It’s okay to be jealous.

This is where Drea and I are headed next week!

Slice of life: September

Brief reflections on life right now…

Drea and I have gone public with the pregnancy, ushering in a season of “whoa” for me. For some reason, having people know about it and asking questions has made me aware (as if for the first time) that we’re actually having a kid. Hoooooly crap. We can’t wait to find out the gender in a few weeks. If we have a girl, Drea wants to paint her room light pink. I’m more partial towards a “gender-neutral” tone. Maybe a poll can settle our debate once and for all. What do you think?

•••

In other news, we finally moved into our new house with the Janes a few weeks ago. So far it’s been great, but it also means I’ve had to step up my handyman skills a little bit. We bought a power drill from Home Depot, which Tom and I have been using to install blinds. Turns out installing blinds is a fairly meticulous process requiring a degree of measuring accuracy that surpasses — as I learned the hard way — “eyeballing it”.

We’ve enjoyed making our new place our own, as suggested by the photos Drea uploaded to our family blog yesterday. After a year of not having our own kitchen, this is actually one of my favorite things about our house. Gall-darnit, I even like doing the dishes at night. (We’ll see how long this lasts.)

•••

We joined a few of our life group pals on Sunday night to see a Derek Webb/Sandra McCracken show at Jammin’ Java. We learned upon arriving that it was a standing show, but we got in early enough to snag some dining area seats. Sandra McCracken’s opening segment was pitch-perfect. (We actually ran into her and her kids at Starbucks before the show, which was fun.) Derek Webb was outstanding as well, playing through his entire new record — the gutsy marriage of folk-rock and trippy electronica that is Stockholm Syndrome. Particularly enjoyable was when technical difficulties on stage forced him to scale back to just an acoustic guitar, playing old Caedmon’s Call tunes and one unexpected treat — Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin”.

•••

So, that’s life right now. In the absence of a decent closing remark, I’ll leave you to marvel at the fast food order-taking skills of a certain King Burger employee…

End, begin.

This day is one of significant endings and beginnings.

First, the ending: A few of us are meeting tonight for a “last cup of coffee” at Starbucks in Upper Marlboro, which is closing today after ten years in business. It’s probably the most sad I’ll ever be about the closing of a retail establishment. I still remember having my first Starbucks experience at this location after a Young Life meeting back in high school. Since then, it’s become a staple of my life around Upper Marlboro – skipping school during senior year, grabbing a vanilla misto on my way to work, meeting up with friends. Yeah, it wasn’t the best Starbucks ever – certainly not the cleanest or most efficient, but it will be sad to see the place go.

But now, the beginning: Survivor and The Office start up again tonight, which also means that regular family nights are back in swing. Booya!

Trojan horse?

In trying to get a read on the controversy surrounding President Obama’s scheduled speech to public school kids next Tuesday, I’m left more than a little confused. From what I gather, the speech is supposed to be about the importance of education and staying in school — seemingly pretty innocuous stuff, right? But we’re hearing all these reports of people fearing that Obama has an underlying intent to “brainwash” kids with a “socialist message”.

Granted, I generally support Obama and I also don’t have kids, so thinking about this requires an extra degree of objectivity for me. But I think if I had school-aged kids and George W. Bush, for argument’s sake, was still in office and planning to give a speech to my kids about education (and assuming he hadn’t announced plans to also discuss the merits of, say, torture or preemptive war doctrine in his speech), I really think I’d be okay with it. Although I disagreed with many of Bush’s policies, I don’t believe he was, or is, an evil man. Similarly, I assume that most conservatives employ sufficient acumen to disagree with Barack Obama — even passionately — without assigning him the title of “evil”, “antichrist”, “socialist”, etc.

Barring some sort of dark, elaborate conspiracy by the White House to use a speech on education as a trojan horse to convert American kids into Nazis, I think when Tuesday comes, most of us will be wondering why such a big deal was made of this.

Step aside, “Hotel California”

“Long Road Out of Eden”, the title track from the Eagles’ latest album might be the best song I’ve heard from them. Don Henley’s imagery is potent, makes you ponder the price of our excesses.

Special thanks to my dad, who printed the lyrics and played this song for all of us at family night a few months ago.

Moon shining down through the palms
Shadows moving on the sand
Somebody whispering the twenty-third Psalm
Dusty rifle in his trembling hands

Somebody trying just to stay alive
He got promises to keep
Over the ocean in America
Far away and fast asleep

Silent stars blinking in the blackness of an endless sky
Cold silver satellites, ghostly caravans passing by
Galaxies unfolding, new worlds being born
Pilgrims and prodigals creeping toward the dawn
But it’s a long road out of Eden

Music blasting from an SUV
On a bright and sunny day
Rolling down the interstate
In the good ol’ USA

Having lunch at the petroleum club
Smokin’ fine cigars and swappin’ lives
He said, gimme ‘nother slice o’ that barbecued brisket
Gimme ‘nother piece o’ that pecan pie

Freeways flickering, cell phones chiming a tune
We’re riding to utopia, road map says we’ll be arriving soon
Captains of the old order clinging to the reins
Assuring us these aches inside are only growing pains
But it’s a long road out of Eden

Back home I was so certain, the path was very clear
But now I have to wonder, what are we doing here?
I’m not counting on tomorrow
And I can’t tell wrong from right
But I’d give anything to be there in your arms tonight

Weaving down the American highway
Through the litter and the wreckage and the cultural junk
Bloated with entitlement, loaded on propaganda
And now we’re driving dazed and drunk

Been down the road to Damascus, the road to Mandalay
Met the ghost of Caesar on the Appian Way
He said it’s hard to stop this bingeing once you get a taste
But the road to empire is a bloody stupid waste

Behold the bitten apple, the power of the tools
But all the knowledge in the world is of no use to fools
And it’s a long road out of Eden

Baby Ack

Yep, Drea and I are expecting a kiddo in March! We’re thrilled to be welcoming another Ackermann into the world. Check for regular gestation updates by Drea on our old blog!

“Let’s Disagree Over Things that are Real.”

So we all don’t agree on health-care, or “Obamacare” as it’s become pejoratively known. That’s fine. But it is too much to ask for those who dissent to do so peaceably and legitimately? Over the past several weeks, my RSS has been barraged with reports of some of the more desperate measures being taken by conservative activists to thwart progress on the health-care front — ranging from Sarah Palin’s ludicrous insinuation of an Obama “death panel” denying coverage to seniors and mentally disabled children, to the “regular Americans” protesting violently at town hall meetings who turned out to be a part of a Republican PR campaign. There have been claims that health-care reform will include abortion funding, kill grandmothers, and place us on a highway to socialism. Some have gone so far as to compare Obama to Hitler.

It’s a shame because there’s potential for some really productive dialogue here, but every half-truth and intentional distortion propagated by those like Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, etc. is a self-inflicted blow to the credibility of the conservative perspective of this discussion (which does in fact have some legitimate points to consider). Their argument that health-care reform needs to be considered more carefully is lent a distinct irony by these decidedly careless statements.

President Obama seemed to clear the air a bit in his town hall meeting in Portsmouth yesterday, in which he seemed specifically intent on fielding questions from skeptics. This is the kind of dialogue we need — legitimate concerns being raised, an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the concerns, and clear, straightforward answers.

Yes, health-care reform is a weighty proposition with major implications; it should be considered with utmost discretion and thoroughness of consideration. It is for this reason that we should be vigilant in making sure we’re receiving news and commentary from legitimate sources, and keeping any arguments within the realm of reality. As the President said yesterday, “Where we do disagree, let’s disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that’s actually been proposed.”

Questions for Taylor Swift

1. How is it that I don’t listen to the radio and yet I know every word of your song “Love Story” thanks to its ubiquity in every public place?
2. Why is my wife, whose musical tastes I normally hold in great esteem, so fond of this artistically bankrupt song of yours?
3. Why the Romeo and Juliet motif? Or, more specifically, why leave out the end of the story — you know, where they both commit suicide?

If you made an album, what would it sound like?

Funny how something as insignificant as Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time” coming on my Pandora is enough to spark a blog post, but it reminded me of a conversation Drea and I had yesterday, so here goes.

Also, this takes place as I’m inhaling a double cheeseburger and 25¢ Frosty at Wendy’s in Upper Marlboro…

Her question: If you wrote/produced an album, what would it sound like?

I think it’d be fun to make a really avant-garde, genre-eluding album — a mosaic of bluegrass, hip-hop, jazz, and styles from the global East and South, all thrown together. But I feel like that’s almost a cop-out answer. (“My album? It would sound like everything.”)

For the sake of my imaginary album being tied together with at least a dental floss-sized strand of musical cohesion, I think I’d pick the folk genre. As far as artist comparisons, my ideal “feel” would be a Bob Dylan/Billy Joel/Elton John/James Taylor/Derek Webb/Andrew Osenga smorgasbord. Simple but robust melodies, lyrics that tell stories and invite reflection. (This of course postulates that I could write half as good as song as these guys — a ridiculous assumption.)

What about you? If you made an album, what would it sound like?

“Fluffya”

That is the way many native Philadelphians pronounce their city’s name. Add that to “Warshintun” and “Ballmer” and you’ve completed the trifecta of metropolises whose names we Mid-Atlantic-ers love to massacre.

Inexplicable diction aside, Philly seemed like a cool place, and Drea and I decided on whim to go there this weekend to celebrate my birthday. We drove up Friday night, and while an epic traffic jam in Baltimore added an hour to our trip, I was able to appreciate a small glory — the “stick-it-to-the-man” thrill of bypassing the Delaware Turnpike toll plaza. (Here’s how to do it.) Take that, Delaware!

I had never been to Philadelphia, and quickly realized that I’d been missing out. The I-95 approach affords some beautiful skyline views, with the Ben Franklin Bridge’s enormous blue span towering just behind it. (Architecture nerd that I am, I do enjoy a good suspension bridge.) We stayed at the charming Conwell Inn, a 19th-century row of townhouses converted into a boutique hotel on Temple University’s campus. We polished off our hotel breakfast on Saturday morning and caught the subway downtown.

(A quick word about subways. It seems that every time I use a different city’s subway, I appreciate our Metro in DC all the more. After we rode Boston’s “T” last year, I appreciated the fact that the Metro goes faster than 15 mph and doesn’t mysteriously stop and shut itself off between stations. After now having used the Philadelphia subway, I can now add another entry to my list of praises for the Metro: it doesn’t smell like urine.)

In between the Philly must-see’s (the fascinating Independence Hall, the surprisingly small Liberty Bell, etc.) we visited a house where Edgar Allan Poe lived, strolled through Franklin Square (man, I love a good city park), grabbed a gloriously chaotic lunch at Reading Terminal Market, and toured the creepy castle-like Eastern State Penitentiary.

The one low point of the day for me was being packed like sardines on the downtown shuttle — directly adjacent to a very loud, large, and foul-smelling woman who evidently didn’t realize that her robust posterior was colliding with everything and everyone in its vicinity, myself included, whenever she moved. Yuck.

Some would say we missed an essential Philadelphia experience by not getting Philly cheesesteaks, but we didn’t feel bad passing them up after learning that they make them with Cheez Whiz.

I pieced together some video from our trip. Enjoy!