It’s a …..

Yep. We have officially determined the gender of our future kid. In fact, we’ve known for a few days now, it’s just taken me this long to announce it (sorry, honey).

The wife wanted to do something uber-cute like the edible cupcakes-as-word-scramble Facebook adventure she choreographed for our “we’re preggo!” announcement and I basically just wanted to let people know if they thought to ask (sometimes I like to keep things low-key). But, luckily, were able to agree on this method.

(Reveal after the break)

Awakening

I snapped this photo of The Awakening sculpture in National Harbor a couple of days ago when I first arrived for the Blackbaud Conference. I hadn’t intended for the little girl to be in the photo, but I’m glad she wandered in. It instantly brings to mind confidence and curiosity and bravery and how I hope to instill those traits in my (future) child, empowering him/her to stare down their fears.

Thought this was worth sharing 🙂

Plus One.

Although we’ve officially known for a full month, it didn’t fully hit me until I was standing there hand-in-hand with my wife, squinting, searching, trying to make sense of the black & white images swimming across the video monitor.

— thumpthumpthumpthumpthump —

“… is that…”

“The heartbeat,” our doctor replied, with a confident smile, as the flickering of a tiny heart, and the emergence of  tiny limbs began to emerge from the on-screen chaos.

Whoa. This sh** just got real… I thought as an unexpectedly sudden wave of emotions surged through my body. The conscious realization that I may indeed pass out, puke, or cry struck quickly thereafter. Fortunately, I was able to center myself in enough time to avoid any of those potentially messy incidents. The last thing I wanted to do was steal anything away from the joy and astonishment of that once-in-a-lifetime moment I was sharing with my wife.

Holy crap, though. To think I’ve found any pride in the titles I’ve held over the years … the most important title I’ll ever hold is about to be added to the top of my life’s resume, with a bullet: Jordan Whitt, FATHER.

Confession time…

I’ve occasionally (with full intention) blurred the line between reasonably dangerous and downright reckless behavior (see: cliff diving in the Bloomington quarries, skydiving w/out a professional strapped to my back, and riding a motorcycle with no helmet), but my sole concern in the face of my own stupidity has always been self-perseverance.

Recently adding a spouse, a mortgage, and the almost-hourly bottle-feeding of two helpless kittens have nudged me in the right direction, I still mentally align myself more closely with Tom Hanks’ character in “Big” than his character in “Road to Perdition” (minus all the machine gun violence and organized crime, of course).

As it now stands, I’ve got roughly eight months to complete the metamorphosis into full-fledged adult.

Giddy up!

This is officially “part one” of a (x)-part series documenting, in real-time, my personal journey into fatherhood. Any comments, advice, or constructive criticism you would like to leave below are welcome and appreciated.

Encountering Giants (Remembering Ray)

3/30/2000

Last night was extremely cool. I went to Butler (University) to see Ray Bradbury and Douglas Adams, who were there to give a lecture and do some readings. This thing rocked. After the lecture we were all hanging out in the private reception area when Douglas Adams walked in — and I got to shake his hand and even though i didn’t wait in the huge line, he still signed my copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! Then, as we were about to leave I was standing in front of Clowes Hall when Ray Bradbury was wheeled up to the curb three feet away from me to wait for his car…. So, I said “I really enjoyed your talk tonight, Mr. Bradbury” and he asked my name and asked about my future plans — the guy looked genuinely happy when I told him I was considering  St. John’s College (Annapolis) and that I wanted to be a writer or at least a high school English teacher. Then his car pulled up and he wished me good luck.. and that was that.

Today’s news took me right back to that cold March night during my Junior year of high school. The night when the stars aligned and the universe of an impressionable 17 year-old kid full of potential, in a brilliant flash, intersected with those of two literary legends, both now relegated to the permanent past-tense. My life has gone in a completely unforeseen direction since that night, but I’m hoping the same can’t be said for my potential.

Death doesn’t exist. It never did, it never will. But we’ve drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we’ve got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness. Nothing. –Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Death, itself, may not exist, but when the brightest stars among us die, they leave gaping holes in the night sky.

Best of luck, Mr. Bradbury.

Consistently Inconsistent

Admittedly, I can be fairly impulsive person, acting on my random whims as they occur. Although this can be a recipe for excitement, it can be a quick route to frustration (especially for others). Suffice it to say, if there’s one thing in my personal life (luckily, I’m much more disciplined in my professional life) with which I consistently struggle, it’s … er… consistency (oh, the irony!) — especially when it comes to finishing projects.

Instead of seeing a specific project to 100% completion and then moving on, I tend to bounce from one thing to the next, doing a LOTS of work with little to show for it in terms of “finished” products.

inertia strikes again.

So… why the public confession?

Two Reasons.

One, I like the idea of public accountability and two, my past approach to this blog is an excellent example of the inconsistency I’m trying to subdue.

Pr..Procr… Procrasti…. Compromise.

Six months.

::crickets chirping::

That’s how long it’s been since I’ve touched this thing.

From all appearances, I’m back to my old (procrastinat-ive?) ways of binge-posting during times of personal turmoil and then disappearing for an extended amount of time. On one hand, it’s great that I haven’t needed this or any potential feedback this might bring as an emotional crutch. On the other hand, I’m if I ever want to make something of this blog, I must discipline myself  and create merely for the sake of creating.

I’ve felt myself growing a bit restless as of late. Maybe it’s the morbid realization that I could cruise effortlessly down my current path until I die. I’ve been blessed with a steady career, a beautiful wife, a house in the suburbs, and a decent plan to eradicate all personal debt from my life (not too bad for being 28, considering that just a few years ago I was an over-educated bartender scared absolutely sh*tless by uncertainty of the future —  acting very much the part.)

As a teenager I was adamant that my daily life would never resemble anything close to “routine”. I was a disciple of Kerouac and Holden Caufield — my patron saints of impulsivity and unbridled freedom.

Unfortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective), I realized that this approach to life combined with my lack of independent wealth would sooner lead me to a state of homelessness than to the legendary road trips across landscape Americana and late nights in hazy underground jazz clubs that I had imagined. But realization of foolishness doesn’t always (and probably never does) kill the hunger.

So, I make compromises (compromise ≠ sacrifice)… like riding my motorcycle to the office in an Oxford and dress slacks, and jumping out of an airplane when the opportunity presents itself.

It’s tricky.

Ps. If you own a plane and a parachute, hit me up.

Lessons (not) Learned – and you can too!!

I recently attended a workshop given by author and PMP guru Joseph Phillips on applying project management principals to personal goals (if this type of things interests you then I suggest you check out his book The Lifelong Project, but that’s really not what this blog is about). And at one point during the four hour session, Mr. Phillips used an uncomfortable moment of silence to capture the group’s full attention before reciting this beautifully simplistic truth that is currently chewing  its way through my insides:

Lessons will be repeated until learned…

Lessons will be repeated until learned…

Lessons will be repeated until learned…

For any of you that have followed my blogging habits from my early days on Xanga to my brief fling with MySpace to this current incarnation, you know that I do a lot of teaching (or at least try to) in my posts. That being said, what you may not realize, especially if you haven’t followed me here from older venues, is that the real story is in the subtext.

Today, in a moment of total defeat I was made painfully aware that the “words of wisdom” I try to impart are sometimes nothing more than veiled attempts at self-assurance when the truth is more along the lines of self-deception — and if you peel back enough layers you’ll find that I’m usually the one most in need of my own advice.

For the better part of the day I’ve been trying to wrap my head around why I constantly (and consciously) repeat the same mistakes — especially those I have already chalked-up as lessons learned. I’m like the guy in Memento;  unable to form new memories I go about making the same foolish decisions like I’ve completely forgotten the pain I’ve already caused. But unlike Leonard Shelby I don’t have a legitamate medical excuse for my behavior. 

I’ve been grasping for all kinds of answers. But I keep coming back to the same three words.

Actions

Habits

Character

What’s really got me tied up in knots right now is my fear that I have perpetuated this type of behavior for so long that I’ve cruised right past the habitual state and have successfully  ingrained a self-destructive flaw into my character. Talk about a humbling self-assessment.

Its at this point in my blogs where I usually tie all the loose ends together and tell you in my best Tony Robbins voice that if you just follow these three steps or consider an alternate perspective, you too can master your mistakes!

But, I don’t have any advice this time. I’m not yet qualified.

WeakFinder 2.Me

During the fall of 2009, my wife Jennifer (my fiancée at the time) and I participated in a church small group focused around the biblical views of social justice — take that, Glenn Beck!– and as part of this group, one of our first “homework” assignments was to purchase the popular self-help book Strengths Finder 2.0 and complete the online assessment to determine our greatest personality themes/strengths, so that we could then report our findings to the group during our next meeting.

After completing the online assessment I received a personalized report  of my top five strength “themes”. Secretly hoping for some really cool (i.e. manly) strengths, I was instead presented with what to me sounded like the wussy-est “strengths” list ever created (with my initial interpretation included):

insert laughter at my expense here…

So… as encouraging as I found the above results ::pause for effect:: I began to seriously dread the moment when I would be sharing this amongst a mixed group of males and females and began to strategize a way to skip out on that next meeting. Unfortunately, my search for a legit absence produced zilch and I cursed my failed “strategery” as I sat in the circle of twenty-somethings in our friends’ living room with the above list on my lap.

As other members of the group began to read through their list of strengths, I started noticing an unfortunate trend. The guys’ lists seemed to be populated by words like “activator” (which sounds like a testosterone-laden combination of  “action” and “aviator”–picture Tom Cruise in Top Gun) and “command” (as in “I command attention because I am so awesome”) while the girls’ lists began to sound uncomfortably similar to my own — except for my wife’s which…well, let’s put it this way: if my list and my wife’s list had been schoolmates, her list would’ve been giving my list swirlees and taking its lunch money on a daily basis.  Suffice it to say, that meeting was quite the humbling experience.

Discouraged by my apparent lack of manliness, I decided it would be a good idea to seek encouragement (translation: I was hoping to find something  that would tell me my list of strengths was more than a mere consolation prize offered by a sympathetic computer program). The internet seemed like an easy place to start, but as quickly as I googled the phrase “being a man” I was blasted with definitions like does not take ‘no’ for an answer, power-hungry, and self-confident (this last one stung a bit as the lack of confidence in myself was what had led me to those sites in the first place). 

Finally, I came to the conclusion that I should just accept defeat, relinquish my “man-card” to the proper authorities, and curse God for making me such a crappy example of manhood.

Then I realized that I had been looking for my answers in all the wrong places.

Belief in God is one thing. Believing what the bible says about God can be much more difficult. If God is perfect and He makes no mistakes then that must mean He has created us each for a specific purpose… on purpose.

God hasn’t made us all such unique individuals just so he can  laugh as we compare and contrast ourselves with the archetypes of the world.  The world is screwed up and its archetypes are screwed up and no matter how much we berate ourselves (or each other) for not fitting its molds we will continue to strive for self-confidence and we will never be satisfied.

But, if we begin to change our point of reference and refuse to let the world define us, we can then begin to see our unique skills for what they really are: tools given to us by a perfect God so that we may fulfill our specific role in the building of His Kingdom. And being able to rest confidently in that is the key to true satisfaction.

Egypt (Holy Crap)

Last week it was the Tunisians, overthrowing their oppressive government through the “power of the people” and now the Egyptians (the real ones, not the ones seen in the painted on the faux ancient pyramids in museums..which is still what I think of when I hear the word “Egyptians”) have taken to the streets demanding an end to things like organized corruption, police brutality/torture, and the 30 year reign of President Hosni Mubarak.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t know all the different angles of the story, but I am definitely paying attention to the stories that are rapidly developing: government shut-down of the internet and cell service, the Egyptian army descending on the city of Cairo, police use of force against non-violent protesters, etc…

As an American, it can be especially hard to imagine a government attempting to isolate its citizens from the rest of the world by cutting off digital communication. What is an obvious attempt at damage-control has been counter-productive — made obvious by the numerous live on-the-scene reports and the parade of  #Egypt and #Jan25 in the twitterverse.

It’s amazing to me how quickly the voices of the oppressed are echoed throughout the global community.

It’s also amazing to me that the US has been so slow in backing what is an obvious attempt at true democracy by the Egyptian people. Yes, President Mubarak may have been good for US interests in the middle east, but as a staunch proponent of “democracy” we should put a lot more pressure on the government to listen to its people or vacate the premises completely.

There are some who will adamantly disagree with me on this, but in situations like this American interests should take a quick backseat to what’s in the best interest of the Egyptian people.

If you want to keep up with the situation, I highly suggest checking out Al Jazeera for the most up-to-date info. If you want the Americanized/watered-down version of events, feel free to check out CNN or one of the other corporate media outlets.

old habits die hard

As most of you (ie two of the three of you reading this) know, I had a hand-written (archaic, yes, i know) journal from the age of 12 until just after college graduation.  Now I have a box of about fifteen dusty notebooks chronicling a twelve year-long emotional roller-coaster ride through the twists and turns of adolescence/young adulthood.

I’ve also tried the blogging thing…

It’s been almost two years since I’ve graced this page with my presence taken the time to post some words on the internet(s) (not limited to 140 characters).  I have this habit of starting new blogs and then completely abandoning them after just a few posts– here’s the unofficial list of sites hosting one of said blogs:

1. Xanga
2. MySpace
3. Blogger (x2)
4. Revelife (sorry, honey)
5. WordPress (until now)

And now… I’m back to give it another shot.

Other than just getting back into the game I don’t have any particular plans for this blog, so I’m not real sure how this is going to turn out.

Maybe I should just insert a picture and let that dictate the flow…

Ok, that’s better, sort of.  That right there is the biggest/best thing that’s ever happened in my life and I haven’t taken the time to write/blog about it. I may have written about all the stupid middle school breakups, the high school drama, and the mass confusion that was my life in college, but after seven months of marriage I have no written words to show for it. I have all kinds of excuses for this.

I can blame my inconsistency on my propensity to write only when I’m confused, angry, feeling lonely, or otherwise upset and there hasn’t been a whole lot of that as of late.

Ok… that’s not exactly true and any of you who are married were probably quick to call “BS”.

What is true, is that I have been so completely distracted by the routine of daily life (ie  responsibilities) that I haven’t found/made the time to sit down to really process my feelings, let alone write them down.  In addition,  writing is something I consider highly personal (yet I post this online) and I need quiet, uninterrupted solitude (which is a little hard to find these days) in order to crank out something I feel is worthy of posting.

Hopefully I can find a way to carve out some more time to keep this going, otherwise it may be another year and a half before my next update.

 

awesome wedding photography by Rachel Vanoven