The Joy of Refueling

Today I had an epiphany. While I was putting gas in the HHR, I was suddenly struck by how slow the dollars and cents was going up on the pump. Lo and behold, when the hose spigot kicked and then stopped, my total was $28.79. It took a moment for the reality to sink in; after month and years of paying $40 to $50 to fill my gas tank, my expense was under $30.00!

I took a moment to say a short prayer of thanksgiving for fracking.

Gasoline is the life's blood of rural America. Gasoline is a miracle fluid, portable enough to be carried along on any journey, yet powerful enough to provide the thrust to move a 3000 pound vehicle over hill and dale, all the way to Grandmother's house. As a necessary ingredient for American life and commerce, the price of gasoline has a profound effect on the quality of our lives.

$50.00 a barrel oil means cheap gas at the pump and cheap gas at the pump means more money left in our pockets to do other fun stuff. Thanks to the threat from fracking, the Saudis have decided to drown the world in oil.

Glory, Glory Hallalujah! Cheap gas - its a frackin' miracle!

I Like Big Fogs

I am hearing complaints about the dreary, foggy weather we have enjoyed over the past week. Posh!, I say! In December, I like big fogs.

Fog in December means warm air riding over the cold, snowy surface. Warm air in December is welcome because every day over freezing in December means one less day it can be freezing-the-balls-off-a-brass-monkey cold. Every foggy day in December means one less day I have to walk through, drive through or shovel through snow.

Fog in February or March sucks, but in December I enjoy, embrace and like Big Fogs.

Food, Family & Football

Traditional depictions of Thanksgiving usually show turkeys, pilgrims, Native Americans and/or cornucopias. This holidays has sunk deep roots into the psyche of our country. Just think of it, our country has a character causing us to dedicate an entire day to simply expressing gratitude. How unique (and cool) is that?

Since I have been a little boy, Thanksgiving has combined three of my most favorite things in the whole world: Food, Famiily & Football. I don't believe it can get much better. 

Thanksgiving is the best holiday on the calendar.

How Gratitude Can Heal

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. - Melody Beattie

     Living life is risky business. It is a rare person who can make it to adulthood without experiencing some sort of damage.  For some of us, the damage is self-inflicted. But for others, the damage is inflicted by people who are supposed to love us, care for us, protect us. This type of damage is a heinous betrayal, a wounding which comes from people we trust. These are the hurts that are hardest to forgive and forget, for many the wound never heals.

    I have known those carrying around such a terrible hurt. Many times, rather than blame the perpetrator of the crime, they blame themselves. Rather than not being able to forgive the criminal, they can't forgive themselves. Not being able to forgive or forget, the wounding never heals and leads to anger, regret and despair. In this emotional standstill, they become victims yet again. But there is a way to break the cycle, a way out of the emotional morass. Gratitude. 

    There is something about being thankful for the positive things in our life that seems to help us accept the negative events in our lives. Gratitude and appreciation for God's grace seem to make us aware of just how much grace is present in our life and how by accepting that grace, our wounds begin to be healed. By keeping our eyes on the good stuff, we will gradually see the bad stuff recede into the background noise of the past. Where it belongs.

Bread is a Gateway Food

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread eaters.

2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests

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3. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.

4. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!

5. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low occurrence of radiation poisoning, skin cancer, food poisoning and octogenarians.

6. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after only two days.

7. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter and even cold cuts

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8. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.

9. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.

10. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

Globalization, Explained

(This is an e-mail that I received recently and it is a very creative example of how our world has become interconnected. I do not know who the author is, so thanks to Anonymous)

Question: What is the truest definition of Globalization?

Answer: Princess Diana's death.

Question: What do you mean?

Answer: An English Princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, riding in a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was drunk on Scottish whisky, (check the bottle before you change the spelling), followed closely by Italian Paparazzi, on Japanese motorcycles, treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian medicines. This is sent to you by a Canadian, using American Bill Gates' technology, and you're probably reading this on your computer, that uses Taiwanese chips, and a Korean monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant, transported by Indian truck drivers, hijacked by Indonesians, unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen, and trucked to you by Mexicans who are in the US illegally because the current president, born in Kenya and educated as a Muslim in Indonesia refuses to enforce US law.  

That, my friends, is Globalization!

The Hubris of Youth

     Here in our tiny hamlet of Pierz, we recently held a short public "Open Forum" for our candidates for city offices. A question was posed to all the candidates and then each had 2 minutes to answer.

Open Forum

     While 3 of our council candidates (2 open seats) are mature, experienced (let's say on the wrong side of 50) adults, one of our candidates is a nice looking young man barely in his 30's who is very motivated, articulate and full of himself. He carries none of the scars of wrong decisions or wrinkles of worry over serious decisions needing to be made. Due to this inexperience he carries in his mind and in his manner the hubris of having not yet been wrong in his short experience with adulthood.

     He showed his lack of seriousness in his first answer, which demonstrated he has very little understanding of how money works (just put it on the credit card) or how city government really works. His attitude showed to the crowd that he was very certain of his opinion, that his opinion was a novel idea and that he was the only one in the room smart enough to have thought of it. The fact that he came off as an non-serious, unaware fool never occurred to him. Yet his proposed approach to the question and the problem outlined in it was simply foolish. He had disqualified himself for serious consideration for the office he was pursuing and he didn't even know it.

     I was not surprised. Now that I am a grizzled veteran of life, having been knocked down, gotten up and been knocked down again, I am well aware of how stupid I am. In this young man, I saw a younger version of myself; haughty, not self-aware, oblivious to how ignorant I really was, firmly convinced that I was the smartest one in the room.

    It is the hubris of one who has yet to live a serious life. This is the condition which affects youth and the sad truth is that the one thing that can cure such a condition is: the loss of youth.

(All comments must contain your real name and contact information or they will be deleted!)

Why God Wants Us to Have Children

A person comes to this world with one mission from God; to know his love. God loves us and in order for us to come into a complete communion with God, he wants us to love him back. We need, as a person, to understand this love in order to return it to God. Therefore he gives us examples of his love all throughout our lives.

As an infant, we experience the love our mother has for us as we are nurtured and grow into childhood. As we mature, we experience the love of both of our parents and, with the grace of God, the love of our grandparents. A father's love is essential during our maturation to make us feel connected to the great whole of the world and as an example of righteous living. These are examples of God's unconditional love for us.

As an adult, we begin to feel romantic love, a calling to find a partner with who to share our lives. We again experience God's love in this relationship as we work with our partner, in communion with them, to build a relationship which will then allow us to experience the greatest love of  all; the love a parent has for a child.

This last type of love, the love one has for their child, is the ultimate example in our lives of God's love. By becoming a parent, we can fully understand the love that God has for His children. The selfless love that God has for us that drove Him to the cross to save us. He wants us to return that love to Him in a relationship that is at the center of our lives.

This is why God wants us to have children. Children are a blessing brought forth from romantic love (our second greatest love) to give the complete person an example of God's love in their lives.

3 Ways to Monday

     Today is one of those fall days that are more often endured rather than enjoyed. The dreary cloud cover, rain and wind, combined with a Vikings humiliation at the hands of the Lions yesterday, can cause one to be not only sad but damn near suicidal.

     It is easy on a dreary day to hunker down and hide inside to wait for sunshine. However, that may be a short-sighted approach to enjoying the remaining tolerable days left before the hard, cold curtain of winter comes crashing down in this God-forsaken climate. 

     To help you take maximum advantage of the time you have left, here are a couple of ways to find beauty out of the house, even on a dreary day.

     1) Take some portraits. It is a fortunate coincidence that dreary days provide excellent, diffuse light for taking pictures of people, pets and plants. Sunshine can make people squint, cause unfortunate reflections off of plant surfaces and create harsh shadows. Taking pictures in the diffuse light of a cloudy day can allow for soft contrasts which are perfect for capturing close-ups.

    

2) Walk in the rain. Rainfalls in the autumn tend to be more drizzle, mist and fog than downpours. A rainy day in fall is a perfect opportunity to walk through a damp world filled with puddles, dripping foliage and the musky smells of soggy, fallen plants ripe for harvest. Autumn really is the best time of the year to be outside in Minnesota. Don't let a little water stop you from enjoying it.

    

 3) Go have coffee. Cloudy, misty days are a perfect time to go to the local coffee shop and sit at the counter. The weather is a perfect topic for starting conversations with folks who are in the same situation as you, miserable. Start talking about the weather, move on to the lousy Vikings football team and see where the conversation takes you from there. You never know what is going to happen and who knows? Maybe you'll make a new friend today.

One can always find plenty of stuff to bitch about; and during an election season it is easy to get into a lousy, lousy mood. As I get older, I try not to waste time being bummed out and try to enjoy each day however it comes. So, on a dreary October Monday, I try to find anyway I can to make it a day I can remember.

Failure is not meant to be permanent

Stumbling is an inevitable consequence of walking on a rocky path. No matter how careful one is in choosing their footing, if one wishes to advance, risks are going to have to be taken. Risk means the ever-present possibility of failure. Embracing life means we embrace the possibility of failure. We should accept the risk; we don't have to accept the failure.

When I have failed in the past, I have always felt stung by what seemed to be my own stupidity. My post-failure postmortems then included an unhealthy fascination with my personal failings and weaknesses. However, life has had a good go at me, and I now realize that most of my failures were a result of my having either stepped out unprepared or unwilling. I was either ignorant of the size of the challenge awaiting me and was not up to the task or I was unwilling to make the sacrifices required to be successful in that particular endeavor. This doesn't mean I stop taking risks or accepting challenges. It simply means I make more informed choices in the risks I choose to accept.

I still embrace challenges and I still fail. However, I no longer allow failure to be an impediment in my path. If I stumble or fall, I get up. If I find my path blocked by failure, I just look for another way to reach my goals.

I always try to keep in mind that failure is a temporary condition, not a job description.

"Failure is delay, not defeat. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing and being nothing." - Denis Waitley

Three Things You Must Do This Weekend

Ye Old Chestnut

We are looking at what could very well be the last decent stretch of warm weather of the year. Over the weekend, here are three things you MUST do instead of working. One can always work when the winter winds are blowing and you are up to your ass in snow.

1) Walk, do not run, jog or drive, through a stand of woods. Walking through the woods allows you to become a part of the landscape and allows you to see, hear, smell and feel the changes that the woods are going through as autumn brings the end of the season. Colors are going to be near peak this weekend. Do not miss it.

2) If you are able to get outside, play football. Whether you are young, old, male or female, football is a part of fall. You can't really say you have experienced an autumn without having at least thrown a football. If you are able to run, there is no greater pleasure in sports than watching a football into your hands and then crossing the goal line. If you can't play football, at least go watch a game somewhere and be sure to cheer for the home team.

3) Take a family picture. Capture the look of autumn along with the feeling of family. There is just something about fall colors which brings out the best in lighting, complexion and shadows in just about anyone. You have to TRY to take a bad picture in autumn.

God is beckoning you outside the next three days, He is giving you one last taste of summer, Enjoy it.

"Be yourself - No one can ever tell you you're doing it wrong." *

     We are under pressure our entire lives to conform to the norm. It starts in grade school with our entrance into the school structure, where we learn about right and wrong answers. The conga line continues on into our teens years with peer pressure keeping us in line with what our supposed friends think is "cool".

As young adults, we are admonished to be like our successful friends or college classmates, as if they have discovered some sort of secret to adult happiness through social or corporate climbing. Finally, as we mature, we start to hear exhortations about "not giving up on our dreams" while we are prodded to remain politically correct and socially acceptable.

     My duty to myself and therefore to you is to tell you that it is all bunk. True happiness is found by being honest to yourself first and not living life others have imagined for you. If you want to know what will make you happy, you don't need me or anyone else to point it out to you. Just listen to what your inner voice is telling you already.

     Do yourself a favor and take 15 minutes today and listen to your inner voice as it guides you to what is right for you. And remember "To thine own self be true." **

Quotes by: *James Leo Herlihy and **Wm. Shakespeare

Why they should let Adrian play

     What Adrian Peterson did to his 4 year old son was brutal and excessive. Adrian Peterson has proved that he is untrustworthy as a parent and he should not be allowed to be alone with his children until he has proved that he understands what he did was wrong.

     My question however is this: why should he be denied an opportunity to practice his profession? 

In this society, we allow people who have done much worse than Peterson to continue to make a living. A lawyer or a doctor or an accountant can drive drunk and endanger hundreds of people and at worse, they will incur financial penalties, yet we allow them to continue to practice and earn a living, even after they have been convicted of their crime.

     There are anonymous parents who do much worse than Peterson to their children everyday, yet they continue to live their lives and be a part of society. No one screams about them on radio, writes torrid editorials or calls for them to be left unemployed. However, Peterson must be suspended or even banned from the NFL? 

Double standard.

    To me, this is not a football issue but a liberty issue. Society has NO right to demand that Adian Peterson be kicked out of the NFL. Society DOES have a right to demand that he be banned from seeing his kids without supervision. Society DOES have a right to hold him accountable for his actions and to punish him with incarceration or other penalties IF a jury of his peers convict him of a crime. Society DOES have a right to hold him up a an example of how NOT to discipline children and to ostracize him if they choose. However, society does NOT have a right to deny him his occupation OR to to practice his profession.

3 Rules for Shave Club

Everyone know that Shaving sucks, but we do it because it helps us seem more civilized and more acceptable to our spouses. However, as I get older, I see less and less sense in a daily ritual in which I scrape the outer layer of skin off my face, so I am going to start to cut myself some slack. Do you want some slack, too?

Then join with me in Shave Club. 

Shave Club is a new club I'm starting for anyone just brave enough to flout social convention while still wanting to remain within the bounds of what is socially acceptable. It is easy to join; all you have to do is follow three simple rules:

First rule of Shave Club - under no circumstances are you to shave until it itches.

Second rule of Shave Club - beards (facial or underarm) are to be worn during any month with an "R" in it.

Third rule of Shave Club - tell no one you are in Shave Club

If anyone can think of any rules that I have forgotten, be sure to let me know - can't guarantee we'll follow them, but it would be nice to hear your thoughts.

Why Robin Williams Did It

Robin Williams decided to take himself out. He made a decision that he simply didn't want to play anymore. He was too weary, too sad, he was alone to his bones, he was anxious, sick of himself and he saw no reason to continue. How do I know? Because I've been there.

Robin Williams with all his money, talent and fame looked to his future and all he could see was a continuing dark cloud; a gathering gloom that would consume all joy and happiness. He knew in his heart that his best years were behind him. His youth had been stolen by the passing of time and his talent had run dry as all finite resources must; these are the lies depression tells you.

It was a practical decision really. Probably one of the most rational decisions he had ever made. Better the silence and nothingness of the grave than the continued anguish and painful existence waiting to die in this meaningless existence. 

Some may think it took a lot of courage to stand up, put that noose around his neck and kick out the chair. For those of us who suffer from depression and have been there and back again, we know it takes just as much courage to get down off of that chair, fight our demons and face the future.