Good Advice Sticks with You

21. July 2010 · 3 comments · Categories: Buddhism, daily life, friends, good things, gratitude, information, self, smiles, thoughts

I’ve received a lot of advice in my life. Some good. Some bad. A lot mediocre.

When I look back and think about what the best advice I ever got might be, I usually think of my teacher, Ms. Furlong, from high school. She taught my Freshman year World Cultures class and was the coach of our Forensics (Speech and Debate) Team. One of the most important things Mary taught me was that there are two sides to every story and the truth often lies in the middle.

I remember her drawing an inverted triangle to represent this on the black board. On the left she wrote “Thesis,” on the right “Antithesis” and at the bottom point she wrote “Synthesis”. Later in life I would come across this in my studies of Kant and Hegel (I’m a scholar of neither).

Somehow this makes incredible sense to me. Usually the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Buddhists call it the middle way or path. It can be very liberating to walk the middle path, because you do not have to agree with the extreme right or the extreme left, but rather can take good from both sides.

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Father’s Day – From the other side of the coin

21. June 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: bacon, beach, dad, daily life, family, fatherhood, fishing, friends, good things, gratitude, lewes, mr. grey, mrs. tkd, sidetracks, smiles, time

So, yesterday was Father’s Day.  It was my third as a father.  We were at the beach and Mrs. TKD cooked breakfast which included bacon from Hickman’s Meat Market in Rehoboth, DE.  It rocked!  I’d bought it the day before and they actually sliced it for me!

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After that we went to the Lewes Beach and did a little swimming.  Mr. Grey got tired early so we headed home (1 block) and grabbed some lunch.  I promptly took a nap.

To be honest, I was a little grumpy in the morning because we kinda screwed up on meeting up with some good friends at Cape Henlopen.  Yeah, we royally screwed the pooch on that, but friends are friends and thankfully they will forgive us.

After I woke up from my nap, we chilled for a bit more.  Mr. Grey decided a nap was in order for him, and Mrs. TKD and I snuck out for a trip to the grocery store.  I picked up fixins for a take on cuban inspired pork chops (lime, cilantro, cumin and peaches).

When we got back Mr. Grey was up, and we went to the beach.  I played with him in the sand and the water.  He was really digging the water.  He was in up over his head with the help of his life vest.  He’ll be a sailor like his papa and a fisherman like his dad for sure.

A lot has changed since he was a little dude.  This photo is from 2008.

He was afraid of the water back then.

Road Bike

21. March 2010 · 9 comments · Categories: cycling, daily life, family, fatherhood, frank, good things, gratitude, home, mr. grey, sidetracks, smiles

After two seasons of riding my Rockhopper with slicks, I’m beginning to seriously investigate road bikes.  I spent some time checking out a few lines yesterday afternoon.  I looked a few aluminium and one steel framed bike (Trek, Specialized, and a Jamis).  I was surprised to find that I really liked the steel framed Jamis.  It is as light as many carbon bikes and has nice Shimano 105 components, but its got a pretty hefty price tag for me (even after they knocked $250 off the price cause it’s last year’s model).  As much as I love my Specialized mountain bike, I’m leaning away from a Specialized road bike, again due to price.  The Treks seem to be a good buy for what you get.  An aluminium Trek with the same 105 components as the Jamis is about $300 less expensive by the MSRP.

The bike search will be put on hold today as I haul furniture up to my brother’s and fetch some from my mom’s house.  Mr. Grey needs a big bed and he’s going to get the same bedroom set that I had when I was a boy.

Spring, 2010 Style

19. March 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: daily life, food, gardening, good things, gratitude, home, maryland, music, sidetracks, snow, spring, thoughts, weather, winter

And it’s sure been a cold, cold winter

And the wind ain’t been blowin’ from the south

It’s sure been a cold, cold winter

And the light of love is all burned out

It sure been a hard, hard winter

My feet been draggin’ ‘cross the ground

And I hope it’s gonna be a long, hot summer

And the light of love will be burnin’ bright

…

It sure been a cold, cold winter

My feet been draggin’ ‘cross the ground

And the fields has all been brown and fallow

And the springtime take a long way around

God damn, I love that song. For those that don’t recognize it, its “Winter” by the Rolling stones on the Goats Head Soup album.  If you haven’t given it a listen before, well, you should, you’ll recognize a bunch of good tunes on there.  And if you have, but haven’t listened to it in a while, well, give it a spin – or whatever we do with digital music these days.

Spring is here!  It was 72 F here in Severna Park today!  Beautiful days.  I grilled.  I wore short sleeves. I knocked off work a tinsy bit early.

I’ve got spinach growing in my garden – it wintered over!  So did the collards and kale that I never go around to picking.  Even after the ridiculous snow and cold we had!  And most extraordinarily, so did my parsley.  I’m excited for the spring and getting my garden going again!

Call me a Curmudgeon – An argument against the Tip Jar

28. January 2010 · 3 comments · Categories: america, cultural failure, daily life, disgust, frustration, gratitude, incongruities, irritants, lunacy, rants, thoughts
Money

Call me a Curmudgeon.  Go ahead, get it out of your system, cause you’re probably going to disagree with me on this post.

The “Tip Jar” has gotten way out of hand.  Everywhere I go, there seems to be a tip jar on the counter.  From Starbucks, to the local pizza joint, to the freakin coffee shop in my building at work, everyone’s got a tip jar out.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to tip people working in a capacity where tipping is customary and usual.  This is especially true where someone’s base salary is below minimum wage because they are expected to make the difference up in tips.  But come on people, not everything in life deserves or requires a tip, especially if you aren’t doing anything but filling a cup of coffee or putting a slice of pizza on a paper plate for me to take to my table – and subsequently bus – myself.

At the risk of sounding like my grandfather, when I was a teenager working in a sub shop the idea of putting out a tip jar on the counter never even occurred to me, because I wasn’t performing a service that deserved or required a tip – I was making sandwiches, which was in actuality, my entire reason for being behind the counter.  Tipping me for making a sandwich would have been ridiculous.  And even if I had thought of putting a tip jar out, my manager would have summarily dismissed the idea and threatened termination of employment if I’d done it.

This is part of what I call modern society’s “entitlement syndrome.”  Everyone seems to think that they are entitled to something.  Apparently, now everyone is entitled to be paid extra for doing their jobs.

I’m putting a tip jar on my desk.  Feel free to put a five-spot in it the next time I create a VLAN for you.

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