Dog Metal

RH showed me a gem today during our one-on-one meeting.  It was a YouTube video of dogs playing death metal music.  The video employed all of the classic elements of death metal from deep growling vocals, to powerful drumming, to aggressive guitar riffs, to slow-motion body movements.  But all of it is played by a variety of dogs.  The video is only around a minute long, but its effectiveness is brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFK1ivuS1k0

View from the Parking Garage

I thoroughly enjoy the mornings when the sky is filled with an abundance of clouds in a myriad of shapes and sizes.  I love how they float together, changing their shape as they collide and combine, forming new clouds.  I love how the texture can be imagined from the varying shades of grays and whites.  They are like silent sentinels floating above us, casting fleeting shadows, as they make their way across the unhindered blue landscape above.  No matter how many times I see it, it is never the same from day to day.

There is something so serene and peaceful watching the clouds move, seeing the sun’s light cut through their softness and radiate its beams to the world below.  And just when you think the sun will overtake the clouds, because its brilliance can’t possibly be contained by masses of floating water droplets, the clouds glide together, completely unfazed by the light, and cover the sun in darkness.  So that their floating, hulking masses are rimmed in luminescent beauty.

I love getting to work early, so that I can drive up to the top of our parking garage and watch the clouds perform their dance without power lines, or buildings, or trees getting in the way.  I get an unhindered view of God’s beauty at work in the city.  When the air is cool, and the breeze is nice, I wish I could stay up there all day and just watch the simplistic complexity play out before me.

$500 Apple

A woman flying on Delta Air Lines from France to the United States was fined $500 by the U.S. customs agency for carrying undeclared agricultural items across international borders.  The item in question was an apple that was given out by the airline as a snack during the flight.  She had placed the apple in her bag to eat on a later flight, and it was found during a random bag search.  The customs agent who found it asked the woman if her flight to France had been expensive.  When she replied that it had been, the customs agent replied, “It’s about to get a lot more expensive after I charge you $500.”

In addition to the fine, they also revoked her Global Entry status, which allows for expedited security checks, and put her on the watch list, so that she will automatically be searched on every flight for the rest of her life.  A Delta Air Lines spokesperson stated that “The apple in question was part of an in-flight meal meant to be consumed on the aircraft.”

The woman is pursuing a legal case against both the airlines and government, and she has taken to Twitter to warn others about this injustice. #anappleadaydoesntkeepcustomsaway

Honestly, this story sounds like something that would happen to me.  But the guy sitting next to me on the plane smuggling drugs would get through.

End of an Era

Today was my boss’s last day.  He had been with the company for over six years, and hired pretty much everyone on the team, including myself.  And while we have known other bosses during those six years (such as the one-year stint when he got demoted), in the hearts of his people, he was always the boss.  He garnered a sense of respect that no other leader of the team did.  He was loved.  He will be missed.

In the last three months, I saw flashes of the man that I knew in the beginning.  He was more focused on his associates, more engaged in the team, and more humble and thoughtful.  The experiences and politics that he had endured over the years had finally broken him.  And when you are broken, then God can finally help you reorient and see what matters.

In his words, he was able to see his legacy and be proud of what we had built.  He could be satisfied that he was leaving things in a better place than when we started.  I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring.  If I have learned anything about corporate life, it is to expect everything and just go with the flow.  We will adapt; we always do.  I hope the next steps allow us to build on the foundation we have and reach the potential that is sitting untouched and untapped.  We are in a good place, but we can be so much more.  My biggest fear is that we will get someone that will just keep the status quo.

The War Cry of the Sprinkler

This morning my sprinkler went off while I was eating breakfast.  It was still dark outside, but I could hear it as it cleared the air out of the line and started spraying water on the yard.  It said, “pfft, pfffft…sphlfffffft!”

All my mind could imagine was my sprinkler telling the world and the day what it thought of them.  One big, wet raspberry in defiance and rebellion.  A war cry of “Yeah, you may have beaten me down, but I’m still here!  I’m still in the fight!  So, let’s go…bring it…give me your best shot!”  And I was inspired…by a sprinkler.

The Pens

ML wanted to do a tribute for our departing leader.  Taking him out to lunch or giving him a card wouldn’t do justice to the impact that the man had had on all of our lives.  For many, he was the only boss they had ever known, this being their first job out of college.  He represented someone that was willing to take a chance on them and help them get their start in the world.  So, the tribute had to equal the feelings and emotions for the man.

He came to me with an idea of giving KE a pen.  To be honest, I was confused, as this seemed like an odd tribute.  But then he explained that it was like the scene from A Beautiful Mind, where all of the professors placed a pen on the table in front of John Nash.  The gesture was a sign of respect that acknowledged the contribution and impact that the man had had on their field…and on their lives.  And suddenly it was the perfect idea.  I suggested that we also write a note, a personal memory of KE, and attach it to the pen, which ML loved.

We decided to get our entire team involved and to do it after our on-site conference, when the entire team would be in town and at the office.  I was overwhelmed by the response.  Everyone brought a pen, each unique to the bearer’s personality.  The notes ranged from a simple Post-It note to a full-blown card.  One by one, we each made our way to KE’s desk and placed the pen in front of him.  Many also gave him a handshake or a hug, as he was much more than a boss…he was a friend.  At first, he was confused; but slowly, slowly he understood that this was an acknowledgment of his time with us.  We were honoring him.

Some people get a plaque or a watch.  KE got pens.  And I think he’ll cherish them much more than the other two.  Each pen, each note, was more personal than a plaque or watch.  It was a fitting tribute, and he got choked up as he tried to express how much it all meant to him.  Even though the Lord has other plans for KE, he will still miss his team.  He will still miss that which he spent the last six years of his life building and shaping.  He will still miss his interactions with us and how he helped us become wiser, more mature adults.

We wish you well, KE.  Godspeed, and know that you are missed.

Sumo Prom

After my high school prom, the planning committee put on an after-prom.  This was supposed to deter people from going off to other parties and participating in harmful or regrettable activities.  The theme of the after-prom was Casino Night, so they transformed the hall into a casino; complete with a Blackjack table, a Roulette Wheel, a karaoke machine, and other various games.  But when the fun began, I bypassed all of these and led my date straight to the sumo wrestling mat.

That’s right, sumo wrestling!  For anyone that has not seen this, they dress you up in a large padded suit, complete with sumo hair and mawashi (the belt and loincloth), and you attempt to knock each other down or bounce each other out of the ring.  There is so much padding in the suits to “fatten” you up to sumo size that you can barely feel anything.

But to truly understand the scene that night, you have to have a better picture of my date.  KE was 5’1” tall and probably weighed around 120 lbs.  In contrast, I was 8” taller, although I probably didn’t outweigh her by more than 5-6 pounds.  But the height was definitely an advantage with the sumo suits, because the smallest ones were made for people with an average height of around 5’4”.  So, KE was struggling to even see out of the top of it.  Her suit was so bunched up that she could barely move.  Honestly, it was more of a waddle.

I have been told that to truly be romantic, you’re supposed to let the girl win.  But when an ultra-competitive streak goes up against romance, all while dressed in a sumo suit, bad things can happen.  The moment that whistle blew, I was off like a shot, charging my way across the mat as KE was slowly waddling towards me.  By the time we made contact, I had built up so much momentum, that KE went flying out of the ring!  She landed with a “bumphf!” and then lay there sort of rolling from side to side with her little arms and legs waving and kicking frantically, trying to turn her over.

I am not proud of what happened next.  I am still tortured by the scene in my darkest nightmares.  All I can say in my defense is that sometimes the logical side of your brain stops working; the red bloodlust comes over you, and you cannot stop your body from moving…almost like it’s on auto-pilot.  Seeing my date laying there, completely defenseless and struggling to get up, should have made me feel sympathy.  Instead, I went for the knock-out punch.  I charged across the ring, leapt up into the air, and sumo-squashed her into the mat.

The padding from our suits collided and compacted for a moment before re-expanding and flinging me back up.  I flew off to one side and landed on my back with a “bumphf!” and then lay there sort of rolling from side to side with my arms and legs waving and kicking frantically, trying to turn over.  But I suddenly stopped, and a look of horror came over me, as I looked up into the vengeful eyes and wicked smile of my prom date, standing over me.  Apparently, the momentum of our collision was the impetus she needed to roll her the rest of the way over, and she was able to finally push herself back up into a standing position.

A panic came over me, and I began to struggle with renewed vigor, as she slowly back-waddled her way across the ring.  The next thing I saw was KE suspended in the air above me, little arms and legs sticking straight out spread-eagle.  It was like time went in slow motion, as I watched her sumo suit-covered form descending toward me.  The entire time, she was grinning from ear to ear at the retribution that was coming.  At that moment, there was no love in her eyes, only the bloodlust. 

The impact knocked the air out of me, and the weight of the suits and her body were crushing me, until a moment later, she was flung ungracefully off of me back onto the mat.  I looked over at her grinning face, and I couldn’t help but smile.  Karma may be a bugger, but it sure can be fun too.  Best after-prom ever!

Coincidence

HR was telling one of her running friends about her encounter with God, involving the mattress, the bookcase, and the truck.  This friend is supposedly a Christian, which at this point in HR’s journey, represents an authority; someone to be believed and trusted, someone who can offer confirmation.  What he told her was that all of those things were coincidence, all except the man walking out of the apartment right after she had prayed about it.  That was the one single act where God had moved.

If this friend is truly a Christian; which after that statement, I have my doubts; then he failed HR miserably.  None of that was coincidence.  It was the workings of a beautiful plan, set into motion before we even perceived it.  It was the checkmate in a complex game of chess, where the Almighty had been moving and positioning pieces into place with a strategy and a plan to where those pieces were going to be needed later.  God doesn’t just drop in every once in a while, He is always there, making moves.

Imagine for a moment that HR’s neighbor bought that truck ten years ago.  The neighbor had no idea when he bought that truck that he’d need it to help HR move.  And when all those opportunities came along when he thought to sell it, but he changed his mind, he never dreamed that he was hanging on to that truck to help HR.  He didn’t even know HR yet.  Neither one of them had even moved into that apartment complex yet.  But God knew.  He already knew that one day, ten years from now, HR was going to pray for help, and He was going to have the answer ready.  Her prayers were a delight to His ears.  He loved her so much that He wanted to reward her faith.  So, he set a plan into motion ten years before she needed it, with each move leading to the next, until it finally culminated into that precise moment when a list of seemingly random events finally all made sense.

That is not coincidence.  That is a deliberate act by an all-powerful God who can transcend time and space.  If you truly believe that God can only move in that single moment to bring that neighbor outside, then you are limiting His abilities.  I think HR’s running friend was in that moment an instrument of the devil.  I believe that he was repeating lies to HR; lies that he had heard from a sinister force bent on distorting miracles with the aim of inserting doubt and destroying belief.  I believe the devil is scared that HR is starting to believe that God exists, that He is listening, and that He cares about her.  He doesn’t want her to have a relationship with God, so he is trying to kill it before it can grow.  But have no doubt that God wants HR, and He will not give up without a fight.

Other Prayers

I have never understood when someone tells you something terrible or rough that is going on, and then they ask you to pray for them or someone else.  First of all, don’t they know that they have a conduit directly to God?  They don’t need someone to intercede on their behalf.  Second of all, do they really think that God will not act unless enough people pray for it?  This is not an election where people vote to enact a policy.

And by asking, it takes out the chance that I might act on my own choice, and demonstrate my own faith.  I might have prayed for them anyway, and because I made the choice without having to be asked, I would have been more passionate and enthusiastic about it.  I would have been more moved in my heart, drawing on my faith, rather then checking something off the list.

A friend once told me that God wants us to sometimes ask for things more than once.  The delay and the asking builds our faith, because the more “disappointment” we face, the more faith it takes to keep asking.  But if we pass the task to someone else, then how is it building our faith?  And if we ask someone to pray, and they do it, is it really building their faith?  Wouldn’t it have built their faith more, if they would have done it on their own?  Are we actually taking away an opportunity for someone to build their faith by asking them to pray, instead of giving them the opportunity to do it without being asked?  And if they didn’t pray, do we really believe that God won’t still answer our prayer alone?

The Perfect Storm of Emotions

There is something so beautiful about a movie that touches you on an emotional level.  It slides past the surface of entertainment to move something in your heart…in your soul.  You may not even be aware of why or how you connect with it, just that you do.  You are a part of it.  You are in it.  You cry.  They might be tears of sadness.  They might be tears of laughter and joy.  But you cry.  You can’t help it, and you can’t stop it.  It is so deep, so touching…so you cry.  And when this happens, you just let the tears come.  You don’t try to stop them.  You don’t wipe them away.  You just let them snake down your cheeks and soak into your shirt.  Because it’s real.  Emotions that you have been holding back, bottling up for weeks, months, or even years, suddenly come rushing out in a torrent.  Everything you have, everything you feel is in those tears.  It’s cleansing and cathartic. 

And it was a movie that brought it out of you.  Someone wrote that script, someone acted it out, and someone directed and produced it.  Without ever knowing you or how it would affect you, they put that project together.  And with that work, they managed to evoke something deep inside you.  Chances are that if you were to have seen that exact same movie at a different time, it would not have had that effect on you.  It was a perfect storm of emotions.

And other people can’t understand it.  They walk in, and they see you crying at a movie, and they don’t get it.  And that makes it all the more beautiful, because it’s rare and special.  You are connected like nobody else.  Nobody feels like you do.  Those are your emotions.  Those are your tears.

Loathing and Needing

It really sucks when you need something from the one person that you’re not currently talking to.  My wife and I are in “tiff mode” again for some reason that eludes me.  I’m pretty sure that this time it was actually her fault, not that she would ever admit it.  This means that she is going out of her way to distance herself from me and not utter a single syllable in my vicinity.

However, this morning, she needed help adjusting her undergarments, because they were cutting into her back.  It was something that required two people, and lo and behold, she suddenly realized that the only other person in the house was the one person that she had spent the last 24 hours avoiding. 

That is both a humbling and irritating moment all at the same time.  I know because I have been there many times.  It is amazing, though, how something so simple as adjusting an undergarment can make the last 24 hours just disappear.

The Butt Seat

MR was telling me today that he just ordered a custom seat for his motorcycle.  He said this one is more like a saddle, where “you sit in it, rather than on it.”  He was describing the process of how they make the seat, which requires not only sending in your old seat, but also sending in pictures and measurements of your backside. 

I couldn’t help it, I had to ask him how he was taking pictures of his backside, imagining him trying to do a butt selfie.  And he replied that he had to have his wife do it.  This of course set off a series of images in my mind of MR posing, jutting his backside out and instructing his wife on how to get the best angle to make his backside more flattering.  I started imagining MR doing a model shoot with his wife saying things like, “That’s it, that’s it, work it…the camera loves you!” or “Come on, give me more steam…it’s steamy…you’re hot…show me hot!” or “Ride that motorcycle…ride it…show me what a baaaad man you are!” 

I was laughing so hard, I was crying.  MR looked at me like I had lost my mind.  Apparently, he just had to sit on the motorcycle, and she snapped a few pictures, so they could see his posture and style.  But I think my imaginings are better.

The Little Prayers

HR has finally had enough of the cat neighbor, and she’s moving apartments.  It’s just to an apartment complex a block away, so it’s really not that big of a deal.  However, she got down to the last two pieces of furniture, which were a bed and a bookcase, and she realized that she had no way to move them in her little Honda Civic.

As she stood there pondering her predicament, she noticed that there were three pick-up trucks and a Suburban sitting outside her apartment.  Not for the first time, she rued having never taken the time to get to know her other neighbors better, so that she could ask for help.  She stood there staring at the Suburban, thinking that it would be perfect for moving her stuff.  So, she decided to do something that she never does…she prayed to God.  Specifically, she prayed that God would provide her some way to use that Suburban (this is a perfect lesson with prayer, always pray for what you want…be specific and don’t hold back…you have nothing to lose in the asking).

Less than one minute later, one of her neighbors walks out of his apartment, sees her with a car full of boxes, and asks if she’s moving.  They get into a conversation about where she’s going, and she jokingly tells him about the bed and bookcase and her prayer to use that Suburban.  He looks at the Suburban, then back at her, and says, “That’s my Suburban.”

It was at that moment, that God had floored HR.  He had heard her prayer and answered almost instantaneously.  There is no coincidence to something like that.  It is supernatural.  Only God could do something so amazing and specific.  But the story doesn’t end there.

The neighbor said, “But it would take two trips in that, why don’t we just use my pick-up truck right here?  Let me grab my keys.”  He proceeded to help her load the furniture into his truck, drove it over to her new apartment, and then unload it.  He asked her how she and her partner were planning to get it up to the third floor.  Not wanting to impose on him further, HR told him that they’d manage somehow.  To which the neighbor replied, “I worked for a moving company one summer, I got this.”  And he hoisted the furniture up by himself and muscled it up the stairs.

You see, God doesn’t just give you what you want.  He gives you what you need.  HR may have wanted the Suburban, but God provided her a truck instead, so that she could make less trips.  And she never dreamed of having assistance to get it up to her apartment, but God gave her that too.  Never be afraid to pray the little prayers, and never doubt that God is listening.

Sexual Squeaking

Years ago, my spousal unit was in a lab at Texas A&M that up and decided to move to Missouri.  Not wanting to start her PhD over for a fourth time, we decided that she should move with it.  At the time, I thought I would easily be able to find a job and quickly rejoin her in Missouri.  But God had other plans, and for the next year and a half we lived in separate states.  But that is not this story…

My spousal unit and I would talk on the phone every evening, sharing our days with each other, expressing how much it sucked to live apart, and generally trying to stay connected.  It was during one of these nightly conversations that she complained about the woman living in the apartment above her.  Apparently, this woman had a healthy sexual appetite and would satisfy her urges at all hours of the night and day.  (Later observations revealed that it was in fact different men going into her place.  To which I declared that I thought she was actually a call girl, using her body to pay her way through college.  This was never proven factually, but I still think I was onto something.)

At first, I thought my spousal unit was overreacting, as she is sometimes wont to do.  But after several nights of hearing the same complaints, I finally asked how she knew that they were having sex.  To which my spousal unit replied, “Her bed squeaks…a lot.”  She proceeded to describe the pattern, which was apparently always the same, whereby it would start slowly and then pick up speed, until my spousal unit was sure that the bed was actually lifting off the floor.  Never voices or any other kinds of noises, just the perpetual squeaking.  Honestly, I laughed when I heard this.  What else can you do?  It was so absolutely ludicrous.

A month or so later, I went to visit my spousal unit in Missouri, and I had completely forgotten about the call girl upstairs.  Suddenly, around 2 o’clock in the morning, I heard this eerie squeaking echoing through the bedroom.  Slowly, slowly it got louder and faster until it was an almost indistinguishable crescendo of high-pitched noise peeling through the otherwise silence of the night.  It was followed by a few minutes of thumping and then it just as suddenly stopped.  The whole event probably only lasted five to seven minutes, but it was enough.  I was wide awake.  I looked over at my spousal unit’s face silhouetted in the blue light of the clock, and she was smiling at me.  “I told you so,” was all she said before she rolled over and went to sleep.

When it happened again the next night, I ran to the bathroom and grabbed the plunger, and I started throwing it against the ceiling, hoping that the noise would make them realize that they were not alone in this endeavor.  Of course, I wasn’t prepared for it to suction-cup itself to the ceiling and stay hanging there; stick dangling tantalizingly out of reach as an insult to injury.  I stood, staring at that stupid plunger stuck to my ceiling, wondering how I was going to explain it to anyone that came over, listening to the rhythmic music being played in the apartment above us.  The minutes ticked by, the thumping, and then silence.

Suddenly, the story that I had laughed at over the phone was annoying and real.  There was no way that I was going to endure this all weekend long.  So, the next morning, I got dressed, and I headed down to the hardware store to buy a can of WD-40.  I took it upstairs, and I placed it in front of her door with a note taped to the side, “Your bed squeaks.”  The rest of the weekend was peaceful and quiet.

A few nights after I had gone back to Texas, I once again was privy to my spousal unit complaining that the squeaking was back.  This time it was occurring early in the morning, late at night, and sometimes even in the middle of the day.  She was making up for lost time by taking on several “clients” a day.  No longer laughing, I called the apartment complex office and complained to the manager.  She asked me what I would like for her to do.  I said, “I want you to talk to her.  I can’t control what she does in her home, but at the very least, she needs to do something about the squeaking.  Obviously, the WD-40 isn’t working.”  She asked me what WD-40 I was referring to, and I told her about the can and note.  She snickered, and then she composed herself.  “Well, this is very awkward.  There is no precedence for something like this.”  I replied that there was a noise ordinance in the complex that there was to be no loud noises after 10 p.m., and this was definitely a loud noise.  She assured me that she would take care of it.  The noises stopped, and all was quiet for about three weeks.

Once again, the ominous squeaking made a vigorous return, and once again, I called the apartment manager.  One more conversation with the call girl upstairs, and the next thing we know, a moving truck was parked outside, and she had moved out.  I’m not sure if she was that annoyed by our complaints, or if she was afraid that the police would find out about her side business.  Either way, we no longer had to worry about being woken up by the sexual squeaking upstairs.  I still woke up, but it was because I was now bothered by the stupid plunger hanging from the ceiling.

This event taught me a valuable lesson…this is why people invented noise-cancelling headphones.

Maniac with a Mop

Every Monday evening, my wife has a group of women that come over to our house to break bread and have a Bible study.  When we first started hosting, we would meticulously clean every inch of our house every Sunday.  And I mean clean…dusting, vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing the bathrooms, doing the dishes, taking out the trash and recycling, cleaning every surface of the kitchen, making the beds with the fancy comforters, and straightening up the couches and cushions in the den.  This is not to say that we are normally dirty people.  On the contrary, we keep our house tidy as a general rule.  But something manic would come over my wife, and she would insist that everything needed to be deep cleaned.

We have been hosting for several months now, and I realized this week that we barely did anything to prepare.  We went from manic, deep clean to “eh” we might get around to it.  Honestly, I don’t think the women notice the difference.  I don’t think they ever realized how much work we were putting into it, nor do I think they required or cared for that level of “clean.”  We were only doing it to ourselves.

Samwise Gamgee

I was watching the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King tonight, mostly because it’s about the 25^th time that they have shown it.  There is a scene near the end of the movie where Frodo and Sam are at the base of Mount Doom.  Frodo is laying on his back, and he tells Sam that he can no longer go on, that he’s lost in the darkness.  Sam, covered in grime, exhausted and worn out from sleepless nights, staying awake to keep an eye on Gollum, looks down at Frodo, and he says, “Let’s end this.”  He follows up by saying that he might not be able to carry the burden of the ring for Frodo, but he can carry Frodo.  He proceeds to lift Frodo off the ground, flings him over his shoulders, and starts to slowly trek up the side of the mountain of fire.

As I’m watching this, I think to myself, “Now that’s the kind of friend I need!  Someone that will pick me up, carry my butt up the side of a mountain, and throw me into a river of fire!”

Shallow Hal

They have been showing the movie Shallow Hal quite frequently on cable lately.  I thoroughly enjoy the movie for its concept, screenplay, and dialog.  There is just one thing that is hanging me up…

For those of you unfamiliar with this movie, it’s about a man, Hal, who is superficially hung up on the outside appearance of women.  In all other respects, Hal is a genuinely nice guy, caring and fun.  But because looks are the first thing he uses to judge people, he never makes it past the surface to their inner beauty.

One day Hal gets trapped in an elevator with Tony Robbins, the famed self-help guru, and shares his trouble with dating.  Tony hypnotizes him, so that he no longer focuses on the outer looks, but focuses on the inner beauty.  This transforms Hal’s world, as he starts to be attracted to women that he didn’t look twice at before.  The comedy of this comes when everyone else around Hal can still see them for their outer looks, and there is a disparity between the way Hal describes them and how they see them for real.

Which leads me to the thing that hangs me up.  Hal doesn’t see EVERYONE differently, only strangers.  For example, his best friend, Mauricio; his neighbor, Jill; and his co-workers are still portrayed and seen exactly the same.  My first thought on this was that he was seeing them the same, because they were genuinely portraying themselves exactly as they are.  But then I took it another level deeper and realized that the writers of the screenplay had a fundamental dilemma to overcome.

Hal COULDN’T see them differently, because then he’d realize something was up.  So, everyone he already knew is exactly the same, so that his brain has no awareness that he’s been hypnotized.  I realize that Tony Robbins could have layered that into the hypnosis, so that his brain wasn’t aware, but I’m not sure it would have “taken.”  The brain is a wonderous thing, and if the “trick” is too far-fetched, then the brain will reject it.  It had to be plausible without pushing the boundaries of what the brain would accept.  I realize that I probably analyzed it way deeper than the writers.  They probably thought about this, and then just decided that either nobody would notice, or they wouldn’t question the fact that certain people didn’t change in Hal’s mind.  Or perhaps they just thought this would add to the comedic irony of it all.

But it made me wonder about how I would see the people around me.  Would they appear more beautiful, more ugly, or exactly the same?

Shattered Bowls

Today, my heart is overflowing with love.  I dropped my glass bowl today in the kitchen at the office.  I had just finished heating up my lunch, and I was carrying it back to the table, when the lid came off of it, and it dropped to the floor and shattered.  The sound it made was like a gunshot that echoed through the open cafetorium.  My lunch, as well as hundreds of tiny glass fragments, went everywhere.

Being no stranger to broken dishes, I set about pushing the glass into a little pile, so that it at least wasn’t creating a dangerous situation.  As I was getting some of the shards furthest from the scene of the crime, I turned around and HR and SB were at the other end of the kitchen, squatting down and pushing glass from the other direction.  They had left their lunch to come check on me, saw what had happened, and stayed to help me clean it up.  It wasn’t their job.  It wasn’t their mess.  They just did it, because I needed help.

I can’t tell you how touched I was by this act of kindness.  I felt so lucky, so loved by that simple gesture.  I have a great group of friends that I eat lunch with.  They proved that not only are they great company, but they have great hearts as well.

The Invisible Competition

I had an incident happen at work today that I found out later was a known issue on the team.  I was furious, because it could have been prevented if someone had just shared the knowledge after they had been through it, instead of waiting for me to go through it myself.  As I was complaining about this with HR, she shared some insight with me.  People gratefully accept knowledge, but reluctantly give it away.  Knowledge is power, so the more you have, the more powerful you are.  But if you give it away, then it dilutes that power, making your competition more powerful and thus leveling the playing field.

I was stunned by this idea, because I don’t think of people as competition, especially within the same team.  I think of us as a family all trying to help each other be the best we can be, because it will make the entire family better as a whole.  But apparently each individual is constantly looking at everyone else as someone that will get something they should have or keep them from getting something that they deserve.  So, they are constantly looking for ways to make themselves more valuable and set themselves apart from this invisible competition. 

Which means that I can expect to have other issues in the future that could have been avoided.

God in Unexpected Places

I had to take my car to the dealership today for some routine maintenance.  As I was waiting for the shuttle driver to come back, I heard the Parts Director shout out from his office to the guy working the parts counter.  He said, “So, Nick, were you asking because you are afraid for your salvation, or because you just wanted more knowledge about the Bible?”  They then proceeded to have a conversation about the message of the Bible, different versions of the Bible, and the best way to approach a Bible study.

I was so taken aback by this conversation.  Here they were having an open conversation about God in a public place with no qualms about who overheard.  I’m so used to people hiding their faith because of who might be offended by it, that I wasn’t ready to hear it discussed so openly.  It was amazing and nice.

So, I decided to step into the Parts Director’s office and tell him.  He then struck up a conversation with me, and we talked for the next hour about God’s diminishing role in society, the breakdown of values, the dissolution of marriage, and the fragmentation of the family unit.  All of it correlates to people removing God from their lives or giving Him a lesser role to play.

But what struck me the most was that here was this man who had never gone to college and was working at a modest-paying job at a car dealership spouting such wisdom and insight.  By society’s standards, he wouldn’t be revered or thought educated or successful.  He was just an average man that most people would overlook.  But God was doing great work in this man, and he was receptive to it. 

What a strange place and way to encounter God.  What an unexpected way to start my day.  But also, amazing!  As VJ said, “Wow!  Just wow!”

Untrusting Compliments

I realized today that some people don’t trust compliments.  They’d rather you put them down because it aligns better with how they feel about themselves.  Even if the compliment is true, they believe it’s a lie, because it’s not how they see themselves.  They leave no space or possibility that someone else might see them differently; see them for more.

The Sounds of Silence

My spousal unit keeps complaining that my snoring is keeping her up at nights.  I have even been relegated to the guest room the last couple of nights so that she could finally get some rest.  I adamantly refuse to believe this nonsense.  I stayed awake all night one night listening, and I never heard myself snoring even once!

Always Be Aware of Mirrors

Yesterday, I shared my bad experiences at my first job.  Today, I want to relate a funny story that happened there.  The bathrooms were located down a little hall off the main sales floor.  The men’s room was first with the women’s room behind it, both off the left side of the hall.  Immediately upon walking into the men’s room, there were sinks and a very large mirror on the righthand side, so that when someone opened the door, anyone in the hall could see the people at the sinks.

One day, RF came to me and said that she’d gotten a very disturbing report from one of our female customers, and she wasn’t sure what to do about it.  I inquired what the customer had said, and RF told me that she’d just seen the private parts of one of our technicians.  Inquiring further on how this could have happened, RF related the story that the female customer was entering the hall for the bathrooms when one of the technicians crossed by in front of her and entered the men’s room.  He had flung the door open, so that the female customer had a clear view through the door and into the mirror over the sinks.  The technician had apparently already pulled out his private parts while still walking across the bathroom, and everything was visible in the reflection of the mirror.

My first reaction was to burst out laughing.  My second was to ask what the customer had thought about it.  RF took the bait, and responded that she hadn’t been very impressed actually.

Two Weeks Notice

My first job out of college was working at a retail electronics store in Houston, Texas.  It wasn’t exactly a dream job for someone that had just graduated with a degree in Computer Science, but since the market was flooded with people with similar majors the year before, I didn’t have a lot of options.  I was hired as a floor salesman, which basically meant I was supposed to wander around the floor and ask people if they needed help with anything.  This is a lofty goal when you don’t know anything yourself.  I was trained in software development, not the correct tool to use to crimp an RJ45 connector on Cat-5e cable.  But I learned, and learned quickly.  I was thrown in the ocean, and it was swim or drown.

This job was tough.  It was the only job I have ever quit after only two weeks of employment.  It wasn’t the hours, or having to learn to be extroverted, or even the hyper knowledge gain.  It was the manager of the store.  He was…to put it nicely…the south end of a northbound mule.  He was slick, oily, egotistical, entitled, and pompous.  In short, he was a salesman.  He was very good at getting people to buy things they didn’t need, but he had no business being in charge of other human beings.  But he craved power, and he spent every day lording what little he had over us.  Combined with my volatile temper and aversion to undeserved authority, this was a power keg waiting to explode.

And it did, two weeks in.  I had had enough of him bossing me around for no reason.  I’d no sooner get done moving entire sections of tools from one part of the store to another, then he’d tell me to put them back.  Why?  Just because he didn’t like to see me idle.  The final straw came when he told me to come in early one morning to do inventory.  It was just the two of us, but he decided that inventory was beneath him and refused to assist.  That was fine, I was used to that.  While he went to the kitchen to make himself some coffee, I was set to count stock on the register endcaps.  I was just finishing up the first one, when he burst out of the kitchen and asked me if I’d counted the hard drives yet.  I told him that I was still counting the end caps and would get to it when I was done.  He lost it.  He started yelling at me that I was taking too long.  I was losing it too, and through gritted teeth, I told him that I was only one person, and that I was doing the best I could.  This set him off again on some tirade about me being insubordinate, so I dropped my clipboard right there on the floor in the middle of the store.  I stomped over to the hard drives and started counting.  He started screaming for me to go pick up the clipboard and finish the end caps.  I stopped and stood in the aisle glaring at him.  I didn’t say a word, just stood there.  When he finally asked me what I was doing, I simply responded that I was waiting for him to make up his mind.  He yelled for me to finish the counts and then stormed off to his office. 

I did finish the counts, and I finished out my day.  Then, I went to his office and quit.  That night when I told my father, he got onto me for quitting a job before I had another one lined up.  He demanded that I go back to the store the next day, apologize, and ask for a second chance.  He didn’t really care about the inappropriate behavior of the manager or the emotional stress I had endured.  I was at fault, and I had to fix it.  And I did.

I went back to the store the next day, and I apologized to my manager for my behavior.  I ate crow for something that he had provoked while he sat there grinning in victory from the other side of the desk.  I spent every day of the next year looking for another job.  I shut my mouth, and I took everything he dished out; every nonsensical request, every moment of him taking credit for my hard work, every verbal beratement in front of customers…even being chewed out over the public intercom system across the store.  It was the first of many jobs that God would put me in to grow and mature me; to teach me both job skills and relationship skills.  I hated that man with every fiber of my being, but I learned a lot from him.  I learned the kind of person not to be, and I learned to appreciate a halfway decent manager when I see one.

Here I sit sixteen years and five jobs later, and he is still there…still stuck in that same dead-end job as a store manager for a retail electronics store.  His aspirations of moving up the corporate ladder and into upper management dashed, because he opened his big mouth to the wrong person (and sexually harassed the wrong person, if the rumors are to be believed).  I hope he’s mellowed out a lot and that he’s not still yelling at people in front of customers across the store.  Amazing that even after all of these years, the very memory of that still gets my blood boiling.

Both Order and Chaos

Since I became a manager, I have spent my first two months trying to bring order to the disarray.  I have introduced defined processes that are consistently used to better assist us all do our jobs.  And you know what?  It’s worked.  We are slowly, slowly becoming like a well-oiled machine.  People have manageable work-schedules, they have a balance of work, and their jobs are consistent and regular.  Which has made people bored.

Apparently, people find more interest in chaos.  It’s more unpredictable and challenging.  It takes them out of their comfort zone and forces them to push themselves to more than they even knew they were capable of.  So, while on the one hand, it burns people out if endured for too long, it also makes it more interesting and engaging.  In an effort to reduce their stress levels, I have actually made things worse for people.  I guess to do it right, it will take a balance of both order and chaos working together in harmony.

A Moment of Silence

VJ was telling me about a Christian retreat that she went to where they requested that everyone take a vow of silence for three hours.  They were supposed to use this time to mediate, read their Bible, pray, and listen for God’s voice.  By removing the distractions from life, they would better be able to hear it.

While I think this concept is beautiful, I’m not sure I could make it for three hours without talking.  I can barely make it for three minutes.  Heck, my spousal unit even complains that I talk all night in my sleep!

Infrequent Usage

One of my nieces was featured in an art exhibit last weekend, so my wife and I stayed with my brother.  I’m not sure what was wrong with me, but during the course of two days, I probably used the bathroom nine times…used the bathroom…like for long durations (that’s as descriptive as I’ll get, use your imagination).

My brother and I used to joke about how infrequently my brother would use the bathroom; sometimes going days or a whole week in between times.  He apparently also didn’t like using the bathroom at work, so he’d wait until he got home.

After this last weekend, I now know why he went so infrequently.  He had somehow managed to find the coarsest toilet paper to supply in his bathroom.  I’m all for saving money when you can, but toilet paper and facial tissue are places where an indulgence is warranted.  If you’re repeatedly rubbing something on a sensitive area, then it should be soft and gentle.  Of course, I’m assuming that this is consistent throughout the house.  Maybe he keeps the good stuff for himself and only puts this out for the guests!

I’m Exploring

I saw a man at the gas station today that had on a shirt that said, “I’m not lost…I’m exploring.”  I know in its simplicity that it’s supposed to be a joke, but it’s kind of beautiful too.  It denotes a wild sense of adventure.  A spontaneous jaunt into the unknown.  A free spirit unconfined by typical social norms.

First Pedicure

Today my sister-in-law and my wife talked me into getting my first pedicure.  They decided to get up early and go treat themselves at the nail salon, and when my brother heard about it, he wanted to go too.  Apparently, he had been coerced into this sort of expedition before and had thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  I was not so sure.

I was not very keen on the idea of some stranger touching my feet, nor on the idea of sporting a nail color every time I wear flip-flops.  That was the limit of my knowledge of pedicures…someone touches your feet, you get your nails painted.  I was in for a big surprise.

My wife decided that my first experience should be all out, so she opted for the deluxe package for me.  They started by putting my feet in a hot, whirlpool bath to clean, soften, and massage them.  I might have enjoyed this more, if I wasn’t so apprehensive about what was possibly coming next.  Of course, my wife wouldn’t tell me, because she finds it funny to surprise me, despite the fact that I don’t enjoy things, because I have too much anxiety about the unknown.

Well, what happened next was what I like to call the “foot torture” portion of the pedicure.  The pedicurist, Hana was her name, trimmed my nails and cuticles.  Not too bad.  I could handle that.  But this was just the beginning; a way to lull me into complacency…to drop my defenses…before the real torture began.  And it began with a heel scraper.

A heel scraper, for those of you unfamiliar with this particular torture implement, is about the size of a hair brush.  But instead of being covered with soft bristles, it looks like a cheese grater instead.  It works like a cheese grater too, as she scraped it back and forth over the toughened skin of my heel, peeling off layer after layer, until I was sure I would have no foot left to stand on.

But I only had but a second to think about this, because she immediately pulled out some sort of hardened sponge-like thing, which felt like it was made out of rock and glass, and started rubbing it on the callus on the side of my big toe.  My foot was spasming from both the nerve-endings firing with every subsequent back-and-forth movement and from it actually tickling a little.

Sensing that I was about to break and spill everything to her about the contents of the NOC list (Mission Impossible reference), the truth about the Kennedy assassination, and every MI6 secret I knew; she eased off the torture a little and pulled out an only slightly-softer sponge-like thing and scoured the entire bottom of my foot.  By this point, I was grasping the armrests of the chair in a white-knuckled grip to keep from ripping my increasingly-ticklish foot out of her rubber hands.

Soon the torture was over, and she finished off stage one by putting some milky white oil on my nails and giving them a nice buff and polish.  In comparison, this was mild and highly tolerable.

Which leads us to what I like to call the “hot recovery” portion of the pedicure.  Although I wasn’t to know this yet.  At this point, I was still waiting for the other shoe (or foot in this case) to drop.

While my poor, tortured feet once again soaked in the warm, massaging basin; Hana the Tormenter went off to get some orange, gritty-looking cream substance.  She proceeded to smear this all over my calves and then give me a quite-nice leg massage.  The gritty beads made my skin feel fresh and alive as she kneaded them into my tense muscles.  I started to relax a little (only a little) for the first time.

When that was done, she wrapped hot towels around my legs, which felt heavenly on my newly-exposed skin.  The heat was in sharp contrast to the cool air that had been skimming across my skin only moments before, and the change sent my muscles into an exhilarating sensation that ended in a long sigh.

While I mummified in my hot towels, Hana the Wonderful slid my feet into baggies of hot, blue, waxy goo.  And that was it.  I leaned back, closed my eyes, and thought, “This is the life.”  The memories of the previous torture faded away as I lay there soaking up the soothing warmth.

But Hana the Goddess had one more trick up her sleeve, as she rolled up with a basket of steaming black rocks.  She unwrapped my legs and proceeded to rub these rocks up and down my legs, pressing them into my flesh for but a moment and then sliding them to the next spot.  Over and over again, across every inch.  When it ended way too quickly, I opened my eyes and looked at her in question, “Is that it?”  She smiled, pulled off the now waxy casts of my feet in baggies, and proceeded to rub more rocks along the soles.

I can definitely say that having been left to my own devices, that I would never have willingly subjected myself to this experience.  Even having gone through it once, I’m not sure that I would do it again.  But I can say that I’d be less likely to reject an invitation and would have less anxiety about the unknown.  I would instead just try to go with the flow and look forward to the end result.

And the color I decided on for my nails?  None at all, I’m afraid.  I mean why mess with perfection, right?

The Parking Note

I came out of work today to find a note under the windshield wiper of my car.  It said, "Your Nissan is NOT that important! Park like a regular human #NOTSPECIAL"

For you to properly understand, I must paint the scene for you.  The parking garage we have at work is three levels and probably holds 200-250 cars per level.  On any given day, it is probably no more than 50% full.  The third level is completely empty and the second level is only half full...at best.

I park on the second level in the very last parking spot.  I have been parking here for almost a year now, and for the first six months, the closest car was probably 30 parking spots away.  The last six months, two other people have started parking right alongside me, with a sizable gap between the three of us and the next closest car.  In a phrase, I am isolated from everyone, taking the least desirable spot in the garage.

At first, I was pulling through and parking completely in the spot.  But it dawned on me one day that people like the cut the corner when turning and that my front bumper was susceptible to their turning radius.  So, I started parking half in the spot in front and half in the spot in back.  Normally, I am the first to get on a-holes that occupy two spots to protect their car.  But this is because they usually always do it in primo spots that impede other people's ability to find a spot.  I am not doing this.  Nobody is missing a place to park because I'm parked over the line.  I intentionally chose the least desirable spot, so that I wasn't impeding other people.

So, why does this note on my car bother me so much?  My first reaction was just to crumple it into a ball and throw it away.  My second reaction was more reflective.  I am actually surprised and annoyed about several things on this note:

1. I can't believe that someone took the time to go find a pad, write a note, and then walked all the way out to my car to put it under the windshield wiper.  I mean who has the time to waste doing that?!  Of course based on my current opinion of this person, I can see them being both petty and lazy enough to drive it out there...because after all, it is BFE!
2. Why is a note even necessary?  Seriously, what harm is my parking job doing?  How am I possibly affecting someone else's life?  If I pull up in the space, the space behind me will be empty...every day...guaranteed.  Nobody will park out there.  Nobody is waiting for that spot.  Why is this unknown person so concerned with it, especially when there are some 325 empty spaces to choose from, all of them closer to the building?
3. I am not the only one that parks over the line.  I can count at least four other cars that do it too, and in much more-desirable spots.  None of them had a note on their car.  So, why only pick on my car?  And the note was very specific.  Why was it necessary to mention that my Nissan is not that important?  Does this person have an issue with Nissan's?  If I had an Audi, Lexus, or BMW like the other people, would I be okay?  Why is my car not worthy because it's a Nissan?
4. I think it's a bit unfair to claim that my car is not that important or special.  It is important and special to me...obviously, or why else would I park like that?  I wouldn't make judgments about them driving a crappy Civic, because that might be important to them.  It's subjective.
5. The hashtag on a hand-written note is ridiculous.  Let's not even be that specific.  The hashtag on a note about someone's parking is ridiculous.  This generation has overused and misused the hashtag.  The very name implies that it was supposed to be a TAG.  A way for a group to be notified when a certain tag is used.  It is not and in no way becomes a descriptor simply by summarizing your blog, tweet, post, or hand-written note in a run-on sentence with a pound symbol in front of it.  If it doesn't notify anyone, then it's not a tag.  And if it serves no purpose, then stop using it.  It's just dumb.
6. And finally, I find it both comical and presumptuous to assume that a regular human parks "correctly."  What is a regular human anyway?  Who defines that?  And regular?  What an odd word choice.  I mean is it defining the difference between a human that runs on regular versus diesel?  Is it helping characterize the difference between a human that is regular versus decaf?  Maybe it's someone that has regular bowel movements versus someone that is constipated?  Let's assume they meant "normal" instead and that they are putting themselves in that category.  Why on earth would I want to be "regular," if a regular person is a moron that wastes time writing and depositing parking notes on someone's car in the middle of nowhere with nobody else around them because the parking job annoys them, despite the fact that it is not causing any harm or impeding their ability to park in any way, and who obviously takes exception to Nissans and feels better about themselves by putting down something that is special to someone else, most likely because they are jealous or envious that a Nissan is much more than they drive or possibly will ever drive, and then feels the need to fake tag the note with emphasis to a group that doesn't exist nor would probably care about the note even if they did?  That's okay, I'll take abnormal...thanks.

Wrinkles

Every year I notice that I am getting more and more wrinkles at the corners of my eyes.  It used to bother me, because it is an ever-present reminder that I am getting older.  No matter how many creams or cucumbers I try, the wrinkles are always there.  I used to hate seeing those wrinkles, hate what they represented, hate to admit that I am no longer in my twenties and soon no longer in my thirties either.  Yes, I used to hate them...until...I realized what they truly represented. 

Those wrinkles are not from age.  Maybe the reason that my skin doesn't snap back into its smoothness is, but not the wrinkles.  The wrinkles are from laughter.  The etched lines of bunched cheeks that are pressed together by my huge and mirthful smile.  Not once, but thousands of times throughout my life.

So, now when I see those wrinkles at the corners of my eyes, I am okay with them.  Because those wrinkles mean that I was laughing too much.  They represent all of the times that someone made me laugh.  They represent all of the times that I made myself laugh.  They represent all of the times that I made someone else laugh and couldn't help but laugh along with them.  And that must mean that I have enjoyed my life.