Is it possible to describe a personal blog without it sounding self-absorbed?
The title Off the Bridge is to reflect that I created this blog in part due to peer pressure. When I created and named it I did not anticipate still using it years down the road.
I generally post my thoughts on topics that have been floating around in my head in the previous days. I hope you find something interesting. In any case, thanks for stopping by.
At some point in the past few weeks I noticed a cat around our front porch. It is frequently there when I leave for work in the morning or when I arrive home. The reason it has selected our front porch has become obvious as there is a gap below our stairs that the cat has apparently made a home.
What I don't know is where this cat came from. Was it born a stray? Did someone get rid of it in a move? It has to either have some hunting skill or some human assistance because it doesn't look like skin and bones yet.
I guess the most important question I should have is what to do about the cat. Do we have any responsibility for this animal just because it decided to pick the space under our porch as its home?
According to a story I read a few days ago, a recent study suggests that people are designed to place more value on others who have higher social standing than those who have lower social standing. This is one of those study results that is not exactly a shock, but it is something that I have thought about quite a bit nonetheless.
One of the main themes of Jesus' ministry was humility. He said that the last should be first. He said that we should approach Him as children. He told the disciples that the greatest among them would serve rather than rule. The Pharisees' and teachers of the law's tendency to seek positions of honor earned them some of Jesus' harshest recorded words in Matthew 23. I doubt any of this is news to anyone reading this post, though.
I don't think anyone is immune from some desire to have status. For some people it is holding some occupational position. For others, it is being seen as a good parent. For yet others, it is being known as having good taste. The question I have is at what point this becomes a problem. Is it alright to want to hold some status, be it ever so minor, or does Jesus' call to humility mean that all drive for any status should be avoided?
I think this is quite relevant because, of all that can be considered sin, this is probably the thing that is the most ignored in churches. In fact, church can be a breeding ground for this sin, as there are naturally people who want to gain status within the church structure. Since a church is a social structure, it is unavoidable that people would want to seek status, but the dangers of that drive should be acknowledged.
One thing to note is that I know there is nothing at all wrong with having a status. Someone needs to fill the roles that have a status attached to them. It is simply wrong to pursue status for the wrong reasons. I just want to know where the line is.
Everyone probably remembers the commercials in the video below since they aren't from too long ago. I think the entire series is hilarious, if a little adult in its themes, but I always questioned whether the commercials actually steered any business to Ameriquest. Seriously, how many people actually remembered that the commercials were for Ameriquest?
I don't know if this is universal or if it is just me, but the commercials bring to light some of my greatest fears. I am genuinely concerned that some day that all of the obvious evidence will say that I did something wrong, even though I am actually innocent. While the commercials tell the viewers not to judge too quickly, I know this is because people actually do judge too quickly.
Let's make a deal. If you don't judge too quickly I won't either.
Golden and I don't do too many vacations. Since we don't live too close to family, we tend to budget vacation time and money to seeing family. This year, some family is coming to see us, but we are not currently planning trips to see family.
We have discussed going to Omaha some time this summer. I have heard that the zoo there is impressive, and it looks like there are a few other attractions as well. It doesn't hurt that Omaha is a mere three hours drive away. That is a bearable trip with a toddler.
We still may not try travelling this year, though. We have a relatively busy schedule set up, and the later we get into the summer the less Golden is going to want to do things that require her to walk around in the heat. Also, the house has been more expensive to maintain this year than I hoped, so I might not feel comfortable spending much money on non-essential things this summer.
Since we don't really take vacations, I don't have a lot of practice setting up the details of a vacation. It may seem simple or stupid, but I don't know how to pick places to stay and things that we will like to do. In a couple of years we want to have a more major vacation around the time of our tenth anniversary. I have started to realize that I don't have the slightest clue how to set one up. A lot of the typical resort activities (swimming, golf, going to a spa, etc) are not things that we get into. Is it even worthwhile to look into a resort or cruise? I don't want our once-every-ten-years event to be a waste, so what wouldn't be?
This past weekend Golden and I watched Mr. Bean's Holiday. It is an amusing, but not a spectacular, film. There is one thing that struck me as unusual about the movie. It is rated G.
Since I have been watching films from a wide varieties of time periods over the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to gain an understanding of how the MPAA movie rating system has changed over time. Most people know that the rating PG-13 was created in the early to middle eighties, and before that the rating system went straight from PG to R. I think that around the time PG-13 was created, the purpose of the rating system was changing from it's original purpose to what it is today.
If you watch a movie from the sixties through the early eighties, the rating system doesn't appear to filter much stuff out that it does today (for example, all of the Bond movies of that era are rated PG), but at the same time, a G rating on a movie didn't condemn it at the box office. Any more, it seems like movies are made to get a certain rating rather than the rating being an clear judgment of the content of the movie.
If a movie is rated G or PG, I involuntarily take a movie less seriously any more. I am now tuned to believe that a PG movie is designed for families, and therefore lacks an intelligent storyline. While I didn't like National Treasure too much because the story went a little overboard, I suspect that I did some mental sabotaging because it was only rated PG.
I think that some movies (especially action movies) made today have no reason to be rated R but some violence or language is added, not to make the story more realistic, but to make sure that the rating is PG-13 or R. The evidence for this is that it is incredibly easy to predict what a movie is going to be rated if you watch the trailer before you find out the rating.
This brings me back to the new Bean movie. Can a movie that is rated G be taken seriously any more by an adult audience? I think it will be difficult because people will go into the movie with an idea of what to expect. Do you agree?
Every once in a while I will make a passing joke by acting like I am superstitious. I am not the only one to do it. I know that am not alone in occasionally uttering the phrase, "knock on wood," or, "don't jinx it." I don't believe that knocking on wood has any value or that a person can jinx themselves, and I am quite sure that most everyone knows this, but phrases like that can still be valuable conversational tools.
One conversational tool, which I would consider superstitious if anyone took it seriously, is to cross fingers or to talk about crossing fingers either in the hope for luck or as a sort of free pass on lying. I recently saw this used in a way that made me wonder whether many people take the superstition seriously.
On Survivor last Thursday a couple of the people on the show were telling another contestant something that was not the truth. While they were doing this they crossed their fingers. One of the people later said that she crossed her fingers because she knew what she was saying was not the truth.
This is not a tirade about honesty, however, I have to call into question the point of crossing your fingers to somehow keep a falsehood from technically being a lie. Do people seriously think it makes some difference? If so, under what authority? If you're going to lie, isn't it better to not risk getting caught and just ignore crossing any fingers?
The whole thing reminds me a bit of the Las Vegas slogan, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." It helps people to think in the terms that there are conditions in life where there morals are ambiguous, but only under those specific conditions. It encourages people to think that morality is ruled by technicalities. I just don't get how people who have any ability to reason can rationalize that it makes any difference.
This is a highly political post. It is probably moreso than any other post I have ever done. I am considering going out on a limb more on the weekends like this, but I'll see how it goes first. Since most of my readers are from states with a lot of agriculture, this particular post could be a risky move.
A few months ago I posted some predictions. I didn't mention it at the time, but there was one specific prediction in the list that was really the entire reason for the post. I couldn't think of a good way to post on the topic without sounding too political, but I wanted to be on record as predicting something that I saw as inevitable. Today, I'm going to go ahead and be political.
My prediction was that increased ethanol production would drive up the cost of food. That prediction may or may not have come true already, depending on who you want to listen to. The ethanol industry blames the cost of fuel, and it could be right, but I think gas prices are only part of the problem.
About a week ago, the head of the International Monetary Fund directly blamed biofuel (meaning ethanol) production as the cause of the food price increases occurring around the world and the civil unrest that has already occurred in countries such as Haiti, Egypt, and the Philippines. (There is deeper analysis here.) He also predicted that this would cause hundreds of thousands of people in poorer nations to starve if food sources continue to be redirected to ethanol production at the current rates. If he is right, this is a serious issue.
In the United States, most ethanol is created from corn. This is less efficient than other means, but corn is a crop that grows well here. The corn that is sold for ethanol use does not get used for food, so that drives the price of corn up. This causes farmers who might otherwise plant crops like wheat or soybeans to plant corn instead, thus driving up the price of wheat and soybeans as well. Since grains are used for livestock and poultry feed, the price of meats, dairy, and eggs are also heavily affected. This, combined with high fuel prices, makes all food expensive.
If there is something that genuinely threatens worldwide stability today, I actually think food prices do more than the problems in the credit markets do. The U.S. Federal Reserve has already established that it will go to whatever means necessary to make sure the banking system does not fail. Who is actually taking steps to keep food affordable, though?
Just so the situation is clear, current ethanol policies in the United States stipulate that more ethanol is used each year than the year before for the next few years. The government also heavily subsidizes ethanol and limits ethanol imports from other countries that can produce it more efficiently.
What I expect will happen is that current ethanol policies will be kept in place until the cost of food gets notably worse. Once things get substantively more bad than they are now there will be no choice but to cut subsidies and minimum requirements that encourage ethanol production. This will cause a lot of people who have made investments assuming a higher price of corn and wheat to go bankrupt. So, the farmers who are benefiting now from the high price of corn will be the ones who hurt the most when the price of corn inevitably crashes.
I hope that I am wrong. It just seems too obvious for me to be too far off the mark.
Update (4/21/2008): I found information about legislation from two years ago to remove the ethanol tariff that is currently in place here. The information at the link provides a good rationalization for why ethanol tariffs are stupid. I have serious doubts that the tariff will ever be rescinded, though.
This post is a confession of my judgmental attitude about some specific things. I need to note that no one who I know who reads this blog has ever triggered the attitude that I talk about here. I wouldn't post this if that were the case.
Try as I may to address this, there are a few things that I can stil be quite judgmental about. A lot of them have to do with how people spend money, so I am sure this says more about me than them. It's really none of my business how people spend their money, and I am definitely not a good judge of the frivolous, but certain key things trigger my judgment. Again, this is something that I am working on.
When I speak with someone who golfs regularly, which isn't that often, I have a hard time not thinking in the back of my mind that a cheaper and less time-consuming hobby might be a better idea. This is wrong on a couple of levels. While a serious golfer may sink several thousand dollars a year into the sport, I know that casual golfers can do so for a few hundred a year. Even if someone does spend thousands on the sport, it's his or her decision on how to spend it.
When I visit a house where the decor has a very expensive feel I make similar judgments. The interior design has to look very exquisite for me to feel this way, but when it does I do. I think about what a waste this extravagance is. I don't think about the things that I might like that are expensive.
When I see someone in a new BMW or Mercedes or similar luxury car my judgmental attitude is triggered again. I wonder who in the world would need such frill. I don't think about the fact that my Taurus would be a luxury in some areas of the world.
The reason that these specific things trigger these bad thoughts is that these are things I always mentally associated with people who were upper class when I was growing up. I don't make those judgments about people who have cable television, for example, because my family as well as many of my friends' families had cable when I was growing up. I judge golf largely because I didn't have any close friends who I knew golfed.
Regardless of my reasons, I know I need to be more careful about how I interpret other peoples' relationships with their money. Mine is the one that I should be concerned about.
Once a year Parade magazine publishes a list of ordinary and famous people and their salaries. I have to admit that I am always intrigued with the list that is published. When I am looking at the list it is like I am looking in at a part of someone's life that they would not typically share. I am frequently surprised by how much or how little certain jobs pay.
For the interest that I have in the list, I cannot imagine why anyone would agree to have their picture, age, and salary posted with no contextual information. Even if I were comfortable about broadcasting my income, which I am not, I would not want to be on such a list because I would not want people I don't know sizing me up based on those three basic pieces of information. Beyond that, I cannot imagine that employers are happy to find their employees sharing salary information with the world.
I wonder if more men than women feel this way because the list includes more women than men this year. I suspect that more men are unwilling to share salary information because they are more likely to have some of their self-worth tied to what they make. I say that as speculation, though, because I don't know for certain that men are less likely to publicize what they make.
I am glad that not everyone feels the way I do about making their income information so very public. If they did, I wouldn't have this source of entertainment every year.
Most of the time that the TV is on in our house while NJ is awake it is on Noggin, which is a preschool channel that is somehow associated with Nick Jr. I have had plenty of time to critique the shows on Noggin. There are some very good ones and some very bad ones. Golden and I almost completely agree on what the good and bad shows are as well. Thankfully, NJ seems to like the good ones in general the most.
The Good
For something to qualify as good it simply has to not drive me crazy to watch frequently. For example, I am not going to watch Blue's Clues on my own time, but I don't mind watching it with NJ.
Go, Diego, Go
The point of most Diego episodes is to show Diego trying to rescue some animal or get some baby animal to its mother. The stories are ridiculous, but they keep moving, which is huge.
Dora the Explorer
The predecessor to Diego, the Dora episodes are even more ludicrous than the Diego episodes. The other day she was followed by a pack of mail-carrier-chasing chickens. Sane people don't think this stuff up.
Dora is typically trying to get to some party or festival or something of that nature. Again, the story keeps moving, which is essential in preschool programming.
The Backyardigans
I first saw this show in an airport a few years ago and thought it was just a computer animated mutation of Barney. I was very wrong. The idea is that a group of kids play in their back yards and imagine up storylines to act out.
The show is actually probably the best preschool show ever made. I can't imagine a better one. The stories hold my interest and, rather than being ridiculously silly, a lot of the humor tends to be more ironic. The writers of this show are geniuses.
Blue's Clues
This show has been on for a while. The main character pieces together small clues around his house to try to figure out what his dog is doing. This is on the list of good shows mainly because I don't hate watching it.
The Bad
It should be noted that one common bond that in my interpretation of the "bad" shows is that I do not detect much masculine influence in the shows. This is only my interpretation, and it may explain my biases, but the three shows below feel devoid of testosterone.
Little Bear
A year or a year-and-a-half ago Golden pointed out that she could not stand this show. I have to agree. There are two problems with it. First, there never really seems to be a point to whatever the story is for the episode. Second, it appears to have been designed with the express purpose of boring adults. Even the voices for the characters in the show sound bored.
On the flip side, NJ likes to watch this show because it gives him the opportunity to point to animals and state what they are.
Franklin
Franklin is essentially Little Bear, but replace the bear with a turtle and add just a little more plot. This is probably me being more judgmental than I should be because this cartoon looks so much like Little Bear. I really don't like watching it, though.
Max and Ruby
Max is the toddler who can't talk and Ruby is his older nagging sister. She is always trying to do something to get a "Bunny Scouts" badge and he is always doing something that appears to ruin her attempt, but ends up helping her. For me, to watch this show is to grow more and more irritated at the Ruby character. After seeing quite a bit of this show, since it is often on at times when I am home, I'd prefer just to avoid it altogether.
The Ugly
The only reason that this might qualify as ugly is that it appears to encourage kids to not chew their food. In any case, it is the only place this video from Yo! Gabba Gabba fits. Ever since Golden pointed me to it, I have thought this video was hilarious. That could be because I have a twenty-one-month-old and have been watching kids shows for the last year or two.
Two recent items on religion have popped up in the news and made me think about responsibility within church.
First, there were the videos from Barack Obama's church where his pastor said some offensive things. Second, officials in Texas have removed over four hundred kids from a Polygamous cult compound.
Since the first piece of news broke I have considered what responsibility a church member has to correct teaching that he or she does not agree with or feels is destructive. Is it more dangerous to make a stink about certain things or just leave them alone? Where is the line?
Since the second piece of news broke, I have been wondering whether blind faith is actually faith. The stories that I have read of people who escaped cult have described its members as mindlessly accepting of some extreme doctrines. If someone by good fortune happened to believe the truth about God with the same sort of intellectual abandon as these cult members, would it actually be faith?
These are too deep of questions for so late at night. Even if it were a more normal time of day, I still probably would not have the answers.
At the grocery store where I used to work, there was a sign by the cash registers that had two rules on it.
Rule #1: The customer is always right. Rule #2: When in doubt refer to Rule #1.
In practical terms it was a good idea to focus employees' attention on the customer. In a business where the workforce is making minimum wage and is probably not there because this is what they wanted to do with their lives since elementary school, any motivation to serve the customer seems like good motivation. I think, though, that this mentality is flawed.
If the customer is truly always right, then if there is a disagreement about the price of a product or whether the customer paid with a ten dollar bill or a twenty or anything else the thing to do is to take the customer at his or her word. No sane business person would do this because a small percentage of customers would rob him or her blind. Saying that the customer is always right isn't something that a business person does with the belief that it is correct, but rather because it is a quick and easy way of telling employees that they should shape up.
While I think that the idea that the customer is always right is almost correct and sends almost the right message to customers and employees, it is not good because it cannot ever be 100% correct. Rather than being a rule that employees can truly follow, then, it becomes a meaningless catch phrase. I cannot imagine that the quality of customer service is better where there is a policy of the customer always being right unless that policy holds water.
If a business is concerned about employees giving a customer a good experience, how about just hiring people who test high on conscientiousness and agreeableness? In my opinion, it is a much better way to get the desired result.
Yesterday morning I grabbed my umbrella as I ran from my car into the office. It wasn't a downpour, but it was raining pretty heavily. On the way to my desk I started thinking about the fact that I haven't seen another man using an umbrella in quite a while.I wonder why it is that I have seen more women willing to use umbrellas than men. Are umbrellas effeminate and I just don't know it? Do most men just not care if they get wet? Are men more likely to forget to bring an umbrella? For my part, I don't really care how it makes me look because I really don't want to get wet every time it rains.
What about you? Do you ever use an umbrella? Why or why not?
Update:ABCNews.com has a review of a new type of hands-free umbrella. At least I don't stick out now like I would with this thing.
I think that in just about every serious relationship there are words that one person uses that the other person thinks are weird. I definitely use a few words that Golden has questioned.
The first time I can recall Golden making a big deal about one of the words I used was in a presentation I did in a class that we were both in. Twice in the presentation I used the word "disparity." Golden's opinion was that I sounded like I was trying to show off that I knew what the word meant. Maybe I did, but every time we have heard the word used since, I have given her a nudge.
Another word I use quite a bit is "munch." Golden used to tease me about saying that I needed something to munch. Now I have influenced her enough that she uses the word as well. Heh, heh, heh.
A final word that I use that sticks out to Golden is "crisp." If it is a freezing morning, I will describe the cold as biting. However, if the morning is simply chilly, I will describe the temperature as crisp. For a while, Golden was not convinced that I was even using the word correctly.
I have to be fair, though, that Golden and her family use words that I haven't gotten used to either. If they say to put food on your plate they tell you to, "dip your plate." She also uses a word the word "swig" to describe a sip. This is a word that my dad uses as well, but that I simply have never gotten used to.
I should be thankful. Apart from a few differences in the words we use, we really aren't very different. I would say there is hardly any disparity between us at all.
This will probably be my last post on the whole gallbladder thing, so if you are wondering when I am going to give it up already, now you know.
I went to see the surgeon yesterday as a follow up to the surgery and got cleared to start lifting things again. It's been difficult to not be able to carry and swing NJ around.
I had read online about a lot of people who had digestive complications after this surgery, and that for some having the gallbladder removed does not remove the symptoms the surgery is supposed to address. This had me a little concerned that all this was for nothing. I have noticed a dramatic improvement, though. I have not had any reactions to dairy products or fatty foods yet, and my digestive system is the best its been in a few years. The doctor did say that there could be some change in the way my body digests food in the next six weeks, but I do not expect too many surprises.
A few people have commented to me on something that I have been thinking about a lot lately. How did people with gallstones deal with these issues before surgery was available? This is a very common surgery in the United States today, so I have to believe that at least some people had problems before anesthesia was developed. Did those people just develop a high threshold for pain?
Another question I have is how do people who have gallstones in nations where quality and affordable surgery is inaccessible to the masses deal with the pain? It was hard enough to find a good selection of foods to eat that didn't cause pain in the land of plenty. I can't imagine trying to craft a workable diet when there are very few food options available.
So, for all of my complaining, it sounds like my digestive problem is addressed. There are people who have and have had it worse than I do.
Ann had two loves in life, which were hemp clothing and baked goods. She was granola in every sense of the word. These two loves shaped her actions throughout her early life.
When she was a little girl she spent so many hours with her Easy Bake oven she wore it out from overuse. When she grew older she found that she very much appreciated the earthy qualities of hemp fabric to the less natural materials that composed more fashionable clothes. As a young adult she realized her dream of opening sandwich shop in her local downtown shopping district. She did not make much money, but she was able to pay her bills, she enjoyed her job, and she got to wear her grass clothing every day.
One afternoon, as she was examining a stain on the hemp shirt that she was wearing, Ann noticed a crowd outside her shop. Her blood began to boil when she realized that the crowd was gathered around the local congressman. Under normal circumstances she wouldn't care about random politicians, but this man had recently sponsored a bill that would make her beloved hemp apparel illegal. Someone had to inform him that this move had been a mistake.
She quickly grabbed a few hard biscuits, as they were the most easily accessible objects around, and headed out the door. Angrily, and at the top of her lungs, she shouted her opinions at the congressional representative, but this was to no avail. The crowd surrounding him was too loud and boistrous to pay any heed. So, sensing that she had little alternative, she hurled three biscuits at the politician in quick succession. Much to her surprise, as well as everyone else's, the last missile found its target and disoriented him enough to lose his balance. This caused him minor injuries and her arrest.
When Ann was brought before the judge she was defiant. She felt that she had not done anything that any other rational person in her sandals would not have done. It was only because people judged her as some sort of crazy hippie based on her attire that she was now being charged with assault with a tasty weapon, a serious crime after the raisin riots in the sixties. Unfortunately for Ann, the judge was less than sympathetic. His disparaging response, "You should already know that people in grass blouses shouldn't throw scones."
Every year on the first day of April when I remember what day it is I kick myself for not planning an April Fool's Day prank on someone. It makes sense that I would do it. I know several people who would make good targets, and probably get back at me the next year. It fits my personality to have some fun at someone else's expense. I just can't ever remember in time to plan anything.
In my entire life, no one has ever really played an April Fool's Day prank on me and I haven't played a real prank on anyone else. I have actually started to wonder if the perhaps no one really does pull April Fool's pranks.
So, today I would like to know if you have ever pranked someone or been pranked at this time of year specifically because it was April Fool's Day. If not, have you ever contemplated a good prank?
I first saw this show in an airport a few years ago and thought it was just a computer animated mutation of Barney. I was very wrong. The idea is that a group of kids play in their back yards and imagine up storylines to act out.
This show has been on for a while. The main character pieces together small clues around his house to try to figure out what his dog is doing. This is on the list of good shows mainly because I don't hate watching it.
A year or a year-and-a-half ago Golden pointed out that she could not stand this show. I have to agree. There are two problems with it. First, there never really seems to be a point to whatever the story is for the episode. Second, it appears to have been designed with the express purpose of boring adults. Even the voices for the characters in the show sound bored.
Franklin
something to get a "Bunny Scouts" badge and he is always doing something that appears to ruin her attempt, but ends up helping her. For me, to watch this show is to grow more and more irritated at the Ruby character. After seeing quite a bit of this show, since it is often on at times when I am home, I'd prefer just to avoid it altogether.
I wonder why it is that I have seen more women willing to use umbrellas than men. Are umbrellas effeminate and I just don't know it? Do most men just not care if they get wet? Are men more likely to forget to bring an umbrella? For my part, I don't really care how it makes me look because I really don't want to get wet every time it rains.
