30Jul 2012 by CJ

What are your resources?

Life & Living
What do you consider your resources? For many of us we often measure this by the amount of money we have in the bank, which I suppose is not a bad thing. After all we all require a certain amount of wealth in order to pay for things we need for survival. But just how much do we really need? The basics always come to mind…food, clothing, shelter. But beyond that, I can’t help but feel as though we waste too much of our prized “resources” on extravagances we don’t really need but rather want. Everyone has desires for bigger and better things than we currently have. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. But when we start depleting our resources in order to get what we “want” rather than…
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22Jul 2012 by CJ

While I’d never been fishing before, it was a worth wild experience

Life & Living
Admittedly, I know very little about fishing beyond ordering it on a menu. My father-in-law on the other hand is an avid fisherman with the skills and knowledge to back up such a title. He often regales me with stories of past fishing trips and tidbits of information regarding the sport itself, and while I find it interesting the idea of me actually partaking never really crossed my mind. That was until a few weeks ago when I said to myself, “Craig, how do you know if you don’t like something until you at least give it a try?” And so this weekend I boarded a 100 foot long fishing boat, with no skills to speak of, for a day out on the open water. My father-in-law was kind enough…
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17Jul 2012 by CJ

Comedy so distasteful it makes you want to puke

Life & Living
The comedy of Daniel Tosh has been all over the headlines lately. But his comedic talents have nothing to do with the attention he’s getting. According to a blog post which described exactly what happened, a young woman in the audience was singled out, as many comedians do. But Tosh suggested it would be “funny” if she “got raped by, like, five guys, right now.” Sadly, there was laughter after he delivered his punch line – which just goes to show you how little we care about those around us. Comedy of late rely on inappropriate subject matter in order to get a laugh from their audience. Maybe my idea of what’s funny is too childish in nature, for I rarely see the humor in jokes which require sexually explicit…
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10Jul 2012 by CJ

Google yourself some time – it’s amazing what’s out there

Life & Living
Every so often I “Google” my name – just to make sure there isn’t anything out there that I don’t know about. Thankfully, in all the years I’ve been doing this, nothing has surfaced to cause me any alarm. What amazes me though is just how much of my life is out there - articles, Tweets, presentations from previous employment, awards and even testimonials I’ve offered on retail websites. To say I feel a little violated that all of this is swirling around out there would be an understatement. However, what does surprise me is how much of my personal information somehow found its way onto the Internet. Maybe I’m just naïve. My home address is there and easily found. My wife’s name, parents, sister and even where I went…
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07Jun 2012 by CJ

A recipe based on simplicity rather than complexity

Life & Living
My grandmother rarely had a recipe for her cooking. No, it was always a dash of this, a pinch of that and though it always tasted pleasing to the pallet, it was never the same thing twice. I’m just the opposite. I need step by step recipe instructions in order to create anything worth eating, and even then it can be a coin toss. The other night while meandering through a bookstore, I came across this acrylic box which housed five books – each about the size of a large encyclopedia volume – for those of us who still remember what that is. It was called “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking”. “The authors have created a six-volume, 2,400-page set that reveals science-inspired techniques for preparing food that…
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