Tales of a Secret Rockstar

Yes it is . . .

I was thinking (just now) about how much time I used to have. I was brushing my teeth at 10:00, after having had a lovely date evening with my wife, thinking, "What am I going to write for my blog tonight? This once a day thing is really starting to get difficult." And then it dawned on me, I don't have as much time as I used to. In the heydays of this blog, I would sit at the computer, walk to the library (that one's on the very bottom of the page), or just generally take the time to think, and then write it down. I feel like I barely have time to think these days. That's probably due in part to poor time management. But life gets so busy sometimes, it's hard to actually reflect. Also, there's not as much angst, which (if you actually read some of the archives) seemed to contribute quite a bit to my work. I need to work on this (the time management, not the angst), because I love writing, and I don't want to limit myself to silly little blurbs about trivial things. Although I do enjoy doing that. I'm sure I have something bigger to say, I'm just not sure where it is right now.

I think I'll check the closet.

You try making a word with those letters. Do I talk about Scrabble a lot lately? Really? Is that what my life has come to?

Very well.

I've begun a new musical project. It involves transcribing a rather well known song into a singular piano part. I will then attempt to sing over said piano part. See if you can guess the song!

Missions Emphasis starts tomorrow. That's always a good week.

One of Tara and my favourite things these days is play Scrabble on Facebook. I have a word in the works right now that could get me 56 points, but I think she's going to foil me. (Update, she foiled me only slightly. I still got 43 points. To which she said, "Gross. I don't like this game.") It's nice to relax and play a game, and have the computer doing all the scoring for you.

Every time I mention computers when I'm blogging, I immediately want to write about how computers are taking over the world. It's this weird tick I have. It's like I'm the only one who is aware of technology's true intentions, but I'm a futile prophet in a world of yes-men. And ironically enough I'm using technology to spread my message. So I'm a hypocritical futile prophet. Because I enjoy technology as much as the next person. Although I have this growing fear that my cellphone is actually a tumor farmer, growing its crops in my head. There's little snippets of news about that floating around these days. It's kind of freaky. But what am I supposed to do, attach a cord to my wall and just hope my "telephone" will magically connect me to people? I hardly think so!

That was slightly ranty.

I should get back to my scrabble game . . .

Did you ever notice how nobody ever says, "We're currently experiencing technical success." It's always the difficulties that get announced. Now before you go off thinking, "Wow, what a deep thought. Thanks Dan, you've changed my life," let me remind you that announcing technical success would be kind of like having an "everything's okay" alarm. Really, it would be totally redundant. But still, I think in a future post I'll announce that I'm having much technical success. That may be around the time the podcast surfaces. And yes, it will surface. Because it's underwater right now. Or underground?

The purpose of the title was to mention that I had trouble putting links in the sidebar. I tried to import the html straight from Legoland, but it didn't seem to work. On to plan B. Plan B, for those of you who don't know, is simply this: do nothing. But don't be fooled, it's a well thought out plan. And it's working so far. This is where being roommates with Kyle would be helpful JOSH! By the way, I got your message from Sarah. I miss you too. I'm going to call you this weekend. Probably on Tara's phone because mine is dying quickly. Actually, I don't even know if I have your new number. So you should text me tomorrow.

There's a blatantly personal message designed to increase my readership.

Somehow.

That's why I skipped Wednesday's post too. Is there a pattern developing here? You decide.

So, as much as it pains me to promote an anti-Stopfive blog, I quite enjoyed my brother's recent post on Stop Six Records. If anyone can point out an institution's ironies and foibles, it's Mark. And now he gets to be the happy one. For the record, Donkers' brothers, this whole "one Donkers can be happy at a time" thing is strictly between you two. I'm out of the picture. Which is a good thing, because now the chances of you both being happy at the same time is 50/50, rather than 33%. Trust me, I did the math.

Anyways, Matt will be happy that I linked to his rogue blog. And if I've made him happy, I think this post has done its job.

I'm probably going to start some sidebar links, so if you have stuff you want me to link to (Otto and Matt, and anyone else who reads this blog more secretly) let me know via comment or email. That is, if you know my email. It's elusive. It's also plastered all over the Summit Pacific website.

That is all.

I decided to just skip Monday's post. Actually, I didn't really "decide" to skip it, it just sort of happened. Mondays tend to be pretty busy for me these days, what with all the football to watch and hockey to play. I ended up not really going on the internet, never mind mustering up a post. Why do I compulsively need to explain a missed post? Narcissistic guilt, I would surmise.

I didn't get to sleep until about 1:30 am last night. I'm always wired after playing hockey, no matter how hard I try to calm down. I guess that's what happens when you're a somewhat tightly wound ball of energy. The hockey game was fun, and I felt like I played a better game than the one before. And I had a shorter stick, which seemed to help. I'm always a little slow out of the gate with hockey these days. I guess that's what happens when you get older. Ewww, I said "older." I'm not old. I've just gotten more fragile.

It's funny how life gets busy almost immediately after school starts. Now of course, I work at a school, which may or may not be a factor. And my wife is going to school. This post is losing steam fast. But think about it. Everything seems to hit another gear in the fall. In some ways it's exciting. But it can be a bit overwhelming. Tara and I are busy pretty much every day next week. It's those kinds of weeks that make me wonder what it would be like to live in a culture where that doesn't happen. Do those cultures even exist? Maybe I have an idealized notion of some other culture where people work all day picking coconuts, and then sit by a big fire and tell stories all night. Yeah, that probably doesn't exist. I'm probably being prejudiced for assuming something like that exists.

That's just what I'm thinking about today.

Our weekend went by really fast.

If I spent as much time reading about theology as I have reading about baseball and football on the internet, I'd be a professor by now.





I drum a full set for the first time in 4 months tomorrow!

I was perusing the archives of The Legoland Convention today and I came upon a silly little poem I composed some years ago. I like it, so I'm reposting it here today:

This is a day for wasting time.
Sitting on the couch,
curled up in a ball;
it's a day for wasting time.

Some days drift by
like snow outside your window.
They melt into memory
before they hit the ground.
Those are days for wasting time.


I miss writing poems. I love the last three lines of that one. Apparently though, my creativity is best served writing silly things. I wonder if it will always be like that.

I'm on a date with my wife right now. No time to talk. She's fantastic! Just thought I'd let the world know.

I love my wife.

Time to punt. That's basically a football way of saying I've got nothing much to say tonight. I was at the PAOC District Conference today. Ken Russel was elected as the new District Superintendent. Congratulations are in order for him. Is it just me, or is there an actress called Keri Russel? I tried to make that joke while I was helping count the votes, but nobody got it. I thought it would be funny if someone accidentally voted for her because they had messy writing.

I really wanted to liveblog that event, like they've been doing over here. I thought it would be fun. But alas, I did not have a computer, nor would it have been welcome in if I did (I think).

Here's some highlights though:

- Dave Wells introducing and welcoming some individuals, then finishing by saying, "And I'd like to welcome myself."

- Dave Wells, during a lull, saying, "Whenever I get bored at church, I try to count how many sides are on those pillars over there."

- Picking up peoples ballots, and feeling like all my days of handing out and collecting class evaluations have been training for this moment.

- Jeremy Postal giving me a cold McDonald's Buffalo Chicken Wrap. Which I ate.

- Desperately wishing I had the courage to be the one "nay" guy, like on the union episode of the Simpsons.

Other than that, it was mostly talking and passing motions and voting and hearing presentations.

Wow, looks like I had something to write about after all.

To all reader's of this blog. This is Dan's brain. I would like to apologize for . . . well for a lot of things actually. I know he's been subjecting you to these "daily posts," which, while quite cute, aren't really the product of my labour. He pretty much sits down at his computer, looks at the screen, and starts typing. You see, I'm not the problem here. It's those hands! They just get working on the keyboard and come up with these trite little paragraphs you see every day. But they're so fast! By the time I try to get a word in, they're already finished. Writing this paragraph alone has taken me thirty minutes, because I've had to make the hands erase about three quarters of what they write.

You see, Dan's been really tired lately, so we haven't had much of a chance to talk. He mostly just plays video games or Facebook scrabble with that girl. I've learned to mind my own business. But I finally caught him unaware tonight, and now I can get my message to the world! I don't take credit for any of the work in the last month. It's the hands.

Also, I'm sorry that he drools. I'm working on that.

Ah, nothing like the beginning of hockey season. A new year of hope. A new time of promise. Another reminder of how old/out of shape I am. It's delightful.

We had a good game tonight. We won; 6-5 was the score I think. It was definitely close. And losing one of our top players didn't help much either. But I'm looking forward to a great season of good hockey and good times.

And if all goes well I'll impress the wife.

Because really, isn't that what it's all about?

"Creativity is Discipline"

Brian and I were talking on the phone yesterday, and I mentioned this project that I'm doing (writing every day). And that's what he said in response. He went on to say something like this: "If people only created when they were inspired, we'd essentially have nothing new in the world. It would be boring." I found that so interesting, since I've always been someone who has felt the need to be inspired in order to do something creative. But as I do this project I'm finding that not to be true at all. Creativity really is a discipline. And the more you practice it, the better you get (presumably). Brian has been doing that with music, and I'm excited to hear what he's written.

I think the reason I've been reluctant to really discipline myself with writing (besides the fact that discipline itself is difficult) is that doing something every day can produce bad results as well as good results. The perfectionist in me doesn't have the patience to produce some bad writing on the way to producing better writing. I think that's one of the things I'm trying to get over by doing this. And time management can be difficult. It's tough to force yourself to take time every day to do anything, whether it's quiet time, working around the house, papers, or music. Doing something daily almost makes it mundane. And the creative process can often be very mundane. But the results are very valuable. So I'm committing myself to the mundane, in order to (hopefully) bring something of greater value in to the world.

Brian Donkers is a quotable guy. I'd like to think that all of us Donkers brothers are. But Brian, being the media darling, tends to have some good ones. Usually they're not quite appropriate for this blog, but he said something today that was really good. I'll discuss it momentarily. First, let me give you a list. Ever since I was in high school, my brothers and I have had a certain hierarchy. It's basically as if we are a team, and we all have certain roles on that team. I'm pretty sure my mom and dad have a role too, although I can't quite recall what they are. I'm pretty sure Dad ended up being the coach. Anyways . . .

The Donkers Family Hierarchy:
1. Mark Donkers - The Captain. Mark is the heart and soul of this team. He provides motivation and inspiration with phrases like, "Step Up!" and "Let's get on the blower and get that big lefty on the mound." I'm not sure how that last one relates to my life, but it's pretty inspiring. We've had to make do without our Captain recently, as he's been on the island. We've made it through okay, but it hasn't been the same.

2. Brian Donkers - The Media Darling. Brian can also be thought of as the European import of the team (but he's not actually imported). He keeps things light in the locker room, and he loves the spotlight. He has a heart of gold though, and you know he'll play hard to win every night.

3. Dan Donkers - The Wily Veteran. I'm the workhorse of the team who can always be counted on for some good advice after the game. I may not be flashy, but I've seen a lot and I stick around to mentor the younger guys. I'm not the superstar, but I'll come through in the clutch situations.

So, that's basically how it works around our house. It's good times. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I'm the guy who beats everyone else at video games, like RBI Baseball.

The quote, which we will deal with tomorrow, is as follows:

"Creativity is discipline."

Tara and I are both struggling to adapt to our new schedules.

I feel . . .

out of sorts.

Sort of.

It's September 9th, and Tara and I are sitting outside playing scrabble on Facebook. It's become our new nerdy hobby. We're just trying to enjoy this lovely sunshine while it lasts.

I dislike losing, but sometimes I handle it better than others. Tara is absolutely slaughtering me right now (325-177), but I seem to be okay with it. Yet, anyone who's played video games with me knows that I don't take that so well. Sometimes I get really whiny when I lose. I tend to do that with card games, or games like settlers. It's funny how sometimes I can control my emotions, and other times I can't as easily. Josh can attest to that.

Writing this makes me think about Summit Floor Hockey season. I'm excited for that. The draft was today. It seems like every year people worry because the players seem "out of control." I think most times it's just that guys are really fired up and passionate. In my 6 years of playing hockey at Summit, I think I've only seen what I would consider "scary anger" about 3-4 times. It's funny to me how people want men to be passionate, and aggressive to a certain extent, but when they have an opportunity to show that passion, it gets misconstrued as anger. Sometimes it is anger, but most of the time it's not. Anyways, just a thought as we start this fine season of sports. I'm happy because there should be stronger reffing and clearer rules, so the instances of actual anger should hopefully be down.

Although, maybe I'm underreacting?

Only 14 posts in, and already I have a nice little blog rant to post. First let me acknowledge that I failed to write yesterday. While I'm disappointed I couldn't keep a year long streak alive, it won't deter me from continuing to post daily. And you might see a doubleheader in the near future.

Dan's Rant: I was sitting in the admissions office today, and Praise 106.5 was on the radio. Now, I can respect Christian music, and I appreciate that people want to listen to "positive and encouraging" songs on the radio. I have a separate issue with some of the songs themselves, but I don't want to deal with that today. I just want to ask one question: What's the deal with the strings? Seriously, every mid to slow tempo song has a string arrangement. Now, I have no problem with string arrangements as a general rule. My problem is with intrusive and cumbersome string arrangements. And every Christian song seems to have them! Why is that? It's like Christian producers saw how well the power ballads by bands like Creed and Nickelback were doing and decided to copy all the bad parts! Obnoxious voices and bad strings. Listen to Christian radio for 30 minutes, and tell me I'm wrong. So many strings! Now compare those really busy and contrasting parts with the strings in a song like "Say" by John Mayer. It's like different worlds.

Listening to bad strings is like listening to someone grind their teeth. It's kind of subtle, but you can't get away from it. There's no way you won't notice it, and it drives you crazy.

That's how I feel about the string arrangements in Christian music these days.

Yeah, I went to my blog and it was all blank. Weird. I hate when the little thing at the bottom of the browser says "done," and all I can see is a big white space. I think to myself, "You're not done! How could you possibly even pretend you're done. Don't lie to me computer!" And yet my computer just sits there, brazenly telling me it's finished loading my blank page.

Fantasy Football Update: I think I won all three of my games this week. What a satisfying week. Michael Turner rushed for 220 yards and 2 touchdowns. That was pretty cool. People kept commenting on Yahoo's blog about how he did it against the Lions, and people shouldn't expect the same thing against tougher teams. Fair enough, I won't expect 220 yard games all the time. But you have to be kind of a good running back to get 220 yards! The guy broke a Falcons rushing record in his first came. Football know-it-alls are so funny to me. Especially because most of them probably didn't draft Turner. I think he'll be pretty good all year. And the Falcons may be surprising.

In other news: Tara and I are playing facebook scrabble. I spent most of my afternoon keeping track of football via the internet. Then we had dinner with Tara's parents. All in all, a fantastic day.

PS. I hardly consider this Facebook version of scrabble valid, because I can check any word in the dictionary before I play it. Where's the fun in that. I can't dare Tara to challenge me and possibly lose her turn that way. Oh well.

As promised, I wanted to go in a more female friendly direction with today's post, while still maintaining my male audience. Therefore, today we will have a no holds barred discussion on why puppies are cuter than babies.

You see, babies really think they've got this cuteness thing locked up. They walk around like they . . . Oh wait, babies can't walk! Strike one, babies. Puppies can not only walk, they can run really awkwardly. That's just adorable. You can throw your puppy a ball and he'll chase it. Maybe he'll even bring it back to you. Try throwing your baby a ball. That's what I thought. Okay, so maybe you're thinking, "Sure babies can't walk. But they'll learn to walk. And they're really cute when they learn to walk." Fair enough. But are they cute when they're breaking your lamps? Are they cute when they're trying to stick their hands on your stove burners, or throw up on your shoes? No. Exactly. Puppies can do all of those things and still be cute. Strike two, babies. How else are puppies cuter than babies, you ask? Well, have you ever heard a puppy cry? That ear piercing, eye popping scream-cry? Oh yeah, that's the cry of a baby! Puppies can whimper, sure. But they sure can't outcry a baby. Puppies don't wake you up in the middle of the night with a shriek. They don't scream when you won't let them bury your shoe in the sandbox. A puppy would just bury your shoe anyways, no questions asked. And really, in the end, isn't that the better way?

Strike three, babies.

Today I had a meeting in Langley. The traffic on the freeway was really bad on the way home, so I took the backroads. I found a sign for a park called "Ponder Park." I intend to check it out.

The final 5 rounds of my Fantasy Football draft for "The Pain Train":

11. New York Giants Defense
12. Anthony Gonzalez
13. Donte Stallworth
14. Chris Johnson
15. Neil Rackers

The defense and kicker are pretty self explanatory. Sometimes I don't even take a kicker in drafts. I realized that if I did that though, I would just have to drop someone for a kicker anyways. So I took him 15th round. The other three were all about potential. One of the articles I read recently said, "the early rounds are about floor [the guys who won't score below a certain level], and the late rounds are about ceiling [the potential for relatively unknown players to score highly]." Donte Stallworth has always had potential, he just gets hurt quite a bit. Gonzalez is being touted by quite a few experts as a breakout candidate. And Johnson is a rookie who is showing a lot of promise in a messy Tennessee backfield.

So there you have it, the 15 rounds of my draft in "The Huddle." Man I'm tired today. I've had enough of this.

Time to watch Randal stick it to Rebekah on The Apprentice Season 4.

But first, a little blogging. I thought I'd continue with an analysis of one of my fantasy football drafts today, since I'll take any kind of excuse to repeat topics that I can get. Did that make sense?

Moving on . . .

Before we start I will say that we had Resonate and Rejoice auditions today. I'm impressed with how much talent our students have. Even though not everyone can be on the travelling teams, they were all quite impressive. Seriously. I'm not just saying that because I think students are reading this.

Moving on . . .

Rounds 6 to 10 of my Tuesday night draft went thusly:

6. Kellen Winslow
7. Roddy White
8. Jay Cutler
9. Chester Taylor
10. David Garrard

Taking a tight end in round 6 was a little new to me, since I sometimes focus on good backup RB's or WR's and let a tight end fall to me in round 8 or so. But by this point I had my 2 RB spots, 2 WR spots, and 1 flex position filled with solid players. I thought I'd go after a strong tight end right away. Hopefully that pans out well for me. In another league I took Chris Cooley, and he earned me 0.7 points today. Wow.

Roddy white was a bit of a gift in round 7. Everyone's talking about this guy. Not that he has a proven quarterback, but he did quite well with proven terrible quarterbacks last year. He's filling in for the angry Steve Smith right now. After that, possible trade material to upgrade at QB.

I've invested in Cutler in a couple of leagues now, and we'll see how that pans out. I think he's got the potential, and now he's gotten his diabetes diagnosed. What a world we live in. I know all about a stranger's diabetes. Hooray! Anyways, in a moment of panic I took Garrard in round 10, just in case things didn't work out
with Cutler.

About Chester Taylor: If AP goes down, I've struck it rich. He's a good runner himself, running behind a great line in a strong offense. This pick was kind of an insurance/screw up the other guy kind of pick. We'll also see how that turns out.

Tomorrow, rounds 11-15.

For those of you who are reading this and not interested in Fantasy Football (and I'm assuming you're mostly women), never fear, more deep and touchy-feely topics are coming your way soon.

I was just thinking that part of my writing challenge seems to be the writing of titles. I think it will be an accomplishment in itself to write 365 different titles for the many (and often meaningless) posts I plan to write. Perhaps we'll have a week where I request headline suggestions and then write based on arbitrary titles. I feel like only Finneas would respond to my request. But I also feel like he might enjoy that. We'll see how things go.

Dan's Life Update: Today was freshman registration. Another fun but tiring day. I got to meet a million new people. And by million I mean, like, 80 or so. The students set up a slip 'n slide, which seemed like a lot of fun. I couldn't participate, since I'm wearing old man pants today, and I didn't bring a change of clothes.

Fantasy Football Update: I participated in a draft last night (while semi-watching the Apprentice with Tara). I found out that it's part of a tiered league system, so there's the potential of moving up. What fun! Anyways, just for fun, here were my top 5 picks. I was picking 8th out of 10 teams. The scoring is standard Yahoo league I think.

1. Marion Barber
2. Marshawn Lynch
3. Steve Smith
4. Michael Turner
5. Calvin Johnson

I took some flack for not taking Tom Brady (who was picked 9th), but I wanted to try the classic strategy of RB-RB in the first two rounds. I thought that I could get more value doing that when I was drafting so late. Instead of a top QB and a 2nd tier RB, I got two borderline #1 RB's. Steve Smith is suspended for the first two games for being stupider than any football player (or person) should be, but I'm hoping he and Delhomme renew their almost otherworldy connection when he returns. Turner fell to me in the 4th round, and I picked him thinking he'd be on the bench. Then I realized that this league has a flex position. Voila! Three quality RB's on my starting lineup. I targeted Calvin Johnson in a few drafts because I think he has a ton of upside.

This is fun. I think I'll feature rounds 6-10 tomorrow.

There's something about the boastful grandstanding of Donald Trump, and the exaggerated drama of the show that makes me love the Apprentice. Tara and I are going through season 4 right now. I've been thinking about doing a week by week analysis of the show and the people who get fired. I think it would be funny, just because it's so outdated. I enjoy writing about topical cultural issues about 3 years past their due dates. My brother and I were working on a podcast, and one of the segments I enjoyed doing was the "obvious song recommendation of the week." I believe the first one I did was John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change." You know, I like to pick the (formerly) up and coming artists and help them get a little recognition. Maybe I'll take some time to pick on the (formerly) Apprentice hopefuls.

Any feedback about such a segment would be appreciated, since it would be quite a bit of work.

Let me begin by asking, where did the word reprieve come from? It's one of those words that's permanently prefixed. Nobody can take an initial "prieve" before reprieving. Any etymolygists among my now faithful readers are free to enlighten us as to the origin of that word.

Also, another fun game may be to see how many words I verbed in that last paragraph.

What a whirlwind of a day. I finally had a few minutes to sit down, and I thought I'd keep the streak alive. The students came today. It's always a great day when they come. The culmination of a year's worth of emails, calls, travels, and tours. I quite enjoy it. I'm looking forward to a great school year this year. And hockey season is starting quite soon. Hooray!

That's all I have for now.

I never promised a lot of depth. In fact I recall saying yesterday that I wouldn't write at all. So you should all be happy that I lied to you.