d day

Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

One of the most jarring scenes in any movie for me is in Saving Private Ryan. The camera takes the view of a soldier toward the back of a Higgins boat, the nerves of the young men in the boat are worked up, the front of the boat opens up for them to get out and approach to the beach, and the entire boat of soldiers falls victim to machine gun fire.  As an uninformed civilian, that scene sums up my view of the sacrifice of the D-Day invasion.  So many men who certainly would have preferred to be taking a different role than that on that day were forced into a meat grinder out of necessity.  Some survived and some did not.  However, for all of their efforts, Europe and the world are better places today.

There are a lot of battles through history that overwhelm the mind when I try to imagine myself in the shoes of someone who was there.  I don't know that any battle in history compares to this one in my mind, though.

Today, my mood is thankfulness for those who have served and sacrificed for the freedoms.  They're a privilege purchased at a high cost.

february christmas lights

Over the last couple of weeks I noticed a handful of houses around my neighborhood and some of the areas I drive regularly finally take down their Christmas lights.  This wasn't a situation where the lights were up but not on.  The lights were turned on every evening like it was Christmas season.

I have also noticed that an office in my building has a Christmas tree up in a meeting room visible from a public hallway.  I haven't seen it lit in a few weeks, but it is still prominently displayed.

Part of me is irrationally irritated at this.  However, my irritation doesn't make sense.  If someone wants to leave lights up it isn't my business, and really Christmas displays are attractive.  It's just that seeing Christmas displays feels incongruous with the season.

I think this part of me is a little hypocritical as well.  I have believed and continue to believe that certain fashion rules are made to be broken.  This shouldn't be any different, right?  Is a lit Christmas display in February the equivalent of an all-white outfit in November?

resolutions

It's a new year, and so a lot of people are making resolutions.  I have mentioned at least twice already (time 1, time 2) that I don't like New Year's resolutions.  I've been a little embarrassed this year by how irritated I am by people making resolutions in the new year specifically.  It shouldn't matter to me whether others make or brake resolutions.  It's none of my business.  However, when I hear someone making a resolution it just bugs me.  I've finally figured out why.

I actually have a great deal of respect for people who make resolutions and stick to them.  I know that making fundamental changes to one's lifestyle for the long term is something that requires planning, determination, and sacrifice.  Therefore, rather than me disliking resolutions because I don't like people resolving to do things, the real reason I dislike New Year's resolutions is that deep down I think that there are some people who make resolutions without counting the cost ahead of time, and doing so besmirches something which is sacred.

Everyone has things that they need to improve about themselves.  They could improve their health, or they could improve their relationships with others, or they could improve their educational or career prospects, et al.  I know that I have a plethora of flaws I could focus attention to.  Furthermore, we all embark on self-improvement projects that we later learn are more involved than we originally realized, even when we planned and actually did put in the effort.  Everyone who consistently tries at least occasionally sees failure.  I'm not judging these sorts of failures.

What bothers me is that there is a human tendency to get excited about starting things, often without a true intention of seeing them through.  If someone loudly announces that they're doing x, y, or z in the new year and by the middle of February it's but a distant memory, it makes me think that this person likes taking credit for things without working for them.  It makes me not trust them.

I am realizing as I get older that the two qualities I most admire in others is trustworthiness and an objective view of the world, because if those qualities exist in another person I know I can trust to get a fair shake from that person even if we butt heads.

In this situation, I don't trust people who give their word that they're going to change something, then give up early in the process.  If they gave up early on something that they claimed mattered to them, then what else have they given their word on that they're going to go back on when the going is tough?  I will view all commitments made by that person as matters of convenience rather than true commitments to follow through.

Also, seeing someone make a resolution without counting the true cost makes me wonder if I can trust that person's judgment on other things.  If a person says, "I'm not going to each sugar in the new year," without thinking through all of the times they're going to have to turn down a cookie, a slice of cake, or a piece of chocolate, it makes me think that I can't trust their understanding of reality.  It makes me think that they live in their own world with its own subjective rules.

If I'm being fair, I should judge myself on this last standard.  I made an unrealistic resolution years back about being less neurotic.  I have gradually done so, but not due to a resolution, or even a concrete plan that I put together.  So, I did not objectively assess that resolution before announcing it on this blog.

Finally, I do want to clarify that I am not demanding that people bend to my will on this.  This is about soul-searching that I have done about my revulsion of most New Year's resolutions.  Ultimately, my opinion doesn't matter for how anyone else decides to improve themselves.  I'm just working through why I react in the way that I do to these things.

Update (Jan 4, 2019):

I contemplated this further last night and have tweaked my view a bit.  I think the issue is less with individual people making resolutions than with the societal pressure some people feel to make a resolution in a way that leads to failure.  So, rather than taking such a judgmental tone, I should be taking a more sympathetic tone.

I apologize regarding the tone.  Again, I'm working through why I think like I do here.

There are better ways to achieve goals than to announce a resolution to friends with minimal planning.  The following has worked for me.  I'm sure there are other ways as well, but I can only speak to what works for me.

1. Set two goals: One modest and easily achievable, and one aggressive.  Target the modest one, but keep the aggressive one in your back pocket in case the modest one turns out to be too modest.
2. Research how other people have been successful achieving similar goals. Use this to develop a strategy for how to achieve your modest goal.
3. Break down the steps necessary to achieve the modest goal in the long term.  Baby steps are best.
4. Determine what you're willing and capable of committing to the effort.
5. Enact your plan, taking all of this into account.
6. Be flexible and adjust the plan based on the lessons learned through the process.

happy holidays or merry christmas?

Around the holidays the issue of people saying "Merry Christmas" versus "Happy holidays" seems to be s significant one for some folks.  It's been a cultural debate, or in some cases, and opportunity to mock those who believe that greater culture needs to align with Christian doctrine.  It seems like there would be two different perspectives that this can be viewed from.

In the one perspective, I can see how some Christians might expect other Christians to continue to say "Merry Christmas" if they believe that failing to do so is somehow denying the Incarnation of Christ.  I don't know how the act of saying, "Happy holidays," could do such a thing, but maybe there are very specific social situations where refusing to acknowledge Christmas is an act of denying Christ's humanity.  That is frankly the strongest argument I can make for getting worked up about someone not saying "Merry Christmas."

From a different perspective, does it make any sense for Christians to expect non-Christians to say, "Merry Christmas"?  Is acknowledging that there are other holidays around this season denying Christ, and even if it were would it matter if someone who doesn't put their faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins did so?

If this were part of some overarching cultural strategy to do away with Christians celebrating Christ's birth I could see this being a big deal.  However, that's a conspiracy I don't buy into.

I think this is a battle for people who want to devote their time and effort to cultural wars rather than devoting their lives to the Gospel as presented in Scripture.  When Paul wrote about the Devil's schemes, and that our struggle is not against flesh and blood (Eph 6:10-20), he was specifically arguing against earthly pursuits such as cultural warfare.  Satan's goal isn't to get people to be more politically correct.  It's to get them to spend their finite focus on the earthly things (like cultural warfare) rather than on teaching others about putting our full faith and trust in Christ's blood, and living a life that reflects that.

However, I do want to be open to arguments that I haven't articulated.  Is there something that I'm missing about what saying, "Happy holidays,"  really means?  Am I misunderstanding Paul, and cultural warfare is somehow Scripturally appropriate?

new year, healthier dust

I inadvertently scheduled a physical in the last couple of weeks last year.  The timing was an accident, but it has led to a bit of an odd situation.

Every year I make a point of not making a New Year's resolution.  I know that most people break their resolutions (if they're even specific enough to break) before the end of January, and so making a New Year's resolution always feels to me like an impulsive or a showy move.  I know many people have great reasons for making resolutions, but for me to do it doesn't feel natural.

Since I went to the doctor's office and had the typical blood work done right before Christmas, I got a call over the Christmas holiday that my triglyceride and bad cholesterol levels were consistently elevated enough that I need to start exercising more regularly.  For me this means that I need to start exercising at all.

Golden's first reaction was that we should get a membership to the local community center and work out there.  My first reaction was thinking that I don't want to be one of those guys the regulars see as an annoyance who will give up in a few weeks.

What I have done so far is find a YouTube channel called FitnessBlender and start with some of their beginner routines.  It turns out my boss uses the same channel for some of his exercises, so I'm not the only person I know who uses the channel.  He's more active and healthier than me, though.  I've committed to doing twenty minutes of routines every day, even when I'm very busy.  This sounds great on the surface, but to this point I have primarily proven to myself that I am horribly out of shape because I have a hard time completing anything other than the beginner routines.

My short term goal is to get healthy enough to regularly complete the normal, not-beginner routines without too much trouble.  My medium term goal is simply not to gain more weight, and ideally trim some (five pounds in a few months would be great at this point).  That goal is more psychological than anything.  My long term goal is to not have given up on this endeavor in one, two, five, or ten years.

Thus far, I have not modified my eating habits because I don't want to make major changes all at once that are unsustainable.  To me, this whole thing is pointless if I don't keep this up over the long term.  We'll see how committed I can remain to this since it's now more directly a question of health rather than just clothing size.

toy cars and fireworks

Last week we visited my parents' house for the Independence Day holiday.  There were two noteworthy things about the visit.

First, my mom pulled out some of my old toy cars for the kids to play with.  I did not expect CD to get excited about playing with them, but she found some Micro Machines that she liked.  Her statement to me was that the were cute, and she asked if I thought they were cute when I was a kid.  I told her that is not the word I would have used.

Second, I do not recall being anywhere where there were more fireworks being set off by random people in the neighborhood than this last weekend in the town in Nebraska where my parents currently live.  Every July Fourth brings some fireworks no matter where I am, but I was not used to half the neighborhood in their driveways setting off fireworks at once.  I think this is due to the official display being on the night before the Fourth.

milestones

Apart from this past week being the 237^th anniversary of the signing of The Declaration of Independence it also marks two other anniversaries, one joyous and one sad.  I am amazed that at what I still consider a young age there are so many milestones that I notice every year of significant things that happened.  Births, deaths, weddings, and all sorts of other things.  Every part of the calendar beckons to memories that are not all of that long-past.

This makes me wonder what milestones are ahead.  Are they largely going to be good?  How difficult will the bad ones be, and who will feel the brunt of the pain?  Is there something that I should be doing at this stage of life to appreciate what I have or to appropriately set up the good milestones?

ten years

I randomly have a few milestones on Cinco de Mayo.  One is that thirteen years ago I graduated college on that day.  Another is that ten years ago I started working for my current employer.  In modern times that is an eternity.  In contrast, it was twelve years ago Tuesday that I started my job before that.  The difference between ten years and two is pretty significant.

I do not have any real insights on that.  I don't like wandering from job to job or from town to town, and I've been pretty clear about that.  It is amazing in my mind that I could be anywhere that long.  I never lived more than five years in one town as a kid, so being in one area with one employer for double-digits years seems different, even though it has been my life for a while.

However, since I work in the ever-changing Tech Industry who knows what tomorrow holds.

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.

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.

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).

thoughts on the holiday

As it is now Christmas season I have been enjoying the downtime, but also contemplating a few things about the holiday.

First, I really do not like most Christmas movies. I have known this for a while, but I have only recently taken the time to figure out why. It's because there are only two or three potential plots to a true Christmas movie and they almost always attempt to compensate for a lack of quality with saccharine-sweet sentimentality.

Second, I wonder if the appeal of the holiday to some people is that Christ is depicted as a baby. We went through a major lights display a few nights ago and I was struck by the number of baby-laying-in-a-manger scenes, even in situations where there were no Mary and Joseph depicted. Kind of like Ricky-Bobby, do a lot of people prefer not to think of Christ the adult if presented with the opportunity to think of him as a baby? If so, this cannot be healthy. There's a reason that the Gospels focus on the adult Jesus far more than the child Jesus.

Third, I think that Easter should be more important than Christmas to Christians. From a practical perspective the resurrection is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant and the initiation of the New Covenant. Easter represents the most important event that ever occurred, and Christmas represents an event that was necessary for the resurrection to occur. That said, Christmas is the more important in our culture because of the consumer aspect and because it conveniently splits the school year in two. I don't really see this as a soapbox issue for me, so I'll drop that specific issue here.

Fourth, while I'm on the topic, Christmas and Easter sermons are generally the worst sermons of the year. You do not have to have attended church at all to know the stories of Christ's birth, death, and resurrection. These are the foundation of the Christian faith, but they are also milk rather than meat. A sermon should teach the congregation something that they do not know or do not know well. It is frankly hard to do that when your source text is Matthew 1-2 or Luke 1-2, which everyone in the congregation has heard taught one month out of every year for their entire lives.

Fifth, the above points made, the idea behind the virgin birth and Jesus' very existence on this earth is pretty spectacular. The unpredictability of everything Jesus did and how he fulfilled the Law, even when so much of how this would go down was prophesied, should give pause to people who read prophesies into modern-day events. The methods that God uses to do what He is going to do are unpredictable even when God has provided prophesy about what is going to happen, because God operates more spectacularly than we can imagine.

Sixth, buying and wrapping gifts for the holidays is the most inefficient means of giving someone else something ever dreamed up by mankind. I know that is part of the value of giving and receiving gifts to many people, the knowledge that it requires some effort. In an already busy season, though, is it wrong to long for some efficiency?

One very good thing about the holiday is that I usually take quite a bit of vacation time. I do enjoy taking multiple weeks off from work. It provides a nice way to de-stress. No doubt about that.

the turkey butcher

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday I present a poem my sister and I wrote for a creative writing assignment when she was in junior high and I was in in high school. It is a parody of the poem "The Village Blacksmith" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I'd encourage you to read the original before reading the parody because it makes more sense that way.

The Turkey Butcher

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The turkey butcher stands;
The butcher, a bloody man is he,
With red and calloused hands;
And the muscles of his scrawny arms
Are strong as rubber bands.

His nails are crisp, and black, and long,
His eyes are like the tan;
His hands are wet at the turkey’s debt,
He years to clean his hands;
The whole world looks him in the face,
He is a mental case, you understand.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his mallet blow,
You can hear him swing his heavy hand,
As he screams, “Yowwwwwwwww!:
Like an Angus ringing his old cow bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Looking at the open door;
They love to see the fatal hand,
And hear the turkeys roar,
And catch the feathers that fly,
Like the snow of the blizzard of 1624.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among the boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears an angel turkey’s voice,
Singing with the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like dinner’s voice,
Singing from Paradise!
He needs not think of it once more,
How in the pot it lies;
And with a hard rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling, hungry, sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning he sees the turkeys come in,
By evening on a plate it goes;
Something attempted, something done,
Will this poem never close?

Thanks, thanks to thee my sort of worthy friend,
For listening when thou needed not!
Thus at the flaming oven of life
Our turkeys must be brought;
Thus on the butcher table shaped
Each cutting deed and thought.

holiday busyness

I am well-documented in expressing my distaste for all of the responsibilities that come with the holidays. It is supposed to be a joyous time of year, but you have to jump through fifteen different hoops just to have done things right for the holidays. Christmas cards, decorations, gifts are all stresses more than they are things to bring families closer together or emphasize the importance of Christ, which are what the focus of holiday time should be anyway.

I remember really looking forward to Christmas as a kid, but the reasoning for that was pretty sound. It was one of my best opportunities to get toys and games, I got time off school, and I usually got the opportunity to play with cousins. I had no real responsibilities with the holiday, so the adults got to deal with all of the stress.

I have a theory that twenty percent of those who celebrate Christmas are holding the other eighty percent hostage. I think that twenty percent of people are so into the holidays that they are the ones listening to carols all year and putting up huge Christmas displays in their yards the day after Thanksgiving. They are the ones who put hours into creating their Christmas cards and send them to everyone they ever met. They are also the ones who figured out the popular gifts for the year in August and had them purchased before the rush (probably not as relevant this year, but you get the picture). I think that this twenty percent of people for whom this is a hobby rather than a responsibility sets the bar for the other eighty percent of the population.

To the eighty percent of the Christmas-celebrating population I say, "Enough!" Rather than describing people who would prefer to spend time home with their families watching TV or playing games than in a chaotic mall or holed up in the back room writing Christmas cards as apathetic Scrooges, we should aspire to be more like them. Of course, I say that as an apathetic Scrooge.

holy week

During Holy Week I always feel a bit separated from a good chunk of Christianity. I'm not just talking about the difference between Protestants and Catholics, either. I don't officially observe any of the days except for Easter, and even on Easter my observance is largely just showing up for church. This is not because I have a disrespect for the importance of what the crucifixion and resurrection represent, but rather because most rituals and many of the ways that people observe things make me feel further from God rather than closer to God.

Easter Sunday is probably my least favorite Sunday of the year because it seems to me to be more about showing off than anything else. I could be wrong and I could just be cynical about it, but that is my impression and it makes the Sunday less appealing. I wish my perspective were different.

I think that there are a few holidays that lean either masculine or feminine, and Easter is one of those that leans more feminine. There aren't too many other holidays where people buy dressy clothes that they will not be able to wear for most of the rest of the year. This may feed my opinions of Easter celebrations as well. For example, I have always liked Independence Day because it combines grilled beef and explosions, which are two things that I consider masculine. Maybe I should cut Easter the break that I cut July fourth. Or, maybe we should find a way to work fireworks into our Easter observances.

scrooge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the past week

My sister visited this past week to spend some time with NJ, so I took the week off from work so we could more properly visit with family.

I picked my sister up at the airport in the late afternoon on Monday. Not much happened on that particular evening. We watched Nancy Drew. It was more or less what I expected.

We were supposed to have the gutters replaces on Monday as well. I was hoping they would be replaced by the time I got back from the airport. Eventually I got a phone call saying that the work would be postponed until Wednesday morning.

Tuesday, we went to the doctor to find out that we are having a girl (I know, we already announced that). Around supper time, we visited Legends. Now that we have been there a few times, the place actually feels kind of small. It didn't feel that way the first time I went there. That night we watched National Treasure 2, which I think is much better than the original.

Wednesday was NJ's birthday. We opened presents and had cake at lunch time.

We were planning to go to the pool around 3:30PM, but that is when the gutter guy showed up. It turned out that he was just there to make a final measurement and make the gutters rather than put them up, so he left in short order and we visited the pool. We spent quite a bit of time in the kiddie pool, then as we were walking into the big pool we heard thunder and the pool shut down. Bummer.

That night we watched Witness for the Prosecution, which is an old British movie based on a story that Agatha Christy wrote. Not a bad narrative, though it contained a lot of dialog, so it is not for people who don't like a lot of talking.

Thursday morning, the gutter guys showed up right as we were leaving. We visited my grandmother and great-grandmother who live a two hour drive away. Actually, that is two hours if you don't get sidetracked. I took a wrong turn and added a half hour to the trip.

NJ was especially fussy on Thursday. He screamed for the first half hour to hour that he was at his great-grandmother's house. I felt bad, but there was little we could do. From there we headed to Golden's family's house in the Springfield area.

Friday was the fourth. I celebrated by being lazy. NJ played in the back yard some. That night we set off some small fireworks. Nothing real noteworthy.

Saturday, we visited a nature center in Springfield, then traveled back to the OP. Sunday, I took my sister back to the airport.

Typically, the mark of a good break from work is when it feels like forever since I have been to the office. Since it feels like ages since I was at work, it must have been a good break.

thicker than water

We have a family reunion this September. I don't get to see family all that often, and they haven't seen NJ enough. There is one drawback, though. Since it is in eastern Pennsylvania and Golden will be in her seventh month of pregnancy we aren't going. I need to notify my aunt, who is heading this up, by tomorrow that I will not be able to attend.

My mom's side of the family is very close. Most holidays when I was growing up were spent with them, even when I didn't live near them. We moved around a bit, so I didn't have many lifelong friends, but I did have a cousin or two with whom I was close. Those are reasons why going to the reunion would be a good thing.

On the bad side, making such a trip is expensive, time-consuming, exhausting, and not really a vacation, as we would be travelling with a two-year-old. It would be a pretty serious hardship for us to attend. This is even ignoring that Golden will be in her third trimester. Even with the expense, I think that we would probably go if Golden wasn't pregnant. Everything combined makes us going unrealistic, though.

There are a lot of family things that we miss because we live the farthest away from where everyone else is. This is just one more example. I understand that I knew the drawbacks of living far from family when I chose Kansas, but I wish that someone else could play spoilsport for these events rather than myself at some point. Since the family is close, there is some expectation to make sacrifices for family to be together. I wish I wasn't always the one giving the appearance of not being willing to make the sacrifice.

omaha

This is just a quick rundown of our trip to Omaha this past weekend.

Saturday

We got into town in the early afternoon and checked into our hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Omaha. The Hotel was fine, but probably a bit pricey for what it provided. The greatest advantage, and this is important for anyone who ever intends to spend a weekend in Omaha to note, is that the Hotel offered easy access to the Old Market and the Gene Leahy Mall. It was nice to be able to visit these locations for a little while then be able to walk back to our hotel. Another thing to note is that there is a lot of traffic noise at night in downtown Omaha, which is something I was not anticipating.

The Old Market is a segment of the downtown that has been and is being rebuilt to house a series of eclectic shops and restaurants. It is a nice place to visit, walk around, and eat. I was not impressed enough that it made much sense to me that lofts in one building in the area were advertised to start at about $230K.


The Gene Leahy Mall is essentially a park that has been built around a creek that runs through downtown Omaha. I don't know the finances behind building and maintaining it, but it seems to me to be one of the wisest investments that the city could have made. It is attractive, a short walking distance from the Old Market and the Qwest Center, and provides motivation for further development downtown.


After we got into Omaha we spent all of the time on Saturday when we were out of the hotel room either in the Old Market or the Gene Leahy Mall.

Sunday

The main reason that we visited Omaha was for the zoo. When we arrived Sunday morning we realized that we weren't the only people who had the bright idea to visit the zoo.

Throughout the day we probably saw about half of the zoo, but we saw most of the indoor exhibits since it was a hot day. While the visit went well overall, we did underestimate how taxing it is dragging a toddler around a zoo in the heat and crowds. We left with plenty of time before closing, but with not much left in the tank.


Since NJ fell asleep in the car on the way back to the hotel, we took the opportunity to drive around downtown. This led us to the Lewis and Clark landing. We didn't do anything here but look at the river and give NJ more time to nap.


Monday

We visited the Lauritzen Gardens Monday morning with some doubts as to whether this would be a worthwhile stop. There weren't a whole lot of good options of places to visit on Memorial Day, so we ended up there more by default than anything else.

The visit would probably have been boring for us except for a temporary exhibit on site called KidStructure. It is a series of structures that kids can play on, in, and around that are more pieces of art than anything else. NJ easily liked this the most of any part of the trip, making the botantical gardens a very worthwhile stop.



After we left the botanical gardens it was back to Kansas for us. We had an enjoyable visit, but will probably not be doing another trip as involved as this one any time in the near future. Our current thinking is that we should probably wait four or five years before the next major family vacation because going to attractions with four-year-olds is more appealing than with one-year-olds.

april fool's

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?