A Real Hair-Club for Men "Test Day"

(Sunday, 26Oct08) People some times ask me about this area being called the "Windy City" and it's really true we almost never have the absence of wind in our area. However, if you want to REALLY see what it's like, watch the web cam today (Sunday) and see!! We have wind gusts to 50 mph today and I already have one recorded to 21.2 mph at my backyard weather station!! So, it's a windy day! Watch our neighbor's Bears flag(oops - he just took it down but I captured it on video so watch my blog for this soon) and trees across the street blow in the wind. Also, watch the debris go down the street ! Wow!

Yup - it is really a windy day today! They forecast gusts to as much as 50 mph today so when we got out of the car to go into the restaurant after Church this morning, it didn't suprise us that we almost blew sideways! Also, it didn't surprise us when we got out of the car at home that we had to lean into the wind to make it to the garage. This is a fairly typical fall day and one of the reasons the "colors" do not last long around here. No sooner have the trees started to change to their beautiful colors when a wind front like this one comes through and strips all those delicate colorful blooms off the trees and sends them flying down the street toward some unknown destination on the east side of town. Some guy must really have a colorful yard (and a lot of work ahead of him)! Well, here's a short video of my neighbor's yard during today's gusts. Just look at the trees in his yard blow like crazy. You can also see a few things go by at high speed down the street. If you watch closely, you'll see that as he had just finished mowing his yard, he gave up on keeping his Bears flag sailing in the wind and took it down. That was a smart move since this kind of wind can go all day and frequently loosens the anchor bolts in your mortar attaching your flag holder to your house! Let' watch....



If you watched closely, you saw my neighbor come out of his garage and take down his Bears flag to prevent it from removing itself!

One of my more amusing co-workers years ago when we were headed out to lunch from work and the wind was blowing us horizontal like today commented - "man, it's a real Hair Club for Men test day today!" I thought that was really funny. It brought up images of what kind of wind a person with such a hair piece could reasonably expect to survive and what mph rating might prove catastrophic to their coiffure and the fact that today's wind would serve as an excellent "test day". Funny stuff.

Anyway, this is Chicagoland at its finest - winds that practically take your breath away, dishevel your clothing and make a mockery of your hair by re-arranging it constantly. So, in case you ever wondered if it was true - YES - Chicago is truly the windy city! (They aren't kidding)

Living in fear

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The primary reason of course is because once again my employer is doing a layoff of employees where no position is guaranteed to be safe and to the tune of almost 300 people this time. When you work in telecom you (I guess) get used to this constant cycle of life in which people with 10+ years of service are thrown out the door for no other reason than their salaries (after such time) are costing the company more than the amount for which a "fresh-out" of college from India could be had.

I think you get what you pay for. An experienced employee is worth a lot more than what they see on their spreadsheets. American is in a crisis of its own making - inability or more likely unwilligness to protect it's own assets; its products and its workers. In the end, all this unbridled lust for profits that American companies are grasping for without thought to their workers or the long term good of the country will result in a collapse of our economic system and those very companies who sought to satisfy their greed. America needs to wake up and smell the exports and realize that we are bleeding to death over the goals and desires of some nebulous group of people that are collectively referred to as "the street". Who cares what "the street" wants?!!! Who cares what their "expectations" are?!!! A profitable company is a profitable company whether or not "the street" agrees or not! Let's stop living in fear of what "the street" expects!

As I said, you would think that after a while you would get used to it but we never do... I have watched so many good, talented and devoted people get shown the door that it is nauseating and yet it continues as apparently the only mechanism for creating better profitability. Well, with that logic, why not lay off everyone and experience the ultimate in cost conservation and profit glut?!!! Oh yeah, without the workers, you can't continue... hmmm......

So, living in this constant state of layoff fear causes a lot of people to have health problems due to stress and anxiety. I was thinking about that this week as we went through yet another "down-turn", "right-sizing" and/or "reduction in force". No matter, the term, it's not very palatable in any form of expression. Anyway, it occurred to me that the American worker is living in much the same state as the young Damocles who learned a valuable lesson from a wise king.

The story goes that poor young Damocles, an excessively flattering courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, decided that his king was most fortunate because he was a man of power. The king overhearing this young man's ill informed opinion decided to teach Damocles a lesson; he offered to switch places with Damocles for a day so that Damocles could experience this good "fortune". The deal was struck and Damocles enjoyed a great day culminating in a great feast. It was only at nearly the end of the feast that he noticed that hanging right above his head was a sharpened sword suspended by only a single horse hair!!! (see the picture?)



Suddenly the young man lost his appetite and begged the king to swap places with him again. Dionysius had successfully conveyed to the young man the perpetual sense of fear in which the king lived.

I think some people would say the king's intention was to convey the meaning - "man it's tough at the top" or something similar about how great power carries a great burden with it. Oh sure - pitiful them. I suppose there is _some_ truth to that. However, I think Cicero found the true meaning in this story and here is what he said:

"Does not Dionysius seem to have made it sufficiently clear that there can be nothing happy for the person over whom some fear always looms?"

I think that's the real "nut" of the story..... that a person who has fear over their head all the time simply cannot be happy. Whether we allow that fear to be hanging over our heads all the time (regardless of the the reality of the danger) is up to us. It was in thinking about this story that I decided the proper response to the times in which we live is not to fear them constantly and thus hurt ourselves but to put our trust in a higher authority and trust Him to help us through this life. Surely that is the basis of the Christian faith in trusting God to help us through tough times. I think there can be great peace of mind to be had in that approach and way of thinking. I intend to work on living that belief in better fashion. I hope you can too.

In short, our happiness cannot be real unless we learn to overcome our fears. God can help us do that.

Then, if the layoffs come, at least I leave an employer behind who didn't care for me as I walk out the door with someone who loves me very much and will continue to watch over me all the days of my life!! I'd rather put my trust in Him than some earthly and fickle employer.

Love to all,

Jerry

A Tribute to Snow

This is just a little tribute to SNOW!
(one of my most favorite of things).

It is accompanied by yet another JPR musical adaptation of a song
called "Walking in the Air" from the movie "The Snowman"
- arranged on my FL Studio.
I hope you enjoy it! (Leah, the doggies are for you!) :O)

Something Fruity!

Ok, so last Christmas, my kids banded together and bought me this great program called FL Studio (the "FL" stands for Fruity Loops - weird huh?). Anyway, this program lets you edit music digitally. It's really complex and has many features and I have only learned a few of them but lately I've been working with it a bit and this is my result...

I suspect the tune in instantly recognizable to most of you. I can't say it's my classiest effort but it is my FIRST effort so I decided to do something completely for fun.

So, here you go, the famous "you-know-who" song and I hope you enjoy it!

CLICK ME

Thank you to my kids for the really cool software!

Love to all - JR

The Annual Coating of the Drive

Well, today is the day! It's the annual seal coating of the driveway! (whoopee!) Another round of parking in the street for an entire day because the black gooey stuff has to dry before you can park/walk on it again. It's a bit like having a portion of the La Brea Tar Pit dumped in the middle of your driveway but hey, they tell me it protects that beautiful black sheen of my driveway for many months to come and gets me through the cold of winter! So, here are "da guys" out there just working away. The "goo" they put down is sticky, black and unforgiving if you get sloppy with it. I suspect they go through a lot of jeans and shoes! I learned a long time ago that if you are blessed with enough income, there are certain things that you should just pay to have done - even if it's easily something you could do...... this is one of those things..... So, we have a working symbiotic relationship - they want the money and are willing to do the work, and I am willing to pay them!... 8O)