Born Again =>
My daughter was baptized Thursday, July 11th, in the (relatively) warm waters of the Pacific Ocean off Southern California. No big ceremony, just the pastor and a couple of assistants helping a bathing-suited group of mostly teenagers lean back into the water between sets of waves as their friends and family watched from above the surf line, holding towels for their goose-pimpled loved ones. The feelings I have towards this whole endeavor are somewhat complex, being a baptized-and-confirmed Catholic agnostic (a friend of my mother's describes herself as a "devout non-practicing Roman Catholic"). For many parents of the generation slightly before me, post-hippie boomers, especially of the 60's Berkeley student demonstrator variety, having a child become a born-again Christian is of equivalent shame to their parent's children shaving their heads and passing out flowers at the airport. Maybe in this permissive, instant-gratification world, renouncing pre-marital sex and believing in an afterlife more pleasurable than this current one is today's version of teen-rebellion.

I myself have had fairly positive experiences as part of the Catholic Charismatic movement back in the 70's (a post-Vatican II spiritual revival), and had what I thought at the time were bona fide transcendent religious experiences. Now I sit back and look at my daughter and I am touched by twinges of envy, the envy I feel for those who can just believe. To give yourself over properly to any mystical experience, you must be willing and able to abandon reason, or at least be willing to call into doubt the report of your senses. This is why mystery religions rely on belief with no tangible proof (other than the fact that if indeed there is no God, and I wouldn't venture a guess myself one way or the other, then it would follow that there would be an accompanying lack of evidence). I, alas, have been rendered incapable of wholeheartedly assuming such a mental state, and this is the source of my envy. I so want to be capable of belief, to wrap myself in the warm blanket of belonging and groupthink, to be in a place where everything makes sense, even if only because it doesn't. I, on the other hand, am inherently distrustful of groups, especially ones that bifurcate the world into believers and unbelievers. If I was to actively pursue a spiritual path, I'm more inclined to look at something like Buddhism, which is much more oriented to a non-intermediated approach to worship. That is, if I were to take the spiritual path. Gotta think that one over some more.

I don't want to leave the impression to the gentle reader that I am in any way against my daughter being part of a Christian evangelical church or that I'm discounting her beliefs as anachronistic or intolerant. The few times I've accompanied her to services I've found the parishioners to be warm and welcoming, the services to be pleasant and the pastor, while subject to tangential wanderings during his sermon (hmmmm, who does that sound like?), is full of energy and compassion and has a self-deprecating style that soon makes you feel at ease. My daughter has made many good friends with people I approve of, is on track to go to a good collage, does not seem to be abusing drugs or alcohol (if she is partaking, she's hiding it well enough to make me think she's got it under control), and is extremely picky about boys (hell, she's reading I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris). I should be pretty happy about the fact that my teenaged daughter will most likely leave our custodial care without getting pregnant or addicted to crack, with a good driving record, on her way to collage and reasonably able to take care of herself and form healthy relationships.

So why am I uneasy? Am I still battling with issues relating to sex, drugs and religion from my own adolescence? Am I projecting my disdain for "True Believers" onto my daughter who, so far, still shows me on a daily basis that she has a mind and will of her own? Is this just normal parental pre-seperation angst, where I see my daddy role coming to an end as she takes the reigns of her life with both hands and leaves me behind to forge her own path? Probably a combination of all three, the proportions differing with my mood and inclination. One way or the other, this is the end of something, and with that comes all the attendant feelings of loss and resignation. She will soon go into the world her own person, with the opportunities and pitfalls that befall all of us when we leave the relative comforts of our childhood womb. Born again, but this time as an intentional choice.
jkb at 1:17 PM

Dave was on fire yesterday. A sample of Friday's fare:

"If this bill becomes law I'm going to join Saddam Hussein in calling for the destruction of the United States."

"A brief editorial. Commercial radio sucks. I want to program my own music. I am not a pirate. Fuck you. I've bought all the music I use, first on vinyl, then on cassette, then on CD. I'll pay again. PS: I vote."

and:

"Pet peeve. People who send emails to people quitting smoking that explain how hard it is to quit, and how in all likelihood, you'll fail. These people are total assholes. Even worse, they're lying. Don't believe them. When you get such an email send them an email back with a pointer to this post.

Dear asshole. Stop discouraging my friend. He (or she) is quitting smoking in order to live a longer, happier life. I totally support that. Your bullshit is interfering. Please stop now and have a nice day."

The lesson: Don't fuck with a man quitting smoking for real. This is a rightious thing, and you should keep your negative bullshit to yourself.
jkb at 10:02 PM

From the "I'll believe in the death of Old Media when I read about it in the New York Times" dept:

Something I read in my daily Dave: (NYT registration, blah blah blah)

"That may be why a recent survey by Pew found that 66 million people use the Internet on a typical day. Eleven million Americans said the Internet played an important role in choosing a school or college, 8 million said their use of the Internet helped them through a job transition and 8 million said the Internet played a role in finding a place to live."

[8/1] So maybe the BigCo's are at a loss for how to make a buck on the net (or, in the current business climate, at all ;), but Joe and Jane public will continue to visit, work and play there in droves, quite possibly for the same reasons that companies are struggling. Many people like the net because they want to do their own filtering, take info from the avialable sources and roll-their-own news and opinions. So, just how is a middle-man supposed to make any money off that?
jkb at 6:43 PM

The reports of my getting much of anything useful done even though I'm busier than hell have been greatly exagerated.

Yes, I am alive =>
About three weeks without smoking, and I'm feeling a little better (if only because I'm not feeling worse). Only thinking about smoking 6 or 7 times a day, and for short, though intense, periods. After I get this more under control, it's time to tame another of my lifelong obsessions: saturated fat ( "Mmmmmmm, snouts!" )

Off to play drums at a friend's housewarming party.
jkb at 4:23 PM

The good news is the bad news =>
The problem with the "American Dream" is precisely that it can be achieved, thus making one who hasn't attained or is making measurable progress towards attaining the ideals of dare-to-have-it-all careers and personal lives, though they may have exerted considerable effort, somehow pathetic or incomplete by comparison. Just because anyone has a mathematical chance to "win" the game (just as the Padres could sail into the playoffs if they simply won all the remaining games of their schedule), the statistical likelihood of the ideal life is, for most of us, simply not in the cards.

Guess what category I think I'm in.
jkb at 10:31 PM

What's with all the death talk anyway?

Brevity is the soul of a good Eulogy =>
I don't think I've seen as good and brief a rememberance of someone's life as the eulogy of Gene Kan, who died June 29th.
jkb at 7:31 AM

[This is me showing some blogging newbies how cool it is to blog from any remote location, like for instance, me at their house. -JKB]

Here's an example of remote blogging.

Cool!
jkb at 1:02 PM

This is the first test of my new template, which I'll call "pineForest" for now. Now to rebuild the archives and some other tweaks. Keepin it simple, so I can get the damn thing up and get to some other much-neglected projects (like sites for my brother's art or the HTML version of my band's site, to name just a few).

More to come, I promise.

Oh, and I quit smoking. More on that soon as well, I'm sure.
jkb at 12:19 AM

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About me and this site =>
My name is John Bordage. I grew up in Maine, went to college in Boston, then moved to San Diego county, where I live with my wife, two kids, a cat, a roommate and his dog. I divide my attention between my family, my steady day-job as a carpenter, my freelance work as a tech consultant, playing drums in two bands, and staring at a computer screen for amusement and edification.

This site was developed using Dreamweaver 3, though the code was mostly writen by hand or cut-and-pasted from other examples. Work was done on both a Celron PC and a Mac G4, depending on which one my daughter was using at the moment.

Disclaimer =>
All opinions writen by me on this site are mine alone, and not those of my employer, my clients, my family, my bands, my mother, my pets, or any other person or entity that is not me. In fact, some of the opinions stated within are not even mine (sometimes I just like to say crap to see what it sounds like).

If you are easily offended, ill humored or just plain ignorant should avoid this whole affair, as I will probably say something to offend just about anyone at least once, unless of course you like to be annoyed, in which case read all you like, see what the fuck I care. Asshole.