Thoughts on "Breathe"

When I transferred to Minnehaha Academy as a tenth grader and began experiencing school chapels after an up-to-then lifetime of public education, one of the songs frequently performed by the worship team was "Breathe." I didn't care for it from the get-go, because, well I can't quite explain the emotion but it's something like, I thought the lyrics far too simple and obvious ("this is the air I breathe" - "well, yeah, what other air are you gonna be breathing?" I'd ask). But worse, the song came to be sung so often (or perhaps I mean to say, "forced upon us") that it wasn't long until I developed some feeling of animus against it. Hearing the opening notes of "Breathe" could instantly drop me out of worship mode. Here was a song I thought ought be relegated to the annals of Christian music history, a case-study of early contemporary Christian musicianship, but no longer worthy of airtime in "real" worship.

In college, I more or less doubled down on this position.

A few years post-college, I started revisiting my hostility. I'd always maintained that the responsibility for providing a worshipful environment lay solely at the feet of the worship leader / team, but the question was posed to me (by someone, I don't remember who) of what responsibility the worship-goer has toward preparing their own heart in advance of showing up. I continue[d] to mull on this, particularly on the rare Sunday nights that Upper Room would foist good-ol' "Breathe" upon me. Could it be that I bore some personal responsibility for opening my heart wide enough that even "Breathe" could become worshipful again? (or put more Jeremy-bluntly: is it my job to find moments of worship even with poorly made song-selections on the worship planner's part?) It took a while, but I think I've come to the conclusion that, well, yes.

Before reaching that conclusion, though, as a stop-gap, whenever "Breathe" reared its head I would take the opportunity to pray on my own, sitting and disengaging from corporate worship and instead focusing on my own heart and spiritual journey. Ever so slowly, my heart continued/continues to soften toward "Breathe." I still think it was overplayed to the point of ad nauseam years ago, but... now when it encounters me, I'm able to find deep value in some of the words, the earnest desperation that I, too, often feel deep inside:

And I, I'm desperate for you
And I, I'm lost without you

Last week, a coworker with whom I frequently exchange music videos, and who had no idea of my storied past with "Breathe" (until now!) sent me this link, commenting, "Oh my, this is so beautiful..." And I've reached a point where I can agree. This is the most beautiful rendition of "Breathe" I've heard, and I'll commend it to your listening (and prayerful) pleasure:

Listen

Three years ago today, Minneapolis police murdered Jamar Clark, an unarmed black man, younger than I. As has become typical in such cases in present-day America, no charges were filed against the white officers. Let me say that again so it sinks in: Jamar's murderers are known, but never faced charges or a trial.

One year ago this evening, having recently found myself connected in a Kevin Bacon way to Jamar's life, I felt drawn to attend a two-year memorial/remembrance gathering. Unbeknownst to me until parking my car, Jamar was shot just blocks away from North high school, where I attended in 9th grade (my somewhat traumatic experience that was North High is a topic better discussed in-person, rather than online).

I admit some trepidation as I walked to where Jamar was killed; there were perhaps 75-100 or more people gathered, most with different skin complexions than mine, gifting me another rare moment in my life in which I found myself the minority. Someone was handing out candles; I took one gratefully, as the temperature was cold and the candle helped [slightly] to warm my hands. Unfortunately it was also windy, so despite my efforts, my candle did not last long. (I noticed I was not alone in my candle struggles)

On the boulevard stood a cardboard sign with Jamar's name, accompanied by candles and a few teddy bears. People held signs. Someone wore a hoodie with names written on it; as I read I realized it was a list of other police murder victims from the past several years, including local victims Philando Castile and Justine Damond.

Standing alone, I waited, and pondered my place in this; "this" being, among other things and in no particular order: white privilege, living with a local government that allows its employed protectors to kill without serious repercussion, my own confused emotions from attending North High, my feeling of "should I even be here?", and just trying to take in the experiences of the moment. And I was also focused just on trying to stay warm - it was very cold outside. I struggled to imagine the dedication of those who camped in front of the police precinct for 18 days after Jamar's murder.

My notes from a year ago tell me the event started with someone singing, though I no longer remember the song. This was followed by a short and emotionally powerful speech by a white woman, challenging the white people in the crowd that "we have to do better."

Jamar's parents, both biological and adopted, gave speeches, vastly different in tone from one another. I scribbled two phrases that caught my emotions. From the former, as best I can recount it: "Jamar is still here and alive in each of you. We don't mourn the dead; we celebrate his life in each of you who showed up." And from the latter, Jamar's adopted father described how Jamar was killed: shot through the eye at point blank range, leaving black gun powder residue around his face. Understandably, Jamar's father was - to put it mildly - angry. Hearing his not-so-subtle disparaging remarks toward the police was eye-opening to me.

Throughout the speeches, any pauses were filled by a man in the crowd yelling "Listen!" It struck me as odd the first time, then as it became a refrain, I realized in an abstract sense, he might be speaking to me (as a white person who's never given much thought to my own role in "this"), though I think it was an even more generic plea simply for these stories to be heard.

When the speeches finished, the North High marching band began to play, and our vigil took over the street, marching two blocks to stop in front of the fourth precinct. What struck me most powerfully was that we had police cruiser escorts during this march, blocking the street so we could walk safely. With conflicting emotions difficult to convey in words, I was awe-inspired to live in a society in which the very organization against which we were peacefully protesting, was at the same time protecting our right to assemble / protest. The SUVs both in front and in back of the march maintained a respectful distance as we walked, and again I found myself simply trying to process the experience.

Reaching the fourth precinct, there were chants, I think along the lines of "what do we want?" Justice. "When do we want it?" Now. A young black man initiated his own rallying cry: "I say Jamar, you say Clark! Jamar!"
"Clark!"
"Jamar!"
"Clark!"
And so on.

A small group assembled with a portable PA to 'sing' a rap song (I suppose if one knew the song, the lyrics might have been understandable; I found it unintelligible due to the poor microphone + speaker, and lack of volume from the singers).

Finally, we returned, again with police escort, to the spot of the shooting. Emotionally full, I took the opportunity to head home.

A year later, I still reflect on this experience with uncertainty, specifically of what my social responsibility is. Meager awareness is perhaps a starting point but I doubt that can also be my ending point. Yet, I struggle to know what else, besides awareness, I can actually do. In the meantime, another year has gone by, Jamar's murderers continued to walk free, and in our country over another dozen unarmed black men have been killed by police. (Source)

It's time for all of us to listen.

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P.S. Since drafting this blog post a week or two ago, I listened to the book The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, which follows the story of a black teen who witnesses police shoot and kill her childhood friend at a traffic stop. Alissa had recommended the book to me some time ago, though I hadn't known the subject matter until I started reading, nor of course how incredibly timely it would be on this particular week. Though a work of fiction, the story tells truth in a way I think more white people need to be willing to hear. If you have an opportunity to check out the book, or the movie that just came out a month ago (on my todo list), I can't encourage you enough to do so.

Anniversary gifts to Alissa

Alissa and my two-year anniversary was Sunday, and because I'm rather proud of the gifts I made for her, I thought I'd write a short post to brag.

The first hand-made gift was a no-sew fleece blanket featuring Belle, Alissa's favorite Disney Princess:

The second gift is the one over which I'm really giddy: 3D-printed bunnies, hand-painted to look like our real ones:

My Dad got a 3D printer a year or two ago, and has been printing up a storm of 3D gifts ever since. Inspired by his 3D printing, I bought my own printer (a Creality CR-10, for anyone interested) a couple months ago and have been printing my own storm: various accessories for board games I play, as well as decorations for Alissa's classroom (specifically: a TARDIS, a couple elephants [school mascot] and an apple), and other miscellaneous stuff.

A couple weeks ago I found some cute bunny designs on Thingiverse.com and printed those; I gave Alissa the first one as an impromptu gift, which she loved and immediately placed on display near our bunnies' cage. Then I got to thinking about printing another set and painting them to look like ours.

My miniature painting hobby was inspired a year and a half ago after I discovered Sorastro's Star Wars: Imperial Assault painting tutorials on YouTube. Imperial Assault is one of my most favorite board games, and excited by the prospect of painting my miniatures (and by how easy Sorastro made it look), I started investing in paints. I'll post photos of my painted minis sometime, because I'm pretty happy with how most of them have turned out. But, point being: I had all the requisite paints for the 3D bunnies.

The trickiest part was getting a reasonable color for the ears - I never could quite match the bunnies' iridescent pink/salmon-ish color, so settled for the slightly more deep pink/reddish color you see in the photos. The other tricky bit was feathering the gray patches of fur, so there weren't stark lines of white vs gray. After painting the gray splotches (using a slightly darker gray for Daisy's fur than Luke's), some rough dry-brushing with a white dry paint did the trick. After spraying with a protective matte varnish, I also applied a gloss varnish to the eyes and noses. It was a fun little project and even more fun being able to surprise Alissa with these cute little critters :)

Honeymoon adventures

Since many family and friends have been asking about our honeymoon, I thought I'd capture some of the stories while they're still fresh in my mind.

"Wait a minute, Jeremy, didn't you get married almost two years ago?" you ask. Yes, you are correct. We got married November 4, 2016, and were planning to go on our honeymoon the following summer (2017), but for various reasons that didn't end up working out. So, we gave it another shot for summer 2018. On a related note, special thanks to Chris at Skads Travel for all her work making our trip come to fruition. She did a great job!

"Now wait just another minute, Jeremy, what do you mean 'travel agency'? Those still exist?" Yes, they do, as a matter of fact! Knowing that I too easily fall into the trap of "analysis paralysis," I advocated early on in our planning that I wanted to work with a travel agent who could find flights and activities for us, rather than needing to do all the research myself; I knew myself well enough to know that if I dove into all that research, I would have ended up pretty grumpy about the trip, and I wanted to enjoy myself instead. Working with Chris was great: we gave her a list of cities we wanted to visit, some rough travel dates, then she found us flights and hotels and activities, gave us some simple eye-doctor-style choices ("one or two", "two or three"), and off we went.

"Now hold on just a —" Nope, enough interrogation for the moment, on to the stories!

MSP TSA

We started our European odyssey on Saturday, July 28, heading to the airport for an evening/overnight flight from MSP to Edinburgh, via Amsterdam. While going through TSA my stuffed animal monkey (Becca) was frisked by an agent who suspected her of smuggling contraband. We had a good chuckle about this and the agent was even friendly enough to pose for a photo with Becca.

For our first flight, I'd learned our seats were to be right in front of the lavatories (due to airline changing the plane and us losing the original seat selection Chris had made for us), but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. There wasn't a smell (my biggest concern), nor was the traffic to/from the lavatories loud or distracting. Most importantly, we were actually able to recline our seats (I thought we'd be butted up right against the wall, but fortunately that wasn't the case), and even better, could do so without any guilt of inconveniencing the people seated behind us. It was like we had our own little "nook" in the plane.

Edinburgh, Scotland

After a short layover in Amsterdam, we arrived in Edinburgh and took a bus to our hotel (about a half hour ride, and it dropped us conveniently less than two blocks from the hotel, for a fraction of the price of a private transport or taxi). Our room was small, which made sense since we were in the center of town where I imagine space is at a premium, but since we basically were only in the room at night, the lack of space wasn't a big deal.

Some highlights of Edinburgh:

Down the block from our hotel were a plethora of gift shops peddling Scottish-branded touristy things, but most importantly: shortbread :) I even found some gluten-free shortbread for Alissa. We also discovered vegetarian haggis (which we did NOT purchase, but found amusing nonetheless).

During our hop-on/hop-off bus tour of the city, we passed by the Elephant House (where the Harry Potter books were "born"), briefly toured the science museum (sadly it closed shortly after we arrived), saw preparations being made for the Military Tattoo, took a short hike up one of the nearby hills, and saw countless posters advertising upcoming theatricals (the most interesting title I remember was "Famous Puppet Death Scenes").

Our third day in Scotland saw us hopping on an early morning bus ride into the highlands toward Loch Ness. All told it was a 13-hour trip, with stops every couple hours to stretch our legs and purchase food/drink. Our driver/tour guide taught us about Scottish history on the way, which was made more interesting for the fact we were actually driving through some of the areas where the battles he was describing had been fought. Sadly we did not see Nessie while we were out on the Loch; since I know 99% of people who visit do actually see her, I was a bit disappointed that she'd decided to sleep all day when we were there. However, the highlight of the trip for me was seeing the scenic hills/mountains of the Scottish highlands, which I remembered with great fondness from my high school trip to the UK.

That final evening as we walked back to our hotel, we encountered a trio of buskers called The Spinning Blowfish, and watched their bagpipe + electric guitar + drums performance for a little bit.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

The following morning we packed ourselves off for Amsterdam, and took the underground from the airport to our hotel (our hotel was built OVER the train station, so from our room [10th or 11th floor] we could see the trains coming and going). It was about a one block walk from the train station exit to our hotel entrance, and in that one block we were nearly run over by the bike traffic. Oh my goodness the bikes. Take the ratio of bikes and cars in Minneapolis, flip those numbers, and that's how many bikes Amsterdam has - they're everywhere, they rule the roads, and they show no mercy. (and just like in Minneapolis, stop signs don't mean a thing to bikers).

Some highlights of Amsterdam:

The Anne Frank house. (You have to buy tickets months in advance, and our amazing travel agent did just that) This was my reason for wanting to visit Amsterdam, having not too long ago read the book and seen the movie. I think we spent just shy of two hours walking through the house. It feels wrong to say we "enjoyed" it, so the best description I can offer of seeing the rooms, experiencing the space where these families lived, is that it was "very moving." Though I generally avoid writing political commentary, walking through Anne Frank's story does challenge me to wonder about the parallels between the rise of Nazi xenophobia and our current political climate.

After leaving the Anne Frank house, we grabbed lunch and hopped onto a hop-on/hop-off boat tour; unbeknownst to ignorant-me until we arrived, Amsterdam is full of canals! While our boat took us around the city, we became stuck in the middle of - wait for it - a boat traffic jam. For half an hour. We never did know for sure what happened (since they were speaking in Dutch, and we couldn't see what was going on) but as best we can tell, a boat's engine broke down with the boat blocking traffic, and for whatever reason the emergency responders weren't allowed to board it to help (I thought I overheard someone saying if they boarded then the owners would be charged for services, but I'm not sure I understood correctly). After semi-serious jokes from other impatient passengers asking why we couldn't just disembark by climbing over the other boats parked next to us, finally the broken-down boat got a tow and traffic began flowing again. I cannot say I was wow-ed by Dutch efficiency.

We escaped the don't-hop-off-boat and at some point did a hop-on bus tour, followed by meandering the streets on a scavenger hunt for dinner. We examined menus at a fancy-looking (read: expensive-looking) restaurant as the hostess tried convincing us to eat there; I wasn't thrilled with the menu so we kept walking, but after walking away and checking out other restaurants, I came to realize I liked that first one the best, and most importantly they had some Alissa-friendly food options. Reminding myself this was our honeymoon and it would be okay to splurge on a dinner here and there, I suggested we return. This became a precedent for my behavior toward at least two other dinners/restaurants later on in our trip (Jeremy says "no", Jeremy decides he was wrong, we both go back to the first place and eat yummy food). Anyway, if you find yourself visiting Amsterdam, we can both highly recommend the Seasons Restaurant. Oh, and I also impressed Alissa with my Norwegian language skillz when I said "thanks" and "have a good day" to the Norwegians sitting next to us, as I had to ask one of them to move so I could get out from our table.

Post-dinner we wandered around trying to find a juicery I'd spotted the night before, but by the time we found it (silly me hadn't written down a name or address) it was already closed. Oh well. We got a good walk in, at least!

Hamburg, Germany

We arrived in Hamburg the next day, and our hotel was (as my Grandma would've said) "very deluxe." Our room was huge, and included a full kitchen (sink, dishwasher, microwave, fridge, pots/pans/dishes). They also heard it was our honeymoon, so they left some bubbly wine and cookies for us :) And downstairs in the breakfast nook they had 24/7 coffee/tea available. After settling in, we took a walk through a nearby park and found a tapas restaurant for dinner ("tapas", Alissa taught me, are small plates of shareables, so you get several and eat family-style).

The highlight of Hamburg:

The reason we added Hamburg to our itinerary was to visit Miniatur Wunderland, the world's largest model train exhibition. I highly encourage you to spend a couple minutes glancing at their website to get an idea, because this place is so much more than model trains - city after city after city constructed in HO-scale, with tens of thousands of painted miniature figurines, autonomously driving cars+trucks, a fully-functional miniature airport, a 30,000 liter tank of water with boats, and so on. Every 15 minutes, the lights throughout the building fade through sunset to night, and miniature LEDs turn on in the cities (especially striking in the Las Vegas display). In one town, there is a "fire" a few times per hour, for which a half dozen fire trucks peel out of their fire station with lights flashing and sirens blaring. In Pompeii, the volcano erupts every 15-20 minutes and "lava" flows down the side. The Alps in Switzerland cover two floors, floor to ceiling. And throughout, there are hundreds of push-buttons visitors can use to trigger scenes, like a road worker using a jackhammer, or an amusement park ride, or a chocolate factory that dispenses a real piece of chocolate to eat.

There are also some fun easter eggs: for instance while I watched the planes take off and land at the miniature airport, the Millennium Falcon came in for a landing and taxied to a gate, and a few minutes later, the space shuttle Enterprise also landed and was greeted by half a dozen firetrucks on the runway. In a different area, there was a button simply labeled "Banana", which lit up a small cave in which were some Minions, complete with cave-paintings of more minions.

No matter how cool I thought Wunderland was going to be from the photos and videos (seriously, check out this 5-minute promotional video), it far exceeded any and all expectations I had. I was utterly blown away. We spent six hours there, which was more than enough time for Alissa, and not nearly enough time for me (though I will admit a certain feeling of "awesomeness fatigue" set in after a while - it takes energy to keep being amazed over and over and over). I would love to go back and spend about two solid days there to admire everything.

For more photos, check out this Facebook album I created of only Miniatur Wunderland photos (which represents approximately a full third of all photos I took on our honeymoon).

Nice, France

Our hotel in Nice was two blocks from the beach and had plenty of restaurants nearby. Our first night for dinner I ate escargot (for the fourth time in my life, so I knew I'd find it tasty). And our third night (in another instance of "find a restaurant, walk away, walk back and have yummy food") I had... a pizza. In my defense, we were very close to Italy so it was very very good pizza. And I was ready for some comfort food by this point in the trip.

Some highlights of Nice:

Our first full day we took a day trip to Monaco; our driver picked us up in front of our hotel (and he was so happy with us for being outside on time for him - I guess we were a rarity), and along with another family we rode a couple hours over beautifully scenic hills. On the way we stopped at a hillside touristy-town where we walked up and down hilly steps/stairs, ate some delicious eggplant for lunch at a restaurant near the top of the hill, and got somewhat lost in the maze of ups and downs of steps on our way back to the van. Once in Monaco a short drive later, we had two one-hour blocks of free-time to walk and explore different parts of the city/country, before heading back to Nice.

I forget if it was on the way to or from Monaco, but along the way one of those directions we stopped to tour the Fragonard perfumery. To my surprise, this was one of my absolute highlights of the trip, in particular the perfume tasting sniffing, because it was remarkably similar to sniffing wine as part of a wine tasting (of which Alissa and I have been taking lessons from my aunt and uncle). I had never in my life thought I'd get excited about perfume, but, it was really fun trying to pick out the individual flavors smells in each of the samples; also, fun fact: to cleanse the nose's palette(?) between samples, we sniffed coffee. Who knew?

The following day, similar to other cities, we did a hop-on/off tour in Nice itself, which included dipping our toes into the Mediterranean sea. This didn't last long, as the beach was made of rocks and was rather uncomfortable on the feet!

Barcelona, Spain

We flew to Barcelona on what we discovered is officially (possibly actually) the worst airline in the world. When we checked in for our Vueling flight and Alissa asked why the flight was delayed (mechanical issue? weather? something else?), the ticketing agent literally said "On-time doesn't exist with Vueling." Later reading online reviews of the airline was... amusing.

In any case, we did eventually arrive safely in Barcelona, which I think ended up being my favorite city that we visited. (Miniatur Wunderland was my favorite attraction, but Barcelona as a whole was my favorite city). What I appreciated most about it was the streets - Barcelona was a planned city with square blocks and straight streets, sidewalks wide enough for 10 people abreast, and reasonable traffic signals that didn't try to get you run over by cars or bikes (like was the case in, say, Amsterdam). And, though I don't have specific evidence to back this up, Barcelona felt like there was so much more to do (whereas some of the other cities I felt like, "we've done enough now.")

I've often been asked if we saw any Gaudí architecture, to which I reply, "yes, we saw a lot of gaudy architecture" (I wasn't a Gaudí fan; sorry).

Some highlights of Barcelona:

This hotel also was "very deluxe," with sparkling wine waiting for us in the room, our own patio/porch area, and a VERY nice breakfast buffet (all the hotels had great breakfast buffets; this one just went far above and beyond).

We ate a lot of tapas in Barcelona, as there were so many great restaurants near our hotel. The hop-on/off was also quite enjoyable, and we once again got a chance to visit the beach and dip our toes in the sea, followed by a delicious sea-side lunch (immediately before the skies opened up with a thunderstorm! Thank goodness the hop-on bus came quickly).

My favorite activity was a day trip to a nearby vineyard where we learned about their wine-making process; I may not be recalling all the numbers correctly, but it went something like this: their oldest grape vines are 200 years old; early in the grape-growing season, they choose to pick and discard like 80% of the grapes from the vines, so that the remaining grapes get all the nutrients; they hand-harvest their grapes and again discard a high percentage of imperfect bundles. In the end, they produce only about 30,000 bottles per annum, and I learned that winemaking is definitely more of a passion/art than a money-making business. We got to ride through the vineyards then tour the machinery room and aging rooms, filled with huge barrels of their different wines. Finally we concluded with a wine-tasting of four of their wines.

But wait there's more! After wine tasting #1, we went basically across the street to their other facility where they make Cava (sparkling wine from this particular region of Catalonia/Spain), had a whole 'nother tour of their wine-making and aging process (underground tunnels filled to the brim with wine bottles), followed by a tasting of four sparkling wines. At both this tasting and the earlier one we had great conversations with our table mates (there were about 16 people in our tour bus, and then four per table at the tastings). Having gone past the lunch hour with only nuts and crackers to nibble, by the end of this second tasting we were both a little tipsy; fortunately that's why we had a bus driver :)

Athens, Greece

Less than a month prior to our trip, there were some major Greece fires (say it out loud, it's punny) 20 miles from our hotel in downtown Athens, so we were worried those might impact our travels; Fortunately, they were contained/put out/over/dealt with by the time we landed.

For the first time on our trip we took a taxi instead of public transit to get to our hotel (the Dorian Inn), which was a slightly hair-raising adventure owing to our driver's intimate relationship with the center lines on the road. As we were planning our trip, I'd had no strong opinions about hotels other than this one, because it was where I'd stayed on a high school trip to Athens many years ago, and it had a rooftop pool and restaurant with a view of the Acropolis. What I hadn't realized until we neared the hotel, was that the neighborhood has gone downhill since 2001 (or perhaps was never a great neighborhood to begin with, and I'd just been oblivious as a teenager). This opinion was first confirmed in our taxi: as I watched our approach on my GPS and was saying to Alissa "we're just a block or two away now", I had also noticed the streets outside were looking a little... rough; simultaneously, the driver locked the doors. Great sign. Later, Alissa checked our guidebook and learned that it actually recommended avoiding this particular neighborhood altogether, or at least after dark. Well, bummer. The hotel, though, was a very solid three-to-four stars, clean, another great breakfast buffet, and delicious food at the rooftop restaurant.

Some highlights of Athens:

Our first night we walked to a neaby Bulgarian restaurant that was well-reviewed on Yelp, and learned that just because Google Maps labels a road as "yellow" (aka a more major road), that isn't necessarily true; we walked through some sketchy alley-roads on our way there, so we took a different route back. What saddened me the most about Athens is just how run-down the city feels, graffiti everywhere, sidewalks crumbling in some places, it was just very sad. But, the food at the Bulgarian restaurant was indeed very very good and worth the walk.

The next morning we rose early to catch our all-day island-hopping cruise, which was a true delight. We visited three islands, got to walk around and see touristy things; on one of the islands Alissa started petting a cat and was quickly accosted by several more cats wanting love and attention. Apparently public cats are a thing in Greece, where entire communities own the cats instead of individual families, so I don't think any of these were ferrel.

Arriving back at our hotel, we ate dinner on the roof and enjoyed a beautiful view of the Parthenon all lit up at night.

Speaking of the Parthenon, the following day we actually got to visit it! (and Alissa tired quickly of my constant refrain "They say of the Acropolis where the Parthenon is..."; I got quite a chuckle when our next day's hop-on/off tour bus mentioned the "no straight lines" bit and Alissa just glared at me :) What a tremendous view of the city from up there, too.

We ate dinner at a small place called "Vegan Nation" which had vegan+gluten-free foods that were quite tasty. And back at the hotel took turns enjoying a massaging chair near the business center. A couple times we visited the rooftop pool, too, which was surprisingly cold (given the exceptionally hot air temperatures while we were there!) and it took a while to acclimate into the water.

Our last day in Athens we purchased a hop-on/off bus ticket and set off around town, seeing all the things, and taking a stop at the Acropolis Museum. We ate some gelato in the hot afternoon sun, then later in the evening went out for dinner and a wine tasting with a local tour guide (it was just him and us, so we had a great conversation and learned so much about current Geek culture).

When we got back to the hotel, we napped for a few hours, before waking around 2 a.m. (yep, you read that right) to do our final pack and meet our airport taxi.

Homeward bound

Our first flight (Athens to Amsterdam) was delayed, significantly enough that we worried we might miss our connection. When going through immigration (out-igration?) in Amsterdam, I asked the traffic director if we could get into the "short connections" line even though our connection time was technically 10 minutes too long, and fortunately they waved us right into the fast lane, so we had no issue getting to our gate by the time they started boarding.

We slept and watched movies and held hands, sad to see our honeymoon be over.

My parents picked us up at the airport, and when we arrived home we found Luke and Daisy had printed a sign saying "welcome home from your Bunnymoon"; and on our bed, Pooh had a welcome home balloon and a sign that read, "welcome home from your hunnymoon".

The end.

 

Musings on online dating

A friend recently posted on Facebook asking for "words of wisdom, musings, or general thoughts to share regarding online dating," and, probably suspecting that I might have some of the above, he tagged me in particular; that served as good motivation to dust off one of my mostly-written-but-hadn't-quite-finished-it blog posts from a couple years ago and finally git 'er dun.

Before embarking on a treatise about dating, I think it's important to acknowledge that waiting, not knowing when or if you will meet the person who may become your future spouse, sucks. It just plain sucks. Unless you've made peace with it, in which case, kudos to you. For a much better-than-mine essay about the realities of singleness (particularly as they're ignored by most married people on Valentine's Day), I encourage you to check out this article: https://web.archive.org/web/20170606113235/www.redbudwritersguild.com/three-realities-of-singleness-ignored-on-valentines-day/ (the original article was no longer available, but thankfully archive.org had a copy!)

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Now on to my essay.

One of my friends and mentors went on 63 first dates before meeting (and later marrying) his wife. While I only reached one third that number of first dates, I figure that I still learned a few lessons worth sharing during my journey toward meeting my "forever woman".¹

In typical Jeremy conversational fashion I suppose I'll begin with a disclaimer: these are my opinions, and I'm always right. Wait, wait, wait, what I meant to say is that these are my opinions, and I'm not always right. Dating looks different for everyone, so this is only a list of lessons I think I've learned, and attitudes that I found to be healthful along the way.

The most important lessons

I've made so many mistakes² in my dating and relationship career³ (as well as heard plenty of stories from friends!) that I'm finding it difficult to pick one nugget of wisdom as the "most important" lesson-learned. If hard pressed, though, I'd say it's this: asking someone out for a date is exactly that. It's *not* a marriage proposal, or even a commitment to a second date. It's a single [pun not intended] date, with the goal of getting to know each other better to see if either person even is interested enough to consider planning a second date. Going into a date with this mindset relieves an unbelievable amount of stress. (For more on why I believe that, cf my previous blog post: Why I Kissed Dating "Hello", in which I highlight the awesomeness of this article: Why Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed by Thomas Umstattd. Also check out the book How to Get a Date Worth Keeping by Dr. Henry Cloud⁴, and a great essay I found called "How Christians Ruin Dating.")

For me, following the advice from Cloud's book (to ask out as many people as possible, so I could get to know as many different kinds of people as possible, so that I could better discover which traits actually were important to me and which weren't) primarily took the form of online dating on eHarmony. But in addition I also asked women out at church (which in my opinion is a better place to meet people than a bar, but again that's just my opinion), gave my phone number to at least one waitress, and petitioned countless friends if they knew anyone they thought might be a good match (special shout-outs to my neighbors Megan and Michael, and my friends Maggie and Christine, who each took me up on that invitation and set me up on dates with some of their coworkers and friends!).

Living into my philosophy of "it's just a date" took away almost all of the sting when facing rejection. Many of the women I asked out said "no," and though I wasn't very skilled at receiving that early on, after a while it became much easier. Especially with online dating, when someone I messaged didn't respond or blocked me, I learned pretty quickly just to move along and not take it personally. Remembering all the women I myself blocked because I didn't like something on their profile made this moving-on much easier. Eventually I figured out that I should never have to convince anyone into going out with me. If they're not in the same mindset (for example, maybe they were in Camp Courtship), then the time isn't now. If she said "no," I [eventually] learned to be gracious and say "thanks" anyway. While certainly not everyone appreciates being asked out, I *think* most people (both genders) at least find it flattering (as long as you're not creepy or a douche about it). As one woman said to me, "it's always nice to be taken out and treated like a lady."

First dates

For the ones who said "yes," where we did get to go out on that first date: I learned that I should avoid going into the first date with our grandchildren's names already picked out. Instead I found it beneficial to set my expectations only on things within my control. For example, if I was meeting my date for dinner, then my expectations going in would be, "I expect to eat dinner." Notice what's not on my expectation list: having a great conversation, setting up a second date, falling in love, etc., because all of those are beyond my individual control. This comes with the added bonus that, if we did have a great conversation, and set up a second date, then I exceeded my expectations! Who doesn't like saying "that went much better than I thought it would!"? To be clear, this doesn't mean I would go into a date with no hope - certainly I hoped to meet someone I could enjoy spending time with! My point is that I set my sights on what was within my own power to control, and not dependent on anyone else.⁵

Contrary to what popular culture says, I thought it absolutely was important to talk about religion on the first date, at least in a broad sense. Diving into deeply sensitive and highly charged theological issues wasn't on the menu, but asking what church she went to, how involved she was or wasn't, and what she valued/disliked about that church, I considered to be fair game. There aren't any right answers to those questions, I just think it's important to make sure both people are at least playing in the same ballpark⁶, even though it's unlikely we'd agree on every minor theological issue that would come up in later conversations.

Some first dates went terribly. Sometimes conversation was awkward, we couldn't find any common ground, or I saw some other red flag.⁷ My solution was simple: I didn't ask her out again, and prayed to God she didn't mention "getting together again" while we were still talking in-person, before I could safely ignore her messages from the comfort of online. Was that the most mature solution? Nope. I'm not proud of it. I should have learned better from one girl I went out with, who, after I asked for a second date, politely said, "no thanks, I don't think we're a good match," and there were no hard feelings. Eventually I got better at this, but to be honest my preferred method was avoidance.

Other first dates went swimmingly. Or at least, "fine." My general rule on a first date was that if I saw no red flags, I'd 'make the ask' for a second date. Like I said earlier, sometimes my date would decline, but usually she'd accept. My reason for this very conscious decision, is that on date #1 most people (men and women) are overthinking and overanalyzing and as a result not really being themselves. On a second date, that awkwardness is out of the way, making more room for real conversations that matter. So if I thought she was at all interesting and again, no red flags, I'd try to set up that second date right away at the end of the first date, before we parted company.

Second dates

Surprisingly, at least to me, more than a couple times I'd ask for the second date, she'd agree, and then hours or days later, she'd cancel on me. I never figured out if it was something I said, or if it had nothing to do with me at all. For example maybe she, like me, was going on dates with multiple people at once, and maybe another one of those dates took off into an exclusive dating arrangement. I'm also not unwilling to consider that perhaps she prayed, God answered, "not him," and she moved on.⁸ Who knows. Point being, cancelations happen, and you move on.

A related word on interpreting cancelations. I learned that when someone (I believe this applies to both genders) cancels or declines your plans, and doesn't offer an alternative time - for example, "I'm not available Sunday" - that should be interpreted as "I'm not interested." Alternatively, if s/he offers an alternative - for example, "I'm not available Sunday, but Monday could work" - that should be interpreted as a positive sign, because they are trying to make something else work. This applies when asking someone out for a date (initially or for subsequent dates), as well as acquaintanceships where there is no intention of romance.

I also want to call out something I mentioned in passing two paragraphs ago: in my opinion, it's perfectly acceptable to schedule dates with multiple people, up until one of those dates turns into an exclusive dating arrangement (by whatever label you want to call it: dating, relationship, courtship, exclusive, etc). My friends and I call that moment the "DTR": "define the relationship." I'll again commend the article I mentioned earlier, Why Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed by Thomas Umstattd, which delves further into that issue, but I'll summarize it with this quote from the article:

When my grandmother dated in middle school (yes, middle school) her parents had one primary rule for her.

The Primary Dating Rule: Don’t go out with the same guy twice in a row.

So if she went out for soda with Bob on Tuesday, she had to go to a movie with Bill on Thursday before she could go to the school dance with Bob on Saturday.

That sounded crazy to me. So, I asked her the rationale behind it. She explained that the lack of exclusivity helped them guard their hearts and kept things from getting too serious too quickly. The lack of exclusivity kept the interactions fun and casual. "The guys wouldn’t even want to kiss you!" She said.

Lastly, regarding second dates, third dates, fourth, etc: I think it was my friend Pam who taught me, "always compliment her on something on each date," whether that be her hair or smile, and also non-physical traits, like, "you seem cheery today!" or "that's a fun outfit." I admit, I never really got good at this, I'm just passing it along because it seems like sound wisdom.

The "right" person

I've long held to the belief that there is not one and only one specific "right" person for me; rather there are a bunch of different right persons, and life together with any one of them could look beautiful. Vastly different, because each individual is unique and therefore each possible relationship equally unique, but nevertheless each carrying potential for a lifelong partnership. For me, I replaced the question, "are you the right person?" with, "are you a right person for me?" And equally important, "am I a right person for you?"

Availability

Years ago, I told my friend Joe that I wouldn't consider my life complete or successful if I never had a family. He challenged me that I was putting God into a box by dictating to God my conditions for the only possible way I would be happy, rather than having faith that God could bring happiness into my life even if I remained single forever, or never had kids. This provoked a many-years-long prayer, "God, please prove Joe right and prove me wrong."

Eventually, I more or less got to that point, where I could see the joy in my life's future, regardless of marital status. It helped knowing I could also adopt kids as a single parent, if that was the direction life brought me.⁹ As part of this journey, I spent considerable time examining my own emotional health and ensuring that I was ready to date / seek a relationship. This included making sure I was "over" previous relationships, or at least, as "over" it as I could be.

Not everyone I dated seemed to hold this same philosophy. Twice it happened that a woman I went out with decided she wasn't over her ex. The first time this came up, fortunately we'd only had one date, and so while I was disappointed (we'd had a pretty great first date), it wasn't emotionally crushing. As for the second woman who did this, we'd had several dates and many lengthy emails, and I had fallen for her. Coming to terms with her rejection was a very painful and emotionally expensive experience.

This led me to a very important lesson: before asking anyone out on a second date, double check that they're emotionally available.

To quote from one of my absolute favorite books, Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend:

Dating is a means to find out what kind of person we complement, and with whom we are spiritually and emotionally compatible. It's a training ground for marriage. This fact causes a built-in conflict. When we date, we have the freedom to say, at any time, "this isn't working out" and to end the relationship. The other person has the same freedom. What does this mean for the person who's boundaries have been injured? Often, she brings immature, undeveloped aspects of her character to an adult romantic situation. In an arena of low commitment and high risk, she seeks the safety, bonding, and consistency that her wounds need. She entrusts herself too quickly to someone whom she is dating, because her needs are so intense. And she will be devastated when things don't work out. This is a little like sending a three-year-old to the front lines of battle. Dating is a way for adults to find out about each other's suitability for marriage, it's *not* a place for young, injured souls to find healing. This healing can best be found in non-romantic arenas, such as support groups, church groups, therapy, and same-sex friendships. We need to keep separate the purposes of romantic and non-romantic friendships.

There's also the issue of physical availability. I chose to pursue long-distance dates with women in southern Minnesota, Iowa, India, and Australia (Skype and Facebook Messenger calling and FaceTime are all wonderful inventions), and even though long-distance relationships have their own set of challenges (time zone differences and unreliable Internet connections being among them), I found these to be some of my most rewarding and exciting relationships. You might ask, "why on earth would you want to date someone from halfway around the world???" That's a fair question, with a very simple answer: the accents. Also because my friend Ann started dating her now-husband while they lived in different states, I figured why limit myself to only my city? But mostly: the accents. As for the question, "how would that work out?", the answer is one of us would have had to consider moving. For example, India Girl had already planned on moving to the US in the next few months/years; and as for Australia Girl, well, I confess spending a few minutes on Australia's immigration website looking at what their requirements were.¹⁰

Beyond ensuring my own emotional health, part of my "making sure I'm ready to date" posture was making sure I actually had room in my calendar to go out on dates (time availability), and that, overall, I was happy with my life. This is because, as my friends Hannah and Richard pointed out to me, being in a relationship brings out all the stuff you need to work through, and if I'm not happy with my own life to begin with, how should I expect to bring someone else into that? (I bolded that because on reflection I think that tidbit might compete with the "most important" lesson I highlighted at the beginning).

Rejection, and Prayer

During my dating adventures I faced a lot of rejection from nearly all stages (the only rejection I didn't get, fortunately, was when I finally proposed to Alissa - she said yes :). Early rejection on the dating site wasn't too traumatic - like I said before there were plenty of women whose profiles I hid for one reason or another, and some who attempted to initiate communication with me and I chose not to respond. Even asking someone out in person and being declined, kinda stings but after enough practice I found out it wasn't the end of the world.

What did start to hurt was going out on a really awesome date with someone I was really excited to get to know, and then being declined for a second (or third, or fourth) date. What stung even more, was [at least twice] not being chosen in a competition I didn't even know I was competing in: between me and her previous boyfriend. And what stung the most, was falling in like over three weeks of dating then ultimately being rejected because I refused to agree that homosexuality was sinful, which she decided was a deal-breaker because "how would we raise the children?" (this is a true story).

I think it's true for me to say that, in the aftermath of every rejection, I prayed. Earnestly, passionately, tearfully. "God, when? When will I finally meet Her? If not <most recent heartbreak's name>, then whom?" I also prayed for miracles of emotional healing, for God to dull the pain or take it away. This did happen a couple times, where, having emotionally exhausted myself the previous night, I woke in the morning with the ability to say (and mean it), "if that relationship isn't going to be, then I'm excited to meet the woman with whom it will work out." This hope for the future came from recognizing my own pattern: every time I fell for someone, I found her to be in some way even more amazing than the last relationship. Therefore I supposed that whomever God might have me meet next, I would likely find her to be yet more amazing still.

Keeping a focus on prayer while dating is something I wish I'd done better at. I mean, I didn't completely suck, but I could have done better. It's weird to think about online dating in such terms, but I tried (when I remembered) to ask God into that experience, helping me connect with the women who could help me grow as a person (or eventually, connect with the woman I'd marry), and to avoid (or be avoided by) the women who maybe weren't as great a match for me.

Two months before I met Alissa, I had a dream in which my future wife (unknown to me at the time) challenged me with this question: "how will you help me grow closer to God?" It was a fascinating question, one I actually had considered before, but had back-burnered. I think it's an important question to ponder in any human relationship.

Why I chose eHarmony

Before eHarmony, I tried a few other online dating sites without much success.

OKCupid is free, but my experience was that users weren't serious about pursuing romantic relationships, they were on the site more to find friendships or email buddies, neither of which were what I sought.

ChristianMingle gave me my two worst dates of my life. (feel free to ask me about it, I think they're funny to talk about now)

Match.com I never used myself, but having heard negative reviews from friends and a coworker about the quantity of fake profiles, I wasn't interested.

I ultimately chose eHarmony because, despite it being expensive, I'd heard one first-hand success story (a former teacher of mine met her now-husband on eH), and a few second/third-hand success stories. It was the right decision for me.

As I got into using eHarmony, I discovered other perks I liked about eH over the other sites. The biggest perk, for me, was that instead of writing "cold call" messages (in other words, having to create something witty and engaging to write to the other person, based on nothing besides what can be read on their profile), eH provided what they called "guided communication." This process started by sending one's potential match five multiple-choice "get to know you" questions, like, "on a Friday night would you rather... Go bowling, Go to the movies, Hang out with friends, Sit home and relax", or "what's your idea of a romantic date... A walk on the beach, a candlelit dinner, making dinner together, a movie", etc. eHarmony provide 20-30 questions from which to pick, and then the other person will either respond to those by answering them and sending five questions back, or they'll never be heard from, in which case I didn't waste HOURS agonizing over writing a cold call email (seriously, it literally took perfectionist me hours to compose even the shortest of messages on OKC).

After volleying the 5-Qs back and forth, the second guided communication is "makes & breaks" - a multiple choice list of attributes each person sees as deal-makers and deal-breakers. Generally my experience was this stage was a formality, because everyone's lists more or less looked the same. Every now and then I saw something interesting, but typically this stage was more importantly a step to say "yes I'm still interested in getting to know this person."

The third stage is short/long-answer questions, like, "describe your faith," or "what's your relationship like with your parents," or "what's an important lesson you learned from a previous relationship." Again each person chooses which questions to send, or there is a place to write custom questions.

Finally, after both users answer the short-answer questions, eHarmony allows the initiator (whomever sent the first set of five questions) to write an actual "eHarmony Mail" to the other person, and by this point I found there was almost always at least SOMETHING interesting from the question & answers to make message writing easier and feel more natural. Also I valued that, by this point the other person was at least somewhat interested in hearing from me, because otherwise she wouldn't have spent her time answering and sending questions back and forth.

In addition to providing this guided communication, eHarmony's other major selling point (for me) was that they only gave 5-10 matches a day; after those 10 people, you're 'done' for the day. This was huge. A drawback I think of Match and others is that there's never a finish line, it's always, "but what if my perfect person is on the *next* page of search results?" eH took that worry away by giving me an ending point for each day.

Lastly, I'll simply state that I had great conversations with almost every woman I went out with from eH (if memory serves, I think I only had 1 "bad" date from eH). Even if we didn't have a relationship in our future, we still had good talks and I learned much along the way. In at least one case, after deciding we weren't interested romantically, we maintained a friendship for a year or two, sharing new dating stories with each other and asking advice. As well, two of my now-favorite musical groups (Two Steps From Hell, and similar solo projects from Thomas Bergersen) were suggestions from "girl #3" many years ago. What I'm trying to say is that the matching algorithm eH used seemed to be pretty good at pairing me with women with whom I'd at least have *something* in common; might not be the case for everyone who uses their service, but it was true for my experience.

Advice about online dating in general

Perhaps the most "real" advice I received about online dating came from my friend Ann, who told me I'd need to devote at least an hour every day if I was going to be serious about it. This seemed excessive to me when she first said it, but Ann was absolutely right; while reading new profiles took only a few minutes, responding to communications (whether the 5 questions or short answer essays or especially the full-length eH mails) could easily consume an hour or more each evening. Possibly some might call that time wasted, though I'd contend it was more of an investment (in addition to the financial investment I was already making in eHarmony). Any case, I mention this because the time requirement was, to me, one of the most surprising aspects of online dating.

A couple years ago, in reflecting on my own journey, I made a list of other practical advice I'd like to offer to my friend and anyone else embarking on the online-dating road (though admittedly most of this is just reiterating the standard stuff you'll find in other opinion pieces around the web).

• plan to spend 2-5 hours in order to set up a quality dating profile; also, the more pictures you upload, the better; choose also a variety of angles & environments - headshot, torso, full-body, group shots with friends, etc
• once you start communicating with your matches, plan to spend at least an hour a day or more on answering questions/mails, and looking at new matches. I never believed my friend when she told me how much work online dating takes, but it does take a serious time commitment. That's not to scare you away, just letting you know it's not something that will only be like 5 minutes a day.
• dating can become expensive if you let it; when suggesting a date, you don't always have to do dinner/lunch (and even then, it's up to you if you pay for both of you or go Dutch, as long as that's communicated in advance). You can also do activities that are free and still fun, like walks in the park, window shopping around the mall, outdoor street/music festivals/shows, etc.
• have standards, but be open to going on a first date with someone who may be on the periphery of what you thought you were interested in. I'll once again commend the book How to Get a Date Worth Keeping by Dr. Henry Cloud.
• try not to take it personally if someone you were interested in doesn't respond, or blocks you. I'd guesstimate that less than 5% of the women to whom I sent 5 questions ever responded, and of those only a handful resulted in an actual in-person date. It's a numbers game. One of my guy-friends joined eH and then was SUPER picky about who he'd send 5Qs to (like, on the order of one woman a week). I wasn't surprised when he complained to me that he wasn't having any success. On my end, I would send 5Qs to anyone I thought looked even remotely interesting, probably a few dozen each week. Like I said, most didn't respond, but of the ones who did and with whom I messaged and eventually went out, we had a really great time.
• following on to the above two points, if you do see a [figurative] red flag on someone's profile, it's okay to block them and move on; this is also why I didn't take it personally when the same happened to me, because who knows what red flags she might have seen on my profile - you should never have to try to convince someone to go out with you.
• if, during a first date, you decide you're interested in a second date, say so; and try to pick a time before ending the first date. While there is the risk that a lot of people aren't good at saying "no" (so they might cancel later, or might cancel for reasons not at all related to you, like another date they went on has developed into something more), I still found it very effective to "make the ask" for the second date before ending the first one.
• try to avoid putting all your hopes and dreams for the future on one person; it's unfair to both you and them.
• find a reasonable-to-you balance between going on dates, and investing time in your existing friendships and family. They're the ones who'll still be there to reassure you when a date/relationship goes south.
• lastly, something I didn't do and in retrospect wish I'd done more of: trusting God in the process. I wish my prayers were less like "when will I meet my 'one'?" and more like, "please introduce me to the right people at the right time to develop healthy connections, and help me to learn and better myself along the way." In other words, I wish I could have looked at dating more as a journey of self-discovery / self-improvement, rather than a destination to which I needed to run.

Those are *my* thoughts ; some may work great for you, others may not, and that's okay. Do what makes sense for you.

That's probably a high enough word count for this post. I've oft been accused of being too wordy, so, my apologies for not taking time to write a shorter essay.

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¹ My friend Anne introduced me to a turn of phrase I find just beautiful: "forever man" and "forever woman." It's inspired by a Dixie Chicks song called "Lullaby."

² When I use the word "mistake," I'm using this definition:

"It is a decision in which one or more of the factors is known to be dangerous, or poisonous, or compromising, but which we calculate will not keep us from achieving our goals. But when there is no foreknowledge of such factor in evidence, can it be called a mistake? If you walk out on an empty field, and the ground suddenly gives out beneath you, and there was no way to predict it, was any part of your decision making a mistake? No."
- Admiral Cha Niathal, from the book Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Backlash by Aaron Allston

Under this definition, a lesson-learned need not ubiquitously be predicated by a "mistake" (though many certainly are). In other words, when I say "mistake," I mean not "I should have known better," but rather, "I did know better."

³ When I say "career," I mean it simply as a realization and acknowledgement that I am the single common thread in all of my past failed relationships, and therefore it's worth exploring whether and how I grew from those experiences. Some of those lessons are helping me now, in my married life.

⁴ Incidentally, Dr. Cloud also wrote Boundaries, which is another favorite book (and discussion topic) of mine.

⁵ The same rule comes into play in many areas of life. For example, if applying for jobs, don't set a goal/expectation of "I will get a job within the next month." Rather, set a goal/expectation that "I will send out X number of resumes in order to give myself the best chance at landing an interview, and then a job." See also the "practice expectation management" paragraph on my Life Lessons Learned blog post.

⁶ See what I did there? That was a sports metaphor.

⁷ When I say "red flag," I mean "deal-breaker." Like, they smoke, or are codependent, or have no ambition for their life (not the same as still searching for a dream job - that shows that there's at least some thought given toward the future), or they're vegetarian and they would insist on you becoming vegetarian, too. A red flag isn't the same as a yellow flag, which might be something like they still live with their parents (there might be a logical, perfectly healthy reason), or they have crazy work hours (this only becomes a red flag if they aren't willing/able to find some way to prioritize time for a relationship later on, should the dating relationship head that direction).

⁸ Once - and only once - I prayed and got this same answer from God myself. Meaning: I'm more willing to believe someone now if/when they say, "I prayed about it and I don't think we're meant to be."

⁹ In fact on my 6-year plan of post-it notes on my basement wall from before I got married, I had a post-it note labeled "Adopt!" under the 2021 label. Whether or not I was married by then, I wanted to start creating a family.

¹⁰ Back in the day you could get into Australia just by committing a crime somewhere else in the world; turns out they're a little more picky nowadays, and generally frown on criminal records. I found that funny.