Dateline 10-1-2017

Last night ended up being a mixed bag of fun times with my family and the traumatizing experience of being in a room full of baby boomers. As always, the family aspect was fun because my second cousin/aunt and her friends who are in town for a work conference are a fun group of people as are the other family members who dropped by for a get-together.

For the most part, the night was rather fun as all of my elders shared tales from when they were growing up. This second cousin once removed, or however that math adds up, lived in town when I was growing up so I didn't feel left out of their reminiscing even though their stories went back to before I was ever born.

I was also entertained by watching this room full of baby boomers all talk about pop culture and technology trends in that tone where they seemed desperate to remain relevant while being off enough to highlight that they don't know what they're talking about at all. Every app name they mentioned was a little off and every "obscure" band that they claimed to be fans of where sell-out groups from several years ago.

The only part of the night that sucked was when these religious folk would get into politics because of how depressing it was to hear firsthand how intolerant these holy people are. Luckily this didn't happen much but, unfortunately, we were watching college football leading to the discussion of the anthem controversy where I was the only one in the room who felt that using your right to protest was valid no matter what the cause.

As for the rest of the room, these people were just not having it. I do get where they are coming from due to my family's connection to the military but I couldn't grasp how they couldn't understand how any form of free speech is what the family fought for, so this type of protest is a big part of our countries history.

I'd be fine if their military upbringings were the driving force of their frustration but being from San Diego there was also anger over the Chargers leaving as well as a few racial undertones. Don't get me wrong, these racial views weren't blatant and my family is genuinely very accepting but as religious Republicans, their intent gets questionable when talking about policy. 

This is probably the most disappointing thing to me when it comes to religion because by far I've experienced more intolerance from those who claim to love thy neighbor than from anyone who lacks belief. Hell, even the Methodist faction of the family thinks that the Mormon Jesus believers have it completely wrong and vice versa.

As the families only Atheist, it can get rather depressing when all that I really want is for mankind to get along no matter the affiliation.

Oh well, I'm never going to see this in my life so it's time to get on with my day. As always, I'll check in tomorrow with another update where hopefully I'll be in a better mood.

Talk to you then,

The Wicker Breaker