After months of neglect and half-heartedness, the blog is looking more like this:

I can’t guarantee the blog will get a whole lot better, though.  But I can at least update you on some of the happenings in the collapsed universe of WhiteEyebrows.

1. New Job

August first, I started a new job.  I still work for the same company, but I am reporting to a new boss and have had my job responsibilities expanded and changed pretty dramatically.  The decision to take the job was a little difficult, because I really had nestled into a groove with my team.  We worked in a pretty tight-knit, small group of developers in a highly iterative and collaborative way.  It took us quite a while to get that engine really humming, but we finally hit a good stride.  I was even starting to do more real programming, not just designing.  It was a great growth time for me, and I really appreciated my manager and my teammates.

Now to try and explain my job…

In my old job, I was a designer for a specific product we’ve been developing for about a year now.  So what do I mean by designer?  I was the visual designer (the guy who made it look the way it did) and also an interaction designer (the guy who makes it work the way it works).  So I worked with programmers to make the thing look and act like it should (and like customers would like).  We kind of call this “user experience” – the sum total of all the decisions and designs that create what a product looks and feels like to a user.

The new job is in the same vein.  I’m still in “user experience”, but rather than being focused on one project I will now be ‘influencing’ a lot of projects and products.  In my new role, the scope has changed as well.  Before, I was looking at my project – one component of a complex product or system.  In my new role, I’m to be looking at the experience our customers are having with the entire company – end to end.  Everything from pre-sales, sales, installation and configuration all the way through to support and end of life.  My current focus will still be on products themselves (I have some great peers who are focused on other parts of the experience), but the vision has expanded to include much more.

In a way it’s exciting, because there is so much work to do – and I kind of have carte blanche to go work on whatever I want.  I don’t see how I can go wrong – there is so much work to be done.  If I do anything, it will look like I’ve done something.  I also feel a huge buy in from upper management, and have had great support from my old boss and my new boss as I make the transition.  So… so far, so good.

2. Starting School

Yesterday, I also started the Arts and Technology program at the University of Texas at Dallas.  The current plan is to get a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) degree.  I’ll be focusing a lot on the things I was talking about above – user experience, user research, and trends/topics in technology.  The program itself is a fusion of humanities and technology.  They have a very aggressive program in animation, motion capture, and other cutting edge technologies; which draw a lot of interest on their own.

Now if I could just find a trapper keeper…

The first class yesterday was a little goofy.  We spent 1:45 just introducing all 42 students in the class.  Since I was first (the curse of having an “A” last name), I just stood up and gave the standard 3 sentence introduction – where I did my bachelor’s work, where I work now, and what my interest was is in the program.  After a few other people, though, it became apparent that this was becoming more of a life history/bragging session.  I had to hear about every project some people did since the fourth grade.  It became disturbingly apparent that many people were there because they couldn’t find jobs or were going through job transition.  I was surprised at how many people outwardly admitted they just wanted to teach and become a professor.  Are there really that many professorships available?  Is higher education a rapidly expanding career field and I never knew it?

Some of the students are a little gross.  Thankfully, I sat in the corner of the room with the nice smelling people, but when we went to go to break and dismiss, I passed a few individuals who smelled like they hadn’t taken a shower in weeks.  There was a lot of poorly trimmed beards and moustaches as well, and a lot of kind of self-important comments from people – you know the type – the ones who want to talk on the first day of class to set themselves out there as a vocal know-it-all in the class.

The oddity of the participants notwithstanding, I hope to gain a few things from the next 2 years in this program.  Hopefully, if I can keep a 9-credits-per-semester schedule, I’ll be done in 7 semesters.  If I go through the summers, that’s only 2 and 1/3 years.  Either that, or my brain will explode.

3. Conclusion

I’m tired and busy.  I’m trying to kick my focus and energy back up another level.  I’ve decided that if I’m going to succeed in my new job, school, church calling, infinite side projects, and as a husband – I’m going to have to make excellent use of my time and energy.  I guess, for the next few years at least, I’m done with the relaxation and enjoyment of a slower lifestyle.  So the back half of 2010 is going to be taken to a WHOLE ‘NOTHER LEVEL!

There’s more to tell, but I’m just plain out of time, out of room, and out of will power to write about it.  I could tell you about how it is to have my brother living with us.  I could tell you how A2 is the #1 auditor at her work.  I could tell you how we are really looking forward to our upcoming vacation to Italy… and more!  Maybe if you comment and ask me some pressing questions, I’ll feel compelled to post again.

Or not.

Food for thought.

Dear me… where do I begin on this one?

First, it’s interesting that the two most prominent advertisements on this banner invite people to “Be Free” and have “No Guilt”.  Attractive thoughts, no?  I mean, who wouldn’t want to live their life completely guilt free?  I certainly would.  I’d also like to be free as well; free from pain, suffering, problems, controlling influences, etc.  That sounds like a good life to me.

Somehow, though, I don’t like the idea of murderers, rapists, and adulterers living guilt-free.  “Live and let live” quickly breaks down when people start doing things that we consider hurtful, destructive, and degrading to self or society.  Only the most committed anarchists will disagree with me on that point.

“Be Free” is the slogan of adolescence, those who gleefully feel new emotions for the first time but lacking the maturity to fully understand them.  Maturity brings understanding of those freedoms and acceptance their associated responsibilities.  Those who propagate this nonsense are perpetual teenagers, praying that they can run just a little faster than the consequences of their reckless lifestyles and irresponsible behavior.

It’s easy for us to agree that murder is hurtful, destructive, and degrading to both people and society as a whole.  It gets a little more complicated when we are talking about sexuality and sexual behaviors.

Perhaps the biggest lie we tell ourselves is that sexual freedom is the ability to do it with whoever we want whenever we want.  Sadly, that is just not the case.  True sexual freedom is being 100% invested in the partner with which you will share those most intimate parts of yourself, and trusting that they will be faithful to you as well.  Mutual trust in a relationship is what really makes you free in that relationship.

Recently, in one of the first high-profile cases of this kind, Steve Phillips, former Mets manager and commentator for ESPN, checked himself into a facility for sexual addiction recovery.  A life of various affairs with coworkers, subordinates, and who-knows-who-else had finally left him destitute – without a home or family; an empty shell of a man.  His fully excercised “freedom” to do whatever (and whoever) he liked led to his losing everything, including losing ultimate control over his own thoughts and actions.

I’ll bet you didn’t hear about this on any large news outlet, though?  No, there’s nothing glamorous or attractive about someone checking into sexual rehab.  (Even though checking in to drug or alcohol rehab in recent decades has become quite a coup for your celebrity.)  It’s just plain sad.  And heaven forbid we prosecute sexual promiscuity int he public arena (unless it is for a politician, of course, who should just know better!).

So your choices matter.  Sexual choices matter as well.  It’s about more than just sharing love.

But why?  Why do choices matter so much?

Think of your life as a delicate human ecosystem where what-you-do is actually important.  No, really.  Take a minute to reprogram your brain contrary to everything popular culture has taught for the last 50 years or so.

Look, things don’t magically take care of themselves.  We all depend on ourselves (and often other people) to keep life sustained; to keep the laundry done, the car running, and the job done.  Without effort and action, things tend to all apart.  This is also known as “chaos theory” or (for the Mormons out there) a “telestial state”.  Things tend to fall apart unless we do something about it.

Editorial Update: turns out I got my chaos theory mixed up with my laws of thermodynamics.

Even if you feel a particular action doesn’t matter, consider this: your inaction may matter a lot to those who were depending on you or who might have benefited from your action. Yes, the ones that are hurt the most by inaction are the ones who would have directly benefited from action.  So it’s really not so much about you at all, is it?

You can’t parade around life promoting “live and let live” when you have people depending on you, and as a society we all depend on each other to advance our collective interests.  Everyone seems to want to dictate to society what they want, but people seem to be a lot less excited to actually go do what our society needs done.

Our society needs strong families, and yet we continue to destroy the family.  We need brilliant minds, and yet we are content with failure in our schools.  We need a strong defense, and yet are only willing to sacrifice someone else’s child for our country.

You can’t justify inaction or bad actions under “live and let live” and “my choices don’t matter” when you could be doing so much better!!!  It’s not a valid excuse or catch-all anymore for laziness.  Time to pull up our bootstraps and make the right choices.  We need to do the best thing, even if it means a little effort.

So I guess if I were to write a rally sign it would say:

Be FREE!
Guilt is an excellent indication of that you’ve screwed up your freedoms.

Be your BEST self.
Choose that which is best for you and those who rely on you.

And you will be truly happy.

WhiteEyebrows’ History and Philosophy of Bed Making.

I’ll start this blog at the end of the story:

Dear Wifey -
Although you are gone on a business trip today, I made the bed anyway…

But this was not always the case.  No sir!  My bed making was not always so prolific and consistent.  My sheets were not always neatly tucked, nor were my pillows neatly arranged.

The long battle for the bed-making began when I was a small child.  In my earliest recollections, I hear the echoes of my Mother’s voice: “Did you make your bed today?”  I’m sure, as a child, I infrequently and haphazardly made my bed from time to time.  I recall at least one deliberate, absurd family night lesson where we were all ‘instructed’ on how to make a bed.  Mom surely tired of making 4 beds each day, and her personal nirvana might have been reached had even a small percentage of her children bothered to make their beds every day.

I even have a recollection of my father instructing us how to make a bed ‘military style’ – so tight that you could bounce a quarter off of it.  I have a distinct memory of my brother and I trying to accomplish this once, but resolving that we must have had less-than-ideal sheets or something, as we could never get the covers tight enough for any denomination of coinage to bounce.

By the time I reached adolescence and high-school years, my mother had decidedly lost the making-the-bed battle.  She somehow found the energy and persistence to create a daily routine of coming into our rooms after we had left for school and before she left for work; picking up dirty clothes from off of the floor and making our beds behind us. I guess this was simply a battle she chose not to fight, as there were always plenty of others requiring more energy.

Every once in a while, though, my bed went unmade.  I remember her asking me to make it, and my consistent response: “Why would I make the bed when I’m just going to get right back into it and mess it up again in [x] hours?”  Somehow, she tried to explain how living in a clean house and clean room makes you happier, but I wasn’t buying that argument.  After all, my room was generally clean due to her efforts, so how was I to know what living in a pig sty felt like and why would I put in the effort today when I knew she would do it tomorrow?

The only way my mother or father ever got me to make my bed was through come kind of direct reward or punishment.  Withholding of dinner or permission to leave the house seem like two key motivators.  Guilt worked too, especially when it had been a particularly difficult or tiring day.

Then I left home.

I remember making my bed in college, topped with the beautiful blue quilt my mother and I had tied before I left (OK… she did most of the work, and I watched).  I remember the great satisfaction of a clean dorm room and a made bed, which occurred maybe twice that entire semester.  I think I caught a glimmer of what a clean, fresh room felt like.  And I’m sure I took pictures both times.

All in all, though, the right to keep my bed and room as messy as I wanted was a right I was freely and joyously exercising.  No more guilt, coercion, pain, or suffering.

Then I went on a mission.

Missions have rules — a lot of them.  And the #1 mission rule is to keep the mission rules.  We often discussed how our obedience to the small rules held some kind of direct correlation to your obedience to the big rules (i.e. if you were eating three meals a day, you were probably coming home and leaving in the morning at the appropriate times).  Hence, we were always looking for obedience minutia – ways we could demonstrate to God that we would do whatever it took to be blessed and successful as missionaries.

My mission had a lot of unwritten rules.  It was more of a culture that my mission president had created through consistent raising of the bar in each zone conference.  Monthly, Sister Ellis would stand and encourage us to wash our hands, drink 2-3 liters of water per day, and make our beds.

To reinforce the message, she dealt in currency missionaries could really understand: candy.  American candy — solid gold.  At the beginning of Zone Conference, she would ask if you made your bed that day, and you were subsequently rewarded.  What I didn’t fail to notice was that during each one of these checks, President Ellis was the first to raise his hand and stand up to receive his treat.

President Ellis made the bed.

The image of my missionary role model standing to receive his candy was seared into my memory: men make beds.  I already felt like this man walked on water, and this just sent me over the top.  To be like President Ellis, I would need to make my bed.  More importantly, to demonstrate to God and my fellow mission companions that I was willing to be obedient and receive the blessings from bed-making, I would make my bed.

So, for two years, I made my bed.  I was near-perfect in this.  I even bounced a several denominations of Brazilian coins off of the bed during this stint of bed-making.

I made my bed for self-interest and out of respect for a leader.

When I returned home, triumphant in my missionary service and in my successful bed making, I did like most missionaries do: completely relapse into a lazy, half-hearted, 20-something year old.  I did not make my bed for most of the next 6 years of my life.

Even after I purchased my own money-pit house, I still only made the bed on special occasions, which included the rare overnight guest or house party.

Now, as a married man, I have to confess.  I have suddenly felt the urge to make the bed again.  I ask myself:

Why?

Why is this small item, which was clearly not an issue to me as a youth, a college coed, or a young career man, why is it now such a big deal to me?

I suppose it’s partly an homage to my mother, though I’m not doing it out of fear or coercion.

And it’s surely got something to do with President Ellis, though I’m not doing it out of respect for leadership or self-interest.

I guess it’s actually a small, silly way of showing my wife that I love her.

Yes, I do enjoy a clean house and a clean bedroom, but it’s not about that.  I can live in squalor as good as the next Cro-Magnon man.  This is just a little something I do that makes me think of her every morning.  It’s probably not something that makes the difference between her good day and bad day, but it is something I know that will contribute to her happiness.

Maybe it’s just a little way of saying ‘thank you’ for getting out of bed earlier than me to go to work.

Does my wife notice every time I pick up her bra or make our bed?   No.  Does she feel the warm fuzzies when her shoes magically make it back into the closet?  Probably not.  But neither did I for the many years that my mom did it for me.  Perhaps this is something that takes years to recognize and appreciate, and perhaps it takes even longer to truly understand why we make beds* in the first place.

So if you’re looking for a way to say “I love you”…

If you want to say, “I’m faithful”…

If your trying to find a way to show that “I’m invested in us.”…

Then look no further than your nearest bed!!

* substitute pretty much any menial, service-oriented activity here… i dare ya

Everything works out in the end.

If it hasn’t worked out yet, it’s just not the end yet.

- WhiteEyebrows, 2005 -

The universe is shrinking.

Ever since I got married, I felt my world completely shrink around its most immediate components: my wife and my work.  I really only work because I have to.  I would be completely satisfied to just spend 100% of my time with my wife, as we’ve proven with the few vacations we’ve taken this year.

I think I might be a little sick in the head, but I really can’t get enough of her.  I want to be with her all the time.

We do everything together.   We go to the store together, we do dinner, parties, church… EVERYTHING is together.  No one has to stay home with the kid.  No one has to get something else done.  We drop everything just to be together almost every night.

I missed having other friendships at first.  Before I got married I always told myself that I wouldn’t let marriage change the fact that I had friends before I was married and enjoyed their company too.  I even tried to organize a few parties or game nights with my single friends, but either they were too busy or not interested in hanging out with a bunch of obsessed married people.  Which–and here’s the kicker–is totally OK with me.  I still like them and miss them, but my world has not come crashing down, because my whole universe revolves around one person.

It kind of sounds unhealthy when I put it that way, but there it is.

I work harder, but am lazier.

We’ve figured out stuff.  I cook.  She mows.  I edge the lawn.  She does the dishes.  She starts the laundry, I finish the laundry.  She volunteers me to sing at Young Women in Excellence, and I volunteer her to single-handedly entertain 80 primary children on the 5th Sunday.  She accuses me of not scrubbing the toilets the last time I did the bathrooms, and I totally deflect because I KNOW I ran the cleaner out on the last go-round.

It seems like we are able to accomplish more as a team.  I think our synergy is pretty good.  We are definitely more consistent, just because there are two of us looking at the yard, dishes, and pile of laundry – and usually someone finally says “ugh.. let’s get this done.”  At the same time, though, I get to be twice as lazy because every job is half as hard as it was when I was single.

She weeds the flower beds, I kill the cockroach in the garage.

It’s a great partnership.

I need my extended family less.

This one really surprised me.  I wasn’t anticipating this.  I started noticing it after my cousins (who live close) started saying “we never see you anymore.”  When I tried to point out the last time I’d been there (and failed), I knew something was up.  I just naturally gravitated away from them.  I didn’t need them as much, because I had my wife.

What surprised me the most, though, was when we’d go visit family or family came to visit us.  No longer was I flitting from person to person, making the clipboard-of-fun happen and keeping everyone engaged and having a good time.  I was simply content to be with my wife.

When it came time for family to leave, I was sad to see them go, but also slightly relieved to see them go. While I enjoy their visits,  I’d really rather just hang out with my wife all the time.

I know–sounds unhealthy again, huh.

Bottom line…

Getting married has changed everything, even the stuff I thought should not change has changed.  And it’s all been changes for the better.

Will the pendulum swing back the other way?  Maybe.  Will we, with the prospect of children, work, and other external factors be constantly pulled away from spending every waking hour together?  Probably.

But I think this part of being married has been important.  Solidifying our relationship, sharing everything, and spending time as if we were dating, whether healthy or not, has been what my soul desired.

I suppose we’ll wait on the next big change.  But for now, I’m just happy to write on this blog that I’m–

Wicked.  Dumb.  Happy.

No, I mean the title literally: go get the gold!

Let me explain.  My older brother and I used to play Age of Empires against each other.  After a few butt-whoopings, I found out one of his basic strategies: explore the map first, find all the gold, and mine it all before your opponent can get any.  Though this opened up a weakness (he had few military units early on in the game, which opened up a new strategy for me to attack early and kill his gold mining peasants), this allowed him to buy more of the good, expensive warriors later in the game and in the end, have a force far superior to mine. Gold is one of the most precious resources in that game, and with it you can do pretty much whatever you want.  Now, every time I play against him, I have to counter his gold grabbing strategy in some way.

What does this have to do with anything?

I know a lot of people who start any conversation about money by saying “my resources are limited” or “I’m on a fixed income” or “I just don’t make enough money.”  I have always thought in the back of my head, “well, what’s stopping you from making more?!?”  You have two hands, two feet and a brain.  Put them to work, make something happen, or stop whining about it.

This, of course, comes from the boy who was selling snow cones on the front lawn of Grandma’s house from age 8, had a paper route from age 12, and who subscribed to the children’s magazine “Zillions”, dreaming of one day being an entrepreneur.   Yes, I fully recognize that I am a weirdo…

But let’s talk about it… what holds people back from financial success?  In my opinion it’s two things:  fear and self-imposed limits.

Fear

Sometimes we just don’t want to take a risk.  We’d rather protect what limited resources we have (the gold in our own home base) rather than going out and risking it to find more.  Sometimes we are so entrenched in what we do that we can’t see what we have the capability of doing.

Now, I will stop here to say; be sensible.  Don’t quit a good job just to start a real-estate investing program you saw on a late-night infomercial, but on the other hand, don’t be afraid to step a little out of your comfort zone, and don’t be afraid to try and fail.

Just be sure you have somewhere to fall back on when you fail…

Self-imposed Limits

Most people put artificial limits on themselves.  They focus on what they can’t do, rather than what they can.  They focus on where they are rather than where they’d like to be.  And they focus on what they are doing rather than what they should be doing.  Rather than overcoming their limits, they embrace them, point them out, and hold onto them for dear life.

After all, our limits are part of what define us as a person.  Successful people, however, define themselves by what they can do well, rather than what they can’t do.  I doubt you’ll hear Kobe Bryant say how he can’t write a computer program, but I’ll bet you will hear him talk about how he can play a mean game of ball.

Reminder and Disclaimer: Money Isn’t Success

The truth is: feeling successful doesn’t come from being wealthy.  Feeling successful comes from feeling fulfilled. Fulfillment comes from a variety of sources: relationships, your church work, your family life,  your job or your hobbies, and fulfillment doesn’t always pay.  In fact, many times we give up true fulfillment in the pursuit of the gold. Having financial security can free you to pursue those things that offer fulfillment in your life and make you feel successful, but the simple acquisition of wealth in and of itself isn’t necessarily fulfilling.

You know, they say that time is the great equalizer because we are all given the exact same amount of time every day.  And it’s true… what we do with each hour of each day largely determines the success and fulfillment of our overall life.  A lifetime is simply a collection of what you’ve done with your minutes, hours, and days.

Go get ‘em!

1. We went to Schlitterbahn for the first time this weekend.  It was very busy, but we had a great time standing in line and riding the rides.  The only truly miserable moment came when we reached the top of “America’s Favorite Water Ride.”  After waiting in line for about an hour and a half on the lower stories, we reached the very top story and the signs said: “60 minute wait from here.”  What?!  Sixty more minutes!?!  By this time the overcast morning had broken into a hot, sunny, humid south Texas afternoon, and we just melted on top of that ride for an additional 60 minutes for the 45 second thrill.  That was not cool.

The one thing I noticed about Schlitterbahn is that they don’t really have everything as fine tuned as other parks do.  They are a very easy going, laid back, country feel place (which is nice from the hyper-real hyper-fun that most other parks try to generate), but they just don’t have the same attention to every little detail, and aren’t trying to create any kind of ‘special’ or magical experience.  Which is OK too.  Sometimes when I go to Disneyland, all of the perpetually youthful employees feel just a little ‘stepford’ for my tastes.

2. I have some really great parents and in-laws.

My parents were here about a week and a half ago, and we really enjoyed my time together.  I think, most of all, I was really glad for their help in getting our front flower bed shaped up.  It was in desperate need of help, and they made it happen!  I know neither of my parents really know how to cut loose and enjoy themselves, but I think we came about as close as was possible that weekend.

We spent this last weekend with the in-laws, and it was also very enjoyable.  We loved the B&B, and really had a great time at Schlitterbahn (in spite of the lines and scary tattoos). Thanks so much for inviting us to come with you on your hill country getaway!

You know, speaking of parents, having in-laws is fun because you get intimate exposure to how someone else raised their kids.  Up until this point the only parenting I knew that intimately was that of my own parents, so it’s nice to see how different perspectives and personalities have worked over the years.  The bottom line: we all have our quirks, we all have our blind spots, and we all think we make ‘mistakes’ but which are really just life and other-people’s-agency beating us up.  But that sounds like topics for another blog… about which I’m probably still not qualified to write.

3. Last week, I spent a lot of time wasting effort, brain cells, and time on things that were not important and not urgent.  I was able to still clear out the urgent/important tasks later in the week, but probably should have put aside the non-urgent, non-important stuff much earlier in the week to create less urgency late in the week.

That leads me to the theme for this blog: sometimes we make up things as a distraction from the actual problems we have.  We are all given the same amount of time to live each day, so I suggest that maybe we need to work on the things we can actually fix in the near term rather than just adding needless complication into our lives for the sake of obfuscating the real problems at hand.

So the challenge this week:

1. Remove the distractions, get to the core of the problems.
2. Create innovative solutions, don’t just be an expertly rehearsed describer of the problem (aka complainer).
3. Spend time working on the important stuff before it becomes urgent stuff.
4. Put aside stuff that has no visible or workable solution in the near term.  Leave it for the universe to work out a little more first.
5. Limit yourself to a small amount time to work on “pet” problems — you know, the ones you really want to think about but which you already know will bear no fruit and which you really can’t or shouldn’t be spending time on.

But if you know much about the Apollo landing, you’ll know that there was a third guy who didn’t get to walk on the moon.  He stayed in the Command Module which orbited the moon while his colleagues landed and made history there.  His name, if you don’t know, was Michael Collins.

Michael Collins sat alone in the Apollo command module, so close to the moon, but for the sake of the mission and the sake of his fellow astronauts he remained there, playing a critical supporting role to the men who would make history and capture the imagination of the world.

Michael Collins didn’t get to take any giant leaps in front of a worldwide audience, place any commemorative plaques for all humankind, or tap an American flag into the shallow sand of the moon’s surface.  Instead, he monitored critical systems in partial radio silence and awaited the return and complex docking procedure of his fellow astronauts.

He is often asked if he felt lonely or shut out from the mission, and to this he responds:

Far from feeling lonely or abandoned, I feel very much a part of what is taking place on the lunar surface. I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have. This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two. I don’t mean to deny a feeling of solitude. It is there, reinforced by the fact that radio contact with the Earth abruptly cuts off at the instant I disappear behind the moon, I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life.  I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side.

Thank the dear Lord for people like Michael Collins.

There have been many “Michael Collins” in my life; people who I simply couldn’t have been successful without.  Their roles are often unglamorous and unnoticed.  They rarely get the accolades they deserve and often go on serving those around them year after year, content to live with the satisfaction of knowing what they have accomplished, even if they weren’t the figurehead.

On the shoulders of such great people I have accomplished a few important things in my life.  They know who they are.  Some of them read this blog, but many of them don’t.  All have been incredible.

One interesting thing, though, is that you never quite know when your “Collins” moment might come!  Indeed, the secret to attaining new heights is that once you are steadied on the shoulder of your “Collins”, to lock yourself in and then allow someone else to climb up on your shoulders: be someone else’s “Collins.”

Going back to the contemporary Collins, when he was asked what were the most critical problems facing our society, he said they included, “the adulation of celebrities and the inflation of heroism”.

When asked if he considered himself a hero, he said:

Heroes abound, and should be revered as such, but don’t count astronauts among them. We work very hard; we did our jobs to near perfection, but that was what we had hired on to do. In no way did we meet the criterion of the Congressional Medal of Honor: ‘above and beyond the call of duty.’

Celebrities? What nonsense, what an empty concept for a person to be, as my friend the great historian Daniel Boorstin put it, “known for his well-known-ness.” How many live-ins, how many trips to rehab, maybe–wow–you could even get arrested and then you would really be noticed. Don’t get me started.

This is a man who is a true hero, one who requires no adulation and is content to enjoy the small victories of life; like finding a ten dollar bottle of cabernet, and a good Redskins win.

Click here to read Collins’ statement about the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.

…that itches should be scratched.

…money is made to be spent on those you love and doing things you love.

…that days should not pass without a kind word.

…that blogging is climbing on the roof and shouting really loud.  You’d like to think someone is listening, but no one usually is.

…that work is the opposite of leisure, but should not be the opposite of pleasure.

…that a stick, a rock, and an imagination can take children much further than all the plastic in China.

…that love is as hard to hold as a moonbeam, and that you have to recapture it every day of your life.

…that laughter and smiles are the only remedy for sadness and stress.

…that this is my 500th post on WhiteEyebrows.com

Let the celebration begin!

I learned this early in my life through both secular school and Sunday School.  I was the nerdy kid who knew most of the answers.  I was self-assured, well-taught, and extroverted enough to never have much of a problem raising my hand and answering the question.

Then I became a teenager, and wondered what happened to my peers.  Suddenly, they totally lost a pulse, and getting them to comment in school, answer a question, or even have an opinion was like pulling teeth sometimes.  I never really suffered from this teenage phenomenon.  Sure, I was concerned with being cool and fitting in….

… well, actually I wasn’t.  I was more concerned about being right.

It has been recently pointed out to me that my greatest fear just might be “Being Wrong.”  …And I think that might be true.  So I’ve recently become slightly more aware/paranoid that people might be resenting me for having such strong opinions.

I remember one particular time in Sunday School when I raised my hand to answer a question, and I totally bombed it.  The teacher flat out gave me a “no.”  I was mortified!  How could I have gotten it wrong?  I knew everything!  I was God’s gift to my Sunday School class!!!  I quickly moved from the quietly embarrassed phase to the loud, resentful, angry phase.  I yelled at the teacher that they were wrong.

It didn’t make me right, but it made me feel better.

And so it has been my whole life.  Whether in church, in school, in life, or even in love – I have never taken being wrong very well.  While I have managed to control the rage and eagerly accept correction and counsel as well as the next guy (something I really learned to do while serving a mission), I still take great pride in having well-formed opinions about a lot of things, and liberally evangelizing them among others.

This is where my blog comes in.  This blog has turned into my personal bully pulpit at times, and often is the venue for my (sometimes ill-formed) opinions.  In fact, I’ve even become accustomed to filtering my posts based on whether I think there is any chance that I will regret or want to take back something that I say later on.  (Case in point: my blog on Patriotism… and the blog I originally had scheduled to appear today… a blog on the Mommy Bloggers)  I’m so paranoid about being wrong, I even try to anticipate those things that I will even possibly change my ideas about later and preclude them from discussion on the blog.

I’m sure I’ve offended some, but hopefully caused some of you to think about something in a new way, and hopefully inspired you at times.  That’s my favorite thing, anyway; writing a post and having someone comment months or even years down the line about how they really enjoyed it.

So here’s the question: Do I come off as a know-it-all?  Do I turn you off by my constant barrage of opinion?  Do you find yourself mostly agreeing, mostly disagreeing, or mostly shaking your head and wondering “he’ll grow up some day…”

In honor of the subsequent pain I felt, I am now going to think of 9 more things more painful than burning your mouth…

10. Burning the roof of your mouth

9. Getting kicked in the junk really hard.

8. Shutting your finger in a door.

7. Natural Child Birth (I am guessing…)

6. That look from your mother that says “you’ve disappointed me”

5. Learning a new programming language

4. Drinking flat soda pop

3. Seeing Melinda Doolittle get kicked off of American Idol in Season 6.

2. Seeing Chris Daughtry get kicked off of American Idol in Season 5.

1. Planning a wedding.

I’d like to continue this conversation by pointing out that the internet has been going through a dramatic change.  In the technology industry we call it “Web 2.0″, but no one really knows what that actually means… so let me try to explain what this is and what I see it doing to our society.

First, a little history:

• The internet started as an information resource.  The web was just online advertising.  Businesses simply posted information about their business, product, or services.
• In the next phase of the internet,  it was all about transactions – buying and selling stuff online.  You would get the information about a product but then also be able to purchase it and have it shipped directly to you.  Think Amazon, eBay, and all the other eTailers.
• In “Web 2.0″ the experience totally changes.  Now besides getting information and buying it, you find the community around a product.  You read other customer’s reviews on it, find the recommendation for the cheapest reseller of it, and then purchase it.

Web 2.0 is the shift away from a controlled message from the site owner and moves toward a collaborative, community approach, where content comes from the users of the site themselves.  (After all, what is a better way of getting site loyalty than making everyone who goes there a part-owner?!) Web 2.0 is all about the user. We make connections online to like-minded individuals.  We create communities of friends and coworkers.

Blogging itself is perhaps the epitome of Web 2.0.  Users run their own site and post content as they please which everyone can view and comment on. (Hi Mom!)

But there is another oft-ignored phenomenon of Web 2.0 – channelization of the internet.

What is Channelization?  Think TV.  Parents hate TV because it is a device they have no control over that their children mindlessly plug themselves into.  You tuned the set to your favorite station (or channel) and just let it feed you content for hours on end.  It is the ultimate time-waster, but super entertaining and enjoyable!

We used to go to the internet only to seek information.  We would find the information or make our transaction, and then we were done.  Now, we are shifting toward ‘plugging in’ to the internet as we did the TV.  We now go to the internet to seek informational entertainment.

We get that information entertainment as serial feeds from certain sites.  Blogs are serial feeds.  We then aggregate feeds into things like Google Reader or iGoogle.  We can see a ‘Live Feed’ from Facebook or Twitter of everything our friends are doing.  We read blogs which are just personalized, serialized soap operas of people’s lives.  We poke and prod and voyeur ourselves into other people’s worlds.

TV was more harmless because you were a passive observer of the content.  You sat back and were fed, but could choose to tune out at any time without batting an eyelash.  Because of the dependency of Web 2.0 on the user to be the content generator, the channel will effectively die without you.  This increases an importance and an urgency to our participation in the web, and creates even a stronger addiction to it.

The internet is becoming smarter, too.  Now you can set up all kinds of ways to get just the content you want.  Just want news from the conservative rags?  Just want to know what Billy or Sally is doing all day long?  Want to read everything WhiteEyebrows is thinking?  Just subscribe, tune in, and lose yourself in the content of the day.

Not only can you create your own channels of information, but you can hyper-personalize your channel to fit only that which you are most interested in.  This is evidence that even though the world continually expands, our minds and worldviews continue to narrow. We, by choice, limit our exposure to that which we are comfortable with and the chances become less and less that we will ever be exposed to things outside of our comfort zone.

I’m not saying this is all bad, just making an observation of the trend that we seem to be following.  I certainly don’t want you to discontinue following my little soap opera here on WhiteEyebrows.com.  In fact, why don’t you ‘Web 2.0′ yourself and comment already!

If you make a mess, clean it up!

If you don’t clean it up, someone else who cares will have to.

I had the hardest time applying this lesson when I learned to cook.  I would make cookies in the kitchen, and then leave the mess in the sink for her.  Sometimes I would even clean up the beater and mixer while the cookies were baking, but then run out of steam when it came to scrubbing the pans.  I had to learn, over time, that the baking wasn’t finished until the entire mess was cleaned up.

It’s the same with our earth. Enough with coaxing people to “go green.”  Enough with the treaties and the political posturing.  Enough of the debating over climate change!  Let’s just make this rule: if you make a mess, clean it up!

As I’ve stated before, my personal feelings about “green” is that we can and should be better. Most of the non-green behaviors are borne out of laziness, not any major social or economic pressure.  I’m all for using the earth’s resources.  They are there for us to use.  I’m for moving our societies forward and developing the underdeveloped world, but let’s just keep it clean!

Of course, this makes perfect sense to you if you are a clean person, but it only takes one visit to most any gas station’s lavatory across our fair country to find out that only a very small percentage of the world values cleanliness.

I’m constantly surprised at how complacent we can possibly be about living in our own filth!!  Have you seen the air quality in Asia lately?  Did you see the air quality in LA 20-30 years ago? Have you ever seen some of the men’s bathrooms in this world?

YUK!

Even in the highly educated, highly professional workplace that I work in, there are slip ups.  For example, last week someone totally missed the toilet and left a puddle on the ground.  I’m not talking a few drips… a puddle under the toilet!  Nasty!  Then it just sat there for the whole day.  Then the next day.  Then the next.  Now, a week later, it is a dried up yellow spot the size of a dinner platter on the ground.  EWWWWW!

This is the worst it’s been, but the more common problem is people who drip under the urinals.  Dude… step up to the plate and make it all happen in the magical receptical.  There is no excuse for missing.  You don’t get extra credit for “look mom, no hands!”  Step up to the plate, aim, and make sure it all gets in there.

Thank you, world!

We went to the park, romped around and got really tired, and then it was time for lunch.  I was really excited to take a huge bite of that peanut butter and honey sandwich!  When I took the first bite and began to chew, though, I was in for one of the rudest surprises of my life… there were CHUNKS of something in my sandwich!  I had clearly asked for a peanut butter and honey sandwich, not a peanut butter, honey, and rocks sandwich.

My tender young palate was not ready for my first experience with chunky peanut butter, and if I remember right, I don’t think I even took a second bite of the sandwich.

A big part of life involves managing expectations; both managing your own expectations and managing others’ expectations.

I would have probably enjoyed trying the chunky peanut butter if someone would have informed me that it was slightly different than my regular experience with Mom’s creamy Jiffy bottle and prepared me for the different experience I was about to have.  No one ever explained to me that there was a difference between peanut butters, and no one ever prepared me for that experience.

I deal with this phenomenon often at work.  Part of my work is to validate new designs by watching individuals use them who have never seen them before.  More often than not, I can see that the success or failure of a particular design doesn’t lie in the actual quality of the design itself, but in the way I prepared the user – the things I tell them as well as the things I don’t tell them – to interact with that particular design.

When I was serving a mission for my church, my mission’s president often brought up the subject of “expectativo” or expectations.  He told the story of how during the 1980′s, missions were temporarily cut back to 18 months, and then later re-extended to 24.  He noted that those who were called for 18 months felt just as worn out and fulfilled as those who were called for 24.  It didn’t matter what the time frame was that they would serve – 18 months, 24 months, or 36 months, but they all felt the same level of exhaustion when they returned home.  The longer missions clearly should have been harder on the individual, but they weren’t.  They had simply fulfilled the expectation of exhaustion they had set up for themselves.  It’s only when someone’s expectations were changed midstream that people started getting messed up.

So I guess it’s important that we set realistic, but slightly out of reach expectations for ourselves.  It pushes us to do more than we thought we were capable of and stretches our capacities. Regarding personal expectations, I often say, “It’s better to aim for the stars and land on the moon than to aim for the tree tops and land in a pile of poo.”

Sadly, the greatest disappointments in life often come from expectations that are too high or unrealistic.  I’m thinking specifically of parents’ expectations of their children.  Surely parents want the best for their children, but the truth is that oftentimes parents and children don’t agree on what is best for them.  So perhaps we need to also leave room in our expectations of others for them to write in their own changes based on their freedom of choice.  It’s not easy to do, especially for individuals we care deeply about, but absolutely necessary so we’re not constantly beating ourselves up over things we have no control over.

Nowhere is this game of expectations more evident that with the current state of politics.

Expectations of President Bush were moderately high in 2000, but were drastically changed by the tragedy of 9/11.  In a lot of ways there was no coming back for his approval rating after the disruption of these expectations and the descending into the previously unforeseeable wars.  People felt betrayed as their expectations of this “compassionate conservative” were violently betrayed.

Obama has now been elected, and his consistent campaign based on the premise of delivering change to America is now going to be put to the test.  Expectations are wildly high among the average American.  They’ve been convinced that they are so much worse off than they were 8 years ago, and now they have assigned Obama the task of making it all better.

In truth, this promise of change will be hardest campaign promise to keep.  It is not specific, measurable, or graspable.  (Cue: How do you solve a problem like Maria?)  The government is violently resistant to change, and Obama will have to turn to people (Rom Emmanuel) who aren’t exactly poster children of change to staff his administration.  In fact, many will come in who represent everything that is wrong in politics, and people are already starting to ask themselves: how much change can this 1 term senator really bring to the table?

The media isn’t helping, either.  Last night I heard a young African-American guest on a radio program describe Obama as “…my generation’s Martin Luther King or John F Kennedy.”  Well, I have news for this guy:

Obama has yet to do anything.

Yes, he ran a campaign and consistently voted against the war, but those accomplishments hardly put him within a moonshot of those singular leaders.  He seems to be a fine individual who has much promise, but you’ll have to pardon me if I hold off on the waving of palm fronds until he actually accomplishes something besides winning the most winnable political campaign in recent memory.

Based on these sky-high expectations for Obama, I see nothing but disappointment in the future for many Americans, when they find out that the Obama they want may not exactly be the Obama they get.