christmas 2007 trip update

I apologize to anyone who has been expecting updates with the frequency that I normally provide. I have not had too much opportunity to sit down at a computer for long enough to post anything worthwhile for a few days, and I do not expect to have another opportunity until the middle of next week. There is a small chance that I will be able to post something before then, but don't hold your breath.

I leave you with a few updates on my trip.

• NJ has actually done very well in the car so far. He has been a handful when he is out of the car, though, so I think that he is acting out the frustrations I expected to see in the car elsewhere.
• When we have gone anywhere even remotely noteworthy I have forgotten the camera. This happened on a visit to Silver Dollar City and to the Big Mac Museum (which is basically a dolled up McDonald's, but still worth a few pictures).
• When I was growing up my parents couldn't afford to spend much at Christmas time. Now, as an adult, I am amazed that they spend so much on gifts for me and the rest of the family. I make out like a bandit with getting gifts from both Golden's and my family. We probably need to increase our immediate family gift budget just because we receive significantly more than we give.
• I have been reminded one reason why I cannot live in Pennsylvania. I always get car sick if I am a passenger in a car that is travelling around the rolling hills in western Pennsylvania. That is not such a problem in Kansas.
• Everyone keeps reminding me that I have gained some weight. That's what family is for, I guess.

I am sure that either I or Golden will have more information on our trip later, but that is what I have for now.

if the holidays were perfect

Christmas time and summer are the best times for me to see my parents because my dad works with a school system near where they live. He is kept busy even when school is not in session, so if I visited during the school year I would barely see him at all.

This year I am taking six vacation days from work plus two weekends and the two holidays off so we can see Golden's family then my family. As we have been out in the cold some this weekend I have been asking myself why such a major holiday is held when it is so cold outside.

It almost feels like a waste of a vacation day to take it when the temperature is about twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit outside. There are so many wonderful spring and summer days I spend in the office, but when it is freezing outside is the time that I travel to see family.

I think that the holidays should be concentrated more in warmer months (to accommodate me, of course). Christmas and New Year's Day should be celebrated on consecutive days in May. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President's Day, and Memorial Day should also be celebrated that week so American workers can get a full week off in Spring.

If we had this setup, I could have sixteen Spring days off in a row for the price of five vacation days. That would be time worth taking.

dumb moments in business

I don't have anything too original this weekend. We leave to see family for the holidays tomorrow morning, so rather than taking the time to compose something fresh I am leaning on an article I read recently.

Fortune posted its list of 101 dumbest business moments of 2007, though I have to say that calling all of them business moments is quite a stretch. Even so, here are some of my favorites.

#7: Toilets Combust
A Japanese company named Toto offered repairs to thousands of its customers' toilets after three of them catch fire.

#13: Not Such a Small World
The "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyland has to be closed so that the water channel that passenger boats travel on can be deepened. This has become necessary because the ride has been getting stuck when loaded with heavier passengers.

#22: Death of Cold
A funeral home in Scotland has to address reports that employees used the ashes of some of the dearly departed to spread over slippery sidewalk ice. The employees didn't go as far as Keith Richards (#28) claimed he did, though, when he stated that he snorted his father's ashes.

#38: Is Your PC Running Too Well?
An IT security consultant takes out a Google ad with the text below. Over four hundred people click on it.

Is your PC virus-free?
Get it infected here!

#51: They Took Candy from Her Too
When a nine-year-old girl sent a letter to Steve Jobs with ideas of how to improve the iPod Nano the response was a letter from Apple's legal counsel telling her not to send any more letters.

#53: Ouch
A Japanese arm wrestling game breaks three people's arms.

#58: Which Border Should We Head To?
Taco Bell advertises in Mexico City that it does not pretend to serve Mexican food.

#59: They Made It up in Volume
Radiohead puts an album online and asks people to pay what they think the music is worth. Less than forty percent of people who download pay anything.

#66: Your Other Left
Three different patients have operations on the wrong side of their heads in one hospital in one year.

#69: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
A whistleblower alerts Exelon Nuclear to people working on a security contract sleeping on the job. Exelon then gets rid of everyone on the contract, including the whistleblower.

#75: Can't Get Rid of the Old Man Smell
A homebuyer who got the house from a bank who had repossessed the house finds the previous owner mummified inside the house.

#87: It's in the Bag
SkyWest is forced to apologize to a passenger who had to urinate into an air sickness bag when he was disallowed from using the restroom.

#99: She Must Not Have a Sub-Prime Loan
The senior vice-president of marketing at Century 21 predicts that the 2007 housing market will be one of the best in the past 30 or 40 years.

diamond and the rough

I don't know where in the country specific commercials have been showing, but one that has been driving me nuts is a Jared Jewelry commercial. In the commercial a woman explains that her new ring comes from Jared's and everyone makes a big deal about it and repeats, "He went to Jared." I looked all over online for a copy of this commercial, but it must be so bad that no one wants to upload it to a video website.

Most of the reason the commercial irritates me is that it is so overacted that it is embarrassing to watch. Beyond that, though, it does not seem to fit the target audience. In theory, the market for jewelry is mostly composed of men buying for their better half. I think that most of the Jared commercials I have seen would make more men not want to go to Jared than go to Jared.

I can imagine a commercial from a Jared competitor where two guys are talking. One would say, "He went to Jared," and the other would respond with, "Bummer." That commercial would probably be more effective than the current Jared commercials.

I am fortunate that Golden, despite her name, is not huge into jewelry. So, I do not feel pressure to buy diamonds every time I see this commercial. I will point out that, so I do not sound like a horrible husband, if she decides she does want jewelry at some point that will not be a big deal. The commercial would even be even more annoying if Golden liked to show off jewelry, though.

I think that, from a marketing perspective, Helzberg has a better idea with their latest commercial, which is shown below. This is a commercial that is well-designed for its target audience, though it may not be well-designed to it's secondary audience of the women who will be receiving the jewelry.



I can see how this commercial would make some women feel like the man was going through the motions in getting jewelry and also going through the motions in other areas of life. If the jewelry does not make the gift recipient feel special, then it is not a good gift.

So maybe, depending on your perspective, both commercials are rough.

* Note: I modified this post a little to address concerns made in the comments.

caviar dreams

A couple of days ago an executive in our department sent a big gift basket to the people in my office. It contained a lot of the typical stuff: biscotti, cheese and crackers, summer sausage, chocolate, etc. One part of that et cetera that I did not expect was a jar of caviar.

I have made it no secret that I am not a seafood person. I will eat seafood if I have to, but when I do eat it I typically end up choking it down. If given the choice I will almost always avoid even the few types of seafood that I do not dislike.

I was faced with the question of whether I would have some caviar so that I could say I have had it, or I would avoid the seafood because I am not a fan. I resisted for a while, but reasoned that I would probably not have many chances to have free caviar in my life. After dragging my feet on the idea, I finally scraped some on a cracker and ate it. I do not know if all caviar tastes the same, but this caviar tasted exactly like what it was—salty, raw fish.

This all reminded me of a question that I have always had. Do people really like caviar, or do people just say they like it because it is a high-class food? Furthermore, is caviar considered high-class food because people with sophisticated palates enjoy it or just because it is difficult and expensive to acquire? It blows my mind that someone somewhere once decided that collecting fish eggs and selling them at exorbitant prices as food would work as a business plan. It further blows my mind that the plan actually did work. There truly is no accounting for taste.

say you need love

Recently at our young adult group at church we were asked to think of a time when we had an "Aha!" moment about knowing God loves us. Immediately, a guy pointed out that he never really needed an "Aha!" moment because he never really worried that God did not love him. This did not get a good reaction in the group, but as I thought about it I really understood what he was talking about.

There have not been many times in my life when I worried whether anyone loved me. There may not have been any. I think part of this is that I have always known that there are people who love me. I think a much bigger part of this is that I do not have as strong a need to be loved as many other people do. Though I am sure there are exceptions, I think this is generally a gender issue where women are more likely to want to know that God loves them than men do.

I noticed that when guys in the group talked about when they determined that God loved them, it was not really about love. It had more to do with God having their back than anything else. If I had provided any examples, I would have provided one of these typical guy responses. I really felt like the men and women in the room were answering two different questions when they discussed how they knew that God loved them.

I think this can be enlightening regarding some of the general differences between men and women. I would probably never have even thought to ask the question of when did you determine that God loves you. To some others it may be the most important question in the world.

medicine cabinet surprise

A couple of nights ago I heard Golden give a startled shout from the bathroom. In our house that usually means that she either saw an insect or spider or that something fell onto Golden from a shelf or cabinet. Both of these are relatively common occurrences.

Because I hear this frequently, I barely react any more when Golden makes that noise. This time, though, was a little different. Golden walked out to the living room and informed me that my shaving cream can leaked in the medicine cabinet. This is not something I have ever seen happen.

On the plus side, this provided a good opportunity to reassess why we had some of the items in the medicine cabinet, and throw some stuff away. The picture speaks for itself.

have to believe

"You have to believe [the Bible], and you hate it. I don't have to believe it, and I think it's beautiful."- Leslie Burke (Bridge to Terabithia)

This past weekend I watched Bridge to Terabithia, since the commercials for the movie had intrigued me. The movie is well written, though I think it is kind of dark for a kids' movie. It is really more of an older kids' movie. Also, I have some problem with the fact that the movie almost inadvertently takes a salvation-by-works point of view.

The above quote from the movie really stuck with me. The protagonist is a boy in the fifth or sixth grade named Jesse, and Leslie is his new neighbor who quickly becomes his best friend. Leslie goes with Jesse's family to church, and on the way back she issues the quote above when Jesse's little sister states that God sends people who do not believe in the Bible to Hell. This is specifically the case regarding the Crucifixion story.

The reason the quote resonates with me is that I can apply it to the way I think. I hate to have to believe anything. When someone tries to get me to believe something I want very much to disagree with that person. I can fully understand the concept of failing to see the beauty in Scripture due to being told that I have to believe a certain way about that Scripture. It would be completely believable to simply be blind to the love that is supposed to emanate from stories like that of the Crucifixion.

I wonder if many people fail to see the beauty in the Crucifixion because of the way the belief is forced on them. Is the good news of the Gospel completely dulled to many minds by the requirement to believe? Even if this is what causes some people to miss the point of the most important passages of Scripture, is there even anything that we can do about it? It is a lot to think about considering it came from a Disney movie.

iced

No, I didn't take the above picture. It is from WikiMedia Commons.

We moved into our house in the summer of 2003, and I still had the ice storm from 2002 fresh in my mind. One of the first things we did was to hire someone to trim the trees in the front yard so that they would survive the next ice storm and not damage the house, cars, etc. With that move, I figured I had covered any major issues we may experience in an ice storm.

On Monday night the power went out on the house for a few minutes, then went back on, then went off, then back on again. This pattern repeated for at least a half hour at random intervals. At this point I realized that there was one thing I really had not accounted for. I did not know what we were going to do if we didn't have electricity for a long period of time.

While our furnace uses natural gas, the fan on the furnace uses electric, so the house would be cold even if the furnace stayed lit. This could be good in that it might keep the food in the fridge from spoiling. It would also be bad, though, because it could cause our pipes to freeze and make life with a seventeen-month-old difficult. While I was lying in bed, I decided that if we lost electricity for an extended time, we would have to find a hotel room in whatever town in the area still had electricity and stay there until we were online again.

I think I overdramatized the situation in my mind because this is a situation I have not dealt with, so I do not really know all the things I am supposed to do if the power goes out. Fortunately, this time it wasn't an issue. I am very glad we don't live in St. Joseph.

achoouch

Over the weekend I have dealt with a cold. Because of this, I have been reminded about something that has been happening to me lately. At times when I am already feeling achy, strong sneezes make my shoulders and arms hurt pretty strongly. This has only started happening in the past year or two, but it is very noticeable.

It is not really avoidable either. If I hold in the sneeze, it still hurts. If I sneeze multiple times in a row it hurts more.

I started thinking this weekend that maybe I am not the only person to experience this, and maybe this is something that I should investigate. I did not find much definitive information, but I did find that I am not alone and that it probably has something to do with specific nerves getting jostled or pinched at the moment of the sneeze.

So, the question of the day is, is there anything strange about your sneezes? Do yours hurt? Do yours sound weird? Are you able to control whether you sneeze or not?

give it up

"Fate (or whatever it is) delights to produce a great capacity and then frustrate it. Beethoven went deaf. By our standards a mean joke; the monkey trick of a spiteful imbecile."- C.S. Lewis (A Grief Observed)

Someone at work whom I know rather well went to the hospital this week for pancreatitis. It is possible that he will not be allowed to drink any more, which is something that he likes to do in his recreation time. This wouldn't be a big deal to me, but to him I am sure it is. Note that I have no intention of making any value judgments about alcohol consumption here because I have a different purpose for this post.

It seems that when someone really likes something, that this puts that individual at a greater risk for losing that thing. I doubt many people would disagree with this. While I don't believe it was Beethoven's fault he went deaf, I have heard that music lovers are particularly susceptible to tinnitus because constant sound can impact hearing. People with a sweet tooth are more likely to develop diabetes later in life. Athletes often injure the parts of their bodies they most need to participate in their sport.

Probably the things that will do me in is my love for salt and red meat. I often crave salty foods and/or beef products (though I am not a fan of corned beef, interestingly enough). I am sure that there will be implications for this if I am not careful, though I do not know if they are as bad as having an inflamed pancreas. I expect that I will be told to trim salt and red meat from my diet some day, and I just hope that day is far in the future.

I presume, though I do not know this for sure, that God built our bodies so that we cannot handle large amounts of the things we like so that we don't make those things too important in our lives. I can't eat a steak and french fries every day if I want to be able to enjoy life beyond the age of fifty, since I do know it will eventually impact my quality of life. Even so, it would be normal for the person no longer allowed to partake in the source of their pleasure to question the wisdom of a God who creates something enjoyable then takes it away.

While I do not currently question God's wisdom in this matter, that could just be because I can still eat steak.

broken

I am hard on my stuff. I have fried multiple XBox controllers, power supplies, hard drives, and other components. Not only that, my spectacular record is even continuing as of late.

My laptop has been acting up over the last few months. I know what the issue is, and it is still usable. It just makes a loud beep when I start it, and one of the network adapters does not work. It is still under warranty until mid-January, so I have procrastinated in addressing this until last night. The warranty company agreed over the phone to have me ship the laptop to them to fix it. This will be the second issue for the laptop that I have needed to get fixed under warranty.

Since I need to back up the data on the laptop before shipping it out to be repaired, I started copying files to an external hard drive I bought a few months ago. It stopped working within a few hours of use.

I must have the opposite of the Midas touch with electronics. Everything I touch becomes worthless. I just wish my stuff would actually keep working like I expect it to.

take a cold shower

This is the time of the year when I start to notice that the house is not perfectly warm when I wake up. So to combat this, I like to hurry through my morning teeth brushing and shaving to get into my warm shower. It is one of the few of my typical morning rituals that I look forward to.

A couple of days ago I had a rude awakening when I hopped into the shower. The water was not cold, but it certainly was not warm enough to offset the temperature of the air around me. I turned the nob for the cold water all the way off, but the water still did not warm up. This was a disturbing turn of events since we just replaced our water heater a month ago.

Golden later noted that NJ had for a brief moment gotten to the water heater temperature control nob and twisted it. She was not sure what the temperature was supposed to be set to, so she could not just return it to its previous setting. Unfortunately, I don't know the right setting either.

So, until I determine that my morning shower is comfortable, I will be bumping the heat up on our water heater every day. It's a hassle, but it is worth the effort.

hair bands that i like

I know a few people are going to misread that title.

For years now I have had an urge that some would probably find shameful. It's actually a bit of a surprise that I am not embarrassed about it. Maybe I will be now that I am sharing it. I have a thing for hair clips, hair bands, and scrunchies.

For some reason, I find most of the devices designed for girls' hair incredibly entertaining. Give me a banana clip and a hair band (not the 80s rock version) and I can be enthralled for hours.

I think all of this is due to my fidgety nature. I also like fidgeting with office supplies like staple removers, rubber bands, and paper clips. The difference is that few people care if I am playing with a staple remover. Some might be uncomfortable seeing me play with a scrunchy.

The reason I was thinking about this is that Golden just got a couple of new hair clips a couple of days ago, and so I expect to be busy for the next couple of days.

no melancholy muse

Over the past week I have been in a melancholy mood. It isn't full-fledged depression or anything like that. My mood has just been a little more dreary than usual lately, and not even for many good reasons.

This isn't a post where I am asking people to feel bad for Dust. I'd prefer my readers wouldn't because it's part of that up and down process that most people go through. I just am always a bit confused about what to post about when I am in a funk. Few things sap my creative drive more than when I am little down, so I usually don't have the tenacity to put much effort into an involved monologue.

Another problem is that most of the ideas I come up with when I am in a mood are more cynical than I should be. I don't want to use this site as just an outlet for me to whine through because no one really wants to read that, except possibly in the condition that the whining is presented creatively.

This week it worked out that I had three ready-made topics to type about, so it there weren't any problems. I did not really have to put much thought into posting this week. Tonight I drew a blank, though. I am sure it is not obvious.

plato and a platypus

I have long wondered why books, lectures, and the such designed for serious learning rarely do a good job of making the learning entertaining. It is a lot easier to understand a new concept when it is presented in an enjoyable fashion. This is part of the idea of the last book that I completed, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes.

The book itself is only meant to give a high-level summary of historical philosophical beliefs and thought structures. So, while it is not nearly detailed enough to be a textbook, it presents a lot of concepts very concisely. The jokes are generally used to illustrate concepts or perspectives.

The following joke is used to illustrate the concept of ding an sich, which means "thing in itself," and is supposed to describe an object as it is rather than how our senses perceive it.

Secretary: "Doctor, there's an invisible man in the waiting room."
Doctor: "Tell him I can't see him."

Another joke illustrates relativity of time.

A snail was mugged by two turtles. When the police asked him what happened, he said, "I don't know. It all happened so fast."

A final joke provides a rationale for why it is important to understand the purpose of law.

A judge calls the opposing lawyers into his chambers, and says, "The reason we're here is that both of you have given me a bribe." Both lawyers squirm in their seats. "You, Alan, have given me $15,000. Phil, you gave me $10,000."

The judge hands Alan a check for $5,000 and says, "Now you're even, and I'm going to decide this case solely on its merits."

The only reason that I would hold back in recommending this book to anyone with a sense of humor is that it does contain some blue humor, though I do not think it is excessive. Other than that one thing, this book is perfect for anyone wanting to read up on serious philosophical ideas with a punchline.

da da

For a long while, NJ was not too interested in spending time with me and by far preferred to be with Golden. Over the last few weeks he has changed pretty significantly to the point where he frequently gets upset when I leave for work in the morning and he gets very excited when I walk through the front door in the evening. He will even sometimes want me to hold him rather than Golden, though he still usually prefers her.

It is possible that this is just due to him growing out of the phase where he only favors his mom, but I think it is actually because I have been able to spend more time with him in the last few weeks than I was before that. I have been out of class for a month, so I have had a bit more freedom to spend quality time with NJ. I think this improves his perspective of me from someone who occasionally competes with him for his mother's attention to someone to hang out with.

I never really thought much about this element of parenthood. I have to say, though, that there are few things that I enjoy more than coming home to NJ smiling and shouting, "Da Da!" That can get me through any rough day.

risky business

I am not going to post about our entire Thanksgiving break because most of what I would have to say would be unfortunately boring. Golden may say something about our vacation on her blog, though.

On Thursday we did visit both Golden's and my family. While we were at my aunt's house a few of them got into a discussion of the things my dad did when he was younger. No one really wanted to tell stories about themselves. Most people would not assume this if they met him today, but he was actually the most reckless of all his siblings growing up.

I realized recently that, at least in this respect, I am the antithesis of my dad. The things that I have done in my life that I consider reckless weren't really reckless. I have always been the voice of caution when there is discussion of doing anything that is even just potentially dangerous.

While I am not currently and have never been a risk taker in a cautious person's body, when I hear these stories I wonder if I should have been a little more daring as a kid. Did I hold back more than was necessary? I think most men want to have some things in common with their dads, and to be as different as we are in this area is a bit weird.

Based on my observations of NJ, I could see him as being very cautious or very risky when he gets older. As a sixteen-month-old He can be fearless and he can be timid depending on his mood. Whichever he is, I hope I can relate.

thankful

This is in a similar vein to my "good grief" post, but it isn't the same.

I really am not thankful enough for my lot in life. I have never doubted that, but this has not really made me more thankful. I also always thought listing the things I am thankful for was a little hokey because most items on the list, while important, are the same for a lot of people (family, friends, health, freedom, etc). There is one thing that I have to be thankful for that most people would not think to be thankful for, and that is how everything always seems to work out for me.

Seriously, pretty much every bad situation or potentially bad situation I have ever gotten into ended well. I have procrastinated on many things from schoolwork to yard work throughout my life, but I almost always complete my tasks immediately before they absolutely need to be completed. I have been in many financially tough situations, but everything always worked out. Even my meeting Golden at the time of my life that I did was one of those things that was very fortunate to work out, because we are perfectly suited for each other.

It could be that things just work out for a lot of other people who don't even notice it. Since I notice it, though, I must be thankful.

new cue lar

I remember back in the 2000 presidential election (Motto: "Whoever you elect, it's still a four-letter word") the big deal about Gore was his lack of a personality and the big deal about Bush was his lack of speaking ability. My joke at the time was that my problem is that I have Gore's personality and Bush's speaking ability.

On that topic, Bush has taken some flak for pronouncing the word nuclear wrong with some frequency. To me, this begs the question at what point is the incorrect usage correct. Since I was a kid I always pronounced the word the same as Bush does, though lately I have bowed to convention and pronounced it like it is spelled. It is not that I haven't known that the word is pronounced "new clear." It is that I think "new cue lar" just sounds cooler.

I am not alone. A lot of people besides me and Dubya have used this pronunciation, including Presidents Eisenhower, Carter, and Clinton. The editors for Merriam-Webster actually have a prewritten official letter that they send in response to people who write in to gripe that the dictionary dares to list this colloquial pronunciation as a common usage.

There are a lot of words in the English language that have multiple accepted pronunciations, so it confuses me why we care about specific mispronounciations and not others. Why are we willing to agree with Louis Armstrong about tomato and potato but not about nuclear? I say let's call the whole thing off, because I want to go back to pronouncing it the way I like.

on a tangent about sin

One of the podcasts I listen to is just two guys who record an hour-and-a-half fantasy football conversation out of their living room in Philadelphia. Usually, this podcast makes me think more about what quarterbacks I want on one of my teams than about spiritual issues, but last week was a little different.

One of the guys noted that he had offered a wager to a Dallas Cowboys fan regarding the next Cowboys/Eagles match-up. The response he got from the Dallas fan was that he didn't gamble due to religious reasons. This started a conversation in the podcast over whether gambling is officially a sin. A quote that stuck with me was, "Why is God against everything I think is fun?"

Something that really annoys me is that I often feel forced to either take a position for works or against works. Either I have to be the judgmental person who sees just about everything as a sin, or I have to be the permissive person who can't make the judgment that anything is wrong. On this blog I have picked on the judgmental perspective more, but both options are equally frustrating to me.

If someone asked me why everything they wanted to do was a sin, I would probably have a hard time responding because my conception of sin would likely be different from that person's conception of sin. I don't think that God is waiting to automatically strike down everyone who commits some specific action that a lot of people consider a sin, but anything that a person considers fun has the potential to come between that person and God. Things that may appear to be sins aren't and things that may not appear to be sins are.

When Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, I do not think he was exaggerating. It would make sense that the man who has more money and the trappings that go with it (power, security, popularity) simply has more things that can get between him and God. Having those things is not sin, but being unwilling to give them up is.

So, for the moment, I think that just about everything can be a sin. Whether you put it before God and let it become sin is another story.

important day

There are two notable things about today.

First, I asked Golden out for our first date ten years ago today. We celebrated last night with dinner and a movie. It was nice to have a night when we didn't need to worry about NJ, so we greatly appreciate our sitter giving us so much time.

It's hard to believe that it was ten years ago that I left a note with Golden telling her I was interested in her and asking if she was too. Kind of a high school thing to do, but I was eighteen.

Just about everyone I have mentioned this to has responded with, "You still keep track of when you started dating?" I don't usually feel like a sentimental fool.

Also, this is my sister's birthday. It was not on purpose that I asked Golden out on my sister's birthday so I would remember the date better, but it did work out conveniently. I should probably call my sister to wish her well shortly.

Happy birthday, Miss Carisma, and happy ten years, Golden!

natural disaster risk

Long before Katrina hit New Orleans I determined that there was no chance that I would ever move there. It is not like there was much chance of me ever moving to the Bayou, but even if I would consider moving that far south, the idea of living in a city along the gulf coast below sea level just sounded unsafe.

Now everyone knows the dangers of living in New Orleans. Even so, many people have decided to move back to the city, and the federal government has committed to rebuilding the city. While this may represent some bravery, to me it is just a little ludicrous as well. There is no question whether another Katrina will happen. The question is whether the next Katrina happens in one year or in four hundred years. Add to that the potential of rising sea levels, and I start to question the sanity of the people who are willing to take the risk of living there, and the sanity of a government who will have to bail out the city again when that occurs.

I think it is hilarious to be around people who did not grow up in the Midwest when tornado and thunderstorm season starts up. I remember one person from Taiwan who I was doing a group project with at KU a couple of years ago pointed out that tornadoes were much scarier than typhoons. Truthfully, there are few places in the United States that I would feel safer than in the Midwest because anyone who has lived here long knows that, while it is tornado alley, a four-hundred-mile wide hurricane is a bit larger than the typical tornado, and much more difficult to avoid.

Last year, SustainLane.com ranked fifty United States cities on economic, environmental, health, and social sustainability risks due to natural disasters. Actually, Miami ranked worse than New Orleans. Even if I intended to move any time in the near future, I can guarantee that I would avoid the cities I have already mentioned as well as the entire California coast. A simple life in Kansas City is better than a homeless one in San Francisco.

no gossip allowed

Most people know what it is like to deal with gossips. Whether at work, church, or anywhere else, they can be beyond annoying.

Now for my about-face. I would assume that other people have gossiped about me at some point, but it has not directly impacted me in any way of which I am aware. I cannot think of many instances when I found out that people were talking about me, and I cannot think of any instances when I cared. Maybe I am too boring to be the subject of an inventive story. That is probably a blessing, since gossips can ruin other people's reputations, livelihoods, and friendships.

I recently read that at least one company has a no gossipping rule that can result in termination. In another example, four people in New Hampshire were fired from a city government office for gossipping about two people they errantly thought were having an affair. In theory, I think banning gossip is a great idea. Even ignoring the ethical issues involved, gossip damages morale and distracts workers. I can't imagine how implementing such a rule is practical, though.

More businesses should probably have gossip policies, but how would such a policy appropriately define gossip? Is any talk about others behind their backs, even if it appears benign, gossip? How bad does a juicy piece of information need to be before it triggers the policy? Should there be stricter rules in place for some workplaces (like churches) than others (like gossip magazine offices)? Is it actually possible to regulate gossip?

november news

I haven't done a top ten list in a while, and with Letterman's writers on strike I figure a few people might be going through withdrawal. So, here are the top ten news stories so far this month.

10. Britney Spears succeeds in making Kevin Federline the most fit parent available for their children.

9. Fans of "Survivor", "The Amazing Race", "Dancing with the Stars", et al fail to notice the Writer's Guild of America strike.

8. Dennis Kucinich and Duncan Hunter both put up a strong fight to be the most irrelevant remaining Presidential candidate.

7. The Mormon Church edits the Book of Mormon to modify the religion's assertions of the Native American genealogy and to make Reebok the official sports shoe of Mormonism.

6. Iraqi Kurds detain soldiers from Turkey who were part of a Turkish attack on Kurdish territory in Iraq. This reminds millions of Americans to add both poultry and cheese to their Thanksgiving shopping lists.

5. A senate investigation into questionably extravagant purchases by mega-ministry leaders causes Pastor James Shorm of Rochester First Baptist in Minnesota to stop using premium gas to fill up the church van, just to be on the safe side.

4. Gas prices skyrocket, dramatically increasing the income of nations in the Middle East and the smugness of the typical Prius owner.

3. Mattel announces that the company has plans to enter the nuclear arms shipping container industry since it has a lot of excess lead lying around.

2. Denver Broncos running back Travis Henry appeals his marijuana usage conviction with the rationalization that everyone in Denver plays a mile high and on grass.

1. An unnamed blogger who is short on ideas decides to post a completely unfunny top ten list and, furthermore, expects his audience to read it.

orthodox quaker

Recently, one of the guys at work found a "What Religion am I?" quiz, and some of us took it. It is not entirely detailed or overly accurate. A couple of the questions are not worded well enough, such as one that asks if works are necessary for salvation. I am always intrigued by where I might my beliefs tend to fall along doctrinal scales.

According to the test I should be an Orthodox Quaker. This doesn't totally wash since I am not a pacifist and I don't like oatmeal, but some of my beliefs do appear to overlap. I did seriously consider attending a Quaker university in Ohio at one point, so maybe the test is onto something.

As could be predicted, my top five results are all from Christian traditions. I can't see myself as a Catholic, Orthodox, or Mormon, though. The test isn't perfect.

1. Orthodox Quaker (100%)
2. Eastern Orthodox (99%)
3. Roman Catholic (99%)
4. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (96%)
5. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (95%)

So, what are you?

compensation

Sometimes I am able to be incredibly organized and sometimes I feel in disarray. Until recently I thought that I was just naturally an organized person, or that it had something to do with OCD. I have determined recently that I am probably compensating for something when I am being organized.

A good example of this is my inability to find anything. If Golden asks for me to help her find NJ's pacifier I will almost certainly look right at it at some point without seeing it. I think this is because something in my brain cannot process everything I am seeing. I long ago got in the habit of always placing loose objects in one of a few different locations to compensate for my inability to find things. If I can't find my keys I have about five places I can check and they will almost always be in one of those five places.

Likewise, I tend to do well if I have all of the information that I need centralized, so I centralize it. This is because if I keep on having to look up stuff I will invariably lose information or forget that I need to remember it. If I am not careful to take note of all of the information that I need or of everything that I need to accomplish, I will almost certainly forget something important that I am supposed to do.

I wonder if other people have elements of their personalities that exist to compensate for them naturally being the exact opposite of the personality quirks in question. Are some people who are outwardly confident only portraying that because it effectively hides the fact that they are clueless? Are some people standoffish because they have learned that being needy doesn't get them the affection they desire? Are some people musical or stylish or well-read simply because it is actually their natural weakness? I have to think so.

the best do-diddly jobberino

In the past couple of weeks I have recorded a few movies on the DVR to watch. Something that I always enjoy when watching a movie that has been edited for content on television is the creative way the TV version is modified to be less crude. Good edits are impossible to catch if you're not looking for them, but bad edits are a lot more entertaining.

It's always funny to hear a character go to cuss someone out then that character's voice changes for a moment when a cleaner word or phrase is substituted. If the comments don't match the character's lip movements that is even better. Some of the words and phrases I catch in these scenarios I have never heard in that sort of context, and so they show quite a bit of creativity.

I think that rewriting cuss words out of movies has got to be one of the most entertaining jobs in existence. Getting to make the choice to either replace the censored phrases with something serious or something ridiculous would be a blast. How do you get that job?

blood money

I was up the other night with the television on when I noticed that an infomercial was on the channel that I had been watching. In my observation there are two different types of infomercials. The first is the kind where physical products are sold at a markup of what they are probably worth. I don't really have too much problem with this type of infomercial because the customer actually gets the product that is advertised. The second is the kind where untold riches are promised for people who just sign up for an expensive, but supposedly worthwhile, moneymaking scheme. The infomercial I noticed fell into this second category.

I will not dwell too long on the content of the actual infomercial other than to say that it was obviously a scam. I won't link to the website of the product itself, but the concept was matching buyers and sellers of notes of debt. Some user complaints of the service, which can cost up to $30,000 dollars, are at this web page.

What bothers me is that this scam would not be possible without the assistance of people and organizations who are otherwise purported to be on the up and up. For example, Gary Collins, whose face is at least recognizable to most people, was a host for the infomercial. His role appeared to be that of establishing the service as legitimate.

More important to me, though, is that the people who run the television stations that host infomercials like this willingly take the money the scammers are wringing from their victims so that the scammers get more air time and suck in more victims. Somehow, running the following text across the screen for five seconds before a half-hour-long program designed to take money from people without actually providing the advertised service removes the station's legal liability.

The program you are watching is a paid program or advertisement. All claims and representations made in the program are the sole responsibility of the advertiser.

Imagine for a moment if a hate group purchased time on a station to advocate violence against a specific person or group of people. Imagine if Michael Vick had an infomercial advertising dog fighting equipment. Would displaying text like that above really remove the station's responsibility for deciding to air such trash? Should the responsibility really be any different for fraud than for violent crimes? Especially since this form of fraud tends to target people who are already struggling financially.

So, even though I am usually a person who is sickened by the level of litigation that occurs in the United States, I would completely get behind victims of these scams taking the TV stations to court if they decided to do so. How you interpret my position on this issue and all representations you make of my opinion are your sole responsibility.

lost in store

Most of the time I pride myself on having a reasonable sense of direction. While there are exceptions, I generally have an idea of where I am and where I need to be. One huge exception to this is in a department store.

Today, Golden and I visited the local mall. After we picked up some shoes for me, she looked at clothes for herself and I decided to walk around the mall with NJ to keep him occupied. I was quickly reminded of one of the reasons why I feel so out of place in a mall department store. all I could see was a sea of clothes and it took me a good three to five minutes (an eternity in a department store) to find the entry to the rest of the mall.

I think my problem is that navigation within a department store relies on being able to identify that such and such side of the store is the junior's section and such and such part of the store is the formal section and so forth. I don't pay much attention to the clothes, so I don't usually know where I am. All I really know is that the perfume and cheap jewelry is usually near the mall entrance, and that is where I want to be.

this halloween

Yesterday was NJ's first Halloween in a costume. Golden had picked a cow costume for him. He even had a cowbell (so, no, he didn't need more cowbell). He didn't really like wearing the costume, but he did look good in it.
I debated whether to recycle a costume to wear at work for a while. I finally decided on putting together a "royal flush" costume that consisted of a purple robe, a scepter, a crown (with a toilet handle), and a toilet seat. Generally, in judging a costume for an adult I think there are three things to consider.

1. Cleverness/Originality
2. Appearance
3. Nerdiness/Obscurity of Subject Matter

As is usually the case, I think my costume was relatively strong in originality, but was a little weaker in appearance and was a bit nerdy. Fortunately, in my office originality is more valued than appearance or avoiding nerdy subject matters.

I used spray paint to make my crown and scepter gold. I should have thought twice before doing this. I had a splitting headache all day and I am convinced it is from being in my office throughout the day with those two items.

Also, I carved a pumpkin. As should be obvious, it is a pumpkin inside a pumpkin inside a pumpkin. I though it was an original idea, but my understanding is that this was discussed last year, so it must have soaked into my subconsciousness. Regardless, this is the result.
While it was a fun enough Halloween, I am always content to have completed the holiday.

recalled

There are a lot of settings in Microsoft Office that I do not fully understand, but probably the one that perplexes me the most is the recall functionality. On rare occasion, and typically when the email is sent to a large number of people, I will get an email followed by a recall request from some random person. Either someone wrote something they regret or they passed along inaccurate information.

The problem is that as soon as I get a notification that someone wants to recall an email, I get really curious about why the email is being recalled. I typically check the old email to see what in it to cause the author to want to recall it. All the recall request does is draw attention to the errant email.

The uselessness of the recall functionality was on display in the news in the past week. Apparently, a Congressional clerical worker sent an email to a whistleblower distribution list for Justice Department employees with and placed the list in the "To" field rather than the "BCC" field. This was the distribution list for people who had submitted complaints to a whistleblower website. This way, everyone who had submitted a complaint on the whistleblower website saw the email address of everyone else who submitted a complaint on that website. The person who made the error tried to recall the email, but all this succeeded in doing was to resend everyone's email address to the distribution list.

From my perspective, a better process to follow when you realize that you shouldn't have sent a specific email is just to reply to the bad email to correct what was wrong with the first email. What is so difficult about that?

key mistake

In most of the things that Golden and I do, we compliment each other well. Our routines around the house work simply work well together. There is one area where this is not the case, though.

When I transport things out of the car and/or into the house and have to pop the trunk or unlock a door, I put the keys back in my pocket immediately. Golden typically leaves the keys in place and grabs them when she closes the trunk or the door. Neither process is better or worse than the other, but we have learned that the when they do not work well when combined.

On Saturday we were sitting at a red light when three or four of the driver around us started honking at us and signaling for my attention. I rolled down my window and someone behind me shouted that we had keys hanging out of our trunk. Golden had started emptying the trunk when she got back to the house with groceries, but did not get the keys out of the trunk. I took over unloading the car, but did not think to check for the keys in the trunk when I closed it.

This sort of thing has happened with some frequency in the past but I don't think we have ever gotten on the road before discovering it. So, if you want to visit us some time you should be able to let yourself in. Don't bother checking under the fake rock or the suspicious (since we don't have a dog) dog poo. The key will be in the door.

cake in a dishwasher

I was talking with someone at work about how good of a job we do in loading the dishwasher. When I do it, I think I do a reasonably good job. He probably does the dishes more frequently, but he said that he doesn't usually bother rinsing them before putting them into the dishwasher. Then he mentioned a commercial that has intrigued me in the past. He pointed out that at least in some scenarios you can wash a cake in the dishwasher, so why rinse?

I don't know if everyone remembers this but a couple of years ago Cascade started marketing a detergent called Cascade Complete. In one of the commercials they placed an entire angel food cake into a dishwasher then showed that it disappeared after going through a full wash cycle.

The commercial was effective in that I was impressed that a detergent could do that. It was ineffective in that I could never remember which detergent the commercial was for. I would expect that the packaging would say something to the effect of, "This detergent dissolves a cake!" How can you get people to buy something when they don't remember what it is?

In looking around the Internet I actually found a web page detailing how someone tried to duplicate the commercial with mixed success. Maybe it will be worth trying Cascade Complete out some time. It may have trouble actually dissolving a cake, but in our house it shouldn't need to.

off the bridge

Week seven: Did you really assume
I'd find some solace from the letter in your room?
Next life, could you kindly refrain
From throwing yourself at the mercy of a train?

Silence all, nobody breathe
How in the world could you just leave?
You promised you would
Silence that evil with good- Newsboys ("Elle G.")

I tried to kill the pain
But only brought more
So much pain
I lay dying
And I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal
I'm dying, praying, bleeding, and screaming
Am I too lost to be saved?
Am I too lost?- Evanescence ("Tourniquet")

This past weekend I watched a documentary entitled Bridge, which is applicable to this site for more than just the name. It is about the people who actually jump off the bridge. The film captures people as they attempt to commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Most succeed.

In most of the Christian traditions of which I have some knowledge, suicide has been viewed as a kind of unforgivable sin. Logically, this does appear to make some sense. How can someone be right with God when in their last moments they ended a life?

I have always wondered about the state of the soul of the person who commits suicide. While this does not describe all suicides, I would guess that most frequently it is something reserved to people who are chemically imbalanced. For this and other reasons, I am not convinced that suicide is an unforgivable sin. No one is perfect when they die, so maybe grace can cover suicide.

I have also always wondered about what goes through the head of someone intending to commit suicide. What is the trigger that makes someone think this is the best option available? One man in Bridge said that after he jumped off the bridge he immediately regretted the decision and decided he did not really want to die. Is this regret universal?

What about people who decide to end it all for other reasons? This treads into political waters, but I honestly don't know how I feel about people who are terminally ill who want to end their lives early. Is that death merciful or is it a selfish approach that ignores the importance and value of life? How would I feel if I had to make that decision?

In my mind, if suicide is unforgivable it has to be because it is because it is somehow a selfish or cowardly act. I already know that giving your life for someone else is about the most God-like thing a person can do. Maybe the ultimate selfless act can also be the ultimate selfish act as well once all of the altruism has been removed.

Even though this blog is about me figuratively jumping off the bridge, I cannot even fathom ever being at the point where I would want to literally do so. Not even if everyone else was doing it.

fat fingered

On Monday I went bowling as part of a team-building activity at work. I was reminded of a question I always have had when trying to find a suitable ball. Who is it whose fingers are so much skinnier than mine who still wants to use a 16 pound ball?
I generally look for a ball in the 14 to 16 pound range because I rely heavily on the weight of the ball pushing the pins around. I am not accurate enough to use a lighter ball. I would figure that, since I am looking for bowling balls on the heavier side of the scale, the finger holes in the bowling balls that I check would tend to be larger. As a general rule, people with smaller fingers should want to use a lighter ball.

This is apparently not the case. More often than not I pass up a ball because my fingers do not fit. I have often wondered if anyone actually uses those heavier bowling balls with the smaller finger holes. Maybe there are a lot of people with skinny fingers. Or maybe I just have fatter fingers than I thought.

farewell, old friend

I have always likely reclining around the living room with a blanket. Around the house, I am a lot like Linus from the Peanuts. I actually also use this blanket in bed as well. I should probably be a little embarrassed about my blanket, but I am not.

The blanket that I have used for the last seven years is a light quilt that my grandmother gave us for our wedding. It got a lot of use over the last seven years and it shows it. There are uncountable tears in the blanket and it is threadbare from use. Golden has been annoyed about me using such a worn out blanket as of late and has been letting me know that we need to throw it out. I finally relented and started breaking in a replacement blanket last night.

The new blanket may have a hard time performing up to the old standard, because the old blanket set the bar high. It won't really matter whether the new blanket is up to snuff, though, because by the time I issue a final ruling the old one will be long gone.

honey do

While I was taking classes Golden was patient and did not ask me to do much. While there were things that she did want me to get to around the house, she was nice and decided not to burden me with them.

Now that I am through with classes for a while, I have a list of things that Golden wants me to do. I also have a list of things I want me to do, which might be as long.

When I was in class I would see something that needed done around the house and get frustrated that my time was limited to deal with those things. Now I am frustrated that I don't have an excuse not to work on them.

Maybe I'll come down with something.

jump

I generally like scary movies. Not really because I like the scariness, but because they usually are difficult to predict. Lately, I have liked watching scary movies alone, if only for the fact that I am jumpy.

It is usually easy to identify when a character is going to run into a shocking situation, but I always involuntarily jump back when something jumps out at the screen or at a character on the screen. When I saw Independence Day in the theater, I felt pretty embarrassed because I almost left my seat when the alien comes to life while it is being cut open at Area 51. I knew that was what was going to happen, but I didn't have control over my reaction.

My jumpiness carries over into real life as well. When I turn a corner and almost run into someone going the opposite direction, I am sure I am entertaining to watch. I startle real easily when people come up behind me as well.

As susceptible as I am to it, I also used to like jumping out at people to get a reaction when I was younger. I guess that just means I deserve what I get now.

the shallow end

This past week I came across a story about a wannabe gold digger more than one news source. There is a little doubt as to whether both postings are real, but they are both believed to be likely be serious posts.

In a nutshell, a woman posted on Craig's List asking for advice on how to land a husband making $500 thousand a year, because she has only been able to date guys making in the $200 thousand range. She believes that she is beautiful and cultured enough to land a better guy, so what is she doing wrong? Someone claiming to match the woman's qualifications then responded with a biting explanation of why she may not be having much success.

If there is something I am judgmental about, it is regarding shallowness. I used to be even worse than I am right now. In case it is not already painfully obvious, I hate to see people make decisions about others' value based on looks, popularity, wealth, and anything of that nature. The problem for me, though, is where should the line be drawn.

What qualifies as shallowness? The definition that I used to follow was that shallowness is making a decision about whether I want to have a relationship (friendship or otherwise) based on something that that person either has no control over or that results from that person being fake. Now, I don't hate that definition, but I don't think it is perfect, either.

Most of the time when I hear shallowness mentioned, it is in reference to appearance, money, or social position. Are these things inherently shallow, though? For example, I used to think that plastic surgery was incredibly shallow in all circumstances. I now think that if others judge based on appearance, maybe the surgery is to address others' shallowness rather the shallowness of the person having the surgery. Or at a less extreme level, I don't think it is naturally shallow for someone to use makeup, and I think most people agree with that.

I do think that what society deems as shallow and not shallow is often inaccurate. However, I don't always have a good reason for why I think that something is shallow in comparison to something else that I do not think is shallow.

So, this is another one of those posts where I ask for reader opinions. What is shallow and what isn't shallow? Is there a line to cross or is there gray area?

road hogs

In the past week I have had a few instances with overly aggressive motorcyclists on the road. Normally this is not a big deal, but I always wonder about people who aggressively drive their bikes on the highway.

Recently, I ran across two behaviors that I have seen quite a bit in the past. First, for a stretch of about a mile, and through a few lights, a guy in a motorcycle tailed me very closely. Eventually, he passed me, but before that he was close enough that I didn't see his tires. Second, I was driving down the highway at the speed limit when a cyclist blew past me weaving back and forth through traffic that was just about bumper to bumper. Both of these guys were wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

What I don't understand is why, if there is no safety mechanism in place in the case of an accident except for maybe a helmet, anyone would drive a motorcycle aggressively. If I am in the right mood I can be aggressive on the road as well, but I have an air bag in front of me and a steel frame around me to at least make me think I am safe. I also am easier to see and don't have to be concerned about balancing my car on two wheels. If a cyclist crashes at seventy miles an hour and is fortunate to not run into or under another vehicle he or she is still looking at a very serious case of road rash.

Normally, my opinion would be that if someone else wants to take their own life in their hands let them. One of my greatest fears on the road, though, is getting into an unavoidable accident with a motorcyclist that seriously hurts or kills him or her. Even if it is 100% the motorcyclist's fault, there is no way being in an accident where someone else is killed will not psychologically leave a mark on me as well. This is an admittedly selfish line of thinking, but it does explain why I care.

the week in review

Golden already mentioned that my sister visited this week. I'll just add that it was nice having her visit, but that I wish I would have had a little more freedom in my schedule. She will stop by for a few hours on Sunday as well, so that should be enjoyable.

NJ came down with a cold on Monday. Golden and I both started showing symptoms Wednesday morning. I really wish there was a good way to keep from getting what NJ gets without avoiding him completely. It is starting to look like we will be getting every bug that hampers kids his age for the next few years.

I completed the two classes I am taking this semester on Monday and Tuesday. I had a harder time committing to this semester than usual, partially because I knew I would have a three-month break after the classes were complete and partially because I did not feel like the summer ended yet.

We trimmed NJ's hair again tonight. That is not really noteworthy other than to say that he did significantly worse this time than last time. He was completely inconsolable for probably fifteen minutes after the haircut was complete. I think the trimmers startled him. I know he didn't trust me for a half hour to an hour after I gave him the cut.

I think that is it. I'll get back to enjoying my first weekend without homework again.

not your father's movie

More like your father's father's father's father's movie.

I was looking around YouTube last night and came across something of historical significance. Without context, the video is not very interesting at all, but there was a time when people paid money to see it run. This is because the short, starting with a bit called Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, is considered the first work of cinema ever produced. The Lumière brothers created this film and presented it to audiences in 1895.



What gives me pause is that almost all of the people in this film were old enough to be my grandparents' grandparents. The baby who shows up midway through the flick would be close to the oldest person alive if he or she were still alive today. Looking at this, for me, is like a peek into a completely different and alien world.

I have said this all before, but not from this specific perspective. A mere hundred years can make all the difference in the world.

well plate

Two-and-a-half years ago Golden and I welcomed a new member into our family. No, this was before NJ. About that long ago I got my car at Carmax.

Ever since purchasing the car, any time I walk around the front of the car I get a little irritated that I am a driving billboard for Carmax, as the front license plate holder contains a brightly colored cardboard Carmax plate. The problem is that I don't have anything good to replace it with.

There is not much I care about enough to advertise it on my car but care little enough about that I don't mind people associating that thing with my bad driving. As an example, I had a Jesus fish on my last car, but I regretted putting it on many times due to minor imperfections in my driving habits. I would rather people generically curse out Ford drivers than curse out God when I cut them off.

I considered sports team license plates, but I am still debating if that is how I would want my car to be identified. I have considered getting a fake vanity plate made as well, but for the money I would want it to have some meaning. I have not thought of a good vanity message that meets all of the specifications of what I am looking for just yet. So, until I make up my mind, I'll just have to continue to advertise for Carmax.

cram session cut short

As I have griped to just about everyone who would hear me this week, I have a final on Monday and one on Tuesday. They both cover quite a bit of material, so I have been studying more than usual the last few nights. This is odd, because I usually just cram for tests the day or two before they occur.

Since I normally cram, I am currently presented with a scenario that I am not used to. It is midnight, and I am considering going to bed rather than studying more. I usually do my best studying at night because there are fewer distractions and I think better at night, but tonight I am so tired it may not be worth trying. In the past I have just toughed it out because I am worthless trying to study in the morning. I think I might give it a shot this time, though.

I must be getting old, because sleep has rarely won out in the past.

the great pumpkin

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin."- Linus (It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown)

I hate conflict. I also love conflict. It just depends on what type of conflict it is.

I don't necessarily dislike discussing traditionally taboo topics like politics, religion, or even the Great Pumpkin. I don't mind arguing with someone or someone arguing with me, either. I can actually get quite a kick out of people disagreeing with me under specific circumstances. What I hate the most about conflicts is that there is often very little circumspection.

To be circumspect is to approach an issue cautiously and with an interest in all of the implications of the issue. So if someone wants to argue with me about my views about anything from the political to the spiritual, the first thing I want to know is if that person has truly attempted to understand an opposing viewpoint or at least thought through the strengths and weaknesses of his or her position. I even feel queasy when someone agrees with me on a serious issue without thinking through the implications of that position.

I know that I sometimes fail on this front as well, so I am a little hypocritical to judge on circumspection, but it is a good way for me to know whether discussing a contentious topic is likely to result in mutual understanding or frustrated shouting.

This is probably an example of the neurotic behavior that I am currently trying to address. Right now probably the easiest way to get me worked up is to just state a strong opinion that uses stereotypes or that belittles rather than addresses any opposing rationale. After that, I will almost definitely not be my normal, calm Bruce Banner self.

thud

Since our office was redesigned this summer, I have had a rude awakening just about every time I try to go through the door from our office to the main hallway. The door is very sensitive and it must be opened in a very deliberate motion. If I push on the door wrong when I am trying to open it the door sticks and there is a distinguishable thud as I run shoulder or face first into the door.

I used to get real frustrated at this, but now I just act irritated. My office is near this door, so my minor frustration is more than offset by the entertainment I get from the sound of other people running face first into the door. At least one person decided that kicking the door in retaliation was a good idea.

I believe that someone actually tried to address this, but apparently WD-40 is not strong enough to keep the door from sticking. For now, I'll just have to deal with getting an occasional chuckle every time I hear a thud.

the bathroom comfort scale

I have been thinking lately about the fact that I don't like to follow people into public bathrooms. Sometimes I have to, but I am a little uncomfortable doing this. I have also given a lot of thought to how standard certain bathroom discomforts are. As such, I have devised a grading scale. It is specific to the men's room because that is the one I use. For the record, my comfort level is no higher than four.

• Comfort Level 1: Unwilling to use the public restroom at all if anyone else is in it.
• Comfort Level 2: Will use urinal when in need.
• Comfort Level 3: Will use a stall if no one else is in the restroom.
• Comfort Level 4: Will use a trough urinal when other people are in the restroom.
• Comfort Level 5: Will use a stall even if there are other people in the bathroom, but will take a stall toward the back of the bathroom.
• Comfort Level 6: Not at all uncomfortable about using a trough urinal.
• Comfort Level 7: Will proudly march to an open stall with newspaper even when all other stalls are used.
• Comfort Level 8: Will strike up conversations with the person in the next stall.

I am sure that I missed some steps in my scale and I know that it does not take women's bathrooms into account. Still, it works for my purposes.

a good clip

Every week as I near Friday I get a little more uncomfortable. Not much, but a little. It isn't even noticeable until Monday night or Tuesday morning, but by Thursday I think about it almost any time I use my fingers for anything but typing. I am of course talking about my lengthening fingernails.

For some reason I cannot stand having long fingernails. I never have. When I was younger, I used to chew my fingernails, but I was reasonably good about doing it in a way that was difficult to notice, because I hate jagged fingernails as much as long fingernails.

I have always and still wonder how people who have long fingernails can stand them. Aren't they always catching on things? Don't they feel weird? Is it really worth having them long?

Now I trim my fingernails every Friday night. Some people go out and do more social things, but how can a night on the town compare to five minutes with fingernail trimmers. It simply can't.

fantasy world

Just about everything I have done for entertainment recently is a form of escapism. I have active escapism through fantasy football, fantasy Survivor, and a comic book character strategy game called HeroClix that we have been playing at work. For my passive escapism I have been filling time with TV and movies.

I have given this some thought. At first I thought it must be that I am subconsciously trying to escape the chaos of life. On further consideration, though, I have to think that it is because I have little other choice.

This is not meant to be a complaint at all, but the forms of entertainment I choose are largely due to what is possible. Even if I prefered to spend all of my weekends hiking, that is not something that I can easily work into my current schedule. Whether I would structure it into my schedule if it were easier is debatable, but the things that are the easiest to do are what I end up doing.

I do not understand how some parents of small children can remain socially active. That is definitely a challenge for me, and if the real world is a challenge I'll happily take a fantasy world alternative.

all thumbs

Of the things that frustrate me, among the most inane has to be my irritation of taking one copy of a handout and handing the rest of the copies on. In class last night my professor kept on passing out handout after handout. Every time the stack of handouts got to me I would awkwardly fumble around with the papers, finally work one out of the pile, and hand the now dishevelled stack of handouts to my neighbor.

I have the same problem when I am asked to help hand out papers in church to the congregation as an usher. I have the hardest time counting out the number of cards or papers that need to be handed to each row, so I go slower than a lot of other people.

I am not sure why I have trouble with this, but I think it is a combination of poor hand-eye coordination and stubby fingertips. I have a hard time being very accurate with keyboards as well, so the two artre probvabl;y rewlatewd.

filler pictures

This is a filler post because the only topics I had for today were either boring or underdeveloped. I have a few pictures that I have recently collected because I thought they were relatively humorous.

Here's what I've got.
I believe this is a marmot. I found it when looking through Wikimedia Commons. I'm not exactly sure why, but this picture strikes me as funny as any other animal picture I have seen in recent years.

This is a picture I took at the Combat Air Museum in Topeka last year. I know why they have to have the sign there, but it still sounds dumb.

This is from the parking lot in front of my office. It isn't too frequent that you see a trailer hitch on a Neon. I would suspect that even towing a small Sea-Doo could cause a Neon problems in the long run.

This is another picture from work. Handguns are prohibited, so employees must be limited to bringing in shotguns and rifles. I wish I was the one who originally made this observation.

you don't know that?

I am watching the game show 1 vs 100 right now. The game is structured so that one person is asked a series of questions as are a group of one hundred people in the audience. If the person outlasts everyone in this "mob" in the audience he or she gets one million dollars. If they miss a question, the people in the mob who have not yet missed a question split a pot of money.

When I watch a game show I frequently ask how people do not know some bit of information. For example, I thought that everyone knew that in Paul Revere's Ride two lamps meant that the British were coming by sea. Golden thought everyone knew that a white sale was for linens. We both got one of these two "easy" questions wrong.

It is always interesting to hear what people think is information that everyone should know. I have been surprised in the past when intelligent people I knew didn't know information I thought was common. I also know that many times people have reacted the same way to me.

Sometimes it is a little difficult to acknowledge that I don't know something that everyone else does because it might betray that I am not the vault of useless knowledge that I like to be. When it comes to the stuff that a person wants to take pride in knowing I think just about everyone is that way. One person may not feel stupid not knowing who the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation was, but that same person might be embarrassed not to know something about cars, or fashion, or something else. I just have to avoid expecting to know it all.

my chill pill

I don't do New Year's resolutions for two big reasons. First, too many other people do them, so I would feel like I am just doing the resolution because everyone else is. Second, I don't want to be like the majority of people who make New Year's resolutions and break mine before February. I do have a resolution that I am making to myself starting this week, though, and I am not going to wait until January to make it. I am going to be less neurotic.

A while back in one of my first classes I took the Big Five test to measure different personality traits, and I posted my scores. The test scores actually seemed to indicate that an MBA may be a bad idea because some elements of my personality do not traditionally fit into most business leadership roles.

I took the test again this week because I have yet another class that is dealing with testing personality in the workplace. My introvertedness was actually significantly lower this second time taking the test. This is largely due to the fact that NJ keeps Golden and I home a lot, though. When I see a question about going to a crowded party, it doesn't sound near as bad as it used to.

One part of my personality that has remained consistent, though, is my high neuroticism. This indicates that it is easy for me to get frustrated at everyday things, which is obviously not a good thing. It does make me more responsible for reasons that are beyond this post, but it still causes more problems than it is worth.

I do not have an official plan right now, and I know this will take some time. I do have an idea of what causes my neuroticism, though. I am a perfectionist and I tend to view things as beyond my control. If I change this part of my psyche a bit, I will lower my edginess.

Also, I do not expect to do more than eventually bring myself into a more normal range. I don't think I would want to go further than that anyway, because I don't think a little neuroticism is necessarily a bad thing. I just go overboard on occasion. Since I know the causes, I plan to start addressing those over the next couple of years. Perhaps in that time I can become a little more normal.

one more faux pas

I have already shared this story with some of the guys in the office, so those who have already heard it will have to just be patient.

In my Monday class I sit on the edge of a group of wisenheimers. Throughout class there are humorous comments that emanate from behind me and to my right in relation to whatever topic is being discussed. I will not say that I have not taken part at all in the wisecracking, but I actually stay out of it as a general rule.

Last class a discussion about RFID tags and privacy issues. RFID tags are actually the chips that a lot of people think will be the mark of the beast. I don't think they are the mark of the beast, but that is way off my current topic. It is anticipated that the chips will be embedded into people who have special medical situations like penicillin allergies to alert medical personnel. This sparked a debate as to whether people would tolerate having a chip embedded in them that contained personal medical information.

While several people were enjoying the debate, I was a little irritated because it was not on the real topic for the class and we were already running later than usual. In the midst of my irritation I thought of a joke. I commented to the person to my right, "We should have the chips made in China so that they are so coated in enough lead that they can't send any signal." This got a favorable reaction because I was talking to someone who likes to joke. As we were chuckling I turned to my left and remembered that the guy who sits to my left is Asian. I believe he is actually Chinese, but I am not absolutely certain. He didn't react to the comment, but I said it loud enough for him to hear. Oops.

I was a little embarrassed, but I don't know that this was really a true faux pas. My comment was really just a reference to recent world news, but it still was probably in poor taste. Did I cross the line into offensive or was that just a minor foot-in-the-mouth situation? At the least, I am learning how poor a reflection I am to the Chinese.

name that band

Each picture below represents a band name. Not all of the bands are still together, but more than one still is. All of the bands are very well known, so don't be thinking of obscure musicians.

As an example of what I am getting at, if I displayed a few images of Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill, you could answer that this represented The Rolling Stones. That would also probably be one of the easier pictures to guess.

I did not plan it this way, but I think the pictures start easier and get progressively harder. Others may differ on that opinion.

I will provide the answers tomorrow in the comments. Feel free to try to guess the answers before then, though.

1. This is easier when approached from my perspective.


2. I never claimed to be an artist. Even so, it should be obvious that these are sheep. What does that have to do with anything, though?


3. Aren't they cute? I mean the birds, not the politicians.


4. Are there any card games where you only hold three cards? I only displayed these three cards because this clue is difficult enough without me throwing extra cards into the mix.


5. No, I did not mean to make this guy too small for his robe. Again, I am not an artist.

Hopefully I don't need to warn anyone that there is a possibility that someone will throw some guesses out in the comments. So, if you don't want anyone to tell you the answers yet you may not want to read the comments until later.