The time my dog ate my dinner

PiperThere I was, relaxing and looking forward to a night in. Maybe turn on Netflix? Maybe check out some YouTube videos? It was shaping up to be a good night, that much was certain.

There it was, my dinner fresh out of the oven. This particular meal was veggie burgers, one of my favorites right now. I had set the baking sheet with the burgers on top of the stove, thinking, “This seems out of the dogs’ reach.” I stepped away for a second and lo and behold, Piper surprised me.

There she was, eating something off the kitchen floor. Had she managed to paw the veggie burgers off the stove? I knew she was food driven but this was quite a feat. I was resigned to the fact that my much-anticipated dinner was down the tubes. Or was it?

There they were, two beautiful 4-ounce Sweet Earth veggie patties still waiting to be arranged atop a ketchup-layered bun. But then what was Piper eating? This is where things went in a direction I did not see coming. It took a second for my mind to process that a treat I gave Piper earlier made her stomach upset which caused her to make them reappear on the kitchen floor, along with the doggy-doo she had just eaten from outside.

There it is, the full truth and nothing but the truth– and I’ve said it before— my dog eats her own poop. But now she’s taken it to a whole new level. Not only will she eat her own poo, she’ll also vomit it back up, and eat it again.

Here I am, writing about it because well, this is my life as a dog owner. But hey, I’m a dog owner that got to eat is awesome dinner that night, so there’s a silver lining for ya!

-Out of the Wilderness

 

Making a successful/viral video

There are many ways for a video to go viral, but I’d like to focus on one: The candid shot when something crazy happens. It’s not enough to show a clip of an alligator crossing a street. But a turtle riding on the alligator’s back while it crosses the street? Now you’ve got something. Take look at this clip…


A lot of the clips in the video above illustrate my theory that your candid shot has to have at least 2 elements for it to go viral:

  1. The thing that may or may not be kinda cool on it’s own (i.e. a deer in the road)
  2. The completely wild element that makes the clip bazaar and amazing (i.e. 2 deer fighting in the road)

As you come across clips on YouTube and other websites, examine if they have one or both of these elements. When you’re shooting video, be on the lookout for that special ingredient that’ll take your video from mundane and common to extraordinary and rare!

-Out of the Wilderness

There’s beauty in the details

I took a short trip to a creek close to my house and decided to snap some photos. There’s beauty in the details of God’s creation, don’t ya think?

img_20170920_100908265.jpg

 

img_20170920_101751556.jpg
Sun shining through a piece of worn glass.
img_20170920_100704261.jpg
Colors.

 

img_20170920_103738362.jpg
The butterfly effect.

img_20170920_103704270.jpg

img_20170920_110754.jpg
Can you see the antenna-like extensions on the top left of this leaf?

 

img_20170920_104731793.jpg

-Out of the Wilderness

She was just phoning it in

I was recently hanging out with a friend of mine and asked how long she and I have been friends. She looked at her phone and said, “…since 1999.” I was speechless. Did that just happen?

It makes me laugh and also brings to light 2 points I’d like to share:

  1. Did her phone somehow know when we first met? Did she scroll back to our first picture together, or our first email?
  2. Because I moved around a lot (10 times including 3 high schools), I have a fascination now with how long I’ve known people. Facebook has been fantastic for reconnecting with people I knew before the internet even existed, so yeah, it’s fascinating to me.

I know we call our devices “smart phones” but wow. Is there an app for something like that? Like ancestry.com but for friendships? Anyway, I thought that experience was odd, and awesome, and hilarious.

-Out of the Wilderness

What do you have an appetite for?

From the fruit of his mouth a man’s stomach is satisfied; he is filled with the product of his lips.
Proverbs 18:20

I read this verse recently and to be honest, I didn’t think it made sense. A mouth doesn’t make fruit. Lips don’t produce food. So what is this verse saying? What’s the meaning, assuming there is one. Well, from a biological standpoint, the way to the stomach is through the mouth. And what is the stomach? It’s our appetite. How do we satisfy our appetite? With food, of course. Food that we put in our mouth. So then, the mouth is the conduit we use to satisfy our appetite.

If we have a piece of fruit, we don’t put it on our foot. We don’t rub it on our back. We don’t pick a tomato and squish it in our armpits. That’s silly. Of course, that might confirm what your neighbors already think of you, “Our neighbor, the weirdo,” but it’s just not what we do with fruit, with food. We bite into it, passing it along to our stomach to satisfy our appetite.

Could the verse be helping us to discover and define what we have an appetite for? Not biologically, but spiritually, emotionally, professionally, relationally? Chapter 18 compares the fool and the wise man. The fool does this, the wise man does that. Foolishness is this, wisdom is that. So maybe this verse is advising us to be wise, not foolish, about a few things:

  1. Being aware of our appetite (illustrated by the man’s stomach)
  2. What we use to satisfy that appetite (the fruit/ product)
  3. The conduit we use to get the product where it needs to go (his mouth/ lips)

Let’s say you have an appetite, a hunger, for helping people. One way to satisfy that is to do volunteer work. You sign up with Habitat For Humanity. Do you like being in your car, out on the road? Maybe you sign up to be a driver for Uber or Lyft. What if you have a hunger for wealth? There are many ways to go about that, so you try online trading, flipping a house, or fly to Vegas for a weekend.

In these examples, Habitat for Humanity, driving your car, online trading/Vegas is the fruit. The conduit is volunteering, signing up for Uber or Lyft, and buying stock or going to Vegas.

Clearly there are good and bad ways to go about satisfying your appetite. Just like food, there’s fruit, veggies, healthy things you can eat, but there’s also junk food. The junk food might satisfy you for a second but in the end it does more harm than good. There can be ways to become wealthy, like Vegas for instance. But gambling in general is junk food. Being a getaway driver… not the best way to satisfy your craving for being on the road! Some might say handing out money to panhandlers holding up signs off a highway exit would be the junk food of volunteering.

So what do you have an appetite for? How are you feeding it? Are you looking for healthy, Biblical ways to satisfy your hunger? If so, I’d say you’re being wise…good job! If you’re like me, you’ve found a lot of ways that don’t work and that, my friend, makes us foolish!

Here’s to making wise choices, and eating fruit!

-Out of the Wilderness