black monday

As a warning, I don't expect most of my readers to bother with this one.  The major themes are football, business, and statistics, and I am fairly certain that only interests a small percentage of my readership.

Today is the day after the last day of the football season, and is typically known as a black Monday when teams who had disappointing seasons announce which coaches are getting fired.  This year, a lot of coaches with relatively successful careers have gotten the boot.  The names wouldn't mean much to people who don't follow the NFL, but they include people like Lovie Smith, Andy Reid, and Norv Turner, all of whom are usually in the playoffs.  And that brings me to a point.  I think that most of these firings are ridiculous, and they point to a mistake that people make when they look at statistics.  there frequently is not enough data available to make the right decision.

One that sticks out a bit to me is the firing of the Chicago Bears coach, Lovie Smith.  I have always detested the Bears, but I have long held quite a deal of respect for Smith, both on and off the field.  While Detroit struggled through ridiculously bad season after season, Chicago was graced with a defensively-minded coach who kept getting them into the playoffs, and was also someone to look up to personally.  Something to envy for sure.  This season, he was canned after a winning season that just missed the playoffs.  A lot had to do with the poor performance of the team's offense, but turn a couple of the team's losses to wins and Chicago would be falling over themselves to keep Smith.  That's the point of my contention.

The win/loss ratio for a sixteen-game football season is not a large enough data set to use to know whether a coach is good or bad.  String along several seasons of mediocre performance, and that would probably be enough, but if you have someone in-house who has a record of success, but one or two mediocre seasons, that is reason to keep rather him rather than to get rid of him.  I see this in other business environments as well.

In my experience and in discussions in my MBA classes, I have been amazed at how willing businesses are to live and die by quarterly numbers.  Most executives and financial decision-makers will have had to have had statistics classes to attain both their bachelors and masters degrees, yet they make decisions (out of necessity or not) that ignore the fact that statistical variance all but dictates that everyone will have periods where their unmanipulated numbers underperform expectations.

Looking to another business source, one of the biggest red flags for the Bernie Madoff scam was that his hedge fund never underperformed.  Statistically this was nearly impossible, even if Madoff was the wisest investor around.  Everyone misses on some quarters if they're being honest.  Rather than his consistent performance being a reason to invest with him it should have been a reason to avoid him like the plague.  People simply aren't wired to look for that sort of red flag, though, and they are wired to punish others based on the appearance of underperformance caused by statistical noise.

the dad who works too much

I recently saw a Lifetime movie the title of which I don't recall that belongs in a very specific niche genre of movies.  It is a movie where the central focus is that a relationship is restored to a functional state once the man in the relationship discovers that he has focused too much time on his job at the expense of his family.  I can't begrudge this about the movie too much , since this is the type of movie that would be well-targeted to Lifetime's typical audience, and I did enjoy it more than I would have expected.  These type of movies do get to me on some level, though.

I have mentioned this before at a time in my life when this was much more of a sore spot for me than now, but I'm still a bit sensitive to movies where the fault is placed squarely on the husband who places work above family.  I know there are a lot of men who focus more on their work than their family, but it oversimplifies a complex issue.  It also usually couches the issue in terms that make the husband irrevocably the selfish bad guy who is the only person who needs to change for the relationship to be made functional again.

Most breadwinners in situations similar to the characters in these movies are not working long hours to afford a nice summer home, but rather to provide standard of living that they see as important.  The movies do not usually appropriately portray the inherent split priorities trying to be a good dad and a provider can be in the best of situations.  What we learn from this sort of movie is that if a man has to spend a lot of time working or if he pursues his career dreams at some family sacrifice that he doesn't really love his family or is not committed to them.  So, the women in the audience who feel like their men care about work more than them are supplied with a erroneous perspective that will only add harmful conflict and tension to the relationship.

I should acknowledge that of course the fact that this is a sore spot for me says a lot of negative things about me.  Of course it says that I view financial and other types of responsibility differently than I should, and it will be a long time before that is not true.  Of course it means that I still need God to set some of my priorities right.  All of this is something that I have been trying to allow God to fix in me, but old tendencies die hard.

As is obvious, this is a sort of soapbox for me but I have said enough of my peace.  Is there a specific sub-genre of movie or type of character or common plot twist that sets you off like this, even when you find the movie overall enjoyable?  Do you have a movie soapbox?  The obvious caveat to answering that question is that it reveals something about you as well.

griping about winter drivers

Since Draco passed just north of us, this counted as our first winter storm of the year.  Since it was a glancing blow, it only amounted to an inch or two of snow and maybe a bit of ice.  Nevertheless, traffic offered the opportunity for nearly everyone I know, including myself, to make the same complaint.  Everyone forgets how to drive in winter weather over the summer!

I realized something this week, however.  This is one situation where people complain about other people to those peoples' faces without anyone being the wiser.  Some people, when they complain about other people forgetting how to drive, are thinking that the bad drivers are the ones who drive too fast in the ice and snow.  Some, alternately, think that the bad drivers are the ones who drive dramatically slower in bad weather.

Slow drivers complain about fast drivers and fast drivers complain about slow drivers, and they do it to each others' face.  It's a statistical certainty that some of these gripes are between the opposing types of drivers.  On top of all of this, everyone assumes that their audience agrees with the right way to drive.  The thought is just hilarious.

I typically drive a little faster than the average, so my gripes are usually about the people who drive ten or fifteen miles slower than I think is necessary.  There are people who blow by me at speeds I consider ridiculous as well, so that probably goes both ways.

Anyway, It's fun to have something to gripe about once a year.

looking forward to winter

I remember as a kid the anticipation I felt toward the Christmas holiday.  The little Advent calendar seemed so long.  The twenty-five days leading up to the holiday seemed to take forever.  Of course, at that early age what really excited me about Christmas was the prospect of toys, time off school, and an opportunity to play with cousins.  The time felt long in part because my responsibilities leading up to the holiday were minimal.  I certainly did not appreciate all of the responsibilities my parents had in the time leading up to the holidays.

After all of my excitement, it was over so fast.  I enjoyed the next few days of playing with the new toys, but the sense of anticipation was gone.  December 26 was always bittersweet.  The next week when schoolwork started again was downright horrible.

In the past several years I have seen December as a bit of a chore.  There are a lot of things that have to be done for the holiday now including gift-buying, extra parties, traveling, and coordinating schedules.  That has made opinion of the holidays a bit less festive.  I have an advantage today, though, that I did not have as a kid, and that is that the time after Christmas day is actually quite enjoyable.

What I look the most forward to is undirected down time that I can enjoy how I like.  What I am realizing is that, while the time leading up to Christmas sucks that up and destroys it, there is more of that after Christmas.  Like when I was a kid, I typically get some time off around the holidays and can enjoy that time.  Unlike when I was a kid, I do not have a semester of homework to look forward to in January.  Beyond that, a lot of the things (both that I do and do not enjoy) that take my time are less of a factor in January than in other times of year.  There is no football that I care about as a Lions fan, and fantasy football does not stretch into the playoffs.  There is no mowing or lawn care in general.  There are fewer outdoor activities that I am likely to participate in.  There are more evenings when I can enjoy a movie with Golden.  It is really the perfect opportunity to enjoy down time with movies, games, or a hobby.  I have been clear that I generally do not like cold weather, but I don't have to be out in the cold to enjoy some of the side-effects of the weather.

This line of thinking came about because I am now realizing that this is the third December in a row where I am feeling optimistic about how much I expect to enjoy the upcoming winter months.  That seemed unlike me. It appears to be an outgrowth of the fact that I know what it is like to have work and school and a lot of other things ahead of me for the upcoming semester, and so with fewer things on my plate I expect to be happier.  This could become a trend, and so I could be modifying my negative attitude about the winter in future years.  Who knows, maybe I will even start enjoying the cold.

c64 batman

When I was a kid our family had a Commodore 64 computer, and most of the games I played were on that machine.  Of everything that I played, though, the game that probably had the greatest impact on me was Batman: The Caped Crusader.  I was really into the old campy TV series, and the game was more advanced than most Commodore 64 games, so it made sense that I would like it.  It also held some value as one of the gifts for me that my dad had picked out.

As much as I liked the game, I was never able to complete either of the two missions, one against the Penguin and one against the Joker.  In both situations I was able to get right to the end, but was never able to figure out the last thing to do to complete the mission.  I spent hours trying to figure it out, and never to any avail.  In the years since I have often wondered if I was missing something or if the game had been broken.  What I would not have given for the ability to get a game walkthrough like is available online for most games today.

In thinking about game walkthroughs recently occurred to me that I could probably get a walkthrough of completing the game online, and I quickly found some YouTube videos of someone completing each mission.  That completing both missions combined lasts less than twenty minutes is not a reassurance to my gaming abilities as a sixth-grader.

I'm including the videos below of the game for my reference rather than anyone else's because there is no reason anyone who did not play the game would care.  However, I still wish it would have taken the person playing this less than twenty minutes.

Joker, Part 1:


Joker, Part 2:


Penguin:

chuckles the car

For about a month the image below is part of what I have seen from my office.

What has stuck out to me is that white vehicle in the middle of the photo.While the driver of that vehicle has not been parked facing my office like this in the last few weeks, for several weeks he or she parked backed into the space so that the car constantly caught my eye due to a similarity my mind cannot ignore.

As I mentioned a while back, I have seen Toy Story 3 many times in the last two years, as it is one of our kids' favorites.  One of the characters is a clown toy named Chuckles.  All I can think about when I see this car from a distance is how much it reminds me of Chuckles.

Are there similar things that show up in your everyday life that constantly reminds you of something or someone else?

rolling in the deep

In what appears to be an embarrassingly growing trend in me liking songs about women standing up to or wishing revenge on their exes (What's that about?), I'm finding that I'm somewhat drawn to Adele's ridiculously popular Rolling in the Deep.  The lyrics are not written for me at all, but for whatever reason I enjoy the song.



I have every reason to not like the song.  I think it's the anthem of a woman who does not understand the role she had in someone leaving her, so she wants to stew in revenge mode.  One line from the song, emphasized below, gives away the singer's mistaken perspective.

The scars of your love remind me of us,
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all.
The scars of your love, they leave me breathless,
I can't help feeling,

We could have had it all,
Rolling in the deep,
You had my heart inside your hand,
And you played it to the beat.

This hearkens back to something that I noted that I have learned in the time since being married.  Many phrases mean something completely different to a typical woman than a typical man.  In my opinion the "it all" that they "could have had" has almost no connection with whatever the guy who left her wanted in the relationship in the first place, and that is why he left her.  He didn't understand her and she didn't understand him.  She had some fantasy about the relationship that she assumed had meaning to him, but that he probably did not even know existed, and so things played out the way they do when two people don't understand each other because they're only concerned about fulfilling their own irrational fantasies.

I am torn on enjoying this song for this reason.  Vengeance fantasies feed off self-righteousness, and this song is definitely a revenge fantasy, but in this case it seems screamingly obvious that the self-righteousness is unfounded.  The woman isn't without the man because she is too good for him.  She is without him, can't figure out why, and feels self-superior because she is stuck in the mindset that her fantasies should have been their fantasies.

I think that a lot of the popularity for this song comes from the fact that a lot of people—while it would be women in this case men are just as guilty—see relationships as ways to meet their own fantasies without concern for the other person's needs.  When the other person either takes advantage of the him or her using the fantasy or breaks up recognizing how much effort the relationship is going to be, a song like this speaks to the person whose heart and fantasies have been broken.

This is probably too much thought to give to a pop song, isn't it?

political drug season over

We just went through an election, and while I am as politically fascinated and informed as anyone you will meet, I hate election time more than most anything else.  Politics is a drug that sucks people in then causes them to exhibit the worst of themselves, myself unfortunately included. I prefer not to make a fool of myself, and I prefer not to have my opinions of others I respect damaged as well.

The one thing that I have been thinking of lately is the assertion that I often hear that it is a citizen's, and more so a Christian's, duty to vote.  I have also heard this couched in terms like thinking about who Jesus would have voted for.

Almost every conversation Jesus had was striking, but one that especially sticks out to me is his interaction with Pilate when the Jewish leadership was angling to get him crucified.  The charge they brought was that Jesus threatened the political structure that was in place.  He was to be the king of the Jews!  However, if Jesus' threat to Roman rule was even a remote possibility Pilate had every reason to want to punish, destroy, and make an example of Jesus.  After Pilate's personal interaction with Jesus, however, he took every opportunity available to a cowardly ruler such as himself to avoid sending Jesus to the cross.  Pilate had a reputation for brutality, but he was the one trying to save Jesus.

That speaks to me more than any other interaction Jesus had regarding what his political bent was.  More than Jesus paying the temple tax or explaining that we give to God and Caesar what they are owed, this points to how unimportant in the scheme of things politics was to him.  The one person who should have been the most concerned about a politically-motivated leader rallied to save him.  Based on what I have read from Scripture like this, not only do I not believe that it is our civic duty to vote, I do not believe that Christ would have voted either.

I will do a bit of an about face, though.  I am not Christ.  While getting involved with politics may have interfered with Jesus' ministry, that does not mean that I should not vote or be involved in politics.  There are worthy issues that Christians have addressed through the ballot box.  I say that with trepidation, however.  Political involvement and self-righteousness go hand-in-hand and both are addictive drugs that can very easily interfere with a Christian's purpose of being on this earth.  I have such a hard time avoiding both every election cycle.

hiring alex smith

I play fantasy football, and as a part of that I am aware of a specific player that in my opinion illustrates a major factor impacting the national employment situation today.

The San Francisco 49ers had the first pick in the 2005 NFL draft, and they used the opportunity to draft Alex Smith.  While I don't watch college football, I do know that he had a strong couple of years with the University of Utah and received some votes for the Heisman trophy.  The 49ers certainly felt he had something with him to pick him first overall.

In the next five or six years Smith would be considered something of a bust.  He almost always played just well enough to stay the starter, but no one would think that his play ever justified a place in the first round or two of the draft, let alone first overall selection.  In fantasy, people would chuckle if someone dared to draft him as anything more than a low-level backup for their imaginary team.  No one really took him seriously as anything other than a game manager for a team that relied on its defense for wins.

While most people figured the issue was with Smith, part of the problem was that Smith had five or six offensive coordinators and offensive systems in the same number of years.  This meant that he had to essentially relearn how to do everything every year, and readjust to a system that may or may not be a good fit for him.

Before the start of the season last year the team hired Jim Harbaugh as the head coach, who just happened to be a former quarterback.  I do not know what specifically happened in the coaching process, but the evidence indicates that Harbaugh was able to help develop Smith's potential like other coaches and coordinators were unable to in the past.  In that year Smith's play improved dramatically, and his performance showed more intelligent decision-making.  This is to the point where Smith started a streak of passes without an interception toward the end of the season that surpassed any similar streak any other quarterbacks on the team have ever had.  Those other quarterbacks include Joe Montana and Steve Young.  That streak has continued this season, and he has not thrown an interception yet.  The team is widely considered one of the likeliest to reach the Super Bowl this year.

I think this points well to something that doesn't get enough attention today.  Potential workers need to be developed, and businesses need to bite the bullet and accept that.

The narrative that has taken hold in the last few years in relation to the job market is that jobs are available and there are job shortages in places, but there is a serious mismatch between the jobs that are available and the skillsets of job seekers.  This, I have read, is the a major factor for the high unemployment rate.  As a fake example that mimics what I have read, a business that makes airplane parts might state that they'd be happy to hire welders, but they just cannot find any who are qualified to weld aluminum parts.  I don't completely agree with this assessment, though.

A few months ago I read an article, and I unfortunately cannot find it now, that disputed this narrative.  It stated that there is always a bit of a jobs/skills mismatch in the economy, and there is no real statistical evidence that the mismatch is larger now than at more prosperous times.  The notion is popular because both liberals and conservatives can use it to push their particular agendas.  Those who are more liberal can use this narrative to push for more education funding, and those who are more conservative can use this narrative to shift the responsibility for the jobs situation from business to the incompetence or laziness of the those who are out of work.  At the risk of beating up a couple of strawmen I would like to look at these scenarios.

The education argument has a little bit of merit, but most of it falls apart when you really think about what the narrative implies.  It essentially states that the education system itself fails to get people into a gainfully employable state.  If this is the case, the idea that simply pouring more money into that system will solve anything is naive.  A lot more could be said about this education argument, but that's not where I want to focus.

The other argument that the potential employee pool is simply inferior interests me more, though.  Businesses have always had to expect new hires to go through some learning curve.  Perfect candidates rarely exist, and when they do they typically command top dollar.  The expectation that, even in a weak jobs market, you can be picky enough to demand a laundry list of areas of expertise and experiences with different scenarios and technologies so that you don't have to develop the new hire, then offer a low-ball wage is ridiculous.

What a business is really saying when they say there aren't any qualified candidates is that they are not capable of developing the candidates that are available.  Either that, or they're simply unwilling.  That may be true, but it is also a red flag that those businesses might not acknowledge their role in creating and nurturing star workers, and might be shirking the responsibility to develop them at all.

This is a problem because in the new economy the jobs that require little training are also the ones that will be the easiest to automate, and these jobs will therefore cease to exist.  It's possible that the remaining important roles will go unfilled, or there will be a lot of people playing the role of an undeveloped 2005 Alex Smith who can sort of but not really do their job rather than being a 2012 Alex Smith who is a borderline rock star.

I think a lot of businesses have noticed that some employees get training then leave once they have been fully developed, and that is why those businesses are hesitant to hire someone who needs some development.  I have seen the same thing happen several times myself where someone worked just long enough to get past the learning curve only to leverage that new knowledge to find a role somewhere else.  I do believe, though, that if a business gains a reputation for one that is constantly developing its employees, and also gains a reputation of not downsizing half the company when hard times hit, that this will ultimately lead to retention and recruitment of long-term employees who will give the business a return on those resources spent in development.

In conclusion I believe that workers and businesses share the responsibility that the worker be up to the task of doing their job.  If there is a skills mismatch and a business cannot find people who have the requisite skillset, that is not the fault of the pool of workers that they do not have those qualifications.  It is a failure of expectations that developed people would be ready and waiting.  In that scenario, it is the business' responsibility to find people who can be properly developed to have the needed skillsets.  The companies that know how to identify diamonds in the rough and develop them will find that there are a lot of 2012 Alex Smiths available to be discovered.  Those companies will outperform the ones who decide not to bother with hiring their own Alex Smiths in the first place.

office people watching

This is about people watching from my office rather than other people in my office.

The office I had for a year-and-a-half overlooked a major road with a sidewalk that hosted a few pedestrians.  Most were normal and boring, but on occasion I'd see someone abnormal or entertaining.  A lot of what was entertaining was trying to figure out the back story for what was going on.  There is a residential area across the street, and some businesses along there too, but for various reasons it's not really a place where it makes sense to walk from one place to another.

While there were quite a few joggers, there was once a woman who, instead of jogging, did some sort of stretch-as-far-as-you-can-every-step walk for about a city block down the sidewalk.  Once, I saw a woman jogging with a man right behind her who was not subtle about the fact that he was checking her out the entire time.  Another time someone walked down the sidewalk in a full business suit pulling a small suitcase on wheels for the entire distance of the road that I could see from my office, which made little sense to me because he was on the residential side of the street rather than the office park.  One group of people that always piqued my interest was gaggle of four people (two men and two women) who I frequently saw walking one direction or the other in full business wear in mid-afternoon in no particular hurry.

My office has moved to a different side of the building as of the last month or two, so the people watching has had a different flavor.  I now overlook a parking lot facing the main entrance to the building, so I get some entertainment noticing the different expressions, gaits, and other nuances that people have going into the office versus leaving the office.  Most people have a more serious and determined (and often hurried) presence about them coming in compared to going out.

Probably the most entertaining thing I have seen so far happened on a morning a couple of weeks ago.  I noticed one specific middle-aged woman furiously spraying something on her clothes and in her vehicle before what I assume was her coming into work.  I wrote it off as her trying to get rid of cigarette smoke odor, and I was probably right.  However, as she got out of her vehicle she lit up a[nother] cigarette.  Why light up after spraying yourself with perfume or air freshener (or whatever it was) rather than before?  So perplexing!  I'll have to see if she does it again in the future.

bush v gore

While everyone has a political slant, I am trying very hard to come across as objectively as possible here because the observation this is built on is objective in nature.  I'm very interested when I see similarities between people who others see as diametric opposites.  I've reworded several portions already to try to avoid sounding like I'm taking one perspective or the other, but word choice is almost never completely apolitical.

For a very long while, and definitely before Obama was elected in 2008, I have viewed George W. Bush and Barack Obama as very similar candidates.  Sure, they are very different in many respects to the point where Obama essentially ran against Bush's record in 2008, but I do think their similarities actually outnumber their differences.  I even believe this when looking at points of policy rather than personality.  Both men have campaigned at the opposite extremes of the political spectrum at one time or another, but aside from issues that almost every nationally-elected Republican and Democrat are obligated to disagree on, they ultimately ruled similarly.  This is especially the case when Bush's second term is the object of comparison rather than his first (a fact I'd attribute to Bush to asserting himself more in contrast to certain specific advisers).

For example, monetary policy under at least the second half of Bush's term and throughout Obama's term has been nearly identical. Some may point to the Fed and Ben Bernanke as the reason for that, but I think it has more to do with Treasury Secretary Geithner and his similarity to the multiple treasury secretaries that served under Bush.

Since I think Obama sort of fills a "Bush" role, I was interested to see Mitt Romney nominated on the GOP side.  If there has ever been a Republican that reminded me of Al Gore, Romney is it.  So, without being too political, the following are the similarities I see between Bush and Obama, and also Gore and Romney.

Bush and Obama

Both saw enormous spikes in popularity in their first year in office

This is sort of a fluke for both of them.  Bush was popular because he was the central stabilizing figure in the wake of 9/11.  Obama was popular because he literally and figuratively represented change from a system that a lot of people had become cynical about.  Neither of them saw their incredible levels of popularity last, but that's the way these things go.

Both more well liked personally than politically

This ties in to the last one.  Each presents himself as the type of person the average person would enjoy shooting the breeze with.  Both are very likable on a personal level.  Once they start making their policy positions known, however, they become more polarizing.

Both were lauded in their home state for being unifiers but were eventually seen on the national stage as being polarizing

I don't know if anyone else remembers this, but Bush sold himself in the first election as a "unifier, not a divider."  Obama, likewise, was supposed to usher in a new way of doing things in Washington.  Statements could be made defending or accusing either or both in this regard, but the point remains that this was a major selling point for both men at one point, and it was a way they attempted to contrast themselves with their political opponents.

Both initially ran on specific significant tax cut proposals, but were largely vague about other policy stance details

Enough said.

Both started their terms inheriting an economy headed south

Where a president's responsibility starts and stops regarding the economy is beyond the scope of this comment.  However, the seeds for the dot com bust were sown in the nineties and the seeds for the Great Recession were sown in the preceding decade.  Again, arguments can be made about who was responsible for how the economic situations progressed, but not here right now.

Both selected VP candidates with extensive resumes who could not realistically be elected president

Most VP choices in the last few elections have baffled me.  While Dick Cheney and Joe Biden may have been among the best choices made in the last twelve years, (depending on your opinions of Lieberman, Edwards, and Palin), they both confused me.  Cheney is smart and very good in debates, but he did not have apparent political aspirations, did not excite many people, and proved easy to cast as the villain.  Biden did, and probably still does, have political aspirations, and has a history of working through complicated foreign policy issues.  He also has a long history of saying very dumb things.  If nominated as a presidential candidate his odds of winning would be extremely long and would nearly rely on the GOP candidate being indicted for a felony.

Both, for good or for bad, increased access to and the size of the healthcare system by expanding the government's role in it

I'm not saying more on this right now.  There are positives and negatives that could be stated here, but my role at the moment is not to make value judgments.

Both were bailed out of a bind by General Petraus

Without General Petraus and his 2007 military surge, the odds are that the Middle East would look dramatically different now.  The geopolitical problems there that the surge addressed in this reality may have impacted the global economy by this point in a different reality due to the constraints on getting oil if the surge had not happened.  If Bush ever proves to have a legacy, the person who single-handedly saved it would be General Petraus.

Likewise, when President Obama had to replace General McChrystal in Afghanistan more or less overnight, the only person qualified in that short of notice to fill in the gap was Petraus.  Obama's opinion of Petraus' job must be good since he was nominated to be director of the CIA roughly a year ago.  Quite a change for someone Moveon.org targeted as a military stooge just a few years prior.

Gore and Romney

Both have boring personalities to a fault

In contrast to Bush and Obama, few people would want to chew the fat with Gore or Romney.  They are both monotone speakers who like to shift topics to things people in general are not interested in.  It blows me away that either have had any success in a field like politics, where personality matters more than most anything else.

That is me understating how uncharismatic both men are.

Both were originally elected to office in states that leaned the opposite political way

This may seem random, but I think that both of them being politicians from states that lean the opposite direction made them both more calculating.

Both selected VP candidates that separated them from the previous president of the same party

Joe Lieberman was on record severely criticizing President Clinton and was seen as the most morally aware option available to Gore.  Paul Ryan is to many conservatives the anti-Bush, someone who will deliver on a small-government promise that Bush did not.

Both had wives who were involved with awkward attempts to make their husbands seem more human

Here for Gore, and here for Romney.

Both had fathers who preceded them in political office

Okay, so did Bush.  The difference I see is that George W. Bush was not very similar to his dad in leadership style, and differed on policy as well.  Think about it this way: the younger Bush made a decision on a question only his father had faced to that point in whether to invade Iraq, and his dad chose very differently for the reason that Iraq might turn into a quagmire.

Romney's father was a moderate GOP governor from the north and Gore's father was a Tennessee senator.  I would argue that both lived in their fathers' shadows more than George W.

Both have made a lot of money in hedge fund management

Not merely investing in hedge funds, mind you, but taking leadership and founder roles.

More than in most election years, my main hope this election period is simply that whoever wins actually wins it on the night of the election rather than how the Bush/Gore election ultimately played out.  I am unequivocally ready for this to be over.

102 years

Today, I attended the funeral for my great-grandmother who was 102 years old.  As I only knew her in the later decades of her life I only knew her as a somewhat rough-edged individual.  From the stories I have heard she had always been blunt and capable of getting her hands dirty to the point of killing whatever needed to be killed with her hands or a shotgun on the farm, so I think elements of that personality were probably there when she was younger as well.

What has always struck me, and what I gave a lot of thought to this weekend, was how she essentially lived two lifetimes.

Her husband, and my great-grandfather, lost his first wife during childbirth.  So, she married him as his second wife as a teenager, and was eleven years his younger.  She had seven kids of her own plus his daughter from the previous marriage, and so she lived the life of a farm wife until her husband's death in 1962 when he was 63 and she was 52.  Their youngest son at the time was two days short of his thirteenth birthday.

I don't know too much about her life from the years immediately after her husband's death, but I do know that in the seventies she moved from the Midwest to Arizona with my grandparents to assist in missions work on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.  She was there over twenty years before coming back with them to Missouri where she lived another sixteen years.  Those years had to have been strikingly different from what she had lived up to that point in her life.

I can see how some of the segments of my own life are very different from others, but I have not even reached one third of the life that she has led.  When I think of life being short I think in terms of living seventy or eighty years.  At this stage of my life, one hundred years feels like more time than I would even want.  As she was married into her fifties then lived another fifty unattached, that had to feel like she was two different people.  That's how I believe I would feel in that same situation.

Coming full circle back to my grandmother's personality, it was very strong.  She had zero qualms telling anyone what she thought of whatever and whoever.  As a result, she was incredibly blunt.  She also did what needed to be done, at least when she was physically capable of it.  As she has a strong personality, it makes complete sense that she would establish her own way for the fifty years that she outlived my great-grandfather.

In any case, they are meeting up again now for the first time in literally decades.  That has to be joyous.

the talk

During my typical morning contemplation in the shower this morning it occurred to me that either NJ or CD will probably ask about where babies come from in the near future.  NJ just turned six, but hasn't asked yet largely out of lack or interest of things baby-related.  CD, at three-and-a-half is very interested in babies, so I was wondering who would ask first.

A mere eight hours later I caught Golden explaining to CD in very simple terms where babies come from.  CD had told Golden that babies were cut out of mommies' bellies.  Golden explained that this sometimes happens, but there is usually a different way for the baby to come out.  Golden did a great job of giving the right amount of information for where CD is without acting awkward.

Golden and I have long agreed that we would be up front and honest as possible to questions about where babies come from, and eventually questions about sex.  There are a lot of reasons for that, and we both agree that the benefits of being up-front outweigh the drawbacks.  All of that being said, I don't feel real confident I know the line where to balance over-sharing information.

I think my impression is largely due to the fact that the people with the more extreme opinions are most likely to share them, but it seems to me that most of the opinions I have heard about discussing sex with kids has been from either extreme.  Either parents are over-sexualizing their kids by not protecting them from knowledge about things until they are mature enough to understand them or they are causing them to be sexually repressed by making natural things appear evil.  I'd like us to strike a proper balance, but that's a fine line to establish.

I think that there are certainly some real dangers to both extremes, but my real concern is that I feel that if this is something that we cannot discuss in our household that damages Golden's and my ability to influence NJ's and CD's understanding of sex, and can cause serious problems and heartache later.  It is a parent's responsibility to ready their kids for their adult lives, and sexuality is a huge part of that.  We would be failing as parents if we ceded this responsibility to whatever will fill in that knowledge gap.

Here's hoping and praying our next talk is not for another couple of years, though.

remembering forrest

There are two dangers in my posting a memory about Forrest.  The first danger is that it will be all about me, which is something he would absolutely call me on if he were still here.  The second danger is that I gush.  He'd call me on that too.

As I have noted, my friend Forrest went to be with God a couple of weeks ago.  While his illness had a sense of inevitability about it, as he had a form of cancer that very few people survive more than half a year, it has only hit home with me now that he is gone.

Seven years ago, Forrest utilized his influence encouraged a group of friends to start blogs to express ourselves and stay connected.  That is how this blog originated.  He moved on to other forms of expression as the years went on, including a successful and prolific level of painting.  Even without him being here directly, though, his influence remained with me and the others who continued to write and interact.

Probably due to my selfish nature most of my friendships are structured in ways that the relationship can meet some specific social need I have.  For example, I have some friendships with people I can laugh about specific things, I have some friendships with people with whom I can discuss specific topics, and I have some friendships with people who I can share specific experiences.  While I only saw Forrest once every few weeks over the last two or three years, I am realizing now how significant he had become in my social world.  I have already had several instances where I thought that some specific thing would be great to discuss with Forrest, then remembered that is not a possibility.

The aspect of Forrest's character or personality that I appreciated most was how incredibly easy it was to be honest around him.  We could be open, straightforward, and sometimes blunt with each other in our discussions.  It was often to a fault.  Among our group of friends who met at Homer's Coffeehouse I could discuss topics and opinions that I would not bring up in many other contexts.  That was largely due to the atmosphere that Forrest brought to the group.

Forrest was a great friend who I was very fortunate to get to connect with.  His memory and influence will always be with me, and he will always be missed.

If I miss him some, I know that his family misses him a hundred, a thousand, or a million times more.  I can only pray that God will provide each of them peace through the grief.  Please remember them in your prayers.

cross to bear

A while back another mother of one of NJ's preschool classmates told Golden that she did not know if she could handle a situation we were dealing with regarding NJ at the time as a compliment to her patience.  Within a couple of months we received word that that mother had to deal with her son having a medical situation far, far worse than we have dealt with for either of our kids yet.

Unless he or she had a traumatic childhood, I do not think the typical person realizes the severity of the challenges that most people have to face in life until they are no longer considered a young adult.  Everyone has something, and that something is usually huge.  I feel like almost every family I know has some issue that I do not know how I would deal with.  Whether it is serious illnesses/death, miscarriages, affairs, divorces, major financial hardships, perpetual unemployment, mental/emotional instability, or simply rebellious children, almost no one is immune.  It also seems like all of this bad stuff is from recent years.

I know that a lot of bad stuff happened to people I knew when I was a kid, but a lot of that stuff is usually shielded from kids.  As an example, it may sound uncaring but when you hear about an adult in the hospital as a youth it does not sound unexpected.  You don't get the morbid details of the complications that person goes through, and it rarely directly impacts you.  Older people end up in hospitals, and you don't have an appreciation for someone in their thirties or forties being relatively young.  It's simply another name brought up for a prayer request.  That changes as an adult when forty isn't old any more and I am more closely acquainted with those who are sick.

To be fair, there are difficulties that Golden and I face.  In a vacuum they often seem serious, but when I compare to others, we do not have it that bad.  A lot of what we do face has to do with being parents of two energetic kids, so those difficulties even frequently have benefits that far outweigh them.

Given how poorly I have handled the curve balls that life has thrown me, I have some doubts about how I would handle a more serious hardship.  My crosses seem horrible until I see some of what others have to tolerate.  God, give them strength.

please pray

My friend Forest, whom about half my readers know, needs your prayers.  He has a very serious form of cancer and direct intervention from God is currently his hope, and unfortunately his only hope.  Please also pray for his family as well, as they need strength and peace as much as Forest does.

I am not abandoning the blog, and will likely put something up in the very near future.  I simply have not been in the mood to compose something, as everything I have sat down to type has felt trite in comparison.  Not to fear, though, my standards will go down to my normal level shortly and I will post again.

Update (7/6/2012):

Forest passed away yesterday.  Please remember his family in your prayers.

boundaries

I frankly don't know precisely where boundaries should be drawn in my life.  I never have.  In college I became overly active in classwork, student government, work, and maintaining a relationship with Golden and nearly burned out mid-way through my third semester.  A few times in my adult life I have swung the opposite direction and purposefully shut down nearly all offers for social activities beyond what was absolutely necessary.

I'm somehow guarded and over-sharing at the same time in my friendships.  In my close relationships I don't usually know what reasonable and unreasonable expectations are.  Do I expect too much or too little?  Do I sacrifice too much or too little?  Again, I think it's paradoxically both, but I usually cannot identify the specifics of what needs to change.

In social situations I frequently miss social cues, though I also notice people who miss them much more than I do.  Some people seem to be able to feel out others in a way that I can only dream.  Other people seem to miss what I think are obvious signs that whatever they are doing violates whatever the local social mores are.

The thing is, the more I think about this, the more I think this describes most people.  There is definitely a small group of people who seem to get where all of the social and personal boundaries are or should be, and there is a small group of  people who have no clue.  In the middle, though, I think everyone relies on others' reactions to figure out the grey areas.  What happens, though, when the people we use for reference have it wrong?

hymns

Tonight our church had a hymn sing, and this brought to mind how full circle I have come on this genre of music.

When I was growing up my family listened to hymns a lot, and since I went to church regularly in traditional churches I heard my share of hymns as a kid.  As anyone who hears a lot of a specific type of music will do, there were songs that I liked and songs that I did not like.  I appreciated hymns overall, though, until I became a teen.

As I got into adolescence I grew to resent the expectation that church-goers would like the one genre of music over the others, and the attitude that many had that everything that was not a hymn was inferior (or worse, unholy).  I also got tired of the tendency of hymns to use outdated jargon, and plenty of "thees" and "thous." As such, while I did not hate hymns, I learned to strongly prefer other styles of music.

As I have grown as an adult, and especially in the past two or three years, I have come to appreciate the depth and maturity that exists in many hymns.  This is probably mostly due to the fact that I have more life experiences to appreciate a This has been in part because my understanding of Scripture and what practical Christianity really is has increased, and so some of what I thought I grasped before strikes me more seriously now.  Some of this is that I am no longer in a situation, or have recently been in a situation, where there are any expectations on what music I am going to like or what I am going to relate to.

One example of a song that I have only recently been appreciating on a doctrinal level is "Rock of Ages."  I am not Calvinist, and maybe this is one of the reasons it has taken some time to connect with me, but I feel I am only now grasping what I always claimed to believe—that I, and everyone else, truly come to God empty-handed.  I bring nothing to the equation except a reticent willingness to be changed.



An example of a song that I appreciate based on life experience in a way that I did not when I was a kid is "The Solid Rock."  Of my myriad of weaknesses, if there were one that I would pick out to say how much I underestimated the depth of it earlier in life, it is my ability to trust God.  My strength is in trusting Him, but it's something I need His help to even consider doing.



One song I am including here just because I like it is the Owl City version of "In Christ Alone."  It was written more recently than most traditional hymns, but it is essentially a hymn.  It is also every bit as meaningful as the other hymns I have been contemplating lately.



There are certainly some hymns I still do not enjoy, and probably never will.  However, I am getting to the point in my life where a good number of songs that I may have overlooked ten or twenty years ago can profoundly touch me.  I must be getting old.

demonization and favoritism

Something that perplexes me is the human drive to like and rationalize for those who we agree with and to demonize those we do not.  I am not pointing to any one group of people in particular.  In fact, what surprises me is how universal this appears to be.  I am also shocked at how on guard I have to be to keep from doing it myself.

This is probably the most pronounced in politics, but it also shows up in most other areas of life like religion and fandom.  Rather than accept that all humans are flawed and endowed with some redeemable traits, no matter their particular opinions, it is easier to see only the bad in those with whom I disagree and the good in those with whom I agree.

I cannot emphasize enough how amazed I am at how easy it is to slip into the line of thinking, "Of course that politician had shady dealings.  Have you seen his policy positions that completely contradict mine?"  It is also easy to think regarding my teams, "Ref, are you blind calling that unnecessary roughness?  That was a perfectly legal hit by the player on the football team I am pulling for.  I'd bet he volunteers his time and resources to his community, and saves people from burning buildings in his spare time—the saint!"  All of this is as if someone's position on the ideal tax system or role in a team from Detroit has anything to do with the quality of their character.

This sort of philosophical favoritism, giving some people unwarranted hate and others unwarranted admiration, is obviously not what God called us to.  I am not convinced that this is the sort of thing that most Christians are aware they need to give over to God, though.  Even though we all know that anything short of love for our neighbors is sin and we know that favoritism has been forbidden, do we (and I am certainly asking this about myself) really believe it?  Does this sort of thing truly make the cut of things we really think of as falling short of God's glory?

I am as in need of as much assistance in countering this flaw in my thinking on this as anyone else.  That is the point, though.  We all have natures so horribly flawed that we cannot on our own obey a simple command like, "Love your enemies..." (Matt 5:44).  This, even when the only thing that makes them an enemy is a difference of opinion about something relatively minor when considered in the grand scheme of things.

Disagree with me on this if you must.  Just understand it means that you must be a bad person.

blood and pastels

Easter, and Holy Week in general, is one of my least favorite holidays.  By rights it should be among my favorites because it represents the event that forms the foundation of my religious beliefs and my relationship with Christ.  It just seems so feminized, though.

This may come down to the fact that the real holiday is considered Easter and Good Friday is a day leading up to the ultimate holiday, but when I think of the Crucifixion and Resurrection I am disappointed with the emphasis on pastel colors and dressy attire.  I'd mention cute, furry animals as well, but that opens a can of worms about pagan roots on some of the celebration that I don't care to debate here.

In my thinking, Christmas should be the more feminine holiday and Easter should be the more masculine holiday.  Christmas is about birth and potential.  Easter is about violent death, death's defeat, and promises fulfilled.  Mary is as much the symbol of Christmas as anyone because God used her humble spirit for His glory.  Christ is the symbol of Holy Week because he showed what true humility and sacrifice was.  Christmas is about love and commitment in new relationships (Mary and Joseph), and Easter is about what love costs in a mature relationship (Christ and the Church).

We all choose how to celebrate and contemplate the holiday, but there are also cultural expectations within the church regarding how the holiday should be observed.  I wish you a great Good Friday and Easter as we all contemplate Christ's sacrifice and its implications on our lives.  This is what I will be doing this weekend.

it worker backgrounds

I have worked in technical support ten of the last eleven years, and have had significant interactions with people with all kinds of technical skill sets.  This post is about one observation I have made that I have not  seen anyone else make about people in general in the industry.  Specifically, I think technical workers are disproportionately from poorer backgrounds.

My observation that a lot of people in IT came from poorer families could be completely wrong, and it is almost certainly partially due to the fact that my career to this point has mostly been in technical support rather than something more glamorous in the industry.  I have seen a large number of technical workers who have purported to come from modest backgrounds, though.  Beyond this, I have also noticed an inordinately large number of people from modest backgrounds who have taken a significant interest in tech as their key to a better life, even if they have not ultimately gotten a technical job.

In some respects this makes total sense.  It seems like the industry more than most others rewards and punishes workers based on ability and intelligence.  Politics applies, but to a lesser degree.  If you're not cut out to be a programmer, or a systems administrator, or whatever it is going to matter less if your dad is the CTO for the company.  You probably could coast in a different department, such as Marketing, where individual contributions are more difficult to quantify.  On the flip side, if you are naturally skilled and someone gives a chance you can do well.

This also makes sense from the education perspective.  This is a white collar profession where a bachelors degree or a graduate degree is not required.  The same cannot be said for other white collar roles, from doctors to lawyers to mechanical engineers.  Sure, most technical jobs claim to require at least a bachelor's degree, but most of those will also allow for "equivalent work experience."  Less of an educational requirement means a lower barrier for people who don't have the money up front for a college education and/or four to eight years available to make a bet on a specific career.

I think the biggest reason for this, however, is the marketing from schools like DeVry and ITT Tech.  By their nature they target students with lesser means (in either time or money) than a traditional school targets.  Since the biggest bang for their buck is to target those industries where someone with an undergrad degree or less can make a decent living, they focus on the tech and healthcare industries.  I have worked with a lot of DeVry graduates, and an unfortunate side-effect of their education that seems to be a universal is significant student loan debt.  Since not everyone is cut out to work in technical fields, this presents a bit of a risk that the degree will not lead to a job to pay off the loan for the degree.  It presents a hidden risk to those who are cut out for the industry as well, though.

Something that I learned before I had much technical experience on my resume is that, unless your degree is from a relatively prestigious school, experience matters far more than education when applying for a technical job.  The places that hire straight out of school usually expect some specific ability or depth of knowledge that you don't necessarily get in the classroom.  The people who do well tend to be the ones who did a lot of out-of-class learning on their own.  This is a problem for any student with limited real-world experience.  For-profit school students, with their higher-than-average debts that will not go away until they are paid off, are in a much tougher situation, however.  A degree does not guarantee a job in the industry, and one may not ever be available for specific, individual graduates.

As a final note, I do seem to run across a lot of people who think that IT is the gateway to six-figure incomes, and I think this draws in people looking for something akin to an earned lottery payout.  There are people who make that but, based on what limited information I have, they tend to fall into one or (very likely) more of the following four categories.

• They hold a senior role.
• They live in an expensive city that necessitates high pay.
• They are a consultant and can tolerate the income variability.
• They happen to be an expert in a relatively new and highly-used technology.

Tech jobs pay better than those in a lot of other industries, especially for the amount of education required to succeed, but six-figure incomes are rare from what I can tell.

My foundational point is that technical jobs do offer opportunities that do not exist in other places, but they should not be pursued by people who do not have a genuine interest in the work.  The payout simply is not as high as some people think it is, and there is a good chance a person looking to enter the field for the money will have to fight for opportunities just to get a position to acquire the experience employers expect.  If you do like the work and have realistic expectations regarding what you will make, then entering the industry makes sense.

kony

I figure that most people reading this know about the "Kony 2012" video that has been circulating the web, but in case you haven't seen it, it is below. As a warning, this is a half hour long so it requires a bit of a time commitment to watch.


For the uninitiated who don't have a spare half hour to watch the film, the video details the goal to capture Joseph Kony, a warlord from the region around northern Uganda, so that he can be tried for war crimes. The goal is a noble one, at least in intent. Many will disagree with the notion that the U.S. should get more involved in foreign affairs, but a scant few would disagree with the assertion that the world would be a better place with Kony put away for a long time.

I get some positives out of this. First, I do believe that the nations that are the "haves" have a moral obligation to assist in dealing with the issues that the "have-nots" deal with that result in massive suffering and death. Second, while I am not technically a neo-conservative or a pacifist, I get some pleasure seeing something targeted to the people most likely to be pacifists making what amounts to a neo-con's argument.

Two negative things strike me about this too, and I don't know right now whether these two things are mindless gut reactions or valid concerns.

First, this video seems like it is promoting slacktivism, which is something that seriously bugs me. On some level I have always believed that purposeful people work to accomplish tangible goals and lazy people who want to feel good about themselves spend the mere seconds it takes to share a video to raise awareness. I know that is an unfair generalization, and I know that this post could be construed as slacktivist as well. However, generalizations usually have some grain of truth, and issues such as this do not exist for the sole purpose of allowing people to feel good about themselves for taking a popular stance on them. You're against a warlord stealing children from their families to use in his child army? You must be a wonderful, caring person!

Second, it occurs to me that Kony's victims may have different ideas regarding the best policy for capturing Kony than the video presents. Indeed, the following video from Al Jazeera—I know, the source isn't the most trusted with a U.S. audience, but bear with me—and the reactions they captured to a screening of the Kony 2012 video at least appeared overwhelmingly negative. Video can be cut to prove nearly any point, but I still have the open question in my mind regarding the best way to deal with Kony.


If I were in a decision-making role on this issue I would probably support the current course of action. I don't know if it is the right action, but on it's face it appears to be the best.  That said, if the locals did not support it, how could we, the foreigners?

I don't really have many more opinions to add. I think this is one of those topics where people bring their own opinions and really aren't going to be easily swayed from them. The issue genuinely is worth serious thought, though.

Update (3/17/2012): I feel I should note that the Ugandan government has responded to the video with what at least appears to be a reasonable point that Kony hasn't been in Uganda since 2006 when he was forced out by the Ugandan military, so U.S. involvement in the country may not be the best targeted. I don't know any better than anyone else if the military assistance that the U.S. is providing does any good or not.

Also, in case anyone reading this is wondering why I have not mentioned it, I know very well that Jason Russell, who was behind the creation of the Kony video, was recently arrested for pointedly embarrassing behavior in public. I just don't think that the incident is relevant to the question of whether the Kony video itself is ultimately a good or a bad thing.

something light

I actually have a very difficult time coming up with light topics for this blog.  The deeper or more involved ones take some time to type, but I usually have several in the back of my mind that I am mulling.  The problem with that is I expect that most people wanting to read a blog are not looking to commit a lot of time reading through multiple treatises that simply state the blogger's personal viewpoint, and are instead looking for something light.

So, here's a random list of statements about light.

• I used to think that foods labeled as "lite" were labeled using an improper spelling to get around FDA rules.  At least today, there are FDA rules for what can be labeled as "lite," so I was probably wrong.
• Thomas Edison did not create the world's first incandescent light bulb.  He created the world's first economically viable incandescent light bulb.
• A lightsaber's colors are determined by the crystal used in its creation.
• The person who was struck the most times in his life by lightning was Roy Sullivan, who was struck seven times over a period of thirty-five years and change.  He died at his own hand due to relationship troubles rather than directly due to the lightning.
• A boxer who is in the official Lightweight class weighs between 135 and 140 pounds.  The limit for  heavyweight is a mere sixty pounds more than the upper bound of this at 200 pounds.
• About ten years ago some researchers successfully stopped and restarted light by forcing it through a super cold cloud of atoms.  This all occurred in the span of a thousandth of a second, which makes you wonder if the validation process was the researchers asking each other, "You saw that, right?" and responding in the affirmative to make each other feel good.
• The poem Charge of the Light Brigade retells the true story of a cavalry charge in the Crimean War that occurred due to miscommunication.  The poem supposes that the soldiers knew the charge was a mistake, but gave their lives for it anyway.
• Hasbro has an online Lite-Brite that you can use to make and print designs.
• The first traffic light in a form similar to today had two colors (red and green) and used a buzzer as a warning of light change rather than a yellow light.
• Gordon Lightfoot's Wikipedia page lists his various musical styles as, "folk, folk-rock, and country music."  I could have sworn that was three different ways of saying the same thing.
•  The word, "lite," in Swedish means, "a little."

goals in marriage

This indirectly builds off a short post from earlier about communication in marriage.

I should note that this is not about some specific discussion or argument that Golden and I are having.  This is about me reflecting on how our approaches and motivations have been very different throughout our lives together, and we have not always identified that fact.

When I was seventeen, a Holiness pastor and general contractor I worked for told me something that irritated me at the time, but I have grown to understand.  He told me that romantic relationships at my age at the time were unwise because someone that age doesn't even know what he wants.  While I believe that God intentionally designed people to be very interested in the opposite sex at that time in life, I think my former boss was right about not knowing what you want at that stage of life.

I think the most difficult lesson that I have learned in marriage that has been that different people have different goals in life, and aligning them can be difficult or impossible.  It sounds so straightforward and easy to address, right?  Goals seem like obvious things that can be discussed with a future spouse and potential landmines diffused very early in the relationship.  It isn't so simple, though.  Goals like wanting a house or a certain number of kids by a certain age, or to make a certain amount of money or to own certain big-ticket items are only the tip of the iceberg when compared to the wants and motivations from which they are derived.

I'll pick an example that doesn't apply to Golden and me.  A couple may agree that they want to buy a house by a specific age.  While it will appear to both parties that they are in significant agreement, there is still far more not agreed on than agreed on.  What type of house do you agree you are going to buy?  Does one spouse want to buy a fixer-upper and fix it up and the other not want to spend the time?  Does one spouse prefer to spend on form and the other to spend on function?  Do the spouses agree on how much they will put down and who is ultimately responsible for coming up with the down payment, mortgage, upkeep, insurance, and taxes?  Does one spouse expect new furniture and decorations for the new house?  How hard and fast is that age limit?

This is only scratching the surface, but where one spouse assumes that they agreed to a smaller house with a big yard and a two-car garage that both spouses would work to save on until they got a 50% down payment even if it takes a few more years, the other might think they agreed to buying a split-level in a specific color with four bedrooms, two baths, and a good-sized kitchen with a 10% down payment or whatever they happen to have in savings at the age in question.  No one is more at fault than another in this scenario, but all of these little assumptions that one party had that the other did not will lead to both parties feeling like the other is not holding up their end of the agreement.  "He said we could buy a house when I turned thirty," and/or, "She said we would both sacrifice until we could afford a nice house," will lead to arguments and resentment.

So, all we need to do is be ultra-detailed in laying out our life goals, then come to a consensus about how to get there, right?  That's much better than before, but it's still not enough.

As I noted before, at least in my personal experience, even when you know what you want in life, you don't really know what you want in life.  You may think you want to be rich, but what you really want is peace, and what is necessary to reach a specific salary by a specific age causes more net anxiety than being moderately poor.  You may think you want to have a house full of kids, but you really are just drawn to always nurturing a baby, and when your kids get older you feel less fulfilled and more and more exhausted.  You may think you want to continue learning or improve your marketability, but you really want the honor and respect that comes from a graduate-level degree and letters after your name.  The long and short of it is that if you do not really know what you want your spouse does not know either, and any discussion about life goals without self-awareness is going to be incomplete.

Another pitfall is that it is easy to ignore potential differences in what you want in everyday life because any rational person would agree that it's important.  This is where I place the whole women want to talk about their day and men want to mentally shut down at the end of their day.  She thinks that, of course, any rational person would want to talk about their day; and he thinks that, of course, any rational person would want some down time. Any rational person would agree that spending time with the kids is more important than working overtime, and any rational person would agree that working overtime to pay the mortgage to put a roof over the kids' head is more important than a game of catch.  Any rational person would lease a car so as to always be able to drive something nice and classy, and any rational person would purchase and own a car for ten years or more to avoid constant car payments.  Any rational person would agree with you about a plethora of things.

Something further that I am still grasping is that, while spouses should work on goals together, it is not one spouse' responsibility to assure that the other spouse's goals are all met.  This is hard for me for a number of reasons, some of them rational and some not.  It seems to make sense that if you put all of your relational eggs in one basket for life, so to say, that the other person has some responsibility to help you be fulfilled, but this can in reality be a horrible burden to place on someone and a horrible burden to accept.  Some life goals simply are not possible, or impose too great a burden on the spouse or family.  Some goals will be mutually exclusive with the other spouse's goals.

All of this comes back to the inability to communicate when you are both speaking different languages, and the importance of learning the other person's language.  I think that God devised relationships in this way to help us grow in ways that we could not otherwise, and the effort necessary to learn the other person's perspective and language is a big part of that growing process.  Either that, or all of this relational confusion exists for His amusement.  I'm going with the first option, though.

the good and bad from yoda

If you know any of the quotes from Star Wars' Yoda, these should be familiar.  They're the two that stuck with me the most since I heard them, and I had a negative reaction to both.  Obviously, Yoda's character was not written to align with my personal beliefs and doctrines.  However, after much consideration I was able to conclude that I was wrong about one quote and right about the other in light of my understanding of Scripture.

The Good: Fear, Anger, Hate...

"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

When I first heard this I kind of wrote it off as standard Eastern philosophy, but there is more Biblical here than I would like to admit.  Even before looking at Scripture, the Fear → Anger → Hate linkage is fairly obvious.  Most acts of hate can be traced back through anger issues to fear.  Looking at Scripture, though, puts this in a new light.

Fear (other than fear of God) is a sign of a lack of trust in God.  Godly love does not coexist with fear.

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

- 1 John 4:18

The purpose of Yoda's statement is indeed far different from John's.  Yoda is pointing to the danger he sees in a specific character's future and the political and physical implications of that danger.  In context, John is providing an internal litmus test for whether someone truly has God's love.

The Bad: There is no try

"No, do or do not.  There is no try."

I think this is supposed to make sense in the context of the force, but I have never been sure.  Regardless, this philosophy is a perfectionist's recipe for disaster.  The sort of person who takes, "there is no try," to heart is the sort for whom effort is of no value and only results matter.  That sort of person is a nightmare to appease, and I would suspect is a nightmare to be as well.

An observant person might make the argument that we are to be perfect in the same way that God is (Matt 5:48), and so this idea of results being what matters is right.  Another observant person might point out that God performs the work in us (Phil 1:6), and so the idea that we can try to be better is futile.  I would respond that our path to perfection is one during which we are still imperfect, and that the work in us is incomplete, so the best we can do is live from the level that God has helped us reach.  Beyond that, we try to emulate the examples we are given with God's help and mercy.

"Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you"

- Phil 3:16-17

The Ugly

"When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not "

Ha!

As a final note, it is a little bothersome that the same person who voices Yoda also does Fozzie Bear's voice.  I keep expecting a, "wocka, wocka," after everything Yoda says.  Annoying it can be.

rules and relationship

I have spent a lot of time in my life trying to reconcile the passages in Scripture that can be interpreted legalistically with the passages that outright state that legalism is not what God is looking for from us.  I alluded to this a while back, but how could God in one moment tell us that we don't earn salvation and in the next list the sorts of sins that people who don't get salvation commit?  Certainly, this is partially answered by the fact that we sin because we are sinners rather than being sinners because we sin, but there was still something I wasn't getting.  There are still things we are supposed to do or not do and it still smacks of legalism.

The strongest example that I could give of a Scripture passage that seems on its face to be legalistic is probably Ephesians 4:17-5:21. I have heard many, many of what I have considered legalistic sermons quote pieces from this passage.  It's tempting to do because Paul is pretty straightforward about a few things that believers shouldn't do.  While I have always also felt bad to have a lowly opinion how the passage was used, I also always felt that I was right about this being the wrong approach to the passage. It was only recently that I noticed that the passage itself actually address the potential legalism in 4:22-24, in that our goodness is something God creates rather than something we earn.

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

In these verses we see that the way to do the right things is not to just to accept Paul's chastening and be better people, but to put on a new self and allow God to change the attitude of our minds.  The idea that we're going to stop stealing if our nature is to steal (4:28), or to stop slandering if our nature is to badmouth (4:29), or to do any of the other things listed in the passage without God changing our attitude is ludicrous.  Our role is to put off our old selves (4:22) and not give the devil a foothold by clinging unnecessarily to that old self (4:27).  It is God who actually performs the changing of our attitude and allows us to put on the new self that is created by Him if we let Him (4:24).

I am posting this on Valentine's Day for a reason.  I remember early on in my relationship with Golden I kind of dreaded Valentine's Day, not because I didn't love her, but because I was scared I would break some unwritten rule about the day in what I gave her or did for her.  You can say it doesn't matter all you want, but in the first few years of a relationship when you haven't had many Valentine's Days together there's no telling what will be interpreted as, "I don't love you," or, "You aren't special."  Now, Valentine's Day does not worry me too much because I understand better what makes Golden feel loved and appreciated.

That Valentine's Day fear of triggering some unknown rule violation is like taking a legalistic approach to God.  Early on when we are new in our relationship we have these rules that we follow, even if we don't always understand them, because we don't know if we might accidentally make God mad by doing such-and-such a thing.  As we grow in the relationship, though, we should not require rules to understand the life He specifically wants us to live.  While some things are flat-out wrong as if they were serious rules that should not be broken, it is the fact that they violate our relationship with God that is wrong rather than that they break some arbitrary rule.

For example, someone who is married should not have to have a rule that says he or she should not cheat on his or her spouse to understand that cheating is violating their relationship.  Having to create a rule that says, "No cheating," while perhaps necessary in fragile times in the marriage or when one spouse is a little dense, can frankly be insulting that it was necessary at all.  Likewise, as we put on the mind of Christ there are some things that we should intuitively know we personally should or shouldn't do, even though there are not official rules created for them.  They may or may not be fine for other believers, depending on what specifically God is requiring of them, but our obedience in this case should not be to a rule book, but to our heart.

The most important aspect of this, though, is that when God expects something of us, it is through Him that it is possible to complete it.  We cannot ever be good enough for God.  This is important because it flies in the face of the popular, yet legalistic, attitude that says I have to continually try harder in my own power to measure up to God.  My role is to submit, put on Christ, and let Him make the necessary changes that will result in me doing the right things.  When Jesus said that his yoke was easy and his burden light (Matt 11:28-30) He was implicitly stating that we would not be doing the bulk of the work ourselves.

A further point that builds off my belief that sin is not breaking a rule, but rather violating a relationship, I think one of the greatest dangers that faces the modern church is the generational rifts and resulting isolation that appear when sin is defined through cultural rules.  In both liberal and conservative churches, Evangelical, Mainline Protestant, Catholic, et al, I believe the priorities are typically in enforcing social mores rather than using Scriptural principles to lead people to an ever-strengthening relationship with Christ.  Those are the gnats we strain out while swallowing a camel (Matt 23:23-28).

forboding movie previews

Most weekends I watch a couple of movies.  Lately, it has mostly been movies I am fairly sure that I will at least find tolerable, but every once in a while I take a chance on a movie that there is a good chance that I will not like.  Nothing makes me more leery of these movies than watching preview after preview at the beginning of the DVD of other movies that I have absolutely no interest in.  "Maybe I misjudged what type of movie this was going to be," I wonder to myself.  "I'm not really in the mood for an artsy/dramatic/ultra-low-budget/emotional/understated drama."

Usually my reticence is proven unwarranted, as I do end up finding some enjoyment in the movie.  Even so, there are times when I get a few scenes in, decide that my initial fears were spot-on, stop the movie, and move on to something else.

The previews that make me concerned usually fall into one of the following categories.

• The previews that show that every character in the movie has a horrible life and there is no indication things are going to change.  These previews are usually edited to be extremely gritty.  They make me wonder if the movie I picked out for the night will leave me in a state of nihilistic depression.
• The previews for corny family comedies.  I start to think, "Wait, am I going to laugh at any of the jokes in this movie?"
• The previews for artsy European movies with poor protagonists on a journey to find themselves or just surviving in a stifling culture.  The film is always a bit grainy and usually makes note of all the film festival awards it got.  This immediately makes me wonder how drawn-out the storyline of the movie I am about to watch is going to be, and whether there will be a real conclusion to the movie.
• The previews for other movies I have already seen and did not like.
• The previews for foreign films in general.  If all of the previews are foreign films I suspect that the film makers for the movie I am about to watch were not overly concerned with the interests of the American movie watcher.
• The previews for mid-nineteenth century period pieces.  Almost no movies I like take place in the nineteenth century, as it is dominated by romances and spaghetti westerns.  The ones I do like that take place in that time period almost always bring something different to the table (Should I be embarrassed that I'm thinking of Cowboys and Aliens as a good film placed in the nineteenth century?  At least I was not thinking of Wild, Wild West.).
• The previews for teen movies.  There are teen movies I like, but it makes me nervous if the people picking previews for this movie only selected other teen movies for the previews.
• The previews for revenge movies.  I'm not very interested in movies where the central point is revenge and nothing else of value is brought to the table, so I don't want to think I'm about to see a movie like Death Wish or The Last House on the Left.

There are others as well, but that accounts for most of my red flags.

Do you have any types of movie previews that makes you wonder if you made the right choice to watch some specific film?  What are some of your red flags?

manic pixie dream girl

Cracked has several times in the last few months referenced a specific story character type that has been grating at me for the last few years, but didn't know had a name.  The character type is called the "Manic pixie dream girl." I will refer to this character as MPDG from here on.

I would encourage you to follow the link and click on the example movies to get an idea of what I am talking about. However, Nathan Rubin, who is the coiner of the term, describes the MPDG thusly:

"The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is an all-or-nothing-proposition. Audiences either want to marry her instantly (despite The Manic Pixie Dream Girl being, you know, a fictional character) or they want to commit grievous bodily harm against them and their immediate family."

The MPDG is absolute proof that Hollywood is less concerned with realistic relationships than with idealistic fantasies that ultimately result in a painful break-up or divorce. What usually happens is a straight-laced and highly-structured male character is introduced and we find out that he is not happy with life because being structured means he obviously is broken. He meets the MPDG and decides to change his approach to life, though it varies how related and in what order these events are. Hilarity ensues. There is relationship conflict, and the conflict is resolved by the highly-structured male accepting the MPDG's approach to life and progressing in a serious relationship with her. Movies where I have noticed this are Elizabethtown, Stranger than Fiction, and (most egregiously) Yes Man.

Apart from the fact that the MPDG as portrayed in the movies would not likely exist in real life, movies do real harm in romanticizing a personality type to people with clashing personality types. I can see where in real life an MPDG would be intriguing just long enough to get into a serious relationship with that person and realize the horrible mistake that has been made. True free spirits should not typically be merged with structured people. The movies kind of get around this by implying that this is a journey for the structured male character, and he will change for his beloved MPDG, but the whole idea is ridiculous. The tendency toward being structured or free-spirited, on the whole, is not a choice. A structured or free-spirited person might force themselves to live their opposite for a time, but after a while that would be a miserable existence.

Early in our relationship Golden heard someone describe similarities between partners in a relationship as money in the bank and differences as loans that will have to be paid back with interest. I can appreciate that far more now that we have been married more than a decade. We are very similar in a lot of areas, and those similarities have limited the issues we have had from our differences. In the course of our relationship most of the differences between us have resulted in or will result in some sort of compromise. Those compromises are sometimes easy and sometimes hard, but they always require care and effort and some pain.

My theory as to why the MPDG is so frequently worked into movie plots is that the character is something of a fantasy to freelance workers like writers or directors.  This free-spirited non-existent girlfriend never pressures them to get a real job or asks whether they paid the water bill.  She doesn't get upset when he gets distracted in his work or hobbies for days or weeks at a time, and doesn't care if he spends his money frivolously because she only exists for the moment.  In truth, all the MPDG character does is romanticize irresponsibility.

There are certainly other grating character types that show up in movies a lot, but I think the MPDG has to rank among the most annoying for me.  I say that as a structured man who doesn't believe he needs fixing.