My Christmas Blog

I have always maintained that I was introduced to foul language by my mother. I am now convinced that I learned this linguistic ability from my dad. At Christmas. Putting lights on the tree. You see, it’s my belief that foul language reached its peak when people decided to start putting colored lights on trees.

Nothing says Christmas to me like waking up early, walking out into the family room and seeing the tree all lit up with multi-colored lights. A previous decision-maker in my life preferred white lights and wanted to buy a tree pre-wired with white lights. But this is such a strong association for me that when I had the opportunity to buy a pre-lit tree I had to pass it by because I couldn’t give up the multi-colored warm-fuzzy of Christmas. I couldn’t imagine the rest of my Christmases without colored lights on my tree. What fool prefers to string lights up every year compared to the holiday bliss of a pre-lit tree? This one. Colored lights are my own little Christmas-fuzzy, if you will.

I’m not going to pretend that I have an idyllic Christmas tree, lights and all. Not by a long shot. First of all, it’s ugly. I mean it doesn’t look anything like (A) a tree, or (B) the tree on the box. But it’s easy to set up and I can usually have it done in a couple of hours, soup to nuts. This year, it took a few more hours. As I assemble my tree I add the lights, layer by layer like any rational human being. This year the colored lights – part of my Christmas tradition for more than a decade – failed me. There I stood on a Saturday morning with my tree half assembled and half strung up with lights. And I stood with one and a half strings of colored lights that wouldn’t light up. My particular brand of holiday language was on fine display.

Off to the hardware store I went. Four new strings of colored lights. $38 with my Ace Rewards card. One of them – the first one I opened – didn’t work right out of the box. Three new strings of colored lights. $38 with my Ace Rewards card.

Three new strings of colored lights are not enough for my tree but they will be this year. It just wasn’t worth the hassle to go back to the hardware store. Unstringing the old lights and restringing the new lights unleashed a string of multi-colored curse words like none you’ve ever heard. Well, at least none you’ve ever heard with ‘Frosty the Snowman’ playing in the background. And at the end of the day, after all my Christmas profanity I have an ugly tree to show for it. My tree is bare, misshapen, and as I mentioned, looks nothing like an actual tree.

I woke up Sunday morning, the family room was dark except for my ugly tree lit up by three new strings of multicolored lights. Christmas-fuzzy satisfied, I went out and got the paper then made a cup of coffee. I love the holidays. What’s the opposite of foul language? Whatever it is, that’s how I felt Sunday morning.

Political Commentary
September 17, 2008

I am officially skeptical about the upcoming presidential election. I recognize that campaign promises are promises yet to be broken, but we seem to be OK with that as these promises inspire great debates around dinner tables throughout America. Why? Why do we care about the promises? We get in stand-up, sit-down, walk-out arguments about who’s going to be a better president based on statements we know are not true. Who is a better candidate? The one who promises to make “one plus one equal three” or the one who promises to make “up down and down up.”

What’s the promise du jour? “I promise to help the middle class.”

Anyone making from $20,000-$200,000 per year is middle class depending on who’s definition you use. According to Wikipedia, the middle class is anywhere from 25-73% of American households. Who wouldn’t tell a few lies to get 73% of America’s vote? Here’s a few promises yet to be broken:

1. Promise: I’ll lower your taxes. Interpretation: The only campaign promise ever kept in the history of mankind.
2. Promise: I’ll send your kids to college. Interpretation: No you won’t. You’ll put together a program that will either a) make someone else rich, or b) create a new bureaucracy. Both will be aimed at the poor, paid for by the middle class and ignored by the rich.
3. Promise: I’ll give you healthcare. Interpretation: No you won’t. You’ll put together a program that will either a) make someone else rich, or b) create a new bureaucracy. Both will be aimed at the poor, paid for by the middle class and ignored by the rich.
4. Promise: I’ll shrink government. Interpretation: No you won’t. When was the last time our government was reduced in size?
5. Promise: I’ll balance the budget. Interpretation: You might, but it’ll be mostly luck if it happens. A strange combination of fiscal restraint and good fortune may keep this promise, but it will not be by any sort of design. And the Republicans sure as hell won’t do it.

A friend pointed out that this campaign presents a clear philosophical choice. In this corner we have small government, lower taxes, and fiscal responsibility. In the other corner we have high taxes, more government services, and loose fiscal policy. Consider the last 28 years. 20 of those years saw lower taxes, record debt and financial crisis. 8 of those saw fiscal restraint and a balanced budget. In neither case did we see government get smaller. Question: which party was in power for 20 years and which for 8?

In this election one camp says “I promise to help everyone” the other says “I promise to make the rich help everyone else.” My new found skepticism says that in four years there will be two things that differentiate how each presidency would have played out: a) Supreme Court nominations and the impact on abortion in America*, and b) whether taxes went down or up. Everything else will turn out the same regardless.

So why don’t we cut all the BS and just say “I’ll lower taxes and increase the tax burden on your children” vs. “I won’t.” See you in November.

*Whoa! Where did that come from? Seems awfully important to be getting so little attention in the election.

My New Blog
September 12, 2008

Sometimes ego gets the best of even the most humble. And so I’ve started a blog. I tried this once before convinced that all of my co-workers wanted to know my random thoughts on pointless subjects. It turns out they didn’t.

So my hope is that whoever reads this enjoys it and understands that I occasionally find it necessary to believe the world needs to hear my opinion.

Getting to know me:

1. Precision in how one uses language is important to me. Notice I didn’t say it is important to be grammatically correct, merely precise. Being misunderstood is the biggest pet peeve I have and so I’ve developed a skill in precision – frequently misunderstood – in an effort to solve my own problem.
2. I believe there are smart people and stupid people. The differentiator is often whether or not they end up in the newspaper or start a blog. But at heart most people are well intentioned. Don’t be such a skeptic.
3. I ride motorcycles for the rush of adrenaline when you lean over, hit the gas and feel it pull in the pit of your stomach. There is also sufficient minutiae to keep my brain occupied.
4. I like to learn about new things. Then I forget a lot of it because the minutiae interests me, but it’s hopeless to try and remember it all.
5. My dog is the sweetest creature to ever, ever roam the face of the earth. Ever.
6. Ever.
   

With that all said I hope you enjoy my musings. Some will be well written, some will be poorly written, and some will be masterful. I have one or two old posts from my previously abandoned blog that may show up here, so enjoy them as well.

-Stephen