Rain, Response and Re-Think

Rain in So Cal is a funny thing. For one thing, it makes the native Californians a little crazy. Secondly, it makes the transplanted Californians remember other places they lived with rain – sometimes with fond memories, sometimes it re-enforces why they moved. Thirdly, it never just rains in So Cal. It's always a storm. The local news goes crazy with “StormWatch.” They put our all their reporters out in various locales so they can comment on whether or not any moisture is falling from the sky yet. Sometimes it’s almost too much.

But the one place that rain really messes up, is the freeways. When it rains in So Cal, it divides people into two groups. Those who don’t slow down one bit and those who nearly stop completely. Neither of these options is the appropriate response. When the roads get slick from the rain, it’s a good idea to slow down some and take it easy. That doesn’t mean business as usual at 80 miles an hour. Nor does it mean that you should go 10 miles an hour on the freeway because there’s a light mist falling. (Does it make me a bad person to enjoying seeing the yahoo who went by at 80 facing the wrong way against the center divider a few miles later?)

Appropriate response is a good thing. Whether you are dealing with disciplining a wayward child, or dealing with an organization that has provided a poor service for your money, or dealing with a perceived slight from a co-worker or family member - take a moment to think about the appropriate response BEFORE you act. Maybe now is the time to re-think your response regarding spiritual matters as well. Have you responded appropriately to God's calling? That's worth pondering about....

Opposites Attract

We seem to love things that are opposites of each other. Sweet and Sour Chicken is a great example. We put "hot" chocolate on "cold" ice cream. If we get dressed up, we often where black and white. Snacks are often sweet and salty or sour and sweet. We like to jump out of a hot tub into a cool pool. And "good" girls like to date "bad" boys. Some "good" people like to dress up like big, "bad" bikers and go to the local bar on weekends.

Those last ones open up a whole area of strange human behavior. Many times we like to be a little bad. We don't want to kill anyone or go to jail, but we like to be bad - a little bit. We just want to have some fun. I think sometimes this how people get into big trouble without really realizing what's going on. One classic example is cheating on your spouse. It's naughty and often times we think it will be a little fun and no one will really get hurt. We won't go to jail. It just a fun way to be a little bad. Ask Tiger Woods how that's working out for him. There's many other examples of this type of behavior.

It's like we are trying to have everything. We want to be bad and good. We want the respect of being a good person and we don't want the cops to harrass us, but we also like the alure of being a little bad. Why be a fence sitter? You can drive yourself crazy trying to lead a double life. It doesn't seem to be worth the headache. Can you imagine anyone at the end of their life wishing that had just been a little more bad? Me neither. So why bother with it? That's worth pondering about...

But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:15 (NIV)

Obvious Moments

Parents of young children often worry about child care. When our children were young, me and my wife were no different. We both worked and so at one point when our babysitter couldn't continue, we worried about what we were going to do. We were very blessed to find a wonderful family at church that was able to watch the boys. They stayed with this family the entire time until they started going to school. It was a great situation for us, and hopefully the other family. I guess they survived our boys, as we have remained close to this family these many years later.

At a recent event, I was introduced to an extended family member of this family. I had never met this man before, but he had often been to the house where they watched the boys and he remembered them. After we talked for a few minutes, he mentioned that often saw the boys on the way home from school on the bus. He remembered the boys well. The boys didn't remember him or recognize him. But he remembered them and would watch them on the bus each day with their friends.

At first glance this seems like a neat coincidence. But I believe it was more than that. Like many parents, I have often prayed for the safety of my boys. God seems to have answered my prayers. But now it seems that God has reminded me that he did answer my prayers. He provided a man who knew my boys, that the boys didn't remember and whom I had never met, who was on the bus each day with them. Someone, who if needed, would have stepped up to help my boys.

I have a friend who says "God is good all the time, and sometimes it's really obvious." I love those obvious moments. Those moments don't always happen as often as I'd like them to. But when they do it is so cool!

Sometimes I wonder what I've done to deserve such favor from God. Then I remember, I haven't done anything. God loves me and provides for me as a good father cares for his children. Not because I am great, but because He is great.

What's Important?

This holiday season was quite a bit different than I expected. I was expecting a regular holiday. We have a bit of routine down and it's good. I was going to get some time off and do a few minor projects around the house. Just kind of lay low and enjoy the time off. It didn't really work out that way, but I'm ok with that.

However, part of the holiday was really unique, and dare I say it, even special. It was totally unexpected. Without going into all the details, several times during this holiday people did something or shared something with me and my family that was very thoughtful. We got one card from someone who really took their time to write something very nice and uplifting. We were invited to share the evening with some friends. Someone shared something with me about what had made their year one of the best ever. Just some little things. Nothing big. Certainly nothing expensive. But that's what made it so cool. It was personal. These things probably wouldn't mean much to anyone else, because they were custom tailored for me.

It really made me reflect on what is important. I tend to be very task oriented. I guess that's not all bad, someone has to get stuff done. But I need to be careful not to be only task oriented. Tasks don’t matter near as much as people do. I know that, but I’m afraid I don’t always act like that.

Take the time to be part of the lives of the people around you. Think about where you, your family and your friends are headed – not only in this life, but for eternity. When you are part of someone’s life, you have influence. You can make suggestions that could help in the course of their life. That’s a good thing. The question is, what suggestions are you making? What course adjustments are you responsible for? That’s worth pondering about.

Silly Questions

I was at the store buying a new computer the other day. I had already done my research and was pretty much ready to buy. I was just doing some final checking and comparisons on what was available.

After standing in front of various computers for 15 minutes or so, a sales lady approached and asked if I was interested in getting a computer. Now I suppose they have to ask the question because they get lots of looky-loos. But when you do want to buy a computer, it's a goofy question. I'm standing there thinking, "Yes, I want to buy a computer, that's why I'm standing in front of the computers."

Then she spent the next few minutes telling me how this other computer was better. It wasn't. It was slightly cheaper. But it had a smaller hard disk, a slower processor and less memory. The kicker was, after spending several minutes telling me how much better that computer was, she said "But we don't have this one is stock anyway." Huh?! You just spent your time telling me about a computer you don't have? Why?!

To her credit, she did tell me about a sale on some monitors, so I got two 24 inch monitors for just few dollars more than one 27 inch monitor. That was a no brainer.

I'm very happy with my new computer. But if you're in the market, I recommend you do your homework first - there's no telling what kind of sales person you're going to get at the store.

How Does that Affect Me?

Humans divide themselves into all kinds of different groups. Almost all of us group ourselves by family units. We live with our family, generally not with other families or in group settings. Sometimes we divide ourselves by our gender. Sometimes it's our profession and we will associate with people who work in the same field that we do. Sometimes it's by nationality, race or religion. Sometimes we group ourselves by hobbies or activities that we like to do. People who like to shoot guns generally hang out with other people who like to shoot guns. You get the idea...

Often times we can be protective of our groups too. If someone says something hurtful or mean-spirited about our group, we get defensive. We don't like it when someone else is tearing down our groups. We don't like it when someone else views us as bad, or substandard in someway. It's not unusual to hear about a group boycotting a movie because somehow their group was portrayed poorly in the movie. I'm quite sure the police officers and lawyers are tired of everyone viewing them as bad-guys because of some the members of their groups act poorly. Because of this defense mechanism, many times when we see someone in one of our groups acting in a way that might not reflect well for our group, we get concerned. Our first thought is usually, how does that affect me? If that group member continues with that behavior, will there be repercussions that affect me?

For example, if you've been reading this blog, you know I'm a member of the group of motorcyclists. Now motorcyclists, or bikers, are often portrayed poorly in the media. Sometimes the reputation is well earned. But I'm still often very aware of how bikers can actly badly and how that affects me. Recently I was riding home and the traffic was horrible. I was going between lanes trying to just move through without going too fast and upseting John Q Public in their cars. Another biker came up behind me and I let him pass as he wanted to go faster than I did. This guy was a piece of work. He was yelling at the cars, shaking his fist at them, acting like he was going to kick in their doors, I think he even spit on one car. He was one seriously angry dude. If someone didn't move over and let him pass, he acted like a federal offense had been committed. As I watch his tirades, I wondered - how does that affect me? Now I have to drive along behind him. What if the motorists are ticked off and they decide to take it out on me? What if they get fed up with bikers like him and they decided to change the laws so they are less friendly to bikers? etc. etc...

Never once was my concern for that individual or even the people that he was acting so poorly towards. All I could think about was myself and how his behavior might affect me. That makes me sad. It's hard to believe that I am so self-centered. Now I don't know what I could have done to help that individual. The middle of the freeway during rush hour is generally not a good time for an intervention. But I wish I had offered up a prayer or at least thought about something other than myself.

"How does that affect me?" is not something I want to ponder about too much. Apparently I spend way too much time thinking about me and not near enough time thinking about the people around me. What, or who, are you thinking about?

Creativity and School

This is an incredible talk about the educational system. It's 19 minutes long, but worth every minute.



Thanks to nikao for posting this....

Risky Business

Recently son #2 very thoughtfully bought me a package of Jelly Bellies. He was getting himself a bag and he remembered dear ol' dad and got me one too. That's my boy.

So for the past few days I've been snacking on Jelly Bellies while I work on the computer in the evening. The problem is, eating Jelly Bellies is risky business. The bag I have has 30 different flavors. My unscientific guess is about a quarter of those flavors are just plain old nasty. You never know what flavor your going get. You could get a couple of great ones and then one that tastes like the cross between the bottom of a coffee cup and an ashtray. Not that I've ever tried eating either one of those, but I imagine that's what it might taste like. When I mentioned it to son #2 as we were in the car headed somewhere, he laughed and said "Oh, that's the cappuccino. I didn't like it either." That's my boy.

Eating Jelly Bellies is not the only activity that is risky. In fact all of life is risky. People often comment that my riding motorcycles is risky. And there is an element of risk to riding. But anyone could trip, fall and die at almost anytime. Life is fragile and valuable. You can't just stay at home and avoid all risks. That's no way to live. The Christian life is no different. Often we long for safety, security and assurance. And while I understand that, being a follower of Christ should have an element of risk to it. You should be out there doing things, and some of those things will be risky in nature. People might laugh at you, or belittle you for your beliefs, or cuss you out, or who knows what. But how much did Jesus risk for you?

Reminds me of the old quote.

"A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are built for."

John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic, 1928

Are you hanging out in the harbor when you should be out sailing? What are you built for? Are you willing to take the risk to find out? That's worth pondering about.

It's the Thought That Counts

You've heard the saying, "It's the thought that counts." In fact I used it in a recent post here. But after thinking about that for bit, I'm not so sure that adage is true.

Generally actions speak much louder than words. So when someone gives you a late birthday card or present and kind of sheepishly shrugs and says "it's the thought that counts," you probably are not thinking deep in your heart that "yea, it's ok that you forgot all about me." At least, that's not usually what I am thinking. Maybe you're a better person than I am. Their actions say more about how they value you than their words do.

Now I think there are cases when you can use this and have it be effective. If you really tried to put together a nice birthday present, but it just didn't work out for some reason. I think you can say, "I really tried. I'm sorry it didn't work out. But hey, it's the thought that counts." I think it works in this situation, because you really did put some effort into it. And actions speak louder than words.

But usually if you put no effort out and try to pull the "it's the thought that counts", I think you're wimping out. I think most of the time our friends and spouses see through this weak excuse. If you don't believe me, I have a challenge for you. Guys, at your wife's next birthday or your wedding anniversary (which ever occurs next), I want you to do absolutely nothing. No gifts. No card. No special night out. No anything. Then that evening just before you fall asleep that night in your bed, roll over by your wife and say "I didn't forget your birthday/anniversary, I thought about you today several times. And you know, it's the thought that counts." If you survive that encounter, please comment here. I'm sure we'd all like to learn vicariously from your experience.

It's not the thought that counts. It's taking the time and spending the effort to do something that counts. Are you spending the appropriate amount of time and effort on the things that truly important? That's worth pondering about.

How Bad Can it Be?

We have DirecTV here at our sprawling estate [/sarcasm]. Well, I do have DirecTV, is the "sprawling estate" that is not so much. Anyway, we've been pretty happy with our service. Light-years better than the cable company we used to have. It's cheaper too. That's enough of the commercial for DirecTV.

Anyway, as a gesture of appreciation, DirecTV gave us free ShowTime for 3 months for being a loyal customer. We don't have any movie channels as part of our package. Netflix, an occasional pay-per-view movie and a few trips a year to the video store handles our movie needs quite nicely. So I was anxious to have ShowTime for a bit and see if we liked it.

Oh my, ShowTime is really bad. Not just a normal type of bad, it's colossally, horribly bad. The movies they show are horrible and they show them over and over and over and over.... In the two plus months we've had ShowTime I think I've watched one movie; and I had already seen that movie. The rest of them simply aren't worth watching. How does this channel turn a profit and stay in business?

I'm not upset for DirecTV giving us this disaster of a movie channel as an appreciation gift. Although here's a bit of advice to any DirecTV big-wigs who may be reading this, maybe you should consider letting the customer pick which channel their free 3 month appreciation gift will provide. I'm just saying... Even though I detest ShowTime, someone out there must be paying for and watching this channel. Although that thought baffles me. So I can understand why DirecTV would think that I might like it.

I guess the old adage, "it's the thought that counts" comes into play here. It's nice to remembered, even if the gift isn't my favorite.

Why Do You Ask, If You Aren't Going to Listen?

We all ask questions we don't really want an answer to. When you walk up to someone and say "Hey! What are you doing?" We usually don't really expect an answer; we can obviously see what they are doing. It's more of a greeting than a question. Another one is "How's it going?" If someone stopped and started giving you detailed information on how it was going in their life at the moment, we'd probably interrupt them and tell them that we weren't really that interested. Again, it's more of greeting than anything.

Someone once asked me for some advice about something. I listened to what they had to say and gave my honest advice. "That's a really bad idea." Hey, I'm a straight forward kind of guy. That same person later asked two other people for advice on that same topic in my presence. And they both said, "That's a really bad idea." Ok, they used different words, but basically the answer was the same - don't do that. Yet this person went ahead and did it anyway. Guess what, it truly was a bad idea. There were repercussions regarding that action. Something that could have easily been avoid if they had simply listened to sound advice from three people.

Why do we ask, if we aren't going to listen? Many times it's because we aren't really looking for advice - we are asking for permission. But even when we don't get the permission, we often do it anyway. What makes us so hard headed sometimes?

Please do me a favor. If you get some advice, especially if it's from multiple people, listen to it. You asked those people for a reason, presumably because you trust them. So trust them. And if I ever ask you for advice - make sure I listen.

Tap To Go

LA Metro has a new system to pay for your ride. It's called Tap to Go. You get this card that's kind of like credit card, you load it up for the month and then when you get on the bus you just tap it on some type of reader and then you go. Seems simple enough.

However, I think a better name would be Try to Tap and No Go. Ok, not the catchest title ever. But what a disaster it's been in rolling this program out. It was supposed to start in January. So every month when we made the trek to buy the boy's ticket for the month, they would tell us we need to get Tap to Go. We reply "Sure, let's do it." And then they would say "Well, it's not quite available yet. But you really need to get one." Huh? Eventually a lady ordered the two cards for us (because you can't order them online yourself). Twenty some days later, they arrived in the mail. Twenty days just mail us two cards. I tried to go online to prepay them so the boys could use them. What a horrible website they have. I created an account, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to add the cards to my account so I could put money on them. This would seem like an important part of the process. Eventually, I gave up and sent a message to support. They are supposed to answer in 24 to 48 hours. It's been a week and I still haven't heard from them. So I decided to get brave and call the help line. Surprisingly the wait time wasn't too bad and I got a friendly guy who told me they created accounts for the cards when they sent them to us. Really? That would have been useful information to include with the cards! He emailed me the info so I could log into each card and fill it up. Apparently, I'm not allowed to put both of them on one account. So this thing that is supposed to be so easy, apparently isn't.

This is the government bureaucracy that wants to run my health care. I can't imagine that ever being better that what I have now. I know our health care system needs help. But I think we could do better by fixing what we have instead the major change that has currently been proposed. The government has a hard time figuring out how to get people to pay a few bucks for a bus pass - I can't wait for the problems I'm going to have trying to get them pay for a surgery or a hospital visit. Just the thought of it gives me nightmares.

Oh well, at least my boys can ride the bus. I guess that's something.

They Know How to Get You

We've just had the 'pleasure' of getting son #1's senior pictures done. Overall it wasn't too bad of an experience. He went for his sitting (which we had to pay for separately). A month or so later, the proofs showed up at the house. It seemed like there was about 500 different pictures. Wow! Most of them were pretty good and few were not. But the number of them was overwhelming.

As we tried to figure out what pictures we wanted, the number of permutations was astounding. The problem we had was there was no way to get the number of pictures we wanted in any of the standard packages. We basically just wanted one pic of most of them. We could scan the photos and make our own copies, but that's against the studio's policy. But it was nearly impossible to get the right package with the right mix of photos and the price of the packages just kept going up and up. We eventually had risen to a point of getting one of the premiere packages. Premiere includes a premium price too.

The package we had to go with to get what we wanted, was more than we really wanted to pay. We also had to buy more pictures than we really needed. I'm frustrated with the studio for their policy of them owning the photos of my son. We hired them to take the pictures. They photographed my son, it's his likeness. Why doesn't he own the images instead of them? I felt like they were manipulating the love of my son for money. It frustrates me that it worked.

I don't like being manipulated, for love or for money. I wonder if that must be a bit how God feels when someone manipulates the image or reputation of his son, Jesus, for personal gain. There's a lot of low-lifes out there that will do anything for money. Of course, you know that already. But some how we think when it comes to church and religion, we could never get taken in by someone like that - yet it still happens. Be careful. Make sure the church or charity that your supporting with your money, is using the money the way they say they will. Don't let them manipulate you.

Have you done your homework in this area? Are the organizations you support doing what you think they are doing? That's worth pondering about...

It's So Easy

I think this kid has the potential to be a great driver. He can already parallel park with no problem.

Kids' Rock

Funny parody on those commercials that take pop songs and make them into kids songs.




Video Link

[HT Terrace Crawford]

Expectations

Expectations. We all have them. We expect certain things from the government. We expect police officers to act in a responsible manner. We expect companies to deliver a reliable product for our money. We expect our friends to be loyal to us. We expect the good guys to be good and the bad guys to be bad.

I recently went to get a hair cut. I had an expectation that the person cutting my hair would cut my hair in the way I requested. I expected that when she showed me how much she was going to cut off, that would be accurate. My expectations were not met in this case. She took off twice as much as I asked her too. Maybe we should require hair stylists to go to classes in measuring, that way they will know how much 1/2 an inch is. But I digress...

Most of us have had a time when our expectations were not met. Some of those experiences are rather benign, some are rather painful. Sometimes we set ourselves up for dashed expectations because we have unrealistic goals. For example, we might expect our fav sports team to never lose (that's what we cheer for, but can't expect that). Or we may have unrealistic expectations for our child's accomplishments.

I've recently talked to several different people who have felt their expectations of God were not met. But as I talked to them, it seemed to me that they expected God do what they wanted or what they thought was right. I understand this feeling. There's been plenty of times when I knew exactly what I wanted God to do. But does that mean God should do that? Is he bound to my wishes? What if I get a whole bunch of good Christians to pray for that wish? Should I have expectations that God will do it then? That's a truly tough question. Great thinkers have debated this for many years and will probably do so for many more. I do know this, God's ways are not my ways.... and that's a REALLY good thing.

Do you hold unrealistic expectations, especially ones with eternal implications? If so, what are you going to do about them? That's worth pondering about.

See ya

If you read blogs, you probably know about using a Feed Reader. You can subscribe to a RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed from your favorite blogs. Then you can read them all from your Feed Reader, without all that hassle of entering URLs from all those blogs. Very handy actually. Two free readers are www.bloglines.com and www.google.com/reader.

Recently, I had just over 100 feeds in my reader. But some of them I just wasn't reading anymore. In some cases the blog had changed during it's life. Maybe the author had changed jobs and was now talking about something else that didn't interest me. In some cases, I had changed and just didn't care what the author the blog was talking about anymore. So these blogs were just cluttering up my Feed Reader with stuff I didn't care about anymore.

The easy thing would seem to be to unsubscribe and just quit reading those blogs. But somehow it seemed a bit harder than that. It was kind of like I was turning away from a friend or something. No, that's not quite accurate. Maybe it's more like was saying "I'm better than you and your blog is not worthy of me to read anymore." Hmmm, that's not really it either. It's kind of hard to describe. But it was weird.

Eventually, I did pull the trigger and drop several unread blogs. Some how I feel better because I got rid of some dead weight from my reader. My 'guilt' is gone. My feed reader is lighter. And now I'm thinking about getting rid of a couple of more.

It's weird how we become attached to something or to a routine. There's real truth in the old saying that we are creatures of habit. Changing our habits causes stress. While in this case it was fairly minor stress, other changes in our habits might have more severe results. I think this is part of what makes addictions hard to kick (certainly there are other factors too). This can also be what makes it hard for some folks to make a change in their life and take steps to improve. Whether that is healthier habits, mending a broken relationship, or even making a stand for God.

Are you allowing a routine to stop you from doing something that you REALLY need to do? That's worth pondering about.

The Hypocrisy of it All

Unless you’re in a coma, you know Michael Jackson died. I’m not a Michael Jackson fan, so I don’t have a huge empty hole in my heart right now. I am sympathetic to his family and close friends who are deeply saddened during this time of loss. Michael was someone’s son, he was somebody’s father, and he did have friends – and to those people, you truly have my deepest sympathies.

But to everyone else – what gives?

I didn’t get to watch the spectacle on TV, I actually have to work. But I wanted to see John Mayer’s part as I like his music. So I hunted the video down on the Internet and watched that. I was amazed about some of the comments people left. They were saying things like “John Mayer is so messed up. I hate him.” “His personal life is such a disaster. I can’t stand him.” “He looks funny.” Really?! These are people who like Michael Jackson – all of those statements would be true about Michael. Yet they loved Michael and hate John. If you don’t like his music, fine. It’s just not your style. But to hate him and his music because of his personal life and yet adore Michael in spite of his disastrous personal life, well that’s just hypocritical.

Then I turned on the TV all the news could talk about was the funeral. They kept showing various clips speakers and performers. And again, other than a few exceptions, I kept thinking, how hypocritical these people are. They all claimed to be great friends with Michael. But I don’t remember any of them standing up for Michael when he had relationship problems. I don’t remember any of them coming to his side when he had legal problems with molestation charges. I don’t remember any of them trying to put an end to the Wako Jacko stories. I don’t remember anyone helping Michael when he had financial issues. I don’t remember anyone helping Michael when things got so tough for him he left the country for a while. I do remember quite a few negative comments from the black community when Michael started “turning white.” I don’t recall any of these people doing anything to help, love or support Michael. Yet as soon as he’s gone and there’s an opportunity to show support at his funeral where lots of people will be watching – oh, they’re all his close friends then. Again, with a few notable exceptions, it just stuck me as completely hypocritical and fake.

I don’t really know what happened behind closed doors and if some of these folks really were close to Michael. I do know this. True friends are there when the going is tough. True friends aren’t afraid to stand by your side – even when you made a mistake or done something stupid. That doesn’t mean that you condone or approve of their actions, it just means that you love your friend and your trying to provide some support.

What kind of friend are you? That’s worth pondering about.

Happy Independence Day

If you know anything about America, you know that the 4th of July is our Independence Day. Today we celebrate the many freedoms that our forefathers and generations of soldiers have won for us.

Today I'm grateful for what we have in America. I'm grateful for a God who has blessed our nation. I'm grateful for what those who have gone before have done for me. I hope that I can be half as influential as them and leave something to those who come after me.

What are you grateful for? And how is that going to inspire you to action? That's worth pondering about....

Happy 4th of July!

Happiness and Bliss

Let's just say you are having a great day. It's a wonderful day. Everything is grand. You are happy. Life is good. As you go about your daily business in your car, everything is perfect. The radio is playing all the songs you like. Even the freeway is wide open in front of you.

If during your state of bliss you happen to glance in the rear view mirror and notice there is lots of traffic behind you (but nothing in front of you), YOUR DRIVING TOO SLOW! Please move over so the rest of us can go by you and get something done today.

I'm just saying....