Bryce Moore's Blog, page 148

Resistance Fatigue

There are days when I wonder how in the world the Rebel Alliance ever managed to keep it together long enough to bring down the Emperor. I mean, it’s one thing to have outrage and anger against something the first time it happens. And the second. And maybe the third. But there comes a time, sooner or later, when you’ve been fighting the same fight over and over and over, and you don’t see any real change happening because of that fight. And that’s when you start to wonder why in the world you’re bothering.

Some of it comes from there being so many different arenas to fight in. At the moment, I feel like there’s the clear national arena, but there’s also plenty to be worried about for me at the state and local levels too. And the craziest thing about it all is that I feel like people on both sides of each one of these fights feel this way. I read articles by Trump supporters who are just aghast that the poor man can be so misunderstood. The same goes for LePage supporters at the state level here in Maine.

Some of the cause for all of this is that the people on the edges keep pushing those edges further. If the country were a plate, balanced on a point, then the Republicans and Democrats running all over the plate, rushing to the edges and stomping on them as hard as they can is putting that balance in danger. And sure, right now it’s the Republicans who seem set on making the whole thing shatter, but I do believe it’s a series of cause and effects. Bill Clinton was in power, and Republicans clamored against him. Bush came to power, and Democrats were appalled. Obama came to power, and Republicans freaked out for eight years. And now we have the result of that imbalance: Trump was able to be elected.

Sigh.

But what really brought this all into focus was the local level shenanigans this week. Constant blog readers will recall my school district’s budget is under fire. There’s a vocal group in the community who are upset with the school budget. They’re sick of it getting bigger every year, and they’ve done their darnedest to get it shrunk. And I accept that. I accept that people in a community will disagree about how much money should be spent on various things in that community. If that were all it were, then I’d be fine with the whole thing.

Except it doesn’t stop there, a fact best illustrated by describing the most recent development. One particular member of the “No” side has been more than outspoken about her views. She’s sent spiteful letters to the school board, accused the “Yes” side of lying, created a series of inflammatory signs around town, and even pulled up to curse and yell at school supporters (including children) on the day of the vote. This came to a head this past week when a member of the school board resigned, citing this person as one of the main reasons. The local online  paper wrote an article about it, and I made the mistake of reading the comments section.

It’s beyond disappointing when you see a person bullied to the point of resignation from the board, and the response from some community members is “The bully was just saying what the rest of us thought anyway. Good job bully! We support you!” Really? We can’t even agree as a community that using hateful, inflammatory language and personal attacks should be off limits? Not just that, but we double down on the rhetoric when we’re called on it? That says far more about the people who use and agree with such tactics than it does about any claims they make about their opponents. It’s one thing to lob barbs at people far off in government, but these school board members are part of us. They’re our community. People we see and interact with. If we can’t behave at a local level, what have we come to?

As I believe I’ve said before, I feel like this is a disagreement where one said is willing and open to hear arguments and evidence against raising the budget. They’re ready to implement reasonable solutions, regardless of where those solutions come from. They want to reach and and unify the community and come to a compromise. And the other side has people willing to do the same. But the loudest contingent of that side just seems to want to “win” at any cost.

It’s even more frustrating when they appear to change the definition of “winning” at the drop of a hat. For the second year in a row, town school budget assessments will be at a 0% overall increase, meaning any increase in property taxes for the last two years won’t be from the school budget. And yet now we’re hearing that the “no” side wants taxes to not just not increase, but to go down. I honestly don’t believe they’d be satisfied unless the budget went back to the amount it was at five or more years ago. When you’re trying to negotiate and reason with a group that takes those kind of tactics, you begin to wonder why you should even have a conversation.

And that’s the thing. You get tired. I pushed hard for the budget to pass last month. Last year I did the same. I rallied against Trump during the election. I’ve spoken out on various topics, from health care to gun control to basic human decency. And after a while, it all just wears on you. You wonder if it’s even worth it, and the very thought of standing on the proverbial street corner and shouting out your message just makes you want to slink back to bed.

There’s another school budget meeting tonight. I’m on a deadline for MEMORY THIEF 2, I have a slew of chores to do around the house, and I’m just plain tired. The thought of dragging myself to another one of those time sinks is just depressing.

But I’m going to go.

Because as soon as you start to give up, you’re letting the Empire win. You’re tossing the One Ring to Sauron. You’re saying Death Eaters really aren’t that bad. Yes, it’s tiring. So what? Often the tiring things in life are the things most worth doing.

Tonight, I’ll be the guy in the back, typing on a computer, wearing noise cancelling headphones in an effort to not let this suck more of my life away. Denisa’s going to prod me when I need to vote, and I’ll raise my voice with the rest. Come join me. 7pm. High school auditorium.

Answering the Unanswerable

Every so often, I take a look at my blog statistics to see which articles are performing well. And one article that’s just hung in there for years is the one I wrote on getting into BYU. Here we are three years later, and it usually picks up a few views every day, day in and day out. I don’t link to it (well, other than just now), don’t mention it on Facebook. It’s out there in the wild, attracting views from the public at large.

Today, when I saw it had picked up some more, I wondered what it was about the article that attracted eyeballs. Why that one and not others? And I think the reason is that it scratches an itch people have. A desire to answer an unanswerable question. Because when people start googling “getting into BYU” or “how hard is it to get into BYU,” they don’t really want to know that answer. Sure, breaking it down statistically is interesting, but the question they really want to know the answer to is “Will my child get into BYU?” And that’s a question no one can answer until BYU’s admissions process answers it one way or the other.

I understand this desire, however. The thought that if I can just research things well enough, I’ll be able to figure it all out. (Whatever “it” happens to be at the moment. Right now it’s cars. Sometimes it’s trips to Europe or Disney. Who knows what it will be tomorrow.) But as I’m constantly reminded, sometimes research just has its limits. You can get all the information you want, but you still won’t be able to know if that particular car will be reliable in the future, or if the airfares will go down in price next month, or if Disney will have a better deal later.

The problem is, because the internet is so big and vast, it’s easy to think you just haven’t looked in the right places. And to make matters worse, sometimes you haven’t. Google doesn’t point you in the best direction every time. It relies on the search query you use, and sometimes you’re using the wrong one. After hours looking in less helpful places, you stumble across something that’s way better than anything you’ve seen to date. And then of course you start to wonder if there isn’t something even better, just around the next corner.

At some point in time, you have to accept that you’ve got limits. That you have to make a decision. Send in that application and hope for the best. Book the ticket.

But for people like me, you’ll still always wonder if there wasn’t something else you could have checked or read that would have given you even better information, which in turn would have made All the Difference.

Honda Fit vs. Toyota Prius: Fight!

I wrote up a post yesterday about the deliberating I’m doing as I buy a new car, but when I posted it to Facebook, it was with a simple question: should I go with a Honda Fit or a Toyota Prius. I mainly did that because I wanted that feedback, but I wanted it after people had gone through my post to see the question in context. Some people did do that, but I have a feeling many chimed in with their preference and left it at that.

Not that I’m complaining. The more data points the better. But at the same time, I thought it might be useful to post a follow up (partly due to a request from my brother in law) about the pros and cons of a Honda Fit and a Toyota Prius. Because “better” is a relative term. What will be better for one person won’t be better for another. We all have individual needs and values, so that influences these sort of decisions.

Anyway.

First off, a big disclaimer. One of the biggest limiting factors for me is the need to have a reliable car. I want a car I can have as good a chance on depending on as possible. This means I’d really prefer to be able to have my own mechanic look at it. He’s a person I’ve been using for 10 years, and I know and trust him. Other mechanics are great, but better to have the one who’s got some skin in the game keeping me happy. But I live in rural Maine. There simply aren’t that many used cars here to pick from. So where in a more populated area, I might be able to have more flexibility with what I picked, I’m constrained by what’s available here, to an extent. If I found a really good deal in Portland or Bangor, I’d drive and try to make it happen, but it would have to be very persuasive.

There’s also a bit of a time constraint. The Buick’s registration expires at the end of September, so I’d like to have a new car by then, so that I avoid having to renew it and make any repairs I need to for it to pass the safety inspection. So I have about two months. Not a tight schedule, but the clock is ticking.

With that said, here’s where I am right now, mentally:

Areas Where the Cars are Evenly Matched

Dependability: both are rated highly by Consumer Reports and other review services. Both have many people who speak out in favor of the car. Perhaps the Prius might get a bit of an edge here, as I’ve heard multiple people tell me of theirs lasting past 400,000 miles, which I have yet to hear from a Fit advocate, but really, they’re neck and neck.
Cost: Honestly, the Fit is cheaper in the short term, but as you factor in the gas savings for the car over the length of time I’m planning on using it (at least 10 years), then that ends up getting canceled out, even if gas stays as cheap as it is now. When I budget, I budget long term, so that savings is a real factor for me.
Interior space is similar in both. For a subcompact car, it’s impressive what Honda’s been able to do with its design of the Fit. For it to be even compared to a mid-size car is a feat.
Winter handling is meh for both. The Prius has a bit worse clearance. The Fit is lighter. Neither are going to get me through a raging snowstorm in Maine, but that’s okay. It’s not why I’m buying them. I’ll likely get snow tires for either.

Honda Fit Advantages

Maintenance for the car should be more straightforward. There’s no hybrid battery to worry about, so that’s one less thing to break.
Style: I think the Fit looks like a car that’s more fun to drive. The Prius has some strange things going on with its rear windshield. It looks funky.
Trunk space: the Fit has a big trunk, but that comes with a qualifier. It’s a subcompact car. So it’s a “Big trunk for a subcompact car.” The Prius has a good size trunk for a mid-size car, which is what it is. I’ve looked up cubic feet capacity of both, and they’re a wash that way. But the Fit has seats that are very adaptable, and I tend to think for moving stuff, the Fit would be the better car. (Which is not an insignificant plus. Denisa and I agree that would be very useful to have.)

Toyota Prius Advantages

Safety is a bit better for the Prius in my book. Crash ratings are about the same, but I tend to favor heavier cars over lighter cars. A Prius has the Fit beat by 500 lbs, and it’s just a bigger car.
Fuel efficiency: the Prius gets 50mpg on average. The comparable Fit gets 30mpg. It’s not even close. That’s great for my pocketbook, and I get to have that smug sense of superiority whenever I talk to people who get worse gas mileage. Saving money, the planet, and my ego in one fell swoop!
Bells and whistles: A used Prius has a lot of sweet perks, even at the base model. Bluetooth connectivity. LCD screen for selecting music. Keyless entry and start. For a guy who likes gadgets, the Prius has an edge there.

In the end, they come out about even, which is why is such a hard decision for me. It’s likely going to be made up by what I can get a good deal on locally. I’m leaning Prius now, but that could change depending on how negotiations go.

I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, thanks to all of you for your helpful input and suggestions.

The Joys of Shopping for a New Car

Denisa’s Buick is beginning to show its age. It’s a 2001, and we’ve happily used it for many years now, but it’s at the point that it’s beginning to need repairs. Nothing too outrageous. Some leaks here and there, and the promise of more repairs to come in the future. The car’s only worth around $1,500, and it’s not like putting money into it will make it more valuable. Sure, we could repair it now (and who knows, we still might), but every bit of money we put into it is a bit of money that we could have put into a new (used) car.

So we’re looking for new wheels.

Of course, since I’m an obsessive researcher, this is quite the process. Basically, it’s the simplest of research questions: “Which car is best for Bryce’s family in 2017?” But like many simple research questions, answering it proves to be fairly complicated.

The first part is easy. We know what kind of cars we don’t want. So sports cars, trucks, and minivans are out of the picture. (We’re not getting a minivan. We have three children. They all fit in the back seat of a normal car. End of story.) It’s been nice to have the Buick because it has a bigger trunk, so when we need more space to haul stuff to the dump or something like that, we can. (The Civic is lovely, but it’s a tight fit.)

Cost is an issue, of course. We want to buy a used car, because they’re cheaper, and we want a reliable car, because we’d like to have it for quite some time to come. In my experience, “reliable” automatically rules out American and European cars. I’ve had a Pontiac and a Buick. Both have a definite shelf life that’s quite a bit shorter than I’d like. For me, that means we’re down to a Honda or a Toyota. No, they’re not the most “fun” rides in the world. They’re reasonable, practical cars. And Denisa and I are reasonable, practical people. It’s a match made in heaven.

But which model? We thought about mid-size cars, but they were usually too pricey. But smaller cars have worse trunk space. So for a while, we thought we had it figured out: we’d get a Honda Fit, which is a subcompact car, but has a huge trunk, since it’s a hatchback. It’s got great reliability and reviews, and we know friends who have them and are very happy with theirs.

But there are no Fits in the immediate area, and so I kept researching while we evaluated our options. And my research into hatchbacks brought me to the Toyota Prius, and the wonders of a hybrid. (Which meant a whole new slate of research. Reliability of hybrid batteries. Buying used hybrids. That sort of thing.) And 50mpg really trumps 30mpg, you know?

Sigh. Even between those two models, there’s the question of how many miles is too many. What style would we prefer? Which year? I find myself falling down a rabbit hole of research, and there’s always something new to investigate. Some new question to answer.

Even once that’s over, you have to buy the actual thing, and that’s where I really don’t like things. Negotiating at a board game is great fun. Doing it over a car, with real money involved? No thank you. There’s this nagging feeling that you’re doing it wrong.

Perhaps the solution to all of this is to just fix the Buick for the short term, freeing up time to do a more leisurely search for a used car. Except that it all takes time. Time I don’t have a ton of. And I think I’d keep researching and thinking and reading and wasting a whole lot more time. And so just buying the car seems like the way to go.

In any case. Honda Fit or Toyota Prius. If you were to buy one of those and hope that it would last you around 75,000 miles or more of driving, what year would you get, and how many miles would be too many to have on it when you purchased it? If you know anything about used cars, I’d love to get your input.

Commenting on Others’ Appearances: The Beard Factor

As a linguistics major in college, I got to learn all sorts of facts about the way we communicate with others. Stuff I still think about, decades later. For example, the effects of pausing preference (the amount of time we wait before we assume the person we’re talking to is done speaking, and we can speak). Men’s pausing preference is shorter than women’s, which leads to men speaking more often in a conversation. Not just that, but women walk away from the conversation feeling like they were constantly interrupted, but men walk away thinking everything went smoothly. All because of pausing preference. (The same is true for northerners vs. southerners. Southerners have a longer pausing preference than northerners. Generally speaking.)

For more information about this, check out conversation analysis. But today’s post isn’t about that. It’s about a segment of sociolinguistics, the study of how language is used in society. Today, we’re talking about “things you can talk to strangers and acquaintances about.”

It’s been a while since I had my class, but this is what I remember: in English, there are certain topics that are considered “safe” conversation starters. The weather is the old go-to. You can talk about the weather with just about anyone you’d like. Go up to a person in the park and say, “Lovely sunshine, isn’t it?” and you might have a brief chat about today’s weather, tomorrow’s weather, and the like. Similarly, you can talk to strangers if they have a dog or pet with them, or a baby. As long as you’re saying nice things, of course. There’s a big difference between telling a person, “What a lovely baby!” and telling a person, “Your baby looks seriously messed up. Did you do something to it?”

Compliments are safe. Critiques are not.

With acquaintances, there’s another category of safe conversation starters: change in appearance. If you see someone is wearing a new dress, or has a new haircut, it’s totally fine to go up to them and compliment the new dress or haircut. Or even just observe that they look different, with the implication that it looks nice.

Sure, you’ll get people from time to time who don’t fully understand this. They might comment how much they dislike your haircut. Or how ugly that dress is. But these people are generally socially awkward. They’re trying to follow the norms, and failing. They’re the exception.

Interestingly, I’ve observed this all fall apart in one specific area of appearance: beards. If you have a beard (particularly if you’ve just started growing a beard), people seem to feel entitled to say exactly what they think about that beard, regardless of how well they know you. “You look like a mountain man.” “Hey there, Grizzly Adams.” “Your beard looks so shaggy.” “When are you going to shave?” “I prefer beards that are neatly trimmed.” “Your beard is too gray.” “That’s ugly.”

When I was growing a beard, and for several years after I first had one, I had all of these things said to me. Exact quotes. (Well the one about being gray is something that’s a new addition to the mixture.) But I’ve seen the same thing happen to friends who have beards. Somehow, it seems that society or certain people in society believe that not only are beards safe to comment about, but they’re safe to critique.

Imagine for a moment if I went up to a woman and made some of these same observations about her dress, or her hair, or her general appearance. “You look ugly.” “Didn’t have too much time to get ready this morning, did you?” “I like you much better with more/less makeup.” “That haircut is hideous.”

As I write those, it just now occurs to me that perhaps those are all things women have to put up with all the time. Not being a woman myself (and generally being a polite person who doesn’t comment on my personal opinion of others’ appearances), I might just not get exposed to that. But I’d like to think that if women get those remarks, it’s a sign that the person making the remark is a sexist jerk, or fairly petty. Correct me in the comments, and my apologies in advance if I’m just not better informed about that.

The people commenting on my beard (and my friends’ beards) are generally people who I don’t think would go up to a person and insult their appearance. Somehow, however, they feel like their personal preference for or against facial hair is something they should share with as many people as possible. Certainly with people who have facial hair.

To those people, might I just say that this innate feeling to critique a man’s facial hair is . . . misplaced? Misguided? Unwanted? I’d like to see more people lump beards in with hair cuts and new clothes. You can comment if you think it looks nice, but otherwise . . .

Just don’t mention it.

How Busy is Yellowstone the Week of the Fourth of July?

Every time I told someone I was going to head up to Yellowstone, they were initially excited. “Awesome!” they’d say. “When are you going?”

“July 1st.”

And almost to a person, that’s when the excitement would fade. Instead, their eyebrows would raise, and their tone would change to one of polite concern. The sort of tone you use when someone tells you they just opened a LuLaRoe store and wouldn’t you like to come to an in-home boutique session next week. “Oh,” they’d say. “You and everybody else in the nation, right?”

It was as if there were some unwritten law somewhere that stated that the week of July 4th, everyone would descend on Yellowstone en masse and make it as hellacious for each other as possible.

After this conversation played out with enough different people, I began to doubt my life choices. Perhaps going to Yellowstone that day was a bad decision. Maybe I should do something more reasonable, like skydiving without a parachute, or swimming with Great Whites. But after consulting my schedule, it was clear that if I was going to go to Yellowstone, it was then or not at all. Surely it couldn’t be that bad.

I’m on the flip side now. I have been to Yellowstone the week of the Fourth of July, and I am here to tell you all that all those people who were concerned for my sanity . . . didn’t need to be.

Don’t get me wrong: There were plenty of people in the park. Parking was bad for Old Faithful, the Paint Pots, and Artist’s Point. But “bad” in this case means “I had to wait for 5 minutes at the Paint Pots, walk for 5 extra minutes for Old Faithful, and wait for 20 minutes for Artist’s Point.”

If these were ride wait times at Disney World, everyone would be amazed at how short they were. The weather was gorgeous, too, so it’s not like we can chalk it up to “people just didn’t want to go.”

Basically, anywhere that was easy to get to and didn’t involve hiking at all was mobbed. Anywhere that was even remotely strenuous? Not that bad. If I’d gone on any real hikes, I’m confident I wouldn’t have seen many people at all.

So if you’re ever in a similar situation, and you’re wondering if you should give it a go, don’t let the naysayers dissuade you. We had a blast in the park. The only bit of advice I would give would be to leave your hotel early. We left Jackson Hole at 7:30am, and all was well. Also, download the cool Geyser App they have for the park. It’ll let you know when the geysers are scheduled to go off again. Just update it before you go into the park, or do it at Old Faithful. Cell coverage everywhere else in Yellowstone is pretty crummy.

And because I kept quoting him time and time again, and my kids have never seen him, here’s a Yogi Bear clip to show them what I was talking about.

BYU Scavenger Hunt

While trying to come up with family reunion activities, one event many of us wanted to do was take our kids to BYU. Show them around. Let them see the campus. But I was worried that would sound boring to kids, so I thought it would be more fun to make a scavenger hunt out of it. Turn the tour into a game, and see if that didn’t catch their eye.

The concept caught on as soon as they heard about it. There was just one problem: I hadn’t made the scavenger hunt.

Somehow I always assumed I’d have time to make it up in the future, or that there would be some freely available online. I kept kicking that “To Do” item down the road, until finally it was the night before, and my awesome nieces were talking about how excited they were for the scavenger hunt the next day.

“Yeah.” I said. “Me too. Here’s the thing, though. I haven’t made it.”

Sometimes it stinks to admit your own incompetence. My nieces could have told me just what they thought of that, but instead, they offered to make it for me. (Note how I said they were “awesome nieces” and not “loser nieces.”) In the end, the one heading to BYU came up with the whole thing in an hour. The next day, we put it to the test, and it was a complete blast. Everyone had a great time, and I’d recommend it to anyone. I asked my niece if she would be okay if I posted it online, to share the love with others, and she happily agreed.

So without further ado, here’s the scavenger hunt. In case one of you out there is looking to do such a thing and just doesn’t have the time to come up with it.

Enjoy!

BYU Photo Scavenger Hunt

Take a picture of each of the following. You have 45 minutes.

Find a byu student and pose with them in a way that evokes the club, major, campus organization, or sport they’re involved in. This photo only counts if a member of a different team can correctly guess the organization/major within 5 tries. (No text or pictures within the photo) (50 points)
Awkward photo with a couple. (25 points)
High five a professor, administrator, or janitor (50 points)
Go to any shop and ask a staff member what product they recommend, then take a picture with it (25 points)
CTR ring (that someone already owns, not for sale) (20 points)
Recreate a picture from a poster or advertisement for a byu event (20 points)
The most expensive thing for sale on campus (object with the highest price counts) (50 points)
Pose with any animal (15 points)
An even-numbered classroom (10 points)
Selfie with Karl Maeser (15 points)
Someone wearing a different college’s merch (30 points, or 75 for University of Utah)
Reading the wackiest book you can find in the library (wackiest book gets the points) (50 points)
Make an illusion where one of your team members looks unnaturally large or small (50 points)
A pendulum (15 points)
A funny or interesting quote (15 points)
Something from the 19th century (30 points)
Find a sculpture or art installation and use it in a creative photo. (Most creative gets points) (10 points for the photo, +40 for most creative)
 As many people as possible from your group (those who have phones) in the dark shining a phone flashlight up onto their faces (15 points)
A video of a teammate singing to a student/staff member (40 points)
A video of a student/staff member singing to the team (50 points)
Whole group with any person who’s not on the scavenger hunt (20 points) (+10 points for each photo they are in if you can get them to join your team)
Someone who’s engaged, not married (50 points)
A flag from a different continent (up to 1 from each continent) (10 points per flag)
Reading a book written by a family member (30 points)
Your group with finger mustaches outside heritage building 8 (15 points)
A water fountain (5 points)
An exit sign (5 points)
A fan (5 points)
A piece of art from more than 30 years ago (30 points)
A modern piece of art (20 points)
The librarian shushing your group (50 points)
Smelling flowers (10 points)
Teammate leaving the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to their shoe (30 points)
Whole team in a small place (most creative gets bonus points) (20 points for photo, +30 for most creative)
Video of group singing a song by an object that is in its lyrics (ie singing “wheels on the bus” next to a bus) (30 points)
Pose like a statue next to it (20 points)
Cheapest thing for sale (not free, lowest price counts. For a tie, split the points) (50 points)
Something that refers to Brigham Young (15 points)
A picture of Jesus (15 points)
Someone sitting at a computer in a computer lab (15 points)
A campus police officer (40 points)
Something having to do with engineering, music, art, law, education, or family science (10 points per major)
The daily universe (20 points)
Something that was not there when the adult of the group went to byu (30 points)
A piece of fudge or any by creamery object for sale (10 points)
The inside of a dorm building (10 points)
The sports complex (10 points)
A teammate dancing in front of the Smith field house (10 points)
On the edge of campus (25 points)
PDA (50 points)
A student studying (30 points)
An info sheet about any major (1 only, 10 points)
An on-campus ATM (15 points)
Nike branded byu merchandise (15 points)
A byu bumper sticker (15 points)

Lessons Learned While Biting My Mouth

Look. I’m a thinker. Sometime the thinks come to me when I’m pondering profound mysteries of the universe. Sometimes they come to me when I’m failing at a task I’ve done every day almost since I was born. Right before my vacation, I bit my mouth. My lip, to be exact. Hard. And then I bit it in the same spot the next day, and once more time that night.

It was a bad bite. Bloody. Painful. Hard enough to draw tears, and deep enough to hurt for about a week afterward. It hurt to talk. Hurt to move my mouth at all, really. And I only remembered this last night when I bit my tongue while eating. Not a bad bite, but enough to make me sigh inwardly. Here we go again.

So this morning as I was getting ready for the day, I wondered what I would blog about, and I thought about complaining about biting my mouth and now my tongue. (Yes. Sometimes I contemplate making really stupid blog posts. Aren’t you thankful I don’t actually write them?) As soon as the thought occurred to me, I dismissed it. What in the world would I write about? It would just be long and whiny, and what would be the point? It wasn’t like I could come up with some neat comparison to the experience that would make sense on a broader scale, right?

Except then I did, and so I’m writing the post after all.

Here’s the thing: we all bite our mouth or our tongue from time to time. It just happens. We have a ton of experience eating. We almost always successfully chew things without letting our cheek or tongue get in the way. I don’t know of anyone who actively goes out trying to bite parts of their mouth instead of biting that delicious brownie or piece of bread or whatever else they were actually trying to eat. And yet it still happens. Do something enough, and you’re bound to make a mistake now and then.

And I think the same thing happens when we speak. There are times all of us do or say something that we didn’t mean to do or say. Maybe we didn’t think things through enough before we said it, or maybe we thought it would sound one way but it came out another. But it happens.

In today’s “gotcha” culture, it seems like people want to ignore that fact. Speaking as someone who blogs on a regular basis, even the occasional blog post will go awry. Some of them don’t age well over time. Something I wrote years ago might not read as smoothly in light of changes to society. I’ve seen people’s old posts brought out from a decade ago and used to beat them over the head. It’s not right.

I believe everyone should get some slack when it comes to what they do and say. I’m not saying they should have immunity, or they should be given a Get Out of Jail Card or anything like that. If I say or do something that’s hurtful, even if it’s unintentional, I’d like to think I’d apologize for the hurt caused. But I’d also like to think that apology would be accepted, and we could all move on quickly.

This is something I need to remember. It can be tempting to get upset because of something you read or hear. Tempting to hold it against someone. But we all have those moments when our words bite us in the same way we bite our mouths.

And that’s my deep thought of the day.

Movie Review: Spiderman Homecoming

There comes a time when you begin to wonder why in the world movie studios keep returning to the same movie over and over again. I certainly questioned the need for the third Spiderman series since 2000. That said, I was also very curious to see what Marvel would be able to do with the franchise without Sony messing around with it. Thankfully, I’m pleased to say that the reboot did a really solid job, though it wasn’t without its flaws.

First off, the things I enjoyed:

It wasn’t yet another origin story of Spiderman. Thank you.
Michael Keaton’s villain wasn’t just a guy out trying to rule the world. There was an attempt made to make him well-rounded, and while I didn’t feel it was 100% successful (too much time spent away from his character for it to really work), I appreciated the attempt. If you filled in the blanks in your head, it worked.
The score was a lot of fun, especially the way it harkened back to the old Spiderman theme. The fact that the new Superman movies ditched the old theme is still something that bugs me. It’s like a 007 movie without the theme. Star Wars without the fanfare. You’ve got such a good thing going. Keep it up.
The plot had a few turns that surprised me, and that was a good thing for sure.
The acting and characters were a lot of fun. Peter Parker feels like a real person with real problems. I was really rooting for him by the end because I wanted him to succeed, not just because he was wearing the colorful outfit.
I loved how it was a mix between a teenager movie and a superhero movie. I felt like it pulled that off very well.
The climax of the movie was great. The last third of the film zipped along and did a lot of fun things. Super.
Humor, as always, is greatly appreciated.

But like I said, there were some flaws, as well:

The first half of the movie seemed to drag. There was a lot to set up, and many moving pieces. While the ending was great, I couldn’t help but think some of that complexity could have been sacrificed in the name of a leaner movie that got where it was going more efficiently. I checked my watch a couple of times. With a good movie, I shouldn’t be thinking about my watch at all.
Ironman, honestly, felt tacked on to me. He’d show up now and then as a device, and I found the times when he did to be kind of tiresome.
Some of the fights felt repetitive.

Put the whole thing together, and it turned out as a 7 out of 10 for me. (Remember, a movie that’s a 5/1o is a completely average movie in my book. Every point above that means I had that much more of a fun time.) I enjoyed the movie. If it came earlier in the Marvel series, I probably would have rated it higher. But it didn’t. It’s squarely in line with the other Marvel movies, which is a good thing, but not different enough to raise it above all the others.

Plugging Back In

Coming back to work after an extended vacation is always a process. Scratch that. Coming back to life after an extended vacation is always a process. And each time you might think you’ve thought things through ahead of time, but in my experience, each time there’s always a bunch of things you didn’t account for. So today, I’m getting back up to speed in practically every arena:

Emails are always the biggest troublemaker. I took some time while I was away to check in now and then, but all that really does is put out any immediate fires and cull out the easy emails that can just be deleted. What remains are emails that need me to actually take some actions. No fun.
Weight/Health is another area where I need to get back in line. I stepped on the scale this morning and discovered I’m still not over my goal weight of 195, but only because I’m literally 195 right now. While I was away I didn’t exercise, ate way too much sugar, and didn’t watch my calories in the slightest. Honestly, I’m surprised I only gained 7 pounds. But I’d really like to get down to 175, believe it or not, and now that I actually don’t have any trips scheduled in the next while, I’m hoping I have the time I need to just get back into my routines and stick there for a while.
House work. We still have a bunch of stuff around the house that needs doing. The biggest thing is the batch of furniture we got a month and a half ago. Denisa and I need to finish putting up pictures and deciding what goes where, and then we need to sell the pieces we’re no longer using. It’s a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem. Especially since the place we’ve been sticking all the stuff we don’t know what to do with is the guest bedroom. And we have guests coming in a few weeks. (Uh oh.)
Lawn work. That lawn keeps growing. It’s been mowed recently (thank you friends!), but it needs to be mowed again. (More on that in the hopefully near future.) I know Denisa is really stressing about the garden, too.
Writing is there as well. I managed to get some done while I was away, but not nearly enough as I should have. That ends today. Back to the grindstone.

Beyond that, there are the tons of little chores that just need doing. Cleaning and shopping and letters and who knows what else. As always, I know that we can get on top of all of them, but it’s going to take concerted effort. I’ll make way too many lists, but one way or the other, we’ll get there.

Starting by finishing this post. More to come tomorrow as I go back to my regular blogging routine, as well.