Bom dia, Goedemorgen

About two weeks ago, Uncle Bex and I took a scuba diving trip to Bonaire.  For those who don't know where that is (don't feel bad because most people don't), it's an island just off the northern coast of South America in the Caribbean.  It's part of the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao).  It was a lovely vacation.  I did the usual stupid thing and wore myself down to a nub before we went, so of course I got a cold the day before we left.  Sudafed was my friend when trying to dive.  But still, it was a very good vacation.  It's a little bit of a mixed up island.  It's part of the Netherlands, but their official currency is the U.S. dollar.  Here are the highlights.

1. Breakfast buffet every day - it included nice, thick bacon and ridiculously fluffy croissants.  With cheap chocolade pasta and cheap peanut butter.
2. Most common animals roaming the island:  goats, flamingos, donkeys, and iguanas.  They even had signs warning about donkey crossings.  And Scuba Steve crossings.
3. We saw two sea turtles one day while snorkeling.
4. Our first night dive - it was cool!  We saw an octopus swimming on the ocean floor.  We saw a moray eel out of his coral home.  And giant tarpon came in close to use our light for hunting fish.  Some of the tarpon were bigger than a person.
5. Shore diving - that's pretty much why we went.  Nine dives total.  We didn't quite double our total number of dives, but we came close.  After the second dive, we learned an important lesson:  scope out the entry/exit point first to prevent difficulties.
6. Lovely Dutch accents.  You can go see da fish , and two is bigger dan one.  On a tropical island, it's amusing when the largest grocery store is called Van Den Tweel Supermarket and a native island looking lady gives you a cheery "Hallo."  They also like the word "transport".
7. It took several nights, but I finally got the proper night sleeping conditions dialed in:  AC on at 24 degrees C, ceiling fan on low, and only a sheet for covering.  That was just about right.
8. Salt flats - very interesting to see a giant field of pink water.
9. Daytime diving - we saw lots of coral and fish.  Purple tube coral, staghorn coral (Bex's favorite), fan coral, wire coral, brain coral, lettuce coral, etc.  Stoplight Parrotfish, midnight parrotfish, queen parrotfish, French angelfish, queen angelfish, spotted drum, yellowtail snapper, yellowstriped goat fish, gold spotted eel, sargent major (including males guarding eggs), brown chromis, blue chromis, spotted trunkfish, blue tang, bluehead wrasse, lionfish, schoolmaster, a giant puffer fish, sea urchins, trumpetfish, barracuda, filefish, squirrelfish, and so much more!  The world under water is fascinating and full of awesome color combinations.
10. If I were going to write a murder mystery, I think I might set it on Bonaire.  One day when we were out driving and touring, my mind was thinking up all kinds of good mystery scenarios.  I wonder if the Hardy Boys ever went there?
11. Eighty-five degrees every day with very little rain and a constant breeze.  Who can argue with that?  Coming back to the frozen North didn't even make me depressed because I knew I could endure a few more weeks of winter before spring came.
12. A few lazy talks on the veranda with Uncle Bex.  The veranda is also a good place to read your bible in the morning and chill out in the afternoon as part of an extended surface interval.
13. Sipping some rum punch while discussing diving with the Pink brothers.
14. Two-track trail through the national park.  Bex had to show some city slicker tourists how one should really drive on those rough roads.
15. Fresh guacamole every day.  Yum!  They had some avocados that were nearly as big as a cantaloupe.

That's enough bullet points.  I'm sure you don't want to read any more about the minutiae of the trip.  You want to see pictures.

Our wheels while we were there - it came with the room rental.

Wheels (of cheese) at the grocery store (Van Den Tweel Supermarket).

Slave huts.  These were built 13 years before they abolished slavery there.  Before that the slaves slept out in the open in their salt-soaked clothes.

Red slave - I think that was the name of the dive site nearby.  We didn't happen to dive that one.

Your eyes are not deceiving you - that truly is pink water.  And part of the salt pier.

The east side of the island was rougher.  There were very few dive sites on that side.  You can see why.

Underwater at the salt pier (not in the pink water part).

Now that's a lot of conch shells.

 

Bex goes to talk about our accommodations and diving.

Watch out for Scuba Steve crossing the road!

Right before our last dive.  The yellow rocks are out by every shore dive site they have on the island.  This was the dive when we turned around at half our air as usual, and Bex could smell the oats and was headed toward the barn at a hasty clip.

The desert blooms as paradise.

Cactus cap.

Free range goats.  We also saw free range donkeys, but they aren't shown here.

Cool bird.  Maybe an egret?  Not sure if they do salt water or not.

More wildlife.  ;-)

 

Pelican dive bombing some fish.

Hey.  Give me some food.

Pink flamingos in the national park.

Cactus fence near the "country club" - these fences were cool to see.

The smooth part of the off-roading experience - before Bex got all wild and stuff.

Near the blow hole.

Spring and Stuff

It's feeling like spring around here.  The sun has been shining the last couple of days.  The sun has some heat behind it now.  Forty-one degrees is downright balmy.  It's such a nice feeling to be able to drive around town with the windows down an inch or two to feel the fresh air coming in.  I like the changing of seasons, but there is something kind of special about spring.  New life and fresh air and all that stuff.  Dreams of kayaking.  The sun setting much later in the day.  Somehow it inspires a feeling of freedom.

The squirrels were out in force yesterday - they know it's spring too.

Robotics competition season has started.  More about that in a later post.  This week I was thinking about people being robots or not being robots, however you want to look at it.  I think the training on trust may have brought it to mind again.  Five or six months ago I went through phase for a week or two where I wistfully wished that I could be a robot.  I was weary with dealing with feelings.  And Uncle Bex pointed out that feelings are part of what make us human and interesting.  And, feelings are often what bring us closer to God.  That helped give a different perspective.

Someone from work also remarked this week about how if you can't communicate that you become severely limited.  And after the trust training I was thinking about how most things are based on trust, and trust is a feeling of sorts.  No matter how intelligent someone is, a lot of the time a person's success depends on their ability to communicate and create trust.  I've also been observing this with a guy that I sit nearby at work.  Often times he knows what the problem is from a technical standpoint, but he can get wrapped around the axle because he can't figure out how to communicate the problem in a concise way.  Or, he chooses to communicate verbally when what might be called for at the time is to write it down.

Anyway, I was thinking some of that in the back of my head this week.  And then in meeting yesterday someone mentioned Isaiah 63:17.  "O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear?  Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance."  We know that God doesn't "make" us make mistakes.  This verse seems to be asking why God made us capable of erring and hardening our hearts, doesn't it?  It's kind of like asking why God didn't just make us like robots or animals where we always do the right thing.  Instead, God gave us the freedom of choice.  Because it brings so much more joy to choose the right thing than to have it programmed into us from birth.

I like this daylight savings thing in the evening, but the morning is a little bit rough.

Trust

Today at work I took an online training course about building an environment of trust.  The material didn't cover anything revolutionary, but it was a good reminder about a few things.  There are two elements of an environment of trust:  being someone people feel they can trust, and trusting others.

I think I know and live many of the things related to being someone people can trust:  doing what you say you will do, being honest, being consistent, etc.  There are definitely a few things in that category I need to work on still - like acknowledging my weaknesses and sharing my feelings.  They hit the nail on the head when they said that sharing feelings is the most risky.  That seems like a universal truth.  I wonder why that is?  Is it only because it's our feelings that are more easily hurt?  Or does it have something to do with them being the part of us that's closer to God?

Part of building trust is having the ability to express empathy.  Empathy doesn't mean you have to agree with someone, it's more summarizing and understanding what someone is feeling.  A good template is "It sounds like you're feeling ________ because of ___________ ."  It seems simple enough, but I think it's difficult to do, especially if you don't feel the same.  It's also pretty clear that the best manager I've had in my career was one who was very skilled at empathy.

The other part of an environment of trust is trusting others.  This I find to be more difficult.  Maybe it's because of my personality and my desire to challenge things, but this is tough for me.  I feel like I've learned some about extending trust in the last year, especially related to trusting God.  But there is still a lot work to do here for me.

Does everyone have the same struggle to trust, or are some people the opposite?  Do they easily trust others but find it a struggle to be trustworthy themselves?

That's your Thursday food for thought.

The Past Week's Crumbs

Hi Peeps!  I saw a link to a website that sounded interesting.  The guy has now written a book (what if?) based on his website.  https://what-if.xkcd.com   The website addresses random questions in a scientific way.  For example, what if you took a swim in a nuclear reactor’s storage pool, where discarded fuel is kept for years until it’s not so radioactive anymore?  The creator, Randall Munroe, would then address this question by analyzing how long someone can tread water, what temperature the pool is, etc.  Based on all the science, the answer is you could survive in the pool for 10 to 40 hours.  He then called a friend at a nuclear power plant to verify his calculations, and the answer was that you’d die before you even got into the pool because you’d be shot by security.

I read Psalm 27 sometime in the last two weeks.  I thought of 4 hymns.  I asked Uncle Bex to read it and tell me how many hymns she thought of.  She thought of 4 as well, but only 2 of the 4 were the same as me.  How many different ones do you think of?  I’ll leave my 4 in the comments.  Don’t cheat and look at those first before doing your own reading!

I went sledding and shopping today.  I did a big haul at Eddie Bauer.  And I used up a gift card at Columbia where I only spent $10 and got more than $100 worth of stuff.  The sledding at the local state park was fun.  Part of it was crazy steep and fast, but fun.  We did more tame sledding as well.  The "tame" sledding did include catching some air as we went over some small sand dune bumps.  It was only about 5 degrees Fahrenheit today, but once we got all warmed up hiking up and down the sand dunes, it didn't feel cold at all.

See those tracks?  Yeah, those are ours.  Then we went sledding down the back side.

View from the top of the dune.

It was a super long hill.  We only did the whole thing once because it was super steep, icy, and fast at the top.

Ready to take the plunge down the luge chute.

And!  I finished my Ukraine scrapbook this weekend.  A snow day is good every once in a while.  Now I just need to get it uploaded and ordered.

Consumer Observation

I had an interesting day at work this afternoon.  I had the opportunity to view two customer research studies.  It was one of those studies where we sat behind the mirrored glass and watched as the consumer research guy asked questions, had the person do certain activities to interact with the product, tell the consumer about this new feature that the product could do, and then get the reaction from the consumer.  It was mirrored glass kind of like police interrogation rooms, except it was a much nicer atmosphere I would imagine (I’ve never been in an interrogation room to know for sure).

The consumer research guy had to be very careful not to suggest any opinions or tell them how to do anything because then you taint the research results.  It seems like this is probably a difficult thing to do when you’re interacting with people because the power of suggestion is very strong, and sometimes we might be accidentally projecting things without realizing it.  Near the end, he also had them pick some images of faces out of an assortment and asked them to write a few words about the images related to the emotions they had felt about the new feature.

It was quite interesting.  The first lady was like, “I see no value in this feature, and I wouldn’t use it.”  After watching the research guy and this lady interact for an hour, you form all kinds of opinions and thoughts on her personality and what her life is like, etc.  It’s also interesting the little things you notice.  I noticed she was left handed.  Her hair seemed a bit messy like maybe she had been out in the wind or had leaned the back of her head against something and didn’t realize it had messed up her hair.  You could also see her get a bit defensive when she struggled a little bit with doing a task.  This lady went to the grocery store once a week and seemed interested in the process of collecting the consumer research.

The other lady was quite different.  She was like, “I totally see value in this feature, and I think I would use it every day and change some habits to use it.”  This lady went to the grocery store almost once a day (she lives right across the street from one).  A couple times I noticed she crossed her arms when speaking, and I wondered if that meant she was cold or feeling defensive or felt uncomfortable or something else.  Her home life was also much different than the first lady, which likely greatly contributed to her difference in opinion.

It was also interesting to observe similarities such as both of the women put their eggs in the refrigerator in exactly the same place.  They put them in the upper left hand corner.  I think sometimes that’s where I keep mine too.  Where do you place your eggs in the refrigerator?

Super Summary

The past week has mostly been business as usual.  Sort of.  It's been eat, work, sleep, meeting, robotics, and some occasional exercise.  Although, work has been a little bit unusual the last several weeks.  I'm still working on a project and stuff, but the big news about 3 weeks ago was that they are moving me from one design group to another.  I was "voluntold" I would be moving, one might say.  Which didn't make me real happy, but when you work for corporate America, sometimes that kind of stuff happens.  But what really got my goat was that when they did the big reorganization announcement, they were very diligent in telling about a lot of the changes they were making, but they neglected to tell everybody that myself and two other people would be moving groups as part of that.  And there were some other details going on as well like when they didn't tell me who my new boss would be, but I won't get into all of that here.  Let's just say they didn't make me feel like valued employee.

Anyway, at the time they told me I would be moving I was in the middle of thinking about taking a different job within the company not related to this move.  So I've had a lot to think about the last 3 weeks.  After careful contemplation and prayer, I decided to stick with the job move that others had planned for me.  Even though it involved a fair amount of angst and soul searching and some forgiveness, it was good to go through that process again.  The one of realizing that I do have a choice and options.  And knowing that I made a conscious choice to stay empowers, gives peace, and helps to give motivation in the new job.

I'm not looking forward to vacating my nice window seat for a cinder block cave cubicle.  But it might be OK to move a little bit further away from one guy who complains a fair amount.

That's it for now.  I'm sure there will be pictures in the next 1 or 2 weeks after I move cubicles.

Oh, and this past Sunday we got more than 12 inches of snow.  It was nearly a snowpocalypse.  But I still ventured out to onion meeting and over to a friend's place to watch the Super Bowl.  Going home after the Super Bowl was a bit dicey.  It was only about a mile away, but the snow was deep!  I had to back up and take a run at a few spots of snow to break through.

A couple of my favorite Super Bowl commercials were these:

• Snickers - this one reminded me of waiting for late bus or waiting for piano lessons.
• Like a girl - which reminds me of this song.
• esurance - a bit strange, but kind of funny.  I think it's based off a TV show called Breaking Bad.
• Wix - clever, I must say.  But you kind of have to know about popular American culture to get some of the references.
• Chevy - Silence was a good trick on this one.  Even if they did say "Just Sayin'."
• Toyota dad commercial - not sure what it has to do with Toyota, but the sentiment was good.
• McDonald's pay with lovin' - now that's a clever ad campaign, and it brings some good vibes into the place I would think.

Worst commercials:  Nationwide - the ones with the kids dying in accidents and stuff.

Getting Old

One of the robotics kids put things into perspective the other day.  It was a Saturday, and maybe 15 or or 20 of us (kids and mentors) were sitting in a room eating lunch.  Things were kind of quiet as people were eating, and one of the kids pipes up and says, "You can tell there are a lot of people from the 1900's in this room because it's so quiet."  Thanks, whippersnapper.  Now go get back in your cradle.  :-)

Actually, for the most part I don't feel all that old.  I only start to feel old when I think about the fact that most of the robotics kids were born after I graduated from high school.  And pretty soon, most of them will have been born after I graduated from college.  Yikearonis!

Twelve Years

As of yesterday, I have officially lived and worked in this area for twelve years.  When I started that job, I don't think I imagined I would work here this long.  In fact, I don't think I could imagine at all what I would be doing in twelve years at that point.  When you're young and fresh out of college, the possibilities seem endless and unpredictable.  New jobs, maybe getting married or having kids, seeing the world, etc.  I didn't know exactly what I wanted, I just knew I wanted to enjoy my work and do what I thought God was telling me to do.  And I was happy to be done with college even though I thoroughly enjoyed my college years.

In those twelve years I've learned a little bit about people and relationships.  I've learned about myself.  I've learned a whole lot about refrigerators and electronics.  I've learned about project management.  I've learned there are good bosses and mediocre bosses.  I've re-learned how important it is to like your job.  I've learned change is inevitable and often difficult while also being exciting.  I've learned how important exercise is for my mental and physical health.  I've learned how to rock climb, kayak, scuba dive, how to mud drywall, that groudhogs are tricky to trap, and that anybody who tells you how honest they are probably isn't.  Most importantly, I've learned quite a bit about trusting God.

I feel like I should post some kind of symbolic picture.  Maybe this will do - it's from the first summer I lived here.

Throwback Wednesday to 2003.

2015 Is A New Year

I better get on the ball and start the new year off right by keeping you up to date on stuff and things.  For the new near, Uncle Bex and I went down to San Antone to see Lix and Mix.  So that answers that question.  We flew in Wednesday afternoon and flew out Sunday afternoon/evening.

The highlights:

1. New Year party that included super long straws, presents with required opening times, and noise makers.  At midnight we stepped outside for a couple minutes to observe the various fireworks that were being lit all over town.  And then we cleaned up and went to bed.
2. Playing a plethora of games.  Like nearly a million.  Set, Rook, Pandemic, Ticket to Ride, Small World, Saboteur, Seven Wonders, plus maybe one or two that I forgot.  I think we probably spent at least 3 or 4 hours per day playing games - no joke.  And yes, most of them were nerdy games.
3. Geocaching.  In the rain and in the sunshine.  Good thing geocaching involves GPS so that we were able to find the car again at the end of the day.  We found several caches and also spent some time looking for a few disabled caches (when we didn't know they were disabled of course).  Climbing a tree was involved at one point.  So was walking close to the edge of a cliff.
4. Traditional Texas BBQ.  After all, that is a requirement when you visit Texas.
5. Tons of laughs.
6. A couple - what I call - "overused" phrases / song snippets.  Like this one. Quite ridiculous.  Clutch.
7. Pedernales State Park.  I highly recommend you go see it.  There are some very cool rock formations.  Just watch for rising water that can indicate a flash flood.  Thankfully we didn't see any.
8. Fiber One blueberry muffins.  Here's a tip - don't eat more than one a day.
9. Listening to Willie's Roadhouse while in the car.  I almost got my fill of classic country if you can believe that.
10. Although not a highlight in a good way, it is a highlight.  My flight was delayed in Dallas by an hour or so due to waiting for the plane to come in. When we finally got boarded and stuff, then we probably sat another 30 minutes or so on the runway waiting for the caterers.  Yeah.  Not impressed.  I'll just drink whatever you have and let's get this plane in the sky.  Then when we arrived in GR, we sat on the runway again waiting for the ground crew.  Because it was so late at night (about 1:30 AM), they only had one ground crew and they were busy with a plane that came in right before us.  And my car had ice over everything, so I had to scrape windows and stuff.  A 3:30 AM arrival at my abode made for a very rough Monday morning at work.

I think that hits the main stuff. Here are the pictures from the trip:

That New Years party was rocking!

Japanese Tea Garden (it is Japanese even if one sign said Chinese).  You'll know why if you read the other sign.

We remembered the Alamo.  We paid to see the Imax video of it too.

Up close and personal with a cactus.  In the wild.

Maid and maidens in the mist.

Second night of being defeated by the game Pandemic.

In peril at Pedernales State Park

I call this the "re-enacting the awkward first day of school" photo.

Pedernales State Park beauty.

Accepting Bex's challenge and heading for the giant rock in the hole.

Yep, that's me there.  I made it!  Challenge met.

View from the rock in the hole.

The seventh try is the charm.  We finally got smart and started taking notes and collecting data in order to beat Pandemic.  Diseases cured.

Ticket to Ride is serious business and apparently requires pointing fingers.

2014 and Age 34 in Review

Well, it's another new year.  2015.  As I look back at 2014, I think it was one of my more difficult years but also a year of much growth.  Often difficulty and growth go hand in hand, don't they?  It wasn't difficult because someone I love had cancer or died or anything like that.  It was difficult in a way I hadn't expected.

I was going to say that 2014 started off normal, but I'm not sure I can even say that.  First it involved a lot of snow.  A lot.  The most I had ever seen in 11 years of living here.  We even had a couple days where the buildings at work were closed, which was almost unheard of.  But really, snow and cold isn't that difficult for someone used to North Dakota type winters.

In January I moved to a different building at work.  I had moved cubicles 3 times before within the same building.  My commute to work was still the same distance but in the opposite direction.  Plus, the building we moved to was newly renovated and I have a window view.  Overall, that's not so difficult.

The robotics season went well.  We went to the state and world competition.  Nothing is difficult about that other than trying to find enough time off work to go watch the robot compete.

No, the tough part in the first half of the year was the project(s) I was working on at work.  There were several months of working like a dog and disagreeing on how my project was handled followed by suddenly being removed from a project and having a relatively light load the rest of the year.  That was difficult - it's never fun to be pulled off a project when the technical details are exciting and you had your sights set on seeing it go to production.  But.....in hindsight I can see the wisdom of my manager in pulling me off the project because some of the politics of the project had broken my trust and were not necessarily good for my physical or mental health.  There was one success in the middle when I helped to successfully launch a new CAD system and saw the fruition of more than a year of work on that.  It wasn't all doom and gloom.

Still, it was hard on my pride.  Several more events at work this year taught me further about how much pride I had that I didn't even know I had lurking within.  The good news is that through this whole experience, I have also learned a lot about trusting God.  I even had my boss tell me once in this past year that when making career choices I should look for the choice that gives peace.  It seemed like a surreal conversation at the time to be having with my boss, but it was definitely good advice and emphasized again the need to trust God and to know what God would choose for me.  That's a really hard lesson to learn, and I'm definitely still learning that one almost every day.

In that same conversation with my boss about career choices and peace, he said that worrying is a sin.  Do you think that's true?  I suppose in one way worry could be interpreted that we are not trusting God and thus are worrying about the future.  So....maybe it is a sin.

In the last year at work I have also seen what makes it a very good place to work.  It's kind of like a family of sorts.  Projects and timelines can be tough, but people do care about each other, and when people are having struggles others do notice and take the time to try to help.  I'm also learning that we don't have to try to be robots at work.  It's OK to express some feelings and personal stuff.  While that's not a natural tendency for me, I'm coming to realize that humanizing the workplace does make it a better place to work.

While the past year was difficult in some ways, it had some very special lessons and experiences.  New friends were made.  Existing friendships were deepened.  Some friendships changed.  Work had successes and failures.  Job opportunities abounded but were not taken.  I grew personally and professionally.  Lessons were learned.  I had the opportunity to go scuba diving in Cozumel, had a great experience in Ukraine, went snowboarding in Colorado, kayaked many times, gained another niece, spent special time with immediate family and extended family, and got to know God better.

One of my friends told me that the age of 34 was a difficult year for her as well.  Is there something special about the age of 34?  For those who haven't reached it yet, watch out!  Just kidding....kind of.  I'm looking forward to 2015.  How can we fear the future when love has planned the way?

2014 Bushel Basket List Summary

Hey kids, I'm back.  I was busy over the Christmas and New Year holidays, so this is slightly late.  But.....here's an accounting of my 2014 Bushel Basket List.

Things done

• Go kayaking on a river or lake I've never been on before - went on 2 rivers I hadn't been on before.
• Go snowboarding
• Visit a foreign country - went to 2 different countries.  Plus 2 additional airplane layovers in other countries, but they don't really count.
• Go to a 'vention I’ve never been to before
• Play volleyball
• Play softball
• Play a new board game or card game - learned more than 6 new games this year.
• Go scuba diving at least once
• Go to Cedar Point
• Go ice skating
• Run in a 5K event
• Go to GR Art Prize
• Go to a concert
• See a musical
• Learn Portuguese (to a basic level at least) - finished 23 audio lessons.
• Make homemade granola bars - did this twice.
• Make beef brisket - did this 3 times I think.

Things left undone

• Invite my work friends over for a game night
• Visit TJ in SC (or wherever she's living)
• Go on a hike longer than 5 miles
• Go cross country skiing

Things in progress

• Start and finish a scrapbook for an overseas trip - see picture below.  I have all the pictures done, and I'm finishing the last 70 pages of journaling.
• Read the bible chronologically - made good progress, but didn't finish.  Got partway through Job.
• Make and grow a portable vegetable garden - I almost got everything done except putting it on wheels.  The rabbits ate everything, so improvements to keep them out may be needed.
• Have a “girls weekend” at my house - made 2 attempts, but only Bex ended up coming both times.  Does that count?
• Invite DEA over for a meal - I had people over for snacks after bible study, and they were included.  Close, but no cigar.

Back and Front cover of the Ukraine scrapbook in progress.

I think my final grade on this project is a C.  Now to figure out the 2015 project...

Christmas Tunes and Stuff

It has been years since I commented on Christmas music.  I was thinking about Christmas music recently because I played in the Christmas band at work a couple weeks ago.  We went to 9 different locations and played for half an hour at each place to help spice up people's work day.  Overall, it was fun.  I got to play my trombone.  And several people thanked me the next Monday for helping to liven things up and get them in the Christmas spirit.  I think this year at work was pretty intense for most people, so they enjoyed some levity.

But what got me really thinking about music was the one stop we made at the retirement home.  We played the full set for them there because they always enjoy it so much.  I think it's fun to see the spark of the old people's personalities come through when we start playing music.  Many of them like to sing along and stuff.  Some of them like to come up and talk to you afterward.  One of the songs in our band's set is having the flute and clarinet player do a duet of "Silent Night".  It's almost good enough to give you chills.  Almost like this (but not quite).  It seemed especially good when we payed at the retirement home.

That got me to thinking about other powerful Christmas songs.  Mostly I think it's the melody that makes them powerful, and then it helps even more if they have good lyrics.  Here are a few that make the top of my powerful list (after Silent Night):

1. Belleau Wood - Garth Brooks did this one many years ago, but it never became popular.  I think it should have.  And, it seems appropriate to remember this on the 100 year anniversary.
2. Christmas Guest - As much as you do it to the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me....
3. Joy to the World - an old classic.  According to Wikipedia, it goes all the way back to 1719 and is based on Psalm 98.
4. Carol of the Bells - Nobody does it better than the Trans Siberian Orchestra (see final link in this post), but this rendition was decent as well.
5. Oh Come All Ye Faithful - nicely done by Celtic Woman.

Oh, and just for grins I went back several years to look again at my favorite silly Christmas songs and somewhat serious Christmas songs.  I think they're worth a look again if you have the time.

Here's a picture from the Christmas band this year.  It's mostly a bunch of engineers and technicians digging out their instruments once a year and having some fun playing some music.  We had quite a few fans at the customer service center this year.

Christmas band this year was similar to last year if you want more details.  Charlie still managed to make it, but he was looking more feeble than he did last year.

2014 Bushel Basket List, Weeks 47 & 48

Checked off the list:  #16 - Go to a concert.  I went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra.  If you've never been to see them, it's worth the money at least once.  Be sure to bring your ear plugs though.  It was more guitars and less orchestra than I had expected.  The light show, fire, and fireworks were really cool as well.  I don't need to go see them every year, but once in a while would be OK.

Briefly

Sorry folks, I've been behind schedule here.  My "normal" computer for blogging is having issues, so I'm in the middle of getting all my data off that.  And the next post I wanted to do involved looking up some info on that computer.  And one shouldn't be posting stuff out of order, should one?  Plus, I had some special company last night, so that was keeping me busy.  But...I think maybe tomorrow I will have my act together.

Anteater, you might be interested to know that your "twin" was here for supper and the night last night.  Well, maybe not your twin.  Maybe more like your sister.  In more ways than one.

Plus, I've been trying to warm up my lips for the Xmas band on Friday.

Giving Thanks

I went back to ND/MN for the long Thanksgiving weekend.  It was fairly low key.  A few summary items, not necessarily in order of importance:

1. Saw my sister's in-laws.  Since I spend at least one holiday a year with them, they're almost like family I suppose.
2. What should you do Thanksgiving afternoon and evening?  Can some chicken and play some games like "Fact or Crap" and "Smart Donkey".
3. Saw Mom, Dad, BIL-Dan, Muggles, and Boopie.  I guess I'll call her Boopie for now.  I think maybe her nickname should be spaghetti sauce, but since that's two words that seems kind of awkward.
4. To stay on my exercise regimen, we did some of BIL-Dan's Shaun T T25 Focus videos.  Without BIL-Dan.
5. We used the hot tub, but unfortunately it wasn't so hot due to technical issues.  It was kind of like the church of Laodicea.
6. We saw Palt, Wearl, and Bethro over a late lunch on Friday.  It's always nice to see them.
7. Did some more digital scrapbooking to try to stay on track for completing a bucket list item.
8. Helped Dad design a ceramic tile installation pattern.
9. I was peer pressured into doing some shopping at Herberger's on Thursday night around 10:00 PM.  It was OK.  I bought some socks.  Having a suitcase limitation reduces your purchase options.  Not that I would have bought that much anyway.
10. Staying up until 2:30 AM reading a book.  It's not a real holiday/vacation without doing that at least once.
11. BIL-Dan's advertising campaign for Becky's Massage Parlor.  That totally cracked me up.  Vewy nice, vewy cwean.
12. Thankfulness tree.
13. Saw a live mouse running around the MSP airport once most of the people left the area where I was sitting.
14. Got home Sunday night / Monday morning at 2:00 AM.  I hadn't done that for a couple years.
15. Crisp temperatures a couple days while I was there.  Below zero at night is a little unusual in November even for ND/MN.  But that's what I saw.

And a few pictures are below.  I didn't get many pictures of my own family except for Boopie for some reason - mostly they are of my sister's in-laws.

Thankfulness tree - everyone wrote what they were thankful for on a leaf and hung it on the tree.  I think the #1 thing listed was family.

Four generations.  Sort of.

Canning chicken.  It's a bit tricky to get the pressure cooker to vent at just the right rate.  It made me think of Simona in Ukraine since she had wanted some rubber seals for her pressure cooker.

Bethro and Boopie

Boopie's typical state - she's very smiley in general.

Mid-Week Weekend Roundup

This weekend I hung the second kayak from the garage ceiling.  I hate to admit the season has ended so early, but I think if it's snowed 2 or 3 times before December 1 and almost gotten to zero, it's time to face reality.

Does this shirt say "going to a rodeo" to you?  One guy at work on Friday said he thought it did.  For the record, I wasn't going anywhere except to work.

I took a break from a nap on Saturday to re-read some Calvin and Hobbes.  For some reason this one struck my funny bone even if it is a month too early.

I procrastinated a little bit too long and didn't get the leaves raked that I had planned to rake last weekend.  Oh well.  Maybe the snow will cover them.  Or maybe there will be another nice weekend in which to do that.

May all my readers out there have a lovely Thanksgiving.  I went to yoga three times last week, and I think all of them ended the "practice" by telling us to think about what we were thankful for or reminding us to be thankful.  Really, every day should be Thanksgiving, right?

Yesterday my massage therapist was talking about how she wasn't all that excited about Thanksgiving because her husband has to work and her husband doesn't have any family, her dad and his family is in Florida, her sister is going to the in-laws, and her mom's relationship with the mom's side of the family is on the rocks at the moment.  And it made me thankful to think about how I will be spending my Thanksgiving.  If you're able to sit at the Thanksgiving table with friends and/or family that you love and enjoy spending time with, that's a big blessing right there.  Because not all people have that.  Sometimes I take that big blessing for granted.

Assortment of Thoughts

Ananias, I think putting your bare feet into sweaty shoes is about as uncomfortable and gross as putting on sweaty socks.  Plus, then you have to carry your sweaty socks in your hand as you exit.

Today at work one of my co-workers retired after 37 years of working at the company.  That is longer than I have been alive.  I never had the privilege to work with him closely because we worked on different types of products.  Everybody who ever worked with him only had good things to say about him.  He was a very quiet guy who didn't like the limelight, but I'm told he always had a corny joke.  Mostly he just loved simulating circuits and designing circuits that drove lots of watts, particularly into motors.  In fact, his nickname is "Lots of Watts".

I mentioned a few posts ago about what kind of legacy you want to leave behind.  I don't know that I necessarily want to be known only for driving motors, but I think I would want to be known as a good person to work with.

The AT&T call yesterday was somewhat acceptable.  On the less annoying side at least, but still not great.  Now we will see if they "truly" adjust my bill and service as promised.  If they don't, they have lost me as a customer forever.

I think that's about it for today.

The War is On Again

AT&T is messing with my internet bill AGAIN.  So my war with them is back on.  More than a month ago I called to have them reduce my bill cost and thus reduce my speed, but instead they INCREASED my bill and kept the same speed.  What?!?!  I will be calling customer service tomorrow.  It's being quite charitable to call them customer service in my opinion.  Because it's more like customer inconveniencing.

It's highly likely there will be a parting of the ways between myself and AT&T because my demands for retribution will be high.  Which means my internet may be limited for a while.  I'm sure I'll find an alternative, so hopefully you don't experience too much of a lull in blog posting as a result of my dissatisfaction with my service provider.  Wish me luck!

Stuff

Few things feel as nasty as putting sweat-soaked socks back on your feet after you've taken them off to do yoga.

Last weekend I went to the corny state to do some scrapbooking with "the gang" (Bex, Woodwind, Jax, Jenx, Karmx, and some others).  It went well as usual.  At least I got a good start on scrapbooking a foreign trip.  Checking one thing off the bucket list related to that is looking feasible if I keep my nose to the grindstone on that.  I don't feel like bullet points are needed for that.

Few things demotivate me as much as feeling like the project I'm working on is useless and without a clear plan.  And, what is even worse is that me pointing out the lack of plan and resulting delay is falling on deaf ears.  At least that appears to be the case.

Well, I think that's it for today.  Sorry it's a little bit negative today.

Personal Development

I think I heard or read somewhere that people mature physically in their teens, mentally in their 20's, and emotionally in their 30's.  I think I would probably agree with that.  A friend who is 5-10 years older than me told me once that your 30's are a good decade.  For the most part I think I would agree.  But sometimes, all that emotional development can be stressful and involve some growing pains.

What brought that to my mind was some in-person training that I went to yesterday.  It was part of a leadership class that I'm enrolled in.  And the instructor was talking about how leading people is a privilege.  We spent a lot of time learning about how you coach people and develop them rather than just doing everything yourself.  Overall, it was interesting.  We reviewed the DiSC profile as part of that training, which I mentioned before.

They talked about leaving a legacy, and what legacy do you want to leave?  I suppose that applies to both your personal and professional life.  The instructor talked about how somebody's mom died, and right at the end of the visitation someone showed up and was so thankful they hadn't missed it because they wanted to pay their respects.  They had only worked with the deceased lady for 4 months about 13 years before that, but the person had made such a good impression and had such a good legacy that the lady wanted to go to her visitation.  I'm thankful that I have so many good, living examples of people leaving a great spiritual legacy.

Another interesting concept was that we can't only say what we won't do as a leader.  We also need to clearly define what we will do as a leader.  This reminded me of what Jesus said about the man who cast out the devils and swept and cleaned his house, but then he left it empty.  And soon, the spirits came back and were worse than before.  We not only have to try not to do evil, but we need to be filling that void with loving God.

It was mentioned in the training that for "S" and "i" people, trust is given/assumed up front and is broken later through experiences.  For "C" and "D" people, usually trust is not given right away, and trust must be earned.  I found that interesting.

Based on the pre-work we had to do for the class, I was afraid the training might get too touchy-feely for my taste, but I actually thought they did a very nice job of highlighting how leading people is mostly about people - coaching them, encouraging them, correcting them, etc.  We learned about addressing people's personal and practical needs.  They approached the training very logically and explained things well in a practical way without getting pie-in-the-sky.  Of course we had to do lots of group activities and role playing which I dislike, but I also realize how helpful it is to do role-playing sometimes.  And, they balanced it out with other things.  I was also lucky that the training was at the luxurious training center with the fancy food and delicious snacks.  I lead a life of great hardship.  ;-)

I sat next to one lady who is an extreme "i" personality.  SHE was too touchy-feely for my taste.  She talked about "telling your truth" and some stuff like that.  And she invaded my personal bubble within 15 minutes of meeting her.  I appreciate people like that sometimes because they are very much everything I am not, but usually I like to appreciate them in small doses.  :-)  However, opposites attract I'm told.

That's all for now.  Have a great weekend.

2014 Bushel Basket List, Weeks 43 & 44

Checked off the list:  #22 - Make homemade granola bars.  They taste good, but they are too gooey in the middle.  I may need to experiment with pan type and oven settings in the future.  Perhaps I may also need to experiment with the liquids-to-solids ratio in the mix.

Weights and Measures

So I'm working on losing a little bit of weight.  Somehow a few pounds snuck on during the summer/fall.  I'm not doing anything extreme.  I'm just making sure I get to the Y more regularly and try to eat a little less and more healthfully.  I've been fairly successful at going to the Y, but not as successful at eating less.  And maybe I've lost one or two pounds.  But I think I've been gaining muscle as well.  At least that's what I tell myself.

I tell you this because it explains why I weigh myself at the Y fairly regularly.  Just for the fun of it today, I did something different.  I weighed myself when I arrived at the Y.  Still too heavy.  Then I went to the bathroom  to eliminate some waste and weighed myself afterward.  I lost about one pound.  Then I exercised for more than an hour and probably burned at least 800 calories.  Then I weighed myself again, and I had gained half a pound from the last measurement.  So my theory is that I drank more water while exercising than I sweated.  Or, that scale isn't all that accurate.  Next time maybe I'll weigh myself three times consecutively to see how repeatable it is.

This nerdy segment has been brought to you by the number 3.

Elections

So...is there some kind of election going on tomorrow?  It seems like no one is able to tell me where I can go on the internet to find my polling place.  I believe my state also requires showing ID to prove your identity before you vote.  How will I successfully make it to the polls with all these restrictions!?!?!  Yes, that's sarcasm.  Everybody and their brother has left a message on my home phone telling me where to find my polling location.

Have you noticed how low the gas prices are?  Pretty nice, huh?  I noticed that diesel costs more than $1 per gallon than gasoline.  I guess the politicians are trying to win the vote of individuals who own cars rather than the vote of businesses who are paying to transport all their cargo.

Remember to vote!  Exercise the right people have fought to gain for you.  Exercise the right you have in this country that many people in other countries don't have.