Archive for Opinion
Three Christmas Gifts
I found this posted while looking for Christmas Stories to feature on The Morning Show on WMOX. I liked it so much I decided to post it here. Enjoy.
Three Christmas Gifts
By Mildred Goff
The wise men brought three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
This Christmas, try adding three gifts to your list. Yes, I know your Christmas gift list is already overly long, that you have neither time nor money for extra gifts. But these will cost you little in time, and less in money, and they will capture for you the true Christmas spirit so often lost in the rush and flurry of the season.
Our Insulated Lives
Memorial Day, 2009 – As I sit in my recliner in my air-conditioned home looking through the glass sliding doors on to my back yard watching the rain come down, I think the time has come for a little bit of self-examination. Just to the right of the glass doors stands my “entertainment center’ where my flat-screen television quietly waits to provide me with “entertainment” from my digital cable, my DVD player, my Blu-Ray player, or my Wii. To the left of the glass doors is one of two built-in bookcases that frame the massive corner fireplace that warms my home anytime I desire, but is not necessary since all I really have to do is turn on the central heat. On the bookcases are color photos of loved ones, small ceramic pots and urns. Oh yeah, there are books on the shelves as well. Books of all types and sizes and at least three different translations of The Bible.
Just like the rest of my home, my “living room” is dry, comfortable and safe just as is Magee, my favorite dog, who is currently sacked out on the couch next to my chair. She raises her head as my wife passes through. She is curious to know if Pam is headed to the treat cabinet that holds her favorite treat, meat-stuffed rawhide. Her ears perk up as Pam opens the fridge but when the familiar crinkle of plastic that might indicate other potential “treats” isn’t heard, she turns to look out into the yard pretending that she really doesn’t care. But she waits until Pam returns and sits in her own recliner before giving up hope and lays her head back down and with a sigh dozes back off to dream the dreams that dogs dream. Later, Magee will give me even less attention as I rise to take advantage of one of the multiple in-door plumbing facilities scattered through-out my home. Apparently, she is acutely aware that there are no treats stored in those places and her feined interest wanes even faster with me than it did with Pam.
Everything Else Is Fluff
I’ve always heard that “if you enjoy your work, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Well, I enjoy what I do, in fact, I love my job. Helping people with their computer problems and solving what seem to be big crises in people’s lives helps fulfill my “hero complex.” Never heard of a hero complex? Well, probably not, since I made it up years ago to describe the feeling I get from helping someone recover an important file they think is gone forever, or getting a computer back up and working for a business just in the nick of time before they start losing a lot of money, or even helping an older person be able to send email messages to their grandkids. The Hero Complex is a probably a big part of why people do a lot of the things they do for work. The easy examples are doctors, policemen and firemen, but car mechanics, store managers, air conditioner technicians, janitors and even waiters and waitresses have told me that they have similar opportunities to be heroes in their jobs. (more…)
Spots In My Eyes & Ringing in My Ears…
Sometimes life walks up and hands me a soapbox onto which I can’t help but climb. There are those who tell me that the number of soapboxes you find increases exponentially the older you get. But I really don’t think this particular issue is just me. In fact, I believe this is one of those few cases, where I am not alone in my frustration because deep down many of you out there agree with what I’m about to say. You haven’t said anything because your mama raised you to say nothing if you couldn’t say something good. Well, my mama will just have to get over it, because this ain’t pretty and I’m still going to say it. My apologies, Mom. (more…)
Ambassadors At Large
About fifteen years ago when I started my own business, I got the opportunity to write custom programs for clients of a company named Automatic Data Processing (ADP). ADP does a lot of different things including providing payroll-processing services to thousands of companies of all shapes and sizes across the world. Often, they run across a company that likes to color outside the lines and do things a little out of the ordinary and when they need some specialized programming or custom reporting that can’t be handled by the regular ADP computer system, I sometimes get the call to work as a third-party software consultant, which is just a fancy way of saying that I get to help the customer and ADP fit together better. (more…)
Katrina: The Making & Breaking of News
My wife and I have seen enough news reports about the devastation in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to reach a conclusion: we have a story to tell and now it the time to tell it. I’ve spent the better part of a week now dealing with the effects (however slight compared to others who are far worse off than my family) of this hurricane and I believe that we now have the right to say a few things about this storm and how it has affected our fellow human beings. (more…)
Mowing For Peace
Mowing grass has become my preferred way to relax. Some people think that mowing grass is a boring, tiring and sweat-laden chore, but I have come to see that mowing grass can be a great way to connect to life in a number of ways. (more…)
