Profoundly Ignorant

I heard the phrase "profoundly ignorant" used by a TV business commentator in describing a magazine article. I really liked the phrase.

That made me think, too.

I have been and am profoundly ignorant about any number of things. A few of these I know now after learning something about the subjects. But the vast remainder I know not.

That's because it takes a certain amount of knowledge to raise one's level of ignorance to the profound level.

Otherwise one is simply blissfully unaware.

Nothing really wrong with that as long as it is maintained privately.

After many years of negative experience it is my conclusion that the trick is to attempt silence regularly and consistently in order to shield from public notice the depth of one's own stupidity. That way the public is safer.

Not that I have arrived mind you but I am trying.

Next Car I Will Buy

Photo is my present 2003 Lexus.

I've been thinking about cars.

For one thing the news is full of stories about cars and car companies and bail outs and economic considerations. Then there is the news about the recent deaths of three celebrities that made me think about mortality.

And for another my 87 year old mother-in-law has decided to give her car away. She hasn't driven in more than a year. We discourage any notion that she should try to drive again given certain health considerations in addition to age.

My dad quit driving on the streets when he was 82 which was when he retired from his business work. My mother quit when she was 81. My favorite high school teacher was in her early 90's when she stopped driving but she might have waited a bit too long.

Soon I will be 61.

I figure that means I have a maximum of between 20 and 30 more years to drive myself around. Right now I drive quite a bit. And about once a month or more often sometimes I haul a pretty good load of horse feed. I've carried more than one thousand pounds a few times.

And sometimes I haul around a car full of people, too. Hopefully I will continue this pace for a while.

So sometime I'm going to have to buy another car or maybe several. I thought I should probably try to kind of plan when to buy so when I get the last one it it isn't just before I quit driving. No point in having a brand new car I can't drive. On the other hand if I hold on to one too long now then it gets too old and unreliable perhaps in the future when I am ill prepared to handle problems.

And there are economic considerations. It seems like this might be a good time to buy a car but it also seems unlikely for them to get cheaper over time. Unless we really do have significant deflation then it would be better to wait longer.

Do other people think of stuff like this? Or is it just me?

Plus my caregiving career makes me want to have a lot of stuff nicely organized and arranged so someone else doesn't have to bear that burden.

So after thinking about all that stuff for a while my head was spinning and I decided it was fruitless to worry about it.

But now that I had turned down this mental path, so to speak, I began thinking about what brand of car I might buy if I were to buy something.

Money-wise I should probably buy something from GM because I have a significant value of points to use. Surprisingly the points are still good, too. I know because about once a week I get a letter from them urging me to go buy something and use them. But really I didn't think all that much of GM before the government took them over and that fact has actually served to increase my lack of confidence in the company and the cars they make.

Dad's last car was a Chrysler. I didn't like it and it had a bunch of problems which is probably why I didn't like it. Judy had a Chrysler, too, and really liked it but I thought it was too high maintenance. Besides there is that government intervention factor again.

I might consider Ford. They didn't take any bailout money yet anyway. And when my step-son bought his last pickup I thought the Ford dealership was one of the best I've ever experienced. I'd go to them in the blink of an eye. But I don't much care for Ford cars.

I've never much liked the German cars either. They seem too "harsh" somehow but I really haven't given them a look in a long while so that's an old prejudice and may be undeserved. And I don't like all the options you have to choose.

I had a couple of Nissans and an Infinity. Didn't much like them.

That Hyundai brand looks pretty good. Probably should check that brand. Especially that Genesis. Two problems though with dealers. One dealer has the absolute worst TV commercials and I would never buy from them just because of the commercials and I'm serious. The other dealer treated me very disrespectfully about a year ago and I don't think I would venture back there. But there are other dealers I suppose in other towns.

I've had great experience with Lexus, Toyota, and Honda. Really more than great -- spectacular -- would be more correct. My Lexus is the best car I've ever owned and the dealer has been also great except for how far I have to drive to get there. Hondas have been the most economical vehicles I've ever owned.

Now I'm exhausted from thinking about it and I certainly don't want to go shopping.

So much for car shopping.

Somtimes I drive myself crazy. (Is that a pun?)

Productivity

Note: I found these images on the Internet somewhere a long while ago and have no idea where. So credit is due to someone but I'm sorry I do not know to whom it is owed.

When I began working for my dad at his business my first job was what I guess we would call a job cost clerk maybe.

The company at the time had more than 100 employees who were paid by the hour for work performed on various jobs. Each person had his own time card on which for each day he would record time worked by job. Jobs were assigned a number.

So at the end of a week the employee was supposed to add up his hours for each day and record that number at the bottom of the day column on the card. Then he summed the hours each job and recorded that value at the right hand total column for each job. The he summed the day hours across and summed the job hours down and the two numbers were supposed to agree as well as be equal to the number of hours worked that week. The foreman was supposed to sign off on each job.

That summing never did happen of course. My first job then was to take all those time cards and one by one to perform the summations. I had a Marchant calculator like the one in the image that I used to perform these calculations. Actually my first calculator was much older than the one in the image but I don't have a picture of it.

After I totaled and checked the time cards I had to calculate the value of the work by multiplying the hours worked by the employee's rate. That was both by job and total. Overtime had to be calculated separately. Then I calculated FICA which was the result of the wage by a constant factor. Next were things like federal and state withholding taxes, union dues, other deductions, and a net wage.

It took me most of an entire day to do that one task. Now there were other things I did during that time like help answer the phone and so on but mostly it took that long to "figure the time cards" as it was called.

My next step was to take a pad of "job cost tickets" and begin "taking off the cost." First I would sort the time cards alphabetically. Looking at the first time card I would find the first job number and label the top job cost ticket with that number. Then I'd write the employee's name on one line of the ticket as well as hours worked, rate, and extension. I repeated that for each job until the time card was finished and then I'd start over with the next time card. That took about another day.

Then I handed all those time cards and cost tickets to the fellow who ran the NCR posting machine.

We had two and they looked a lot like this image to the left except that ours were older I think.

It took that fellow who ran the posting machine two to three days plus to write those payroll checks and also post the cost tickets to the job cost file ledgers. There were Employee and Job ledgers respectively which were posted and maintained a total of sorts.

By union contracts we had to hand out payroll checks to employees on Friday a certain number of hours before quitting time. So those payroll checks had to be ready.

So that's what a small business accounting department was like in the early to middle 1960's.

I do believe that I could do the same work today with a personal computer and Quick Books in maybe a couple of hours and actually have more stuff finished. I've scribbled a few numbers trying to figure this out and I think there might be a 50 fold increase in productivity.

In thinking about this I began to dream about a system I might design today.

Probably for employee input portion I would use a smart phone an a custom application or perhaps one that already is available. I know that iPhone in particular has such an application that looks very good. That application would connect to some Internet available database and the data could be stored and accumulated real time. There would be several ways of generating the payroll checks and the various accounting systems could be updated real time as well.

I don't know what the increase in productivity might be but certainly very considerable over the 1960's and even considerable over a personal computer method.

Just something I was thinking about.

How Would I Introduce Jesus?

The other day I received an email that had a video of a Steve Harvey performance wherein he did an Introduction of Christ to a room full of people. I found it on Youtube.

I find it interesting that some people like Steve Harvey can get up on stage before a big crowd and do such a great job of leading the entire group.

That's not one of my gifts. You wouldn't really want me to be introducing anyone to a big crowd like that. And I wouldn't want to either so it kind of works out I guess.

Somehow I suspect that "needs no introduction" part is the most significant. That's how it was for me anyway when I met actually did meet Jesus. Wasn't any doubt in my mind who He was. You hear that a lot about needs no introduction but there are whole bunch of folks that I have no idea who they are or why I should know them. But Jesus truly does need no introduction.

I've heard people say when they get to heaven the first thing they're going to do is run up and ask God why something or other happened or throw their arms around Him or some other very familiar kind of thing.

But I bet it will be more like when I first saw the ocean or the Grand Canyon or my newborn babies. I stood there in awe and reverence trying to make my mind grasp some little sliver of the reality of it all.

Except that being in His presence will be so much beyond any experience I can imagine.

But Steve Harvey surely did a great job and surely did make me think.

No matter who tries to introduce you though you still have to go to Him yourself. Amazing how that works.

Feeding the Animals

I feed 4 horses and 1 cat daily.

They are always happy to see me. Now really it is not me in particular they care about but the guy that feeds them. And it is food that interests them. I know that.

But I use the opportunity to pet the horses a little. Sometimes I think they enjoy it but mostly they just tolerate it because they know eventually I am going to get the feed for them. Judy is a different story though. They like her and they like her to pet them, food or not.

Now the cat is different. I think she actually enjoys seeing me. The other day it was raining and she actually came out in the rain to greet me. She usually comes out to see me but in the rain is above and beyond.

So I get quite a bit of positive reinforcement from these animals.

I always talk to them. I ask the cat if she's hungry and if she wants something to eat. She looks up at me and meows except that's not really what her speech sounds like. When I go in the house to get her food the door closer holds it open a second or two. The cat takes that opportunity to run in with me. She thinks that if she comes in with me that she will get her food faster I suppose.

Then when we go out the door she runs underneath my feet almost always making me nearly fall over her. This used to irritate the daylights out of me but I've become accustomed to it now.

When I leave I tell her goodbye but she usually is too busy eating to acknowledge my departure.

The horses know my car so when they see it they begin moving towards the feeders. If they are out in the pasture they will run. If the wind is blowing hard and gusty or if the weather is changing or just about anything really they get a little upset and act rowdy. Have to watch them if you're in there with them.

The old mare is always the hungriest. She whinnies at me and gets right up against the fence and strains her neck over it towards me. I have a strange respect for the old mare. She's in her late 20's now and had several foals. I always think of us being in the same age range even though she is a lot younger.

The younger mare I suppose is my favorite although I really don't know why. I just like her. She's kind of dainty in a horsey way.

The sorrel gelding's name is Bucky. That's not his real name but his descriptive name and apparently well earned. He irritates me no end. For one thing he uses his head and mouth to scoop out oats from the feeder onto the ground. I hate this and I usually tell him about it. But he ignores me. He prefers the sweet feed to the oats I guess. He is also the "biter" of the group. He will bite me if I am not careful. He'll bite just about anything.

When I finish I tell them all goodbye and that I'll see them tomorrow. They don't even look up from the feeders. But it seems rude not to tell them I'm leaving.

Even if you feed some humans they aren't really glad to see you.

The General and the servant girl

I was reading the other day in 2 Kings 5. It is the most interesting story of a general named Naaman who was afflicted with leprosy. Eventually he goes to the prophet, Elisha, who by his own servant tells the general to immerse himself in the Jordan river and he will be cured.

Naaman really does not like this idea nor does he like talking to Elisha's servant instead of Elisha directly. So initially he stomps off refusing to do it. Well, his underlings persuade him to change his mind by telling him that he would do something complicated if he had been instructed to do so; therefore, why not do something simple.

I'm paraphrasing of course.

Naaman goes and dunks himself in the Jordan seven times and he is healed.

There's more, too.

Much later -- hundreds of years -- this story becomes very important in the life of Jesus, the Messiah. So it is an important story.

What really interests me is why Naaman wants to go to Elisha in the first place. That's because his wife has told him what her servant girl said. The servant girl is from Israel and was captured by Naaman's King on a previous raid.

Her name is not mentioned in the account. And she doesn't tell Naaman directly but only his wife, her mistress.

The story obviously is not about the servant girl but somehow I have become fixated on her. I keep thinking about her.

For one thing she must have been an exceptional woman because Naaman immediately took the advice upon hearing it. I wouldn't take advice from someone I didn't have a lot of respect for.

I wonder how she felt about being captured and removed from her home and family and life? I wonder if she was resentful or angry or depressed or all the emotions I can imagine myself feeling.

I wonder why she cared so much for Naaman? I wonder if it was because of his wife or the man himself or was it just something in the heart of this unnamed, young girl?

I wonder if she knew the Lord? And if she did I wonder if she felt herself called into His service? Was she at peace because she felt that calling even though she was a enslaved in a strange land?

I wonder if she was rewarded by the general when he returned home? I wonder how she felt when she found out he had been healed?

I wonder if she had any idea that her remark would play such an important part in world history? It was not a very significant statement really.

Makes me wonder about my own statements and my own life.

Degeneration

I read an article the other day about vocabulary. The author argued that he tried to use "big words" in his lectures in order to help his students understand complex concepts and to be able to more successfully discuss the subject.

That caused a flurry of Internet debate of course about whether or not that was a good idea. It is not hard to imagine the two sides and their respective positions.

But it made me think about several different things.

Not too long ago I read passages from letters written home by American Civil War soldiers. I've also been reading (for a long while) Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Abraham Lincoln. She includes quotes from the writings of people of that period. Then I have read some things that were written long ago by members of my family including my father and mother and grandparents.

What interests me in all of these is the rather greater vocabulary in use compared to what I generally read today.

There are older examples as well. For instance there are some really old pieces of Biblical writing that survive that discuss very complex concepts using advanced language.

There are four possibilities as I see it:

1. Vocabulary usage has not declined and I am just wrong.
   
2. Vocabulary usage has declined because human capacity has degenerated.
3. Vocabulary usage has declined because education is ineffective.
4. Vocabulary usage has declined because it is a matter of fashion.
   

That first possibility has a lot of merit I admit forthwith having become by this age well acquainted with my own self-delusional, intellectual failures.

Education is more intense now than it was when my parents were in school. I really do not believe the educational system is at fault. Or maybe there is just more to teach. That's true enough. But we have more time to learn. My dad had to try to read by a kerosene lamp for goodness sake.

Fashion definitely is a part of the issue I think. Telephone, radio, television, Internet, cell phones, email, and texting all discourage both complex concepts and advanced vocabulary. But it is hard for me to conclude that it is the only cause.

I think there actually may be some loss of capacity. It is nothing I could really prove scientifically but it just seems that way to me.

If I were to propose an evolutionary reason I guess I would say that it is because our species does not need to be as intelligent. If I were to propose a Christian reason it is that we are farther removed from the fall.

Just stuff I was thinking about.

Context

I saw this mattress and box springs on the side of the road.

I felt the anger rise within me. In the little movie theater that exists in my mind I watched someone deliberately pull up in a pickup and throw off the unwanted bedding. Anger was becoming rage.

Then the movie changed and the pickup morphed into an old car with the mattress and box spring tied on top. There was a man and woman in the front and two children in the back and the car was filled with all sorts of stuff. It was a very poor family that was moving and the mattress and box springs tore loose in the wind as I watched and landed on the road. The man pulled off and hey all tried to get the load back on the car. They gave up in tears and desperation and harsh words and pushed the items over to the side of the road.

The movie changed again and the car morphed into a truck and the mattress and box springs fell off the back while I was watching. The driver was oblivious and continued on his way. A following pickup stopped and the man driving got out and pushed the objects to the side of the road.

The rage had subsided and the movies had stopped and the screen was dark.

I realized I had no idea what happened that caused that mattress and box springs to be there on the side of that road.

Facts are facts but context makes all the difference.

Does Anyone Care About Doing A Good Job?

I casually told someone I was going to be waiting on an installation of a TV service the other day. They said "I hope it goes well." Then we both laughed and admitted that we neither one thought there was much chance of that happening.

It's terrible to expect problems with everything.

But that's the way it is now I think. I do not think it always was this way.

Part of the problem is that so much of what we do now is so complex while the tools we have to apply are so fast. For instance my iPhone tries to figure out what I am trying to type as I do it and substitutes words that I sometimes did not intend. Or the spelling checker for this blog entry for that matter does something similar. Both things happen fast, too!

Beyond that though I just get the feeling sometimes that people don't care much about the quality of the work they produce.

Probably more of my "old fogey" syndrome.

*The AT&T guy came and did a really good job as far as I can tell. I was pleasantly surprised. But that surprise shows that my expectations were so low.*

Handkerchiefs

I don't know what happened to all my handkerchiefs. I was down to only two and they were rather well used. So I turned to my trusty mercantile choice, Amazon of course, and found some in about 15 seconds.

Amazon just has them for sale but they come from Jos. A. Bank.

Still I had them "in hand" within a couple of days. The UPS fellow brought them in a considerably larger than needed box.

I use handkerchiefs and always have nearly as long as I can remember. I have a hard time leaving the house without a handkerchief stuck in my pocket.

I like to have a clean one but when you only have two you have to compromise on that issue. But now that I have a "baker's dozen" (that's what the package read -- I haven't counted them) I can be assured of a clean one daily.

Just to clarify there is no great need for a clean one for oneself. But if one carries handkerchiefs one finds shall we say opportunities to offer them to women and children. I have on rare occasion offered mine to another man but there is an unseemliness to it that I can't quite specify.

Over time I have noticed that I was more and more the rarity in having a handkerchief to offer. But really I had never thought much about it.

Until the other day when my son and daughter and a friend were visiting and I mentioned I had just received my new handkerchiefs. The three of them thought that was so quaint that I would buy and carry handkerchiefs. I said "what do you do when you need a handkerchief?" And I won't say what they did because I thought it was disgusting.

There is apparently a generational change in the wearing and use of handkerchiefs that had previously escaped my attention.

I noticed the other day that George Will had written a piece (Will Jeans Undermine Our Social Order) about the pervasiveness of the American blue jean. I would recommend to him a similar piece about the disuse of the lowly handkerchief but I am one of the ones who wears jeans daily and I am certain that would disqualify me in his eyes.

But I like my hankies even though they apparently make me an old fogey. And I am doing my part to preserve our social order to make up for wearing jeans.

Community

Facebook and Twitter have been in the news a lot recently along with other Internet social networking sites.

The Thursday news was all about the "tea parties" where all sorts of like minded people gathered together to protest federal spending. I was watching CSI on Thursday evening and the plot involved this gathering of Star Trek fans.

Thursday morning I had occasion to wait in a couple of businesses. While I was waiting I observed the people who worked at the places and they interacted with each other and us customers.

At lunch on Thursday an old friend and I visited about a place we used to work and how much we appreciated our co-workers and how much fun we had working there.

So all of that started me thinking about community and what it means to be a part of one.

For one thing I thought that location and proximity are two things that have drastically changed about defining community. Not that there ever was a truly agreed definition in the first place. But used to we talked about how it was a group of people at a particular place. The Internet redefines place to something beyond geography although just what is hard to say.

Another thing that occurred to me was how some ideas or purposes become more important than others for a community. For instance the "tea parties" had people from all different kinds of backgrounds but they united around one particular idea. Facebook is kind of like that, too. Relationships trump other stuff there it seems to me.

I've seen that before many times. One time a group of us got together in a very informal way to raise money to honor a beloved teacher by funding a scholarship in her name. We were all opposites in so many ways but we united because we truly loved and respected that teacher.

There's a little group of us that read each other blogs and post entries and so on. We've become a community.

The more I think about it the more uncertain I am exactly what truly constitutes community.

But I have learned that it is really important.

Thoughts on Deuteronomy

I've been reading in Deuteronomy since the first of March.

Usually I read on my iPhone using the Mantis Bible application and Peterson's The Message Bible version.

A couple of things have stood out for me so far that I thought it might be worth a blog entry.

Deuteronomy 9 is where I find the first thing I want to mention (emphasis mine):

But when God pushes them out ahead of you, don't start thinking to yourselves, "It's because of all the good I've done that God has brought me in here to dispossess these nations."

That's a little something that all of us who believe in Jesus Christ should keep in mind. It is easy to lose that perspective though. We have something good happen to us and it is really easy to take the credit for it.

I am certain I've read this passage many times before but that admonition really leaps out at me this time around.

Deuteronomy 15 is the second thing:

At the end of every seventh year, cancel all debts. This is the procedure: Everyone who has lent money to a neighbor writes it off. You must not press your neighbor or his brother for payment: All-Debts-Are-Canceled—God says so. You may collect payment from foreigners, but whatever you have lent to your fellow Israelite you must write off.

There must be no poor people among you because God is going to bless you lavishly in this land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, your very own land. But only if you listen obediently to the Voice of God.

Certainly I knew about this passage but it surely stood out this time around.

Just in case someone thought about not loaning money towards the end of the 7 years that issue was raised along with others in following verses:

When you happen on someone who's in trouble or needs help among your people with whom you live in this land that God, your God, is giving you, don't look the other way pretending you don't see him. Don't keep a tight grip on your purse. No. Look at him, open your purse, lend whatever and as much as he needs. Don't count the cost. Don't listen to that selfish voice saying, "It's almost the seventh year, the year of All-Debts-Are-Canceled," and turn aside and leave your needy neighbor in the lurch, refusing to help him. He'll call God's attention to you and your blatant sin.

Give freely and spontaneously. Don't have a stingy heart. The way you handle matters like this triggers God, your God's, blessing in everything you do, all your work and ventures. There are always going to be poor and needy people among you. So I command you: Always be generous, open purse and hands, give to your neighbors in trouble, your poor and hurting neighbors.

I thought it was interesting.

Sad Stories

One day last week I read (on my Kindle 2 of course) an AP story carried in the local paper about a Minnesota man, Verne Gagne. Verne, who just turned 83 on February 25, has Alzheimer's (or possibly some other dementia) and was involved in an altercation with another resident of his facility on January 26.

The other man, Helmut Gutmann, was 97 and subsequently died on February 14 from his injuries. He also had Alzheimer's.

Mr. Gagne was a well known professional wrestler before his memory loss. Neither man remembered what happened after the altercation.

Mr. Gutmann's death was ruled a homicide but the authorities declined to charge Mr. Gagne.

One of my blogger friends posted an entry on the same day.

Here is a link to an AP story about the incident.

The very next day I read an article in our local paper about Mr. Lester Pendegraft, 94, of Norman, Oklahoma being charged with rape. Mr. Pendegraft was living in an Edmond, Oklahoma nursing home when the rape occurred. He was stopped by attendants but the family of the victim was not immediately notified. The daughter contacted a victim rights group that was able to get the police involved and charges were filed against Mr. Pendegraft.

Mr. Pendegraft was moved to a Norman nursing home where he died on Monday, March 2nd. Authorities have dropped the charges.

In the second incident the ailment of either party (I find it hard to make myself write perpetrator) is not reported. It is obvious from the report that both people were suffering from something.

I thought that no matter what Mr. Pendegraft had previously done in his life, and I do not know anything about him; and, no matter who all had loved him; and, no matter who all he had loved; that all of that would now be forever eclipsed by the record of this one act near the end of his life.

That's bad enough without even considering the very real possibility that Mr. Pendegraft, had he been in his right mind, would be terribly grieved of his own action.

My father would have been mortified had he done something like that, if he had his right mind which he did not. And make no mistake about it I think that is a very real possibility had I placed him in a nursing home. That was one of the reasons I so stubbornly refused that option in fact.

Or he could have been like either Mr. Gagne or Mr. Gutmann. Both of those men now will be remembered for something nearly incidental to their history except that one man died and another caused it.

I think I shared before that one of the fears I had with my dad was that he would be away from me and some policeman or citizen would shoot him or hurt him because of his inability to control his own actions.

I had not thought of any of these things for a good long while until I read these two articles.

Symbols

Tonight I'm going to attend a lecture by Harry S. Dent (see my February 10, 2009 entry) so I'll write about his ideas tomorrow as well as provide personal opinions about his book and his ideas.

Oddly enough I think that symbols and the economy are related though.

I've been thinking about symbols lately.

Sometimes when I drive across the pasture I see birds sitting around out there. A friend one time told me that my first problem was driving in the pasture. Maybe so. It must sound a bit strange to someone who has no pasture.

Anyway sometimes there are these big, black birds. Usually there are maybe 8 or 9 and they just sit there and watch me drive past them. They are menacing birds. I think they are American Crows.

At least that's the picture of an American Crow thanks to Wikipedia. Mine are more menacing than this one though and quite a bit bigger.

Something I've noticed is that often when I see these guys then something bad happens. Usually someone gets sick or something breaks. That kind of thing.

Sounds like a superstition doesn't it? It could be I suppose except I am neither fearful or irrational. It is more like I am just an observer and I've happened to notice these coincidences.

Then there are some other birds that are smaller and kind of a tan color and usually there are more of them. When the smaller birds arrive the black birds leave.

So this story line popped up in my imagination.

It's about this police detective and he notices that when he drives across his pasture and sees these crows that a crime always occurs within a few days. I had a pretty decent little story moving along up there in my head somewhere.

Sometime along the way though I began wondering if maybe we should be thinking more symbolically about things. Like cleaning up the poop as an example and how I noticed that it is easier to clean it up when it is dried out. Also doesn't smell as bad.

Numbers are actually symbols although we tend to think about them as being the thing they are symbolizing.

Stuff like that.