My First Attempt at Weight Loss

So my doctor told me in September that I needed to lose my the chub around my middle and gain some muscle mass in my upper body. This meant a diet + exercise. Rrrrrrrr.....

I'd been a certain weight from 18-28, then gained 30 lbs, and had stayed there for the last 7 years. When it comes to weight control, I'm a simple guy. Calories in > calories out = weight gain. The reverse = weight loss. I had made some attempts to lose weight just on the input side, but it never worked. This time I would try both.

1) Avoid empty calories. For me, this meant eschewing soda at lunch completely. And it meant cutting my Nequik consumption from 1 pint/day to 1 pint/2 weeks.

2) Don't have snacks in my drawer at work. If the snacks are there, I eat them. So I finished off what I had, and didn't buy any more. There's still a vending box there, so if I NEED a snack, I can get one. But it's a lot less tempting.

3) Increase salads as part of meals.

4) continue my bike commute. We ended up taking the insurance off my car to force a 1-car situation, and it's working. I bicycle for 40 minutes every single weekday.

5) Add weight lifting. Increases muscle mass, burn some calories while lifting. Plus the muscle mass burns calories just sitting there.

So no major changes - I don't count calories, I don't run for an hour every day, I eat completely normal meals, and I'm not hungry.

Result? Lost 12 lbs in 3 months, increased my upper body muscle mass a little, and I can see it everywhere. My jeans fit better, I feel more confident, and I can lift more than I used to. I was never huge, but I will soon not be an overweight American. Just a couple months to go, and I see my Dr again. I'm going to be happy to see him. And maybe I won't have to get cholesterol meds.

For inspiration, check out this article from Peter Bregman at the HBS site.

A Belated Trip into English Literature: Longfellow

This is not a book review per se - it is a review of a collection of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poetry. This is the first book of poetry I have read all the way through. It's embarrassing to say, but it's true. I still have a book of EE Cummings that a dear friend gave to me. It's on my "will read soon shelf". And I actually will, after almost 20 years.

I picked Longfellow to start with because he was accessible. Not too out-there. Not too anything, really. My own poetry is very similar. And there was some famous stuff in it. I wonder if there's a lot of symbolism I'm missing, but for some reason, I don't think there is.

So - overall: Longfellow has a few themes that resonated with his time. One was death, and the idea of life after death. Those always go in pairs. Love is another - always requited in the end. The individual's responsibility to improve his life is a third. Fond looks back at one's younger days is another. These themes continue for 296 pages in this book. By the end, it all sounds trite.

Now, Longfellow didn't go out to be a high-falutin' poet. He was a college teacher of foreign languages who wrote poetry on the side. So he had to sell his stuff, and he did. Give the guy credit for creativity.

High points in this collection: The Falcon of Ser Fedrigo, a lovely O Henry-esque tale of love and sacrifice. Beautiful story. The Builders - simple allegory, easily memorized, good message. The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls - it leaves just one image in the mind, simply and easily conjured up again.

The best thing? The Song of Hiawatha. All of Longfellow's themes come to fruition here in high form. The Song of Hiawatha is long - over 100 pages in my edition. It tells the story of the Native American mythical hero Hiawatha, from his birth to his final journey in his birch-bark canoe into the setting sun. I had heard of this poem before, but I know nothing about it - not how he wrote it, how he researched for it, or how accurate the legends are. But it's full of details of Native American life - how to strip the bark of the birch tree, the respect the natives had for the tree that gave its life for the canoe. The culture-changing nature of corn cultivation. The stories of the North, South, East, and West winds, the calls of the birds. He treats the culture with a lot more respect than I thought he would (this is the mid 19th Century, remember), and I loved the rythmic pounding of the poem. He'll say an idea, and then repeat it slightly differently to give the idea a different tone, and the tension builds that way.

The most disappointing? Either Evangeline or The Village Smithy. For being as famous as it is (Under the spreading branches of an oak tree, the village smithy stands...) it packs little punch. I wonder why it's so famous - it doesn't stand out in this collection at all as being something special. Evangeline is just a ridiculous premise, and sexist to boot. It's promising to start with - the young couple is to be married, but they are separated and sent to America under the king's orders. The he lives a life, and she spends her whole life pining away after him. And finally, they meet by chance as he lays dying from the flu. Come. On. Spare me. Not interesting in any way, I just had to plow through that one.

Overall - Longfellow is a good read. Read it aloud to your kids. Then you get a two-fer. If you don't got kids, skip Evangeline but read the rest. Especially Hiawatha. You'll never forget the shu-shu-ga.

Scripture Story Book

For several years, as we've read and studied the scriptures together, I've translated them from King James English to modern kids English. The exercise is fun for me, and brings the characters to life for my kids. So it's time to write it down, and leave it in the cloud.

I'm no scholar - I've done my study, went to seminary as a high schooler, etc, but I don't know Latin or Greek, and I won't get into esoteric stuff. The whole idea here is to make the stories come alive. I can do that. There will be a mix of OT, NT, and Book of Mormon. Each post will be labeled as the chapter, and verse numbers will be scattered through the paragraph.

Enjoy. I hope I will.

Flu-enabled Book Review: Lone Survivor

My son shared his sickness with me this week, so I spent 2 days sick from work. When I'm not feeling well, I read.

Just by chance, I had been lent a copy of Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell the day before. It is the true story of Operation RedWing, an attempt to capture someone Marcus pseudonymous calls Ben Sharmak. 4 SEALS go into the Afghan mountains. 1 survives.

The book is comprehensive of the experience - he spends 2 chapters on SEAL training, some more time on life in Baghdad and his first month in Afghanistan. Then he dives into Operation RedWing. From the initial insertion to the firefight with Sharmak's army, and then Marcus' final capture by friendly Afghans who save his life and grant him sanctuary.

There are stereotypes a-plenty: the tough, cussing, lovable SEALS, the wimpy liberal media, the evil Taliban. There isn't a lot of gray in Luttrell's world. Maybe he doesn't do nuance. But the man is tough, loves his buddies, and loves his country. He needs this "I am invincible and my cause is right" attitude to do his job well, and it's a job that needs doing. And he doesn't hate all Afghans. He's just so used to interacting with Afghans that he's supposed to fight that it takes him a while to figure out that the friendly people are actually friendly.

The book is really informative, engrossing (although his arrogance bugged me sometimes), and makes you think. Operation RedWing went awry when the SEAL team was surprised by 3 Afghan goatherds and a flock of goats. The unarmed goatherds surrendered and waiting while the SEALs discussed their options. Kill them now and get out to save themselves; let them go and hope the goatherds didn't tell anyone about them and get out. Option 1 meant almost certain trial for murder back home. Option 2 meant that they all might die. Evidently, tying them up was not an option.

If you don't mind constant profanity, this is as good of a first-hand account of a SEAL operation as you're likely to ever read. I came away from it changed.

Concert Review: Casting Crowns

I'm generally not a Christian Rock listener. I know that God is great, and sure I love Him, but music can say so much more about our journey on earth. It was at first with skepticism that I listened to Casting Crowns about a year ago. They turned into one of my favorite bands.

Casting Crowns is a 7-person ensemble: 3 guitars, lead vocalist, piano, drums, and violin. They all work in youth ministries in Atlanta. Being a band is a secondary thing for them. Their music is viscerally real - you can tell when you listen to them that these songs are from real experiences. And they're good. The lyrics are not overly predictable, the melodies are not too predictable, either. The performance is tight - what you hear on the album is what you hear on the stage.

Stained Glass Masquerade starts off with, "Is there anyone that fails? Is there anyone that falls? Am I the only one in church today feeling so small?" and goes on to deal with the facade we so often put up at church despite the turmoil in our lives. The Voice of Truth tells the story of the lead singer's struggles with dyslexia and ADD, "...and the waves look down and they laugh at me, reminding me of all the times I've tried before and failed" and he vows that because "the voice of truth tells me a different story, the voice of truth says 'do not be afraid'", he will listen and obey the voice of truth.

These are heart-rending, and strengthening stories that have helped Katrina and I to reconnect with each other and get better perspective on our lives.

The concert was great. It was at the Rolling Hills Community Church in Tualatin. It seats a little over 2,000 people and it was nearly a sellout crowd. Brenton Brown opened. I didn't know any of his stuff, and most of it was praise songs. But some of them were really nice. He played a subdued 40-minute set, and Casting Crowns came out. There was a lot of good music, some genuine plugs for Global Vision, some explanations for where songs came from, and some preaching. It was a really great mix - entertaining, uplifting, awesome.

We'll go to their next show in the area, too. It had better be soon!

Mortality and Sugar

I had a physical 2 weeks ago. The blood work came back, predictably, with high cholesterol. I'd had the diagnosis before, but I had 2 infants, school, and work to deal with and I put it off. With Katrina's consent.

This time, I have no excuses. I am known in the office for having a desk drawer piled to the brim with snacks. I'm a little overweight by medical standards, but perfectly normal by American standards. Nonetheless, it was time to lose those extra 30 pounds.

Directions from the doctor: gain upper body muscle mass, change my diet to low-fat and low carb. Come back in 6 months for a retest. Goal: reduce/remove belly fat, reduce bad cholesterol to more reasonable level. Given that calories consumed - calories burned = weight lost/gained, I resolved to work on both sides of the equation.

1) add some weight routine to my bike commute. Slow start on this, but I've been off the weights for a few months

2) reduce snack consumption at work. No soda at work this week, haven't opened my Oreos, and cut my Hershey mini-bar and cashew/cranberry consumption in half

3) reduce high fat/high calorie portions in meals. I've substituted salads and fruit for larger portions of entrees.

Results: I am shocked, SHOCKED by the difference in my concentration level at work. I'm getting more done with higher quality. I used to grab some sugary thing to "get going", but now I realize that the constant sugar buzz made thinking simply impossible. I'm able to deal with a low-level hunger pang for longer. I don't know if I've lost weight this week. I'm going to give this particular lifestyle a few weeks to see if it makes any difference in my Dr's goals, and then I'll start to weigh in. I'll go more aggressive if I need to at that point.

So I guess the big shock is that sugar is bad. Lay off it, America! It only brings you down!

September 11th in Perspective

8 years ago this morning, I woke up, got ready for work, kissed my wife and baby girl goodbye and, humming to myself, plopped into my black 1990 Ford Taurus to go to work in Silicon Valley. The first things I heard out of the radio were simply unbelievable. NPR was reporting that airplanes had run into skyscrapers in NY.

At the office, we had 2 TVs tuned to the news. I watched one of the towers crumble on live TV. I was struck with horror, and thought to myself, "This will be known as some kind of terrible Tuesday forever." I had watched people die on TV. It made my skin crawl to realize it.

The unity and grief I felt were real and visceral. I was shell-shocked for the rest of the day, and took several weeks for my life, even on the left coast, to feel normal again. But normal was different - there was a war in Afghanistan and the whole world was behind us. Terrorism had suddenly become something that did not just happen in far away places any more.

Over the past 8 years, I've put 9/11 in a long list of obvious tragedies that never should have happened: Stalin starving the Ukrainians, the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the firebombing of Tokyo, Chernobyl, Rwanda. Those were all events that had a date. And most of them get press coverage. I've also added a long list of individual tragedies that do not receive similar attention: deaths from diabetes, drunk driving, child abuse, addiction, torture.

I will never have as deep a connection with 9/11 as I do with drunk driving. When I was working as an interpreter, I got a call from the Japanese consulate one evening. I had to call the family of an exchange student and tell them their daughter was not going to survive the night. I met them in the hospital later to discuss taking their child off life support. Death due to drunk driving is 100% preventable. It kills thousands of people each and every year, not just once. I have a similar personal connection with cancer and mental illness.

I do not expect anyone else to share my personal connections with these issues. Everyone has a life story that speaks to them uniquely. In my life story, 9/11 was a major event. Hearing a father wail in agony when I told him his daughter would not live was life changing. Talking a dear friend through a suicide attempt was life-changing.

So I don't begrudge people their desire to keep 9/11 as a private day of grief. In their life perspectives, that will always be a defining moment.

For me, who has been touched much more strongly by other life events, please allow me to put 9/11 in my own life perspective. A tragedy, certainly. But over 100,000 people have died from drunk driving in the last 8 years. 21,000 people die each year from lack of health care. Do 2,9993 individuals who died on the same day overshadow the same thousands that die on individual days? In my life perspective, they do not.

So think of 9/11 in your way, and I'll think of it in mine. We will probably never agree. And that's okay. We've lived different lives.

Book Review: The Final Encyclopedia by Gordon R Dickson

This is my first book by Gordon R Dickson, so I offer no judgments on him as an author. This is one of the last books of the Childe Cycle, a series that Dickson started early in his career and hadn't finished 30 years later.

The story involves Hal Mayne, a remarkable 16 year-old who was found as an orphan and raised by 3 tutors from very different societies. Dickson posits the homogeneity and mutual exclusivity of these societies as a given - the Dorsai are all good fighters, the Friendlies are all religious fanatics, the Exotics are all wimpy rich philosophers. The people on other inhabited planets are not really part of the story. There is a group of people called the Others that are gradually taking control of human societies, and Bleys Ahren's goal is to stop humanity's evolution so that he and the Others can control it. Hal's job, obviously, is to stop Bleys from his nefarious plot.

Hal is a very likable character. I did not like Eragon early on his journey. Hal is never petulant, though, and doesn't complain. He is extremely fortunate in that meets the exact people he has to meet to survive at every step of the way. By the end of the book, Hal is in his early 20s. This is just one part of an epic story - there is no final showdown at the end. That must be in the next book. Dickson lets Hal take some hard knocks, and he is not immediately well-liked. He comes through each right of passage pretty well, though.

This is a largely intellectual book - the ideas and societal flows are just as important to the plot as the life-and-death action sequences. There are large sections of bloviating - page after page of expository, reminiscent of Atlas Shrugged. The most important thing any character seems to do is give a 10-minute speech to a large audience. This will obviously motivate them to give up everything they have for the speaker's cause.

Despite the novel's obvious oversimplifications and bloviatingness, though, I found myself drawn to it time and again. I wasn't sad when it was over - but if it had continued I would have kept reading. Overall, a good book, a coherent book, and a book with characters we can like even though the minor characters are caricatures. It is also an interesting thought experiment on the future of humanity - this is a future that sounds somewhat plausible, and that is what makes it worth the effort.

Who is sitting around your table?

There are certainly ties of blood that bind us. There are certainly ties of friendship that bind us. There are certainly ties of love that bind us. Who is to say which is stronger?

I've been extremely blessed over the course of my life to encounter wonderful people with whom I've had familial relationships. The first I can remember is Grandma Berry. I had Grandma Farnsworth (paternal), Grandma Triplett (maternal) and Grandma Berry. It's just how the world was. Grandma Berry had a huge berry farm (there's a story behind how she got the name), and we'd go see her a few times a year. She's my mom's best high school friend's mom.

When I was 12, my brother moved from Cheney, WA, to Canby. I didn't know it at the time, of course. We became brothers when we were 15, probably. More on Sean later. About that same time, I gained another set of parents, Paul and Carol Hawkins.

After Katrina and I married (how similar is this to a true, deep, and love-filled friendship?) I gained another set of parents and a brother through her. Then I gained a daughter, and then we found yet another grandma after we moved to California. Even though we've been gone for more years than we lived there, Grandma Joyce comes up for births and baptisms, and I meet with her whenever I can when I'm in the Bay Area for business.

Now that Aria is entering 4th grade, she has friends who come over often. They sit with our family for dinner, do scripture study with us, go to church with us, help clean the house when we're all cleaning the house. This is life at the Farnsworth's: if you are in our home, you're family. We love you, we'll take care of you, and you're always welcome.

What brought this line of thought on is a magical moment in our camping trip last weekend. Sean and his 2 boys, Aria, Christian, and I hiked a few miles into Marion Lake. Just as it was when we were teens, Sean and I rarely have anything to figure out. When we're together, our kids are shared, food is shared, frisbees, equipment, time, everything is shared. It's so natural and easy that I don't have to even think about stepping on toes. The kids understand and catch it. On our way home, we stopped at Al's for dinner (Mill City - highly recommended). There were 6 chairs around the table. Clockwise, it was me, Sean, Aria, Djeryd, Christian, Eric. Our families were perfectly blended, every other person a Hawkins or a Farnsworth. Everyone was happy, making jokes and being together.

And nobody even noticed that it might be odd. This is who we were: a loving family. I'd do anything for those kids. And Sean would, too. And they'd all help each other equally.

Who is at your table? And how are they joined to you? Blood? Love? Friendship? Can you decide which are more important?

That Government Bureaucrat is Not Some Zany Villain - She's My Mom

When Republicans get on the media to talk about healthcare reform these days, they always take pains to insult my mother. Yes, my very own mommy. For she is the person they have cast into the role of death-deciding villain.

My mother works for the State of Oregon in the Department of Senior and Disabled Services. She has a degree as a Medical Assistant, which she uses every day as she helps people who are elderly and/or disabled to get the assistance they need to survive. She is a government bureaucrat. She is not a nameless, faceless villain who tries her best to deny people the help they need to survive. Admittedly, she is disappointed by how often the system is exploited. But she is also gratified that she can help as many people as she can.

Have you met people who live on welfare? I have. I have relatives who have abused the system their whole lives. I have other relatives who really really tried to make it, but needed the stopgap to get back up on their feet and become self-sufficient. Will any social-good system be exploited? Certainly. There are certainly people who receive charity from churches and nonprofits who could make it on their if they cared to.

Does that mean that we should stop these programs? I say no. There are too many examples I know of people really need help. My church teaches that when someone is in need, we shouldn't blame the needy person. We should give if we can. And if we can't, we should be able to honestly tell ourselves, "I can't help this person, but I would if I could."

For instance, I know someone very well who has serious health issues. She was unable to keep a stable job, and of course unable to afford health insurance. The situation wasn't one she chose, and it wasn't for lack of trying. Thankfully, she has been able to pull through it, and now is glad to contribute her tax dollars to helping others in the same situation. Another family member paid into these programs her whole life, and never expected to be on the receiving end. Through a terrible chain of events that tore her life apart, she depends on help from the government to survive.

No matter the program, there will be a pool of money, people who want the money, and people who decide how the money gets distributed. Some people who want the money won't deserve it. Some people who distribute the money will make bad choices. But that's what we got, because we aren't omniscient. We can leave someone with lupus to die on the street, or we can help them. It certainly isn't any individual's choice to become sick.

So don't blame the bureaucrats. They're not the bad guys here. The bad guys in the health care debate are those who refuse to be the Good Samaritan. Wasn't the guy who made up that story a Christian? Somebody named Jesus?

Movie Review: The Message

As part of my ongoing study of Islam, I was loaned a copy of "The Message". I started it 2 months ago, and got back to finish it yesterday. It's not a typical film, so I'll start with some context for how the film was made.

The film's genesis was to make a movie in English about the prophet Muhammad (hat tip to Wikipedia). Islam, however, forbids visual and audio depictions of Muhammad or his immediate family. So you never see his face or hear his voice. The film had many muslims as advisors to ensure its accuracy. The film's initial Hollywood backers dropped out, and the film ended financed by Muamman al-Quadafi. Yes, that one. The film's release sparked protests, and even a huge hostage crisis in the US.

On to the film: it was released in 1976. Anthony Quinn plays Muhammad's uncle Hamza. The acting style is definitely melodramatic, so don't expect a "Shadowlands" kind of subtlety in the acting. The script is also stunted in the same way. It's too bad, really, that such a great story was taken over the top this way. So if you're looking for entertainment, I'd not recommend this movie.

The movie, however, is wonderful as a cultural and religious education. For starters, it is the only movie about Muhammad that Muslims are allowed to watch. That's quite an accomplishment in and of itself. It was filmed in Libya and Morocco, also important to give it authenticity. The film depicts very clearly the torture and execution of the early Muslims. Not too bloody, and the camera turns away as the spear goes into the victim's chest. But you hear it, and this stuff happened. Somebody actually died that way for their faith.

We learn that Islam's call that everyone be equal upset the social order: no more slaves, no more peasants. That Islam's requirement that all Muslims be brothers upset the tribal system of distributing justice. The guys in charge were very happy to stay that way, thank you very much. The idea that common people should learn to read aligned all of Mecca's powerful people against the Muslims, and very nearly stamped it out. We also learn that even at its beginnings, Islam was a religion of peace, the same as it is today.

It's not a popcorn movie - I'd consider it a real-time documentary of Islam's beginnings. It should be required viewing for all US voters, though. The value of some measure of understanding on Confucian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim ways of thinking is invaluable. In this time in world history, we all owe it to each other to try to understand the world at large. The steps we take today and in the next 15 years will echo for the next century. Let's not waste it.

A Belated Trip Into English Literature: Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

I have very fond memories of Mrs Brockart, my 2nd grade teacher, reading "James and the Giant Peach" to us. I was a Roald Dahl fan for life. Turns out I didn't read anything of his myself until last year, when I burned through "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". It was a winner, so I picked up a bunch of used paperbacks at Powell's. James and the Peach? Witches? Yep and yep.

Today's review is "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator", predictably the sequel to the Chocolate Factory. It is a fanciful and entertaining read. It is also almost completely nonsensical. Not the "The Unconsoled" kind of nonsensical, but a "These are humans in this story, but nothing in here makes any sense whatsoever" kind of nonsensical. I liked it, once I got on for the ride.

The book is really a series of chronological vignettes, with no plot line, climax, or denouement. Remember the essential elements of a story from jr high? Forget them. The book is fun to read, but not engrossing, and easily forgotten. There are pieces (vicious Knids, Wonka-vite) that will stay with me. And Dahl's poetry is just wondrous. But there are no life-lessons to be learned here, no deeper meaning to ruminate on, and no characters that are complete enough to connect with.

My take-away: I hope that somedy I can write some poetry as uncluttered from reality as the gems in this book. It's worth the read just for that.

A Belated Trip Into English Literature: Fahrenheit 451

Welcome to today, class! The pieces of Bradbury's classic are immediately available here and now: flat TVs that take up whole walls, TV programs filled with characters who really do, say, and are nobody in particular. Where children are taught to read, but nothing is ever printed. Where people who are wealthy prey on the poor and don't care about it even if they know about it.

Paper burns at 451 deg Fahrenheit. The protagonist's job is to burn books where he finds them, until he realizes that the current state of affairs is no way to live at all. He turns on the system by degrees, losing his entire way of life and gaining a new one.

Bradbury paints his verbal portraits in bold strokes - mixing words together to get his effect, grammar notwithstanding. At times it comes a bit too quickly - the most momentous moments in the book go by in a blur of a few sentences. He takes quite a bit longer to describe how a character feels at a single given moment.

I loved how he set up the book, and the first half is a really great read. It's intriguing, complicated, and has so many parallels to the media-marinated world Americans live in. The last half has a lot of physical action, and Bradbury leaves too much to the imagination in too many places. It's still cool. A predictable denouement, probably more so because of the post-Bradbury imitators than that Bradbury was predictable. I would have liked the book to be longer because the ending wasn't neat. It is one big loose end that needs attention.

The book isn't long, it goes by quickly, and it has a lot of lessons for us as we travel down the slippery slope of life lit by backlit screens. Read it, and especially make your teenagers read it.

Next: Ulysses (for real. Yeah. But give it a few months, ok? It's super-dense.)

A Belated Trip Into English Literature: Animal Farm

I was not in AP English in high school. My university English consisted of a few composition courses and a playwriting course. But I've always considered myself well-read. In the last few years, it's become clear that I wasn't well-read, I had just read a lot of stuff.

So it's time to step back, visit Dickens, Faulkner, Joyce, Carroll and company. The first step was George Orwell's Animal Farm. I read 1984 in high school, and moved on from George Orwell. But I have kept a copy of Animal Farm for the future. Which was this week.

It's a diminutive book - just over 100 pages in the copy I have. The story is simple: assuming that farm animals could talk, what would happen? The story follows the animals as they overthrow the farmer and run their own society. As it happens, the first idea is to run the place as a commune. Before long, the animals that lead the rebellion over the farmer turn into cruel taskmasters themselves.

The allegory to totalitarian thinking is intentionally obvious - Orwell only uses the allegory to give his theories about the origins of totalitarianism the veneer of fiction. It's not far-fetched, and matches the morphing of totalitarian states from peasant rebellions to despotism in realy history as far as I can tell. The book is not complex. It is not involved. It does not have stunningly emotional moments. But it is a little chilling.

I also see many shared elements with Clavell's The Children's Story, which chronicles in about 50 large-type pages the Soviet invasion of the US. Both are worthy reads - both to understand the thinking of 1930s and 1980s America, the dangers of conformity and oligarchy (are you listening, GE?), and the poison of complacency.

Some animals may be more equal than others. And that truck driving away? It really is the butcher truck, no matter how many times FOX tells you it's the ambulance.

Next up: Farenheit 451

Movie Review: Nacho Libre

I was extremely surprised by this movie. I expected something more like Napoleon Dynamite, and I'm glad it was so very different. I usually hate vehicle movies - once you've seen 1 Adam Sandler movie, you've seen them all. Once you've seen 1 Jim Carey comedy you've seen them all. Carey's dramatic stuff is different. So I was very skeptical, but my brother told me a year ago that this was a great one. So I took the plunge.

Premise: the movie's premise is perfect - original, based in reality, and just odd enough to be funny by itself. It's neither ludicrous nor predictable.

Acting: once you accept the premise and throw any ideas about reality away, the acting perfectly fits the stage that is set. Nacho is a friar who secretly wants to be a wrestler. Somewhere along the way, he gets to fulfill his dream. But he is conflicted when his fame and money get in the way of his priestly duties. And the beautiful nun (that has amazing hair and makeup) is tempting, too. He's a conflicted good-hearted soul, as are all the other characters. Jack Black (the only marquee name in the film).

Nobody over-acts, which is easy to do in a straight comedy. There is no hint of Monty Python-style acting here. It's very normal, easy to watch. Natural.

Directing: this film was directed with a light touch - nothing about it is heavy-handed. The director really gets out of the way and lets the movie happen. I'm sure this is difficult to do.

Cast: perfectly cast. Nobody in the cast looks like a movie star except the nun. And that is as it should be.

So I loved this movie. I haven't written much about it. What makes it different? It's a comedy that is not in a race to deliver one-liners at a gallop. This movie makes you laugh, but you have to wait for it. And it's a pleasant wait. It's like a walk through a forest teeming with wildlife - it's a nice place to be, and then from time to time you are surprised by something, and it's wonderful. Also, I love the fact that I can put this movie on for my 3 and 4 year-olds and know that it's entirely safe. No swearing, nothing sexual. Remarkable restraint in a comedy of any ilk.

So it's a gorgeous film, and I hope more are made to the same standards. Time to go watch it with my kids again!

A return to notes: Sanford, Jackson, Fawcett, Politics

I realized as I was looking for my position paper on Global Warming today that I hadn't written a note in a long time. so here are some thoughts to get out of the way before I start posting about Mexico and how awesome it is to be a kidless couple for just a week to recharge.

Sanford: I know what Sanford is going through in many ways. It's obviously a tragic situation and a whole host of poor decisions belong solely to him. I have definitely noticed a different tone with him than I did with Spitzer or Clinton, though. In both cases of Dems, Republicans screamed for their resignations. The same standard does not apply to Sanford for some reason, even though it is clear by now that he used taxpayer funds to partially finance his dalliance. Definite double standard here, frustrating that there are so few self-aware Republicans to cast Sanford's sin in the same light as Clinton's or spitzer's.

Jackson: Jackson had a bunch of hits - the first song I ever remember hearing on a boom box was "Thriller" on the bus in 2nd grade. Those big 4th graders sure listened to weird music. Otherwise, like so many others, I feel for his personal life and respect his ability to take the pop music world by storm.

Fawcett: I'm a little too young to have been very involved with her. I'm very glad she took her battle with cancer public. It seems that she's done it with class, though I haven't read or seen anything she's done.

Obama: overall, he's been working very hard to fulfill his mandate. He campaigned on healthcare reform, energy, environmental stewardship, transparency, and being bold. Nothing is perfect of course, but given this imperfect political world, he's done really well. My biggest disappointment: he has not moved nearly aggressively enough to restore lawful treatment of terror suspects. No more torture is good, closing Gitmo is good. Retaining the "right" to detain people for indefinite periods of time without putting them on trial is very bad. Keeping the pictures secret that the Federal courts has ordered released is also bad. He promised transparency, let's get some.

Life: life is good. Had a fabulous vacation with just Katrina, and the kids had a blast with their grandparents. work continues apace. Way more on the vacation in the next few days as I blog (with pictures!) about it.

I finally got it right - after 10 years

Mother's Day has always been a challenge for me.  Not more than anyone else, I know, but still: I've always tried to be very good at anything I did, and I wasn't getting Mother's Day right.

I think it revolved around my selfishness.  I've learned a lot about that side of myself over the last year, and worked to overcome it.  So this year, I feel like I finally gave Katrina the tribute she deserved as my companion in life and raising our children.  It turned out that the dollar amount wasn't important at all.  It really was the thought and the effort that counted.  

This year, I thought and planned for a few weeks, and it worked out really well.  I got the motorhome ready to go (de-winterized, checked out, packed) and got sitters for the kids, and took her away on Friday for a night at Cannon Beach.  We did fun, no-stress stuff, got home Saturday and she wasn't ready for the piece I prepared for the recital.  Another good surprise.  

It was all about her - I got flowers on Tuesday, and didn't even get her a card.  But I think this weekend will be one she'll always remember fondly.  

10 years, 10 Mother's Days.  And I finally got one right.  

On Lanscaping (the verb)

Last night I got home from work and was feeling edgy.  Usually that makes me either bury my face in a book or bury my brain in a game of Red Alert 2.  

I chose to put on some shorts and work in the yard instead.   It was such a good choice.  We were trying to get a major remodel done, and this week the loan was denied.  Not enough equity.  So we decided to put our energy into the back yard.  We have a very very very long list of things on the yard to do list, and it's high time the to-do list shortens up.  

I went to the shed, where I had stowed the stump-digging tools: an old shovel, a flat crow bar, a hand saw, and a sledge hammer.  Toting them off to the back fence line, I looked at the sky above and the mud below.  It was breezy, and the rain had been off and on all day.  I dug.  And when I hit a root, I'd clear the area with the crow bar (to dig with), and then saw through the root.  Then I'd whack the trunk with the sledgehammer and see what root needed attention next.  It's therapeutic.  And I'm starting to understand people who say that.  I still don't understand why, but it is.

In a little over an hour I had another stump out.  I carried it over to the hard debris bin, and now I don't have to think about that particular lump of twisted wood ever again.  Nice.  I've been thinking about those lumps of twisted wood for 2 years now.  

So now I've got the bug - 46 stumps to go, lots of roto-tilling, a fence to repair/replace.  Katrina bought a Costco play structure this morning.  We'll remove the old barkdust under our current play structure, redo the ground, build a play house, maybe put in a sport court.  Evening are sounding really pleasant.

Book Review: The Golden Compass (or Atlas Shrugged for kids)

I picked up an omnibus volume of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy a little over a month ago.  I finished it last night.

Story: this is an alternate history with mythical/religious elements.  The time is now, but the last 300 years are very different from our last 300 years.  The church is powerful, technology is stagnant, and powerful forces are at work.  In steps Lyra Bellacqua, a precocious 12-year old girl.  

The story follows Lyra and her companions through parallel worlds (each similar to but a little different from our own).  The social/religious fabric is rich and complex.  There is enough detail about it to get a sense of it, and enough tidbits of information thrown in here and there that it makes it seem real.  You know how a good author has trouble deciding which parts of their world to not write about, not trouble making the book long enough to sell?  Pullman is one of those.  There are hundreds of stories he could tell about this universe he's created.  

The main characters are compelling, but oddly so: they are miniature versions of Ayn Rand's characters in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.  They are able instantly to tell if a person they meet is worthy of their friendship or not, and they are always right.  They are able to get out of any situation by the force of their own will.  Their eyes are intense, so that other people are afraid of them because of how inadequate they'll feel.  And they are going about the business of completely reversing the order of the world.  

The books are engrossing, the story is fabulous and deep, and some parts of it make you want to cry.  It is not, despite what you may have read, an anti-God or anti-religious book.  In its alternate world, the Church (always with capital letters) is repressive and seeks only to dampen people's spirits and kill the joy in the world.  It does reflect the author's atheistic view, and if his view of religion in general were accurate then I suppose it could be subversive.  The thing is that Pullman's vision of Christianity does not at all match with what I live.  It is an alternate reality, and will remain so.

I highly recommend these books - they're a great experience.  I'd put them next to the InkHeart series.  More serious than Peter and the Starcatchers.  Less grown-up (and more, in some ways) than Twilight.

On my first piano performance since 1982

For FB readers, you can read this note with normal formatting at http://kermitisking.blogspot.com.

I'm taking piano lessons at the Hoffman Academy.  It's relatively new, run by a young guy named Joseph Hoffman.  The staff is great - well-educated, friendly, talented, and engaged in the local music scene.  Joseph has done some arrangments for the PMCO, Dave Thomas is published as a researcher specializing in Russian music, Becca is part of a band that has paying gigs.  It's a good and fun place. 

The culture is laid-back in a certain sense - nobody makes you feel bad if you didn't make any progress that week.  But it's intense in that the staff will take you as far as you are willing to go.  These are pros who really really love what they do, and it shows.  Part of the experience includes performance opportunities.  There is the recital every term, and there is also a "come together" week every month or so.  This provides some cost-reduction (and free time) for the academy, as they provide 2 teachers for a group of 4-6 students.  But the value-add is that the students play for each other.  It's very informal, and everyone just plays what they've been working on.  

I'm rather outclassed at this point.  I'm the only man taking lessons there (most are children, as you'd expect), and there are 4 women who take lessons there.  All of them are vastly more capable than I am.  The first student to play did a Bach innovation (I think), #10.  Not flawless, but very good.  My first thought was, "Holy cow, the lady can play!"  I took out my little Bartok piece (get it here, this is a great site), #1 of his book for children.  After saying how new I was to this a few times, I played/stumbled through it.  I wasn't as nervous as I might have been.  It is a difficult piece for me - both hands attacking different rythms and changing hand positions.  And I wasn't perfect at it.  But it was good enough given that I'd only had it for 6 days.  The response was positive - we spent a little time going through it, we all played through it to give it some musicality.  And then it was time for the next student to go, and she did some crazy Beethoven that was extremely technical.  Amazing.

So it was a good experience - I'll be less nervous for my next session since I know what to expect.  And I'll spend a little time finding a piece that fits me better.  The Bartok was ok, but I'll need something that uses my voice, too.  I'm a singer at heart, and a piano going without vocals just sounds lonely to me.  Time to have fun with it and claim this art form as my own as I have with vocal performance and theatrical performance.  

Life is to be lived - forget that, and you might was well give up the habit.

How Things Have Progressed...

...with work, family, and life.

Work

I had 2 people move to a different department, and was able to fill their spots with 2 more excellent people from other departments.  A lot of people applied, and all were qualified for the positions.  I had the luxury of balancing technical ability, personality, accomplishments and potential all at once.  In the end, I wished I'd had 6 spots.  I would have been very happy to take my top 6 candidates.  

It was a true gut check.  I had known several candidates since I was a newbie to my company.  Some I'd worked together with projects, and some had mentored me.  Some I'd taught Japanese to a few years ago.  In the end, I realized that my company pays me to manage its money wisely.  And the best investment of its money was to invest in the 2 people I chose.  1 of them I'd known for a while but had never been directly involved with, and the other I had never heard of.  Not being able to tell some friends whom I think the world of that I'd be able to offer them a position was difficult.  But as a manager, it was the best decision for me to make.

Family

The kids are getting older (as they tend to do), and each is entering a different age bracket.  Aria is becoming a tween.  She speaks intelligently, can reason, deal with disappointment well, and likes to explore.  There are still too many times when she clings to a preconceived notion and won't listen to a new one.  But she's getting better at it.  The biggest struggle we have now (thank goodness this is our biggest one!) is that when she gets a redically new type of homework assignment (like her first book report) she is so decided that she doesn't get it that she won't listen and engage as we try to help her understand it.

Christian is getting better and better at reading - you can't quite see his face light up with it yet, but he's very very close.  If we don't push him, I think some day soon he'll come to us and say, "I read this whole book!"  

Libby is finally leaving the toddler stage and becoming a little girl.  She wants someone to play with, and enjoys playing house.  

Jakers is, probably because of how unavailable Katrina and I have been, a holy tornado.  He can talk really well, but the boy will grab anything he can find, open it, and eat it.  Tonight, we found that he had opened (and eaten!) a new stick of deodorant.  It wasn't on his breath, though.  He says he ate it.  We haven't found it anywhere else.  

Life

With interest rates low and a family that is getting bigger (if not more numerous), it seemed like the right time to take advantage of the opportunity to do an addition.  So we're looking at adding 1300sf.  The drawings are in progress, and if the financier thinks the new work will appraise high enough, we'll be in business.  2 weeks for the drawings, 2 weeks for the financing, 4 weeks for the permits, and 3 months until project completion.  Assuming there aren't big problems with the first 3 steps.  

The Morning Stars is still a blast.  We're at 6 members now, and watching our capabilities grow has been lots of fun.  They're great guys to sing with.  We warm up with the hymnal each week, and it seems that more and more often we're at performance quality on our first run through.  Which is cool, especially when we're reading something new.  

Piano lessons are fun as well.  It's a little humbling to go back to beginner level.  I was secretly hoping that I would get something more difficult and work on it longer to improve my skills.  Turns out that it's best to do it from the beginning as a beginner.  But I'm getting better.  And now Aria and I have some duets to play, and our skills are improving quickly.  Yay!  Soon I'll be 2-handed at the piano.

One more thing: I've had a few plastic bags of old family photos (of my uncles in the military in the 50s) and I scanned them all recently.  Really cool.  I'm getting the scanned and printed versions ready to pass around at this year's family reunion so my uncles and aunts can comment on them.  

Sesquicentennial Report

A smooth and seamless event it was not.  

We made it to the capitol mall at about noon.  We wandered around the blacksmith areas, saw the old trucks there, and visited some of the statuary on the grounds.  We tried to go inside, but there were people guarding the doors.  "The entrance is closed until 1, there are too many people in there."

So we walked around some more.  The governor was there on the steps outside, and made a little speech.  Cool to see him in person.  We got in line (in line to get in the Oregon capitol building???) at 12:55, and got in at about 1:20.  The place was packed.  The main recepetion area (with the Oregon Seal on the floor) had a little room to move, but there was no movement in the connector hall between the front and back of the building.  Christian wanted to buy some rocks at the gift shop.  20 minutes in line.  The lines to get the free birthday cake and hot dogs were 20 minutes each.  So we skipped those.  We did find the cookie decorating area, and my mom decorated cookies with the other 3 kids while I was with Christian buying rocks.

Now who decided to have the hot dogs and cake inside the building?  I really wanted the kids to get a sense of the wonder of how the government works in a way that's a little more fun than it was on school field trips.  We were able to peek in the House chamber, and we pointed out the governor and his office on the 2nd floor.  So it wasn't bad, but it wasn't as fun as I had hoped it would be.  We'll go back some day when the legislature is in session and spend a day there looking at the paintings and walking through Oregon history and observing the legislature at work together. 

Pics are posted on FaceBook.  

On My First Adult Piano Lesson

A little over 2 years ago, Aria and Christian started piano lessons with Joseph Hoffman at the Hoffman Academy.  They learned a lot and had a lot of fun.  But their parents didn't do so well at followup.   It looked very likely that we were going to move for work, so we dropped out.  And the next year was just too busy with me in school, etc.

But I finished in June and have had some time to decompress, so it was time to head back to learning.  This time, Aria and I enrolled in partner classes at the Hoffman Academy.  This is a cool place - highly recommended.  Great staff, great price for the quality, good location.  

Partner lessons are what they sound like: 2 students, 1 teacher.  The homework assignments for both are similar but not always identical.  The idea is that the students reenforce each other.  For Aria and I, it also means that we play piano together every night. 

We showed up for lessons early - our session with Kim was due to start at 6:15, but we were there at 5:45.  We sat in the car for 20 minutes waiting, which was totally my fault.  We walked in the place, and found Dave Thomas in the back room, finishing with some vocal students.  Kim was in the next room, and had just started to eat an apple.  Turns out that she gets a break between students.  

In our first session, I did a ton of things I'd never done before.  I improvised at someone's request.  I did an improve without title first.  Then Aria did one called Snow.  Then she picked Thunder for me to do.  We practiced singing and plunking the notes out (Kim called it voice matching).  We transposed a song from D to C.  And one of our assignments was for Aria to play an arrangement of "Go Tell Aunt Rhodie" on the right hand while I accompany with the guitar.  So lots of variety - this is not a place where you see a song and master a few songs.  This is a place where you learn to transpose, improvise, play by ear, and read notes.  All at once. 

It's a little outside my comfort zone, which is good for me.  I'm loving it.

Reply to Peggy Noonan's latest column

I posted a reply like this on the WSJ forum.  I lost the copy paste, so rewrote it below.  The post is in response to a post by Peggy Noonan, the conservative columnist.  The whole column is here.  

I responded to this part of the column:

On Wednesday, in an interview with Politico, Dick Cheney warned of the possible deaths of "perhaps hundreds of thousands" of Americans in a terror attack using nuclear or biological weapons. "I think there is a high probability of such an attempt," he said.

When the interview broke and was read on the air, I was in a room off a television studio. For a moment everything went silent, and then a makeup woman said to a guest, "I don't see how anyone can think that's not true."

I told her I'm certain it is true. And it didn't seem to me any of the half dozen others there found the content of Cheney's message surprising. They got a grim or preoccupied look.

The question for the Obama administration: Do they think Mr. Cheney is essentially correct, that bad men are coming with evil and deadly intent, but that America can afford to, must for moral reasons, change its stance regarding interrogation and detention of terrorists? Or, deep down, do the president and those around him think Mr. Cheney is wrong, that people who make such warnings are hyping the threat for political purposes? And, therefore, that interrogation techniques, etc., can of course be relaxed? I don't know the precise answer to this question. Do they know exactly what they think? Or are they reading raw threat files each day trying to figure out what they think?

In the post, Ms. Noonan restates the conservative talking point that either we torture or we'll have another (and worse) terrorist attack.  This is equivalent to saying that operating under the rule of law is a bad thing; that American law can not deal with terrorism.  That the only way to deal with terrorists is to operate in an extra-legal manner.

This is a bad assumption.  Most obviously, the reverse is actually true.  Places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan and Egypt are well known for poor treatment of prisoners at the least and torture or murder at the worst.  Where did the majority of 9/11 hijackers come from?  Suadia Arabia.  Where is Al-Qaeda based?  Pakistan.  Torture, rather than extracting extra important information, instead reenforces the idea that "the state is evil and must be overturned".  Its continued practice means that we get old information that is probably inaccurate, while new terrorists are hatching evil plots and have not been captured.  It creates a new threat while not obviating the old threats (because either you have the potential perpetrators already in custody or the plot has changed since you captured them).

This is a false choice, and somehow that has to get through the chatter and make some sense.  Torture does not equal safety.  It equals tyranny.

What Ripple Effect? and other thoughts

In this economy, I'm not seeing many ripples.  I am seeing a large number of tsunamis and dominoes, however.  They are even starting to reach their cold mixed-metaphorical hands into my workplace and into our personal financial decisions.  

In other thoughts, I'm very interested in Obama's first week at work.  He's been very busy, no?  So far, he's taking action to deliver on his campaign promises as well as govern with pragmatism.  That missile strike in Pakistan?  Not the act of a weeny liberal.  The plan for economic stimulus?  Not the plan of a bleeding-heart liberal.  Obama is governing from the center, with a vengeance.  He ran to the left of Hillary, which is still where he is.  Which shows that real political liberals don't get very far.  I've really liked his approach.  And I love the look of his cabinet and appointees.  Especially the picks for OLC and DOE.  These are both cases of completely apolitical political appointees.  Both candidates are very qualified in their field, and are accustomed to leading where people will follow.  The OLC choice in particular was like an addict setting limits for himself: she's a fierce critic of over-reaching executive power, and Obama can expect that if he does things he's not supposed to, she'll stop him.  

The office at home is coming together nicely.  We went to City Liquidators in Portland and found a pile of beautiful wood.  We're refinishing it and turning it into a huge T-shaped desk for the new office.  We have a bunch of extra, so we've been experimenting on a smaller piece to make sure it turns out like we want it before we do all 28 sq feet.  Cost for a similar setup that still isn't quite right: $1000.  Our cost: $300.  It's gonna be bee-you-ti-full!

The audition today was a blast.  Sometimes when you audition, you do a less-than-acceptable job, and you think, "I blew it".  Sometimes you audition and you think, "That wasn't my best run ever, but it was good enough.  If they don't pick me, it's not because I screwed up."  Today was one of the latter.  This performance was a big step up for us as a group (The Morning Stars) because of several factors.  The piece was more challenging harmonically and rythmically than we've done before, the audience was a lot more discerning, and we had to make a change on the fly because one of our members wasn't able to make it.  And despite all of that, it worked out.  Yeah!  I expect to hear soon whether we made it or not, and I'll post.

Adventures in Islam Part 3

The next 60 pages deal not with what Muhammad did, but with who he was.  Muhammad the man was a good man - kind to his wives, generous with the poor, and always interested in helping those who needed help.  After his first wife died, he became a polygamist, but there is little evidence that he had sexual relationships with anyone else besides his second wife (many years his junior, and married after Kadijah had passed away).  Muhammad was illiterate, and only marginally familiar with Christian and Jewish thought.  He was geographically distant from the centers of Christian thought, and much of today's Christian Orthodoxy was decided during his lifetime, or shortly before.  

As a prophet, Muhammad relied on revelation to guide him.  In several instances, he was rebuked by the angel after committing errors.  These rebukes are preserved in the Qu'ran.  Muhammad never claimed to be able to work miracles.  Those who look for miracles in his life point to the creation of the Qu'ran, the spread of Islam, and Islam's enduring popularity.

The Qu'ran is a collection of revelations Muhammad received from the angel Gabriel.  The chapters (suurahs) were kept as oral tradition until several years after the prophet's death.  About 30 years after Muhammad's death, inter-tribal warfare made the need for a definitive version of the Qu'ran very clear.  A few years later 4 official volums were made.  1 was kept in Mecca, and the others were sent to Islamic centers in the region.  All other copies were ordered burned.   

The Qu'ran is organized by length of the suurah.  There was no fixed chronology (the oral tradition did not preserve the date of the revelation).  Further, the suurahs often deal with more than one topic.  Thus, the Qu'ran had to be organized in some arbitrary fashion.  Length is just as good as any, so that's what it is.  Once I finish my text, I'll dive into the Qu'ran, and leave favorite quotes in this blog thread.  

Inaugural thoughts

Today, as on every inauguration, is Aria's birthday.  She is 9 today.  We talk about politics a lot in our home; a few days ago, Aria said that she felt really special because the inauguration was happening on her birthday.  Like it was made just for her.  

I am glad to see short-sightedness leave Washington.  We can disagree on Bush's record on terrorism.  There are plenty of anecotes about his administration's dismissal of the terrorist threat.  There have not been any more foreign terrorist attacks on US soil since Sep 11.  But we had Anthrax, we had the DC overpass sniper.  Americans have been targeted worldwide, Iraq has become a terrorist breeding ground.  In the longer term, Bush has stacked the playing field against US anti-terror efforts.

How can being so aggressive terrorism backfire?  Simply.  Terrorism grows when people have no hope.  By destroying the foundation of Maslow's hierarchy, people in Iraq and Afghanistan have nothing to lose.  So more of them turn to terror.  You can not defeat terrorism with violence.  Violence begets violence, and "We'lll all be blind and toothless" according to Tevye.  

So I am very excited to see a longer thinking President, who genuinely wants to understand the world around him.  This is a man who wants to hear opposing viewpoints, who is still battling his lawyers about having access to his personal email while President.   This is a President who cares about me.  We'll never meet, but he's been through much of what I've been through, and he knows and cares about people like me.

Obama has been a poor college student, he has been uncertain where his future would lie, he has had to pay back student loans.  He has lived in a small apartment while raising children.  This is not a First Family who enter the White House out of touch.  These are people who buy milk at the store (remember that Bush 41 moment?), who find bargains on the clothes rack, who drive normal cars.  

Welcome, Barack.  We pray for you and those who will work with you.  We're in a terrible mess.  May God help you.

Professional Personal Communication (or why Katrina is so awesome)

Like an awful lot of people, my work provides a cell phone for my use.  As long as personal use is not excessive, they don't mind me using it for personal business.  Thus it is that Katrina will call my cell when I'm away from my desk.  Or when the land line is busy.  

Sometimes I'm out on a lunchtime bike ride.  Sometimes I'm running an errand.  Oftentimes, I'm in a different part of the office or on a conference call.  So sometimes I can talk, and sometimes I can't.  I pick up whenever I can.  But when I'm busy and I pick up, I have a rushed manner.  Then Katrina wonders if I'm having a bad day and want to talk about it, and it takes longer to end the call so I can get back to what I was doing.  Frustrating for both of us.

To Katrina's credit, she brought it up last night after I got home from rehearsal.  Instead of this uncomfortable dance on the phone, she asked that I answer the phone and say something like, "Hi boss.  Can I call you back in a few?"  Easy as cake.  

This could have been (and with countless other people would have been) an involved, "You don't understand me!" thing with hurt feelings on both sides.  She could say that I don't think she's important, I could say that she doesn't understand what I'm doing at any given moment.  We'd both have a good argument.  And we could stick to our arguments and go to bed angry.  Instead, she's thought through a solution from both sides of the story, and asked for what she needs in a way that doesn't negatively impact what I have to do.  Easy.  Painless.  And wonderful.

This is how a partnership/marriage/friendship should work.  Lovely.  How lucky I am!

Miscommunication and redemption

It was late, close to bed time, and Aria had some homework due the next day.  She was tired and frustrated (it's her first book report) and wasn't making good progress.  I tried to help her by asking leading questions, but she just had an exasperated look on her face.  "I just don't get it!!"  At some point, I told her (maybe too strongly) that she needed to buckle down and just write down the answer to the question.  She asked a question, I replied.  She then replied to me in a way that was insulting to me.

I took offense and parroted the words back to her.  She said, "You don't understand!"  I parroted back her words again, and then the doorbell rang and I had to get it.  I told her we'd talk about it in a few minutes.  I left her crying at the table.  I felt justified.  I took care of the business at the door in about 10 minutes, and as I walked back into the house, I caught up with her in the play room.  I asked her what I didn't understand.  Turns out that I had answered in the affirmative, and she had thought I answered in the negative, which fueled her offensive response.

Turns out I was a big oaf.  I was reminded, again, that nobody means to be offensive.  If I take offense at something, I have to take the effort to confirm that the sentiment I understood was the sentiment conveyed.  In this case, it wasn't.  I apologized.  I told her I should not have gotten angry, and I labeled the incident a miscommunication.  We hugged, she forgave me, we moved on.

Moments like that are one of parenting's biggest perks.  It really makes me a better person all around. As a follow on, just yesterday or the day before I heard Aria remark in passing that she had had a miscommunication with someone.  What a kid.  

Also - I found out by accident (I do this sometimes just for fun) that Aria can do fractions now.  We were measuring to hang up a mirror in her bedroom, and I asked her what 18 - 4 1/2 was.  She gave me the right answer.  Then I asked her what half of 4 1/2 was.  Again, she was right.  Cool.

How do you feel when one of the happiest parts of your teen years comes back full force?

Imagine that you had a very close friend, someone you confided everything to, for almost 10 years.  The years in question?  9th grade - early adulthood.  You shared music, aspirations, pictures from vacation.  No matter how bad your other friendships got, or how frustrated you were with your parents, you thought that she would always understand.  Somehow, you lost track of each other.  You both moved, got married, there was no such thing as Facebook, and letters sent to her old address came back unopened: "Return to Sender".  

You looked around every once in a while as you built your net presence over the next 10 years: she was one of the people you looked for when building your friends in MySpace.  A few years later, it was LinkedIn.  A few years later, Facebook.  No luck.  You conclude that she's probably married with a different name, and doesn't want anything to do with you.  

Then one day, you get a Facebook message.  It's the face you know, but a different name.  And all those happy feelings and memories come back.  Turns out she is happy to find you, is happily married, and is still living in Lille, very close to the French/German border.  

Such was my elation this morning.  My pen pal found me!  There are few things that last 10 years that don't have some kind of bitter taste to them.  We fight with our friends, our family.  Work doesn't go so well.  We start a new hobby and get injured.  We get stuck in a life rut.  We hurt someone's feelings.  Our 10 year pen pal-ship doesn't have any bad memories for me.  After 10 years out of contact, it's wonderful to revive those happy thoughts. 

One of my best friends from those formative years is back.  Maybe this technology thing is cool after all.

Adventures in Islam, Part 2

I'm 3 chapters into my primer on Islam.  I've learned a lot of stuff, most of it is pieces of history, names and places that aren't particularly relevant in understanding Muslims today.  It will inform my study of the Koran, and gives a better background for asking interesting questions.  Do you have something that you don't want to ask questions about because you feel so ignorant that you're afraid you'll also look stupid?  Yep.  That's where I'm starting from.  Much like when coworkers or friends start to talk about wine (sorry, sommeliers), any talk about Islam would just leave me behind and not be very interesting.

So, to sum up 60 pages of reading: Muhammad was born in the late 500s on a band of land called the Hijaz.  It runs along the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia today.  At the time, there were bands of Christians and Jews in the area, but the Arabs were polytheistic pagans.  Life was centered around the tribe, and the shaykh was not just the administrator of the law; he was the law.  There was no "law of the land" as we understand it today.  Quick example: if you killed someone from your own tribe, you'd be forced to pay damages or killed yourself.  If you killed someone from a neighboring tribe, your shaykh had complete power to prevent you from prosecution.  It may start a blood fued between the tribes, but that was at the shaykh's discretion.  

Muhammad married late (age 25) into a wealthy merchant family.  This family, the Quraysh, controlled the city of Mecca.  They had decreed that within a certain radius of the Kaaba that violence was forbidden.  This was the first zone of law that we would understand as such.  After 15 years of marriage, Muhammad was meditating in a cave and got a visit from the angel Gabriel.  Worried that he might be posessed by jinn, he consulted his brother in law who was familiar with Christan and Jewish scripture.  He assured Muhammad that this was from god, and that Muhammad had been called as a prophet.  Kadija, Muhammad's wife, was also an early believer.

The message that Muhammad started to preach was one of sacrifice and submission.  Islam means "to submit".  His first converts were the poor in the city of Mecca.  His rich relatives eventually forced him to leave the city.  He took his followers to Medina, where he became not only a prophet a civic leader, but also took on the role of military commander.  His arrival in Medina starts the Hijrah, the Islamic calendar.  Much like the birth of Christ starts the gregorian calendar, the Hijrah starts on September 24th in a certain year, which is year 1, day 1 of the Muslim era.  

Within 8 years, Muhammad had gone from a "crazy guy preaching in the streets of Mecca" to the Prophet of Arabia.  He had a huge army, and Arabia had submitted to Allah.  Muhammad died in the 11th year of the Hijrah, at his home in Medina.  By the year of his death, Islam had spread over the entire Arabian peninsula, with missionary forces preaching the Word to tribes scattered all around.  The Koran was finished, and despite some wrangling for the "I am the next prophet" title after Muhammad's death, Islam was an ongoing concern.

The Arabia that Muhammad left behind was much different from the one he inherited.  Arabia was now populated by monotheists.  Islam allowed for Jews and Christians to practice their religions in peace.  Muhammad's call was specifically to preach to those who had not received the revelation from God as Moses had for the Jews or Jesus had for the Christians.  Law was no longer dependent on a person's tribe so much.  Laws were part of Islam, and administered universally.  Care for the poor was ingrained as a virtue.  

Interestingly, Islam was carried forward by both military (conquering towns and forcing its residents to convert) and spiritual (sending teachers to preach) means.  I've got a ton to learn before I can say a whole lot more about it than that.  It is a tribute to Muhammad's skills as a man and personal character that he was able to accomplish such a huge cultural shift in his lifetime.  Now, on to more study and fun!

Christmas comes but 4 times a year...

This Christmas season has been really wonderful. I'm not in school, I've learned a lot about how to be a better guy this year, and the kids are older and enjoy it more. It's been an extended season for us - we put up the lights the week after Thanksgiving, got the trees later that week, and we had our last Christmas present-opening event just last night.

Our 4 Christmases were all different: the extended-family party for my mom's side at our house, our private family Christmas day, Christmas with my sister, brother, his wife, and parents at our house on the 29th, and then again with Katrina's family in Springfield last night.

People are nice and wonderful, the gifts were fun to give and to get, the kids all really had fun with it (not having an infant is wonderful!), and Katrina and I didn't have the tension we've always had around Crhistmas time. This is the first year (of many) that the Tom Grinch hasn't showed up.

A happy new year to you all - may 2009 be as wonderful a year as any we have seen!