I was given Kid Rock's new album Rock N Roll Jesus. I am not endorsing it cause I am just listening to it for the first time. The reason I mention it is because of the quote on the inside cover of the album:
To unwind after work I have been indulging in a few games of Chess on my computer. (That yelling you hear in the background is my wife calling me a loser.) I am not an avid Chess player. I will play twice a year at most, but I get the basic gist...so I thought. I am taking on all the forces of Chess playing against the computer. It is humiliating....
A few years ago I was asked to speak to a group of people about friendship. Now everyone knows how to be a good friend right? So how do you put an interesting twist to this topic of friendship? Well for me, I entitled the talk, "Being a Friend to the World". These words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippian churches guided me:
Started reading a new book - Saving the World at Work, What Companies and Individuals Can Do to Go Beyond Making a Profit to Making a Difference - this weekend. The author is Tim Sanders.
N.T. Wright says (at the risk of gross oversimplification) there are two quite different ways of looking at the future of the world.
A year ago you would never have been able to get me to part with my Birkenstock sandals. I have consistently worn (through) a pair for the past eleven years. Last September blasphemy came into my house when Laura purchased me a pair of Sanuks. And that is all she wrote.
Saturday as I was walking in the bank parking lot after getting some cash out of the ATM, a car rolled up blaring AC/DC's "Highway to Hell". For a moment I was whisked off to my youth when the ringing of church bells drowned out the 1979 classic and gave me a smile. I don't want to read into it, but with all that is going on in my life, this brief moment in my weekend was a humorous reminder of who is to be heard - rather who will be heard.
Starbucks has a new label/logo. I kinda like the brown. The weird posing mermaid is not very very appealing
I was a a gas station and saw the price of cigarettes is $6 a pack. Being a nonsmoker I cannot fathom how someone can drop six bucks every few days or everyday on a pack of cigs. Then I thought about those how will casually spend the same amount at Starbucks everyday. Choose your habits (or addictions) wisely.
That being said it is hard to sympathize with some who is complaining about not having any money as they stand there with a Starbucks in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It wouldn't surprise me if the same person is an anti-capitalist.
I don't know how much longer I can live in a country that will put Kevin Federline on the front of their magazine and think it is a good business decision. Or maybe I should say that I can't live much longer in a country where it is in fact a good business decision to put Kevin Federline on the cover of their magazine.
This is my first blog post from my MacBook. No more blue screens!!!
Is there a term for a person who doesn't update their blog regularly, or even yearly?
Just paid my tax burden, or I should say my remaining balance. I'll stop there before the explicatory language flies.
I live in Islip, NY. We spend $9962 a year for each student in school. The average expenditure in the U.S. is around $6000 (according to Sperling's Best Places). There is an 89% graduation rate here in Islip. Not bad I guess. Should we have those students who don't graduate pay back the money?
I ran some numbers and if a child chose to forgo the education system and put the cash in an interest bearing account (say 3%) they could have about $144k by the time they are 18. Doesn't seem like all that much. If they were savvy and found a way to get 8% return they could have $200k. That's enough for a quality liberal arts education.
I think that when something is "free" it is less appreciated. That's why making college free for all is probably not the best idea. I wonder what the unintended consequences of free health care would be. It's already free for many of us cause our employer takes care of it. I have little to no responsibility for my health care.
The other night I watched "As Good As It Gets" with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. I was too much of a young head full of mush to realize when the movie came out in 1997 that it was one big universal health care infomercial. No wonder it won a Golden Globe.
Thomas Sowell has another "Random Thoughts" column so I figure I would go with a "Rumblings" of my own.
This past weekend I turned 30 years old. Three decades - not bad. It is weird to think that some of my family members have known me for thirty years. And they still talk to me!
I have decided to forego the traditional wallet and use a money clip that holds credit cards (Special thanks to Steve Schmidt for the groomsman gift.) It has been much easier sitting down whether at my desk or while driving. With the added space I have been carrying other items in my back pocket: keys, pens, cell phone, etc. Letters and envelopes are particularly bad to carry in the back pocket. Somehow they just work themselves way out. I almost lost a couple. Must be the swivel hips.
What is it with women and their fear of running out of toilet paper? Since I got married I never had so much tp. Everytime I open a closet more falls out. I have a toilet paper storage bin next to the toilet paper dispenser in the bathroom. Each week at the grocery store I hear the line, "We need toilet paper." I just roll with it.
For some reason I find it more interesting to flip through a magazine backwards. I actually read more articles this way. I think it is because I can never find the damn table of contents.
With all the emails, text messaging and online bill paying do you think the post office will ever go out of business?
If I buy fair trade coffee at Wal-mart am I just cancelling myself out? Is it like a carbon credit? Where's Al Gore when you need him.
We recently moved into an apartment with tile floors. I never broke so many glasses. Forgive me if I offer you a drink in a plastic cup. We are all out of glass.
So I picked up Hillary Clinton's book, "It Takes a Village" from my local library. Unfortuately I couldn't get through it. I read about half of it actually finding myself agreeing with the ideas and beliefs of our former First Lady and my current State Senator. Why couldn't I get through it? My problem is that I don't believe her.
Perhaps my personal politics have clouded my objectivity and that adds to a predisposed bias to the woman who claimed to be named after the man who first climbed Mt. Everest - Sir Edmund Hillary? But I don't think that is the case. There is a list of eyebrow raising events that would cause me to not trust Senator Clinton. Bill doesn't help matters either. However I will try to keep an open mind ;)
The point of the book is a good one - it takes a village. A child needs a safe environment to grow up in, people looking after his or her best interests, people on their side, encouraging and clearing a path to maturity and self discovery. The problem is the village has not necessarily owned up to this responisbility and has even shirked it.
I think about how a teacher friend of mine was told by her assistant principal that "it is not our job to teach responsibility" when she wanted to give her student a zero for not turning in an assignment. The policy at this public school is that there is no deadlines. You can turn your homework in anytime. The sad part was that the student whose homework was late was actually the child of the principal!
Or I think about my father-in-law who teaches Spanish to public high school students in New Jersey. During one of his final exams the proctor caught a student smearing chapstick on the computer graded "scan-tron" answer sheet. This supposedly makes the machine unable to read the answers and marks the answers as correct. When the incident was brought before the assistant prinicipal (the one in charge of discipline) his answer to my father-in-law was to grade the test by hand because it wasn't their job to determine the student's intent. Can you believe that?
The village's hands are tied my friends. And in some cases it is glorifies the very behavior that we are trying to avoid. The latest example of this comes from the campus of Virginia Tech, my alma mater. I believe that the evil and violence that has destroyed the lives of so many will end up saving hundreds more. Our eyes have been opened, our souls torn open, and our hearts bruised. But there has been so much love, hope and strength flowing in around and out of the campus. I truly believe the goal of this evil will prove counter productive.
Hopefully there will be changes to the Virginia Tech village. An interesting article by James Lewis at the American Thinker illustrates the need. Now this is just one side of the story. A side I'm sure we won't hear. I would enjoy reading a response.
And hopefully Hollywood will wake up too. On the very night of the murders, during a commerical on American Idol, we saw a movie trailer for Disturbia - subtitled "every killer lives next to someone. The disturbing part of the trailer was hearing the words, "You made me do this". The same words I was hearing all day on the news about the killer from the campus of Virginia Tech.
The village needs leadership. It needs people of faith to step in (to be allowed, encouraged, welcomed) to step in and aid in the maturity and self discovery of our young people. I know I am not doing enough. I work too much. Not because I want to accumulate toys but because that's what my job asks of me, it's what I need to do to pay the cost of living in our Long Island, NY. The price is too high on too many fronts. How will the village respond? I am hopeful.
"I am much more interested in long-term living than in long-term care." -- Newt Gingrich
Polling has indicated that Newt Gingrich is one of the most favorable of possible candidates for the 2008 Presidential election. However, those who find him favorable do not think he can win. (I heard this on a Saturday radio show.)
After reading his book and hearing him do interviews I am inclined to favor him as well.
Chapter 8 of Gingrich's book, "Winning the Future" is titled A 21st Century Health System. Interesting how he does not use the word "care." I think he does this because the issue affects us all and is so much bigger than just being cared for as we have become accustomed. Gingrich emphasizes personal responsibility and involvement in taking care of our health and medical needs. This requires us to be informed and involved in matters regarding our health.
Gingrich does not want to reform the current health system because he considers it profoundly wrong in three specific areas.
The truth is that the current health system cannot be reformed because its approach is profoundly wrong in three specific areas. First, it emphasizes acute care rather than wellness, early detection, and prevention. Second, it focuses on third-party payments, an area in which the individual has little responsibility, little knowledge, and no control. And third, it relies on paper (i.e. paper medical records and paper prescriptions) rather than information technology.
Newt is attractive to a lot of people because he brings real ideas to the table. He doesn't talk about having a plan and he isn't making any promises. His book is titled "Winning the Future". There is something exciting about moving forward and making changes where necessary.
Gingrich will build the 21st Century Intelligent Health System around three big changes: 1. Move knowledge from the doctor's office and scientific laboratory to the individual as rapidly as possible; 2. Help the health care system adopt top quality information technology systems to increase productivity, accuracy, and cut costs. 3. Center the process of health on the informed individual so he or she can have the knowledge, desire, responsibility, and opportunity to live the longest life, with the best health, at the lowest cost.Currently I am reading Hilary Clinton's book "It Takes a Village". I just finished a chapter in which she talks about health care. I hope to post her views in do time. Until now soak up what Newt says, visit his website, or buy the book.
Thomas Sowell will go through "Random Thoughts" every now and then in his column. I love it when he does this. He is very insightful.
I don't presume to compare with him, but there are what I will call, "Rumblings":
Does it make me lame that I have a “tape player” in my car? What if I still have tapes?
Even on an empty tank, yellow light flashing I will forgo a full service only gas station in search of a self-serve. I just want to do it myself.
Do you find it mildly satisfying to make it through a yellow light or one that just turns red as you are passing through the intersection? Well that feeling is squashed here in Long Beach, NY cause if you make it through one, there is a red light waiting for you 100 yards ahead at the next intersection. The man keeps you down.
Somewhere between 25 and thirty the body (at least mine) confuses growing hair on the head with growing it on the back. How does one deal with a receeding hairline?
Henry Petroski says that past success is no guarentee against future failure.
Even though I know little about her Mother Teresa is one of my favorite people. She says, "Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We only have today. Let us begin."
if you can get past the source, you just might enjoy Ann's latest column.
i laughed out loud a couple of times!!!
My hope for our country and world is not is some politcal candidate or party. I do hope Newt Gingrich will run for president in 2008. He hasn't declared anything. He is just out there giving speeches and debating ideas. He may be the only person with ideas.
I read his book Winning the Future and found it to be quite inspiring. Here is the dedication:
To my grandchildren Maggie and Robert and all the other grandchildren who deserve to
inherit an America that is as free, safe, healthy and prosperous as the America we
inherited.
I will post more on Newt as I learn more about him. Maybe my mind will change as i dive deeper into what this man believes and how he will go about accomplishing his plans for America. I am open to that. We live in the "information age" so there is no excuse to be uninformed and swept away by rhetoric.
