my careless contagion

While this blog may be dead, as I lost my biggest drive for writing here last year, there are still things I ponder and wish to share (even if no one reads them). I believe people can change, but our personalities are mostly set by the age of 8 (and perhaps even as early as age 5). I recently retook a personality test I took years ago. I believe I posted the results here, as well. Today, bored out of my gourd, I took it again to see if anything changed. I know my behaviors and much inside changed over the last four years but was curious if there was an effect on personality, as well. The answer is no. My personality remains the same. However, the percentages used to calculate it changed. No, there probably isn't a way to quantify the amount of internal change I experienced in four years. It's up to me to keep track of what God did. As the test results point out, it's important for me to keep striving for improvement. It's eerie how many things the results get right. It...

The city of Kearney (population about 35,000) represents a "coulda been" for me. It could have been so many things — the town where I attended college, where I made it solid with my girl, where we settled down to live, where we bought our home and brought our children into the world — but, instead, it's a town I hardly know. I remember buying music, some of which I still own today, at the mall and other shops. I remember taking a drum set my brother was getting rid of to a music store in the bricked section of town. I got my wisdom teeth taken out here. After my stint at McCook, I thought I would finish school here, as a lot of my friends were already attending and it was an affordable yet good school. The girl I wanted to be with was already going to school here and, indeed, still lives here. But that didn't happen. Not the school. Not the girl. Not the house or the kids. Not anything. Kearney. What coulda been.  Kearney from Yanney Park. Kearney was my se...