The Stand-up Philosopher

Why Is Charity Often Connected to Greed?

I just had somebody come to my door. We were finishing up dinner, and I was throwing some trash away. I fixed the storm door and screen, so we had the front door open to let air in through the screen. I saw somebody standing there.

He called to me, so I walked up. I talked through the screen. I don't like solicitors. I don't buy anything from my door. I don't donate money from my door. When I give, I like to make sure that what I give actually gets to the cause it was given to.

The pitched started with something about a chance to win $5000. Then it turned to something about winning a trip to Europe. Been there, done that. I was born in Spain. That comes up every time I have a discussion about my security clearance. "You were born in Spain? Are you sure you're a citizen?" "Yeah, that's why I've had a security clearance for the last 18 years. Nothing gets by you, does it?"

I exchanged a little friendly banter over how cool Europe is, and how great it would be to take my wife. Then I cut it off by explaining my situation, and how I'm not putting money out for anything but essentials right now. Then it all came down to "You don't have one dollar to give to Children's Hospital?"

As I have no way of knowing whether my $1 would actually benefit any children at Children's Hospital, I said sorry, but no. Not right now.

I'm curious why charity works that way. If you need money for a cause, why not just ask? Why does it always have to be connected to $5000 raffles and trips to Europe? Is the best way to get people to part with money to appeal to their sense of greed?

I also think of other questions. Is Children's Hospital a for profit or non-profit? If it's a for profit, why are people on my doorstep asking for donations to "benefit" Children's Hospital? Is the donation for an ancillary program? This is why I won't donate money from my doorstep. I can't get my questions answered.

It's never worked on me. I don't care much about winning anything. OK, I've won a few books the last couple of months from blog giveaways. That's been helpful. I entered to win an iPad in a couple of places. I didn't win. But for the most part, I don't care if I win. I'd rather earn the money and pay for it myself. I've already explained how I refuse to buy lottery tickets.

I can only imagine what would happen if churches started doing this. Give out raffle tickets and draw one out of the collection plate after the offering has been taken. Winner gets $1000. Would that raise the amount of the offering? It would probably keep people around after service to see if their ticket was drawn. I'd probably leave a church that did that. I hope most of you would too. But I'm interested if that would have an affect on the offering.

So I guess it comes down to the question: are you more likely to give money to a charity if you have a chance to win something? I'm not saying it's wrong. Maybe it does result in higher donations. I've never checked into it. All I'm saying is it doesn't work on me. 

Forget Everything You Learned in School II

Way back in September 2007, I wrote a post “Forget Everything You Learned in School”. At the time, I was preparing to graduate from the University of Phoenix. I was happy that the information I learned was practical.

Today (Apr 23, 2009) I’m graduating Weichert’s Real Estate Pre-licensing class. I now have the required 75 hours of classroom instruction to get a New Jersey Real Estate Salesperson’s license.

Unlike UOP, the information for the state exam doesn’t necessarily reflect the real world. It’s all valid for the exam, but it doesn’t always reflect real life.

For instance, for the purposes of the test, in a lease, the death of either party does not invalidate the lease. However, in real life, just try collecting from an estate.

I came to the conclusion “Just give the commission what they’re asking for, and let your broker teach you how it really works.”

My favorite came up yesterday during our review for the class exam. There was a question about VA and FHA loans. Specifically, which of the 4 institutions cannot make them. The correct answer was “credit unions”. Huh? The following is from Navy Federal Credit Union’s page on mortgages:

Go figure.

I passed the school exam, and scheduled my state exam. I’ll give the NJ Real Estate Commission the answers they’re looking for.

Why Do My Weather Preferences Get People Upset?

This is curious. We recently got a ton of snow in the Delaware Valley region. I’m sure they’ve seen more in the past, but in the 11 years I’ve lived in New Jersey, it’s a record breaker.

And it didn’t bother me.

Sure, the shoveling was tough, but I got through it. I enjoyed having the snow around. It was a nice change of scenery.

What’s weird is talking to people about it. At work, when people are bitching complaining about all the snow, I mention that I’d rather have the snow than the heat in the middle of summer.

The reactions that I get are along the lines of “How could you, you, you… MONSTER!”

Maybe I’m exaggerating a tiny bit, but most people react very badly. Even at dinner tonight, Christina was talking about a weather forecast that includes about 5 days of solid rain. Ugh. Hate it. I said I’d rather have snow. Christina’s reaction was to ask me if I knew what that meant…

As if God is going to schedule the weather around my preferences.

Seriously, why do people get worked up when I mention that I wouldn’t mind it if the weather stayed cold longer? I like the cold. I don’t like to sweat. And I’d MUCH rather shovel snow than pay another $450 electric bill in the summer. Snow doesn’t cost me anything extra. Snow is cool to watch. Rain is just miserable. In any case, the weather doesn’t bend to my will. It would be about as effective as getting mad at me if I said I wouldn’t care if LOST got cancelled. They don’t make programming decisions based on my apathy.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody

It's Thanksgiving again. In the grand tradition of what this day is supposed to be about, here are some of the things I'm thankful for.

• Perhaps this shouldn't go first on the list, but right now it's at the forefront of my mind. I'm thankful to work for a company that, even though I got fired from my contract last week, hasn't cut me loose. They can't promise anything, but they're working on finding another spot for me and providing me with work to do in the meantime. I'm also being provided with mentoring in the very thing that I believe got me kicked off that contract in the first place. No company is perfect, but I'm thankful to work for one with a heart.
• I'm thankful for my family. Christina is busy getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. She's incredibly gifted at this. Anytime we have a big dinner of guests coming over, she just knows how much to make and of what dishes. I've never seen us run out of anything for big dinners or parties. She makes it look easy.
• I'm thankful for my boys. I often joke that the worst parts of me were split between the two of them. Joshua has my "It's going to be my way or everybody else will be miserable" attitude. Caleb has my insatiable "I need to know everything and I need to know it right now" mentality. But they're both my boys and they're both gifted in their own ways, and they make life fun and interesting.
• I'm thankful for my friends, my church, for my books, for my iPhone, for my computers, my car, my house, bed, and I could go on and on. Perhaps I will, but in a private format that's not likely to bore readers.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Kids Were Just Too Cute Today

(This picture was from several weeks ago)

I’m writing this post from a hotel room. I’m on travel. I got up this morning, and after packing walked down to pick up my rental car. When I got back, I went out to eat breakfast with my family. Christina drove my Kia Sedona and I drove the rental car to OCB (Old Country Buffet). The funny thing was, when I loaded the rental car at home, Joshua kept asking if he could ride with me. Caleb didn’t bother to ask. He just took his booster seat out of the minivan and walked toward the rental (Ford Focus). Joshua took the hint and grabbed his booster too. By this point, there was no way I could say no, considering I was planning to leave after breakfast while Christina took the kids on to some other planned activities.

That’s a weird contract between the kids. Joshua was asking, Caleb just grabbed his seat. I have to wonder, how many things are we denied because we ask? How many people get what they want because they just do it? I have to admit, sometimes the kids ask me for something, and I deny it for arbitrary and capricious reasons. Maybe I’m too tired and distracted to deal with it. I have to wonder how many requests I’ve been denied in my life for similar reasons.

Another funny point. At one point in the drive to OCB, I pulled into one lane and Christina pulled up right next to me in the other. I knew the two lanes merged after that light. When the light turned green, I stomped the gas and pulled ahead. The kids were giggling for several minutes. They loved it.

Odometer

TypePad's mobile client is working for me now, so I can put up small entries more frequently. I got my oil changed yesterday, and my odometer reading was noteable. I drive with the trip counter displayed so I can track how far I've gone on a tank of gas, so I only see the odometer reading after maintenance unless I think to check it. I just though this odometer reading was interesting.

A Moment for the History Books

I can’t not post this. Everybody makes a mistake now and again, and it must be a rare privilege to commit a gaff like this on national TV, during a political convention. I don’t bother with political conventions myself. Thanks to blogs and YouTube, I’m likely to see that better parts or read them picked apart into meaninglessness later.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,MSNBC,son of a black man from Kenya and a white man from Kentucky

Are Social Greetings Pointless?

Have you ever run across a person who seems to perpetuate a pun or phrase to the point of assault? I thought it was sort of funny in middle school the first time I asked somebody “what’s up?” to have them point up and say “The sky!” It was amusing then. By now, in my mid-thirties, I’m much less amused by it, especially when the same people seem to think it is still funny. In the effort to be socially polite, I still try my best to make the person who still does this think that he or she is so witty and is the first person on earth to have thought of such a response to a common social greeting. In reality, I fantasize about saying “OK, let my rephrase that: what particular events are occurring in your life right now that you would like to discuss with me in chit chat as we pass each other in the hall/on the street/online? Obviously, your response is supposed to be ‘not much/going great/all right’ or something along the lines of ‘I really don’t have anything in my life uncomplicated enough to share with you at the moment, so I’ll just pretend that my life is going great and sum it up in two words or less!’ ”

Sometimes I wonder why we even bother with greeting in passing. Even when my entire life seems to be melting down like Chernobyl, I know better than to share it with the stranger or casual acquaintance who passes me in the hall or walks by my cubicle to ask “What's up?" or  "How's it going?"

Yes, I often get like this at times when sleep becomes a luxury. It's been several nights since one or both of the kids haven't been up part of the night. Oh, wait, that should have been "I'm doing fine."

Technorati Tags: Social greetings,what's up,how's it going

To Take the Edge off My Car Issues…

I couldn’t resist. I got this from Real Dan Lyons, formerly Fake Steve Jobs…

 

Technorati Tags: Tiddy Bear

Car Headaches

My cars are driving me nuts. At least, mine is. In July, I noticed that the air conditioning on my 2003 Kia Sedona wasn’t blowing cold. We were driving around on a Saturday, and I popped into a Monro to ask if they could do a recharge. I’d been taking my car to Monro in Stratford for oil changes for years, and I found out that some of the guys from Stratford now work in Williamstown. It turned out that I apparently had a bad shredder valve, and they couldn’t get one until a weekday. That was the week of my marathon trip trying to get back from Maine, so I was able to bring my car in the following Saturday. The valve was replaced, coolant was added, and we drove off. Three weeks later, the air wasn’t working again. I called and made an appointment, and I brought the car in after work one day. My wife learned her lesson about bringing both boys to sit at Monro for an hour and a half just to save a little gas on our errands.

This time, the air held out for about a week, then the coolant was gone again. I brought the car back in to find that now my high pressure hose was bad. Being a Friday afternoon, about 4:45, no Kia parts center was available anywhere in the world so I had to wait until Monday. In the meantime, my ‘95 Windstar needed a $1400 front end/power window job plus another $100 when the muffler dropped down. At first it looked like the hose for my Kia was on national backorder, but the guy at Monro followed up and found out that somebody was using the wrong part number. We’re not dealing with highly intelligent or motivated people here (the Kia parts people, not Monro.) The part wasn’t on the shipment to Monro yesterday, so the mechanic drove to Cherry Hill to get it today. I took my car and Caleb to Monro. I also found a screw in my tire, but that was a quick fix.

Train Stops, Driver Gets Cheesesteak

 

Joshua and I saw something unusual yesterday (at least around here.) We live very close to train tracks that are often traveled by freight trains. One time we saw the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus train pass by our house, but that was unordinary. I barely notice the trains anymore having lived next to the tracks for so long, and in fact I didn’t even notice them at all until we had children and our house was filled with Thomas and his friends.

Yesterday I was working in the front yard. Caleb was taking a nap and Christina and Joshua were standing on the porch watching me when we heard a train coming by. We heard the train slowing down and then it stopped. It’s not normal for trains to stop there, so I wondered if something was wrong. I decided that maybe it was a good time for Joshua to take a walk with me, so we walked down to the corner and along the train tracks. As we came even with the first of the two engines, we saw someone climb down the ladder and start walking across the street. At first, I wondered if something was wrong, but the drivers would probably have a radio. All I could figure is that he was going to Ron’s across the street to get something to eat. There was still another person in the cab. I talked with a woman walking her dogs, who came to the same conclusion that I did: the train stopped for cheesesteaks. Sure enough, as Joshua and I stood there talking about the train, we saw the same guy come out with a cheesesteak shaped item in foil. It could have been a hoagie or a meatball sandwich, but I like cheesesteaks better. Then he turned the crossing alarm back on (I didn’t know they could enable and disable them from the train) and started moving back along as soon as the traffic was stopped.

I took this picture on the right to show how close Ron’s is to the railroad tracks. I’m sure the drivers know how convenient it is and I had no idea that the could stop and get food. I think that’s good for them.

We saw the same two engines coming back a little while later, without the freight cars. They didn’t seem to be hungry this time around.

I’m honestly not complaining about this. I think it’s great that a train can stop for food. I’m not sure how many places are convenient for a train to stop like that. I guess if I drove a train, it would be nice to stop for lunch once in a while.

Technorati Tags: Trains,cheesesteak,Ron's Pizza

When I First Remember Enjoying Writing

The earliest point in my life that I can remember enjoying writing was my Junior year in high school. I went to John Jay High School in San Antonio, Texas (Class of 1992.) My Junior year obviously was 1990-1991. For English class that year, I had a teacher named Mrs. Ladson. I don’t know why some teacher’s names stick with you and some don’t. I don’t remember much exceptional about Mrs. Ladson’s teaching ability, but I do remember a lot of students didn’t like her and accused her of being mean, but for some reason I had no problems with her and she even seemed to like me. My friend Wes once commented to me that Mrs. Ladson, while chastising him for some behavior infraction, said “Why can’t you be more like my student in (whatever period I had her class) Eric?” Go figure.

One hallmark of Mrs. Ladson’s class was the journal. For the first 20-35 minutes of class, we were to write in our journals. We had to have a separate notebook (yep, one more public school teacher demanding parents spend more money on school supplies for one class) to keep a journal in. Some days, she would write a theme on the board for us to write about. Other days, she would allow us to “freewrite.” Most students used that time to misbehave. For some reason, I didn’t. Maybe I didn’t have any friend in that class.

At one point, Mrs. Ladson had a student teacher. I wish I could remember his name, because he’s truly the nexus of this post. He really took the journal time to a new level. Each day, he would put a word or phrase or concept on the board. The phrases were the best. He would put part of a sentence up and ask us to finish a story. I don’t know why, but he really inspired me, and I wrote a lot of my best work under his themes. I know I’ve kept my journal notebook from that class, although most of our stuff is somewhere in limbo between here and my in-laws’ house with the expectation that someday this house will sell.

So, to Mr. Student Teacher in 1990-1991, at John Jay in San Antonio, in Mrs. Ladson’s class, if you come across this post for one reason or another, please leave a comment. You have no idea how much you inspired me to write for the rest of my life. I’ve never made a dime off of my writing, but somehow you really did inspire me to keep it up and to even enjoy it.

Do I Look Like a Celebrity?

I got my hair cut for the first time in what seems like forever Saturday morning. My hair is very thick and uncontrollably wavy, and because it’s summer, I decided to just get buzzed. My wife informed me that I actually look like somebody. Guess who? She thinks I look like Chef Robert Irvine from the Food Network’s Dinner Impossible. What do you think? Below are the chef and me. Guess which picture is him, and which is me. Hint, I’m the one taken in a dark computer room with a 1.3 megapixel Pocket PC Phone camera. I just wish I had the chef’s trunk-like arms.

"Upcoming" Book on the House Sale

My Realtor and I talked before about writing a book about trying to get our house sold. We've been through quite a bit on this deal. We spent from June 07 to Feb 08 on BuyOwner, where we had a few showings but mostly got calls from Realtors looking to list us. We finally listed with one Realtor who came off strong but in the end didn't seem to possess the drive to market our house. When we hadn't had a single call in over a month, and I started pushing her to get people back in the door, she suggested a short sale. I said "no way" for several reasons. She suggested a bridge loan to cover both our house and my in-laws' house. Ugh. When I said no, she said she'd let us go to refinance. I pressed for an unconditional release, which I never officially got, but she said I could list with another Realtor. When we relisted, things were going fine when the former Realtor's broker called demanding that we finish out our listing agreement. Our Realtor was forced to undo hours worth of work that made for really effective marketing, which got people in the door. After a couple of days, the broker let us go and signed a release. Then we went through the three almost contracts between a woman and her daughter. I'm sure with the proper writing, this would make one heck of a story.

I even picked out a title for the book, but I won't give the address at this moment. The title is "BOHICA- the (our address) Story." BOHICA is an acronym from my Navy days that is very crude yet I believe tells our story perfectly: "Bend Over, Here It Comes Again!"

Interesting Post: How To Waste Your Seminary Education

http://fromthestudy.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/how-to-waste-your-theological-education/

I came across that link yesterday in my Google Reader feeds.

Weird Dreams

I had some really strange dream last night. I normally have strange dreams, but this one came at a weird time. I dreamed that planes kept crashing right in front of me. One of them crashed into the Delaware River as I was driving across the Walt Whitman Bridge, presumably on my way to work (or to Philly International.) I don't buy into luck and omens (although I see some evidence, however circumstantial, for signs), but to put this in context, I have an early flight on Thursday.
I'm not too concerned. I did a Bible study on dreams, and came to the conclusion that when God sends a message in a dream to one of His people, they know the message when they wake up. It's only Pharaohs and kings of Babylon who need an interpreter.

Chances of a Man Winning an Argument

I was trying to keep my kids busy by going through some picture archives on my computer, and I came across this. I wish I knew who to attribute for creating it, or even for sending it to me. Although I'm sure there is no scientific evidence backing it up, there sure is enough circumstantial evidence.

Technorati Tags: Humor,arguments,marriage

One Day of Silence I Could Certainly Use...

For anybody coming to my blog for a post of substance, this probably isn't it. This is nothing more than a pure and simple rant.

It's finally over. Daylight Savings Time (or as I started calling it years ago "Sucklight Stupid Time") is finally over until March (or whenever King George decides to set this useless and annoying policy next year). I find "days of silence" to be patronizing and useless, but next time Sucklight Stupid Time comes around, let's declare and follow one day of silence that we could all use: let's go ONE SIMPLE DAY WITHOUT REMINDING EACH OTHER TO SET OUR CLOCKS BACK OR FORWARD OR WHATEVER THE HECK IS DECIDED THAT TIME AROUND. That it. Just give me one day without an email or blog post or helpful announcer at whatever function I'm at be it church or a yearly training session reminding us all to set our clocks whatever direction they're supposed to go that time. Just one day. We're all adults, and everybody tells us anyway. I just started to go through my RSS feeds from this weekend, and I can't tell you how many bloggers decided to post "hey, guys, just a reminder to set our clock..." Shut up already! If you don't know to set your clocks whatever direction then you deserve to be late for whatever you do on Sunday.

I feel better now. I just can't wait to get back into work tomorrow and see how many emails came out after I left on Friday reminding us to set our clocks back.

Labels: Misc comments

Forget Everything You Learned In School?

For those of you who went to college directly after high school, how many of you graduated and got your first job only to hear the words "Forget everything they taught you in college"? To be honest, hearing that would tick me off immensely. After working very hard for more than two years and racking up somewhere near $25-30k in student loans, I would not be happy to hear that the entire time was mostly a waste and the concepts I just spent time and money learning are only theoretical and won't do me any good in the "real world".

The University of Phoenix is far from perfect, but one thing I do like about the school is that instructors are required to have a minimum of a Master's degree and must be leaders in their fields. I spent my entire time in the FlexNet program, in which a student attends the first and last class session at the campus and the weeks in between are conducted online through a newsgroup. I'm currently taking my final class onground at the Buck's County campus. I'm finding that the on ground program is much more demanding than FlexNet. I don't mean demanding academically, but more demanding on time. Since I go to class directly from work, I stay at work until time to leave. That means putting in more than a ten hour day at work, then driving to Buck's County, PA for four hours, then get home around 11 PM when I normally leave the house at 6 AM.

Because instructors must be highly educated and experienced, I've had some really good people to learn from. One instructor had risen all the way to Vice President at a telecommunications company. Another instructor was an IT manager in a very large corporation. My current instructor is a microbiologist who has had a highly successful business career.

The material that I've learned in my classes is much more than theoretical. I truly have learned material to help me in my current job and to give me perspective on how we conduct business. I was hired into my current job after providing onsite support to engineers for development testing of the very large scale program that I work on. (I purposely leave my employer and industry vague when I have to mention work on this blog.) One of my responsibilities in this position is to represent our customer during a hardware acceptance test. I act as an observer and sign off after analyzing data with my counterpart in another organization. I then produce a report. When I first started in this position, I was trained as an observer on the last shipment of the previous platform. Because this was an established platform, the hardware acceptance test took about 40 minutes to complete and sign off. We had a few "glitches" to adjudicate, but for the most part the test went off without a hitch. After that, the platform changed. The hardware changed, and the program had to change to accommodate the hardware and newer features. The next three acceptance tests I observed took more than five hours to complete. Talk about being late for lunch! Because of my background in developmental testing support, I murmured that the program was bad and needs a lot more work however; officially I did my duties with the sign-off and report.

After beginning the IT program at the University of Phoenix, I learned about concepts such as the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). To be honest, I had not up to that point differentiated between hardware and software testing. I assumed that the software did not work therefore the entire system had a problem (part of the reason for Microsoft's reputation ) . That was not so. Because the platform changed, the hardware had done its job but the program had not been developed enough yet to be mature. I talked with some members of my organization and learned that indeed, the software being used to certify the hardware was only guaranteed for that test. Because this is such a large program, the hardware is shipped first and the software is installed later.

I now have a new appreciation for the hardware acceptance test that I observe. I got a chance last year to assist the engineers who conducted the development testing, and that was a lot of fun and very interesting. I learned a lot from that experience and now having worked both hardware and software testing I have a new appreciation for how programs like this (large scale programs) go together. I tried to get a position in the development test group, but at the time it fell through. I'm needed in my position, and while development test would have appreciated my help, nobody would provide funding for me to have an extra computer to keep in that office, and I could not get VPN access to the network that they have to use.

I am pleased at least in this regard with the University of Phoenix: I will not be told "forget everything you learned in school."

Technorati tags: Univeristy of Phoenix, College, Education, Testing, Engineering

Labels: Hardware, Software, U of Phoenix

IT Needs A Backup

Even though I'm about to get an IT degree, and I have a lot of IT experience and knowledge, and a lot of my friends work in IT, I don't actually work in a straight IT capacity. I'm more of an engineer working on a testing program. I know enough about IT to be at least a little bit critical of other people's work when the situation warrants it.

I was talking to some people recently about the IT field. I can't say that IT in many organizations has a stellar reputation, and in some cases I would say it is deserved. If you've ever read (or been) the Bastard Operator From Hell, you might understand what I'm talking about. What I told the people I was talking to that day is that IT is a very strange paradox. IT is a highly service oriented field, but the qualities that might make a person good at IT also tend to make them less personable. Most IT training centers around the technical and so the service aspects are often left out. I do notice that a lot of IT departments don't provide a lot of user training, and most users aren't interested in that training. If anything, the goal seems to be to lock the user down so that the helpdesk has to be called to change the wallpaper on a user's workstation.

What really gets me though is when IT departments seem to go out of the way to appear incompetent and lazy. Last night I had class at the University of Phoenix's Bucks County campus. UOP does provide wireless Internet access, as they should when the textbooks are all online. Why shouldn't you be able to get to your textbooks WHILE YOU ARE AT SCHOOL? Last night, I was able to connect to the access point but there was no further connection to the Internet. My instructor was having the same problem. We also noticed that the projector was projecting "Please clean filter" onto the bottom of the lecture Power Point presentation, cutting off some of the text at the bottom. When the school's employee came in to pick up the attendance sheet, we decided to ask her about these problems. As for the "Please clean filter", she said that IT told her it's supposed to do that. Seriously, they said that? Talk about lazy. Just clean the damn filter, turn off the warning, or return the projector and get one that works. Doesn't anybody do research before they purchase equipment?

As for the Internet issue: "Oh, our IT guy is on vacation." So, what? I'm paying $1400 a class, and I should be able to get to the textbooks while I'm actually at the campus, shouldn't I? They do have another IT guy, but he doesn't know where the router is. Son of a motherless goat! How stupid and incompetent can this department be? We're talking about an organization (UOP) that supposedly trains professionals. Don't they hire any? Of course, if the IT guy who was not on vacation actually knew where the router was, he could probably fix the problem in a few second by resetting the router, which is one of the most common reasons why a wireless access point would allow connections in but not back out.

I know there are a lot of problems in modern companies regarding the IT department. They're often overworked and under appreciated and at war with their users. I've worked support jobs before, and it's hard when every single phone call starts off with somebody yelling that somehow you did something to cause their problem before you even know what the problem is. It's very, very hard not to go to war with your users under those circumstances. We have to avoid it though. We have to face the fact that IT is service oriented. We have to provide some training to the users whether they want it or not, and we have to make sure that somebody else knows how to reset the router when we go on vacation.

Technorati tags: Information Technology, Bastard Operator From Hell, Univeristy of Phoenix

Labels: Misc comments, U of Phoenix

The Top Ten Reasons Star Trek Sucks

I can't resist linking to this: 10 things i hate about star trek.

Labels: Misc comments

Helpdesk for New Technology Roll-out

Have you ever worked a helpdesk? If not, have you ever had to help a friend or relative with a new computer? I came across this video through an email newsletter that I receive. This video sure brings back those days of trying to help people do simple tasks on a Windows 95 PC.

"Click the START Button. It's in the bottom left corner of the screen. No, you're moving to the top right. Move the mouse down and left. No, you're still over to the right. OK, good keep coming down. Now go left... No, that's right. Fine, let me do it."

 

I surely do not miss those days. Enjoy the video. Hopefully I will be able to write another post in a day or two. My wife and I were going to lay down laminate flooring, and the project sort of went another direction. I'm sure that will make for a series of posts.

Labels: Misc comments

Rubber Bouncy Balls

Simple pleasures are always nice. I have a strange habit, like most people, of needing something for my hands to do. I've recently rediscovered the rubber bouncy ball. I could say that I found them because of my children, but that's not true. My wife used to pick these up for me when we would go to Chinese buffets. They're a quarter to fifty cents, very cheap and they come in different sizes. There's just something relaxing about either throwing one of these up in the air and catching it, or bouncing it off the floor. I've started carrying one with me.

Michael Hyatt wrote a blog post about something called a Gratitude Rock. This idea is that he keeps a small rock in his pocket and whenever he brushes it, he thinks of something he's grateful for. I tried the same thing with my bouncy ball. Every time I drop it and catch it, I try to think of something I'm grateful for. It may sound like a silly exercise, but it will brighten up your day and change your perspective.

Labels: Misc comments

Those Sea Salt Stands At The Mall Are Evil

I left work early today to run by the mall and pick up "The Little Mermaid" DVD for my wife. Disney likes to control the market, but that's for another entry. There used to be a time when I could leave work early and expect the mall to not be crowded, but I guess those days are long since past. As I left the Disney Store, I noticed a woman trying to avoid one of those pushy kiosk cosmetics saleswomen. As I walked out, I got caught in a tractor beam that preys on politeness. "Oh, sir? Excuse me, sir, I just need a minute of your time."

"Uh, I'm in a hurry."

"This will just take a minute."

At this point, I should have just bolted, but years of conditioning to be polite still override years of pushy mall sales people. I was then put through a sales pitch that forced me to have sea salt put on my hands, then a choice of creams. I took coconut because it was that only one that made me feel like I had any testosterone left.

She kept asking me how great it felt. To be honest, it felt very greasy. Women might enjoy this feeling, but I felt like if I had to crack open a computer at that moment, I wouldn't be able to hold any screws in my exfoliated hands. I thought they would slip right through. You know how small computer screws are.

Then, just as suddenly as I was sucked into this demonstration, she picked up 2 jars of their product and tried to give me a high pressure sales pitch about how "today, only, they're half price for $59.99!" I told her my wife didn't authorize me to spend that much, then I politely withdrew myself and left. I went to the Gourmet Chef to eat some free samples before driving home.

Where do women, whether pushy salespeople or benevolent wives, friends, or relatives get the idea that men will enjoy blowing $60  to exfoliate their hands? I could use that plus another $20 and expand the RAM in my laptop. I could buy camping gear with $60. I could buy beer and steaks with $60. Men like a little bit of "non-skid" on our hands, because as I said we sometimes work with small screws and we need the traction. What if I'd had to change a tire? Try keeping a grip on a tire iron when you're missing the top layer of rough skin.

Trust me, ladies, if a man really wants to feel exfoliated, he will seek you out. Until he does, leave the rest of us alone.

Labels: Misc comments

Labor Day, Cars, and Selling Online

Happy Labor Day! I hope those of you who are exempt employees are enjoying the day off, and those of you who are non exempt didn't have to be scheduled to work today. Though I would never complain about a paid day off work, you have to appreciate the irony of taking a day off to celebrate labor. That sounds like something that could only have come from our Congress.

My wife and I keep a DVD rack in our family room. It's going to have to be moved eventually. Our children (1 and 2 years old) keep pulling movies down off it. I can't quite figure out why my 1 year old keeps taking Conspiracy Theory down, no matter what position I place it in. It seems that every time I turn around he's holding that particular movie. The jacket isn't very colorful, so I can't imagine why a 1 year old is drawn to it. I hope he isn't trying to tell me something.

I put a dog up for adoption, and I'd like to rant about how much I am starting to hate selling online. When our 1 year old was born last year, my wife and I put a dog and a cat up for adoption because we felt we had too many animals and with 2 children we just couldn't give the animals the time and love they need. I put my dog up on Petfinder, and sure enough guess what happened? Well, when we bought a new bed around Memorial Day, I put our old bedroom furniture up on Craig's List, and got several so called "international buyers" with horrible written English skills telling me that they trust me and will deliver payment and have their shippping agent pick up the merchandise. I told them to get lost, and amended my ads to say "local offers only- I WILL NOT DEAL WITH "INTERNATINAL BUYERS". I know little about export/import, but I fail to see how it could possibly be profitable to ship a $150 waterbed overseas and sell it. I've read too much about these scams. So guess what happened when I listed my dog? Sure enough, I get an email from somebody supposedly in utah (sic) with grammar and spelling that would disqualify "her" for an AOL account. Do people really still fall for these scams? I'm about to just keep my dog.

My wife and I have been looking for a new car. Not a brand new car, but a different used car from what we currently have. I've learned over the years that you can get a lot more car for your money buying used. I can never afford a new Dodge Durango, but some of the 2000-2002 models are getting down to our price range. I discovered the Suzuki XL-7, and found a couple that may be worth looking at when car dealers open back up. I've found that Autotrader is the best car site for searching. It offers the best search tools of any of the other car sites. You can search by price and mileage, so I can search for certain models below $10000 and with less than 60000 miles. I have no idea what the point is to Vehix.com. I'm not convinced that Vehix uses their own website. Sure, you get a lot of returns, but yesterday when I was searching for Suzuki XL-7s, I got several 2005 and 2004 models with no price. Instead, there was a link to "email dealer for quote". I don't want to email the dealer, I want to know if this car is within a price range I can consider or move on. I've found that Cars.com is about as worthless, as is msn.com auto. However, MSN Auto has the best research tools after you've found a model on Autotrader that you would like more information about. I really love the internet. When I go to actually see a car, I already know everything about it except how it feels to drive. I don't have to ask the dealer if the car is reliable because I know most of them lie anyway. "Sure, it's reliable. It's a Pinto!"

Anyway, Happy Labor Day. I just wanted to share a few thoughts. If you're looking for a used car, try Autotrader. It's how we found the Kia Sportage that I'm currently driving. It's still a decent car; we're just looking for a 4x4 that seats more people.

Labels: Holiday, Misc comments

Let's Talk About Listening

We often hear about communication and how important it is. There are some places, however, where communication does not seem to matter. I had to take my car in for service today, and I observed something that really got me to wondering.

I drive a 2001 Kia Sportage. It's a decent toy SUV, and I've enjoyed the 2 1/2 years I've had it. Lately I've noticed a rattling from the undercarriage that has gotten louder. Sometimes I wonder who is more annoying: me or the people with the bass set too loud on their car stereos. I think there should be a law that nobody should have to listen to your music in traffic. In any case, I finally broke down and called the Nissan dealer where I bought the car and booked an appointment for this morning. I worked late last week to flex the time in case the service took a while. It turned out to be a heat shield that was loose. It wasn't even covered by my so called "bumper to bumper" warranty, but the job took less than a half hour so they only charged me $44.

I've never been one to sit around waiting rooms. I noticed the dealership had 3 desks set up with a network jack labled "High speed internet access". Had I known that, I would have brought my laptop and a network cable, but I didn't know that. They didn't provide wireless, or else I could have surfed with my Pocket PC. I figured rather than watch whatever ABC calls their morning show on the waiting room TV, I'd walk around the showroom. It was raining all morning, so I couldn't walk around the lot. A salesman asked if he could help me. I told him I was waiting for service, but my wife and I had talked about trading the Kia in for something bigger. I had very tight and specific requirements, but if he was willing to listen I'd talk. Why I have not learned that car salesman CAN'T listen, I don't know. I shared with him what we were thinking about. My wife and I typically buy a used car. She likes lower mileage. When we bought that Kia, we bought it because it was about 3 years old and only had 21000 miles on it. It was a very good price and everything worked out. In fact, our payment is about $170 a month. We're comfortable with that. We live on a single income so my wife can be home with the kids, and our other car is long since paid for.

I told the dealer what I was looking for and what we had to work with.

• 4 wheel drive- we like that in the winter and in very bad rain. It's come in handy. It also helps the car hold it's value.
• Seating- we have two small children, and so the back seat in the Kia is taken up by two child seats. If we have another child or we want to take somebody else out with us, we can't use the Kia.
• Payments under $200.
• About all the downpayment we have is the equity in the Kia.

Now at this point, if the car salesman were "honest", he should have just laughed at me and told me to get lost. I would have. We've been watching used Dodge Durangos, and there are just getting to the price range where we could trade the Kia in and keep our payments at the same level. We'll wait a while though. Rather than laugh at me, the salesman handed me an umbrella and we walked out to the used car lot that they have across the road. He pointed out a few cars like the Tahoe (like that would fit our price range) and mentioned a Hummer they have coming in today. He also asked if I'd be interested in a lease, to which I said "no". Several years ago, a Navy buddy of mine and I were talking about a friend who entered into a really screwy lease. I was asked to come up with an acronym for LEASE, to which I thought a few seconds and came back with "Losers Easily Are Sucked into Extra payments". After we got back in the showroom, he went in the back and came out and said they have an Xterra that might work. He took my keys to have my car appraised and we went for a test drive in the Xterra. He kept saying that he could see me in that car and could see me going home in it. I think they teach them that in car sales school.

After we got back, he went to work out the finances. After carefully explaining my requirements, do you think the dealership came back in the ballpark? Do you think I drove an Xterra to work today rather than my Sportage?

Here is what they came back with:

• They'll pay off the Kia
• They'll drop the price of the Xterra from $17something thousand to $16 something thousand.
• I put down $1800.
• Payments at $409 for 60 months or $399 for 72 months.

The Xterra was a 2002 with a stick shift. It was a very nice ride. The dealer also told me that it had a 4.0 and got 21 to 28 MPG.  A friend of mine has an Xterra. I remembered him telling me that he wished the 4.0 liter engine was available when he bought his, but it didn't come out until another model year. I didn't know what year he bought his car though. I asked him later and found out he has a 2002. He also reports gas mileage of nowhere near the dealer's reported mileage.

So what do you think I did? Find out in part II.

Just kidding. If I thought I had enough regular readers, maybe I'd keep you in suspense and do a part II, but I won't. I politely declined, reminded him that my family is on a single income and we would prefer to keep our payment lower.

Now I am not disparaging their efforts to work out a deal. I thought that this was a very good deal and if I'd had more to work with I would gladly have accepted it. However, I listed my requirements and they can be compared with this offer. When we bought the Kia, the experience was very positive and this dealership did a very good job, which was why I was willing to purchase another car from them.

I'm not sure why car dealers do that. I would much rather be laughed at and told to get off of the property than spend an hour test driving and being told that a deal can be worked out along the lines of what I'm looking for when even I know that it can't. I pretty much figured that was how it would end up, but I did have a slight spirit of optimism despite my past car dealer experiences. I guess it has been demonstrated that no matter how much the customer lowballs the dealer, after the test drive the customer will find a way to make a $400 a month payment when he originally said he could only do $200.

I decided a long time ago that a car is nothing more than an appliance. It's a very nice appliance, but many of us treat our cars like an extension of our personalities. I realized that it's just a $20000 toaster, and I treat it accordingly. As cool as the Xterra was, I walked away and drove my Sportage home. I can enjoy it once again without that darn rattle.

As an anecdote, here are a couple of my worst car dealer experiences:

1. When I was 21, I found out I was promoted to E-5. I decided for some reason that I should get a new car, even though the truck that I had at the time was going to be paid off in 6 months.  I went to a Mazda dealer outside the base to look at the '95 Protege. I told the salesman I'd only do it if the payments could be kept where my truck payments were, which was around $170 a month. He kept telling me it was no problem at all. Later, in the finance manager's office, I was told the payments would be $350. Why did the salesman tell me over and over again that it would be no problem? I couldn't afford that, but out of pride I ended up buying a '93 MX3, which I drove for 10 years until the moonroof seal started to go and the fuel pump went. That car served me well for a decade. I always said that I couldn't have been screwed into a better car.
2. A few years ago, my wife and I bought a 1999 Ford Windstar from a dealer. When we got home, we were looking at their website and we saw a Windstar that looked just like ours listed for $2000 less than what we paid. I printed the page and ran outside to check the VIN, and sure enough, it was the same car. The dealer said that a 3rd party manages their website and they can't be held responsible for false information. Sure. That Windstar didn't last too long, and we ended up trading it in for the Kia that I drive now. (That dealer, Cherry Hill Subaru, is no longer in business. Serves you right!).

Labels: Misc comments

Creativity Is So Often Overlooked

I just finished reading a series on Brad Isaac's blog about tapping the superconscious. It got me thinking. My background is in electronics and I picked up computers/info-tech along the way. I'm a mostly self-taught geek but I am working on my IT degree at the University of Phoenix. I have always considered myself an analytical thinker and have always seen that quality as admirable when it comes to my career and hobbies. I always tend to overlook creativity as a trait of artists and writers. There have been times when a problem required a creative approach but they seemed to be few and far between.

But thinking about it, can it be true that analytical thinkers have no need for creativity? I would say no; I've been in many situations where a creative answer would have made for a better solution. I just finished 15 weeks of programming classes and one thing I learned is that you can't approach programming (especially Object Oriented Programming) from rote. You can't just memorize concepts and slap them together into a functional program. Procedural programming could be done that way, but the more creative you are, the easier of a time you'll have with the field. One of my classmates added a line to her signature about programming being a blend of engineering and art. I find that to be true.

I've found my analytical thinking and lack of creativity to cause problems in other areas of my life, especially in my marriage. It seems that every gift giving occasion I am at a loss of what to get for my wife. There are times when I can't think of what to do when I have time to play with my two boys because I lack creativity. I have had problems with my school assignments because I tried to take an analytical approach rather than a creative approach to a problem. I am teaching senior high Sunday School in church this quarter, and I've found my lack of creativity to be a hinderance to putting together a good lesson for the teens.

I think I will take Brad Isaac's advice and spend some time nurturing my creative side. There is plenty of room for a computer geek to be creative.

Labels: Misc comments

Why Everyone Should Know Military Time

 

A crusty old Marine Sergeant Major found himself at a gala event hosted by a local liberal arts college. There was no shortage of extremely young, idealistic ladies in attendance, one of whom approached the Sergeant Major for conversation.

"Excuse me, Sergeant Major, but you seem to be a very serious man. Is something bothering you?"

"Negative, ma'am. Just serious by nature."

"The young lady looked at his awards and decorations and said, "It looks like you have seen a lot of action."

"Yes, ma'am, a lot of action."

The young lady, tiring of trying to start up a conversation, said, "You know, you should lighten up a little. Relax and enjoy yourself."

The Sergeant Major just stared at her in his serious manner.

Finally the young lady said, "You know, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but when is the last time you had sex?"

"1955, ma'am."

"Well, there you are. You really need to chill out and quit taking everything so seriously! I mean, no sex since 1955! She took his hand and led him to a private room where she proceeded to "relax" him several times.

Afterwards, panting for breath, she leaned against his bare chest and said, "Wow, you sure didn't forget much since 1955!"

The Sergeant Major, glancing at his watch, said in his matter-of-fact voice, "I hope not, it's only 2130 now."

(Don't ya love miitary time?!)

 

Labels: Misc comments

The Wonders of Text Searching

I took my wife to the mall last night.  While there, we stopped in the book store.  She was interested in a book called Feed Me, I'm Yours, which she read about in the discussion forum that she frequents.  We asked the girl behind the counter if they had the book and where you could expect it to be, and the computer revealed that it was in the store and located among the cookbooks.  We searched the entire rack, and I even went back to search it again, but we could not find the book.

At that point, I began to reflect on how easy it is to find items like that book online.  Looking for that book amongst all of the others on that shelf, having to pull books out when their spine isn't clearly labeled is so, well, analog.  We never did find the book, but when I got in to work this morning I decided to search for it, and it came up on the first try: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/068402862X/qid=1138191222/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-0252250-6755205?s=books&v=glance&n=283155.

Believe it or not, even though I am a gadget geek, I have not entirely adopted ebooks yet.  When I am sitting at my computer, I can always find other things I would like to be doing than reading a book.  I haven't really found a free ebook reader for the Pocket PC that I like yet either. uBook isn't bad, but still has a long way to go in formatting.  I tend to stick to the freeware/open source side of the spectrum because my wife would flip if I tried to drop $15 to $30 on every single program that I thought was cool or highly useful.

Labels: Misc comments

Buyer's Choice Survey of America

I got the Buyer's Choice Survey of American in the mail yesterday.  It asks many questions about my household and our purchases.  The front of the survey (which is several pages) promises to get me coupons, product samples, and special offers, as well as register me for sweepstakes prizes.  I actually don't care much about that. I do recognize that money doesn't solve everything.  My pay stub has come a long way from my days as an 18 year old E-2 making a base pay of $880 a month, and I have more problems to go along with that vast increase in pay stub figures. However, the kicker is that this survey promises to "Reudce unwanted mail- Buyer's choice will help eliminate unwanted mail in categories that don't interest you".  Well, that alone is reason enough to take the survey.

I decided to do a quick web search about this survey.  I turned up this article: http://www.directionsmag.com/press.releases/index.php?duty=Show&id=1381&trv=1.  Apparently, Equifax bought the company.  That's just what we need: the same company that holds our credit reports also handles the direct marketing.  Do you ever feel like we're in some kind of "The Truman Show" for marketers?  We live in a virtual world for them to amuse themselves by watching us.  I have to wonder if advertisers have gotten too much power over our lives, but we did allow it to happen.  Great free services such as the internet and television are brought to us by advertisers.  Yes, we pay an ISP and a cable company respectively, but many of the services that we enjoy on each medium are paid by advertisers.

I think I will fill out the survey however.  The direct marketers need to get their act together.  I get mail from AARP, and I'm only 31 for crying out loud.  Before we junked our landline, I used to get telemarketing calls for retirement condos. I'd like to retire, but I have more years left in the workforce than I've been alive.

Labels: Misc comments

Send THIS To Ten People, or else you're a commie who doesn't love Jesus

I've been getting some really good stuff in my inbox lately.  Some of it has been in the form of inspirational stories, some are beautifully put together Power Point slideshows complete with music.  Some have been very informative such as a history lesson.  And yet, each and every one has been ruined by the end, causing me to delete it rather than to share such a lovely, well put together message with all of my friends, family, and coworkers.  Each one tries to guilt me into sharing it.  I can't explain why, perhaps because of my rebellious nature, that no matter how good one of these emails are, the second that they try to guilt me into passing them along, I simply hit the "DELETE" key and go about my business.

If you must send these emails, STOP INCLUDING THAT STUPID REQUEST TO FORWARD THEM!  I will forward them if I feel like it.  I will decide who is and is not interested among my own contact list of receiving these, and they can decide for themselves whether or not to pass them along.

This is as bad as those stupid chain emails that used to get passed around.  Are you people not able to sleep at night unless you can crank out 10 emails a day and know that each and every person that you send them to will send them to at least 10 other people or feel guilty for the rest of their lives for not doing it?

Labels: Email, Misc comments

A Good Argument For Feng Shui

I used to think that Feng Shui was nothing more than New Age mystical bovine fecal matter, until just last night.  As a Christian, and as I study the Bible more, I find that there is evidence for many of the events and systems that we find in the world, hence the Bible's warnings to stay away from magic, sorcery, divination, etc.  Why warn if there's no such thing to warn against?  I know that Feng Shui has to do with arranging your rooms so that energy can flow through.  It does sound like bunk, but I have noticed something that makes me wonder.

Like many other homes, ours has a wireless router.  My wife keeps a laptop back in the family room of our house so that she can surf the internet, pay bills, and still watch the kids.  Call me a bad father, but I'm not letting my laptop anywhere near my two boys right now, especially since our toddler is implicated in three laptops having been broken or disabled.

My wife has a lot of trouble getting a wireless signal.  She sits on the couch, right at where I always thought the range of the router to be.  The router is at my computer desk on the other end of the house.  It's an older Belkin 802.11b spec router.  I'm hoping to get a new Belkin Pre-N, but I believe that the 802.11n spec just got approved so maybe I should wait for N routers to come out.  I had noticed that my Pocket PC, which is also a b spec, can pick up a signal on the other end of our family room which should technically be further from the router and also behind a wall.  Last night my wife was having problems with her laptop again because the power cord was damaged along with the hard drive and the service department didn't fix the power cord very well.  It's now totally broken.  I was in the middle of setting up an old laptop for my wife to use in the meantime, and I was sitting farther away.  I realized that I had a better signal.  When I got her email and Quicken files put on it, I gave it to her and sure enough, the signal went away.  I took it back to the other side of the room and it worked again.  Either there really is something to Feng Shui or my wife is a wi-fi black hole.  Don't tell her I said that.  She doesn't read my blog.

Labels: Hardware, Misc comments, Telecommunications

Husband and Wife perspectives on wastes of time

My wife and I have our anniversary coming up.  As usual, I lobbied to get away for the weekend.  She almost did agree, but let me know (finally!) that she thinks it's a waste of money.  I've been trying to get us to go away every year, but she always resists.  Now I know why.  What I don't know is why do women not just tell you the truth right away instead of letting 4 years go by while leaving you in the dark as to why she won't let you book a romantic getaway?  At least I finally understand.  I was looking forward to a little romance and maybe 8 hours of sleep (see my previous blog entry).

While we're on the subject of wastes of money, I have a few of my own.  I honestly think that exchanging cards with my wife is a waste of money.  Fortunately, her birthday, our anniversary, and Valentine's Day are within 11 days of each other so I only have to make one trip to the card store each year.  While there, I can purchase overpriced $30 bears with 3 pieces of chocolate.

I was in the card store just tonight.  Do you ever find yourself in the situation of walking in to an empty store and suddenly find yourself surrounded by an immense crowd of people who all want exactly what you came in for?  The funny thing tonight is that it happened to me while I was looking at anniversary cards and the mob was made up of teenagers.  I thought people got married after 30 these days, so what did these kids need with anniversary cards?  Aw, the mysteries of life...

Another thing I see as a total waste of money and time is having professional pictures taken of babies.  It takes a lot of work to get them into the position that you want just to snap a picture.  Of course, the professional places insist on taking several shots so that they can sell you the packages.  They always take the one shot that you came in for last.  Now, when you have a baby and a toddler, trying to get them lined up for a picture is tough.  A toddler doesn't understand sit still.  I almost thought it was funny.  We were trying to get our baby to smile when our toddler just got up and walked away, then the baby smiled.

Hopefully I'll get some sleep one of these days, and I can get back to my usual banter.  Until then, enjoy the sleep deprived rants.

Labels: Misc comments

8 Hours Of Sleep?

Perhaps my current sleep deprived state is a good reason to begin this blog entry. I try to make my writing relevant, but sometimes a good, old fashioned rant has it's purpose. Anyone who has been following my blog (seriously, does anyone read this thing?) knows that I have devoted about 3 entries and 2 podcasts to Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About. I notice a theme in his book that I've seen in many others. It is a theme that I have almost always found to be impossible to live by. I could sooner change my diet completely over to grapefruit and soy milk before I could actually live by this often given advice.

Let me recap. I served 6 years in the Navy. I tend to gravitate toward jobs that require my presence before 0700. OK, my current job is very flexible, but I find that getting in at 0630 saves me a lot of trouble in traffic on both ends of my commute. I'm not a morning person, but this works. I have two small children, currently 17 months and 5 months. My 17 month old has been sick lately, which makes for troubled sleep. He can't just take Nyquil like I can, and I can't really take Nyquil anymore because even when sick I need to be able to function to help my wife out if need be. The baby, of course, is not exactly sleeping through the night. No matter how the kids sleep, I'm up at 0500 each workday. Oh, yeah, I'm also in my "spare" time taking classes toward my degree from the University of Phoenix.

And so, with my family and work responsibilities, and my military background, when I read over and over again in books such as Trudeau's that you should get 8 hours of sleep a night, I honestly wonder who in this country has time to get 8 hours of sleep a night? I would like to take a flying leap with my foot (it doesn't matter which one; whichever is extended at the time) into the stomach of someone who can say with a straight face that I should get 8 hours of sleep a night. I have come to the conclusion that most people who are able to get 8 hours of sleep a night

1) Can't be married
2) Definitely don't have children (at least small ones)
and
3) Don't have a job with enough responsibilities.

I can understand retirees and maybe childless couples who don't watch TV and can set their own work schedules being able to sleep 8 hours is one thing, but to tell an early or mid career family man (or woman, gotta take that into account) with children that they should get 8 hours of sleep a night is frankly a denial of reality. Would you like to come watch my children and keep up my house maintenance while I get those 8 hours?

Labels: Misc comments

A Wish For All The Difficult People In Your Life

I received the following in an email yesterday. I could not resist publishing it for all the world that is not on my email list to see.

Is there anyone you wish this for???

A Wish forAll the Difficult People in Your Life

Labels: Misc comments

For Those Who Have Packed My Parachutes

As a veteran of 6 years in the Navy and 3 in the Navy Reserves, I feel a sentimental attachment to things like this. The following is an email I received today, and I am posting it in it's unedited entirity as a thank you for those who have packed my "parachutes" that I have not known.

Thank you all.

Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in  Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air  missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and  spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now  lectures on lessons learned from that experience!

One day, when  Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up  and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft  carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"

"How in the world did you know  that?" asked Plumb.

"I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb  gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it  worked !" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I  wouldn't be here today."

Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about  that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy  uniform: a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how  many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you?'  or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor."  Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in  the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of  each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Everyone has  someone who provides what they need to make it through the day." He also points  out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over  enemy territory -- he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his  emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these  supports before reaching safety.

Sometimes in the daily challenges that  life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello,  please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has  happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason As  you go through this week, this month, this year, people who pack your parachutes.

I  am sending you this as my way of thanking you for your part in packing my  parachute. And I hope you will send it on to those who have helped pack yours!

Sometimes, we wonder why friends keep forwarding  jokes to us without writing a word. Maybe this could explain it: When you are  very busy, but still want to keep in touch, guess what you do -- you forward  jokes. And to let you know that you are still remembered,  you are still important, you are still loved, you are still cared for, guess  what you get? A forwarded joke.

So my friend, next time when you get a joke, don't think that  you've been sent just another forwarded joke, but that you've been thought of  today and your friend on the other end of your computer wanted to send you a  smile, just helping you pack your parachute.

Labels: Misc comments

I've Fallen, But I Got Back Up

This morning, my wife did something out of the ordinary. She suggested going to Old Country Buffet for breakfast. I enjoy a good breakfast, and it was a suggestion I really appreciated. I knew that she really wanted to go to Target, and offering me breakfast was one way to get me out the door early and into the part of town where the Target she wanted was located.

My son, Joshua, is 6 months old. We got out of my car at OCB (my church's youth minister referred to it as that in a sermon, and the name stuck) and proceeded to get everything ready. We brought the stroller, since he's outgrown the car seats that you can carry. My wife rolled the stroller in, and I wrapped him in a blanket and began to carry him. Just as I stepped onto the sidewalk, I hit a patch of ice that I couldn't see with a blanket wrapped baby obscuring my vision. I went down. As I neared the ground, I involuntarily dropped him. I skinned my knee and my palm, and he landed flat on his back on the cement. He began crying immediately. My wife by this time had entered the building, so I picked him up and ran in. Being an upset mother, she took him and started yelling at me for hitting the ice. After I handed him off, it was time to rub my knee and "lick my wounds". That hurt. I'm only 30, but a lot has changed since the last time I fell. I'm getting old.

When I paid, I let the counter person know that she needs to tell the manager that they need to deal with the ice. There are plenty of people who would use an event like this to get a free ride. I don't happen to be one of them, but the thought is, sadly, tempting.

I think Joshua was more shaken up than anything. While we were eating, my wife mentioned that he wasn't being himself. I commented that I wasn't being myself either. In fact, I think the endorphines were killing my appitite.

The breakfast was good. If you own a business, make sure you keep the sidewalks clear of ice. There is a Home Depot in the same shopping center as that OCB, so there really wasn't an excuse for that.

Ever seen one of those "The Way Things Were" emails, about how when you got hurt it was an accident, and how we used to be able to ride in the back of pick ups? Well, I guess you could say that by accepting that as an accident from which we lived, that we got to relive the good old days.

Labels: Family, Misc comments

Comments on the Recent Snowstorm

I always enjoy some snow. I figure if it's going to snow, we might as well get enough to stay in for a day or so. I really don't mind being snowed in.

On Saturday, 22 Jan 2005, the Philadelphia area got approxamitely 10 inches of snow. At our house in south Jersey, we officially measured 11 inches. I was happy with it, except for the shoveling part, but that's a small price to pay for the wonders of a nice snowstorm.

I enjoyed a really good benefit. Last night the Philly Eagles won their championship game, launching them to the Stuperbowl. Yippee, right? Not for me. I really don't care. I used to be apathetic to sports, but these phsychotic Philly fans have made me darn near anti-sports. We're talking about a city where the Eagles are usually the #3 story on the news after traffic and weather at 0500. This is a city where the 1800 and 2200 (6 and 10, respectively) newscasts have about 25 out of 30 minutes devoted to the Eagles. Most of the coverage features drunks who apparently can't spell anything besides E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES! Around here, when me wife asks to watch the news, I tell her I really don't care to see "Sports and Murders", which is about all it's worth. It really doesn't matter which channel.

The snowstorm was a very nice break from all of that. The "news" ran all afternoon, and hardly said a thing about the Eagles, with a couple of exceptions. Channel 10, the NBC affiliate, of course had a reporter pretty much cemented in the snow at "Lincoln Financial Field" reporting on the 1000 plus workers who were staying overnight to get the stadium ready for the game. What Philly needs is 1000 plus workers staying overnight to clear up the city's accounting, but heh, gotta have priorities, no?

I found it amusing how they kept reporting on all the cars on the road. People were out and about in inclimate weather, getting stuck and holding up traffic, including snowplows and emergency vehicles. Why? Well, most of the people interviewed on camera said "I have to get stuff for the Eagles game". One person said that he had to go to work.

Well, for the record, we knew were were getting a storm, and we bought everything ahead of time and planned to be snowed in. Though a snow emergency was declared for New Jersey, I figured that if I felt an overwhelming urge to get in my car and drive (and I do have four wheel drive), I would suit up in all Eagles clothing. Then if a cop stopped me and asked what I was doing out, I would simply shout "E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" That would most likely force the cop to let me go, since driving because of Eagles related activity seems to be an acceptable excuse around these here parts.

Labels: Misc comments