white after labor day

I pick on fashion quite a bit. This post isn't really going to be any different, but I thought that I would at least acknowledge it.

If you want to wear white clothing you'd better work it into your wardrobe in the next three days. Why? Who knows? Someone somewhere decided that white should only be worn in the summer, and no one challenged it.

Don't get me wrong. It doesn't really impact me, so I barely care. I still have to wonder at the insanity of it all. Why don't women stick it to tradition en masse and wear white throughout the year? Why must they let someone else tell them what to wear? Why not let this be the winter of discontent?

blind spot

Try to guess what irritates me the most about the above view of the front of a large SUV.

1. The vehicle is obnoxiously larger than any person should rationally need.
2. The vehicle color is not bold enough.
3. That SUV cost way too much.
4. I can't see to turn right at the stop sign because this brilliant person just pulled all the way up to the edge of the intersection rather than providing enough room for me to see oncoming traffic. All I can see to my left is what is captured in this picture.

If you answered number four take a bow. Well, kind of. This is not a picture of an actual vehicle that has done this, but it might as well be. It happens quite a bit.

There are a lot of things I like about living in Kansas. One thing that I don't care for, though, is that the large vehicle (pickup, SUV, etc) to resident ratio is extremely high. This does not really bother me for any reason other than that the people who drive these large vehicles seem to forget that someone in a car can't see over them. Very often, if I am at a busy intersection where one road has a stop sign and the other does not, somebody will pull up far enough in his or her oversized F-150 or Ram or Hummer in the lane to my left that I cannot see oncoming traffic from that direction.

Some people may say that this is not a big deal. Just wait for the truck to pull out or just take a chance and pull out anyway. I have to wonder, though, how hard it is really to stay back a few feet from the intersection when you are in a truck or SUV. That's all I'm asking.

wisenheimer

A little over a year ago the word of the day in our office word of the day calendar was "wisenheimer." As can be seen in the image included in this post, this refers to someone who is a smart aleck. Since a few people around the office tend to make smart remarks, the definition has since been affixed to some cardboard and a magnet and provided as a reward people when they make a remark deemed worthy of the reward.

Strangely enough, I seem to have the reward a lot. I don't have it all the time, but probably enough to make me think before saying some of the things that enter my mind.

I have actually had the wisenheimer award for over a month now, because I forget to hand it off when other people make smart aleck remarks. I actually am hoping that posting this will remind me to give the award away the next time I hear a wisenheimer remark. Part of my says that there is little point in me trying to award it to someone else, though. It will be back in my hands by the end of the day.

doubt

"Faith isn't about feeling. It's about will."- Jim Towey (Mother Teresa's former legal counsel)

I am not, nor have I ever been, a Catholic. Even so, I have always had a great respect for Mother Teresa. I have heard reports that she was not always perfect, but no one is. Simply put, the sacrifice that she endured for the greater good speaks of a nobility that I cannot imagine attaining through my will alone.

In the last few days, word has gotten out about a book that details the doubts that Mother Teresa experienced about her faith. I honestly do not know how most people would react to her saying, "No faith—no love—no zeal—[The saving of] souls holds no attraction—Heaven means nothing." It is possible that a lot of people will see this with disillusionment or as evidence that faith in Christ is not real or it is misplaced. I see this as evidence for her true faith because she was willing to grapple with the doubt she had.

I am actually surprised at how much a lot of people want to make it look like they have it all together. In a church setting is is okay to say that you have had doubts in the past about your faith, but to say that you currently have doubts is somehow taboo. I personally cannot fathom true faith without the presence of some doubt. I am not necessarily even talking about doubts of God's existence, but perhaps just doubts about what He is doing in your life.

I actually think that being willing to doubt in certain situations allows people to work through issues that can derail faith later in life. Just because you convince yourself that you don't doubt God does not mean the doubt is not there. I think it is better to be honest about the concerns you have to work through them before they grow into something that really does threaten your faith. Of that I have very little doubt.

fake

Last night Golden and I watched John Tucker Must Die. While I did have a tiny bit of doubt about the flick, the movie was actually as good as I expected. It is very similar to Mean Girls with the exception that the villain is a player rather than a queen bee. To be honest, I was the one who wanted to see it. This may surprise some people, but I expected this to be more of a thinker than I think most other people expected it to be. Since both Golden and I liked the movie I was not totally off base.

Both movies have one major theme that I greatly appreciate. The main character in each film enters school as a nobody and is eventually catapulted into popularity through some evil scheme to destroy someone else. In the end of both flicks the main character learns that popularity is empty if it is attained through being fake, and that it is easy to become the person that you originally hated.

I think that most people agree that being yourself is a good thing and being fake is a bad thing, but I wonder if people only think that at the extremes. Is letting fashion dictate what you wear so that you don't stick out like a sore thumb being fake? Is rooting for the home team to fit in not being yourself? Is fixing up your house or car to impress others wrong? Is changing some of your interests to match those of your social group wrong? Are the rules different if these things are done by an adult, an adolescent, or a child?

I am deeply concerned about when NJ and any siblings he may have in the future (no, Golden is not pregnant) are old enough to crave acceptance from peers. It is inevitable. God made people that way. How much leeway should I provide in letting my children express themselves, though, when they are really just expressing what is popular in their social context? I wish I knew.

So, even though it appears on the surface that I just watched another dumb teen movie, I think there is a lot to learn from what I saw. For one, I learned that John Tucker doesn't have to die just yet. He is only able to do wrong because his victims allow him through their own selfishness.

wide eyed

I have been rediscovering some of the older music that I have because I have been loading some of it onto my Nano. I came across a song that never failed to make me think, even though the music style is not what I typically like.

From "Wide Eyed," by Nicole Nordeman.

When I met him on a sidewalk
He was preaching to a mailbox
Down on 16th Avenue
He told me he was Jesus
Sent from Jupiter to free us
With a bottle of tequila and one shoe
He raged about repentance
He finished every sentence
With a promise that the end was close at hand
I didn't even try to understand
...
Not so long ago, a man from Galilee
Fed thousands with His bread and His theology
And the truth He spoke
Quickly became the joke
Of educated, self-inflated Pharisees like me

There may be a small danger in encouraging people to listen to the guy with a tequila bottle in his hand. I have to say, though, that this is not really one of my problems. My problem is more likely at the opposite end of the spectrum.

I have already documented that I have a tendency to write certain types of people off as wackos. The question that I have to ask myself is whether this tendency would cause me to ignore Jesus if I lived in His day. Would I see him as a drunken lunatic when He spoke to me? Would I think myself too good for God?

cra-un

I was discussing an old episode of The Simpsons at work the other day. In that episode we find out that Homer is actually naturally smarter than average, but that an incident from his childhood in which a crayon was shoved into his cranial cavity caused him to lose most of his intelligence. The crayon is removed and Homer learns that life is more difficult for those who are intelligent. Out of cowardice he has a new crayon inserted where the old one was and he returns to his former dense self. When I tried to explain the scenario, though, the meaning of my words was lost.

Apparently, almost everyone pronounces the word "crayon" wrong. I say this because they pronounce it differently than I do. I pronounce the word with a short "a" (as in "hat") and end with a soft "un." So, when I say, "crayon," it sounds like "cra-un." The popular way to pronounce the word is roughly the way it is spelled, though I have noticed that even the people who believe this is how the word is pronounced vary somewhat in how they actually enunciate the word. I also think some people use a short "a" when they think they are using a long "a."

When I talked about the crayon in Homer's brain cavity my audience was not sure what I was talking about. Was I describing a cranberry and just shortening the word? Did I invent a new word? For my part, I couldn't figure out what the confusion was about.

For the last two days I have had to try to convince five or six other people that they are the ones who are pronouncing the word wrong. No one seems to accept my logic, though. I guess Homer was right. Life is harder for the intelligent.

back to school, again

Tonight is my first night back to class this semester, which can only mean one thing. Today is Dust's semi-annual "gripe about the upcoming semester" post.

It does not feel like summer break should be over. It took me a couple of years to get used to not going to school in autumn. So, now that I am going to school, it is a little surreal. I feel like I should be too old to be on a school schedule, but I am obviously not.

Since I took nine credit hours last semester and used up my educational reimbursement allotment at work for the year, I am only taking two classes this semester. They are both concentrated at the beginning of the semester, so I actually will be done with classes for the year in early October. I am very happy about this, because I am seriously not in a school mindset at the moment.

Both of my classes have required reading before the first class, but the class I am attending tonight also requires that I hand in two write-ups of segments of the required reading tonight. This would only be mildly annoying if it weren't for the fact that I think the requirements for the paper conflict. I am supposed to write a good summary of the material that includes opinions about elements of the material, and each of the write-ups is supposed to be one page. Am I supposed to err on the side of quality or quantity? It is impossible to know with no knowledge about the instructor. At least I have a 50/50 shot.

the hollow man

I've talked about my hair cut and visiting the dentist already in the last month, but a follow-up visit to the dentist today reminded me of something I experienced in both places that I haven't posted about yet.

Today, while I was getting some fillings put in the dentist and his assistant were talking shop. They had about a fifteen minute conversation where they decided to change the office schedule on Tuesdays to come in an hour early. Likewise, when I got my hair cut a couple of weeks ago all the workers in the shop spent their time gossiping about people they know and discussing details about how the business is doing.

Maybe I am no different from anyone else, but I often feel like when I am in a place of business I am pretty easy to ignore. It is easy for people to have generic conversations about the business like I am not even there. I am not complaining. I don't always want to fight to come up with small talk and this relieves me of that duty. It does make me wonder if I need to work on having a more imposing presence, though. I don't want to completely drop off the map.

life with young kids

For the first few years that Golden and I were married I felt like people who had kids did everything they could to make sure I understood the lack of responsibilities life is without kids. For example, if I asked someone with kids if they had seen a specific movie in a theater, that person might mention that he or she doesn't go to movies any more because of his or her kids. I was never too annoyed about this because I always figured that I would do the same thing when I had kids. In a very unsurprising development, I do the same thing to people without kids now that we have NJ.

Now, when someone asks me about whether I have been somewhere like an amusement park or to a movie or some other random thing I don't just reply with a "no." I have to make a point that life with a one-year-old does not allow for many diversions.

For the year or two before NJ was born we did not really go out much anyway, but after he was born our mobility was obviously limited even moreso. Even though it is not that big of a deal, it is easy to draw the contrast between what is and is not possible to do with very young kids. I simply have a difficult time restraining my comments about what is not possible.

To those without kids, I do apologize if I make a point of what I am not able to do. I'm not bitter about the situation or anything like that, but I still don't think that my making the occasional comment is something that I am going to be able to change.

that's not news

I have heard a lot of criticisms of the news in my life. I have issued some complaints as well, justified or not. I have heard the opposing complaints that the news is too negative and that a lot of the news is fluff pieces. The natural problem is that most positive news is fluff.

In my mind, this is a big deal because people are influenced by journalists. If something or someone gets a lot of media attention, most people get the hint that this person or thing is important. If major issues are framed in a certain way in the media, people will look at those issues through that perspective, regardless as to their individual positions on the topic.

I have many times complained that celebrities' love lives should not count as news. My mom once told me that when she was growing up in a family with three girls, she did not believe anyone actually watched the sports report at the end of the nightly news. I have often made fun of what qualifies as front page news in small town newspapers, such as a story about flu vaccinations that had been offered the previous day. Should any, or perhaps all, of these count as real news?

Should there be a standard for what counts as news? If the standard is only to report those stories that impact most listeners, this will eliminate celebrity news and sports. It will also eliminate nearly all international news that is not economic.

If the standard for what counts as news is market driven, specifically what people are the most interested in, there is a real possibility that news is just whatever can garner the most provocative headline, pictures, or video. This is not something that I am comfortable with.

A final issue is objectivity. Should real news have no slant? Is there a threshold where something is mere propaganda with no news value, or can a television commercial substitute for the news?

The question I have for you all today is what should count as news. Should it be defined as what impacts the most people? Should it just be whatever the people want to hear about? Is it even possible to define? Is everything news?

the kryptonite christ

Golden and I watched Superman Returns this past weekend. Since I wasn't impressed at the original movies as an adult (I loved them as a kid), I have to say the new movie is a significant improvement.

One thing that I noticed throughout the movie, though, was apparent parallel that was being drawn between Superman and Jesus. Some of the things that I noticed follow.

Spoiler Warning

• Superman is sent by his father to Earth.
• Superman must convince Lois Lane that the world needs a savior, implying that he is that savior.
• When Superman is beaten up he is given what is intended to be the death blow in his side with a dagger of kryptonite.
• Near the end of the movie Superman falls toward earth. At that moment it looks to me like his body is in a cross-like shape.
• Superman has a sort of death and resurrection, though I don't think he ever actually dies.

End Spoiler Warning

I am never really sure how to to feel about Christ imagery that I see in entertainment. Should I be happy that perhaps the parallel will get people to think about the real, rather than imagined, Christ? Should I be bothered that a filmmakers are hijacking a part of my beliefs to make a quick buck? Is there some sort of standard that I should use to determine whether the parallel is a good thing or a bad thing?

Probably the first movie moment that gave me some pause as to how I should react was from Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace when the audience finds out that Anakin's mother conceived him without a man. Even though I could not articulate a good reason why this should bother me, I felt uneasy about that scene for a while. In retrospect it was probably a combination of the fact that I knew Anakin would become Darth Vader and the fact that it felt like a very ineloquent way to turn Anakin into a Christ figure.

In the end it is probably only barely for religious or philosophical reasons that I have qualms about Christ parallels in entertainment. It is probably more for intellectual reasons. I have to be convinced the character deserves to be parallelled to Christ before I don't see it as a cheap stunt. Usually, when Christ is referenced it feels like the something is missing. It's not just the Devil who is in the details.

happy seventh anniversary

Seven years ago on Sunday Golden and I were married. A few weeks ago Golden's mom pointed out how we looked like two kids playing dress up more than adults getting married on our wedding day. That is probably not too far off.

Probably the thing that has struck me the most about marriage has been how much the person you marry impacts you as a person. I know this is probably largely due to how young we were when we got married, but it is amazing how much our personalities have become like each other.

Golden, there isn't anyone else I want to be like more than you.

for men only

About two years ago Golden read through For Women Only: The Inner Lives of Men and posted on it. The book did present some opportunities for her to understand me, so I appreciated the fact that she read through it.

After coming across the book again a few weeks ago I started wondering if there was a For Men Only companion. When I found that the men's version existed (and still exists) I ordered it. I wanted Golden to get the benefits that I got from her book. Plus, I was curious what this new book had to say.

I already knew quite a bit of what I read, but there were things I didn't. Here are some things I did not already know.

• If a wife is acting like she is trying to drive her husband away, she is probably trying to get him to reassure her of his love. Golden has not ever done this to me, so I have not had to give this too much thought. I would never have figured it out on my own if Golden did do this, though.
• Many women have issues pop up in their minds like computer windows that they cannot easily close. There are often many more windows than just one open. Even if I can put something out of my mind, that does not mean that Golden can. I actually kind of knew this, but it was described in better detail in the book than I understood.
• Emotional security is more important than financial security to most women and most women will tolerate financial turmoil to get emotional security.
• The scenario I described last January about a husband trying to solve his wife's problems was slightly lacking. I did not mention that what Jane needed out of the conversation was for John to validate the emotions that she was feeling. I did not mention this because this is something else I learned from this book, so I was clueless in January.
• "Does this dress look good enough for the party," usually has nothing to do with being properly dressed for the party.

Probably some of this seems obvious. It wasn't to me.

There are a lot of things in For Men Only that I already knew when I read the book, but that I did not know seven years ago when Golden and I married. As a result, I think that For Men Only and For Women Only are probably good wedding gifts, if only so husbands and wives don't have to learn everything about each other the hard way.

salt and pepper

When I was growing up I was always mistaken for being much younger than I really was. A baby face and smaller size contributed to this misconception. When people found out my real age, they typically responded with a comment that appearing younger is something that I will like when I am older. I always countered this with the belief that I would skip from eighteen to forty overnight.

I got my hair cut yesterday because my hair was looking more like an unmanaged mane than my typical coiffure. As I was watching my hair fall onto the apron in front of me I was reminded of my comments that I would be skipping straight to forty. My hair color is no longer purely black or brown. It is actually approaching a point that can be accurately described as salt and pepper. For some reason, this is much easier to see in the hair trimmed from my head than it is in the mirror.

I have actually known about my gray hairs for a while. This is largely due to the fact that one of Golden's pastimes is to take tweezers to my gray hairs. Sometimes she does this to me without warning in the morning when I am lying in bed.

I don't know how long it will take before I get to a point that I might be called graying, but I do not think it is too far around the corner. If it happens in the next few years, I have the real question of whether I should start dying it. The whole scenario seems stupid to me, but I think my middle thirties is too young to have a head of hair matching Matlock's. Even so, it would be difficult to bring myself to actually buying and using Just for Men.

I have been told in the past that graying or gray hair can look "distinguished," whatever that means, so it may not be a bad thing to let my hair go gray. When I am forty-five and bald I am sure I will reminisce on being thirty-five and gray with some fondness.

anticipation

Online order tracking has to be one of the greatest blessings and greatest curses bestowed upon mankind in the last ten to fifteen years. There is little more exciting than following a much anticipated shipment as it leaves the warehouse makes its journey to my home or office. It can be near impossible to remove my focus from the shipment if it is something I am looking forward to.

Last week I probably visited the FedEx site twenty times a day to see if there was any change in my iPod Nano shipment. It made little difference that I knew in my head that there shouldn't be an update yet, I still had to check... again. Without the online functionality I could more easily force myself to forget about the shipment.

Even if the online functionality is bad for my obsessiveness, it did help me in at least two instances in the past. First, when I was originally building my computer and I did not receive an important hardware shipment we were able to narrow down that my electronics were getting lost at a stop-off point in northern Missouri. Second, I was able to closely track our Handi Cam purchase last year that was delivered about fourteen hours before NJ was born.

Even though the functionality is good when used properly, I should probably resolve to not look for where shipments are at any given point. The anticipation just is not worth it.

beef butt pie

On Thursday, as I was walking back from the kitchen at work after having heated a beef pot pie I heard someone saying the word "butt" repeatedly. I turned around and saw that one of the guys in the office that I don't know too terribly was telling me, "It's a butt."

I don't know how most people would react to this, but I had no idea what he was talking about. I tried to see if I sat in anything, then someone else pointed to my lunch. I was told my pot pie looked like a butt.

Someone graciously snapped a picture of my beef butt pot pie before I ate it. Later, he sent me an email with the same title as this post and containing the picture. I suppose the bumps could look like cheeks. I have a more convincing crack in my basement wall, though.

i had a dream

I dream every night. I know because when I wake in the morning I have a difficult time adjusting with the sudden shock of leaving the dream world and entering the real world. I don't remember most of my dreams, though, and I have no idea why.

If someone were to ask me what I did the previous day, I could probably go through an extended list of things that happened that day. Ask me what I dreamed about last night, though, and I will probably not be able to provide much information.

I have considered writing down my dreams once I woke up so I can get an idea of the themes that show up in my dreams. I haven't cared enough to put a pen and paper next to my bed, however, and I am sure that I won't feel like writing things down in the morning.

One frustrating quirk about my dream world is that it impacts my moods when I wake up. If I have a dream that in some way disturbed my emotions, it can make me more dreary than usual in the morning. It doesn't matter that I don't remember the dream that brought on my melancholy mood, the mood persists.

I am sure this is the case for everyone, but the few dreams I do remember are weird. It has been a long while since I had a dream I still remember. I used to have a lot of dreams about forgetting to attend a class until finals week. That is the only recurring theme that I can recall in my dreams over the last five years.

After I awoke this morning I remembered my topic for the day and so I tried to remember something from my dream. About all I can recall is something about being introduced to several people I never met before who were all dressed up.

What about everyone else? Do you dream? Do you typically remember your dreams? Do you remember what you dreamed about last night?

oh my pod

I've gone over to the dark side. Well, at least the shiny silver side.

For my birthday, Golden let me order an iPod Nano. It hasn't arrived yet, but I have spent a lot of time the past couple of days setting up iTunes so that I will be able to get use out of it as soon as I get it. I've subscribed to several podcasts already, downloaded a book on MP3, and imported most of my CDs into iTunes.

For the longest time I have resisted getting an iPod, for largely the same reasons I don't typically go to Starbucks. They are stylish, which isn't really my thing. They are expensive, which makes me think twice. The iPod will chain me for life to iTunes (I guess Starbucks doesn't do this). On the flip side, iPods are also the ubiquitous portable music players, and there is a wide variety of available accessories for them.

It actually feels a little weird getting an Apple product since I have been and am very much a PC kind of guy. In the recent Mac commercials I can associate myself much more with character that represents the PC than with the character that represents the Mac ("I hope he got me a C++ GUI programming guide"). Just because I am getting one device from Apple doesn't mean I am converting to being a Mac user, though. iRefuse.