Hey buddy, can you spare a 3.3 L V6 engine for a fellow American?

In an earlier posting I wrote of my damaged engine. Well, I am still looking for an engine. And so far the costs are quite steep. This comes back to my position on cars. I hate cars. I hate having to have a car. Now I like the ability to move around independently in cars. But I wish they were something different. Something that lasts or something that is so inexpensive that an average American could buy a new one each year without going into debt.

So from my perspective in the high tech industry, the automotive industry moves at sub-glacial speed and is so far behind the development curve it is laughable. Modern computers have been around about 50 years, and though not perfect, the cost curve has shown the benefit of advancements in technology. Average people can afford personal computers now. Cars have been in existence for over 100 years and have NOT been perfected yet. And instead of costs going down, the cost of a car is still going up!

Now I understand that there is a lot of metal in cars and that as metal costs go up, so do the total costs. But, what about all the assemblies and subsystems. Why is every different model of car replete with its own custom assemblies and subsystems. Have you people ever heard of economy of scale? Reuse?

I guess my only hope is that the coming electics will eliminate so much of the mechanical problems. And that is what I see as the biggest set of problems: mechanical systems.

Now I will grant that this is only my opinion and I am not an auto mechanic though I have pretended to be one at times in an effort to save money. And for the most part, I can get around most mechanical systems on a car relatively easy. Until I get to the engine. Let's face it, an internal combustion engine is simply too complex to ever be reliable.

Wake up America! We need a revolution in the automotive industry. We are being held captive by the mechanical elite. It is borderline cult religion.

Think about it. The auto makers are the established church of the Internal Combustion Engine. The International Church of ICE. All those auto dealers and salesmen constitute the priests and missionaries. And those mechanics are the deacons of the church.

Welcome to the Church of ICE. Let our priests enlighten you to the joys of ICE. Embrace ICE and leave all reason and rational thought to those who would rather walk. Our deacons are always available to take care of your needs. ICE loves you. You need ICE. Come, be a part of ICE today. We do not require donations. We require all your money. You can't drive money to work can you now? So give it to us. Let us take you for a ride.

Learning To Breathe

For a long time I have belonged to the "married" category. At church I was a part of the "married couples". In social settings, I was the "husband of ..." or sometimes simply described as "the other half". I knew who I was as the other half. And it never really bothered me when they referenced my wife as "the better half". I have since come to understand that many people cannot handle being just half of the whole. Many people find a need to be their own person, and sadly, they do this apart from their "other half".

So here is where I become perplexed. Why does a woman or a man need to seek their own "personal identity" apart from their spouse. Assuming you marry for life, which was my assumption, you will never be single again unless you outlive your spouse. I know what many will think. That I am just being old-fashioned and that I obviously am some sort of fundamentalist or something. Well, perhaps you are right. But also consider the dangers if you are wrong.

If indeed I am old-fashioned, so what? Why is my idea of two people uniting to create one new identity, and then sharing in that identity the rest of their lives so wrong? Does it diminish the value of either? Does it reduce one in favor of the other? You don't know. You really can't generalize because it depends on the individuals who comprise the union. Yet if you presume there is one asserted over the other, you have a valid point. But if you presume that the two really become one, then are you just intolerant of my views or can you agree with them?

I believe in the sanctity of marriage. Marriage should be for life. Marriage should be kept pure. There should be no cheating, no abusing, and no over-lording of the one by the other. Marriage should be as God intended it, the perfect union of an imperfect man and an imperfect woman. I really don't care if you disagree. This space is for my opinion. You create your own space for your opinions.

However, I have now found myself in a new category. I now belong to the "divorced" category. It was not something I was seeking. In fact, I tried everything to avoid it. Yes, I am an imperfect man and she was an imperfect woman. But what really brought about the end was she sought her own identity, or rather her own life, apart from me. She abandoned the union for her own self interests. She sought divorce and thus ended the union.

It is difficult to not be bitter at times. It is truly difficult to even breathe sometimes. I do not mean that in the literal sense. My body is quite capable of respiration and extracting oxygen from the atmospheric gases. It is meant as a statement of the ability to just live each day. I have had to re-invent myself. I was married for 18 years. Being a single adult is actually quite a new experience. I was married when I was just 21. So I am learning to be "me" apart from "she".

At the same time, I have my two teenage kids at home full time. So I am still "dad" and she is still "mom". But it is difficult to be a single parent. Never underestimate that. It is very difficult. But I would not trade these difficulties for the easier path of not having my kids. I choose the harder path. I love my kids and I want them in my life to the fullest.

So as I write this, the song "Learning to Breathe", by Switchfoot, is going through my head. Though I may be somewhat misapplying it here, it is still fitting. I am learning to breathe. I am learning to be me, not me the husband, or me the married father. I am learning to be me the divorced dad of two teens. And I am also learning to be me, the single guy.

I will make mistakes there is no doubt. But along the way, I know I will do some things right. I am learning to breathe.

So in learning to be me the single guy, have I changed my mind about marriage and that a union means becoming one? Absolutely not. I believe that is the way it should be. Yet it is up to God as to my category. If God should choose that I remain single the rest of my life, then so be it. Only God really knows what is the "best" plan for my life. And I don't know it.

Yet, I also must say, that it is my prayer that God would bring me the right woman, the "better half", to complete a new union. In fact, I believe this may be the path that waits for me. I just do not know how long I must wait to find her. So until then, and until I have the other half to complete a union, I will continue to breathe each day.

I'm learning to breathe
I'm learning to crawl
I'm finding that You and
You alone can break my fall
I'm living again, awake and alive
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies

A Dark, Knight's Tale

Once upon a time, there was a young knight who lived in a small village and was in training for the king's service. He met a girl with stunning red hair and a captivating smile from a neighboring village. The young man was smitten by this red-haired beauty and after courting this maiden several years, he married her.

Soon after marriage, they moved from their small village as his services to the king took him to other parts of the kingdom. They were madly in love and after a couple years of marriage, they were blessed with baby boy.

The king called the young knight to the southern part of the kingdom. And the knight and his tiny family moved south. It wasn't long after their arrival in the southern part of the kingdom that they were blessed with a baby girl. Life was good. They were in love. And they had two healthy children.

But a sickness came upon the fair maid, and she was dying. This was no ordinary sickness. It was the result of a dark spell cast by the most evil of creatures. A foul demon of hell itself. The knight wept bitterly. Their families wept. There seemed to be nothing they could do.

As the months dragged on, both the knight and the maid fell into despair. All their dreams were shattered and their life together seemed to slip past them like sand through your fingers. All was dark in the land. The young knight felt old, sad, and weary.

In his weariness, the young knight was weak. He tasted forbidden fruit and he mourned. He mourned for himself and he mourned for the death of his bride that was sure to come. He mourned that he was not stronger. He mourned that he was not wiser and could stop this curse and this sickness.

One night, his dying bride went to church and there met her Lord. The Lord healed the maid of her ailment and ended her curse. She hurried home to tell her husband. He was asleep after looking after his two active children. When she woke him, she told him of the miracle healing. This made the young knight happy and he vowed to then and there be stronger for his wife.

Yet, the curse had a lingering affect. Neither the knight nor his bride were ever the same. The knight became jealous and untrusting. The wife became withdrawn and selfish. Their children were not immune and they as well suffered. And in their suffering, they added to the chaos.

Still, the knight was quite happy. He was happy to have his wife and his children, and he was happy to work in the king's service. But the wife was not happy. The curse had both robbed her of something and yet left something behind. It is not quite clear what it was. Dark curses are never specific, never fully known. And over time, she became bitter and more selfish.

The knight, though try as he might, could not mend his wife. He left the south region and took his family to the western region of the kingdom to work in the king's service. The knight thought this may help his aging bride to regain her youthful love and compassion. But the knight did not know it was too late.

For years the bride had been exchanging secret messages with other knights and even peasants and soldiers. She sought a relief from her lingering curse. She could not accept that her husband could help her. She could not accept that she was under the curse still. She decided to do something about it herself.

One day the knight had to travel back to the south region in service to the king. He was to be gone for months. Upon his return, his wife had forsaken him. She had been in the bed of another knight and no longer held any desire for her husband. She thought him weak. She thought him an impotent shadow of himself. She wanted him gone from her life.

Again, the knight mourned. But now he was much older, and somewhat wiser, and he bitterly mourned. He felt so much older, so much sadder, and more weary than ever in his life. And yet this time, he vowed that he would be strong. And he was. He did not succumb to temptation now. His courage was mustered, and his mind steeled against all attempts to move him from the straight path.

The knight bravely faced his wife, his children, and their past, and vowed to God to stand for what was right. And though he made some tactical errors along the way, he did as he vowed. His wife could not believe it. Her weak husband had not reacted as she thought. Where she expected weakness, there was strength. Where she expected defiance, there was remorse. And where she expected hatred, there was love.

In frustration and desperation, she fled. She left the knight and her children and ran away. She ran to a neighboring village and sought shelter in an inn. And from there she petitioned the king to be released from her vows to her husband.

Over the months, the knight ceased his mourning. He awoke one morning and saw that the darkness had lifted from the land. It had been over a decade since he had seen the sun shining so brightly on the world. His spirit was filled with vigor, strength, and resolve. He looked after his children, and he continued his service to the king. He saw each new dawn as another start. He felt younger. He felt stronger. And he felt more alive.

Finally, one morning, without fanfare, without regalia, the wife went to the king's court to obtain the release from the marriage to her husband. It was granted. Quietly and swiftly, as easily as a candle is snuffed out, so ended the marriage of the knight and his wife.

Do not mourn gentle reader. The knight lived on and with his children, built a new foundation for their tiny family. And by God's grace, they grew stronger and wiser. We know not what happened to the wife. Perhaps this story is not complete. Perhaps she has her own story yet to write.

A happy ending it does not appear to be. Yet a happy ending cannot so easily be determined by mortals. Rest yourselves dear reader. God is in control and all His endeavors are good. We must simply wait for them to be displayed. And we must be ready to wait, even unto the Last Day, in order that we may see it as He would have us know it.

Teenage Estrogen...

I am a father. I have a teenage daughter. There are times I find myself doing things and being in places I never would have imagined that I would be. But as a father, with a daughter, I do those things a father must do. And at times I find myself at places that I would not have been of my own volition, except to support my teenage daughter as her father.

Why am I establishing such a baseline of thought in this post? Well, because I took my daughter and a couple of friends to the mall this past weekend. I spent the afternoon with 3 young teenage girls giggling and chattering in a foreign tongue. Well, it might as well have been foreign. I couldn't understand most of it.

But you know, thinking back on it, I now know they didn't really use words most of the time, or at least not real words. They would make noises and hand gestures and all three would burst into giggles. I started imagining it like a nature documentary:

Jim followed the pack of females in their natural habitat and studied their primitive communication abilities. There is no clear leader in the pack and at times will demonstrate random flocking behavior. Once they have eyed their prey, they all go on alert and their posture changes. Watching them, I feel somewhat sorry for the store clerks that they are about to pounce on. But we must remind ourselves that this is just the food chain out here in the wild malls of the American wasteland.

Well, anyway the shopping excursion was at least entertaining from the standpoint of watching the girls just be girls and do girl things. I just kind of remained in the shadows, trying not to embarrass them and producing my wallet when called on.

But after the mall, I found myself at the movie theater. And what did we see? Batman Begins just opened. Did we see that? No. Star Wars is still playing. Did we see that? No. I saw the teenage girl movie of the summer: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Yes I watched it. And I have to admit, I actually liked it. Now there is plenty that as a man I found too laden with estrogen to really get. But as a father, I watched it from a different perspective. The perspective of teenage girls trying to overcome emotional pain and just trying to grow up in sometimes difficult circumstances. There are some positives to that movie. And there are some negatives. But since I am about seeing the positives more often lately, I will stick with those.

Fathers, take your daughters shopping. Take them to the movies. Be involved. Listen to them. And maybe they will never have to make a movie about their messed up teen years :-)

God Loaded My Fortune Cookie

Now honestly, I don't believe in fortune cookies. In fact, we like to play the silly games with fortune cookies. Like adding "that's what she said" after you read the fortune. When the kids aren't around, we add "in bed" to the end of the fortune. You know the deal, I am not telling you anything earth-shattering.

Anyway, several times lately, we have had several timely fortunes. It was laughable. For example, we were sitting at a Chinese restaurant - which by the way advertises "hunan style cuisine", but we like to refer to it as "human style cuisine" but that is beside the point - and we had just been trying to encourage my daughter to broaden her food selections. Yes she is a picky eater. Actually she is a real picky eater. In reality, she eats just 5 foods on the planet and that is about it. Okay, I am exaggerating. But still, we had just encouraged her to eat carrots. She said "I know, some day they will say that carrots cure cancer or something like that." About 2 minutes later, she opened her fortune cookie. And this is what it read:

A carrot a day will keep the cancer away.

That was hysterical. And in that same setting, I had been talking about someone who had been making disparaging remarks about me. We were discussing this when I read my fortune cookie:

Hard words may not break bones, but fine words butter no parsnips.

I thought about that one a bit. It seems more obvious now. But basically, it was very timely as well. And then now, ok it was just the other day, I had one that exactly answered a question. Let me set this up first. I have recently found myself single for the first time in 18 years. I have been talking to God a lot about this too - as you can imagine. I know that God is in charge of things and taking care of it. And yet occasionally, I get frustrated, or low, or something, or just plain lonely. At those times I ask God "what are you doing?" Well I was asking God about this the other day. I had bought the kids a box of fortune cookies - yes I know what you are thinking "surely you didn't", but I did - and I said "ok God, tell me something." And this was what I read, and I promise you it is the absolute truth:

He who has faith, has everything.

I was stunned to say the least. So I still don't believe in fortune cookies. But I have always believed in the humor of God. He has an incredible sense of humor and indulges poor idiots like myself. Thanks God. Thanks for being there, and thanks for being real.

Thinking Beyond the Next Bite

Life. Life is good. Life is wonderful. Life can be hard as well. Very often I find myself trying to look into the future of life. I think beyond the here and now and look to the there and then. Qui-Gon would not be pleased.

"Don't center on your own anxieties, Obi-Wan, keep your concentration Here and Now, where it belongs." - Qui-Gon

But I believe all of us, or nearly all, or at least some... okay maybe it is just me, think of where the next step will take us and end up tripping over our own feet in the current step.

Here is an illustration by movie scene. Here's the scene. A man and a woman are sitting on a bench eating ice cream. They are outside on a street mall area with many street shops. It is early evening. There are quite a few people walking this way and that, shopping, laughing, talking, some walking hand in hand. The man shifts slightly to face the woman and he speaks:

guy: So what do you think?

girl: About what?

guy: About all this? About all I've said?

girl: I don't think anything about it. You ask too many questions. Why do you ask so many questions?

guy: Because I want to know what to expect. I want to know what you are thinking.

girl: I am just thinking about this bite. Why do you always need to think about the next bite? Just enjoy this bite for what it is.

guy: Good point.

[short pause]

guy: So what do you think about this bite?

This is just a brief illustration of how we (or at least I) often handle expectations. I find myself in the position of the guy in the scene. I don't want my expectations to run amok so that I end up getting hurt. So I try to constantly adjust my expectations to match the current situation. I am trying to control the future by predicting actions and outcomes. In moderation, this is good, this is normal. In excess, it leads to the suffering. Why do we do this? Because we are afraid. And as we all know...

"Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." - Yoda

So what happens when you find yourself doing this too much? What happens when you over-analyze everything and your analysis is not always correct? Well, you end up making mistakes. You end up in a self-fulfilling prophecy and you get hurt. I don't like that. I would have to think most people don't like that.

The illustration by movie scene continues. The man and woman have left the park bench and are walking down the street mall. They are walking slowly, still eating the ice cream. The man speaks:

guy: So then, I should just enjoy this bite, and not think of the next bite or the consequences. There is power in this.

girl: What are talking about? What power?

guy: The power of freedom. Live for today.

girl: That's not exactly what I meant.

guy: I know. I just wanted to exaggerate to make a point.

girl: What point?

guy: That if I don't think about the next bite to some extent, I could have bad consequences. I would then think differently about the bites that came before. I may regret them. I could end up wishing I never had them.

girl: Good point.

[short pause]

girl: I don't think I can finish my ice cream.

Enough said.

Movie Madness

[slow quiet classical music intro, dark set with highlight on narrator]
Okay, I have to admit, I have been bitten by the bug of making my own movies.

[crescendo to suspense - closeup to narrator's eyes]
Recently I bought a cheap digital camera that also records video with audio up to the size of memory you have. While it is not the best quality, it allowed me to experiment and think about things. Then using the freebie movie maker software with windows, I was able to put a simple movie together.

[triumphant fanfare - camera pulls back to reveal gothic set]
Now this gets my mind to perking. Granted, it probably hiccups more than perks right now, but still, I have ideas... Yes, ideas...

[sound of maniacal laughter with werewolf howl in the distance]

[fade to outside setting with sunshine - happy tune plays softly]
So one of the things my little family will be doing this summer, is writing, directing, filming, and producing a short film. I think that with the creativity of my kids, they can really come up with something. And if we also pull in their friends into our little plan, our little scheme, our little revelry, this can be a lot of fun.

[happy tune fades to melancholy minor chords]
I don't think Spielberg has any worries though. I don't think we will be gunning for an Oscar, unless its Oscar the Grouch. And special effects will have to be not so special. But, we shall try all the same.

[music transitions to hero theme - camera closes in on narrator]
And in the end, we shall prevail, and we shall return, and we shall overcome, and we shall do other metaphors and idioms.

[slow fade to black - sounds of The Chicken Dance played at 1/2 speed played softly]

The Arrival of Summer Ennui

Boredom. For those of you who don't know, ennui means boredom. And at the outset of summer who could possibly think boredom? I mean there are all these plans, there are so many things you have been waiting to do. Now that the kids are out of school and they have time and you have time, who could possibly be bored?. Well no one, actually. At least not yet.

The problem is, I know its coming. Right now, there are things for my kids to do and things for me to do. But as the summer grinds on, there are fewer and fewer things you want to do. This is simply how it has always been. What kid hasn't said "I'm bored" at least a dozen times in one summer? Not many.

Ah, but all is not lost. In fact, I took prepatory steps to mitigate the ennui of this season of heat and lethargy. Well actually, it wasn't really prepatory, it was more spontaneous. Okay, I really didn't think about it. I am a sucker and Blockbuster has my number!

You see, they have this $20/month plan to rent as many video games as you want as long as you only have one out at a time. You can even come back to the store and switch out games several times a day if you want. Knowing my kids like games, and I have been known to partake of mindless entertainment from time to time myself, I decided I would take this offer. I figure that at some point even that will get old. But for the duration it will keep them occupied during the times between vacations, movies, picnics, and youth group events. And maybe I can steal some time on one of the game consoles myself.

So knowing that in the past, I would tend to get quite bored during the summer, I decided that I was going to try and not allow that to happen this year. I will be finding things to do with the kids so that we can enjoy our time together as well as be not bored.

Wow. I am up to the teachability level of a monkey. I can be taught. It only took a long, long, time. Lesson learned. Now to finish out my plans and find more things to do this summer. This will be a much better summer.