Thoughts for 5/9/2012

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Look, I threw in a picture! It’s not my picture, but I liked it and stole it from the Interwebs.

Lots of thoughts today, but none big enough to put into its own post (for now). So here are some things to chew on:

  • I am disappointed but not surprised by the victory for Amendment One in North Carolina, which enshrines a ban on gay marriage in the state constitution. However, I am hopeful that if the Supreme Court decides to rule on the issue of gay marriage within a year or two, laws like Amendment One and California’s Prop 8 will be ruled unconstitutional, effectively authorizing gay marriage throughout the country. If Obama is re-elected, I think he’ll fully support gay marriage in his second term. He can’t do it right now because it would cost him some crucial independent votes.
  • During my run, I found a guy letting his dog take a dump in his neighbor’s yard. He walked off like nothing had happened. Nope, not today, jerk. When I got close, I asked if he had a bag. Looking embarrassed, he muttered something and turned back. I kept running, so I’m not sure whether he actually cleaned it up or not. I should have asked him where his house was so I could go take a dump in his yard.
  • Dear clowns who call in bomb threats for flights (if any of them happen to follow AndyBox.com): all you’re doing is wasting everyone’s time and delaying flights. Real bombers probably don’t bother to call.
  • I’m running about 20 miles a week now and plan to roughly maintain that level through the summer, although not setting any speed records due to the heat. I’m generally doing 6 miles on Monday, 4 on Wednesday, and 10-11 on Saturday. If I run-walk and hydrate enough, which is means a LOT of water for me because I sweat like a soaker hose, I can handle the heat OK even on a long run. I just got a new style of knee brace, a compression sleeve that covers my whole patella, and I’m liking it so far. I might get another one for my other knee. That way I can be symmetrical, and there will be joy.
  • With the possibility of our first family trip to Disney World looming next year, I’ve started thinking about booking flights. I haven’t bought a real airline ticket in 15 years, so it’s a bit odd to think about flights like a normal customer rather than a nonrev. I’m most concerned about price and departure/arrival time and mostly unconcerned with the number of people onboard. It’s completely backwards! Also, it turns out that flying is pretty expensive. Fortunately, I should have enough Rapid Rewards points to get at least three of our tickets, maybe even all four.
  • I am tired of hearing people mention factors like race and sexual orientation in casual conversation when those qualities have zero relevance to the story they’re telling. If it matters to your story that a person is black or gay or Mexican or mentally retarded or whatever, then by all means include it. Otherwise, he’s just “a guy”, not “a black guy”. When you toss in irrelevant information, you’re simply revealing your prejudice toward those people.
  • One of my Facebook buddies is the community pastor at my church. I thought she seemed cool, so I friended her on Facebook. Our main connection is running. Until we raced together last month, I’d never held a real conversation with her in person. Our interaction had solely come through Facebook and an occasional “hi” at church. These are some of the strange types of relationships that social media makes possible.
  • I write one check per month. It goes to my boys’ preschool. I pay everything else online or automatically via my credit card. Checks are not my friend. Unless, of course, someone wants to give one to me. Then they are great.
  • Have I mentioned lately how glad I am not to be famous? No interviews, no paparrazzi, no public scandals, no pressure to please millions of diverse people. It’s also kinda nice not to be rich, either. Being a millionaire would change me somehow, and maybe not for the better. Plus I don’t have to worry about sycophants and thieves who want things from me.

Random Facts About Me for May 2012

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It’s been a while, so here are ten more random facts about me:

  1. I’m glad I went to Baylor (sic ’em!). There are many reasons I chose Baylor. One of the primary ones was its Christian atmosphere. My other top choice was Rice, a small liberal arts college with a secular and quirky culture. At the time I was deciding on schools, I debated (among other things) whether I wanted to be surrounded by Christians who I assumed would support my faith or surrounded by mostly nonChristian students and professors who would challenge my faith. It never occurred to me that Baylor would challenge my faith like it did or that Rice actually had quite a few Christians. I wonder what, if anything, would have been different if I’d spent those four years in Houston. Would my faith have emerged stronger or weaker? Would I have dated my high school girlfriend across hundreds of miles during college or broken up with her? Would I have chosen the same career path and gotten the job that I did?
  2. I love football, both college and pro, but I feel a bit guilty for supporting it due to the growing pile of evidence about football-related head injuries. As a fan, I’m part of the problem. However, with growing awareness comes growing support for changes to the game to make it safer for the players, so I have a bit of hope.
  3. Although as an Irving native, I’ve always supported the Dallas Cowboys, I will support the Redskins as long as RG3 is their quarterback. Yes, even head-to-head.
  4. I’ve tried a few burrito joints. I rank them thus: 1) Chipotle 2) Planet Burrito 3) Freebirds
  5. I still miss singing in a choir. I’m not a great soloist, but I seemed to do OK singing with lots of other people. Once the boys get older, I might look into rejoining a local community choir. Perhaps my old choir (The Irving Chorale) or my friend Randie’s choir (Schola Cantorum) might give me a break if they’re hard-up for baritone types. For singing purposes, my favorite styles are classical and gospel. Some musicals are great as well, such as Les Mis or Phantom. Just don’t make me try to dance and sing simultaneously. Something’s gotta give.
  6. At work we’ve been negotiating a new contract for about 2 1/2 years now. We seem to be nearing the end of the process, and speculation abounds that we’ll get a nice raise from the deal. If so, I won’t have to work day or afternoon shifts for overtime anymore, just midnights when I want to make some extra cash. That will make both Mrs. Box and me very happy.
  7. The contract negotiating process has given me a new appreciation for labor unions in general. There are always at least two sides to any discussion, and neither one is always right. Sometimes unions make bad choices. Sometimes management makes bad choices. Sometimes they work together and find a viable compromise.
  8. I am very proud of my wife. While she has her bachelor’s degree and could simply stay home with the kids until they are grown, she decided to go back to school to become a nurse. Just completing the nursing pre-reqs has taken a lot of work, but she’s cranking them out and maintaining a 4.0 while raising two active boys. After Monday, she’ll only have one more class to go (microbiology this fall) before she applies for nursing school for next fall.
  9. I get mad (internally, of course!) whenever I see a dog running around off-leash in my neighborhood or at a park. Two reasons: 1) I don’t know or trust the dog, and if he decides to attack me or my kids, the owner has no way to stop him. 2) Most cities around here have a leash law, and the owner is ignoring it.
  10. My all-time favorite musician is probably Sarah McLachlan. Jenny got me tickets to see her at AAC a few years back, and she put on a fantastic show. If she ever comes back to Dallas, I’ll probably go again.

Drafting

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When I get an idea for a blog post, I don’t necessary write it immediately. Maybe I don’t have time. Maybe I’m still wrestling with exactly what to say or what my position is. Maybe I’m not sure I actually want to follow through.

If I’m not going to write the post immediately, I generally save the idea as a draft and let it cook for a while. Maybe I’ll pick it up later, maybe not. Sometimes it sits there for a long time until I’ve lost interest in the topic or it’s no longer relevant. Other times I finally figure out what I want to say and publish it a few days or weeks after the original idea.

In case you want to peek behind the curtain, here are some ideas in my drafts folder that might or might not actually show up here someday:

  • Standing in a Canoe – My struggle to cling to Jesus when there’s so much that doesn’t make sense to me. Unfinished because I’m not sure you guys want to read it.
  • Girl, Look at That Body – Different people prefer different body styles in the opposite sex (swimmer, average Joe, bodybuilder, runner, lots to love, etc.). It would be an interesting topic for discussion and would lend itself nicely to a large photo gallery. However, with so many people dissatisfied with their bodies, I fear it would do more harm than good.
  • Why I Am (Mostly) a Flaming Liberal Christian Freak – How can I not publish something with a title like that? I’ve actually written much of this one already. It includes Biblical reasons for my support of most liberal causes. But I’m trying to be less divisive. =)
  • Mainlining – A look at the mainline Christian church, a broad umbrella for the Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and other groups who are neither Catholic nor evangelical (Baptist, Church of Christ, Assembly of God, charismatic, etc.). As a group, mainliners are shrinking, due largely to their refusal to proselytize aggressively. But their beliefs generally align better with my own. My buddy Keith (webmaster at BagOfNothing.com) thinks like I do, and he feels more at home in his new Presbyterian church.
  • The Wrong Side of History – In many generations, our society changes its views significantly on one or two major moral issues. In the mid-1800s, it was slavery. In the early 1900s, it was women’s suffrage. In the mid-1900s, it was racial equality and women’s rights. On each of these issues, the majority that preferred the status quo eventually became the minority, and later generations always came to view the old perspective as wrong, backwards, and shameful. The majority wound up being on the wrong side of history. I believe the issue today is gay rights, and that those who continue to support discrimination against gay people will eventually become the minority and be viewed as wrong and embarrassing by my children’s and grandchildren’s generations. Again, since I’m trying to be less divisive, at least for a bit, I’m holding on to this idea for now.
  • Bring Them Home – I had this idea for redoing the lyrics to the Les Miserables song “Bring Him Home” to address our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. But then I actually read the original lyrics and realized that yeah, it wouldn’t really work that well. I need to just delete this one.
  • Preventing Breast Cancer – With the recent controversy over mammogram recommendations, Planned Parenthood and Susan G. Komen, I got to thinking about why we focus so much on detecting breast cancer and so little on reducing the preventable risk factors. I just haven’t taken the time to do the research for this one.
  • Moving My Cheese at Southwest – I wrote this one in anticipation of a new job I was hoping to get. I wound up staying where I was, but I can’t bring myself to delete it. Maybe I’ll just post it anyway as a joke and confuse everyone.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief peek behind the curtain. If you’re dying to read any of these, please post a comment. I might be persuadable. Thanks as always for visiting.

“The Rules” for Couples with Opposite-Sex Friendships

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Unless you live in an isolated cabin in the mountains with your significant other, you’re bound to have some contact with members of the opposite sex. Here in America, we’ve developed a variety of rules of engagement for interacting with them to reduce the chance of, or the appearance of, illicit hanky-panky or any other inappropriate relationships. However, different situations and different couples seem to need different rules. Here are some that I’ve observed in others or applied myself.

Social Activities

One-on-one outings with the opposite sex are generally frowned upon. Even if the two people are as “just friends” as two people can be, such outings could give the wrong impression to anyone who sees them or create unpleasant questions in the mind of one or both spouses. Even though Jenny trusts me, this is one rule that I follow for three reasons:

  • There’s already way too much gossip in the world.
  • I don’t want to give Jenny any reason to doubt me.
  • I generally feel more comfortable around women and connect with them better. I don’t want to set up a situation in which I start to develop a bond that is too close with a female friend.

However, I wouldn’t mind if Jenny wanted to do something with one of our mutual male friends. For instance, she and our friend MadBomber are both sci-fi and comic book fans, much more than I am. If they wanted to go see the latest X-Men movie or something similar, I’d be OK with that. I trust both of them. But I would understand if MadBomber or his wife found that weird.

Some people avoid other mixed-gender situations as well. Some refuse to ride alone in a car or meet behind closed doors with anyone of the opposite sex. My pastor at Fellowship Church held himself and the rest of the staff to this standard, understandably so. I don’t hold myself to that standard strictly, though. I’ve carpooled to work with two different girls with no problems. Most people avoid being alone in a home with someone, which seems wise to me for a number of reasons.

When I’m meeting someone new, especially a woman around my age who might have been interesting in another life, I try to mention Jenny and/or our boys to make sure the woman knows I’m taken.

Hugging

I covered hugging in a previous post.

Seating

At church we sit with the same people in the same row every week. Someone, usually a couple, sits down first. Some of our friends, when they arrive next, intentionally arrange themselves so that girls sit by girls and guys sit by guys. If I’m seated and the couple starts walking down the row toward us, the girl might wait until the guy passes through so he’ll sit by me. The same thing happens sometimes in restaurants, movies, or other venues. But other couples don’t seem to care. So it’s either a personal preference or a differing understanding of the “rule”. Personally, I have no problem sitting next to a girl, and Jenny has no problem sitting next to a guy.

Phone Calls

I’ll bet this one depends largely on the nature of the call for most people. I know lots of people who have short conversations with an opposite-sex friend for some specific purpose – where is our group meeting for dinner, where do we park, what does your spouse want for her birthday, etc. But lengthy conversations between the two of you seem to be much less acceptable and something I avoid.

Internet

The explosion of the Internet, particularly Facebook, has presented couples with a new set of situations and potential dilemmas. The ease of connecting and interacting with people of both genders is both a blessing and a threat. It’s so easy to look up old friends from the past, but what if that friend is also an old flame? Is it OK to friend your ex or email with him/her? Jenny and I have done both. Naturally, we keep the interaction someone limited and make it clear that we are happily married and have no intention of rekindling the flame. However, from what little I’ve read, many relationships have ended in recent years because of Facebook reconnections with former lovers.

What about connecting with opposite-sex friends? I doubt many people have a problem with such semi-public interaction on Facebook or Twitter, but what about email or private Facebook messages? Are those OK? If so, how much interaction is acceptable? A joke or random question? A longer email? A multi-message conversation about more personal issues? Where is the line, and how do you know when you’ve crossed it? I’m not sure where people stand on this one.

For us, we don’t have a problem with private messages as long as the content remains appropriate and we don’t get too emotionally involved with anyone. One way that Jenny and I protect ourselves is by giving each other our passwords. At any time, Jenny can check my email or Facebook account and see what I’m up to, and vice versa. So if I’m writing a private message to a woman, I keep in mind that Jenny could read it and try hard not to say anything that might bother her. I also consider the possibility that my female friend’s husband or boyfriend might do the same.

Some of our friends handle this threat differently: by sharing an email address and/or Facebook account. The shared account makes interacting with them a bit more complicated since you never know who’s going to read your message first and sometimes don’t know who is replying. But a shared account does add an extra level of transparency.

The Biggest Threat

A strong emotional connection, to me at least, is probably the biggest threat in a mixed-gender friendship. Especially as a guy who feels more comfortable around women, I shouldn’t allow myself to get anywhere near as close emotionally to any woman besides Jenny. If I’m telling a female friend things that I wouldn’t reveal to Jenny, I’ve crossed the line and need to back off quick. Some friends of ours ended their marriage over such a situation. The guy found himself developing a too-close friendship with another woman. His wife didn’t like it, but the guy refused to end or scale back the friendship, so they finally divorced. I want to make sure that never happens to us, so I keep this principle in mind for all my interactions with female friends.

What are your thoughts? What rules of engagement do you follow when dealing with people of the opposite sex?

Epiphatree

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About a week ago, one of my favorite bloggers posted a simple, snarky, but significant comment:

“Wow, that picture you shared on Facebook just convinced me to change my religious / political affiliation, said no one ever.” – Rachel Held Evans

Its sentiment had been lurking in the shadows of my mind for quite some time, but I kept smacking it with a newspaper and telling it to shut up. No crusader wants to hear that his war is fought in vain. But let’s be honest – how much of an impact do all my links, pictures, comments, and blog posts actually make?

The answer was easy once I thought about my own habits on Facebook. I pay attention to the people who post things that interest me. Funny stuff is my favorite, followed by interesting news about your life, informative or offbeat articles, and cartoons/articles that fit with my political/religious worldview. I generally don’t watch your videos (too long) or look at your pictures unless they involve my children. If you’re generally negative, rude, or whiney or post lots of political, religious, or other stuff that I disagree with, I hide your posts. I figure many of you do the same. We’re not going to save the world through social media.

Most of us gravitate toward people, articles, and posts that confirm our beliefs and ignore the ones that contradict them.

Scholars call this tendency confirmation bias. We’ve already made up our minds on most issues, whether we’ve chosen a side or simply chosen to be neutral and not worry about it. The status quo is so much easier than carefully considering an opposing view. Let’s be honest – wrestling with something takes time and effort and risk. Changing our minds requires the unpleasant step of admitting, even if only to ourselves, that we were wrong.

I could write the most eloquent blog post in history, or share the most concise and powerful cartoon ever designed, trying to convince you of some position I hold. But unless you’re actively seeking to study that issue, you’ll probably either ignore my post or read it with a closed mind. If it made you mad enough, you might hide all my posts, quit following my blog, or even unfriend me. Despite all my talk about being open-minded, I do the same thing.

Photo Source: No Hope for the Human Race on Facebook

So…I shall attempt to piss off slightly fewer people in the days ahead, particularly on Facebook. I will still explore some controversial issues here on the blog, but I’ll be doing it more for my own amusement and/or as food for thought for my readers rather than an effort to change your minds.

To Scale

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What’s better than a little data? A lot of data. We just got a new toy that generates all kinds of data: our first bathroom scale. But this isn’t just any scale. It displays my weight like you’d expect but also uses a harmless electrical current to calculate my body fat, total water content, muscle mass, and bone percentage. Plus it looks slick and has a nice, clean display for our information. Except for getting my body fat measured back in junior high or high school, I’ve never had any of those measurements taken by a medical professional. But as far as I can tell, the extra information seems to be fairly accurate, or at least reasonable. We’re both trying to lose some body fat, so I hope this scale will help us track our progress.

With accuracy down to 0.2 pounds, it also allows me to perform some interesting experiments. For instance:

  • How much does my weight vary throughout the day and from day to day? (as much as five pounds)
  • How much weight do I lose during a trip to the bathroom?
  • How much water weight do I sweat out during a short run or a long run? This information can help me know how much replacement water to drink.
  • With my workout program and diet, does my body fat drop as quickly as my muscle mass increases, or is one faster than the other?

I haven’t decided yet what to do with all this data. Several iPhone apps let you track your weight and other data points. I could also set up an Excel spreadsheet or use some other tool. We’ll see. Right now I’m just playing with it.