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Neat excerpt from Richard Maybury‘s Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?, a book I first read in high school and a great primer on economic theory, no matter your age or aptitude:

Industries generally develop in three stages: First scientific feasibility, second engineering feasibility and third economic feasibility.

Using the airline industry as an example, the question in the 1800s was: “Is long-distance air travel possible?” In the 1800s, balloons were already in use, but they were not practical. The problem to solve was the heavier-than-air machine. In 1903, the Wright Brothers proved scientific feasibility. They risked their time, money and lives to show that a heavier-than-air machine could fly. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh proved engineering feasibility. He risked time, money and his life to show that long-distance air travel was possible. This gave investors enough confidence to risk their money in the aircraft industry. In 1935, the Douglas Aircraft Company came out with the DC-3, which was the beginning of economic feasibility.

The modern airline industry resulted from all this risk-taking. Today, a middle-class American can go any where in the world much faster and in much greater comfort than a Roman emperor could. Travelers fly because the benefits are greater than the costs. This is economic feasibility.

This three-step model explains why governments are terrible at economic development. The “experts” who comprise the government gamble with other people’s money, so they tend to confuse scientific and engineering feasibility with economic feasibility. Once science and engineering prove something can be done, those who comprise the government will do it–even if the costs are greater than the benefits.

I think a lot of this is happening with the so-called “green industry” and all the talk of artificial creation of “green jobs.” I’m all for good stewardship of the environment, but the bottom line is that if “sustainability” isn’t economically feasible on a broad scale, it’s not going to happen, and the conjuring up of jobs by the government can’t change the fundamentals of economics. People have to think the benefit greater than the cost. Period.

Had a great lunch with Mark today. I really enjoy his company. Mark is the pastor of Rosemont Baptist Church, the first church we visited when we decided to move on from Calvary. We found Rosemont doing a search for Reformed churches in the area, at which point we were still somewhat conflicted about leaving Calvary, so we e-mailed him for advice. He sent back a prompt, thoughtful treatise detailing his take on the subject, and that solidified our good first impressions. Wanting to learn more about Rosemont I contacted him a few months ago and we had lunch together, and have just struck up a friendship since. He tells me how his oldest son is doing in college and he younger son playing basketball at a local high school, and I ramble on about the travails of young family life. We talk about theology and books and all manner of things. It’s a great time.

Diane and I still haven’t found a church, and my friendship with Mark makes it a little difficult, seeing as how we have visited his church a few times, and might not end up committing to it, which would have the potential to make our get-togethers a little awkward. He’s well aware of our struggles in finding a church home, and I addressed the potential awkwardness today, telling him I appreciated him taking the initiative to want to have lunch again even though he knows we might not commit to his church, and admitting that it might be an “elephant in the room” during subsequent meet-ups. He replied immediately, “That’s not true,” and went on to explain that he and his wife just want us to be where God wants us to be, whether that’s Rosemont or not. It’s a very gracious attitude and one that’s indicative of a high degree of confidence in the Lord to grow his church, if it’s even His intention to grow it at all (sometimes it’s not–and church growth isn’t nearly as related to a church’s health as some assert). Needless to say, I really appreciate his friendship, encouragement and insight.

What is it? As the article says, it’s an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings, deriving its lift and thrust from its wings instead of just the lift, as in traditional aircraft.

It’s interesting that throughout most of human history wing flapping was thought to be the best way to achieve flight. It’s how birds fly, sure, but using that logic we would probably arrive at the conclusion that a better way to move about on the ground would be to create some giant ambulatory machine instead of just using wheels. So in retrospect it’s amazing to me that humanity took as long as it did to figure out that wing flapping wasn’t going to work.

That said, once we figured out aerodynamics, in the wake of the Wright Brothers and other pioneers, we were able to crack the problem a little bit. Ornithopters have been made and even flown with human power, with varying degrees of success. As an aside, they even made their way into science fiction, playing a prominent role in Dune, which I read recently.

What brings all this to mind? Luke received a Dragonfly remote-control ornithopter toy for Christmas. I assembled it and tried it out in the yard a week or two ago. It terrifies Luke to no end, but it’s actually pretty cool. The four wings provide both lift and thrust and it steers using a miniature tail rotor, kind of like a helicopter. It’s supposedly able to fly both indoors and outdoors, but the state of my skill is such that it’s exclusively an outdoor toy at the moment. The wings even make a rapid whikka-whikka-whikka noise that increases in frequency with wing speed.

Thinking about ornithopters as imitative of birds reminds me of a scenario that used to come to mind more often when I was in the midst of pilot training. I imagined a conversation between myself in the airplane and a bird. As a means of achieving flight, I would expound on the superiority of the airplane, its speed, range, capacity and all the rest. And the bird would respond by simply saying, “But I’m free.” And it’s true. For all of our exploits in air and in space, and even in other areas, almost everything we do is by extension; our physical capabilities as humans are ridiculously small in comparison. If we didn’t have our minds (and opposable thumbs) we wouldn’t have much at all.

Why is there order instead of disorder? Seriously. What gives scientists the confidence to make predictions and formulate hypotheses? On a more pedestrian level, to borrow an analogy from Hume, why should we believe that we’ll achieve the same result the 50th time we roll a cue ball toward an 8-ball after we’ve experienced the same thing 49 times? We could argue causality, but really all we’re experiencing is the same events happening in sequence over and over again, there’s no direct evidence of causation. We could just be experiencing an abnormally long series of coincidences, with no actual connection.

Applied to science, why do scientists search for things like a unification of the four fundamental forces? I mean, why gives them the confidence that there will be a solution? There have certainly been scientific watershed moments in the past, like the advent of Newtonian physics and the rise of relativity, that unified seemingly disparate elements of the universe, but what makes a rational scientist think lightning will strike again, so to speak, and that the pursuit of further unification will be fruitful?

Fundamentally, what gives us any confidence to expect the universe will operate according to principles and laws? I have a hunch most modern scientists would punt; they would say something to the effect that it’s rational, or that those are the principles on which science is based, but wouldn’t those answers just be begging the question? If it’s “only rational,” what makes us think we can trust our reason? Even besides the philosophical arguments, evolutionarily-speaking, we’re the product of an amazing series of coincidences–how have our minds, with such a capacity for and attraction to reason and order, emerged from such chaotic beginnings? I alluded to scientists having an innate attraction to theories that are elegant and economical, that can explain a lot of phenomena relatively simply–Where does that attraction come from?

Just some recent thoughts. Christians have compelling answers for all these questions; I want to know what secular scientists have to say. I’ll be researching this in the weeks to come…

Yesterday morning I woke up a little late. Luke had already been puttering around in his room for a little while (he’s an early riser like Mommy). I opened his door to say good morning and found him on the floor playing with his Legos. He got a few sets for Christmas so it’s not exactly an infrequent occurrence to hear him playing with them these days; however, in this case he had broken out his original Lego set, a collection of basic blocks instead of the more sophisticated pieces that came in his Christmas sets. The set in question also came with an instruction book giving step-by-step directions on how to assemble some rudimentary vehicles and other things like a tree or a bridge. What made yesterday morning so special was that I happened upon him about halfway through the instructions for building the crane. Like, he had actually found the necessary pieces and gone through about 5 steps, matching his progress with the illustrations in the book. He had seen me do it with all his Christmas sets and I included him as much as possible, explaining the process and letting him do other fun stuff like putting on the stickers, but I had no idea how much he had retained until yesterday. He got all embarrassed and had a mini-meltdown when I tried to praise him for it (Luke’s M.O. these days…) but I was still a very proud Daddy.

i know that you think
you’re not good for anything
the world makes you feel so small

Compare this with this. They both have something to say about the world as a whole, and they’re both completely, utterly arresting in their own way.

I rediscovered the clip a few months ago after having first seen it a while before. It makes me want to travel like nothing else, to see and experience absolutely everything in the world. Not only that, but it takes the “edge” off the idea of living in another place, if there ever was one–we’re all just people, and we all have the same drives and needs: We all eat and sleep, have conversations and conflicts with our families, work and grow up, learn, fail, cry, laugh… We’re all made in the image of God, and while none of us are innocent in an absolute sense, we’re all recipients of His common grace (“He sends the rain on the righteous and the wicked”), and there’s a kinship that way, a level playing field between the bum on the street in the bad part of town in Winston-Salem and the rice farmer in Cambodia and the Wall Street exec and the belly dancer in Turkey. We’re all equally fallen and equally in need of a Savior, and underneath that most fundamental need, between any two lives in this world there are points of contact all down the line. I love the video for reminding me of that.

And the second link, the picture… What can I say about it? Again, it’s something I had seen before, but only recently resonated since seeing it on one of my NASA movies, the one that covered Apollo 8 (the mission on which the photo was taken). We live on a little blue swirled marble, always half dark, levitating in space. We spin and we twirl unawares around the sun, and around the galaxy, and sail on through our “neighborhood” of galaxies and on through the universe. How small are we? How big is He, to have created and to transcend that universe? And to have made us a planet, created us and placed us here and told us, “Be fruitful and multiply…” Can you imagine the first two people treading the entire globe? It was impossibly big for them, and now we can see its entirety rise over a limb of the Moon. It’s astonishing. The crew of Apollo 8 was right to want to read Scripture after seeing something like that firsthand, but I think I would have picked a different passage, perhaps…

Exciting stuff!

• Program overview
• Launch animations

I wonder if it’s too late for my youngest brother, who works for Boeing in Huntsville, Alabama, to elbow his way into this program? That’s the closest I could get, haha. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get canceled like the X-20, NASP, DC-X, X-33 and all the others. Granted, they were all SSTO concepts; Project Constellation is something different, but still… Ambition has a way of getting squelched sometimes.

Happy birthday to Diane, my bride, my love, my wife. I can’t imagine life without her. All I can do is echo part of the toast Mark gave at our wedding a little over two years ago (incidentally the best toast of the evening): “Diane, thank you for…existing.”

I’ve been listening to a new podcast: StarStuff by Stuart Gary. He reports and comments on the latest goings-on in the world of astronomy, physics and space exploration with his heavy Australian brogue. He talks in-depth about a wide variety of stuff, from the progress of the Mars rovers to the fledgling Indian space program to the latest discoveries beyond the Kuiper belt. I’ve been eating it up.

In a podcast from a few weeks ago, he discussed dark matter and dark energy, two substances that the physics community has postulated exist based on astronomical inferences. Physicists and astronomers noticed that, based on then-current models, there was far too little observable mass in galaxies to generate the gravity needed to keep the centrifugal force of their spinning from flinging them apart. So dark matter, as a concept, was proposed, a substance that doesn’t interact with normal matter in any way except gravitationally. Concurrently, the concept of dark energy was put forth to explain the observation that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing. That acceleration requires an energy source, and unable to account for it observationally, enter dark energy. Together dark matter and dark energy supposedly make up 96% of the energy density in the universe, the remaining 4% being “normal,” observable, baryonic matter.

As mentioned, dark matter doesn’t interact with any fundamental force except gravity, which makes it exceedingly difficult to observe, and thus confirm its existence. However, scientists are trying various ways of observing it more directly, like the Large Hadron Collider that was in the news recently. And the Starstuff podcast a few weeks ago discussed another possible indirect observation of dark matter, this time from cosmic rays detected emanating from a (relatively) nearby galaxy.

The podcast also made a passing reference to Kaluza-Klein theory, a theory first published in 1921 and intended to unify two of the four fundamental forces using higher dimensions. Shortly after it was published quantum mechanics became the main focus of research in the physics community primary because of its ability to be confirmed experimentally, something higher dimensions cannot do, and Kaluza-Klein fell into obscurity.

But ever since I read Hyperspace, and even before then, I’ve been convinced that pursuing quantum mechanics in order to unify the four fundamental forces is barking up the wrong tree. Kaluza-Klein theory and higher dimensions, in spite of the fact that (in their present state) they can’t be experimentally confirmed, are a much more elegant way to quest for a TOE. Our last great breakthrough in physics, general relativity was accomplished by tinkering with fundamental assumptions about space and time and by extension, dimensions. Quantum mechanics, in additional to being supremely inelegant (something the artist in me and in most theoretical physicists have a strong aversion to), just seems utterly bound by the constraints of three spatial and one temporal dimension. If we’re ever going to unify gravity with the other fundamental forces we’re going to have to look at the big picture, think theoretically, and not try to derive the whole from the sum of the parts, little piecemeal observations here and there.

Dark matter and dark energy are an outgrowth of that manner of thinking. Clinging to four dimensions so tenaciously that you have to make allowances for imaginary substances like that starts to sound like theories people were clinging to a little over a century ago having to do with luminiferous aether, the imaginary medium by which light propagated, and rendered obsolete with the arrival of special relativity.

It’s time to apply effort to theoretical physics as opposed to empirical physics. We need to start leaning more of the deductive side of the scientific method, and not just the inductive. That’s where the next big breakthrough is needed, I’m convinced.

Some fun links for the evening:

• Coverville, an enjoyable podcast I’m subscribed to, does a year-end countdown of their most popular/requested covers. There are quite a few, and the countdown is usually broken up between five individual podcasts. I’ll download a particular podcast if there’s a cover that piques my interest in the description. Jeff Buckley’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” always makes it into the top 10 or 15, but this year another cover of that song made it in: An a cappella version by a group called the Northwestern Freshman 15. It’s worth a listen for sure–it has some of the tightest harmonies I’ve ever heard. Very well done.
• Diane found this today. We couldn’t decide whether these guys have a death wish or are just really stupid. I settled on the theory that they just decided to do something that no one had really thought of before. In any case, it’s pretty exhilarating to watch.

Back to work tomorrow morning. A big part of me is very glad the holidays are over, for various reasons. After all the excitement, it’s nice to resume some semblance of a routine–it gives a little more structure to family life, not to mention our financial life… …which dovetails nicely into another reason I’m glad the holidays are over: The end, or at least the receeding, of the parade of American commercialism that defines the last month of the year in this country.

I don’t know if it’s my nature to be so anti-consumerist, or if it’s something formed out of years spent in a less commercialized country in Europe, not to mention the frugality I learned from my mom and dad. I suspect it’s all of the above to some degree. But regardless–and I could just be vocalizing a temporary mood–I never knew how strong my own holiday backlash could be until I made a trip to Wal-Mart earlier tonight, on the Sunday after the New Year and all the holidays had ended, and felt absolutely suffocated by almost everything in the store that could fall in the “want” (as opposed to “need”) category of desire. This constitutes the bulk of the merchandise in the store. Between the TVs dangling from the ceiling at every aisle intersection and a brief visit to the electronics department, where almost everything is superfluous, I just wanted out.

I have a similar reaction when I visit the mall (at any time of the year), and this is something I’ve articulated to Diane: Borne out of the commercial culture we live and breathe in this country, there are so many things competing for my attention. Everywhere I look something jumps out at me and yells “Buy me!” whether I actually want it or not, and the cumulative effect is enough to make me want to vomit. Quite literally. I don’t say such things often.

Contrariwise, part of what I love so much about just taking a walk with Luke or going for a drive in the country is the opposite of what I experience when I watch any amount of TV or go to the mall: Nothing competes for my attention. The trees and houses, flowers, sky and leaves wait patiently for me to observe them, contemplate them, admire them; they don’t elbow their way into my field of view like so much of the consumeristic pap that gluts our culture. The effect of the walks and drives becomes the opposite of feeling manipulated: I can have a complete thought, or series of them, I have time to close my eyes or breathe or have a real conversation with my wife or son. Speaking of wants and needs… I need that.

1. I really need to work on our website. Among others. But our website has been languishing for a while. If nothing else I could find a way to embed this journal in the site. They say content is king when it comes to putting together a compelling website, and they’re not specific about the quality of the content, so I may be on to something…

2. We’re visiting Twin City Baptist tomorrow morning. I went there for one Sunday when I first moved into town back in 2005. I ended up at Calvary, where I met Diane and Luke. That was providential (what isn’t?).

3. Hopefully things with Luke will settle down somewhat now that the major routine-disrupting events of the Holidays have passed. He’s been “hitting the wall,” figuratively-speaking, a lot lately with undesirable behavior. In raising me and my two brothers, my dad said there was a point, usually between the ages of 4 and 5, when the whole concept of discipline started to “click” and I began to avoid certain behaviors and attitudes because I knew I would get disciplined for them. Luke doesn’t seem like he’s quite there yet. He’s very sweet most of the time, but when it comes to antisocial and/or disrespectful behavior seems to view his own misdeeds as a series of more-or-less discrete events, and doesn’t seem to grasp the underlying bad attitude that drives most of them, no matter how much we try to point it out to him. We’re praying for the day to come quickly when his little mind does start to make those connections, and are praying for wisdom and loving consistency in knowing how to raise him.

4. Penelope is so close to walking it’s ridiculous. She can stand up in the middle of a room unassisted quite easily, and when she’s excited sometimes she’ll take a few staggering steps forward, but (fast!) crawling is still her main means of locomotion. Any day now…

It’s our last night at my parents’ house before we head back tomorrow. I made the mistake a few days ago of referring to it as “home” instead of “my parents’ house.” It’s an easy slip to make after having lived out of town for so long, but one that certainly doesn’t need to be repeated. It’s very familiar here, with all the trappings I’m used to, but we as a family are very much our own entity. The longer I’m married the more I find the declaration in the Bible that a married man will “leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” to be absolutely, thoroughly, necessarily true. In other words, it has to happen. The dangers of the husband clinging to his family in unhealthy ways are more significant than those associated with the wife doing something similar. As far as why that is, I haven’t formulated a complete theory, but after a brief think-through I would say vulnerability is a factor–if the husband and his family are aligned together in a particular direction and the wife, alone, isn’t, then she is more vulnerable than if the wife and her family were of one mind about something and the husband was the odd one out. I wish I could offer something concrete to undergird that notion, but it’s late and my brain, although very much active in the spirit of a few posts ago, is still lagging somewhat.

For slightly different angle on the matter, see this post a few weeks ago, written in response to hearing about a situation in which the husband did not properly distance himself from his family, but let them have a very unhealthy degree of influence over his marriage from the get-go. The results are catastrophic. In any event, the integrity of our family in that sense is definitely something to be vigilant over.

Had a wonderful, wonderful dinner earlier tonight with Donald, his wife Rebekah, Stephen and his wife Truly. They’re longtime friends of mine (Donald and Stephen and I were flatmates back in the day) and it was great to see them again and catch up. We ate at Tosca Restaurant in downtown Durham, a new-ish Italian restaurant, privately-owned and distinctively decorated. The table, food, atmosphere, music and company were just perfect and we had a great time. My parents babysat Luke and Pen and we were grateful for that too. It was nice to be able to go out as a couple on New Year’s Eve for a little bit, even if it wasn’t just the two of us, which kinds of dates we definitely need more of.

Nothing profound or pseudo-philosophical tonight. Happy New Year!

We’re driving back to Chapel Hill tomorrow morning to visit my parents for a couple of days. It’s all part of the end-of-year succession of events. I’m looking forward to it. It’s always relaxing for me to be at my parents’ house and they’re always more than willing to help out with the kids, which makes it doubly relaxing. It’s less so for Diane, just not being a familiar environment, but she loves my parents and we always have a good time.

It’s also a good opportunity to step away from the normal environment and take stock of the year behind us. Here are some major happenings of 2008 for us to think about:

• Penelope grew a lot. She went from 4 months to 16 months and grew up considerably. She’s almost walking and getting more and more verbal. Starting this year she was a lump and couldn’t even sit up. And of course she’s more beautiful every day too.
• Luke finally got potty trained. That was a really great achievement. He’s learning more about God and more about the world as well, and is the most sweet boy.
• We finished remodeling the kitchen. It’s got a lovely countertop, cabinets and just everything else. We couldn’t imagine life without it and are so grateful for it.
• Diane got us involved in the 40 Days For Life anti-abortion campaign and we participated in numerous protests and met some really great people.
• I got a hefty raise at work and became really proficient with HTML and CSS (if a little lazy in my application of those skills).
• Diane and I went to the National Conference on Apologetics for our 2nd wedding anniversary back in early November and really enjoyed it.
• We started looking for a new church, still an ongoing and arduous process.
• We really started to get on top of our finances in the fall and are in a much better position to realistically look long-term at a house of our own.

And of course there’s much more than that. But it’s been a really great, blessed year. We’re grateful most of all to the Lord for everything, both good and bad in human terms, which happened in it. He is sovereign.

This is just a quick note to say that although in the past I have counted myself a fan of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, in recent years, upon closer inspection of the history and nature of it all, I’ve had to remove myself from that camp. My dissatisfaction with the program was further consolidated this evening as I continued to watch the Discovery Channel mini-series on NASA I received for Christmas and Gene Kranz, of all people, praises the program to the sky (pun intended) by calling it a “revolution in spaceflight” and an “aerodynamic tour de force.” That sound bite just got to me. And while I’ll concede that whatever his personal views on the issue, as a NASA man I’m sure he has to tow the line somewhat, and it was something of a revolution to have a reusable spacecraft, an “aerodynamic tour de force” the Shuttle most certainly isn’t. It’s profoundly conservative and actually rather boring from an aerodynamic standpoint, and while the revolution bit might be true in a sense, is it really the kind of vehicle we wanted leading that revolution? I would argue no. More on this issue forthcoming.

It’s amazing to me how two peoples’ sleep habits can be so different. It’s like Diane’s and my “sleep polarity” is completely reversed. She is the definition of a morning person and I am a night owl par excellence. Even our behavioral patterns surrounding falling asleep and waking up are reversed: She falls asleep in fits and starts but can wake up readily and easily, whereas I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat but always have trouble getting up, no matter how much sleep I’ve gotten. In the evenings, she gradually “shuts down” as bedtime approaches, and while I do get progressively more tired, there isn’t any real loss of capacity until the moment I fall asleep. And of course, in the mornings she is ready to go almost from the moment she wakes up, and most days it takes my brain an hour or so to come fully on line. This is all irrespective of the amount of sleep we’ve gotten as well.

I try to refrain from making value judgments about our sleep habits, since we’re really awake for the same amount of time, and thus objectively have the same amount of resources to work with when it comes to getting things done. If you pressed me, though, you’d know that I really wished I was more of a morning person. There’s just something about it that seems more self-disciplined, and that attracts me. I spend several spells in a given year trying to get up earlier, but so far none of it has stuck. Maybe it will yet–I’m going to keep trying.

I think the real winners, though, are our kids, since in any given 24-hour period there’s only a 5-6 hour span of time when we’re both asleep and no one is actively vigilant over the goings-on in the house. So if one of them has an issue, there’s less chance that both of us will be unavailable. That’s good for them, I think.

It was a lovely Christmas. The kids had a great time and our families are very generous. We, of course, spent Christmas morning here before driving to Diane’s parents’ in nearby Lewisville for dinner and additional present opening. The following day–yesterday–my parents, along with my grandmother and my brother David and his wife Rachel, drove into town and there was more gift exchanging. I can say, here on the other side, quite contentedly, that it was a very satisfying Christmas. Seeing family is the most important activity for me, really, since the baton of getting excited about opening presents is being passed to the kids somewhat… As it should be.

I received, among other things, some much-needed clothes and some movies: Ratatouille, which I hadn’t seen before and that Diane and I finished watching tonight–great movie–and a DVD collection of the Discovery Channel mini-series on the entire NASA spaceflight program from Mercury to Orion (thanks David and Rachel!). It’s four DVDs worth of material on the space program, which is an absolute treasure trove for me. Reading about it is one thing, even a firsthand account like in Moon Shot; hearing the astronauts describe themselves and seeing the actual footage is another thing entirely: It’s deeply affecting and just arresting in the knowledge that we have been there, to space and the moon and space stations and all the rest. I’m already through the first two DVDs (less the bonus material) and am really eating it up. Most of the early astronauts came from test pilot backgrounds, and even from my meager vantage point as a private pilot with barely 60 hours under his belt, I’ve had a taste of what it feels like to fly something, to interface with a machine in that capacity, where my interactions affect its behavior in ways that could quite possibly kill me, and to that degree I have a very visceral reaction to the events described in the mini-series. It scares you to death but it thrills you at the same time, and it draws out every single resource you have within you in order to perform a set of tasks. It focuses the mind like absolutely nothing else I’ve experienced…

And on another level, as my parents can attest to, my attraction to spaceflight goes back as far, if not farther, than my love of airplanes. One of my very earliest memories was when my parents and I went to the mall to purchase a model kit of the space shuttle Columbia as a reward for some important childhood milestone, possibly even being potty trained. And I can also remember drifting off to sleep staring at a picture on the wall of the space shuttle my mom had cross-stitched and framed. Sometimes I wish that early love of space exploration had persisted and driven me on a path to become involved with the space program in some capacity, maybe even becoming an astronaut, but in any event I think my eventual height–6’4″–would have ruled me out. It will always be a passion.

This is a hard time of year for Luke. He’s 4, so he’s definitely old enough to know what’s going on, and he’s beyond excited about Christmas, but it’s still tough for him. The whole Christmas season is one long exercise in delayed gratification, and patience doesn’t yet exist in his psyche to any great degree. There are lots of sweets roaming around as well, which can lead to frustration if he’s denied, or a sugar high followed by the inevitable crash if he’s allowed. His routine is off as well, with lots of outings, events and relatives running to and fro, for whom his boundaries aren’t always as clearly defined as they are at home. So it’s hard. There have been some testy days.

I see myself so clearly in him sometimes, though. A few weeks ago he was in his room for “cozy nap time,” during which time he’s required to make a concerted effort to sleep, mainly by staying in his bed and lying still under the covers. Whether or not he’ll actually sleep is kind of a 50-50 proposition; some days he will, but some days he just spends the time prattling on in there. Occasionally he’ll venture out to tell us he needs to go potty, a fine excuse since he’s perfectly capable of going by himself and doesn’t need our presence any more like he used to. But one day a few weeks ago he came out of his room during cozy nap time in a state of some distress. “Daddy, can you fix it?” he asked, with some urgency in his voice. “Fix what, big boy?” I replied. “That,” he said, led me in his room and pointed to one of nine planet cutouts taped to his wall above his bed. I stepped back and examined the scene. In order to reach the planet cutouts, he had taken every single item on his bed–stuffed animals, blankets, pillows–and with them constructed a mound near the wall to climb on, clearly transgressing our mandate to stay still under the covers. I readjusted the planet that had him worked up, disassembled the mound and tucked him back in, giving him a firm warning to stay put and try to sleep. But leaving the room I just had to shake my head in amazement. He had crossed one line and was upset that an activity wasn’t going his way that shouldn’t have even been possible. But how often do I do that in more sophisticated ways? How often do I ask the Lord for help when I’ve backed myself into the corner of a room I shouldn’t have even entered? And how often do I see the situation I’m in as just an unfortunate set of circumstances to be delivered from, when He would have me step back and examine my situation in light of the Word, evaluating it by that standard? Sobering thoughts. Among myriad other ways, I’m grateful for kids in that.

Merry Christmas, all!

So much for my one-post-a-day resolution. Maybe this gap is a good thing, though–I think I was beginning to put an undue amount of pressure on myself to conjure up something post-worthy at the end of the day. Puttering around the internet for an hour or so at night until inspiration hits isn’t good for sleep habits. That said, it’s interesting to note that in my 7-8 years of online journaling, I never thought I could maintain a productive streak like I have for the past few weeks. I’d always viewed the impetus to write as something tenuous, wipsy, unable to be grasped and tamed… …unlike my day job, which requires me to be creative on demand 40 hours a week. Yeah, that’s not a double standard. Heh. In any case, the past couple of weeks put the final nail in the coffin of the notion that I have to wait for lightning to strike in order to write something reasonably worthwhile (or simply long and boring, depending on your view).

The ironic thing is that I have little desire to write tonight. Well, little desire to write about my life, that is. I could write volumes about my kids or my wife or any number of events, activities, goings-on happening peripherally, but my life? Forget it. I’m kind of gratified that this journal has never really been a hard record of my day-to-day, since that would probably bore most people to tears, whether now or in any number of years past.

Time for sleep.

Our third annual local sibling tacky Christmas party was earlier tonight. For those of you connected with us on Facebook, I’m sure you’ll see pictures in the next couple of days. It was a lot of fun. Somehow Diane escaped middle and high school in the early/mid ’90s without having played Scattergories, so we bought a copy of the game and indulged. She enjoyed.

Parental thought of the evening: I’m happy just to have anyone over for the evening. With that thought come two clarifications:

1. Our guests for the party were not simply “anyone,” but people whose company we enjoy and cherish greatly, and
2. As a family, we’re not “holed up” and desperate for company.

That said, I do find myself less selective–in a good way–than I was when I was single. You know the feeling: Not going to certain parties because you didn’t “feel like it,” or having to make the hard choice about which group of friends to hang out with on a given weekend. Well… The constraints on time, schedule and flexibility brought on by marriage and parenthood make one grateful for anyone who has the agility to shoehorn themselves into our schedule. It’s a treat to spend time with folks.

Diane and I watched Prince Caspian earlier. I hadn’t seen it in the theater. Overall, I liked it, though I think it falls short of the book in some very key areas. The general plot changes I understand, since the book is fairly linear and weak in that department, being basically a story of how the Pevensies are called back to Narnia, meet up with Aslan and after a few mild adventures and dramatic twists, overwhelm the opposing army. So they had to add some more intrigue for the movie, and for the most part, it succeeds.

I’ll admit it: the book is my least favorite of the seven. I tend to see it as a series of vignettes communicating important Christian truths strung together over a thin coming-of-age and reconquest narrative. That said, some of the scenes and passages are very good and contribute considerably to the overall development of the characters, in addition to their spiritual component. And they’re what’s missing from the film. Those that have been left in, like the whole drama surrounding Lucy seeing Aslan at the gorge, as well as much of the dialogue during the denouement, have been gutted and stripped of any real poignancy. I’m no film director, either, but in my view they could have included so much more of Lewis’s rich interaction between the characters, cut out some of the violence, and the movie would have been much stronger. The action scenes are great and the overall plot structure is fine, but the characters and specificity of Lewis’s message really get shortchanged.

And one more thing: Eddie Izzard does not work as Reepicheep. Hugely miscast. This is a problem, as he has a major role in the next installment in the series. He’s supposed to steal the films the way he steals the books, and Izzard’s voice is just…not high enough and not British enough for the character. Moreover, his rhetorical flourishes are dumbed down for the modern audience and just fall flat. I’m very disappointed.

We have roll-up shades in our bedroom. It used to be Penelope’s room before we switched a few weeks ago, and we’re planning on swapping shades soon, so she can have the more opaque roll-ups in her room for naptimes and we can have the more easily adjusted conventional blinds.

I glanced at the base of one of the shades earlier and lingered on the brand name Levolor. It brought to mind a job interview I had with them some years back, in 2002, just after I had returned from Florida. I was keen to find another design-related job, having less than a year of “real world” experience under my belt after graduating. I was living in Chapel Hill at the time and the position was actually closer to where I am now–at their facility in Greensboro–so that would have been a hike of a commute every day, but at that point I was eager for anything I could get.

I think my main interviewer sensed that quality as well since I didn’t get offered the job. I think I succeeded in masking my hesitation about the length of the commute, and I did my best to feign enthusiasm about the prospect of designing a myriad of varieties of window shades, curtain rod finishers and vertical blinds, but in retrospect my mild disdain for the nature of the work was probably pretty obvious.

The funny thing is, I remember detecting an implicit, and sometimes borderline explicit, measure of the same attitude in the interviewer himself. He was a graduate of such-and-such reputable design college and had worked for Levolor for a number of years and I could tell was really getting quite bored with, if not developing a degree of contempt for, the work he did. I mean, how many different ways are there to design home furnishings? An infinite number of ways, I hear you say–especially with the new trends that are coming out all the time–but consider that he worked on a limited subset of the home furnishing category, and what are most new trends except recycled variations of older trends? Surely that narrows the spectrum a bit for the designer in question. Thinking back on the whole experience, I’m convinced he was trying to hire his replacement.

Admittedly, I don’t have contact with a whole lot of designers, but among those I have interacted with, especially industrial designers like myself, I have the sense that the majority of them aren’t designing what they really want to design. I suppose that’s common to most folks in the working world–how many of us do what we really want to do?–but I was just reminded of people in my line of work today. One of the big common interests between my boss (another industrial designer by degree) and myself is our mutual interest in airplanes and the design thereof. I don’t think he’s quite as geeky as me about it, but we do e-mail articles back and forth about the A380 or the upcoming 787 and debate the finer points of their aesthetics, both interior and exterior. When I was designing our website about a year ago, he had put together layouts of his vision for the site, and there’s no coincidence that our site ended up bearing a strong resemblance to that of Teague (albeit without the Flash-y elements), one of his most admired design firms–a firm which, moreover, is responsible for the interiors of most Boeing airliners. So between those things and various snippets of conversation scattered here and there, I can assemble a fairly complete picture of where he’d like to be, given his druthers.

I have to admit, designing aircraft interiors isn’t a niche of our profession I would object to filling, either. And I have filled it, briefly: a few years ago I designed the seats for the Eclipse 500 business jet, a plucky little plane whose parent company entered Chapter 11 within the last few months, which is a shame. And I lobbied vigorously for an opening with a local company, BE Aerospace, before I landed the job at ImageWorks.

So most of us aren’t where we’re really like to be. But in the case of my boss and fellow designer and myself, we do work for a great company, and whatever the object of our designer-ly focus on any given day, our work is interesting, varied and challenging, and I’m sure we’re grateful for that. I, for one, am content.

As an addendum to the previous post, check out Over the Rhine’s website. It’s been one of my all-time favorites for a while, and has maintained that status even as I’ve become more of a web designer and more familiar with the nuts and bolts behind the glossy facade (some sites lose their luster when I discover their shaky and inelegant structure). In any case, OtR’s site is absolutely beautiful, perfectly representative of them as a band, chock-full of frequently-updated content, easy to navigate, strikes an admirable balance between being totally static and having too much Flash and is semantically coded. It’s…almost perfect.

In other news, for a laugh, point your browsers to the official website of The Traffic Cone Preservation Society. This site’s been around for ages but I hadn’t visited it in quite some time. It hasn’t changed much. You’ll find a field guide to the many subspecies of traffic cones, a section devoted to appearances of the traffic cone throughout history, speculation about its evolution and even your chance to become a card-carrying member of the TCPS. Back in the day, they would actually send you a miniature cone in the mail when you became a member, but it looks like they’ve shut down that part of the site. Oh well. Still worth a look.

and we’re gonna pull through

Over the Rhine makes music for married people. It’s hard to describe without having absorbed a half-dozen or so of their songs. There’s both an utter confidence in and comfort with their own style, no hesitance to the lyrics and every note is deliberately placed. I’ve liked their music for a long time, ever since Rebekah let me borrow Films for Radio at the youth conference, but it’s acquired a new depth and resonance since becoming married. Perhaps, when I was single, I liked them in a “prophetic” sense, anticipating the time when the music would flesh out through experience? Who knows. Many couples have “our band” or “our song,” and I really believe OtR is Diane’s and mine, from singleness (Good Dog, Bad Dog) to courtship (Ohio and especially Drunkard’s Prayer) to married romance and turbulence (Snow Angel and The Trumpet Child).

Part of the connection has to be the fact that the band members, Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, are married in actuality, and surely much (most?) of their music reflects their own day-to-day as a couple. We have got to see them in concert. We’ve come so close several times…

i’d rather feel your heat
on a wicked winter day
than watch a holiday parade
with dancers and balloons
we’re gonna pull through

you hold me just the same way
levon would play
and “the weight” is my favorite song
we’re gonna pull through

One of my favorite websites is Airliners.net. Most nights, after I put Luke to bed, I’ll have a seat at the computer and thumb through the day’s new pictures. There’s some phenomenal photography on that site, no doubt about it. For a guy who, growing up, treasured his collection of airplane-related literature above almost all else, it’s a treasure trove.

You can search for photos using almost any criteria, whether it be by airplane, airline, registration number, airport or anything else, really. Some of the best photographs come from Princess Juliana International Airport in the Netherlands Antilles. It’s rightly famous among plane spotters for its close access to the runway.

“A-lay-lay.”

Her name for herself. Mommy and Daddy and Penelope play a game wherein Daddy uses her hand to point to himself, Mommy and then her, saying each of our names in turn. She then mimics us, first pointing to “Dada,” “Momma,” and then “A-lay-lay.” She’s acquiring words…

Here’s a passage from Moon Shot, describing a moment during Alan Shepard’s first suborbital flight atop the Redstone rocket, the first time an American had ventured into space:

He had expected silence at this point. Atmosphere was something far below him. No rush of wind despite so many thousands of miles an hour. No friction. No turbulence. It should have been the silence of ghosts.

But these ghosts were real, and they made their own sounds. It was the murmur of Freedom Seven [his space capsule], as though a brook were running mechanically through its structure. Inverters moaned, gyroscopes whirred, cooling fans had their own sound, cameras hummed, the radios crackled and emitted their tones before and after conversational exchanges. The sounds flowed together, some dulled, other sharper–a miniature mechanical orchestral chorus. Shepard smiled. He was hearing the Concert of the Spacecraft, a strange and unexpected company to remain with him as he hurtled through the soundlessness of space. Those sounds are most welcome, he told himself. They mean things are working, doing, pushing and repeating. They were the new age sounds of life.

It reminded me, a bit obliquely, of something I used to do as a pre-teen. I had a boombox in my bedroom. I listened to my Phil Collins, M.C. Hammer and Michael W. Smith tapes on it, as well as the radio. My mom would turn on the Mix 101.5 morning show to wake me up before breakfast. It wasn’t much–just a little Panasonic job–but I’ve never really liked really loud music anyhow, and I didn’t then, so it was fine for my purposes. It had a red LED light that would illuminate when the tuner was picking up the stereo from the FM station, and I remember many nights when, instead of flicking the switch to turn off the boombox completely, I would just turn the volume all the way down so that red LED would still be lit.

There was something comforting about it I just can’t explain. Maybe I felt like it was vigilant through the night, watching over me? Maybe the fact that the light came on when radio reception was nominal was the boombox’s way of telling me everything was okay? There was more to it than just having a nightlight. The light performed a function more sophisticated than simply dispelling the dark in a corner of the room–it communicated something about the status of the boombox. Information was transmitted, and while the message was merely binary (either the stereo was functional or it wasn’t), it was a tiny step in the direction of consciousness, and personality, and companionship, and I think I drew a measure of comfort from the chain of implications.

But regardless of the subconscious goings-on, the net effect for me was that many times when I would wake up in the middle of the night, I would glance at the clock to check the time, and then over to the LED, confirming it was still on before peacefully falling back asleep. It probably sounds a little odd to find solace in an electronic “companion” like that, but on the other hand, given the proliferation of electronic peripherals and assistants in our lives these days, perhaps it’s not as strange, or at least as uncommon, as it used to be.

We received our end-of-year bonuses today at work. ImageWorks maintains a generous profit-sharing and performance-based bonus program, so the bonuses are substantial and help out quite a bit, especially around this time of year.

I’m very blessed to be working for a company that still gives out bonuses. From my (admittedly small) experience with employers, both direct and hearsay, it seems like a rare thing. What makes us feel especially fortunate to be a part of this company is when we hear about the wrangling going on in Detroit at the moment between the Big Three bosses, the UAW and the government. As much as I’m opposed to the concept of unionized labor, one factor that led to their development was employers who neglected to be equitable to their employees and compensate them proportionately for their contributions to the company’s success. And while I feel the unions have swung much too far in the other direction, leveraging their monopoly on the labor market in order to make inequitable demands of their employers, most of the employees, I’m sure, would love to work for a company that shares ImageWorks labor philosophy: Expect a lot from your employees, but reward them accordingly when those expectations are met. Diane can tell you: When I was first hired here, the level of competence, diligence and professionalism was (and is) head and shoulders above any of the other companies I’d worked for. But they DO expect you to pull your weight–incompetence or laziness will get you the boot in a hurry, and that’s okay–good, even. I’ve always been impressed and challenged. It’s a good place to be.

I’ve never been a fast reader. Nowadays my reading goes in fits and starts, but even when I was younger and was able to devote longer uninterrupted stretches to reading (on car trips and such), I was still never able to achieve the rate of literary consumption I witnessed in some of my friends.

That said, those books I did read influenced me greatly. Once I had finished a book I enjoyed, I would go back and reread chapters, passages and dialogue that I particularly liked. Many books I’ve reread more than a couple of times. Borgel, by Daniel Pinkwater, is one of those.

My aunt sent me the book as a gift around the time it was first published (c. 1990). It languished on a shelf for a month or two before I picked it up and dug in. It’s difficult to overstate how much I enjoyed it, or how much of an influence its been on certain parts of my personality.

It was my first encounter with Pinkwater’s writing style of studied randomness, a style which has informed my own writing and sense of humor. It’s a difficult concept to define. The idea is to construct a humorous expression or situation from the most obviously random elements possible. It works because we find the absurd and the unexpected funny, and the randomness is consciously pushed to the extreme for maximum effect.

The best way to illustrate it is through example. In the book, Borgel, the protagonist, gets into a conversation in a language he doesn’t speak at all. His conversational partner later informs him that he’d claimed to be a politically corrupt sardine who wants to eat the tires off motorcycles (“I said that?” “Like a native.”).

Some might say the sentence is a spontaneous emanation of the author’s mind, that he has an innate mental nimbleness to be able to construct phrases like that, and that may well be the case. But I suspect he does something similar to what I’ve done many times: Consciously piece together the expression so that the elements are sequenced in the most random manner possible. “Politically corrupt” as a modifier of “sardine” is about as different as it gets–the adjective doesn’t apply in any normal sense to the noun. And the action–“eat the tires off motorcycles”–is set off from the first part of the phrase to an equally random degree. It takes practice, intuition and a good grasp of the relationships between various categories of objects and actions in order to able to pull it off. And Pinkwater, in his writing, constructs such superlative examples of studied randomness… I can only hope to approach his level of skill one day.

I will say that Mad Libs help a good deal, since the words are naturally random and give you a good feel for the effect of sequencing words you wouldn’t normally. It’s how we’ve come up with phrases like “autographed pipe organ” or “speedy pickle.” I think it allows you to develop a sense of the degree of randomness that separates certain words and concepts.

Inspired by a fresh reading of Borgel, some years ago I started a sort of serial fantasy story, incorporating, haltingly, as much studied randomness and I could cram in. I’ve a good mind to dust it off and work it into a full-fledged story.

In the interest of maintaining my one-post-a-day resolution, here are some podcasts I enjoy:

• The Albert Mohler Program (Christian cultural commentary)
• Coverville (Featuring songs covered by other artists)
• Daily Aero-News (Aviation news)
• History According to Bob (An enjoyable history podcast)
• Let My People Think (Ravi Zacharias lectures and sermons)
• Mars Hill Church (Mark Driscoll sermons and talks)
• Car Talk Podcast (NPR’s Car Talk radio show)
• Live Concerts from All Songs Considered (A great repository of concert audio)
• Renewing Your Mind with R.C. Sproul (A most favorite–R.C. Sproul lectures)
• White Horse Inn (Another most favorite–Reformed Christian discussion and commentary)

All of these are available through iTunes. I’m fortunate enough to have a job that allows me to listen on headphones while I focus on my work. There are days when I have to be up and about more, and days when I’m doing web work or something more text-based and can’t stand the aural encroachment of something verbal, but most days I have substantial stretches where working and listening don’t conflict.

Here’s a random Luke story from a few months ago.

He’s been totally potty trained since his 4th birthday back in April. He was having difficulty getting motivated until we hyped it up to him that his birthday would be the day. On the day, we ceremoniously discarded all of his pull-ups so that the reality of our expectations would sink in. And apart from a couple of accidents in those first few weeks, he hasn’t looked back, but has fully embraced the concept.

Starting out, he sat down for everything, and we gradually phased in one of the great perks of being male: Being able to stand up to pee. That’s gone as well as everything else has–the transition was seamless. He even aims well and doesn’t goof off too much.

A month or two ago we hit another milestone, this time a little unexpectedly. We were standing outside the local abortion clinic, protesting in conjunction with the 40 Days for Life campaign, and of course we brought along the kids. Penelope was in the stroller and we let Luke have a little free rein to run around. By and by, he brings it to our attention that he needs to go potty. No facilities available called for some quick decision-making: We would head for the bushes behind one of the office buildings. I took him back there and he went in the bush–it was a complete revelation for him that he didn’t even need a toilet to be able to go.

However, that realization and the ease with which he’s been potty-trained backfired a few weeks ago. We were raking leaves in the front yard (I say we; he jumps in the piles while I rake, haha) and I was about halfway done. I had lovingly collected a so-called “Jupiter pile” (on account of its size) in the middle of the yard for him to jump in. After putting the finishing touches on it, I turned around to call him over, and I saw him, shorts about halfway down, mercifully turned away from the street, about to pee in one of our holly bushes. “Luke!” I shouted. “Whoa whoa whoa. Let’s go inside for that, big boy. We don’t go in the bush when there’s a toilet available.” I smiled to myself and led him inside. Lesson learned. Ah, to be young and free and excited about pee.

1. Slowly but surely learning how to use the Linux CLI. I talked with James last Tuesday about his experiences in programming and computer science classes at NCSU, and he said that when learning Linux they didn’t even let the students turn on the GUI until the last week of the semester. Wise decision, I think. There certainly doesn’t seem to be any way to be more familiar with your computer than to know how to manipulate it from the command line. I’m so out of practice, though… The last time I really had to interact with a command line was back in the DOS era when I would use it essentially to start up Windows 3.1. This time around I’m determined to learn more.

2. I fixed the kitchen sink’s garbage disposal earlier this evening. A shard of red plastic, hailing from parts unknown, had lodged itself between the disposal’s disk and outer shell, preventing the disk from turning. I had to drop the unit from the sink pan and disassemble it so I could yank out the offending plastic with a pair of pliers. Got it all buttoned up and it works fine again. We’re definitely getting one of those screen sink trap-type things as a safeguard against future incidents like this.

3. Attended the men’s Bible study at Rosemont, our new church, for only the second time. They’re going through a book by Jerry Bridges called Respectable Sins. Each of its chapters focuses on a unique sin that our culture, in some capacity or to some degree, tells us is acceptable. Two weeks ago we discussed pride, and today we covered selfishness. We began by defining the word. Mark quoted the definition from Webster’s 1828 dictionary, a physical copy of which we have sitting on our bookshelf here at home and which I enjoy very much. Here’s what it has to say:

SELF’ISHNESS, n. The exclusive of a person to his own interest or happiness; or that supreme self-love or self-preference, which leads a person in his actions to direct his purposes to the advancement of his own interest, power or happiness, without regarding the interest of others. Selfishness, in its worst or unqualified sense, is the very essence of human depravity, and it stands in direct opposition to benevolence, which is the essence of the divine character. As God is love, so man, in his natural state, is selfishness.

How times have changed. I don’t have more recent dictionaries handy, but I doubt the bulk of that word’s description has remained unaltered to the present day.

In any event, after we had defined the word, we talked about some manifestations of it in the church and in culture, discussed biblical paragons of selfishness and selflessness, and then mulled over ways which we justify selfishness in our own lives. Things we tell ourselves like “I deserve it” or “It’s only fair” were mentioned. I confessed a way I’ve justified selfishness in myself has been to convince myself that I need some sort of “balance” in my life. That is to say, I take mental stock of the day, inventory how much time I’ve spent with my kids and my wife, and from there determine whether I’ve “earned” some time to myself. This is a very insidious form of selfishness in that the culture condones it in the name of “mental health” or some pop psychology term like that. And granted, we do need to take care of ourselves in order to make ourselves more available for those who need us, but as it always does, the Bible calls us to a higher standard than that set by the world–completely sacrificial selflessness. Giving of yourself until it hurts and then giving some more. Our paradigm-setter, Jesus, never reached a point where He justified selfishness in any sense. I need to jettison the mental scorecard and ask the Holy Spirit to help me remain relentlessly focused on the needs of those in my sphere of influence.

“Good grief. Vile animal.”

…which he’s heard Mommy say when our shih-tzu puppy, Maple, decides to leave us a nice steamy pile somewhere in the house. Today Daddy happened upon it and it was his turn to clean it up. Luke spectated, as he usually does, and uttered the words above in commentary.

Brilliant post from Challies. It helps to know who the men referenced in the article are, but if you don’t, suffice it to say they’re some of the most respected theologians, apologists and cultural commentators out there. One could almost call them theology nerds (among many other things), a potential appellation that makes the post that much more remarkable. Enjoy.

One of Diane’s close friends is having a really rough time of it in her marriage. Diane’s been abreast of the situation for some time now and she informs me a little of the goings-on, without divulging too much detail.

It’s hard to hear about. Their marriage is strained to the breaking point. I think the emotion that flares up the most strongly for me as a husband is anger when I hear about the husband’s seeming apathy toward his failing marriage and his wife. It’s…I just…I dunno. Toward my wife: love, certainly; anger, very seldom but occasional, but apathy? The point of not caring is a very, very scary place to be, someplace I will never allow myself to go. It doesn’t matter what happens–we work it out, period. Putting less than my best foot forward when it comes to mending things would show not only my contempt for my spouse, but would display contempt for the sacredness of the whole institution. During that ceremony a little over two years ago, I placed myself and my wife under the authority of God (not like we weren’t there already as individuals, but His creation of a married couple necessarily gives Him ultimate jurisdiction in that area as well) and made us accountable to the witnesses in attendance. There are a multitude of persons we’d have to answer to if we let things fall apart, not to mention the fallout in other areas, and… I can’t think that way for too long (about the what-ifs); the bottom line is I just have no patience for people who let things go without a fight.

And call me old-fashioned, but isn’t it primarily the husband’s responsibility to put up that fight? I do call myself a complementarian when it comes to marriage, meaning that we as husbands and wives have unique (in substance) but equal (in value) roles, and one of the husband’s roles is very much to pursue his wife, even after the wedding ceremony. That pursuit manifests itself not just in the typical romantic channels, but also when it comes to principles and values that are higher than individual sensibilities–the existence of which principles has all but been forgotten nowadays. There are greater things in this life than our feelings, higher things, things worth fighting for, dying for. The crux of the matter is that it’s the husband’s responsibility to always bear that in mind when it comes his marriage. Fight for it. Die (to self) for it, as you would any other non-negotiable in the Word. Anything less is cowardly. I am ashamed of husbands who are so gutless they would play the victim card at the expense of their wife and their marriage. It’s the diametrical opposite of what we’re meant to do.

and all the world is green

Do you ever wonder how often the “emperor has no clothes” phenomenon occurs in music appreciation circles? That is to say, a band or artist with little to no talent being considered good primarily because others say so, and no one has the guts to call them out for fear of being ostracized by their fellow critics? Musical taste is so subjective that I’m sure all of us have artists about which we wonder “Why in the world do they receive so much praise?” Sometimes I catch myself thinking that, but I correct myself immediately with the thought “Well, I haven’t really listened to them anyway.” I used to wonder about the appeal of bands and artists like the Beach Boys or the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan or Radiohead or Death Cab before I listened to a good deal of their music. And I have to say, while I’ll never have an outright affection for it, giving them a fair hearing did help me appreciate them more vis-a-vis their influence on the narrative of popular music in the past 50 years or so. I respect their music now.

That said, I still wonder whether there are bands out there whose entire appeal is built, so to speak, on peer pressure. I’ve heard it said that the only reason for anyone to like Wilco is to be able to tell people you like Wilco. Tom Waits was another artist whose lack of accessibility had me almost convinced that his critical success could be attributed to the phenomenon, but… In the end, there is something mesmerizing about his music, and especially his live performances.

I still think, though, based on my admittedly limited experience in indie music circles, that the “emperor has no clothes” phenomenon is alive and well. There’s something about that particular scene that gives me the impression it’s someplace the phenomenon would thrive. I think it’s the anti-mainstream streak shared by most indie music fans, which lends itself to disproportionate weight given to critical analysis over personal taste, coupled with an overwhelming desire by most scenesters to simply be a part of the scene, which leads many of them, I’m sure, to sacrifice their musical good sense on the altar of fitting in. I’m generalizing; I know, but what would this journal be without philosophizing about music from time to time?

Back to work.

I took a bunch of songs to work with me this morning, transferred on a USB key from our home computer. It’s happened a few times, and it’s a good way to stock up at work. Among other songs, on a whim, today I included the Nichole Nordeman song “Every Season.” If you’ve not heard it, it’s worth investigating. Diane downloaded it from iTunes a while ago and I hadn’t heard it in a while. Yes, it’s unabashedly saccharine CCM, and it’s not exactly a lyrical triumph, but the sentiment and expression of the song… Somehow, for me, it becomes more than the sum of its parts. I confess I was fairly overwhelmed this morning listening to it at work with my headphones on. It draws worship out of me for the way God’s character and sparks of His plan of redemption are manifest in His creation. And it just makes me want everything good and right and pure and clean. It’s not like I don’t desire those things–deep down, I do almost by default–but some events have the ability to push those (true) desires to the forefront, where they belong.

Driving back from Diane’s parents’ house in Lewisville last night, Luke was sitting in the back seat of the Saturn. The sky outside was dark and I had the radio tuned to the classical station, but turned down low. He was talking to himself about something or other, and I was thinking about the day and the remainder of the evening ahead. Already in a relaxed frame of mind on account of the night driving, the radio caught my attention–but not because of anything in particular that was spoken or any music that was played. The hour had just begun and the NPR news was on. After the anchor finished the news, the DJ (if you can even call them that at a classic station) talked a bit. I had the radio turned down just far enough to be able to pick out the “tops” of their speech, if that makes sense. I could make out the “s” and the “sh” sounds and a few of the lower tones, enough to determine the general cadence of what was said, but I couldn’t understand any of it outright. It felt like I was skimming across the surface of conversation, and the words became a prolonged sound effect, an accompaniment to a frame of mind.

What it reminded me of, after all, was trips to and from Europe on the 767. I never figured out whether what I’m about to describe was just in my mind (doubtful) or had some basis in reality (more likely), but when the in-flight film was being shown, the passengers had the option of listening to it by donning their headphones and tuning the armrest to the correct channel so they could hear the movie. Most of the movies they showed were over my head as a pre-teen, so I rarely put on the headphones to listen. However, the airplane had an in-flight speaker system, the one the pilots use to communicate with the passengers, and I remember the movie sounds emanating from those speakers at the same level and with the same quality as the radio in the car last night–just a series of random “s”, “sh” and “sp” sounds. If the ambient noise in the plane had been less, chances are the sound would have been clear, but the low roar of the wind and engines covered over all the sound except for that top layer. As I said, I never determined whether the sound actually was coming from the PA system speakers or it was just my imagination. Come to think of it, another passenger or passengers in seats around my own probably had their headphones turned up to excess. That’s probably where the sound came from.

In any case, the drive home last night, by virtue of that common element, appropriated much of the same mood as those plane trips, with a dash of nostalgia to boot. I remembered elation, excitement, anticipation, desire for the plane ride to last that much longer (though for most folks they can hardly end soon enough), nervousness about the environment in which we would land no matter which direction we were crossing the Atlantic, and a host of other feelings.

It’s been a long time.

1. When nerdy worlds collide. I enjoyed this greatly.

2. Current books in various states of finished-ness:

• Hyperspace, by Michio Kaku
• Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, by Geisler and MacKenzie
• Moon Shot, by Shepherd and Slayton

3. Penelope is very close to walking. She’s taken a few steps here and there, but doesn’t really grasp the significance of what she’s doing. We think she doesn’t really feel the necessity of it, since she’s a remarkably fast crawler. Over at Diane’s parents’ house on Sunday evening, she was exuberantly (and sometimes over-exuberantly) standing with the aid of plastic bins to pull herself up on. It will be great fun to see her totter along when she finally gets it. She’s a girl through-and-through, dramatic whether she’s joyful or distressed or demanding. And truly the apple of her daddy’s eye.

4. One of Luke’s favorite things at the moment is to go places with Daddy in the evening when I get home from work. I have the feeling he’d be content if I just strapped him in his booster seat in the car after dinner and drove around for 15 minutes. He just likes to be out and about with me, and I with him. We’ll go to stores, but almost never buy anything. Some days we’ll go to Harris Teeter and eat bites of every free sample we can find (including the cookies) and see if we can smell all the spices in the spice section of the store. When we visit Lowes or Home Depot we have our “stations” we always stop at, including the tractors, the doors, the windows, the rugs, the mailboxes, the doorbells and the brushes. Over the summer we took walks around the neighborhood almost every evening. The quickly-setting winter sun has put a damper on that activity, though, so we’re doing what we can to get out. We have a good time together.

Had a good time meeting with James and Rob at Barnes & Noble earlier. We get together for our weekly Bible study / man time most every Tuesday evening. We’re going through 1 Corinthians but the topics we discuss range far and wide. James is something of a renaissance man, interest-wise: intimidatingly well-read, good bead on philosophy and history, great taste in movies, science fiction, a computer whiz, and the list goes on… Rob and his wife and son are leaving around the beginning of next year for Egypt, to be missionaries. He’s a seminarian with a firmly Biblical grasp of all things theological and a winsome manner of expressing the basics of our emphasis as Christians. So during our weekly meetings, while I’m completely outclassed knowledge-wise, conversations are always a lot of fun.

I really get the sense that these are guys I’ll be friends with for a while. Rob points out, correctly, that when married and especially with kids, friendships become more of a discipline than a spontaneous occurrence. That is to say, it takes planning to arrange get-together, in contrast to the lack of premeditation that ruled the day before married life happened. I keep trying to imagine my life right now with respect to the only point of reference I have: my parents. I think about the lifelong friendships they’ve maintained and often wonder about the sequence of circumstances that made certain friendships thrive while others withered. And I can’t really put my finger on it since I’m not them, and chances are they couldn’t remember anyway if I asked them; they’d just say “Oh I don’t know; we just kept in touch.” It’s like trying to predict the weather or the stock market to a certain degree–sometimes (all the time?) you just don’t know what God has in store just around the corner.

But that doesn’t obviate the need to be intentional about friendships, and it doesn’t stop me from trying to figure out the alchemy of their longevity by mining the past. Was it a particular convergence of personalities with my parents and their friends? Perhaps–they all fill different “roles” when they come together as a group and complement each other without any obvious “gaps,” but that could just be my perception–I grew up with them as a baseline, not knowing anything else. Could it be similar social / church circles? Not likely–several families went to different churches and were involved in different community structures, so there was no help from that arena. Similar life situations? Maybe–all us kids are roughly the same age, so I’m sure they profited from a convenient common conversational vantage point. But there are so many couples in our social circles that we could describe as being in the same “life situation” with whom we don’t pursue long-term friendships. The more I think about my parents’ circle of old friends, the more I’m convinced that at some point, by all parties, the decision just got made, whether spoken or tacit: “Yep, this is it.” And from then on, although all of the couples certainly branched out with other friends, it seemed they always reserved a measure of their intentionality for each other. And meetups would regularly occur, as they do now once a year on New Year’s Day, just a few weeks away. Thinking about it, how rare is it that all four or five couples would decide to be intentional about maintaining a long-term friendship with each other in this day and age? How many friendships between two people survive the inevitable misunderstandings, hurt feelings and disappointments, let alone five couples? My parents and their friends are amazingly blessed, and I would count myself blessed to be able to follow their example in that manner. I certainly intend to try.

Seriously contemplating coming back here. Doesn’t seem like that much has changed, and I just need to write. I miss it. I migrated our joint blog to another service for a little while, and even integrated it with our webpage, but I found it harder to write spontaneously there. Kind of appropriate, too, that this new post comes two years to the day after I “signed off,” as it were. So we’ll see. I’ve checked my friends page on occasion and it seems like most folks have moved on. But that was never really why I was here in the first place–although it WAS nice to have an audience. I suppose that collection of motivational factors is common to most bloggers.

I’ve always liked LiveJournal. When I started my journal I didn’t know any other sites, and truth be told there weren’t many. I had no knowledge of the open-source software movement (odd coming from an NCSU alum, where comp sci majors are a dime a dozen), from which LJ came, but I think if I had I would have been even more drawn to it than I was. And although LJ has “sold out” to a degree, what with the ads and all the rest, it still seems like a good place to be, with a measure of user control most other blogs don’t have. So here I am again.

So what has changed in two years? Plenty. I don’t really fancy writing a bulleted list of developments, though, and I’m sure I’d leave some out, so what say I just resume posting and fill in the details as we go along? Deal?

I should bring you up to speed on the basics, though–Diane and I are still living in Winston-Salem, I have a job doing design for a local point-of-purchase display company and we have two kids: Luke, now 4, and Penelope who is 1. I will post pictures by and by, have no fear, but this is intended to be more of a writing outlet than a multimedia repository. Come to think of it, that was one of the reasons I didn’t post more in the other journal–I felt like even entry had to be accompanied by a picture or a video or something of the sort. Well… They’ll come in time no doubt, but this will be first and foremost a text-based endeavour.

By the way, this entry is being posted from our new (old) laptop–an IBM T41–happily running Fedora 10. It’s a brand new release of the venerable Linux distribution and Diane and I are enjoying it very much. Open-source journal software running on an open-source browser (Firefox) running on an open-source OS. Sounds about right.

We’re back. Sorry for the several-month outage there; I was lax in updating our hosting account and my PHP function call had an easily-corrected error that made the blog inaccessible.

Lots to tell. We’re back from the beach after our yearly trip last week, Penelope had her first birthday on August 30th and Luke is getting bigger and bigger. As they say, watch this space.

Random scenes around the house: Penelope’s tongue in overdrive during breakfast, a beautiful rainbow after a summer rain a few weeks ago and Luke singing his favorite hymn, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” during family devotion time last Sunday. He sang it much more enthusiastically the first time, but as usual the camcorder wasn’t close at hand. Next time…

Luke has warmed up to Maple. She’s been learning, ever so slowly, not to bite the members of her family, and he’s been learning to have fun with her and enjoy being chased by her, as evidenced by the photo below. She’ll accompany us on our walks around the neighborhood and has already become something of a celebrity, with folks making conversation from their front yards and cars when they otherwise wouldn’t, asking about her breed, what she’s like, etc. She loves the walks and is quite the trooper, given that she’s a little dog and Luke and I don’t exactly take short walks.

For his part, Luke’s greatest source of fascination at the moment, besides his seemingly perpetual interest in geography, is a particular azalea bush in one of our side yards. There are a total of five, planted in a row, but he is drawn to one that has decided to grow out of the ground at an approximately 45-degree angle. He calls it his “leaning plant” and loves to visit it every chance he gets to go outside. Granddad jokingly refers to it as Luke’s “blasted sapling,” a moniker I particularly like. I’ve been working a lot on the yard lately and Luke often accompanies me on my tasks, buzzing especially around the Leaning Plant. We’ve already had a couple of running-through-the-sprinkler sessions, and could have some more this weekend. The azaleas in the backyard still need weeding and watering.