Statistics

Typically my posts are on Providence and how it relates to me but hopefully could be related to you, the readers. Occasionally I make some type of political comment. This one isn't exactly political, but it certainly isn't Providential.

This morning I was thinking about statistics and more importantly the fact that most don't know what goes into statistics. The common perception is that you can lie with statistics though it is really more accurate to say that you can manipulate the inputs to make the statistics say what you want them to say. What goes into the statistics is as important as the numbers.

A few years back great importance was placed in the media on the fact that the FAA wouldn't release information on wildlife strikes with aircraft. This was assumed to be because they didn't want to show that bird strikes are more common now then they have ever been. The reality is two-fold, first is that they are more common. We have more airplanes flying so more opportunities. More important (as it relates to statistics) is that now it is easier to report a bird strike, so more are reported. The actual percentage of strikes related to traffic isn't necessarily increasing it is just being better reported. Without enough data a better determination cannot be made.

Thinking along this train of thought, Mississippi, Alabama, and many other states in the Bible Belt are high on the teenage pregnancy lists. A list they are lower on would be abortions. Shouldn't those two really be looked at together if you want to evaluate the promiscuity of teens?

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Corinthians Trek

Recently I was reading II Corinthians and thinking that while both books are good, I liked the second one better than the first. Those that know me, however, know that that is way too easy a thought for me to have.

Some time back my preacher was explaining that I Corinthians was the second letter Paul wrote, and II Corinthians was the fourth. I used organic Google to recal this, then verified with him that was what he said several years ago. Presumably, we don't read the first or the third because they weren't memorable. For the record, I say that if they're lost, then they weren't memorable enough to save. In that regard, Corinthians is like Star Trek movies--only the even-numbered ones were worth anything.

Following with that argument: Star Trek II was a great movie with heavy overtones of Moby Dick; and Star Trek IV actually featured 2 whales. Star Trek IV (in my opinion) was twice as good. I must be a whale connosieur (see also allegorical novella of Jonah when subscribed to my blog posts). Further, it stands to reason since I like Star Trek IV better than Star Trek II and II Corinthians better than I Corinthians.

A side matter of note is that both Star Treks II and IV had fewer atheistic overtones that are prevalent in some of Gene Rodenberry's other movies such as Star Treks I, III, and V.

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Veritas

A wonderful thing about the truth is that it is the same regardless of how it is approached. Whether from the left, the right, the front, or behind, the end conclusion--the truth--is always the same. Most of my posts approach Providence from the worldly perspective but last week I had a thought that came from the other direction. No matter what we do, God loves us. He knows have sinned. He knows we will sin. He knows we are sinning. He knows we take his name in vain and sometimes even use it with the wrong four letter words. He knows we put him behind other things (like football) at times, He knows when we skimp on our giving. But none of it makes a difference to Him. He still loves us.

As children we find our parents to be unfair and oppressive. When are certain that when we have our own life, and especially our own children, that we won't be like they were to us. The reality of it is that we try to ignore our own parents when as grandparents they laugh at us because our kids are the same as we are. We love our children no matter how hard we discipline them. No matter what they did. No matter what they are going to do. No matter what they are doing right now. Even if our blood boils with anger or we lash out yelling or taking away toys (like cellphones). Regardless, we still love them more than our own lives.

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Recycled

Our new town has a recycling program. In theory it's great because it eliminates garbage from the waste stream. In practice, it stinks. Is it because I found myself washing out an old peanut butter jar so it can be recycled that I don't like it? Yes Maybe. But for a guy who's only recycling practice was saving cans in Boy Scouts to raise money for camp (or the one time I made enough to buy not one but two books on the War of Northern Aggression), and my (now ended) practice of dumping at least 1 quart of oil straight into the ground each Earth Day, I've never really been a fan. I took Calculus IV four times. It's a long story (aren't they all with me?). The first time I was fascinated by the subject. The main premise of Calculus I is that on a small enough scale, a curved line is flat. In Cal IV it is that locally a sphere is a plane. Not a dimensional shift, but a dimensional addition that makes it fascinating to watch. The point of Calculus IV is not to watch it being done, or to see it as a stepping stone to Differential Equations, both of which are prerequisites to an engineering degree. It is neat to watch, and it is a stepping stone to DE and a Degree, but that is not the point.

In my last church I had a hard time finding a Sunday School class to fit into. The one I kept trying, and kept getting thrust back into when the class I really fit into disbanded, recycled its lessons. Month in and month out the bottom line was that things would work great if we just acted the way we were supposed to. Well, crap or get off the pot. For over 30 years I prayed that God would hurry up and give me patience. I stopped at 3 decades because He did. He gave me patience because I got tired of recycling the feel good lessons and put them to use.

Some things just aren't meant to be recycled. For everything else, clean out the peanut butter jars.

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Football

This weekend started the phenomenon that is college football, again. As always, there are observations to be made. Both the professional college team I root for (Auburn) and the college team I love (UAB) lost. I didn't watch either, although I tried to follow the GameStat feature on ESPN online because it wasn't televised. Is there a pattern here? I doubt it, but it is fun to say that if they had only had one more supporter watching...

Did anyone tell UAT that one game doesn't make a season? So they beat the snot out of a Big 11 Team. Isn't that what they do in bowl games, and wasn't a game between Alabama and Michigan played in Texas a bowl game?

I saw that Penn State was on ESPN early Saturday. All those vacated victories, penalties, lost scholarships, but still on television? Yeah, that'll teach 'em.

In addition to writing, I haven't been doing much on social media either. I had practically a conversation on Twitter before kickoffs started, and viewed Facebook throughout the day. College football is undeniably king in Alabama, and much of the South. It seems that everyone is watching it and most have a team that they root for so hard that they can't understand why anyone would pull for another team. Funny thing to watch is how people talk about "how we won" when their team wins and "how they lost" when their team doesn't.

Sometimes I wonder if college football is followed better just because we have so few professional teams in the South or just because we have smaller populations. The truth is probably much less sexy. In the South we follow "our" teams with such die-hard fervor because it is ingrained in us. Not to support one team over another, but to support each other. Family, church, hometown, college, the military, the country, the love and support of things we love is not just a way of life, it's taken for granted. At times it is even overpowering.

Unfortunately at this time of year, that fervor is often misplaced and football becomes a god in the South. People that would never get out of their seats to sing in church never touch their seats in the stadium because they're on their feet singing the fight song, or Sweet Caroline (which I do have to admit is impressive watching 100,000 people in Bryant-Denny sing). The same person who is too "sick" to go to church, but still goes fishing that afternoon wouldn't miss a tailgating event before a home game if they had double pneumonia. Wind and rain can keep you home on Sunday, but on Saturday it's just football weather.

Alright, I can admit this has turned into a rant rather than a post. In no small part because I have always been a bigger fan of professional football. Both of my grandfathers were college football fans, numerous uncles and aunts, I have more cousins than I can shake a stick at most of which are college football fans. I can reason out now why I'm a fan, with the BS System (I dropped the C years ago) doing exactly what it was founded for--not to crown an ultimate champion but rather to keep college football the talk at the water cooler year round--and a bowl game system that would allow for a team to finish below .500 by playing in the "Who Gives a Crap Bowl" it is easy to believe in a playoff system that truly crowns someone who withstood the test. So how did I become a professional football fan? I can't really say, but I do know that growing up in the flukey church we went to we met on Tuesday or Wednesday nights. There was no Sunday church for me unless I went to church with my grandparents (or with my Scout Troop).

Maybe I have my answer.

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Abbreviate

Why is the word abbreviation so long? There is also no abbreviation for abbreviation. To abbreviate is to make something shorter, and shorter, especially in this age of instant gratification, is (or seems to be) better. So often we try to make things better, but only seem to make them longer. Consider the internet. URLs are typically abbreviated www.something.whatever so often that my computer wants to make that a hyperlink. The letter W is the only non-monosyllabic letter in the English language. In fact, it is a tri-syllabic letter. The letters www stand for World Wide Web, three monosyllabic words. This means that we abbreviate 3 syllables with 9 syllables. Plus it's wordier, yet no one seems to care or want to correct it. Even if we say triple W we have nearly doubled the length, and time it takes to say, the original word.

Someone by the name of Lewis Mumford who lived from 1895-1990 once said that "Adding highway lanes to deal with traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity." I don't know who Lewis was, but as a Traffic Engineer (even though I haven't worked in traffic since I left my last private consulting firm I still consider myself a traffic guy) I can relate to him. So often we think that the solution to our problem is simply to make more room for our problem. The only thing this does is make our problem bigger and more difficult to handle.

This concept is a little more difficult to relate to the overarching theme of my blog, but we do at times make Christianity harder than it should be. Jesus never said a sinner's prayer with anyone. Not the woman at the well, not Zacheus, not even Judas Iscariot. This isn't a bad thing though, because, like us, Jesus made things more difficult, too. By speaking in parables, he confused his disciples. They were constantly asking him what he meant. In talking to the crowds he spoke in anecdotes, but he explained to those that were with him all the time. If anyone should "get" him, you would think it would be those that traveled with him. Yet they didn't, and the masses did.

Maybe oversimplifying isn't all it's cracked up to be.

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Blue Moon

Is it appropriate that I write again after a Blue Moon since it seems my blogging has become a once in a Blue Moon event? Perhaps. Time will tell if I have truly moved from the funk that has caused my less than timely writing. This is the first weekend since moving that I will be able to stay put three Sundays in a row. While I imagined the time away from my family would give me time to write, that was not the case. My split-personality life got much worse before it got better. Well, it may be better, time will tell on that one, too.

There is one thing that I do want to say before hope to resume my writing. There is a blogger I follow, Jon Stolpe, who not only continued to blog throughout the summer, but each week he includes my name in his Twitter list of Follow Friday names. Jon, a fellow engineer, hasn't given up on the thought that I would continue to blog. While I don't do Follow Fridays on Twitter, if I ever start his name will be on the top of my list. Check out his blog, Stretched, at http://www.jonstolpe.com/ and I hope to see you all again, real soon.

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Under the Cherry Moon

While in San Diego I had the joy of being given a rental car that was a convertible. I had driven convertibles before, but only for a short drive, never on a regular basis. This was my first trip to San Diego, a city I had never heard anything bad about, and after seeing it the only negative thing I can say for it is that it's in California (take that in any way you think I intend it). After about 5 days I realized that the weather was similar to the Puget Sound weather without the rain. Many days I cruised with the top down and the heater on full blast. I had begun to experience life with the top down and did not want to go back to the claustrophobia that is an enclosed vehicle. In addition to becoming accustomed to taking the top down I began talking with someone who had a Smart Car. Like most our conversation about his car began with a "Oh, you drive a coffin can!" comment. To which he patiently replied, "Yes, but..." Matt began describing the car, its features, its engineering, its comfort, and its advantages. Then, we went for a ride.

He first saw the vehicles in Europe and waited until they came to the US. When they did he snatched up one of the first and has since put over 140,000 miles on it. His one way commute to work is nearly as long as mine, but he has put many, many miles on it crossing the country alone and with one of his teenaged sons. It was an incredible learning experience, and by the end or our training session I pulled up the website and "built" a car. Another friend next to us did the same with a Volkswagen diesel--his response to "what I should get" instead. My fully loaded convertible Smart ended up being just under $20k, Jeremy's vaunted VW was neither loaded nor striped but hit the wallet at $38k. As I flew back home I had an idea.

As an engineer, I love numbers. It didn't take long to work up the numbers and discover that the car note and gas costs would be less than what I pay just for gas in my 99 F-150. Which, oh by the way, needs a repair from time to time. I began searching for a car, and found one, the right one for me.

One disadvantage of the vehicle is that you become an unofficial spokesperson for the company. If you buy one, you'll be selling them. It is an incredibly fun vehicle. Responsive, turns on a quarter, stops on a dime, and you can put the top up or down while still driving down the road.

Once we experience life unleashed, we don't want to go back.

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The title is a reference to a Prince album which has a song with a lyric "I need another lover, like I need a hole in my head." My driveway now looks like a car lot with 4 vehicles. I needed another car like I needed a hole in my head.

Where'd Who Go?

Despite the fact that it appears I have forgotten about this site, I have not. It has pained me to not blog, not because I feel compelled to share my every story with the world at large, but because I haven't been writing. At all. When I began my split-personality life last August I had reached a point where I was writing either in my work in progress or on my blog. More often than not it was on my blog. The real reason for this is that what I do for a living had gotten boring, mundane, and easy to manage in short blocks of time. Comfortable. Still fun, still made me smile, but it didn't take much brain power on a regular basis. I (very incorrectly) thought that by having time before or after work by myself that I would be able to write even more. There would be no distractions.

It did not take long into my split to realize that that was simply not the case. I was drinking from a fire hydrant at work not only learning a new project inside and out but also a new office, new personnel, and how to do my boss's job so that when if he ever retires (date has changed 9 times now, 6 of which have passed) I would be in the catbird seat to get his job. It isn't that I mind this, I told him I would tell him when I was overwhelmed, but it has caused my writing to suffer.

I again began to look forward to the time that my family and I would be reunited on a regular basis. As I have mentioned repeatedly, no one understands just how important it is to me to be able to crawl into bed with my wife at the end of the night. This event happened just before Memorial Day. We bought a house much closer to work and moved in. Then split-personality life 3 kicked in.

After 2 weeks in the house I had to go to San Diego for 2 weeks. Then after 2 weeks at home I had to go to Huntsville for 2 weeks. After another 2 weeks (this week and next week) I have to go to yet another training class, this one much closer to home and I'll be able to bring my family with me. So quick recap, I've owned the home 8 weeks, been here 4, by the time I hit 12 weeks of ownership I'll have been here 6 weeks. My in-laws have spent almost as much time as I have in the home and as of today I have finally spent more time in the house then my oldest daughter's boyfriend (long story there). I'll finish my marathon training schedule not long after the anniversary of my split-personality life beginning and then things will get back to normal.

As Mike Warnke used to say, weirdness is a relative state. For proof let me show you my relatives. Weird is only weird around normal people. A normal person around a group of weird people makes the normal person the weirdo. It is the same with life. My life is not going to be back to normal. There is always another milestone. There is always something else. I cannot wait for normalcy to return. I can only embrace the change and get on with it.

Meanwhile I continue to go. If you see me whiz by, stop me and hold me until I can catch up to myself.

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Gap

In the gap of time between my last two posts a lot has gone on. We, my family and I, packed everything we owned and moved 300 miles. We closed on a house between the time our stuff was picked up and dropped off, but it wasn't smooth sailing. It may have seemed it to the dog, but it was rough. Then, after 2 weeks in the new house I had to make a trip for some training. Also seems simple enough. It wasn't. The flights were smooth, but the getting to the flights were rough. Even the getting away from the flights was rough. The training, however, is going smoothly. Of the multiple stories mentioned here, I'm going to share the one about how I got to San Diego. It seemed easy enough. A 1015 flight out of Mobile to Atlanta then on to San Diego arriving in enough time to find the hotel and the classroom I'd be in for the next 2 weeks before the sunset over the Pacific. But that wasn't what happened.

After arriving at the airport about 8 am, because having never flown from Mobile before I had no idea there'd only be one guy in front of me for the security checkpoint, I discovered that I was very early. The security line was just the two of us. But we had been having unseasonable monsoons since Friday evening. Sunday morning was a wet one. The 9 am flight to Atlanta was diverted to Montgomery before it could even arrive to Mobile to be late. By 930 I had gotten a magazine, some M&Ms, and a bottle of water before the call came that my flight was delayed 45 minutes. No surprise since the 9 o'clock flight still hadn't gotten a plane, much less departed. Then, 10 minutes later, my flight was cancelled. I rushed out of the terminal back to the ticket counter and got on a 1600 flight that left Atlanta at 2200. No problems, except that it was 10 in the morning, and I had to re-travel through security, with my unopened bottle of water. I made it, the water didn't.

The weather that canceled my flight continued up north until it delayed my flight into Atlanta. My 4 o'clock flight left promptly about 6:30. By that time my 10 pm flight was delayed to 11 pm and I would get into San Diego about half past midnight local time.

At that puntctual hour of almost 1 am, I discovered that my bag was still on Central time, which meant that after getting my rental car I would need to find a 24 hour store to buy clothes for the next day as I couldn't go in my blue jeans to class.

Guess what else, the rental place closed at midnight. So I had to scramble for a different car company. This is where things turned around a bit. The rental guy had me all hooked up with a vehicle when I mentioned the need to find a clothes store at 2 am. Without asking he canceled my car and gave me one with GPS in it. A convertible 2012 Mustang.

So short story long, I arrived completely worn out in time for my class the next day. It had taken 20 hours to get me from the airport to stopped in the hotel. Had I started praying sooner, it may have been less, but about the time the first flight was canceled I began to pray that if He wanted me in San Diego that I'd make it, otherwise I'd be sleeping in my new bed again. When my bag didn't make it, I laughed out loud. At 1 in the morning it isn't like there were many who could stare or laugh at me. While I prayed that I would make it, I never asked for my bag to make it.

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Stay Frosty

 It's been a very hectic several weeks since last I blogged. I've missed it if none of you have. There are some great stories to share about what happened, but first a snippet about my evening. This morning I thought about posting and using the title Stay Frosty. It's a reference to a Van Halen song which includes some great lines in it. I'm thinking about it because I'm "where the folks who know bout frostiness stay frostiest the most." California. Specifically San Diego, California (since the last time I was in California it was California, Maryland). The trip out here was brutal, and each night after class I have been working on stuff I'd have done if I were in the office, reviewing some online training, and getting ready for the next day.

One small sliver I have chosen for myself is breakfast. I have stopped, slowed down, and ignored everything except my food and a book for breakfast. I have been looking forward to breakfast all week. Other than that, it's been do something for someone else all day--even though I'm here alone. As we got out of class early today I toured the USS Midway and deliberately got lost in downtown San Diego driving around with the top down (the story of how I came to have a convertible is part of my brutal travel tale but more on that later). When I got back to the hotel I dozed while finishing my book and thought about crawling into bed early.

After  popping downstairs for my daily soft drink I returned to my room and a got text from my cousin asking if I knew that Van Halen was playing San Diego. Tonight. Starting about the time he texted me. Short story long, I didn't, they were, there were tickets, the stadium was less than 9 miles from my hotel, and by the time I arrived Kool and the Gang had finished playing.

Two solid hours of Van Halen (sans Mike) playing half of the Van Halen repertoire. Unparalleled evening. Incredible evening. The venue was large, but still intimate. The acoustics were fantastic. Eddie was Eddie. He remains one of the greatest living guitar players and unquestionably wins the title of best guitarist with the biggest ego. He also is the reason that Van Halen has remained my favorite band for more years than I can count (and for me that's really saying something).

The only thing that lacked was that they didn't play Stay Frosty. Oh well, if you want to be a monk you gotta cook a lotta rice. Stay Frosty.

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Hide and Seek

So, it looks like this is my last day to be a resident of the Pell City area. I've been married half my life and I've lived in Pell City half of the time I've been married. The longest time my wife and I have ever lived in one town, and in one house. If you live in Central Alabama, don't think of it as me leaving, think of it as me playing hide and seek and I'm real hard to find.

And if you live in LA (Lower Alabama for those that don't know) watch out! The Byrds are headed your way.

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Critical Critique

My marathon split-personality life is wrapping up. In the evening this post goes up we will have the Last Last BBQ at the Byrdhouse, an Open House to Close the House on our last full weekend before things start to get packed up. It was a long week, and after leaving work early because I felt ill and still had a 5 hour drive I finally arrived home to empty the mailbox and get the newspapers. Checking the email I haven't been able to look out while driving I got a notice that on the 11th of May an excerpt from my allegory is being posted for peer critique and review.

Anyone who stumbles upon The Hole on the End of the Bible Belt can read what I write. Anyone who subscribes by RSS Feed or email can download a copy of my allegory (if I fixed the page finally), and yet my heart began to race and I got nervous at the thought of my work being posted on someone else's website. I am simultaneously happy, nervous, and scared. I have read, critiqued, and enjoyed other's exerts on Suzannah's Write It Sideways blog for quite some time now. But this is my work. This will be a critique of what I wrote.

Hastily I read the preview post she sent. Why did I choose this excerpt? It says some stupid things about the South. It may not be clear that this takes place in Louisiana. It may not need to be clear from this exert that it is in Louisiana. No one will know who Joel is. No one will know that Joel O. is a television preacher who writes books that makes people feel good. No one will know that he is my Jonah character, that he is the antagonist of the whole novella. While I made it clear that the work is an allegory, I didn't say what it was an allegory of. Who will know this is the point where Jonah has gone to watch the destruction of Nineveh, or when Joel has gone to watch the destruction of New Ixeveh? Why, why, why?

Then it hit me. It doesn't matter what the readers know or not. Either they will want to read more or they won't. Either the exert stands on its own or it doesn't. I write because I can't not write. I write as a release, I write because I have to. I want others to read it. I want others to want to read it. I want others to get what I write. I want others to slap their foreheads and say, "Wow!" But I don't write for that. I write for me.

My exert is posted so that I can see if my work is good enough for others. It is there so that I can find out if anyone would want to read my work. I'll still write if no one reviews it.

I hope that some of you go to Suzannah's website from here. Even if you don't offer a critique. It is a great blog and one I have enjoyed (and will continue to enjoy) following. If anyone from Write It Sideways came to my blog because of the post, welcome. I hope you enjoy what I write. I hope you will subscribe to get a copy of the full novella length allegory of the book of Jonah.

And my next post will get back to my more familiar subjects with a Byrdmouse twist.

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For inspiration while typing this post I was listening to this song on repeat. What a song. What a songwriter. What a performance.

Update: I think exert was Freudian.

Coal Into Newcastle

As I type this post I have brought coal into Newcastle. I came to the library to wait on a phone call for about an hour. I decided I'd try to catch up on a few things (because I do not have anything resembling down time) like some of my reading. I haven't finished On Writing, and have added to my "I'm going to carry this around until I read it" list And Another Thing, the sixth book of the trilogy by Douglas Adams written by Eoin Colfer (of Artemis Fowl fame). Eoin has been channeling Douglas so far as I've read (about 10 pages) so it is enjoyable. However, the book I've decided to read while waiting is Jeff Goins's You Are A Writer.

This gives me the added odd feature of bringing not only books into the library but an eBook into the library. Who can resist the irony there. With so many predicting the eBook industry bringing an end to the traditional print book world I couldn't resist.

Jeff's eBook was just released (by the time I post this blog) last week. It is a wonderfully easy read that I'll be putting a complete review of soon. It also has been an Amazon Bestseller so far, too.

Some people bring coal into Newcastle week after week. My former church has this happen as an example. Many on-fire Christians come in for Sunday School, services, or both every week (or twice a week, or even three times a week) to get re-charged. Others come in and leave with the same coal-free existence they had. The fire can spread from one piece to another, yet so often fails to do so. Those who bring in coal every week take more home than they came with. Some of us coal-carriers hope that more people walk out with coal than those that walked in.

The wonderful thing about the church's coal is that it doesn't matter how much we take out, there's always enough to go around and there's always more.

And another thing, Dr. T never got mad at me when I tried to hit other people in the church with His coal.

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PS I took more coal out of the library, too. I checked out one of CS Lewis's greatest books The Great Divorce because I need a bolster to my faith since my self-imposed exile from church.

Still Trying

A few days ago I read one of my favorite blogs by the author of Dilbert. While he often says things that some would find surprising to come from a comic, that is merely one of the reasons I follow him. In this post the thing he said that most stood out to me was: "I prefer to divide the world into two groups: People who are trying, and people who aren't." It would seem easy to identify people who aren't trying on the poor side of the scale. Or at least one would assume. Those that come to mind would be the illiterate, dropouts, and perennial welfare/food stamp recipients. That would be wrong to automatically classify them all as people who aren't trying, but there are people from that group in those groups.

Assuming that all who aren't trying are on the disadvantaged side could not be more wrong. Some disadvantaged try the hardest. And some of the most privileged try the least. Talent doesn't define it, ability doesn't define it, money doesn't define it, the only thing that defines those who try are the fact that they try. They fall down seven times and stand up eight. The world gives them lemons and they make lemonade, lemon squares, and cherry Coke just to make the world wonder how they did it.

It also isn't right to assume that just because you said a sinner's prayer or walked the nave of a church that you're good, either. Showing up to church every time the doors open won't do it either. You can still divide the people into those who are trying and those who aren't. Doing so might just surprise you from time to time, too.

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My mom pointed out that the link to download my novella wasn't working right. This is for subscribers, either email or RSS Feed. I think I fixed it, and would have fixed it sooner if I had known I needed to. If you tried before, try again. If it still doesn't work, drop me an email and let me know. Then, when you read it, post a comment and tell me what you think.

No X in Nixon

As one might expect I spend time teaching my daughters things. Some useful, some useless, some scientific, some religious, some are good habits, some aren't. We talk about words, animals, trees, books, music, movies, and trivia.

On thing I've slowly been building on is the framework of things. An easy example to understand is the framework of a good story, balance leads to conflict, climax, and resolution. How you get there is with antagonists and protagonists. How you tell the story makes the difference. I point out foreshadowings, such as when the soon-to-be-Emperor is hanging on to the soon-to-be-Darth Vader over the seemingly bottomless elevator shaft in Episode III while in Episode VI the full-fledged Vader throws the full-fledged Emperor over the fully bottomless shaft. And of course, I point out metaphors.

I once taught an entire message to the youth of our church on how we can include messages in everything we do, particularly in music. The point of course was how we can include God in everything, as we are directed by the Great Commission. I gave examples of songs with incorrectly assumed messages, as well as unclear messages, then mostly focused on the clearly God-centered messages that are often overlooked. My message was accompanied by a PowerPoint Presentation which in itself had hidden messages, some obvious, some well hidden, one known to only one individual in the room. One example  I had wanted to use but didn't was a song entitled Shanty. It has some wonderful sounding lyrics of a lazy day around the house. Until you realize, the singer just wanted to smoke some pot with his significant other. I REALLY wanted to use this, not because of the drug use (which is why I didn't) but because the singer is named Jonathan Edwards, and Dr. T is often using Edwards in his sermons and every time he does I think of the hippy Edwards smoking in the kitchen with the munchies. I wanted someone else to join me in my thoughts and/or understand why I smiled whenever Dr. T mentioned Edwards.

Just this weekend, I was listening to music with my iPhone shuffled and Purple Haze came on. Now, I'm a big Jimi fan. The things he did with a guitar are incredible. I told my oldest daughter to pay attention because one of the most memorable lyrics of Jimi's career was coming up. Then it arrived, she heard it and said, "He's getting high!" then laughed.

I pride myself on looking at things with a different perspective. I live outside the box. Impossible is a synonym for unimaginative in my book. I regularly use symbolism and uncover other symbolism. I also teach symbolism, yet after more than 25 years of listening to and loving it, I never considered that, "Excuse me while I kiss the sky" was a euphemism for one of Jimi's other favorite habits--joining Jonathan Edwards.

The metaphor has again taught the author of the metaphor. 

Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog. ~~~~~~~~~~~

Faithful Metaphors

Literary writers use metaphors. It's not a secret. What the metaphor is, what it means, and how it was intended sometimes is. More often than not it is explained by either the story (if it's a good metaphor) or intense overanalyzation. My good friend from Cincinnati calls it mental fornication. Sometimes the metaphor is the basis for the story. Sometimes the story was started and the metaphor added in a fit of epiphany or as the Muse directs if you prefer. Sometimes the metaphor as intended becomes more, more appropriate, more than desired. And sometimes it shows you what you didn't want to admit.

There were issues boiling in and around my family's church attendance, desire, and committment. It was boiling over when my wife informed me that we would prove my dad wrong and make our youngest a middle child. Nothing says someone neglected to disconnect the plumbing like a 12 year gap between kids.

Names have always been a big part of our 3 kids. Obviously, anyone who loves words and worries about words (including mental fornication about which to use) would take great care to choose words wisely. Children names were no exception. Our first child was named after her maternal grandmother. For a middle name (the one I could choose) I selected her mother's middle name before she changed her middle name to her maiden name. It was 6 years before the one-time opportunity appeared. The primary was to honor my wife, but when my daughter announced that she was Uh Byrd (chosing the alternate pronunciation of A) it was all worth it.

My second child was 27 hours old before we settled on a name. The name I selected ended up being first because it sounded better that way, but we call her by her middle name. I chose my paternal grandmother's name and she has inherited Mama Byrd's musical ability (see also any post here by The Frequently).

Little Doodlebug was another matter. I pushed hard for Scarlet Grace, that is a powerful name indicative of so much. In fact, I added a major role in my work in progress for Scarlet Grace to play. It is so critical I have no idea how I was writing it without her, but I digress. Faith was selected for my youngest because I realized that my family was having a faith issue and hoped that subconsciously all of our faith would grow as all of ours Faith grew.

She is, it is, and the metaphor became deeper then I first imagined. Every time we brought Faith to the nursery she got some illness or sickness. None of them were bad, but our Faith was being affected by going where we were. It is harsh to say, but our faith was being affected by going where we were.

After posting my recent, somewhat vague post about Jello I passed along to one person the symbolism of the post. Neither of my other readers commented to me to explain that they caught what I meant. That is the problem of literary writing, some may get all, all may get some, some will get none, none will get some. I don't apologize because I have to write. Just because we don't fit doesn't mean others won't or that the Jello is tainted. I loved our church, I love many of the folks in it, but it was time for the Byrd Pineapple to become dislodged. 

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How Do You Come Across

 An unfortunate problem I have passed on to my offspring is that of being difficult to read. I suppose it is a uniqueness, just like everyone else's uniqueness that we appear to be so easy to read and yet are read incorrectly. The worst part is that we are so easy to read because there are no subtle signals, it's just out there. I will illustrate with an anecdote from several years ago. I switched my cell phone provider to Nextel because everyone I talked with had the du-doop connection. Eventually they all migrated to providers that were less proud of their service and I ended up with the incredible iPhone with less than lackluster service I have now. Before all that happened though, Nextel was bought out by Sprint.

Sprint was well-known for the pin drop commercials in the early to mid 90s, and their call quality was that good. A few months after I started with Nextel I received a call advertising a "hybrid" phone that had Nextel for the du-doop and Sprint for the phone calls. This gave me the odd ability to du-doop in some places I had no cell phone coverage and call people in places where I had no du-doop coverage. With free incoming minutes, it also allowed me to forward my work cell phone to my personal cell phone number. This wouldn't seem to be beneficial until you realize that when it went to voicemail callers heard my personal number. If they didn't know me well enough to know I did that, they thought they called the wrong number and hung up without leaving a message--so I didn't have to call back.

About the same number of months later, Sprint began an every other month call asking me how I liked the service. Now, the unspoken question they really were asking was if I wanted to upgrade my phone (which of course would extend my contract with them). When my contract ran out they began calling every month. Every time they called until I got rid of the service (and the month after when they still called) I told them I had a complaint and paused. That got their attention. Then I told them my complaint. The quality of the phone calls was so good that I couldn't tell when the phone dropped the call. The silence in the conversation matched the sound of simply holding the phone to your ear.

How would you take that? Compliment? Complaint? Me being me?

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