Spent a few days in Dallas in back2back2back meetings. Good to be with my teammates, especially as the bonding gets a little more stronger with every meeting. We 12+ directors only meet together once a quarter. Then we’re again scattered like the wind all over the US of A. Once in a while running into each other at conferences.

And it’s been a sombering week, with prominent tragedies all over: 43,000+ people @ cyclone in Myanmar (aka Burma), 50,000+ people @ 7.9M earthquake in Sichuan province of China, 25 people @ tornados in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Georgia, 90 people @ Jaipur bombings in India, and the on-going war battles in Iraq.

The one that hit closest was the plane crash piloted by Pastor Forrest Pollock, accompanied by his 13-year old son. Pastor Pollock was flying en route to Dallas for a conference I was attending on Monday and Tuesday, but he didn’t show up in time. About a third of the way through, we heard about his plane being lost. The next day, we heard the plane was found: crashed. No survivors. See press release from Leadership Network + any of the 63 news articles crawled by Google News.

Pollock pastored Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida. View and sign guestbook over at serenitymeadows. The Celebration of Life service for Pastor Forrest Pollock and his son Preston will be webcast live on Saturday morning May 16th at 9:30am (Eastern).

Culture is always changing, some faster, some slower. I’m one who loves ideas, not as an avoidance of real world real-time life, I hope that’s an accurate assessment. I find myself often thinking about interplay between Gospel and culture. I confess I need help moving from thinking to action. Lots of help.

Tim Keller (at Dwell Conference last week) mentioned a super way to keep a pulse on culture, especially for a New Yorker(?) — check Arts & Letters Daily. Every day it has book reviews, opinions, and essays.

So it’s looking like another action-packed month for me. I have this propensity to cram lots of activities together. Have a compulsion to stay active. Though yesterday, found myself sleeping more hours than usual. With that much going on, I’ve not kept up with the blogosphere conversation for over a month now. Get a glance occasionally at twitters of live stream tweets. No heady Arts & Letters Daily either.

This week is the move, and have to do much apartment cleaning too. Then a quarterly staff meeting in Dallas next week, plus UYWI 08 - Urban Youth Workers Institute conference at Azusa Pacific University. At least the latter is within driving distance.

Watched ‘The Bucket List‘ on the UA flight 405 from LGA to DEN, Jack Nicholson + Morgan Freeman.. I blog this as I watch it to the end. Love hearing Morgan narrate. Masterful.

Morgan’s character’s a trivia buff, cited a stat- of a 1,000 people surveyed, 96% don’t want to know the date of their life’s end.

Yet it’s certain. Not sure what the ignorance does. I’ve given that day some thought over my years, probably younger than most.. What I hypothetically dread is pain or loneliness or blood or hospital residency or life support (of any kind) or prolonged wearing out of my earthly tent. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to get there any sooner, but I would prefer that it’d happen fast and unconciously. (See, I can be reflective.)

So the idea of the bucket list and the popular web 2.0 portal 43things is listing all the things you’d want to do in a lifetime. For people who like planning, that’s fine for them.

I hate planning– even for the next meal, much less tomorrow. But have to do that planning thing for everyday life in the real world.

I don’t not have a big list. For me, I do have a few to-do’s on my short list. I’ll add more as I go. Hit the ground a-running. One is to travel more internationally, experience more world cities. I’ve only been to 3 in my adult life. I’m anticipating Tokyo is next. Have to figure out (and plan) how that’ll happen. Tips are welcomed. Harigatogajiamus.

Mostly packed and ready for my second New York City trip this month. I just checked-in online and printed out my boarding pass. (Last time, departing from NYC, my failure to do this was the decisive factor that made me miss my flight.)

On this go around, I’ll be there for 5 days/ 4 nights, which includes the sold-out Dwell Conference, a Yankees baseball game, staying at a hotel in Upper East Side, and who knows what goodies I’ll eat.

I had blogged about the Dwell Conference on 2/21/08, and had set a reminder to myself to register a week later. Well, wouldn’t you know it, a whole rush on registrations happened that very week, and it was sold out! (Did my blog have something to do with it?) I was left with no (legitimate) way in, and already booked my air travel and hotel! I pulled strings left and right, pleaded and begged, even making a trip to Mars Hill Seattle, but no go. I was #41 on the waiting list. And then my colleague had to cancel her trip on Thursday 4/24/08, and we got her registration transferred over to me. Voila, I’m in!! What an answer to (a desperate) prayer!

There’s 90% chance rain on Monday (tomorrow), but I’m in the plane most of the day. I hope that doesn’t mean a flight delay.

I have to get up at 5:00am to catch a shuttle to the airport, so I’d better be off to bed. (btw, recent personal news: closed escrow last Friday on condo town home + see photos; update – I’ve added a tumblr blog for mundane everyday stuff at daily.djchuang.com for a glimpse of my mundane life)

For real-time updates, follow me on twitter.com/djchuang >>

I’ve been a Starbucks card member for years. Years I tell you. I’ve worn out at least 3 cards from heavy usage over time. I’ve had to ask the cashier to transfer my credit to a new card, because the old one was losing its magnetism. Automatic recharge on the card was nice, as was the quicker swipe on checkout was too, but mostly marginal.

The most recent change that Starbucks has added as bonuses to the Starbucks card are a good start: syrup and milk options for free, brewed coffee refills for free, free drink with whole bean purchase. (I don’t know why the graphic avoided the word free.)

Now, here’s some of my wild-brained ideas that I’ve submitted to myStarbucksIdea.com — register there as a user for free, and vote for these! and/or add comments there for these ideas!

• delicious soft serve ice cream and/or frozen yogurt
• 30 daily featured drinks + top 10 selling drinks scoreboard constantly updated
• improve website by combining similar ideas [where I mentioned askanything.marshillchurch.org]
• great drink with no sugar and no caffeine
• web sequel: my Starbucks drink website — as in myStarbucksDrink.com
• suppress receipts without saying No every time

Ya think any of these have a leg to stand on? FFT (fan-freakin-tabulous)? awesomatimistic? kewl beans? off the hook? perfectomundo?