My Post-Rapture-Pre-Mayan-End-of-the-World Bucket List

May 21st came and went and indiscriminately left behind Christian and non-Christian alike. And while I don't believe the Rapture to be a future eschatological reality (I believe that Jesus will return; however, I do not believe He will remove the Christians from earth for a period of tribulation, etc.), it hasn't stopped me from developing my Pre-Mayan-End-of-the-World Bucket list. Since this is after the Rapture was supposed to have occured, I feel a little late in the game coming up with this. But, it's before the end of the Mayan calendar of events (December 21st), so at least I'm exhibiting nearly a year's worth of foresight.

Thus, my Post-Rapture-Pre-Mayan-End-of-the-World Bucket List:
1. I want to live in Hawaii. My personality loathes structure and pressure and time constraints. I have Island Life in my bones.
2. I want to visit Australia (I think my wife lives there). I want to successfully hold a platypus (I know they're poisonous.)
3. I'd like to have an exotic pet. Probably not the platypus, but something in the cat or bear family. Maybe if wolverines weren't so temperamental. Instead, I'll settle for a lion/tiger/snow leopard cub or a panda/koala cub.
4. I'd like to go on tour. Not that my music is worthwhile at all. I just think it'd be fun to live in my car and travel the US and make enough money singing the songs I've written from my life experiences.
5. I'd like to win the lottery. I have a deal with God (I'm making this public for accountability's sake) that if I win the lottery (big stuff, not scratch and sniff or whatever they're called) I'll give half the money to Truett (my seminary). Now that is net, because half of it would go to taxes, so then the other half would go to Truett, and while I suppose that would be me playing the humble servant, I still want a cut off the top. So it's post-tax lottery winnings, half of that will go to Truett. And I'll even add a new piece to the deal right now: If I am raptured, I will endow whatever remains in my coffers to Truett since they'll need it.
6. I really do want to skydive. I'm incapacitatingly scared of open heights, but there may be no greater rush.
7. I want to try out for the Orlando Magic.
8. I want to learn Italian.
9. I want to see the Northern Lights.
10. I want a mermaid. (The good kind).
11. If space tourism really happens, I want to do that. Screw Vertigo.
12. I want to befriend someone famous, not for my edification, but so he/she can have a normal friend.
13. I am okay with that person being Scarlett Johansson.
14. Or Olivia Wilde.
15. Or Zooey Deschanel (the person, not the dog)
16. I want to teach the dog, Zooey Deschanel, to be social.
17. I'd like to step foot on Antarctica. Hopefully not falling through in the process.
18. I want to travel-blog. As in, I travel the world, and then I incite envy in all of your hearts by writing about it in juicy detail.
19. I also want to movie/tv show-blog. As in, I spend my day watching pointless crap in the hope of redeeming it through my reviews.
20. I'd like to be elected to something. Anything.
21. I want to write a novel. Fictional, since that's what a novel is, but I want it to basically be an autobiography. So an autobiographical novel. I don't want to embellish it either. Just type up my life for the comedic drama it is and hope you enjoy it as I have or think you should have.
22. I want my family to find happiness. Not the surface level crap either. Deep, passionate, invigorating, convincing, contagious happiness.
23. I would like to perform with any/all of the following:
a. Zooey Deschanel (the person) (you know why)
b. Neil Diamond (he was my favorite, growing up)
c. Eminem (b/c he taught me to rap)
d. Ke$ha (b/c she taught me how to dance)
e. Pitbull (b/c he taught me about amazing stage presence)
f. Jenny & Tyler (b/c they're my friends)
g. Coldplay (b/c of their audience sizes)
h. Dianna Agron (so I could propose to her on the spot)
i. Kari Jobe (so I could propose to her after Dianna Agron shoots me down)
j. Jars of Clay (b/c their's was the first song I learned how to play and sing)
k. David Crowder Band (b/c his was what inspired the first song I ever wrote)
l. Jon Foreman (b/c he inspires me)
m. Joy Williams (b/c I'm a sucker for chicks with high voices)
n. Leeland (b/c they taught me Christian music doesn't have to suck [Sound of Melodies!])
o. the Glee Cast (just for the fun of it)
24. I'd like my novel to be made into a movie with Owen Wilson as my rambunctious, goof-up, younger brother. Even if Jacob isn't really a goof-up. And then Ryan Gosling as my less attractive best friend who inspires me to greater acts of charity and loyalty by his best-friendedness (I'll let my friends fight amongst themselves over who he is). My older brother would be Denzel Washington. Not sure why. I would star as myself. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jonah Hill, Adam Levine, and Jason Schwartzman will comprise my closest guy friends. My sister will be played by the older sister on Family Ties. Whatever her name was. Or maybe that one girl on The Facts of Life. Steve Martin would be my dad. Meryl Streep, my mom. A virtuous Mila Kunis and Dianna Agron will be the love interests I have to choose between. We don't know yet who I'll choose. Nico Stai will be the soundtrack. Morgan Freeman, the narrator.
25. I think it'd be neat to sell one painting. Not a charity thing either. Well, I mean it can be for a charitable cause--I just don't want to be the charitable cause.
26. I want to learn to read without getting sleepy.
27. I'd like to teach a graduate level theology/biblical studies class.
28. I want to pastor a congregation. Not in the preachy way, though I'd be doing that. But in the live life alongside each other kind of way.
29. I want to see someone come to know Christ. Not in the free-pass-to-heaven way. In the, they-really-get-it way. That life is about loving each other and loving God through that. That it's not about us at all. Or what we get out of grace. But that Grace finds us and keeps us and accepts us wherever and whatever we are.
30. I want my friends, and myself, to lose focus of our insecurities. To see past them to the accepting beauty of a God who desires us.
31. I want a six-pack. Not for vain reasons or insecurities. Mainly to see if my body is physically capable of it.
32. Speaking of physical incapabilities, I want to eat the Big 96er like John Candy on The Great Outdoors.
33. I want my parents to know my kids.
34. I want to sous chef at a big restaurant for a night.
35. While I'm at it, I want to be a Japanese cook for a night, too. Bad, Chicken.
36. I would like to hit a homerun in Yankee Stadium.
37. I'd like to throw out the first pitch to Game 7 of the World Series.
38. I'd like to be inducted into a Hall of Fame. I don't care of what.
39. I want to whitewater raft a river with hippos. Because they're dangerous, not because they're cute.
40. I'd like to ride a bull for as long as I could. Without cowboy boots.
41. I want to have a twin. Not sure that's really possible. He (or she) would be significantly younger than me now.
42. I want to name a kid Caeden. Cayden. Caden. Caydin. Caedin. I don't care how it's spelled.
43. I also want a Brent Andrew Newberry, Jr. so that there can be a III and IV, mainly in the hopes of seeing a Brent Andrew Newberry, V because everyone stops at the IV. I'm not sure the reasoning behind that, but I imagine the fourth wants his kid to have an identity of his own. Hopefully, my fulfilling this bucket list will make his name worth keeping to the V.


For the Mayans,


Brent Andrew Newberry, I.
January, 2012.

Social Reversion

Facebook and Twitter have made us terrible people. We find our narcissism and codependency enabled by a social network of pseudo-friends. We are bad friends and worse people. We care about what we have to say or like or post; we're annoyed by others who do the same themselves. We want to seem brilliant or cool or funny or likeable or attractive or popular or hip or relevant or [insert adjectival insecurity here], and yet when we are in person with real, live, breathing human beings of people, we shut down, or worse, we stay the same.

We don't know how to be friends anymore. We don't know how to listen, to share the conversation, to ask questions and to genuinely give a care in the world about anyone else's life. We ramble, interrupt, talk over people, or just check out until it is our turn in the story. It's rude, it's childish, and it's glaringly self-absorbed. It's as if we haven't left preschool, our need to be impressive and accepted manifested in what we share about ourselves virtually. What even five years ago was never meant for public consumption is now the very basis by which we find our emotional security. We are living out an adult game of Show & Tell, only each of us is telling and showing over top of the other, more loudly and provocatively with each passing post.

I know we all do it. We are excited to tell about our lives. We're story-tellers. And that's great. Really. But every story needs an audience, and in this life we call our adventure, it just so happens that the rules follow that we take turns, that we listen when others are speaking, and we answer when someone is talking to us. We don't revert to infancy, when everything revolved around us.

We've experienced the evolution of social networking, from Friendster to MySpace (my own personal space) to Facebook with "friends" and Twitter with "followers." Is it possible to be any more self-aggrandizing? We have now equated ourselves to MLK Jr. and Gandhi and Jesus Christ; we have followers. For what? To hear us spout about sports or politics or random musings of our day? I have a twitter handle. But what does that say about us as a civilization when we have belittled friendship to an annual cyber birthday wish or reduced status-quo-shattering movements to pithy statements each of us are mandated to publish in 140 characters or less? We invite people to events, and now the people who get left off the invitation list are those most likely smart enough to have given up Facebook for its unfortunate ironies: in trying to connect us to the world via "friends" we have become more detached within our real friendships. In clamoring for more "friends" and "followings" we have stretched ourselves a million miles wide but only an inch deep. Don't call me, just text me. We're averse to intimacy.

Some of it is convenience. Some of it is fun. And I imagine Acquaintance-ster didn't sound like a runaway hit. But where friendship used to be defined by those who pack up your apartment with grunts and sweat and pizza, who came to your rescue when you were stranded, who took road trips with you just for the adventure of it, it's now been reduced to a running tally of classmates and coworkers numbering in the hundreds or thousands, many of whom are indistinguishable by name alone. Our social networking has single-handedly sucked the life out of a word, irreverently mocking the sanctity of something beautiful. For a society that prides itself on its technological advancement and cultural superiority, it's somewhat ironic then that its crowning achievement is a faux-society composed of our collective primal selves to such degree not seen since our ancestors were hunter/gatherers.

I remember watching lots of different kinds of movies growing up. Cartoons or Commando or the Goonies or Pete's Dragon or The Care Bears. And all of those are nostalgic for me. But when I saw Save the Last Dance in high school or whenever it came out, I remember getting goosebumps at the part with the gang members. Not because I was scared of the Crips, or because I secretly knew I could make it as a member. It was because of the bond, the loyalty of their friendship. It was moving at a moment in the movie that wasn't necessarily intended to be so. But it's funny now; I find that moment just as jarring today as then. I don't need universal acceptance or respect or likeability. I need friendship. Real and unrelenting, loyal and redemptive. I need people who want to hear my stories, sure, but who need me to hear theirs. I need people who rally around me in trouble or joy, who "get" the things I "get," who challenge and make me a better person. I don't need 1200 friends to follow me to my own personal space on a website. I need real friends with whom to travel this adventure. This life that's as much their story as mine.

I'm not giving up Facebook or Twitter, and I'm aware the irony of such sentiment originating from the format most solely responsible for our lapse into infantile narcissism--a blog, but I do want to be more conscious of my own approach to life, and the virtual reality that is social networking. I don't pretend to have it all mastered, and perhaps this is my hope for accountability, publicly chastising the very forum within which this is being shared. I don't know the best way to fix our culture, if it's even possible, or if it's even worth the effort. I'm sure there'll be money in Facebook Rehabs and a Facebook patch and Facebookette gum and Facebook Anonymous chat rooms. Or maybe we could become less self-absorbed and more self-aware, taking note of our tendencies and making good on our struggles to change and grow and really live. I suppose we'll have to do it one person at a time. So for me, and for you, my friend, stop talking about yourself for a bit. Ask your friends questions about their lives. Give a damn. Give them the chance to Show & Tell.

Vehicular Little Man Slaughter

It is a typical weekday evening: me hungry, needing food, wandering out to the local grocery store, buying more than I can eat in a month because I'm shopping on an empty stomach. I load everything into my car, losing track of everyone and everything around me, save the car door next to mine that has me recoiling in fear and anger over the reckless manner in which it thrusts itself open. Decompressing, I hop in the car, and looking over my right shoulder, I flip it in reverse. As I start to back up, I hear panicked yelling, and I turn to my left to see the family with the lousy car-door etiquette frantically waving their arms at the same frequency as their screams. I slam on the brakes, and equal parts terrified and offended, out from behind my car walks a midget.

A dwarf. A little person. Whatever the proper noun is these days, I almost back over a human being whom I did not see in my rearview mirror because he wasn't tall enough. I almost commit vehicular little man-slaughter.

I try to beg for forgiveness. Adding ironic insult to near-injury, he can't see my profuse apologizing through the 25% tint of my driver's side window. I momentarily consider rolling down the window to have a face to face apology, but the logistics elude me. And what would I say? "I'm sorry, I didn't see you there." Is there a more humiliating way to address his near-death experience? Not only did his family have to wave me off the kill, but now I'm going to rehash the entire sequence by highlighting that the one thing he's most insecure about is actually what would've been most responsible for killing him?

It's difficult enough that he can't drive to the store or push his own cart or help the nonagenarian in her motorized cart grab the jelly off the middle shelf, but now he has to consider his life a game of Frogger just in walking through the parking lot? All because I was consumed by my first world hunger pangs and attention to car-detailing? My life is a conglomeration of me-moments. I live for myself, about myself, to myself all too often. I've got blinders on, and I don't see the world or people around me enough. The things I love are the things I feel the world should love; the things I'm focused on are surely the things with which the rest of the world is absorbed. I fail to take simple moments of un-self-awareness, to see what other people are doing or thinking or saying. I want to live life to the fullest, and that shouldn't look like a mosaic of self-portraits. It needs to involve others--lots of others. Love your neighbor as yourself. If I was doing that the world would be a super-loved gig.

I suppose nearly running over a man lends itself to introspection and gratitude. I've experienced both. But I'm hopeful, beyond the relief of such a potentially life-altering moment for both of us, that it might yet be life-altering for me. I want to be a difference-maker in the lives of others, and not merely by running them over.

Around the Political World in 80 Words or More

Hadn't posted political predictions in awhile. After spending my free time studying politics instead of graduate school work, I'm prepared to offer this:

HOUSE
the GOP will net +71 seats. Yes, that's right.

SENATE
the GOP will net +9 seats. That's a 50-50 split.
Essentially they win in
PA (D) Open
IL (D) Open
CO (D) Bennet, incumbent
KY (R) Open
IN (D) Open
ND (D) Open
LA (R) Vitter, incumbent
SC (R) Burr, incumbent
FL (R) Open
OH (R) Open
NH (R) Open
MO (R) Open
AK (R) Murkowski, incumbent
AR (D) Lincoln, incumbent
WI (D) Feingold, incumbent
NV (D) Reid, incumbent
WA (D) Murray, incumbent

Notable Democratic Senate wins:
DE (D) Open and should have been a GOP pickup with Rep Mike Castle who was defeated in primary by O'Donnell
CT (D) Open and also should have been closer for the GOP had they not run the CEO of a wrestling company as their candidate
NY 1 (D) Gillibrand, incumbent
NY2 (D) Shumer, incumbent
WV (D) Open, was close until the GOP flubbed it by calling for "hicks" to play the part of West Virginians in their ad call. If this seat goes to the GOP, it is a terrible sign for the Democrats and assures a GOP majority in the Senate despite my prediction for a split chamber.
CA (D) Boxer, incumbent, survived the scare of her career. The only way she loses is if Fiorina garners a sympathy vote for her hospital stay last week related to her previous case of breast cancer.

And the GOVERNORSHIPS:
Significant gains here for the GOP as well. Since most of you don't care about this, I'll just state who I think will win:
NY: DEM
CT: GOP
MN: DEM
RI: IND
PA: GOP
MD: DEM
WI: GOP
VT: GOP, but with a plurality, thus taking the vote to the legislature who will vote for the DEM
NM: GOP
TN: GOP
ME: GOP
NH: DEM
MA: GOP, it looks like Patrick (D) should pull it out, but if the mood of the country is anything similar to 2009 when Scott Brown won his Senate race, than this could really flip. The trouble for the Republican is a third party ticket siphoning votes.
IA: GOP
MI: GOP
AK: GOP
AR: DEM
OR: GOP, going on a limb here.
SC: GOP
GA: GOP
FL: GOP
AL: GOP
OH: GOP
IL: GOP
SD: GOP
NE: GOP
KS: GOP
OK: GOP
TX: GOP
WY: GOP
ID: GOP
UT: GOP
CO: DEM
AZ: GOP
NV: GOP
CA: DEM
HI: DEM, really tempted to pick this as a dark horse choice for an upset for the GOP. Being the last state to vote, with results trickling in, it could affect both the GOV and HOUSE race in the state.

I'm essentially predicting +9 for GOP in races for Governor which would place the final tally at 33 GOP, 16 DEM, 1 IND

And there you have it. I was tempted to list my HOUSE predictions by district, but who cares besides me? I think Barney Frank will survive, but by less than 10%. That's my only specific prediction. Oh, and HI-1 will remain in GOP with barely-incumbent Djou get a chance to serve out a full term.

Counting to a Trillion

I've been thinking about the US National Debt for awhile. It seems that the number "trillion" is thrown around so much, it's either so large it's inconceivable to most Americans or we're just so used to the Tiger Woods', ARod's and LeBron's that millions are petty cash and billions are the new million. That would make trillion the new billion. Except that's preposterous. Have you ever tried to count to a million? How about a billion? I don't think you'd live long enough to count to a trillion. But seriously.

Look at this.
We have 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour: 3,600 seconds an hour.
24 hours a day: 86,400 seconds a day.
365 and 1/3 days a year: 31,564,512 seconds a year.
Let's say the average person lives to be 80. It's a nice round number that I'd like all my loved ones to surpass, but nonetheless: 2,525,160,960 seconds in a lifetime.

WE ONLY LIVE 2 BILLION SECONDS! To put that in perspective. If you wanted to count to a TRILLION, you'd have to count 396 numbers a second, for EVERY second of your life, to reach 1 trillion. I mean, I can count "1234567" before the next second ticks. That's it. I could maybe get to 10 each second. But 396?! Per second? For the rest of my life? Now that's just counting to a trillion.

As of 10:37 and 8 seconds Central Standard Time, the US National Debt stood at: $13,253,598,236,404. That's 13 TRILLION! So that means that based on my elementary math skills, it's roughly 13.2 times 396 to figure out how many numbers you'd have to count per second to make it all the way to 13 trillion. That would be 5,248 digits. You would have to count 5200 digits a second (thats, 12345678910,11,12,13,14...5,248 in your head) EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF YOUR LIFE to reach the number 13.253598236404 trillion.

Or to look at it differently, if you were to get paid for every second you lived, some poor schmuck (I guess China at this point) would have to write you a check for $5,248 EVERY SECOND in order to total 13 TRILLION DOLLARS by the time you died. I'm lucky to make 5 grand in 2 months! But EVERY SECOND?

Or what if you only get paid for how many seconds you actually work in a lifetime.
Average day we work: 8 hrs or 28,800 secs.
Work week: 40 hrs or 144,000 secs.
Work year: 50 weeks (leaving out 2 weeks vacation, unpaid) or 7,200,000 secs.
Avg working lifetime: Age 25-65 or 40 years or 288,000,000 secs.
Total earnings per "working" second: $46,019
That's enough to cover a family of four for a year. 40 g's a second is about the only way to become the world's first trillionaire.

Need more perspective? Alex Rodriguez signed a $275 million contract in 2007. For 10 years. That's $27.5 million a year. If a game is roughly 4 hours in duration, and a season is 162 games a year (not including injuries or the postseason), then that is 38,880 seconds of playing time (or "working" time) over the course of one season. That means ARod is paid around $707 per second he is playing (I know his contract is not structured based on seconds played but on other criteria, most of which, if not all of, are guaranteed). To reach the total of the US National Debt, he'd have to get paid 65 TIMES what he is making currently! If we're making $40,000 a year, we're paid approximately $.00625 per second. That's less than half a penny per second! ARod is making 113,120 times as much as us per second, and yet his salary is 65 times less than the rate of the national debt. Just for fun: we'd need to get paid 7,363,040 TIMES what we are currently making per "working" second of our lives.

I don't know if I'll ever take the time to count to a million. Certainly not a billion. And the fact that it's physically impossible for me to count to a trillion is incredibly sobering. Our national debt is gargantuan, and it isn't going anywhere but up. I don't know the way to solve it--tax cuts or higher taxes, spending cuts, freezes or increases. But I can tell you this: the debt has gone up $106,063,860 in the few minutes I've been writing this. That's 1/3 of ARod's contract in just a few minutes. Or in terms of life-seconds, it will take 3.35 years for you to live another 106,000,000 seconds.

If counting sheep doesn't work for our insomniacs, try imagining them as dollars in the national debt. That oughta knock you out. Nothing like counting to a trillion.

Or 13.

Grocery Positioning Service

Seriously, would someone please incorporate a GPS into the shopping experience! They can even use my suggested name: Grocery Positioning Service. All you have to do is type in the item you're looking for and it tells you the aisle to find it on. If this isn't helpful enough, you can press the "locate me" button and get literal "step by step" directions. It would even tell you the shortest and fastest routes depending on geriatric shopping cart congestion. Another lovely option would be the "check out the checkouts" feature, which would give you the estimated wait time at the checkout line like you're at Disney World. Heck, maybe they could implement Fast Passes. You could pay more and go through an express lane that isn't just limited by number of grocery items.

Today I went up and down 10 aisles, from the Asian aisle (seriously, it's called that) to the Mexican aisle (again, seriously) to the soup, then the canned veggies, then the mac & cheese and finally giving up at the coffee aisle. All for a tiny 3 oz jar of pimentos. After the scavenger hunt was over, I asked for help, and the lady pointed me to the aisle I presumed all along. Except there was only one brand, they weren't pulled to the front of the shelf, and they were playing hide-and-seek with the liquefied sun-dried peppers and canned pickled pickles (they had some weird juice in their bottled can). I don't like grocery shopping in the day because of the nonagenarians, but it's only magnified when my last resort is asking an employee for help and she's as lost as I. That's a good example of why humans are being phased out.

Now I know this might not seem like a wise business investment to provide to shoppers, but I'm telling you, I'd rent one depending on how much shopping I had to do. If I'm going to be spending $200 on groceries, what's another $5 anyway for a little sanity boost. If we provide motorized carts for the old people, why not offer GPS devices to the busy people? Now it shouldn't be mandatory; I'm not going to need it when I'm zipping in on my usual ice cream run. But if my shopping excursion involves a shopping cart, I want the option for a rent-able tracking device.

Tag and bag it.

Choose Your Own Adventure (the Gordon Ramsay Edition)

The following is loosely based off a true story. Well it was my dream last night. Up until the ending. That's where you come in. Choose your own adventure. Are you Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, Bruckheimer, Shamylan, Apatow, Speilberg, Abrams?

I'm in an Army cafeteria and Chef Ramsay shoots a guy in the shoulder for arguing with him. Later we are competing on Hell's Kitchen and standing around, and Chef pokes fun at my mustache. So I poke fun at his shooting another man in the shoulder. He gets upset, and kicks me off Hell's Kitchen. Next thing I know, I'm the new head coach of the New Jersey Nets (sorry, Avery Johnson). Then I lie down to go to sleep on a friend's tiled living room floor with a fan at my head. Gordon Ramsay shows up at the door.

Then I woke up.

Does he:

A. Apologize for kicking me off Hell's Kitchen.

or

B. Insult me.

or

C. Vanish.