Codification

[kod-uh-fi-key-shun]

-noun
1. the act, process, or result of arranging in a systematic form or code.
2. the act, process, or result of stating the rules and principals applicable in a given legal order to one or more broad areas of life in this form of a code.
3. the act, process, or result of a CPA sucking the life out something interesting and/or fun.

So, what is the point of this blog?  Why a day to Eat, Drink, and be Merry? 

We all have too much going on.  My free time, at least, comes in very short spurts anymore.  Between work, kids, pets, trying to prepare a decent meal so you're not eating out every night, trying to get some exercise, sneaking in some sleep every once in a while, and your other 50-100 weekly responsibilities ranging in complexity from brushing your teeth to catching up with your in-laws; we have to try to keep things under control most of the time.  There's a day of the week for everything under the sun...and a day to Eat, Drink and be Merry.

Time for the ground rules:

1. Instead of typing out "eat, drink, and be merry" and "day to eat, drink, and be merry" 20 times per post I'm going to shorten it to EDM (I decided against EDBM because it sounds a little too much like a guy named Ed taking care of some personal business).

2. Eat: just what it sounds like.  Enjoy some good food.  Go out if you have to go out.  Cook if you want to cook.  Get crazy or keep it simple, just take one day a week to enjoy some real food.  It makes it amazingly easier to keep to a lighter diet the rest of the week, and if you can keep it to one day it makes the food on your EDM day taste even better.  Studies have even shown that people trying to shed pounds set their bodies up hormonally to burn more fat the rest of the week when they ignore their diet for a day.  Everybody wins.

3. Drink: this is the tricky one.  For me?  I don't have kids so I will be incorporating "Drink" into my EDM almost every time; at varying levels, but just about every time.  I'm certainly not suggesting everyone go out once a week and get stone-faced drunk.  I would even consider this the one optional element of EDM.  (Legal Disclaimer #1) If you're going to drink, just do it responsibly.  Getting yourself into trouble makes the most important element of EDM (see #4) a little difficult.  And certainly don't feel like you need to completely abstain from having a drink the rest of the week as the health benefits of of a drink or two a day are well documented:

4. Merry:  two pronged -  1) have some fun.  Take a trip, stay near home, or stay in your home.  I don't care, just do something that is going to leave you with some good memories to help push you through the rest of the week.  2) no mean drunks.  If you can't drink AND be merry, then don't drink.

5. Only one EDM per week.  Vacations are the only allowable exeption.  Like anything else, the more you do something the more desensitized you become to it.  (Legal Disclaimer #2) Any more than once a week and you might start to develop a problem.

6. Document your EDM.  There's too much going on the rest of the week and we're (or at least I'm) getting too old to remember half of anything anymore.  There's lots of ways to do this.  Start a journal listing out EDM destinations and activities, keep souvenirs, start a blog...whatever it takes to keep it all from blending together.

So, there it is.  The point of this blog is to be my #6.  Not all of my EDMs will generate post-worthy material, but I'll try to post something EDM related at least once every few weeks.  Best case scenario: people read it, follow it, buy into the concept of what I'm trying to do, and even email me with updates on their own EDMs.  Worst case scenario: I've got something to look back on years from now when I'm being spoon feed strained peas.  Time will tell.

I'll be back in the next couple of days with Part 1 of 2 of the entry I previewed with my last post.  Why two parts?  I think I bit off a little more than I could chew for my first topical post so I decided to break it up.  It was too long and the two themes I'm trying to blend were going together like BP and the EPA.  

Until then, take a day to Eat, Drink, and be Merry.

Inspiration

[in-spuh-rey-shuhn]

-noun
1. an inspiring or animating action or influence.
2. a divine influence directly and immediately exerted upon the mind or soul.
3. a pain in the ass.

We all need it. Most of us want it. But the more we need and want it, the harder we search for it, and the harder it seems to be to find. The problem with inspiration? We're always trying to mold it around what we think we want it to be. The funny thing about inspiration? We don't find it, it finds us. We look in all the wrong places for all the wrong reasons and miss all the little ways it's trying to mold us into what we are supposed to be.
Now, before someone stamps a huge "Captain Obvious" on my forehead I will admit that like most people I've been aware of this conundrum on some level for most of my life. Whether you're trying to write a term paper or just trying to get out of bed, we've all struggled for inspiration only to find it the minute we finally stopped consciously thinking about it. It wasn't until recently, however, that this really hit home for me regarding "the bigger picture." So when my most recent inspiration - this blog - knocked me upside the head I figured I had better follow up on it.

It came during a little two day excursion to Madison, WI that my wife and I were on with my sister and her boyfriend. The purpose of the trip was to see a show featuring a guy that had become a bit of a hero of mine in the last year and a half, but it was the culmination of everything that happened over that 36 hour period that inspired me to start this blog. The cosmic lining up of events that had to take place from beginning to end is a bit mind boggling if you start to over think it (which I usually do with most things, so we should be good to go). I won't get into much detail now as a near future post will fully cover the trip that will forever be know as Prude, Nudes, & the Fall of Zane Lamprey. All you really need to know for now is that even though the hero fell and we were ocularly assaulted by 75 - 100 naked people on bicycles, we were still able to Eat, Drink & be Merry.