1) Be there for all the milestones for Emily the next five years

2) Watch Lauren make enough with photography that we have to report the income

3) Form and play gigs in a Van Halen tribute band

4) Build/Repair/Modify something in my house

5) Learn a song note for note each month

6) Read one business book every 3 months

7) 1 Family Vacation every year

1 Lauren and Will weekend every year

9) Work up the courage for a tat – Scottish Family Crest w/the Italian Flag behind it and DiManto on the pole

10) See Journey live

11) Learn to play slide guitar

I noticed in the mirror that I’m developing a few more gray hairs than I thought.  I’m developing a little crown.

I’m a worrier.  I think the best Italians are.  We worry about death, about jobs, about providing, about homes, about others and about food.  We worry about things that don’t even matter.

God tells us not to worry though.  God tells us tomorrow will take care of itself.  God tells us he will provide, he will make a way.  God doesn’t work quickly.  What is happening tomorrow is thousands of years in the making.

I think my gray hairs are worry lines.  They are the tell-tale signs that I’m thinking way too much about tomorrow, and not enough about savoring today.

I need to let God be God, and enjoy the day he’s given me.  Maybe I can put off this crown a little while longer.

I was inspired by this article; http://www.movieline.com/2010/10/5-things-glee-has-done-right-this-season.php.  We all know the second season of TV or a sequel can either propel it greater heights, think 24 or Rambo.  Both outdid the previous installment and we had grand franchises.  Or the second season can begin the slow decline, think The OC.  There hasn’t been enough Glee this year to tell what we have on our hands, but here are 5 things I think Glee is doing wrong;

1. Continuity – Where are the overarching Story-lines?  Every weeks something large gets sacrificed for the shock and Awe of the episode.  In the second episode we had arguably too much Brittany, and then Artie loses his Virginity to prove a point in the episode?  Where are the developing plotlines of season one, and ones that keep viewers interested over the long haul?
2. Where are Quinn, Puck & Mercedes?  Aside from Quinn’s spotlight last week, these characters have been largely missing, and no character development, interesting plotlines or even playing second fiddle.  Quinn’s character was wasted last year with the preggers storyline, and Agron has proved she is one of the better actors on the show and one of the under-rated vocalists.
3. Where are Shue’s songs?  I loved his white rapping from Season 1.  Will’s got a killer voice, can dance better than anyone except Mike Chang…enough said…
4. & 5) Kurt Hummel – Kurt was a fairly endearing character in season 1, however, due to bad storylines and overexposure…he is becoming an eyesore on the show…

Welcome to Election season.  Where more negativity is spread around than a meeting of the Hatfields and the McCoys.  Where name calling is an art, and no one is safe.  Where taxes are a scare tactic and more money is spent trying to preserve someone’s job that creating many others.  I’m not a big fan of election season by the way.

It seems every year the election season heats up just that much more.  Maybe its because back in the day, there wasn’t much between the two?  It seems like there really is nothing that unites Republicans and Democrats, and all that divides them.  It seems like people who were once friends are now bitter enemies because one voted for “insert Democrat” and the other voted for “insert Republican”.  For the record, I’m glad that my parents did a good enough job raising my siblings and I in a Republican house that attended an AG church that my brother voted for the current president, neither my brother or I attend an AG church and we all still love each other.  That is success in my opinion.  All of their children can express themselves, can think for themselves, and can all appreciate the upbringing my parents gave us.

The other thing that election season brings is preachers talking politics from the pulpit.  Now there is a nasty reputation that some preachers are politicians who work in the church and I’ve met enough good, genuine pastors in my life to not believe this.  My good friend Josh posted this http://joshherndon.com/2010/02/02/pastors-politics-and-the-pulpit/, and I tend to agree.  I don’t want a state-controlled church, and personally I believe we are all too fallible to have a true theocracy.  I don’t want pastors telling me to vote for someone because it’s what Jesus would do.  I want the Bible explicated to me in a way that states what Jesus said, through the lens it was intended to be.  If you want to speak on Gay Marriage then great, why does it always coincidentally happen in October?

I happen to think that there is not one politician that anyone can clearly say, Jesus would or would not vote for them.  Do any politicians truly act selflessly the way Christ would? Do any politicians truly care for the poor the way Christ would?  There’s a video I can’t seem to find that has Michael Moore talking about Christ’s concern for the poor and that the way to heaven is with the poor.  How are the Republicans addressing the poor and the needy?  How are the Democrats addressing the poor and the needy?  To say Christ would not have voted for our current President is as bogus as saying he’d vote for Palin.  Republican does not equal God-like and Democrat doesn’t equal evil.

Josh said in his blog that we need not agree.  We need to be more than political opinions.  We need to be more than preachers, politicians and pundits…

So my plans for the weekend were pretty mundane, that is, I didn’t really have any.  I knew I had to clean up the backyard, there was some laundry that needed to be done, and I wanted to clean up the cables of my guitar set-up downstairs.

What followed, was anything but.

Lauren came into the office on Friday to work on some stuff for upcoming tradshows, and while there, stored some important things in my fridge at work.  Before leaving she gave me the look that I better not forget them on my way home.  The rest of the day progresses pretty quickly and I’m really getting excited to go home.  I leave the office in a burst of joy and get home, only to find out, yep you guessed it, I forgot the items in the fridge.

Quickly realizing that I better fix this quickly, I resolve to get some work done on the house before she gets home in the event she lets me live long enough to go back to the office to retrieve these items.  I started the laundry, cleaned up the backyard, got the cables cleaned up, took out the trash and there is something else I can’t remember but I pulled quite a coup before she got home.

She ended up being fine with it and we had dinner.  Once dinner was over and we had hung out for a minute, I thought the Rangers-Yankee’s game was going to be the evening.  Boy was I wrong.  We recently started a Netflix account and I needed to return a movie but had ripped the return envelope so I went to find tape only to find a mouse in the tape drawer.  Yelping like only a true man does I ran into the kitchen.  Lauren and I resolved to fight this problem head-on.  I went to home depot and got the tools of warfare and went into Rambo mode against these mice.  So far we haven’t seen them since the incident.  Hopefully they are dead and rotting underneath my house right now.

This is now life as I know it.  Mortgage, mouse and all.  I’m not in Kansas where calling my dad is going to solve my problem.  I’ve been swept up in a twister that is taking my family and I on a pretty incredible journey.  Can’t wait to see what this week brings us…

1) Smith – I think he’s the guy for the future.  With a game plan that benefits him, he’s deadly.  What a great throw to Crabtree and then when he was warmed up that pass to Davis was fantastic.

2) O-Line – good lord time to get going.  They allowed no time to pass, letting people come through unblocked and that needs to be changed.

3) Crabtree – good game, we need to get the ball to him more often.  What a catch!

4) Defense – way to step it up and bring the game home.  Manusky needs to dial up the pressure a bit more often, but in all honesty I’m just glad they didn’t go into their turtle shell and let the Raiders walk on them

5) Singletary – tool-shed.  Tries to throw a challenge flag on forward progress which is unchallengable.  Head coaches are supposed to know that!  Doesn’t throw the challenge flag on the safety.  Then during the post-game he says I’d have to look at the film.  I was watching from the couch and I could give you a more in-depth analysis of Alex today than Singletary could. He’s a terrible coach, and needs to go.  For those who say who would replace him?  It’s not like he does anything anyways outside of yelling at the refs.  For yelling at refs you could bring out John McEnroe and at least it would be more entertaining…

I’m happy we won, think Smith is the guy for the future, and can’t wait till Singletary is canned so we can bring in Gruden.

The site is going to go through a little bit of a redesign, and I’m actually going to try and write more than once a quarter.

Hope you like the changes and expanded content…

Overwhelmed at work trying to figure out my job, what it entails and how I provide value to my co-workers.

Overwhelmed at home.  Trying to figure out fatherhood.  How am I providing a good environment for my daughter to thrive, for my daughter to learn and an environment for her to learn about God.

Overwhelmed at marriage.  Evie Herndon, evieherndon.wordpress.com, recently wrote that as she passes the two year mark of marriage how does she setup Josh, her husband for success?  Its a question I’ve asked myself a lot, and recently asked Lauren, how can I better set you up for success on daily basis?  But even in the midst of what could be a massive introspective overwhelmed party, I’ve also realized that I’ve been overwhelmed by others; here’s the honor role -

1. My Wife; She has been the strong tower of our relationship.  Being a stay-at-home mom who still planned the corporate retreat, keeps the house together and takes care of the baby all while making sure she is still the most awetastic wife ever can’t be an easy job.  She’s grown and morphed so much in the past 3 months and became an even stronger, more loving and more Godly woman than before, it’s overwhelming to watch.
2. Family; The outpouring of love, support and time has been a God-send.
3. The Guys; Kraig, Todd, Ramsey, Josh, Scott, Stevie, Jonathon…thank you.

It’s often in times of great life upheaval (good & bad) that we find out who is surrounding us.  Over the past 4 months I’ve seen new friends solidify relationships, old ones fade away sadly and current ones become new best ones.  It’s been overwhelming to watch.

I think the most satisfying part of a project is around the last quarter.  Its where things really start to take shape, things are getting cleaned up and you can see the end in sight.  I recently built an effects rack for my guitar rig and the start was pretty cool as I saw all the potential it had, all the pieces and some of the lineages of the pedals.  Some of them were new but some of them were old pedals I’ve had for a long time.  It was fun planning it out, talking about it and even paying for it.  But then the middle part hit and it was a mess.  I still saw the promise of the future but the crappy state of the middle was really not sitting well with me.  I persevered and got it done and right around the 3/4 mark was when I started to get into it again, seeing things fall into place, seeing things take shape and being able to play through it was one of the greatest things I’ve ever been able to do in terms of guitar gear.

It’s been two months since the man that stood at the head of our family’s table for decades passed away.  How can it be two months since Papa passed from this world?  How can it be two months since time, work and life stopped for 6 days as we remembered, as we mourned and as we celebrated him?  Two months since I had to carry his casket with my brother and cousin, two months since I had to watch my Nana say “goodbye Vince” and kiss him on his forehead the night he passed away.

Lauren and I went to see him on Saturday, the day before father’s day.  We left him a guitar pick from the wedding, a note and a piece of our tomato plant.  Papa loved good fruit, he loved his garden so Lauren and I felt it appropriate to bring him something like that.  I lost it when I was there.  Who am I kidding, I’m crying right now while I’m writing this.  It was so hard to look at a headstone and make heads or tails of what was going on.  I wanted so desperately to tell him about work, ask him about how to parent, take him down to Paradiso’s or have him over to my townhouse and show him the house, BBQ for him, but none of that is possible.

I feel bad that he only got to see me at the beginning and then the troubled teen years.  I was generally a good guy, but I feel like he is missing out on the “reward” phase of his life.  His grandkids are all growing up, getting married, buying property and having kids of their own.  They are starting careers, learning how to cook and more importantly, how to appreciate.  I wish he could have met Eily, I wish I could have gone over his house and BBQ’d with him or gone down to Paradiso’s and watched him tell the people behind the counter, “This is my great grand-daughter Emily!”.

I know he’s watching us, I know he’s proud of us, and I know he’s still helping us.  I think the thing that hurts the most is this past father’s day Nana gave me a dad-to-be card that was signed “Nana”.  I know as much as I selfishly want and would have liked his name to be there, I know he would have loved to have it there as well…

My best friends have always been grade based.  Whenever I’d move from grade to grade, or 5th to Junior High, High School to College, my best friend would change.  It would change based on sports we played, girls we liked, music we listened to, skateboards we rode and even the grades we got.  I know its kinda a little kiddish of me to talk about my best friend, but whatever.

My first junior year in college during the new student orientation there was this annoying, loud, flower of a boy that announced his presence on campus with a vote for Josh Herndon for Freshman president posters.  His campaign for office was more annoying than anything Obama has done, is doing and probably will do…okay not really, I just wanted to prove a point(Josh was never as annoying or ego-driven as our communist in chief).  He also became an intern at the church that I was sorta going to at the time, so not only did I see this guy at school, I saw this guy at church.  Awesome!  So let’s summarize the next 4 months to say I loathed him.  I told him later that I don’t know that I could have liked him less when I first met him.

Now for whatever reason this unofficial Cold War ended in Dr. Charlie Self’s 20th Century History Class.  We started talking and I thought it was more of a taking the young kid under my wing and helping him to mature.  The second step in the process was the winter ball that year.  Both Josh and I were trying to impress the prospective ladies in our lives.  Josh ended up marrying his date and I married someone else’s date from that night.  The third step was the summer RA that year.  I wanted to stay out of the house that summer so that meant staying on campus.  Now this would be a very boring and dare I say lonely summer if I didn’t have a roommate.  Now in Dr. Self’s class Josh and I were talking about the summer and he asked me about rooming together, and for reasons still unknown to me to this day, I told him yes.

When I told my bro, and my parents that I was rooming with Josh their immediate response was, “Herndon?”.  My dad said that will be like watching a summer’s worth of Odd Couple episodes.

So Josh was working at Jamba the day we were supposed to move so I set up the room in a way that made sense for the ridiculous amount of TV we were going to watch, the amount of music I wanted to practice and generally trying to fit all of our crap.  Now all of this was turning out so well until Josh showed up with the same bed sheets as me.  I’m not talking about sheets that kinda look the same, I’m talking about the same exact ones.  Now up until this point our room was going killer, and then it looked like a little boys room.

I didn’t work a lot that summer(Reagan Glover’s husband David was kind enough to get me a gig at his construction company, but we all know how handy I am so it didn’t work out too well), but I did get out every once in a while and one time I came back  to Josh watching The OC.  This started a bonding process that is still building.

We roomed together my last semester and during that six months we watched an unholy amount of Scrubs.  And during the 6th season of the show there was a musical episode in which JD and Turk sing a song called, “Guy Love”.  Now at first glance the song was stupid, and it wasn’t something I was going to listen again.  But then during the second time I watched the music video, Josh blurts out, “It’s us!”  The song is now like a theme song to our relationship.

So what is it about Josh that made me want to write a blog about him?  Turns out Josh is one of, if not the most loyal person I know.  I know that I can go to him with anything, and he’ll not look at me different.  I know I can talk freely and honestly with him.  I know that he is praying for me and Lauren, and he knows I am praying for him and Evie.  We each need more friends like Josh.  Our kids need youth pastors like Josh.  Our kids need Uncles like Josh.  I have a tendency to get misty-eyed when talking from the heart, so I wanted to write this out.  Josh, I know your reading this and hope you know(if you didn’t already), you are my best friend and the person(after Lauren and Emily) that I look forward to seeing the most in my life.  You are a valued friend, trusted companion and partner in crime.  I’ve learned more from you than anyone else, save Lauren & Dom, and you will always hold a special place in heart.

Writing this blog has enlightened me to why Pastors do series instead of stand alone messages.  Quite simply put, it is easier to string together thoughts over a period of time instead of writing stand alone blogs that don’t follow one from the other.  The Bethany Chronicles blogs were the easiest ones to write because they focused on a subject and then expounded on it.  This past month I’ve been trying to figure out what life is.  Life is not going to Foxnews.com and getting frustrated that socialists are trying to ruin America, it is not getting frustrated at the lackluster housing market and it is not worrying there is a snake in your backyard.  For the record, I am terrified of almost everything wildlife including reptile and especially snakes no matter how big, small, poisonous, or non-poisonous.  Snakes are Snakes…one tempted Eve and I don’t want one to bite me.  Getting back on point – Stealing a phrase from one of my teachers, I’m devoting the next bit of blogs to the people around me that I care about, that I think you should get to know better, and that I want them to know how I feel about them.  This series will be called my dear ones…and it begins now.

My Dear Ones part 1 – Lauren Briana Laing

Nobody I have ever met embodies love like Lauren.  If I am to believe the great philosophers Lennon and McCarthy, and all you need is Love, then because Lauren is Love, then all I need is Lauren.  Lauren completes me and yet makes me want to be more.  Let me explain.

Lauren and my past is complicated.  We didn’t like each other at first.  I had long hair which she hated.  She said she wasn’t going to date for a year, which was when I decided that I liked her and thought it would be a good idea to tell her so.  She then cut my hair, we started dating and then I broke up with her on the 5th of July.  We didn’t talk much the next year outside of arguing and a taco bell run after a Monday night Chapel.  I went to Europe for 3 weeks the next summer and when I got back I needed a break from family and went to Rosy McCann’s and Pirates 3 with her.  This wasn’t a date, it was dinner and hanging out.  I was looking for someone cool to hang out, not a girlfriend.  Not that I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, cause I was, just wasn’t Lauren at the time.  Then she texted me that Monday saying, “thinking of you.  Hope you are having a good day”.  Then all of sudden I realized why I liked this girl from Napa in the first place.

We started dating again, I met her parents, her aunt and uncle, her adopted parents the Nedneys, she met my family and then we got married.  We bought a townhome, went to Europe, had a puppy, and now are pregnant.  It’s been a whirlwind of a two years.  As satisfying as buying a townhome is, as satisfying as completing a Masters is, it wouldn’t be half of what it is without her.  The highs are that much higher and the lows aren’t as low as they could be because standing right there beside me, she is.  I got to do a solo for the Christmas show at Bethel Church a few years ago and someone mentioned to me that they couldn’t believe I was perfect all performances.  Never told them my secret weapon was that Lauren was right there beside me before I went on and I knew she was right there when I got off.

One of the things I’m convinced about with Love is that first you have to be real for it to take hold, but then it is the world’s greatest motivator.  Love should motivate the person who claims to be in love to be better.  It should take a person from what they currently are, to what they could be.  We all know the old saying that behind a great man there is a greater woman.  I think its true.  When people compliment me about accomplishments and such, I know its because of Lauren.  When Lauren and I started dating, I didn’t have a job, lived with my parents, wasn’t in school and wasn’t involved with anything.  The reason I believe that love motivates because I’ve never been this motivated in my life.  And the thing of it is, it only gets better.

Lauren challenges me to be more compassionate, more giving, more forgiving, more flexible and more personable.  She challenges to love in new ways, clean the house, tend the garden, run errands and give foot massages.  And I love it.  I love finding new things with Lauren.  One of my favorite memories with Lauren is when we went up to Napa for her birthday last year.  For years, since we live in the San Jose area, I’ve been able to show Lauren where we used to live, where I used to go to school, the local hangouts and such.  She’s never been able to do that with me, except on this trip.  We went to the deli, saw her old house, talked to her old neighbors, saw her old school and saw the hospital she was born at.  It gave new life to Lauren’s backstory and new depth to my love for her.

I don’t know what the future holds for both us, but I hope and pray its many years of health, children and grandchildren, travels, music and prayer.  I love her.

Today is the last time a new episode of LOST will air.  I have spend the past 4 years(I came on after the season 3 mini-season) watching, thinking about and debating LOST. I have visited numerous fansites, forums and websites featuring the show, theories about and where the story could go.  I’ve watched the show Pilot through No Place like Home, Part 3(Season 4 Finale) 4 times, and through The Incident, Part 2(Season 5) about 3 times and I’ve watched Season 6 through twice.  I consider my brother and I two of the foremost authorities on LOST so here are my top 10 moments of LOST.

Before I get the to the list, there are some honorable mentions.

“You guys got any milk?” – The Whole Truth, Season 2

“JIN!!!” – Ji Yeon, Season 4

“Tell her I” – Do No Harm, Season 1

“Jim LaFleur” – LaFleur, Season 5

And now…without any further ado…the LIST…

10. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do” Season 1, Episode 4 – Walkabout.  This is where we learn Locke was paralyzed prior to coming to the island.  The phrase itself has been uttered by numerous characters throughout the show’s run, and has played an integral role in the series.

9.  “Goodwin…see where that tail landed?” Season 3, Episode 1 – Tale of Two Cities.  All of a sudden, just when we had gotten over the shock of the hatch, the existence of Dharma, and the others, we are not told they are “civilized”.  Yet another wrinkle in the vast mythology of LOST and also served to introduce Juliet to viewers.

8.  “Don’t you let go”, Season 5, Episode 17 – The Incident, Part 2.  Sawyer was happy.  For one of the show’s most complex and durable characters, he had finally settled down, had a pair of glasses, shaved and was in love.  He had a ring for Juliet and was content in 1977.  All of that changed when the good Doctor showed up from the future wanting to detonate a nuclear bomb.

7.  “Yes, I am”, Season 2, Episode 10 – The 23rd Psalm.  LOST has always had religious overtones and for his time on the Island, Mr. Ecko embodied them.  My favorite tail section member survived his first encounter with the smoke monster, perhaps because MIB initially thought Ecko could eventually be the loophole he needed to kill Jacob?  Mr. Ecko never got to finish his church, but his admission of faith to Charlie stands as one of the more poignant moments in the show.

6.  “I never…”, Season 1, Episode 16 – Outlaws.  A great scene by two great character portrayed by two great actors.  This exchange of past sins(Sawyer wore pink in the eighties, but then again so did Eddie Van Halen), showed us the great chemistry Evangeline Lily and Josh Holloway had on screen and gave their characters much needed depth.  It also served as the beginning of the great pivot points for the Sawyer/Kate/Jack triangle.

5.  “Which one of these things belongs to you?”, Season 4, Episode 11 – Cabin Fever.  Central to the show have been the characters of Richard and Locke.  This meeting between them continues the mystery of Richard Alpert, fleshes out the character of Locke and gives substance to their later meetings.  Plus I have a thing for all things 50’s.

4.  “Because no one else will have me”, Season 6, Episode 7 – Dr. Linus.  Ben Linus, born off island, shot by Sayid as a teen, committed patricide, former leader of the Others and killer of John Locke.  Somehow the masterful Michael Emerson channeled Ben’s entire life into this line from Season six.  The emotional trauma that had been his life came to surface in this moment and it was a beautiful display of emotion and contrition from one of the most memorable characters on the show.

3.  “We either live together, or we are going to die alone”, Season 1, Episode 5 – White Rabbit.  My favorite quotable from the show.  For four episodes all signs have been hinting that Jack would take on the mantle of leadership for the survivors of Oceanic 815 and it wasn’t until seeing his father, now known to be MIB, walking around in the jungle, did he do it.  In midst of his self-discovery Jack uttered one of the more famous phrases on the show and showed he cared more about his friends than himself.

2.  “Not Penny’s boat”, Season 3, Episode 22 – Through the Looking Glass, Part 2.  Charlie is one of the characters that I flip-flopped on more times during the first 3 seasons than I did with John Locke.  His relationship with Claire showed a side of Charlie we hadn’t seen and his difficult relationship with Desmond proved to be his undoing.  This touching scene of self-sacrifice showed Charlie’s true colors and was one of the scenes that Michael Giacchino’s score was just as touching as the scene itself.

1. “I’ll find you.  I promise.  No matter what. I’ll come back to you”, Season 4, Episode 5 – The Constant.  Desmond is my favorite character.  Scottish, scotch drinker, golfer and long hair.  If he had a VH tattoo I would name my first child Desmond regardless of sex.  The Penny/Desmond dynamic is central to the show and this scene was touching and beautiful.  It also proved that once and for all, even with all of the mythology and mysteries surrounding our beloved island, the show is about the characters who were on Oceanic 815.  And oh yeah…I cried.

So there you have it.  My top ten…

Enjoy The End tonight.  LOST, I will miss you.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the person that I want to be.  It started with Papa.  I got the supreme honor of speaking at his memorial service and carrying his body to his resting place.  The funeral director called it one last act of service to Papa.  I was fine through Pastor Brett talking about Papa, I was fine with the final viewing, but I came unglued at that. One last act?  As if his lifetime of service to me, my mom and our family could be summed up in me carrying his body to his grave?  I shed a few tears while they were putting the casket in the wall.  I shed a few tears while driving over to the church and I had to go to the bathroom so I could cry because I was watching s slideshow of a man who would never hold me again on this earth and I would never get to eat his raviolis and sausage.

I got to speak about him.  Selfishly I backhanded volunteered because part of me wanted an opportunity to speak and let people know I am a good writer, a talented speaker and a kind-hearted gentleman.  I wanted the opportunity to speak because I loved the man, respected the hell out of him and I’m his first grandson.  That was all before I started typing, started crying and started remembering.  I looked at countless photos of him with me, him with my brother and sister, him with Nana, him with mom.  I read the notes he wrote Nana when he was in the Army, I listened to Nana talk about him, my mom talk about him and how Lauren remembers him.  I wished Tyler could have known him, and I know Papa would have been proud to know Tyler.  I wrote about him the best I could, I tried to represent him the best I could, to let people know who knew him that his life was spent for something good, that the effort made by him was not unnoticed, and that even though he’s looking down at us now, he lives on in all of us.  Then I realized when I was talking about him in front of friends and family, that is was not my one last act of respect and service.

He was a man who loved God, loved his family and worked hard.  Every memory I have of him and from what I’ve heard of him before I met him speaks to those three truths.  And it’s not that he expected it of himself.  He expected it of others too.  And he expects it of me now.  The Bible talks about faith without works is dead.  If I only talk about how much that man meant to me, and not live the values he taught, the values he lived…where is my lasting, on-going acts of devotion?

As much as some fans want Jack to have that happy ending, it ain’t going to happen.  From the moment when we realized Nina shot Terry at the end of season one to Renee’s being shot by a sniper in a recent episode, Jack just isn’t going to be happy.  Perhaps it is this relentless pursuit of some kind of peace, some kind of joy that drives Jack to do the things he does.  Perhaps it is the unrelenting love of President and Country that drives Jack to make the kinds of sacrifices he does.  And then again, perhaps its just good television.

I first met Jack mid-way through season 4.  I wasn’t quite sure who Jack Bauer was, what he was doing, but he sure was shooting a lot of terrorists.  He sure was saving the day and stopping a nuclear threat in Los Angeles.  I thought I needed to get to know Jack better.  Over Christmas break that year I blew through the first four seasons of 24.  In that time I met President David Palmer(the only democratic president outside of Josiah Bartlett I would have voted for), Tony Almeida, Kim, Jack, Terry, Audrey, Chloe and countless other red-shirts that have come and gone.  I grew to love 24 as no show before.  It was pure mindless escapism at its finest.

Jack is not meant to consumed alone.  Jack is like fine wine or a great single malt scotch, you need others around you to fully take in what is taking place.  That person was Josh.  While I was watching 24 in my room, Josh was my faithful companion.  We would talk about plot twists, what we hoped Jack would do and how much President Logan was a tool.

It’s funny, most of the seasons of 24 end with some sort of heartbreak.  Season 2 was about as close as we came to a happy ending.  Season 3 ended with Chase in surgery and Jack in tears.  Season 4 ended with Jack running from the law assumed dead.  Season 5 ended with him on a slow-boat to China.  Season 6 ended with him on a cliff, alone.  And season 7 ended with him having a life threatening condition.  Who knows where season 8 will leave us before the movies come out.

The thing about Jack is that is a true hero.  He’s my kind of hero.  He displays a love of those around him, a love of country and a devotion to the cause that many of us wish dearly and would gladly be tortured by Jack in order to come across.  Well maybe not torture, he did inadvertently kill his brother while torturing him.  So Jack as you go off the air, we know you do not go silently into the night, you will not go without a fight and you will forever be with us.  Thank you for 8 great seasons of television and a lifetime of memories.  Previously on 24…

Waking up at 4:05 is hard to do.  It’s not one of those things that people like to do often, for whatever reason.  All of a sudden whatever you were waking up for become less important than the next 2 hours of sleep you wish you could get.  I’m pretty sure that is why God didn’t intend for us to wake up at 4:05 in the morning often.  He knew there would be a great too many people who would trade sleep for whatever the heck you would be waking up for at 4:05 in the morning.

I woke up at that pagan hour this morning.  Now normally when I go on trips, dis-organized is what would characteristically describe me.  I’m tossing things in the bag at the last second, dashing down the stairs, crashing into the door…you get the picture.  However, for whatever reason  I was calm, cool, collected and organized this time around.  I neatly had packed my suitcase last night, I had put them down by the door to avoid the inevitable door crashing in the morning, and also had laid out my clothes in a neat fashion at the foot of bed.  Everything was all set.  Then I woke up.

I woke up before God this morning to find he had left the water running.  I woke up to a torrential downpour that had woken up my wife too.  Now under normal circumstances this would be no big deal.  However, the brainiac that engineered my backyard only left one drain.  So when that drain clogs, I immediately have a flash flood in the backyard.  Yesterday I had a little bit of a flood on my hands, and that was only after an afternoon of consistent rain, never mind 5 hours of the leaky heavenly pipes.  So you guessed, flashflood time in Will’s backyard.

I will say this, thank God I wasn’t traveling with anyone else outside of the guy who married me.  There are certain other people who like to arrive at airports before the desk attendants are there, who have an affinity for the blue-carpet clubs, and are treated as foreign dignitaries only hope they could be treated on an airplane.  Because of this flash flood in my backyard I was around 10 minutes late to pick up my traveling companion, which had it been someone else, my trip would have gotten off to a not so good start.

Waking up at 4:05 is not fun to do.  But when the floods come a floodin….waking up at 4:05 is still not easy to do.