Advice for the Best Man - Avoiding 9 Pitfalls that Can Wreck a Wedding Speech

As the wedding season moves into full swing, I have some unsolicited advice which might benefit you prospective best men and maids of honor.  If you have been asked to serve in such an important role, count yourself special.  Someone values you highly.  This honor typically includes the expectation that you will give a speech at the wedding reception of your friend.  For many, the thought of taking a microphone and speaking to hundreds of people you barely know can be downright terrifying.  If you will just keep a few things in mind, you can give a killer address that will honor your friend for a lifetime.

Messin' with Sasquatch Again?

After over a year, my post about Bigfoot  still garners more views than almost anything else I have written.  It seems the time is right to produce another ground-breaking intellectual piece on the subject.  Why? Have you seen it?  The new Spike TV reality show, 10 MILLION DOLLAR BIGFOOT BOUNTY?  I have to say I was both excited and nervous about this new reality show which I saw for the first time last night.  I also must say, unfortunately, that it failed to meet even my lowest expectations.

Is Social Media Harming Your Happiness?

Today I ran across a Reuters article by writer Belinda Goldsmith that caught my eye.  It was titled, Is Facebook Envy Making you Miserable?  The article begins:

LONDON (Reuters) - Witnessing friends' vacations, love lives and work successes on Facebook can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness, according to German researchers.

A study conducted jointly by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world's largest social network that now has over one billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social comparison.

The researchers found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.

On Dogs and Integrity

Buckshot Midnight Ranger Wilson - the registered name of our black Labrador retriever we affectionately call "Buck".  He actually goes by a number of names:  “Buck”, “Buckles”, “Buckers”, “Buckster”, “Buckerdoo”, “Puppy” and often just “Dog”.  The great thing is that he'll answer to anything.  Buck just turned 4 years old.  He was six weeks old when I picked him up for Christmas in 2008.

Bringing him into the family was quite an ordeal.  I'd been lobbying Stacey for a long time about getting a family dog.  "Every boy ought to have a dog," I told her. "It's part of growing up."  "I don't want a dog," Stacey replied.  "I don't like dogs.  They jump up on you and make a mess, and I'm afraid of dogs.  And I know who’ll have to take care of him - me!"  After literally years of discussion, Stacey acquiesced but with conditions:  "I'm not going to have a dog in my house.  No dog in the world is worth fooling with the stink and the mess in my house.  Dogs belong outside.  And I don't want a big dog.  I don't want them jumping on me. And I don't want a noisy dog.  I hate barking dogs.  And I don't want a shedding dog - even outside.  That hair gets all over everything. And I am NOT going to take care of him.”

“OK, I hear you,” I replied. “We’ll get a small, quiet, non-shedding outdoor dog.  The boys and I will take care of him.”  So with that, I started my research to find our family dog. 

Why This Blog?

OK -- here we go again with another blog.  Who needs another blog - right?  Certainly not me.  Yet here I am, starting a blog that I have no idea if anyone will want to read.  Why?  I guess it's really pretty simple.  I've always liked to try to craft ideas and put them into words.  When I write, it seems to clarify things for me.  When I visually see what's going on in "Mark's World", sometimes the cleverness and originality I think I have evaporates into a blur of meaningless text on a page. Writing brings my world into perspective.

I love to talk about ideas.  I hope to capture some of them here and use this forum as a collection point for them.  Maybe this blog will provoke thoughts in someone else.  Maybe it won't – I really don’t know. 

Starting a blog is a little bit intimidating.  Opening my thoughts up to a broader world carries a lot of risk.  It is easy to be misunderstood and unfairly criticized.  Riskier yet, my ideas may be clearly understood and still excoriated for what they are.  I guess it’s a risk worth taking.  Please feel free to join me as I ponder the things that make me think: things like faith, country, family, economics, politics and the news of the day.  Maybe we can all understand life a little more clearly as we think through the things that interest me as I "Mark" the times.