A Thought about Colors

Colors are full of themselves.

lol

Love Madison 2010

In Madison, I attend Blackhawk Church. Not last weekend, but two weekends ago (the weekend of Sunday May 2nd), Blackhawk had their second annual church "service" called Love Madison. Instead of having a traditional church service (in a building, singing songs, praying, listening to a sermon), about 2,700 of us went out into the community and volunteered our time in many, many different ways. I am told that there were over 100 service projects.

My project involved removing invasive species (Buckthorn and Garlic Mustard) along a trail in Verona, a city 20 minutes southwest of Madison. We had about 25 people in our group. The job was supposed to last four hours, but we worked so quickly that we got done an hour early.

Here are some action shots:

So much for Protecting My Identity

A few months ago, I wrote about how I created a second checking account to use for online purchases from websites that I did not completely trust with my (sole) credit card information. The idea is to keep this account empty at all times unless I am going to make an online purchase from a shady site.

Well...I do not make online purchases that often, especially from websites that I do not trust. So today, Wells Fargo decided to close my second checking account because it was inactive and without a balance.

Do you see the irony?

Now I have to waste my time to create the account again (and get a straight answer the conditions under which an account is automatically closed). The whole point of getting this account was to save me the time and money involved with the theft of my identity. Of course I would rather have an account mistakenly closed than have my identity stolen, but I am not happy that this is costing me time when the whole point is that it is supposed to be saving it.

When I opened this account, the Wells Fargo employee told me that I had to transfer $100 into the account, but also said that I could transfer it back right away. No one ever told me that I needed to do anything to keep the account from automatically closing.

This is not the first time that Wells Fargo has neglected to give me all the pertinent information. Do I have any hope that it will be the last?

Different Beliefs

People who know me would say that I like to argue. I think that "argue" has such a negative connotation. I prefer either "debate" (which sounds formal) or "discuss" (which sounds informal). When having a discussion, the ultimate goal is to convince others that your beliefs are correct and that they should have the same beliefs. However, there is a much is much easier goal to achieve that is also worth the effort.

Everyone knows what are the two most controversial topics: religion and politics. I enjoying having discussions on both topics and I hope that my thoughts below will help you to enjoy them (or at least not hate and avoid them).

If you want to convince someone else of your beliefs, it is probably necessary for this person to also understand your beliefs. More specifically, this person needs to know why you believe the way you do. Based on this observation, I find it productive to understand why others have the beliefs that they do. This does not need to involve any changes in my beliefs. In return, people are likely to reciprocate and try to understand why I have my beliefs. This puts them one step closer to believing the why that I do, but obtaining this goal has another benefit as well. If you know why people have their beliefs, then you can better formulate an argument that will be convincing to them.

At this point, I would love to give an example of a discussion that I have had where the conversation not only ended with everyone retaining their original beliefs but also with everyone understanding why others had their beliefs. Unfortunately, I do not have an good example that I feel completely comfortable sharing online. If you think you have a good example, please share it in the comments.

My Favorite Season

My favorite season is summer. I enjoy wearing less clothes (does that sound bad?) and I would rather be too hot than too cold.

Shannon's favorite season is fall, which is part of the reason that we are getting married in October. Now, you do not have to agree with your spouse about everything. For example, my favorite flavor of ice cream is chocolate, Shannon very much dislikes chocolate, and I have no plans on changing my favorite flavor of ice cream.

However, I have decided that I would be willing to change my favorite season from summer to not winter. Why? Because I am so elated winter is over and spring has begin (not officially, but actual weather wise).

I only know of one plus that winter has over the other seasons. In winter, no thought is needed about what coat to wear (if any). Everyday, you wear your winter coat...no questions asked. Yesterday, in my blinded love of spring's arrival, I left without a coat and had to walk in the rain twice. At least rain drops are not painful like the bitter cold is.

Skateboarders

In the university community, we have our fair share of skateboarders. Whenever I walk past them, I always enjoy watching them attempting to do a trick. Do you know what I (almost) always see?...They don't land the trick. I would say that I only see a trick landed no more than 10% of the time. To me, that says that these skateboarders should do easier tricks. I mean, how could you possibly enjoy doing something like that when you fail so often?

If you are a skateboarder, please respond with your thoughts :)

Thoughts on my Safety

Last weekend, Shannon and I went to a pre-marriage retreat. It was not the most fun I have ever had, but here is something funny that came out of it.

While doing an activity to access the amount of genuineness in our relationship, I was asked to respond the following statement with a "Yes", "No", or "?":

My partner makes me feel safer with him/her than with any other person.

My first thought was about my physical safety, so my response was "No"...I feel equally safe with almost all people. Later that day, we were joking about my response and only remembered the beginning of the statement:

My partner makes me feel safer...

Then I thought that my answer should be "Yes". Assume that someone was shooting at me. If Shannon is with me, then there is a small (very small ;) ) chance that a bullet would hit her instead of me.

But that thought was followed by another. If someone is shooting at us, then I am in more danger because I will be putting myself in the line of fire so that I get shot instead of Shannon.

Therefore, I concluded that "my partner does not make me feel safer with her than with any other person" because when I am with her, I am responsible for her safety and my own.

...married life is going to be dangerous :(