Top posts of 2010

I plan to jump back on this site after I get the holidays are behind us. I’ve recently been entrenched with the aforementioned “War and Peace,” and now, I’m reading a book titled, “Nixon’s Piano,” in which Kenneth O’Reilly traces the track record of each United States president on the topic of race and how few presidents moved race relations and civil rights forward. Rather, the large majority either did all they could to ignore the problem, thus passing the buck to successors or used blacks and other minorities to secure the Southern vote. Of course, numerous early presidents from Washington to Adams to Jefferson knew the peculiar institution was unsustainable in the long run but again, deferred to later generations to actually enact meaningful change. Reluctantly, Lincoln was the man that conclusively ended slavery, but what he couldn’t end was racism, and blacks and other groups would wait another century-plus before Martin Luther King Jr., and other members of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement finally broke the chains of segregation and Jim Crow.

It’s an enticing read, and I would like to read O’Reilly’s other book on race, “Racial Matters: The FBIs Secret File on Black America” in the future.

Needless to say, I typically either spend the bulk of my free time writing and researching for this site or reading and/or playing video games like the 33-year-old teenager that I am.

That said, and in the spirit of annual, year-ending “Best of …” lists, here are 20 of what I consider to be my top blog posts for 2010. In no particular order:

Some random things about me

1. I rarely wear jeans and would probably never where jeans lest they were given to me. If you gave me a pair of jeans as a gift, rest assured I DO wear them. I just wear slacks more often.
2. I can eat multiple packs of Twizzlers in one sitting.
3. I’m a fan of the Denver Broncos and the Clemson Tigers, the former mostly because of John Elway and the latter mostly because I went to school there and live there.
4. Can’t for the life of me beat Lou on Hard in Guitar Hero III. Stupid “Devil Went Down to Georgia!”
5. Listening to less new rock ‘n roll and more synth, spacey, emo, something or another music.
6. Can balance up to 20 or so pennies on my elbow and catch them into the same hand.
7. Can spin a mean yo-yo.
8. Can eat breakfast anytime, day or night … and would, in fact, if it were practical.
9. Can drink coffee anytime, day or night … and would, in fact, if it were practical.
10. Has to avoid bookstores lest I walk out with five books that I won’t have time to read until 2012.
11. Plays guitar and to a lesser extent, piano. Used to play trumpet, but at this point, I think it’s safe to cross that off the list.
12. Likes to travel and experience the feeling of being nowhere in particular.
13. Has a constant nagging that I should devote more time to writing.
14. Feels more alive in the winter than in the summer.
15. Career goals include becoming an editor of some form at a major newspaper, preferably The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and having at least one book published and some short stories.
16. 25 of these? For real?
17. Plays a first-person shooter called Counter Strike: Source under the name Paripatetic. The real word begins with “peri,” actually.
18. Thinks one of the greatest tragedies of modern America is that most work their entire lives at jobs that may or may not like just to make ends meet, when, in the end, they are for the most part, only putting more money in the someone else’s pocket. Teachers, nurses, doctors and scientists are largely excluded. I’m certainly not.
19. Is scared of heights and tries to avoid anything that may cause me death via freefalling. Rollercoasters are a no-go for that reason. The Scooby Doo ride at Carowinds: No sir! I sometimes have a dream of freefalling from a light pole. Bizarre stuff.
20. Somewhat frequently has dreams about relatives who have passed away.
21. Misses his grandfather.
22. Has a large collection of live Counting Crows shows on CD.
23. Wanted to be a computer programmer, hence, creating cool programs like facebook, hence, making more money, but my left brain seems to be entirely non-functional.
24. Has an extensive collection of song lyrics floating around in the attic and sometimes posts them as my status. Before there was free access to computers, I wrote them in some school notebook.
25. Wonders what everyone did before there was facebook … or Google … or computers. I remember those days. OK Computer.

Bonus No. 26! Wants to visit California, London, Ireland and Alaska at some point. (Runners-up: Chicago and Holland)