DaddyRoBlog

Hard Times Hit Home

Sour economies don't just destroy jobs and wealth. They can tear apart marriages, often because of the debt that couples accumulate and, when times get tough, have trouble repaying

--Jeff D. Opdyke,  Financially Ever After:  The Couple's Guide to Managing Money

Given that this is true--and I firmly believe it is-- maybe this is a good reminder to spend a little extra time with our spouse and kids.  These are stressful times for marriages and families as well as businesses, so it is the wise person who makes the extra effort and additional time to keep these relationships healthy and strong.

Kings

I've been watching, via the internet, a new TV show called Kings.  It's loosely based on the story of David in the Bible, though it's a modern retelling in a fictional city called Shiloh.

I really want to like it, but the truth is I'm underwhelmed.  If you know the Biblical story, it has some clever moments.  In the Bible, for instance, 1 Samuel 18:7 says, "Saul has slain his thousands while David has slain his tens of thousands."  In Kings, when a politican offers to pay handsomely to sit next to David at a major social event, the king's wife says, "Silas has raised his thousands, while David has raised his hundreds of thousands" .  Unfortunately, moments like these are few and far between.

The big problem, I think, is that David's relationship to God is ignored.  God is a part of the show, with one of the main characters being Reverend Samuels.  The King is also a main of faith.  But David, not so much.

That's too bad.  Part of what makes David such an engaging character is that he is described as a man after God's own heart, and yet he commits murder, engages in adultery, and otherwise refuses to listen to God's commands.  So far in Kings, David is just sort of a country bumpkin who is too good to be true, and  when he is corrupted that's pretty much what one would expect.  It's just not a very interesting development. 

It's not clear why we should care... and so, I think, we don't.  Despite some good ideas and better than standard fare acting, so far the show is--I hate to say it--pretty boring.

New Mattress

To this day, alot of what Linda and I have in our home are hand me downs from others.  Most of the furniture in our bedroom, for instance, is the same furniture I had in my bedroom growing up.  Our mattress was also given to us by a parishioner 20 years ago, and she had it for years before passing it onto us.

I'm not sure we really needed a new one.  They say the best way to tell if you need a new matress is how well you sleep on it.  If you sleep better in a hotel, for instance, that could be an indication your home mattress is worn out.  But I never sleep better at hotels, so I figured that old though it may have been, we didn't yet need a new mattress.

I had to concede the point, however, that in the past year it had begun to sag pretty badly.

So Linda bought a new one.  Holy cow is that thing tall!  We had to put a footstool at the bottom of the bed so Nike can get up on it.  I think I might have to tuse the footstool too.

Saying my Prayers

You know that big blizzard out in Oklahoma and Kansas?  My daughter and her college friends are apparently right in the middle of it.

It sounds like they left a couple hours ago on the 1600 mile banzai trip from New Mexico back to Michigan.   I suppose such trips are rites of passage for college students, and I remember making similar trips from New York to Florida myself.   On one of those trips I couldn't yet drive a stick (as embarassing as that is to admit), so my friend would get his car up to speed on the interstate, jump in the back seat, and I'd then slide over into the drivers seat to take my shift driving.  On another trip we all drove back in our underwear we were so badly sunburned from our last day on the beach.

The point is, we made it.   So though I don't like to think too much about my daughter and her friends driving through the night and on into the next day for 24 hours straight, I figure they'll be fine.

This blizzard, though--with snow apparently drifting up to 10 feet in places according to weather.com--is another matter.   I'm sure it will be an adventure they can tell their kids and grandkids, but right now it looks pretty bad.  Apparently all the major highways are closed and traffic is pretty much at a standstill with nowhere to go.   Linda and I are both hoping Christine packed a coat.

So yes, I'm saying my prayers.  If you're the praying type, making you could say a few too!  I appreciate it...

Facebook Stalking

 I think this is my older daughter.  It's her new profile picture on Facebook.

It's the kind of picture that does a father's heart good.  She on spring break down in New Mexico, and it looks like she's having a great time.

I remember climbing in New York's Shawangunks when I was in college.  Great memories.

So glad to see my daughter creating great memories of her own!

Bent

Have you ever noticed how some things that seem self evident aren't?

Yesterday my daughter took both my car and my car keys and drove to a friend's.  About a half hour later, she walked into the house and asked me for another car key because the keys I gave her didn't work.

"Tell me more," I asked.

"Well," she replied, "I wanted to come home to pick something up, but the key won't unlock the door.  I had to walk home."  Then she added a bit sheepishly, "I think I might of bent it trying."

"Yep," I said taking the keys and looking at it.  "You sure did.  Unfortunately,"  I continued, "this key doesn't unlock the door."

"Huh?" she exclaimed, dumbfounded and incredulous. 

"It's a different key that unlocks the door," I explained.  Showing her the key behind the now bent ignition key I said, "It's this one."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she inquired, now even more incredulous that I should withhold such vital information.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say she was a bit perturbed...

Why indeed?  I guess it just seemed so obvious to me.  If one key doesn't work, you try the key behind it.  But what was obvious to me never even entered her mind.  And then it struck me; what was obvious to her (that I should have showed her the second key) never even entered my mind either. 

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess I should have showed you the second key."

"I guess I shouldn't have tried so hard to force the one that wasn't working," she said, now laughing too.

We walked back over to the car, playfully bantering and laughing together about just which one of us should have known better and who should've done what.  We unlocked the car, and it was amazing how easy that was with the proper instrument. 

I had to work  just a bit to get the bent key in the ignition, and wiggle it a little bit more to get it back out--but it  still worked.

The Facebook Generation

I read a fascinating article today about web based social values. It talked about how  Web-based life is shaping the social DNA of a new generation. The article suggests that these values are contrary to contemporary corporate values. It concludes by asking “how should we reinvent management to make it more consistent with these emerging online sensibilities?”

 Personally, I think this article is dead on. And I think the values it identifies, which are listed below, will reshape far more than business. I’m guessing they will reshape pretty much every area of our life—economics, education, politics, religion, and so on. In fact, I think this reshaping is already occurring. (If you want to read a novel that presents a thought provoking picture of just how this might play out, read Daniel Suarez’s Daemon).

One of these days I’ll write more about this. For now, I’ll just put my opinion out there: the institutional church as we now know it, whether in its denominational, nondenominational, or megachurch guise, will not survive this cultural shift.

Anyway, here are the twelve values of web based community life. For a description of each, please see The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500 by Gary Hamel.

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.

2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.

3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.

4. Leaders serve rather than preside.

5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.

6. Groups are self-defining and -organizing.

7. Resources get attracted, not allocated.

8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.

9. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.

10. Users can veto most policy decisions.

11. Intrinsic rewards matter most.

12. Hackers are heroes.

The Times They Are a Changing

I just finished the best book I’ve read in a long, long time. It’s called The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.

It takes place in the early 1960s, and it is about a nontraditional woman coming home from college and seeking to find her way in a traditional southern town. The two chief ways she finds herself out of step with her culture is her relationships with the “colored” help and her relationship to her dream to be a writer. Of course, numerous other conflicts will flow out of the choices she makes about these issues--as will blessing unimaginable when the story begins.

 But this is not primarily a “social issues” book. It is a people book. It’s a story about people and the things they care about (or don’t care about), how that defines their relationships (or destroys them), and ultimately how all this shapes our world.

Along the way The Help reflects on family, friends, loyalty, honesty, and so on, but in the end it is about nothing so much as noticing the people around us and caring about them. Sometimes this will mean something as simple—yet profound—as saying “Thanks.”

One of the Best Book Openings Ever

Once upon a time there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.

She was fifty-three years old by then—a grandmother…

Give her credit: most people her age would say it was too late to make any changes. What’s done is done, they would say. No use trying to alter things at this late date.

It did occur to Rebecca to say that. But she didn’t.

--Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler

When the LORD Restored the Fortunes of Zion

 

we were like those who dreamed.   --Psalm 126:1

Or maybe like those who got into the season's first catnip!