Category: Life

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You’ve got to let them go

Our oldest son, Jay, is 17. He will be gone from our home not long from now. Hard to imagine – but it’s something many of my friends and their kids have already been through, so I know it’s do-able.

Anyhow, my little point for today’s lesson* is that you have to let your kids try things that other parents may consider risky. (That’s Jay up there in that crevice of the rock.) Heather struggles a bit more with what others think than I do. (We’re a good balance for each other!) But she is sometimes more willing to let the little birds leave the nest than I.

Parenting always involves stretching boundaries, on the part of both parents and kids. Let’s be willing to let the other try things and sometimes fail.

* And I’m preaching to myself on this one too. You know that by now.

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Unending growth

If you think back to the economic bubble, it was largely based on this idea that economic growth should continue at a double-digit pace forever.

Harry Eyres wrote a column in The Financial Times (England’s uniquely orange newspaper) that had this callout.

I completely agree. Let’s get real.

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Loss of innocence

This beautiful tree is in a park not far from the oldest part of my town. It’s probably as old as the oldest buildings.

What a great tree to climb!

Alas, such is not to be. Notice the fence surrounding the base? My guess as to why – liability issues. The city can’t be bothered with the cost of a lawsuit from some parent whose kid climbs the tree, falls down, breaks his leg and sues.

I miss the old days, when you could turn around without having to consider legal implications.

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Ads everywhere

As we rode light rail trains around Kuala Lumpur, I noticed that ads were on the ceilings of the train cars. It seemed that companies rent ad space on entire trains. The outsides and insides of a train are completely wrapped in advertising for one company. Sometimes ads even cover parts of windows.

In this case, the company had something to do with preventing computer viruses.

I briefly raise these questions: How much advertising is too much? What if these ads help the train fare to be lower? And are the ads even effective? (I will answer that one – I’d guess that train users see them once and then the ads become invisible.)

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It tastes better

…when you do it yourself.

We planted an apple tree in our back yard, maybe six years ago. This year is the first where we got any significant apples out of the deal. And though they were small, they tasted great.

What is something that you did lately that gave more satisfaction than if you had just bought it?

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On Connection, Meaningless to Almost Anyone

This is a Guest Post. Elizabeth Howard writes poetry on demand on a Olivetti Lettera 33, and refuses to believe the internet is a gutter for poorly constructed metaphors and overly-bullet-pointedness. If you agree, read more, comment more at her blog, “Letters from a Small State.”

I tweet. Because if I leave the keyboard, I have to subtract myself from the safety of limitless connection.

Blind, ever-pulsating links between me and a perfect unknown.

You know: what Simonpegg or mommywantsvodka are chattering on about at 9:37 p.m. scratches a certain itch. Ahhhhh.

And it deflects. Very nicely. From the complicated love that burrows down. Love that lingers and love that is canyon-width and acid edges, but isn’t all that interesting. Aged and unattainable. Grizzled and drinking beer with its feet on my coffee table.

So, then it’s Us Weekly tweets to soothe the soul — from the constant berating of Not-Us Daily.  Life hiding its regalement in banality. That is to say: rotten-fierce love between two people who are ordinary.

I facebook to imagine myself on the wings of electricity, a fairy of fiberoptics.

I lace my imagined self with curiously tangled and dementedly true details. Meaningless to almost anyone.

To everyone but the most ordinary, steel-toed lover.

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American excess

A local bakery / restaurant from a well known chain throws out four huge trash bags of perfectly good bread and pastries every night at closing time. Some nights, very kind people pick up the excess and bring it to homeless shelters or similar. Most nights, it goes into the nearby dumpster.

This chain has ten stores in the Denver area alone. That amount of waste is mind-boggling.

I do not fault them.

Who is at fault for this kind of waste? The American consumer. The manager of the store told my friend who makes those charity bread runs, “If we didn’t have every single item in stock, we’d get complaints from customers who missed being able to buy their favorite item at the end of the day. Then we’d lose them as customers. They would go to another shop.”

We are guilty as a country.

Solution? The years I lived in England, stores would regularly finish their stock near the end of the day. Customers would just buy a different item – or go to a different store. No one would get upset. I would propose that we simply lower our darn picky standards – at least in this case. How would this happen? I don’t have any idea. Do you?

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The big stamp

When you think about how the American (and world) economy is in bad shape, here’s a small note of cheer…

The US Government’s postal service is losing money – but they still can afford to make big and beautiful stamps.

(For scale, I’ve shown coins from America, England and Kenya.)

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Bad buying decision

My artistic daughter (also my only daughter, as it turns out) wanted a camera – so she could capture images through her eyes.

Since I love taking photos of weird things, and since she thinks a lot like me in those ways, I was quite happy to get a camera for her birthday. Knowing she is not a discriminating consumer, I bought the inexpensive HP you see here from buy.com. It never worked right. You can see the little battery leak at the lower left corner. Somehow it drained the batteries so fast that she could only take about three photos before the batteries died. And by the time I figured it out, the warranty had expired. (And sadly, I could not even sell it with a clean conscience for a giveaway price on craigslist.)

Moral of the story? Sometimes it’s worth it to spend more to get a better whatever. The initial cost may be more, but it will cost you less in the long run.

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