more polls

The whole blog poll thing on this site is still somewhat in flux. I liked the appearance of Bravenet, but it added a popup on my actual site instead of just in the link to view the results. That was unacceptable. I am currently using PollHost, but it is a definite aesthetic step down.

Pop or Soda
It's mostly split down the middle. There is not much more to say.

Seasons
I'm honestly surprised there weren't more answers for spring or summer. Those are at least my favorite times of the year. This is probably related to the hot/cold debate we had a couple of years ago when I found that more people preferred extreme cold to extreme heat.

Keep in touch
Almost everyone else agrees with me. I am shocked at the people who actually can stay in touch over the long term. I guess I need to be more committed in my friendships.

Making Contact
Hardly anyone voted on this one. Regardless, the results were mixed.

the birds

When I interviewed for my job a few years ago, the first thing I saw as I stepped out of my car was a large goose that was obviously irritated that I was near him or her. I stepped around the bird and never parked in that area of the parking lot again.

Every year around this time a few geese make our parking lot home. They don't cause too much trouble other than leaving droppings on the sidewalks and guarding their territory. This year, though, they appear to be more aggressive.

The geese set up a nest in an island in the middle of the parking lot in some greenery and under a small tree. Most people give this area some clearance when walking through the parking lot. This used to be an issue of us ignoring them and them ignoring us. No more.

A few days ago someone pointed out that the geese were attacking (by which I mean they were pecking at) a car. Not only that, it belonged to someone in my office. He tried setting off his car alarm, but it didn't phase them. I think that's because the alarm sounded like a goose. He told me the next day that his bumper had little dirt marks all over it.

The next day the geese picked a different car to pick on. This time one of them figured out how to climb on top of the car while the other pecked at the rear bumper. This lasted probably twenty minutes.

Finally, the day after that they decided to pick on a BMW parked in the far end of the parking lot. I am pretty sure that it is parked where it is so no one will ding the doors. The owner wasn't counting on the sequel to a Hitchcock movie going wild on her car.

I don't know why these birds have become irritated at the cars in our parking lot. I just know where I am not going to park.

just in time

Golden and I have different ways of approaching purchases, especially grocery purchases. I like to stock up on items and Golden likes to buy around the same time we run out of the item. I say that the reason I like to stock up is for efficiency, but it is really because I get really annoyed when I run out of certain things.

Since Golden was an accounting major she likes to point out that she simply likes the "Just in Time" (JIT) method of buying inventory, which simply means that a product is not purchased until it is actually needed.

In my technology operations class on Monday, the professor emphasized that good managers try to implement JIT into their processes. This probably means that Golden would be better at managing inventory than I would be.

This has caused some of the following differences between Golden's and my shopping.

• I look for the largest package of toilet paper in the store because I can never have enough. Golden tries to find the four-roll package because she doesn't want people to wonder why we would need a 64-roll package of toilet paper.
• I top off the tank in my car. Golden used to put five or ten dollars in the tank. Now that barely pays for the trip to the gas station.
• I buy regular cans of pop. Golden has in the past purchased the miniature cans of pop that are six or eight ounces. Okay, that's not the same thing, but still...
• If I go to the drug store because someone is coming down with the sniffles, I will buy cough medicine, cold medicine, antihistamines, and chicken noodle soup. Golden will find the smallest package of applicable medicine and buy that.
• If we are doing housework, such as painting, I will go through the store aisles and pick up anything that looks remotely handy. I don't know how Golden would handle this since I haven't let her pick up the supplies yet. I'd bet we would have more money if she did, though.

doctrine

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
- Eph 1:17 (NIV - Context)

I have been thinking about posting about doctrine for a while now, but when I heard the above verse in sunday school yesterday I realized that it set the discussion up perfectly.

It wouldn't come as a surprise to most people who know me well that I care deeply about doctrine, and that what I believe is accurate. It might surprise some that I don't care very much about a lot of the doctrinal issues that people argue about. An example of this is eschatology, otherwise known as end times doctrine.

I think that most, if not all, doctrine has one purpose—defining your relationship with God. I suspect, though I do not know this for sure, that doctrines that do not directly impact a person's relationship with God are more or less meaningless. The verse I put at the top of this post reaffirms this. Wisdom and revelation are for knowing God better. As a result, when I don't make the connection between a doctrine and my relationship with God or a practical application in life, I tend to think that doctrine isn't worth wasting any effort over.

I like to think of my relationship with God in similar terms to my relationship with Golden. If I am serious about my marriage I will want to understand Golden on as many levels as possible. I will want to know what she likes and hates and what excites and annoys her. Likewise, if I am to be serious in my relationship with God, I will want to understand Him. Without the guidance of doctrine, I am like a husband who never listens to his wife.

I have noticed two extremes in my experiences in church. One extreme is people who care too much about doctrines and the other extreme is people who think that doctrine isn't their thing.

I am probably prone to be the first type of person—someone who overthinks things. That means it is possible for me to be one of those people who seeks truth before seeking God. God is a means to truth rather than truth being a means to God. When a person does this, they ignore the point of doctrine, which is to build a relationship with God. I think doctrinaholics, myself included, also are at fault for making some other people think that only the geeks should care about most doctrine.

The second type of person thinks either that doctrine is too boring or it is too far above his or her head or that other people are better suited to tell him or her what to believe about God. This person, rather than just ignoring part of the verse at the top of the post, ignores the entire thing. In my mind, this is like being in a relationship with someone who bores you or who you don't understand. It may be possible to start a relationship that way, but it will be impossible to maintain. You can't relate with God if you think He's Mickey Mouse.

God isn't looking for a lab partner or a mere acquaintance. He's looking for a serious relationship. A proper doctrine is how we understand how to have that relationship.

the islands

Since I am a goal-oriented person I tend to see life as a series of islands between stretches of water. I am always looking forward to the next island. I have always viewed the weekend this way, but I also view things like breaks from school as islands.

When I am approaching an island I get excited. I look forward to slowing down a bit. When I approach the end of an island I get melancholy, because my down time is coming to an end. I am like this now because spring break is coming to an end.

I mentioned earlier that this would be my busiest semester for classes, and this has been true so far. I start again on Monday for a seven week stretch before breaking for the summer. That's a big island, but it's not a short swim to get there.

contact

I must be about the most difficult person to contact in the world. I don't purposely set out to be difficult, but it tends to work that way.

I am horrible about answering my personal phone. If I am in the middle of something I'll often let my cell phone hit voicemail without even looking at the caller ID. This is under the assumption that I will check my voicemail shortly, but I rarely do. This isn't because I don't want to talk to anyone in particular, but rather that I don't like just stopping things midway through doing them.

Pity the person who tries to contact me via email. I have had countless email addresses in the past few years, and I don't keep a record of who has which email address. This means that when I retire an account I don't let anyone know about it. I have had at least one relative get upset at me that I didn't reply to an email sent to a dead address.

I even rotate the email addresses I frequently use due to variations in my Internet habits. An address that I use a lot one year may just be an infrequently checked spam collector the next year.

So, if you want to contact me and you want to be sure I get the message, you'll have to do that here. If you don't care that I get the message, send me an email.

t-bop

I'm not doing an actual post today because it doesn't seem right. I have just been informed that T-Bop, who used to be a regular on this site, has passed away.

Kim, if you see this, you can email me at shakedust at gmail dot com.

400

As part of my 400th post I decided I would use something significant about the number as the basis for my post. Unfortunately, four hundred must be about the least significant round number in existence. So, I'm getting a little creative today.

My alleged OCD, and I say alleged because it has never been officially diagnosed, causes me to like two types of numbers. I like those divisible by four and round numbers. Four multiplied by the very round one hundred is four hundred. Therefore, today's post is on my OCD, or very close equivalent to OCD (such as OCPD or just plain psychosis).

The following are probably the most pronounced of my obsessive-compulsive traits.

• I like counting. Not counting to large numbers, but counting in patterns of symmetrical even numbers. This is why I like fours. I have two hands, so if I scratch my face once I'll do it again with the same hand then twice with the other hand. Sometimes, I'll repeat this pattern four times for a grand total of sixteen scratches. I do this with other stuff too, like foot taps.
• I don't like stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. I'll often (not always) go out of my way to avoid stepping on cracks.
• I am a perfectionist. I don't think I am as much as I have been, but I have hard time doing something if it won't be perfect.
• I am a packrat. I have a hard time throwing stuff away because I hate the idea of not being prepared, and I can visualize situations where I will need the object I am about to throw away.
• I have in the past been overly concerned with germs. I think I have probably gone the other direction on that in recent years, though.
• I like to order objects in symmetrical patterns.
• I have an anxious personality.
• I could be more flexible.

There is at least one obsessive-compulsive behavior that I do not exhibit. I don't do repetitive tasks (hand washing, checking locks, etc). I'm at least a little sane.

going out of business

Someone at work told me today that one of the CompUSA stores in town is going out of business. That is a little sad to me, not because I ever shopped there, but because I applied to work there when we were moving to the area.

At the time I needed a job to pay the bills until I was able to start at a different job I had lined up. I needed to be able to work for about three months, so I figured I could use my intermediate PC repair skills at Best Buy or CompUSA to make ends meet. Best Buy simply didn't bother to call me back. At CompUSA, I interviewed in a back room for a half hour and was told I would be contacted if something opened up. I was never contacted.

Before the interview, though, I had the chance to judge the store before the store's management could judge me. When I walked into the store I immediately wondered how they got any business. The store is on a busy road in a strong retail neighborhood, but I noticed a Best Buy across the street and the CompUSA felt very poorly maintained. The floors were dingy, the lighting was horrible, the parking lot was difficult to pull into, and the store simply did not feel inviting.

I often wonder why businesses ignore simple and important concepts like atmosphere. I would bet that most people who go into Best Buy are not going for the prices, because few things there are cheap. Most people go because Best Buy creates an inviting atmosphere. Best Buy is actually one of the few places I enjoy window shopping, and that is largely due to the store's ambiance.

I would like to think that I am above being swayed by a store's decor, but I really am not. If I am willing to pay a little extra in a nicer place for my stuff I have to believe that others are too. That's why our CompUSA is going out of business.

keep in touch

I have moved a lot in my life and I have had a lot of different friends. Every time I have moved I committed to keeping in touch and every time I didn't. It's not that I don't care. It's that I am not good at knowing what to say to one person. Does the person I am writing to care about every minutiae of my life or should I just say, "Everything's going fine?"

Anyway, I created a MySpace account about a month or two ago. It was against my better judgment, but with enough pressure I jumped off that bridge. I like the way Blogger is structured a lot more, so I don't plan on using MySpace much, but I have noticed that it is easy to find old friends on MySpace. In a few weeks' time I have made contact with at least a few friends that I have not contacted in years, I found out two old friends have kids, and I have been overall surprised with how much everyone I find has changed.

If I am ever to "keep in touch" it's probably going to always be through a blog or something of that nature. I am just not able to maintain a long distance friendship in any other way.

conference calls

I was sitting on a conference call recently and started thinking about observations I have made on these calls over the past couple of years. A sampling of what I came up with follows.

• If there are more than three people on the phone, at least one person will forget to hit mute and will breathe heavily into his or her phone the entire call.
• If a call is scheduled for three o'clock in the afternoon, most people will join the call between 3:03 and 3:10.
• The two things that people know to talk about while waiting until 3:10 for everyone to show up are the weather and sports.
• A lot of people think that conference calls are a panacea that will automatically cure any complicated issue.
• No matter how many people are on the call, only one person will ever get any action items. That person will get all the action items.
• People who use speakerphone don't always realize how many of their side conversations other people on the call can hear.
• The worst kind of conference call is the ambush conference call. This is where someone calls you without warning and says, "By the way, I am conferencing you in with such and such group of people right now. (click)" I question whether the people who do this have souls.
• The best kind of conference call is the one someone else has to join.
• A fun game to play is to write down the names of all the people on the call and randomly pick names to ask them what they think about what is being discussed. A high percentage of people on any given call have no clue about what is being discussed or aren't paying attention, but they don't want to announce that to the world.
• Finally, a quick story. One of my first work conference calls was late at night and one person involved was apparently not a night person. There are few things more humorous than someone snoring on a bridge line.

the key to happiness

For years now I have read warnings about how Americans are in credit card debt up to their eyeballs, and that this comes from an instant gratification culture. I don't deny this, but there is rarely anything useful that comes out of those warnings. I'm just warned again and again of impending doom for when the economy will eventually collapse under the weight of all this debt and reminded not to go into serious debt myself.

I think most people would agree that a large percentage of this debt is accrued to keep up with the Joneses. I love the Volkswagen commercial at the bottom of this post because it illustrates the irrational psychological reasons people go into debt. I know everyone has seen it before, but it is still worth watching once more. Ironically, the commercial is advertising a lease program that I am sure encourages people to get more car than they can afford.

I think I have found what the key to financial happiness must really be. Pick friends, acquaintances, and neighborhoods to live in that are at the same or lower financial status than you. It seems so simple, but my experience is that more people are interested in moving up the social ladder than down it. After reaching this conclusion I found an article that agrees with my assessment. The easiest way to keep up with the Joneses is to find poor Joneses.

Before my friends and acquaintances pipe in about this, I am obviously approaching this as an academic discussion instead of a practical one. Deep down, this is a very selfish approach and I could never advocate it. I think, though, that it illustrates that a lot of people who wish to ascend into a higher social class are only guaranteeing their own misery in the process.



I promise not to write directly about finances again for at least another couple of weeks.

deleted

I just did a first. I erased a post that I had published earlier. I generally have the opinion that I should keep my rantings online, even if they are a little embarrassing, because I should own up to whatever I type. This time was different, though.

Last night I figured I needed to post something, but it was already late and I wasn't thinking properly. I thought I had posted clear thoughts about watching other people wait for their turn to talk, but what I wrote didn't really follow any logical direction. When I reread it a few moments ago, I couldn't think of a way to salvage it so that it would make any sense.

Thus, I have killed my first post. I hope it's the last. Also, watching people who are waiting for their chance to talk is fun.

going historical

For as long as I can remember I have dreamed about what it would be like to show someone from history what life is now. For some reason I usually picked George Washington in my imaginings. While I have a deep appreciation for his courage and how he impacted the course of history, he is not among the figures in history that I have found most interesting at any point in my life. I really don't have a clue why I subconsciously picked him.

Every once in a while, I would imagine what it would be like to explain current events and current technology to Mr. Washington. I would imagine driving him around in a car and pointing out that the Midwest is actually a part of the United States now. I would imagine what his reactions would be to seeing such a strange environment. I would ask whether people are really any different today than they were in his time.

This used to happen a lot more than it does now, but I still catch myself in thought on occasion working through how I would interact with the first president if he were transported through time to the present. After I have gone through my period of daydreaming about this the reality of my life seems just a little more exciting than it really is. I think George Washington would agree. That really means something, since he can't tell a lie.

agent falson's dilemma

Special Agent Falson had been in The Bureau for years, but he had never seen a scandal like this. Greg Book, a new agent, had been blamed for actually performing the illegal activities of one of his alternate identities. In order to get close to the leader of an organized crime ring Agent Book had to assume the identity of a loan shark. The Bureau had reason to believe that Book used this as an opportunity to pocket funds through illegitimate means, but it did not have enough evidence to pursue a case. Falson was called upon to investigate.

In his searching Falson determined that the rookie agent was incredibly good at covering his tracks. Every potential lead turned to a dead end, and Falson eventually had to give up the investigation. The only tangible evidence of wrongdoing that Falson found was in the fact that Book had volunteered to play the role of loan shark. Falson had been around long enough to know that wasn't enough. You just can't judge a Book by his cover.

rotavirus

As Golden has mentioned on her site, NJ has been sick for the last week but is starting to feel better. Today I am watching him (while feeling a little under the weather myself).

When we were determining what to do about him over the weekend Golden called the hospital to see what they would recommend. The nurse she spoke with indicated that it wasn't worth going to the hospital, but it sounded like NJ had a rotavirus. This is a virus that infects the digestive tract and can cause dehydration.

When I read up on rotavirus I found that it isn't the huge deal in the United States that it is elsewhere. In the U.S. there are 20-60 deaths from rotavirus infections a year. In developing nations thousands upon thousands of children die every year from rotavirus.

While trying to keep NJ hydrated was no picnic (and was actually something Golden did much more than me), I never worried about him dying. I cannot imagine the pain of watching a baby get severe enough diahrrea that it threatens his or her life. Even though it may not feel like we have it made at these times we really are. For that I am thankful.

sleep in

Most people who know me well know I like to sleep in on Saturday. For years, part of the way I have gotten through the week is due to the knowledge that I can sleep in on Saturday.

I don't know if this is due to nature or just because I have gotten used to it, but if I have to get up early on a Saturday I feel it throughout the week. I'm not my normal outgoing self (insert snicker here).

I am very fortunate that Golden puts up with me in this regard. She has allowed it as a sort of splurge for me every week. Even after NJ was born she let me sleep in.

For the last couple of weeks I have had class on Saturday so I haven't slept in as late. I know, almost everyone gets up as early as I did every Saturday, but I have felt like I have been trudging through life for the last couple of weeks. Tomorrow, Golden is letting me sleep in again. I can't wait.

finance talk radio

Radio Host: "Hi! We're here on Finance Talk Radio to address your questions about how you should or shouldn't be spending your money. First caller."
Caller #1: "Yeah, I am having problems with money."
Radio Host: "What sort of problems?"
Caller #1: "I don't ever seem to have enough. Really, I don't know how this is happening. I'm making decent money, I'm smart, people like me. It's just that after I put my two week Mediterranean cruise on my credit card I don't have enough credit to pay next month's lease on my Porche."
Radio Host: "Don't spend what you don't have."
(Click)

Radio Host: "Caller number two, what's your problem?"
Caller #2: "I keep getting overdraft fees from the bank."
Radio Host: "What do you do for a living?"
Caller #2: "Well, I don't really do anything for money, but I'm in this band—"
Radio Host: "You have to make money to spend money."
(Click)

Radio Host: "Caller number three, what can we do for you?"
Caller #3: "I cosigned for my ex-boyfriend's car loan and now—"
Radio Host: "Don't be a doormat."
(Click)

Radio Host: "Finally, caller number four, why are you calling in?"
Caller #4: "I'm a widow with two small kids and a low paying job—"
Radio Host: "Oops! It looks like we got disconnected!"
Caller #4: "No, I'm still h—"
(Click)

Radio Host: "Okay, who's the bozo who let someone with a real problem through the switchboard?!"