almost alive

College, Smollege (How to Save $$$$)

2011-11-02T19:10:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to find a bright spot here. Over and over and over I ask former students how they employ the wonderful knowledge they accumulated in college, and invariably the answer is "not at all."

These are students for whom $50,000 or more of public and private money was spent, and they are telling me that it was a waste. Can this really be true? Well, perhaps not entirely. There are the intangibles: meeting people, learning some time management, figuring out how to pretend to be grown up. But there are other ways to get those things.

The reason most people give for going to college is that it is the only way to qualify for a decent job. So, it comes down to a piece of paper - the diploma. OK - thought experiment. If you pay $50,000 for a well-equipped Chevy Tahoe, at least you get something very tangible that you can use immediately and continue using for the next five to ten years. When you spend the same money for a college diploma, you have no real guarantee of anything except that you are enabled to seek a job from the small subset of companies that actually hire college graduates right out of college. Perhaps you have co-op'ed, which, in some fields, such as engineering, gives you a much better chance of landing a good job. Many employers tell me (a) they don't hire students who didn't co-op, and (b) they care much more about the co-op supervisor's report than about the student's grades. Hmmm. Bells ringing. How about skipping the "don't care" part and get right to the useful part. There is a term for this - "apprenticeship." It used to be quite popular in all walks of life, and still is the norm in noble and well-paid professions such as plumbing, electrical work, and similar trades. In most professional disciplines, this is practiced as well - medicine, nursing, pharmacy for example. In those arenas, the classes tend to be focused on things one really needs to know to be successful and/or to avoid killing people. This is not a "university education" in the classical sense. It is really a glorified vocational education.

Sadly, the most enthusiastic students in most colleges are the youngest ones. I would love to see seniors who are full of excitement and enthusiasm, ready to harness their hard-earned knowledge; brimming with ideas - sorry to leave the university, but glad to be moving on. Instead, I see mainly burned-out shells of the excited freshman that came in four-ish years ago. They have learned how to take shortcuts, cheat, cut classes, copy homework. They have figured out, in short, how to play the system to get the diploma and the grades with the least amount of work.

I have generally seen little relationship between grade point average and qualities of people I would be inclined to hire if I were running a company or a not-for-profit. Some of the high-GPA students are certainly excellent, but so are quite a few of the low-GPA students. A lot of the high-GPA students I wouldn't want anywhere near my lab, and I don't believe they could produce a practical system if it jumped up and built itself and stood in front of them and said "here I am."

The pickle we are in is a direct result of the GI Bill that Congress enacted (with good intent) to handle the huge inrush of servicemen coming home after WWII ended. The problem was that there were not enough jobs for these returning GI's. Congress' solution was to give them free or greatly reduced cost college tuition so that they could go to college while the economy adjusted. The problem is that the economy did adjust, but not in the intended way. Universities saw the GI Bill as manna from heaven. Their enrollments surged, and the tab was being picked up by the U.S. Government. Accountability and standards naturally declined, and enrollments surged even further. Quickly, the college diploma replaced the high-school diploma as the "must-have" ticket to employment.

That's pretty much where we are now, except that costs have increased so much that families are burdened with heavy debt, as are graduating students, just to earn that precious piece of paper.

As I said, I'm looking for a bright spot. I think I've seen a glimmer of it just around the corner. Online education is starting to get respectable, and more employers are begining to take note. Traditional universities are developing strategies for online delivery that still involves face-to-face meetings with teachers, lab exercises, paper tests, and much of the look and feel of a traditional classroom experience. I have a feeling that market pressure will continue to encourage this. Yes, there is something "special" about going off to college, but if we are honest, it has very little to do with learning. My recommendation (maybe 10 years from now) - get a degree online, and meanwhile, go to a third-world country and help people, join an adventure club, volunteer, read, learn a musical instrument, and fall in love.

Memorial for Butterscotch

2010-08-31T19:18:00.000-07:00

I know rabbits are low on the food chain, but they can make wonderful pets. Ours died yesterday, and I miss him. He had a beautiful coat of fur – mostly white, with brown and black patches. We named him Butterscotch. He was very clean and used a litter box even though he lived outdoors in a hutch, so I knew something was wrong when I saw he was matted with excrement. I realized he had diarrhea. If I had known how critical his illness was, I would have rushed him to the animal hospital, but in my ignorance I cleaned him up and assumed he would get better. That was Saturday. Monday morning he was lying in his cage in his usual posture, eyes wide open, seeming to watch me come up to the cage, but he was lifeless.

We got him shortly after Easter of 2009. Sara’s school friend got one, and she wanted one too. Tom Wadsworth gave us a hutch. To this day I’m not sure how he knew we needed one, but it was a great blessing.

I worried and fretted about everything to make Butterscotch comfortable. I fenced off a little area of the lawn for him to play in – his “playpen”, and when he was small we kept a keen watch out for hawks. He would come in the house often and he loved to walk around and smell everything. He didn’t mind the dog and cat a bit. Sometimes he would lie in my lap for 30 minutes or more and just snuggle. His coat was the softest thing I’ve ever felt, and he liked to push his nose down into the crook of my elbow.

Tammy’s Dad, Mike, taught us that rabbits love to have you run your fingers down their spine. When I did that to Butterscotch he would spread out his legs and flatten himself against the ground in obvious pleasure. Sometimes he would get so caught up in it he would flip right over on his side. We could also get him to turn around in circles by putting a finger next to his nose and drawing a circle on the ground with it.

Several times, at Sara’s insistence, we put a small collar on him and tried to walk him around the yard. He always seemed to hate it- he would desperately try to pull toward the bushes at the edge of the yard. One day it suddenly dawned on me that being out in the open was probably against all of a rabbit’s instincts. No wonder he was upset. We didn’t do that anymore.

He had a few toys, but none that he played with too much. However, if you held out a stick toward him, he would grab the free end and tug on it. He was really strong and he could usually get it away from you. If you held a stick vertically, he would gnaw on it. He could make short work out of anything wood with his sharp front teeth.
Through the winter, which happened to be quite cold here this year, I insisted on putting him in our garden shed to protect him from the wind. The shed has two large windows, and I put in lights. He wintered well there, but many mornings I had to thaw his water bottle. I wanted to put in a heater, but Mike assured me that rabbits are well protected against the cold by their fur, and as long as they are out of the wind they can tolerate temperatures well below zero.

In the spring, he had grown enough that I wanted to get him a bigger hutch. I mentioned this to several people. Cliff Knight at church heard about it and gave us one that he had. Butterscotch moved up to the big time! I built him a weather box; an almost fully enclosed wooden box that fit inside the hutch where he could go to keep out of the rain and wind.

Around March, when he turned a year old, he began to dig a burrow in his playpen area of the yard. This caught me off guard. At first I assumed he was trying to dig out under the low fence I had erected. But instead, he was digging from the edge in toward the center. He was very precise in his routine, and very remarkable in his accomplishment. He used his forepaws to dig, then his teeth to remove rocks and roots. After a few minutes of digging he would turn around and push the loose material with his forelegs into a mound near the entrance to the burrow. Within a few days, working about 10 minutes each day, he dug a foot deep and far enough underground so I could no longer see him when he went in. Sometimes to get him out I would gently prod with a stick and he would scramble backwards out of the burrow in an obvious huff. He had a number of different sounds, none of them loud, but very distinct. He had no trouble expressing himself. Sometimes I would tease him by putting a stick across the entrance to his burrow. That would make him mad – he would grab it in his mouth and flip it away with a toss of his head. Then he would chirp angrily.

Mostly, I just enjoyed his rather silent company. When anyone came outside to play or work, he would observe from his hutch with calm interest. You never had the sense that he wanted to come out and join; he just liked that there was activity around. When I mowed the grass, I would make sure to give him a handful of the clippings, much to his great delight.

When I think of all the time and energy we invested into this one lowly creature some might say it wasn’t worth it, but I disagree. We had a wonderful bunny for a year and a half. We loved him the best we could, and he loved us back; of that I’m sure. We will miss you Butterscotch!

A Mad Dash to Manhattan

2010-07-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

We recently made a trip to meet with family in Pennsylvania, and were honored to be invited to stay with my niece Rebekkah and her family (son Shannon, husband Ben, Griffin the BIG sweet dog who thinks he should be a lapdog but can't quite fit anymore, and a furtive cat whom I promise I will get to know better next time) nearby in New Jersey. On Sunday morning an errant neuron in my brain spawned a nutty idea: maybe we could go into New York City for the day; just maybe. It was still about 6:00 a.m., but as I stumbled to the coffee pot I mentioned this to Ben, for whom all things are "no problem." About 10 minutes later, with input from Ben and Rebekkah, I had a detailed description of an itinerary that was not just do-able, but actually sounded fun. Now I just needed an accomplice. I cajoled my sister Meredith, who, up to that moment, was envisioning a relaxing day reading and napping. With only that much preparation, I finally lit the fuse. Tammy - how would you and Sara like to go to New York today? (She had never been, but always dreamed of it.) I can't even try to describe the flurry of activity that ensued, but a short while later we were buzzing along I-76 toward Newark Penn Station with the Tom-Tom cranking out instructions by the second. Once there we parked at the first parking lot we encountered and walked across the street into the train station. I've always loved trains & train stations - I think it's in my blood. My Father's father was a Pennsylvania Railroad man. For $10 per person (Sara was free) we got round trip tickets to New York Penn Station. (My sister Laurie is right - consider the plight of the hapless foreigner who has to distinguish between New York Penn Station and Newark Penn Station as they are announced on the nearly unintelligible PA system!). The train was amazingly comfortable, especially if you are used to sitting on airplanes. On this one, you entered the car and then could choose to go upstairs or downstairs. We went upstairs, seated ourselves very easily, and soon the train started, almost noiselessly. As we rode across the New Jersey marshlands the view was hyper-industrial. Lots of electrical distribution, chemical storage, warehouses. Very sci-fi and grungy, but with a beauty all its own. Then the train slowed as it came to a slight rise, and suddenly all of Manhattan was visible across the Hudson River. Wow! The train proceeded, but more slowly. Then we began descending, and suddenly we were in the tunnel that would take us under the Hudson and beneath the streets of Manhattan, until we stopped at Penn Station, NY, directly under Madison Square Garden. Total train time- about 15 minutes. When we got off the train, we followed the signs to street level and were greeted by the most fantastic urban view anywhere. I snapped a photo of Tammy with Macy's in the background (how appropriate :)), and then after doing the newbie tourist 360, we hailed a cab for our first stop - MOMA. MOMA is the self-said acronym for the Museum of Modern Art. The cab ride was fast and glorious. I paid the fare (about $11 for the 4 of us) with a credit card since there was a swiper in the back seat, but I gave the driver his tip in cash, which he greatly appreciated. Once inside MOMA, Meredith had the presence of mind to ask the cashier, um, you don't actually have Egyptian artifacts, do you? The answer of course was "no - that's not exactly modern art." That's when I realized Rebekkah had named our first stop as The Metropolitan Museum of Art. See the similarity? They both have M's and A's. I make silly goofs like that all the time. Another quick cab ride, and we were at the "Met", which really does have Pharaohs and Mummies and such. Also, Monet's, Rembrandts, and various Italians. The Met is REALLY big. You can get REALLY tired going from one end to the other and from floor to floor. But it is unimaginably wonderful, and glorious, and, well, pick your favorite superlative - it fits. Hungry now, we all got hotdogs from a street vendor in front of the museum (5th Ave.), and headed for our 2nd stop - the Plaza Hotel (made famous by "Eloise at the Plaza). We walked south along 5th Avenue from the front of the Metropolitan Museum to the Plaza Hotel, a distance of 23 blocks (1.4 miles according to the GPS on my phone). Central Park was on our right the entire way, and several times we detoured into the park; once we watched the sailboats on the pond. It was hot, and we stopped several times, but the sidewalk was a never-ending moving conveyor of color and sound. Since it was Sunday, most people were tourists like us, or vendors trying to sell things to tourists like us. When we finally made it to the Plaza, we were treated like royalty (and paid like it too - two coffees, a soft drink, creme brulee, and ice cream = $55 plus tip!). While we were in the Plaza, a vigorous rainstorm blew up, and thankfully cooled off the city markedly. When we went back outside, it felt 20 degrees cooler and it was still raining lightly. No one minded - we bought two umbrellas from an enterprising vendor ($5 each), and continued south on 5th Ave. We were headed for glitz and glam shopping, but suddenly there was Tiffany's. The real deal. I think they use laser beams and mirrors or something, but I've never seen so much sparkling. The first floor is amazing, but actually tame compared with the 2nd floor, which the directory identifies as "Spectacular Jewelry." Indeed. It's not even worth describing - just use your imagination and you'll probably get a good sense of it. After I dragged Tammy out, we kept walking, but when we got to St. Patrick's Cathedral (W. 51st St. and 5th Ave.)the rain got heavier, so we took cover under some renovation. Sense took over from valor, and we hailed a cab to Bloomingdales. Leaving Tammy and Meredith there, I took Sara out front, hailed a cab, and whisked her off to almost-9 dreamland, aka American Girl Place. I enjoyed it almost as much as she did (not sure what that says about me), and she bought Rebecca with a few accessories. Cab ride back to Bloomies, cab ride for all of us back to Penn Station, quick dash into Borders, dive downstairs, catch the train back to NJ, and on the road back home. We stopped at the Clinton Diner which has a sign declaring "Lots of Good Food Inside!" Indeed there was, and we ate a lot of it.

My testimony

2009-11-23T22:23:00.000-08:00

Christians are evangelical in principle and in practice. Each one of us has a testimony to share and has witnessed God's overwhelming grace and mercy very personally. If someone does you an unexpected kindness such as returning a lost wallet, you will likely tell a number of people, and be expressive of your thankfulness. Your gratefulness will certainly depend on what it cost that person to help you. Our instinct is to repay the cost of the favor or to tender a reward. How infinitely grateful are we, therefore, who been saved from hell into heaven by the death of Jesus upon the cross. We fall into error when try to repay our salvation by doing good things to please God. The only good thing He requires or counts is believing in the death of Jesus as the full and permanent atonement for our sin.

Like so many in this world, I was raised into a world-view that didn't include God, except as a cultural icon; a somewhat important but archaic concept that had a significant impact only in a broad sense, but not at the individual level. I tinkered with the things of God a few times growing up- going to special church services once or twice, especially when we visited relatives on vacation. I briefly joined a youth group, but more as a social activity. Nevertheless into this vacuum came God pursuing me. At the age of 33 I had a transformational experience. I was wrestling one night with dark thoughts. I was scheduled to fly across the country the next day, and I could not get the image out of my mind of dying in a plane crash. My mind would not let up on imagining the terrible final moments, and on what would happen to me after dying. I drifted into a fitful sleep, but then I was suddenly wide awake with a person standing next to me. At first I sensed it was somehow my father who had come into my childhood room; but in a fleeting instant I recalled that I was grown up and he lived far away. The person in the room introduced Himself to me as Jesus and asked why I was rejecting Him constantly. I had no answer. He asked me if I would let Him into my heart and allow Him to become Lord of my life, in return for which I would need to have no fear of death. These were terms and expressions I was not familiar with. My response was "OK - I'll give it a try." I remember nothing further except waking up in the morning with a completely changed heart, and a Spirit within that had previously been vestigial but was now fully alive and in control of all my thoughts and actions. I hungered and thirsted for the Word of God from that day on. While some of the initial exuberance of that first day of my new life has tempered, by no means has there been any abatement of my enthusiasm for the deep things of God. Twenty years later I can truly say that each day I wake with a refreshed soul and spirit, and I look forward to walking with God in the paths that he has prepared.

Many books and articles have been written by the learned ones of our time about how religious experience is a remnant function of a particular part of the brain; sort of a religion appendix. Indeed, experiments have shown that religious ecstasy can be induced repeatably by probing this area. The implication is that experiences like mine are not real- they are just brought about by external triggers that stimulate the brain's religion centers. They argue that there was some as-yet undiscovered evolutionary advantage to this behavior.

I see it very differently. Surely He who created us would endow us with the necessary functionality to commune with him. Is it really any wonder that God would put a "God-phone" in our brains so that we could call on Him and experience closeness with Him at any time?

Cash for Clunkers is a clunker

2009-08-06T18:39:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or is there something very, very wrong with the "cash for clunkers" mentality? Destroying working cars is a bizarre 180 on the depression-era approach of scrimping, saving, and making do with what you have. Giving people money that is not their own to encourage them to take out loans for cars they don't really need is even more wacko. Now that we have proof based on simple engineering calculations (which anyone could have surmised) that it is actually more harmful to the environment to produce a new car than to keep driving an old one, there is no good reason imaginable for this program. I'll keep driving my two clunkers (combined age of 27 years) as long as they will keep going. I have no car payments, so I tolerate the inevitable repair bills. As a bonus, my car tags are really cheap. Of course I understand the theory that this will kickstart the economy, but what happens in a few months? Even if the economy does pick up in general, the auto industry will be in a pickle because everyone already bought their new cars, and loan defaults will probably skyrocket - I don't imagine the dealers are being really picky about who they sell to right now. I hope the health care package includes ulcer treatment; I think I'll need it.

Health Insurance or Health Care?

2009-07-17T14:11:00.001-07:00

Congress is all wrapped up trying to solve the wrong problem right now. "Health insurance for everyone!" is the cry as the debate rages on in Washington and across the nation. What we need is health CARE for everyone - a much different proposition. The problem is that we have become secularized to the point that the federal government is assuming roles that used to be performed by family and church. In the great Chicago fire, not one dime of federal money was spent to assist. None was ever expected. No one suggested impeaching the president because he didn't respond fast enough. No one imagined that as a role for the federal government. Now it's expected to fix every little scrape and bruise for everyone in the whole country. The wrong people are in charge of health care: money-grubbers and financial wizards who are focused on dollars instead of patients. We think it's normal to have giant health-care corporations. That's not normal, it's sickening. Hospitals should be non-profit, Christ-centered, people-oriented havens where love and health care are dispensed in equal measure. A trip to the doctor should involve questions like "what's going on in your life?" as a regular and normal part of the examination. The only people who really benefit from health insurance are the insurance companies. There was a time in our existence as a nation when no one had health insurance. Doctor fees were reasonable, treatment was much more careful and specific, drug companies were not in cut-throat competition to push out the latest copycat drug that they could charge outrageously for, and when a family faced medical expenses they could not afford, friends, family, and church gathered their resources to help. I believe that is much closer to the way God intends for us to live than anything being proposed in Washington.

Luke 10:27

"...'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Energy Policy as Religion

2009-07-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

I was doing some research to guide my thinking about the current Energy bill before Congress, H.R. 2454, known formally as "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009." I thought I was on to something useful in the form of a government-wide research program report from the United States Global Change Research Program. ("The USGCRP began as a presidential initiative in 1989 and was mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606)...") Sadly mistaken was I, as Yoda might say. In Washington, it seems that all responsible scientific inquiry has been thrown, nay catapulted violently, out the window. The particular report I just referred to is a vigorous defense of the human-induced global warming hypothesis, combined with an undisguised partisan diatribe against the opposing view. Your tax dollars at work. There are plenty of alternative viewpoints. For example, see the U.S Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works minority page here.

My personal view is that our Creator, the Lord God, has created the world and its environment for the benefit of his special creation, namely us. We have a very serious responsibility to use resources wisely and in a way that demonstrates our love for our Creator and utmost respect for His creation. Sadly, many people in the world have become worshipers of creation rather than worshipers of the Creator. My free-thinking, tolerant liberal friends, for example, can't seem to tolerate the idea that the climate might actually change (doesn't it do that anyway?). They keep changing the terminology on us. When (and why) did we switch from "global warming" to "climate change" as the name of the evil thing. I think God gave us oil reserves to use wisely, and so we should. The current idea that we should replace them with solar and wind is techologically, economically, and environmentally unsound. I recently calculated the area of solar cells needed to power my medium-sized town, population around 40,000. We would need about 1 square mile of panels to replace the grid. That's one square mile of sun not falling on the ground. Talk about environmental and economic impact. Wind farms are at least as bad- very costly and also harmful to the environment through low-frequency noise, bird injury, and airstream deflection. We should conserve energy (waste not, want not my parents always taught), but we need not be afraid to use it if it provides a benefit. Unmasked, "green" is a religion, not a science. It is idol worship, the idol being planet earth.

Exodus 20: 3-4

3 "You shall have no other gods before me.

4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Freedom of Choice Act

2009-01-17T14:46:00.000-08:00

The so-called Freedom of Choice Act is a horrible attempt to sweep away all laws aimed at protecting innocent human life in the womb. Barack Hussein Obama has promised to sign it (thereby legalizing the murder of babies at taxpayer expense) as soon as he takes office. Here's a link to keep track of the Senate version:

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-s1173/show

and here's a link to the House version:

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h1964/show

Freedom

2008-12-29T19:28:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Kevin Webb, preaching at Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn on Sunday, December 28, 2008, for this collection of verses from the Gospel of John. The sermon topic was the freedom we have in Christ. Not freedom to do as we please, but freedom from being enslaved to sin, so that we are free to do the will of God, and to receive the blessing of eternal life.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 6:35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. "

John 7:37-38 ...Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

John 10:27-30 Jesus answered, "...My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."

John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die...."

John 12:44-46 Then Jesus cried out, "When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. "

John 12:49-50 "...For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that His command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say."

John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. "

High Resolution, Bye Resolution

2008-12-01T19:20:00.000-08:00

In my college days, we invited each other over to listen to our favorite music on giant speakers hooked up to tech'ed-out stereos. The more, the merrier. The acceptable sources were vinyl records or reel-to-reel tape. We got fired up about hearing the highs ("hear that high-hat cymbal crash !") and feeling the lows rattle our bones. This was a shared experience, although usually the guys got the best seats, nearest the stereo "sweet spot." The girls were usually not as enthusiastic anyway, so they didn't mind being pushed to the side a little. We were careful to make sure the speakers were hooked up right so we didn't get a phasing disaster. On a good night with good equipment, we admired the lack of 60-cycle hum, high-end hiss, pops and clicks, and all the other analog distractions that could dampen our listening pleasure. Some geeks got into 4-channel surround, but that was way out for most of us. We dreamed up all kinds of technological developments - multichannel surround, walls full of individual speakers for each instrument, direct-digital recording.

What we never dreamed of was mp3.

If someone had told us that the next generation would be listening to their music through individual earbuds as small as a pea, using compression to purposely ruin the audio quality and dynamic range, we would have reeled with laughter. But apparently, portability trumps quality. Another case in point: telephones. My generation still clings to their "home phones" or "land lines" as we ex-sailors (well, OK, I know some ex-sailors) like to call them, even though we have become just as dependent upon our wireless devices as are the younger generation. This generation of college students will likely see no need for home phones when they graduate and settle into homes. But there is a catch. The reason we older folks like our land lines is because we know something the kids don't (and don't really care about that much): the voice quality is better, unless you are one of the three people left whose wireless service is from Sprint. There are very simple technological reasons for this, but the bottom line is that for those really, really important conversations, especially with older relatives, I want the absolute best connection I can get, and that is still a land line. The "providers" (aka the telephone companies) measure this numerically as QoS, which stands for quality of service. They use specific voice-encoding methods to trade off coverage for sound quality, cost, and a host of other stuff. I switched from Sprint to Verizon for the coverage, but quickly discovered I had suffered a major drop in QoS. But guess what? - I stayed with Verizon, proving that, even for me, portability trumps quality. Worldwide, voice service is a break-even, no-growth business for all the wireless companies. They make their money from text messaging (it costs them next to nothing to provide, and they charge oodles for it) and 3G services, like music & video downloads. Guess who does all that? Certainly not folks my age! (Yes, people actually do pay for ringtones. I still can't believe it.)

So.....right now, the big thing is home theater. Get the biggest monster high-definition monitor, subscribe to the high-def channels, get BluRay....get the picture? I'll bet in one generation it will all be gone, replaced by kids watching compressed videos downloaded on-the-go to their low-res wireless terminals, oblivious to what they are missing. We old folks will be snickering while we watch The Godfather, re-released on BluRay, on our 80-inch widescreens. If we get lucky, maybe we will be able to get the soundtrack on a vinyl LP on eBay and invite some friends over to listen to it with us on our big stereo with awesome speakers.

Christmas lights

2008-11-29T09:50:00.001-08:00

I have been promising Tammy I would put up outdoor Christmas lights for years. I finally did it this year, but not without trepidation, a la Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation. We have an older house with very limited electrical circuits, and no outside receptacles. After consulting with a relative who is an electrician, I was somewhat encouraged to learn that I could legally (though not necessarily safely) use my outside light fixutres as receptacles. On a nice day recently I went to the hardware store, where I sifted through the seemingly infinite variety of lights - LED, rope, mini, crystal, etc. to find just the right assortment. I wanted to make a refined, upscale statement, to the effect of "yes, your neighbors are putting up lights, but don't worry - we're NOT the goobers who design an entire outdoor panorama with flying Santas that attracts thousands of people a night and makes it onto Youtube. We are much more gracious and refined than that. We know this isn't that type of neighborhood." But then I realized how cheap they are. I brought home 1500 lights for our little front yard. I also got three 50-foot extension cords, adapters to convert light fixtures to receptacles, GFI multi-tap outlets, a timer, and....oh, my...I went kind of crazy. But on the bright side, the nice man in Home Depot offered me $25 off my purchase if I opened a store account. I figured hey, I'll save money AND I don't have to tell Tammy how much I spent....right now. The most fun purchase was the cable tacker tool, which costs $20. It's a staple gun with a channel in the center which makes it easy to staple light cords, using special staples. Anyway, I got the lights strung along the split-rail fence, the eaves, and various other structures. We got out the lighted, animated buck (gift from Tammy's Mom & Dad) and hooked him up too. From a certain angle he looks like he's grazing on the multi-colored lighted wreath on the cross-shaped flower hanger, but the theological implications are not intentional. I was extremely nervous about flicking on the outside light switch that operates the whole thing, but it went smoothly, and even seems to work fine (so far) after a heavy rain. I haven't told Tammy about the 150-light multi-colored, 16-function light set I bought to decorate the shed. That's my surprise for next week. I wonder if there's a 12-step program for holiday light addiction.

Long Nap

2008-11-08T18:02:00.000-08:00

I just woke up from a long nap and discovered some guy named Obama was elected president, General Motors is nearly bankrupt, my Mother died, and one of my closest friends is really ill. I think I'll go back to sleep.

OK, first let me check on my retirement fund..... AIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!

Smart Boards vs. Blackboards

2007-09-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

My colleague was out in the community today evaluating use of technology in the local schools. She told me the grade schools have better equipment than we do at the university. They have magic whiteboards that the students point to and draw on in color. The high school students produce a school news TV show every morning. All the talk these days is about democratic teaching, engaging the students etc. It's intriguing, but I have to sound like an old codger. I like the way we did it back in the day. (1) Show up on time, (2) shut up, (3) behave, (4) listen to the teacher, (5) do your work, (6) repeat. It didn't really matter what your "learning modality" was, or your attention span, or your home circumstances. Just do what you're told, and sink or swim according to your competence. That's not very popular in schools these days, but oddly enough it still seems to be relevant to the workplace. Hmmm - can anybody find the disconnect here?

I accidentally appointed myself to be on the space allocation committee for our church. (I'm one of the lucky ones who gets to tell the "senior saints" that they have to meet at a different time and in different rooms with different people. That's gonna go over REALLY well. I don't think I'll be getting any homemade baked goodies for a long while.) As part of this awesome responsibility, I was let in on a cool secret. The pastor has a secret hideaway. I can't tell you where it is (unless you let me come to see you on visitation night), but I saw it as empty space on the building plan, and later I watched him duck into the unmarked door after prayer meeting. Hah! One wag on the committee suggested we ought to assign a sunday school class to meet in there and see what he says.

First Day of Kindergarten

2007-09-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe it's finally here - Sara's first day of kindergarten. I was trying to remember everything I could about my own kindergarten. It was 1962 and we lived in Columbus Ohio. Amazingly, I recalled my teacher's name (Mrs. White), and the pumpkins we grew. I also have a pretty good recollection of the room we met in. I remember sneezing and being sternly reminded to cover my face with my hands. I remember a paper turkey with its brightly colored feathers.

Kindergarten and preschool teachers are the most important influences on our society outside the family. They should be recognized and celebrated. I would say we should pay them enormously, but then the wrong kinds of people would be attracted to the profession. Why don't we have a pre-school teacher's day, Hallmark? You've got a day for everything else.

Free Country?

2007-09-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

It’s great to live in a free country. Well, let’s think about that. This is NOT a "down on the USA" rant, just a reflection of the reality that civilization brings with it an awful lot of mostly self-imposed restrictions.

We are so used to these that we largely overlook their existence, but we delight, sometimes too much, in enforcing them on each other.

I was driving to church last week, and passed by a house with a handmade sign in the yard “Toby and Mary’s Community Group.” Of course I had to wonder what insidious counter-cultural activity was taking place under the guide of “Community Group.” Lots of fun possibilities raced through my mind ( vegetarian jugglers, wife swapping, poetry reading, communists, or maybe vegetarian, wife-swapping, poetry-reading communist jugglers), but in fact it could have been, and probably was, just plain, ordinary Christians meeting for a Bible study. I surmised that they were embroiled in some sort of controversy with neighbors and the city zoning commission due to the number of “visitors” and the associated parking problems.

Think this is a free country? The student group I advise at my university has been trying for several years to perform some fundraising. They got the football team to autograph a football to be raffled off. Not allowed – that’s considered “selling” the names of the team. (Not that it can’t be done, it just has to be done by the U. so they get all the money.) They tried to sell doughnuts and coffee. Nope- health code, taxes, exclusive licenses, etc.. They tried to set up a little store in the electrical engineering building to sell electronics parts. Nope – need authority from the governor, several senators, the IRS, and probably the football coach, who knows.

If you really want to explore how free our “free” country is, try starting a business. I mean, starting from scratch. Find a nice piece of land. First hurdle – zoning. If the zoning matches the exact type of business you intend to pursue, purchase the lot. You will discover lots more restrictions and requirements at this step, especially if there is any credit involved. Build a store. Try building it yourself. How many different inspections will you have to pay for and pass, but probably won’t the first three times because the powers that be are in bed (sometimes quite literally) with the local builders and really don’t like to see folks doing their own work? Got the store built – great. Now, get all your annual operating licenses. Get your state and federal government tax ID numbers. If you intend to hire anyone, get ready for a veritable flood of paperwork, requirements, licenses, and more restrictions. The fun never stops. Oh, and make sure you keep up your landscaping and have the right amount of green space, buffer zone, and porous cover.

In our “free” country, it’s fun to send a child to “free” public school. How many hundreds of dollars do you have to spend on mandatory supplies throughout each year?

I know most of the ordinances and public policy are designed to minimize conflicts and maximize quality of life for everyone, but some are just onerous. I’m especially offended by neighborhood “covenants” that dictate such petty things as forbidding residents to own vehicles with lettering on them. We have friends who were afraid to be cited by their neighborhood association because their garage was too cluttered – there were a couple of kids toys visible from the street. A fantasy of mine is to make a lot of money and buy one of these houses. One night I would erect a huge plastic Mickey Mouse on the roof, then spray paint the outside pink and orange. I would set up plastic pink flamingos all around, and park a pickup on the lawn with some clever business signage, like “John’s Septic Cleaning and Pressure Washing.” Some chickens feeding in the yard would top it off. Then in the morning I would take small home-made cakes to all the neighbors. Ah, what fun to contemplate.

2007-09-09T21:30:00.000-07:00

Football season is here again. The casual greeting throughout the week is “goin’ to the game?” This is like asking “how are you” and expecting the reply “fine – you?” Any answer other than “sure – you?” stops people in their tracks. I delight in answering no, and waiting for it to sink in. “But – why?” “Because I can’t stand football.” I usually don’t actually say that because it takes too long to explain, but it is the way I feel. Not because I care about the game itself one way or another, but because mainstream college football with its present trappings is absolutely ridiculous. It’s not the only drawer of large crowds – certainly professional soccer and rock concerts are right up there, but it is the unrivaled hypocrisy that galls me. This is an activity that pretends to be associated with university life, which should be primarily the life of the mind including activities such as studying, thinking, considering, pondering, and discoursing. Instead it breeds and feeds on a very unsavory set of character traits.

I suggest the following changes to college football:
(1) No more football “scholarships.” College scholarships should be awarded to students with good grades in high school who could not otherwise afford to attend college. Period.
(2) No recruiting of high school players. If a student is in college and he is earning A’s and B’s, and he wants to play football in his spare time, great - let him do that.
(3) No time away from classes for football players. They should practice and play in their spare time. No pampering, special dorms, tutoring, etc.
(4) If the team wants to play a team from another school, all travel should be at the students’ own expense, not the schools’. Students should pay for their own uniforms and protective gear also. If there is any additional medical insurance cost, the student should also pay for that.
(5) Football game scheduling should in no way conflict with regular academics, including access to student, staff, and faculty parking.
(6) The football coach(es) salaries should be paid directly from the teaching budget of the university, and should be subject to all the rules and restrictions that pertain thereto.

With these changes in place, we would have something closer to true amateur athletics. Perhaps then a parallel career track would arise for gifted athletes, distinct from any association with a college or university, that would feed directly into the professional leagues. These athletes could focus on their sport, and not be hampered by having to pretend to go to college. If they wanted to earn a college degree also, they would have several choices, including night school, vocational / technical school, and online degrees.

2007-08-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

I've been watching hurricane Dean make its trek across the Carribean. It's a monster storm, but thankfully it looks like it will miss most heavily populated areas. We've suffered through the worst drought in memory here where I live. Crops have turned to stubble, fires spring up almost unprovoked, the air is harsh and dusty. In other parts of the country, floods have done terrible damage.

The human race will enter a new era when we are able to control the weather globally. Several thousand years ago, we learned to cultivate. We are now able to cause the plants we select to start growing in the locations we choose. However, the pitiful truth is that, for the most part, we have no way to guarantee that they will actually grow. Couple this with the life and property loss due to flooding and other weather effects, and you have a very good case for global weather management.

Ahh, you say, but it can't be done.... the amount of energy required is far beyond our capability to deploy and control. Well, maybe not. We know a lot about chaos theory. One instance is the so-called "butterfly effect," which purports that the wing-flap of a butterfly is enough to start a chain reaction that can lead to the development of a hurricane. The mathematical underpinnings are well-understood. The bottom line is that there are events of such complexity (like weather) that tiny changes in the initial conditions will cause completely different final outcomes. On one day, stomping your foot on a snow-covered mountain might do nothing. The next day, it might cause an avalanche. For weather prediction, this is usually seen in a negative light. After all, how can we possibly predict the formation of a hurricane, or when it will rain, if it depends so critically on so many parameters? Seemingly even more remote is the ability to control these events.

My optimistic alter-ego predicts that eventually, we will not only be able to predict such events, but control them. The very fact that the weather is chaotic gives us the "hook" we need to gain control. As our understanding of chaos theory improves, I suspect we will learn that there are certain points in the development of chaotic behavior (e.g., the formation of a rainstorm) that respond predictably to small energy inputs. This might be in the form of an acoustic impulse, a flash of laser light, or something else. I suspect that we will also learn that the pattern of control input can be tailored to produce the desired outputs (amount of rain, etc.). We might design large-scale arrays of stimulators (imagine dozens of sound generators spaced several kilometers apart in strategic global locations) that, under computer control, maintain some measure of control over the daily global weather patterns. Hmmm. But who gets to choose the weather...

2007-08-15T21:43:00.000-07:00

Wild Summer / Health Care pain

It's been a wild summer. My students and I have been working on a robot project. We're trying to get six robots to communicate with each other as they search through a building to find a target. Since the robots are relatively dumb and have few sensors, this is a real challenge. The more I work on robots, the more I'm amazed by humans, dogs, cockroaches, ..in fact, anything alive.

We have spent countless hours at the city pool. Sara loves to swim anywhere we can find water. This was the summer of learning to dive, snorkel, surf on Dad's back, and wear a bikini. The latter I could have waited for. Sara will be six soon (Sept. 3), which hardly seems possible. Her mind is an astoundingly complex labyrinth, and fathoming it is becoming more and more of a challenge. Fortunately, it is quite beautiful for the most part, and seems to have very little of deviousness and purposeful rebellion.

So - now we can get down to brass tacks. Something is horribly wrong with our medical care system. I've watched and listened as my Mother has had to fight her way through a completely debilitating morass of paper, people, and institutionalized ignorance to get help for her comparatively minor medical problems. The frustration has occassionally moved her to tears. My sister has taken significant time from work (thanks to the Family Medical Leave Act) to help, but it's daunting nevertheless.

I've had my own such experiences, and from them I've learned that you absolutely must take complete charge of your own medical care. You simply cannot expect the system to provide any continuity of information. Minutes before I was sedated for my recent colonoscopy, I spoke with the doctor to remind him of exactly why he had scheduled my procedure and what he was looking for. He told me he appreciated that, since he didn't have a record of our conversation from six weeks prior, and he was trying to remember why he was doing this! Is this incompetence? Not by today's standards - it's normal now.

This nation's health care information infrastructure is in shambles, just as the transportation system is in shambles. This is largely due to population growth, but both problems are fairly easy to solve from a technical point of view. Public attitudes, especially from suspicious liberals, are the great hindrance. There is such an outcry about privacy violation and big-brother-ism every time systemic fixes, such as a national medical database and automated highway systems (the road drives your car in metro areas), are brought up. I think we are just going to have to swallow some of those bitter pills lest we choke on the alternatives.

2007-04-29T22:18:00.000-07:00

I installed a dishwasher today to replace the one that failed and ruined our kitchen floor. Installing a dishwasher is easy, in principle. So is giving yourself a root canal, in principle. After all, there are only three connections - water, drain, and electricity (well, five if you count each of the three wires).

Now, if you plan to do this yourself, here's a suggestion for preparing your body. Have someone tie each of your limbs into a fantastically awkward position, then stuff your head and half your torso into a very small box. Then repeatedly bang your head against the box (ideally until callouses form on your scalp). Now with a half-dead flashlight, repeatedly assemble and disassemble several types of pipes and hose clamps inside the box. After practicing like this for a few days, you should be ready to tackle the real thing.

For more realism, you can breathe some intensely moldy air for a few hours, have a dog nipping at your ears, and try to respond to a five-year old's questions about why her computer game is not working (for those who don't have one handy, five-year olds can be found at any neighborhood park, and can probably be borrowed with their parents' eager permission for an hour or two).

After the installation comes the nerve-wracking part: checking for leaks. For some reason when I do plumbing, my drain connections ALWAYS leak, whereas my high-pressure inlet connections never do. Such was the case today. On the first run, I had water gushing out of the connection between two sections of drain line. I finally fixed it with brute force applied to a hose clamp, but I still had to keep monitoring all the connections for leaks for hours, and I probably will keep worrying for a week.

Motrin is really missing the boat - they should have a display in Home Depot right next to the dishwasher installation accessories. Anyway, the dishwasher seems to be working OK - for now.

2007-03-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

I decided to take Sara to a baseball game last Sunday. She's 5, and I thought it was high time we did some sports-related bonding. I'm not a sports aficionado, and I've never been to our local university baseball park, so it was as new for me as for her. Admission was $5 for each of us, which seemed cheap enough. I wasn't really sure how long the game would keep her interest. How naive of me. The steps from the entrance gate led right up to.... the clown. The clown was making things out of balloons. I could make a long story short by saying that she left the ballpark an hour later in tears, but wait- there's more. It was finger-in-the-mouth, the-world-is-an-awful-place-and-Daddy-is-the-MEANEST-howling-gut-wrenching-my-feet-are-NOT-moving-on-their-own tears. These were the kind of tears that Alice-in-Wonderland must have cried and went swimming in.

Mostly we were having a marvelous, though somewhat costly time. We had cotton candy ($3), coke ($2), popcorn ($3), and peanuts ($4). Did you know that Coca Cola doesn't taste sweet at all when you're washing down cotton candy?

The funny thing is that the balloons were free. The nice clown seemed to be enjoying himself. While twisting the balloons into elaborate objects, he was doing magic tricks and amusing the adults by making PG-rated double-entendre. The first time we went to him, he made Sara a pink teddy bear, and made a little ball disappear. The second time, he made her an Aubie tiger (school mascot) using his last orange balloon. The third time.. oh, wait... there was no third time; that was the problem.

Clutching the teddy bear and the Aubie in separate hands, Sara observed a little girl wearing a pink and blue balloon flower bracelet. Such an object is completely entrancing, of course, to any 5-year old girl, and MUST be had at all costs. Now Sara's pretty clever, and she knew quite well that decorum dictated one balloon creation to a child, and she only got two because she was really cute. When she said she wanted to get close and watch how he made the bracelets, I actually fell for it. By this time there was a line of little girls having balloon bracelets made, but we were off to the side carefully studying the deft fingerwork and skillful artistry of the creator. Yeah, right.

It began to dawn on me that something was wrong when I suggested we go back to our seats and watch the game, and she stared quietly at the ground. Thinking this was a good time to introduce the concept of fairness and balance in the universe, I pointed out that she already had two balloon creations from the nice clown, and some other child wouldn't get one even if she were somehow able to trade on her cuteness for yet another one. She didn't buy it. From deep within, I drew upon my vast resources of daddy-ness and decided this was a TEACHABLE MOMENT. It sure was. I learned that teachable moments are in the eye of the beholder. I learned that theory and practice are quite different. I learned that it is very hard to get a wailing 5-year old from a baseball park, across a busy street, through a vast parking lot, and into a car while carrying leftover popcorn, peanuts, cotton candy and two balloon creations. I also re-learned what I already knew: it is possible to have a perfectly wonderful time on a Sunday afternoon with my daughter, even if she does cry over things that seem silly to me, because what she remembers days later is not about the balloons, but about the two of us sitting under a tree in the shade near the entrance gate, stuffing huge wads of cotton candy into each others' sugar-rimmed mouths, and laughing without a care in the world. When we had all the cotton candy we could possibly stand, she wiped her very sticky fingers on my shirt, gave me the messiest kiss imaginable, and said "I love you, Daddy." She can cry over balloons all she wants to.

Incidentally, we did watch the game for a few minutes, and she was very intrigued. She wanted to know how they were able to write letters on the grass. She shares my interest in sports.

2007-02-28T20:34:00.000-08:00

We finally got our daughter sleeping in her own bed and things were getting into a comfortable routine, and then IT happened. Yes, sweetie, we'll get a puppy. Those sweetly simple words. True to promise, we now have the world's cutest new puppy. She's a miniature schnauzer named....dare I say it...Sweetie Pie. Hmm. Just TRY to sternly reprimand a puppy named Sweetie Pie. It's hard. "Sweetie Pie - stop eating the bougainvillea!" "Sweetie Pie - for the 19th time leave the cat's tail ALONE!" "Sweetie Pie - let GO of my toes!"Actually, she's a pretty good dog, and she has blended in well with our household routine. It's funny how God answers prayer. Some time ago I began really missing the morning prayer time I used to have. I had been praying to wake up earlier so I could have it back again. The time of 4:30 a.m. had been occurring to me. Lo and behold, that's just about the time S.P. needs to go outside.

When I'm putting on my sweats and stumbling outside in the dark with S.P. I invent all sorts of high-tech contraptions like a robot dog taker-outer. There already exists an automatic pet door, but I don't trust it - I'm sure there is a rabid raccoon or a maniacal midget waiting on the other side who will leap in just as the dog is going out, and attack us in our sleep. Besides, we have two doors between the inside of the house and the outside world. So I imagine a vision-based system that would track the dog through the house, signal the first door to open at the right moment, play a recording of my voice saying "come on Sweetie Pie, let's go. Come on girl. That's a good doggy," trigger a robotic arm attached to the doorway to wave a treat, open the second door, repeat, and then reverse it all to get her back in. But then I would miss out on all that good fresh night air and those beautiful, mysterious pre-dawn outdoor sounds (what in the heck makes that creepy low cackling in those bushes anyway?) . My wife has a different approach. She stumbles to the door in her P.J.'s , uses one foot to launch the puppy down the ramp*, and waits for her return.

Anyway, a new puppy is a lot of fun, and Tammy and I have a bit more private time while Sara is occupied with the puppy. For those of you with small children, you know exactly what "private time" is a code word for. Yes, that's right. It's time when you get to have a mini-conversation that proceeds as follows:
-He talks, she listens intently.
-She responds, he listens intently.
-He asks a question, she responds thoughtfully.
-They look lovingly into each other's eyes and are glad to be married.

This is distinct from the usual form of exchange that takes place when your 5-year old is in the room.
He talks, she says "no you may NOT have a cookie until after dinner. What dear?"
He: repeats patiently.
Child: "Mommy, I mean Daddy, how do you spell 'love'?"
He: "L-O-V-E."
She: Don't use that marker - it's permanent.
Child: I'm making a valentine card for Nana.
She: That's nice. What dear?
He (grumbling): I was wondering what time the wedding is this weekend.
She: Don't get that tape on the table - it will pull off the varnish. What dear?
He: when is the..."
She: STOP leaning in the chair, you're going to squish the puppy!
He: ..the wedding
She: I don't know - it's in the email somewhere. By the way there's a message about some kind of virus on the computer.
He: Hmmm. I think I'll take a look and see about that.
Child: Daddy- before you get on the computer can I print Hello Kitty? PLEEEASE?
...

*(A while back I thought it would be neat to have a ramp to the back yard instead of stairs - everyone thought I was nuts. Maybe so - but now I can say I was thinking ahead to when I trip over the puppy and end up in a wheel chair.)

2006-11-08T21:20:00.000-08:00

Sara has been sleeping in her own bed for several months. We wondered if it would ever happen, and now it's routine. Children seem to grow like that. I watch her pretend to read - flipping through book pages and making up stories to go with the pictures. I know she'll be doing it for real soon, and it will seem quite natural. There are so many details involved in growing up; it's a wonder we ever manage to do it. Then we get grown up and forget what a wonderful thing it is.

I'm so busy at work that I got cited by the fire marshall for having such a cluttered office. This is not a joke. The only reason the fire marchall didn't take a photograph of my office for his report was that Linda, the departmental maintenance supervisor, is a good friend, and she was able to promise him I was in the process of cleaning up. This is actually true. I started cleaning up at the beginning of the semester, and just got sidetracked.

This has been a lovely autumn. The leaves are falling and covering the ground with beautiful shapes and colors. It looks like a jigsaw puzzle photograph, and provides a lot of amusement for Sara and me as we collect leaves, nuts, and berries most days. It has also been quite cool, and there have been no hurricanes.

The recent midterm elections didn't turn out entirely according to my personal preferences, but I suppose it's just as well to have some balance in government. Each party should have the opportunity to make a mess of things. That way we don't forget why we have a two-party system. My guess is that the newly elected people will ride high for a few months, and then get down to the business of botching things up as badly as the previous people.

2006-08-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since my last entry. Thankfully for any readers still left, I can't recall most of it. A trip to the United Stated Military Academy at beautiful West Point, NY to talk about how to make robots talk. Lots of time at the city pool helping Sara learn to be a confident swimmer. And now - preparing for our one beach trip of the summer. Used to be, we would just look at each other over dinner and one of us would say "how about a trip to the beach," and we would leave. Now we plan for months, make reservations (non-refundable except in case of an official hurricane warning), and stash away a small fortune. Why, for what we are spending on this beach trip, we could buy several tanks of gas for the Tahoe. Which we have to do anyway. Hmm.

Sara and one of her little friends have been working on a "clubhouse" all summer. This is mainly a figment of the very fertile imaginations of two young girls, but it has taken on dramatic proportions. There is no real structure, just a location in the yard near a tree that has potential. They collect things "for the clubhouse," and they invite, or dis-invite, various playmates to join depending on the current state of their pre-school politics. They go wild with imagined decorations. If they actually installed all the things that have designated as clubhouse-bound, they would need Buckingham Palace in the backyard. Sara is presently tasked with bringing back "about a hundred zillion" seashells from the beach. I absolutely love being a Daddy. There is no ego involved in this- it's not because I'm viewed as supremely perfect in every way (although there is some amusement in that), but because of the way I get to see the world all new through my daughter's eyes. I used to dread being around small children (I'm sure most non-Daddy males feel this way), but now I treasure the opportunities. I have learned most of what I know about nurturing young children from my sister Meredith, though she likely doesn't know it. When I was a teenager, I sporadically observed her raising her daughter and interacting with her friends. Although those moments were few, They affected me deeply. I even imitate her mannerisms and inflections when I read to Sara.

Reading, incidentally, is something I've spent a few moments thinking about. We seem to know it is crucially important for children, and we're bombarded by TV ads featuring all kinds of dubious Hollywood characters telling us how often we should read to our kids. There are any number of scientific studies that show the benefits of reading to children. But I just wonder if this isn't a reflection of something deeper. Recently, I heard a curious interview on NPR's "The Infinite Mind" with a fellow at Emory (I think) who is a primate psychologist studying the role of empathy as a deep-level, instinctive survival behavior. He recounted several remarkable examples of primates exhibiting empathy. (For example, an adult male orangutan observed the zookeeper opening a valve to fill his moat with water. He began gesticulating wildly and screeching. Turned out there were four young orangutan's playing in the moat, who would have drowned.) So the connection, I'm thinking, is this: reading is an extraordinary adventure in empathy, unlike almost any other experience. The reader, besides simply reading the words, also imagines the listener's perception of what he is saying; the listener must not only empathize with the characters in the story, but also tries to determine how the reader feels about it, another level of empathy. A key thing that makes this different from watching a movie together is the intimate relationship between the reader and the listener, in which the story is only the backdrop to what is really an interplay between two minds at a most fundamental level.

Robots may talk one day, but lets see them do that! Famous last words?

2006-06-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my sister, Meredith, I now have an acronym for the squirrely situation described in the last post... PSD, which stands for poor squirrel decisions. This leads me to several other useful acronyms..

UBD - unexplained bike ditching. Yesterday I drove my bike into a curb for absolutely no reason. I didn't get hurt, but I ended up dismounting quite ungracefully. I can't even blame it on a squirrel. A city worker was picking up yard debris nearby. To cover my embarrassment, I pretended to examine my bike very carefully as if it were a mechanical failure of some kind, but I knew full well there was nothing wrong. The worker was very kind and pretended not to notice at all. When I got back on my bike he called out a cheerful "hello" as I rolled by. I'm sure he was doing all he could not to break out into gales of laughter at this nutty professor type trying to look cool. Hey, but I had my helmet on.

MAD - mysterious apple disappearance. As my daughter and I strolled down the driveway for our after-dinner walk, she noticed that all of the apples were gone from our apple tree. Last week, they were all in their places, hanging from the boughs and just waiting to picked when they were ripe. For weeks I had been encouraging her to be patient so we could pick them when the time was right. I had images of perfectly baked apple pie. She had made plans to have her friends come over with baskets to have a picking party. We stood in stunned silence for a few moments, looking at the bare branches. Then she said something I thought was fairly deep for a 4-year old. "Those mean squirrels!" I hadn't thought of this. I had pictured some vile neighborhood kid sneaking up the driveway in the middle of the night with an apple basket and a flashlight. Or maybe the old lady next door whom we never see, but I've always suspected of being a fruit thief. I consulted with Meredith during the PSD conversation, and she confirmed Sara's explanation. She even went so far as to paint a verbal picture of the squirrels bowling apples during the long winter months when they have nothing better to do than sit around and tell stories about brave relatives lost to PSD's.

BDR - baking disaster recovery. I gave in to my daughter's wishes this evening, and agreed to bake sugar cookies. It was late, and I really didn't want to get out all the baking utensils and ingredients. I tried to convince her that tomorrow night would be better, but she wouldn't hear of it. She did agree that we could prepare the dough tonight, then stamp out the cookies and bake them tomorrow. So, I pulled down the Betty Crocker cookbook and turned to the sugar cookie recipe on page 432. We mixed the softened butter & sugar as specified. Then it came time to add the egg. One egg, said the recipe. Unfortunately, while I was gettting the eggs out of the refigerator, a butterfly on the other side of the world must have flapped its wings, which as we all know is perfectly capable of causing a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. Whether or not a hurricane in fact formed I don't know, but there was apparently the subtlest of breezes in our kitchen, which flipped the cookbook to page 434, so that when I turned around to double-check, I was now, unbeknownst, reading the recipe for chocolate nut brownies. Being only interested in the eggs, I read with amazement that we actually needed FOUR eggs. Now, I have become fairly dependent upon reading glasses in the past couple of years, and in my haste to satisfy Sara's whim I neglected to put them on, so it was not a complete surprise to me that I mis-read the number of eggs. I looked in the egg crate and their were FIVE eggs. What luck, I thought, that we have enough eggs for this recipe, and one left over in case Sara drops one on the floor while she is cracking them into the mixing bowl. Ha ha. After carefully mixing in the eggs, Sara was very pleased with herself, and I was congratulating her on a job well done. Then I looked back at the recipe for the next ingredient. One 16 ounce can of chocolate syrup. WHATTT??? Instant panic. 1 pkg chopped walnuts. Chocolate glaze. Oh, NO!, I yelped. Sara looked horrified. Tammy came running in, probably thinking one of us had received a severe cookie dough mixing injury, or worse, spilled everything on the floor. After my heart stopped pounding, I thought. Quickly. "Pull yourself together. Save the day. BE A DADDY! " OK - I had two choices (well, one choice - two alternatives). I could quadruple the recipe and make enough dough for 16 dozen sugar cookies. This would require 3 more sticks of butter, 8 cups of flour, all the sugar we had left... not looking good. Or, we could go ahead and make the brownies, although we would have to leave out the chocolate syrup and use some fancy arithmetic to add the correct amount of sugar. Well, this is what we ended up doing, and to make a long story short, it tastes wonderful. It's like angel food cake with a soul. After I put Sara to bed, I came out to the kitchen and noticed a large section gone. Tammy had enjoyed it, and that's all I need to say about that.

2006-06-15T20:42:00.000-07:00

I've really been enjoying commuting to work on my bicycle. It takes half the time as driving, it's much cooler in the afternoons, and I'm finally getting some exercise. There are a few pitfalls, though. Have you ever swerved in your car to avoid an indecisive squirrel? It's more unnerving on a bike. I had one run out in front of me today, then run away chattering vehemently. I wish I could understand squirrel. I'm sure it said something like "That's right - you'd better be scared of me. I've run entire SUV's off the road. Don't you know I could turn your bike into a pretzel and give you a concussion?" Of course, I thought "yeah, but unlike a car, I can chase you down and turn you into a faux rabbit fur scarf." But I actually like squirrels. Many people think of them as pests, but I think it's fascinating to watch them move through the tree-tops. I've long thought that if I could build a robot squirrel, the world would beat a path to my door. Our neighbor shoots at them with an air pistol. When our dog was alive and healthy, our best fun was to let her out the back door in the morning and watch her chase three or four at a time up the trees. When she had them treed, she would dance and twirl on her hind legs , barking with great excitement. The squirrels would busily shuck pine cones and hurl them down at her while chattering vicious squirrel invectives. Ah, well, the good old days.

2006-05-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Wed. May 17, 2006

I got back on my bicycle a few days ago, and I’ve been practicing riding around town. I need exercise, and I need an alternative to riding to work in my un-air-conditioned, oil-leaking car.

The experience has convinced me of what I already surmised. This is not a bicycle-friendly community. Lately the city has spent a great deal of money on fancy signs that say, “A Bicycle Friendly Community.” They have also painted white stripes along the side of several major roads (though not the one I live on) about 12 inches from the curb. These are referred to in visitor brochures as bike lanes. Locals refer to them by the humorous designation “bowling alleys.” Probably the most appropriate decorations placed by the city are the graphics of flat bicycles stenciled on the bowling alleys. I presume that these mark the last-known locations of people who were foolish enough to actually ride their bikes there. Or perhaps they are just warning signs indicating what you are likely to look like if you spend any time in that space. Just to make the experience more fun, the street sweepers (you know, the trucks with huge brushes underneath that crawl along at 5 mph during morning rush hour) sweep all the debris from the road into the bike lanes. This is actually handy as it prevents bike riders like me from traveling at a speed any faster than an excited slug, at which we might endanger ourselves, since we have to negotiate an inch of sand, gravel, glass, and pavement chunks.

If you want to go anywhere useful on your bike, such as downtown, or to work or school on campus, you can have even more fun. Most of the roads in town don’t even pretend to have bike lanes. If they do, they taper off at every intersection, so to fit in them you have to get thinner and thinner as you approach the intersection, and then dwindle away to nothing. Sort of a 15 second Atkins diet. In a fit of concern for pedestrians, the city several years ago ordained that you can’t ride your bike on sidewalks. Short of outfitting with rockets to become airborne, then, there is no way to avoid riding in the narrow streets surrounded by Tahoes and Blazers driven by inexperienced, late-to-class student drivers.

The solution taken by most riders (myself included now) is to, in fact, ride on the sidewalks and take the chance of mowing down an innocent pedestrian or two. Now that I’ve had some practice riding, my favorite thing is to swerve threateningly and yell obnoxiously as I pass a pedestrian “hey- get a bike or walk in the bowling alley!” You should see the looks of terror on the faces of those elementary school kids.

What? OK dear, yes, I know. Two of the little blue pills...I’ll be right there.

2006-05-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many dangling blogs are out there. You know, the ones that get started by enthusiastic new bloggers, who eventually realize that it's a lot of work to keep up. My whole life seems to be immersed in unfinished business these days. So many good intentions, so little time.

Student projects that almost work, but never get completely finished. Songs started, but never get past the first verse and a catchy chorus. Organizing projects that get halfway done, then end up making things worse when they don't get finished.

My daughter has decided that Sonic popcorn chicken is the greatest food substance ever created. I'm not sure why. She's had it so much, I keep thinking she'll grow tired of it. But then, she's watched most of her favorite movies dozens of times. I guess it's how little people work.

Now this blog must stop- I'm overtaken with sleepiness...maybe I'll finish it tomorrow....

2006-05-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Ever had this happen?

[Email from "Joe" to me}:
Thad - I met with Fred the other day. He's a complete lunatic. He doesn't know anything about this stuff. We need to make sure to get him off this contract ASAP. - Joe

[Email forwarded to Fred, from me. Accidentally selected "include message"]:

Dear Fred,

Joe said he enjoyed meeting with you the other day. He recommended that we take your suggestions under advisement. I'll be in touch with you later to discuss how we should proceed.

Best regards,
Thad

>I met with Fred the other day. He's a complete lunatic. He doesn't know anything about this stuff.
>We need to make sure to get him off this contract ASAP. -Joe

OOPS. Well, it's just one of the interesting things that can happen in the new environment of instant communication. I've been reading a text on wireless communication. Turns out that this idea is really catching on in some areas. Underdeveloped countries, like New Mexico, are where the fastest growth is taking place. It's a lot cheaper to put up a couple of antennas than to run copper wire all over the place. Soon there will be wireless communicators all over major cities, so people can go anywhere and not be out of touch. I'm old enough to remember busy signals, and rings that would go on indefinitely until you decided that the person you were calling really wasn't home, or didn't care to talk.

I found myself wondering why we humans seem to have such a deep-seated need to communicate. What is it about our nature that desperately desires this? We write blogs imagining that someone will read them and care. We talk on the phone while we drive, walk, play with our kids. We seem to be losing the art of being alone, at peace with our own souls. A recent article I read studied cell phone use on airplanes. It is illegal to use a cell phone at any time during a flight, but a research team brought equipment on board numerous flights and determined that on every flight at least one person was using a cell phone. None of the flights they studied went careening out of control as a result, but they suggest the possibility does really exist.

I don't have the answers yet, but I'm willing to entertain thoughts from any of the hundreds of people who are undoubtedly reading this and craving every next word. Gotta go - the phone's ringing.

2006-04-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

Tammy and I renewed our wedding vows on the day before Easter Sunday. We left the next day for a 2nd honeymoon in Jamaica. The whole experience was fantastic. It was great to have so many of our friends and family in one place again - the last time we had a similar experience was almost 20 years ago at our wedding. Special thanks to Deb and Chris, who traveled from Michigan to be with us. We took lots of photos, which are posted on our web site (you can email me for a link if you want it). This leads into another train of thought regarding the permanence of photos.

My friend Rick is leaving the company he's worked at for many years. He worked at Noritsu, which is probably not familiar to most people. It's one of a handful of companies that make the one-hour photo-finishing machines found in drugstores, malls, etc. He's leaving with a golden parachute option due to the company's downsizing, which is due in large part to fewer prints being made. Here's an excerpt from a letter he wrote to his fellow employees and cc'd to me:

"For any of you that may have benefited from my help, I ask only one thing
in return. Tell everyone you meet, everyone, everywhere, to make as many
prints as they can.
Remember that it's not the advent of digital photography that gave us
trouble, it's the mistaken belief that nobody has to make prints anymore.
They will figure it out, hopefully before they unknowingly erase all of
last year's pictures from their camera or cell phone or their hard drive
crashes. Listen- it's not any particular picture you take today that
matters so much, rather it's the photo you find in a box ten years from
now that will make your eyes flood with tears. Only prints can do that,
not unreadable CD-ROM's or floppy disks or flash cards that don't fit
anything anymore."

How true. Good luck, Rick, as you start the new chapter of your life "down East."

2006-04-08T21:27:00.000-07:00

Seven days to the wedding. I'm getting excited. I asked my wife to marry me almost 20 years ago. On Sunday before Valentine's Day this year I asked her to get re-married. This time, we're even having a honeymoon! I haven't told her where we are going, but I think she will enjoy it. It's fun watching her and our friends try to guess.

I've been learning how to make movies on our computer. I've compiled a tolerable 20-minute video comprising the first 10 years of our marriage, plus the first year of having our daughter. Now that I've done it, I know how to do it a lot better. I wonder if Steven Spielberg has the same experience with his movies.

Speaking of movies, my friend Scotte and his daughter Kayla have some great movie reviews (and other stuff) on their website / blog:

http://homepage.mac.com/hodelas/

Today was a beautiful day, but we were full of sadness, still missing Hope, our dog of 15 years who died almost two weeks ago. I think it was because we worked in the yard most of the day, and she would have enjoyed being outside with us very much. Also, we planted an azalea bush that one of my daughter's pre-school teachers gave us in her memory. I used to bring Hope when I dropped off Sara at pre-school, so the teachers knew her, and they knew how much we all cared for her. Today I kept looking at the worn spot on the carpet between where her doggy bed and her dishes were. It used to be very beaten down, and it was usually covered with kernels of spilled dog food. It seems to be recovering, like grass does after people stop walking on it. I can't imagine that so many years of life can just vanish, and leave such a faint trace.

2006-03-31T23:19:00.000-08:00

We are still missing our dog Hope, but it's getting a little better. I confronted my angst and went out to her favorite running fields by myself this morning. It wasn't so bad, really. I pictured her running through the tall grass the way she used to. She would run, gazelle-like, with her head appearing above the grass periodically. She was never a "proper" walker. She loved to stop and smell everywhere, and I always let her. When she was very young, she would follow me jogging for two miles. She wised up after a while. I won't forget the day I took her out running, and after about a quarter of a mile, she just sat down on the road, watching me run ahead. I finally stopped and turned to look at her. I could almost hear her words - "this is really silly, Dad - I'm not playing this game anymore."

Hope's death brought up several theological issues for my 4-year old. The first, of course, is "is she in Heaven with Jesus?" OK, I don't care what the Southern Baptist party line is, my answer is "of course she is, and she has all her legs and no cancer, and she's happy." If you, dear reader, want to tell her (or me) anything different, be my guest, but you had better be able to back it up :)

Another burning issue came up when my daughter decided to pray every day until God changes his mind and gives her back. "He'll understand - it was just a mistake." I had a fleeting thought related to the movie "Pet Semetary," but I let it pass.

My daughter is very compassionate, and she has really been good to her Mommy and Daddy these last few days. She brings us tissues and draws us pretty pictures when we get sad. Thank you, sweetheart.

2006-03-28T21:31:00.000-08:00

No funnies or deep thoughts tonight. Just sadness mixed with relief. We had to have our family dog, Hope, put to rest. She had become so incapacitated it would have been cruel to let her live any longer. We will miss her, and always think of her fondly. It will be a long time before I can go to visit her favorite fields to run in.

2006-03-27T00:18:00.000-08:00

Time to step out on a limb. The Lord gave me a vision the other night (or, as my friend u.t. likes to say, it might have been the pepperoni pizza before bed - only time will tell). Pro-life people like me are adamant in the belief that life begins at conception. This is fundamental to our belief in the sanctity of the unborn, and to our opposition to abortion.

In spite of our strong words, we live in and accommodate to a culture which measures the age of our children from the day of their birth, rather than from conception. By our actions, we are belying our beliefs, although it's probably unintentional for most of us - we just never thought about it.

I would like to propose a grass-roots revolution in the behavior of pro-life Christians. I suggest that we begin celebrating "Lifedays" instead of birthdays. We should estimate the day of conception and tell our children "this is the day God gave you life." After all, what are we really celebrating on a birthday? The day you kept your mother in terrible pain for hours on end, or were removed surgically from her womb?

We should acknowledge that our choice to celebrate Lifedays instead of birthdays will not be a legally binding change - yet. School records and legal documents will still use the cultural norm as their reference. But just think about the consequences of our testimony if we act on our beliefs. Eventually, there may be a culture shift of significant proportion, and it could be that as this idea sinks in, school systems and other governmental agencies might acquiesce, and even support the idea. The ultimate consequences would be to re-affirm the value of the unborn child in our society, to save the lives of the unborn, and to bring glory to God.

And I'll bet Hallmark will be tickled pink to have an entirely new type of card to sell :)

2006-03-19T23:00:00.000-08:00

I've lost confidence in the ability of our weather forecasters to predict anything ahead of time (they are OK at telling you what happened after the fact - just ask anyone who used to live in New Orleans, if you can find them). Here's a verbatim statement from our taxpayer-funded meteorologists at weather.gov:

AT THIS TIME...WE ARE FAIRLY CONFIDENT THAT THERE WILL BE A SEVERE WEATHER EVENT SOMEWHERE ACROSS THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY THROUGH THE DEEP SOUTH...ALTHOUGH OUR CONFIDENCE IN THE EXACT EVOLUTION OF THIS WEATHER SCENARIO IS NOT HIGH. UP THROUGH THIS EVENING...THE MAIN COMPUTER MODELS HAVE CONTINUED TO OFFER DIVERGENT SOLUTIONS IN THE MANY DETAILS THAT WILL MAKE A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE IN WHAT HAPPENS...AS WELL AS THE EXACT TIME AND LOCATION.

Wow. Hey - I think any old geezer like me with arthritis could do better. It seems that as technology has advanced, the accuracy of weather forecasts has decreased. Apologies to anyone reading this (both of you) with friends who are in the weather business, but I have this image of a guy in Birmingham eating a greasy burger with french fries, watching re-runs of "Whose Line Is It Anyway," and flipping a coin while the completely divergent weather models run on the monitor behind him. Pat Dye (former Auburn football coach) has been quoted as saying "the trick to beating the other team is to score more points." I'm not sure how that fits in here, but I couldn't resist throwing it in. Anyway, the keen folks at weather.gov should re-program those fancy computers. All they have to do is look out the window and watch the birds. Here's a revised computer model:

Are birds dry?
Yes - IT'S NOT RAINING
No -
Are they white?
Yes - IT'S SNOWING
Are they covering their heads with their wings?
Yes - IT"S HAILING
Are they frantically digging for worms and acting weird?
Yes - HURRICANE COMING
Are they spinning around rapidly in circles?
Yes - TORNADO

Well, it's only a thought. I'm just upset because I spread fertilizer yesterday, trusting the forecast for two days of rain that hasn't happened yet. Now I have visions of my yard turning into a small dustbowl. But then I guess I can write my long-awaited novel, "Kudzu Flowers of Wrath."

2006-03-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

The dog is curled up in her foam bed, lined with an orange, red, and green beach towel. The cat is fast asleep in the car seat we left in the front parlor, after my daughter's playdate. They are both noble creatures in their own ways. They don't fret about tomorrow. They don't ask for more than they have. They don't strive for undue recognition. They give love freely. They are happy to play, eat, and snuggle. What wonderful role models.

I have a friend I'll call Sam. Sam is one of the most interesting people to talk to. He has lots of amusing and interesting stories. He is well read, and very intelligent. He has taught college-level economics.

But Sam is beset with a whole lot of intertwined physical and mental problems. He's nearing 50, and just this past year both his mother and father died. He lived with them, and now lives alone in their house. He tries hard to stay alive. He has tried to commit suicide several times, but he doesn't really want to. It's just that there are no real solutions to his problems.

The state of mental health care is tragic. Some might say Americans have the best medical care in the world, but if so, it's sad for the world. Try being so chronically ill you can't work, having only a handful of people who even acknowledge your existence, much less advocate for you, and then try to thread your way through the incredibly complex medical and mental health systems. Sam has at least 7 doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists to deal with, as well as attorneys and financial advisors. Sometimes he makes good decisions, sometimes not so good, just like me.

Some people have said to me "you're so good to be a friend to Sam." That's not right at all. I'm not his friend out of duty or pity - I really care for him, and it's mutual. I'm not a substitute for his parents, his doctors, or his lawyers. I just love him, and I pray that God will sustain him and comfort him, and even restore him completely. He has just learned that he has been accepted for a relatively new type of treatment for chronic depression- the vagus nerve stimulator implant. I hope it works.

2006-03-15T16:50:00.000-08:00

I liked the music from "The Corpse Bride" so much I bought the company. No, actually, I bought the sheet music for "Victor's Solo." It's a beautiful, haunting (duh..) short piece, vaguely reminiscent of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" in the beginning. I played it several times through, and I realized it's not very sophisticated, but it sure is pretty.

Our orchestra director at church is in his early 30's. His knee "tricked out" on him, so we had a short conversation about age and body mechanics. I told him when I was in my 20's, my body was my best friend. It would do anything I wanted without complaining. In my 30's, we developed a "mutual understanding." I didn't try to push to hard, and it would let me get away with a few foolhardy activities. In my early 40's, this changed to more of a stand-offish relationship.

Body: "Look, I've been trying to explain. You just can't do some of those things. I'm fragile - you know, mortal."
Me: Yeah, I know, but can't we at least talk about this a little?
Body: We already covered the main points. There's not much to discuss.
Me: But we used to be so close...
Body: Topic closed. Next....

In my late 40's, after various medical procedures including back surgery...
Me: Hey, let's go running or dig up the yard, or something fun.
Body: Ha Ha Ha. Ha Ha Ha. Ahem. No.
Me: I've got to do something to burn off steam.
Body: OK - go for a walk, but make sure it's on level ground, and dress warmly.

Can't wait for the next decade...

My daughter went to sleep fairly easily tonight. She said she would try to stay in her own bed. I told her if she did, I would let her print all she wanted tomorrow for free. (She loves to print coloring pages from PBS Kids, but she has to earn "printer points" by reading.) She said "I can't do that - we'll run out of ink." I said, "honey, if you sleep in your own bed, I'll buy barrels of ink and truckloads of paper. " Then I said, "and I'll dress up like any character you choose." Whoops. She looked at me gleefully and said one dreadful word- "BARBIE!" I swallowed hard and said, "yes, if you sleep in your bed, I'll dress up like Barbie." So if you, dear reader, happen to see me in this condition, I hope you will understand. As for me, I'm really looking forward to hearing the pitter-patter of those little feet tramping into the bedroom in the wee hours. But don't tell my wife.

2006-03-11T21:57:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my friend, U. T., for the comment on my previous post. He knows what I'm talking about. His office hours look like the floor of the NY stock exchange. He's a good, enthusiastic teacher and a really smart fellow. He's a good musician, too.

I was diagnosed with influenza today, but I'm suspicious. I had searing, burning pain in my lungs, but no fever or upper respiratory symptoms. A blood test was performed. In response to my inquiry, the physician said the blood test didn't show bacterial involvement, and based on a pattern he had been seeing, that suggested early onset of flu. He said he couldn't perform a specific flu test unless I was further along with symptoms. I was prescribed Tamiflu and Lortab (for the aches and pains that were sure to ensue).

Here's the intriguing part. The clinic I went to adjoins a drugstore. I'm told the drugstore owner is the wife of a physician at the clinic. Presumably Tamiflu does no obvious harm to a patient who does not have flu. Just suppose I don't have flu, but allergy-induced bronchitis. I'll get over it soon enough, I might credit the Tamiflu with "curing" me, and the drugstore makes a sale of a very expensive (and profitable) drug. Hmmm.

I've just spent several hours trying to correct mistakes in my tax returns made by major bugs in TurboTax. Next year, it's back to pen and paper. For years I filed forms I prepared myself in about 20 minutes. I've never spent less than 2 hours with TurboTax, and I now have very little confidence in it. The only advantage I ever saw in it was e-filing and automatically transferring last years' data, but it's not worth the hassle.

We watched Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride" tonight. Very funny and clever. The skeleton dog stole the show for my 4-year old.

2006-03-09T20:28:00.000-08:00

I get lots of positive comments and high marks from my students on teaching evaluations. That's good. I was recently told by my boss that I am not publishing enough, and more seriously, I'm not bringing in enough contract research. That's bad. Now, in case you don't know how the system works at a research university, here's a primer.

Professor have idea. Professor spend long hours writing proposal, only to find out halfway through that other professor has commercialized the same idea and started company to make product. Professor start over. Finally professor submit proposal. After many moons, professor get rejection letter with nasty comments from impartial reviewers. Professor start over. After several years, professor get pittance of funding. University skims 1/3 for overhead. While conducting research, funding agency cut budget. Research finished on shoestring. Graduate students go hungry. Professor go hungry. Professor submit results for publication. Paper rejected with nasty comments from impartial reviewers. Paper re-submitted. After several years, paper published. Repeat entire process.

The key thing here is the 1/3 skimmed for overhead. This is money that goes into the budget of the administrators, which is their lifeblood. Don't get me wrong. Administrators are not bad. The funding process is not inherently bad. But the system has been perverted when the pressure to generate research funds far outweighs the need to teach well. I fear this is happening where I work, as well as at many other universities.

There is a way to bring a balance back. A discipline-specific universal college graduation exam should be put into place by which the amount of learning achieved can be measured quantitatively. Publicly ranking colleges by this metric will force administrators and teachers to put teaching back on par with research grants. If I were a parent about to send my child to college, I know which one I would care about the most.

Now, back to the proposal...

2006-03-08T22:23:00.000-08:00

I carried a screaming, kicking 4-year old out of the bookstore last night. She couldn't choose which coloring book she wanted, so she held on to as many as she could - which was two.
"Choose one."
"I want them both."
"Make a decision, sweetheart"
"I did - I want them both."
"I meant, make a decision that I like."
"I don't like your decision. I want them both."
"One more chance, then we're leaving with NO books."
"I'll scream really loud."
"You won't be the first 4-year old who left a store screaming."
Halfway home, still kicking and screaming, she said,
"I made a decision, go back."
"Too late"
"But I made a DECISION"
"Just out of curiosity, what was it?"
"I WANT THEM BOTH!!!"
About 30 minutes after arriving home, the decibel level decreased to slightly less than the inside of a jet engine during take-off.

A little later, she drew a beautiful picture for me.

2006-03-07T06:50:00.000-08:00

Yeah! She's back! We survived the long weekend without Mom, thereby proving that you can keep a 4-year old alive and fairly happy for at least 4 days on chocolate chip cookies and vienna sausages. Tammy had a busy, exhausting weekend, but came back in good shape and high spirits. She had to climb over a wall into a locked storeroom at one point to get sugar- I'm so proud of her. I knew that survival training would come in handy sometime. It's amazing how quickly she got things back to normal in our house. I wish I could see inside her mind sometimes. I have a theory that the male and female brain are different (oops - now I'm going to get fired from my job as president of an ivy league school). Men are OK at pursuing things single-mindedly, but women seeme to be adept at multi-tasking. Is this a new observation? I don't think so. I do laundry, wash dishes, and the other household chores, but not really the same way. I operate in survival mode, sort of like triage. Girl stuff in pile A. Boy stuff in pile B. Dog stuff...um..fend for yourself. You're a dog, instinct should take over at some point. But Tammy, without even trying hard, has everything in order AND smelling good. That's impressive and amazing to me. But that's not why I love her so much. It's hard to put into words, but anyone who knows her understands. She has a way of drawing the best out of everyone around her, without putting on airs. She really is a lamp on a hill.

2006-03-01T20:20:00.000-08:00

Tammy leaves tomorrow for Tres Dias (Spanish for "Three Days"). This time, she's working in the kitchen. As a candidate (first time), it's a great opportunity to retreat from the world and get close to the Lord. As a worker, it's an opportunity to serve others and to be a blessing to new candidates who are experiencing that closeness for the first time. It's also a marvelous opportunity for Dads to get close to their kids. Really close. 24/7. I'm not worried about it - we've done this before, once. We didn't burn the house down (we spilled juice on all the matches, and besides all the flammable substances were covered in some kind of weird goo - bubble soap, I think.) No one went to the hospital, though the insane asylum was looking like a pretty cozy alternative by Sunday afternoon. The dog was reverting to feral behavior, trying to bury her food in the carpet (her futile scratching was as close as it came to getting vacuumed). She finally gave up and just hunkered down in the corner, glowering, with a little slobber dribbling down her chin. No wait, that was my daughter... When Children's Services came (anonymous tip from the neighbors - they go so overboard about screaming, especially when it ends in gurgles and pitiful wailing), I explained the loose bricks barricading the kitchen as "an experiment" in pizza cooking. But the truck axle across the bedroom door was a bit trickier.

All kidding aside, I'm looking forward to spending lots of "quality time" (see first post) with my daughter, and to hearing about the wonderful things God has in store for my wife.

We'll only be blowing bubbles outside this time.

2006-02-28T18:43:00.000-08:00

Another evening and my darling daughter won't go to bed. She fell asleep at the babysitter's, but now that we brought her home, she's wide awake. We fret over such small things when our children are small. My wife and I went on a date. We had our grown-up conversation, then turned our attention to what we hope for our daughter. We, like most parents, want our daughter tested and tried to produce healthy growth and a realistic outlook, but not subjected to some of the agonizing experiences we had. I pray for her each day that she would come to know Jesus in a a very personal way. I don't want her to be sheltered from the harsh realities of this world to the extent that she can't feel compassion for those less fortunate, but I also don't want her to learn everything the hard way.

The Bible instructs us to be in this world, but not of it. How wonderful a goal, and how difficult to realize. Some retreat to a cult or to an isolated community, but God tells us to be a lamp on a hill. I think we have to tread carefully and prayerfully through each day, looking for opportunities to be encouragers and servants. It's easy to judge; so much harder to really love.

2006-02-26T16:31:00.000-08:00

Sunday, Feb. 5, 2006 3:00 a.m. –

I began by contemplating the issue of blaming God for bad things happening to “good” people. The correct response to bad events is to run to God as a refuge in a storm, but we so often blame Him instead. A picture- a little boy is playing in the yard. His mother is watching from the porch. She sees a storm cloud on the horizon. She calls him to come in, but he ignores and continues to play. When the storm draws near, a lightning bolt flashes and thunder booms. The boy, afraid, runs to his mother and clings to her. We should be like that with God. But then the analogy leads to a question. The mother is not in control of the storm, but doesn’t God control everything? If my loved one is killed in a car wreck, couldn’t God have prevented it? Common responses include “God allows hardship in our lives to help us grow,” “this terrible thing happened to spare the victim from something even more terrible,” and “Satan is out to destroy all that God created.” The latter is the focus of my train of thought. Indeed the scripture says that Satan is “a roaring lion, roaming to and fro, devouring whom he will.” So how does he do it? He uses time, I believe. God created time, along with everything else in the natural world. “In the beginning… night and day…and He pronounced it good. “ So time was inherently good, since it was created by God. At some point, though, Satan perverted it to evil. Witness all the injunctions in scripture to look beyond the temporal. “Pray continually..,” Focus on God (eternal) rather than the present. In all situations, be satisfied. Keep your eyes upon God, and all these things will be added.. Prophecy is an illustration of how the Holy Spirit exists outside the framework of time. Without beginning…without end. So how did Satan pervert time? More fundamentally, where did evil come from? The Bible says that Lucifer and a third of the angels in heaven (beings created by God) rebelled and were cast into hell. How could the creation of a holy and essentially good God think to do this? God must have chosen to allow the possibility. The very fact that He took the time to pronounce most of his original creation “good” (Genesis) indicates that He was fully aware that there was such a thing as “bad” even at that “time.” [Hard to avoid using that word!] By so allowing, the act of worship on the part of the angels and man is rendered meaningful. Otherwise it would be a robotic gesture, devoid of sincerity. If a being has no choice but to praise the Creator, of what value is the act? When He allowed the possibility of rebellion to exist, He knew that some would employ it, and He created a way to deal with it – hell. So, returning to the question of how Satan perverts time, consider this picture. A town is built on a seismic fault. In the town there is an important footpath that connects two principal areas. An earthquake occurs and creates a wide rift, splitting the town and the footpath in two. A construction worker who was fired long ago by the town council and harbors simmering hatred builds a thin bridge across the rift re-connecting the path in a seemingly generous gesture. The town tries to continue life as normal. However, the bridge is so narrow that people are constantly losing their footing and falling off the bridge into the chasm below, much to the delight of the evil bridge-builder. Only by walking carefully down the center and keeping their eyes on the point where the bridge meets land can anyone successfully cross. The original path was time as God intended – a safe passage between birth and death, surrounded everywhere by eternity (immersed in creation). The (intentionally) poorly built bridge is time as Satan has perverted it, surrounded all around by certain destruction – the chasm which Satan also caused in his struggle to destroy and pervert God’s creation. God’s victory is already determined, but by keeping us focused on the temporal – taking our eyes off the Lord as we walk, Satan can cause us to stumble and go down to destruction. However, by keeping an eternal perspective we can walk in confidence.

This led me to think about the meaning of “eternal.” The most common idea of this is “infinite days.” This is another of Satan’s perversions. After all, we all know nice people, even loved ones, who died without knowing Christ. Can we really believe that as we go about our daily lives, they are being tormented in hell, day after day, and that it will never cease? There is a ratio problem here. According to this, most people who ever lived or will live are being punished horribly for an infinite number of days for sins they committed during a finite lifespan, even if they were very good in an earthly sense, and died without Christ because no one told them the Gospel. Sorry – does not compute. This alone will turn most reasonable people away from the Christian faith, especially if it is used as a scare tactic. The counterpoint does not fare any better. Tell a teenager who can barely contemplate surviving a one hour church service each week, “you need Christ because then when you die you get to go to heaven and praise the Lord for eternity.” He thinks of singing hymns every hour of every day, day after day, without end, and he runs screaming the other way. So what is eternity? Most people have had the experience of being so intensely involved in something they love doing that “time just slips away.” People talk about how “time stopped” because they were so engrossed. I think this must be what it’s like in heaven. Not that we think about what tomorrow, or the next hour, or the next minute will bring. But just being here “now,” and loving it so much that nothing else matters. How else can we explain that some of our loved ones will not be there, yet there will be no tears. It won’t matter. The time-less experience will be so enthralling that we can’t think of what we are missing. Yet it won’t be the same constant activity. On earth, time and change are inextricably linked. It’s time to do this, time to do that, … In heaven our activities will change, but not because time is flowing. One friend recently told me about worshiping in a church where the worship service was not run by the clock, and how much more meaningful it was compared with a regimented traditional service. Similarly, in hell the devastation of realizing one is separated from God is static and permanent, though not infinitely repeated.

Some might say that Christians are just people who haven’t had enough trouble in their lives to be angry with God. On the contrary, most Christians I know have had far more than their share of trouble. That’s because Christians are specially targeted by Satan. Why should he bother with the unsaved? He’s already got them in his snare. All he needs to do is maintain a low profile and see to it that they disregard him as a child’s foolish construct, or consider him amusing, like a trick-or-treater dressed up with a pitchfork and a tail. Anyone who sees him for what he is will run frantically to God for protection. Therefore he preferentially attacks and devours those who are running to God, or stymies the witness of those already in God’s protecting arms. Time (perverted) is a tool Satan uses in this way. Most people get into trouble in life when time owns them, rather than them controlling it. It seems unfair to them that God would give them a finite amount of time, and not bother to tell them how much they have. So they spend their lives (time) trying to figure out how to accumulate as much as possible in the shortest time. In the business world, “time is money.” In the academic world, a certain amount of publication and research funding is expected per unit time. We agonize about not having achieved measure X in time Y. The cure is to follow the scriptural admonition to focus on what is eternal and pray continually. How can we do this? Our very lives ought to be lived as a constant, ongoing (time-less) prayer to the Lord. God desires us to rest and dwell in Him, and, if we have strayed, to run to Him in times of distress. When storms come, we must remember that whether God created the storm to drive us into His arms, or whether it is Satan’s doing, the response should be the same – run to the Lord!