Pop The Dom Perignon

It's been almost a whole year since I last used my public thought board with food motifs. I missed it. I haven't written enough lately, and I think I've left things unexpressed because of it. Nothing major, just moments of learning that I wished I had written down with a little style and humor sprinkled around it.

A lot has changed and all of you know me and my life to varying levels of depths so I will recap. In the last year, I have grown to love any time I get to spend with my niece and nephew. I went to confession every month for 2021 and I think I'm 14 months strong which is a significant indication of my desire and trust of God's mercy. Before, I went sparsely, now I seek the sacrament, its grace, and the self-reflection it catalyzes. I was promoted at my job to Head Supervisor of intramural sports and it has been a blessing in so many ways. I am now an Orr Fellow and will be starting my career at Milestone Business Solutions. The company does outsourced HR and Accounting, and I will be joining the sales/marketing/customer relations teams in different capacities. I've started to learn about beer brewing and I am in the middle of my first batch (kinda low expectations). And Last, but the most important, I'm engaged to the love of my life. Pop the Dom Perignon.

That's only my life's recap. I wish I could equally celebrate and talk about my best friends and fiancée (I couldn't resist: she got into med school and is just a daily role model to me), but I would flood this blog with oozing appreciation for the people in my life in novel form.

Lots of change is on the horizon. I could give you my optimistic, perhaps naive, but overall eager outlook on all to come, but of course, instead, I will reflect on the past in this post.

Champagne Popping: I find champagne popping to be an experience worthy of geeking out about. If I allowed my brain to be inspired by Jack, I could nerd out about the physics and chemical reactions (skip to the next paragraph if you don't care). I mean after all, champagne is created by a primary round of fermenting grapes (typically (maybe 100% of the time) from the Champagne region of France.) The a second round of fermentation, called the prise de mousse for when it comes up on Jeopardy. This is when the CO2 is formed in its special bottles. The bottles need to have high pressure in the gap between the wine and the cork, called the headspace (Soon you'll run the whole category on jeopardy). And it also has a precise temperature to optimize the amount of trapped C02. Thus, when the cork is popped, the gas drops dramatically in pressure which creates a reaction in which no heat exchange occurs (or negligible) and then the gas cools 80 to 85 degrees Celsius in a split second creating the water vapor and ethanol vaporizes to create a fog. I don't understand this totally on a molecular or really any level, but it's pretty cool how much goes into an iconic celebratory experience.

I also nerd out about the scene of emotions around champagne popping. First, the antecedent of some big accomplishment happening. Graduation, engagement, wedding, championship, big business deal, etc. all fit the bill. Then, for a moment our joy is bottled up in the same anticipatory pressure that the CO2 is under. Finally, the "pop" of the champagne leads to a burst of emotion that's almost always followed by a smile. It's as if that moment makes the accomplishment official. This joy, the celebration is public, no longer bottled. It turns championship athletes into little kids for a moment, dumping champagne into their mouths and spraying it around like their first time with a garden house. People don't pop champagne alone. It's a moment of celebrating together, even if the celebration is not about you.There's a lot of beauty in it. The anticipation, the pop, and the celebration. Champagne moments mark our lives, and I'm a geek for them.

Here's the ingredients to my champagne pop:

Good Energy

1 TSA Agent

1 Booster shot

Jack,Will, and TJ

Greet One another With A Holy Kiss

Coming Home

Good Energy- I played in a collegiate disc golf national championship qualifier in Cincinnati, Ohio with some friends and some strangers from Purdue. We got to play one of the Pro Tour courses which was amazing. During the car ride there, one of my friends started talking about what he looks for in a girl. He said his #1 quality is good energy. We talked about what this meant and eventually he told me I had great energy myself. It was an awesome and sincere compliment. I love the idea of good energy as a quality. It doesn't have a clear definition, but it's definitely a feeling which makes it more special. It also makes that compliment one of my favorites.

1 TSA Agent- I was lucky enough to go on a vacation with my entire family thanks to my incredibly generous grandfather (I've been blessed with the best grandparents). One TSA line during travel reeked of stress. The body language of the people around us felt down. People dug their heads into their phones so as to not worry about it, but they frequently craned their heads to see if the line was moving. There was one TSA agent trying to manage machines not working by taking a lot of control, and it was confusing and frustrating other agents and flyers. Our family was amongst those stressed, mainly from trying to travel with a couple babies and not enough time between flights, by this slow moving security line... We eventually had to sprint to our gate to make it... In the midst of all this, I had one of the best brief interactions. The TSA agent I went up to had mentioned a couple things to his partner that showed the stress wasn't reaching him in the same way. I approached him with a lot of positive energy, happy to be in his presence of low stress. He responded with a grateful spirit for the positivity. It made me smile as I pulled down my mask and he complimented my smile and instructed me where to go. Not many words were said, but I could tell we both made an impact on each other that day.

1 Booster shot- I got my booster shot in a Kroger. Right before me, a little kid entered and exited with his mom bawling. I went in and chatted briefly with the nurse. She boosted me, but before I left on my merry way, I asked for a sucker (Dum Dum) with way to much eager for a 22 year old man. Although her face registered in my brain as caught of guard, she responded with a quick quip, "well you were very brave." I left with that peach mango Dum Dum, a laugh from her, and lots of excitement.

Jack,Will, and TJ- Jack sneaks his way into the blog pretty often, but these other two men are not frequent flyers. Will and TJ are both campers and friends from Chris Dudley Basketball Camp. These three are nothing alike, but share one trait in common. They are great at hellos. Not the everyday hello, but the "dude it's been a while so good to see you" hellos. You know the ones that make people feel like they've been missed.

Greet One another With A Holy Kiss- In 2nd Corinthians 12:13 and in Romans 16:16 the Bible says "Greet one another with a holy kiss." For whatever reason, these verses have stuck in my mind. The Bible has a truckload of repeated phrases. They are part of the beauty of the story. However, St. Paul writes with tailored and precise messages to his audience. It's peculiar to me that this small tidbit of advice was worthy to write down for both crowds.

Coming Home- I come home way more often than most non-commuting college students. Albeit, most of the time the primary reason is to see Shaelen. However, I am always thankful for my parents excitement to see and hug me. No matter how long it's been, it always feels like I'm welcomed home lovingly.

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Perhaps this blog isn't as well concealed as other blogs, but who said they have to be unpredictable conclusions. Hopefully, I add a little depth to the obvious.

I left one part out about the emotional geeking of champagne popping: the process. Just like champagne, our lives go through a unique process to get to the moment worthy of champagne popping. During this in-between moments, there's a build up of pressure. Hours, days, weeks of effort, stress, failure, work, emotions that make the celebration extra exciting. Those in-betweens can feel long and drawn out, they can feel short and rushed, or appropriately paced, but rarely are they ever absent of need for extra smiles.

So be a mini-champagne pop for people. On the average day, people are living in their in-betweens. There's pressure mounting, hopefully for a positive and celebratory pop, but maybe for something else. I believe we can be a pressure release just by being genuine, welcome or joyful in greeting others. How amazing does it fell when someone is excited for you, or just to see you? Can't we consistently give that to others?

I could pull plenty of examples of this being effective beyond the ones above, and honestly it's rewarding to give it. Greet one another with a holy kiss! Be the mini-champagne pop that brings them a smile during their potentially stressful days.