The Paper Parable

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful piece of stationary.  It was very proud of the way it looked.  Unlike the other paper in its drawer, the stationary was made from finer materials and was of a heavier weight.  A dark border of charcoal black rimmed its page with a second border of thin gold ringing the inside of it.  Three letters, M.S.T., were set in the very middle of the page at the bottom, and the little piece of stationary was sure it was a mark of excellence that declared what a fine paper it was.

But above all the fine borders and exquisite lettering, the Stationary was most proud of the flawless field of white that made up the main body of it.  When the Owner had received his new stationary, the little page watched with satisfaction as the man beamed at the large section of pure white paper.  “He is someone who can appreciate true beauty,” it thought.  “I will sit on his desk, and he will look at me and be happy for years to come.”

But the little piece of stationary did not sit on his desk.  In fact, the man did not look at it very often at all, and when he did, it was with the blank look of a preoccupied mind.  Days stretched into weeks and weeks into months, until the little piece of stationary was quite sure that the man did not truly care about it at all.

Then one spring afternoon, a grubby little hand reached into the drawer and grabbed the beautiful piece of stationary, taking it by complete surprise.  The hand was not gentle or for that matter even clean.  Before the stationary knew what was happening, grime had been smeared across its pure surface, and the very fabric of its being had been creased and crumpled.  The assailant slammed it down hard on the wooden surface of the desk and then pressed a dirty ink pen into its body.  The little piece of stationary screamed as the Owner’s young boy ran the pen all over its surface, leaving cuts and indentions marred by the permanent, black ink.

The torturous time ended quickly enough, and the child put away the horrible pen.  However, in his haste to leave the room, the young man forgot about the Stationary and left it in the middle of the desk.  For the entire afternoon the once beautiful page wept over the eternal scars that it had only begun to endure.  And, it was in this sad state that the Owner found it still atop his table.

“Little Page, what is the matter,” the older man said, with a kindly smile.

“Look at me,” it lamented.  “I am scarred, and stained, and utterly useless now.”

“You are of great use to me,” the Owner replied.

“But my beauty is gone, and I still hurt from the marks pressed into my body,” it persisted.

The owner gently picked up the piece of stationary looking more closely at it.  Softly, he replied, “Little Page, you were never meant to be a blank sheet of paper.  Without marks on your body, you would never have been complete.  Sooner or later this is the end you would have met, though I never imagined such a wonderful outcome.”

“What do you mean,” the stationary asked, as the Owner’s continuing smile melted away its thoughts of pain and ugliness.

The man took a small piece of tape from his drawer and fixed the page to a wall above his desk.  “It is your marks,” he said, “that make you so beautiful to me.  From the time you were created, your body was meant for nothing more than carrying a message, and the message you carry is from my son.  It says, ‘Daddy, I love you.’”

From that point on, the little piece of stationary did it’s best to banish all thoughts of ugliness and unworthiness.  For years to come, it hung in its place of honor, never failing to bring a smile to the Owner’s face.

The Unified Theory of Dieting

As a result of my recent foray into tree-felling, I’ve been forced to take a serious look at dieting.  And by serious, I mean at least five or more minutes of research.  What I was able to turn up was astounding.  Do you know there are actually too many diets out there to count?  Thankfully, Medical News Today put out a very informative article on the 8 most popular diets.  They are, in no particular order:

1. The Atkins Diet (Atkins Nutritional Approach)
2. The Zone
3. Vegetarian
4. Vegan
5. Weight Watchers
6. South Beach
7. Raw Food
8. Mediterranean

There are a lot of disparate opinions on the most healthy and effective way to lose weight.  My wife is currently on the Atkins path, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way to reach the goal of a slimmer, healthier life.

It got me to thinking that there should be a clear and concise way to let a person compare diets.  This is the birth of the Unified Theory of Dieting.  I realize that I’ve only taken about eight of an innumerable amount of diets into account, but I’m just vain enough to make grand assertions on such a small sampling.  And don’t even think about posting a reply on my lack of statistical significance.  You go research another 22 diets if it really bothers you that much.

To further develop this idea, it helps to rank them based on similarities.

Insulin Control Diets

Atkins

The Zone

South Beach

Habit Control Diets

Weight Watchers

Mediterranean

Crazy As A Road Lizard Diets

Vegetarian

Vegan

Raw Food

After pondering the various ins and outs of these plans, I was able to come up with a medium that appeared constant across them all.  The unifying factor for these diets seems to be…the Cow.  The following segments detail how you can use a bovine to balance the merits of each plan:

Atkins Diet:  If you see a cow, you may cook it and eat it, so long as you don’t slap the meat between two slices of tasty bread.

The Zone:  If you see a cow, you may cook it and eat it, so long as you also eat the same amount of nuts and a slightly larger portion of whatever the cow was munching on before you killed it.

South Beach:  Find the skinniest cow you possibly can, cut all the remaining fat off of it, and then cook it and eat it.  If your skeletal cow was eating fairly low carb vegetables or grains, then you can help yourself to some of those too. 

Weight Watchers:  Don’t deny yourself the cow!  Just control how much of it you eat.  Then, go stand on a scale, in front of all your peers, once a week and confess how you don’t crave as much cow as you used to.

Mediterranean:  Ride your bicycle to the cow pasture where you can wander about, grazing on any plants, nuts, beans, or seeds you find.  Feel free to milk the cows you run across, but only eat a small portion of said cow.  Oh, and drink a lot of wine, too.

I have gone ahead and included the following Vegetarian diets though I feel that they are flawed in their very base assumptions.  My stance is that if we were not meant to eat animals, then they wouldn’t have been made of meat.

Vegetarian:  You may milk the cow, and you may eat whatever the cow is eating.

Vegan:  Do not touch the cow.  Just follow it and eat what it eats.

Raw Food: You may eat the cow, the grass, the trees, the rocks, or even the siding off of your house; so long as you don’t cook any of it (It’s easy to see how this group tends to skew toward Raw Vegan).

And that, my friend, sums up a unified comparison of the most popular diets. 

Bon appétit!

    

Say What II

Once again, it’s time to chronicle the funny things my kids say.

This first one we’ve been trying to correct for a while.  It was very cute when he first blurted it out, but it has really seemed to stick, and now he’s passed it on to his brother.  A while back, Griffin was at the store with his mother, and she bought the kids some toy dinosaurs.  On the way home, the oldest boy wanted to know what type of dino he had:

Griffin:  “Mommy, is this one a Ham-eater?”

Tamara: “A what?”

Griffin:  “A Ham-eater.”

Tamara: “Oh, you mean a ‘Meat-Eater’.”

(It is of interest to note that up until this point, we pretty much only had ham for sandwich meat at the house.)

Gage is at that age where he provides a wealth of humorous quotes: 

Only recently have we been able to persuade him that Chick-Fil-A is not called “Chicken-Bell.”

When he plays basketball with brother, they shoot the ball into a “Basketball Gold.”

One of his favorite breakfast foods is ‘Yogurp.’

He loves looking at reptile pictures in books.  Most specifically ‘Al-digators’ and ‘Croc-o-dye-yules.’

Griffin has begun his first foray into joking and intentional humor.  The other day, a joke was told, at his expense.  His reply, “Everyone’s a Chamelion.”  We think he meant to say “Everyone’s a comedian,” but the mental picture we get from his version is so much funnier that we’ve started using that one ourselves.

Gage has picked up an interesting little phrase that we don’t quite know what to do about.  It is either a mild toddler curse or an expression of excitement.  We think this because he uses it both when he’s frustrated and when he’s stoked about something.  Observe:

Me:  “Gage, go pick up your toys.”

Gage:  “Oh, spanx!”

Also,

Me:  “Gage, are you ready to go to Chuck E. Cheese?”

Gage:  “Oh, spanx!  We’re goin’ to Chuck E. Cheeses!”

Finally, there’s one last interchange I’d like to leave you with.  This happened last Saturday while the boys were playing outside.  Gage came in because he had to use the potty, and after he had been in there a while, I heard him call for me.  I went into the bathroom, and the following conversation ensued:

Gage:  “I have more poo-poos to push out.”

Me:  “Do you need me to wipe you, or are you finished?”

Gage:  “I can do it by myself.  You’re not the greatest.”

(Stunned silence from me)

Gage:  “But I love you.  You’re still my dad.”

Me:  “Umm, you just call me if you need any help.”

Gage:  “OK, I just need to push the rest of my poo-poos out.”

Subtle Hints

From time to time, life feeds us subtle hints about the direction we’re heading.  Other times these hints take on a more obvious bent.

Such was the case this past Sunday when I went exploring with my two boys.  After lunch, and still in our church clothes (much to mommy’s disdain), we started working our way down Vinyard Creek.  Griffin really wanted to make it to the opposite bank, so we spent a great deal of time trying to find a downed log or group of rocks we could use to traverse the running water.  At one point, we found a place that the water ran thin enough to jump to an island in the middle, but we couldn’t get all the way to the other side.

We gathered a lot of sticks and branches to try and make our own bridge, but in the end, it only served to dam up the stream and make it flow around the edges of our makeshift overpass.  We decided to abandon our efforts and move on.

On our way back up the bank, my boys ducked under a thick log that was a little over three feet off the ground.  I elected to hop over it instead, since I didn’t want to get dirt on my knees.  Once I had wrested my girth atop the limb, I noticed that it had a pleasant springy motion to it.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of sitting in a bouncy seat, and I must admit that I got a little carried away.  I knew there was a chance that the thing could break, but I was having way too much fun to worry about such a trifling matter…that is until a solid crack echoed up and down the creek basin.

It took the log and I approximately 0.451 seconds to reach the earth beneath us (disregarding wind resistance and rounding errors for feet-to-meter conversion).  Consequently, that is the same amount of time it takes an adult male to yell out ‘HNYAAARGH’, before being abruptly cut off by contact with solid earth.  It hurt.  My shoulder hurt.  My spine hurt.  My pride hurt.  In fact, I’m still a little sore today.  But the boys certainly got a good laugh out of it.

There are a few things I learned from this whole ordeal.  Number one, like any other muscle, if the pectoral is injured enough, it can spasm.  Number two, an extremely unpleasant way to learn about a seizing muscle is to be woken out of a dead sleep by it, during an afternoon nap.  And finally, number three, I need to lose some weight.

I know you’re probably thinking, “Oh, Michael.  One-hundred and ninety pounds isn’t that bad.  It could have happened to anybody.”  To which I would respond, “Yes, but it wasn’t you on top of that plunging log.”

Life does give us subtle hints sometimes, but I’m afraid when those don’t work, there are more obvious routes that can be used to get our attention.

Uh-Oh SpaghettiO's

Authors Note:  The following is a copy of an e-mail sent to Campbell’s Soup on 2/10/2011.  I hope to get a response back, and I’ll post it when I do.

Dear Campbell's Soup,

Just yesterday, I opened a can of Alphabet SpaghettiOs for my eldest son to eat.  When I saw the label claiming 'All Letters A to Z', I had to admit that I was very skeptical.  Being experts in the alphabet, as no doubt you are, I'm sure you understand the lonely plight of the letter 'Q'.  This poor, misunderstood consonant has silently suffered years of abuse and neglect from not just the local public but nearly the entire world.

For example, did you know that 'Q' is the only letter in the alphabet that doesn't appear in the name of any of the United States?  And though it's not the only one, 'Q' has been intentionally excluded from the list as a possible first letter in any Hurricane Name.  Worse than that, this meek, unassuming letter has been entirely banned in the country of Turkey under article 222 of the Turkish penal code.  Apparently it's just not "Turkish" enough!

Since Q is usually buffered from contact with other letters by U, it's been said that “the letter Q is a useless, co-dependent letter that is utterly incapable of doing anything on its own.”  That's why I'm so happy to see that your company has chosen to take a stand and not discriminate against it!  When I saw 'Q' lying on a pile of SpaghettiOs atop my son's spoon, I was overjoyed.

Though everyone is quick to judge Q for its seeming lazy attitude, I ask you, where would James Bond be without his master of gadgets, Q?  What kind of heathens would our children grow up to be if we couldn't tell them to mind their Ps and Qs?  How would NASA know the maximum point of aerodynamic stress on a spacecraft in atmospheric flight if they couldn't calculate the Max Q?

With bold steps, like your company has taken, we may someday live in a society that no longer rejects letters based on their infrequency of use.  If more industry leaders would step forward and follow your lead, and if we could get Gottlieb to re-release the arcade game Q-bert, we could very possibly correct the unjust treatment of this gentle letter.

Thank you for all you've done to advance this worthy cause.  And, by the way, the SpaghettiOs were delicious.

Sincerely,

Michael Thomas

You can read there response here.

Beware The Teen

This past weekend, we enjoyed getting to spend some time with our nephew and niece from Northwest Arkansas.  Dexter and Alex stayed with us from Thursday to Sunday evening, much to the delight of our own children.  Our kids love their cousins and have never gotten to spend this much time with them, so we were all glad to have their company for a few days.

Now, that being said, our house is quite small, and when you go from three kids to five kids, it presents a bit of a challenge.  But beyond that, there are certain considerations that must be taken into account when you have a teen and pre-teen in the house.  They just don’t operate the same way as the little ones.

I’m not saying that they’re any harder to deal with, by any means.  Dexter, for example, is very easy to entertain if you are willing to give up your TV and gaming system.  Ever the scientific minded one, this young man religiously follows Newton’s First Law of Motion, which for our purposes states:  Every object in a state of rest (in front of the playstation) will remain at rest (in front of the playstation) unless acted upon by an outside force (like a baseball bat…or hunger pains).

This brings me to another point…food.  Did you know that the average teen/pre-teen, in a single day, can consume twice their body weight in chocolate chip or blueberry muffins?  I personally saw it happen and was amazed.  My wife looked at me on Sunday morning and said, “We’ve got to go to the store and get some more food, we’re out of stuff to fix.”  And so, on my way back through town that day I stopped at Wal-Mart and resupplied.  Upon reaching home, I brought the first bags of groceries in and went back to the truck for the others.  When I returned to the kitchen, Dex and Alex had annihilated the first load and were chewing on the empty plastic bags I had used to haul them in.  I admit that I may be exaggerating to an extent, but hold on to that mental picture because it’s not way too far off.

Though they share a penchant for ravenous appetites, pre-teen girls differ from teenage boys in most every other way.  You can’t just stick them down in front of the playstation and expect them to be content.  No, they often suffer from an affliction known as Chronic Boredom.  As you can imagine, this condition was only compounded by the fact that we’ve had such foul weather.  And in a house that has been dominated by boys for the last five years, there are just not a whole lot of ‘girly’ things around.  Thankfully we have many art supplies and she often contented herself to drawing pictures.  She’s very talented.  However, I began to notice that most drawings bore a frightening resemblance to the layout of our house, and more specifically ways that a person could escape our house and get out into the world at large.  Good thing her mother picked her up on Sunday.

Overall, we had a lot of fun with them.  We managed to pull a lot of board games out of the closet and dust them off, and though no one was keeping track, I don’t think Alex won a single time.  Still, a good time was had by all, and they were missed when they left.

New Exercise Program

I am somewhat new to the exercise scene.  In my younger days, I was so physically active that I never worried about staying fit, it just happened.  But life has a way of pushing you toward a sedentary existence, and as a result, my waistline has expanded far beyond where it should be.  I find that I now need someone to explicitly tell me the details of how and when I should be working out, and let me tell you, there’s no end of fitness guru’s willing to step up and take that position.

When I bothered to start listening, I heard about all these cool exercise programs with mysterious names.  P90X and C25K quickly funneled themselves to the top of my list, and I got excited about taking my future health into my own hands.  That feeling quickly wore off.

You see, I have a theory about people.  I think that when most people start a job, they are excited about going to work and think it’s because they want a career.  A little ways down the road, they figure out that they didn’t really want a career, they just wanted paychecks.  It’s very similar with exercise.  I don’t think people want to exercise because they like to exercise.  They exercise because they want to be thin.

With that goal in mind, I decided to try and make my own exercise program.  Like any good routine, I needed a cool name to go along with it.  Following the current trend, I made a random character generator and it gave me *22_ (That’s pronounced Splat Twenty-Two Underscore).  In retrospect, I realized my programming left out a few important limits, but decided to stick with it because it’s really unique.

The entire brunt of the Splat Twenty-Two Underscore workout is very simple.  You always walk to the mailbox.  That’s it.  It’s not complicated, it’s not complex.  Every day you walk to the mailbox.  Admittedly, those of you who live in the country and rent a P.O. Box are going to get a much bigger workout than those of us who get their mail at the curb, but that’s the way the low-fat cookie crumbles.

Now, here’s the catch, and I’m not even putting it in small print at the bottom of the page.  Like any exercise program, the real secret to the effectiveness lies in the diet.  The Splat Twenty-Two Underscore diet is as simple as the physical regimen.  Eat anything you want…but if it’s bad for you, you have to spit it out when you’re done chewing on it.  This, in part, is why I decided to keep the randomly generated name.  Splat is an accurate description of how your half-chewed food will sound as it rolls out of your mouth and hits the plate.  An added effect is that when one family member is on this unrestrictive diet, the rest of the family will probably tend to shed pounds due to a loss of appetite.  It’s a win-win situation for everyone!

As with most of my Blogging suggestions, I have no intention of giving this a whirl.  I’m sticking with C25K for the time being.  But, if anyone is crazy brave enough to give it a try, please let me know how it works out.  I’d love to get rich off this idea and quit worrying about a career.