What I Believe I’ve been

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, and waiting for the write time to sit down and get it all out. Jen and Max are napping, and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is muted in the background. Now seems like as good a time as any.

I’ve been trying to come up with a simple, boiled down to its root, statement of belief. Robert Fulghum talks about doing this himself in his first book, and well, it’s always seemed like a good idea. Now that I’m a father, I figured I’ll have to eventually communicate to my son what I believe in succinctly and clearly and I should be ready to have that conversation. So, here it goes: I believe in contradictions.

The Bible says that there is opposition in all things. For there to be good, there has to also be evil, etc, etc. While I believe that to be true, I think it goes deeper than that, in that there are very few cut and dried issues in this life. Every day, we make decisions that lie in the grey, in-between place between perfectly right and absolutely wrong. The challenge is to balance life’s contradictions into making the grey as light as possible.

Here are some of the contradictions I’ve found that have led me to my statement of belief:

  1. Our political system is fundamentally flawed but perfectly designed. Representative Democracy is the greatest form of government ever conceived. The governed have the right to change the leadership fairly frequently, and almost all decisions made by the representative branches should be open to public scrutiny. It’s perfectly conceived and balanced to provide representation of the people without bringing everything to a standstill so every citizen can vote on every decision (which would be a pure democracy). The system is fundamentally flawed because we have a lazy electorate. In order for there to be true representation, the represented must have a clear understanding of each candidate’s views and political affiliations. They must also keep their representatives accountable and vote them out if they fail to represent their constituents correctly. That’s not happening, unfortunately. Less than half of the citizens eligible to vote in this country bother. Leaving it up to about 40% of the population to choose our leaders, and I would guess that a good majority of them vote along party lines because either they’re lazy or out of some crazed sense of tradition. It makes for career politicians who pander to lobbyists and corporations instead of their constituents.

  2. I believe in both God and Evolution. Yeah, you heard it right. I believe in God and Evolution. I think that dinosaurs existed and that species evolved into other species to give us the flora and fauna we have on this earth. I’m not sure I believe that man evolved from ape-like creatures, but I don’t think it’s impossible. I believe that God created the heavens and the earth and everything on it, and for us to strictly translate Genesis and say, “Well, God just said let it be, and there it was” is not giving Him enough credit. Saying that man evolved is not a denial of divine origin. It is an acknowledgement that, given the evidence we have, He may have taken the scenic route in the act of creation and started a process He knew would result in humanity. It just makes sense to me that way. Saying the universe and the resulting “us” is an accident doesn’t make sense. Neither does saying that Genesis is the literal process of creation make any sense to me either. I think it’s somewhere in the middle, in the grey.

There are more, and I’m going to try to write them down as I think of them and can put them into words.

As a slightly-related aside, I started seriously thinking about writing this down after watching the HBO Special Monica in Black and White. It was a documentary showing the timeline of the whole nasty affair, and a Q&A session that Monica Lewinsky held, all filimed in lovely soft focus black and white. The part that really got me thinking was a statement from an audience member. He stood up and said basically that he was offended that she was being dishonest and presenting a spinned and self-serving version of the story. He found it disturbing that she was presenting her story about her story and her pain and not the “truth”. No, really? She gave a view, however it was spun, of her view of what happened. If it was Bill Clinton on that stage crying his eyes out, it would be his view of what happened. The same if it had been Linda Tripp had been up there. She would have been presented as a national hero who did what any of us would have done, and Monica would have been the doltish slut who seduced the president instead of the naive girl seduced by the most powerful man in the world that Monica presented. There are very few completely honest accounts of anything in history. The winners write history, and unfortunately, the only way to piece together these self-serving accounts and try to come up with a comprehensive picture of what happened. I had no problem with what was presented on the show. In fact, I think it’s about time she be able to tell her story (I didn’t read her book, so it’s the first time I’ve even heard her speak, I think). Everyone else involved got to tell their’s first, which makes her’s seem less honest when we cloud story with “fact” as presented by the other parties.

I think that’s enough opining for a Sunday afternoon… see y’all tomorrow.

Pace

There’s something to be said for a change of pace. While work has been fairly busy lately, it’s been busy in spurts, and not so busy that I can’t work at a leisurely pace and still get things done early. Lately, it’s been busy. Busy enough that I don’t notice when Groove Salad has to re-buffer and I’m left without music for a minute or two. I don’t notice that it’s 11:30 on the dot and time for lunch. It’s fun to be so busy that the days fly by. I’m working on important and top secret projects that make coming to work more fun. I’m looking forward to my new job and the freedom I’ll have to affect change and make our products cooler and keep up with new standards and technology. Yeah, baby, I’m a geek. I have the carpal tunnel to prove it. Stand back, it’s a GEEK OUT!

I was offered a job

I was offered a job today. Not formally, but I was definitely offered one. I didn’t apply for the job, or give any signals that I wanted the job, but it was offered. I’m extremely excited. It’s within the company, and pretty much the job of my dreams. It will involve more than just building things, but software design, concepts and developing strategy, which is a lot more than I do know. It’s a new challenge. I think I’m ready for it. I’ve been kind of coasting lately, and feeling a little stagnant. This new job will give me the opportunity to get more involved in all facets of Searchin’ for stuff, and man, that’s fun. Can’t wait till I can give you more details…

May your yin-yang hind-end twirl

May your yin-yang hind-end twirl free. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I watched 9/11 last night.

I watched 9/11 last night. Thanks to TiVo, I didn’t have to watch it Sunday night after driving all day, but could wait until I was ready for it. I wasn’t, but I watched anyway. It was unbelievable. I cried like a child several times. The best/worst moment was the brothers reunion at the firehouse. The raw relief in their embrace was magical and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I appreciate CBS’s choice to air it, and as much as I normally despise network television, they did an excellent job conveying the tragedy of the day without showing us the gore that we all knew existed. The sound of the impact of falling bodies was enough. The mad dash to get out of the collapsed trade center only made the fate of those trapped on higher floors that much more real and painful.

I hope that, in the years to come, they show this documentary in schools when they talk about this time. I think it captured the moment for not only the firefighters in New York (how would I know, but the unions say they’re happy with it), but for me. The impotent anger of Tony, stuck at the firehouse with nothing to do but watch the news: that was me, stuck in my living room watching CNN, with no way of knowing what was going to happen next, powerless to do anything but watch.

I’m sure that maybe he’s embarrassed my some of the things he said in the days and weeks following, as am I. But, I decided a couple months ago that I was going to leave my posts from September up as a reminder. I say stupid things, and most of them unrelated to tragedy. I’m especially stupid in the process of figuring things out. I said some stupid and embarrassing things on this site right after it happened, and well, I’m ok with that. People all over the world said stupid things, and that’s just part of the process of coming to grips with the world changing with no warning. I think keeping a site like this is to give a picture of ourselves, and my posts from then were a picture of me at the time, as 9/11 is a picture of the guys in the firehouse. The picture may be embarrassing at times, but that’s life. I want desparately to go back and edit those old posts and take out the things I know I shouldn’t have said, or the assumptions I had that don’t make sense now. But, that would be dishonest to the time and to myself. I felt the need at the time to post them, so they must have felt important at the time, and for that reason, I’m leaving them as is.

Let’s hope we never have to go through this again, and if we do, at least I’ll keep my mouth shut until we know what’s going on, and have had time to process and come to terms with what’s happened.

There’s an excellent article on

There’s an excellent article on Mozilla over at Salon. As a fanatical Mozilla user since the earliest preview releases (I didn’t start using is as my default browser until it got stable enough around .9.2), I have to say that I wouldn’t suggest using anything else. I love the e-mail client, the bookmarking system (although there were still some annoying little bugs as of .9.8), and the standards support. .9.9 is out now, and I’d suggest trying it out. Mozilla is a lot faster than it was six months ago and a lot more stable than it was just two months ago. Try it, you’ll like it.

Max counted to one hundred

Max counted to one hundred last night. He’s two and a half and counted to a hundred. He needed some help after thirty. He got to thirty-nine and then looked at me. I said “forty” and then he promptly moved on to forty-nine, at which point I said, “fifty” and so on until we got to one hundred. At that point, we clapped and he shouted, “The end!”, like one hundred is the biggest number he’ll ever need to count to.

Jen’s started leaving Max’s door open a crack at night, and then leaving our door open a crack as well so Max can come in after he wakes up in the morning. I think the shower woke him up this morning because when I got out, there was Max, laying on his lamb on the bed in his Batman pajamas. He smiled his sleepy smile and said quietly, “Hi, daddy” and then layed back down. He is so cute, it makes me want to cry.

I should have called in

I should have called in sick. I really should have. I’m tired and well, just not in the mood for working. On top of that, two unrelated-but-related emergencies are in progress, on top of future uncertainty. It’s the perfect day to stay home and sleep.

On the road again… I’m so happy I’m not on the road again

I’m back! We had a good time at the wedding, a decent time on the drive there and back, and a great time seeing Jen’s parents. Max was an angel almost the whole time. He started getting upset about twenty minutes from home, which is completely understandable since over the course of three days, he’d spent almost fifteen hours in a carseat (or as he would say, fiveteen). All in all, a good time.

Random Observations:

  • Pennsylvania likes to add adventure to their highway experience. Not only is the Pennsylvania Turnpike hilly and curvy, they’re also doing construction on most of it, which narrows it to two lanes with about six inches to either side. Sixty-five down a mountain, through S-curve after S-curve sandwiched between concrete walls and an eighteen-wheeler in forty mile-an-hour winds is not the way I’d suggest spending a Sunday afternoon. I felt like I was in a video game.

  • I don’t feel the need to go back to Ohio. I know it was a little town, and it’s a crappy time of year to go pretty much anywhere north of Florida, but it didn’t strike me as a place I need to go back to.

  • Every wedding reception, big or small, needs an Elvis impersonator. The less he looks and/or sounds like Elvis, the better.

  • Everyone’s first wedding should be special.

  • I really like my in-laws. I wish we lived closer so Max could go over and play with Grandpop, Grandma and Buddy more often.

  • Max saying “daredevil” as he climbs on his Grandpa Brian is about the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

  • If you teach a two-year old the definition of a word, it becomes the definition of every word. Jen’s mom taught Max the meaning of “Exit” (“It’s the way out”). Then, Jen started quizzing him about the meaning of “Entrance” (“It’s the way out!”, says Max), Purple (ditto), Car (uh-huh, you guessed it), etc. Every time we stopped to eat or get gas, Max would point up to the Exit sign and say, “Exit, it’s the way OUT”.

  • When I’m tired, I need a Toddler Translator. It takes a lot of concentration to figure out what he’s saying sometimes.

  • Max is just about the most adorable two-year old on the planet. He was extremely well-behaved, kept all his clothes on when he was supposed to, kept quiet and still during the ceremony and played well with the other kids, who weren’t always well-behaved, completely dressed or quiet and still when they needed to be. He’s my favorite.

  • I now know the script of Toy Story 2 by heart, even though I’ve only watched the movie twice. I’ve listened to it about six times now.

  • Every family roadtrip needs a dvd player (thank you, AOL… I get a world of use out of that Powerbook you gave me!)

  • In this little town, we couldn’t find one non-chain restaurant to eat at that wasn’t a biker bar. Hopefully, it’s not like that everywhere. When I go somewhere new, I like to try the local places to get a feel for the place. It could have been one town over from Sterling for all the local flavor we found in the town. The family was a different story. They’re all Ohio State freaks, and the first night at the “Hey y’all come over” party, it was incredibly difficult to tell everyone apart. They all wore Ohio State t-shirts and sweatshirts and well, they’re a family so they all kind of looked alike anyway. Local flavor galore in the family. Good people, and very welcoming to all us new folks.

There are stories I’m supposed to write about that I can’t think of at the moment, because I’m actually working. I’ll update later, once Jen reads this and reminds me.

Preparation

We’re leaving for Ohio tomorrow morning. Jen keeps moving our departure time up by thirty minutes every time she thinks of some other reason for us to stop (changing diapers, Max decompression time, lunch, etc). Now, I think we’re leaving at 4:30am yesterday.

What do I do before a big trip? Why, I wipe the Powerbook clean and start over. I’m going to go to Best Buy and get a cigarette lighter adapter so Max can watch movies the whole way there, and then to the sto’ to buy soda and last-minute munchies. I have my directions and my big driving map. I’m going to get the oil changed at lunch, and debating about buying a cell phone. The one thing I don’t know is whether Ohio is Eastern or Central time. If it’s Central, that means we can leave an hour later (please, oh please).

I’ll have the Powerbook with me, so will hopefully be able to blog from the road. But, don’t look for anything insightful (do you ever get anything insightful here anyway?). See ya on Monday!