time management

I don't take many vacation days. I never have. There are two reasons for this. First, Golden and I tend to stay near home unless we are visiting family. Second, I view vacation time the same way that I view money. Before I spend it I feel that I should have some saved back for emergencies.

I do like to take vacation time around the Christmas holiday, though, because we need to see family that we don't see frequently and it allows me to get good bang for my buck on my vacation days. I will technically be on vacation from December 24th to January 2nd, but I will only need to spend four vacation days for that ten day break.

The company I work for doesn't tend to like employees stocking up excessive vacation time so I may need to stop being so prudent shortly. I will also be getting an extra week of vacation every year starting in May, so I will have little reason not to take some occasional time off. Maybe that will be the turning of a new leaf for me. I'll have to think about that when I get back from this vacation.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

small talk

My first job after graduating college and getting married was not a good job by any stretch of the imagination. It didn't have anything to do with my major in college. It was what I was supposed to do at that point in my life, but I can honestly say that I have never had a worse job at any other time in my life.

The position was temp data entry clerk. The pay was lousy, the supervisor was sadistically evil, and almost no one in the office knew me or really cared to make eye contact with me. At least that was the impression that I got.

There were a couple of ladies who sat next to me who always brightened my day. One was probably in her mid fifties and the other was probably in her early sixties. We weren't really supposed to take time to talk, but that didn't keep them from striking up conversations. As has been the case many times in my life, they treated me like one of the girls. It kept me from thinking about the lousy job so I didn't complain.

The younger woman talked to me the most because she sat next to me. Once she made me listen to a Prince song on her discman so that I could assess whether I thought it was sexy. She went into great detail about her first failed marriage and other family issues that she had lived through. Once she even complained that one of the other women in the office should be wearing a bra. How do you respond to any of that?

I didn't get as much time to speak with the other woman. I did hear about the llama that she was raising. She also talked about her divorce, but not as much as the younger coworker because she didn't have the same opportunity to do so.

When we didn't have things to type, we would go to the file room to help out where we could. There were a three or four people whose job it was to work the file room. One of these people was a man who looked like he was in his early thirties. He was a very nice man, but he was kind of awkward in a cheery way (if you can imagine that). I really felt for him, but he didn't ever seem to have a depressed approach to life, so maybe he didn't need my pity.

One day while I was filing I heard the conversation below (or at least a very close approximation of what is below) between this man and the older of the women I worked with. It started when she was talking about some run of the mill movie that she had seen recently.

Nice but clueless man: I just saw a movie that you would probably like.
Sixty-something-year-old woman: Oh really?
Man: Yeah, it is called Bring It On. I think you would enjoy it.
Woman: Really? What is it about.
Man: It is a cheerleading movie. If you like cheerleading movies, you would like it.
Woman: (Didn't really say anything.)
Man: It's about these cheerleaders who... (He went on to briefly describe the plot)

I nearly choked to keep from laughing. I couldn't see them because a shelf of files was between them and me, but I couldn't help picturing in my mind what the expression on my poor coworker's face must look like.

I am sure somewhere there was a sixty-year-old woman who enjoyed the movie Bring It On, but I am quite sure that this was not the target demographic for the movie. I am also quite sure that the women I worked with were not the exceptions to the rule who would have liked this movie. If you do happen to like cheerleading movies, though, this may just be a good renter for you.

the graduate

This weekend we went to Springfield to see Ms Carisma's (my sister) graduation from MSU, which was formerly SMSU. She was to get her MBA. I was going to get to see family, which was a little exciting, but I was also going to have to sit through a graduation, which was less exciting. I have sat through three graduations so far at Evangel and I remembered three hour long ceremonies that seemed to drag on forever.

The graduation was in the arena where basketball games are held. There were chairs set up for graduates on the court, and the rest of the seating was first come first served. We showed up early enough to get seats near mid-court three rows up.

The ceremony was for business and education graduates, and apparently a few stranglers from other programs. I counted 600 in all. Given my past experiences I was ready for a long ceremony.

Ms Carisma was one of the first students to walk into the arena and so was about the fifth or sixth of the six hundred there to have her name called and receive her hood. She sat on the front row, which I found kind of humorous because she had commented that she would have to do her best to stay awake. You can't hide that you are sleeping on the front row.

The main speaker was relatively humorous and gave a speech that probably was better directed toward me than toward my sister. The main gist of it could be summarized by the statement, "Be skeptical rather than cynical because cynicism is laziness." He probably spoke for twenty minutes.

When names started getting read off I noticed that there were two people reading names. Graduates walked to podiums on either side of the court and so it essentially doubled the speed of reading off the graduates and having them come up. At Evangel, the process easily took 30-45 minutes. I think the entire process at Friday's graduation took 15 minutes.

Within 65 minutes of the start of the ceremony it was complete. We almost waited for a table at the Outback longer than the actual graduation ceremony took. This improved my opinion of the situation tremendously. It was nice to get time to talk to and eat with family afterwards.

I have two closing thoughts. First, why do institutions of higher learning bother with an alma mater song? They are always real hokey. Second, now I am the least educated between me and my sister. I hope it don't show.

pop vs soda

Unless I think it will help my communication with someone who uses the word "soda" I don't use that word. I grew up saying "pop," so that is what I call it. I tended to live in areas where people call it "pop," so I always thought that most people used the word. When someone says soda it still sticks out to me.

When I visited California for work a few years ago, I met up with a friend in the area and we drove along the cost north of San Francisco. We found a restaurant near one of the beaches, which were colder than you might expect in July, and enjoyed lunch. When it came time to order I asked the waitress what kind of pop they had. Her response: "You're from the Midwest, aren't you?" Was it that obvious? She went on to say that she hadn't heard the word "pop" since she lived in Chicago. That relieved me a little embarressment because Chicago is not a backwater place.

I was already aware of the site, but the Pop vs. Soda page has a bit more significance to me after that experience. One useless thing I noticed is that areas that vote more Democratic in presidential elections (the linked site reverses the red and blue voting counties) tend to use the word "soda" and areas that vote more Republican tend to use the words "pop" or "coke." I think they both have to do with geography more than anything else.

I don't think I could get comfortable saying "soda" much even if I tried. It's like changing political parties. You should only do it because of deeply held beliefs or to spite your parents.

it's a gift

• Random Bargain Bin CD: $3.00
• Musical socks: $9.99
• Chia pet: $15.99
• Embroidered sweater: $34.49
• Gourmet snack basket: $57.95
• The look on their faces when they open your gift and see that you don't have a clue what they really wanted: Priceless

It seems that a lot of things that people would never spend the money on for themselves are popular purchases come this time of year. Why would a person buy themed boxers if it weren't an act of desperation? There should be a better way of going about this.

The people who have to buy for me must be especially frustrated. Each year I put the same things on my wish list: Some C.S. Lewis book I don't yet have, any book of comics (Dilbert, Far Side, etc) I don't yet have, and any XBox game I don't yet have. I don't know how to make a better list. I don't really look around at what I might want to have at other times of the year because I don't like to be tempted to spend money. When this time of year comes around, I don't know what I want to put on a list.

Golden completed the last of the family gift buying yesterday, so I am happy we won't have to resort to buying musical socks this year. If we forgot anyone, I hope that person likes chia pets.

it's a mystery

The question of the week in Elevate class was whether we were thinkers or feelers. I am a thinker. Apparently thinkers tend to try to make God logical or explainable. To be a Christian is to be a mystic, our text claimed. You can't be a 100% thinker and accept Christ because you can't understand God enough to simply accept Him out of logical knowledge. This is probably true. I do think there is a real danger at both ends of this spectrum, though. If you think everything can be scientifically explained then you will never have enough answers and if you think that all truth is a mystery your doctrines will probably veer from truth quickly.

There is one major reason that I am not a feeler. I hate to be manipulated, especially by emotional means, so I would rather know whether something is true before getting all wrapped up in it. It's probably something like the person who has been burned in relationships so many times they are afraid to try any more. I am completely emotionally cold in any situation where I think my emotions might be manipulated.

At the beginning of class we had a perfect illustration of going too far in feelings without much thought. An individual from the church came into class to explain that we should not be shopping at Target because they are not allowing the Salvation Army to solicit for donations on the store premises. This is true, but not the entire story. Target has actually had this policy for all groups besides the Salvation Army for a while, but decided recently that if the policy were to stay in place it should apply to the Salvation Army as well. This is understandable, and it is hardly an assault on Christianity. If Focus on the Family says it's true--but I digress.

Because of situations like this, one of my favorite web sites that I visit very frequently is snopes.com. The purpose of the site is to investigate whether specific urban legends, email forwards, and old wives tales have any truth to them. There is a page that contains the latest updates to the site and I frequent almost daily. I was floored by the numbers of false stories I have heard in a church setting that are detailed in the Glurge Gallery and the page on Religion. At my office you have been "snoped" if something you asserted has been proven untrue. Believe it or not, I am not the most active person to "snope" others in my office.

For all my passion, though, I have to acknowledge that it all pushes me more to the extreme of not allowing myself to be a feeler. It's not wrong to be a thinker, but it can't be healthy not to be a little bit of a feeler too. I believe that this is a conflict in my personality that I will always have to deal with. I'd rather overthink something than be sucked in emotionally to it. I just need to make sure that isn't my undoing.

out of shape

Growing up I was always as active as any other boy, but for some reason I have never had the endurance of most other boys. Since I was smaller than most I always attributed it to that, but when I reached college I determined that this could not be the case.

Over one Christmas break my mom took me to the hospital to have tests run. My heart was fine. X-rays revealed nothing but a minor case of scoliosis (in elementary I complained that I had schooliosis, so I actually wasn't too far off), I tested negative for asthma (which is good because my dad had asthma), but the tests we got back said that my lung utilization wasn't perfect, but was not horrible.

Fast forward to today. I don't do too much that would qualify as exercise in part because I can't last long doing anything aerobic, and in part because I am lazy. Because I don't do much exercise when I have to do any exercise it takes a lot out of me. What do I mean? I am still sore from shoveling snow for forty minutes on Thursday. How pathetic is that?

happy kwanzaa

Merry Christmas! Happy Channuka! Happy Kwanzaa!

There are two dualling aspects of my personallity that come out around this time of year. One part of my personallity appreciates the fact that American and corporate culture as of late takes great strides to not exclude people. Another part asks whether there are actually Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa.

In one episode of Futurama Bender takes over the role of the robotic Santa Claus and runs into Kwanzaabot, who promptly displays a book entitled What The Heck Is Kwanzaa that has a bunch of confused kids on the cover. That is how I think most Americans view this holiday.

Christmas is ingrained into the American tradition. Channuka is ingrained as well, albeit to a lesser degree. I have yet to meet anyone who actually celebrates Kwanzaa, though.

I am not saying this is a bad holiday. As this site attests, many of the traditions around the holiday are very laudable. My complaint is that including Kwanzaa with Christmas and Channuka smacks of politically correct posturing.

The purpose of including Channuka is two-fold. First, most Jewish people who honor this holiday do not accept that Jesus is the Christ, so celebrating Christ's birth even indirectly could be a conflict of interest. Also, a substantial percentage of the American population are observant Jews, and so to include Channuka as part of the holidays is relevant.

Kwanzaa, on the other hand, is not a holiday that is celebrated at the exclusion of Christmas by those who honor it, and I don't know yet that many people do honor it. It could be that I am not in the right circles to get to know someone who does celebrate Kwanzaa, but I don't think that I would know many people who did celebrate Kwanzaa even if every single friend I had came from an African heritage.

In truth, I think it's a great thing to tell someone who honors the holiday to have a happy Kwanzaa. I just think it is a mistake to mention it like it is an alternative celebration to Christmas.

Update (September 29, 2010): I have since learned that some people who celebrate Kwanzaa do indeed replace Christmas with it, leaving my argument invalid. You live, you learn.

replace with bloc?

Every time I do a spell check in Blogger with a post that includes the word "blog" I am asked if I want to replace the word with something else like "bloc." This is humorous on a couple of levels. First, and most obvious, is that I am being corrected when I am posting this text to my blog. Second, who actually uses the word "bloc" except within narrow discussions in political science?

Someone needs to take this up with Blogger, which is a word I was asked to replace with "Blocker" when I ran the spell checker. Figures.

tithing

Sunday's lesson in the Elevate class was on money. We went through the whole discussion about when it is good and bad, which I won't address here, then touched on the topic of tithing. I relayed my feelings in class and appreciate Forrest putting up with me hogging time in class, but I would like to reiterate here in a more structured form what I think of tithing.

I grew up thinking about tithing like a rule that must be followed. I think a lot of people have the same view I had. It's like paying taxes, or as I said in class, paying an employee minimum wage. It is illegal to pay less, and to pay more is going above and beyond the call of duty.

There are three problems this creates. First, it demands that obedience be to the letter rather than spirit of the law (and it is part of the Law that Christ already fulfilled). Second, it allows people to believe they can measure themselves spiritually against someone else. Third, it does not address the reasons that we are to be generous (support of ministry and helping the poor).

My view on tithing is that, even if I am giving ten percent to a church, it is not really a tithe. It is an offering. If Golden and I were to give 5% or 15% that would be because that is the amount that we determined we should give to a church or ministry.

The entirety of my doctrine on church and charity giving is formed by specific passages in the New Testament. In Matthew 6 Jesus tells a crowd not to be like the hypocrites who announce their giving with trumpets. In Matthew 23 Jesus calls those who emphasize tithing over more important matters of the Law hypocrites. (Note that Jesus' audience was actually under the Law at the time.) In Matthew 25 Jesus lists care for those who are less fortunate as a big part of what separates the sheep from the goats. In 1 Corinthians 16 Paul tells that church that they should consistently set aside money for ministry. In 2 Corinthians 8-9 Paul reminds that church of the following points.

• They should give as they have already purposed in their hearts.
• They should not give begrudgingly or under compulsion.
• Their generosity will be rewarded. (money given with the intent to receive more is not generosity.)

I haven't really said much of what I have interpreted from the passages above because I think they are generally self-explanatory. I do think some of what is said in those passages is largely ignored (especially about not letting the right hand know what the left is giving). Basically, what I believe is that we are not under a law that states we should give 10%, but rather we are under a law that specifies that we should give generously.

When I hear someone preach on Malachi 3 I want to scream, "That was for the Israelites! They got the rule, but we got the principle."

dropped on

When I see someone accidentally drop a glass of something on someone else, I typically feel for the person who dropped the drink more than the person who was on the receiving end of the liquid. This was the case on Thursday at work as well.

I was in my cube discussing a work-related issue with one of the guys in my group. For no reason that either of us could figure he suddenly lost control of his hot chocolate (it was more lukewarm chocolate at the time) and it fell to my desk and splattered around the immediate area. I actually only caught a little bit of the hot chocolate on the side of my leg, and I think the brunt of the spray simply soaked into my chair. You can see where the hot chocolate soaked into the chair in the picture of the seat of my chair below.
There were two funny things that came of this. First, neither of us reacted immediately. I think he was embarrassed, and I was still processing what had happened. There were probably five seconds that went by of silence, but it must have seemed much longer to him. Once I realized I didn't get doused too bad, all I could do was laugh at the situation. I figured that if I would have found this funny as a bystander there was no reason not to find this funny as a participant in the event.

The second funny thing had to do with my blog post from that day. That was the day that I posted "dumped on," which was ironic in itself. The spiller happens to read my blog, and so a different coworker (T-Bop) who also reads my blog decided to tape the following sign on his door. As of this posting the sign is still there.

dumped on

As I was driving to work yesterday I ended up behind a medium-sized, empty dump truck. I prefer not to be stuck behind large vehicles, but it wasn't a big deal. Then I read the sign on the back of the truck. It stated that cars should stay 300 feet behind the truck and that drivers were responsible for any damage caused to their own cars.

This begs the obvious question. Was this sign for real? It seems ludicrous to me that the owner of the dump truck could expect to absolve himself of legal responsibility by recommending that other drivers give him an entire football field length in clearance. Does this mean that I can avoid responsibility for any accident that I might cause by adding signs to my car that state the following?

"Dangerous driver. Stay 300 feet away. Not responsible for damages caused to vehicles within 300 feet of this car."

My guess is that this is just a scare tactic to keep people from tailing the dump truck, but why not at least put a reasonable distance on the sign like 50 feet? If it is too dangerous to be 50 feet behind a dump truck I would question whether that dump truck should be on the road.

who wants to be cancelled?

Golden's dad likes to watch trivia game shows. I like watching them, too. This past weekend we watched several episodes of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on the Game Show Network, as that is apparently his ritual in the early evening. As I was watching TV with him, I started thinking about the year or two when game shows were the shows to watch in primetime.

There was Millionaire, Greed, 21, Pyramid, and a myriad of others. If game shows were so popular then, why aren't they popular now? Tastes in television can't possibly be as fickle as tastes in clothing, can they? I know that if there is a style of show I like now, it is likely that I will like that style of show next year and the year after that. That is exactly how I feel about cotton t-shirts as well, though, so maybe I am not the best example.

I think I know why game shows are no longer popular. When ABC realized that Millionaire was getting great ratings they determined that they could drop half their primetime lineup and fill in the blanks with the one game show. If people like watching Regis once a week they'll love seeing him three times a week. I remember thinking that was so stupid because rather than having a show that would perform well for several years in a primetime slot, everyone (including myself) got sick of one more night of game shows on the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire network (A.K.A. ABC). I would probably still have watched the show if it were only on once a week, but two or three times became overkill and I stopped feeling like tuning it in.

I see this happening today as well. The Apprentice got great ratings for three seasons, so NBC decided it was time to add a new Apprentice to milk more money out of the franchise. They shouldn't have been surprised when ratings for both Donald Trump's and Martha Stewart's versions of the show disappointed.

There is one exception that I have noticed to what I am talking about, and I don't understand it. There are concurrently three different versions of Law & Order and CSI on the networks in primetime this season. How they get people to watch all three, I'll never know.

a vacation from my vacation

Like people all over the United States, Golden and I spent the bulk of our time over Thanksgiving vacation with family. It was a marathon of sorts, as we spent all day Thursday with her Grandparents from her dad's side, Friday morning and afternoon with my grandmother from my dad's side, Friday evening with her grandfather on her mom's side, and Saturday afternoon with her grandparents from her dad's side again. We love our grandparents and wish we could see them more, but in less stressful circumstances.

Now that I have got my holiday whining out of the way, Golden and I have an announcement. We likely won't go on another non-holiday vacation for many years to come because somewhere around July 15, 2006, we will have a new addition to the family. Golden is six or seven weeks along. If you have questions that are more detailed than that you may want to ask her on her blog. We announced the news to family over the Thanksgiving holiday, and are now announcing to friends, acquaintances, and people who stumble across our sites. We were going to delay the announcement to the end of the first trimester, but we decided to let the cat out of the bag since we would be seeing so much family this past weekend.

you know you're online too much...

...when you have to explain why you won't be posting for the next four days before a holiday.

You may have noticed that I uncharacteristically posted something on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and now Wednesday. The reason: I won't be posting again until at least this Sunday.

Golden and I will be seeing some of her family that we haven't seen in three years, so she is excited about that. I like a lot of Thanksgiving food, so I am excited about that. Neither of us likes to drive, so we aren't excited about the trip (to fam).

What else is there to say? Happy Thanksgiving!

i need a big cup

Every morning I get two drinks--water and coffee. I sometimes substitute tea for coffee, but the purpose is almost always the same. Wake me up and replace morning breath with coffee or tea breath. I slowly wake up as I drink my coffee in the morning, and so I am much more clear-headed at 11AM than I am at 8AM. Lately, there has been a problem at work that has stifled my plans.

When I get my coffee in the morning I use a large cup. I get a smaller cup of water, because its purpose is more to offset the coffee than to quench thirst. For about two weeks, though, there were only small cups in the kitchen and in the area where the spare styrofoam cups are stored. I had to either make due on less caffeine or make two trips to the kitchen. That's a hard decision because I am so incredibly lazy.

Near the end of last week I spotted something that my mind accompanied with a heavenly chorus and a light from above. The large styrofoam cups were back! I think I am going to need to take preparatory action this time around, and stash some big cups before the next drought. I don't know if I can last through another one.

stroud's

One of my closer friends from college visited me this past week, and as we were discussing where to eat after service on Sunday night (eight days ago), he recommended Stroud's South, which is on 85th street in south KCMO. He had heard that the place is going to be shut down (login required) soon to make way for widening the street.

It's kind of funny to me that at least in the Kansas City area, the restaurants that people seem to find the most appealing seem like little more than holes in the wall when you get there. We showed up at the restaurant around 8:30 PM, and it was almost full, but we did find a parking spot. The food was good, very much like homestyle fried chicken, to the point where my only complaint is that it may be a little too close to home fried chicken. I think my body is starting to expect a KFC experience whenever I eat chicken.

It's kind of a shame the place will have to shut down and move. Maybe they'll put it somewhere closer to where I live, though. My stomach will be thankful, but my heart won't.

typhoid dust

I have had a cold lately. It hasn't been a huge deal, but I have been very conscious about the likelihood of spreading the contagion around the places I go. I almost skipped work on Friday, but opted to go because we are very short-handed. I almost didn't go to Elevate PM (young adult group) because we would be visiting older people in the area, but I went and was simply very careful not to do things that would spread germs (like sneezing into my hand then shaking hands with someone).

This morning I went to Sunday School, but skipped the main service because I didn't figure that most people would feel comfortable shaking hands with someone who sounds like he is hacking up a lung. I couldn't just not shake hands, because that would seem rude. I also can think of nothing but curling up in a blanket when I am in this condition.

Anyway, how am I to handle a serious cold? Should I lock myself away from the world, or should I go about with business as usual? I never really know how to handle this sort of thing because it isn't as definitive a sickness as the flu, but it is still contagious and keeps me from wanting to participate in too much activity. I just don't want to make everyone else sick right before the holidays.

conspiracy theory

A couple of days ago I was in a minor disagreement with a coworker about something that was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. While we were getting into it he pointed out part of the reason I am unwilling to agree with a lot of things that I hear people say. I don't take kindly to conspiracy theories.

That is actually true. I tend to view a conspiracy theory as absolute proof that the theorist is wrong. I believe that conspiracy theories are generally concocted by people who really want something to be true so much that they are willing to create elaborate stories for why that something is true. It's also more comforting to blame the things we don't like on malicious people.

Why didn't your favorite politician get elected? It's those darn ballot mills in shady precincts. Why doesn't your kid do well in school? The entire administration from the principle to the teachers is out to get you and yours. Why didn't you get hired by NASA to be an astronaut? NASA doesn't hire astronauts. They hire actors to jump around on a Hollywood set.

This isn't to say I don't enjoy some conspiracy theories. I remember one person telling me that the Federal taxes were a sham because the government doesn't need any money. How could the government need money if that same government can print all it needs? That got a restrained chuckle. I give the same type of reaction when I hear other conspiracies such as that automotive industry is holding back production on a car that can run completely on water or when I hear someone speak seriously about back masking (remember that?).

So if you see me rolling my eyes when someone goes on about how the Illuminati are really the ones running everything, or that Proctor & Gamble is owned by Satanists, or that all barcodes have been encoded with a 666 in preparation for the mark of the beast, please forgive me. The transceiver that the CIA implanted in my skull sometimes causes me to twitch like that.

home remedies

Golden is currently suffering from an earache that has been bothering her since late last night. This has caused her quite a bit of pain, and it was much worse last night. Due to the severity of the issue we decided to investigate potential home remedies online. In our searching, we came across the following helpful suggestions.

• Colloidal silver
• Echinacea
• Lobelia and garlic oil
• Juice from mango leaves
• Aconite
• Wolfsbane

Are you kidding me? Who has colloidal silver or lobelia just laying around the house? What kind of people do these remedies really help? I am as likely to find the Holy Grail, or Venus de Milo's arms, or Gary Coleman in my house as I am to find aconite or wolfsbane. At least I would recognize Gary Coleman if I saw him.

I eventually went to Osco Drug last night to get some ear medication. It has chamomilla, mercurius solubilis, sulphur, and glycerin. I guess that proves I don't need all that other stuff to cure an earache. It also proves that anything can be made funny by simply mentioning Gary Coleman.

known

Sunday's lesson in church was on being known. It mostly centered on the desire to know and be known by your spouse, but eventually worked its way into being known by God. There were two things about the lesson that got me to think.

First, I want very much to be known for who I am rather than who I portray. That is actually part of the point of this blog. I hate people having the wrong ideas about me. Even more, I hate when I feel I have no choice but to let people have the wrong ideas about me.

This is something that I think is one of the main strengths of Golden's and my relationship. We are continually trying to find out everything about each other.

Second, and more important, was a statement made toward the end of class. The author of the book we are studying makes the statement that unless we feel lovable, we cannot accept God's love for us. When I read the book that sounded right, but then in class I thought about a passage of Scripture that seems to dispute that claim. I think I have resolved the paradox in my head now, though.

Here is the complication. I know that I have seen people in the past unable to accept God's love due to how wretched they feel about themselves. I also know that I have seen more people who feel they don't need God because they feel quite lovable. To complicate things further, when we say that God is love we are pulling from a passage that claims that God's love for us is so strong that He sacrificed for us while we were sinners (and probably not too lovable).

You'll have to forgive any inappropriateness in this analogy, but I think through it I understand the solution. I think that God is probably a little like a woman who sees an attractive man with what she deems horrible personality defects. Both God and the woman see the potential and make the determination that, "I can change him!" The difference between God and the woman is that God really can properly change him.

If that is the case, then in order to accept God's love we need to feel that we have the potential to be lovable.

humor me

I was reading through some back page type news articles the other day and came across one entitled, "Women May Enjoy Humor More, if It's Funny." This got me thinking about the difference between mine and Golden's sense of humor.

In order to understand our senses of humor, you would have to look back to how our humor was influenced in our more formative years.

Golden grew up watching TV and movies with her brother and his friends, and so the humor that the article described as male is not far from what she enjoys. She tends to laugh at physical humor and bathroom humor.

I had some male influences on my humor (my dad and a few friends), but some of the strongest influences come from my mom, my sister, and one of my aunts. I tend to laugh at wordplays, banter, and satire.

Unlike what the story said should be the case Golden tends to laugh at things prior to analyzing whether they should be funny. I do the opposite and analyze the joke to death in my mind. Sometimes I have to think about something for a while before determining whether I truly believe it is funny. Once I do, I tend to overenjoy the joke by recalling it to mind at random times of the day.

Golden likes the fact that I work mostly with men because it helps me appreciate her humor more. On the flip side, though, my humor is like a commercial jingle that you don't like at first, but later on you can't get out of your head (Co - stan - za). So, joking around people for an extended period of time makes them use my humor more, which reinforces my humor on myself.

It is the circle of humor in my life.

dear ________,

I have never been good about writing letters. In fact, I am very bad at it. I don't know why. I just am.

When I moved 800 miles from home to go to college, I think my mom expected me to write more. I may have written to her twice. It was more than I wrote to anyone else, though, so it's not like she was the only person to whom I did not send enough letters.

Eventually, my mom got a sense of humor about the whole thing and wrote a letter for me that I was supposed to fill out and send back to her. Golden came across that letter a few days ago. What Golden found was a copy, so I think that I actually did fill out the letter and send it back. Here's what the letter says (the names have been changed to protect blah, blah, blah) .

---

Date __________

Dear _______,

a. Dad

b. Mom

c. Miss Carisma

d. All of the above

I am doing ________

a. fine

b. wonderful

c. so-so

d. terrible

My classes are ________

a. interesting

b. challenging

c. too easy

d. boring

My job is _______

a. going well

b. a piece of cake

c. too much to handle

I've been spending the majority of my time _______

a. studying

b. sleeping

c. on the phone

d. socializing

The food is ______

a. just like home cooking

b. better than home cooking

c. like Mrs. O'Mealy's

d. now I know what cardboard tastes like

I think about you _______

a. all the time

b. on occasion

c. almost never

d. "What was your name again?"

Please send _______

a. money

b. food

c. a plane ticket home

d. ___________

My least favorite class is ________________

because ____________________________

My favorite class is ___________________

because ____________________________

Well, I had better go.

Your _______,

a. loving son

b. adoring brother

c. friend

d. __________

Dust

fall

When Golden and I bought our house I viewed the three trees in the front yard and two in the back as positives that provide shade in the summer and maintain the value of the property. I didn't think through the fact that deciduous trees shed their leaves in autumn.

It seems every neighbor I have happily spends their time blowing or vacuuming their leaves into bags, even though the majority of the leaves are still in the trees. This does not seem right. I tried something like that last year but was simply frustrated when, after raking the yard for an afternoon, the yard looked about the same the next day. I eventually decided to leave (ha!) a coating of this tree trash in the yard throughout the winter and mowed it up last April. I don't know what I am going to do about it this year.

vandalized

I generally view vandalism as a stupid crime that I hope I don't have to deal with. Who wants to pay to have a keyed car repaired or a spray painted wall cleaned? I had to smile at the defacement that I saw a couple of blocks from my house yesterday, though.

On the way to church I noticed a change on the sign for a housing development near my house that wasn't there the day before. Later, Golden and I drove by to snap a picture, but there were three or four people near the sign and I didn't want to raise suspicion that I was the perpetrator come back to revel at the scene of the crime. I drove around for a couple of minutes then Golden snapped the picture quickly as we passed the sign again.

It brought a smile to my day, so maybe it will bring a smile to yours as well.

confession

Today's theme in church seemed to be confession. Forrest opened our class up with an ice breaker to discuss any bad attitudes we had about church. In the main service the title of the sermon was "Confession." This is a very long post, so I don't expect everyone to read through it. As T might say, I have no pictures, so I decided to use a thousand words.

I must confess (and I did confess in class very honestly) that I actually have always disliked going to church. After the way I described my feelings this morning, I feel I need to have a post that more completely explains the cause of those feelings. Someone who didn't know me might have thought I hated everything about church if they heard my "confession."

I was always a little jealous of the people who looked forward to Sunday services, because the day actually filled me with a sort of dread. I always hated dressing up because I didn't really ever see the point, and dressy clothes are uncomfortable. I don't have much of a need for people to look at me and notice my clothes, and that could be the main purpose for dressy clothes. I think, though I am not sure, that a lot of people who say they like to go to church like it because they can show off their clothes. It isn't really a bad or a good reason, but it certainly isn't a motivating factor for me.

People may also enjoy church because they get to talk with friends. This is something that I do like about church. As a kid, though, it was rough because boys don't want to sit around and talk. They want to run around and do things that will destroy the dressy clothes that they are wearing. Any more I wear jeans, so that isn't a problem. :)

Some people like corporate worship. I like it too, kind of. I have found, though, that my worship is very personal, so I tend to block everything and everyone else out in my worship. I could do that at home, but I don't, so it is a good reason to go to church.

I want to address the three reasons beyond dressing up that I have had a bad attitude about church.

First, I hate to see people put on a show that doesn't match up with their real life. This hasn't been a big issue for me lately, because I have noticed that there isn't really such a thing as a person who is 100% genuine and there isn't such a thing as a person who is 100% fake. I just have to work on not being fake myself.

I have also noticed that some characteristics that I thought were fake in other people were actually the furthest thing from fake. I have to be more careful before judging.

The second reason is something that we mentioned in class, which is marketing within the church. Sometimes stuff gets hyped up into something it isn't. Really, that isn't a good reason to have a bad attitude about church, though, so I don't need to focus on that. So long as I am not expected to be a salesperson I'll deal.

The third reason for my bad attitude is the one that has gotten to me the most throughout my life. Within my denomination I have classified three types of preachers: the bad, the good, and the great. I classify them based on the typical sermon content.

The bad preachers focus on what I believe to be neither milk nor meat, but rather spiritual cotton candy. This is very typical for some traveling evangelists who believe that they can substitute Scriptural teaching with half-hour rants about Hollywood or the end times. I am very thankful that my pastor makes it a point to stay away from the cotton candy.

The good preachers teach milk almost exclusively. This isn't really a bad thing, because the milk is the necessities. The author of Hebrews describes the following as milky topics: repentance, faith, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. I certainly don't think any of it is unessential, but these are topics that the mature in faith should not need instruction in.

The great preachers teach milk and meat. Unfortunately, if a preacher only taught meat, half the congregation would probably not be ready for it. Therefore, no relevant preacher can focus only on meat. Based on Hebrews 5, I assume the details of the New Covenant are what best represent meat.

There is very little of the milk topics that I don't already understand, and there is a lot about the meat topics that I don't understand. When I hear a sermon on a topic for the fiftieth or one hundredth time in my life I realize that there are probably people who need to hear that sermon. Maybe I do too and I just don't realize it. I have a hard time with my attitude, nonetheless.

This is going to sound arrogant, but I sometimes feel like the kid in school who already knows what the teacher is going to say. I look forward to and crave the meat that I have never tasted. I feel like I have to go through a lot of milk to get to that meat. I know it's out there. How do I find it?

cheesed

Every once in a while I get sick to my stomach at night and can only get comfortable enough to sleep by -- um -- spending some time in the bathroom. This hasn't happened to me for several months, so I figured it was something that had been temporary and that I was past. That was until a couple of nights ago when it happened again. It was only then that I deduced the root cause.

One of my favorite late night snacks is cheese and crackers. I usually eat colby or cheddar, but I have been known to use cream cheese as well. The crackers have to be saltines. The very thought of a slice of colby between two saltines makes my mouth water.

As my face was hovering over the toilet bowl something occurred to me. Those offerings that I had given to the porcelain altar in the past have always been very similar. Every time I had gotten sick I had eaten saltines and colby cheese shortly before. I was satisfied with that discovery, but it was only an hour and a half later that my stomach was satisfied enough that it would let me go to sleep.

Does this mean that I will not be eating colby and crackers any more? Of course not. It just means I won't gorge myself on half the package of cheese like I did that night.

pet rock

I don't generally care to dress up for things. This includes wearing costumes. For this reason I had decided that I would not do a costume for Halloween this year. There wasn't much point, anyway, because I didn't have significant Halloween plans. Then I found out a contest at work would include decent prizes. Since I either go all out or don't do anything at all I went from doing nothing to going all out.

A couple of years ago I had considered being a pet rock for Halloween, mostly because it is something that few other people would think about. That year I dressed as a "Jump to Conclusions" mat instead. This year I decided to try the pet rock idea.

All Sunday I put together the different elements of the costume. I got two trash bags and painted them white and gray and added some green moss. I stuffed the trash bags with newspaper to give a bulgy rock look. I also created a collar out of elastic and added a "Rock" name tag, and created a pet rock carrying case.

Unfortunately, my costume did not place in the contest, so the work was mostly for naught. I also learned that newspaper is an excellent insulator, because I was pretty warm by the end of the session. I have to focus on the positive, though. I did learn that if you set your mind to something and give it your best you can end up with two painted trash bags and an elastic leash within a day's time.

camera happy

One of the best purchases Golden and I have made in the past year was for a digital camera. It is so cool that I can take snapshhot after snapshot without the fear of losing film. If I get bad lighting or a blurry image I know immediately and can erase the picture.

This weekend we crashed Dash and T's camp trip and spent some time with them. When we went on a 3.5-mile hike, which Golden probably still feels, I took so many pictures that she accused me of acting like a tourist who has never seen a tree before. Nonetheless, here are some of my favorite shots in chronological order.

tgis

Lately, we have been shorthanded at the office. Two people are on a medical leave, several people have moved to other departments or companies, we have had a few days where several people were on vacation or sick leave at the same time, and I am working with two different teams within my department, so I am feeling a little stretched thin.

From my discussions with other acquaintances working for other companies, it sounds like I am not the only person who is reaching the end of his rope. I have heard a lot of people recently say that they have considered looking elsewhere for work. This is not really an option that I am considering because I need to count on my employer to cover the majority of my grad classes bills, plus I hate the whole job searching process.

I said that to say this. Thank God that it is Saturday. I think I am not the only one who needs the weekend, but even if I am the only one I still need it.

the blog about nothing

From the day I started this site I figured that I would just post about whatever I happened to be thinking about at the time. Sometimes, this means I type a heartfelt monologue on the conundrums facing mankind. Much more often it means I write about toilet paper, disfigured appendages, or mismatched socks. The more I post the more I realize that my site is about the closest I can get to a blog about nothing.

For example, I find a spider in the shower. That's a post! I run into traffic on the way to work. That's a post! I get into a discussion about bathroom habits while I am at work. That's a post! I decide I have nothing to write about, but want to write about it anyway. That's today's post!

Part of my mind tells me that I have to write about something, then another fires back, "No, this site is about nothing!" Eventually that becomes a post too. Usually it becomes one of those long posts that only Forrest comments on, and that we debate for the next four days.

What doesn't become a post? So far I haven't set any quality control standards on my posts. That's why this one got through.

it

Here's one more thing to add to the "Things that annoy Dust" list. It really gets on my nerves because it keeps me from understanding people. It makes me look stupid sometimes when I don't understand what it is. This thing simply must be addressed. If this paragraph annoys you, then you know what I mean.

I get frustrated by the use of pronouns without antecedents and by the overuse of the word "thing." Why, may you ask, would this annoy me? Because, I may answer, I am a literal person who does not usually make the assumptions necessary to know what "it" is or who "he" or "she" or "they" are. I can hear entire an discussion without having a clue as to what it is about.

Golden sometimes tells me something like, "I am thinking about calling them about that thing that they asked us to do." Sometimes I can put two and two together, but I am too slow to parse that sentence properly. I tend to give a lot of blank responses during those conversations.

I commit an opposite crime that annoys Golden just as much. Rather than using "it" or "thing" to describe a word that I can't remember, I pause for an uncomfortably long period of time until I can think of the word I want. Golden typically walks away and does something else while I try to work out what the exact right word is for what I want to say.

What can I say? It's one thing about me she just doesn't like.

imposter

Golden has been reading a book called For Women Only lately about what goes on in a man's mind. She commented on the book on her site as well, in case you are curious. It is generally accurate, but must rely on generalizations to some degree since not all men are the same.

One thing that did strike home with me, though, is the idea that some men feel like they are imposters. I am thoroughly convinced that some day someone is going to figure it out that I don't have it all together. I always thought that this was my unique paranoia, but apparently I am not the only one.

I have always preferred to let people know my faults before my strengths so that there will not be any unhappy surprises later on regarding those faults. I have always had to veto this preference during job interviews because I have to pay for food and an Internet connection. That doesn't change the fact that I hate selling some prettied up image of myself to others. I know that an idealized version of myself will not be attainable.

The biggest problem I have found is in determining what part of this paranoia is truly paranoia and what is honest observation. I would hate to "overcome" the sense that I am being an imposter only to find out it was the truth from the start. In fact, I have taken serious steps in my life to make sure that I am not an imposter and am actually what I feel I must purport myself to be.

Anyway, the point of this isn't to get a bunch of people to say that I am not an imposter. If I don't know whether I am faking it through life, I doubt anyone else really knows. The point is simply to relay what is going on in my mind so that I am not an imposter in this area of my life. Or is it?

gray day

Golden and I ran a few errands this morning, which typically puts us in a good mood because we have a laid back time to laugh and talk while we go around town. One thing that kind of got to me today, though, was the weather. It was (and still is) very gray outside, and that always messes with my head. It makes me want to close all the blinds and stay indoors for the rest of the day.

I don't know why this is, but I have always had trouble keeping a good mood on overcast days. I suppose it could be the fact that it is colder on those days. It could be that the light is a little weird and so my body doesn't know whether it is nighttime or daytime. It could just be that I have a bad attitude.

I have to focus on the positive, though. I love Saturdays when I have no real responsibility, and that trumps the quality of sunlight on any day. Even today.

there was a crooked man

A lot of stuff about my body just doesn't seem right. I've discussed the whole bubble butt thing. I also have a few webbed toes and a distinct cowlick that affects half of my bangs. The abnormality that sticks out the most to me, though, is the fact that most of my fingers and toes are at least a little crooked.

I don't know if this is genetic or if I am just some sort of freak. I know that my grandmother and great aunt both have crooked fingers, but that may be due to arthritis.

When I was growing up I always had a hard time holding pencils correctly. Every pen or pencil that I came in contact with had those little triangular things that are supposed to teach you how to hold a pencil right, but that never worked. To this day I cannot write or draw to save my life, and I suspect a crooked right index finger is to blame. Even if it isn't to blame I am still going to blame it.

I guess when it comes to me the old saying doesn't really work. "When you point at someone else you are pointing three fingers back at yourself." For me it should be, "If I am pointing at you I am actually trying to point at the person to your right."

symmetryrtemmys

Golden and I can combine to form one OCD person. She checks things like the faucet or the locks on the door multiple times. This is not something that I will do. I have other traits, though.

I have already said that I do things in fours. I tap my foot in fours, I scratch my neck in fours, I eat chips or M&Ms in fours, I do just about everything in fours. This is a trait that Golden does not have.

Something that we both have is a sense of symmetry. This does not run as deep in Golden as it does me, though. Golden likes to make sure that things are decorated symmetrically, but there are two things that don't bother her at all that irritate my sense of symmetry.

First, she doesn't notice or care if a picture is not hung straightly. If I am in a room with a crooked picture I have a very strong desire to straighten the picture. Homer's Coffeehouse has a lot of crooked pictures.

Second, at night when Golden puts on socks to sleep in or to lounge around the house in she will simply grab two socks and put them on. They don't have to be a matching pair in color or style. I don't know why, but it irritates my feet just looking at her mismatched socks.

The picture below is a not-so-extreme example of what I am talking about. On this particular night, the sock colors were the same but the sock styles were not. If she is going to do this, I wish she would at least hide the socks behind some sandals. That should be a rule.

ahem, cough, wheeze

I have been coughing a bit lately and I am not sure *Cough* why. I haven't had a serious cold recently, though my sinuses were acting up a few days ago. The problem is that every time I get a cough like this the cough lingers for weeks *Cough* or months. The coughs are spaced infrequently, but they are often enough to drive Golden up the wall. The first time I got this cough after we were married she accused me of coughing on purpose to *Cough* annoy her.

I have tried a few remedies. I have found *Cough* that tea works temporarily, but very temporarily. When I went to see a doctor a few years ago he acted like I was faking it and prescribed a light steroid *Cough* that didn't work, but only cost me five dollars. In the past NyQuil Cough has worked but I can only take that late at night because it knocks me out. It *Cough* also tastes horrible.

I wonder if Golden realized that this is what "in sickness and in health" meant. If she had known this she may have stricken the phrase from our vows. *Cough*

gmat was just the start

Apart from the typical Saturday stuff I did today I have been trying to get loose ends dealt with regarding my graduate school application. I have until November 1st to have my application complete and there is a lot of stuff for me to do. To be precise, there are ten steps to the application process, though two are not applicable to me. Two of the steps rely on someone mailing me something to me, so those are the ones that I am most uptight about. There is just too much that can go wrong in the process.

As I am going through the list of steps I half expect to see, "Mail left index finger from the second knuckle up and include a self-addressed stamped envelope for its return."

Somehow I know this is all going to work out, because it is one of the few things that I have committed to that just feels right. As someone who occasionally operates on doubt I don't really have any as to whether I should do this. I just have doubt as to how much of a sacrifice getting the degree is going to be.

I also have that lingering fear that I will get the application sent then find out on November 2nd that I was not accepted due to something stupid like me sending the application to the wrong address. That is stupid, though. The Kansas state abbreviation is KA, right?

fashion and taste

I feel I should give my perspective on what is fashionable and what is tasteful given some of my statements on Forrest's sandals post. I have too much to say to make it one comment on the post. For those who are keeping score, I am simply making the point that we shouldn't judge people's sense of taste because they wear sandals with white socks. First, I need to provide some background.

From a young age I have always equated coolness with shallowness. To some extent I still do. I know this is a horrible generalization, but it is very easy to believe this when I observe that cool people are frequently cool because they are attractive, athletic, artistic, confident, or have money. While some cool people have depth, depth never seems to make a person cool. I, like everyone, wanted to be popular, but part of me has never let me be cool because I believed to do so would be to become shallow. I may not have been right most of the time, but that doesn't change how it has impacted my perspective.

Those who have been reading my blog from the start will probably remember that in one of my first posts I said that I believe I am not uncool. That is mostly true. I also don't believe I am cool, though. I have tried hard to simply be myself. No matter what people say, being yourself really doesn't make you cool. It just keeps you from being an uncool poser. For many people being themselves really does mean wearing sandals with white tube socks.

Fashion, from what I can tell, is simply a set of arbitrary and very fluid rules that a bunch of ultra-cool people get to set, and that the rest of the cool people follow and enforce by making fun of the uncool people. Fashion in itself is not a bad thing. God made people to like fashionable things. God also gave us all individual tastes, though.

Taste is what expresses the individual. Taste can be colored by fashion, but I would suspect that you are very easily manipulated if your sense of taste is completely fashionable. Taste is your opportunity to express what being you really is. For me expressing who I am is wearing jeans and a cotton t-shirt and kicking back because I value comfort over appearance. I am not implying that valuing appearance is bad. I am simply describing what my tastes are.

Even if I were the most fashionable person alive, who would I be to judge someone else's taste in clothing or anything else having to do with fashion? Who would I be to assess the value of that person's taste or to assess the value of the person based on what my tastes are or on what I believe is fashionable? I might as well judge him on his taste in food or music or women. It is almost like telling a guy that he is free to date any girl he wants so long as she is a redhead. If he dates a girl who is blonde or brunette, that is just disturbing.

What do sandals with white socks express? To me it is the expression of a person who thumbs his nose at convention. It is the expression of a man of action who don't want to expose his feet, but wants to be able to slip in and out of his footwear quickly. It is the expression of--okay, I really don't know because I don't wear sandals, but it is the expression of something.

tp

As Golden mentioned in her blog, she was kept from getting toilet paper on Saturday due to some technical difficulties. Because this wondrous invention has been on my mind as I watch our valuable stash dwindle, I thought I would share some random thoughts about toilet paper.

When I worked in a grocery store I used to be confused about the people who bought toilet paper one roll at a time. This isn't a major purchase. Live large and get the four-pack.

Speaking of the four-pack, this is the size that Golden would prefer to buy. I prefer the 48-roll jumbo package. We usually compromise with a 12- or 24-roll package.

If I am sitting on the john in my house the odds are good that there are no more than three squares of toilet paper left on the roll in use. Two will be usable and one will be that square that is glued to the cardboard tube.

I remember seeing an old ad for toilet paper that said something like, "Now with no splinters." Ouch!

A recent ad I saw for toilet paper claimed that since the paper was thicker you would use less of it. That is about the worst logic in the world, unless you are replacing one-ply with two-ply.

I would like to shake the hand of the person who invented two-ply. I would like to wash the hand of the person who invented one-ply.

I have never figured out the purpose in not perforating the large, industrial-sized toilet paper rolls that are placed in public bathrooms and are supposed to be torn on teeth on the dispenser. I have a hint for the people who designed that system. It doesn't work!

Few things confuse me more than trying to tear off a sheet of toilet paper from a roll where the end is on the bottom rather than the top.

Here's to toilet paper. It sure beats trying to use the Sears catalogue.

to degree or not to degree

Over the last few years I have mulled the idea of going for a graduate degree. Two things have held me back from pursuing this until now.

First, I was not sure whether I should get a technical degree or a management degree. I finally decided against getting a technical degree (such as a Software Engineering), even though it would be more specific to what I am doing now. I made this decision because I do not trust that a large number of technical jobs will remain in the United States over the long run, and I have noticed that most people who have strong technical skills only get so far if they lack management skills.

The second thing that has held me back from getting a graduate degree was a concern that I would go through a lot of hassle and expense for something that I would not have the drive to complete. I tend to avoid committing to things when I am not sure I can follow through on the commitment. I recently have become more committed to completing a degreed program, though, because I have started to realize that my long term prospects will be much stronger with a masters degree.

So, if you are reading this on Monday between 8 in the morning and noon, I am probably taking my GMAT test at this very moment. If I am not taking the test something horrible has happened, because I paid $250 for the privilege.

Originally, the GMAT was going to be a test that I breezed through and didn't give too much concern to how I would score since I obviously test well. After taking a sample test this past weekend, though, my ability to test well was not so obvious. It is amazing how much simple math a person can forget if he doesn't use it in everyday life. To calm my fears of getting a lousy test score I have devoted almost the entire weekend to studying for the test, and have skipped a long-distance phone call from a friend, a birthday party, planned yard work, and almost all entertainment for the weekend. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

Wish me well.

swag

Giving and receiving gifts is definitely not my love language. I am also not typically excited about getting little bobbles and things that are relatively cheap. For some reason, though, I get excited about the cheap little things that I get from work, like I am getting some sort of cool loot. In most every job I have had I have gotten a steady stream of low-quality doodads with the company logo on it.

This is a sample of what I have gotten in the last five years:

• More t-shirts, polos, and fleeces than I know what to do with

• A fleece blanket
• A coaster
• Clips to hold papers up on a cubicle wall
• A coffee thermos/cup
• Lots of pens
• At least one plastic cup
• Pins
• A koozie
• A keychain/bottle opener
• A diamond shaped crystal in a blue felt display box

The most unique item I received was in a ten year company anniversary party. Everyone in the company was given a closed felt box. When we opened the box, there was a glass diamond with the company name etched in it inside. Then, like now, I thought that was a cool gift, but it was about the most impractical thing the company could give. The box isn't great as a display case and a big diamond-shaped piece of glass is an accident waiting to happen.

The last thing I got was a pen a couple of days ago. It lights up in alternating colors, most of which I can't identify. These were handed out at our user conference a few months ago and I was able to hit my manager up for one when I found out there were a few extras laying around.

Of course, the happiness for this stuff only lasts a short while, but what happiness it is.

hungry, hungry, shakedust

The longer I live with Golden the more I compare why we do certain things. There are a lot of things that we do very much the same. In fact most of the personality quirks that one of us has the other one does as well, just to a slightly different degree. One thing that we are completely different in, though, is our motivation for eating food.

My eating habits are controlled by one thing. I ask myself whether I am hungry. If I am, I eat enough so that I am no longer hungry. At that point I usually stop.

Golden's eating habits appear similar, so it took me a little while to determine the key difference (ok, it's because I am slow). I finally figured out that she eats food for the experience of the food rather than to get rid of hunger. The fact that she is no longer hungry (if that is actually the case) is secondary.

Here are some of the things that I consider a decent snack:

• Two or three bowls of cereal
• Two or three sandwiches
• A bowl of ramen plus a sandwich
• Mac and cheese plus a sandwich
• A box of Cheez-its
• The leftovers that are planned for tomorrow's lunch (actually, it was my Dad who used to do this)

Here are some of the things that Golden considers a decent snack:

• A handful of M&M's
• A few grapes (lately, frozen grapes)
• Two or three Cheez-its
• Half a bowl of cereal
• Peanut butter spread over a single slice of bread
• Two spoonfuls of my ramen
• Two spoonfuls of my mac and cheese

cold, hot, cool, warm

I was feeling creative one night a couple years ago and typed this poem. Unlike just about everything else I do this really didn't have a point, so there is nothing to read into here. You can try to read into it if you want to, though.

Cold
Once scorned
Twice ignored
Ever wishes to be warmed

Hot
Once caged
Twice enraged
Ever hopes to be assuaged

Cool
Once heard
Twice conferred
Ever joyed to be affirmed

Warm
Once woo'd
Twice pursued
Ever pleased to have you

objective truth

There is one thing that defines my entire being. Almost every aspect of my personallity, belief system, and way I have run my life can be traced to one foundational belief that I hold. Without this one principle my entire life would be without meaning. This thing that is so important to me is my belief that there is such a thing as objective truth.

Most, if not all, of my audience will probably agree that there is such a thing as truth that is truth whether or not it is believed.

My belief in an actual truth plus some teenaged angst drove me to be the analytical person that I am. I always kind of viewed life as if every aspect could be analyzed, but not always to the extreme that I do now.

This has even shaped my choice in careers, as in technical support there is typically an objective cause to any issue. The root cause is truly the cause of the problem whether I know what it is or not. The entire purpose in my job is to uncover that objective truth.

It often surprises me when I hear someone whom I consider intelligent who does not believe in an objective truth. Without truth there is no such thing as logic (at least deductive logic) because deductive logic is reliant on given statements. Logic is foundational to intellect.

I could be wrong, but I generally assume that people who do not believe in an objective truth do so only due to the fact that they do not want to point out that someone else is wrong. I certainly do understand that motivation (which is the reason I even thought of it), but how can someone honestly use a fear of pointing out that someone else is wrong to determine what he or she believes about truth? A person doesn't even have to believe that he or she has a lock on the truth to admit that truth exists. To follow this line of thinking really seems either lazy or cowardly.

I can't assume I know what anyone else's motivations are, though. I don't have a lock on objective truth.

ding, ding, ding

I bet you think this is going to be a post about a bell or a ball peen hammer or something like that. If you do think that you are wrong. Ha!

Not long ago I noticed that the rear door on the passenger side of my car that I have had for all of seven months has three widely spaced dings on it. No other door has any dings, and they are obviously from three different people on three different occassions opening a rear driver side door and banging my car with it. While this is a logical deduction, it makes no sense to me.

My car does not get parked in parking lots other than my work parking lot very frequently, and if it got dinged at work I would assume that one of the front doors would show the brunt of the damage. Who rides in the back seat in a car on the way to work any more?

In case you haven't figured out, the picture below is a reflection off one of the dinged areas of my car door. It is difficult to take a picture of a defect in a reflective surface, but the triangular shaped white spot is one of the dings.

My problem now is how to deal with this. I have not looked into the cost of getting it fixed, but since my car is black I don't think it would be hard to get the correct color of touch-up paint. It's just that I am too lazy to take that step.

what do you do for a living?

When you meet someone new there are a few questions that always seem to come up.

Are you from this area? Do you have hobbies? Do you have kids? What do you think about this weather? Do you like any professional sports teams? And the big one is what do you do for a living?

This is probably the aspect of my job I like the least. There is no good answer that is descriptive as I want it to be. Here are some examples of how people in other jobs get to answer that question.

Person 1: What do you do for a living?
Person 2: Architect.
Person 1: Cool, so what have you designed?

Person 1: What do you do for a living?
Person 2: I deliver pizza for Little Caesar's.
Person 1: Pizza, Pizza!
Person 2: That's funny. I've never heard that before.

Person 1: What do you do for a living?
Person 2: I'm a doctor.
Person 1: What a coincidence. I have this disgusting growth on my back that I have been meaning to get checked out, and...

Person 1: What do you do for a living?
Person 2: Author.
Person 1: What have you written that I would have read?
Person 2: Nothing. I don't write material for the back of breakfast cereal boxes.

Notice how everyone hearing about the careers mentioned above understood what the person does? Now here is how the typical conversation goes when I am involved.

Person 1: What do you do for a living?
Me: I support developers and administrators who use the software that the company I work for creates.
Person 1: Huh?
Me: I work with computers.
Person 1: Oh, like the people at the PC shop on the corner?
Me: No, I help people with software problems.
Person 1: So you work for a helpdesk?
Me: Not really. I don't work with end users. I support advanced users.
Person 1: I'm an advanced user, and I call the helpdesk all the time.
Me: Do you like any professional sports teams?

jack

Golden and I have been watching Lost quite a bit lately and something has stuck out to both of us. I am like Jack, who is one of the main characters. This actually isn't one of those posts where I go on and on about how great people like me are. The reason is that neither of us noticed the similarities at the beginning of the series when Jack was a nearly perfect character. Once they started pointing to his flaws the similarities started.

• Jack has very cold view of the world. If there is a 1% chance of something good happening, it is about the same as if there is a 0% chance of something good happening.
• If someone expresses a belief that there is something supernatural about the island and has evidence for that belief, Jack writes them off as mentally unbalanced.
• Jack doesn't like to take on full responsibility for operations but does take it on because there seems no other choice. He appears to resent full responsibility.
• Jack is constantly torn between the popular choice and the right choice. He eventually makes the right choice, but not as easily as he should have.

I could go on, but why would I want to.

noah, esther, and goldilocks

We touched on a topic in Sunday School yesterday that I have been considering writing about for a while. I figured I would take the opportunity and write a post on it.

Why is it that so much of what is in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is only relayed on the level of a childrens' story? Furthermore, why are those stories that don't fit so well into kids' lessons canned pretty quickly?

I dislike this for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that it gives people the impression that the beliefs behind Christianity are fairy tales in their very nature. The whole thing starts to become this sanitized idealistic world that could never in a million years be real because it fits better in a storybook. The idealized world that is portrayed couldn't be real if we wanted it to be. Here are some examples.

Noah is a prime example and was mentioned in the book that we are studying. Should a story containing such destruction of life be considered a kids' story?

The story of Esther is always told as a story of beauty and courage. It is indeed a story of beauty and courage. Let us not forget that the second chapter in Esther makes it clear that she joined a harem and pleased the king in that role. This is how the Bible implies God used Esther, though God is never actually mentioned in the book. Again, the unedited version is not a story for the kiddies.

How about David? This was a man who did right in God's eyes but that does not mean that he was the kind of man that I would have wanted to be associated with. Even ignoring the events with Bathsheba, David oversaw the deaths of many and was not incredibly progressive in his views toward women. His redeeming quality was simply that he understood and accepted humility.

I do think it would be unwise to go to the opposite extreme and say that the purpose of the Old Testament is to magnify sex, violence, deception, et al. There is no denying that nearly every story from the Old Testament shows the humanness of man in adult terms, though.

In class I was asked what I thought the purpose of the stories in the Old Testament was if it wasn't to be a simple childrens' storybook. Given what I know from the New Testament I believe that the purpose of the Old is to point either to Christ or at least the need for Christ. What other purpose could there be?

gridlock

I am a creature of habit and schedule. If anything messes up that habit or schedule I am not always the quickest to adapt.

My trek to the office every morning takes me through a half mile of residential areas, past a school, south on an expressway for about four or five miles, then through a suburban business district for about a half mile. The last half mile is always longer than the rest of the steps of the trip combined. Lately, it has been even worse, though.

It is bad enough that two extra lights have been added in that last half mile and that neither is timed so that I can skip past them on green. It is also bad enough that there has been significant construction going on for the better part of a year so as to add extra clutter onto an already busy section of road.

The final straw for me was half of the exit ramp off the highway onto this road was recently coned off. I assume that there will be construction on the ramp, but last I saw there were only the cones and the blocked off lanes looked usable otherwise. It took me two days worth of sitting in twenty minutes of traffic to get through one light to figure out that I should drive a back route to the office until the ramp is fully functional again.

The picture here is from the traffic jam that was caused by the blocked ramp lanes from after I got off work, so it is going the opposite direction that I am.

There does seem to be a lot of road construction as of late in the Overland Park area. It is probably better this way, since nicer roads mean fewer potholes and other inconveniences that can damage my car. I just wish it wouldn't cause such significant delays on my way to work.

coldplay

Coldplay is one of those bands that exists in that world between groups I love and groups I can't stand. I can enjoy their music, but I won't go out of my way to listen to them. So when Forrest asked if I wanted to go to a Coldplay concert my natural reaction was, "That's too expensive!" because I am such a tightwad. Eventually Forrest got desperate and the price for the spare ticket he had gone down, so I agreed to go.

It's a long story how the tickets worked out like this, but the spare was a single away from the other seats that Forrest had purchased. As a result I watched and listened to Coldplay alone, or as alone as I could be with several thousand people crowded around me.

Some things of note that happened.

• BB agreed to drive me there, so the entire Achtung family plus me crammed into his Matrix and went to the baby sitter's to drop off the kids. I appreciate very much the patience it took to allow for one more body in the car.
• When I walked into the park I was asked if I wanted to donate to some cause. I quickly reacted, "No," but I felt like a jerk for saying that because the reason wasn't that I didn't have much cash on me. It wasn't that I didn't want to contribute to some worthy cause.
• I was also asked to sign a petition. I didn't for two reasons. First, I already get enough spam, and they wanted my email address. Second, people trying to get you to sign a petition rarely have more information about the cause other than the sales pitch they have been taught. I wanted to be sure I understood the issue before signing my name.
• When I went to my seat there was hardly anyone near it. There were two girls sitting in the two seats directly to the right of my seat, though. I felt it too awkward to sit right next to them while all the other seats in the area were empty, so for the entire opening act I sat in someone else's seat who hadn't shown up yet.
• It was incredibly warm for the first night in autumn.
• I thought about bringing a camera, but decided against it because I thought I might get stopped at the gate and have to take it back to the car. Midway through the concert, the lettering on the screen behind the band informed people that they should take pictures now.
• I had a hard time getting a Sprint PCS signal inside Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. I'm sure that wasn't intentional.
• BB ran into a client in the entryway of the amphitheater. Does he run into someone he knows everywhere he goes?
• Forrest came over to talk to me during the exceedingly long intermission. The person behind me recognized him and attempted to monopolize the conversation. Does he run into someone he knows everywhere he goes?
• I found out that I am simply not aggressive in crowds. I was passed by countless people as I tried to work my way out of the amphitheater after the concert. I don't have what it takes to elbow and cut people off to move forward quickly.

If you care about the musical aspect of the concert Forrest and BB can give you more cogent thoughts. I enjoyed it, but I have little more to say than that.

chivalry or chauvinism

There was a debate recently at my office as to whether doing things like opening the door for a woman was a sexist activity. This was not a debate that I entered into, so it is not my intent to present a defense of one of the positions on the matter. I don't really fully understand the positions on the matter anyway. It is rather my intent to issue the complaint that I don't feel I am given the privilege of avoiding taking sides on the issue. Almost every day I will be presented with a situation where I have to make the decision as to whether to hold open the door for someone.

My concern with the whole situation is not whether the activity is sexist. That is tied up in whatever the motivations of the person holding the door open are, and I am quite sure my motivations in that regard are never sexist. I am concerned, however, that some person at some time will make a judgment about me based upon whether I decide to hold the door open for her (or him). Apparently, this will eventually occur regardless as to whether I decide to hold doors open for people or let them slam shut in their faces.

Why must it be that everything I can possibly do will either prove sexism or a lack of chivalry? Why must everything have a hidden meaning? Why can't we just install automatic doors everywhere?

did something die in here?

Last week at work I was visiting the loo, as the British call it, when I noticed a funky smell. This was nothing new in a bathroom, and it stuck out anyway. I could tell that someone had visited the facilities recently, though that person was no longer in the bathroom. I held my breath, sped up the process a little, and then left the bathroom.

On the way out I ran into a coworker and said hi. As he closed the door behind him I remembered the smell and that the evidence pointed to the likelihood that I had left it. I sat in my cube for the next five minutes slightly embarrassed about the turn of events. At the very first possibility I tracked him down and pointed out that I was not the originator of the offending smell.

This got me thinking. Why would I care? It isn't like anyone is able to never create a smell in the bathroom. It is just that this is something I would prefer others not to tack onto their knowledge about me. As an example, the things I know about Dust:

• Dark hair
• Kind of geeky
• Uptight personality
• Don't want to walk into the bathroom after him

I wish to keep at least the last item off that list.

the weekend edition

So, another weekend is almost over and I still haven't posted something. This is getting a little ridiculous. I used to be so good about coming up with a doable topic for the weekend, but the past lack of readership over the weekend makes me think twice about wasting a good topic on Saturday or Sunday.

To distract you from the fact that this post has no topic I present a picture I took of a sign for sale at Old Settlers Days last weekend. It has no real irony or intrigue in relation to this site other than that it includes part of my "name."

a positive vibe

To offset some negative posts, the following are things that make me happy:

• Laughing with Golden
• Lists
• Seeing Forrest step on my soapboxes in class
• References to the happy crack in my basement
• Well-written satire
• When Golden gives me acts of service
• Staying up late on a Friday
• Sleeping in on a Saturday
• A good Chipotle steak fajita
• Winning in a game that requires skill
• A blanket, a recliner, and a remote control
• Passing someone who is driving slowly in the fast lane
• Working through a brainteaser
• Learning how people think
• A comfortable pair of jeans and a cotton tee
• 80-degree weather
• Being compared to a fictional gay man
• Truth
• Cynical humor
• A visit to a bookstore or the library
• Letting go of responsibilities
• "Inspirational" Posters like the one pictured below from Despair.com that exactly describe my feelings
• Completing things

a negative vibe

I am currently stuck in a catch-22. I don't want to come across as all negative on this site, but I personally think most interesting writing is negative. At the least, most humorous writing is negative. I have said this earlier but it bears repeating; people are generally funnier when they are pessimistic. So what do I do?

I have written posts that were not negative, but they are always the ones that simply relay information without any attempt at humor or any form of hyperbole or even intellectual insight. Writing something without humor or insight is fine for a lot of situations, but usually for me that leaves factual telling of a story (which I have done) or a touchy feely post (which I will probably never do).

I keep asking myself whether it is all that bad that I want to post as a pessimist. I still don't have an answer. Knowing me, I probably never will.