September 22, 2008 by taitlifto.

So, in an effort to find a place at BTBF where I can build relationships, I’ve done a few things - for some reason, they typically don’t work out though. I need to go back in time and jot a few of them down, but for the sake of current continuity I’ll just speak to last night’s lifegroup attempt. I had checked www.btbf.org for lifegroups in the area that included singles in their 30’s and found 2 groups - one of which met on Sunday afternoon (4pm). It was advertised as singles in their 20’s and 30’s, no kids, so I decided to check it out.

I showed up around 4:05p to my first meeting yesterday and found that I was the first to arrive. The couple leading the group were in their 20’s and one of the first things the gentleman said was that he was the oldest one in the group at 27. A little while later, another younger girl showed up, so it was just the 4 of us for over an hour. A 5th person came around 5:15p.

Things were fine - but we were going through basic Christianity things - things that I’ve known forever and even taught. Not wrestling with real life issues, but going through the basic tenets of Christianity by going through a study put together by humans. Another “program” where the answers are obvious and carefully layed out by the authors using bits and pieces of the Bible put together to make their points clearly.

Now, I know I’m looking for something that is rare to find: true authenticity and caring in a group going through life in a similar place at the same time. But, why is it so hard to find? And that’s my struggle currently with BTBF - I don’t feel that I belong to anything real. Everyone tries so hard to do “programs” but I don’t see real life. When I try to find it, I hit wall after wall after wall.

I recently went to Eric Willis, the caring pastor and laid it all out on the line about my life and where I was at. He promised to mentor me and help me in my desparate times, but then dropped out of sight. A few months later, I called him on it and he apologized and this time said he’d put me in contact with someone else to handle that. OK. Well, he put a woman in touch with me which was unsettling because that’s not what I need - I need a good male mentor. And she only works regular business hours so she tried to call me and talk to me at work - a place I cannot talk freely. Life happens outside of normal business hours, people!

I expressed as much to her and then she passed my info to some guy who contacted me about getting involved in a life group. But that wasn’t my original request. *sigh*

I know this sounds negative - I think my frustration is coming through unchecked right now - the thing is that real life is hard. Most people in church don’t deal with real life with each other from my extensive experience, but prefer to use cliches and casual Christianity as their method of interaction, going from one emotional high to another without truly getting into the trenches of ugliness. This is my call for myself - to find people that are willing to go to that level unconditionally.

And that’s where the rubber meets the road.

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June 2, 2008 by taitlifto.

i feel compelled to write, but i have no topic that i’m willing to share today. yet, the compulsion to write something - anything - is strong today, and i don’t know why. yes, i could delve into the inner most struggles of my heart and brain today, but without conclusions it would ramble and maybe reveal too much about how my brain works, something i’m not sure i’d wish on anyone

really, things are rolling around in my head like crazy go nuts right now - for one, work is going well but has intensified in effort so it’s exhausting. two, it’s plain hot here in good ol’ Texas which makes getting out on my bike that much more damaging (pulse rate of 185? bad.). three, what the heck am i going to do relationship-wise? it’s just too complicated. i signed up for a match.com account recently, but … i just don’t know. it’s been hard for me to feel like putting a lot of effort into it with a bunch of strangers, a short profile and a few pictures, when i’ve experienced real relationships in recent memory with real people in my every day life. but, i almost feel that i need to match.com it for awhile to get the other stuff out of my head. yet, it’s not that simple - because, recent memory comes back to affect my thought process in a very real way. basically, i have a choice to make right now. and, it’s not what socks to wear, it’s a decision that will make an impact for months or longer down the road, and that’s a big deal because (four) i aint getting any younger. the impossible stretch of time that i saw in my future when i was 22 just isn’t realistic at 33. fact of life.

i was 24 when i got married and i tried to make it work - oh, how i tried - and it didn’t. didn’t work. but, i blinked my eyes and years past, so now i’m behind the 8 ball as far as that’s concerned and i recognize how fickle and temporary and permanent all at the same time that TIME is. time sucks. and is strange. bizarre, intangible yet completely, innerantly measurable. ironically measurable. for example, there are some times when i can spend an hour with someone and it feels like 2. other times, i can spend an hour with someone and it feels like 5 minutes. debatable, i suppose, which is good or bad - personally, i find that people that i enjoy the most, time FLIES by. how that pertains to ‘time’ is that the same freaking hour goes by, measurable by millions and billions of clocks worldwide. how time affects me changes. whatever

i can easily see where i’m at by what i do - if i drop everything for a person, i don’t even have to evaluate what i feel - i know what i feel from my actions. the problem comes in on timing - look, time rears its ugly head again - and also what the other person has going on. if i drop everything for someone and they don’t respond, what has it cost me? time? heartache? oi.

i waffle on risking it all and being content in the simplicity of regular life. i’ve had stretches of time where doing my own hobbies was enough. but, every once in awhile, i have the unique opportunity of crossing paths with someone that breaks into that life and touches my soul. when my soul is touched that way, everything else fades away into complete oblivion and i forget what i even did before. and don’t get me wrong - it’s not consuming in a ‘holy crap, he’s a stalker’ type of way by any stretch - i just mean that the stirrings of my soul remind me that God really did create me to be in relationship, and while it’s difficult and sometimes (oftentimes) painful, it’s still something I ultimately need. it’s just the timing that is killer - risking it all at the wrong time means spending months and ending up hurting, right? but, not risking it all means never finding it all. which is more dangerous? the easier roller coaster that doesn’t go too high but also doesn’t go too low? or the chase of the ultimate that brings along deep dark risks? that’s always the argument, i suppose. especially when you find the best roller coaster in the world and you’re right up next to it debating whether to get on.

easily, life could’ve come with a clear manual - but i suppose that would remove the fun out of life anyway. i’m just tired of time marching on unencumbered while i deal with life. i need life tivo.

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May 28, 2008 by taitlifto.

round round and away it goes around my head why noone knows
and stays and rolls around some more to be the way it once was worn
flying high away in sky to break my sigh and make me cry
it holds fast and moves too fast to hold my fast for very long

breaking through and going free at last to see what could be
and freak to seek where i may peak and still not be a merry man
of course i see what i see and cede to you the truth of me
yes i know what did i do when i sought to say the time of day

yet times a change the more they same and cross the plain
moving still along the way left behind no way to stray
cursed strength of crushed men striving forward for future man
and belonging still to one heart and soul who whispers not back to you

the bearing of one more longing, desire of head backs, unspoken thoughts
revered quiet broken by tears, crashing down unseen hands
spoken aloud silently, breaking free and wondering what cursed be
the time to move past now by far and mourned anew as new once more

foot forward and back at times the same and others in unison, one
trepid desire unable to move, for one foot moves to other ruin
foundation swirled and sweat has pearled on behalf of what - a girl?
yet truth is written on her sweet face to set in place time and space

and bring me to a new found truth of will soothe and aching soul
relation built of time and talk and word of mouth of who we are
trust to be what could be instead of what i died in time of need
create the hope of one small stop on earth’s long shortness of life.

“along the way”, a poem written by Tait Lifto on 5/28/08

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May 26, 2008 by taitlifto.

I think we take things for granted everyday - not just the basic utility or usefullness in our lives, but the very evolution or existence of certain items in their current form. Next time you’re at a clothing store, take a step back and really look at things around you - and when you find yourself in front of belts, take a hard look at the different styles, widths, fabrics, buckles and assorted acoutremantes accompanying them. Belts aren’t just belts - they are fashion statements for the positive and sometimes the negative as well as an important decision making process in clothing yourself on a regular basis. Do I really wear my giant Superman buckle to that presentation today? How many rhinestones are “too many” (the answer is = one. One is too many. Zero is perfect)? Why don’t they make more pink belts for men?

I have no doubt that the need for people to keep their pants on became quickly apparent - if for no other reason than it makes it more difficult to run with your pants around your ankles (just ask doodi). But the way in which to keep them up sure didn’t happen overnight. It makes me wonder what our daily lives could look like should a different path been taken. Maybe Mr Belt, the inventor of the device, had good marketing - but what if society chose bows to hold up pants instead? Or, more attainable to us that remember Mork, suspenders? Safety pins, velcro, large helium balloons, kittens? While we take belts for granted, it could’ve gone any direction…

My main point is: function is function, but there’s still a reason behind it and I don’t know that we consider the reasons and history behind things often enough for full appreciation. I’m glad we have belts.

Do you think there really is a Mr. Belt? Maybe he came up with a device to hold up pants and his cross-town rival, Mr. Maggniole-jim, both came up with pants-holding-up leather strips but Mr. Belt’s sold so well that his last name became synonymous with the device itself and now he’s like Kleenex to the belt world.

For those curious about the real history of the humble belt, check out the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_(clothing)

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May 15, 2008 by taitlifto.

Today, I opened up the windows and cranked up the music on my drive into work. I rarely do that, usually relying on sports radio, music turned down to an “acceptable level”, or some comedy. But, today, I needed that extra ‘charge’. I think it’s interesting overall how unbelievably powerful music is.

Yeah, I know I’m not breaking any new ground, there, but this is my blog I’ll write whatever I want - lol.

Over the years, pivotal moments had musical soundtracks whether it be early memories of listening to a tiny radio that I ‘won’ through my MS Walkathon pledge drive while driving through a nameless, Dairy Queen only town in some distant part of the country in the middle of the night (our family trips almost always involved a very long cross-country drive) hoping to grab the red light signifying “stereo” over the normal find of “mono” pulling in classical stations wondering why I couldn’t sleep in a car while my brother and sister snored soundly next to me, to the first “song” I ever shared with a woman, to my first petrifying piano solo at SMU. Memories become sharper in hindsight, certainly, elevating certain sounds to encapsulate entire memory threads (as pictures do - but that’s another thought entirely) - maybe even changing the memories slightly with the emotional color painted by someone else, if I’m completely honest with myself. And, not that there’s anything wrong with throwing down an emotional crumb trail back to a time of my life, it’s just not ‘pure’ at the point. I wonder what memories are, though, pure as is anyway. Tangent. Back to focus.

Oddly enough, things like this (how music impacts my life) were never fully fleshed out in my head as a complete statement. It’s only in brief moments like this morning when I suddenly am faced with some tiny thread that I pull at only to discover an entire sweater on the other end, that I realize my life built something I only saw in fragments previously. For example, figuring out that I like spreadsheets and thinking it a new discovery until going back in my life and realizing that I used to handwrite lists in table form that could only be called “spreadsheets” by todays standards. And, I’m mostly separating the playing of music from the idea of music as a soundtrack for life, too. But, I’ll still travel down memory lane.

As a child, I was volun-told that I’d learn to play the piano. But, like other early experiments (gymnastics, anyone?), this died on the vine the instant my parents “allowed” me to quit. I chose to then get involved in band, yet the instrument of my dreams (the trumpet) was not available for rent from my school, so I had the *cough cough* SLIGHTLY larger Baritone/Euphonium thrust into my hands with the assurance that the larger mouthpiece would help me learn how to kiss better. OK, I have to give an affirmative nod to that one, but still - do you know what it’s like carrying a bookbag and a freaking huge instrument down the street back home after school? I ended up playing euphonium from 4th grade through my senior year in high school. Yes, I played well by the end of my euphonium career, but - other than the aformentioned kissing prowess - I use none of those skills today (I could read music already, I never have to do a perfect march stride in my day to day, and the toe roll is definitely not an employable function while walking around normally). Fortunately, though, I did eventually pick up piano again. In fact, for me it was a pivotal point - attending summer camp one year, a guy I respected played a piano solo one night and it moved me so much that I lept back into piano, taking as my first course of action the learning of that song.

Piano went on to thread itself in and out of my life ever since, becoming the instrument (pardon the pun) of involvement in some summer camps as I led the worship time with my friend Mark Shrime a few summers. Fortunately, not a lot of actual musical knowledge involves itself in camp music - if you know C, D, G and F, you can play most of the songs I grew up on. During this time, my shyness completely engulfed my life so these experiences really got me in front of people in a way I never would’ve been otherwise. It also induced mild panic. Still, some songs take me to a simpler time where my biggest concern was sitting next to Melanie Vaughn on the hayride while singing “In the stars His handiwork I see” or assisting the crazy barefooted guitar player who broke a string everytime he played because of his wild style.

And who knows why songs enrapture our souls in such a way. I theorize that perhaps we can boil down that rapture to such simple terms as the shared emotional experience. Maybe we struggle with expression and a song can shoulder the responsibility for our lack of words. Or maybe, just perhaps, our very souls are tied to music. Ever noticed how different cultures employ completely different lyrical ways of speaking? Of voice inflection? How jarring can another culture seem when confronted by such different voice inflection? Music exists just in basic conversation - the other day, while sitting at a booth inside a Chili’s, a gentleman behind us sat there calmly with a woman and then replied to her soft spoken question directly into a voice box he held up to his neck. While the words still came out effectively, the tone of mechanical spoken word certainly stood out, and no doubt exists in my head that some social ostracization occurs due to that.

Oddly enough, we even place that music into other people’s words, especially written. When we read a paragraph, we form the sentences in our head with a musical inflection based on our own styles and memories. Ever written an email that someone else completely misunderstood based on different inflection or emphasis? Happens to me all the time (although many would quickly point out that I look at life in an unusual fashion and therefore write in a very non-normal way). That’s the music of life - of conversation - right there.

Right now as I write my stream of consciousness down (that’s how I write these types of musing - just an unedited stream), Corinne Bailey Rae, “Like a Star” is playing on my Jango.com radio (great Internet streaming site, by the way). Oddly enough to me, music played by artists almost always spoke to me without the words making much of an impact. In fact, regurgitating words out to you from my favorite songs would be a purely fruitless exercise as I’m fairly disconnected from the lyrics, almost exclusively bonding myself to the underlying music. I would venture to guess that some of my favorite songs contain questionable lyrics, even. Yet, does that truly matter? Take the best lyricist of our day and sing the lyrics to a generic country song and I doubt seriously that I’d enjoy it. Yet, take a country writer’s words and let Sting perform it and see how I react. Not that words have no place in our lives or in songs but that certainly doesn’t drive me to turn on my radio, either, which may be a reason NPR has no place in my favorites list. Words have their own significance, but music to me exists as an expression already of emotion, stories, ideas, wishes, dreams, missed opportunities, loss, hope and more. Unless directly coupled together (and who can say, when your interpretation of music easily diverges from mine when this truly exists in agreement anyway), songs exist more of two ideas playing at the same time. Like two people speaking at the same time, I may listen to one person over the other but even if the two ideas coincide, the chorus of both may distract. Very rarely would the written words transcend the underlying music to me, and often the music trumps the lyrics to a point where only the voice inflection works its way into my subconscious, leaving the words discarded.

These days, I often build my own soundtrack to life just in simple trips to the store or to my nearby Chik Fil A, grabbing a mood from my CD stack or iPhone and incorporating it into my drive. How different does life appear on a cloudless soft 70 degree evening with Norah Jones filling my car compared to a hot 100 degree drive in bumper to bumper traffic with Metallica blasting? Quite a bit - and the music actually affects my mood and desires. Absolutely, music integrates to me at such a level that I must state that music wires itself into our souls; that our souls are music and a deep connection exists between our very beings and the language we shoveled into the “arts” category. We believe ourselves somehow disconnected from the things around us sometimes, sending people off to study “math” and “music” and the like without fully appreciating or understanding how much these building blocks actually create who we are.

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April 24, 2008 by taitlifto.

I went to my first dot net (.NET) user’s group here in the Dallas area the other day - it was held at Microsoft in Las Colinas (Irving) and about 130 people were there. The main topic was LINQ (a very interesting new programming tool for Visual Studio 2008) and I admit, it was fascinating.

Now, I’m not a hard core programmer by any means, but going to these types of groups seems like a great way to learn more and maybe swap ideas with other programmers. Some of the people at this group really seemed to know their stuff, but what was most fascinating was the variety in specialties even under the umbrella of “.NET”.

There are a couple of ways to get together with people like this - I’d recommend checking out the following:
http://www.DallasASP.net (Dallas ASP.NET Group)
http://www.DallasASP.net (Dallas Dot Net Users Group)
http://www.NDDNUG.net (North Dallas Dot Net Users Group)

And the special once a year event sponsored by Microsoft, Sun and others with tons of informational session, Dallas Tech Fest (http://www.DallasTechFest.com)

And, if you see me there, say “hi”!

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March 24, 2008 by taitlifto.

Yes, I’m a Star Wars fan - this is me with Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) a few months ago at an AMC in the DFW area:

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March 9, 2008 by taitlifto.

Ode to a Plate Taker

There once once a girl
who took my plate
With such services
The buffet is great

Can you imagine
What table you’d see
If plates stacked up
Spattered and dirty?

So raise up a glass
to the plate taker
Even though the job
Kinda makes her

Without her kind
Buffets would become
A messy disaster
And not so much yum.

Yeah, I know, it’s certainly not my best poem, but it didn’t take long to write! That must be worth something…

Today, I had the opportunity to join my friends Scot and Judy for brunch at Sneaky Pete’s in Lewisville (right there on the lake) - the brunch is a serve-yourself concept, but fortunately, staff remains on hand for various needs. After my first plate became unadorned by food, a good looking woman came by and asked if she could take it away for me. I looked at her and in my most serious voice clearly stated that I had planned to lick it clean, yet I’d be willing to part with this plate for her. I received a look which I’ve experienced quite frequently: an unsure, “what the heck—”, kind of look that shows I’ve once again made a friend.

Throughout our meal, this woman proceeded to remove any plate I attempted to hang onto despite the fact that I was completely done with them and had no further use for them. I began to make excuses to get more food just to test my theory that she was a rabid plate collector and not an employee of the restaurant, but, alas, she did bring a bill at the end of the meal, so I suppose she really does work there.

All jokes aside, she was quite pleasant and I learned she’d worked there for several years, but now mainly works just Sundays as she’s become an interior designer. I’ll bet you’ll see a plate-adorned wall in a city near you quite soon. Thank you plate lady!

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March 3, 2008 by taitlifto.

24 seems so long ago, a lifetime of someone else
The life decisions so easily made in a moment
horizons of possibilities and endless promise
At 24, life decisions remained a guess

Choosing hastens eventuality of what was
Breaking through promise into reality
Settling into a colder truth of decision
And mixing with it the bittersweet of else

What else could have or would’ve been
Had the path less travelled been trampled
by my very feet rather than ignored
for fear, or love, or misguided naivity

What else could have or would’ve been
had I not followed my heart or lack of heart
in moments of life choice, so long ago
and yet so recent at the same time

now watching it slip through faster and faster
each day, not wanting to wonder what life choices
go by unnoticed today when rear view mirrors
reflect what already was, and what i might miss again

the gifts i have lie dormant and unwrapped again
ready by the front door for the receiver to take
and this time, maybe, keep for once, and cherish
rather than let it, too, slip away.

by Tait Lifto, 3/2/08

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March 1, 2008 by taitlifto.

Bertolli.

My friend Scot kept going on and on about Bertolli dinners for two in a bag, and I wasn’t so sure - I mean, I’ve done the “frozen food” thing countless times but being a bachelor, I tend to stick to single portion meals (translation: tv dinners) almost exclusively. However, the guy just wouldn’t stop talking about them. So, I finally tried them, and I have to admit - they are uniquely great! I say the term “uniquely” for a very specific reason - these bags of food are prepared in a special way. Rather than cooking everything and then tossing it into a box or bag, Bertolli had the stroke-of-genius idea to cook items separately, freeze them individually, then place them into bags. I can see the question mark above your head, so let me explain: let’s say you have a bag of chicken, broccoli and sauce. The chicken pieces are cooked all the way through and are loose in the bag, separated (through freezing before combination) from other ingrediants as the broccoli is. The sauce? Well, there’s the stroke of genius - it is prepared ,then frozen and cut into chunks, and finally placed in the bag. So, when you spill out the bag, you get individual chunks of frozen sauce and all the rest of the ingredients. Why is this important? Well, the pasta and other items aren’t soggy from being cooked with the sauce! Also, everything heats up uniformly rather than having a giant ice cube of product to melt through!

It’s freaking genius. I swear.

And, right now? Tom Thumb is having a special where if you buy $30 worth of certain frozen items (which seemed to be pretty much every frozen item), you get TWO FREE MOVIE TICKETS! Now, at $9 a pop here in Dallas, this is a huge value. Plus, Bertolli meals for two are on sale (with your Tom Thumb card) for $4.99! So, I bought 7 bags for $34.93 and got $18 of movie tickets for free! Now, even better, one “meal for two” actually lasts me three meals, so I basically got 21 high quality meals and 2 movie tickets for just $34.93.

That’s a freaking steal.

And, if you to go www.bertolli.us, you can print out a coupon for $2.50 off a complete skillet meal for two, and save even more.

I absolutely, without a doubt, can tell you that these meals are worth trying even if you don’t want to buy 7 bags like I did. Go to the website and see the menu choices - they are scrumptous!!!! Here’s a pic from my phone of part of my haul:

FYI: I do not get paid by anyone for this opinion or links to Bertolli’s site - I just wanted to share because I loved it so freaking much! -Tait Lifto

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