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Last Updated : Sunday, 15 December, 2002 at 10:55 PM -0500
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| Daynotes On a Budget Hosted By... Last Updated : Sunday, 15 December, 2002 at 10:55 PM -0500 |
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Monday, December 9, 2002 |
How Odd
On Saturday, I received a letter from my former employer. In what was not a great shock to me, or many others, my former employer is merging. Merging with another firm that was a competitor of sorts.
Which is another way of saying "I guess we were wrong."
I don't like "talking trash" about previous employers. Nothing positive comes of it, and frankly, the one thing I can guarantee is that you get the opportunity to learn the most while making big mistakes. Lord knows I have. When it works "right" you learn very little. When it breaks, well, you learn a whole lot. And the same is true in both small and large matters. I learn a lot by putting things together backwards in a computer. It hadn't occurred to me until recently that the same sort of principle applies in business, and sometimes, when the pieces don't fit, you end up with a situation where you have to say "okay, we broke this one, let's get a new one, start over, and be more careful with it."
Stuff happens. I just hope the people who are left do OK. Otherwise, it's got to be scary.
What disturbed me was that the letter arrived five days before I would have marked my second anniversary with them.
I Almost Forgot
I've officially hit the "too old" mark.
Yesterday, while wandering the Mall of America, we encountered "Sharky" - the mascot for the Underwater World, under the Mall. I looked, looked at Ann, and said "Landshark!"
Sharky's escort looked at me like I was completely from another planet. Ann burst out laughing.
What worries me greatly is that my stock of funny lines from Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, Stripes, and Animal House will eventually elicit a confused glare, rather than a knowning nod and laugh. To heck with the decline and fall of the educational system, what happens when we can't crack a joke in public and people get it?
Sickie Patrol
Today, after we came home from dropping Ann at the bus, Jack came up the front steps into the house. In an appalling display of poor aim (or a frightening display of good aim) he managed to speak to Ralphie without the large porcelain phone involved, and nailed the carpet. Twice.
So he stayed home, slept for a couple hours, and is now moving, albeit slowly (for Jack). And I've got a headache. Uh-oh.
OFFICIAL MINNESOTA TEMPERATURE CONVERSION CHART
Thin-Skinned Jerks
I'm continually reminded of the relatively thin skin many people possess, and how easy it is to give offense. What's terribly irritating is how some people seem to deliberately take every single comment in a way in which it could be offensive. Or just choose to twist and bend it until it provides political disadvantage to someone else.
Tonight, on the way home from getting Ann, I was listening to MPR, where they replayed a comment by Mississippi Senator Trent Lott. Briefly - Last week the great Satan - er, Senator Strom Thurmond - turned 100, and there was (as there always is) a birthday party for the man.
In the late 1940s, Thurmond, then a Democrat, and governor of South Carolina, broke with the national Democratic party as it splintered into three personalities. One, the more liberal wing, became the Progressive Democrats. The other, the "mainstream" was led by then-President Harry Truman. The third was led by Thurmond, championed States Rights, and was called the Dixiecrats.
Now, admittedly, not having lived through that time, I can't say for myself what the party stood for. Many historians, including the fellow National Public Radio found, agree that the Dixiecrats were a cover for a much more sinister motive. As the party had a plank in it's platform (a section of their mission statement, if you will) that said "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army will not let the Negro Race into our homes, our stores, our churches, and our restaurants."
In other words, it's entirely possible to believe (and I do) that the Dixiecrats were racist. This being the country where "spin" is not only a verb but a profession, it's pretty damned difficult to turn that statement around and say "what I believe the Governor Thurmond was trying to say is that we welcome African Americans into our homes in our own ways, and it will not require national intervention, or calling out of the national guard to move the process forward."
Of course, Thurmond carried a couple of southern states, including Mississippi, the state where few college graduates can even spell the name of the state correctly three tries out of five. Being such a leading light of intelligence, learning, and intellect, Mississippi has often led the nation - oh, wait, let me turn those lists over - never mind. But the Dixiecrats did leave a legacy behind (much like roadkill stuck to the underside of your vehicle), and it kept giving for all those years in the Senate.
Ever the intelligent politician (read opportunistic son of a bitch), Thurmond switched to the Republican party, and ran for Senate, embracing black voters, who decided that it was a case of better the devil you know, and some fair percentage of them, along with a majority of the rest of the voters in South Carolina, voted for the man repeatedly, making him the longest serving senator in the history of that ... collection of crooks or august assemblage, your pick. Thurmond is, finally, retiring, but as yet there are no plans to bury him - clearly, neither God nor Satan want him in the neighborhood.
Anyway, Lott said "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either". Right.
Now, on the one hand, I could be offended by the comment. Sure. It's the easy route. But think about it...
I could also look back at the history - the Bay of Pigs, the Viet Nam war, Kennedy, Kennedy, and King assassinations, Nixon's impeachment, "stag-flation", the Iranian hostage crises, all the messes of the Reagan years, the Gulf War, the Clinton years, and all the other scandals and wonderfully bad examples we've had in the White House and think "gee, if we'd just elected one racist president back in 1947, sure, we'd have avoided that whole mess(</SARCASM>)".
Remember, Trent Lott is a Senator from "The Great State of Mississippi" - where they import kids from other states to explain that "M-I-crooked-letter-crooked-letter-I-crooked-letter-crooked-letter-I-hump-back-hump-back-I" is not a funny poem, but in fact how Mississippi is spelled (and for extra credit, they get to show off how farm is not in fact spelled E-I-E-I-O, in contradiction to that old MacDonald character).
As I said earlier, this is the land of the spin, so there's plenty of media attention on the story. CNN's got a nice writeup of the mess, sans excess background as noted above.
But the stupid thing is that now Lott (not one of my favorite people, mind you) is being flayed for a joke he told. You would like to think we have better things to waste our time on than that, but apparently, judging by the number of stories devoted to it on the nightly news and on the web, clearly, we've got under-employed newsfolk out there just trolling for stories.
Lovely...
Ann, she of the "I do not puke unless I'm drunk" (and proved it over the last fifteen years) is throwing up upstairs - I was watching the Lord of The Rings Special Extended DVD edition (yes, an early Christmas present), and couldn't find the added scenes - they were there - but I felt the story did flow better (I stopped just after the battle of Weathertop, which, coincidentally, occurred right around my birthday).
I'm thinking the odds are still leaning towards her going to work tomorrow. Yeah, I know, but she's got the same problem I do - the over-developed responsibility gene. Further updates if they become warranted.
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Tuesday, December 10, 2002 |
Hmmm...
I have pissed off a cat.
Today was Der Tag - we moved Rhiannon from the floor, where she's slept since day one in this house, to her loft platform. The platform itself has been standing in her room since April. Recent weeks have seen much progress made on the desk, shelves, and finally, the railings that would keep her from rolling out of the loft.
Last week I finished the Desk, which turned out to be a two-legged contraption which was attached, in back, to the loft legs - in the front it had it's own legs. Today, I put up three 2x4 "railing supports" and three padded rails (padded the week before Thanksgiving), and before doing so, lobbed the mattress and other essentials (alarm clock, etc) up there.
I did modify the side rails of the loft to allow a side-exit in the event that she does need to get out and can't for whatever reason go down the ladder. They stop a foot short of the drop ceiling, which gives her plenty of room to wiggle over, if need be. Other than that, the top-level railings are pretty much as planned.
Of course, She Who Hates Change was unhappy and overwrought with the changes in her environment, and was in tears at first. She's currently sleeping with her head towards the ladder. Dunno if that'll change (if not, I wasted a couple pieces of lumber building a "bookshelf headboard" for her that she'll not use), but so far, she seems to be settling into it. We'll see how it goes.
From Gilligan's perspective, this is A Bad Thing. You see, this is the cat that, until we moved, was "footwarmer/deadweight" on our bed. Once we moved, he changed from nightly duty on our bed to about once a week. Rhiannon typically had Gilligan down on her bed for a cuddle-toy, and once a week or so, the cat would venture into Jack's bed for a snooze.
Tonight he spent a good five minutes reading me the riot act regarding my affrontery to boost his favorite sleeping area, and cuddle toy, five feet in the air. Never mind the ladder's the type that even a lard-ball cat could climb, this was WORK. First we make him climb mountains to go between food and comfort and sunshine and sleeping places, and now this indignity? What will we think of next?
I'm not telling him yet that a puppy is in the cards...
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Wednesday, December 11, 2002 |
Math Lesson
We'll start today with a math lesson.
Population E is "Everyone".
Group A is "Readers Of These Pages"
Group B is "People who get excited when I mention Mall of America"
Group C is "Mariah Carey Fans"
Group D is "Asshole Drivers"
Finally, Group T is "Today Show Fans"
Of necessity, Groups A, B, C, and D are subsets of E. Group B is also a subset of group A, as people getting excited about my mention of the Mall of America must read these pages to see such a mention. Group T, one guesses, is probably made up of a bit of some of the above, or not, perhaps. Whatever.
One does dearly, dearly hope that Group C is exclusive - that is, does not intersect with - groups A and B. While Ms. Carey is attractive in a trampy, trailer-trash sort of way, I think she's a great sucking waste of talent. Seeing her face on a two-story-tall banner while we were at the Mall this last weekend only served to remind me that while she is pretty, she's also got a deplorable lack of taste. So it goes.
One may also hope that Group D is exclusive to Groups A and B, because if not, the fellow driving the pickup truck with the license plate BJZ 023 this morning really does deserve a good thumping kick in the pants - special front-side award.
Mind you, it's easy to be distracted because this morning (Group A), Matt Lauer and Al Roper (Group T) are in the Twin Cities at the Mall of America (Group B) for Mariah Carey's (Group C) early-morning performance, launching her "comeback" album (how in the heck does one need a "comeback" at the age of thirty-two?). One had hoped that Group D would all be parked at the Mall (which opened at 5 am, though people were lining up outside it as early as midnight, from what I'd heard), for, given the fact that Group C has managed to collect a fair number of persons who would willingly arrive at 5 am to get "good" seats to see Ms. Carey, I figured a fair number of Group C would be members of Group D.
Said pickup driver, obviously distracted by SOMETHING, decided to place his standard Ford F150 pickup into a space not much larger than a Yugo, which is where I was jammed in between the vehicle in front of me (a delivery van), and the vehicle behind (I could see his headlights because they were rear-window height - which made him, at the least, a large SUV). So I gently tapped my breaks, looking at the median as a viable alternative to death, and by some miracle, the genius behind me choose at that moment to slow down - giving me the room to let Group D member in. Otherwise, my children and I would be median grease.
Back to Ms. Carey; The local NBC affiliate, which we watch for news, was all agog. The entire month they've been doing "Minnesota Idol" - running a brief clip of some person insisting they've got talent enough to snare a recording contract, and they've submitted their own tape. From my recollection, the first one I'd seen was this old woman wandering a barnyard pen, singing, playing guitar, and being accompanied by the moo-ing of various cows around her. Clearly her singing talents lay beneath her, if you catch my drift.
Today, in the climax of the whole mess, Ms. Carey.
Sheesh.
Speaking of Stupidity
Seems there's more talk of letting Pete Rose back into baseball.
It's rather humorous, actually. But first, the facts, as I recall them.
Rose, aka Charlie Hustle, was one of the most hard-driving players of the game. Love him or hate him, he was a force to be reckoned with. As I recall, he had a number of crashes at home plate, attempting to tackle the opposing catcher, and knock loose the ball. Fair play? Well, I dunno. Deliberately looking to knock the bejeebers out of the catcher and send his mind into the upper decks? Hell yeah.
Rose holds a number of records for his career on-field. Once his playing days ended, he moved into a managerial role with his old team, the Cincinnati Reds.
At some point, he also reportedly developed a gambling problem. After an investigation, Rose was banned, for life, from baseball, due to the fact that he bet on baseball games, and quite possibly Reds games.
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that "everyone does it" and he was in fact in a position to influence things like the outcome, final score, etc., we're looking at a man who was a win-at-all-costs player who frankly skirted the edge time and again.
Was his play spectacular? Certainly. Was he a major force in baseball in his prime? Absolutely. Is he someone who should be in the record books? Without a doubt. Is he someone who belongs in the Hall of Fame? Well...
Certainly, there are criminals in the Hall of Fame. Cooperstown's not heaven, for crying out loud. But it is a place where Baseball gets to enshrine those that we would occasionally slip and call "heroes". Grown men, playing games, who also rose above the game, and gave us a glimpse of our better selves we believe we might be able to become, if only we'd tried just a little harder.
Many a young boy has watched a slugger blast a ball out of the park and then trot 'round the bases, zipped outside, and attempted to repeat the feat. Many young boys failed. But it's a testament to the power of the image, and the power of the game, that many boys start in this game and keep playing it. There are little league teams that play at all levels, from "run to the flamingo" to the top levels of the Little-League World Series (one of the true "World" series in sports aside from the Olympics and World Cup). Grade schools, high schools, and colleges field teams. Summer leagues are formed with everything from serious semi-pro players to "basebeer" with bases marked by kegs. (The outhouse was in right field - since most of the hitters were right-handed, we figured anyone who could pull a ball drunk deserved the home run they'd get - but that's another story).
It's a game, but it's an inspirational game. It's deceptively easy to play, but devilishly complicated to master. Many today look at the game and toss off a "well, it's not exciting." Certainly not as exciting as a football game.
Football is a car chase. Baseball is a chess game. Football is a finite, bounded, limited struggle, wherein the keys to winning are speed and strength. That's about it. Baseball requires so much more in the way of strategy than football does. There is the strategy of the individual pitch, which extends to how to field a batter, to how to play the inning, to whom to play for the inning, to whom to play for the game, to how to handle the series, to how to handle the season, to how to handle the franchise. Football is power, strength, and the ability to knock your opponent on his ass before he does it to you. Period. At the end of the tank of gas or the alloted time for the game, Football finishes.
Baseball ends only due to weather, darkness (unlikely these days with lit stadiums), a win, or that little-known fourth option, Bud Selig calling a game on account of running out of pitchers.
Does Pete Rose represent baseball? Yup. Is it a positive representation? Not at all. Should he be in Cooperstown? That depends.
Do you value integrity? Do you value good character? Do you value fighting, and failing, but remaining true to your ideals? Or do you value success at all costs? Cooking the books to win? Do you want to see your team on top, regardless of what happens next year or the lives destroyed by the hoodlums and thugs you've employed to put you in that winner's circle?
Pete Rose belongs back in baseball in the same way Osama Bin Laden belongs at the United Nations.
My Own Worst Enemy
Yup. My son and I shared a "Stupid Parent Bonding Moment" today, and you had to be there. Which in no way prevents me from trying to capture it anyway.
Today, I'm standing in Menards (coping saw blades - that's all - I swear), and it suddenly smacked me like a cold haddock to the base of the skull. Furnace filters.
Being an apartment denizen for thirteen years, and prior to that, having an electronic air filter, I was used to the "annual" process. I'd haul out the electronic air filter (a heavy metal contraption with a two-inch-thick "filter" with a dozen metal vanes, each about an inch wide, and a dozen thin wires between them), and the secondary filter (assuming that was it, since it came AFTER the previous contraption in the airflow diagram), which was a metal-mesh sort of filter. The Electronic filter took about ten minutes to clean, using a soft brush and soap and water. If you broke a wire, you incurred the wrath of my father. I never did.
The other filter took about two hours, and I finally got to the point where I'd clip the edge to a spring clamp, throw a rope over a tree branch, tie the rope to the clamp, and hang the filter - then spray it until the water came out clear.
The apartment was a little easier - thin flimsy bits of filter material stuck in the front of room air conditioners.
But I'd forgotten about changing my air filter in my furnace. Yup. Completely spaced it. There's an empty box on a shelf in the basement, and last spring, I opened the filter slot and confirmed. 16 x 25 x 1.
Or so I thought. Rather than screw up mightily, I bought two (on the theory that coming home with a case of them would have wasted $5.32, whereas two filters were less than a buck). Yes, I could have paid $25 for a filter from 3M which filtered out everything except stupidity, from what I saw, and was willing to take a whack at that as well. No, I got the el-cheapo 42¢ filters on the grounds that if I need a $25 filter, I'm going to move somewhere exciting, where I really need a $25 filter - not in Minnesota, thank you very much.
So, after that diversion, Jack and I looked around. He was being extraordinarily well-behaved, which led to me nearly getting him a mini-tool-box for his tools, and then thought better of it. I got chocolate instead. And coping saw blades.
So we came home, and I warmed up leftovers. All the while praising him for behaving well in the store.
You know what happens next.
He's complaining he's hungry, and as soon as the leftovers are in front of him (he ASKED for the leftover chicken and au gratin potato stuff we had last night - the kid who normally demands lunch A) Peanut Butter and Jelly, B) Baloney and Cheese, or C) Mini Pizzas. So I warmed it, choped the chicken a bit, and went to work on the dishes.
I hear a gagging noise, turn around, and there's old Chipmunk Cheeks, gagging on an overly large mouthful. Without thinking, it happened.
"If you choke yourself to death, don't come crying to me!" I stared sternly.
"Gulp - Gag - Giggle".
Yeah. I actually said that. Reminds me of the old "If you break your leg with that silly stunt, don't come running to me."
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Thursday, December 12, 2002 |
Um, Yeah...
Again, it's a lot easier for you folks to see the stuff WHEN I UPLOAD IT. Sheesh.
My excuse was that I was very very busy yesterday.
On the positive front, I got the first of my Filemaker Databases to a state where they're functional enough to be useful. I've got an invoice put together for my main client, and it's going well so far.
On the negative front, The Loft which started as a "will be done by April 20" project (then it was "fourth of July Weekend" then Labor Day, then before the Mother-In-Law arrives for thanksgiving) is awaiting four final steps - two of which are cosmetic. Step 1 is the desk surface itself, and step 2 are simple 2x4 braces for the shelves (since I don't have a doweling jig and couldn't dowel the shelves together). Step 3 is a "writing surface" (probably a half-sheet of white melamine - "white board" - trimmed to fit), and step 4 is the cosmetic cord-tack-down and etc.
Yes, I know, Pictures When I'm Done. There's a threat for you.
Tonight, on the other hand, was Ann's office party. Otherwise known as "John's chance to seem like he's part of a work world." Oddly enough, the last time we got together with her office-mates, I was unemployed. Gee.
The nice thing is that many of them were asking how I was doing. Even her CEO made a point of hunting me down and asking how it was going. Hopefully it'll change, soon.
Other than that, not a whole lot going on round here. This weekend we plan to start and finish the tree stand (it's really a simple project), clean out the garage enough to put the car in (first time since a week after we moved in), and put up the tree. Phew. Busy.
And I need to schedule in a Nap. Somewhere. I hope.
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Friday, December 13, 2002 |
Well...
Deep Subject, let's cap it. 
I've got about ten minutes before today turns into yesterday. And, frankly, not much worth noting here.
Got a good job lead today, and fired off a resume. We'll see.
Got Rhiannon's desk ALMOST done (one notch left in the desktop, and it's DONE)
Got the bills out for the consulting business, so that's good.
Other than that, not much going on.
Tomorrow, we have basketball and shopping on the list. And, maybe, getting the tree stood vertical. And lighted. And decorated. Wheee...
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Saturday, December 14, 2002 |
Basketball's Done
There is something rather odd about ending, in December, something which Rhiannon signed up for back in March. Back before the Winter snow (of last winter, anyway), Rhiannon signed up for her Basketball experience - before we were even in this house, if I remember right.
And today was her last game.
Given the fact that they had no coach for the first three weeks of the season, given the fact that they missed more practices than they made in October, and given the fact that they had two high school boys - one of whom was good, and the other was simply a tall guy looking to put in his time, AND given the fact that she'd never handled a basketball in any sort of organized session, I was quite surprised at the results.
By the end of the season, Rhiannon was one of the better players on the team. She hustled from one end of court to the other, loved to in-bound the ball, and managed to score the game-winning point in their only regular-season win.
So today ended with a repeat win against the team that thumped them last week (the only team they beat in the regular season). Their first game was against a team that certainly didn't belong in the "lower" bracket if appearances counted. Fortunately, they were good enough to beat Rhiannon's team. The good news was that their first meeting was a thrashing - 24-2 - the worst beating they took (that I saw) all season long. The game today ended 16-12, which is a heck of a job, considering.
The good news, I guess, is that instead of remembering her first season of basketball as 1-7, with one win in the tournament, she's going to remember two wins - one she scored the winning point in.
When I asked her today if she had enjoyed the season, she said "you bet!". As a parent, there's nothing more that you can ask. She learned, she increased her skills, and she had fun. That's all there is to it.
The rest of today was a bit of a wobbler. We did some shopping, got some weird news (nothing health-wise, just a mis-applied glitch with our mortgage payment which I hope to straighten out on Monday), and finished the day with Christmas Shopping. On the positive side of the ledger, we have Jack done (on the parental/sibling front, anyway), Ann is half-done, and there's been a fair amount of shopping on the other side (we split every year - Rhiannon and I together, and Mom and Jack together - that way each team is pretty-well balanced).
We also stood for about an hour or so in the line to see Santa. Pictures tomorrow, when I find the disk. Now, since I need to be at Church tomorrow morning, I have Jack by my lonesome for church (unless he chooses to go with Mom, in which case I will be holding the fort for four people by myself. Third Sunday of Advent, the Pink Candle, and I'm going to try to keep enough space in a Minnesota Church Pew for two adults, two children, and their attendant winter gear (though we did hit nearly fifty today - we shall pay, we shall pay) - Right. This will be fun.
Then of course, we have the "scour Target" stop. And the intelligent move of the week on my part - I'm going to check Target for cheap ink-jet printers. I currently have a Canon BJC-4200 and an Epson 640i in boxes here. The ink carts for them (retail) are running in the $55-60 range (I need black and color). Last time I was at Target, I saw a clearance Inkjet Lexmark printer for $39. With carts. Now, tell me which is the smarter buy? Especially since I'm looking at something like $60 for copies of pictures for Christmas Cards?
Good night...
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Sunday, December 15, 2002 |
Ahhhh, Sunday.
And here we are, dangling at the bottom of another week.
Today wasn't supposed to be brutal, but in hindsight, I suppose I expected too little.
We started with Church, where I was, as expected, left to sit in the pew with coats and little more to show for it. Of course, the usher packed a few more in, and of course, when She returned, I was given the "what the heck were you thinking?"
Blame it on the usher, I did.
Then we had a dilemma of the highest order. After mass, we had to A) Clean up after Children's liturgy, B) hit the Bazaar after mass to see what goods would flesh us out for the week, C) hit the pancake breakfast to deliver our first Christmas present, and D) run errands to hell and back.
We managed, somehow, and then stumbled badly into the gift-giving season.
We'd taken one of our old - but still good - cell phones and started it up with a "free-up" plan - you buy the card with minutes, and use those. Need more minutes, buy more cards. No other fees or charges. We did that, and gave it to some good friends of ours who were planning a long road trip without one.
Of course, what happens. Yesterday, they were at the mall - picked up a cell phone. And some other friends of theirs also gave them a similar deal. Figures. Day late, dollar short. That's my life in a wallet.
So then we burst back out of the gates, heading around to finish (we hoped) Christmas shopping. Fortunately, I think we did. I first decided to check printers, because the Christmas Card project is about to hit full swing. And wobbled into the problem with the cheap printers - single carts. Sing along with me if you know this one - single cart printers are more expensive in the long run because to mix text and graphics on the page requires that you use all three colors to make black - whereas a dual-cartridge system typically uses one black, and one multi-color, to make the thing work.
I guess what I'm going to do is wait for the winning lottery ticket to drop on my doorstep and pick up a color laser printer instead. It made sense to me at the time, I guess.
Anyway, finished shopping, and came home. I put the four remaining pieces of wood into Cheops' Pyramids Rhiannon's Loft, and it is now, officially, completely, nearly done. What's left is the typical move-in issues. "Hide this cord over there, put this behind that, put those on that shelf, I need a hook here," and all the rest. But to give you an idea of how "done" this is - I took all nine boxes of screws out of her room this evening. Along with three jars of lag screws and carriage bolts, and all of the other tools left in there. And moved in her chair. Pictures tomorrow.
Then I went to work hacking away on the tree stand. Pictures of that tomorrow, as well.
And finally - the last major "home improvement" step before we bring the tree in - the stair skirt. Finished that this evening as well.
Ruminations
For many years, I've been challenged by friends who seem outwardly more devoutly religious than I. The disturbing thing for me is that to a person, they have all been those people who have been financially very successful - stable, safe careers, reliable, solid jobs, and good marriages, for the most part. They state "something was missing" and then, in the process of determining what it is, find religion in a more profound way.
I've always been somewhat disturbed by this.
Not that those people who are financially comfortable seek religion. It's a more disturbing level than that.
In my past, I've been quite involved in religious activities. During a period just shortly after high school, I decided I was missing something in my life, and made a retreat. I made a number of friends, and more importantly, found a large chunk of what I was missing in a faith life. I felt so strongly about the retreats I'd participated in, I worked on a number of them. In a period of about four years, I made about a dozen - two as participant, and ten as some sort of team member. Most of the ones I worked on were a more quiet, contemplative retreat.
I really grew a lot. But times and people change, and I felt a pull away from that life towards one that was more secular. At one point, I considered the fact that I might well have a religious calling; fortunately, I met Ann, and found that I'm a much better Daddy than I would have been a Father.
But now, I find that same hole I saw back after High School. And this time I worry that I might be filling the hole for the wrong reasons, again.
As a kid, I was one of those who did not analyze, or over-analyze, things. If you said the car was yellow, then it was yellow. If it appeared orange or blue when we drove past the reflective window somewhere, I assumed the window added a tint.
Life and a long series of experiences designed to teach me that an unquestioning faith leads one to many an embarrassing moment led me to my present position, where I analyze things - occasionally, to the point of incapacitation.
What worrys me is that I might say "I am open to a more faith-filled life" in order to reach a more broad clientele for my consulting work, or for a job. Is that the right motivation? Or is that desperation talking? I'm never sure.
What I find frustrating, but, I suppose, gratifying, is that the question hasn't changed in five years. It's the same question, and the answer doesn't change. "What do you think?" Either I've got the right question, or I've been herded into chasing my own tail to a point where I'm left concluding that if it's the wrong question, it might well lead me to the right answer anyway.
The reason for this introspection? This morning's pancake breakfast. It was a fundraising tool for the Knights of Columbus - a fraternal Catholic organization. A friend of mine is considering joining the Knights, and Ann thought it might be a good idea if I did as well. I've been looking for a way to become more active in our Parish, and also give something back.
I know there are many who are offended, or at the very least put off by organized religion. For that, I will not apologize. Certainly, the history of the Roman Catholic Church in particular is fraught with historical examples of downright evil. Our own newspapers have held plenty of examples this year of a few bad men giving the priesthood a bad name. Some choose to paint the entire priesthood with the broad brush of "pervert" simply because of their choice of career.
Sure. In every population of sheep, there are certainly going to be wolves. It's called a food chain. In every group of over 100 adult males, you're going to find a few perverts. Certainly, in every group of mislead men, there will be plenty of good men who are disgusted with the direction. For every Cardinal Law, there are fifty, or more, Archbishop Harry Flynns, pious gentlemen and able administrators who also aren't willing to sit back and shut up when the job needs doing.
So yeah, there are positives and negatives involved here, and that's the way it goes with anything. When you take a fork in the road, sometimes you can double back and take the other route - sometimes you can't.
I just don't know if this is the "right" direction, or it's a direction I'm choosing from desperation. Either way, I've got to pick and move. And do so soon.
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