Paul Merrill
I dismantled a swingset on Sunday.
Colorado’s intense high-altitude sun and temperature swings had taken their toll on the wood.
Our youngest kid is now 15. Playing on the swingset no longer holds the attraction it used to. So we decided to convert that part of the yard to garden.
It’s sad to contemplate that it seems like just a few years ago when I was mourning the loss of cuteness – when she was about 6 or 7 years old.
New windows for an old building… sometimes that doesn’t work.
Seeing this gap reminded me of reading a great phrase someone really smart once said: “no one puts new wine into old wineskins.”
And that made me think of the gaps that are all over Colorado’s roads. The extreme heat and cold we experience – and the water that seeps underneath our road beds – cause all manner of cracks and holes to appear – and gradually become larger and larger.
Road repair budgets are not what they used to be, so car repair bills related to tires and wheels are becoming commonplace.
Why can’t a smart engineer-type invent an inexpensive elastic road surface that will expand and contract with the changes in weather and precipitation? This surface would need to provide a uniform surface – as in, very smooth.
Know anyone up for the challenge?
In 2004, I bought this Adobe suite of software. At the time, it was the full complement of software that the world’s best graphic designers would use to create their artwork.
(The current cloud-based version still fills that role.)
I paid something like $700 – and at the time, the regular full price was north of $1,000.
Today? That software is useless. It’s not worth a penny.
The computers it would run on have long since been retired.
And even though the core functionality of that suite of software hasn’t changed, no one would buy that old version.
At least we still hold value when we get older. Our core functionality isn’t that much different, though there are newer faster versions.
American culture has become extremely polarized. If you are even slightly on one side of a fence, it’s very hard to say anything about your issue without getting shut down by voices from the opposing side.
This current political season has made the polarization much worse. Political candidates from both sides of the aisle are harsh and often unreasonable in their criticisms of their opponents. A climate of combativeness has sucked much of the American public into that same negative vortex.
Thankfully, I have become so tired of pre-election politics that I lost my desire to voice any political opinion. I hardly listen to any news, as so much air time is devoted to the same verses being iterated in some hardly-new direction.
I’ll be glad when November 9th hits, no matter who wins.
Hearing a song over and over can ruin a perfectly good song.
As I visited Kinko’s today, I heard a song that I’d be happy to never hear again for the rest of my life.
Paul McCartney is definitely one of the most talented musicians of the last 50 years. But every song he has written and sung has not been a masterpiece. (Very few musicians have that capability!)
Band on the Run is not my favorite song by Sir McCartney. Even when it became a world-wide hit on the radio, I didn’t enjoy it very much.
So when the Kinko’s playlist featured that song, I nearly ran out of the store screaming. (Well, not really.)
Can we have a world-wide moratorium on certain songs? Please?
It’s that part of the year when I am totally ready for warmer weather.
Last week, we had a huge snowstorm. The white stuff accumulated so much that cars’ underbodies left bits and pieces all along the roadways as they unsuccessfully tried to be snowplows.
Days went by without sunshine. (And in Denver, we’re used to “about 300 days [with] at least one hour of sunshine sometime during the day.”) When you get used to seeing the sun, it’s hard to live without.
My brother lives in San Antonio. He trades not having snow for putting up with long summers of intense heat. As Americans get older, many move to warmer places. I understand that now.
But I do love the seasons. And the beauty of a new snowfall – before car parts start collecting in snowbanks.
“Love covers a multitude of sins…”*
When you love a company, you’ll forgive their little mistakes.
I love IKEA:
Because of my love for IKEA, I’m willing to put up with the things I don’t like:
A very illusive goal for any company is to make it onto someone’s loved companies list. And it’s easy to get off that list. (Hello Chipotle and VW.)
Homework for my marketing friends out there: brainstorm with your team ways your company can get on your customers’ loved companies list.
* 1 Peter 4:8b.
I love dreams. I rarely remember them, but when I do, and when they’re interesting, I enjoy telling Heather about them. If I have time, I like to write them down.
Saturday morning very early, I had this dream…
I was supposed to play drums for my favorite band, Quasi. We were to perform at a small outdoor festival, kind of like on a gazebo in front of a medium-sized picnic. I was panicking, since I don’t play the drums. But in my dream, I could play them at least a little.
I asked Sam Coomes if my son could play instead of me. (And Jay can play the drums.) We were in the middle of negotiations when the dream faded. So I’ll never find out if Jay played drums for Quasi.
The irony of the dream is that Quasi has an amazing drummer. (Janet Weiss is my favorite drummer.) So why would Sam be asking me – or Jay – to play the drums?
We love variety. We love uniformity. This contrast in our wants and needs is intriguing.
The familiar can be comforting – knowing that something will always be there. And yet, we love change. Few people would choose to have the same meal three times a day. We love listening to different tunes. A change in seasons is often welcome.
And yet everyone has different needs for variety and uniformity. Some people are content with no change, ever. On the other side, our ADD culture pushes us toward constant stimulation, which requires never-ending change. I’m probably closer to the wanting-variety end of that spectrum.
My need for constancy is reflected by the fact that I’ve been married 26 years. Yet there is endless variety in my wife. (Women are so different than men that I will never figure her out!)
Finally, variety is a luxury. In America today, we have far greater choice than kings and queens did 400 years ago. We can get fresh fruit 365 days a year. When I lived in Africa, my friends in rural areas did not have that luxury. If mangoes weren’t ready to pick, you didn’t eat mangoes. If they were ripe, you ate a lot, for several weeks straight.
During my frustration with this political season, it’s nice to go outside and take a few deep breaths. (There’s something bigger than politics.)
I took that photo with my phone a few weeks ago.
