there are up there. I don’t think we were out of sight of a Starbucks our entire time up there. I’m not even joking. We even saw a mall that had a Starbucks on every floor. I love my java but have never been so uncaffeinated I couldn’t walk a flight of stairs to get some. It’s ridiculous.

EMP Museum – The Experience Music Project Museum was an unexpected surprise. Having full exhibits on science fiction, fantasy, and horror in our culture, I knew I would like it. What was unexpected was how much sheer geeky glee I got out of seeing the costumes from the Princess Bride, Kirk’s command chair from Star Trek, or a Superman costume worn by Christopher Reeve. Yeah, and I got to sit in the Iron Throne. There’s also some amazing music exhibits, but to me they were secondary.

Seattle Underground – After the Great Seattle fire of 1889 the city raised the street level. This turned the former first floors of the buildings into underground basements, which continued to operate in the gloom for years to come. A few of the passages have been cleaned up and are part of a tour. It’s a bit cheesy and quite a bit touristy, but still a fascinating glimpse into the unintended consequences of some urban planning decisions.

Distillery Tour – Recent changes to Seattle’s liquor laws have resulted in several micro-distilleries popping up. Being big supporters of local business we hit the Local Craft Tour to visit some of them. They took us on a tour of Fremont Mischief (whiskey, vodka, gin), Sound Spirits (gin), and Letterpress Distilling (vodka, limoncello), all of which I highly recommend. In between stops they served us crafted cocktails and bites from local kitchens. An absolutely fantastic time.

Makers Space coworking – We ran into two of the fabulous founders of The Makers Space on our distillery tour. They dropped “coworking” in conversation and probably regretted it as I immediately began grilling them on their place and they gave me a tour. I’m a big fan of Gangplank, CO+HOOTS, and the other coworking places in the Valley, so it was serendiptitally wonderful to bump into them and learn how it compares in Seattle.

Dragon Fest in Chinatown – The international Dragon Fest in Chinatown sounded like a fantastic event, so we headed down to try some great food, listen to some music, and enjoy a parade or two. It also gave me one of the strangest moments of the trip as I saw the entire Dragon Fest was sponsored by McDonalds. I suppose that would have been okay if not for the big URL they were using to promote it – MyInspirasian.com. It just struck me as the weirdest, most generic, almost dismissive way to connect with a diverse group of people that makes up the majority of the human race. But at least I now know how to say “Big Mac” in Mandarin.

Getting Around – Being from a city without much in the public transportation department, I geeked out using apps to navigate the Seattle transit system. Google Maps on my iPhone has a public transit option that told me exactly how far to walk, which bus to take, and when I’d expect to get to my destination. It was a lot more helpful than the the signs at the bus stops and transportation hubs. We also used the OneBusAway app quite a bit, and between that and Google Maps we got around fine.

The Downside – There was only one real problem we ran into up there and that was occasionally being harassed by pandhandlers and homeless people (and one Scientologist). Every major city grapples with challenges like this, but I haven’t seen it that prevalent in a long time. Three times we were followed or yelled at, and one time I was genuinely concerned for our safety. It’s sad to say but the downside of exploring a strange city is you don’t know the “safe” areas and it can be easy to get into trouble. Still, this didn’t ruin our trip by any stretch.

You can check out a few more pictures I took from all of these Seattle places on Flickr. If you think I missed something essential of your own “things to do in Seattle” list, let me know. I’m sure I’ll be going back! If you are looking for a female motorcycle helmets please follow the link.

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