Education

Today's lesson, girls and boys, is about education. Not education in general, it's more like when your mom used to ask you what you learned when you came home from school each day. Today I learned 4 things.

Thing Number 1)

Previously, I learned that when you need to remove 56 years worth of rust from an old Chevy pickup frame, a tool like this makes the job go much faster. Today I learned that you REALLY want to keep your fingers out of this tool when it is running.

Thing Number 2)

A year and a half ago when I built the shop I purchased a first aid kit and hung it on the wall in there. It was somewhat ironical that Monday (that would be the day before yesterday) I was doing some cleaning, noticed the first aid kit hanging there and had a moment of reflection when I pondered what might be inside the kit and whether it would ever get used. Today I learned what the inside of the kit looked like (it looked like this and had everything I needed)

Thing Number 3)



This is actually a self portrait showing the front of my shirt. It is cropped so you can see the little spears of wire sticking out of me. I already knew the spinning wire wheel does that to you. Today I learned that so many are hitting you that you might not notice one that sticks in your head just below your hair line (but someone at McDonnalds will tell you about it when you stop in to get your lunch)

Thing Number 4)

My fourth and final thing I learned today is that this (another self portrait)...

...is not enough protection (although it seems like a lot - look, I even have ear plugs for the noise). I now wear leather gloves too!

A Laugh Out Loud Moment

So I'm cutting 2 inch angle iron for a project I'm working on. Sparks are flying everywhere as they always do but I've done this so many times in the past week that I really don't mind being bathed in the fire.

That was when I smelled the burning hair.

You would think this post would be about the burning hair, but it isn't. I clearly remember having a conscious thought. It was:

"I am in the middle of a shower of sparks and I smell burning hair ... that can't be good".

Obviously I stopped cutting and patted my head down to smother any fire that was going on up there but by the time I finished ensuring I wasn't on fire anymore I pondered the thought that triggered the fire prevention activity and started laughing so hard that I had to take pause before returning to my task.

Now if I can just work that into a conversation with another human being...

"I am in the middle of a shower of sparks and I smell burning hair ... that can't be good".

Who Gets to Decide?

Man's best friend.

Shortly after I woke this morning Michelle told me that the dog (or dogs - we are dog sitting for Mandy and Jack) had managed to pee in four separate places during the night. All four spots were in the room with the dog door (mere feet from the great outdoors). As she exited for work she asked me if I would rake the poop up in the yard today too.

So I'm on my hands and knees with a rag and Clorox water cleaning up last night's fun and games when I look up and I see this:




It was at that point I began to wonder who decided Newbie was my best friend.

You see, I went to Home Depot yesterday to get something they didn't have. As I was exiting the store empty handed I walked by a display of safety glasses and pondered the shower of sparks I seem to be taking daily now that I've taken up metal working as a new hobby. I decided to buy two pairs of new safety glasses so I would have an extra should someone want to watch me work at some future point.

When I got home I wanted to clean the house up some (Michelle was returning from a solo week of vacation) but knowing my feeble 50+ year old mind, I realized that failure to put the new glasses in the shop would result in them being hopelessly lost (without too much grief from me as I probably wouldn't even remember that I purchased them in the first place). To dodge that scenario I hung them on the knob of the back door where I was sure to see them the next time I was heading out to the shop.

You can probably guess the rest. At some point during the night my "best friend" decided to help me out by ripping through the bottom of the bag, taking both pairs of plastic safety glasses out into the yard, and, being unable to write a love note, put the only real signature he had on them.

Time passes.

I get the rake and start taking on the virtual sea of puppy droppings. It's been a week and these two dogs are a remarkable factory. If only they were dropping car parts in the yard. I'd have a hummer by now. I'm sure of it.

When Michelle left she tried to soften the request by saying she just wanted me to rake the bountiful harvest into a pile, I didn't need to pick it up. Considering this I appriciated the gesture but also knew there was no good reason to leave the job undone once I got a nice deep pile. As I grumbled about the fact that I didn't get to vote on Newbie being my best friend, I headed into the garage to get a shovel.

I found the shovel, walked back to the yard, opened the gate to see Jack's best friend rolling in the pile.

It was then that I knew I had to go public in the blogosphere and ask the question. Who gets to decide?

Pointless and Amazing

I've done this thing from time to time when I find a very liberal political discussion, and I participate. I do it because I think I will be amused by the exchange of ideas and the debate will grow me. I think I'm done doing it.

Actually it surprises me how bitter, angry and condescending many folks on the left are. I go in and make bold statements about the issues and the responses typically include personal insults, shots at my family, sweeping derogatory generalizations about republicans and ALWAYS include attacks on my intelligence.

My approach was typically to enter the conversation with something provocative to get their attention, then after they react and respond engage in a friendly, polite, and hopefully intense dialog.

Let's say, for example, I found a thread that was addressing the roll-back of the Bush tax cuts. The liberal folks would be going on and on about how the rich are evil and must pay more while they themselves are having a hard time and should pay less and get more help from the government. In the thread there seem to be folks who believe if we all pay, say, 15% in taxes, it isn't right because the "rich" aren't paying pay more (and they should). They think they should be paying 5% and the rich should be paying 40%.

I must admit it isn't clear to me why the rich must pay more but let's set that aside for a moment. I would want to argue that 15% of $20,000 was $3,000 and 15% of a million was $150,000 so the gal making a million would pay 7.5 times the $20,000 yearly salary as an annual tax (and that is MORE). If we had an equal percentage the folks who make more still pay more.

So I would enter the thread and my provocative attention getter (to ensure folks would want to read my second post to the thread which makes the point above) would be something like "If you expect people who make over $250,000 to pay 40% of their income in taxes you should be willing to stand up and pay 40% yourself or you should sit down and shut up".

The response is actually fairly universal and predictable. They will start by calling me a jackass. (I believe the last thread it was "You are an evil greedy jackass") and then they would set into personal attacks like "You are a horrible, despicable human being" and "You are what is wrong with this country" or "you should be jailed (or killed or some other horrible fate)." They will ALWAYS tell me I'm uneducated and not as smart as them.

I will then put up my second post making my point about fiscal policy and adding that they really don't know me well enough to make judgments about my intelligence and greed. I rarely get through the second round without sweeping generalizations about the evils of "people like me" and additional personal attacks. I can more or less count on being called a bigot in round two and it is not uncommon for them to start taking shots at my family. The last round one of them got on my face book page, saw that I read Sarah Palin's commentaries and then attacked me because I would have to be ignorant and a bigot if I didn't hate her.

I am flawed if I am not smart enough to hate someone.

It is amazing.

Lest I distort the truth it is important that I say there are some folks who will stick with the issues. Some will tell me that they think the rich should pay more because a 50% tax won't have an effect on their standard of living where as someone who is making $30,000 a year could not survive on $15,000 (thus providing the dialog and debate I was originally seeking) but I've never engaged in one of these discussions where someone didn't put all their energy into hating me (sometimes in scary ways).

So I have decided my last such discussion was my last such discussion. I've decided the whole thing is fairly pointless. I'm not going to convince them of anything. They are elite and could never hear the words of an ignorant, greedy bigot such as me. For my part, I love the debate but I've decided it isn't worth all the negative energy. I typically spend 75% of my responses addressing attacks on me as a person rather than discussing the issues. If I can't discuss the issues the participation is pointless. The negative energy is pointless. Entering a dialog with people who are too elite to hear my side is pointless. Talking with people who hate me so much that they can't discuss the issues without insulting me and my family is ... well, pointless.

It's truly amazing.

Living a Life of Tolerance

First of all let's be clear. I don't give a crap who got here first. You only get to lay claim to "ownership" if you can hold on to what you think is yours and if you are strong enough to protect it. If you aren't strong someone stronger may come along and take it away from you. If that happens, you need to stop pouting, get over it and adapt. The world changed, you big baby, and feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to benefit you OR your kind. I say assimilate. Figure the new world order out and find a place in that world.

Now if you aren't too stupid or too lazy and you actually make an effort to assimilate, I'm the kind of guy who will respect you for it and I will begin to practice tolerance. I will honor you in your new environment. Heck, I might even lend a helping hand even if it means I have to go against the establishment to support you.

This isn't theory. This is real. Let me tell you my story.

Michelle doesn't like them. Well, in all fairness that isn't completely true. She likes them ok, just not in our neighborhood. I on the other hand, I figure they have as much right to be here as I do so I've practiced tolerance for years. She is nervous that they will vandalize our house and she blames them for some past damage. I'm not sure if the damage was from them but even if it was, the one who did the damage probably doesn't represent the views of the rest of them enough that we should be making sweeping judgments about all of them so I still argue for tolerance. Recently I went a step farther (even though my wife was opposed).

I decided to help them out by providing some food. Michelle thinks it is a bad move because that will just bring more of them in and the chance of vandalism increases but I'm committed so...

I build a squirrel feeder outside my window. It has two screws through it and I put corn cobs on the screws (one fresh, one dried). I like to watch them come around and chew on the corn (except when the dog sees it then I DON'T like the chaos that occurs when Newbie freaks out) and I get that they may try to burrow another hole in my eaves so they can build a next but I still think that we need to share our resources.

I know, I know these squirrels are are lower on the food chain than we are and I could just kill them but hey! I'm living a life of tolerance.

50 Things Abou Me

My niece Maggie did a post like this and it looked amusing so I thought I would do one too. Here's fifty things about me (in no particular order).

1. Like many people who are pushing 53 years old, I'm overweight and could stand to lose 50 pounds.

2. I really enjoy photography, have a nice digital SLR, and have taken over 15,000 pictures in the last decade. I only show people around 1,700 of them, though.

3. I do all the cooking at our house. My wife does the laundry.

4. I'm done paying for college and weddings so I've reached a point in my life where I don't need the next promotion or pay raise. As a result my work is focused on what amuses me rather than getting my boss' attention.

5. I believe that being in debt is not a good thing so I (we) paid everything off and now I save up for big purchases rather than borrowing the money. Perhaps that is part of the reason I don't need the next promotion or pay raise.

6. I like to travel but have done enough of it that I don't like to do a great deal of it.

7. I've been to every state in the USA but one.

8. I've been to every continent in the world but one.

9. One day I will visit the 7th continent but I'll never visit the 50th state.

10. If I die before my wife she will have me cremated and scatter the ashes in the state I haven't been to.

11. If I die after my wife, my kids will bury me with a head stone that says "Having a great time, wish you were here".

12. I got picked on by bullies a lot when I was growing up.

13. I am a black belt in Taekwondo.

14. I won 2nd in sparring at the national Taekwondo championships in 2003.

15. I have jumped out of an airplane (with a parachute)

16. At one time I had an FAA instructor ticket for a specific type of ultra-light aircraft but I am no longer current. I still fly sometimes.

17. My kids really impress me. My son is smarter that I am and my daughter is a better person than I am. I suppose that means I've had the best possible parenting experience because nothing is more valuable than having your kids end up better than you are.

18. My son is very much like my wife and my daughter is very much like me in most things. The exception is the trait of focus on others. In that area my son is like me and my daughter is like my wife.

19. I have ridden in the MS-150 (150+ mile bike ride to raise money) in all but one of the last 8 years. The year I missed was because my doctor told me I couldn't ride. I drove a support van that year.

20. I have had an AK47 pointed in my face in a threatening way in the middle east.

21. I once paid a bribe so I would be allowed to enter a place where Christians were forbidden (Muslims only).

22. I once bribed a police officer (in Egypt) so he would allow me to buy train tickets without a passport.

23. One time when I was in Egypt I had my driver slap a camera out of my hands and on to the floorboards because he spotted armed guards on an overpass and feared they would think I was taking pictures of the presidential palace and shoot into the car.

24. I have walked on the great wall of China with my daughter.

25. I have gone up the Eiffel Tower with my daughter.

26. I have visited the house where Ann Frank hid from the Nazi's with my daughter.

27. I have stood at the base of the Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado with my daughter (actually at one point we laid on the ground together there).

28. I have stood on the deck of a cruise ship with my daughter watching the coast guard helicopter medivac a medical emergency off.

29. I attended a super bowl where I watched the Denver Broncos win their first world championship.

30. I attended game 6 of the NBA Championships where I watched the Boston Celtics clinch the World Championship (and I got to attend the team after party)

31. I attended the game where Nolan Ryan pitched his 7th no-hitter.

32. I have a shop in my backyard with an automotive lift in it. As I type this it has a 54 Chevy pickup on it (the frame of the pickup is about 7 feet off the ground).

33. I once petted a kangaroo (and not in a zoo).

34. I once climbed to the top of Devils Tower. I think it is scariest thing I have ever done (I have a significant fear of heights).

35. I have been playing disc golf (sometimes called Frisbee golf) for over 16 years. I play most Saturdays. In all those rounds, I have had 1 (count it, one) hole in one.

36. I work for the 10th largest company in the country (39th largest in the world).

37. When I was 15 I got my first GM car. When I turn 55 I will be driving my last GM car.

38. I have owned a 69 Z28 Camaro and a 65 Mustang convertible.

39. I donated to 2 political candidates this year. Neither one was in the state where I reside.

40. I often say that if Christians spent as much time helping non-Christians as they did sending other Christians to hell, Jesus would have come back years ago because we would be done.

41. I once had a massive pulmonary embolism and spent about 2 weeks in ICU. I had to sit still the first 48 hours (while they were pumping me full of heparin) - That was the reason the doctor wouldn't let me ride the MS-150 that year.

42. There are many political arguments these days about making the rich pay more. Having been all over the world I have come to believe you would be hard pressed to find ANYBODY in this country that isn't rich so I'm in favor of a flat tax where we all pay the same.

43. I don't have a bucket list but I'm thinking about writing one. If I do, one of the thing in it will be to coordinate an effort to donate 10,000 pounds to meat to the folks who could use a little help.

44. My wife got a new Yorkie (that's a dog for those of you who were wondering) when her old dog died. I probably like this dog more than any other dog she has ever had.

45. My wife's new dog barks too much.

46. I don't think I could tell you what my favorite food is. It is rare to find one I don't care for.

47. I really don't like it when someone who is driving down the road stops traffic to let someone out. I believe the person who does that thinks they are doing a good thing by creating an inconvenience for half a dozen (or more) people behind them so that they can create a convenience for a single person. I believe it is stupid to think it is a good to be inconsiderate to many people so you can be considerate to one.

48. I think it is cute when someone from a small town complains about heavy traffic in their town or another small town. The people in Houston, Boston, Washington DC and Denver understand what I'm talking about. That said, the word "heavy" is relative. If you live in Upton Wyoming I'm sure Gillette Wyoming has heavy traffic. The comment isn't wrong - but it is still cute.

49. I'm really comfortable with people who disagree with me. Truth be told, I have no doubt that dissenting views make life better and more interesting.

50. I am all for tolerance but think acceptance goes too far. I need to tolerate your right to think what you want to think (as long as it isn't hurting anybody else). I also support a world that tolerates you doing what you want to do (again, with your freedom stopping prior to damaging others). I do not, however, support a social view that tells me I need to accept your views. That's just stupid. If you are wrong, if you are ignorant, or if you are into things I don't want to connect with there is just no good reason for me to accept your view. I respect your right to a different view but if you want to force me to accept something I don't agree with I'm going to push back.

Harry Potter and The Mosque at Ground Zero

I read a lot of books but a children's fantasy about an orphan witch would not be a likely choice for me.

When the first book of the Harry Potter series came out it created quite an emotional stir and people at my church were going on and on about how it would lure children into a relationship with Satan himself. It was quite the emotional ruckus.

People kept asking me what I though about it and finally I decided to read the book and form an opinion. Well, long story short it ended up costing me the enough time to read 7 books. The series was quite a compelling read and I'm still feeling my secure in the salvation of my soul.

I could have opened this post with the same discussion about The Da Vinci Code. Another book that had the Christian community all wound up and rattled. Another read that left me wondering why people could get upset over such things.

I am currently engaged in a couple of Facebook discussions about the mosque at ground zero. When the dust settles, Facebook isn't a great forum for such things because the quantity of text has a limit that always seems to distract me.

My participation in the thread started when I threw a simple question into an emotional post about the mosque. I simply asked "Is it a mosque or a community center?". The response was something like "Jim, I hope you are kidding..." or some such thing.

The truly striking thing about Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code was that so many people were upset and angry. During discussions with the angry people I would ask them if they read the books and I would get responses like "I would never read such a horrible thing!" or "I don't have to read it, I've heard plenty already".

Let me tell you something (and here comes the whole point of this post), you can't know what you think about an issue - ESPECIALLY an emotional issue before you do your own research.

As a side note (and for no extra charge) for those who haven't noticed yet, religion and politics are typically emotional.

Most of our political info comes from the press. The press makes their living by getting you interested in engaging to learn more. I'll present two headlines. You decide which you would be more likely to engage in:

Religious group to build cultural center in lower Manhattan.

or

Muslim Extremists to build Mosque at Ground Zero

I'm selling advertising time on a web page or radio and I want to tell my sponsors that people will be plugged in strongly enough to make it past the commercial break, I need the raw emotion. The same is probably true for our religious leaders. It serves them well to have their followers emotionally connected to an issue now and then.

The title that is shocking serves the ultimate goal and if you don't pay attention and find out what is really going on you can find yourself all fired up ready to enter a battle with casualties. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of a guy that is inclined to avoid a battle because there might be casualties. As I age, however, I learn that often the casualties aren't really necessary.

Rather than dilute my point here, which is you need to get all the facts prior to forming an opinion, I will put detail on my current views about the mosque at ground zero into another post. The truth is I still don't know enough about motive and funding to have a definitive view yet but the preliminary checking leads me to believe we're collecting ammunition over a YMCA rather than a temple to worship the acts of Bin Laden.

...and the Harry Potter books? Great story but I might be slow to let younger children read the later volumes. The series got kind of dark as it matured. The good thing about these books is they will help your children learn to love reading. The stories are quite wonderful. If you want to be really safe you could balance it by spending some time with your children in the Bible reviewing scripture around what God says about witches and witchcraft. Do that and you've planted a seed to help them grow into an adult that does what this post is urging. -- Oh, and if they are afraid of the dark, tell them Voldemort is real. That should be a hoot!