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Got to be willing to be wrong

I don't know if it's going to last but the suns out! I'm ready to unthaw.

My first car was an Aquamarine 1968 Ford Falcon station wagon.



Above is a '69 and a much more pleasant color but you get the idea. The car was a gift from my Mom through my brother Dale. He gave her a different car and the wagon got passed on to me. I loved it. I was 16 and being a relatively good kid, could come and go as I pleased.

My friends and I took to calling it The Tank and it felt like one. It had a solid 289 engine and positraction rear wheel drive. The body was fairly straight and aside from the odd petrified French fry or chicken nugget, the interior was passable. My ride was huge with room for 6 teenagers and that was before we put people in the cargo area!

One of the strongest feelings that I carry with me from driving these older cars is a sense of safety. Cars prior to the 80's were, generally, made of solid steel and compared to today's cars seem indestructible. I can't count the number of times I've made a statement like "My current car vs. my first car? No contest, my Ford Falcon would crush one of these new plastic vehicles". The truth turns out to be something very different. The reality is our new technology beats the heck out of old solid construction.

In September 2009, for its 50^th anniversary the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety celebrated by performing their standard head on collision test between a 2009 Chevy Malibu and a 1959 Chevy Bel Air. The results were, well, startling. Here's the video (you may want to click on the video and watch it in a larger screen, some of the text gets cut off in the blog here).



With some thought it starts to make sense.  The technology put into the construction of the modern automobile is pretty amazing stuff.  Crumple zones, air bags, seatbelts, head rests are all things that contribute to why, as demonstrated in the video above, my 2010 Hyundai is so much safer than that old wagon of mine.

Why is it that we are so predisposed to believing that our modern way of living is so much less desirable than the recent past?  This way of thinking creeps into lots of places.  There's a huge push to return to natural food sources, stop using pesticides, and using hormones.  In this blog while questioning the "good" in technology I've encouraged people to tune out and have a look outside now and then.

Human's have an amazing ability to convince ourselves that if enough people say it then it must be true.  Hitler was unfortunately correct when he said "If you tell a lie long enough, loud enough, and often enough, the people will believe it."  It's good to have our assumptions challenged by things like the collision above. 

Here are a few thoughts about our recent past.  Life expectancy in Colonial America was under 25 years.  40% of children failed to reach adulthood.  In the early 20th century, that number increased to 45 years.  Today, thanks largely to advances in public health measures, and safer more abundant food sources, life expectancy is an average 67.2 years.

Before you start emailing me images of chickens in cages that are essentially two oversized breasts and a head, I'm not advocating injecting every grain of food produced with Methylethyldeath.  What I am saying is that we make frequent decisions, small and large, over things such as auto safety, food supply and climate.  Those decisions impact where trillions of dollars are spent and huge amounts of resources are applied.  With what's at stake I think it compels us to make sure that we are operating on a foundation of facts and doing our best to seek the truth.

As we go about choosing what products we buy and how we cast our votes perhaps it's worth the time to read up a little to make sure the truth matches the packaging. What does "all natural" or "organic" mean? Is there a single definition? What about carbon footprints and melting ice? If those questions just seem too daunting, here's one you might consider asking, "Who's profiting from what's being said?" It's amazing how often the answer to that question can be used as a measure of value in a statement.

Don't drive angry! Drive weird!

Nice woofer you got there

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. I was wow'd by the number of articles on the web news this year on the subject. From the significance of eggs, to the plausibility of a physical body resurrection and "how many Christians hold to that belief". I did so much head shaking over the weekend my neck hurt.

I live in a pretty quiet neighborhood. I wouldn't use the word sleepy. You still have to lock your doors and I don't think I'd live here without a burglar alarm, but compared to living in the city it's peaceful. Even out here though you will still get a "9x stereo" roll by and make our windows rattle. By 9x I mean a car with a stereo worth nine times the value of the car it's installed in.

Where do I start with this one? It makes my head swim.

What gives these rolling Eustachian tube cleaners their removal power is the subwoofer or "woofer".

These bass speakers will run the driver anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars. Being generally nerdy, I get the how of the mechanism but as hard as I try I don't get the why. I don't come from the generation that scowls at loud music. When I'm alone in the car I crank up the tunes loud enough that I can't hear my cell phone ring. In some of the cars I've owned turning the music up was how I solved most mechanical problems. When those wheel bearings started to make noise, "pump up the volume". Ok, so in the long run not the most economical form of automobile maintenance, but I'm not much for anything that doesn't come with a keyboard.

I considered that it may be the kind of music that says to the driver "what would really heighten my experience would be if there was enough base produced to occasionally cause one of my toenails to pop off". The only form of music I could think that seemed to fit was Rap.

I'm not a fan of Rap; in fact I don't really consider it music. I might put it in the same category as Beatnik poetry. Please don't hear me say that I'm making a stand against Rap as an art form or making a generally statement in opposition to all who create or listen to it. I'm the last person anyone should come to for input on anything that falls under the heading "art". I just don't get it personally.

Ok, back to subwoofers and Rap. In casual observation that loud thumping bass does appear to go hand in hand with Rap. The more I thought about it though the harder it became to be convinced that to call oneself a connoisseur required a "Womp-o-matic 200 Decibel Knee Krusher". Sure, I understand the adrenaline rush associated with a driving beat like that, but does having it loud enough to create a pressure wave that forces cars next to you on the freeway to go momentarily out of phase with the universe? Somehow I doubt that's a requirement.

It got me to thinking about similar things I observe, for instance, people with loud motorcycles. Again, I'm not a mechanical guy, but I can't imagine a scenario where any vehicle on a public roadway needs so much horsepower that coming in contact with a few pebbles might cause them to transition from "rolling" to "flying". Again, I appreciate enough oomph to get up to merging speed or to pass a slow moving vehicle (where it's legal), but I seem to be able to accomplish this without hardware on my car that risks cracking the pavement.

So yah, it's the cool factor. I get it, I really do. I've lived much of my life trying to get there. When I was younger I got frustrated because I never seemed to fit in with the cool kids. As I got older I started to think that what made those kids cool were the things they had. I chased that for a while. I don't have the physique or eye for clothes, so I tried collecting other things to get cool. It took me a while but eventually I saw folly in that.

My friend Dan puts the word "consumer" up there with some of the most reviled he's heard. I've seen his facial expressions change when it's used casually in a sentence. While I don't get quite to the places he does with it the discussions have caused me to change my thinking about how, where, and why I buy things. I probably won't be giving up my big screen but I do look at the value of placed on stuff and what that says about their owner differently than before. It's been a catalyst for some fundamental changes in the way I live my life.

What I want to say when folks pull up next to me, car windows flexing to the beat, wheel rims giving the illusion their car is still in motion, is that most of us are just annoyed by it. I'd hesitate to claim that most people reach a point where they stop chasing cool. My guess is that their definition of it just changes as they grow older, after all age is no guarantee of wisdom. Allow me however, to make a small suggestion before you upsize your subwoofer or put the next louder muffler on your car. As an experiment, take that money, and make a charitable donation. Maybe buy some food and drop it off at a local food bank. However you define it, try using that money to better someone else's life. My bet is doing that will make you feel cool, though it may keep you from looking the part. That's ok though, the feeling lasts longer than the look.

At the very least it may save us all some trips to the dentist and auto glass repair shop!

Don't drive angry! Drive weird!

TugDug

Wow, Monday was a wild drive home. Going up the South Center Hill the hail was coming down so hard I was starting to worry about our windshield. It was so thick on the road that cars were losing traction. After the hail came the rain. Big sloppy rain coming down at a rate that even with our wipers on full blast we had trouble seeing.

I've mentioned my friend Doug here before. Doug is one of those men that are slowly disappearing from the American landscape. He's a wiz with all things mechanical and displays no hesitation when asked to crawl under machinery to see where "that drip is coming from". From what I've seen he can drive just about anything. I've seen him behind the wheel of a car, a tractor, a tow truck, and a front loader the size of Michigan. He is truly blessed with a wide range of skills and abilities. This alone isn't what makes him an endangered species. You see, Doug also possesses a truly genuine heart for people.

I know many people I would describe as kind. I've been blessed to know a larger than average number of folks who put their kindness into practice and the term "salt of the earth" fits them well. Doug however will always be who I think of when I hear the phrase "Be salt and light".

My friend Doug wears his love for people like a sandwich board. It's easy to see and the reading lamp is lit.

I wake up in the morning like a grumpy disoriented bear, scratching, grumbling and squinting with one eye looking for something to swat at. I imagine that Doug gets out of bed, does something akin to an Irish jig, and says "Who am I going to get to help today!" It sounds fanciful I know, but if you knew Doug you'd be able to imagine it too, if only a little.

One of the other things that Doug can drive, and it blows me away, is a tug boat. In fact that's what he does for a living. His boat is moored in Tacoma and he works all over the Puget Sound but spends a good deal of time in the San Juan Island area. To me this qualifies him as having one of and perhaps the most interesting commute. He's often gone for a week or more at a time and lately he's been sending pictures of his trip using his camera phone. I think Doug would have been quite at home in an era where people drew on cave walls. He is adept at communicating with pictures. His version of "texting" is writing a note on a napkin, taking a picture of it and sending it to the recipient. Here's Doug showing me where he was at one day.

 

 

Here's the view from his "driver's seat".

 

 

It really does make a bright spot in my day when he catches one of these shots and sends them my way.

Doug and I are very different people. You put a wrench in my hand and the most likely end result will be a bump or welt. I try hard never to use a hammer out of a strong dislike for emergency rooms. Just last weekend I stained the deck and opening the bucket of stain was nearly a cause for breaking out the insurance card. I've always been that way. Not only am I lacking aptitude in those areas but for the most part I don't have the urge to work with my hands. Don't get me wrong, I have skills, just not that kind.

I'm particularly good at identifying voice over actors. People are frequently amazed when I call out "Kiefer Sutherland" or "Robert De Niro" during a credit card commercial. If you ever find a need for someone to quote Star Trek facts, or recite lyrics from obscure bands like Oingo Boing or The Tubes, I'm your man. Tammy recently discovered that I can do a pretty good Bobby McFerrin impression and if there's a Muppet emergency I can do a passing Kermit singing Rainbow Connection. Oh, and yah, that computer thing pays the bills, but really, making sure people can get on You Tube or umm, well, read my blog doesn't really make a list of vital skills. When the power goes out no one rings me up and says "Wes, we need more RAM!" Good thing too because I'm too busy calling others to ask which hole the gas goes in on the generator.

Thankfully I know people like Doug and with any luck he's in town when the power goes out.

Don't drive angry! Drive weird!

P.S. – For those of you that don't know, the different colored text in these posts is links to something else. All my links are to things I chose, for instance the link for "these shots" points to the rest of the pictures Doug has sent me. Sometimes links in blogs aren't placed there by the author and just amount to advertising. So feel free to follow my links, it points to something I meant you to see ehehe.

A voice from above

Tammy is home and just in time too. I was close to forgetting what vegetables look like and was on my last Hot Pocket. Oh, and apparently if you keep compressing the garbage in the can with your foot it becomes impossible to remove. Live and learn. Hmm, and I appear to be missing several right shoes.

I'm not a fan of flying. I always end up with marks from the arm rests where I tuck my muffin tops in. I'd provide a link to a definition for "muffin tops" but I couldn't find one that didn't include inappropriate pictures of girls wearing jeans 2 sizes too small. So anyway, let's say I'm as comfortable on an airplane as a The Church Lady at an Ozzy Ozborne concert. Tammy has to do an Atlanta trip 3 or more times a year and she dreads it. Her trip back this time was a little different though.

We use technology to stay in touch when Tammy is out of town. We try to have video calls each night using Live Messenger but at a minimum we text chat through the day. Nothing makes up for not being together but it does take the hallow feeling away some. If you've ever spent significant time in an empty room you know what I mean. I've moved into new apartments and been too busy to unpack for a week or two. By the time I hung pictures and set out knickknacks I'd start to get fidgety. I'm still alone in the room when Tammy is away but the technology keeps me from getting fidgety.

Tammy's "commute" home on Friday had a little help from the Internet. Her flight was 7 hours long including a layover in Milwaukie. During the layover she sent me email with an update on her progress. We swapped several messages and she mentioned that AirTran was providing free Wi-Fi during her flight so for the leg to Seattle she broke out the laptop and we chatted. A couple weeks ago my friend Doug, who's a tug boat captain, sent me a link to a site that allows you to track ships at sea in real time. That got me to thinking and sure enough I found the same thing for air traffic.

So here I sat in our living room in Lakebay while Tammy was 36,000 feet over Wisconsin traveling at 400+ mph. She's telling me how cramped the seat is while listening to XM satellite radio and I'm letting her know as she crosses over state boundaries or flying over major landmarks. How crazy is that? The world does seem smaller these days. Her battery went dead shortly before she crossed in to Montana but I continued to monitor her progress. When she approached Washington State I left the house and the timing was dead on. As I walked up to her baggage carrousel she was coming down the escalator.

Ok, sure, I was about to do the nerd equivalent of the Ickey Shuffle but every time I get close to describing some technology as virtuous I start to think about the shadows left behind. While I never have to feel the severity of that separation the cost is never feeling the joy that comes from a reunion after a long absence. I may never have to sit in a quiet empty room, but it's becoming increasingly hard to find that empty room when I want it. Along with the all the benefits that technology brings comes a sort of digital leash.

I'm not saying that I'm concerned enough that I'm considering disconnecting the power and recycling our computers. I can pull off the look (I have the legs for it), but those brown robes are too drafty and I bet that rope belt chafes. It's enough though to keep me from giving my entire life over to a digital version of itself. There will always be something restorative about the sound a house makes when it settles. I love being able to listen to a good book in the car but there are times when the convenience can't compete with a comfortable chair and the feel of a hard back book in your hands.

So thanks for tuning into this blog and allowing me to decompress my stress. Now turn off your computer and have a look outside. If the lights are on out there then it means the thing we call "The Sun" is in the sky, don't stare at that, it will hurt. But if there aren't any clouds between you and it, you'll likely feel warm and that's pretty nice. If it's dark, spend a few minutes looking up at the sky. Those endless points of light you see are what the writer of Genesis in a footnote on creation referred to when he said "He made the stars also". And that my friend is real technology.

Don't drive angry! Drive weird!

A non-commute

Tammy-less, day 3. Supplies are low. Now eat meals compiled from a single main dish … no … time … for side dishes. Ugh. Martini olive rationing has set in.

Having my wife out of town is starting to wear on me. By the time she gets in tomorrow I'll simply be sitting in a corner trying to mediate a conversation my elbows are having on the effects of hand cream on nuclear proliferation (Left, oddly enough favors a strong offense and would like to see deficit spending increased 40% to create missiles powered by Pop Rock candy). When I woke up this morning the room didn't feel right. It was misshapen, and my vision was blurred. I was seeing doubles, 2 beds, and 2 sinks. The furniture no longer looked familiar to me. Not having Tammy around is making me bonkers, well that, or the fact that I stayed in a hotel room in Redmond last night to take a break from the commute.

This reduced my drive to a whopping 7 minutes this morning. It was a nice break. My car barely got up to temperature by the time I pulled into the garage. The experience has me thinking though. The distance between where we live and where we work is more than just a physical space. I slept late yesterday morning and toddled into to work about 9:30. I got a good day's work in then met some friends for dinner at P.F. Chang's in Bellevue Square. Afterward we saw Alice in Wonderland. It was my first time at P.F. Chang's. The food was ok though I have to say I'm not sure what everybody raves about. The movie was a lot of fun but the 3D thing doesn't really flip my lid. The real joy was spending a night out with the guys. One of the few things I miss about living closer to town are nights like that.

I didn't sleep great, ok, but not great. The bed was a little goofy and a bedroom always seems hallow without Tammy in it. Don't get me wrong though, it was a nice room. The internet access was complimentary, something you rarely see these days, the staff was friendly and the hotel was clean. I got in today about 8:00. As I walked into the building, even with the seemly relaxed schedule, I still felt weary. I shouldn't have, but I did.

I'm not sure how or if you experience this, but my brain makes very noticeable changes into different modes. When I'm working, my brain 'clicks' into that mode. I have a mode for home, yet another for vacation, for church, etc. I'm the kind who tends to focus on one major thing at a time so I guess this pattern fits me. I rely on changes in my environment to shift my brain into the next mode. The older I get the more I realize that life is a marathon not a sprint and the more deliberate I am about altering my environment to make the division between modes more pronounced. For instance, when I'm done working for the day I close my work email and do my best to keep it closed until it's time to get back into work mode. Not blurring the line between modes keeps my brain fresh and helps me keep a sustainable pace.

So, as I made the short drive into the office today it was the first time I realized how big an impact being a "country mouse" is having on me. The difference in pace is noticeable and it seems I've incorporated that change into my survival skills. The pace of where I live might actually be working its way into who I am and that surprises me.

I guess I've gone native. I probably won't take up hunting and gathering vegetables still means a trip to Albertsons but apparently the experience runs deeper than that. Go figure.

Don't drive angry! Drive weird!

No way out

Tammy is off to Atlanta for meetings this week. It's like sending a leg or my sense of balance off for several days. The feeling reminds me of my in-law's dog Baxter. At one point he had something go wrong with him, stroke is their best guess. Now he twirls everywhere he goes. He's a sweet little guy but when you call to him you can't help be a little sad watching him spin his way to you. I'll be that way all week, sort of teetering like a comically oversized 18 month old with tech skills in search of comfort food.

You can put on your favorite music and rock out. For some, talk radio gets it done. Some still (headsets please) take the time to call their mom. For me, audio books help me to ignore traffic jams. I'm currently listening to Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. Still though, even with the most effective distraction sitting in traffic is frustrating. It's that sense of freedom just beyond my reach.

I know when I first got a car that freedom made me want to hop around like Rocky at the top of the stairs. It must be in some small way the feeling that a bird gets when it flies. Who knows, but I like the image it puts in my head and I'm certainly not the first to use it. When I get slowed to walking pace it feels like falling back to the earth. Every time it happens I can't help but think about the cause ahead. At the very least it's going to be a bunch of people who don't know how to merge and at most it will be a serious accident caused by some who was behaving like a schmuck. The slower the crawl the longer I have to get ready to shake my fist at them. Oh boy, if it turns out to just be a bad merge I nearly blow a gasket because there's no one to rail at.

By the time I get home I'm so angry I could spit nails. Tammy has various solutions to calm me down. She shows me the Daily Puppy, waves red meat at me and if all else fails she head butts me in the ribs.

I get this way about what goes on in politics too. I see our representatives enacting laws for no reason I can see other than it gives them a claim to fame for the next election. No one solves problems anymore; they just nurse them along to justify the need for a support system. My work is much the same, just a never ending series of meaningless tasks on the horizon. No end in sight, no hope for release, no ability to make a run for freedom.

It's starting to feel like I'm going to be stuck in traffic until I take the dirt nap.

I'm bothered by this immensely.

I inhabit this space.

Tammy and I have talked about it a lot lately. Saturday we were having one of our permutations on this conversation. Sunday morning we scooted into church on the verge of being late. Sometimes God's presence is so full in that building that it changes the way the light moves in the room. Sunday was one of those days and Dan spoke right into the heart of this issue for me. The short version is that Dan reminded me that I need to remember to separate the person from their actions. It's such a simple concept and for me one of the hardest things to put into practice. Hate the sin, love the sinner. It's surely how I want to be treated.

Now I just got to figure out how this looks when traffic is merging. Maybe I could shake my fist at them but be holding a sign that says "big merge hugs!" Mostly I guess I better learn to stop taking it personally and find solace in the fact that the person behind that wheel is just that, a person. They might be someone who is also having a long day, a stressful job, weighty obligations hanging over their head, and perhaps not the support system at home that I do. That sounds like a good start at least.

Hey, a bumper stick that says "Hate the merge, love the merger!"

Don't drive angry! Drive weird!