cc

Since NJ was born several little things in our lives have changed. Everything we do now has to have him in mind. Aside from having to pause the TV every thirty minutes to an hour, we have also started using closed captioning so we don't miss anything while he cries. Using closed captioning used to be unbearably annoying. I used to think it required too much attention. Now I view it as a life saver.

There are a few things I still find annoying. The text sometimes covers an important part of the screen. There are a lot of typos. The text often lags the programming. All in all, though, I'm thankful.

Now, if we could temporarily mute NJ and set his cries to closed captioning. I'm sure we'd get more sleep. For now, all we have is a baby swing and a prayer.

i want to believe

On the X-Files Mulder has a poster in his office that exclaims, "I want to believe." Throughout the show he lives that life philosophy out. I think a lot of people like that about Mulder. I am much more like the skeptic Scully than the Mulder who wants to believe the unbelievable, though. If there is something that annoyed me about the show it was that the idealistic Mulder was always right and Scully, while always logical and intelligent, was never right until she started believing Mulder.

In most areas of life I am very happy being the skeptic. It's actually fun, probably wrongly so, to pick apart how a lot of the, "I want to believe," folk act. The constant superstition and conspiracy theories are quite entertaining. Of course, it's all fun and games until someone loses and eye or until I start looking at my own beliefs. When I look at my beliefs about God I reach a point where I cannot rely on logic alone.

Before I go further I need to point out that I undeniably believe in a personal God, and that He is the God described in the Christian Bible. I have attempted to go down the path of "What if there is no God?" in my mind many times, but at my core I always know better. While I can follow a lot of the logic of the atheist, I don't think I will ever be able to comprehend true unbelief in any higher power.

Here is my confession. Probably the hardest issue that I have dealt with in my Christianity is grasping what logic must be sacrificed for faith. I know that it would be just as much of a crime to fall into superstition as to worship rationality, but where is the happy medium? I have to accept that while there are issues that don't make sense to me about what I understand about what I believe to be a loving God, that this is not a reason to deny Him.

The question that I am dealing with is this. At what point is true hard hitting questioning about God a good thing, and at what point is it simply sowing doubt? At what point are my internal questions me trying to make sure what I believe about God is truth, and at what point am I making excuses for the things I don't want to have to accept? Is it wrong that I don't always want to believe? How bad is it to be the Scully or the Thomas?

ambivalent, part two

About a month ago I posted on the difference between being ambivalent and being indifferent. I think my description was confusing to a few people, so before I get into today's topic, let me clear this up so that what I say later makes more sense. Someone who is ambivalent toward an issue has not picked a side because he or she sees the validity of both sides. Someone who is indifferent could care less about either side's validity.

A good example might be an outside observer to an argument over whether Captain Kirk or Captain Picard was a better captain. A fan of the original Star Trek and The Next Generation might be ambivalent about the points made about each captain. Someone who is not a fan of either show would indifferently wonder whether people who argue over such topics have a life.

In short, if you're ambivalent you care and if you are indifferent you don't.

Last week one of my coworkers sent me a link to a story about a scandal on the cover of Babytalk magazine. Apparently, the cover picture for the magazine was of a baby being breastfed. There was a significant backlash from some readers over the decision to use that picture.

This got me to thinking about the issue of breastfeeding in public. I don't mention this to stir up a heated discussion on the crimes or merits of it. I mention this because this is just one topic of many where I don't see many people who are ambivalent like me. I can see where people might get offended from a cultural context. I can also see where this is something beautiful that God created to create a bond between baby and mother. There is no point in arguing with someone who has a strong opinion about this because this is not an issue where people will voluntarily choose to see the merits of the opposing view.

There are actually a lot of issues like this that I am very ambivalent about. Yes, there are a lot of issues where I have a strong stance, but there are probably as many where I have so far refused to completely accept either position at the exclusion of the other. A lot of these issues that I am still contemplating are political and cultural issues. My position is not for a lack of caring, but due to the fact that often neither side has completely perfect (or completely erroneous) logic.

I think the reason that I feel somewhat alone in my ambivalence is that the people who get air time are the partisans. Not only that, they are also more likely to want to share their opinions to convert the undecided or opposition. Plus, who wants to waste time listening to you if your strong opinion is that you haven't picked a side?

So, if I don't share my opinion about some issue with you, it could be that I haven't come to a precise conclusion on it yet. That's a good thing. Or maybe it's a bad thing. I don't know for sure. I haven't decided yet.

i have nothing

Every week I go to Blockbuster to use the free rental coupon that I get with online. I figure that the coupons are half the value we get out of the online subscription because we can choose to rent something on the spur of the moment. I have made the following observations in my experiences in the store.

• New releases are only roughly in alphabetical order. That makes attempting to find a more obscure title all the more frustrating because I have to search through the majority of the new releases to find the title.
• I don't know why some people don't get the online service. When I see someone with $18 worth of movies for one weekend it doesn't make much sense to me. We were encouraged onto the online service when Blockbuster started charging almost five dollars per rental.
• The same people ask me whether I want to sign up for online service every month or two. They don't seem to remember that I told them I already had the service last month.
• It may be a little nitpicky, but it annoys me that on most movie covers the actors' and actresses' names are placed over someone else's picture.
• I always feel weird looking through the older movies to rent. It's like some part of me thinks it is only normal to rent new releases.
• There is no such thing as a good parking lot next to a Blockbuster. The parking spaces and the driving lanes are big enough for a Yaris, maybe, but not much else.

Yesterday, I picked out the movie Nothing for myself. The idea of the movie is that two guys can wish things out of existence by hating them, and they are left with only their house in a vast nothingness before they realize the power they have. It was very creative, and usually entertaining, but sometimes silly rather than funny.

As I was going through the checkout, the guy behind the counter handed me the movie and started to say, "I have Nothing..." then he stopped. After a short pause he started again with a wry smile, "I have Nothing for you." That made the movie worth getting.

one-armed olympics

In Lady in the Water there is a character who works out the right half of his body but not the left. He claims it is some kind of scientific experiment he is running. Now that Golden and I are frequently holding the baby to calm him down, transport him, or to do whatever, we have been learning to do things with one arm or hand that we would normally do with two. I feel kind of like that character.

Need to make a snack? Cart the kid around the kitchen in one arm, and put together a sandwich with the other. Need to type something on the computer? Hunt and peck with one hand. Need to take a drive? Imitate Britney Spears. Okay, I don't do the last one because I'm more innocent than her.

If I were a more poised I might be mastering doing things with one hand by now. Not me, though. I still drop things or avoid attempting stuff that seems a little too complex. So, if you need me to lend you a hand some time, I might be able to oblige with the one. NJ needs the other one, though.

vote for me

Yesterday was primary election day in Kansas. I know I probably should have voted, but I didn't have the opportunity to investigate the politician's stances and histories like I would have liked. I just didn't feel comfortable casting a vote without doing a more thorough investigation. I will vote in November, though.

One of the biggest reasons that I am relieved about the primaries being over is that I will get a reprieve from the automated phone calls we have been receiving. We have gotten between five and eight recorded political calls a day for a short stretch. I know this is a situation where the person who gets their name out the most will probably win, but this has to stop somewhere. In future years I'll think twice about scheduling time at home immediately before election day.

Why is it that adding my name to the FTC's "Do Not Call" list keeps companies from calling me about switching my long distance, but political organizations are able to slip through some loophole and leave me message after message? Again, I know this is probably a situation where if you don't do it and your opponent does, you have probably seriously damaged your election prospects. If no one was permitted to take these tactics, though, then I wouldn't have to be checking my caller ID eight times a day.

a little off the sides

My parents went back home yesterday. They were here to see NJ, but while they were here my dad took on two tasks that I wouldn't have figured out how to deal with.

On the first or second day they were here, my parents saw a mouse in the kitchen. This concerned me because my mom is not a rodent fan. We laid out traps and my dad eventually figured out that the mouse came through one of three holes in the wall in the garage. He installed a rubber sweep under the door between the garage and the rest of the house and got my canned foam to fill in the holes.

My dad also has this thing about wanting to trim trees. Given that I have been complaining about having to mow under one of the trees in my back yard, I was happy that he was interested in trimming the tree. Twenty-three bags of branches later and the lawn just got easier to mow.

Before: After:
Maybe I'll figure out how to deal with this stuff on my own some day. I'm not holding my breath.