Hi folks.
Sorry for the lack of stuff. It’s been a very busy past few days topped off today by the ceiling fan in the master bedroom peeding out (Youngest turned on the light and said sparks came down). A few back and forths to Home Depot, and we’ve got ourselves a nice new and very pretty ceiling fan… goes with the fixtures from the master bathroom renovation we did a little while back. So… I’ve just been away from the keyboard and have much to catch up on.
More later….
Wow. (h/t to Rob)
But this level of massive intolerance doesn’t really surprise me. I’ve found those that scream about tolerance to be some of the most intolerant. Their definition of “tolerance” means that you tolerate what they want you to tolerate. Their definition of “open-mindedness” means you agree with what they agree with. Their definition of “good” is what they deem to be good. If you’re not with them, you are against them.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.
Freedom is something we must give to others if we wish it for ourselves.
If you want tolerance, you must first be tolerant. If you want people to be open-minded to your opinions and ideas, you must first be open-minded to theirs. If you want good in the world, you must first accept what others consider good.
Another tip? Try to not be so hateful, especially towards those you feel “deserve” some scorn or hate. A little love, a little forgiveness, a little true understanding, a little humility… they go a long way.
A new study was released, Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom by William P. Ruger & Jason Sorens, from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. (h/t to Volokh).
Texas came in 5th overall. Not bad for this freedom-loving soul. Certainly one reason I love to live here and have little desire to leave Texas is because freedoms are pretty good here. There’s room for improvement and of course there are threats to freedom every day… but you just gotta keep vigilant.
Today the family went to the 81st Annual Zilker Kite Festival.
I have wanted to attend this for some years and for some reason or other it never happened, so I was determined to attend this year. And attend we did!
We took the shuttle to Austin’s famous Zilker Park, and in a way, the shuttle was an event unto itself. The city provided free shuttles to/from the event, and they used school buses for it. This was the first time my kids got to ride a school bus (I rode them all the time when I was growing up), so now they sorta know what it’s like… minus the loud kids, bullying, and other assorted mayhem that comes with the school bus. 🙂 It brought back memories of being on the bus Safety Patrol!
After arriving at the park we went to the “build-a-kite” workshop. It was a free workshop sponsored by HEB and others and you could build a basic kite. Middle child and Youngest child opted to build a kite, and they flew just fine. The wind today was ample for kite flying, but it would die down at times and many kites would be crashing to the ground. Yesterday the winds in Austin were 25-35 MPH steady and gusty, so that would have been some very interesting kite flying weather.
We walked around, checked out many of the kites. All sorts of kites of all shapes, sizes, designs, colors, and variety. It’s almost impossible to describe or even capture on film just how cool it was to look up in the sky and see hundreds of kites flying together. It’s just something you have to experience.
We ate “fair food”, from corn dogs to sausage on a stick to snow cones to cotton candy to funnel cakes. Yes… I can’t pass up a funnel cake, tho the one we had was very oily (I suspect they didn’t let it drain enough). Oh yes, and roasted corn. Mmm. Everything was rather expensive, but all proceeds after expenses are benefiting charities and worthy causes so it’s all good. I think I’m going to have a very light salad for dinner tho. 😉
After watching many kites, flying our free kites, and walking around and seeing all there was to see, we ended up buying our own kite. A nice nylon “triangle-style” (I don’t know what the proper term is). It flew quite well, and I had a lot of fun flying it. It was tough flying tho, with so many kites in the air, so many people around, you didn’t have the total freedom to roam where and how needed to keep the kite aloft. Thus, the most often heard thing today was: *thud* “Sorry!!” “No problem!” as kites would dive down, hit someone in the head, strings tangle around you, tails whipping in your face. But no one got mad; everyone expected to get hit sooner or later. It was a day filled with laughter, smiles, and fun. Good times.
If you haven’t been to the Kite Festival, you need to try it. And do like we did, go in the morning, leave in the afternoon. The lines for the shuttle were unreal, but since we’re early birds well… we were in and out no problem.
Overall, crime is low in Austin, but data is showing that crime is on the rise. Robbery, burglary, assault, rape… it’s all going up.
Austin Police Department of course believes the solution is more cops and surveillance cameras downtown. This isn’t going to stop crime, maybe only make it easier to clean up the mess and/or prosecute the crime after it’s been committed.
Folks, the bottom line is simple: if you care about your safety, only you are responsible for it. While it’s nice if someone else can help you stay safe (additional layers), in the end only you can be guaranteed to be where you are when you need it.
I’ve been using Apple computers since I was a kid, so I’ve a bit of a soft spot for the company. I just read about their shareholder meeting and the interesting ending to the meeting.
Ah, the Parent’s Television Council. Y’know, I don’t necessarily have fault with what they do because they’ve got every right to do so — they’re welcome to speak their mind, they’re welcome to busy themselves however they see fit. What gets me about them is if they’re all about helping parents well… why aren’t they helping the parents actually be parents? And can we trust their information is objective?
If you don’t like what you’re kids are watching on TV, be the parent and turn the TV off.
If you don’t know what you’re kids are watching, you should sit down and preview it before you allow them to watch it or at least watch it with them. Discuss it with your kids. If it doesn’t mesh, it’s off limits. If it does mesh, still revisit the program now and again because 1 episode may not be enough to get a proper picture and/or the show can evolve over time.
If you don’t know what your kids are watching, why don’t you get a little more involved in their lives and find out? If it’s because they’ve got a TV in their room, why do they have the TV in their room? Take it out.
Who is in control here? the parents? or the kids? Far too often problems are because the kids are in control and the parent gives up their control. Parents, you are not your child’s friend, you are their parent. Act like it.
Always turning to someone else for opinion about what you should do. Can you not think for yourself? Is your moral compass in lock step with these others? What else can they start to feed you that you’ll blindly accept?
Look… the world is filled with people of all ages, mostly adults. Do I think television (and the world) needs to be sanitized for children? Nope. All the things we’re supposed to be doing for our children is preparing them for “the real world”, for being an adult, for learning how to deal and cope and survive and thrive on their own. To sanitize everything to “keep them safe” does them no long-term good. Better to give them the skills to cope, the morals to know right from wrong, the ability and courage to say “hey, this isn’t the sort of show I should be watching… I’ll change the channel or turn the TV off”. The world is full of ugly things, and while there’s something to be said for trying to rid ugly things from the world, you still need to give your children the skills and ability to deal with those ugly things. I’d say that’s even better, since it not only let’s them deal with the ugly, but is putting some beauty into the world as well because a well-adjusted kid is a beautiful thing.
Ok, time for a little reciprocal blog love. I’m checking my blog stats and see that I’ve been quoted in this article by Sharon Davis. Thank you, Sharon. So as I’m reading the article the first point it touches on is isolation. Sharon refers to Judi Sohn’s article at the Web Worker Daily that discusses that very issue. It’s an issue I’ve certainly dealt with, so here’s my perspective.
Judi’s article hits on a key part of dealing with isolation: communication. I’ve learned that you must communicate; in fact, you must seem like you’re over-communicating. Now, you can’t overload your co-workers and boss such that they wish you’d shut up (they’ll tune out out and that’s even worse), but you just have to make a greater effort to let them know what’s going on with you. If people in your office use Instant Messaging, you should too. Be on all the relevant networks/protocols for all the relevant people you have to communicate with in your office (using a consolidated IM app can help with this, e.g. I use Adium). Get in the habit of using your IM Status to relay what you’re doing; you don’t have to update the minutia of your life, but it does provide some degree of “Hi, I’m active” to those that work with you. Make sure you do respond to emails promptly. Every Friday I send a weekly status report to my boss and other relevant parties at the office so they can know what I’ve been up to this past week. One thing that you can also consider is that all of these things have “time stamps”. They show when you’re working, when you’re available, how long you’ve been online, and so on. Depending how much your boss wishes they could look over your shoulder to monitor your work habits, these things can be useful to demonstrate “I’m working, even though you cannot see me”. Of course you can manipulate those things, but be mindful… too much fibbing will come back to haunt you.
While you need to communicate with them, they also need to communicate with you. You can’t expect the home office will always tell you what’s going on, so you’ll have to ask. When you’re talking to your office-bound mates, ask them what’s going on around the office. This doesn’t necessarily have to be juicy gossip, it could be simple things like “how’s the office renovation going?” or “I hear some loud noise in the background? What’s going on?” Little things like this help you keep connected to the culture that’s developing within the office walls. You can be “in on the jokes” and other things like that. It’s useful to also have visited the office a time or two so you can know the physical layout, which often is relevant to being “in” on things. You just have to be proactive at getting the information you’d otherwise naturally get if you were in the office.
But while these things cover information, they don’t exactly cover one important thing that being in the office gives us: that human interaction. I’m fortunate that I’m not home alone (wife and kids are here), so I get some human interaction in a day. But for human interaction with my office-mates, I’ve found that instead of IM’ing or emails, just pick up the phone. IM is nice for a quick exchange, but if it’s getting lengthy just pick up the phone… it’s faster in the end, and far more personable and productive. Plus it’s nice to hear someone’s voice now and again. Or if you’ve got a real tech-savvy company or co-workers, do a video chat now and again… it’s nice to see faces. And also remember, every conversation does NOT have to be pure business. If you blow a few minutes just chit-chatting about the weather or other non-business things, that’s not a bad thing. Don’t let it dominate and distract too much from work, but we have to be human, we have to develop relationships.
One thing you can also do? Look for places near your home that have Wi-Fi available, that allow you to sit and use that Wi-Fi for a long time. Every so often, get out of the house. Go work somewhere else, even if just for a couple hours. It changes the scenery. It gets you around some people (even if you don’t talk with them). And you can still take your laptop and stay connected and get some work done. I don’t do this very often because I like my wife’s cooking way too much. But it’s an option.
Honestly tho, I think the only thing I really miss about being in an office? Halloween. It’s more fun to dress up when more than your wife and kids can see you.. 😉
A 75 year old man tackles and stops the 29 year old 6’1″ 230# “man” that just tried to steal his laptop. Lessons to learn:
Something we have cornered the market on, no doubt.
Bullshit in America is an upcoming ABC News special that should be airing March 13, 2009 on ABC. Check your local listings, mark it on your calendar.
Via Xavier, I read about this “rare act of sportsmanship“. Yeah… you’ll want some tissue.
The story itself was wonderful. But is this a rare act of sportsmanship? I don’t think so. I think it’s just an act of sportsmanship (and in this case, a very awesome act of sportsmanship). What might make it rare is that we don’t hear about such things all the time. Look at the news. What do we hear about? It’s all negative, ugly, hateful, shitty things that are going on in the world. You hear it over and over, you start to think it’s the way things are. The thing is, it’s only a small slice of what’s going on in a day. Most of what goes on in a day are good things. And they’re little things, but they add up.
For example, yesterday at my black belt testing I’m walking from the parking lot to the building. I see also coming to the door at the same time are a couple people carrying a large tub of something (probably equipment) and they’re rather burdened down, no way they’ll navigate the door themselves. So I hustle up and hold the door open for them. Then as I’m holding the door, I offer to let other people in as well, but they stop and insist instead that they hold the door for me and I go first. Sure it’s a small thing — certainly not some newsworthy event — but it’s those small things, those small acts of kindness that matter.
Just because you hear it on the news over and over doesn’t mean the world is a horrible ugly place. The media makes their money off being ugly, perhaps relegating 30 seconds at the end of a broadcast to some “feel good” story… and so your balance and outlook gets skewed. The world is mostly filled with good people doing good things in a day. Turn off the fucking TV, and get out and look at the world around you. Stop letting TV and other media shape your worldview: go shape your own based on getting out and immersing yourself in a life of your own. Force yourself to have a more positive filter and outlook on life. You might just discover good things aren’t so rare.
Stuff From Hsoi 