Here Then and Now

Map projections

2011-11-14T07:05:00.001-08:00

A sense-of-wonder-inspiring XKCD webcomic inspired a look into the forum there which lead to the discovery of this cool idea for projecting a map of the Earth onto a 2D surface. I highly recommend checking out the gallery that displays many of van Wijk's creations using the method he invented.

A story of salvation

2011-11-09T14:01:00.000-08:00

This is a story I have only just heard. It's full of examples of how love and sacrifice, empathy and hard work can be applied in ways that defy expectation, explanation, and make inroads to a better world. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg

Now that's fast

2011-10-31T09:07:00.001-07:00

Time-Critical Social Mobilization

Galen Pickard et al.
Science, 28 October 2011, Pages 509-512

Abstract:
The World Wide Web is commonly seen as a platform that can harness the collective abilities of large numbers of people to accomplish tasks with unprecedented speed, accuracy, and scale. To explore the Web's ability for social mobilization, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held the DARPA Network Challenge, in which competing teams were asked to locate 10 red weather balloons placed at locations around the continental United States. Using a recursive incentive mechanism that both spread information about the task and incentivized individuals to act, our team was able to find all 10 balloons in less than 9 hours, thus winning the Challenge. We analyzed the theoretical and practical properties of this mechanism and compared it with other approaches.

The kind of movie I want to see/make

2010-08-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

From: The New York Times

By DENNIS LIM

Published: August 20, 2010

JEAN-LUC GODARD once observed that every fictional film is a documentary of its actors. Jacques Rivette finessed the aphorism, proposing that every film is a documentary of its own making, not only a record for posterity of the people in it but also a window into the culture that produced it.

Anders Edstrom

An image from “The Anchorage,” directed by C. W. Winter and Anders Edstrom, about a woman living in the Stockholm archipelago.

Enlarge This Image

O Som e a Fúria

“Our Beloved Month of August” includes staged and spontaneous moments shot in summer in the Portuguese countryside.

In a very literal sense, all films have documentary aspects: once the camera is turned on, whatever is captured, no matter how staged, contains a trace of reality, an element of chance. The inverse is true as well: no documentary, whatever its claims to objective reportage, is ever devoid of manipulation, since a controlling hand is evident in even the most routine matters of camera placement and shot selection.

While these are truisms, obvious enough to anyone who has given these issues more than passing consideration, they have long been easy to forget in a film culture that conditions us to think of fiction and documentary as distinct forms. One of the most striking developments in recent world cinema is the emergence of films that resist precisely those categories, that could be said to blur or thwart or simply ignore the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction, staking out instead a productive liminal zone in between.

One such film, “Our Beloved Month of August,” by the director Miguel Gomes, is at once a musical, a travelogue, a quasi-incestuous family melodrama, an ethnographic portrait of Portuguese folk traditions and an account of its own chaotic production. As he tells it, Mr. Gomes ventured into rural central Portugal a few years ago to make a fictional film against the backdrop of the region’s summer music festivals.

When the shoot ran into trouble, he and his crew began to document the people and places around them, as well as their own difficulties. (Mr. Gomes appears in the film, and his brick of a screenplay is deployed as a sight gag.) The finished film, which runs from Sept. 3 through 11 at Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan as part of a Gomes retrospective, is not just unclassifiable, but also unstable from moment to moment: a documentary about the creation of a fiction, which overtakes the proceedings at points only to recede again.

Mr. Gomes breaks down categories in the service of an expansive, kaleidoscopic experience. But hybrid works can also occupy the minimalist end of the spectrum — as with “The Anchorage,” a film by C. W. Winter and Anders Edstrom, which opens Sept. 17, also at Anthology.

Pairing textured cinematography with intricate sound design, it observes a few days in the life of a middle-aged woman on a remote island in the Stockholm archipelago. She walks in the woods and swims in the sea; her daughter visits; a hunter passes by; the weather changes. The woman is played by Ulla Edstrom, Mr. Edstrom’s mother and a part-time resident of that Baltic island. Alert to everyday moments and the subtleties of the natural world, “The Anchorage” is an immersive depiction of a solitary, self-sufficient life, one that the actor to an extent shares with her character.

Cinephiles are by now accustomed to this kind of categorical confusion. The well-regarded Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa, the subject of a recent DVD boxed set by the Criterion Collection, has spent years working in the Lisbon slum of Fontainhas, collaborating with its residents on films that are contemplative, highly stylized reflections of their actual lives.

Another festival regular, Ulrich Seidl of Austria, makes even more provocative use of hybrid forms. His unflinching documentaries, like “Animal Love,” about obsessive pet owners, incorporate staged scenes; his equally discomfiting fictional films use both nonprofessional actors and pungently real locations, which in his latest film, “Import/Export,” include an Internet-pornography sweatshop and a geriatric ward.

The tendency to mingle fiction and nonfiction can also be seen among emerging filmmakers. Pedro González-Rubio’s “Alamar,” a modest art-house hit this summer, is a sensuous record of an idyllic father-son fishing trip in the Mexican Caribbean: the stars are a real-life father and son, and the trip was conceived for the purpose of the film. Oscar Ruiz Navia’s “Crab Trap” is an atmospheric story of a drifter in a coastal Colombian village, invested less in narrative progression than in exploring a physical and psychological landscape. (It will be shown at the Latinbeat series at the Walter Reade Theater next month.)

In “You Are All Captains,” a debut feature shown at Cannes this year, the French-Spanish director Oliver Laxe uses his own experience teaching filmmaking to children in Tangiers, Morocco, to spark a playful rumination on the creative process and his outsider status.

These films are too disparate to amount to a movement, and it’s worth nothing that the underlying impulse is hardly new. The attraction to the real is hard-wired into a medium that began when the Lumière brothers took their camera out into the thick of daily life to make their “actuality films,” of a train entering a station or of workers leaving a factory.

In the 1940s, D. W. Griffith, lamenting the airlessness of studio-bound films, declared, “What’s missing from movies nowadays is the beauty of the moving wind in the trees.” It was an urge to confront reality that inspired Italy’s postwar neo-realists and the cinéma-vérité pioneers of the 1960s.

What’s striking about the present moment is just how widespread the taste for reality is among the major figures in world cinema, from the Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami, who is known for a kind of hall-of-mirrors neo-realism, to the recent Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul of Thailand, whose films combine surrealism and documentary realism.

Jia Zhangke, the leading Chinese filmmaker of his generation, has worked in fiction and nonfiction, sometimes combining the two and invariably using the metaphorically charged spaces of the new China as ready-made film sets.

For the Argentine director Lisandro Alonso, whose four features have all screened at Cannes, fictional frameworks are mere pretexts to shoot with specific people in specific places: the pampas, the jungles, the frozen wilds of Tierra del Fuego. His first film, “La Libertad” (2000), is based on months of observing a lone woodcutter’s daily routine.

The critic Robert Koehler, writing in Cinema Scope magazine, used the phrase “the cinema of in-betweenness” to describe films like “The Anchorage.” Many of these new hybrid films are in line with the artistic sensibility that the writer David Shields outlined in his recent polemic, “Reality Hunger: A Manifesto,” which deals mainly with literature but also invokes Werner Herzog, the poet laureate of the subjective documentary, and Sacha Baron Cohen, whose spasms of prankster performance art double as documentaries of bigotry.

The notion of a doc-fiction hybrid is so vast that it can encompass any number of permutations. But the most rewarding hybrid films are validations of the creative uncertainty principle. They bespeak if not a love of the world then at least a curiosity about it. They understand that the introduction of fact does not necessarily make fiction more real but possibly more strange. Inventing impure forms to match impure content, they can open up subtly new ways of seeing and thinking about movies. Most of all, they are expressions of what Mr. Alonso surely recognized when he titled his groundbreaking film “La Libertad”: freedom.

Helpful hints for public speakers

2010-08-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

Speaker-listener neural coupling underlies successful communication

Greg Stephens, Lauren Silbert & Uri Hasson
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10 August 2010, Pages 14425-14430

Abstract:
Verbal communication is a joint activity; however, speech production and comprehension have primarily been analyzed as independent processes within the boundaries of individual brains. Here, we applied fMRI to record brain activity from both speakers and listeners during natural verbal communication. We used the speaker's spatiotemporal brain activity to model listeners' brain activity and found that the speaker's activity is spatially and temporally coupled with the listener's activity. This coupling vanishes when participants fail to communicate. Moreover, though on average the listener's brain activity mirrors the speaker's activity with a delay, we also find areas that exhibit predictive anticipatory responses. We connected the extent of neural coupling to a quantitative measure of story comprehension and find that the greater the anticipatory speaker-listener coupling, the greater the understanding. We argue that the observed alignment of production- and comprehension-based processes serves as a mechanism by which brains convey information.

Older Adults Finding Ways to Flourish

2010-07-23T12:56:00.001-07:00

Health outcomes of Experience Corps®: A high-commitment volunteer program

S.I. Hong & Nancy Morrow-Howell
Social Science & Medicine, July 2010, Pages 414-420

Abstract:
Experience Corps® (EC) is a high-commitment US volunteer program that brings older adults into public elementary schools to improve academic achievement of students. It is viewed as a health promotion program for the older volunteers. We evaluated the effects of the EC program on older adults' health, using a quasi-experimental design. We included volunteers from 17 EC sites across the US. They were pre-tested before beginning their volunteer work and post-tested after two years of service. We compared changes over time between the EC participants (n = 167) and a matched comparison group of people from the US Health and Retirement Study (2004, 2006). We developed the comparison group by using the nearest available Mahalanobis metric matching within calipers combined with the boosted propensity scores of those participating in the EC. We corrected for clustering effects via survey regression analyses with robust standard errors and calculated adjusted post-test means of health outcomes, controlling for all covariates and the boosted propensity score of EC participants. We found that compared to the comparison group, the EC group reported fewer depressive symptoms and functional limitations after two years of participation in the program, and there was a statistical trend toward the EC group reporting less decline in self-rated health. Results of this study add to the evidence supporting high-intensity volunteering as a social model of health promotion for older adults.

Summer jobs in high school

2010-07-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

I remember being pretty happy with getting any amount of money per hour when I got my first job at 15. It seems like more people would be employed if it was worth hiring them. The rise of the minimum wage means that the level of work that can be done must be greater which means that people with less skills (e.g. teens) aren't worth paying since they can't contribute an equivalent amount of value to a business as the business is forced to pay them for their work. This results in essentially underemployment mandated by the inflated cost of hiring due to a high minimum wage.

Teen employment, poverty, and the minimum wage: Evidence from Canada

Anindya Sen, Kathleen Rybczynski & Corey Van De Waal
Labour Economics, forthcoming

Abstract:
In May 2007, the U.S. Congress enacted legislation, which increased the Federal minimum hourly wage from $5.15 to $7.25, over a two year time period. This increase to the minimum wage was the first in nearly a decade and was approved with the objective of alleviating poverty among low income households. However, a higher minimum wage may result in more unemployment and poverty. We exploit time-series variation in minimum wages set by Canadian provinces between 1981 and 2004. OLS and IV results suggest that a 10% increase in the minimum wage is significantly correlated with a 3% - 5% drop in teen employment. Further, a 10% rise in the minimum wage is also significantly associated with a 4% - 6% increase in the percentage of families living under Low Income Cut Offs (LICOs). Difference-in-difference estimates from the 1993, 1995, and 1998 waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) support these findings as they suggest that income earned by teens constitutes a non-trivial portion of household income for families beneath Low Income Cut Offs. Therefore, a higher minimum wage may paradoxically result in a significant negative shock to household income among low-income families.

The Religious Left

2010-07-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

I have been wondering about this but Mr. Blow puts some numbers to it (whether those numbers mean anything is another question, polls and Blow's use of them being untrustworthy). It looks like some important decisions might be coming soon to religious leaders on both sides of the political aisle as they find themselves increasingly empowered on the same side of the religious aisle.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/opinion/03blow.html

Climate change questions

2010-06-17T14:04:00.001-07:00

Global Warming Alarm Based on Faulty Forecasting Procedures: Comments on the United States Department of State's U.S. Climate Action Report 2010

Scott Armstrong, Kesten Green & Willie Soon
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, May 2010

"The alarming forecasts of dangerous manmade global warming are not the product of proper scientific evidence-based forecasting methods. Furthermore, there have been no validation studies to support a belief that the forecasting procedures used were nevertheless appropriate for the situation. As a consequence, alarming forecasts of global warming are merely the opinions of some scientists and, for a situation as complicated and poorly understood as global climate, such opinions are unlikely to be as accurate as forecasts that global temperatures will remain much the same as they have been over recent years. Using proper forecasting procedures we predict that the global warming alarm will prove false and that government actions in response to the alarm will be shown to have been harmful."

Exploring for new business vs. expanding real customers

2010-06-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

Note this for future business organizations:

Balancing Exploration and Exploitation Through Structural Design: The Isolation of Subgroups and Organizational Learning

Christina Fang, Jeho Lee & Melissa Schilling
Organization Science, May-June 2010, Pages 625-642

Abstract:
The classic trade-off between exploration and exploitation in organizational learning has attracted vigorous attention by researchers over the last two decades. Despite this attention, however, the question of how firms can better maintain the balance of exploration and exploitation remains unresolved. Drawing on a wide range of research on population and organization structure, we argue that an organization divided into semi-isolated subgroups may help strike this balance. We simulate such an organization, systematically varying the interaction pattern between individuals to explore how the degree of subgroup isolation and intergroup connectivity influences organizational learning. We also test this model with a range of contingency variables highlighted in the management research. We find that moderate levels of cross-group linking lead to the highest equilibrium performance by enabling superior ideas to diffuse across groups without reducing organizational diversity too quickly. This finding is remarkably resilient to a wide range of variance in factors such as problem complexity, environmental dynamism, and personnel turnover.

The Middle East is in trouble

2010-06-09T08:28:00.000-07:00

Obviously. There's a couple articles out there that seem to point to an increase in that trouble as a result of persistently low levels of engagement on the part of the current administration. It seems the lack of superpower oversight results in uncoordinated efforts by lesser powers. Maybe not such a bad thing but it certainly is a change from the norm.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2010/06/barack_obama_israel_iran_and_turkey

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/world/middleeast/09turkey.html

New music

2010-06-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

The NYT gives a concert review, highlighting some new pieces. I'm looking forward to checking them out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/arts/music/09league.html

Politics and health

2010-06-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

Social Welfare Expenditures in the United States and the Nordic Countries: 1900-2003

Price Fishback
NBER Working Paper, May 2010

Abstract:
The extent of social expenditures in the U.S. and the Nordic Countries is compared in the early 1900s and again in the early 2000s. The common view that America spends much less on social welfare than the Nordic countries does not survive closer inspection when we consider the differences in the structures of social expenditures. The standard comparison examines gross social expenditures. After adjustments for direct and indirect taxes paid, the net social expenditures in the Nordic countries are much closer to American levels. Inclusion of mandatory and private social expenditures raises the American share of GDP devoted to social expenditures to rank among the middle of the Nordic countries. Per capita net public social expenditures in the U.S. rank behind only Sweden. Add in the private spending, and per capita spending in the U.S. is higher than in all of the Nordic countries. Finally, I document the enormous diversity across time and place in public social expenditures in the U.S. in the early 1900s and circa 1990.

Politics and health in eight European countries: A comparative study of mortality decline under social democracies and right-wing governments

Jose Tapia Granados
Social Science & Medicine, forthcoming

Abstract:
Recent publications have argued that the welfare state is an important determinant of population health, and that social democracy in office and higher levels of health expenditure promote health progress. In the period 1950-2000, Greece, Portugal, and Spain were the poorest market economies in Europe, with a fragmented system of welfare provision, and many years of military or authoritarian right-wing regimes. In contrast, the five Nordic countries were the richest market economies in Europe, governed mostly by center or center-left coalitions often including the social democratic parties, and having a generous and universal welfare state. In spite of the socioeconomic and political differences, and a large gap between the five Nordic and the three southern nations in levels of health in 1950, population health indicators converged among these eight countries. Mean decadal gains in longevity of Portugal and Spain between 1950 and 2000 were almost three times greater than gains in Denmark, and about twice as great as those in Iceland, Norway and Sweden during the same period. All this raises serious doubts regarding the hypothesis that the political regime, the political party in office, the level of health care spending, and the type of welfare state exert major influences on population health. Either these factors are not major determinants of mortality decline, or their impact on population health in Nordic countries was more than offset by other health-promoting factors present in Southern Europe.

The Kimbell Art Museum in Forth Worth, TX

2010-05-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, those of us in Allendale visited this museum. I remember being very impressed by the building itself but, not knowing it was by Kahn, didn't pay as much attention as I could have. This article, about a new addition to the Kimbell by Renzo Piano, moved me to want to go back and see it all again. The pieces in the museum were wonderful and I'd love to take them in again (a couple Rothkos were particularly moving). But having great architecture to see would certainly add to the experience.

The sea change in politics over the last century

2010-05-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

This is quoted from a blog which, in turn, was quoted by an NYT columnist. I'm going to check out that blogger though. Perhaps Mr. Jonathan Bernstein has more tidbits to share outside of the article quoted here:

"There is something different about contemporary parties than older parties, which is that national element. If I had to generalize -- and as with all generalizations, there are numerous exceptions -- what I'd say is this. In the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, local parties were able to control their nominations. Over the course of the twentieth century, and probably bottoming out sometime in the 1960s or 1970s, those parties lost control of nominations to candidates, who formed their own personal organizations...at the extremes, parties were relatively empty labels that independent candidates battled over. Over the last thirty or forty years, however, parties have evolved, developing strong national components that never existed in previous strong-party eras, and once again parties generally control their nominations. I certainly don't see anything in any of the cases this year (not just Sestak and Paul, but also Rubio, and the NY-23 special, and others) that seem to be about parties losing control over their own nominations, as opposed to party groups battling over those nominations.

Of course, no matter how strong parties get, as long as they are permeable and not strictly hierarchical they will still feature internal clashes, which will often play out in nomination fights. To the extent that independent candidates are also strong, they will sometimes clash with party choices. Really, I think that's the best way of looking at Arlen Specter. He obviously wasn't a creature of the Democratic Party establishment; he was, in many ways, a great example of the strong, independent candidates of an earlier era in American politics. The political system can still produce such creatures, but we're in a more partisan era now, and if it symbolizes anything, the demise of Arlen Specter is probably best seen as a sign of the strength of the new parties."

Apropos of nothing

2010-05-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

Just happened upon this wikipedia article about Paul Robeson who, it turns out, was an athlete, singer, actor and political activist and very prominent in each of those fields, thanks largely to being an incredible genius (he was fluent in at least 12 languages, for instance. And in the College Football Hall of Fame). He was also the son of an escaped slave who became a minister. And under constant surveillance for years thanks to his support of socialism and his ties to the USSR before and during the Cold War. Quite a remarkable story.

Centrism

2010-05-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

I find myself in Ben's political camp as described by David Brooks.

The Tel Dan stele

2010-05-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

I had never heard of this but this is a piece of an Aramean monument that corroborates in some detail the story of David's descendants told in 2 Kings. I'm pretty impressed.

College/high school

2010-05-18T08:57:00.001-07:00

These students are completing two years of college while attending a public high school in New York http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/opinion/18herbert.html?th&emc=th

Animated movie at Cannes

2010-05-17T20:30:00.001-07:00

Ebert talked about this film in his online journal (he's so excited to be at Cannes). He mentions something in that piece that struck me: animation has the power to convey aging very well. A drawn character can age believably over time in ways that a child, adolescent, and adult actor, heavily made-up for youthful and aged portions of a film. What else can animation do better than live action?

Links, Dates, Locations

2010-05-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

I'm often disappointed when reading the opinion articles by the regular columnists for the New York Times. This group is full of intelligence and insight, privy to great sources and huge travel budgets allowing them unprecedented access to the subjects of their articles. However, their lack of citation and attention to detail is astonishing. Their is rarely a link to a corroborating article or piece of information. The date or place of an address given by a head of state is difficult to find. The chief offender here is Mr. Charles Blow who, while running the "By the Numbers" blog, has yet to point to a single piece of data this year that pointed me directly to a source outside his column. This was particularly exasperating since he's been so focused on the Tea party, a very exciting, hard-to-pin down group, but hasn't bothered to show us where he gets his numbers from. He makes mention of "a recent poll" here about demographics that is not cited, here he points to a study that he says addresses "young women" and links to a table with no demographic info (not mention the article is purportedly about black mothers but he only address young black women). Gail Collins also ran an article recently about birth control with a slough of annecdotes outmoded birth control, Anthony Comstock and Margaret Sanger and scarely dared to mention a date, let alone give us anywhere to find out to what she was referring. David Brooks talks about the economic impact of energy companies and energy policy... with nary a link to a budget or a document. Ross Douthat confronts, of all things, the disconnect between real choices and narratives we tell ourselves... and doesn't tell us where to find a single bare-bones treatment, other than his own, of a single incident he wishes us to engage. I wish now that I'd kept a log of past infractions on this topic but alas, I have not. Suffice it to say that, overall, I am generally underwhelmed by the seriousness with which these journalists take me, the reader. I have enough curiosity to wonder if the opinion they hold is based on any facts. I have the acumen to question their thoughts, balanced as they may be. And yet I find myself treated to something more than a bull session but something much less than a responsible thought. I want dollar figures backed up by actual documents. I want discussions of bills in Congress to be accompanied by links to those bills. Give me at least a place I can find them myself if you can't be troubled to quote something with a citation (other than your own or your colleagues' work). I want the NYT to be a better class of paper, not just to look like a better class of paper.

Social networking redux

2010-05-13T06:09:00.001-07:00

Thanks to a friend from Portland (who's personal information I'm protecting by leaving it at that): I present new social networking. Perhaps this could be good. Facebook has certainly made a move to drive people off.

Metropolis, with the new footage... on the big screen!

2010-05-12T14:27:00.001-07:00

Oh wow... I am really looking forward to this. A lot. For those who don't know about Metropolis I recommend reading Ebert's review: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980328/REVIEWS08/401010341/1023 . The story of how it was made is also fascinating since it used all kinds of physical lens tricks and mirrors etc. to create the phantasmagoric visions of the future which are only part of the wonder that Lang was able to craft.

http://www.robinsonfilmcenter.org/coming-soon/43-upcoming-films/516-metropolis

US economic crisis

2010-05-12T14:26:00.000-07:00

The writer approaches the looming problem of our nation's finances with precisions, actual sources for his data, and the groundwork of a plan that might actually allow us to be a financially responsible country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/business/economy/12leonhardt.html?th&emc=th

Baseball: drilling down to new depths of data

2010-05-07T06:03:00.000-07:00

Doug Glanville, who spent some good years with the Cubs and Phillies, has written an article about the increasing interaction of technology and baseball. I'm pleased to hear that he thinks there's still more than enough room for talent despite the expansion of digital recording and 3D imaging.

Using the pass, not the run

2010-05-06T09:02:00.001-07:00

Fair notice: I'm not very knowledgeable about football play calling. I know that there are runs and there are passes and I bet that throwing on 3rd and long is a good idea and running on 3rd and short is a good idea... that's about it. That being said, this article piqued my interest (even though I've only read the abstract) since the writers attempt to cull some conclusions from a load of play calling data.

An example of policy intervention

2010-05-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

In light of my recent post, August's thoughts on divorce courts act as a case in point

Lengthy piece of new footage found for "Metropolis"

2010-05-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

Fritz Lang's masterful silent film has been missing a portion of it's footage for years. Very recently, a much more complete copy of his work was found in Argentina. Here's the whole story.

2010-05-05T10:27:00.001-07:00

Comments on this post from yesterday:

Brian Couch:

Like the idea about starting conversations Josh. Here's my knee jerk reaction for starters.

First off:
"If you take tribes of people, exile them from their homelands and ship them to strange, arid lands, you’re going to produce bad outcomes for generations."
Who's recommending policies that do that?

I do agree with the thought that policies shouldn't eat away at social bonds, but that's pretty subjective. Where one person thinks socialized healthcare can strengthen social bonds, another thinks it is corrosive. I hear what he's saying, but I think it's too simplistic to be constructive. I'd be curious to see what kind of policies he has in mind.

Isn't it the case that because America has such a variegated culture and society that developing policies capable of supporting all the different "social bonds" will be impracticable?

Josh:

Josh said...

Thank, Brian, this is exactly what I'm hoping for.

"Who's recommending policies that do that?" -I actually think that particular set of policy decisions is a metaphor... and I'll get to why in a minute.

"I do agree with the thought that policies shouldn't eat away at social bonds, but that's pretty subjective." -I agree. What constitutes a social bond, how one goes about nourishing such a bond if you find out what it is, or not harming it on the other hand, are tough questions. I think all that Brooks is saying is: questions a given policy's impact on social bonds ought to be foremost in the minds of public policy makers.

I also happen to think that he's espousing a position of non-intervention on the part of the government in most social issues. Delineating a particular social bond is not as important for policymakers as knowing what makes a society function and working hard to keep government from performing the function that society ought to be responsible for.

That's why I think the "strange, arid lands" list is a metaphor. He's warning against policies that serve to disassociate people from one another and impose bureaucracies in the place of social structure. Not a great metaphor, but I think that's what he's after.

2010-05-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

Possibly fun event for those who like Seth Godin and his thoughts and who happen to be near Chicago, Minneapolis and a few other places. http://www.squidoo.com/sethroadtrip

2010-05-04T08:39:00.000-07:00

"The influence of politics and policy is usually swamped by the influence of culture, ethnicity, psychology and a dozen other factors....If you combine the influence of ethnicity and region, you get astounding lifestyle gaps. The average Asian-American in New Jersey lives an amazing 26 years longer and is 11 times more likely to have a graduate degree than the average American Indian in South Dakota.
When you try to account for life outcome differences this gigantic, you find yourself beyond narrow economic incentives and in the murky world of social capital. What matters are historical experiences, cultural attitudes, child-rearing practices, family formation patterns, expectations about the future, work ethics and the quality of social bonds....So when we’re arguing about politics, we should be aware of how policy fits into the larger scheme of cultural and social influences. Bad policy can decimate the social fabric, but good policy can only modestly improve it...Most of the proposals we argue about so ferociously will have only marginal effects on how we live, especially compared with the ethnic, regional and social differences that we so studiously ignore."

Here's the article, full of good supporting research and details.

And yes, the first post in a while. I think I finally found something I want to use it for. I'd love to have discussions about the things I post here and intend to respond quickly to comments that contain a question.

2009-01-12T07:31:00.001-08:00

I wrote about something that Jon wrote about something. The community of learners lives on.

http://technosabbatarian.blogspot.com/2009/01/thinking-about.html

2008-11-05T14:35:00.000-08:00

I give you: a nice big problem in a nice big nutshell. The video that is linked to in the article to "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics" is worth getting through, even if watched piecemeal.

Twitter haiku

2008-10-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

I don't know if Reinhardt intended this:

Fallen leaves

in piles leave

curb endings ambiguous.

Bullet points

2008-10-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

Windows, Doors and More Outlet

My former part-time employee is no longer with me. He was doing very well and deserved more money than I could afford to pay him and about a month ago I was able to get him a full-time job elsewhere. We still communicate and I think he will continue to progress.
I was able to hire a new part-time guy. He will eventually be in charge of all the framing for us. He's learned very quickly and was able to frame a double out-swing door by himself over the weekend with only 3 phone calls to me and 1 minor, easily fixable error. Thank you Lord!
The new warehouse that we're planning is held up in red tape. The Holy Spirit has the scissors.

Household

Paul Nathan Barrett was born August 30th. I think that makes him the youngest citybuilder.
New weekly (or bi-weekly or some iteration of weekly) calendar goes into effect Monday
Many of us have made trips to MN and IN for celebrations centered on folks making the covenant of the People of Praise for the first time. I very much enjoyed being present at both events and thereby trebling the number of times I recited the covenant with my brothers and sisters. The Kingdom has advanced.
We now have an mp3 player that can take Rhapsody out into the kitchen and cars and chores and framing etc. A nice addition.
Tom, Nathan and I have been doing PT and personal prayer together and Tom and I have been doing night prayer together as well, all of which was Nathan's idea. My life is more full of Christ now.
The Deakins were gone for a bit on vacation and I'm glad they've returned. Patti and I shared stories about Joel Kibler and Gerry and talked about landscaping. It's good to have them back!

Some reflecting

I've had fun remembering that there's a camera in my phone. Trying to imagine enlightening perspectives of events that are important to me is fun. As is imagining helpful photos to take, such as the locations of dishes in our drawers and cupboards.
I got a fresh batch of sunflower seeds. My five gallon bucket from the summer is all gone.
Thanks, Jon, for clearing up some writing ideas!

Non-geographic community

2008-06-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the People of Praise, non-geographic community is possible for me. I'm living a life in Shreveport, Louisiana that looks very much like the life friends of mine are living in Portland, OR, South Bend, IN, Minneapolis, MN, and even friends who are traveling to schools or jobs but still belong to PoP.

Over the past hour, I've heard a talk given by a friend in Minneapolis, played correspondence chess with a friend in Indianapolis, and chatted with a friend in South Bend. Glory! Technology knitting the world together.

The New Paradigm: Brevity Is A Sine Qua Non

2008-06-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

5 minutes is the most
dynamite per package
i can sling out here per day

Update after review

2008-01-30T16:16:00.000-08:00

August has taken on the facts of my oratory from yesterday and, I must admit, some of what I wrote was posted in haste.  In my moment of reveling in the life I lead in this wonderful body of people, I did not do well to ignore the stores of knowledge and experiences from outside the People of Praise that have been, and will continue to be, so helpful to us as we seek to build the Kingdom of God with one another. From masters of education, such as Mortimer Adler, much was gleaned at the beginning of the discussions to start Trinity Schools.  People of Praise is also a body that has grown up with support and help from many Christians. Our foundational documents point to explicit influences such as the charismatic renewal, the Cursillo and by the Ecumenical and Liturgical Movements, and as an ecumenical community, we've obviously benefited from 2,000 years of Christian history and from many different streams of Christianity and diverse Christian traditions. Neither Trinity nor the People of Praise was started in a vacuum and I certainly don't believe I am living in a vacuum.  

Here's the real point of my post from yesterday: "Look at this place! Look at these people! Look at their obedience to the Lord! Look at the sacrifices they are making! I love these people! I love this place! I want to obey the Lord! I want to pay whatever price is asked of my by the Lord!" 

Thank you, August, for pointing out my over-exuberance. I'm happy to set the record straight here.

2008-01-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

i think the triumph of freedom in Christ over the patterns of culture is the thing i like most about People of Praise.

this has occurred to me afresh lately but it's been a part of our life for, well, forever i think.

PoP has set out to start culture and community all over again from the ground up

just as with Trinity schools, we took a very good insight (for Trinity, that young people need to be taught things to do well in life) and we took nothing from the current instantiations of secondary education that were out there

in fact, we've only altered that model to better compete and influence the scholastic world's flawed systems (eg. grading changes and capital campaigns)

likewise, with culture we've taken the stance that what really matters is Christ and what really matters about Christ is that he wants all things to be one in him

that means that we need to strive to be one with one another as Christ is one with us and share our lives (read: hopes, dreams, aspirations, work, play) as he shares his life (read: hopes, dreams, aspirations, work, play) with us

to do that well, we do not need to pare away the poor state of the world's cultures; we need a whole new culture

we need a culture where property equally declares the individual and the group into the world

we need a culture where experiences are shared freely and yet regulated by right speech patterns

we need a culture where men and women are not simply "dating" or "ready to date" but first and foremost brothers and sisters to one another in Christ.

we need purposeful, fulfilling lives for people with full-time jobs (eg. parents, young singles) and people without full-time jobs (eg. kids, students, missionaries, retired people)

and those lives need to be intertwined and share relevance within the community

so we build it. we borrow very little and invent almost everything

we do what Jesus is doing, the way he does it, with him

he is our king, and he calls us his friends. it's his world and he invites us to share in its rule by working with us to create a society that, with his power, his love, his cross, can govern and nurture the universe

To serve as Jesus served

2008-01-21T20:17:00.000-08:00

I think that Jesus often lead with his service. He served people as a way of opening their eyes and rescuing their lives. When he washes the disciples' feet he tells them that they must serve one another like this. He prays all night after preaching all day, losing sleep but gaining insight and saving souls. He calms storms right after he wakes up.

Last Friday I seized an opportunity to save a woman's life. I heard shouting outside my store and looked out to see a woman stumbling along the road shouting at anything and everything. She was draped in a shirt and jacket, had stocking hat on to combat the 30 degree weather but was only wearing slippers. I saw her lose one of those briefly and then go back to retrieve it.

I was not sure what to do about her for a while. At first she seemed to have no real aim, just spouting off and venting. But I kept my eye on her and realized after a while that she was starting to work herself to step in front of one of the cars racing off the exit ramp for the freeway that runs a few yards from the store. She stepped off the curb just as one cruised up and screamed at the car as it braked and swerved around her.

I knew the Lord wanted this woman to live and I did too. I left the store and strode down the sidewalk across the street from her, telling her to come over to my side. She told me to leave her alone. She cussed me out. I looked both ways and jogged across to her. She sat down on the guardrail which ran about one foot from the curb and separated the roadway from a steep ravine with a 30 foot drop a yard beyond it.

I asked her to come with me inside and get warm. She said no one loved her and she wanted to die. I said that Jesus loved her and I loved her. She told me to get away from her and leave her alone. I said I really did and I didn't want her to die. She said she tried to kill herself many times and showed me her wrists.

I asked if there was anyone I could call. She gave me her sister's number and said she wouldn't answer. I dialed it as a cop pulled up. As cars drove between the cop on one side and me and her and the guardrail on the other, I shouted to him that I was calling her sister. She didn't pick up. I left her a message, told her that I was with her sister and that she needed her.

I told that cop that I worked the store just over there and I could take her with me. I turned to her and said "Do you want to come with me?" and she said yes. The cop said, "That's fine with me if it's fine with you". It was. She came with me; I held her wrist as she sobbed and told me how terrible her life had been. She could not win the fight against alcohol to keep walking a straight line without my hand on her wrist. As we walked she stopped weeping long enough to ask "What's your name?" I said "Josh" she said "Thank you Josh" and I got some of my treasure on earth.

That was the Lord. That was me. That was the Lord. I don't know that there's a more true way for me to think about it.

Frustrations abound

2008-01-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

When you can't plan because customers can't make up there minds and then 1.5 hours later you've totally lost track of where you were going with your day and then you find out that there's been several hitches in the plans you already made and you have to go run a long errand only to find out that you're going to have to run it again.... how to do you get to sleep?

I'll tell you. you have dinner with your best friends. you talk about their days, tell them about yours, realize that everyone at work actually learned a lot that they needed to learn today.

you let it go a little. then you plan to talk to more guys, see if their interested in joining you in your work.

hours before you were wondering how anyone thought you'd be any good at training people and here you are trying to find ways to get more people.

the you turn on some good music, find a good blog, take it in. write your own. read some comics. tell the Lord all about it. *(hint: it's good to do this more often)

What more can I do?

2008-01-14T20:11:00.001-08:00

I often wonder. Where are the spare minutes in my day? What am I thinking about that is not worth thinking about? How could I get from bed to work with less time used? Can I plan more and get more done or will planning take up more time than it's worth?

Every day brings new evidence to the table. I find something new to do and strike something from the old to-do list. I take stuff out of my calendar and add new stuff.

What can I do for the Lord? What am I doing that is slowing him down? (I'm pretty sure there's no middle ground here)

What a week it was

2008-01-13T19:28:00.001-08:00

The Work College group (at least most of them, we missed the rest of you all!) came down to visit from South Bend, IN. The whole lot of them was able to do a great deal of good and we got to exercise our hospitality muscles. 1430 is now painted and cleaned like it has never been (thanks much, undergrads!) and David Zimmel was able to do me a lot of good at Widmo. Also, we were able to just live and work with another go-get-em People of Praise household and have conversations that blew all our minds. Praise God!

Actions speak louder than emoticons

2008-01-03T19:58:00.000-08:00

There's this thing that we call "getting stuff done" and, as it turns out, it doesn't matter how you feel while you're getting whatever it is done. If you rake the lawn, and you're sad, the lawn still gets raked. If you go to a dinner party and have lively conversation with friends and family while you've got a headache, you still have lively conversation with friends and family. Pretty cool.

Also, if you've got a ton of stuff to do and you're a bit nauseated so you sit around and think about how nauseated you are...you're gonna love this.... you sit around. It's true.

I recently realized that if i feel like i need a cup of coffee, sometimes i can think to myself "look, you can do a bunch of stuff in the next half hour, regardless of how sluggish you feel" sometimes i can get a bunch of stuff done. Sometimes i can't though. I'm learning what the difference between those is.

Well, i feel woefully unprepared to organize work for tomorrow and get up on time and have personal prayer before morning prayer. But that's no reason it can't be done. It's go time.

Some break

2008-01-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

It was a great time of relaxation and rejuvenation. I got some good ol' reading in (which i had not done in a while) and was able to get to bed early whenever i wanted.

Then the Company Convention hit full force and i was off on a road trip to Indy with Tom, some good talks and discussions and living with my brothers from across the country. Y'all, we done good. We worked til we dropped and made some big strides on that duplex.

Back home in Shreveport, time for Widmo. I had been mulling over what all needed to get done for quite some time without really coming to roost on anything ("well, i definitely need to vacuum.... and then i need to teach Josh how to frame....and maybe a new dog?.....and finances, gotta get that done.....and, i know there was more....") etc.

By the time this morning rolled around, the Lord and I had made some strides and i ended up making some good lists (thanks Laura!) and having a great meeting with Nathan. Mickey and Josh did some framing by themselves today and I think we all learned something from that.

Time for bed so that my morning happens on time.

A break in the clouds

2007-12-19T20:18:00.000-08:00

Thanks to much prayer the cold sore is in recession. I may yet reawaken it but I'm doing my darndest to keep it down.

I had a fruitful conversation with a great customer today that really saved me a lot of work. Still not all caught up but time should heal that wound. I can feel things moving smoother all the time.

The framing guy did well today, worked hard and is cool with the work schedule I proposed. I look for him to start making a big difference in '08.

Brummers remain a joy to have in the household. Ben and I continued our Jenga grudge match, I continue to trounce him. He has been close to tears but I will not let that stop me. We built a house together with the blocks after his 3rd defeat. Friendship is a guarantee.

One more day of framing; it needs to go very well. Then.... bring on the Christmas rest-fest.

Progression

2007-12-18T20:20:00.000-08:00

We're firing on all kinds of cylinders. Some we did not know we had. Widmo continues to be busy but the light has made itself evident at the end of the tunnel. 1 huge double door and 1 small double door and 3 exterior doors by Friday. then some rest.

I was able to start training on our new employee today. His name, coincidently, is Josh. He's going to fill out paperwork tomorrow and may start working for real in January. Praise God, I need him.

Ben Brummer and I played one intense game of Jenga this afternoon. I won by a slim margin and he was rather crestfallen that we were unable to complete our rematch before dinner. He'll remind me tomorrow, I'm sure of it.

Hit it running

2007-12-17T20:27:00.000-08:00

Nice day today. Started out on the wrong side of the bed... the sleeping-in side. I missed morning prayer but woke with enough time to get prepped and ready for the day without rushing. Kind of bittersweet.

Slow morning, not a lot of activity. Caught a mouse in the glue trap, spoke with Bud Rose, my boss, about hiring a new guy to frame, did a little gchatting and emailage.

The afternoon saw some reorganization of the warehouse by Mickey as well as a very cool conversation with a man whose last name is X. Quite the guy, we had a serious talk.

Headed to Vincent, talked with my friend Gabe about his newborn baby girl (very cool), and hit the framing hard. Polished off two doors and got set to finish the rest of 'em.

Many people for dinner. Brummers, Seitzes, and the household at two large tables. Ruthanne cooked some ridiculous spaghetti and hit the spot that I needed hit. I gave the DL on WDMO. Jeff Brummer talked a bit about his work at a hospice house. We learned that Seth may or may not have beat Carl twice at Jenga. The discussion lacked some finality.

I then headed back to the warehouse on St. Vincent where the framing occurs. I finished the custom hinge and strike preps for one door and tacked on the threshold for an exterior door that I'll need to get a 15 lite insert in tomorrow. I then organized a ton of disorganized items from super glue to hinge screws.

Praise God! I got a cold sore! I'm getting close to the end of my rope! Bring it!

Sunday Sunday

2007-12-16T20:24:00.000-08:00

Laura Brummer's family arrived in town today. They're here to visit her and all of us and celebrate a little Christmas and do a little work. Her parents, Jeff and Dikka, are long-time members of People of Praise in Minnesota and have raised 10 kids, 6 of whom (including Laura) are now in Allendale.

We had a household meeting about all that we're planning for the next couple of weeks. Right now the household is working on creating and instituting systems by which we can sustain our life. There are so many areas of life that we want to concentrate on and so few of us to operate everything that we really need to formulate a common practice for many of the operations we need to do. Finances, food, cars and several other things are all slated for systemization.

Lord, help us do this well. Help us plan well, work with you and with each other, do what you do, the way you do it, with you.

A whole new life

2007-12-14T20:53:00.000-08:00

A man from the neighborhood stopped by the other day. We've been helping him pay for his diabetes medication. He's been in a bad way; he can't see well, he has almost no energy, he can't work because his energy level is so low he can't stay on his feet. We are very careful with giving out money because it's such a powerful tool. Through serious conversations we've learned that his story is reliable and we've actually gone to the pharmacy with him to pick up his meds.

Unlike most folks we help out he's repaid us every time and even given us a couple small gifts in gratitude. This is totally unprecedented activity and we love to see gratitude like that blossom.

Recently, he called Nathan (the leader of our work here) to borrow some money to pay for getting his apartment room unlocked. Nathan, in telling me this, related that he wanted to help him out in this situation but that he really just wanted to give him a whole new life. The guy is half dead from diabetes, he's got no job, his apartment charges him $25 bucks when he locks his keys in, etc.

So, the guy comes over, after having gotten into his room, and he needs the money for his diabetes meds. He has his VCR with him for Nathan to hold until he pays us back (wow!). Nathan says something like, You need a whole new life and the guy says I'm getting one (again, wow!). Nathan, after 5 years in Allendale has been fed many similar lines, is a bit skeptical and asks What do you mean?

This guy explains: he's been to a doctor to talk about his diet and how he can get this disease under control. He's changed what he eats and has gained 5 pounds. He's drinking green tea with Vitamin C and not sugar (not the favored drink of the urban black male). He shows Nathan his half-empty bottle of the stuff to prove it. He's got a job offer. The world doesn't dissolve into an indistinguishable blur when he takes off his glasses. The Lord is at work!

New every morning

2007-12-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

Hey! I'm back with another rigidly timed daily update! Right, apologies to any and all who have read any previous post and have hoped for further updates. My mind and soul have come to a kind of mellowness, at long last, so that I have not only thought about writing another entry but have actually done so.

I am now the manager of Windows, Doors and More Outlet, a building supplies store at 2119 Lakeshore Dr, Shreveport, LA 71103 (that's for all of you with Google Maps access). I left FedEx Home Delivery to take on the task of running this business. There's one basic reason for that departure: the Lord needs me at WDMO (affectionately referred to as "Widmo").

Since August, much and much has changed here on Yale St. Nathan and Genevieve Barrett have married at a world-changingly beautiful ceremony in South Bend. Mass was packed from front to back and left to right with enthusiastic friends and family of these two missionaries and celebrations across the country reverberated with the power of that weekend.

One week later, with hardly a breath drawn, I made the Covenant of the People of Praise in South Bend. I placed material, spiritual and financial possessions at the service of those with whom I made the Covenant and they did the same for me. We are a family in Christ.

And, skipping over the 24 guests for the Lord's Day after Thanksgiving, door framing training from David Zimmel, arrivals and departures of Bud and Sharon Rose, Chris Vieck, Ellen Reed, and Brian Couch, the two new useful sturdy lovely tables in the dining room of 1442, the common office with it's glass-topped tables that we made in 2 days we arrive at now.

Praise God, for his unification with us here, for his interest and involvement in our lives, for his patience and faithfulness to us, for his endurance, for his true and constant love. See you all later.

Weekend and week

2007-08-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

The weekend whirled by leaving us with more to do and less time to do it. Praise God for helping us stay at the end of our rope.

Those of us who could attended the birthday party of one of the kids in the neighborhood. He's 13 now and insisted on sitting with the adults now that he was one of them. His parents were very grateful to us and made it clear that they viewed us as the guests they most wanted to attend.

We had an excellent ham and rice and beans and coleslaw-type-dish and biscuits and cinnamony carrots Lord's Day prepared by Brian and Laura and followed by sweet potato pie for dessert. It tasted very good. We then proceeded to the room designated, though not currently laid out like, the Library. We played Traffic Jam which is a game where you have to get the red car out of the parking lot without breaking any of the other cars in half. Jeannette and Brian played some piano too.

Sunday we had HH meeting about the common spaces in our houses and how to best organize them for our lives. Many subsequent discussions will trace their origins back to that one. Dan Dal Pra arrived on Saturday night and he and Ricky Thomas accompanied us to the volleyball court where some serious comebacks were staged and the side facing the street never lost.

Then we came home, showered, the women met about Genevieve's shower and the men went out on some missionary work. The shower is now in a much more organized state than it ever has been and we made some real progress in the neighborhood as well.

Breakfast this morning was buttermilk pancakes, hardboiled eggs, and assortment of fruits, and French pressed coffee. The Lord is afoot here, going to WDMO, the clinic, '34, and elsewhere.

The best laid plans

2007-08-24T03:31:00.000-07:00

Now, the end of August, our household has taken a look at itself and found that half of us were not in Allendale for the last few months. And no one in that group has spent more than 9 consecutive months here at any time. So we have a situation where we need to start making some plans and laying some new foundations.

That's all good fun though. The newest folks in the HH are Laura Brummer, Jeanette Zimmel, Genevieve DeCelles, Brian Couch and Tom Duddy. None of them could described as rookies to this kind of work. We have a high powered group here, in fact, and all of us are in search of ways to out do the others in love and service of one another. It's a friendly competition, involving only nominal amounts of pranking and struggles for control of the throw pillows.

Brian took an amazing picture of a wasp caught in a spider web.

Tom has started attending nursing classes.

Nathan's been working on action items for the HH to discuss.

He and Genevieve are planning their wedding with great fervor.

Joan's got two kinds of school going on at once.

Cathy has been working on a new menu plan for a new year.

And I'm behind on everything. That's what lunch time and days off are for though.

2007-08-22T08:46:00.000-07:00

Couldn't think of a good reason not to do a short post. After all, this is the 4 month anniversary of the blog that I started. The long absence will go basically without comment.

The newest things around here include a heightened awareness of the importance of serving my brothers and sisters in People of Praise. In a conversation at the recently concluded Company convention Nick mentioned realizing in prayer that serving the body of Christ was a way that he could serve the Lord. I took a note on that and forgot about it until my prayer time today when the Lord suggested that I serve others as a way of serving him. I think we're on to something here...

My money-making work continues to surprise me. I've interviewed for my bosses job over the weekend and hope to hear the result of that interview within the next week. Wild.

Joan, Brian, Cathy and I went shopping for emergency supplies for the household. In compliance with PoP suggestions regarding disaster preparedness we're packing away enough stuff to keep us alive for a week in case we suddenly become cut off from all grids and infrastructure. We're not done yet but major progress has been made.

By the way, if you ever get a chance, Szala's on Archer Ave in Chicago, just a half mile away from Midway airport, is a nice place. It has the taste and spirit of Europe, primarily Poland, and includes some pita bread with lard and cheese as an essential appetizer. Pope John Paul II, I kid you not, penned a letter to the proprietor of this fine establishment and gave it his blessing. As if authentic pierogi was not a good enough reason to go already!

4 teeth lighter

2007-04-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

That's right, no more wisdom. I had oral surgery on Friday afternoon to remove all four of my wisdom teeth. Getting knocked out was a pretty wild experience. I snapped out of it pretty quickly though and Nathan drove me home along with 2 of the 6 movies I've watched in the last couple days. Recovery is going quite well and I'm learning how to manage the pain and encourage the healing.

Work continues to improve. A bit more pressure than I was expecting for the first couple weeks at my new position but the rewards in experience and boosted paychecks are very helpful. It's good that I had been making enough money to start out with so that I dont have to rearrange my finances. I'll just increase my stage 12 payments and create a small "professional" category to pay for things like work lunches and the maintenance of a less hole-ly wardrobe.

Next big item on the schedule: Naomi's college graduation. I'll be flying to Portland on May 4th and staying out there til the 10th. Looking forward to it.

Bleary-eyed and smiling

2007-04-16T14:42:00.000-07:00

Not quite like those famous Irish eyes, but you get the idea.

On to my daily update: Here's what's been happening since yesterday(here "yesterday" means "approximately 1-2 months ago when I actually wrote a decent-sized update on this here blog thing"): (editor's note, we have now been double-coloned. I'm not sure what that means for the future of English punctuation) (also, too many parentheses) (way too many) I got that new job title!
and worked lots of hours!
and Easter!
and saw a bunch of cool people at Jack and Teresa's wedding like Sean Connolly and Debbie Mixell and the Murphys and Slatterys and Reinhards and Pingels and many more!
and I did my taxes early!
and we have a lawnmower that works!
and I'm out of good update material but expect more in future as my hours begin to shrink down to sub-60 hour weeks and leave more time in the evening!
God bless you all

Quick progress update

2007-04-05T02:41:00.000-07:00

I've gotten into the habit of working ridiculous hours at FedEx. Strictly speaking, this is not a habit but rather something I have defined as a necessity due to my strong desire to see to it that everything gets done right as soon as a possible. To accomplish that goal I must work 10-12 hours per day (sometimes more, unfortunately) during my Tuesday-Saturday week. This week, has thus far been particularly hectic.

However, and this is an enormouse "however", I got the new position that I have been looking for! If you were to run into someone today and say "Hey, close friend or acquaintance, do you know anyone who is a Service Manager at FedEx Home Delivery in Shreveport?" it is likely that they will say, "Why no, close friend or person I dont remember meeting, I don't know anyone who is a Service Manager at FedEx Home Delivery in Shreveport, especially if you're refering to the Shreveport in Louisiana." And then you could say, "Well let me enlighten you to the service managerial positions at FedEx HD in S'port, LA. This dude, Josh, my bud and long time homie, is currently the numero uno fulltime salaried getting paid a thoroughly decent wage guy there in Shreveport, LAlaland" and you would not be lying.

Praise God! He's blessed my work, given HD a great overall manager in Tim, my boss, and kept me sane throughout the trying month of March. Now we just need to get someone to fill my position in the week or so to get things back to normal.

Forgive, please, I am but a man

2007-03-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

So soon in the game i need to rely on the tired old "i was so tired and it was late and...plus i was tired..." excuse. But I'm not tired now so here's a little peek at life in the 'dale.

Widmo is safely ensconced in the new warehouse on Lakeshore Drive. It's a far superiour location with easy freeway access and within a 3 minute drive of our houses on Yale Ave. David, Tom, and Brian are very happy with that, as are we all.

I'm going to be officially moved to a new, higher position at FedEx this coming Thrusday. The Lord has really blessed my work for this company and I am most grateful for that.

I turned 24 last Wednesday. Me and Jack Bauer are good buddies. Friends and family from around the US let me know of their love and that was great. Also, I recieved several phone calls from fellow members of the Company wishing me happy birthday and it was good to be able to share some time with those guys.

The work in Indy continues to move forward. Nick, Rus and Jon recently hosted Abe Olson for a brief but productive stay. He was out there to look into some grad school possibilities and was, from what I understand, successful.

The lawnmower's in the shop, so's my bike, but no cars so that's good. now i am tired. 4:30 is still early the 16th time. praise god!

Life loves back

2007-03-10T22:51:00.000-08:00

I love life, I really do. Some parts of it and all of it. And it loves me back. When I tend to my life and to our life it returns the favor. What I mean is, when you declare Christ into the world He declares you back. What I mean is, when I declare "This household, these people, this community, this Lord, is the foundation of my life!" they all say to me "Be Josh as hard as you can and we love you for it!".

We've grown close down here in Allendale. Brian and Tom and Cathy and Liz, Gretchen and David and Joan and myself, Val and Ruth and Connie, Carra and Terry all went to watch a movie on a big screen at a Methodist church just outside of Benton, LA. We had muffalettas and pop (or soda, i forget which) and some excellent potato/fries/goodness. We all, from kids to adults, had a really good time.

Our life in household is so joyfully reaping the benefits of the life that has been and continues to be lived in the People of Praise. We are lead by leaders who have learned from leaders; we have been raised to pray by men and women who pray constantly; we know and love God because our forerunners in the People of Praise have been following his lead for decades. Only our dedication to Him and to our life do justice to the depth of our gratitude.

Hmm, that sounds pretty, well, heady. Oh well. I mean it.

Neuron smashings

2007-03-10T22:45:00.000-08:00

I wish to liken my past week with the particle smashers in this world that scientists use to discover what really small particles are comprised of. Primarily, they find that they are composed of really really small particles. That is cool. Some of the really really small particles are very useful to expanding our knowledge of how really big stuff works. That is also cool.

So, I've been smashing my neurons for a week. The service manager at HD has quit, leaving a gaping hole in our staff. Precisely one third of our total mass is no longer present. Therefore, in the interest of puting my best Josh forward and also making my life easier (believe it or not) I've been working very hard.

I'm learning everything I can about everything that it is, or might be, my responsibility. I've been smashing my neurons, finding out what I'm capable of. I'm learning how fast I can learn and how well I can learn at that speed. It's real work. And I like it.

Coming back up for air

2007-03-06T15:08:00.000-08:00

I dont think anyone will be surprised if I point out that my life has gotten more busy since the whole "Star of the Week maybe new position" thing happened. I've essentially taken over all of the daily acitivities of myself and the co-worker on suspension and, as I may have mentioned, it's impossible to add more to my day and expect to have it all done in 8 hours or less. So I've been working longer days. Oh well, you got to give a little to get a lot.

This weekend was wonderful however. We had a birthday party several weeks late for Gretchen on Saturday evening and really had some fun. We brought our fire pit to the river and grilled some burgers and brots and so forth. Much fun was had.

We also had a very nice brunch on Sunday morning at Columbia Cafe. There was some news to shared and some fellowship to be had and some very very tasty food to devour. We proceeded to chill for a bit and then play 5 games of volleyball and have a serious calendar meeting. We have a meeting at the beginning of every month to plan out as much of the up-coming three months as we can. It's tiring.

David and I invited to Brian to join us at S'port Port for some indoor soccer on Sunday night. We played an intense gaming, bringing home a "W" after a couple very fine halves of play.

I began the process of scheduling oral surgery to remove all 4 of my wisdom teeth yesterday. Looks like it might not actually happen for about a month and a half due to work and home scheduling conflicts but the ball is officially rolling.

And now I can cross one more item off my list: "write a new blog post"

Quite a day

2007-03-01T20:45:00.000-08:00

So "quite" was this day that this is going to be a short post so that I can get some sleep. I was nominated for the Texas Region of Home Delivery's "Star of the Week" by a member of the Region staff. In other words, on the men that came to our terminal last week took a look at all the work I had done to get files and processes where they needed to be that he decided to recommend me as the best employee of the region. Pretty neat. It's actually a decently big deal to be singled out like this. Star of the Week doesnt actually get awarded every week and it takes someone important thinking you've done a really excellent job to get nominated for one. It's like getting an A+ on a test you thought no one else knew you were taking. And it portends good things for my near future here. Odds of getting a promotion incline steeply when the region staff thinks you stand head and shoulders above everyone, even if only for a week. Praise God!

Tuesday's Gone

2007-02-27T23:31:00.000-08:00

I've fallen a bit behind. My excuse is that Tuesdays are always full of life. The beginning of the week, everyone's getting their balance back at work, including me, and there's always something going on around our house when I get back. My morning consisted of tracking down some rental info and getting that taken care of. I'm working at anticipating problems and solving them before that need to be solved.

We had a meeting for men in our neighborhood in the evening. Several folks showed up though fewer than had said would come. We had a fine meeting anyway, some good thoughts were shared, we prayed together and kicked off this phase of our life in the neighborhood well.

After that we came in to a wonderful meal prepared by Gretchen; some amazing white sauce and chicken and mashed potatos. It was a sight for a sore stomach, I can assure you. We chowed down and cleaned up and then sort of lounged into the evening. The women were doing women's group and their taxes and the guys did some reading and then watched a cheap-thrills action flick.

Slow to rev

2007-02-26T20:10:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty slow, pedantic day today. Pistons did not fire in unison, chemicals did not produce the expected solution, the package did not make it to the right doorstep the first time. Not to say that there was failure; "no failure in Christ" is a phrase we like to cling to down here. However, it was not like last Monday.

No doubt I've become accustomed to a fairly high level of productivity over the past weeks. As I planned for today over the weekend I knew it was going to be slow. I was prepared for lots of empty space in my day and I was prepared to fill it. Several wonderful books have recently come into my sphere of influence and I planned to do a lot of reading today.

Love and Friendship by Jules Toner, Choice Theory by William Glasser, The Adventures of Tintin by Herge, Gear by Doug TenNapel, the Bible by...well, lots of people. These all recieved a great deal of attention from me today as I swapped them out, one after the other, with a great deal of help from coffee.

I was eventually involved in some more active pursuits. I took Mickey to Widmo for work, went out with Nathan, Tom and Brian to invite men to a meeting tomorrow and then made my way to dinner. We had some encouraging encounters with some men in our neighborhood and I'm optimistic about our meeting.

Joan did excellently well on her final, 96%!! This brought us all great joy. We rejoiced. Together. And with her. We also had a good meeting with the Allendale folks, hashing out some details on our message as the People of Praise to our neighbors. Everyone was tuned in and we ended the meeting by praying for Ruth's leg and saw some results! We hope for much more on that front.

The sigh of relief

2007-02-25T20:31:00.000-08:00

Aw yeaw! The day of rest. This morning Nathan said that God knew what he was doing when he started that tradition. I actually had a hard time adjusting to relaxation today. It took me a while to figure it out but by 1400 i realized that I was just too keyed up. I wanted to have an agenda to attack and there wasnt one. I did fine though, did a little reading, ran some errands and that helped out.

We had a barbeque with a family in our neighborhood today. Sausage, ribs, chicken, lovely. Liz made some scrumptious potato salad and we had beers and pops and Nathan's mom's mac & cheese too.

It was nice and warm, sunny, and a bit of a northerly wind. I played catch with Eric, a kid who's friends with us. He's pretty good as it turns out, though he did throw one that i followed, blinded by the sun, into a big bush. I got a little bloody but the bush is fine, dont worry.

The guys and Ruth left for the branch meeting while the women had women's group with Lacondra. At the meeting Ron gave a talk about personal prayer that got a very positive reaction from the branch. I liked it too.

The Missionary Company, of which I'm a member, had a conference call at 7:30. Nick recently put up a wiki for us to use and we had a kind of walk-through session on how to work with the website. I bumbled through our side of it, made a few mistakes, but we've got a lot of smart people around here and I think they learned everything they needed to know anyway.

Wrapped up the evening with some Winnie the Pooh followed by Hot Chip, my new favorite band, as well as some Ratatat. Michael Busk has told me I must check out Broken Social Scene so that's on the list as is the Rhapsody "Lollapalooza 2006" playlist which features several bands that I already like.

The work-week ending

2007-02-24T23:30:00.000-08:00

Ah, the sweet smell of Saturday night! I know few better; maybe bacon and eggs and toast on a cold, snowy morning with a hint of the fire burning in the fireplace would beat it but it's hard to say. For sheer reliability Saturday night's smell is nice.

I'm assuming our Saturday morning breakfast with the Seitzes went well. I was unable to make an appearance because of my work schedule so that's too bad. It was a pretty exciting workday actually. A storm rolled through our area that beats out every other storm of the past two years in terms of ferocity and damage. There were high winds, gallons of rain, and at least one tornado. I watched from the second story of our office while rain was whipped over the ridgelines of near by buildings. Thick and heavy as waves over the gunwales of a ship it snapped and curled over corrugated tin sheds and around trucks in our parking lot. Tim's wife called him to say that she woke up late and looked out the window to see house in their neighborhood without roofs, privacy fences replaces by red-clay trenches. The tornado left some traces of its passage.

Gretchen and Cathy held the second Camera Club during this part of the storm. It wasn't nearly as bad in our part of the city. They stayed inside '46, out of the rain, for the first part and then took advantage of the corruscating sky as the jagged tail of the storm crinkled its way across this part of the globe. Cathy was glad to dive into something she loves. It's been a rough week at the office. Her camera arrived via FedEx (though not very smoothly; I need to look into that) and that was a great blessing for her as well.

Joan's been studying very hard. She's got a final on Monday and has to bear down on her material to make this class relinquish the "A" is been guarding until now. She sort of holes up in the back of '46, does her version of Emo Phillips' cramming, and emerge on the other side of Monday with an excellent grade.

Gretchen's been steadily plugging away at her work in the office. I believe the latest version of the Partners in Service newsletter is nearly finished. She takes no small joy in the Camera Club that she and Cathy founded.

Brian spent today working on a coffee table that he's putting together with material from Widmo. He's had the opportunity to use several of his favorite tools: the planer, the router, the hammer, the brain. He was the subject of several Camera Club photos.

Thomas and David worked their tails off through the storm down at Widmo. I recieved and gave a call to David regarding the weather; whether he and Tom ought to stay at work was up for grabs. They did, had a productive day, got home on time. David came home for lunch just after I did and told Nathan and I a story about the headaches that can accompany retail business. He had a horror story of an insane but monied customer making an incomplete and therefore intenall inconsistent order. That, I can assure you, and so could David, is extremely frustrating.

Nathan's been working hard at the coordinating-lots-of-activities business. We had barbeque planned for Saturday; then it was on Thursday; then it was next Saturday; then it was back to this Saturday; and now it's Sunday. He's a marvel of flexibility and level-headed leadership. I've been fortunate to have some good conversations with him during my lunch breaks this week.

We had a nice, easy pizza dinner. Homemade pizza of course. And beer. It was nice. A bit of tense conversation about the broken public education system during dinner was ended smoothly and we all relaxed to a movie and some dessert. It was a nice way to end the day.

Oh the goodness of Quicken

2007-02-23T21:21:00.000-08:00

Yes, another day has gone by and I am tired. Today got a little extra kick in the pants for me because a couple of guys who work for Home Delivery on the region level were in our terminal today. They gave out some good advice, fixed some problems and generally added more to my list of daily tasks. This is a great blessing because I'm basically learning how to take care of every piece of information that is worth taking care of and in the process I am learning what they all mean.

Over the lunch hour I was able to have a conversation with Nathan about finances. We have been doing some pretty cool things of late, such as buying a minivan!, and this requires some extra-special attention on the money end of things. Yesterday I discovered a heretofore unknown and extremely powerful tool in Quicken: The Analyze Button. I use Quicken to keep track of our finances and it has been very good to us up til now. From this point forward it is going to make our financial lives much smoother.

The Analyze Button reveals a bar graph containing month-by-month totals for the expenditure in any one budget category as well as calculating a yearly average. In other words, with a couple clicks you can see how well your budget matches your actual expenditures as well as which months were closer or further from your initial budget. This is wonderful; it accumulates and organizes the data into terrifically useful categories and allows me to get a feel for how well we're budgeting with just a glance.

So that's great. Also, David and I recieved a package with some books we'd ordered from Amazon. A telling collection I think: The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun with Paul Hattaway, Gear by Doug Tennapel, and Love and Friendship by Jules Toner. Search away....

I prepared a meatless dinner that was very tasty. We had black beans and rice tortillas with some cumin and oregano and salt and pepper and two cheeses and avocados and tomatoes and sour cream and salsa and chips and salad and olives and it was nummy. Nathan wrastled up some drinks and we had a good conversation about our days and enjoying our meal in between bites. Joan and Liz needed to meet during dinner because we dont have any more time to spare.

Then we cleaned up and headed out to Party Central for some put-put under the lights. We had fun, especially Cathy and Liz and myself. And especially Brian and Liz and I when we drove home and beat the minivan with everyone else in it and cracked open some beers and skipped ahead on a DVD so it would look like we'd been home for a while and had just been lounging around because it took the other car soooo long to get back. We had a good time with that.

Now we're all convalescing, ready for a new day tomorrow and a Lord's Day barbeque with a family in the neighborhood. People of Praise: Changing the World One BBQ at a Time.

Thursday, The middle

2007-02-22T22:16:00.000-08:00

Not for everyone, surely. But the middle of my work week. The halfway point. All downhill from here. The fulcrum on which turns the week. It's appropriate at this time to note that I collect idioms. A conesieur one might say, a sampler of linguistic oddities. A peddler of the melded craftwork of etymology, tradition, and common sense. I like words. Tons.

So this day was full of activity. The morning consisted of some intense prayer for our neighborhood and our neighbors and our work to lift them up. We planned on going out to visit some of the folks who live near us and we prayed for them and for us that we'd be able to make more and better inroads into their lives and that they would speak the word of the Lord to us. Then we parted ways for our jobs and looked forward to the time when we could be back together.

From the sounds of it Widmo had another good day. David told us a story of how he got a door at the shop and sold the same door to a customer 2.5 hours later! What a salesman. Joan was able to have a successful conversation with a fellow teacher and clear up some confusion that the two of them had been experiencing. Nathan invented a good meal: scalloped potatoes, white sauce, ham and chicken layered in a 9x13 pan and sprinkled with cheese. It was delish. We've floated a few names: the Delish Dish, 2/22 (today's date). Any other ideas?

Of course this meal was enjoyed only after we had all gone for our walks in the neighborhood. We talked to a whole bunch of our neighbors; we made some new connections, solidified a few more, and generally proclaimed ourselves and Christ into the neighborhood.

Not a lot of newness

2007-02-21T20:35:00.000-08:00

I had a chance to give one of our neighbors a ride to work this morning. Thanks to Nathan I woke up for MP and was there when she came to the door needing a ride. I headed to work right after dropping her off, arriving just a bit ahead of schedule and in time to get a jump on the day.

I was glad I did as the day wore on. My boss was sick as was my compatriot on the Ground side. Also, the other full-time member of our staff needed to take some customer service rides with two of our drivers as a way for us to keep them sharp on their customer service skills. So, three office folks out for the day leaves who in the drivers seat all day? Moi. I relished the opportunity and got down to business, finishing up several projects as well as keeping an eye on the phones, putting out a few fires, and generally being able to multi-task like I love to do.

Joan and I had made plans to meet with a woman in the neighborhood to talk about what we could to together to help this place out. She's very impressive, seems to be firmly rooted in the neighborhood but not brought down by its poverty. Unfortunately she had forgotten about some church obligations and was unable to meet today. However, we've rescheduled for a meeting with her, her mother and one of their friends next week. It looks promising.

We returned to find preparations for our Allendale dinner well underway. David was cooking, as usual, but in a more supportive role. Val has taken the reins on the last two dinners and that's been fun. She's a pretty good cook too and it gives David a bit of a break after a long day at work. We had some new folks over, a friend of Mickey's and a friend of Val's. Mickey's friend was great, started dividing the guys into football teams within about 20 minutes of sitting down at the table. I like that kind of thinking.

Tonight is, as everyone knows, chores night so we all pitched in. David's the master and commander of that operation and he divied up the house into shares of chores. I got bathrooms. I love bathrooms. We got done in good time and now it's time to take a break before the next day starts.

The work week begins!

2007-02-20T21:07:00.000-08:00

I could have had an easier morning. One of the trailers full of boxes that arrived at our door this morning was mislabeled. I decided to throw boxes from one belt to another over a set of rollers for about 90 minutes to alleviate that problem. The rest of the day was pretty relaxing though. A bit of paperwork, two great conversations about our work and our life with a couple of smart businessmen, and then a nice heaping dose of fun with the HH. I figure, the more of the People of Praise I can spread around the better and that certainly happened today.

This evening Val and Ken joined us householders for a Mudbugs game. The Bossier/Shreveport Mudbugs are a semi-pro hockey team whose home rink is in Bossier, just across the river from Shreveport. It was a very fun game; we saw three fights, 4 regulation time goals, and polished the whole thing off with a victroy via shootout. And we got more Mardi Gras beads!!

To tie up the evening, we retired to the women's house for some Death by Chocolate. David narrowly escaped death, I think I've been mortally wounded and Brian is barely conscious. It was wonderful. Now, having laughed at death in the face, I'm prepared to face some slumber.

Oh, and we have a minivan. For keeps.

My day off

2007-02-19T20:04:00.000-08:00

Mondays are days of wonderful productivity for me and today may be the crown jewel of them all. Here's the timeline:
6:10 - prayer
6:30 - MP
7:35 - drive Cathy to work
8:00 - Dentist appointment
9:30 - drop off prescription order
9:40 - drop off The Marine and Insomnia at Hollywood video
9:50 - make oral surgery consultation appointment
10:01 - exchange one broken wireless router for one new one
11:15 - pick up prescription
12:30 - lunch with Ken Kuehne, Nathan and Gretchen
1:45 - pick up Toyota minivan at Broadmoor garage with Gretchen
2:00 - meet Gretchen at WiDMO on the way back to Toyota dealership
2:45 - drive back to Yale street
3:00 - help figure out how to make thousands of dollars move to the right places
4:10 - go with Ken and Nathan back to Broadmoor to pick up the Civic and the Maxima
4:25 - arrive at WiDMO to get check from David that needs to be deposited before 5
4:44 - deposit check
5:10 - go to take Cathy home from work
5:55 - go to Seitzes for dinner
6:45 - help with dishes
7:15 - help set up for the Allendale meeting
9:00 - pay credit card bill and start finances
9:30 - meet with Nathan, Tom and David to talk about the book of Judges
10:20 - finances

What a day!

It was a fun day

2007-02-18T21:14:00.000-08:00

Going to church is great. We get up, read a little something over a cup of coffee, chat sleepily about nothing in particular and drive to church in two different cars. Today, Monseigneur Provenza asked us to come up and stand behind him at the end of mass during the announcements. As he's done in the past, he invited the congregation to give us money at the end of mass after an explanation of our work in Allendale. They were generous to us again.

Brian, David, Tom and I arrived home just in time to get on the Company conference call at noon. It was great to hear news from almost every one. Even Jeremy, in the midst of his busy time in MN, was able to join us long enough to give a light-hearted account of his work with one:ten communications. What a great work that is! Praise God for our wonderful businesses. And for the Company; we have a member in Italy, two on the West Coast, four members who are running companies, and the potential for changing the world being realized on every front.

The four of us then moved pretty quickly to 1446 for a household meeting. We talked about finances, buying a minivan, plans for using our money in other ways, and the MishCo conference call that evening. We brainstormed for a while, did some work on our calendar and readied ourselves for Lent with some plans for what we can do together. Putting life in common takes a lot of planning and flexibility. Fortunately we have almost 40 years of experience doing life in common in the People of Praise and can put that experience to good use. One of the things we talked about was negative humor and how helpful it is to avoid. Our interactions with one another are such unique opportunities to build each other up that we would do well to avoid any harm caused by negativity. We need to die to ourselves and change our minds on a regular basis. And the beauty of it all is that our individual needs, and even some of our individual wants, are taken care of and our household is always on the lookout for ways that we can serve one another and love one another better. Glory!

After the conference call (for the second time in one day an excellent, if occasionally hard to hear, experience) we celebrated Tom's birthday. To help the celebration along we had a fire in our fire pit, made smores, and honored Tom. He's a great guy and has contributed so much to our life and work since moving in here. He's got the Lord's heart for our neighbors and is keenly aware of opportunities for bringing Christ into our lives. A story: when Tom was in Dinkytown one his friends got a letter from a group of powerful people. They invited this guy to join their group because they could make him powerful and influential. This was uncomfortable with the invitation and Tom's immediate reaction was "Throw it away; we don't need that kind of thing in our house." What a great response!

As we wound down for the evening we all trouped inside and finished up the dishes left over from the wonderful dinner of chicken burrito stuff that Brian put together. Some of us stayed around the fire; Joan and I went inside and watched the last third of a Poirot mystery with Liz (very cool; we had no idea who the murderer was) and then started to make our way into the backs of our houses. Brian and Tom are now doing updates to their blogs so my guess is that whatever I left out they'll have covered.

Last day of my week

2007-02-17T22:15:00.000-08:00

On Saturday mornings our household meets with the Seitzes to talk about our upcoming week and our plans for the day. As People of Praise events go, this is pretty standard. However, I was dragged away from out meeting by a call from my boss. Since I work Tuesday through Thursday I often have to leave these weekly meeting early. Tim, my boss, expected me to come in at 7 but I wasn't planning to come in until 8. He is a good manager though and gave me a call on my cell to express his confusion. I went in. Oh well, none of Ruthanne's breakfast for me.

Wrong! Joan showed up about an hour later with a plate of eggs and an English muffin. It tasted great. I was able to eat my fill and work for several more hours on a satisfied stomach. I got home for lunch in time to see Brian and Tom working on the floor for the shed we're going to be using behind 1446. They were busy cutting plywood and nailing it onto the frame and I left them to their work.

Nathan was preparing David's birthday dinner and we chatted for a while about what we needed to do to make that happen. He was preparing a meal of salmon and some crazy yogurt/mint dish at the time and I needed to do some shopping so I left.

Shopping completed I returned to work. There was some filing and organization left to do at the terminal and I needed to lock up for the evening so it took me a while. I finished up and headed home...just in time to head back out with Liz. We've been tracking down leads for used minivans in our area and had found a pretty good deal we wanted to check out. Liz and I drove over to the local Toyota dealership and had a conversation with James, the sales guy, and took a test drive of the Sienna minivan we were thinking of buying. Things went well and we are going to take it into a mechanic that we trust on Monday for a check-up.

When we arrived back at home Nathan was still preparing dinner. That's a good sign. At 7 we started our celebratory Lord's Day of grilled salmon, vegetables, and a wonderful salad complete with carmalized walnuts. The food was amazing; Nathan is an excellent chef. We had a good conversation at our table and then proceeded to 1446 for the donut cake. David' favorite dessert is donuts and we made a pyramid of them with a candle on top that he was man enough to blow out.

We honored him for his imagination, his creativity, his dedication and his love. He's an essential element of our work and our life and I think we all spent some time wondering what we'd do without him.

We wound down. We had some more donuts and some ice cream and watched a movie and relaxed. Tomorrow is a day of rest and we intend to keep it that way (as much as we can).

The day before the weekend

2007-02-17T07:14:00.000-08:00

Friday is a good day in Allendale. We always manage to pack a lot into it. Today we made some serious gains on the housing/building front. The Lakeshore warehouse has moved closer to completion as has 1434. Brian spent the day tidying up the electrical messiness of '34 and it is now ready for the official inspection. Also, we had Pioneer Heating and Cooling out to install HVAC at '34 which they did in short order (1 day just does not seem like enough time but they did it).

We were hoping that all the Civic needed was new park plugs. After a couple days of not securing the proper tools we finally borrowed a set from John Thomas and replaced the old ones. Unfortunately, it still won't start. So we now have two cars in the shop, the Maxima as well as the Civic, and boy are we glad that we got AAA coverage! Free towing is a nice feature and we have needed it this past week.

And, best of all, the post-work week relaxation began! I made some chicken pot pie for dinner which turned out pretty well. Without even taking time to finish the dishes we all went down to Val's for evening prayer. This was a first and it worked pretty well. Brian played some old J-T favorites and we sang and prayed together. Mickey and Larry wanted to show Brian and I their weight set so we went to their room to check it out. Brian got back there first and started doing some bench presses. Eventually they put every weight they had on the bar and Brian was able to do one good rep. Then I tried. I'll try again some time.

We all trooped back to 1442 to finish dishes. We've got 4 people on dishes Friday night to speed things up so we can have more time to hang out. Gretchen and Joan went to the store and picked up ice cream (Tin Roof!), some toppings and libations. David was earlobe deep in a jigsaw puzzle all night, Dominoes were played, I perused the last Popular Science and shouted out fun facts over the famous "Howl Along" mix. Tom, Brian and I wrapped up the evening with a movie and then hit the hay, eagerly anticipating pancakes from Ruthanne at our meeting tomorrow.

First One

2007-02-15T21:01:00.000-08:00

Today began and ended with prayer. We held a vigil to pray for our neighborhood, each of us taking one hour from 10pm Wednesday to 6:30 am Thursday. My handoff to Liz went better than it had last week during the vigil and prayer was better for me too. After morning prayer we talked a bit about something...it might have been the Howells' house. I got to work a little late, 7:15 or so, and started off the day well. By lunch I had caught up with most of my filing and was ready to soak up info on machinations of the region from Greg Grimes and Tim. After I got back I finished up some work, made a complete list of my morning responsibilities since I had forgotten to update the graphs this morning and didn't want to make that mistake again.

At about 4:30 I left work and went straight to the Powells to see if they still needed a space heater. Shauna, their granddaughter, was there and she told me that they did. I said I'd be right back with one and went home first to pick up the wireless router to return to Best Buy. I told Nathan about my talk with Tim and Greg and then left for Best Buy and Lowe's, where I hoped to buy the heater. I did not check for the CD in the router box so I couldnt return it and Lowe's was out of heaters. I went to Wal-Mart and they were also out of heaters so I was on my way to check out Home Depot and the other Lowe's when Liz called for a ride. The Maxima died just as we got onto 49 so we called David, then called AAA. I waited for the tow truck and David picked up Liz. The tow truck driver was a nice guy and I tipped him 5 bucks.

Brian picked me up at Broadmoor Garage where I left the Maxima and we got home in the middle of Nathan's presentation on "Words that Work". The household saved me some dinner (great soup and bread and salad!) which I ate while listening to Nathan prepare us for our foray into the neighborhood. Joan and I went to Marilyn's house on Maple and had a good conversation with her. Joan was able to connect with her because of their shared teaching experience and their continuing education. She mentioned the neighborhood "fading away", talking to the elderly, talking with the whole community. I offered to come by next week when she was more free and she was happy to make that arrangement. Liz and Brian talked with Ethel and Carolyn Hawkins. Both were fairly full, good conversations. Carolyn was excited about a neighborhood newsletter and prayer meetings. Gretchen and David did not meet with Miss Illinois and Cathy and Tom talked very breifly with Linda through the door. Nathan walked and prayed around the neighborhood.

We had a powow about the whole thing and then various configurations of us talked about what we wanted to do in the future in the neighborhood. I mentioned wanting to do more with kids which turned into us thinking about younger kids (playtime kinds of stuff), middle school kids (more hanging out with us less playtime) and high school kids (quality hanging out and joining PoP).