Something to Talk About

Sometimes good news is better when it is heard second hand, so rather than postulating on the thoughts that have been flourishing through my mind the last few months, I'll leave the telling to the professionals - my family.

Please feel free to send your own reactions and well wishes via facebook or email - Chris.Walljasper@Gmail.com. We hope to compile a large video from all of our friends and loved ones for posterity.

~CW

Flamethrowers and Cacti - Lessons from a Renaissance Man

My undergraduate career was riddled with employment opportunities of various measure. I worked at the theatre shop, constructing sets for shows. I worked as a Speech Tutor for the freshman speech classes and guided upperclassmen through presentations. I even worked one semester as a Resident Assistant, one of the few jobs I have been asked to leave.

Be like Water

Bruce Lee is often seen in caricature as a little man in a yellow jump suit, throwing lightening fast limbs, training Chuck Norris and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and throwing his foes across the room with naught-but-a one-inch punch.

Run for Your Life

Sometimes you just need to run for your life.

I am in no way a proficient runner. With bad posture, a titanium rod running the length of my left femur, and two screws lodged solidly in my knee, the act of running is a burden and a continuous inventory of the premature malfunctioning of my twenty-six year old frame. Add to this the fact that I am deceivingly out-of-shape for my slight and wiry stature, and one might wonder why I would run at all.

To clarify, I do not run on a regular basis. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I have ran in the last year.

But sometimes, running is the only option.

Lunch on a Sunny Afternoon

It is all too common that, on any given weekday, my waking hours are spent rushing from home to office, appointment to conference in a flurry of corporate glad-handing and client-serving correspondence. The meantime is riddled with conference calls and emails, techno-jargon and corporate-America productivity babble. The days are a whirlwind of faux-synergy and rarely are the emergencies my clients present me anywhere near the panic level they assume.

A Thousand Fibers...

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men."

-Herman Melville

Consider for a moment the way in which you define your existence. OK, I realize that this is a pretty lofty concept, so let me clarify.

We've All Gone to Look For America

These words, penned in 1968 by Paul Simon, encapsulate such deep meaning and cultural angst, even thirty years later.

I posted this simple line to Facebook this weekend:

"We've all gone to look for America."

Without connotation and without direction of what I thought the words meant, it was a concise observation, pregnant with contemplation. Several people reacted politically, a few commented appreciatively, and others simply "liked" it. So what does it mean?

When in Hawaii

I've always been of the mentality that, when in a place who's culture differs from your own, the best experiences are to be had when you fully submerge yourself in that culture. Which is why, when Annie and I visited the Hawaiian Island of Kauai, there were few items on my to-do list that ranked above surfing.