YONDER BREAKS

We currently have six chickens, which given the current cost of eggs, has been a pretty good thing (although not a good investment, really, with the cost of chicken food, a coop, the fence we built, etc...buyer beware). One of them, Zara, has recently discovered that she can get out of the run, even though we've clipped all of their wings (guess we didn't do a good enough job). When I discovered this yesterday, I put her back in and then watched to see how she got out. After blocking her path and relocating her again, it was interesting watching her next move: She frantically paced back and forth, all along the fence wall, looking for the way out she once knew, but was no longer there. For several minutes (and maybe even more, because I walked away), she kept this up, walking the same paths over and over, looking for something new that would lead to her beloved freedom, now stolen from her. Here are the happy chicks... ...and the discontented escapee. Now I know that chickens a...

Pancakes were always fun to make for me, mostly because you can pretty much add anything you want and, in the correct proportions, it will likely work out. Of course, in high school, my cousin, sister and I got a little crazy, putting random candies (notably Nerds ) in our pancakes, but still, they weren't terrible.  With our daughters, I try to keep it a little healthier, though the stray chocolate chip pancake is still acceptable and encouraged. This morning, I was making a set of nice blueberry pancakes, with a few chocolate chip cakes in between for good measure. I noticed, however, that as I scattered the materials on our pancakes, I was being much more generous with the chocolate than the berries. How are my proportions? It was a subconscious decision, but sparked an idea: how much of our lives are filled with "chocolate" and how much are filled with "blueberries?" What I mean is, is the media and content you fill your mind with life-giving or junk? Of co...

I spent the last year and a half complaining about the city I live in. This is following up seven years of complaining about the city I miss, wishing I was in the city I am currently in. I have complained about it being too hot, buggy and humid whilst missing the cool desert air of California. I have complained about it being too sunny, cloudless and perfect whilst missing the weather of the east coast. I have spent alot  of time complaining about having no waves in South Carolina, while complaining about living too far from the beach or too much traffic while in Los Angeles. It is a high of 77 degrees today as I write this on December 5th (I'm a little ahead on publishing these blogs), which is actually really nice weather, but just doesn't really fit the Christmas season , which I love. I am very tempted to complain about this, but you know what? I think I may be done complaining. After spending the last eight or nine years trying to find a perfect place to live, I think I ...

Back in 2012/2013 I had a pretty long commute to and from work. About this time, I discovered the voice recorder app on my phone (I'm not sure why it took this long...) and decided to use the massive amount of time I was spending in my car productively. I did this through writing songs, dreaming up verses and choruses and then recording them, piece by piece, on my phone. Well, by the time 2014 rolled around and I quit my day job to become a stay-at-home dad, I had quite a few tunes recorded. And don't think that just because I dropped a daily commute that I stopped writing on the road...no, no. This trend has continued to this day. The whole thing got me thinking that it would be fun to make videos and an album of all the songs I have written in cars, recording those very songs inside cars. It took a couple years to get started, but here is the first one: Bleed These Dreams . I wrote this song while driving home from a visit to the main office of the property management com...

"Why is it so fun to chase tiny surf?" I asked my friend Mitchel as we paddled out into 2-3 foot sets at  Dockweiler Beach . It's a paradox for sure, but as I sat waist deep in the cool early-June Pacific waters, gazing out to a flat horizon, hoping for some sort of swellular disruption, I couldn't help but feel something like happiness. I've  written before  that every surfer at some point says, "It's just good to be out in the water," and on this day it was more than true. The morning was peaceful and overcast, with a slight drizzle of refreshment that would flare from time to time. It was quiet, as we essentially had the break to ourselves (crowd diminishing: one very good thing about small waves), and though I spent the first twenty minutes of my time in the water reminiscing about the multiple head-high days I had had at that very same spot, I was struck by the bliss and contentment that washed over me like the closeout of nearly every wav...

I love fall. It's my favorite season, although I've never really lived in a place that had much of the kind of fall we're probably thinking of (harvest festivals, leaves changing, crisp air). Still, I've experienced enough of it to know it's my favorite. Well, I woke up this morning and it just felt like Fall to me. But it's not -- it's still summer. But in my head, there was a crisp chill in the air outside, I would make some hot coffee and sip it while reading, the steam wafting away from my cup into the expectant morning air. Soon the stores would be filled with pumpkin  everything  and I would enjoy every last piece of it. Harvest, Halloween, then Thanksgiving and Christmas. So much to look forward to and enjoy in Fall. But it's still summer. An awesome summer. I just went surfing yesterday, skateboarding the day before. Outdoor concerts and beach days abound. My wife has been home for the summer and we've been able to spend a ton of time to...

You know when you get back from vacation and there are those precious few hours between arriving and really settling back into daily life when the vacation-high still lingers? You haven't quite gotten back into the swing of things, but you're still at home with laundry waiting in your suitcase and grocery shopping needed to fill the empty fridge, with a day at the office looming tomorrow -- all of the normal routine chores that every day life presents us with, creeping their little shadowing fingers over the sunshine we just enveloped ourselves in for the past week or so. Well, I'm there right now, and as I fight the urge to ease into the choppy waters of the everyday, I find myself fighting for slightly nobler reasons than simply the lament of rest and relaxation. I just got back from a vacation that was filled to the brim with family time, extended and immediate. It was great being with people we don't get to see that often, and particularly sharing our daughte...

I have a really wonderful wife who grounds me time and time again, whenever I fall down some rabbit hole of self-doubt or self-pity. I've been in a bout of reconsidering my life lately; what I'm doing, whether it's all worth it pursuing a creative career. It's been sparked by a topic I covered  here , and, through a whittling down conversation with my wife, has led to a realization that I have a "point of arrival" in mind and am feeling frustrated that I'm not there yet. You know when you say someone's "made it?" That's my arrival, my destination. For me, it's doing a job I enjoy and getting paid handsomely enough for it to afford a comfortable life by the beach where I can work from home alongside my family (including my wife, who doesn't have to work because I make enough). Lofty goal, right? Well, what is that job? Five years ago it was making movies. At the moment it's writing books and maybe even songs. I know, I k...

I missed sermon #2...so you're gonna have to go look that one up yourself. http://churchinhollywood.com/media.php?pageID=15 Sermon #3 in this series is about contentment...which seems to be one of the most difficult things for me to get a handle on. In it, he talks about the lottery campaign "believe in something bigger." These are plastered all over Los Angeles: The moment I saw this, I was disgusted. If your "something bigger" in life is winning the lottery, then what kind of hope is that? And will it ever be realized? Probably not. But as I reflect on it, is it so different than most of our "something bigger?" Most of us dream of the day we may have tons of money, and imagine what we would do with that money. It's a fun dream to indulge in, and really that's a lot of what we work for...the day we have more. Joseph points out that this isn't actually a dream for "something bigger," but rather "something more....