scrooge

Every year, much of the holiday entertainment I see focuses on the need to not be too busy over the holidays. Don't focus on being busy, but focus on what really matters. I try to do this, but I always feel that if I pushed that point too much myself that I would come across as the Scrooge. The following are examples.

Christmas Decorations: We don't really decorate much more than putting up a tree. Part of the reason for this is that the time spent setting up lights and other decorations could better be spent elsewhere. Yes, that is another way of saying that I am lazy, but I have to ask why someone would spend hours of effort (and added expense on the electric bill) on a display that will be taken down in a month.

Christmas Cards: I should preface this with the comment that do appreciate the opportunity to read what is going on in people's lives. The problem I always have is that the year-in-review letters that often come with Christmas cards are so sanitized and often focus on the things that I find less relevant. I know this is the nature of the beast, but that is why I don't care as much for this particular beast.

We actually got at least one form letter this year that violated some of the rules about what should be in a year-in-review letter. I loved it.

I don't think that we have ever done a year-in-review note, though Golden did want to at one point. I think she determined that it was too time consuming. She didn't really get any help from me on it, though, because I would prefer to leave well enough alone.

One other thing is the constant balancing of who we should and should not be sending cards to. Every year there is at least one family who sends us a card that we didn't send a card to. I know that I have heard other people also mention that they underestimated the number of cards they needed to send out. I presume this is because they realized that they needed to send cards to specific people who they did not initially think would be on their list.

Christmas Gifts: My love language is not gift giving. Gifts violate my natural sense of efficiency because the person to whom they are given knows best what they want, but what is the purpose of the gift if the recipient picks out the gift. I think that gift cards are the about the greatest thing in the world, but I get the feeling that a lot of people think that gift cards are cheating.

On an unrelated note, a relative last year gave me a gift card prominently la labeled, "Happy Kwanzaa!" I wish I had thought of that.

Seeing Family: I wish that the holiday tradition was not focused on a specific date but instead on a range of days, because that would remove a lot of the stress of the holidays. No matter what I do, we aren't seeing everyone on the day of Christmas or Thanksgiving. No one really expects that we will, I don't think, but the strain of trying to give different sides of the family holiday time can take away my holiday spirit.

I really am not the Scrooge that I sound like. I am just not as drawn to tradition as much as most people are and I happen to prefer some of holidays that come with less baggage and more entertaining movies—like Independence Day.

the casino

This is probably not a shock, but I think risk is too highly touted in today's society. It probably always has been. I know that I am probably not risky enough in my approach to life, so I am a bit biased. However, my observation is that voices of caution are almost always outnumbered by voices who advocate throwing caution to the wind. I think I know part of the reason.

Imagine for a moment that all of society exists within a huge casino. People can make money working at the casino doing various jobs at various salary scales. People can also gamble that money at the casino. One real difference between this fictional casino and a real casino is that in my fictional casino the house does not always win, but rather only sometimes wins. Many of the games are not rigged against the players. Another real difference is that playing many of the games in this casino would require a large time investment, and all of them would require a large financial commitment.

Some of the more conservative games would return a steady income and rarely bust, and some of the more risky games would frequently provide a high payout but would also frequently wipe out players' finances. Hard work and intelligence would make a difference in the games in the casino, but ultimately random chance would be the biggest factor.

Imagine for a moment who in this casino world would likely be the most financially successful. It would be the people who took big chances that paid off in a big way, or the lucky risk takers. Who in this world would experience the most financial ruin? It would be the people who took big chances that wiped them out, or the unlucky risk takers. Most who decided to rely mainly on salary and the more reliable casino games would do average or maybe slightly better than average, but few would come anywhere close to being among the most successful.

The people who others looked to for advice on how to be a success would not be the more financially conservative people, because few of them were extremely successful. The advice would come from the lucky risk takers. They would be interviewed as experts, they would write books, and they would host their own reality TV shows. In all of this press, they would extol the hard work it took to get to where they are and the importance of the risks that they took.

I think that is what is happening today. The people others look to for success are largely the people who have succeeded due to high risks they have taken. In a lot of cases, those risks were intelligent. In many they weren't. Either way, the risks are how people got where they are.

As an example, throughout the seasons that I have watched of the show The Apprentice, there have been a lot of people for whom there was no rational reason why they were successful. They weren't particularly smart, and they didn't have the business savvy that would be expected. A lot of them, though, were risk takers. I can't count the number of people I saw on the show who had made money in real estate. A couple of years ago an inebriated marmoset could have made a killing in real estate if he took enough risks. That monkey would probably have been wiped out in the last year-and-a-half, but would have had plenty of opportunity before then to share his wisdom of how he struck it rich so quickly.

Past performance is no guarantee of future success. Remember that before taking advice from a drunken monkey.

elaboration

As an FYI, this post is not about anyone who would be reading this post. A while back someone was telling me about a documentary that he had seen on a cable channel. I recalled that this person had described this documentary before. I also recalled that I had seen the documentary. What was funny was that this person got a lot of the general points about the documentary correct, especially when considering everything that a person could distinguish visually in the documentary. At the same time, this individual got a good chunk of the data that the narrator relayed wrong.

I am not trying to judge. I think I do the same thing, perhaps even unknowingly. I am just intrigued by how the brain not only allows this sort of thing to happen, it really encourages the behavior.

Humans take in a staggering amount of data during the day. Some people are better at remembering it than others. Unless a person has a very specialized condition, his or her subconscious brain is going to have to make the choice about what data is important and what data can be dropped (or at least rendered difficult to access). This is why a typical person can read even a short story and miss many of the major details in that story.

What interests me most, though, is not that the brain does not allow ready access to all of the data that we have taken in. I am actually blown away by the fact that the brain is prone to fill in the gaps on the stuff that we don't remember. If I do not remember some of the elements of a story that are important to the plot, for example, I am prone to subconsciously create my own elements when explaining that story to fill in the gaps in my memory. I may or may not consciously know that I just mentally filled in a gap in my memory with concocted data, but it isn't difficult to convince myself that what I added to the story was actually already there from the beginning.

I think this tendency is why eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. A victim or bystander can become convinced that some specific individual was the person who committed a crime because that individual has specific features that are similar to the actual perpetrator, and the witness just mentally filled in the gaps on some of the other features that his or her brain decided were too unimportant to store. It's possible I am remembering this all wrong, though.

the new ranch

The last few months Golden has been writing up the grocery list and I have been doing the shopping because it is easier for me to get out and about. As a result, I have gotten quite used to the details of most of the items that we tend to buy in our house. Some of the ones that we don't purchase very often are still a bit complicated, though. One example is ranch dressing.

I am pretty certain that we have generally purchased Kraft ranch dressing more than other brands rather consistently in the past. Regardless, I always kind of thought of ranch dressing as something that has been relatively standardized. The only real flavor dangers should be in either buying some strange ranch variant (like garlic ranch) or fat-free ranch (which I think tastes a bit like plastic). I have learned that I was wrong.

A few weeks ago I picked up a container of Kraft ranch dressing on the weekly grocery run. I noticed that the bottle looked different, but I was careful to check that it was the plain ranch dressing and was not a fat-free variation. When it came time to use the dressing I found that it had more in common with Elmer's glue than with the ranch dressing that I am used to. After considering for a while whether I just got a bad bottle I came across this website and this website where others describe running into the same issue that I did. Apparently, Kraft changed the recipe for a few of its dressings and this ranch dressing is but one example.

This leads me to some obvious thoughts. First, Kraft apparently didn't learn from the New Coke that changing up flavors is not always a positive thing. Sticking with the old formula would definitely have been a better move in both cases. Second, does Kraft not do reliable market testing? This sort of thing should get caught in test markets rather than in nationwide releases. Third, is there anyone who actually liked this version? I can't imagine anyone really going for it. The best I can conjure in my mind is someone who doesn't absolutely hate it. Finally, what do I do with it? Is it stupid to toss a nearly completely unused container of ranch dressing? Does anyone else want a sample before I toss it?

black friday

If you have kept up with the news recently you probably heard the unfortunate incident regarding a worker at a Wal-Mart in New York who was killed in the crush of people entering the store where he was working on the morning of Black Friday. I don't know many details beyond what is relayed in the video below. Some of the news reports that came out indicated that only his coworkers stopped to help and that almost everyone else more or less ignored him on the way to their sales.

My first reaction on hearing this was what I think most peoples' reaction was. How could so many people be so careless with another human life as to not even stop to see if he was okay or help him get out of the throng of people? Upon wondering how so many people walked past the man I started to contemplate an uncomfortable possibility. Would I have walked past the man? I don't think I would, but is that only because I don't want to think that I would?

I have read reactions from several people regarding this incident and the main thing almost everyone seems to have in common not necessarily a concern for the man's family or a question of what they would do in that situation. Most people's first priority is to react in outrage at the shoppers who were at the incident. I have already stated that this was my initial reaction as well. While I do not condone the shoppers' actions, there are a couple of reasons why I think this specific focus is unwise.

First and foremost, I am surprised that so many people assume that they would have stopped to help the man. It is a rare person who, when they are on a very tight schedule, will stop and check on someone who might be in need. When people get into a mob mentality, they are even less likely to help out. I believe that it is unlikely that most of the people who have expressed outrage would have stopped to help the man, either, had they been at that store that morning. I suspect that none of the shoppers who were there thought this man was seriously injured. I, perhaps naively, believe that more people would have stopped to help if they realized that this was actually a life and death situation. Regardless, it seems like a better use of energy to contemplate what I would do in that situation and resolve to be the rare person who will stop and help the person in need than to just get angry at the people involved in the incident.

Second, any outrage that I express about this is meaningless anyway. Why get angry in a way that benefits no one? If anything, it is detrimental because I get to pretend that I am better than the people I am outraged about. I wonder if that is why so many people like to get worked up about such unfortunate incidents. They can feel like saints compared to the people who instigated such horrible crimes.

By my calculation, the best things that I can do when I hear stories such as these are to express grief for the family and resolve to be a better person because of this incident. That is what I am going to try to do.

baby girl

It has taken a bit longer to post this than I would have liked. A combination of issues conspired to keep me from bothering with this until now, not the least of which was the fact that the baby's pictures were already posted on Facebook, which drained some of my motivation. Also, I am not sure what blog name we are giving to our baby girl at this point.

Golden started having contractions late Sunday night two weeks ago (the sixteenth). We headed to the hospital a little after midnight for monitoring after consulting with the doctor. I remember thinking that this was going to make for a very bad Monday if the baby did not actually come out.

Around 3 AM the doctor told the hospital to move Golden into a delivery room so she could break her water at the break of dawn. Apparently, we have different notions of what the break of dawn is, because the doctor showed up around 8:30 AM, which was about an hour-and-a-half later than what I understood the break of dawn to be.

During delivery, the doctor noted that she had never seen a baby wriggle so much at that stage, so she commented that we have a feisty baby on our hands. With two weeks experience, I do not disagree with this assessment. Our healthy baby (six pounds, thirteen ounces) was born at 1:31 PM that afternoon. This is notable because it was on my sister's birthday and on the anniversary of when I asked Golden on our first date.

With NJ I spent almost all of my time at the hospital. Since Golden's mom was at the house taking care of NJ, I did spend a couple of hours every day at the house, and I had a few more errands that I had to run between the house and the hospital. That broke the day up nicely for me, though it probably made things a tad more boring for Golden.

We found out right before we left the hospital that a kidney issue that had been found on our sonograms had cleared up. It was one of those things that the doctor told us usually does heal itself by the time the baby is born. It still feels like a bit of a miracle, and is quite a relief.

Tomorrow we have to go in for the latest in a series of weight checks that the doctor ordered on our daughter. She lost a lot of weight in her first four days, but has gained back pretty regularly since. Both Golden and I think it is a bit ridiculous that we have to go in for this specific weight check because this one is just because she didn't technically reach her birth weight in the last weight check. They should have enough data to see she is growing very rapidly.

Anyway, I have been meaning to get to this and now I have. Hopefully, I can get on a regular schedule shortly now.

seeking direction

The laptop is a lost cause, so I will be posting from the home PC for a while. I will probably get back on track with posting after the baby is born. I will try to update when it is possible until then.

I don't like stopping to ask for directions. I know it is very cliche, but in my case that stereotype is true. I will stop and ask for directions if I have to, but I have to have come to the point where it is a necessity. I do not know whether most women understand why a lot of men will not stop to ask for directions, so that is what I am going discuss in this post.

Men, and I have to use myself as an example, generally do not like to admit to weakness. I doubt the reason for this is much deeper than that men do not want to feel weak, either physically or intellectually, but this tendency runs deep. Boys who run to their mothers when things are bad are called sissies (or much worse). Girls aren't. I know of one situation that illustrated this for me where one guy was teased mercilessly when he sent an email to his department (composed entirely of men) saying he was taking a sick day because he was "feeling weak." I was not that guy.

When a man stops and asks for directions he is admitting that he has a glaring weakness. He is so incapable of finding his way that he has to bow to someone else's superior sense of direction. It may sound crazy to most women and some of the less stereotypical men, but this really is the rationalization involved. Admitting you are lost can be the same as admitting that you are a failure in this area of your life.

I actually take this to a further level. Today as we were in the grocery store Golden got a free sample of some food. I found a way to walk around the display unnoticed. I have a very difficult time accepting even a sample of food for free. This is because I feel like I am putting myself in the position of accepting a handout, and that gives me the feeling that I am somehow not providing for myself. Again, this may sound crazy, but it doesn't make it any less true. I can pay for my food, thank you very much.

not yet a classic

As a quick note before jumping into my topic, the reason I haven't updated like I usually do this week is that I am still working through my laptop issue. When I get that straightened out I'll go back to the old schedule. Trust me, I am highly motivated to get that stupid thing working.

When I was growing up our family watched a lot of classic television. We spent quite a bit of time watching Nick at Nite, as well as what was offered on other channels. As I grew a bit older, what qualified as classic television changed. At first, I Love Lucy and Get Smart were the general range of what was considered classic. Slowly, more and more recent shows were added to the schedule until Newhart was inserted into the lineup when I was in high school. I questioned at that time how such a recent show could be in a lineup of classic shows. I didn't really complain because I liked the show, but it did not make sense.

A few days ago I found out about a couple of shows on TV Land, which is a rough equivalent of Nick at Nite. These shows take the cake, in my opinion, as far as calling a show that is not old enough a classic. Third Rock from the Sun and Scrubs are now on TV Land. Third Rock first came out when I was a freshman in high school, and Scrubs first came out after Golden and I were married. It has not even been officially retired. How can either of these shows be considered classic television yet? They have both aired in this decade.

Classic television should either be stuff I that came out before I was born or stuff that I only vaguely remember because I was too young. It shouldn't be something that I could have watched when it originally aired after I graduated from college. I shouldn't be able to clearly remember when classic television first aired. That would make me old.

anti virus

I have had a few viruses on my computers in the past, but I have actually taken quite a bit of pride in not having had many major issues with them. This past night has been the exception to that rule, though.

When I got home from the grocery store I saw that the laptop that I had left on was off. When I booted my machine I got an alert I had spyware and asking if I wanted to scan for it. This is funny because it was the malicious software and not my virus scanner that provided this alert.

I don't know how people who don't know much about PCs mess with this. I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable, and it has been a rotten night for me. I can't imagine working through this without some knowledge of how to investigate it.

I am to the point where I can get rid of all of the issues until I reboot, then the issues that I was having recur. For the life of me, I don't know where this thing is hiding when it appears that it has gone away. At this time of night I no longer care.

pop my bubble

I have told this story to a few people, but I think it is new to most everyone in blog land.

I think everyone has had some disgusting habit at some point in their lives. One of these habits that I used to have was spawned from my miserly nature. For a little while I never threw chewing gum away. I just figured that if there was still wear left in the gum, why toss the dime or quarter that the gum ultimately cost away? It always felt like a waste to toss gum that had not been completely used up.

I would gnaw on the same gum day after day and keep it on my nightstand when I slept. I would occasionally add a stick, but I wouldn't throw any of it away. This probably lasted two or three months, and by that time I had a rather large wad of gum. If I remember correctly, toward the end I would break off a chunk of gum from the large wad and chew that rather than the entire thing.

All of this came to an end when a little girl who was visiting our house got into my wad of gum one day. At that point I figured that enough was enough, I kicked the habit, and I never looked back. I have since found other ways to express my frugality, so I don't cringe near as much when I toss some used, but not completely used, gum. It's progress.

er

I know that I am getting to this a little late. I hope to get back on schedule shortly. We'll see how that goes.

Today, NJ fell down and cut the inside of his lip. It was one of those things that is unavoidable, but that didn't lessen the severity of the cut. I was at work when Golden called me asking what I thought she should do. I had no advice other than to call the doctor and see if it sounded serious enough to take to the ER. Ultimately, the doctor's office informed us that a trip to the ER was probably unnecessary.

There is very little more frustrating than when your child is injured and you do not know what the next course of action is. We have been very close to taking NJ to the ER on a few occasions and every time we have decided not to go because we either know that they will not do anything that we can't do at home, or that the injury is probably not severe enough for the ER.

Really, compared to some of the ER visits that other people who read this site have had to make, we have been very fortunate so far with NJ. We haven't had any broken bones or anything like that yet. Even so, since he is an active and risk-taking boy I expect that we have more tough calls to make in the future.

questionable character

I watched the movie You Kill Me this weekend. The story is about a mob hitman who is sent from Buffalo to San Francisco to deal with his alcoholism, as it is interfering with his work. The movie was so-so. It had some funny moments, and I am sure that some people would be a little drawn into the relationship that the main character establishes with a woman he meets while working for an undertaker. None of that appeared to be targeted to a person with my tastes, though. There is really only one reason this movie is noteworthy. It messes with my head a little to have a protagonist who I am supposed to care about who is also such an unsavory character.

Generally, I like it when the protagonist is shown to have weakness. No one is perfect, so it is not good to build characters that portray perfection. There is a point where I start getting a bit uncomfortable, though. It is so frequent that a protagonist about whose welfare I am supposed to care is actually far beyond flawed. For example, Pirates of the Caribbean, while entertaining, was largely a two-hour justification for the evils that composed piracy. In the Godfather series, and pretty much any other movie about organized crime, we are invited to see the world through the mobsters' eyes rather than the victims' of those mobsters eyes.

I suspect that the movie writers for these specific kinds of movies purposely try to make things a little ethically uncomfortable for the audience. The absence of this discomfort may make an otherwise entertaining movie bland. I'd still prefer to be taking the view of someone a little more ethical.

700

This is my 700th post. Since the number 700 has been so closely associated with the financial system bailout in the last few weeks, I figured that I would talk about that. There are two real dangers in such a topic. The first is that it gets too academic and boring. The second is that it gets too political. I will try to avoid both.

It's been an interesting ride watching different perspectives on how the country got to its current point. If you know anything about economic history, though, this issue followed the normal pattern, which I will lay out below. I am sure that a lot of other intelligent people picked up on this pattern as well.

1. A financial opportunity presents itself. In this case, real estate was made more attractive through cheap money (low interest rates).
2. Large numbers of people start noticing that the first people to the party have already made a lot of money. In this case, people started noticing that home prices were going up fast. Rather than thinking that this indicated that real estate's best days were behind it, a lot of people decided to stretch to buy a house even though it was financially wiser for them to rent.
3. Since all the people joining the party in step #2 inflate prices over a period of time, caution is thrown to the wind. Since prices have gone up for this long people assume that they will continue to do so indefinitely. This is where everyone gets stupid. No one in their right mind should ever conclude that five years of price run-ups indicate a long-term indefinite trend, but usually it becomes accepted as gospel truth. It helps that the people preaching it have already made a ton of money. In this case, a lot of people who didn't otherwise know much about real estate started thinking that flipping houses would be a good idea because house prices only go up, and because they watched too much TLC and HGTV. On the investment bank side, derivatives that were essentially outsized insurance policies against bad mortgages were created and traded in droves under the bad assumption that prices would continue to go up. Hedge funds also magnified things by making the same bad investments as everyone else, but largely with borrowed money.
4. Reality sets in. In this case, foreclosures started increasing as peoples' ARM interest rates increased. This created a vicious cycle of house devaluations and increasing foreclosure rates that we are still trying to work our way out of. Almost regardless as to the cause of the cycle (dot-coms, bad mortgages, etc), the key phrase you are going to hear a lot is "excess inventory." The cycle will not be complete until excess inventory is removed, and that can cause a large percentage of the pain in the next two steps.
5. People overreact during the aftermath. A bad situation is made worse because fear grips those who just had their dream world ripped away from them. There is mass selling. Companies layoff or refuse to hire due to a similar fear of the unknown. In this case banks, who are gripped with fear, have decided to sit on the money that they do have, thus presenting a very real threat to short-term economic progress.
6. The government implements a fix. The fix may or may not be effective. The title of this post is obviously in reference to the current $700 billion fix (no one really knows how much the fix will ultimately cost, but that is beyond the scope of this post). In the Great Depression the fix was the New Deal, which created such things as Social Security and (believe it or not) Fannie Mae. The low interest rates that spawned the current crisis were part of the government fix for the recession created by the dot-com bust.
7. Repeat. How long it will take until the cycle is repeated, I don't exactly know. The Great Depression required over a decade, serious deficit spending, and a world war to end. Most recessions, however, are less than two years long. I do know that we will see all of these steps again, regardless of whether the Republicans or the Democrats are running the show.

Now, I have just a few thoughts about the proposed solution. I don't like it, but I agree with the analysis that to do nothing is to invite another depression. The Great Depression was caused by a failure of the banking system, so the banking system as a whole absolutely cannot be allowed to fail. As someone who believes in free markets, it hurts a little to take that position.

I have noticed that Democrats tend to blame a lack of regulation and Republicans tend to blame the push in the late 1990s to make loans much more available to higher risk recipients as a root cause of the problem. They are probably both right to some extent. I don't really know who is more right. At the moment neither is a pertinent problem, though, because we are still working through the overreaction stage of the crisis. Addressing either of those five to ten years ago would have helped, but now they don't do too much.

If I had to guess what the focus of the next cycle will be, I'd bet on alternative energy. That has a ton of potential to produce an irrational bubble, because the very few alternative energy winners will make a ton of money. People usually forget that there usually are many more losers than winners. We are actually already in the middle of a small ethanol production bubble burst, so it would make sense that we would repeat this whole process on a larger scale.

I hope what people get out of the whole situation, though, is an understanding that these stages are completely propagated by human stupidity. Irrational exuberance and overwhelming fear drive overreactions in both directions. To me my house is worth the exact same as it was worth a couple of years ago, when taking into account the changes I have made to it in that time. It is only the market's opinion that has changed. The sun will come out tomorrow. The only real question is whether tomorrow is next year or a decade from now.

8:30

Last night Golden and I went to the mall. The trip ended up being in vain because we didn't get anything that we had intended to get, but for once I wasn't bothered by it. I was quite content that we had piled into the car, dealt with all the rain that fell last night, and burned an hour out of the evening. This was because all of this occurred before 8:30PM.

Any more, the time after I get home from work on weekdays is divided into two parts. The first part is when NJ is awake. We keep him entertained and make sure he stays out of trouble. The second part is when he is asleep, which is a valuable commodity given the number of television shows that we try to keep up with. We don't really watch any of our shows when NJ is awake, so this limits our viewing to about an hour each night. This also means that I don't necessarily accomplish much after 8:30. It feels like I am wasting time if I do work after 8:30.

It seems my home life is spent in one of two modes. I am either waiting for NJ's bedtime at 8:30 or I am trying to get my TV watching and Internet surfing done after 8:30. While I love my time with NJ, I still try to do what I can to make the time before 8:30 go faster. Going on small errands is one of those things. When we go somewhere I still have time with him, but he is usually more easily distracted and better behaved.

It is nice to be with NJ. That doesn't take away from how nice it is when NJ is asleep.

what i'm supposed to be

When I was in high school I got the bright idea to write a subject guide of the Bible for my own personal use. The idea was that I was going to read through the entire Bible and write down the reference of every verse to every issue I knew. It was a herculean task for me, and I did get quite a ways through it, but I stopped on it for two reasons. The first problem was that it simply took too much time, and the second was that I did not know how people with different doctrines interpreted specific passages of Scripture. There were simply too many times when I wasn't sure what issues should be linked to what Scripture passages.

When I started that guide I thought that, if the Bible is directly from God, I would be able to get a specific picture of the type of life God expected from me using such a guide. I thought that if I noticed a pattern of specific virtues and vices showing up a lot, then those were the important things to pay attention to in my life. As I noted, this was easier said than done. There are many passages of Scripture that are infuriatingly difficult to interpret in a way that they can be referenced in a subject guide.

Tonight, though, I started thinking about a similar project that I am seriously considering undertaking. I am thinking about reading through the Bible and marking down different people's virtues, vices, and all of the in between, then seeing what the Bible says about that specific person. What behaviors marked the people who were close to God and what behaviors marked those who weren't? There is a very simple reason I want to do this.

Probably the thing that most struck me in the book that I read, Why Men Hate Going to Church, was that the number one thing that men who were polled would like to learn in a church setting is what true manliness is. I am one of the men who wants to know. Most of what I know the church expects of men is summarized in the Promise Keepers' seven promises. If this is the true definition of what God expects from me, though, that is quite depressing. Something about it all feels inadequate. I just can't quite put my finger on what is inadequate.

I think that conflicts among my nature as a man, what I learned in church, and what I read in the Bible are what ultimately drove me to start the subject guide. I have long known that many of the men in the Bible who were the closest to God would never have come anywhere near fitting the model of manhood that I understood to be Godly. Outside of Moses and Joseph almost no Old Testament men would fit in a modern church. Because of that, I want to know what I know to be right about what God expects that is wrong and vice versa.

I want to know why deeply flawed people like Abraham, David, and all of the disciples were able to be close to God in a way that few else in history have ever dreamed. I want to know if there are specific traits that God consistently expected in everyone He used. I want to know if there are specific vices that always resulted in God's refusal to commune with that person. I want to know what personality changes God expected of key people in the Bible.

We'll find out over the next few years whether this is all talk or whether I actually put some effort into this initiative. I do hate starting things unless I know that I will finish them. This would be a useful reference to have, though.

permanent typos

Several years ago I remember seeing a case on one of those court TV shows where tattoo parlor customer was suing the parlor due to a misspelling in a tattoo. I remember thinking that having a typo permanently etched on my body would be horrible, but I figured that it was an isolated incident. It appears that it may not be as isolated as I thought.

I recently came across a website detailing some of the worst tattoo misspellings (language warning). There are quite a few, and one is even on a celebrity, so I guess that it is something that happens more often than you might think.

I don't make any judgments on most tattoos, but I wouldn't get one. They probably make sense for someone who knows that they will like the tattoo in five, ten, or fifty years. My tastes are so subject to change, though, that it wouldn't make sense for me. So many tattoos are prone to be dated, like the barbed wire around the bicep tattoo, that even if I were looking to get a tattoo I would have to take that into account. If I got a tattoo I also think I would avoid getting any words to avoid the possibility of having a misspelled word inked into my body for a lifetime.

If they weren't so permanent the misspellings would be hilarious. Actually, I still think they are.

blogging

When I saw this new Despair.com demotivator I knew I had to post on it. I didn't even know what I was going say, but as the poster indicates, the quality of my content is quite irrelevant.

I always figured that I was well suited for a career in journalism. I did not necessarily intend to go into a career in journalism, though. I like writing things that are to the point (no, really, I actually do), and I am interested in finding out what the truth about situations is. I also maintained a three-page monthly newspaper for a couple of years when I was fourteen and fifteen. While keeping a deadline was annoying, the whole process of writing, editing, and layout was a blast. For some reason, though, other careers were always more appealing.

That mild interest in journalism has carried over to this blog. Like with the family newspaper, my circulation is about ten to fifteen people. In both situations I have kept a pretty tight schedule (which I horribly violated today).

Really, I don't have much more to say than that. I'm just prattling on a lot about a little to a small number of people.

sunday school

I have been filling in as the teacher in our young adult Sunday School class over the last few weeks. We are going through the book Celebration of Discipline, which is certainly not a bad book, but it is a challenging one to use as a lesson guide. The book can be a very valuable guide to growing your spiritual life and getting closer to God. For someone with limited free time, though, it reads like a series of things that you should do to be more spiritual, but that you can't do because you have other things that take up your time. It is also difficult to turn topics such as fasting or solitude into things that hold people's interest for an entire lesson period.

I was discussing this with Golden and got the idea to look around and see what other materials are available so that, once we complete this series, we can do another that might be easier to teach. So far, I am feeling that I must be a bit overly picky. I don't want people to wonder why they bothered getting up and going to class, so any series I teach has to have meat. I don't want to torture the people in class, either, so I need something that is somewhat entertaining as well. I can't be spending my entire weekend creating lessons, either, so I can't just write my own lessons as I have in the past.

The drawback in doing a search for Sunday School lessons is that I have to filter through a ton of children's series to find even a few adult programs. That is deeply disturbing. Do people really think that Biblical learning ends at age thirteen? Another drawback is that experience tells me that a large percentage of the adult materials will be lacking as well. As an example, I don't like that most series' lesson questions simply fish for predetermined answers.

Why aren't there more Sunday School lessons that present actual theologically useful teaching in a way that isn't ridiculously dry? I know I would use them if they existed. For all of the Christian literature that exists, you would think that someone somewhere would have noticed the need for a Sunday School material overhaul. That would be far more useful than most of the books that litter most Christian book stores.

Also, am I the only one who wishes that the phrase "Sunday School" was changed to something less nerdy? I think the term has too many negative connotations. I absolutely hate continually typing that phrase on my blog. Maybe I could come up with a code word for it that doesn't annoy me as much. How about, "Pre-Service Coffee Time"? That's the best I can come up with right now.

bucket list

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I get the concept. A bucket list is a list of things you decide you are going to do before you die. I have considered creating a list of my own at some point, but I always end up in the same logical conundrum. I would enjoy creating the list, but I don't really know what my motivation should be for doing the things on the list. Is the only reason that I would be doing some of the things on the list just to have something to accomplish before I die? After I'm dead I won't care, so why is the boundary time death?

In theory, I should put things on the list that I want to do. There isn't much that is so important as to put on a list, though. I could add some things that would be nice to do, but I don't want to force myself into doing something later in life just because I arbitrarily put it on a list when I was thirty (or forty, or fifty...). I also don't want to put effort into doing things if the only point is to put another checkmark on a list.

The idea is still a popular one, though. It inspired a movie and I have heard, and used, the phrase, "I want to be able to say I did such-and-such," used a lot. Whether it is about visiting a specific city, watching a specific movie, learning a specific language, or just doing something unique, everyone seems to have something on a list in their mind somwhere that they want to be able to say they did. As an example, just the other day someone at work told me that I should bungee jump at least one time in my life just to say I have the experience. If I made a list, bungee jumping would probably make the list, if only because I haven't done too many dangerous things in my life.

What about you? Do you have a list? Do you expect that you will someday create one? Why or why not? What is or would be on any bucket list that you have created or would create?

competing with facebook

Throughout the past couple of years this blog has gone through a few droughts and surges in readership. Right now is kind of a drought. The reason is different than for past droughts, though. I blame the recent slowness on Facebook.

I figure that if most people are like me, they have their websites that they regularly visit, and they rarely go outside those sites. Occasionally a website will get added to the list, but that usually means another gets visited less frequently. Since a lot of people are checking Facebook more frequently, that has reduced some of traffic to mine and a few other of the blogs.

I am kind of in a quandry with this. I could link to my blog through Facebook and send notifications about new posts there. This is something that Dash has been dabbling with. I feel weird about sharing this blog with potentially anyone I may have been mildly acquainted with at any point in my life, though. I went into this in a little more detail a couple of years ago. I have been very purposeful in who I have alerted to this site simply because I want to be able to let my guard down a bit. I definitely would have to go through and review what I have already posted before opening the floodgates like that, because I am sure there are things that I might not have said in the same way in some of my worlds.

For now I have no intention of changing things up. Even with the current situation, I have enough readers to justify adding new content. I will continue posting and won't push this site out to more people than my comfort will allow. I'm open to new ideas for the site, though.

the political church

One of the most significant criticisms I have heard of churches in recent years are their influence in politics. The two opinions that I run across most frequently are that religious considerations should be completely removed from the election process and the opposing view that it is more Godly to support one specific politician or party than another. I discussed this very early in this blog's existence, but I have refined my opinions somewhat in the last few years.

In my earlier post I advocated an approach to politics that is more passive than I probably should have. I didn't come out and say it, but it was implied. Upon reexamination, I don't think that church influence in politics is necessarily a bad thing. I think that it is an abused thing.

I think that a big problem with most peoples' approach to politics, whether they are Christians or not, is that they make their personal political views more important than they really are. Even on issues that everyone agrees are important, it is rare that one person's viewpoint properly sums up all of the moral and practical implications of specific policies for that issue. Furthermore, politics works a bit like a pendulum, so anyone who is seeking a rightist or leftist paradise will be sorely disappointed because the masses won't allow that to occur. It's almost unavoidable that whoever wins the White House in 2008 will lose seats in Congress in 2010.

The main problem with mixing Christianity and politics is that you inevitably end up putting words in Jesus' mouth. The idea of Jesus wearing a "Vote Caesar in '28" pin is ridiculously hilarious. Can anyone really know what Jesus' fiscal policy would be, or what perspective he take on privacy rights, or how he would rate the value of military experience versus community organizing experience? He was willing to associate with political extremists, if you remember Simon the Zealot, but he didn't advocate political extremism.

On the other end of the spectrum, I don't see anything in the Bible that indicates that we cannot be political, either. From a practical and historical perspective, there are good and bad policies, and it isn't wrong to take a stance on policies or politicians. In fact, I think it is a good thing to want to make society better. I think it is awesome that both candidates were asked a series of questions at Saddleback Church. I also think that this election presents a great opportunity, regardless who is elected president, for Christians to be a truly positive influence on society through whatever administration is put in place.

I actually have some pretty strong political views. The thing is, I am sure that some of them are probably not perfect, even though I can rationalize my views as well as anyone can. Because of that, I try not to take my political views too seriously. It doesn't make someone stupid, immoral, or anything else like that to disagree with me, and no politician or political policy can be perfect. I'll vote how I see fit, and everyone else can vote as they see fit if they see fit to vote.

As a final thought, no matter who wins the election in November, we should remember Paul's words.

"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."- Romans 13:1

silence is dust

Last night at church I sat next to a visitor. We discussed a few things, but there was a lot of dead air. It was the kind of dead air that hovers around people who aren't necessarily trying to talk. I don't think he minded too much, because he said that he would be back next week. It probably is a mistake for me to sit next to new people, though.

I don't necessarily think it is a problem that needs to be worked out, but I very frequently do not feel like talking so I just don't. If I don't feel that I have anything to add to a conversation and there is nothing worth talking about on my mind, you won't hear much of anything out of me. Silence is also Golden, so when we were dating she used to point out that very few couples would be as comfortable just sitting in silence as we were.

I don't think this is an issue of shyness. If anything, for me it is an issue of laziness. If I have to work to come up with something to say it doesn't seem worth it. When I do try to force conversation, it usually exhausts me more than anything else.

Having said that, I would bet that some people who know me have a hard time believing there are times when I am quiet. I can sometimes have the opposite tendency of hijacking the conversation. That's a story for a different post, though.

lion down

Since I was living in the upper peninsula of Michigan when I first became interested in sports as a kid, I have been a Lions and a Tigers fan. This is not an easy proposition if you know anything about the records of both teams over the last twenty years, but as I have noted before, I take some pride in pulling for my team even when things are bad. This also diminishes my patience for bandwagon fans.

While the Tigers were horrible for a while, they have at least been an average team over the last three years. The Lions, however, have genuinely stunk for the entirety of this decade. They stunk in the 1980s as well, and they were an average team in the 1990s only because they had Barry Sanders. They constantly battle to just stay out of last place, not just of their division, but of the entire NFL. Part of the appeal of fantasy football is that I can watch football games and pay attention to something other than the score of the Lions game. At least I have some control over how good my fantasy team is. It's a way for me to be emotionally detached from my team until some day in my fifties when they have a winning season again.

Just how bad are the Lions? They have a 31-84 record and have never in that time finished in higher than third place in a four-team division under the leadership of the current team president Matt Millen, which has spanned about seven years. This year they have already been blown out by two teams, the Atlanta Falcons and the San Francisco 49ers, that were among the laughingstocks of the league last year. The Lions have only won one playoff game since 1957 in a league where twelve teams every year advance to the playoffs.

I have heard many commentators express the opinion that Millen is the worst team president in the history of the NFL. It is now common at Lions games for the crowd to chant, "Fire Millen," as the team makes yet another opponent look brilliant. Even so, Millen still has the full support of William Clay Ford, Sr., who owns the team. The fans, however, don't have the same warm feelings or patience for Millen. The opinions of most fans can be summarized by the thoughts in this letter from a former fan and this bit of opinion from an ESPN contributor. Even Bill Ford, Jr. has issued an opinion that Millen should leave the team.

Normally, I am not a person who wants to see someone else lose his job. I really have to make an exception for Millen, though. By now he shouldn't need the money, and all indications are that he is not suited for the job. Part of the human experience is learning to accept that you cannot be good at everything. So, in helping him understand this part of the human experience, and to help the Lions actually have a winning season sometime this century (I wish that were hyperbole), Millen has to go. It would be nice to see the Fords sell the team to someone who understands football as well, but I can only hope for so much.

In this spirit, I have considered rooting against the Lions this year in the hopes that a lousy season will force Millen's ouster. It goes against my nature, and I suspect at this point that Millen wouldn't get fired if the team went 0-16 for the next three years, but it is all I have to hold on to at the moment. That, and my mediocre fantasy football squads.

bad call

Earlier this week I walked into the bathroom at work and noticed someone I have not seen before. That is not too uncommon since there is a conference room on our floor that another company frequently uses for training.

While the guy was at the sink, though, he did something that I consider a faux pas in a public bathroom. The guy took a phone call and proceeded to carry a conversation just standing there in front of the sinks.

I am the type of person where, if Golden is carrying a phone conversation and I am in the bathroom I do everything I can to block bathroom-specific noise. I have also let calls hit voicemail when I was in the bathroom rather than trying to carry a conversation in that environment. There is just something weird about hearing a flush over the phone. This is why I could not figure out why the guy didn't quickly head for the door once the call came in.

So, if I call you in the future and you are temporarily indisposed, you can let it hit voicemail. I don't mind.

where fire walking started

In an episode of Mythbusters that I watched last night the possibility of fire walking was tested. While the physics of fire walking was being worked out all I could think about was where fire walking came from. The narrator mentioned that cultures on six different continents practice fire walking. This means that, not just one, but several different people in different locations and times in history originated the idea that it would be a worthwhile use of time and energy to walk barefoot through hot coals.

I think a lot of these things that people do that I classify as a less than wise idea were originally intended to prove a person's chutzpa. That would explain why so manyof these things that I see that people in different cultures do on educational programming are rite of passage rituals. I remember one tribe that has a ritual of cutting patterns in kids' skins as part of their rite of passage. Another tribe has a pain tolerance ritual involving some nasty looking ants. None of these things seems all that pleasant.

Even though I understand the psychology of the people who currently go through this process, as you have to prove that you are man enough to tolerate the pain, I don't necessarily understand why anyone originally came up with these rituals. I have to assume that each was designed by someone who took some pleasure in pain, but was the goal sadistic in nature or masochistic in nature?

I'm just glad that in American culture rites of passage are limited to things like a driver's license rather than some pain ritual. I am neither a sadist nor a masochist.

men and church

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading the book Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow. I have wanted to post some thoughts on it for a while, but I have not taken the time until now to type them out. Some of this is a rehash of an earlier post, but I think it is worth the rehash.

I have made it no secret that, throughout my life, church has often felt like it wasn't really designed for me. I definitely see great value in church and I am not looking for a reason to skip. I just want to better understand why I feel this way. My rationale goes that if I can gain this understanding I will be able to figure out how to make the experience more enjoyable and worthwhile for myself and others who may be experiencing the same thing.

One thing that I should note is that I really like my church. A lot of the masculinity problems that plague a lot of churches do not exist in my church. I think this can be credited to my pastor.

Probably the most discussed point in the book is that church appeals to older folks and women more than younger folks and men because it offers security rather than challenge. Someone who values security values stability, predictability, nurturing, and support, all of which one can find at a typical church. Someone who values challenge values risk, variety, competition, and independence. These are not adjectives that describe most churches. Women and the elderly are statistically more likely to desire security, and men and the young are statistically more likely to desire challenge. This pattern is evidenced in the typical church pews, where there are many more female and elderly parishioners than male and younger ones.

Some of the other sticking points that the book mentions are as follows. (This is a bit long, so don't feel bad for skipping it.)

• Men have short attention spans during lecture formats. This makes Sunday School and sermon lectures especially ineffective. The author recommends limiting the number of points in the lesson or sermon (unlike this post), taking breaks, and going heavy on the visual aids. I know that I operate better in a conversational environment than in a lecture so that is how I teach. I am sure there are people for whom this does not work, though.
• Most men are not comfortable with passive-aggressive conflict. Almost all church conflict is passive-aggressive. The author's recommendation is to encourage being more direct in conflict in the church so long as the point is to clear the air and move on.
• Women are generally better readers than men. Since a lot of what happens in a church service or Sunday School class relies on reading, this is uncomfortable for a lot of men. This is actually one which isn't really a big deal to me as should be evidenced by this wordy post.
• When women are stressed they are more likely to want to get support and talk about their problems with friends at a setting like church. Men are more likely to want to work out the problems for themselves, which leads to fewer men than women in church during rough times.
• Churches are full of programs and not projects. Programs do not tend to provide the goals that men usually need to work toward. Most men work much better in projects where there is a beginning, an end, and success is clearly defined. The book encourages structuring ministries around individual projects to encourage more men to participate.
• Many men view church as less than masculine. The book makes a major generalization here that I agree with, and I am usually pretty careful around generalizations. Masculinity is far more important to almost all straight men than femininity is to almost all straight women. It is far more challenging for a man to take a woman's role than vice versa. I can elaborate in as much detail as needed for anyone who has questions about this, but it can be illustrated with the following question. How willing are you to wear clothes obviously designed for the opposite sex in public?
• Men hate feeling incompetent, and there are a lot of opportunities for that in a church service. Most men do not excel at a lot of the things that they may be expected to do at church, so some avoid it altogether.
• There is absolutely nothing appealing to a man about becoming Ned Flanders.
• One point that is important to me is that many men, myself included, often feel that they cannot openly challenge things they may disagree with at church. This goes back to the contrast between security and challenge. People who strongly value security view expressions of disagreement negatively. I frankly stink at toeing the line. There are many times that Golden has to hear me explain why I disagreed with something someone said on the drive home from church because I am kicking myself for not devising a way of making my opinions known in an acceptable way.
• Themes and word choices in church tend to be feminine, stressing weakness, relationships, support, and feelings. The loaded phrases of "relationship" and "intimacy" with God are also used a lot. Most straight men are a little uncomfortable with the idea of seeking an intimate relationship with another man, even if he is named "Jesus." An example that the author mentions of a particularly unwise Christian book title can be found here.
• Music in church tends to focus on a relationship with Jesus that can be frankly read as mildly erotic. Since Jesus was a man, that makes the music seem homoerotic to some men.
• Men's ministry is essentially women's ministry for men because the focus is generally on socialization and lecture. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure how that can be changed, because it needs to be. I would not be averse to doing more things with the men's ministry at my church if it were fun and/or purposeful.
• Femininity defines holiness in church. I have discussed this before. Basically, I believe that the Godliness that is pushed by most conservative churches is designed to make the congregation into proper ladies. There really is not much room for masculinity in most church definitions of holiness.

If there was something that I wish all ministry leaders read in this book it is the following list. The author details a top ten list of spiritual questions that men ask. Note that the majority are rarely addressed and I have never heard the top two adequately addressed. If a church said that they were going to meaningfully address and discuss the ten questions below in a series of men's meetings, I would bet on a packed house.

1. What is true manliness?
2. What is true success?
3. How do I deal with guilt feelings?
4. Is purity possible for men?
5. How can we nurture family life?
6. What is Christian leadership?
7. What are the basic disciplines of a Christian man?
8. What ministry skills need to be developed?
9. What is biblical business conduct?
10. What is integrity?

I actually only listed stuff that I thought was very important and that resonated with me, so there is a lot in the book. It tries to propose some solutions for the issues that are raised, too, so it isn't without practical purpose.

I do believe that Murrow's book is a must read for anyone who is struggling to get a man into church as well as anyone who is in leadership within a church. It is especially important for women in leadership positions or seeking leadership positions in church, because the book notes that the disparity between men and women is the greatest in churches where women hold high positions. As unfair and sexist as it may seem, this implies that female ministry leaders have to compensate a little to have a healthy and balanced church.

How well the church is able to reach men will absolutely define the strength of the church in the next generation. The stakes could not be higher.

on the fringe

Earlier in the week I tried watching Fringe. There was little point. I don't really have time to add another hour-long television show to my schedule, but I figured I had to give it a chance. If I later decided I wanted to watch it, I would be behind rather quickly.

The show is supposed to be a new version of The X-Files, and it really is, but I was amazed at how slowly paced it was. I think this is because it was a longer episode, but I am using this as a reason to avoid watching the show for now. If someone else gets into it and disagrees with my assessment I might give it another chance.

It does not appear that I will be watching any of the new shows this season. I have plenty returning shows which will adequately fill my time, and Fringe was probably the only new show that warranted a try. I also watched Hole in the Wall, but I haven't had any delusions that it would be a show that I would need to regularly tune in to. It is entertaining enough, but watching two episodes that I have already seen is good enough.

One or two of the shows that Golden and I watch have already begun. Almost everything else starts in the last week of September. That gives me a week and a half to get my life in order before the schedule changes once again.

a cat with a pipe

I am amazed that the commercial above is actually for a film festival since it pretty effectively illustrates the feelings of those who don't get film festivals. I am wondering if the purpose is to keep those who don't like film festivals away, or if it is to make those who appreciate independent film feel superior in that they get it.

I may not always be the brightest bulb, as they say, but I don't think I am stupid. I am surprised, then, by how often the video above epitomizes my experience with works that are supposed to be heady. I think, and I have speculated on this before, that most of the stuff that I do not get is usually related to the emotional content of the book, movie, play, art, etc. Since I understand colorblindness, I compare my feelings about these works to my inability to see certain shades of color. I just don't understand certain nuances of red, and I just don't understand certain nuances of emotion.

One other thing I don't understand is why the people who do get certain artistic works (or at least who say they do) seem to credit it to superior intelligence or taste. I don't think that intelligence usually plays a role, and I think taste is subjective. To me that's the same as if I got arrogant over the fact that I think I appreciate a Chipotle fajita more than most people can. That kind of conceit borders on the ludicrous.

I guess this means that I won't be visiting any independent film festivals in the near future. As if that's a real shock.

that's rich

While I was with extended family this past weekend a few people mentioned in passing that I make a lot of money, and those comments got back to me. I am not sure where they got this idea. It isn't the first time that someone has made this assumption, though, so I must be putting off some vibe of which I am unaware. Maybe the spoiler on my Taurus is giving the wrong impression.

The only people who know my current salary are the people who have a legitimate reason to know my salary, so it is not like the people who think I have money have direct evidence to link me to said money. Without providing specifics, Golden and I are not poor but we are nowhere near rich by most American standards.

It is a bit weird for people to think you are loaded when you aren't. Most of my life I have been quite the opposite of rich, so the thought that someone might conclude that I have money seems absurd. Since most of my family on that side works in traditional ministry, I guess it is an easy assumption that someone who works in technology is loaded. It is a flawed assumption, though. Most of the IT workers I know are solidly middle class, though there are certainly exceptions. Being a single-income family keeps us a step or two out of Bill Gates' and Warren Buffett's league.

There are so many people who want others to think they are richer than they are, but I think I would prefer the opposite. Few of the benefits of people thinking I have money appeal to me. I actually prefer a relatively simple life. The only real advantage to me is that it keeps people from thinking that I am incapable of supporting my family. Apart from that motivation, I would prefer people think I have or make less than I really do.

One thing about which I have some pride is the ability to properly manage what I have. If someone thinks I have a large income but still must exert some effort to make ends meet, the easiest conclusion is that I don't know how to manage my money. I would prefer for people to be amazed that I could make due on a shoestring budget even if I am not actually operating on a shoestring budget.

A few questions always enter my mind when someone thinks I have money. What do they know that I don't? Where can I get that obviously beneficial bit of information?

trip observations

As I noted in my last post, I spent a few days in Pennsylvania to attend my grandmother's funeral. As is usually the case when I travel, I have a few thoughts.

First, I never noticed before, but people in that area have multiple viewings, whereas people in Kansas and Missouri tend to only have one viewing. As a family member, the one viewing is far less taxing.

Second, I have revised my opinions on what I want for my funeral. I had said that I would prefer complete honesty about me in whatever eulogy is delivered. I now think the family should get to decide what specifically happens. Really, the funeral is for the family, so what should I care about how the funeral is handled? The funeral should be part of a healing process, so however it can be most effective in healing is how it should be implemented.

Third, I think that funerals are held too closely to the death of the family member. I think families should take about a week to get beyond being shellshocked over the death before having to set up arrangements for a memorial service. Three or four days after a death just seems too soon.

Fourth, how do they train the stewardesses on flights to look so happy when acting out how to operate a seat belt and strap an oxygen mask on your head? I definitely couldn't look so genuinely happy during that portion of the job.

Fifth, I nearly got stuck in Washington D.C. by tropical storm Hanna. At least to hear the pilot on my flight into Washington, you would think so. That experience, coupled with a few other bad experiences in recent years with airlines, has really dampened my desire to ever fly again. I know I will have to at some point, but something always seems to go wrong. If the things that went wrong were things that I could control that would be one thing, but I have yet to figure out a way to control things like inclement weather or lost luggage. If I could, I would prefer to just take the time to drive the entire way.

I hope that the next time I see family it is under better circumstances.

bereavement leave

If you are reading this on Thursday morning, I am almost certainly somewhere between Kansas City and Pittsburgh, and likely somewhere in the air. For those who don't know, my grandmother passed away early Tuesday morning, and the funeral is this Friday.

My flight leaves (or, left for when you are reading this) Thursday at 6AM, as all cheaper flights do. I am always that cheap person who isn't willing to spend the money to fly at a reasonable hour. As a result, I am getting (have gotten) up before 4AM to get to the airport in time.

I don't really have much more to say right now. I basically wanted to note why I didn't have anything to say. I'll probably have something more on Saturday when I get back. Until then, au revoir.

our little energizer bunny

NJ has always been a good napper. He may miss a nap here or there, but he is generally pretty good about going to sleep when he is put down. Over the last week or so that has started changing.

This weekend I switched his crib to a transitional toddler bed, so now he can get out of bed whenever he wants. Since he is not stuck in bed he has been getting up to play rather than going to sleep in the afternoon. Over the past few days, this has definitely cut into his nap time. Yesterday, he didn't even take a nap.

Another issue is that recently his nap has slowly been occurring later and later. He used to go to bed between 12PM and 1PM. In the week prior to switching out his crib his nap was starting anywhere from 2PM to 4PM.

All of this is an issue because our schedule, and especially Golden's, is structured around his afternoon nap. She has been catching a nap and getting chores done while he sleeps. If he is going to be constantly awake that will change how the schedule operates. I appreciate the down time as well when I am around. Golden noted yesterday that the day just seemed to go forever since NJ had been up for so much of it.

Hopefully, if he continues to skip his nap he will make up for it by going to bed a little earlier and getting up a little later. Golden needs a rest at some point because, unlike NJ, she can't keep going and going and going and...

selfish

Last weekend I was in a session where the audience was all couples when the person leading the session noted that selfishness is the thing that causes the most problems in marriage. She noted that she thought that fact was strange until she got married. Now it makes a lot of sense. I have to concur.

Everyone is a bit selfish, and I am not talking about that specifically. The people I am referring to are those who don't really aren't too concerned about what other people may want.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to be married to someone who is entirely self-absorbed. I obviously don't know that sort of life first-hand, but it must be rough. The person you are married to is so important to every aspect of your life that being in a marital commitment with someone who only cares about meeting his or her needs would be prison. Bad habits can be undone. Differences of opinion can be tolerated. For those who want to go that route, even physical issues can be addressed. How do you put up with someone who is only concerned about his or her own self over the long haul, though?

I wonder if this is why God uses the marriage metaphor so much in the Bible. Israel was the unfaithful wife, like Gomer to Hosea. The Church is Christ's bride. God fulfills our needs, so our commitment is not unsatisfying. When Israel or the Church turns away from Him, though, is it somehow unsatisfying for Him?

What I don't understand, though, is what kind of needs God could have. Everyone who goes into marriage does so with the understanding that the person he or she is marrying is there to fulfill something that is lacking in his or her life. I do not think of God as needing anything, though, so why introduce a metaphor like this that requires me to think of God in this merely human way? Is there some value in the metaphor that I am missing? Does God willingly force Himself to need the Church even though vulnerability like that seems like it should contradict His nature?

For Golden and for God, I still need to work on reducing my level of selfishness.

sawing logs

Maybe a month or two ago Golden pointed out something that NJ does on occasion. He will grab his blanket, lie down with his head on his pillow, and make snorting noises. Since I am the only one in the house who regularly snores, we think he is imitating me. This is backed up by the fact that if I make a snorting noise around him he immediately identifies it as, "Daddy."

I don't know how loudly I snore because Golden hasn't complained about it. I know that I do snore, though. It was one of those things that was unavoidable. My dad snores and a lot of people on my mom's side of the family snore as well. It would have been noteworthy had I not become a snorer.

It's funny that NJ points out my snoring because I actually heard NJ snoring ever so softly last night, so he will probably have the same issue in when he is older. I assume I was hearing NJ snore. I don't know what other sound a toddler could make that would sound like that. I guess that not all heavy breathing during sleep is snoring.

I have figured for a while that I'll probably eventually get that surgery where the uvula is cut off if it starts bothering Golden and if the cost isn't a real hardship. The idea of the surgery is a little bothersome, though, because I think I would miss my uvula. Why, I don't know. I just get the feeling that I would.

That's probably a ways into the future, though. I don't think Golden is losing sleep over it yet. If she is, she hasn't mentioned it to me yet.

cause and effect

I don't know how many times I have come across the advice that a person can improve his or her disposition through exercise. People who exercise are happier, statistically speaking, so the best step toward beating the blues is to actually take several steps. It turns out that this may not be completely true, and that the reason people thought this was true due to a common mistake—the opinion that statistical correlation equals cause and effect.

Not long ago I came across an article describing a study that challenges the idea that exercising makes people happier. Just because people who exercise are more happy does not mean that one causes the other. Each may be caused by a common third factor, such as genetics. People who are genetically wired to be more happy may also be genetically wired to enjoy jogging.

This mistake is one that I come across all of the time when I hear or read about scientific studies. Certain research is done, a correlation is found between two sets of data (like hours of exercise and levels of happiness), and an unchallenged statement is made in the media that research shows that one of these measured factors must cause the other.

At first glance, this should not be a big deal. Most people don't care too much what studies say, and they really only bring up the topics for small talk anyway. It is bothersome, though, because important decisions are often made based on the the implications of such research. Governments pass and enforce policies and laws because studies indicate something specific. People are prescribed medications based on the implications of research. A murder case can hinge on what research studies imply about the workings of a mentally unstable person's mind.

With all of this said, I know this is why most published research must go through peer review. Mistakes in data collection, computation, and interpretation can get filtered out there. But what happens if everyone in the peer review process makes the same assumptions in interpreting the data? From what I can see, that story ends with a bunch of depressed people in jogging shorts.

did i blink?

I'm asking because it feels like summer is concluding before it has even started.

While I was taking classes this past semester, and this is really the case any time I am taking classes, I could not wait for summer. I couldn't wait for all of the free time that I would have. I had some grand plans for some leisurely activities, mostof which involved reading some books or writing. Somehow, I got to the end of the summer without doing a lot of those things and I have the feeling that I haven't taken real advantage of whatever free time I was supposed to have.

The reality is that the amount of free time I have does not change that much, regardless of what is going on in my life. I make spare time for myself regardless of the situation. If I have a lot of spare time I fill it with things that are ultimately time-consuming. If I don't have spare time I'll give up an hour of sleep here or there. Also, when I am in class Golden ends up doing a lot of the things that I would be otherwise doing, so my schedule isn't as extremely different as it would seem it should be. I am busier when I have a class, but I am not doing nearly as much around the house.

I am not taking any classes this semester so that I can be around the house more as Golden's due date gets closer. I had been looking forward to having this semester off, but I have a feeling that it is going to speed by the same way summer did without me really doing much of anything. I probably should not go into the next few months with specific expectations so that if I get a windfall of time it comes as a pleasant surprise.

No matter, it is nice not having to go to class for a little while.

human interest

This is not a new or original observation by any means, but watching the Olympics over the last week has reminded me of it. Half of Olympic coverage seems to be trying to convince the audience why they should root for a specific athlete. Everyone worth caring about, it seems, has overcome serious adversity or at least has an inspirational story.

This is not to say that I don't have an appreciation for some of the stories that I have heard. The story last night about the long distance swimmer who was competing even though one of her legs had been amputated was amazing. How you swim competitively when you are missing such a major appendage is beyond me.

I think that it is funny that, while one of the biggest challenges of airing the Olympics must be to condense so much content down to something manageable, so much time is spent on content that is not the actual competition. I have watched some of the coverage on CNBC as well, and I haven't seen as many backstories there. I wonder if this is because the purpose of the secondary channels is just to cover specific events that couldn't fit on the network coverage while the purpose of the network coverage is to present content that has the broadest appeal.

I am trying to imagine what the backstory would be for me. "Dust wasn't always such a superb competitor in the recliner-sitting competition. For several years he had to do the bulk of his training on a couch. Even with this early setback, today he performs like a natural."

If only recliner-sitting was a competitive Olympic sport.

stealth geek

When I was in college my roommate came across an early iteration of this definition of "stealth geek." I liked it a lot, and have since sought to move from a geek to more of a stealth geek.

By definition, a stealth geek is someone who has geek tendencies, but who does not stick out as a stereotypical geek. A stealth geek has a deep appreciation for certain geeky things, but has determined that maintaining a subdued style rather than a flamboyantly geeky style is ideal. The term was initially developed as a way of labeling Fox Mulder in The X-Files. Mulder wouldn't stick out in a crowd, but when you get to know him you can pick out that he has geeky tendencies.

I think that I am still a bit weak on the stealth part of the definition. I am more stealthy now than I was five, ten, or fifteen years ago, for sure. In truth, I probably don't want to be fully stealthed anyway because the goal isn't to disguise my true self, but rather to keep from being completely defined by a subset of my interests.

In short, being stealthy here has very little to do with not being who I am. I just don't want to people's impressions of me to come from their interpretation of one subset of my true self.

painting

When we moved into our apartment eight years ago our contract provided conditions for painting the interior of the apartment. Basically, we could paint the walls any color we wanted, but they had to be white when we left the apartment. I questioned in my mind who in their right mind would paint perfectly fine white walls in an apartment that they do not even own. I did not even fully understand the point of painting rooms that I did own.

Fast forward to today. As of this past weekend, there were two rooms that we had not painted since we moved in. One is the kitchen and one is the bedroom that will be the baby's room. On Saturday we started the process of painting the baby's room. I fully understand that painting the baby's room is part of the standard process of preparing for a baby, so I am not griping that this is something we are working on. There are a few things that make me appreciate the process less, though.

First, I don't know if it is more because I am a guy or because I am colorblind, but I rarely stop and think that the appearance of a room could be improved if the color was just changed. I don't look at white walls and think this makes the decor boring, out of date, or inadequate in some other way.

Second, painting is a process. I don't feel that I can just paint in little bits of a half hour to an hour because there is setup and takedown involved. If I were to take an hour to paint, a half hour of that would probably be spent in setup and take down. This means I have to devote a block of a few hours to the task for my work to be worthwhile.

Third, little things like taping off trim and windows can take forever. I almost took as much time taping on Saturday as I did applying primer to the walls.

One thing that I do like, though, is that the process of painting is relatively straightforward. I do not go into the task without knowing what to expect like I sometimes do in other household projects. So, I don't really have that as an excuse for why I am not done yet.

garbage

As I was carting eight bags of garbage, not including yard waste, to the curb last night something occurred to me. For a family of two adults and one small child in a modest house we produce a lot of garbage. This is even compared to the typical American.

This time, around at two or three of those bags can be blamed on us converting our office to the new baby's room and one bag can be blamed on diapers. We have had a backlog of garbage due to other things we have been doing around the house, so it felt good to get that many bags out to the curb.

Even if there is a reason for most of our garbage, we constantly seem to put more garbage out than the neighbors. Golden noted that the man who lives across the street, albeit by himself, puts a single small bag on the curb every week. The only houses in the area that regularly put out the same number of bags that we do are the ones with multiple kids. It has me asking what we are doing differently.

Two things that we do not do that we may have to if Overland Park sets a tight limit on bags are recycle and use a trash compactor. Do most people recycle and compact? Are we more or less alone in garbage habits? Is this post going to someday earn me the ire of the Sierra Club?

romance

Today is Golden's and my eighth anniversary. We don't usually make too big a deal of it, but cards and small gifts are often exchanged. If I'm not careful I can let it become routine rather than romance, so that is the biggest danger that I have to watch out for.

I don't necessarily understand what romance is, at least as it is typically defined by women. I don't think that most guys understand romance, which explains why this rather cynical work of humor on the subject is funny to a lot of guys. I don't know that most women would find it as humorous. I can personally identify a lot of things that qualify as romance, but this knowledge comes second hand.

My general understanding of romance is that it is something that makes someone else feel special or important. That seems to be an incomplete definition, though, because it doesn't explain to me a lot of things that are romantic, such as candlelight or cute stuffed animals. I think the main problem I have is that my mind interprets "special" and "important" differently than most romantics.

Another possibility is that I am not describing romance properly. Since this is a distinct possibility, I would like to put this question out to everyone. If you had to explain romance, how would you define it?

I have one last, and very important, thing to say. Happy anniversary, Golden!

gymnastics

I am sitting here watching men's gymnastics on the television, and a few thoughts spring to mind.

First and foremost, only during the Olympics would I bother watching gymnastics or admit to it. I have never cared about gymnastics. Even if I did, though, it is an unwritten rule for most straight guys that they don't confess to watching gymnastics or figure skating with enjoyment. Men's gymnastics or figure skating are especially taboo.

Second, I would like to better understand how the men who make the Olympic team originally got interested in gymnastics. Performing at this level obviously takes excessive skill and training. Who are the boys who grow up driven to be a gymnast rather than a football, baseball, or soccer player? I'm not trying to disrespect the dream, but I am trying to understand it. Had I been blessed with the athleticism necessary to be a gymnast there are countless reasons that I would have probably used it to play a sport like football rather than use it to swing around on a pommel horse.

Finally, who created these events? For the life of me, I cannot imagine a rational scenario where the pommel horse was decided upon as an event. I still haven't figured out how specifically it is judged. I also do not understand why do the men have the high bar and the women have the uneven bars. The rings do make sense to me, but they don't appear like they would be a fun event in which to compete. By that measure, the vault is the only appealing men's event. I could get into the vault.

Even if I have more points to make I'm not going to blather on about gymnastics any more. I have probably already lost enough cred as it is.

ant tv

Last night I was watching something on the Science Channel about driver ants. They are a form of army ant found mostly in Africa. Ever since reading Leiningen Versus the Ants in junior high (and maybe before that) I have always been intrigued by army ants.

In watching the hour-long episode of the driver ant two things occur to me. First, I wouldn't want to cross their path. They were shown systematically ripping apart everything in their path, probably the most disturbing of which was a crab that they dismembered from the inside out.

Second, I have a very pertinent question. I wonder how they recruit the cameramen to do jobs like this. Think about it. This person's job is to get well within striking distance of a swarm of millions of these little animals whose heads are basically just big mandibles. Not only that, they have been known to attack humans, though they don't normally do so. If something went wrong it would be an absolutely horrible way to go. That's enough to give me a new appreciation for my office job.

quit stalling

Everyone knows that you aren't supposed to park in the handicapped spot unless you are handicapped. If you are ticketed, the fine is very expensive, and if you aren't, you will probably earn the ire of most who notice you walking healthfully from the parking lot to wherever you are going. I don't park in the handicapped spot, but I do one other similar thing and I am trying to determine how equivalent it is.

In the bathroom at my office there are two stalls. The one that is furthest in the corner is a handicapped stall and the other one is a standard stall. I have noticed that most, but not all, people use the handicapped stall when they have the option. I like using that one as well, too. The main advantage is that the handicapped stall feels quite a bit more secluded than the regular stall.

The question I have is, is there a problem with using the handicapped stall when the regular stall is unoccupied? There are no people on my floor who require a handicapped stall, so this should only be an issue if someone is visiting the office, like a customer or a job candidate. Is the possibility for someone needing to use a handicapped stall a big enough possibility that I shouldn't? Is this like using the handicapped parking spaces in front of the building?

carver and the reptiles

Even though my parents visited us this past week, we didn't do too much tourist stuff. My parents spent most of their time either working around my house or on my grandmother's house. Everyone but my dad did get away Thursday morning when we visited my grandmother. That morning we stopped by the George Washington Carver National Monument and Reptile World Zoo. I didn't really get pictures (the reptile zoo didn't allow them anyway) but I still have some thoughts about the experience.

First, we visited the George Washington Carver National Monument. It is laid out like a park, and has one museum-like structure that we visited. There is more to the park, but that was all outside and we didn't relish walking NJ around in the heat.

I have always held a high opinion of Carver because the things he did were to benefit others rather than himself, especially his work to aid in the plight of the share-croppers. As the museum was created to honor Carver, it did a good job of improving my already good opinion of him.

NJ was drawn to one display that had nothing to do with Carver, but had a lot of buttons. He would push a button, an animal would light up, and we would hear the sound that animal made. That display probably entertained NJ for ten to fifteen minutes solid.

Not far from Carver's monument is a place called the Reptile World Zoo. It is essentially a large steel building housing an animal enthusiast's collection of reptiles. These are mostly snakes, but also include a wide assortment of other reptiles, some birds, some tarantulas, and I am sure some other things that I forget. For a museum that appears very small on the outside, there were quite a few animals.

NJ was a bit interested in the animals, but he was also spooked by a lot of them. Several of the snakes there were larger than he is and that made him uncomfortable, which makes sense because there was only a thin layer of plexiglas between him and them.