1000

After nearly fourteen years, this is my 1000th article on this blog.  Since another word for thousand is "grand" I've compiled a few "grand" facts.

• "Grand" originally came from the French "grant."  Then, as now, it meant large or powerful. [source]
• The name for the 100 grand bar (originally, the $100,000 bar) was inspired by the popularity of quiz shows in the 1950s. [source]
• The Grand Slam tournament in tennis, which is a sport I hardly know anything about, includes four events across three continents. [source]
• Alex Rodriguez set the major league baseball record for grand slams with an astounding twenty-five during his career.  This is one of those records that requires both individual skill and the fortune to have teammates who put you in a situation where a grand slam is a possibility. [source]
• While a Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming was founded in 1929, the current park includes large portions of land that were donated years later by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. [source]
• The Republican moniker "G.O.P." now stands for "Grand Old Party."  However, it originally stood for "Gallant Old Party." [source]
• On average, two or three people die from falling into the Grand Canyon every year.  However, since millions of people visit a year it has to be considered a safe place to visit, statistically speaking.  That said, I would be uptight about the possibility if we visited it with our kids. [source]
• Gerald Ford grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  He holds the distinction of being the only U.S. president to hold the office without having been elected either president or vice president. [source]
• There is a World War II power station underneath Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, New York.  It was placed there to protect it from German sabotage during the war. [source]
• The first piano created was a grand piano by Bartolomeo Cristofori in Italy in the late 1600s or early 1700s.  It was originally known as the "pianoforte," which means "soft" and "strong."  It differed from the harpsichord before it in that you could modulate the volume of the instrument based on how forcefully or lightly you struck the keys. [source]
• The "grand theft" in "grand theft auto" refers to the fact that what is being stolen is valuable.  "Petty theft" refers to the theft of less valuable items. [source]

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.

impostor 2

Years back, I posted here about feeling like an impostor, and I capped it off by misspelling the word "impostor" multiple times. I was heartened at the time that this is apparently a common feeling among men. I've had over a decade of experience since then, and I've come to the conclusion that this is a feeling that changes in nature, but it does not go away.

Something I that I don't know if I made clear or not is that this impostor syndrome has everything to to do with a man's belief that he can support a family. Deep down, I believe one day everyone will find out that it's something I'm not capable of doing.  That sounds like a deep confession, and something to be embarrassed about, but the more I talk with other men the more I agree that this is an almost universal feeling.  What's odd with this issue is that it is almost impossible to convince someone dealing with it (me, for example) that they're wrong, because all that means is that you are fooled by their charade rather than that there is no charade in the first place.

One observation I've had is that I have heard several retired men talk about dealing with this when they were responsible for a family, but looking back and feeling like this specific stress was silly in retrospect.  I would love to have that experience myself where I truly understand in retrospect that most of this is my own overactive neuroses.

My real greatest anxiety at this stage in my life is wondering how I spare my autistic son this stress when he is an adult, yet still teach him to be responsible. That is a real trusting God issue for me, because I don't have answers to how that's going to work. Without God, it probably won't.

conspiracy theory, take 2

Years ago I wrote a blog post where I was very sarcastic toward people who held to conspiracy theories. That is not something that I would write again today, as I have realized in retrospect that the tone was somewhat detestable and more than a little self-righteous. If I haven't repented of this before, consider this my repentance now. That was a vain approach, and it wasn't the only vain thing I wrote in that era.

I have given a lot of thought to conspiracy theories since, however.

My issue with conspiracy theories has long been that they are intellectually lazy. The approach takes the form that I believe the world is a certain way, but the objective evidence suggests otherwise, so I decide that the objective evidence is just what some secret and powerful group of people want everyone else to believe. It exchanges a logical approach for storytelling, and it implies that anecdotal evidence is more valid than quantitative evidence.  It also appeals to the human desire to be superior to others since I get to be part of the small group of people who have figured out the way the world really works.

The mathematical take on this is that a true conspiracy with many members would be difficult-to-impossible to maintain, but as the number of people involved shrinks the potential for a secret conspiracy to be maintained increases.  So, a secret cartel in some industry that requires ten or twenty people to keep a secret is logically feasible, whereas a secret but huge cabal of thousands necessary to convincingly fake the moon landing or hide the fact that the earth is flat from the populace is not logically feasible.

The problem is, a lot of people whose opinions and intellect I respect do buy into specific conspiracy theories. The list of people I respect who I know believe in some conspiracy theory or another has grown significantly in the past few months. I don't know what to do with that fact. It bothers me because my respect for them is challenged, but then I still see the other areas of their lives and intellect that are worthy of respect. It's a difficult thing to reconcile.

So, the way things are now, if I hear someone relay their opinion that some conspiracy theory is true my reaction is one of two things. If it's a small conspiracy it is to consider the greater-than-zero odds that the theory is accurate. If it's a large conspiracy it is to do my absolute best not to let that theory tarnish my respect for that person. So, I'm doing my level best not to hold Fox Mulder in disrespect, but it's a serious challenge!

self-absorbed

I like to type introspective things because it helps me work through my thoughts.  When I do that, though, I find at the end that it sounds super self-absorbed.  As stuck-on-myself as I sound on this blog, most of what I write that sounds that way has been edited down and the worst of it peeled away.

Has anyone else run into this problem?

ten years

A couple of weeks ago was the ten year anniversary for this blog.  When I look at life as it was for me then and now I don't know if I am more surprised by the things that have changed or the things that have stayed the same.

Most of the good friends with whom I created these blogs have moved, though I believe that some of those plans were already in the works when the blogs were started.  We lost our good friend Forrest along the way, as well as my co-worker at the time, T-Bop.  We aren't guaranteed tomorrow, and I did not properly understand that ten years ago.

The things I am the most embarrassed about from my former days are the issues I was apparently working through and the fact that I had a far lesser grasp on essential doctrines than I thought I did.

Regarding issues, everyone has them but they're more obvious for some than others.  I have made significant improvements over the last ten years, and I'm sure that's partially just part of the process of aging.  There are more things I'm confident that I understand, I care somewhat less what people think, and I have a better grasp on my own personal quirks than I did before.  Life can be a positive journey in that respect.  I still need to mellow out quite a bit, though.

Regarding doctrine, I'll just say I'm a bit mortified. Ten years ago I was as well-read in the Bible as a twenty-five-year-old can be, but I lacked a depth of understanding.  With every discovery I make in study I gain new embarrassment regarding things I used to say.  Some positions I have held in my doctrinal journey have been borderline heretical, and so I have had to correct and repent of some erroneous positions.  You live and learn, but this is serious stuff.

I have always been the sort to stick around in one place, so I still work in the same job but at a higher title. This time ten years ago I was in the process of deciding if that was really the path I wanted to take.  When I committed to getting my MBA ten years ago, that was a commitment to stay in this job for a long while because I was getting tuition assistance.  I will confess that I had some serious questions about the wisdom of that path ten years ago, though I believe I took the best route forward.  That, of course, comes from someone who values consistency, so staying at the same place for ten years naturally feels best.

The biggest difference in my life from ten years ago, though, are that Golden and I now have NJ and CH in our lives.  I cannot fathom too many things that changes the nature and priorities of your life as having kids, and there's plenty of positive and negative that can be said about it.  We love ours, though, and are so proud of the progress they have made in school, church, and elsewhere.

Finally, this year Golden and I celebrate our fifteenth anniversary.  When I started the blog we were looking at five years together, and that seemed impossibly long.  It doesn't feel like fifteen is remotely possible.  Part of that is because I still feel like we are learning more about each other each day.  She is aging far, far better than I am, and I am fortunate to have her.  One thing that you get out of fifteen years of marriage is perspective on the things that make a good or bad spouse.  I have a good wife.

I hope to be able to keep this up for another ten years.  Obviously, I do not post like I used to.  Life responsibilities guarantee that.  That does not mean that I do not appreciate having this outlet, though.  I hope all who still read this get some enjoyment out of it.

it's been a while

Few things make me happier than an empty schedule.  Also, few things frustrate me more than a full schedule.  When there has been a gap in blog posts that almost always means that I have had a full schedule, so obviously we have been busy over the last couple of months.  I am currently trying to figure out how I should respond to this.

Should we just accept that schedules are going to be busy and there is nothing we can do about it?  Should I feel bad if the kids are not involved with an organized sport or activity?  How many times is too many to decline going to social events?  Is it wrong to claim to be an agoraphobic and never leave the house again?

I know there are extremes and I should not let all of my introverted tendencies dictate all of my actions.  I do enjoy down time at home, 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.

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.

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."

kerr's folly

This is one of those blogs that I intended to type two years ago and started to put together around that time but I never really figured out how I wanted to structure it, so it collected dust for a while. I have got several like that from around the same year. That is beside the point right now, though.

Back when I started typing this I had just learned of a concept called "Kerr's Folly" in school, which describes an issue that has always intrigued me. Steven Kerr, who was or is a professor of management at the University of Michigan, wrote a relatively famous piece in 1995 entitled "On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B." The title sums up the concept nicely. All too often societies, businesses, individuals, and other entities believe expect a certain type of behavior but reward a contradictory behavior. As an example, we expect politicians to be representative of the common constituency, but we accept a system that requires someone be either independently wealthy or willing to accept contributions from whomever will give them in order to be elected. So, we are hoping for a representative who understands and responds to the issues of the common folk, but we reward millionaires and sellouts.

The concept was originally written for business and it is very applicable there. Investors demand long-term growth and stability but judge companies on quarterly results without regard to statistical variation. Management expects teamwork but rewards and punishes based on comparative individual accomplishment. Projects are expected to be completed with high level of quality but rewards are based on meeting time and cost goals.

I see the same sorts of things in life outside of business as well. People who feel mistreated lash out, thus guaranteeing that they will continue to be mistreated (or will start to be mistreated if they misunderstood their treatment before). People who desire friendships and deeper relationships become clingy, which encourages others to avoid them rather than befriend them. People expect their kids to have certain standards and viewpoints but they model opposing standards through their personal behavior and are inconsistent in enforcing the standards they preach.

I have always tried to pay attention as to whether I an providing incentives for people to do the opposite of what I want them to do. I don't know that anyone can be objective enough all of the time to really know what behavior he or she is encouraging, though. Do you pay attention to the behavior that you are encouraging in others to behave in your life as well? Do you have a reason not to?

housekeeping

I just have a quick housekeeping note. I am getting a laptop within the next couple of weeks. That will probably give me more opportunity to post with some regularity. My laptop crashing, CD being born, and schoolwork have all been directly responsible for my lack of posting over the last six months. The blog simply cannot compete with household and school duties. I have a couple of ideas for blogs in the near term, but I just need to take the time to type them. Watch for more.

imperfect melody

I know that I have been slipping lately. That stems mostly from having two kids in the house and no laptop. It's a poor excuse, but it's what I've got.

I have had some ideas for posts, and I expect to type some of them in the near future, but most have been too serious. It is easy to get into a pattern of the same type of post. Lately, I don't really feel like I have provided much intrigue, insight, or entertainment. Today is probably not the day that I step it up, though, since my topic is American Idol.

For the most part, I am not that drawn to American Idol. Most of the contestants don't sing the types of songs that I like, and the later stages of the show are eighty percent fluff. I do enjoy the first few episodes of each season, though, where many of the people who sing worse than I do throw tantrums about not making it past the initial round. It's not really to poke fun as much as it is to be in awe of how mentally disturbed a lot of these contestants are. Even with this reasoning, I am starting to feel a little guilty about what enjoyment I do derive from this.

Most people know that a couple of months ago a major Paula Abdul fan, who had been one of those featured contestants, killed herself a few blocks from Abdul's home. Upon watching several failed contestants tonight a few things were obvious to me. First, someone told Simon Cowell to tone it down because he didn't go after people like he used to. Second, there are a lot of mentally unstable people who audition in the show. It should not shock anyone that a former contestant killed herself after being on the show. It should be more of a surprise that this has only happened once.

It is a staple of the show to have some crying contestant stomp out of the audition room saying that Simon is an idiot who does not know real talent. The person who goes through that tirade for the cameras has to be at least a bit delusional. I would have to believe that people who are delusional are more likely to do unfortunately extreme things such as take their own life due to how they were portrayed on a reality show. If you have a show that lasts several seasons and show countless delusional people going through this same routine, isn't this sort of thing inevitable?

I don't really expect to see much more of this season with school starting, but I think that every time I see a contestant on the show who has obvious issues I am going to wonder if he or she is able to go to the same extremes that this one unfortunate fan did. This stage of the show is still interesting. It is just now a bit more sombre, and I'll think twice before laughing about a specific contestant.

baby girl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

not yet a classic

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

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

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

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

er

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

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

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

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

blogging

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

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

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

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

sunday school

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

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

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

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

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

competing with facebook

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

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

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

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

bereavement leave

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

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

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