On the car radio there was a small tribute to Johnny Cash. The “Man in Black” was to have just turned 75. As great an influence in country music as he was, you likely know all you want to about Johnny. There’s a ton of stuff on the web about him if you don’t, and, there’s the movie “I walk the line” which I really liked, and found pretty true to form. That got me thinking about birthdays, but then I find out it was my uncle Axels birthday on February 28. Uncle Axel is 95 today. Still in pretty good health, he is one more in a long line of relatives who live a full and happy life. Axel distinguished himself by his incredible talents in of fully machining working models of cars and steam engines from raw metals. Some of his work can be seen at the Creative clock museum in Eugene. I will see if I can post some pictures on our site.

Cliches are commonplace, and used by perhaps everyone. Some can be used to improve on an intended mood, or point the speaker is trying to make. Most are usually just dull and thrown out there as filler, rather than a contributory phrase. Yet some cliches just make me cringe. They are the ones that you just know they are coming before the speaker has even gotten them out of their mouth. And once they have said them, all of what they said before has just been lessened by what is usually their closing statement. We all have these cliches that simply annoy us. Here are three that I find particularly useless. (You can view them after the jump, I don’t even want them on the front page. Continue reading →

Valentines day is today. I know its a great holiday, and it can be used to help put some focus on whatever personal relationships that might be important to you, but anyone who puts some thought into the matter is going to have questions about at least some portion of this “romantic” day that we have put on to our calendars.

I’m not thinking about the whole Hallmark issue, and how they profit from all this, that is just too easy. And flowers, well, flowers are nice and all.
But currently my mind has been occupied by chocolate.
This past Sunday, our pastor gave an impassioned message about the plights of the enslaved and impoverished children used to harvest the cocoa we seem to consume in abundance. As she made her points, the portion of my brain that houses my conservative mindset objected. If we are providing work to depressed economies, that is a good thing I reasoned. After discusstions with my more liberal and open-minded wife, I was no longer convinced that my position was completely right, and I set about some self validation. I have now succeeded…. in completely reversing that position. Continue reading →