Garlic

Why does every television food chef act as if peeling garlic is a secret process?

"Don't waste your time trying to peel the clove," they say. "Here's how I do it."

Then, with a knowing smile, they proceed to instruct on how to hit the clove with the side of a knife blade so that the impact separates the clove from its peel.

Doesn't everyone in America know how to do this by now? Do we really need to be shown this every time that garlic is an ingredient in a recipe?

VA Tech

I'm curious as to what are your thoughts.

• Is humankind innately evil, or born innately good?
• Do we have free will?
• If so, do we possess it at all times?
• When a wolf gruesomely attacks a herd, it is considered normal. What do we mean by moral conscience?

I have an idea of how to select our next president.

• Give them all bingo cards with letters instead of numbers.
• Start a game.
• First one to spell his or her name wins!

I saw Lunesta (a sleep medication) advertise on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

It is either a conflict of interest or brilliant marketing.

I only attended one Easter service all of last week. It was the Palm Sunday service, which I don't particularly enjoy and so I sat out part of that one by intentionally arriving late.

Despite my avoidance--or rather because of it--I had a great Holy Week that was more reflective and thoughtful than many previous ones. This is because I was continually thinking about the various services I was not attending, what is their purpose, what I desire to gain from the experiences, and how I could focus my activity and internal growth during the time I wasn't at church.

Instead of having a brief worship experience at church and, when the service was over, feeling closure and going on about my life, I felt and still feel a keen ponderance about the significance of it all. I like that.

I am sitting now in my office at the shelter. It is on the second floor and has a westward facing view of the volcanoes and mesa. It is cloudy, drizzling rain...the perfect stay-at-home-with-a-good-book kind of day. Perfect for contemplation.

But I'm working. Which can make me feel resentful that I have to work and focus on running a shelter.

Ah, yes. Back to Easter. How to incorporate the meaning behind the reflection into daily, active life. How to trust that I need not grasp the good moments out of fear that they will not return. How to be fully present in the not-so-great moments. It is in this being outwardly active and inwardly silent that I believe I am at my best. And those moments are so rare.

Other Really Good Stuff I Wish I'd Written

Click me! Click me!...: CABIN

Conflict vs. Congruity

Those of you who know me well know that I love a good late-night discussion. Some parts of college life never leave you. It doesn't even have to be that late at night; I'll take an in-depth chat over "how's the weather?" any day.

Some friends started an interesting group that I'm adding to my "Other Links." Cool thing is, is that you don't have to be present to engage since they are podcasting their discussions and posting essays.

Go ahead. Add your comments. Get engaged!

Conflict vs. Congruity

Social Insecurity

My wonderful government social security statement arrived. It states that at age 62 I will receive $498 a month. That payment will be $878 if I work until age 70.

Of course the big disclaimer throughout the statement reads:

"By 2040, the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 74 percent of scheduled benefits."

Hmmm...2040. That's when I'll be in my 70's so the $878 will be $650 per month. I wonder if housing costs will be down that low by then. Or maybe I'll retire in my 60's and just take the $369 per month.

Another language snippet:

There is a pretty rough-looking package store near where I housesat last week. But since it was nearby and I was desiring libation, I decided to risk getting past the guard at the door to join the line of patrons who were marked with every sort of tattoo. I was interested in trying the recently new vodka drink called "Hypnotiq."

I asked for a bottle of, "Hypnotique."

"You want Hypnotick?" the lady snarled behind the counter.

My cover was blown.

Other Stuff

Big news for Lobos fans: Steve Alford was just hired as head coach. Steve was a year ahead of me in high school and went to New Castle where his dad was his coach. He was Indiana's Mr. Basketball in 1983. He was also part of the best NCAA final game ever when IU beat Syracuse in 1987. I remember watching at a professor's home in Wheaton as the final score rolled in at the buzzer for a spectacular IU win. Steve will make a cool $975,000 per year.

I just finished writing and compiling a 60-page grant that I'm submitting to the Veterans Administration. It will bring in about $150,000 if approved. Maybe I should just appeal to the Hoosier spirit and send Mr. Alford a request.

Set Your Maturity Aside

I passed a new condo develoment while driving home last night. It has a big sign at the gate that reads, "Paseo del Sol: Adult Community."

Since I had just driven past an adult bookstore, you understand my confusion.

In Unrelated News
The local public radio station is in its fundraiser week. To get this, you also need to know that there is a town in New Mexico named Lamy (pronounced Lay-mee). Here's what I heard today:
Female announcer: We need to hear from Lamy this hour.
Male announcer: We heard from them earlier, I think.
Female announcer: No! I mean Lamy right now!
(...pause...)
Female announcer: I really didn't mean to go there.

Things I Never Said

I had a conversation the other day with my one of my godsons. We were discussing movies. I told him about a film that I thought he'd enjoy and he responded by saying, "Oh yeah, that's in my que." I don't think I even knew that word at age 7.

Next he said, "Now to completely change the subject..." Again, vocabulary and phraseology that I don't think was part of my repertoire at that age!

Meanwhile in ABQ, I passed another movie set on the way to work. Waiting for one of the stars to decide to visit the shelter or call to be hypnotized!

Not Nearly Clear Enough

I listened to an NPR report this morning covering the UN Baghdad bombing. The reporter stated that the explosion was "a near miss."

I wonder what that makes a "near hit." If a near miss is really a miss, then is a near hit really a hit?

It's like Abu of the Simpson's remarked, "What?! Inflammable means flammable? I love this country!"

Weatherwise here in ABQ, we had mid 70 degree and sunny days last weekend. Today it is snowing on the Sandia Mts. and raining here in the valley.

We Can Rebuild

Over 1,000 client files (each with 49 fields of data) have to be re-entered into our database. And I have a 45-page, $91,000 grant to write. Plus, I need to get a $15,000 bus contract signed; fill an empty staff position; get keys copied; lead a community inter-agency meeting; find a substitute for a staff person who is sick; and a pile of other officey stuff.

Did I mention that my assistant is on vacation in India until April? How about the executive director also being away on vacation?

I am calling in all of my substitutes and volunteers and am delegating like crazy. But if I haven't called you in a while, this is the reason. :)

Thoughts of Interest

I really like the new link that I posted under my profile. Be sure to check out what your own standing is in the world. One piece of vital information that it fails to calculate, however, is outstanding debt.

This got me to thinking about my credit cards, which led me to calculate current minimum payments along with the current interest rates. Here's what I found out if I just make minimum payments each month and never use the cards again:

• Credit Card A
  Will be paid off in 9 yrs 4 mos.
• Credit Card B
  Will be paid off in 10 yrs.
• Credit Card C
  Will be paid off in 45 yrs.

Making those same minimum payments without interest, the cards would be paid off as follows:

• Credit Card A
  Would be paid off in 3 yrs. 7 mos.
• Credit Card B
  Would be paid off in 3 yrs. 4 mos.
• Credit Card C
  Would be paid off in 4 yrs. 2 mos.

This has me beginning to investigate filing bankruptcy which is against my principles. But then over $6,000 is not really money that I borrowed; it is pure interest.

CRASH

I had a volunteer come by the shelter on Friday to help out. It became the perfect storm of calamity.

The organization has been trying to get a better server for years, but hasn't. My assistant was the first one to start backing up our database; but unbeknownst to any of us, she was only saving shortcuts and icons, not the actual data from the server. I invited an MBA student to come and teach me some about our Access database. She made a copy, but couldn't pull the information out to the copy without my logging in as administrator. Which I did.

And she deleted 3 years of all of the data for our shelter. Nearly 3,000 records with near-endless points of information.

The best computer recovery guy in the city says that it is not retrievable.

My weekend has been busy strategizing, but nothing resolved yet. This is a picture of my brain at the moment...