A friend of mine just let me know of a frustrating and seemingly unfair issue in his neck of the woods: A popular and much-loved priest in South Dakota is apparently about to be deported due to what seems to be a pretty lame bureaucratic snafu (pemanent residency application accepted but later lost/misplaced). An advocacy site is here: HelpFather.
But nothing is quite as simple or as black-and-white as it seems, of course, at least in my mind :-)
Here are reasons why I was tempted not to post this on my blog:
- I’m agnostic, and am not a fan of Catholic doctrine / influence / etc.
- This matter’s already gotten press. What more could my humble blog do?
- Speaking of my humble blog, and selfishly for a moment, would my readers really care about this somewhat-local-oriented issue at all?
- This guy’s a priest. Can’t he just pray for this to get fixed? If that’s ineffective, maybe it’s God’s will for him to return to Ireland?
- There are always at least two sides to every issue. Can we trust that the folks advocating on behalf of this priest are telling the whole story?
And reasons why I ultimately posted this:
- A favor to my friend :-)
- Someone’s gotta help the little guy. And this one seems like a nice fella, mired in an uncaring and often-crappy bureaucracy.
- I do have some power as a blogger. Perhaps by helping get this guy’s predicament known outside of South Dakota I—and my readers—could make a difference.
- Sometimes it’s the little things in life that matter. Is this guy really important in the grand scheme of things? Maybe not. But he means a lot to my friend and my friend’s family. Lots of small things, “small people”... they all add up, all contribute to the richness of communities, to our planet.
- And, let’s be honest here… I bet people are more interested in this story than in my swinger blatherings, no? :-P (hmm… I’m combining a priest-related posting with a swinger reference; it’s a good thing I am agnostic, or I’d be going to hell :D).
* * *
What about you?
What do you think of this priest’s situation? Of me posting this on my blog?
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Three short tales of not speak English
Something you can count on
I managed to get up at 8am to go to the gym today. This is impressive, because:- Today is Saturday.
- I went to the gym yesterday.
But that’s not really the story here. Rather, we had a substitute teacher for our gym class who giggled in an adorable, Japanese-school-girl’ish way, and apologized for not speaking much English. Continuing on in mildly broken English, she pleaded for us to just follow her and everything would be okay.
Okay, then. But I soon realized that something wasn’t quite okay.
Before long, it was clear that she had a pretty impressive and ready vocabulary for someone who “no speak much English.” The only consistent FAIL part was her use, er, abuse of numbers.
“Just four more!... Okay… Eight, Seven, Six…”
“Last one! Good!... Ten, nine…”
By the end of class, I was convinced that her English was just fine. Indeed, her masochistic promising of “almost done!” and “just one more!” was simply an oft used evil trick of gym trainers seeking to perversely motivate people, Peanuts style (“Of course I’m not going to move the football, Charlie Brown!”)
* * *
Checking out my German
About a decade ago, I found myself living in Germany. My entire German knowledge was squeezed in beforehand by a handful of one-hour German tutoring lessons and a “Learn German Today!” type book which I frantically eyeballed for the first 42 minutes of my flight to Germany before semi-dozing off.
In due time I managed—out of intense personal interest and self-preservation concerns—to learn approximately 1,742 food words. But other vocabularies were more difficult and more risky. Therefore, when it was time for me to set up a checking account, I knew without a doubt that it was time to plead for English.
In the Deutsche Bank in Mannheim, all in German (translated for your convenience)…
Me: Good morning. Do you speak English?
Bank Frau, beaming mischievously: No, no I don’t. But you speak good German!
Me, getting both scared and frustrated: Hmm. Does anyone speak English here?
Bank Frau: No, only German.
Young woman behind her, now also smiling broadly: Correct, only German. Speak German, please.
I think I subsequently set the record for longest-time-to-set-up-checking-account. Thankfully, I inexplicably escaped ending up with a home loan, a retirement account, seven different German Gov’t bonds, and a free t-shirt proclaiming “Ich Bin Ein Berliner.”
* * *
The brilliantly stupid Spanish teacher
Back in junior high, when I struggling through Spanish class, my dad told me a little story about an old high school teacher of his, whom we’ll call Señor Gonzalez. Señor Gonzalez apparently didn’t speak English. ANY English.
“Lo siento, no hablo inglés. Español, por favor.” y “Cómo? Cómo? No hablo inglés!”
And, as you can imagine, this was both incomprehensible and maddening to my dad and his fellow first-year Spanish students.
Bravely or masochistically, my dad stuck with this teacher for all four years of high school, improving his Spanish greatly. The same linguistic improvement seemingly couldn’t be claimed by Señor Gonzalez, however; despite living in the heart of America for undoubtedly far more than my dad’s four years of high school, the stubborn Spaniard still spoke not a lick of English.
Eager to take a break from his studies, my dad got tickets for the senior prom and arrived early to help set up. As he began walking around to the back of the auditorium, he overheard Señor Gonzales quietly talking with the principal:
“Yeah, looks like we’re gonna need some more punch and…”
My dad stood at the door entrance, jaw dropped and staring in disbelief at the English-without-an-accent-Gonzalez.
“Uh… uh… hola, Jerry! Cómo estás?
* * *
Have you had any similar experiences? Ever faked not speaking English (or another language) that you actually know?
Paradox of choice
I’m not a crazy athlete, but I like working out at the gym and also dancing a few times a week.
Finding good dance shoes wasn’t so hard for me. I got personal recommendations from some of my lindy hopping friends, and was also delighted that the friendly folks at dancestore.com were happy to offer personalized suggestions over the phone. For the record (and now from personal experience), I recommend that all lindy hoppers get this dance sneaker; it makes turning and spinning a breeze.
But I’m having a much harder time finding good cross-training and running shoes. I’ve had good luck with New Balance shoes in the past, but it’s hard to find a good selection of ‘em locally in my size, so I decided to go online. Sure enough, via Amazon.com or Zappos and undoubtedly countless other sites, I have a choice of zillions of shoes. And that would be okay if there was some help filtering… but there’s not! :o
Yes, you can do a search and narrow down by technology, but you end up having to do sets of half a dozen clicks repeatedly to decipher the meaning of brandspeak features (NBZip, Abzorb, etc.), and then lots of clicking back and so on.
I want one of the following:
- A nice wizard that asks me what I want to do with the shoes (running, walking, activities that require lateral stability like kickboxing, etc.), lets me specify a price range, style type, etc., and then recommends a set of shoes for me.
- A comprehensive table (in HTML, Flash, PDF, I don’t care) that shows a list of shoes, approximate street prices, features, target activity, etc.
Because right now, let me tell you, I’m tempted to say $#!* it and just stick with my current trusty shoes and go do something more fun like, oh, floss my teeth or relabel my matchbook collection or lock myself in a closet with Vanna White night after night after night. In other words, New Balance, NO SALE FOR YOU.
Major brands, listen up. In this world of an increasingly crazy amount of choices, you need to do the following if you want to remain competitive:
- Make your content FINDABLE by people and search engines.
- Make it ACCESSIBLE so, for instance, I can look up stats on your shoes on my phone when I’m at the local sports store with too-busy or ignorant salesfolks.
- Make the info DIGESTIBLE so I can learn what I need to know and make informed decisions
- Make the damn thing EASY TO BUY, but I’m guessing you’ve heard that enough times already from other frustrated bloggers.
- Offer outstanding SUPPORT post-sale.
- Give me ONGOING INFO but only when and how I want it (customized e-mail newsletters that I can easily unsubscribe from, RSS feeds, etc.)
* * *
In the meantime, if anyone knows of a good athletic shoe guide or chart and such, let me know :-D.
Oh, and watch this video on The Paradox of Choice. I had the pleasure of hearing this fellow at a Google TechTalk; Professor Schwartz is an engaging speaker and absolutely spot-on in his commentary.
(it’s even close captioned!)
Finding good dance shoes wasn’t so hard for me. I got personal recommendations from some of my lindy hopping friends, and was also delighted that the friendly folks at dancestore.com were happy to offer personalized suggestions over the phone. For the record (and now from personal experience), I recommend that all lindy hoppers get this dance sneaker; it makes turning and spinning a breeze.
But I’m having a much harder time finding good cross-training and running shoes. I’ve had good luck with New Balance shoes in the past, but it’s hard to find a good selection of ‘em locally in my size, so I decided to go online. Sure enough, via Amazon.com or Zappos and undoubtedly countless other sites, I have a choice of zillions of shoes. And that would be okay if there was some help filtering… but there’s not! :o
Yes, you can do a search and narrow down by technology, but you end up having to do sets of half a dozen clicks repeatedly to decipher the meaning of brandspeak features (NBZip, Abzorb, etc.), and then lots of clicking back and so on.
I want one of the following:
- A nice wizard that asks me what I want to do with the shoes (running, walking, activities that require lateral stability like kickboxing, etc.), lets me specify a price range, style type, etc., and then recommends a set of shoes for me.
- A comprehensive table (in HTML, Flash, PDF, I don’t care) that shows a list of shoes, approximate street prices, features, target activity, etc.
Because right now, let me tell you, I’m tempted to say $#!* it and just stick with my current trusty shoes and go do something more fun like, oh, floss my teeth or relabel my matchbook collection or lock myself in a closet with Vanna White night after night after night. In other words, New Balance, NO SALE FOR YOU.
Major brands, listen up. In this world of an increasingly crazy amount of choices, you need to do the following if you want to remain competitive:
- Make your content FINDABLE by people and search engines.
- Make it ACCESSIBLE so, for instance, I can look up stats on your shoes on my phone when I’m at the local sports store with too-busy or ignorant salesfolks.
- Make the info DIGESTIBLE so I can learn what I need to know and make informed decisions
- Make the damn thing EASY TO BUY, but I’m guessing you’ve heard that enough times already from other frustrated bloggers.
- Offer outstanding SUPPORT post-sale.
- Give me ONGOING INFO but only when and how I want it (customized e-mail newsletters that I can easily unsubscribe from, RSS feeds, etc.)
* * *
In the meantime, if anyone knows of a good athletic shoe guide or chart and such, let me know :-D.
Oh, and watch this video on The Paradox of Choice. I had the pleasure of hearing this fellow at a Google TechTalk; Professor Schwartz is an engaging speaker and absolutely spot-on in his commentary.
(it’s even close captioned!)
Thursday, May 22, 2008
EPIC DIET FAIL
Yesterday, I bought “Wii Fit” (a balance board + training CD). I decided I was really committed to exercise more and eat right. Today, unfortunately, I missed breakfast due to a dentist appointment and came into work late. I grabbed a pack of cashews… not too bad.
And that’s when it happened. Charles walked by my desk.
“Cafe 150?” he suggested.
“I just ate a bit ago, but thanks. I’ll grab lunch later.”
“Seared ahi tuna!” he added, temptingly.
(Hmm, I thought to myself, that sounds pretty healthy).
“And prime rib. And buffalo wings!”
Oh boy. Maybe I’ll go and just eat the tuna.
I did, but I didn’t. What I did have was this:
- Chef salad
- Seared ahi tuna with wasabi crème fraiche
- Prime rib with horseradish cream
- Rice pilaf with almonds, onions, carrots, and peas
- Steam spring veggies with butter and parsley
- Saffron rice
One of the chefs was walking by and kindly pointed out an intriguing big brown vat. This, then, led me to
- Chocolate-peanut-butter-milk
Right next to it was the dessert table. Being the disciplined guy that I am, I just grabbed one… to go, even. Which resulted in my procurement of
- Apricot Caramel bread pudding
with blackberries, condensed milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice; served with chocolate cream cheese
* * *
With some off-the-napkin calculations, I believe it would take approximately 42 hours of intensive aerobics with the Wii Fit to burn the calories I’ve just consumed.
This, I think, could be classified as EPIC DIET FAIL :-\
And that’s when it happened. Charles walked by my desk.
“Cafe 150?” he suggested.
“I just ate a bit ago, but thanks. I’ll grab lunch later.”
“Seared ahi tuna!” he added, temptingly.
(Hmm, I thought to myself, that sounds pretty healthy).
“And prime rib. And buffalo wings!”
Oh boy. Maybe I’ll go and just eat the tuna.
I did, but I didn’t. What I did have was this:
- Chef salad
- Seared ahi tuna with wasabi crème fraiche
- Prime rib with horseradish cream
- Rice pilaf with almonds, onions, carrots, and peas
- Steam spring veggies with butter and parsley
- Saffron rice
One of the chefs was walking by and kindly pointed out an intriguing big brown vat. This, then, led me to
- Chocolate-peanut-butter-milk
Right next to it was the dessert table. Being the disciplined guy that I am, I just grabbed one… to go, even. Which resulted in my procurement of
- Apricot Caramel bread pudding
with blackberries, condensed milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice; served with chocolate cream cheese
* * *
With some off-the-napkin calculations, I believe it would take approximately 42 hours of intensive aerobics with the Wii Fit to burn the calories I’ve just consumed.
This, I think, could be classified as EPIC DIET FAIL :-\
Friday, May 16, 2008
Unmushy And Obnoxiously Geeky Thoughts on Love
In junior high, I was not thinking about love.
In high school, love was for everyone but me.
In undergrad, love was only for the Bad Boys.
In grad school, I was delighted to realize that good guys could find love, too.
And now, I am tempted to believe that love is surprisingly, frustratingly, completely random.
The Rational Me yearns to apply logic to love, typically less out of need than pure intellectual curiosity. Do [x] and you will find love. Be [y] and you will find love. Or, most simplistically and IMHO reasonably, be a Good Person and you will be well-deserving of love and will be correspondingly likely to find it.
And yet, despite seemingly having many data points, I fail to find many firm correlations, much less prerequisites or guarantees.
What triggered this musing? Well, I was out last Saturday night and bantering with two acquaintances I much admire. Both professed almost matter-of-factly that they were single and—despite wishes to the contrary—expected to remain so for the foreseeable future. They had, at least for the time being, pretty much given up on men. And to stave off the anticipated finger-pointing, no, I am not a decent match due to some rather solid reasons. And further pre-empting unwise contributions from the peanut gallery: no, blogging on a Friday night does not a loser make, and commenting on such timing can hardly make one an erudite pundit. ;-)
Anyway, these women are quite bright, athletic, artistic, thoughtful, friendly, and attractive. “Good people.” And single.
And yet, in painful contrast, I have the displeasure of too-frequently encountering masses of woefully mismatched pairs… of dense men with brilliant women, supercilious women with kindly men, and so on. Ah, and given a recent (outstanding) California event, let me add, in timeliness and fairness: slothful men with industrious men.
Where once I bitterly rued a chasm of inopportunity (unopportunity?) in the world of dating and love, now I see delicious opportunity tinged by capriciousness and chaos. Certainly a marked and personally-much-appreciated improvement, yes, but undeniably annoying when considering the greater scheme of things. Yes, not everything can or even should be quantified, analyzed, predicted, even explained… but a bit more karmic matching would be nice. If somehow the Good folks could consistently win in the game of love, Darwin might not be appeased but we’d likely have a kinder, more productive, and happier society long-term. And as a refreshing bonus, I’d not be stuck in awkward conversations trying to defend the lameness, timidness, or simply cluelessness of my male brethren.
In high school, love was for everyone but me.
In undergrad, love was only for the Bad Boys.
In grad school, I was delighted to realize that good guys could find love, too.
And now, I am tempted to believe that love is surprisingly, frustratingly, completely random.
The Rational Me yearns to apply logic to love, typically less out of need than pure intellectual curiosity. Do [x] and you will find love. Be [y] and you will find love. Or, most simplistically and IMHO reasonably, be a Good Person and you will be well-deserving of love and will be correspondingly likely to find it.
And yet, despite seemingly having many data points, I fail to find many firm correlations, much less prerequisites or guarantees.
What triggered this musing? Well, I was out last Saturday night and bantering with two acquaintances I much admire. Both professed almost matter-of-factly that they were single and—despite wishes to the contrary—expected to remain so for the foreseeable future. They had, at least for the time being, pretty much given up on men. And to stave off the anticipated finger-pointing, no, I am not a decent match due to some rather solid reasons. And further pre-empting unwise contributions from the peanut gallery: no, blogging on a Friday night does not a loser make, and commenting on such timing can hardly make one an erudite pundit. ;-)
Anyway, these women are quite bright, athletic, artistic, thoughtful, friendly, and attractive. “Good people.” And single.
And yet, in painful contrast, I have the displeasure of too-frequently encountering masses of woefully mismatched pairs… of dense men with brilliant women, supercilious women with kindly men, and so on. Ah, and given a recent (outstanding) California event, let me add, in timeliness and fairness: slothful men with industrious men.
Where once I bitterly rued a chasm of inopportunity (unopportunity?) in the world of dating and love, now I see delicious opportunity tinged by capriciousness and chaos. Certainly a marked and personally-much-appreciated improvement, yes, but undeniably annoying when considering the greater scheme of things. Yes, not everything can or even should be quantified, analyzed, predicted, even explained… but a bit more karmic matching would be nice. If somehow the Good folks could consistently win in the game of love, Darwin might not be appeased but we’d likely have a kinder, more productive, and happier society long-term. And as a refreshing bonus, I’d not be stuck in awkward conversations trying to defend the lameness, timidness, or simply cluelessness of my male brethren.
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