What's Wrong with Us?

I'm so stinking frustrated with what I'm seeing these days.  It seems if you're dishonest, greedy, or a 'victim', you make out well in our country today.  If you live within your means, save for a rainy day, and try to take responsibility for yourself, then you get stepped on.

This article in the Irvine Housing Blog made me sick this morning.  Now that everyone's made--and spent--a fortune getting way over their head in mortgages they knew they couldn't afford, they're lining up to have these loans written down so they won't have to pay them back.  Executives and stock-holders in these major financial institutions reaped huge windfalls during the rise of the bubble, and now they come with hat in hand expecting taxpayers to bail them out?  Most houses featured daily in IHB are the result of people spending all the equity in their appreciating home 'value' over the past few years on cars, vacations--consumer 'stuff'--and now are leaving the banks holding up to 1/4 million dollars each while they walk away with a slap on the wrist, having lost nothing but their credit rating because they were $0 down loans.

Meanwhile, my parents have lived a modest lifestyle well within their means for 40+ years they've been working.  They bought a modest home (which they actually paid off), drove used cards, and never took extravagant vacations.  We always had food on the table and clothes to wear, but you would have been hard-pressed to find designer labels or name-brand appliances in our house growing up.  No boats, campers, or RVs sat in our driveway.  My parents paid their taxes, gave to charity, and managed to help me get through college in spite of having little or no retirement savings to pull from.

My parents are part of the forgotten generation as far as retirement goes; they didn't retire soon enough to have a traditional pension plan, yet they haven't worked long enough since the advent of the 401k to have enough saved there for retirement.  The companies that they spent the biggest part of their lives working for managed to somehow legally pay them a pittance for their pensions, and now the sagging stock market is eating up what little they've managed to put away after the last few years of rising gas, home heating, and food costs have taken larger slices of their budget.  Is anyone offering them help?  Nope.  They'll pay more taxes to help pay the bills that the deadbeat mortgage holders leave on the bank's doorstep.

This afternoon the transmission on my car went out.  As I drove home from Wal-Mart in second gear the whole way, I wondered why I shouldn't play the same game.  Why shouldn't I go to a dealership, sign a loan for the most expensive car I can qualify for, and just never pay it back?  Sure, they'd come get the car eventually, but I'm guessing with some legal maneuvering and outright lying I could manage to drive a new car for free for six months or so.  (I'm sure I could put all of the maintenance and fuel costs on a credit card...and just not pay it back either.)  Don't I deserve to drive the nicest car, regardless of what I can afford?  Isn't that the new American way?

I used to be amazed that some of the students I knew simply could not see themselves as accountable for the decisions they made.  Now I understand why they couldn't...I'm guessing they've never seen anyone really held responsible.  I'm afraid we're missing a great chance to do exactly that.

Faster than a Speeding Bullet

With work being so crazy these past weeks, I've been working a lot of hours and haven't bothered to take the time to cook much or get to the grocery; consequently, I'm eating out a lot.

I'd heard Barrett mention that they'd ordered Jimmy John's subs for a meeting at work last week, and during the conversation he mentioned that they'd ordered on-line rather than calling.  I knew Jimmy John's delivered (you can see their delivery folks dashing all over campus in cars and on bikes), but I never knew you could order using the web.  Somehow this option seemed more appealing;  I could browse the menu at leisure, check out any on-line specials, and pay by credit card without having to scrounge up the cash to pay a delivery person.  (I haven't been to the bank either these past few weeks...)

I tried this on-line ordering a few times this week for lunch and was amazed at how fast they were.  Last night, Barrett and I started a stopwatch when I pushed the "Submit Order" button on the web page...

... and the sandwich was in my hands in less than 8 minutes!

This includes the communication from their web server to my nearest store, processing of the credit card, making the sandwich, and--lets not forget--actually delivering the sandwich!  I can't warm soup in 8 minutes, and I get to work through the entire time they're making and delivering my sandwich.  As someone who appreciates efficiency, this is remarkable.

Comp Update: Latin Results

We made semi-finals in Bronze Latin cha/rumba and samba, and we finished 4th in my least-favorite dance: jive. How anyone enjoys that dance is beyond me, and I run marathons...

Update from Purdue Comp

Amazingly enough, Chrysa and I made all American Rhythm finals, placing 4th in swing, 4th in mambo, and 2nd (tie) in cha-cha/rumba.

Interesting Observations on the Election (Don't worry...not mine)

While I've never met Barrett's cousin Josh, I'd like to; his blog is always good for a laugh.  Check out his observations on inconsistencies in how various events have been portrayed in the media over the past several presidential elections.

Update on Shammy

It's been three months, and she's going strong...  (I wish I'd taken a picture earlier while it was light out so you could see her leaves open.)

Growth

Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown." -- Author Unknown

Year 35 Looms Large

Those of you familiar with my regular birthday ritual will no doubt be expecting a post regarding my Year 35 Theme. But before we get into that, let's review this past year.

Some highlights/accomplishments:

• I competed in my 2nd marathon and my 2nd and 3rd mini-marathons (and these on consecutive days!)
• I took my first business trip to Southeast Asia, staying in the Philippines for a week and getting to see the sites and experience the local culture.
• I finished/re-read several books (following up on my Year 32 Theme): Abba's Child, Spiritual Authority, The Making of a Leader, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, In Cold Blood, Living a Life on Loan, and a few others...
• At work I've been able to implement some of the tools I've been receiving in SystemVerilog training and am beginning to develop proficiency and to see some payoff in the investment.

But this year has also brought some challenges that I'd not anticipated...periods of intense anxiety and immense loneliness and isolation. I spent considerable time this summer examining my life story, recognizing how my life has evolved through various leadership development phases, and honestly evaluating my character and growth needs. Several things became quite evident:

• I have no clearly-articulated life and/or ministry philosophy; my approach has been sharpened and shaped by life's circumstances, and I operate daily on the convictions I've developed, but I've not taken the time to state it explicitly such that I could communicate it to someone else when asked.
• I've viewed much of life as a course down a single path, an inflexible vision that--should it not come to pass--leaves me in the posture of considering my life a failure. This doesn't give Jesus much flexibility to direct me where He wants me to be.
• I've spent much of my adult life out of touch with my emotions, choosing to live factually and empirically. This is great for making decisions, but lousy for having authentic relationships.
  

So to that end I've reached a decision on my theme for Year 35:

To develop and maintain and written Life Philosophy--a working document that describes the significant events and seasons of my life, captures the lessons learned, and distills them to a list of principles by which I can make decisions that are in line with where my life has been and is going.  I agree with Dr. Clinton that any Life Philosophy that I could embrace must:  honor Biblical leadership values, be practical in engaging the challenges of today, and fit my unique gifts and development.

If the saying "the past is prologue" is true, then the best way to see where you're going is to know where you've been.  If I want to see where Jesus could use me in the future, it would help to--at any point in life--be able to recognize how he's used me in the past.

In some ways, this theme is the logical next step from the themes of Years 33 and 34--"Learning to manage unending projects" and "Becoming a person who faces each day head-on"; The hope is that by taking a pro-active stance in planning and entering the next phase of life head-on--armed with the lessons learned to date--I can best manage and optimize the eternal experience that is Life.

Martha Stewart, Eat Your Heart Out

Last night Barrett and some friends organized a fondue party for my birthday.  We had a muenster/swiss cheese mix, followed by an amazing chocolate fondue.  The cheese was a little...um...more solid than we'd have liked--and we did almost catch the kitchen on fire--but a good time was had by all.


If you weren't here, you should have been.  It was "Iron Chef meets Martha Stewart Living"....lots of chaos and creative destruction.  Really cool.

Thanks to all who came for making my birthday really special!

Seeking Justice

Last night I attended All Campus Worship at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, and the featured speaker was Larry Martin from International Justice Mission. This is an organization of attorneys and social workers that work to bring justice and the release from oppression of victims all over the world. On a daily basis, Larry and his colleagues work to battle human trafficking, illegal property seizures, forced prostitution, and other systematic systems of abuse. At any point there are 27 million slaves in bondage in the world today....

I guess I've known that abuse occurs all over the world and in ways I couldn't imagine. I can remember speaking with a student at Eastern Kentucky University years ago who had survived the Rwandan genocide--losing her mother to a machete attack--and hearing her speak of the amazingly overlooked luxury of personal safety that Americans enjoy while most of the world doesn't. She described being present during gun battles and taking shelter while bullets whizzed around her.

But what stood out to me last night was Larry's definition of injustice as an abuse of power--of using position and influence to rob and harm others rather than to protect and nurture. He quoted a World Bank statement that the biggest threat to most individuals living in poverty is abuse at the hands of the local police--being extorted or wrongly imprisoned at the whim of men who abuse power given to protect and serve.

All of this abuse and injustice can be overwhelming, but as we considered what we--as the light of the world--could possibly do in response to this huge need, Larry left us with two questions that Jesus asked of the Twelve when faced with the daunting task of feeding the 5000+ men and women who had come to hear Jesus speak:

1. What do you have?
2. Will you give it to me?

Jesus could have fed the 5000 with manna--he'd fed more than that in the desert--but he used the lunch of a little boy and gave him and the Twelve the privilege of being part of the solution to the hungry masses' needs.

The only hope the world has is if we, individual members of the church, are willing to give the little we have back to Jesus to use in this way. Jesus did said, "You give them something to eat..."

George Boole Would Freak

I had to take a picture of this sign at a rest area I stopped at along the way during my recent drive to North Carolina.  (Sorry, I can't remember what the offending state was--I passed through Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina, so take your best guess...)

Since I'm careful to obey all traffic laws, I spent the next few miles thinking through the nuances of this sign and why it might have been worded the way it was.  Good thing I'm a digital logic designer...

I reduced the sign to some variables...

P -- overnight parking
C -- camping

...and recalled a few boolean operators...

v -- AND
|  -- 'inclusive' OR
^ -- 'exclusive' OR
~ -- NOT 

So, we can re-write the sign as:
          P | ~C
assuming the OR in the sign is an inclusive OR, meaning that either or both could be true.  So in English, this sign is admonishing us to:
          Park overnight, or
          Don't camp, or
          Park overnight as long as you don't camp.

If it was referring to the exclusive or, it would be
          P ^ ~C                            --  which we can rewrite by definition as
          P v ~(~C) | ~(P) v (~C)    -- and reducing...
          P v C | ~P v ~C               -- and factoring out the negation...
          P v C | ~(P v C)
which in English would be "Either park overnight and camp or don't park overnight if you're not camping."

I guess I should have studied something else in school; I have two engineering degrees and I can't even read a simple traffic sign...

An Appointment for Next Election Day

Last night I had dinner at TGI Friday's (I'd not had their fantastic French onion soup in a long time), and since I wanted to follow the election results, I decided to eat at the bar where the TVs were.  (I also tend to eat at the bar when I'm eating alone...there's something uncomfortable about sitting at a table by yourself; I'm fine eating by myself, but sometimes you get a server that seems to pity you for eating alone, and that I can't handle...)

The gentleman sitting to my left seemed to be paying particularly close attention to the results, so I asked, "So...do you have a dog in this race, or are you just watching for the entertainment value?"

What resulted was absolutely wonderful.  In a manner that I'm most familiar with in small town barber shops, the gentlemen I asked my question to and another gentleman sitting at the bar began to share their perspectives on politics, the world, and life in general.  It was just great to hear some not-necessarily-intoxicated-but-definitely-relaxed men share their honest opinions on the state of the world and the solutions to all our problems.  All I had to do was ask a question when the conversation began to die down.

I'm definitely going to make it a point to find a bar the next time there's a major election; regardless of whether I agree with what is discussed or not, I really enjoy hearing people talk about whatever they're passionate about.  I can't think of a better intersection of passion and relaxed inhibition than a bar on election day!

Lasting Impressions

As I was walking on the beach last week, it was amazing to see the effect the waves had on the sand.  Fisherman, pedestrians, birds, trucks, and all sorts of other traffic passed along the beach within reach of the waves, and within minutes all evidence of their passing was gone.  The waves just kept coming and coming, whittling away the marks in the sand until it was like brand new.

When you're looking over your shoulder and can barely see evidence of your progress down the beach, it's hard not to think about life and the 'impressions' you're making on the world around you.  In the grand scheme of history, wave after wave of folks come and go...but what will be the evidence that I've been here?

As I look to creating a theme for my next year, it's been good to be reminded that of all the things that are good to do, not everything lasts past the next wave....

From Out of the Darkness...

As I've never lived anywhere (in my adult life) where I could own a pet (and frankly, my lifestyle of travel wouldn't be a good situation for any animal), the only item I've had over the years for which I've been primary caregiver is a little shamrock plant I've had since college. Well...the truth is I've had other plants, but none that were able to give me the feedback I needed to properly care for them; consequently, many didn't last a semester. My shamrock, on the other hand, stood proudly when it was being taken care of and wilted or didn't open its little leaves when it needed water. Pretty cool.

Since I was traveling a lot over this past summer, I left my little shamrock with Mom to babysit. (This plant came from a bulb of my Mom's shamrock plant, so it's cute to think of it going home to sit beside 'mama' for the summer.)

It must have succumbed to separation anxiety, because not long after I retrieved it from my parents the last of the shamrocks fell of, leaving me with a vacant pot of dirt. I was a bit taken back by how much this affected me; I'd had the plant so long that I really hated that I'd let it die. Seriously, I spent many a minute reflecting on the permanent nature of my little mistakes in not taking care of it--neglecting to check if it needed water and leaving it in a very exposed, sunny spot on my desk. If it's possible to mourn the loss of something so small, I don't think I'm exaggerating in saying I mourned--both my actions and the consequences that this little guy suffered as a result.

I placed the empty pot on a shelf under my desk behind some books and figured someday I'd find something else to plant in it. But a few weeks later, as I was looking under my table for a book, I noticed something that made me grin from ear to ear....

Two little sprigs were poking their heads out from behind my books, leaning up to the window to get some sun! Here's what it looked like when I pulled the pot from its premature grave and set it in a place of honor in the precious few square inches of desk space I have.


Barrett must have thought I was going crazy, because I got really excited. The spiritual analogies were not lost on me: mourning and burying a loved one--regretful of decisions that contributed to his death--and the subsequent joy of realizing that there is life where there had once been no hope of life. This may seem silly to you, but I really think I got a glimpse of the real hope that resurrection brings with it.

I'm happy to report that my little guy is doing very well--I found a better spot on my desk that allows it to hide from the most severe sun during the hot parts of the day and peek around the window to get sun when it needs it. I've also assigned a special shot glass for watering it, making sure I give it exactly 1 oz of water every few days. Here's what it looked like a few weeks ago.

A Beautiful Sight

There was a time when being in a room with a huge dance floor like this would have freaked me out, but now I cherish seeing a sight like this; only now do I realize how hard it is to find an opportunity to dance on a great big dance floor with a group of people who love to dance and know how to dance well--or at least are past being too self-conscious to try.

It saddens me that dancing--rather than being a regular community social event as it has been in generations past--has now been mostly relegated to something drunk people do badly.

The self-confidence, life lessons, and relationships I've gained in my almost 4 years of dancing are something I cherish, and I hope to be able to do this in some capacity as long as I live and hopefully pass the love on to the next generation.

I'll post some of the life lessons learned in a future post.

Photography is Really Hard

Today was the 20th Annual Dancing Illini Ballroom contest in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. I've never been to this contest, and since Chrysa and I haven't practiced hardly at all this semester, we definitely weren't going to compete. I decided to go and spend the day cheering everyone on and helping out in any way I can.

One thing that is always needed is for someone to take pictures, and I'm happy to oblige. I often stop when I see groups taking photos on vacation and offer to take a picture with everyone (normal camera man included) and the offer is often accepted. Today I sat with a couple of point-and-shoot cameras from other teammates, a video camera from another, and my own Fuji. The newer cameras are easy to operate, but that doesn't mean the pictures turn out well...

Theses photo have a dark band because my shoe flash wasn't properly adjusted.


This has red-eye...and you can't control what goes on in the background, so the timing is critical.


This would have been the best picture of the day, except at the last minute, Angelo's hand moved right between me and his face.


These are too 'hot'...


While these are too dark...

And remember that I have a digital camera, and I could see the photos instantly and make adjustments as I went along... I can't imagine burning a whole roll of film, sending it off to be processed (or worse, spending hours processing the negatives myself) only to see how screwed up they are....

Occasionally, though, a few good ones come out...




I burned over 225 shots today, and I'm guessing a couple dozen are worth posting. My hat is off to folks who make a living doing this such that someone wants to pay for them, and even more so to the old school folks who still use film.