13. Tradition is a reliable guide in deciding what’s right.

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Yes, oh yes. Traditions are key
as our identity, our culture, and our default course of action. I
wholeheartedly endorse a continuing effort to improve, but when you
don’t have clear alternative, following this past is a pretty good
guide for the future. Americans historically have struggled doing this
in our history, and not surprisingly. We were founded as a rejection of
conventional wisdom and haved perpetually maintained a short history
frame of reference, rely instead on the near-future as our focus.

You hear this in phrases like, “the game is only as far as the next
first down” or “our company’s future rides on this quarter’s earnings
report” or “what have you done for me lately” and many others. As we
mature, I would imagine this will evolve, but if you look at far older
cultures, things don’t change much.

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14. When I’m talking to someone and I find out they’ve served in a war, I respect them more.

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I wish I did more. For every
valiant deed, though, I can’t see past the inevitable scarring on the
individual. With the Vietnam War, quite likely the most scarring on
soldiers of our time, I don’t see the soldier’s sacrifice or loss, I
see the seared person and am stopped.

Have you talked to someone who seemed “off” and felt like it all made
sense when they said they had served in a war? I see the “off” person,
not the soldier, and I can’t fix that. At least I haven’t been able to.
When my friends come back from Iraq, my mind will jump to how the
person is different or how I think they will be different because
they’ve witness war, because they’ve killed… Might I be reminded the
next time I meet a vet that I ought to respect them more for that
instead.

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15. If I’m dating someone I like to know where they are and what they’re up to at all times.

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Doggone right. That’s why I only
date local neighborhood girls. Long distance relationships require
giving up too much control and expect you to trust the other person.
Ha, you’ll never catch me doing that!

Quote of the day from my co-worker John: “I once dated a girl in Kaukauna, and I thought that was long distance!”

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16. It bugs me when somebody names their child something like ‘Sunshine’ or ‘Charm’.

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Yes. Make up another name and leave a A Child’s Introduction to Nouns alone.

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17. Only literate people should be allowed to vote.

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Government’s value of a person
should not be determined by birth, race, gender, wealth, or education.
As an individual, value people however you want. I naturally tend to
favor people who take care of me. As a nation, though, you have to at
least lend a hand. If it doesn’t work, if not everyone votes or eats or
has a job, so be it. It at least has to be made available, and the
challenge lies in being sure that all at least be given the
opportunity. (And no, I don’t think we’re doing this adequately in the
US…I hope that’s self-evident). Be we do allow illiterate people to
vote, fortunately.

I am thankful for guys (males) who post (on Xanga) short, funny, useful
entries (prime example). For now, I will recover from reading soooo many solid blocks
of girly languaged essays on feelings by going to class and playing
Hangman or let’s see… maybe Word Scramble on Yahoo! Mobile Games!

So in the spirit of light-hearted Xanga entries, I present to you the world’s funniest religious joke by Emo Phillips. David, you reminded me of him.

This morning I received
thrilling news: a joke I wrote more than 20 years ago has been voted
the funniest religious joke of all time! In case you’ve missed it, here
it is:

Once I
saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said,
“Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”

He
said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A
Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said,
“Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I
said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said,
“Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or
Northern Liberal Baptist?”

He said, “Northern
Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist
Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said,
“Me, too!”

Northern
Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern
Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said,
“Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I
said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.

In keeping with tradition, here is our newest addition, having arrived
this afternoon. For those of you who don’t get snow, that’s called a
snow plow (“plow” for short) on the front and a salter on the back that
you fill with salt using a skid loader. It holds almost a 1000 pounds,
which helps with traction in snow.

The other new item is the facial hair change since I had to get a respirator fit test today. Respirators don’t work if you have a beard, so I’m down to this goatee. Which may or may not make it much longer.

Experiment Gives Illusion of That Shrinking Feeling Within seconds, they could actually feel their waists begin to shrink. It would have been a great advance in the world of weight loss – if only it had been real. But the shrinking feeling was just an illusion, created by scientists who wanted to study how the brain creates body image, people’s perceptions of their own size and shape. The researchers, led by Dr. H. Henrik Ehrsson of University College London, fooled 17 people into feeling as if they were getting skinnier by outfitting them with gadgets that stimulated a tendon in each wrist to create the false sensation that both hands were moving inward. The subjects wore blindfolds and placed their hands at their waists, and then the stimulators were turned on, while an M.R.I. scanner measured activity in different parts of the brain. For the subjects, the feeling that their wrists were flexing inward was so powerful that they felt their waists had to be getting smaller. Link	Sounds like my wallet!
Great for Craigslist but Not for Newspapers The number of users of online classified advertising services increased 80 percent this year, according to a report released yesterday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project based on data gathered by comScore Media Metrix. In 2005, almost nine million of those visitors went to Craigslist.org, a 165 percent increase from 3.4 million last year. "It was a huge increase on top of a pretty large base to begin with," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew project. Mr. Rainie said that Craigslist, which offers free listings for everything from apartments to furniture and personal ads, attracted more patrons by opening 15 city- or region-specific sites this year. The report is bad news for classified advertising sources like newspapers, which have historically dominated the market. Mr. Rainie cited Craigslist’s relief services after Hurricane Katrina as an example of its ability to meet the needs of a large, diverse consumer group. "One of the most appealing things to users of Craigslist is how adaptable it is," he said. Link	If you’ve never used it, Craigslist is something else. There is certainly a cult following for it, some of my friends included. My experience is that you try a free listing on Craigslist then put it on eBay if it isn’t working.
Writing the Fastest Code, by Hand, for Fun: A Human Computer Keeps Speeding Up Chips SEATTLE – There was a time long ago when the word "computer" was a job description referring to the humans who performed the tedious mathematical calculations for huge military and engineering projects. It is in the same sense that Kazushige Goto’s business card says simply "high performance computing." Mr. Goto, who is 37, might even be called the John Henry of the information age. But instead of competing against a steam drill, Mr. Goto, a research associate at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas at Austin, has bested the work of a powerful automated system and entire teams of software developers in producing programs that run the world’s fastest supercomputers. He has done it alone at his keyboard the old-fashioned way – by writing code that reorders, one at a time, the instructions given to microprocessor chips. Link	My granddad was quite excited by this article. Apparently, I’m supposed to buy a couple copies today on my way home tonight! He (my granddad) has a lot of thoughts about where the industry is and where it’s headed. And well he should, he spent much of his career on the cutting edge, developing technologies we use today!

I think I’ve been plowing snow for too long.

11. The world would be better if there were no huge corporations, just small businesses.

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Disagree strongly. Small
businesses are great. I love small businesses! I am a small business!
As a small business, though, I could never research and develop a
computer, a cancer drug, or ship a package from Los Angeles to New York
in less than two days for less than $1000. We are talking about
“critical mass” here. In my classes we study economies of scale and
providing individual attention to employees. We study having a small
business feel in a company of any size. This is essential.

You have a GM plant with 14 layers of management and a chain of managers as long as 36 people. GM is failing.
The new research is about having flatter structures with closely knit
workgroups. On a global level, we read about glocalization where global
companies work on local levels. In Chi Alpha, we have small groups. We
use them because they work!

Without “huge corporations” we would be steeply limited. But if
companies want to be big and stay efficient and last, they have to be
ethical and tuned into the individual.

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Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for God’s faithfulness, for my family’s love, for my girlfriend’s like, for my friend’s company, and for my freedom.

3. Protesters
cause more good than harm.

---

No..no no no no… I like
protesting! Most of my personal experience has resided in protesting
tuition increases and abortion, especially. Violent or in-your-face
stuff is not my cup of tea, and I lose respect for protesters doing
that. Including those in France. But I like people with signs outside
of buildings, and I really got a kick out of the crowd of people in
Corvallis, OR outside the city hall. Apparently it would be more of an
event if there was not an anti-war demonstration taking place.

One thing I want do is protest outside a company with unfair business
practices, and no, not Wal-Mart. A company that screwed me over on a
bill, overcharged my credit card without refunding it, etc. Just to get
them to freak out and agree more quickly to a compromise in my favor. I’ll report
on that here, of course.

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Snow is flying, and I’m heading
out now. We’ve got maybe an inch, so that means the commercial
customers and parking lots get plowed and salted. Maybe everything else
if it keeps snowing. It is soooo beautiful outside!

2. I am troubled by the eroding distinction between entertainment and marketing.

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Disagree. Since TV is a media
channel I use, I’ll take it from the print and web perspective. There
are a number of free magazine subscriptions that I receive on a range
of topics including mergers and acquisitions, human resources,
information technology, tree care, accounting, etc. Like other
magazines, full-page ads and the like pay for much of the cost, but
they also print articles written by companies to be published as
featured articles or otherwise.

This is something our company has used in a local Jewish newspaper
where we had a small landscape section that the newspaper staff wrote,
featuring our company on the front with an article about us and
strongly positive quotes from our customers in the Jewish community.
Online, our company’s website is intended to be informational and
educational.

For some reason, I was going to say my only concern was that
journalistic integrity be maintained, but who am I kidding, everyone
has an angle it seems. Theoretically, though, that would be my caution
particularly in the news department.

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Please call me between 2am and
6am – I will be out plowing and salting with my Bluetooth. If I was
rude enough, I’d call all y’all anyways.

1. The government should subsidize struggling museums, theaters, and artists.

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I agree but not strongly. If a
city wants to continue to exist, it has to generate tax revenue so it
can pay the bills.  Expenses should stay under control, but the
focus should be on income for a city. Too often you see a municipality
constantly voting on whether or not to increase taxes, whether or not a
budget for a school should be raised, etc, etc. Putting all the energy
on controlling in/outflow of cash is costly and taxing!

It’s like distributive versus integrative bargaining. You can break up
a pie into slices (distributive) or think of ways to work together and
increase the size of the pie. The arts do that quite well. A city with
a healthy arts offering will attract businesses and residents and
visitors alike, bringing in tax revenue that pays the bills for roads
and other essentials. On top of that, the revenue is of a higher value
than say the sales tax money from a strip club, which sadly counts the
same in economics figures.

From an economic perspective alone, it makes sense to support museums,
theaters, and artists. What kept me from saying “strongly agree” is my
feeling that you have to keep a strong check on expenses out of the
government’s direct responsiblity. The arts can end up being a huge
drain on a budget without offering a return if the money is poorly
used. Perhaps this concern is coming from recent scandals in Milwaukee
over gross mis-management at our public museum and the soaring art museum
costs. All in all, though, I think this city has a lot of great places
for dates!

When you took the test, what did you say?