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Note to Pat Fizgerald - the saying “Never take points off the board” is true. After watching what is arguably the worst team in college football hang on to beat you, I know this is true. NU had over 500 yards of offense last night in its loss to Duke, but only came away with 14 points. NU kicked a field goal at the end of the first half on a 4th and 7, but there was a running into the kicker 5 yard penalty. Instead of leaving the points on the board, he went for it on 4th and 3 and didn’t make it. Then, in the second half NU was in the red zone twice at the end of the game and had to go for it both times. A field goal would have tied it. Two field goals would have won it because Duke missed a PAT earlier.

Even with 125 yards of penalties, 2 turnovers, and countless other errors, NU still had a chance to win. Too bad the coaches had to kill that chance. Hopefully this is a lesson for him, but it doesn’t seem like he should be learning these lessons at this level.

After reading Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, I feel like I could vote for this man for president. I think the book did a good job of laying out his overall goals and tendencies as a legislator. He seems to be reasonable on most issues, taking a stance that would be similar to my own. There are a few things that he brought up in the book that stick out to me as reasons to vote for him.
* He was against the war from the beginning. This doesn’t mean that he has all the answers, but he has the credibility to say it was always a bad idea. Not many of the candidates can say that, especially Hillary. This gives him credibility on the major issue of the campaign.
* He is against the current policies of the Bush administration to cut taxes on the rich. He makes a good point that it is unheard of for a president to cut taxes and go to war at the same time. If we really are at war, then we need to pay the price as a nation.
* He is a reasonable man from reasonable beginnings. Unlike most recent presidents, he hasn’t lived a luxurious life up to this point. Compare that to Al Gore and George W. Bush - two prep school millionaire’s kids. As a black man, he has faced discrimination. As a son of a divorced couple, he has seen the pain of a broken family. He has lived overseas. This is a bit different from our current president. I saw an interview on the Daily Show with Joe Biden (about 5 mins in) where he talked about how George Bush, during his first term, asked Senator Biden to brief him on Europe before his first trip. Biden thought this was his first trip as _president_, but turns out it was his first trip ever. How did he ever get elected? And to think people say Obama doesn’t have enough experience. Bush didn’t have enough experience to lead a class trip to Europe.

The chapter on faith was a little weak. I think that he has reasonable perspectives on faith, but the impact of his faith on his life seems very general and not as personal as I might expect. He describes how he became involved in his church due to his involvement in community organizing. It almost has a feeling of being something that completes his image as opposed to something that is the driving force behind what he does. But he is not running for high priest, but rather president.

After reading the book, I wonder if the United States is really going to be able to elect a black man, or a woman, or a Mormon as the next president. I think we are ready, and this will be an interesting election - with race, gender, and religion less of a factor than ever before.

Finally, it seems that the country is headed for a time when we need to invest heavily in domestic programs - education, infrastructure, the environment - and we need to figure out Iraq. Obama looks like he has plans for these areas that will work. We’ll have to see how the race goes.

In the 11 years that Laura and I have been married, we have owned countless phones. Does anyone else have this problem? Think back to when you were young, how many phones did your parents buy during your childhood?

I can remember owning the following phones:

• a GE phone with a digital answering machine and a windy cord
• our first cordless phone, forget the model
• a GE cordless phone, I think we still have this one (900 MHZ)
• a Panasonic cordless phone with a base station. Forget the specifics.
• a set of Motorola cordless phones with a single base station (2.4 GHZ)
• a set of GE cordless phones with a single base station (2.4 GHZ)
• a set of V-Tech cordless phones with a single base station with answering system (2.4 GHZ)
• and our final system, a Uniden DECT6.0

All of these phones except the original GE cordless phone have stopped working. The Motorola’s buttons stopped working. The GE made a terrible noise 5 seconds into every call. The V-Tech made a terrible noise every time the caller id was activated during a call. This final system is supposed to take care of WiFi interference, we’ll see about that. All we wanted was a phone that would have an extender base station (no plug in the kitchen), no answering system (we have voice mail), no interference with our WiFi, a speakerphone, easy to use caller ID callback, and a message waiting indicator. It seems all phones are missing at least one feature, usually the message waiting indicator for the voicemail.

Now, how about cell phones?

• my first cell phone, for work, a Motorola TAC with Cellular ONE
• Laura’s first cell phone, a Qualcomm with PrimeCo
• my second cell phone, a Nokia 5100 with Cingular
• Laura’s second cell phone, a Nokia 5200 with Cingular
• my third cell phone, some crappy flip phone from a Korean manufacturer with U.S. Cellular
• Laura’s third cell phone, a Sony/Ericson that looked like a fluke worm with U.S. Cellular
• my fourth cell phone, a Motorola flip phone with U.S. Cellular
• my fifth cell phone, a Nokia candy bar model with T-Mobile
• Laura’s fourth cell phone, a Nokia with TracFone
• my sixth cell phone, a Sidekick II with T-Mobile

So that’s 8 land phones and 10 cell phones in 11 years. Yikes. I guess our demand for the latest technology drives the manufacturers to make disposable electronics with lots of features, none of them done right. Maybe we should have an old Ma Bell rotary phone in the basement for when the power goes out.

My iPod died this weekend, and while googling for ideas I came across this site. I gave it a try and used a 3×5 card instead of a business card, and it seems to be working.

Let’s see if it holds up, but it saved me plunking down some cash for a new one, hopefully until the next generation of iPods come out.

I read an article on boingboing last year about buying cheap eyeglasses online, which led me to the glassy eyes blog. I promptly went to zenni and ordered a $12.95 pair of glasses, throwing in the sunshades for $4. Laura ordered a pair as well. The glasses arrived a few weeks later, but I found that they were a bit strong, and I think it was due to bad measurements.

The process is pretty simple, you obtain your prescription from your optician, which they are required to give you by law. However, they don’t give you one piece of information - the pupillary distance. This is the distance between your pupils and is used to properly center the lens in the glasses. The first time we measured this, I had Laura do it. She tried to hold a ruler up to my eyes and “eyeball” it. I think this was the source of the error.

I then came up with a great idea. I held up a ruler to my eyes and took a photo of myself straight on. Then, I downloaded the picture to my laptop and blew up the photo and measured the distance from there. Turns out I was about 5mm off the first time. I ordered a second pair and they feel much better - this time I ordered a deluxe frame with a magnetic sunshade and higher index lenses - $45. With prices like this you can afford to make a few mistakes, and it’s great to have a few extra pairs just in case or to mix things up a bit. Give it a try.

Joy at Work, by Dennis Bakke is the story of energy giant AES and their unique way of doing business. Bakke was an original founder and served as CEO until 2002, when he retired after the company’s stock went down the tubes during the Enron scandal. I admit that I had a very hard time taking most of what he said seriously once I knew that he was forced out of his own company, but now that I’ve read the entire book, I think that he spoke with credibility and authenticity in the book.

The last page of the book, and on Bakke’s site, he lists his Top 10. Number 2 is “The purpose of business is not to maximize profits for shareholders but to steward our resources to serve the world in an economically sustainable way.” I think that this really resonates with me, as I think most companies today will do anything they can to maximize profits, and do not see a company as a means for serving the world. If you are a person who wants to serve the world, you will probably look to a non-profit or government job, companies don’t seem to fit that description. Number 3 is “Attempt to create the most fun workplace in the history of the world”. This idea was one that got Bakke in some trouble with investors and his board. Most investors don’t like the idea of a company being a place where people have fun, since they must be wasting money.

I heard about this book from an advertisement on a Christian web site, but most of the book was written without direct reference to the Bible or Christian principles. In fact, AES operated in a number of countries where a majority of the employees did not come from a Christian background. He seems to appeal to a general audience throughout most of the book. However, in the postscript, Bakke talks about a number of personal examples from his church. For example, he discusses the common segmentation in Evangelical churches where “full-time” Christian work is elevated above public sector work which is elevated above private sector work. As a result, most Christians see the 2-10 hours a week they put in at church as the work that has a spiritual impact, and the 40+ hours a week they spend at work as having no spiritual impact. Pastors should learn how to help their congregations see their work as their calling, and that God can and will use them in business roles to have an impact for the kingdom.

One other idea that was quite interesting is for churches to consider commissioning individuals into their business jobs. We commission missionaries and pastors, but why not people in industry and business? Bakke had asked his church for accountability for how he ran his business, and he didn’t get a response from his elder board. I wonder if my church would be any different? I think we demand a lot of accountability for the stewardship of all money given to our local church, but do we hold ourselves and our own companies to the same standards? I think Christians should be in willing and churches should be ready to help with accountability in these areas.

The book dragged on a bit longer than I think was necessary. I really liked the first few and last chapters. There was quite a bit of repetition, I think an editor could have trimmed 25-30 pages pretty easily. There is also a lot of good reference material in the appendices for anyone thinking of using the book as a reference for implementing some of the ideas presented.

I would recommend this book for anyone working in the business world and who is disenchanted with the way most companies are run. Whether most people will be able to change their organizations enough to implement these ideas is probably another matter, however I think individual managers and workgroups can use many of these ideas to make work a more joyful place, and Christians can see how their work in business can help redeem this world. If someone is thinking of starting a new company and wants to create a workplace that is fun and fulfilling for its employees, this book might be a good source of ideas.

As a huge fan of Office Space, I really was excited when I heard heard about Idiocracy a few months ago, but when I heard it wasn’t a sequel, I didn’t go out and get it right away, but I finally got around to putting it in the NetFlix queue. Unfortunately, I forgot about it, and on a whim went ahead and rented it and forgot to remove it from the queue and it showed up, so I payed twice for it. I don’t know if it was worth two rentals.

The basic idea is that one man and one woman (Luke Wilson as a soldier and Maya Rudolph as a prostitute) are selected to participate in an army experiment where people could be put in a state of hibernation. The man running the experiment gets busted for pimpin’, and the subjects are forgotten about and wake up 500 years in the future. Since the smartest people in society stop reproducing and all the idiots procreate like rabbits, the world is full of complete morons. Everything is sponsored by a company, there is trash everywhere, and the English language is a mixture of rap and hillbilly. It turns out that an average joe from 500 years ago is now the smartest man on the planet. The president is a wrestling (as in WWE) superstar, and the crops are dying because they are being watered with the equivalent of Gatorade. Society needs to be rescued, but you wonder how they survived as long as they did.

The jokes get a little old and are pretty crude, the language is a little foul, and it’s not nearly as funny as Office Space, but overall it’s a pretty good idea. I think I laughed more than I have in a while, and it was great to see a lot of the same actors from Office Space. Milton is there, and Michael Bolton, but the main actors are different. It also makes you think a bit about where we are actually headed with all the crazy marketing messages we get every day. It seems far-fetched, but watch a little TV after the movie, and you’ll begin to wonder how far from the truth it really is.

My mom got us this book at a garage sale for $0.25 shortly after Audrey was born. It’s called The Ballet Bears (TM) getting in shape, by Jill Wolf. It has these fat little teddy bear pictures in leotards, leg warmers, and ballet slippers, and basically tells the story of the wonderful life of a ballerina. Well, Jill might be in need of some counseling, listen to the opening stanza:

Ballet Bears
Must get in shape
For their new dance revue:
They exercise
Eight hours a day
And watch their diets too

Eight hours a day! Holy cow! Now I’m sure that professional ballerinas might work on dancing eight hours a day, but is this really what you want a toddler to start out with?

And then this gem…

Ballet Bears
Are shaping up–
They hope their tights will fit,
Or else they won’t
Be getting up
When they do the splits!

Yes, obsess about your clothing and whether it will fit, and you always need the pursuit of perfection and poor self esteem.

Ballet Bears
Are shaping up–
They spin and pirouette;
Although they’re looking
Very good,
They’re just not perfect yet.

Needless to say, now that she is comprehending what these books mean, we’re putting this one away.

Almost 30 years before Joel Johnson wrote this scathing blog entry about people buying gadgets that overpromise and underdeliver, Richard Foster basically said the same thing (minus a few vulgarities) in his excellent book Celebration of Discipline.

Foster give us ten controlling principles for the outward expression of simplicity. Part of the fourth reads as follows:

..refuse to be propagandized by the custodians of modern gadgetry. Timesaving devices almost never save time. Beware of the promise, “it will pay for itself in six months.” Most gadgets are built to break down and wear out and so complicate our lives rather than enhance them…. Propagandists try to convince us that because the newest model of this or that has a new feature (trinket? ), we must sell the old one and buy the new one….. Often “new” features seduce us into buying what we do not need.

I think Foster is right on here. We have been held captive by the companies marketing to us for too long. How much different is this year’s model than last year’s? I think Joel gets it right in the gizmodo post when he says:

Stop buying this crap. Just stop it. You don’t need it. Wait a year until the reviews come out and the other suckers too addicted to having the very latest and greatest buy it, put up a review, and have moved on to something else. Stop buying broken products and then shrugging your shoulders when it doesn’t do what it is supposed to. Stop buying products that serve any other master than you. Use older stuff that works. Make it yourself. Only buy new stuff from companies that have proven themselves good servants of their customers in the past. Complaining online about this stuff helps, but really, just stop buying it.

If we followed this advice, we might see a slower trickle of new products, but I’m willing to bet they would be better, would fit our needs, and would maybe actually change our lives.

I just got back from witnessing the sorriest display of football I’ve ever seen in my life. And that’s saying something if you are a Northwestern fan. NU just allowed the biggest comeback in NCAA history. That’s a lot of years, a lot of games, and a lot of circumstances, and I got to see the worst ever. The score was 38-3 in the middle of the third quarter, and they somehow managed to lose 41-38. In that span were two interceptions (one in the end zone), a blocked punt returned for a touchdown, and a lot of bad defense.

Arizona Cardinal fans should have nothing to be ashamed of, losing to the Bears last Monday night by giving up two touchdowns late in the game. At least the Bears are a good team, and they gave up the points to the defense which is the strength of the team. MSU should more likely be on the losing side of a game like this after giving up a huge lead to lose to Notre Dame earlier this season.

It seems with Northwestern that when you can’t believe they could lose in a bigger way (see my earlier post for some examples), they always surprise you.

You know the players have the talent to win, but once you are a part of a losing tradition and have seen your team fall apart, it’s really hard to not see it coming as soon as things start to turn. As a fan, I already saw them losing as soon as it was 38-17, and once the punt was returned for a touchdown, I should have just gone home. NU used to be the team making the comebacks (witness the Iowa win last year, which I gave up on early), but I think they are a long way away from that now.

Halfway through the third quarter this felt like a real turning point for the team, they seemed to have found an offense and a real gem of a quarterback in Bacher. The sidelines looked pumped, and the offense was racking up yards. The defense was spirited and had made some big stops. Now, I don’t know where you go from here.

Looks like a 2-10 season to me.