It's true

I've grown tired of updating two different blogs now. I'm professionally obligated to keep the one at happythedog.com up and running, and let's face it, if I ever came to a place in life where I had time to continue TWO DIFFERENT ONLINE BLOGS, then I've just got too much time on my hands.

Oh, I'm not quitting. I guess I'll just settle for the days when I do have a little extra time on my hands. Although, today is not one of those days. I'm just going down my to-do list, trying to cross things off in order. "Blog" has been on there just enough weeks to drive me insane.

I went way up by Isabel, South Dakota a few weeks ago with Danny and David Fergen. Had a really good time. It was middle-of-nowhere's-ville up there. I mean, no power lines, no NOTHING.

It was gorgeous though. I'd love to live up there someday where there'd never be a neighbor greeting me in the driveway after a 3 day speaking trip with little sleep to make sure I knew, "You need some dandelion killer on that lawn, kiddo!"

Although, to my joy, my much maligned lawn is not nearly as bad as our relatively new neighbors next door. Theirs is a veritable jungle. It is deep, thick, and weedy like I've never seen. I'm pretty sure they have a mower as I remember seeing it at least once last fall, but they obviously haven't used it this year yet.

Speaking job is just really starting to begin to conflict with church job in the next year or two. I'm short adults on one summer trip this summer because I'm emceeing the event. Another event I do annually is going to conflict with a senior high trip next year. . .

I'm eating a lot of McDonald's Snack Wraps on the road right now. I doubt they're much healthier than a hamburger, but hey, they look healthier.

Quit pop again for a couple weeks last month. I'm back on again, but in much smaller quantities. I'm probably averaging only one a day now instead of five or six, so that's good.

Also hitting the exercise bike for another hour a day again trying to lose the baby weight. I'm down six pounds so far, but gained a pound over the weekend by eating Pizza Ranch at my nephew's birthday party and then eating homemade pizza made by my mom and I.

It was, by far, the best homemade pizza I've ever had. I'm eating leftovers for lunch today. (And tomorrow and Wednesday if I'm lucky.)

Doing an actual poetry show again in a couple weeks (June 1) and other than that I had to take most of May off from speaking because I've got graduations and parties and congregational meetings and Tulip Time every weekend all month.

See you later,

Jason

Tired

Been burning the candle at both ends between youth group and traveling for Happy the Dog every weekend. It's starting to catch up with me.

Went out again this week and drove about 1000 miles in a little under 48 hours to do two shows. Took one of my youth group guys with me and had a lot of fun. But for the first time in ten years, I stopped halfway through the drive on the way home and just checked into a hotel.

I was tired.

We were in Prinsburg, MN Friday morning for an elementary chapel and Brooten, MN Friday night for a youth group.

Lots of fun. Lots of driving.

Man, where was I the week before Easter??? I'm wracking my brain to remember. Somewhere . . . in South Dakota . . .

Estelline! Went to a rally in Estelline and had a good time, but it was another one of the "drive all day, get out and speak, get back in the car and drive" events.

It wouldn't be that bad but it's the end of the school year so there's a lot going on in youth group right now that I've got to get ready for Sundays before I get in the car and leave.

I'll update the Happy blog at happythedog.com soon if you want to read more specifics about the trips over the last couple weeks.

Looks like I have most of May off from speaking as graduations and youth prevented me from taking a couple things.

No complaints. I'm burning out.

Cat Fight

There's a student up at Northwestern College that might be doing a play a wrote. It was originally going to go up this spring, but now it looks more like the fall. I have a sneaking suspicion that it might not make it up at all, but I'm hopeful.

I went up last weekend to do a workshop reading of the play with some actors for the college.

It'd been a long time since I'd done something like that - playwriting, I mean. I did a lot of it at Iowa State and had a moderate amount of success. I went as far as to look into and apply to a number of grad schools - and if I'd gotten into any, I might have gone.

But they all said the same thing - get some more life experience and come back. Most playwriting grad programs seemed to want their writers to go out and live life for a few years and then start up.

At the time it drove me crazy. I was ready to go on. Oh well.

I took a few years off. While I've written the occassional play over the last ten years, it's been nothing serious. I simply didn't have a venue to perform them, so I switched styles and have been trying my hand at novels, poems, short stories, and jokes.

The reading was a real kick for me. It was easy to see why ten years of life experience can help a lot. It made me eager to work, change, adjust, alter, and tinker with every line that seemed off. It made me humble enough to be open to all kinds of critique that ten years ago I would have probably shaken off.

I realize that what comes out on the paper the first couple times is probably not perfect anymore.

It was the first time in a long time that I felt like I was doing something that just clicked. They had questions, I had answers. I had questions, they had answers. I put some serious time into the play over the last month or two and even if it doesn't get produced, it was worth every second. It was just fun.

It's an old play. It's not very good. Hopefully the reading will make it better. If not, I think I'll write another one anyway.

Did improv with the 88improv guys after the reading in Le Mars, IA. If you want to read about that, you can check the happythedog.com blog. I wrote a bit about it there.

I'm excited to see the Watchmen if it happens to come to Pella.

Andrea leaves for Haiti in a little over 24 hours and I'm dreading it. She'll be gone for ten days, and while I'm really looking forward to a lot of good bonding time with Carson, the house will feel very lonely without her.

Generally when she takes a trip, I try to catch up on a few movie rentals that she would never want to see when she was around - i.e. martials arts action, dramas with sad endings, and anything with Nicholas Cage. She hates Nicholas Cage. I don't really like him either, but he's kind of forbidden fruit when Andrea's around, so every once in a while I get a hankering.

Jason

Yeah, some stuff

I had the interesting opportunity within the last week to speak for both a secular crowd and then a Christian crowd within the span of less than a few days.

I went up and spoke and did some improv for good friend Professor Mike Rottink at Ellsworth Community College. Then just a few days later drove over to Chicago for a couple days at Chicago Christian School.

It was a wierd feeling to go up in front of the college crowd and try to remember that I didn't have to end up talking about God, Christ, Salvation, or any of the other numerous theological talking points that I normally end up on. I did talk about it though, a little here and there. I was supposed to be speaking about how I earned a living from the humanites (I don't), So I had to mention the ministry, and youth directing here and there.

I had youth Sunday night, and immediately after it was over at 8:30pm, I had to jump in the car and drive to Chicago to be there for our Monday morning worship. My youth group small group leading partner, Jon, made a comment just before I left (and not about me or my trip in any way) that a life on the road, in hotels, can be very lonely.

It was a fun thought as I began my five hour trip in the car. I'm doing it again today as I head up to Orange City to work with some students and do improv tomorrow with 88improv.

The more I travel, the more I hate it.

When I was a kid, there was nothing more fascinating to me than staying in a hotel. First of all, you got cable TV. That was a luxury we were never afforded growing up on a pig farm. So anytime HBO, Cinemax, or the Weather Channel were available, it was always a rockin' good time.

Then there was the fact that there was A CANDY AND POP MACHINE JUST DOWN THE HALL! Are you kidding me? Pop and candy at my disposal 24/7 and all I need is a fistful of quarters?

Now hotels are just depressing. In Chicago, they put us up in a really fancy DoubleTree. Warm cookies when you checked in. Somewhere around 74 pillows on a large and fluffy bed. Big, flat screen TV. Internet wasn't free though. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem as most Christian schools keep us busy from dawn till dusk. But we were done at 1 every day.

So I took a nap.

I watched part of The Gridiron Gang with the Rock.

I played solitaire.

I missed Andrea and Carson.

Complain, complain, complain.

I think I'm finally coming to a close on my Henry Rollins kick. I'm four books in to his works and they're still well written and fun. But it's starting to get a little repetitive. Lots of road stories and pent up rage. Not good to read in long stretches.

Here's something I have been working on though:







You can find my whole series at youtube.com/user/jkaintaylor. I used a website that let's you pick scenes, characters, and voices and then you just write the script. It sounds a little mechanical, but it's oh so fun!

Jason

A subtle shift. . .

I've had to make a decision to change a few things about the blog.

I also blog over at happythedog.com which is the ministry I speak for on a regular basis. I try to update it after every speaking event as well, and more often than not, it's the exact same blog as what you read here, with only minor, occasional changes.

Well, it seems that now these two blogs are starting to serve different purposes. The happy blog is primarily for speaking and ministry engagements, and not necessarily for all the trivial, sporadically bizarre, ideas and activities that I often post about on here.

So to keep things nice and separate, the happy blog will have more event details, while the wordofmouth blog will have more details about me as a speaker outside of the events.

I know there are a handful of you who are now thinking, "What? I have to check two blogs now? Ridiculous."

I agree, but I know that blogging as if I were only writing for one site was limiting me greatly as to what I could say on either as they both tend to have different audiences.

So that being out of the way, if you want more event details, just go to happythedog.com and look for the blog posts by Jason (as Troy and Dawn post as well).

On with the blog:

Just got back from Ripon, CA Christian School last week and had a great time. I had to give ten talks in five days, so that was really challenging. We had to do a middle school service at 8:30, then a high school service at 10:55. Then we also had to do a Wednesday night high school rally on top of it, while visiting classes, eating meals, and playing soccer in gym with the students.

It was definitely a challenge to come up with that many back to back talks as I couldn't always use the same ones from middle school for high school, but I felt like they all went really well by the end of the week.

While in CA, we went to see Gran Turino Monday night. Really fun movie. Andrea and I went to see The Wrestler two nights before. Even more fun movie.

I finished reading the Shadow series by Orson Scott Card as well as a book called Posers, Fakers, and Wannabes by Brennan Manning which was the first Christian book (besides the Bible) that I've read in YEARS and actually enjoyed.

I'd highly recommend it. It basically boils down to the different personas we have to put on depending on who we're around at the time. Kind of similar to the different blogs we have to write . . .

Missed Carson and Andrea horribly while gone. Being gone for a week at a time now is almost unbearable as Carson is picking up so many words and tricks daily now.

Airports used to seem a lot more fun than they do now, as well. I had to sprint from gate G4 to A13 Friday night at about 10pm because the tram was shutdown for the night. I was a sweaty mess for my seatmate on the hour trip home to Des Moines, and I can only imagine what he must have thought as the 225 pound man sitting next to him had to towel off the entire flight home because he was sweating so much. Malaria? Typhoid? Sars? Haha! I'll never tell!

I was hoping my seasons of Extras would come in before I left but it didn't. Which is just peachy cause Andrea and I are now watching them together. Much different than the British Office, but still a lot of fun.

I also found a good site to keep up to date on current Flight of the Conchords (my favorite television right now) since I don't have HBO.

What else? I suppose if you want two more blogs on all the happenings from Ripon, feel free to check out the happy site linked on the side of the page. I'll try hard in the future to give this site a much different feel with a little more insight than usual.

On a fun note, a guy at Northwestern College in Orange City is doing a play I wrote a while back on April 18th. I'm pretty excited about the opportunity as I feel my playwriting skills have greatly waned since college and I'd like to sharpen them up again. If this one goes well, I have a couple more in my brain I'd like to get down on paper.

We have a cast reading coming up this month that I'll get to sit in on, so I'm really looking forward to that. As well as a couple improv dates - one with good friend Mike Rottink in Iowa Falls, and one with good friends at Omaha's 88improv in LeMars, Iowa.

Phew. I'm done blogging for the day.

jason

Cran SNOW Hill SNOW Ranch

It's been a while since I blogged, I know. Brother-in-law Kyle reminded me that I did, indeed, have more speaking things to write about since my last post, but my last major speaking thing between this past weekend, and the last one I posted was so gruesome that I figured I shouldn't spill too many details so as not to offend anyone.

Let's just say that if you can't say something nice about an event, don't say anything at all. (And for all of you who may be rushing to the Happy the Dog calendar to see which event I didn't blog about, sorry, but it's not on the web calendar!)

I was in Michigan this past weekend catching up with some old Convention friends for a big retreat at this really cool camp called Cran Hill Ranch.

Dawn, Troy, and I all headed up on Friday. I had a nine hour car ride. Dawn and Troy had 14 hours as they drove five hours before picking me up.

Rides were a bit tricky as my Lumina refused to start and Andrea had recently hit a deer with the new HHR. The good news was that the HHR was still good enough to get me to Newton to hook up with the HTD crew, so it all worked out.

It started snowing on us heavily on the way there, and didn't let up for three days. It was a heavy, thick, almost movie-fake looking type of snow that just fell straight down and kept piling up. There had to be a good foot of it before we left.

Met a guy named Eric who plays host at Cran Hill. He's a twenty-one year old guy who went into ministry straight from his training as a professional welder. I guess that's not so wierd considering I came straight from pig farming.

The Big Rapids and McBain students and adults that attended the event were just really great all the way around. We had three rocking worship services where I got to explore my "You Are Known" theme a little farther.

Deb and Roger, who I've met when they were running security at Convention, were the retreat hosts and they treated us really well. We got to stay in a little cottage (called Bayview since it was on the bay of a lake), and it was fun to see them again.

I've been devouring one book after another recently as I can't seem to get enough to read. This cycle usually follows a period where I tried to be creative, and as I just wrote a play that might possibly get produced by a college soon, the cycle makes sense.

I'm midway through reading the Ender and Shadow series by Orson Scott Card, and they're just as good as I remember them. To break them up a bit, I'm reading journals from the 90's by Henry Rollins.

And here's where I'll get in trouble as all the folk who read this blog and don't know Henry will start googling and youtubing him. I'll just qualify it by saying that I saw Henry Rollins do a spoken word show at Iowa State once and it was amazing. He's got a real, raw, forceful, complete honesty, type delivery that I think I could learn a lot from.

Do I like his punk rock style, heavy duty, thrashing music from Black Flag or The Rollins Band? Eh, not really.

Do I agree with a majority if his opinions concerning any number of relevant topics to today's society - especially God? Definately not. But I feel like there are so many mediocre books out there for Christians on trying to understand the blue collar, youth rage, depressed, angry, bitter, tired, lonely, and unloved part of our world - and I rather read a book by a guy who's living it.

He's funny, insightful, incredibly intelligent, and a great writer.

That said, I've gone way off topic and will get a good tongue lashing by the HTD folks when they read this and say, "Why didn't you write more about the retreat?"

We did have a really cool moment in the retreat where Troy invited anyone to stand up on Saturday night and share some of the problems/concerns/joys/fears with their spiritual life, and several kids really stepped up to the challenge and shared some amazing stuff.

It's during those moments that I realize who I'm really trying to speak to in those retreats - those in the crowd that were a lot like me when I was that age.

Another interesting thing I'm realizing more and more (especially after trekking all by my lonesome up to White Pass, Washington a month and a half ago) after this trip, is that I tend to be two different speakers when I travel with and without the band.

When I'm alone, as I was in White Pass, I'm forced to break out of the little, social anxietal(word? probably not) box I'm in and meet people. I gravitate towards the kids and adults who remind me of myself.

When I'm traveling with the band, they're so outspoken, friendly, and cool that I slip into the background more often and let them handle a lot of the more social moments of ministry.

Nothing I can change since I would never give up the opportunity of traveling with them, but something I can probably work on as the events where I'm alone force me into such amazing situations where I meet kids who, much like me, won't really speak unless spoken to.

Well look at how reflective I've been this blog already! And it's a long one.

I'm also thinking more and more about my severe addiction to all things food and soda. I really, really like food. I really, really, really like diet cherry pops. I wish my psyche wasn't so dependant on either one.

I often muse about going a week where I research the bare nourishment essentials and then eat only those for a week while drinking water and taking a multi-vitamin to make sure I'm staying as healthy as possible.

But for a guy my size who exercizes as little as he does, I shouldn't be craving pizza, 6 sodas, chocolate, and chinese 7 days a week.

Okay, that's all for now.

Book review of the week - read (or reread) Ender's Game. What a great book with lots of tidbits about leadership.

Till next time,

Jason