Commercials that I enjoy hearing are not from today. In my effort to avoid the commercials today in podcasts and radio I came up with my own daily listening podcast. It has devotionals and old-time radio episodes that help distract me and educate me and lead me to thinking about things that I want to think about.
It's funny listening to old-time radio. In the episodes from the 1930s, 40s, 1950s I hear commercials about cigarettes, tires that move water away like windshield wipers, and soaps that clean the floors to a shine without any rubbing. It's amazing!
But I enjoy the commercials from 70 or 80 years ago because they're so different from yet so much like today.
Use this and you will be better! Use this and you won't have any bitter aftertaste! Get a shine without having to expend any effort. It's amazing!
Marketing hasn't changed a whole lot in 100 years. I'm hoping that virtual reality will exert some influence of hope and change, but I don't know that it will.
We'll see...
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
Thought we were paid ~
We have had two foreign exchange students come and stay in our home. One was from Spain. One was from China. The one from Spain was a girl. The one from China was a boy.
Both were interesting experiences that lead to very interesting outcomes in our family. We ended up going and visiting the girl student's family in Spain and spent almost 2 weeks staying with them and touring around Spain. It was amazing!
The parents of the exchange student from China actually came to our house a couple of times toward the end of the school year. He was having challenges concentrating on school and they came to help him focus as well as came to celebrate his graduation from high school.
The exchange student from China was the more challenging experience. He would actually try to hide from me and act like I didn't exist. The funniest part about it was he would walk by my desk upstairs on his way to go and see one of my sons and he would actually hide behind the corner of all and then while I was looking at something that the screen or keyboard he would try to sneak by without me seeing him. It was very funny I finally actually asked him why he hid from me and avoided me and why he did not even talk to me in the mornings when he was preparing for school and eating breakfast and when I came home where he came home and he couldn't avoid seeing. He mumbled a couple of answers four times and while he was doing that he made excuses and would not even look to me. I had explained to him that he was a guest in our home and that the student exchange program was an exchange and not just somebody living in our house.
At that point I felt a little bit froggy so I asked them if he realized that we were not getting any payment for him to stay with us. The look of shock on his face as he shook his head was disappointing. He explained that he thought that we were being paid and that he had no responsibility to talk or deal with us.
I explained to him that he was not renting a room, that he was a guest in our home, and that as a guest in our home he was being disrespectful when he avoided me and hid from me. I told him that we had invited him to be a part of our family in an effort to help them, and that everything else we were doing, from asking him to watch movies with us to taking him places to talking to him was an effort to help him learn and understand English and our culture a little bit better.
I don't know that he ever understood that. When his mother came mid-school year she was very focused on helping their only child pass high school. Which was much less rigorous than Chinese high school.
When both the mother and father came to celebrate his graduation from high school there is still this distance from him but the parents were very open and very appreciative of everything that we had tried to teach him.
I don't know if it's the difference between boys and girls, but he was not very receptive to being part of us and our family. Our exchange student from Spain was very receptive and handled us as best as she could. We're a different kind of family, and there's a lot of different energy running around in our house. She adapted well to it and actually seem to do pretty good.
If you ever have occasion to have an exchange student make sure that they understand if you're being paid to host them or not. That seemed to make a huge difference in our experiences with our exchange students. God bless America for encouraging exchanges like this!
Both were interesting experiences that lead to very interesting outcomes in our family. We ended up going and visiting the girl student's family in Spain and spent almost 2 weeks staying with them and touring around Spain. It was amazing!
The parents of the exchange student from China actually came to our house a couple of times toward the end of the school year. He was having challenges concentrating on school and they came to help him focus as well as came to celebrate his graduation from high school.
The exchange student from China was the more challenging experience. He would actually try to hide from me and act like I didn't exist. The funniest part about it was he would walk by my desk upstairs on his way to go and see one of my sons and he would actually hide behind the corner of all and then while I was looking at something that the screen or keyboard he would try to sneak by without me seeing him. It was very funny I finally actually asked him why he hid from me and avoided me and why he did not even talk to me in the mornings when he was preparing for school and eating breakfast and when I came home where he came home and he couldn't avoid seeing. He mumbled a couple of answers four times and while he was doing that he made excuses and would not even look to me. I had explained to him that he was a guest in our home and that the student exchange program was an exchange and not just somebody living in our house.
At that point I felt a little bit froggy so I asked them if he realized that we were not getting any payment for him to stay with us. The look of shock on his face as he shook his head was disappointing. He explained that he thought that we were being paid and that he had no responsibility to talk or deal with us.
I explained to him that he was not renting a room, that he was a guest in our home, and that as a guest in our home he was being disrespectful when he avoided me and hid from me. I told him that we had invited him to be a part of our family in an effort to help them, and that everything else we were doing, from asking him to watch movies with us to taking him places to talking to him was an effort to help him learn and understand English and our culture a little bit better.
I don't know that he ever understood that. When his mother came mid-school year she was very focused on helping their only child pass high school. Which was much less rigorous than Chinese high school.
When both the mother and father came to celebrate his graduation from high school there is still this distance from him but the parents were very open and very appreciative of everything that we had tried to teach him.
I don't know if it's the difference between boys and girls, but he was not very receptive to being part of us and our family. Our exchange student from Spain was very receptive and handled us as best as she could. We're a different kind of family, and there's a lot of different energy running around in our house. She adapted well to it and actually seem to do pretty good.
If you ever have occasion to have an exchange student make sure that they understand if you're being paid to host them or not. That seemed to make a huge difference in our experiences with our exchange students. God bless America for encouraging exchanges like this!
Thursday, February 3, 2022
YouVersion Bible app ~
So in an effort to grow closer to my wife and grow closer to God I have been doing devotionals in the EU version Bible have for about a year.
The devotionals are quick little blurbs about a lesson about the Bible and then some Bible verses. They're written by YouVersion staff people or by other big Christian names like TD Jakes, Craig Groschel, and others. And you can do them in a social fashion with other people. I haven't really involved too many people, the only person I've involved is my wife. She has different devotionals going on with friends and family all over the place like women do.
But my goal is to do something with her that we could do at different times without being tied down to a specific time and day every day of the week but also have something in common to talk about in relation to God and the Bible. In that respect it's been a huge success!
We don't talk about the devotionals a lot, but when we do we know what we've been reading and we can relate to each other in respect to what the devotional said. It's also fun to pose different things and encourage different thought as we go through each devotional.
I've enjoyed it. Please give it a try! You can find the YouVersion Bible app at this address:
https://youversion.com/products/
Enjoy!
The devotionals are quick little blurbs about a lesson about the Bible and then some Bible verses. They're written by YouVersion staff people or by other big Christian names like TD Jakes, Craig Groschel, and others. And you can do them in a social fashion with other people. I haven't really involved too many people, the only person I've involved is my wife. She has different devotionals going on with friends and family all over the place like women do.
But my goal is to do something with her that we could do at different times without being tied down to a specific time and day every day of the week but also have something in common to talk about in relation to God and the Bible. In that respect it's been a huge success!
We don't talk about the devotionals a lot, but when we do we know what we've been reading and we can relate to each other in respect to what the devotional said. It's also fun to pose different things and encourage different thought as we go through each devotional.
I've enjoyed it. Please give it a try! You can find the YouVersion Bible app at this address:
https://youversion.com/products/
Enjoy!
Friday, January 28, 2022
Wordscapes strategy ~
So here is one of the things that I do to reduce frustration in my life, small frustration that it is:
I play this game called Wordscapes on my iPad almost every afternoon or evening. I do it so that I can say that I play games and also to exercise my brain at the same time with the cool word game on my device.
It offers little awards when you start out if you been away for a day or more. And one of the things it offers is a present that you have to tap on to collect. It gives you coins in different amounts, 10, 15, 20 or even 30 or 40 points. But it always gives you a choice of three boxes when it opens that window.
When I first started playing this game I would try to pick the box with the most coins in it and I would always end up getting 10 coins. Every once in a while I'd hit something bigger but usually only got 10 coins. I started to feel like this result happened because I kept picking a different box and it would be different every day.
To reduce my frustration when starting the game I started just picking the same present box in the same position every day. I've done that for more than a year and I've had a varied response from the app. Sometimes I get 10 coins, sometimes I get 20 or 30 points. But it's always changing and never the same even though I keep picking the same exact box on the screen.
Silly, I know. But that is one of the ways that I reduce friction and frustration in my life. Even though I like variety I tend to find a pattern and stick to it. Pretty funny!
I play this game called Wordscapes on my iPad almost every afternoon or evening. I do it so that I can say that I play games and also to exercise my brain at the same time with the cool word game on my device.
It offers little awards when you start out if you been away for a day or more. And one of the things it offers is a present that you have to tap on to collect. It gives you coins in different amounts, 10, 15, 20 or even 30 or 40 points. But it always gives you a choice of three boxes when it opens that window.
When I first started playing this game I would try to pick the box with the most coins in it and I would always end up getting 10 coins. Every once in a while I'd hit something bigger but usually only got 10 coins. I started to feel like this result happened because I kept picking a different box and it would be different every day.
To reduce my frustration when starting the game I started just picking the same present box in the same position every day. I've done that for more than a year and I've had a varied response from the app. Sometimes I get 10 coins, sometimes I get 20 or 30 points. But it's always changing and never the same even though I keep picking the same exact box on the screen.
Silly, I know. But that is one of the ways that I reduce friction and frustration in my life. Even though I like variety I tend to find a pattern and stick to it. Pretty funny!
Saturday, January 22, 2022
Words mean things - Limit ~
Words mean things. It's important that we keep definitions of words straight so that when we communicate with each other we can actually understand what other people are saying.
I understand how language changes over time and the English language is changing rapidly because of all the influences on it. Multiple nations and people with different backgrounds speak and they bring their own flavor and flair to words. Marketers adjust the meaning of words and shorten them in order to fit more words in copy and hopefully communicate a feeling more rapidly than the next guy. People try to be cool by saying stuff like "suss" for suspicious and that sort of thing in an effort to confuse parents and adults and have their own little sense of control over what they're communicating.
But words mean things. As I drive around our country I see signs everywhere with the words "speed limit" on them. "Limit" has a very clear definition. It's the point at which you're not supposed to go beyond. And yet we have changed the meaning of that word to where when we see a speed limit sign that says 55 everybody pretty much understands if you're doing 65 or 70 probably won't get charged with breaking the law. So now limit doesn't mean limit anymore.
While that doesn't seem like a big deal, and everybody does it so really doesn't matter, if we all started to interpret the word "stop" to me slow down a little bit look around and make sure there's no police and keep rolling through the intersection more people will die in car accidents. (My Dad would say that stop doesn't mean 'step toe on oedal') But many people already do that so that's a bad example.
"Stimulus" is a word that has a very clear definition. And yet the way it's used today is leading us down a path of financial irresponsibility and enslavement to other countries and people.
"Infrastructure" has a very clear meaning when speaking about a community. Roads, pipes, electric and communication lines, those sorts of things are infrastructure. But when we allow politicians to corrupt the word by saying that sex studies for underage homosexuals is "infrastructure" then we have big big problems.
Keep that in mind the next time you see a speed limit sign. The more you allow little language changes to morph and to let words that have very clear meanings be undermined the less certainty and trust you will have in what people are saying and doing around you. Which will lead us into a low trust society, which is a different subject.
I understand how language changes over time and the English language is changing rapidly because of all the influences on it. Multiple nations and people with different backgrounds speak and they bring their own flavor and flair to words. Marketers adjust the meaning of words and shorten them in order to fit more words in copy and hopefully communicate a feeling more rapidly than the next guy. People try to be cool by saying stuff like "suss" for suspicious and that sort of thing in an effort to confuse parents and adults and have their own little sense of control over what they're communicating.
But words mean things. As I drive around our country I see signs everywhere with the words "speed limit" on them. "Limit" has a very clear definition. It's the point at which you're not supposed to go beyond. And yet we have changed the meaning of that word to where when we see a speed limit sign that says 55 everybody pretty much understands if you're doing 65 or 70 probably won't get charged with breaking the law. So now limit doesn't mean limit anymore.
While that doesn't seem like a big deal, and everybody does it so really doesn't matter, if we all started to interpret the word "stop" to me slow down a little bit look around and make sure there's no police and keep rolling through the intersection more people will die in car accidents. (My Dad would say that stop doesn't mean 'step toe on oedal') But many people already do that so that's a bad example.
"Stimulus" is a word that has a very clear definition. And yet the way it's used today is leading us down a path of financial irresponsibility and enslavement to other countries and people.
"Infrastructure" has a very clear meaning when speaking about a community. Roads, pipes, electric and communication lines, those sorts of things are infrastructure. But when we allow politicians to corrupt the word by saying that sex studies for underage homosexuals is "infrastructure" then we have big big problems.
Keep that in mind the next time you see a speed limit sign. The more you allow little language changes to morph and to let words that have very clear meanings be undermined the less certainty and trust you will have in what people are saying and doing around you. Which will lead us into a low trust society, which is a different subject.
Sunday, January 16, 2022
Never clean anything ~
This is a line from the show keeps echoing in my head.
It's a line from a Netflix show called "Emily in Paris". As a good husband I watch modern girly shows like this with my wife because she puts up with all my action adventure and science-fiction entertainment. I find that watching them is good for our relationship and he gives me insights into hers and others minds and drivers.
It was a fun show! While I don't agree with everything that Emily did in the show it was fun to see the way they created situations and then the offbeat and creative ways that they had Emily handle them. And marketing and promoting in the fashion industry is so outside of my realm that it was entertaining.
But one of the guys, the chef that lived in the apartment below hers in the same building that she lived in, said a line that keeps echoing in my head. He had fixed a meal and he was giving her the cast-iron skillet that he had used to fix it. He was washing the skillet out. And he told her never use soap in the skillet! Then he explained that the cast-iron skillet was a lot like the French in his opinion: we never really clean anything out, we just kind of scrape off the last layer and start again.
That line of philosophy is interesting to me. It's a generalization of a country and its people. But it's also a generalization for how we can handle things. We do something, it's either good or bad or not anything, and then we scrape off that layer and get to where the pan is usable for the next thing, and prepare something else in it.
It kind of goes against the idea that we're always building and growing. I struggle with the saying that is very common nowadays in my circles that if you're not growing you're dying. Because I disagree with it so much. But the idea of being useful for multiple things and events and situations just by cleaning off the last layer without any soap and without totally removing it is appealing to me. I tend to approach life like that. I'll do something, it will be great, I keep a residue of it with me, and then I go on to the next thing. If I keep the whole thing with me the residue can be comforting and adds flavor to whatever else I do. But I continue on with that new layer and I never really do clean anything out completely.
Something different to think about.
It's a line from a Netflix show called "Emily in Paris". As a good husband I watch modern girly shows like this with my wife because she puts up with all my action adventure and science-fiction entertainment. I find that watching them is good for our relationship and he gives me insights into hers and others minds and drivers.
It was a fun show! While I don't agree with everything that Emily did in the show it was fun to see the way they created situations and then the offbeat and creative ways that they had Emily handle them. And marketing and promoting in the fashion industry is so outside of my realm that it was entertaining.
But one of the guys, the chef that lived in the apartment below hers in the same building that she lived in, said a line that keeps echoing in my head. He had fixed a meal and he was giving her the cast-iron skillet that he had used to fix it. He was washing the skillet out. And he told her never use soap in the skillet! Then he explained that the cast-iron skillet was a lot like the French in his opinion: we never really clean anything out, we just kind of scrape off the last layer and start again.
That line of philosophy is interesting to me. It's a generalization of a country and its people. But it's also a generalization for how we can handle things. We do something, it's either good or bad or not anything, and then we scrape off that layer and get to where the pan is usable for the next thing, and prepare something else in it.
It kind of goes against the idea that we're always building and growing. I struggle with the saying that is very common nowadays in my circles that if you're not growing you're dying. Because I disagree with it so much. But the idea of being useful for multiple things and events and situations just by cleaning off the last layer without any soap and without totally removing it is appealing to me. I tend to approach life like that. I'll do something, it will be great, I keep a residue of it with me, and then I go on to the next thing. If I keep the whole thing with me the residue can be comforting and adds flavor to whatever else I do. But I continue on with that new layer and I never really do clean anything out completely.
Something different to think about.
Monday, January 10, 2022
Encounter meditations ~
Encounter meditations
As a Christian of always been hesitant to meditate. Because I was taught and saw meditation being done by blue new age people and advocated to five some strange dudes I shied away from for a long time. The whole concept of emptying your mind was appealing to me that after reading up on new age things I was afraid of what would fill my mind once I got identity. Following their track anyways.
In the past few years I revisited the decision to not meditate formally. One of the podcast posts that I listen to for a while was the shilling for the calm. The column packages a lot of him him meditations of daily meditations that are different every day. They package in some music and some relaxing ambience stuff which time into. I have some bedtime stories and other things that I don't really use them but every once in the hall was no one just to relax not to go to sleep.
But the call map is very much a self oriented thing. They talk about the person being the way to change. And as a Christian life use the call map I feel somewhat guilty at times because I feel like I might be doing the wrong thing. But then I am careful and don't fall into thinking that I shouldn't fall into. Hopefully.
A while back I found the encounter podcast. When I founded it was called encountering peace. But they have since shortened it. It's a Christian meditation podcast!
I was skeptical when I gave it a try. It's very relaxing and contemplative, which means it's too slow and sleepy for my wife. But I enjoy it! The host focuses on Scripture and messages from the Bible and does a good job repeating it so that I get a verse or thought that I can remember throughout the day and that it helps me. They have an app also that I use, though it seems to drain my battery a little bit too much if I forget to exit it completely.
But I've enjoyed doing the Encounter meditations as a devotion thing in the mornings for a couple of months now. From what I've learned prayer is talking to God and meditation is us listening to God. I don't know if that's too "new age" are not, but it has helped me slow down and take 15 minutes to listen to God. And the messages in the Encounter meditations have many times been right on what I needed to hear for the day.
Like today's: talk about a runner that her dream was to compete and win this big big race, she won every other race leading up to it that year. She got to the big one that she really wanted to win and was in second with the person in front of her quite a bit in front of her but still within sight. The person running in front of her stumbled and from exhaustion fell to the ground. And instead of just running by her this young lady stopped, helped the other runner stand again, and then helped her cross the finish line. That's a message that I like because I've tried to put the "I am second message" from Jesus into action in my life. It helped me focus on that idea rather than be angry about something recently.
So I'm enjoying the Encounter meditations. If you want to check them out and follow the links below. Enjoy!
As a Christian of always been hesitant to meditate. Because I was taught and saw meditation being done by blue new age people and advocated to five some strange dudes I shied away from for a long time. The whole concept of emptying your mind was appealing to me that after reading up on new age things I was afraid of what would fill my mind once I got identity. Following their track anyways.
In the past few years I revisited the decision to not meditate formally. One of the podcast posts that I listen to for a while was the shilling for the calm. The column packages a lot of him him meditations of daily meditations that are different every day. They package in some music and some relaxing ambience stuff which time into. I have some bedtime stories and other things that I don't really use them but every once in the hall was no one just to relax not to go to sleep.
But the call map is very much a self oriented thing. They talk about the person being the way to change. And as a Christian life use the call map I feel somewhat guilty at times because I feel like I might be doing the wrong thing. But then I am careful and don't fall into thinking that I shouldn't fall into. Hopefully.
A while back I found the encounter podcast. When I founded it was called encountering peace. But they have since shortened it. It's a Christian meditation podcast!
I was skeptical when I gave it a try. It's very relaxing and contemplative, which means it's too slow and sleepy for my wife. But I enjoy it! The host focuses on Scripture and messages from the Bible and does a good job repeating it so that I get a verse or thought that I can remember throughout the day and that it helps me. They have an app also that I use, though it seems to drain my battery a little bit too much if I forget to exit it completely.
But I've enjoyed doing the Encounter meditations as a devotion thing in the mornings for a couple of months now. From what I've learned prayer is talking to God and meditation is us listening to God. I don't know if that's too "new age" are not, but it has helped me slow down and take 15 minutes to listen to God. And the messages in the Encounter meditations have many times been right on what I needed to hear for the day.
Like today's: talk about a runner that her dream was to compete and win this big big race, she won every other race leading up to it that year. She got to the big one that she really wanted to win and was in second with the person in front of her quite a bit in front of her but still within sight. The person running in front of her stumbled and from exhaustion fell to the ground. And instead of just running by her this young lady stopped, helped the other runner stand again, and then helped her cross the finish line. That's a message that I like because I've tried to put the "I am second message" from Jesus into action in my life. It helped me focus on that idea rather than be angry about something recently.
So I'm enjoying the Encounter meditations. If you want to check them out and follow the links below. Enjoy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)