50 - 201: Words

A week ago today, Lisa and I had one of our rare fights. It started because I was careless.

We're working on taming a stray cat we're calling Ollie. She's a pretty little cat, with very soft fur and markings that are a cross between a gray tabby and a calico. Lisa is letting her come inside occasionally, both to get warm and to get used to us. Last Saturday, Ollie did something new. She jumped up on one of our recliners.

Now, I have a strange sense of humor that leans a great deal on absurdities. Most of the time, when someone doesn't get one of my jokes, it's because I haven't given them my often warped mental context.

When Ollie got on the recliner, I said what I thought was a harmless joke aimed at her. I used a rather rude word. Lisa thought it was aimed at her and took great offense. The next few hours were not pleasant for me.

Lisa wasn't my target. For that matter, neither was Ollie. The situation was, but without my context, how could my wife know that? It really didn't make things better that I got snippy with her that she didn't buy my explanation, not at first.

We got over it. We always do. But I forgot a very valuable lesson from a business communications class I took almost 20 years ago: take 100% of the responsibility for your message.

I'm certain most of us have heard this old saying - Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Well, this old saw is well-intentioned, but like using a rusty hammer when you mean to make a precise cut in a board, it's wrong.

We are a social species. Our ability to live with each other is bound up in our ability to tell each other our stories. Our ability to think is both shaped and limited by our language. We can transcend this limit, which in turn shapes our language.

If your doubt the power of words, consider these phrases:
- I love you.
- You may now kiss the bride.
- It's a boy/girl!
- We find the defendant guilty as charged.
- I'm sorry for your loss.

Words can wound, and words can heal. They can imprison you, and they can set you free. They can illuminate ideas with perfect clarity, and they can obfuscate them with infuriating indirection.

They can tell you the daily same old, same old. They can teach you timeless history. They can give you a boundless future.

The key is to be aware of the tools you have in your words, so that you are their master and not their slave. Or, to use another old saw, say what you mean and mean what you say.

A Thought On Language

Just as a sculptor has to know the stone, and an orchestrator needs to understand all the instruments, so also the writer needs to know the language down to the bone.

- Orson Scott Card

On Laughter

However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and to be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.

- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Pigeon: Impossible

This could be a Pixar short. Yes, it's that good. Enjoy.

Buried and Strange

A lawyer named Strange died, and his friend asked the tombstone maker to inscribe on his tombstone, "Here lies Strange, an honest man, and a lawyer."

The inscriber insisted that such an inscription would be confusing, for passersby would tend to think that three men were buried under the stone.

However he suggested an alternative: He would inscribe, "Here lies a man who was both honest and a lawyer. That way, whenever anyone walked by the tombstone and read it, they would be certain to remark: 'That's Strange!'"

Thanks to John Varley, and if I'm unintentionally violating copyright, I want him to know that I don't use Sidewiki!

Sal the Cat

He looks up at you with huge eyes, as if to say "It's not my fault!"

Short Visits

Lisa and I were at home a week ago, having exchanged our Christmas gifts to each other and listening to freezing rain and sleet coming down. I had just called Dad and Mom to let them know that we weren't traveling to Whiteville after all.

That was the second time we changed travel plans in two days.

We originally planned to go see them this week when the kids got here from Indiana. I talked to my ex's partner on Wednesday night, and she told me that they intended to be on the road to North Carolina on the 27th, returning home on the 30th. I checked the Weather Channel web site and saw a great deal of snow in their forecast. That made me believe that they would not be able to make the trip, so I told my parents that Lisa and I would see them on Christmas Day.

That was the first time we changed travel plans.

I got a call in the middle of Christmas afternoon. It was Gigi, with welcome news. They had already started their trip south, expecting to stop overnight in Ohio and get to Greensboro on the 26th. This was most unexpected, given the forecasts, and I felt like I'd gotten the best Christmas present since I was a kid. I called Dad and Mom again to let them know that the kids were going to be here for a couple of days after all and to that we were coming down for a day trip on the 28th.

That was our third change in travel plans, and the most pleasant.

Dad was grilling inch-thick steaks when we got there, along with seasoned potatoes in foil. Lord, but we were all stuffed! We exchanged gifts after lunch, I played tech support for Mom's computer -- Internet Explorer was giving her problems, imagine that -- and my cousin Denise and her daughter Alex stopped by. Alex is 10 months older than Gigi, and they're thicker than thieves. I got to enjoy just sitting and listening to two or three other conversations for a while.

After Denise and Alex left, we went to visit Aunt Mildred, Dad's oldest sister by 10 years. She has a bad back, can't hear very well, and is a bit forgetful, but she's getting around better than Dad these days. She always makes coffee when I visit, even though she doesn't drink it anymore. And what coffee does she have? Decaf Fresh Market Christmas Blend. We gave it to her a couple of years ago, and she keeps it in the freezer. It still tastes fresh, and she's just a joy.

At home, we watched a lot of TV on DVD that the kids either don't usually see or were quite behind on: Seasons 1 and 2 of The Big Bang Theory (Everyone loves "The Saturnalia Miracle" episode!), and Season 1 of Better Off Ted (Who wouldn't want to work for Viridian Dynamics?).

Since they were departing for Indiana very early on the 30th, I took them back to their aunt and uncle's house the evening before. On the drive home, I felt, as always, the emptiness they leave behind. It doesn't persist quite as long as it used to, and why should it? My children are growing up well, and they have reached ages where it's natural for them to make their own ways in the world. Time has caught up with the changes in my role as a parent.

An Administrative Note

I am almost always glad when visitors to Babble On leave comments. More often than not, that means I have amused someone, and that's a pleasure to me. However, that was not the case with the comments on my previous post.

One comment, left anonymously, was nothing but links to girly, probably porn, sites. The other was an ad for an online gambling site.

I was a regular contributor to several Usenets sites during the last 10 years, and I have seen many troll-instigated flame wars. That is always a risk following unmoderated newsgroups.

Here, commentary falls under almost the same category. The difference is that this my property, and while I, should I ever have a high enough volume of readers, will gladly tolerate lively differences of opinion, I will be a host to neither pornography nor someone else's advertising.

I have therefore deleted the comments that have offended my sensibilities, and will do so in the future. Yes, this is censorship, but don't bother blathering on about the First Amendment; I am not abridging any one's political speech. I am muzzling trespass.

I Thought That Cover Looked Quaint

Stanley Dudek, on behalf of his mother, returned Facts I Ought to Know about the Government of My Country to the New Bedford, Massachusetts library a little late. The due date was May 2, 1910. The $360 late fee was waived.

On the Off Ramp

I have several different routes to and from work. The variety helps relieve tedium. This habit of mine drives my wife crazy, as she likes her routes well-mapped out and consistent. I try to remember this when she's riding with me and keep to the same routes, because giving her a nice comfort level is worth it to me.

Part of my route this morning was on the interstate. After taking my exit, I had to stop for a red light at the bottom of the off ramp. I was in the outside one of the two left turn lanes. There was no car next to me for a couple of minutes, and I had a clear view of a fresh cigarette butt. I watched the smoke rising from it as it rolled away from me toward the edge of the road, and I envisioned a tumbling, fiery wreck. After all, cigarettes are dangerous -- no one but those who are ignorant of a half-century of scientific research, those who are willfully delusional, or tobacco company executives can believe differently -- just much slower in the damage they inflict. And in this mental image, I felt strangely, strangely alone.

Then, the light changed, and I came on in to the office. I think I need another cup of coffee.

A Breakroom Exchange

A co-worker was filling his water jug when I walked in to get hot water for my coffee. Here's a portion of our conversation:

Co-worker: And how are you today?
Me: I can't complain.
Co-worker: You could try.
Me: I could, but it wouldn't do any good.
Co-worker: I like that, a self-aware man.

Not a bad way to start a morning, being called self-aware.

The Things Twitter Leads You To

The personal trainer t-shirt. If this doesn't have a bigger future than the pet rock, it should at least have a more practical one.

A Doggone Good Job

Thanks, Sandy!

A Moment of Recognition

Yesterday, I left work at 7:00 pm, in the late autumn evening darkness. I noted a clear sky, a warm temperature for the season, and twinkling stars. Once I parked my car outside the apartment, I looked through the open patio door and saw our Christmas tree and my wife sitting at her computer.

My thought right then? I'm richly blessed.

50 - 238: The Holiday Moratorium

Monday starts an annual event at work. For three weeks, lacking executive management approval or a system outage affecting customers, we can't move any changes to production. This is a self-defense mechanism implemented by the European parent corporation, a reaction to the sheer number of people taking time off from the job. The reasoning goes, "Where is the production support coming from, if a change breaks something?"

While I enjoy my Christmas vacation as much as anyone, I've been on-call during the holiday period, and I've handled work calls on Christmas Day before, so I just can't imagine a purely American company operating so.

This is simply one of a myriad of cultural differences.

The most prominent difference is that the parent culture prizes consensus, the prolonged decision making where everyone is welcome to question and to provide input, up to the point that the group realizes a decision has been reached. At that point, everyone is expected to conform to the group decision and not rock the boat.

American culture prizes individual initiative, giving the one who takes the lead the freedom to rock the boat, as long as the path taken works without exorbitant costs in either money or process.

In the current structure of my company, this difference is exacerbated by a recently completed reorganization. Here in Greensboro, we used to act like the internal IT department for our largest local client company; we're under the same corporate umbrella. Now, the parent company's mantra is that we work with common methods on global solutions. Further, over the next few years, the company will be creating centers of competency, thereby locating specific functions at one or two sites, each serving the entire corporation. This means that jobs will be rightsized to a rationalized cost structure.

Because I have a good deal of contact with my customers, because I have accepted the function of maintenance manager for multiple applications, and because I already work on a global application, I'm not really scared of losing my job. At this point, I'm more concerned that the nature of my job is going to change into something that is less enjoyable than what I do now.

Be that as it may, I have a job that I am reasonably well compensated for, that lets me support my wife, that lets me pay my share of the college tuition for my two oldest children, that provides shelter and clothing and a few luxuries for my family. I have programming challenges that keep my mind engaged, customers that I generally keep happy with the support I provide, and colleagues with whom I enjoy mutual respect.

And oh yeah, quite a few genuine friendships at work that I treasure.

So, how's the holiday moratorium going to affect me this year? Well, I got the last of several required user approvals on a package of enhancements to my global application this morning, IT approval to implement this afternoon, and tomorrow right after the end of the business day, I going to move this set of changes to production. Good for me.

There's a change to one of my web services that I'm working with a European consumer on, and we've had coordination problems for the last month. I've already started the process to get executive approval on a moratorium exception on this one, since project funding runs out at the end of the year. There's still testing to do, but I'm optimistic that this will work out.

A Christmas Greeting

Compare And Contrast: A Trans-Siberian Orchestra Concert And A US Airways Flight

In the past two days, I've attended this year's TSO concert in Greensboro and taken a flight on US Airways to visit my kids at Thanksgiving. Let's examine a few aspects of the two experiences.

Food. We ate a meal at CiCi's Pizza before the concert. It's certainly more expensive there now than when I could take all the kids and feed all four of us for under $15. Still, it's filling (very), there's plenty of variety, the pizza is quite tasty, and we were satisfied.

I took a couple of breakfast bars on the flight out Greensboro, Chex Mix Turtle bars, to be exact. They're my favorite quick breakfast this side of Chick-Fil-A's chicken burritos, but they left me feeling hungry.

My connecting flight was through Philadelphia, and I had enough time to get a larger breakfast of scrambled eggs, home fries, and sausage. Yummy, and reasonably priced for airport fare. It's a little bit surreal that I got this from an Italian eatery...

All told, the concert experience wins the food battle.

The wait. We got into the parking lot at the Coliseum with very little delay. TSO scheduled two shows in Greensboro this year, the four o'clock show started a half-hour late, and since they perform for 2.5 hours, we had to wait to enter the arena for the 8:00 show. Of course, that show started about 20 minutes late...

Both of my flights arrived at their destinations on time, but they were stuck on the tarmacs before departures. In fact, the flight from Philadelphia to Indianapolis left Philly about 20 minutes late, but we still arrived early in Indy.

This one's a tie.

Seating. There was more room on the airplane than at the Greensboro Coliseum. The flight wins this leg.

Noise. Who are we kidding here? TSO puts on a rock concert, wired for sound and light and light and sound, and they rock hard. Next category.

Speed. Greensboro to Philadelphia to Indianapolis in less than six hours, including 2.5 hours of airport wait time. Point to US Airways.

Atmosphere. The air at the Greensboro Coliseum was smoky from the pyrotechnics used in the show. The air before the flight from Greensboro was foggy, enough so in Philly to make us wait on the runway. Tie.

So, Eddie, who won? I did, in every way imaginable.

This Makes Me Happy

I had a similar experience, way back in the dark, dark pre-YouTube days. I didn't have a camcorder back in 1994, so there's no record of David shakin' it to Alan Jackson's Livin' On Love on the radio, but the memory gives me great joy.

50 - 254: Where He Says "If", I Am

In my Taking Stock series, I usually do not rely on the words of others, but the publisher of Skeptic magazine captured my belief on religion vs. science perfectly.

If one is a theist, it should not matter when God made the universe -- 10,000 years ago or 10 billion years ago. The difference of six zeros is meaningless to an omniscient and omnipotent being, and the glory of divine creation cries out for praise regardless of when it happened.

Likewise, it should not matter how God created life, whether it was through a miraculous spoken word or through the natural forces of the universe that He created. The grandeur of God's works commands awe regardless of what processes He used.

As for meanings and morals, it is here where our humanity arises from our biology. We evolved as a social primate species with the tendency of being cooperative and altruistic within our own groups, but competitive and bellicose between groups. The purpose of civilization is to help us rise above our hearts of darkness and to accentuate the better angels of our nature.

- Michael Shermer, cnn.com

I'm Just Wondering

Would the world be a better place if folks did like I did at the grocery store this morning? After I unloaded my cart and pushed it over to the cart return, I took the time to gather the scattered carts together. I normally only do that with my cart, but there were only three others this time, and by taking about 30 seconds out of my day, I made things easier for the next store employee who will be sent out to bring carts in, and I made sure that three carts were less likely to roll around the parking lot.

It's a simple courtesy that I didn't used to care about, but I find now that, like giving a smile to someone as I walk by, it costs me next to nothing and brightens my small corner of the world.

From 4 To 5

There's always been a periodic something, throughout my whole career, about that last hour of the workday. I experienced it twice this week, for the first time in quite a while. It's something you'll probably understand, if your labor is more mental than physical, as mine is when I'm deep into a programming task.

I literally cannot count the number of times that I've opened my work day optimistically, just knowing that I've picked apart a knotty bit of logic and that I was going to dazzle myself and my fellow developers. Almost every time, I would have been better following the old saw about being a pessimist -- you're pleasantly surprised when things turn out well.

Programming is described by Fred Brooks, the project manager behind IBM's OS/360 and the author of The Mythical Man-Month, as the discipline of building things out of pure thought stuff. This means that there's no limit on the raw material needed for the job. It means as well that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to do any particular task, and even more ways to it wrong.

Programming is an exacting discipline. Computers make no assumptions, provide no defaults. This means that developers must supply all the details in every layer, from the bare metal and plastic and silicon to the operating system to the network to the database to the web page in the browser.

It's those little details that trip me up: the need to specify an absolute path to the directory where I want to write a file rather than a relative path from the web page I'm programming; drilling down to the exact property of an object to get the value I want to work with rather than stopping at too high a level; forgetting a period or a semi-colon (depending on the punctuation a programming language demands) and thereby blowing the scope of a conditional statement.

These are just a sampling of the reasons that programming, testing, and debugging are still more art than science.

So after the optimistic start to a day writing computer code gets shot and left dying in the dust, after frustrating hours of echoing obscenities in my head, how is it that in that last hour of the workday, my subconscious mind is liable to offer up a solution? Not only a solution, but one that is usually not only workable, but even elegant?

I rather hope this remains a question whose answer eludes me. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll have graduated from craft to engineering, and I'll feel more like a cog in a wheel than a mystic.

The Lil' Spittle Maker

He drools. He sticks one leg straight up in the air when he licks his nethers; I think of this as his "little teapot" pose.

There are commercial opportunities to be had here. I wonder if anyone is cybersquatting on TheLilSpittleMaker.com.

Yankees 4, Phillies 2

Well, I can't honestly say that there's a lot of joy in the World Series results for this National League fan. However, I must acknowledge that the best team in Major League Baseball did win.

I was right a couple of years ago when I said that Alex Rodriguez would succeed in the post-season when Curt Schilling did not. After all, retiring from the game would preclude success in the October (and November) baseball.

Homecoming

This past Sunday was Homecoming at Pleasant Plains Baptist Church. My parents' church, the one I grew up in. It was also the final celebration of the church's 175th anniversary.

The usual order of the day at Homecoming is, as with the invitation to family and friends and former members, to invite a former pastor to come back and deliver the message. This time, instead, there were three speakers, members at Pleasant Plains, who gave testimonials to what the church has meant to them, to the history of the church.

The most noteworthy of the speakers, to me, was Dan Gore. He's a scholar, a farmer, a preacher, and an accomplished storyteller. He rambled a bit, as all the best Southern spinners of tales do, and one of his vignettes concerned a heavy church bell installed in the steeple belfry back in the 1930s. About a year after they got the bell, several church members were concerned that it might be too heavy for the structure to bear long-term. Several trustees of the church were nominated to climb up in the belfry and inspect the bell. Dan's dad Scott was one of the trustees, so he got to tag along.

The stairwell up through the steeple was dark, Dan recalled, but there was plenty of light at the top. They examined the timbers holding up the bell, and one of the trustees said, "You couldn't blow that out of there with a charge of dynamite."

That's all there was to the story, except for two small details. The trustee didn't pronounce the word "dine-a-mite"; he said "din-a-mite". And the trustee's name was Don Ward.

My granddaddy. I heard him say "din-a-mite" many, many times.

This was a new story to me. It's been nearly 30 years since Granddaddy passed away, but for a few minutes last Sunday morning, in a rare and precious gift, Dan Gore brought him back to life for me.

This Old Lady Has It Down Pat

Two old women meet for the first time since graduating from high school. One asked the other, "You were always so organized in school. Did you manage to live a well planned life?" "Yes," said her friend, "My first marriage was to a millionaire; my second marriage was to an actor; my third marriage was to a preacher; and now I'm married to an undertaker." Her friend asked, "What do those marriages have to do with a well planned life?" One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go!"

via Varley.net

Quote of the Day

There are a lot of voices calling for sf/f to get the recognition it deserves, but I think that's wasted breath. We're trying harder and harder to get recognized and admitted to a club that just keeps getting smaller and duller and less important. What we need to understand is that sf/f is the seat of innovation, modern creativity and true cultural relevance. Of course the literary establishment is borrowing from our toolbox. It's the best toolbox there is, and they're welcome to borrow it. It's kind of amusing to watch them treat time travel, or the apocalypse, or whatever else as a shiny new plot device. They probably won't hurt themselves.  - Tim Akers

via SFSignal.com

Quote of the Day

Someone in the 2009 World Series will likely hit a home run with a piece of carefully turned, meticulously sanded wood that a year ago was living on the 8,000 acres of woodland that Louisville Slugger owns in Pennsylvania and New York. Babe Ruth held a Louisville Slugger when he called his Game 3 shot in Wrigley Field in 1932. Jackie Robinson had a special bat for the Series in 1955 when next year finally came to Brooklyn. Roberto Clemente got his 36-inch, 37-ounce World Series model in time to hit .414 over seven games for the Pirates in 1971. The players change and the game does too, but one thing remains the same: get to the World Series and the folks at Louisville Slugger will make a bat for you.  - Kostya Kennedy, si.com

Quote of the Day

A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.   - Walter Bushell

Quote of the Day

A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit. - Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

via Wordsmith.org

RIP Alton Mathis

Here are the basic facts. He was born in June 1918 and died in October 2009, age 91. He lived his entire life in Newport, Arkansas, except for his time in the Army during World War II. He made his living as a farmer and service station owner. He was married to Liz for 62 years and survived her by a little over 6 years. He was the father of Mary, Dianne, Ronnie, and Kathy. He was a grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather 37 times over. His oldest grandchild is my wife Lisa, and she misses her Papaw more than I can adequately convey.

Here's my own surreal moment concerning the man: I was 45 when I first met my grandfather-in-law at a family reunion in 2005.

During that visit, while we were watching a baseball game, Papaw asked us if we "could hear those birds chirping." He was adjusting the volume on his hearing aid at the time, and yes, we could hear "those birds".

A little later that evening, he encouraged Lisa and I to take his bedroom and "do what young people do." I refer you back to how many descendants the man has.

The rest of that visit, and a similar one in 2006, were full of the details of daily life, the kind of things that enrich a family without making for riveting reading for those outside the family.

Sadly, I didn't see him again in this life. I did get to hear many kind and admiring things said about him this week, from his fierce independence and self-reliance to his delight in holding his youngest grandchildren on his lap. I didn't know him nearly as well personally as I would have liked. I do, however, know quite a few members of his family very well, and I know Alton Mathis through them. My life has been deeply enriched through his, and I can only say, "I miss you too, Papaw."