When I said I want to be "that tv dad" I didn’t mean Red.
I suck at parenting.
Month: July 2012
When I die
Let my tombstone read: "Could have been worse."
Doug’s Mantras
Be a knowledge seeker. -DM
Why couldn’t we watch the Olympic opening ceremonies live?
Clinton’s Internet Bubble Caused the Recession
When did the cause of the recession switch from the housing bubble to the Internet bubble?
Catch-22
My mind is so stressed that I cannot work; I must work to reduce my stress.
He’s a movin’ on up
Sherman Hemsley, aka George Jefferson, moves to a deluxe apartment in the sky
There’s a drum circle in my skull
I think my head is going to explode.
Vacation Done
I have just completed a wonderful vacation, yet I find myself so stressed that I cannot think straight and an unclear mind does not lend well to eliminating the causes of the stress. Stress in this regard is a self-perpetuating disorder. Once upon a time, a hunter in the field was met unexpected by a herd of lion too numerous for the hunter to engage. Fight or flight stimulus, aka stress, kicked in and the hunter fled to safety where his adrenaline returned to normal levels and the hunter calmed. In today’s society, our stress response rarely eases and our body and mind suffer. I have been under constant stress for twenty years. I am ready to escape to safety. I want to know calm.
Spider-Evan
Yesterday we took Evan rock climbing at The Climbing Center in Knoxville. He is a natural! Once attached to the rope, he shot up the 40 foot walls without fear. Understanding that his next handhold could be discovered by straightening a bent leg seemed intuitive to him. Noah made it up the wall twice before feigning to hunger. Cathy only had her hand sucked into the ATC (brake) once. My supple skin only lost a few layers of epidermis due to belaying. We had a blast!
Sending her to Costa Rica
My ten year old girl has this wonderful opportunity to travel to Costa Rica. This is where she will be:
Confession
Occasionally I purchase a lottery ticket then refuse to look at it because the thrill of thinking I am walking around with a winning ticket is more fun than the disappointment in verifying that it is a loser.
Out of Balance
Out of Balance
A Harvard business prof and a behavioral economist recently asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth is distributed in the United States. Most thought that it’s more balanced than it actually is. Asked to choose their ideal distribution of wealth, 92% picked one that was even more equitable.
ACTUAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH
WHAT AMERICANS THINK IT IS
WHAT THEY WOULD LIKE IT TO BE
0
20
40
60
80
100
Source: Michael L. Norton, Harvard Business School; Dan Ariely, Duke University
And for the REAL image, look on page 11 of Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely’s report http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20ariely%20in%20press.pdf (the online version is here: http://pps.sagepub.com/content/6/1/9)
What is this?
Today, a manipulated image of this data is spreading like wildfire through the Internetz particularly over Facebook. The source of the image can be found at MotherJones.com but has been altered to show a baby peeing on a man and a a kitten commenting that "tickle down" doesn’t work. The original image is within a PDF and JPG so I’ve decided to put it here in plain text. Rather than looking at Norton and Ariely’s findings (online version), I guessed at the numbers but they look pretty close to the actual image. It makes the point.
If you are going to share this image today, please share from the PDF from MotherJones or the JPG from MotherJones instead of passing around the one with the cat.
At war with my house
My garage looks like it could do a guest appearance on the television Hoarders. This weekend I declared war on that garage and made significant progress yesterday. Today the battle continues!
Update: I’ve dug out our commercial grade deep freezer! There is food in there that reads "best used by 7/1/09." Yuck.
Update: The garage has gone through a major transformation. I performed archaeology. Found things long since forgotten. Threw away a lot. Created a large donation pile for Ladies of Charity. And transformed the garage from a good candidate for Hoarders to a good candidate for This Old House or the Martha Stewart show. I hope to work this hard on the house every weekend.
Shopping Pain
Took the wife and ten year old shopping during lunch to prepare for my little girl’s upcoming Costa Rican adventure. Now my left ear feels like someone is doing brain surgery through it. Coincidence?
