Browsing all posts in Life, the Universe, & Everything.
Airports
Once again I’m on an airplane looking ahead to 18 hours in the air in three legs with 7 hours in three airports. After 34 years of flying I have never grown tired of it. Growing up between worlds there is, nor ever will be a perfect “fit” for me in any culture. But the [...]
“Delivery”
Why they call it “delivery” I don’t know. You have a pizza delivered – it’s cheap, instant, and painless. Delivering a baby on the other hand, is anything but. A healthy Judah Emrys Bruerd was born 4pm June 4th, 2010 after 13 hours of labor culminating in a dramatic, but uneventful c-section. Araella’s birth was [...]
Passage of a Whistle
“The Butterfly” played by Barak Bruerd on an Overton Low D As an Irish musician (a very flexible term when applied to myself), I have a certain affinity for flutes and whistles. So it’s no small thing for me to have sold my Copeland Low D whistle on ebay. Copeland whistles are the Cadillac of [...]
Surviving 32…
I’ve been 32 years old for about a month now and I have to admit to being a bit disappointed. I expected that somehow being 32 would have imparted a bit more maturity into my life; a little more temperance. And yet having spent the better part of 6 hours the other week hiking a [...]
Selling Out
In lieu of my last rant let me tell you about a couple people I met just this last week that inspired me. The first is a college guy by the name of Chris who loves music and is a serious guitar player. Chris started feeling convicted about doing something to address poverty and so he went out and sold three of his four guitars, as well as some other stuff. He told me it wasn’t easy to let go of some of his highly prized instruments but he felt like it was important to serve the needs of the poor and that he could slim down his lifestyle.
How am I busy, let me count the ways…
I’ve always valued variety in life, never being one who does well with the monotony of repetitive tasks. But there is threshold where eclectic multi-tasking transforms into an insanity that one can only feel when frantically trying to grasp a thousand loose ends, only to realize their mind has wandered off in the process… As [...]
Rubbing Off
Spring is here again and Araella does what all children seem to do – keeps growing. Last year she was two on the verge of three and now she’s on the verge of turning four. You always wonder as a father if you’re doing anything right; if they’re actually learning the values and principles you’re [...]
A Recipe for Sunday Traditions
Growing up in my house, we had very few traditions; we were a transient family with few roots and somehow traditions seem to require roots before sprouting leaves and maturing into anything permanent and steadfast. However, in the hazy recollection of my childhood memories, there stands the petrified remains of a few bygone traditions which [...]
Rice Fields to Rush Hour
Life continues on its lazy axial spin and in the ironies of life I find myself in the burbs with a 2-door garage and the proverbial white picket fence. Ex-Khmer Rouge generals shooting burglars across the street, moto-congested streets flooded half a meter deep from monsoon rains, gut soup, and expansive rice fields… all these [...]
Solo Travels
Asia is the only place on earth where you can go to a McDonalds and order a McRice Burger. It’s also the only place where, while waiting in line for your McRice Burger, you might stand behind a Caucasian man with a shaved head wearing Birkenstocks and a British wool cardigan pulled over top a [...]
