Power Outage

Power Outages are the best. They make me want to play murder in the dark, eat vanilla pudding, tell scary stories with flashlights, and talk to everyone in the room.

Power Outages are great/unifying because all of a sudden you can't really do anything productive. You have the perfect excuse to do nothing! And to eat pudding and yadda yadda. I think it's also great because everyone has something in common all at once. Today when it happened I was in the bathroom and struck up a great conversation with a complete stranger, simply because we felt the common bond of the outage. It's like how big disasters unite countries, just that this one is a fun/harmless one.

So bring on the snow days, the AC failures, and the power outages. They're great!

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Time Thought

My friend Eliza mentioned a great point the other day. Time is man-made. The fact that there are 24 hours in a day is not an eternal principle. Time was invented by mankind. Minutes, Seconds, Clocks, Weeks, Years, and Days are just made-up measurements. I know that the sun goes up and down and that seasons come and go, but time really is a stress that we’ve placed upon ourselves.

This “week”, with starting school, time seemed to slow way way down. Like, if time didn’t exist I would almost swear to the fact that the past “168 hour week” felt almost twice as long as the “168 hours” before that. Could it be that it really was longer? My time has been more busy and full and somehow it’s just felt different. Would a man in a log cabin without a watch or a calendar view each “day” so much differently? Probably. Things would happen when they happened without a schedule or a stressed forced time or a day and minute assignment.

The ASDF Miracle

Something that has always amazed me is the ability that our brain-finger connection has to type. Without thinking about where the letters on the keyboard are, we’re able to think of a word and then have it come up on the screen at almost talking speed. The interesting thing about this is that this is not an inborn skill. Our brain is not pre-wired to know that on the middle line of the keyboard will be the letters ASDFGHJKL. That’s not even consistent with the ABC’s order that we learned when we were little. Through practice, most people who have access to a computer are able to pick up this learned, incredible skill.

So what’s the limit then? If we can teach our body to move our fingers and produce words without even looking, what else could we teach our bodies to do? Professional balancers, artists, athletes, and musicians do this all the time by picking up new skills and teaching their body to react in the right ways. It will be interesting to see what small and large tasks the future will produce (such as the T9 texting method or new ways to drive a car or new interactive video games) that the body will be able to learn and perform.

The 4th Verse of the Star-Spangled Banner

Few people realize, or choose to not realize, that the national anthem was written to have 4 verses. The first 3 verses ask questions. Can you see the flag? Does the banner yet wave? What is that breeze? Where is the band of soldiers? Take the first verse for example. As I’m sure you know, it reads:

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The verse ends in a question mark. OUR "national anthem" ENDS IN A QUESTION MARK. That's because it's not the anthem. It's 1/4th of it. The verse consists of two questions asking about if the flag is still high. It doesn’t answer anything. And yet, this is the verse we sing. I bet that 98% of people in the United States don’t even know the lyrics to any of the other verses.

It is the FINAL verse that ANSWERS the questions. It proclaims things! It’s bold. It’s awesome. It reads:

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust;”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Do you see that? It ends in an exclamation! Freeman shall stand! War’s desolation, VICTORY, PEACE, Conquer we must, In God is our trust. The banner SHALL wave, and this is the land of the free and brave. The 4th verse is amazing. It answers all the questions of the first 3 verses.

Please, please can we sing the 4th verse at baseball games or in church or at all the events that we sing it? Francis Scott Key MEANT to put the best verse last. It is the verse that says what we are. It’s amazing. I sing it with pride. The first verse asks two questions and says nothing.

Sorry to be controversial, but please, let’s sing the 4th. It’s part of the anthem just as much as the 1st verse. And it’s epic.

Grandpa Jay

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to talk with my Grandpa Richardson one final time. I called up Grandma and she put me on speaker so that I could just talk with Grandpa one on one. He wasn’t able to speak back but I really felt like he could hear and understand what I was saying. I thanked him for some of the good memories I had had in Arizona in the dentist chair or at reunions or of him visiting Ohio. I thanked him for his great example. I felt most impressed though to thank him for the great posterity that he has raised. He gave me my wonderful mother. He had sons and daughters who became very influential and wonderful examples as my aunts and uncles. And the grandchildren that he has influenced have become some of my very best allies and friends. His influence will continually be felt for generations.

Thanks Grandpa for your humble example of goodness and for keeping your priorities in the right place for your whole life. I'll love and miss you!

Body Temperature

Not long ago I worked at a biathlon on a semi-chilly morning. I was inside collecting the data and typing up the results for most of the morning. My friend Loren, however, was out by the finish line for the 3-hour duration of the activity. About 30 minutes after the activity Loren and I were driving back to our office and she kept commenting on how cold she was. The day had warmed up considerably, however, and I really couldn’t tell how in the world she was still cold. What I had failed to realize, though, was that her body temperature had been lowered from being outside all morning, whereas mine had been retained from staying inside.

So many times we think people are coming from the same place that we are. We assume that they are in our same mood, that they have the same homework load, that they have the same family situation, and that what we hold important or as a priority is the same for them. What we feel (the current temperature) fails to account for their “body temperature” that is affected by who they are and what they have done and where they have been.

80/20

Last night I was talking with someone whose grandma had given them a great theory on dating. She called it the 80/20 rule.

I think everyone in the back of their mind, or on a typed-out list, or in what they've told people, have an idea of what their 100% significant other will be like. Maybe the "100" is very similar to you, maybe they have certain physical characteristics you've always been looking for, maybe they they have certain qualities of confidence or tact or kindness that you will not give up for anything. But maybe it isn't the "100" that we should look for.

We should, according to the theory, look for someone who has 80% of the things we "need", and granted there are definitely some things that you shouldn't budge on, but then also be ready to accept the other 20% of things that surprise us. Maybe you weren't expecting to date a blonde, to date someone a little quieter than you had expected, or who had had different life experiences than you had planned on. But I have learned lately that in having an 80/20 relationship, the differences make both of you stronger. Going for someone 80% "similar" to you is far from supporting the adage that "opposites attract", but the fact that it's not 100 is strengthening. Both then have to sacrifice, compromise, grow in new areas, and shrink in old ones in order to create a dynamic, new, and meaningful relationship. You are able to relate on many things, but it's also quite an adventure diving into their soul and discovering the differences.

And most of us, me especially, are too picky for their own good. The 80/20 rule helps you find the person you're looking for with the same basic standards and goals, but also allows you to be willing, ready, and excited to embrace and enjoy the differences.