Category: Outside the Box

Non-mainstream thoughts and musings

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Relationships In The Age Of Social Media

After a particularly good day of relaxing, I found myself feeling bad about not spending enough face time with my wife. There’s of course a limit to that, but my Attention Defecit will not allow me to just sit for any significant length of time. This causes all sorts of relationship problems for me. Because people talk small talk, and I just tune out. I’d rather be blowing up aliens, or hacking the Matrix, or skydiving, or… something. Not fixing a broken shower head or remembering to feed the cats.

But we are happier when we have face-to-face interaction with people. Isolation draws us inwards, and if you stare inwards _too_ long, you won’t like what you see. The reason for this is that we’re our own worst critic. We are intimately familiar with our own failures and shortcomings, and we know exactly where they are. We put on a facade of “cool” to convince people we’re not as messed up as we are, but the truth is, everybody’s messed up- and we know it all too well. Continue reading “Relationships In The Age Of Social Media”

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The Merits Of Sacrifice

If there’s something that become endangered in the last two generations, it’s the idea of sacrifice. We went from being the most respected and feared country in the world, to being the laughingstock of even third-world countries. I think this came about, largely, because of the elimination of sacrifice in America today.

Sacrifice /ˈsakrəˌfīs/- An act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy.

Think about it. How can you sacrifice for something “regarded as more important or worthy” when the most important thing in your life is your own comfort? When we value comfort, laziness, and entertainment above all else, we turn sacrifice into a mockery. There is no reason to give anything up.

By definition, there must be something more important and worthy to sacrifice for. We must intentionally choose what things are noble and worth pursuing. Otherwise, we fall into the default state of “whatever.” People who have changed the world did it because they had a perspective for something bigger, something greater. Continue reading “The Merits Of Sacrifice”

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State Of The Blog Address

This past November (2014) was the lowest month for page views I’ve had in more than two and a half years. I’ve had to look through my logs and see why, but I think I’ve finally figured it out: I hosted several photos here that I linked to from discussion forums (mostly computers, bikes, cars, music). These count as “hits” without people actually visiting the blog, which throws the numbers off quite a bit. Going through my 404 logs, I can see where people are still linking to photos I used, and in some cases, someone linked to it from somewhere I didn’t even know existed. This might be part of the cause. (Taking three weeks off to write a major article didn’t help, either!)

I need to go through and clean these loose links up. It will 1. help clean up the traffic stats, and 2. ease some of the load on the server.

There are also plenty more things I have in development, but they will have to wait until Christmas break, when I have time to devote to them. Hopefully you’ll think they will be worth the wait! I’m also going to be working on setting up a new website for musicians using Linux, which sadly, there are far too few of (people using Linux, and websites for them).

I’ll also try to incorporate a Twitter feed in the sidebar, which I’ve tried previously, but dropped because 1. the embed code sucked, and 2. I didn’t use Twitter that much back then. Both have changed now, so I will give it another shot. I’ve had this website up and running going on TEN YEARS at this point, so there’s nowhere to go but upwards!

I got more in me. Let’s do this.

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The Things I Want Are Not Things

(This article was originally written in July, on the 3 year mark from my accident.)

Today is the first time in a long, long time that I’ve been in any kind of pain. Normally, my surgical implants don’t bother me much. Every now and then I might get a twinge, and the scars itch a lot. But I haven’t had real pain from it in probably a year.

My work schedule is very sporadic. I spend most of the year doing documentation, gearing up for that short run where we go into production for a few months. We’re in that production run now, and I’m spending 11 hours a day on my feet, running around helping people. I actually like my job, quite a bit, and I like to think I’m pretty good at it.

But regardless, I didn’t wake up one morning and decide “Hey, I want to become a technical writer for a farm equipment factory.” It’s a job. I ended up here by the grace of God, and I’m thankful for what it provides me.

But in the end, it’s just a job. It’s not my life’s calling, any further than I’m called to provide for my family. Continue reading “The Things I Want Are Not Things”

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The Ministry Of Criticism

As human beings, we are inclined to complain. The Israelites did it, even when God was providing for their every need, and had just delivered them from Egyptian captivity. It’s in our nature to complain, argue, be offended, and critical. I mean, really, we’ve pretty much perfected it.

Unfortunately, this type of behavior is completely unproductive. You would think that people would learn this eventually, but the truth is, we just shuffle it to another location.

NOTE: I’m talking specifically about people’s thoughts, and actions as far as they’re not physically harming or illegal. We can and should criticize criminal activity. But what I’m talking about here is the “grey area” stuff. You know: the Thought Police.

Let’s say I’m offended by bad drivers. (That’s a stretch, right? Lol) I feel guilty when I’m always criticizing bad drivers. It doesn’t fix anything, and only makes my mood worse. I’m still going to act accordingly, of course… I drive defensively because of it. Because I can’t control how others drive, even if it’s stupid and borderline illegal. I’ve done my fair share of stupid.

But the irritation has to come out somewhere. Our very natures are full of selfishness, which is the root of the problem. If we can’t let it out on other drivers, maybe we take it out on our kids. Or our spouses. Or random people who are too dumb to realize that the express checkout line is not the place to be asking questions about what items qualify for a certain discount. *Sigh.* Continue reading “The Ministry Of Criticism”

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The Homeschooling Dad’s Expectations

Some of you may be familiar with the fact that my wife and I homeschool our kids. As someone who was bored stiff in public school (and still struggles with “ADD” to this day) I was perfectly fine with our kids receiving individualized schooling and delight-directed learning. It seemed like such a natural idea to me, it made me wish I’d been able to do it when I was young. Alas, I managed to survive institutionalized learning, and in the process, I even learned a few things.

However, I’ve come to realize that most men aren’t like me, and don’t really understand the benefits of schooling their kids at home. Some of them are pretty hostile to the idea, in fact. At first, I was completely befuddled by this. I mean, why wouldn’t you?

But then I started seeing why, as I learned more about how other men saw things. I spent time reading story after story about men who didn’t have a clue about the basics of education, or why certain things work and others don’t. It’s not that they were stupid, they just assumed (incorrectly) a lot of things about how learning actually happens. When you throw that in with an over-inflated sense of discipline, you get a train wreck of confusion and misinformation.

So I’m writing this to help clear up some confusion, and possibly shed some light on the subject for those who either 1. don’t get it, or 2. are trying to get their spouses to get it. Continue reading “The Homeschooling Dad’s Expectations”

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Cart Before The Horse

Coming on the heels of my last post about the Left trying to reset what is considered “normal,” I think this is probably going to be my last political post for quite a while. This decision comes for two reasons:

  1. I hate politics, and
  2. People cannot discern the difference between attacking ideologies and attacking people.

But the fact still remains that people’s right to free speech is being stamped out systematically, in the name of “feelings” and being “offensive.” I can deal with it, and I’ve said what I wanted to say. If the Social Wet Blanket Patrol tries to take me to task, I’m in good company: apparently quite a few people have been taken down for simply saying something someone disagreed with. Thankfully, however, there are ways of dealing with that.

But basically, it boils down to this: Don’t put the cart before the horse, or you’ll find yourself going nowhere.

Love individuals. But stand up for what is historically best for the community. Don’t allow people to destroy what is good for something that is a mockery of what God has designed.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled program.

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Idiocracy Is Nigh Upon Us

There are a few things in today’s society that need explaining, for those who haven’t been around long enough to understand them.

  • The world isn’t fair. It’s never going to be fair.
  • Societal norm is not based on emotions.
  • You cannot change other people, you can only change yourself.
  • Reason and Logic don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on.
  • Trying to force the vast majority of people to accept what is obviously and observably not true is destined to fail.

I can only hope and pray with every fiber of my being that the world is not as messed up as the Social Justice Inquisition makes it out to be. I cringe to think what will happen once hypocrites and emotionally crippled people are calling the shots in this country. (disclaimer: it probably already is) Continue reading “Idiocracy Is Nigh Upon Us”

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The Prodigal Son Gamer

Recently, in one of their Netflix binge-watching marathons, my kids discovered a show called Video Game High School. Most of what they watch is aimed at younger teens, mostly Disney (teenage soap opera) drama and comedy. This looked pretty promising at first, but as the series ran on, I started not liking what I saw.

The show centers around a kid who unintentionally ends up at an elite high school for competitive video gamers. It’s filled with the usual action and drama, but I guess I was expecting more of the traditional cheesy comedy. I ended up pulling the plug when the show’s main antagonist started dropping 4-letter words (cause my pre-teen kids were watching it too).

The problem is, in typical drama show fashion, VGHS shows unrealistic caricatures of what real gamers are like. If you didn’t know better and only went off of what the show presents, you’d think all skilled gamers are egotistical jerks, they all have some weird accent/slang dialect, and run in weird cliques. But from my experience, the people that have the dedication to drag a computer setup to a hotel ballroom somewhere just to play video games for fun and prizes are much, much nicer than that.

Twenty years ago, I used to be pretty big into gaming. I had a dedicated LAN party rig, and I went to competitions a few times a year. I gave that up to be able to raise a family shortly thereafter, and for the most part, I never really got back into it. Here’s a shot of my last custom LAN rig: Continue reading “The Prodigal Son Gamer”

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Homeschooling The Delight-Directed Way

My wife and I homeschool our kids. I think it’s an awesome way for kids to reach their potential, and I wish I had been able to do it when I was young. There’s a lot of people leaning towards homeschooling now (thank you, Common Core…) but all of these new “home teachers” have questions on whether they’re doing it “right” or not.

My wife and I have gradually over the last few years gravitated towards something called “Delight Directed” learning. This is essentially what it sounds like: we use things the kids are already excited about to teach things they need to know. As it turns out, you can work math, science, history and language into just about anything if you look at it long enough. So far, it’s working very well.

But the question we get asked the most is “How can you let your kids learn whatever they want, and still have them be effectively learning what they need to know? What if they get out into the world and just fail miserably?”

Understandably, this is based on fear of failure, for you and your children. Nobody wants their kids to fail, and nobody wants to be a failure. However, the fear of delight-directed learning is both unfounded, and counterproductive. To bust the myth that kids need tons of structure to learn, we will need to dissect it piece-by-piece. Continue reading “Homeschooling The Delight-Directed Way”