Rationalizing Deception

If I stepped back a bit and looked at things that transpired over the last week or so from someone else’s perspective then I suppose it has not been that great of a week.  It all really started last week when we had some very powerful storms come through and take out our beloved spruce tree.

 

Though you cannot see it from this angle, it was ripped out of the ground by the roots.  The bottom 2 foot or so of limbs were a little sickly so it may have just been this tree’s time to go.  Given that we have lost a dozen or so trees to the State Road 26 widening project (including 2 trees that had to be 50 feet tall each), we liked this tree even more as it was the sole tree left between us and the highway.  Our privacy is for the most part gone now.

Over the past weekend and the early part of this week we had even more storms and rain.  Due in part to the massive amounts of precipitation we have had in April and also in part to the construction messing up our drainage system, we had a little flooding issue.

While we didn’t need to get out the canoes (we don’t have any anyway), we did have to be careful driving in and out of the driveway this week.  Getting the large (full) trash bins to the end of the driveway was also an adventure (it involved carving an alternate path through our side yard and using the neighbor’s [slightly more elevated] driveway).

On top of all this, Thursday morning our home phone line quit working.  When someone would call our house, the phone would ring fine however, when we tried to answer it, things got weird.  First of all, there was a loud buzz on the line and you could still hear the phone ring (albeit muffled and through the receiver).  Secondly, the calling party simply still heard the phone ring and if we hung up the phone it would immediately begin to ring again.  Now we do not usually get that many phone calls but this week we did (more about that in a bit).  Anyway, with no phone at hand (I do not own a cell phone), I had to log an eService ticket with the phone company.  That was pretty easy but it ended up with a generic thank you message and a note that they would commit to fixing this sometime between “now” and “8 pm next Wednesday”.  Wow, that is almost a week to fix this situation (which is still not working at the time of this blog entry).  Now on to why the phone was ringing so much.

A family that attends our church asked me to look at their computer.  I had worked on this computer about a year ago (it was just acting sluggish, nothing a fresh install of Windows didn’t solve) but this time things were a bit more serious as they were perpetually stuck in safe mode and a fresh install of Windows did not fix it (but it did decrease the amount of time to get to safe mode).  Based on what I was seeing on the screen I knew that it had to be related to the video card.  Fortunately there is an on board diagnostics program that did produce an error code that I could “…provide to tech support…” when I called them.  I was able to log onto the manufacturer’s web site (using another computer of course) and determine that there was an extended warranty purchased 2 years ago that was still in effect.  Now this is the part of the story where the blog title comes in.

Since this is not my computer and since I had done all that I could do really, I could have simply returned the computer to its owner with instructions on who to call and how to proceed.  This would involve returning the computer to them of course but I had backed up all their data to my other computer’s hard drive before I tried the fresh installation of Windows.  This means that they would need to return the computer back to me so I could put the old data back on.  This whole process could take weeks in that we really only see this family on Sundays.  Based on this I decided to call in and pretend to be “Mike Smith” (named changed to protect the innocent).  It took about 45 minutes on the phone (this was earlier in the week when the phone here still worked) to convince the tech support person that a combination of the error code (which was SUPPOSED to help the tech support person out) and my repetition of the troubleshooting that I had done on my own should warrant them sending someone out to replace the video card.  Repeatedly I was asked if the monitor might be the problem (despite telling them that I experienced the same issue on 2 monitors, both of which worked with other PCs) and even though I have never heard of a monitor putting you into safe mode.  I was also repeatedly asked if it might be a software problem (even though I mentioned, more than once, that I had tried using the restored disk and formatted the hard drive, thereby wiping out all software that I may or may not have installed).  I was put on hold many times and eventually they agreed to dispatch a service tech.

Now, pretending to be Mike on the phone was easy.  Though tempted, I did not use an fake accent.  I simply responded quickly when called Mr. Smith.  I had to make up a story about why the PC was not at the address that they had on file and also explain why the phone number on file needed to be updated (but only temporarily) for this repair.  At the end of the call (and after they tried to sell me, that is Mike, upgrades to the video card, hard drive, memory, and software) I was told I would be contacted when the part was available locally.  No problem, that is until our home phone quit working.

I called in the morning so the part was evidently shipped that day.  The next day in the late morning (after the phone had stopped working) the phone rang quite a lot.  We were powerless to stop the ringing as I mentioned before so it was quite annoying.  I was not able to call back into the tech support until the next day (from work).  I explained my situation and they updated the ticket but suggested that I call the company that they had subcontracted the work to in order to be sure everything was updated.  They provided me an 800 number and the name of the company and all was well.  I immediately called the number I was given only to find out that it was no longer in service.  I quick google to confirm that I had written the number down correctly helped me to discover that the number I was given had been in service, but not for 2 years.  I found a number of the company’s headquarters and after navigating their phone system was put through to a live person who told me that they used to do this work but had sold that contract to another company (some company that started with a Q).  I asked for their number (if they had it) and was told that their phone number would do me no good as that company (the Q company) had sold the contract to yet another company.  They were able to provide that number and I soon found myself navigating another phone system.  Eventually I got to a person but not the right person.  I was evidently sent to the escalation desk due to the age of my dispatch ticket.  Pretending to be Mike again, I explained the situation, game them my work phone and was told that the field tech would soon call me.  I typically answer my work phone with the name of my company and also my name so I had to be careful answering the phone.

Less than 30 minutes later I got a call and was told that the tech could be on site within the hour so I headed home (explaining to him that if something changed, calling me at home would do no good).  I had explained that it would easy to find our house as it was the one with the giant sideways tree in the yard and I also explained that the driveway (though submerged) was safe to travel on.  The guy was very understanding due to all the bad luck recently (he added to my bad luck pile the fact that my computer had broke as well, something I forgot to mention as I was going through all the woes I had suffered through recently).  An hour or so later, the computer was working and I was back to doing another fresh install of Windows and I could quit pretending to me Mike.  I did a pretty good job of remembering my name when the tech was on site (thank you Mr. Smith, here is your receipt Mr. Smith, have a good day Mr. Smith, etc).

Well, the waters have receded on the driveway but the tree is still sideways and the phone is still not working but I am relieved that I do not have to be Mike Smith any longer.  No one questioned my identity at any step of this process.  I had enough information about the real Mike Smith (thanks to the printed out church directory) to answer any verification questions anyone had along the way and in the end no one was hurt and I saved Mike Smith (the real one) and his family a week or two of suffering without their main computer.

I am not sure though if I was that convincing or if the tech support people just didn’t care or perhaps the rules are just not as stringent as I had feared when I first introduced myself as Mike, the owner of the computer.  I mentioned in my last blog that I was very talented when it came to convincing people that a statement was true or not so maybe this is just a natural extension of that ability.  I felt uncomfortable the whole time though and am just really glad this whole event is over.

Jon

Correct Enough

My last blog was about measuring how many pennies were in a ton.  In it I mentioned that I had to narrow down the scope of the calculations to include only those pennies made since 1982 as previously minted pennies were not the same weight.  Also, I had to list the assumption that the pennies were new enough not to have enough wear and tear to lower their weight or not to have a significant amount of dirt and grime on them to raise their weight.  I ended up with the number of pennies in a ton being 362,880.  That was “correct enough” to satisfy my curiosity.

Earlier this week, my manager and I were working on a communication that was to go out to our entire organization (over 1,000 people).  The email was about 2 pages in length and outlined a summary of the project that has taken up most of my work life over the previous (6) months or so.  We were working on the last sentence of a paragraph near the end of the communication and struggling with the right balance of detail and brevity.  The sentence we were working on was a simple statement but to make it 100% accurate would have taken another dedicated paragraph (at least) to explain the possible exceptions to the truth we were trying to convey.  After a long pause, I simply stated that the sentence was “correct enough” (those were my exact words).  My manager thought this was a funny concept (or at least a funny way of saying it) and we had a good laugh before moving on and finishing up our editing.

I have thought about this off and on since that time.  I think “correct enough” defines a lot of things I say or communicate (either face to face or on the phone or in an email, blog or facebook post).   I am constantly deciding if the target audience cares about the small exceptions that might make a statement “less correct”.  Actually, if I am more interested in making sure that the target audience will never see or come across an exception that might make my statement appear incorrect (I am a human male, I hate being proved wrong).  I think most people make these decisions unconsciously every day, multiple times a day.  And I think we are all OK with that.

I have to be careful though.  For some reason I have a believable face.  I could say some statement that may or may not be true and somehow convince my audience that whatever it was that I said is true and there is no need to research it.  I discovered this one day about 15 years ago while I was working at a foundry.  I had grown a beard for whatever reason and while in the break room one day another employee told me I looked like Abraham Lincoln’s son.  I replied, “But, Lincoln did not have any sons.”  To which my co-worker replied, “Oh yeah, that’s right.”  I have no idea why I said what I said but I was amazed that this person was so easily swayed by my poker face (by the way, the Lincolns had 4 sons).  I still feel a little bad over this exchange these many years later.

So you see, “correct enough” for me carries this extra burden of running the risk of being deceptive.  People trust me (for whatever reason) to speak the truth and to be more than “correct enough” in my statements.  It is a terrible burden to bear but one that I fear will be with me the rest of my life so I had better resign myself to this fact.  According to Señor Google, this makes me a “persuader” or a “energetic do-er” (I think I like the latter better).  Either way, I promise not to abuse this power.

That last statement is “correct enough”. :-)

Jon

Generational Gap

Like many people I suppose, I collect my change in a small jar and then turn it into the bank when the jar is full.  My change comes from various sources, from change from the store to creative discipline methods that I have come up with as a parent.  One thing I don’t do though is pennies.  They are not worth my time but they are worth my son’s time and he readily accepts all the pennies that we give to him.

He asked me over the weekend if we could go to the bank soon as his jar of pennies was nearly full.  Actually he put it this way, “I have a ton of pennies.”  Now, other than necessitating the obligatory “I have told you a million times not to exaggerate” his words got me to thinking.  How much money would you have if you actually did have a ton of pennies?

We are fortunate to live in a day when answers to these types of questions are easy enough to find but even when I was his age I could have figured it out.  I did collect coins and my coin books typically had the dimensions and weights of most American coins.  From there is is only a matter of math.  Since I no longer have my coin books, I headed to the US Mint web site and then to circulating coins section and then finally the page dedicated to the Penny.  Boom, there at the bottom of the page was my answer.  The currently minted penny is 2.5 grams in weight.  From here it was straight conversions and then I could find my answer.  There was a slight problem though in that the makeup of the currently minted penny was different prior to the year 1982 and then different still prior to the year 1962.  The weight difference was not that much (0.2 grams to 0.6 grams) but still it would throw off my numbers.  Now I had a dilemma.  Do I do some research (say like determining the current percentage of distribution in normal circulation of coins that were of the differing weights) or change the parameters of my problem so that instead of wanting to know how many pennies are in a ton I want to know how many pennies minted since 1982 are in a ton?  I decided on the latter (though I may go back and solve the former later on).

28.35 grams	1 ounce	11.34 pennies per ounce
16 ounces	1 pound	181.44 pennies per pound
2,000 pounds	1 ton	362,880 pennies per ton

So, if you have a ton of pennies then you have $3,628.80 if all of the pennies were minted since 1982.  Of course this assumes no wear and tear on the pennies (making them lighter) or dirt or grime (making them heavier).  At any rate I had my answer.

This morning I was telling my son what his phrase had led me to do and then gave him the challenge of calculating how many pennies were in a ton.  He followed a slightly different path and simple googled “how many pennies in a ton” and the first web site in the list gave him a number close enough to satisfy his curiosity.  I tried to explain how I calculated my (better, more accurate) answer but he just had this look on his face that said, “who cares, this is close enough.”

Sigh

Jon

Disturbing Images

There are times in a parent’s life that make you step back a bit and consider things from a non parent’s point of view.  You have to stop looking at things concerning your children as their parent and think about how (without the context of years of knowing a person as your child) certain things would appear.  Maybe I watch too many lawyer TV shows or maybe I am just weird but suppose for a moment that I was on trial for being a bad influence on my children and the prosecuting attorney entered into evidence Exhibit A…

The daughter loves little plastic animals.  She must have a hundred or so and she plays with them often.  The voices she makes as she animates the animals are very life like, so much so that I have more than once came running into her room to see what was the matter when one of her animals were yelling for their daddy.  Now, the above photo taken out of context might suggest she has a violent nature but in reality it was probably the protector lion carrying the bunny rabbit for some other logical reason (say the bunny was tired or ill – one can hope for the best here).

Imagine then that we are nearing the end of the trial and things are looking good for the defendant (in this case, me) and then the prosecutors whip out the smoking gun…

At this point in time I would have to lean over and whisper to my attorney (probably court appointed as I am an cheap skate) and suggest that we take the deal that the other attorneys offered us previously.  Of course they would not take the deal at this point in time and I would smile (nervously) at the jury and silently resign myself to the truth that would soon be my life as the judge’s gavel came down.

Anyway, the daughter does have quite the imagination and I am happy for it.  I am hoping that these scenes are more of a reflection of watching too many old cartoons (Betty Boop ends up tied to a railroad track quite often thankfully and animals tend to be friendly rather than enemies, even lions and bunnies).  This is what I comfort myself with when I lie awake at night anyway.

Jon

Do We Really Want To Do This

Well it is Sunday morning and we all feel better after a good night’s sleep in our own beds.  Even the dogs seem happier (they did not come with us but they are happy that we are home).  Our own coffee is steeping in the French press.  Yes, all is normal again.

As you may know already, we spent our Friday and Saturday at the Cincinnati Home School Convention that was hosted at the Duke Energy Convention Center.  Along with offering multiple speakers every 90 minutes (there were 15 – 20 choices at any given interval), there was a huge area where the home school vendors could peddle their wares…

(Picture from the skywalk above the main vendor area – left facing)

(Picture from the skywalk above the main vendor area – right facing)

These pictures do not really do it justice.  It was truly overwhelming.  Those of you who have never home schooled or even known someone who did may marvel at the enormity of it all.  Trust us, we were and we have done this before.  The pressure is immense as you can imagine.  If we are to educate our kids, we are responsible for the curriculum.  Given all the choices, the pressure to research all of our options is incredible.

To be fair, not all these vendors sell curriculum.  Some are colleges wanting to extol the virtues of their particular place of higher learning.  There were some vendors that focused on health or other products that might appeal to moms that will be at home full time with all of the kids.  I even saw a both for the IRS (not that I ever saw anyone visit that booth).

Along with the booths were the aforementioned speakers.  There are too many to mention and every session gave us the quandary of selecting who to listen to and who to miss (they did offer CDs of all the sessions for a nominal price).  One of our favorite speakers is Todd Wilson of FamilyMan Ministries.  We have heard Todd speak before and he has a sense of humor that only a home school mom and dad can appreciate.  His rooms are always packed.  We caught two of his sessions and even the kids enjoyed his funny stories.

One session (that only the son and I attended) was by David Gibbs III of the Christian Law Association.  You may recognize him as he was the lawyer that represented the mother and father of Terri Schiavo.  His topic was how the outcome of that case effects us all as US citizens.  The hour flew by too quickly.

After lunch (we wandered around until we found a Chipotle’s) we attended parts 1 and 2 of a topic by Sean McDowell called The Devil’s Advocate.  It was not as exciting as I had hoped and he really kept it on a level that the home school aged children could understand.  The subject matter was atheism and how to answer some basic attacks from atheists on the Christian religion.  Though they had sessions that went until 9:30 PM we called it a day after a little shopping in the exhibit hall and headed back for some dinner (Frisch’s Big Boy) and some swimming time for the kids.

On Saturday morning at the 8:30 AM session, the son and I attended the talk called Liberal Lies About American History (That You Probably Learned In School) by Dr. Larry Schweikart who is best known as the author of The Patriot’s History.  He had me interested until he started referencing Glenn Beck and how a visit to his show really skyrocketed the sale of his books.  His talk was interesting but a little biased to the far right side of politics.

We all hooked up during the next session to hear Dr. Jonathan Sarfati (from creation.com) speak on Incredible Designs In Nature.  This was more like a 6 week course crammed into a 1 hour session.  Information overload are the words that come to mind.  He had some fascinating video on the DNA / RNA / etc chain of events that I had seen in one form or another and focused on the irreducible complexity argument for creationism / intelligent design.  Fascinating stuff but too much for a 1 hour session.

We opted to go next to listen to the Malley family (authors of a book we own called Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends).  I was not overly impressed as their back and forth discussion seemed overly scripted.  Ironically enough I was partly distracted by some brothers and sisters in front of me fighting for most of the hour.

We grabbed a late lunch (Japanese for the son and I and Chick-Fil-A for the wife and daughter – at the food court of a nearby mall) and then we shopped a bit more.  We attended one final Todd Wilson session, bought some things in the exhibit hall that would have been too heavy to lug around had we bought it sooner and then made the 3 hour trip home.

We (the wife and I) took the last 2 years off from home schooling and for various reasons are jumping back in at this time.  The daughter is more pumped than the son.  Hopefully this weekend was time well spent and we will be able to make the best decisions for our kids.

Jon

A Sort Of Vacation

I write this blog from Cincinnati.  My wife, kids and I are here to attend the Midwest Home School Convention.  The wife is excited because (for some reason) she likes homeschool conventions.  We have attended the one in Indianapolis several times and we even attended one while in Texas (though it pales in comparison to the Midwest conventions).  This is the first time we have travelled out of state (well the state we were living in) to attend one and this is the first time that we have brought the kids along.  The kids are just excited that the hotel has an indoor pool.

Cincinnati is 3 hours away from our house give or take and (unfortunately) involved being in the enclosed area know as our minivan.  The kids used to travel well, or I should say great.  They made the 15 hour trip to Texas on multiple occasions with little complaints.  But something happened to them in the past year or so that turned them from travelling buddies into antagonistic foes.  We threatened and implied punishment but only when we put pool time on the table did they straighten up (pity we waited for 2 hours before we brought out the heavy hammer).

Attending this event means taking time off from work, something I don’t do very well.  This is partly due to my inability to allow others to do my work and partly due to the fact that I do not know how to enjoy leisure.  I was chatting with my back up at work just before logging off this afternoon (I only took a 1/2 day vacation today) and he suggested that we get some SkyLine Chili while we were in Cincinnati.  I told him that I would eat some on his behalf but had no real intention of doing so.  However, when we pulled into our hotel lot we noticed a SkyLine Chili a 1/4 mile down the road.  I told the wife of my conversation with my co-worker and just like that the dinner selection was made.

None of us had ever tried this chili before so it was a new experience.  Everyone else ordered Cheese Coneys but I opted for Chili 5-way.  Either my co-worker had talked up this chili too much or it really just isn’t that good but either way we were not impressed.  There was a bonus though in that they were offering 1 free Cheese Coney per person in celebration of opening day for the Cincinnati Reds baseball season.  So, even though the food only filled us up but did not satisfy us, we did not pay full price.

Based on the fact that my next 2 days will be filled with wandering around the Duke Energy Convention Center and attending workshops with kids in tow followed up by another 3 hour ride home in the van with the kids (without the ability to threaten removing pool privileges), I think (sadly) the chili might be the highlight of my “vacation”.

Jon

Filling The Void

When I first was approached with the idea of going to Romania for a week in March I had a bad feeling about the timing.  Due to the timeline of a project at work I knew that the first 2 weeks of March was out of the question.  That left (by process of elimination) the last 2 weeks.  I knew that the project that the trip revolved around had some key dates in early April.  My gut told me that the 3rd full week of March was going to be the timeline of the trip.  Therein lies the problem for (as [bad] luck would have it) that was the week of my wedding anniversary.  This (of course) made informing the wife of this trip much harder.

The good news about travelling on the company dime is that everything is paid for and you get to see new places and meet new people.  When I say everything is paid for I mean almost everything.  There are expenses that cannot be expensed (as it were).  One of these is the extra amount of money that would need to be spent on my anniversary due to being gone on the actual anniversary date.  This would include ordering wine with the dinner (something we seldom do) and an appetizer (something we occasionally do).  If you take the amount that I would have to spend (now that the celebration would not be on the actual date) and subtract the normal budgeted amount for an anniversary dinner (or whatever) you have the “extra” expense I am speaking of that cannot be expensed to the company but is actually due to the company asking me to go on this trip (I think I could have said that better but I hope you get the point).

Anyway, last night the aunt arrived to watch the kids and the wife and I headed out to dinner.  The food was awesome, the company was great (in case you are not following closely, I mean my wife) and all was well.  But…

Let me tell you about my wife’s enemy.  She has few enemies but this would be her main enemy.  The enemies name is Silence and the wife has been fighting her since long before I first met her.  My wife views Silence as something that must be attacked (offensively) whenever it is met or found.  I sometimes sit back in awe (silently as there is no room for me to speak) at my wife’s ability to talk, non-stop, for long durations of time.  Even though silence is a large gulf of space she continually throws shovels of words at it in an attempt to fill this unending void.  The trip to the restaurant was about 45 minutes and she killed it off without even trying too hard.  She also (despite fighting the effects of one glass of wine) held her enemy at bay for the entire trip home as well.

This need of hers to fill the void is a long standing (14 years last Tuesday by the way) joke between us.  We will be on a 30 minute drive in the car and (after talking for 27 minutes of it) I will “inform” her that she “only” has 3 minutes to go to accomplish the goal (I guess) of filling all the Silence for the entire trip.  This is always met with “the look” followed quickly by (at least) 3 more minutes of talking.

Now, I am not necessarily a fan of Silence (though at times it serves a purpose) but I prefer to fill it with music or talk radio (when I am in the car at least).  One time early in our marriage the wife came home from work to find me sitting on the couch with no TV or music on (and I think the lights were out) and it took a while to convince her that nothing was wrong with me.  I decided not to do that again (such was the pain of having to explain that Silence was not always bad – she was unconvinced).

In recent months I have been promoting the idea of a “Silent Saturday” at our house.  The idea is that we (the four of us living in our house) would not communicate verbally for an entire Saturday.  I think it would be cool, the wife sees it as a way of letting the enemy into the house.  Words cannot express how against this idea she really is.  I offered to only have Silence until noon, she would not agree.  I offered the option that only I would be silent (which, let’s be honest here, would not be much of a difference) but even then she did not like the idea.  I guess carrying 100% of the conversation (instead of the usual 98%) is just too much for her.

OK, that is enough picking on the wife.  In 14 years of marriage I have found her to be the perfect yin to my yang.  I found myself talking about her way too much while on my trip to Romania.  I am sure that the Romanians were quite tired of hearing about my awesome wife and all my methods for trying to keep her happy and showing her that I love her.  Whether it was during a training presentation, while sitting around the dinner table at a restaurant or while sitting in the lobby of the hotel, those around me got an earful of my wonderful wife.

Honey, despite my constant blogs that would suggest otherwise, I love you.

Jon