This will most certainly sound pretentious. Most often we think that we pick music, but every so often I think music picks us. Take Steve Winwood's "Back In The High Life."

If this song reminds me of anything, it reminds me of driving with the windows down with Dad in the old 3-series - and for some reason more particularly driving down Getz Rd in Fort Wayne, IN.

The last time I heard this song was June 18, 1996 (that probably isn't accurate).

While looking for Ryan Hood's Back Into Blue about two months ago (which by the way is impossible to find), I stumbled onto "Back In The High Life" on iTunes. Played the sample. Brought me back. Downloaded it.

Of course as a child I never really listened to the lyrics that closely. As I listened again, it was like listening for the first time. I was taken back by the opening lines.

It used to seem to me
That my life ran on too fast
And I had to take it slowly
Just to make the good parts last
But when you're born to run
It's so hard to just slow down
So don't be surprised to see me
Back in that bright part of town

I don't know about you, but for me I am not sure there is a song that describes life better.

The past three months have been back in the high life. I am now officially a pilot per the FAA. Started a beautiful relationship. Relaxed at night more with friends. Gone to the beach a few times. Climbed a "mountain" here in Georgia. Went to the Orchestra and the Theatre and the Braves game. Guest hosted the Allen Hunt Show. Ate great food. Spent time with great people.

It's strange how you have to fight for that sometimes. You'd think it would be easier to choose the "good parts." And maybe for most of you it is. But I find life almost naturally forces you to ignore the good parts. To keep pushing forward faster and faster even though your not sure what exactly your pushing forward towards.

I'll be writing a bit more now that pilot lessons are over and a few projects are out of the way. I know a lot has happened in the past couple of months. I need to admit I was wrong about my predictions regarding healthcare. I need to post my annual Presidental taxes blog. And I'll get to that. But for now, it's nice to be "back in the the bright part of town."


Photos of the past couple of months can be found here
Flight tracker of the piloting can be found here

Let me guess the question you may have been asking during my two month absence on the blogosphere: where the hell have you been?

I have written and re-written this post at least five or six times over the past two weeks and I can't quite figure out how to communicate what I want to say openly with out sounding pretentious/arrogant/ridiculous so I'll just say this. The simpler answer to that question is: living.

After a very rough fall, and a great conversation with Dick Pritchard - a professor of mine who was visiting in November - I started to make some changes in my life.

Changes in work. Changes in relationships. Changes in priorities.

But single-handedly the greatest thing that I have finally stopped putting off and just took the plunge to do was getting my pilots license. It's been a dream of mine since I was 12. 15 Years later I am going for it. Maybe just a tad earlier than I feel financially comfortable doing so. But I am going for it.

But that in and of itself was part of the change. Rarely are my decisions based on the moment. Nothing is done just "because I want to."

Some of you dwell in the past. Most of you are probably fairly balanced. Me? I am obsessed with the future. And while much of that will never change as it is a part of who I am, the conversation with Dick corrected the path a bit.

I'll still be writing on here some, but probably not as much as I did in the past. Partially because I have lost some of my zeal and passion for this particular area of my life. For a while I have been "forcing it." But also because fast tracking the pilots license and some of the other changes have left little extra time. And I am perfectly ok with that.

If you want to follow the flying progress you can do so at www.andyborgmann.com/Flight/. It's kind of boring now (although I did go to Thomasville and Huntsville), but I promise in the next month it will get a bit more exciting. I've only almost killed myself twice, so I feel like so far that is a good record :) As they always say, "any landing you can walk away from is a good one."

Christmas is coming and I hate Christmas shopping. Truth be told, I was more excited about the 787 taking it's first flight today than I am about Christmas. Does that make me Scrooge? Ehhh...so be it.

But I have to admit I love the new Gap commercial for "comfy sweaters." Scratch that. Like Racked NY said, the phrase "I love my comfy sweaters" simultaneously fills me with joy and yet also makes me want to put a bullet in my brain.

If you haven't seen it yet, well then I am pretty sure the CIA needs to talk to you because you obviously have been living in the cave Osama Bin Laden is living in. But just in case here you go...


But then it got even better. What's better than cute girls excited over Christmas? That's right: 20-something boys imitating cute, excited girls. Enjoy!



Enjoy the holiday fun. I'll be sure to write something more thought provoking later.

We did a show the other night on the 7 lessons of the Tiger Woods affair. But Allen missed one important one: IF you are going to cheat, use a call girl instead of a mistress.

How's that for controversial?

It should be stated for the record that I vehemently appose cheating - both personally and in principle. Some have questioned me on this from time to time because I seem liberal on some of my theology pertaining to sexuality. Despite this assumption being irritating to no end, it isn't the focus of the post. However, let's make something clear: Tiger was wrong.

But this post isn't about cheating. It is about confidants. While reading an article in the New York Post, I came across Ashley Dupree (remember: Elliot Spitzer's call girl) lashing out at the 6 7 mistresses of Tiger. Saying that:

"Here you have all these girls accepting gifts, money, trips from Tiger in exchange for sex -- all the while knowing he is married. And now they all can't wait to tell their stories in exchange for even more money from the tabloids? And I was the hooker? At least I kept my mouth shut."

There you go folks: hookers jumped past grocery baggers for the number 4 spot of people I trust.

1. Attorneys (attorney-client privilege)
2. Doctors (doctor-patient confidentiality)
3. Priests (notice I didn't say Pastors)
4. Hookers
5. Grocery Baggers (bagger-shopper confidentiality)

In college I got into an argument in one of my Pastoral Leadership classes on what to do when someone confesses that they had abused a child. California law requires that you turn them in. I took the unpopular (and right) view that I would not turn them in, and suffer the consequences, because I viewed a pastor-parishioner confidentiality trust to be sacred and necessary for the betterment of the individual and culture as a whole. Why?

Living in a culture where attorneys are the only people we trust with our secrets does not produce healthy people that are empowered to change and better themselves. Many of the problems we face in relationships, marriages, and the like are due to the secrets we carry around.

The purpose behind the sacred trust of attorney-client privilege is that no one would tell their attorney anything if it weren't there. And just as this is necessary for a good defense, having a trusted confidant is necessary for personal and spiritual growth.

It probably seems a bit odd - given that I live so publically - but I take privacy and secrecy very important. People in my life have confessed to a myriad of past inequities - including cheating, abortions, serious drug use, and the like. Stories and circumstances that I will take to my grave. The relief you see in someone's face from the cathartic release of a burden being lifted by openly discussing past transgressions in an open, honest, and non-judgmental environment only speaks to the importance of such exchanges.

So in an odd turn of events, society could take a lesson from Ashley Dupree. When entrusted with private information, keep your mouth shut.

As the esteemed 17th President of the United States Andrew Johnson once said, "Someone cue up Gwen Stefani. I need some banana-related background music."

The case of Eric Holder and the Obama Administration transferring the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 9/11 trial from military court to civilian federal court sets quite a unique precedent.


None of these per se are wrong. But they do establish a different precedent and it doesn't appear the Obama administration has thoroughly thought through the ramifications completley (as evidence in the Lindsey Graham questioning of Eric Holder).

But what drives me most bananas about the KSM trial transfer can best be explained by another case Holder represented while an attorney at the very prestigious, DC-based firm Covington & Burling.

Let's get one thing straight, Eric Holder is a very smart man and a damn good attorney. You wouldn't so much as get your resume looked at for an internship at Covington & Burling with out being intelligent, gifted and talented, let alone land a job there. While at Covington & Burling, Holder represented Chiquita International Brands (you know, the bananas) in the first case of a major U.S. corporation being convicted of financing terrorism.

What basically went down was Chiquita paid $1.7 million dollars to the terrorist organization United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia as "protection money." According to the United States government, this money was used by the USDF to purchase arms and commit terrorist acts of violence.

So what does this have to do with KSM and 9/11? Chiquita is an American company based in Cincinnati, OH. As such, they are protected under the U.S. Constitution and are granted rights and protections.

• Chiquita was innocent until proven guilty.
• Chiquita was not required to testify against themselves.
• Chiquita deserved fair (and probably received fantastic) legal counsel.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others are not Americans. They have never been Americans. And nowhere in our Constitution does it grant rights to non-Americans. Nor can it. The jurisdiction of the Constitution ends at the United States borders.

So why if terrorism is an act of war, and the terrorists are not legal citizens of the United States, are we now establishing a precedent that they should receive the same rights and privileges as civilian Americans? What purpose does that serve?

Now I don't know if the Obama administration is just moving the trials so as to expedite the process of closing Gitmo, or if they are trying to establish new policy and precedent for all terror related cases. But I do hope they have thought through all of the ramifications of their actions, as it is doubtful one could argue their actions are making the US a safer and more just society.

I am starting a new blog mini-series called: lessons in thinking outside the box. It will not be one after the other like other mini-series. But it will pop up from time to time.

In Andy's official point scoring scheme for thoughts, you get most points (say: up to 976) for being logical, and then second most points (say: up to 763) for thinking outside of the box (read: controversial).

So what better way to kick off this new mini series with something that will most likely cause all of you to be grossed out because of an inability to process logic?

I am going to confess something to you that most of my friends already know: I rarely wash my hands after taking a pee. The logic usually goes like this:

1. I don't pee on my hands
2. My penis is the cleanest part of my body
   1. Subpoint #1: It has twice the clothing coverage of any other part of my body
   2. Subpoint #2: I don't feel obligated to wash my hands after holding my arm or any other body part
3. If anything my hands are dirtier than my penis, thus I should probably wash my hands before going to the bathroom.
4. Especially in public bathrooms, I am pretty sure the faucet, etc... are dirtier than my penis so washing my hands defeats the purpose as well

So I was watching South Park last week and I award them full points (1,739) for both logic and outside the box thinking.



The irony in all of this is that I am a super clean guy. Also, I randomly wash my hands all the time through out the day (especially after typing a lot). I just don't feel obliged to after going to the bathroom. So...who wants to dispute this thinking and/or let me hold their baby :)

(Hope you enjoyed the holiday levity, I'll be back to writing about things that matter later in the week).

Recently I got into a fairly surprising discussion with someone on what we really wanted out of life. And I don't mean like wanting to be famous, or wealthy, or a Senator. But when all is said and done, what is it that we really wanted? Or in other words: what is it about being famous, or wealthy, or a Senator that we think will be beneficial to our life?

I even surprised myself a little with the simplicity of my answer (which I am not going to share). But I'll leave it at there are really only two things I want out of life. That's it. Two.

I have since had this conversation with a few other people to decide whether or not I am crazy. The verdict is mixed. But most agree that "knowing me" they don't believe my simplistic answer.

When I was in college, a relative of mine sent me a book to read titled Running on Empty: Contemplative Spirituality for Overachievers by Fil Anderson. There are two things I remember about this book.

1. How super offended and hurt I was that this person sent me the book. It sounds a bit overly sensitive (and looking back it probably was), but nevertheless it had some larger context to the feelings.
2. More importantly, the story of the fisherman and the businessman.

It's a bit long, but I read it 5 years ago and I still can't get it out of my head.

There was once an businessman who had finally taken some time off work to go on holiday with his family, whilst taking a walk on the beach one day he saw a fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore and noticed that the fisherman has caught quite a number of big fish. The American was really impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”

The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a few hours.”

“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and you could catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.

The fisherman replied, “This is enough to feed my whole family,” he says

The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day then?”

The fisherman replied, “Play with my kids, take afternoon naps with my wife in the hammock, go out in the village in the evening with my friends for a drink where we play the guitar and sing.”

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.

“I am a specialist in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. And when you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. As you go on, you will be able to afford to buy more boats, recruit more fishermen and lead a team of your own. Soon you will be able to set up your own company, your very own production plant for canned food and do direct selling to your distributors. At that time, you will have moved out of this village and to the City, and then expand your operation to around the world, and finally you can set up your HQ to manage all your other branches.”

The fisherman asks, “So, how long would that take?”

The businessman reply, “About 15 to 20 years.

The fisherman continues, “And after that?”

The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, by then you will be rich, your income will be coming in by the millions!”

The fisherman asks, “And after that?”

The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house on an island, play with your kids, take afternoon naps with your wife in the hammock, go out in the village in the evening with your friends for a drink where you play the guitar and sing”

The point is that a lot of the time we think we are working hard towards a life that we want, only failing to realize what we really want might be right in front of us and attainable.

It's a question I ask myself almost everyday: what is it that I am working so hard for and how does that fit into what I want out of life?

What about you?

(And if you don't want to share your own, feel free to try and guess mine)

Let's be honest. I am grammatically retarded. This should not be a shock to anyone who reads this blog. I write like I talk. Spelling doesn't matter. And as long as it communicates the point, what difference does grammar make, right?

For the most part though it hasn't really cost me anything in life. Other than not winning the highest Yearbook award in the country for a beautifully designed and photographed, but very poorly worded and edited yearbook - <sarcasm>which I obviously am still very upset about</sarcasm> - I seem to do just fine being grammatically retarded (despite what my English teachers said would happen).

But being grammatically retarded has an upside. I make up words. This is both hilarious and awesome. But not only do these words get made up spontaneously in conversations, they also come with definitions.

In honor of "unfriend" being Oxford's 2009 word of the year, let's take a look at my words.

Ban^•chee - the word that started it all. I think CJ might have actually said it first. But I came up with the definition: an expression of great amount in noun form. For example: That hurt like a banchee. Or: I am driving faster than a banchee.

Scu^•ba Steve - sure I didn't make this word up. It comes to us from Big Daddy. But in my vernacular, it is used to describe an non-named person. If there is anything I am worse at than grammar, it is remembering names. Thus, people's name I can't remember are named Scuba-Steve.

Womb Dad^•dy - now this one is completley an Andy original. It defines a man who has kids, but who's mother (and to a lesser extent father) still does things for him that he should do on his own. Thus, he is a dad who never left the womb. Get it? This is the most popular word I have made up, and has entered some of my friend's vocabulary. This may be the thing I am most proud of in life.

But then there is Deb^•en^•oir - another Andy original. It defines the atmosphere and/or feeling in a area or group, but can't be outdoors. For example: the debenoir of that church wasn't very Baptist before, but it is now.

And frankly Debenoir should be the 2009 word of the year and I need your help. Allen and I discussed this on the air and I got made fun of pretty bad. Feelings were hurt. I cried myself to sleep. I am pretty sure someone, somewhere at the same time was clubbing baby seals.

Anyone can use words everyone else uses. It takes a genius to make their own words. I mean, I can use a light bulb, but Edison was the genius who created it, right?

So what I need you to do is go to www.allenhuntshow.com and vote in the poll for Debenoir as the 2009 word of the year.


(PS The strange pause in the middle of the conversation is me trying to answer
calls and argue with Allen at the same time)

The other day I broadcasted to the world via Twitter, Facebook, Google Wave, and Messenger Pigeon the important and life shattering news that I have decided to purchase a gun. The reasons for said gun purchase are quite irrelevant (unless of course your are my mom).

But the Facebook conversation that proceeded (below) inspired me to explain myself with a bit more detail.

Now I freely admit most of you will discredit me as a source on the topic of gun laws because I interpret the 2nd amendment to say that, "people of a state - whether militia or individual - should be allowed to own the same level of weaponry as the federal government."

Extreme, right? But let us remember the mindset of those who wrote the Constitution. Jefferson once said:

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

Now before you jump on me for being ignorant and throwing in all the accidental shooting statistics and other "vanilla, mothers running the world" arguments: stop. I have heard them. I know them. Hell, the President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence - arguably the largest gun-control lobby in the world - has been a long time family friend. I get it.

But here is what it really comes down to: Castle Rock v. Gonzales.

In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court decided in June of 2005 that we could not sue police departments for not protecting us in the event of violence committed against us, nor could we sue fire departments for not rescuing us. So the long and the short of it is: the Supreme Court says your safety is your responsibility and only your responsibility.

I don't think most Americans would argue with this per se. Most would acknowledge suing a police department after getting shot for not protecting you would be a ludicrous precedent. But for some reason we don't seem to make the logical conclusion that when in a dangerous situation, protection is our responsibility and should be taken seriously.

But let me be clear about this: Jesus doesn't give a damn about gun control (or taxes for that matter). When Christians call into the show and try to justify why "Jesus would be a republican," they always seem to lump in defending the right to bear arms as a "faith issue." It isn't.

And frankly, the only justification I could ever see against owning guns comes from the mouth of Jesus and that is "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Although he eventually did tell the Disciples it was time to purchase a sword to defend themselves).

Thus the way I see it is that Jesus is neutral on whether or not I buy a gun, and the Supreme Court wants me to. So it's time to go gun shopping because that Ginsberg scares the crap out of me and I don't want to cross her.


Enjoy the Facebook conversation on the topic below