Erasmus to Mirriam

I was trying to read "The Praise of Folly" and came across this statement:

"Whoop Holiday!"

I laughed out loud. I think this phrase should be more common place...speaking of which:

I invented a word, and for the first time, I will be attempting to put it into type. The word? Well, here is some background first...

Many people say that chivalry is dead. You know, men doing courageous and courteous acts for women. Apparently, a lot of guys have been slacking off. Every so often I'll see a girl get the door for a guy, or hear of women being the sole leaders of setting boundaries or goals in dating/marriage relationships. This is a reversal of what was chivalry. Indeed this is "evolrish." More complicated explanation:

One night at Camp Willow Run, I was sitting around with a couple friends talking about chivalry and what not, when I got the idea to record my voice on a PC and reverse it. Thus "chivalry" reversed is "evolrish." Next step, contact the dictionaries. I did.

I submitted the word to Mirriam-Webster, and this is what they said:

"Dear Jon,
Thank you for writing, but I'm afraid we don't accept word submissions"

I thought this was an auto-generated reply, so I tried again and got this:

"Dear Jon,
Thanks for your e-mail. Your coinage is clever, but I'm afraid that
cleverness is not the criterion on which a word is entered into our
dictionaries. As I said in my earlier reply, we don't accept word
submissions."

So turns out that a "word," if that's what they call it, has to be cited thousands, if not millions of times in various publications before it is even considered.

Conclusion: With your help, we'll be rattling off "evolrish" in no time. Please forward this entry to all your famous friends/influential writer-types.

Maybe I understand Erasmus more than I think I do...

Catch Up

Hello all!

It's been a while. The problem is, I have many things to blog - these sporadic thoughts during the day - but I forget. Been pretty busy with Caribou and school, so here are some updates:

- Got "employee of the quarter" award - which means I received an awkward fitting teal polo to wear at work, with something uncomfortably embroidered on the back

- Started classes: I'm sure I'll be citing things from my Christian Ethics class here soon

- I actually got an iPhone for Christmas...well, the plan was the gift. But I'm on a family plan still, and we were already AT&T customers, so it was cheaper

- Found a great place to eat downtown: Humble Pie - thanks to Dan Hawkins

- Put up pics on Facebook of Luke and I in Greece and Turkey

More to come.

While in the Granite State...

A quick vid of spotting John McCain in an airport...

Happy 2008

A little late, but what the hey.

I took a rest from blogging, not because there was nothing to say, but because I just didn't feel like typing it. And I was busy.

I have a lot to talk about, but I'll try to spread it out a bit.

Here's an old commercial that I was in for the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. This actually aired on TV in the Triangle. Thanks to Bobby and Jim. I star as "glutton #1".

More to come...


Posts, not commercials.

About that iPhone...

GOOD NEWS! GOT IT!

Well, didn't get the phone itself, but even better, I got a $600 check.

The whole process was laborious. I don't recommend it to anyone. This was just something I wanted to do to see if you really could take advantage of those little sidebar advertisements. However, if you are thinking about trying it, some tips:


1. Check out scam.com to see if that site is legit
Good site where I learned some dos and don'ts.

2. Create a secondary email address
I stopped deleting all the spam from my gmail account, and now it's around 1200.

3. Get a gift Visa card to fill out the offers
This way you can't get taken advantage of if something does go wrong.

4. Be patient but persistent
I called and emailed the company probably 20 times total. The process took over 9 weeks, but it probably would have taken longer had I done nothing.


It is also a good idea to avoid offers that make you list friends email addresses to participate. All I had to do was complete 5 offers, that ranged from $1 to $10 to sign up for. Over all I spent about $35. Another potential catch is that if you sign up for an offer over $600 you have to submit a W9 form for IRS gift reasons. I looked into the integrity of the site I was using and it was reputable. I saved all of their emails and "Terms and Conditions" policies to make sure. It ranks in the top 100 most visited sites in America. Overall, grueling process, but it was worth it.

Bob Dylan's Brush

Random collection of some Dylan paintings in Germany.
You can also read about it here.

Chaco Sockos

The jig is up.

Who doesn't love Chacos? You? Well, then this post isn't for you.

Chacos are the world's best sandal. Period. I even started a Facebook group about them. The only downside is that you can't really wear them in the winter...

A while ago I had an idea to make some socks you can wear with Chacos. I told Luke about it, and that's about as far as I got. I do not know the first thing about marketing an idea to anyone, so, I forgot about it. Whoops.

Turns out some guys in Florida also came up with the idea and have since cashed in on it. You can see their website here.

Kudos to them. I like my product name better though.