Values

I love to read.

Rarely do I get to read anymore. Last year, I read a lot. The year before that I was reading a lot. From my count about 8-10 books a year. And then the 4 years before that I was just reading text books mainly. Maybe one “for fun” book during the summers. Just as of this past year I stopped reading. Maybe it was because I was reading so much online. So many emails. Web forums. Articles on almost anything, everything you could find on wikipedia. Linking from one subject to the next, taking on pointless little tidbits I’d figure would be useful the next time I was in a bar. Or maybe something to mention to the wife during a silent moment in the car.

And I’d say I had stopped reading since about this past March. I don’t know. Things got busy. Owning a house is a lot of work. I can’t even imagine doing this with children, let alone children and a dog. But finally, since I’ve got some time and I’m working on a few things (about myself), I got back in to reading. And admittedly, (and I’ve always known this) I feel more wholesome reading. I feel more calm. I feel excited about the person I am or motivated to do things to change my part of the world. And I believe that wholesomeness is created by the TV turning off. By me avoiding worthless games where I defeat enemies that were programmed long before I even shot them down, and will be there, waiting for me whenever I want. And avoiding, sadly, the internet. Something I already spend 6 hours a day on at work.

And I enjoy reading things that change my mind on subjects. That challenge my thoughts. Because even the smallest tinkering of my mind is still better than me learning about the background of Justin Timberlake’s latest film “Alpha Dog”. In the scheme of things, something like that is so miniscule it’s ridiculous we waste our breath, or even my writing on it. I used to read “brain candy” books. John Grisham, Wilbur Smith, and yes I even got in to Dan Brown. But rarely did I learn anything from those…

So, of course, I’m hanging from Obama Barack’s nuts now. More importantly, I’m hanging from Oprah’s…I guess…nuts…well, something I’m hanging off of from her. Ever since “Poisonwood Bible”, I’ve been buying up her book club stuff for years. Shit if books had a stock value to them I’d be throwing my entire net worth in to any book Oprah endorsed. Because it is excellent stuff. And it gives me the much needed motivation and excuse to read. And the reason for my title tonight? Something that I’ve thought about a lot lately, but just wasn’t able to write out as eloquently as Obama, from “The Audacity of Hope”:

“When I was a community organizer back in the eighties, I would often challenge neighborhood leaders by asking them where they put their time, energy, and money. Those are the true tests of what we value, I’d tell them, regardless of what we tell ourselves. If we aren’t willing to pay a price for our values, if we aren’t willing to make some sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.

By these standards at least, it sometimes appears that Americans today value nothing so much as being rich, thin, young, famous, safe and entertained.”

This rung so true with me it was ridiculous. This is the part where I get excited. When someone nails me right on the head when I knew I was doing something that wasn’t working just right, but could open my eyes up to something I could possibly start changing about myself.

What do I value? Entertainment. Safety. Money. Looks.

Earlier in the “Values” chapter he goes on to talk about all the stuff we like to “talk” about…but rarely do any of us take any action.

None of us like that fact that many inner city school children cannot read at a 2^nd grade level when in the 6^th grade. But how many of us have actually taken the time to volunteer and help those kids out? No one wants to be in the inner city…remember, “Safety”.

So people look to the government. They say, “Hey! We want you to fix our schools and we don’t want to pay another dime in taxes!” I look at my retirement accounts every day. And I’ll fight tooth and nail to get as high of a raise as I feel I deserve. Did I ever fight this hard when it came to anything else? “Money”.

Instead of keeping quality teachers in Washington state, or providing better technology to help our children compete in the future against other countries which are either 1) Quickly gaining on us or 2) Already surpassed us in intelligence/work ethic, we are looking to spend millions of dollars to build another arena. You know, that thousand dollars you spent on season tickets to the Hawks, those thousands of people that did…If each of them had put even a quarter of that money in to their local schools I’m sure it would’ve made a huge difference. “Entertainment”

And lastly, what do I see when I turn on my TV? When I sit and listen to people complain? It’s about how fat they are. It’s about how they wish they could change themselves. It’s about how in a few years they’ll be considering plastic surgery. And sure, I run and workout every other day, and yes, part of it is for my health. But mainly? I’d rather have a six pack than the six pack of beer I’ve got sitting on my gut right now. “Looks”.

So for me, it’s time for a self-audit. And it’s almost kind of sick to be excited about something like that. But as I mentioned before, it’s self-development. Growth. And of course the cynical side of me will still battle with these thoughts. I mean sure I may feel like I’m progressing, but what am I progressing towards?

But really, that’s a lot deeper than I’d like to get in for right now.

Random Rambling Post

Sometimes I wish everything that I wrote had meaning. Or had a point. Or had a direction I was going in. But sometimes I feel like not being so serious and just writing. Hopefully this can be one of those types of posts.

Last night I had a dream that I got a weekly report from my assistant manager that I was doing “medium”. I woke up this morning feeling kind of uneasy because as of the past year I’ve been the “all star” which isn’t that hard when your department is 8 people large and not growing.

Medium. That’s kind of funny. That’s not even a real rating. It’s more of a size. Maybe that’s what kind of bothered me about it.

Before going to sleep I was laughing pretty hard because I was thinking about Michelle’s phone conversation with sears earlier on in the afternoon. While calling a Sears “appliance specialist” the phone rang through to the sound of people talking in the background and someone typing nearby. Since I’ve worked on the phones basically all my life, I know this was basically someone not paying attention to their phone ringing. The phone automatically picking up, and them leaving the headset somewhere on their desk.

The best part of it was Michelle trying to get the attention of anyone there. Just the way she was half yelling, “HELLO!” in to the phone without being too loud, but loud enough…the “Is anybody there? Is anybody working?” And finally after 5 minutes of this and me chuckling to myself, she finally hung up. The annoying thing is; they’ve got the automated voice response system. You know, the woman who asks how she can help you? And then she says, “If you need help with appliances say, ‘Appliances’”. And then when you say, “Applian-“ she cuts you off and says, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. For more help you can either say…”

Grrr…frustrating.

After getting married, Michelle changed her last name to mine. You know what I find annoying? The women who have to hyphenate their last name. If your name is so important to you, why not just keep it? Are you trying to show balance between your name and your husband’s name and that’s why you’re hyphenating it? And your children…you’re going to force them to include that hyphen all their lives? And what happens if you have a son who marries a woman that wants to hyphen their name? Does it become name-name-name? And whose name comes first? If the reason you are hyphenating your last name is to show “balance” (really I don’t know the reason why, I guess I could wiki it) then who’s name goes first? And if a name shows up first wouldn’t that create an “imbalance” between the names? Why not create a hybrid name?

I mean, I’ve heard of the people with 4+ names in their name, but don’t you think it’d get a little tiring? Then again, I’m the guy who thinks most people should just have 1 syllable first names. Yes, I am that lazy. But obviously not lazy enough to ponder stupid shit like hyphenating last names.

http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_011607WABmarthalakeKC.49c1e46b.html

The winter takes another life.

Interestingly enough I’ve been wanting to walk out on my pond…definitely not as deep as Martha Lake (probably 5 feet at the deepest) since I used to walk out on ponds when I was a kid after a few weeks of freezing temperatures. And interestingly enough, I used to throw rocks on to the ice to try and break it or poke holes right next to where I was standing to see where the water was. I’m glad we didn’t get any fish or coy for the pond…they would’ve been long frozen by now…

Frustration: When you have “friends” or “a friend” who doesn’t respond to 3 different forms of contact. Over a week period I have left 1 voicemail, sent 2 texts and sent 1 email. Wouldn’t this be enough for someone to realize that you were trying to get a hold of them to ask them something? The only way I see this not working as valid means of contacting someone is for the following reasons: 1) They are in a remote location or on vacation and left all contacting devices at home. 2) They have no way to contact you because they have either 2a) Dropped their cell phone in to a hot tub/ocean/bath tub/etc. 2b) Lost their cell phone completely 2c) Haven’t had access to their email for over 2 weeks. 3) They’ve read through your texts/emails and listened to your voicemail but just got too caught up in other things to answer your question/request.

How likely that is for these people to be in one of these situations...or all three at the same time? I’m thinking very unlikely. Which leads me to another point. Let’s say I never responded to emails or phone calls or texts. Would anyone still talk to me? Maybe I should start following other’s examples and just either ignoring their calls or texts or just “forgetting” to call back? Who needs flaky friends anyway?

On a less serious note, I think one of the most simple yet satisfying things a person can do is to pick a big booger. I love to pick my boogers. Especially the ones that you don’t grab on the first “pick”. You’ve got to go back in there and dig around until you grab it. And then BAM…when you pull that sucker out…sometimes it’s so large that it’s actually impressive (to me). And I feel better that I was able to get something that large out of my nostril. And yes, of course I think boogers are gross. Unfortunately sometimes I’m proud of mine…

The Worst Winter Ever

Ok, so it’s only January 11th, 2007 right now. And I know, there’s probably still a couple months ahead of us until The Worst Winter Ever (TWWE) is over. And honestly? The only thing I think could change my mind about this winter? Was if a tropical wind blew through here and all of a sudden it was Hawaii. Yes, not Hawaii like weather. Not just 82 degrees and humid, but the darn thing actually brought the beaches, waves, and how about some of the luaus too? That would nice for those of us who have witnessed first hand TWWE.

There may be some people that might question me in saying, “how is it possible that this was the worst winter ever?”

Let me go through and point out some of the differences between this winter and winters past:

October:

October had nothing wrong with it. Everything was basically normal. I really had no complaints. We did drop below 30 degrees a few times. Not unheard of. This is your so called “calm before the storm”. You can’t really include October in the winter months because I consider it as one of the fall months. So, I’m not really sure why I included it here. Maybe I just want my blog to be as content-happy as possible. Or keep up with my preset standards of writing way too much to explain basically nothing.

November AKA “Rain”:

The rain didn’t stop. And it wasn’t just “Seattle rain”. Because Seattle rain is nice. Seattle rain is mid 40s to mid 50s in temperature, and a light drizzle or mist. The rain is so unaffecting it’s like when you get caught at the grocery store in the produce isle and they decide to “wash” the vegetables (supposedly to keep them fresh or clean, or maybe both – how that works, I have no idea). People can function in that rain. Sure it’s a little gloomy, and yes, now the days are starting to get shorter, but everyone is excited for Thanksgiving and the coming holidays. This year was different. Instead of that nice, light mist, we received down pours. Yes, plural. It was like God was doing his dishes, cleaning out one of his pots he used to make soup for all of his children, (or maybe just one hungry one) and was filling it up with water to rinse and he dumped it on all of us, Seattle. God’s in-sink-erator. By the 15th of November I was thinking to myself, “this has got to be some sort of record”. And sure enough, by the 16th it was. Not even barely past half way through the month and we had already broken the record for the wettest month recorded in Seattle history.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003433002_weather16m.html

(Article to rain record on the 19th of November)

But the weather doesn’t know records. I understand that records are meant to be broken. But typically records are just barely edged out. This one was crushed. In my lifetime, I’m unsure if I’ll ever see this again. Just as a little excerpt, I thought this was interesting: “Forks, annually the wettest place in Washington gets an average of 17.72" in November and currently has 28.24". (http://climate.washington.edu/events/2006NovRain.html) Only 6 inches off of double what they normally receive. And everyone knows what almost 1” of precipitation per day can do to an area…flood it. There were plenty of people who had to evacuate their homes because the water from the surrounding rivers had come up too high. What usually were puddles on the streets had now become ponds. Back when I lived out in Issaquah, I remember driving through carnation and thinking how it would a total swamp if that place ever got enough rain. And sure enough, on the news, there was carnation. People traveling by boat on what used to be roads…

Grisly death story: A woman was trapped in her basement while it flooded. She screamed for help as the basement filled with water until it filled to the ceiling. Water pressure kept the door to the basement closed on her so she was not able to get out. Neighbors heard her screams and called 911. They tried to resuscitate her when they finally got to her, but were unsuccessful. Drowning in your own basement? Ridiculous.

December AKA “Snow and Wind”:

Near the end of November is when we started getting the snow. Snow around here typically isn’t that bad. I’ve seen some bad snow before, but back then to me it was, “AWESOME SCHOOL CLOSURE SNOW!!!” The snow isn’t really that mentionable, seeing as I received at the most 6-8” at my house which is almost laughable to many other states/countries during winter. However, the cold front that moved in immediately after the snow was no fun at all. All of that snow turned to ice on the road ways + All of the transplants from California + All of the native idiots from here in their big bad AWD/4X4 SUVs who think they can tackle any weather? Rubber on ice is rubber on ice. No matter what car you drive. Anyway, it makes for interesting times on the road. I remember reading in the Times about a guy who stayed in his ’98 Mustang for 18 hours overnight because he got stuck on a hill…just so it wouldn’t get stolen – and laughing hysterically about it. 1) No one wants your car buddy. 2) If they wanted your car, do you think they could go far in these conditions?

Normally I can handle myself quite well in the “cold” with just my fleece coat, thick pants and my leather shoes. Not this winter. I remember going on to weather.com in early December and seeing that it was 8 degrees outside. But it felt like ZERO. And that wasn’t just my opinion. It was stated on weather.com.

By mid December, that was done and gone. And finally I was thinking that we might have some “normal” winter weather. You know, the stuff I mentioned earlier. We had gone about 8 days without any problems…until the giant wind storm hit. And yes, again, (hopefully you’re getting the theme by now) every winter we get wind. Sure, we may lose power for a day or have the lights flicker…but we once again, broke a record. It was the highest wind gusts ever recorded in Washington state history. 69 MPH. If you read through the following link, there are just ridiculous things in there: Planes damaged by high winds. PLANES. Cop cars damaged after roof flies off of dealership. And it’s kind of odd how blatant and boring they write what would normally be interesting stuff.

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/4921736.html

Grisly death story: A couple was driving down a heavily wooded highway when they stopped because a large branch was blocking the road. While the man was out of the car trying to move the debris out of the roadway, another tree fell (from the high winds) and crushed both of them. Sometimes it’s just your time to go.

And my personal story? Wind knocks down trees and sends branches (and other debris) flying. Which in turn knocks down power lines, which in turn means that I have no power or heat. Me and a million and a half other people were in the dark. In December I was without power for 6 days total. 4 of which were right after this storm. I have never had my power out for more than 3 days. And the best part of it was? Literally 200 yards from where I lived, those people had power after 2 days. So those extra 2 days were excruciating. When you sit in a house that’s 40 degrees you realize how lucky you are to have power. And being without power those 4 days? Got me sick. Well I suppose it didn’t help that I was still going about my life normally as if the power wasn’t out. Taking a shower and then jumping out of the tub to a freezing house can’t be good for your health. Playing football in the frozen mud in 30 degree temps can’t be good for your health. And the unfortunate thing? It wasn’t a 24 hour sickness. Almost a month later, I’m still coughing from it. Oh and Christmas? Both Michelle and I were sick. New Year’s? Michelle was still sick. I got my dad and my sister sick too. Overall, a successful sickness. *sarcastic*

January AKA “Ok, this can stop now”:

I’m sitting here, at work. It was 23 degrees coming in to work. 2 people out of my 8 person department are not coming in today because of the snow and ice on the roadway. Already 10 days in, I’ve been without power for 3 of them. When you pay almost $150 a day to live in your own home, it’s extremely frustrating to have to stay with family in the guest room because it’s just too cold to stay in your own house. With most winters, I’m ready for them to end by February. Move this one to today, January 11th. I am ready for this winter to end now.

Where’s that Hawaiian breeze? One of the managers here wrapped his cube in posters of Arizona to make himself feel warmer while he was at work. Sometimes, the mind and body can only take enough…