Happenings from the Week

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Andy

It’s been a pretty good week. Here are some items of note.

First Taste of Caribbean Dispatching

In the lower right, you can see the first first I’ve ever gotten to flight follow to a destination outside the continental US, SWA 742 from Orlando to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Honestly, someone else had planned it and followed it most of the way. I took over maybe 10 minutes before it landed. But that still counts, right? I got to plan my first two SJU flights Monday morning. Since Puerto Rico is a US territory, flights to and from there aren’t much different from an operational perspective. We just try not to divert to Cuba.

Uncle Charlie

The saddest part of the week came toward the end. After a long and debilitating battle with Alzheimer’s, my great uncle Charlie passed away on Thursday morning. Nearly all his family and many friends got to gather on Saturday in Wichita Falls to say goodbye and celebrate his life. Although we are certainly sad that he’s no longer with us and will miss him, it’s a relief when long-term suffering ends for someone you love. He was a good man. Several family members shared moving stories about him that gave me a clearer picture of his high character, sense of responsibility, and devotion to his family. Rest in peace, Uncle Charlie.

NBA Player Jason Collins Comes Out

This article from USA Today has more details, but this week Washington Wizards center Jason Collins became the first openly gay player in any of the big four American sports. Other pro athletes have been out for many years, such as tennis stars Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King and sprinter Carl Lewis. Perhaps competing in individual sports rather than team sports made coming out easier. Until now, gay NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL players have always stayed in the closet. But it was only a matter of time, as statistically about 3 percent of people are gay or lesbian. Overall, the public response to Collins’ admission from other players has been very supportive and positive, which is very encouraging. Bravo to Collins for having the courage to take a huge risk and go first by being honest about who he is. Others will follow. You can count on it.

South Padre, Baby!

Soon we plan to take the boys to South Padre Island for a couple of days. In addition to lots of beach time, we also want to visit a rescue facility called Sea Turtle, Inc., take the boys sailing on a replica pirate ship complete with a pirate show, and enjoy some tasty seafood.

Helping West

I decided not to attend the West memorial at Baylor to counter-protest Westboro. My firefighter friend Jeremy did, though, and said it was very moving and well-done. I made a donation to the Salvation Army’s West fund, which is probably more useful than picking a fight with ignorant hatemongers, anyway. My sister and her husband went down and volunteered in West on Sunday, bringing an amazing number of cookies to the displaced residents and helping with the food efforts in person. They were nice enough to bring me some kolaches from Czech Stop, which helps West and me both.

Colorblind Children

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Andy

One thing I love about suburban living is the amazing assortment of nearby public parks. I count at least seven parks with solid playgrounds within a five minute drive plus an awesome, huge one that’s maybe ten minutes away. Why spend $1000 or more, not to mention a weekend full of cussing and imposing on friends and family for assembly, to put a smaller playset in our backyard? We can visit a different park every day of the week virtually for free.

Another advantage of playing in all these public parks is the boys’ opportunity to play with other kids. My sons aren’t exactly shy. When we show up at a park where other kids are playing, they happily jump right in and assume they are now part of the group rather than awkwardly lingering on the fringe hoping to get an invitation. For this shy dad, it’s a joy and a relief to see how comfortable they are with complete strangers.

Last week we went to the “Blue Park” – we’ve given each park a name that’s easy for them to remember – that sits near the apartments where Jenny and I lived when we first got married. Lots of kids were playing at the playground that day, many of them connected to a large family gathering that was grilling at a nearby picnic area. As usual, Brenden and Jonathan jumped right in. As I watched them play, I noticed that they were the racial minority at the playground. Most of the kids were black, the ones from the family gathering, and a few might have been Latino or white. I was struck by how, for my boys and seemingly for the other kids as well, race was an absolute non-issue.

They didn’t care whether the other kids were white, black, brown, or any other color. They were just happy to have someone with whom to play superheroes and pile up on the slide and giggle and run around and swing. One of the black boys was older, apparently the leader of the group. He was very patient and helpful with the younger kids of all races. At one point he even pushed Brenden on the swing for a bit, and Brenden loved getting attention from a big kid.

This little experience reminded me of a truth I’ve known for years but sometimes forget: racism is learned, not natural.

Let me be clear and honest here. I’m not perfect in the prejudice department. I’m not completely colorblind, nor am I sure that’s even a good goal given that race is part of one’s identity and is often tied into one’s culture, values, and much more in ways that are difficult for an American white male to understand. I still jump to inappropriate conclusions sometimes based on someone’s race. I still laugh at some racial humor that I probably shouldn’t condone. I choose to live in a suburb with a good school district, and that district does happen to contain mostly white kids. But Jenny and I are trying not to taint our sons’ worldview with any inappropriate prejudices, generalizations, or stereotypes based on a person’s race. I think that’s the main reason why being around kids of other races isn’t a big deal to them. Since we don’t make race an issue, they haven’t gotten any notion that race is worth considering. I like that.

I also want to preserve that perspective in them for as long as I can. I don’t try to persuade them to go to the parks where mostly white kids hang out. (I do try to steer them toward parks that have actual bathrooms rather than Portapotties or secluded trees, but that’s another post) I try to keep them away from racist people so those people’s hatred and ignorance don’t taint my sons’ young minds. I try hard to avoid the subtle Texas racism of describing a white man simply as a guy but a black man as a black guy, even though the man’s race is completely irrelevant to the story. Using language that way reinforces the idea that race is a thing when most of the time, it isn’t.

I also don’t plan to hide my children from “the minorities” by enrolling them in a private school or homeschool them for their entire school careers to keep them away from kids who are different. Brenden starts public kindergarten this fall, and we plan to keep both of them in public school through their senior years, just like we were. I want them to be around different types of people – different races, languages, religions, genders, socioeconomic classes, cultures, and sexual orientations – so they will have a better understanding of how people really are.

I am convinced their lives will be richer as a result, and so will ours.

Blog Soup 12/15/2012

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Andy

Happy December! Here is today’s Blog Soup (r).

Yesterday’s elementary school shooting hit much closer to home than other recent mass shootings in colleges, high schools, malls, and movie theaters. My oldest son will start kindergarten next fall. Yes, the odds that a similar tragedy will occur at my sons’ schools are tiny, but yesterday served as a harsh reminder that no place can be completely safe, not even a kindergarten classroom. I ache for the families and friends of the fallen. In case you’re wondering, we’re not telling the boys what happened. They won’t hear about it from the news (we don’t watch it) and probably won’t hear anything from their friends, so we didn’t think it would help in any way to tell them. We don’t think they are old enough to process something like that well.
Speaking of my oldest son, Brenden is a ninja. The house can be quiet and still, perhaps late at night once we’ve put the boys to bed or early in the morning as I’m coming home from work. When he wants to see us, he can often creep from his room, descend the stairs, and suddenly appear in the living room or dining room virtually undetected. It can scare you at first. Then you smile and admire his ninja skills.
Speaking of being terrified by surprise appearances, have you seen the elevator prank video? Sweet Holy Moly. I’d like to think the rational side of my brain would prevail and I’d quickly figure out that I was being punked, but in reality I might just lose my business instead.
I just finished a fascinating book by Bart Ehrman called Misquoting Jesus that discusses the process of copying and distributing the early New Testament manuscripts. We have no original manuscripts left, only copies of copies of copies. In the copying process, the text of the manuscripts changed a bit in numerous places. Some changes were simple and harmless, such as an accidental misspelling. Others were intentional, perhaps to clarify a point of confusion, correct a perceived error by a previous scribe, or even to advance the scribe’s theological agenda. Textual criticism scholars study the various manuscripts like detectives and try to determine what the original text probably said, what changes were made in the manuscripts over time, and why.
Spielberg’s Lincoln deserves to take home a mountain of awards on Oscar night – acting, directing, set design, music, screenwriting, you name it. The story – Lincoln’s fight to pass the 13th Amendment to ban slavery – made a fascinating framework that focused on the man and his relationships rather than being a typical war movie. Daniel Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones particularly stood out as Lincoln and sharp-tongued liberal Republican (yep, they used to exist!) Thaddeus Stevens, respectively. Watching the political battle to get the votes reminded me a bit of the modern-day question of gay rights. We’ve made some progress, and I expect a similarly heated battle within the next decade or two to finally grant gay Americans all the rights that straight ones already enjoy.
I am mostly glad to see Josh Hamilton go. Too much drama off the field, too many injuries, too much money. It’s amazing to me that in a sport where it’s considered great to get a hit one third of the time, we still think some players are worth $20 million a year or even more.
The financial realities of college are setting in. Four-year public schools are significantly more expensive than community colleges. Tuition at UTA in 2012 isn’t too much less than tuition at Baylor during my freshman year (1997). We still think the switch to UTA is worth the extra cost thanks to better job prospects after Jenny finishes her degree, though. But it was eye-opening when she started registering for classes.
Some woman stole our credit card number, used it to buy $1000 worth of high-end car headlight bulbs and other auto parts, and accidentally listed the billing address (ours) as the shipping address (also ours). So the stolen goods arrived at our house this week. Oops. Chase waived the charges, and we are returning the parts to the shipper. The woman’s phone number was listed on the shipping label, so I gave her a call. She identified herself as Jenny Box. I told her my wife had the exact same name. She hung up immediately and refused to answer when I called back. So I left a message telling her we had received the parts she ordered. Heh heh.
I am tired of the Christmas wars. Some Christians don’t seem to realize that some people celebrate other holidays in December, or that Jesus probably wasn’t actually born on December 25. It’s okay – no, good – to respect other people’s beliefs and not to demand that everyone celebrate the same holidays you do. You can wish me a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus, or whatever floats your boat. I will wish you the same in return.

Gift Ideas that Make a Difference

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Andy

‘Tis the season of giving! My awesome wife is already done with our family’s Christmas shopping except for the intra-family gifts that we’ll do later. She LOVES Christmas shopping. The challenge and thrill of picking the right present for so many people are one of her favorite parts of the season. Not so for me. It’s not that I don’t like spreading joy to my loved ones with gifts. It’s that I’m not a creative gift-giver, so the prospect of picking just the right gift for lots of people sends my stress level skyward. Will they like what I chose for them? Will they be disappointed if I get them the same thing as last year that they seemed to enjoy? Or is that a cop-out? So I am eternally grateful that my wife loves to shop, which is reason #128,105 that I married the right woman, but I digress…

The one type of shopping that doesn’t stress me out is buying gifts for complete strangers who are in need. Those kind of presents seem to fit the season even better than the other kind. Don’t get me wrong – I love getting presents and giving them to my people, but it just feels right to give good things to those who might not have them otherwise. Every single thing on my Christmas list is a want. Many others list actual needs, needs that you and I can help meet this Christmas.

Borrowing the idea from Rachel Held Evans’ excellent post, here are some gift ideas that will make a huge difference in the life of someone you’ll probably never meet, but who will be extremely grateful.

Quality Coffee to Fund an International Adoption

Quentin and Jessica live in New York and are trying to adopt a little girl from South Africa. The adoption costs around $20,000. They have teamed up with a great little Internet coffee company called Just Love Coffee to raise money for their adoption while hooking you up with tasty java. They sell a wide variety of coffee from numerous countries, including several organic and/or fair trade choices. I just ordered some of the African Skies blend and the Rwandan Coopac. For every bag you order, Just Love donates $5 to help Quentin and Jessica bring their little girl home.

Clean Water for South Sudan

My biggest water is that sometimes I tilt the cup too high and spill something on my shirt. For a huge number of people in South Sudan, the biggest problem is finding clean water. For some, the only available water is muddy and tainted with disease, parasites, and animal waste. For others, clean water is available, but only after hiking several miles carrying a heavy five-gallon jug.

Water is Basic is changing that. By drilling over 400 clean water wells so far, it has provided a new life for hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese. You can help.

Salvation Army Angels

Although I don’t agree with all of its positions, the Salvation Army helps a huge number of people in need every year. One of the biggest way they help at Christmastime is the Angel Trees, a simple plan that matches a child or adult in need (the angel) with someone who can help by buying them clothing, toys, and other items and then delivering them to a local drop-off center. Each year we “adopt” two boys about Brenden and Jonathan’s age and let them help us decide what to get them. It’s one way we’re trying to help the boys focus on giving rather than getting this season.

World Vision Microloans and Gift Catalog

Many of you already know I’m a big fan of World Vision’s Gift Catalog, which lets you purchase unusual but helpful things for people in need such as goats, cows, school fees, and seeds. This year, World Vision has set up a new option as well – a Kiva-style microloan program. You can search for individual entrepreneurs who want to borrow small amounts of money to expand their businesses and raise their quality of life. Many are farmers who want to buy seeds or fertilizer or another animal. Instead of paying you back, the money goes back to World Vision and is loaned out again to another small business owner. Both the gift catalog and the microloan program are great ways to help people climb out of poverty one step at a time.

Ten Bad Assumptions

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Andy

You know what assuming does, right? It makes an ASS out of U and ME. – My tennis coach

Our world is complicated, full of gray areas, complexity, nuance, and small details that a casual observer doesn’t see or understand. No one can be an expert in everything. If I spend my entire life studying nothing but aviation and business, I won’t have time to become a doctor or a PhD in psychology. When we encounter gaps in our knowledge, we often fill in those gaps by making assumptions based on what we already know. Sometimes it works great. Other times, we can be way off.

This topic holds particular interest for me because I am frequently the exception to many people’s faulty generalizations. I am a man who likes yoga and spas, a former Baptist who drinks, a Texan who votes Green or Democrat, a Dallas native who cheers for the Redskins, a straight guy who supports gay rights, a writing major who dispatches airplanes for a living, and a white guy who likes Ludacris and Snoop Dogg.

Here are some bad assumptions that I’ve seen people make or made myself:

All male flight attendants are gay. Many are, but certainly not all. I work with a happily married, straight guy who started as a flight attendant.
All Hollywood actors are tree-hugging, socialist liberals. Ask Clint Eastwood and his empty chair about this one.
All Christians are pro-life, pro-gun, anti-tax conservative Republicans. Those Christians seems to get the most press (see Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress for easy examples), but there are also plenty of Christians who are pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-tax liberal Democrats. Both sides use the Bible to justify their positions. Both sides are right. Both sides are wrong.
All airline pilots are male. True, the vast majority are, but a few are not. I would guess that my airline’s pilots are perhaps 4-5 percent female. At work it’s tempting to assume the captain is male, which occasionally leads to awkwardness when I address a female captain as “sir” out of habit instead of “ma’am”.
All fat people are lazy and indisciplined, and all skinny people work out regularly and eat well. Such a gross oversimplification is easy but terribly inaccurate. One’s weight is a product of many factors beyond diet and exercise, including genetics, hormonal status, disease, age, and others that we just don’t understand fully. Some people win the genetic lottery and look good even though they eat terribly and never work out. Others work out like crazy and diet constantly but simply cannot reach their target weight.
All students at ______ University have rich parents. Not necessarily. Many take out massive student loans. Some work part- or full-time to put themselves through school. Some are veterans who are taking advantage of the GI bill. Some get scholarships.
All Americans consider the Christmas season a time of joy. Many Americans follow other religions or no religion and do not even celebrate Christmas. Even among those who do celebrate it, some become sad this time of year. Perhaps they lost a loved one in recent years and feel the loss more strongly now. Some have lost their faith and are reminded of how different their life used to be. Others are struggling financially and are ashamed and angry that they cannot provide the kind of Christmas celebration for their families that they would like.
All Baylor students are Baptists who don’t drink. HAHAHAHAHA. Um, I had friends at Baylor who were Muslim, Catholic, charismatic, atheist, and of no religious affiliation. And yes, some of us did drink on occasion.
All women who have abortions are young and promiscuous. Some are married and monogamous but don’t think they can afford another child. Some have medical issues that make pregnancy dangerous. Some made a one-time mistake and are terrified that someone will find out.
All Christians save sex for marriage. Nope, only about 10 percent, roughly the same as the general population.

Oh, and don’t forget the ever-popular “All the people who disagree with me are idiots.”

You probably noticed the common thread among these bad assumptions: the word all. Each person is unique, a combination of his or her genetics, experiences, thoughts, teachings, and chance. It’s unwise and potentially harmful to generalize broadly about any group of people. Most likely, you can find exceptions to your generalization if you take the time to look deeper. Speaking of tendencies rather than absolutes, using most or some instead of all or none, seems like a better approach.

What are some bad assumptions that you have heard, or even made yourself?

Blog Soup 11/19/2012

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Andy

Happy Thanksgiving, in case you don’t hear from me again this week. I wish you all mountains of sweet potatoes. With marshmallows. And no nuts. Here is today’s Blog Soup (r).

My Baylor Bears have had a disappointing season. When you combine one of the best offenses in college football with one of the worst defenses, you get a mediocre, .500-level team. So this weekend’s matchup between Baylor and BCS #1 Kansas State should have been a walkover for the Wildcats. Apparently, someone forgot to tell the Bears. Our offense took care of business as usual, and our much-maligned defense finally showed up. Final score: 52-24 Baylor, the first time we have ever beaten a #1-ranked team. SIC ‘EM!
I’m disappointed by the huge amount of media attention that the General Petraeus affair is getting. Yes, he made a mistake and owned up to it. Yes, affairs are bad news for all concerned. However, don’t we have more important issues to discuss than a guy who was cheating on his wife, even if that man happens to be in a high-level position? It’s like every newspaper in the country has turned into National Enquirer. The French are laughing at us.
Also on the Petraeus scandal…although I like to think that I am a strong person with high morals who can resist temptation, I’m only human. As such, I’m very glad that I am fortunate enough to live in the same home with my wife and kids instead of being stationed on the other side of the world for months at at time in a hostile environment. My freedom to do so results largely from the members of our military who volunteered to serve. I can only imagine how difficult a long deployment must be on our military personnel, especially those with spouses and children. A long absence certainly doesn’t excuse cheating, but in my mind it makes cheating easier to understand.
It was interesting to see a company (Hostess) cease operations due to a worker strike. Yes, I’ve laughed at the Twinkie memes circulating on Facebook, but the death of Hostess means thousands of people lost their jobs. Apparently the bakers found the struggling company’s contract proposal so unpleasant that the job just wasn’t worth it anymore. If your employer was trying to force pay, benefit, and work rule concessions on you, at what point would you choose to walk out? Would it make a difference if walking out meant burning down the entire company?
I can’t remember the last time I ate a Twinkie. I like Zingers, though. My coworkers run an honor-system concession stand in our office called the Recession Concession that sells various snacks and soft drinks. The day Hostess shut down, there was a run on Zingers, and I didn’t get to pick up a final package of them. I’ll bet I could find some on eBay. UPDATE: Recession Concession now has a limited supply of Zingers. Due to the shortage, the price has climbed from $0.75 to $8.00. I call shenanigans.
The U.S. government might stand with Israel, but I do not. Most Americans, particularly American Christians, seems to blindly support Israel because they view it as God’s chosen people. I disagree. The Jews might be God’s chosen people according to the Bible, but the modern nation of Israel was created by Western powers after World War II by, in many cases, displacing a people-group that had been on the land for generations. Yes, that is greatly oversimplified, but that’s basically how it went. The displaced people were robbed of their land by the West because they weren’t strong enough to resist. After the initial allocation, Israel gradually seized more of the Palestinians’ land, as shown here. As a result, the two sides have been fighting ever since. Both the Israeli government and the Palestinians have performed terrible acts that could be defined as terrorism. Both sides have rivers of blood on their hands. Yet our government props up one side with billions of dollars, military equipment, and other aid because we think we need an ally in the region. That support is one reason that many Muslim extremists hate our nation. As for the modern nation of Israel’s being God’s chosen people, also note that the nation today is not exclusively Jewish, partly because some of the displaced Arabs decided to stick around. It’s a melting pot, like most countries in a sense. I hurt for the millions of people caught in the crossfire on both sides, especially those who have been injured or have lost loved ones in this senseless, decades-old conflict. I wish our nation were energy independent so we didn’t feel the need to be involved in the Middle East. And I wish our government could understand a simple truth: we cannot fix the Middle East. Want to end anti-U.S. terrorism? Withdrawing all troops and foreign aid from all Middle Eastern countries would go a really long way toward that goal.
If the people (not the word I originally used, but I’m trying to be nice) who are petitioning for Texas to secede somehow win, which is impossible without a civil war, Jenny and I would be tempted to move. Likely destinations include Missouri, Washington, or Oregon. The biggest problems would be leaving our friends and family and giving up my awesome job. As tempting as Seattle or Portland might be to me, I hope this doesn’t happen.
I downloaded the latest album by British indie-rock band Florence and the Machine called Ceremonials. It is fantastic. You should buy it.
On a related note, do people still buy CDs anymore? I don’t buy much music, to be fair, but I really cannot remember the last time I bought an actual CD rather than simply downloading it. It might have been a few years ago when I picked up something on clearance at the Virgin Megastore (remember that place?) at Grapevine Mills.