My Resolution
In the new year, I am again trying to reach 40 books. To some of you, that would be an oppressive amount to read, to others but a trifle. Reading always is important to me and I usually start off strong. Then work and social activities will get in the way. I find myself reading more in the summer even though I am much busier, this is mostly because in the summer I require only about half the sleep I do in the deep dark winter and so a whole new cornucopia of time opens to me. I fill much of that time with reading.
In order to assist me I have created a list to get me through my first few books. Since I can't think about anything else to write, I am including them here.
My Lobotomy by first timer Howard Dully is aptly named. As a 7-year-old he was given a trans-orbital (ice pick lobotomy), for what and why he never knew. The book is his remembrance of his childhood and search for why this was done to him. Some dark times are ahead in this book, I can feel it but I am hoping to find redemption in the end.
Notes from a Small Island Bill Bryson is next. A palate cleanser after the heavy talk about abuse and lobotomy. I consider Bryson a masterful writer. He is witty and clean of line, but also clever and inventive in tone. Were I ever to be compared to him I would consider it high praise indeed.
Dexter by Design Jeff Lindsay is next. I love the Dexter books. I could write them myself. They aren't especially amazing in any way but the entertainment value is off the charts and the concept is really quite good... a do-gooder serial killer who also works for the police by day. It is a romp into the world of a psychopath who has a conscience of sorts. Very interesting indeed.
Jet Age 707 Vs. Comet Sam Howe Verhovek. Nerd Alert! I love planes! This is a book about the people involved with the development of both the British DeHavilland Comet (the first jet powered passenger plane to enter revenue service) and the American Boeing 707 (proving sometimes being first isn't tantamount to being best). I love learning about the personalities behind such huge, momentous accomplishments. I know about the accomplishment, tell me about the people who made it happen.
Made in America Bill Bryson. I hope to get through all the rest of the Bryson I haven't read yet this year. So I'll continue with this one. I also bought A Walk in the Woods which I read but didn't own. So I'll re-read that if I can't find anything else to fit my fancy.
I have finished one this year so I am counting that. I am roaring through Lobotomy so I am on track so far to hit 40. We'll see if I can do it this year. I usually crap out halfway through. Wish me luck.
Media
Em said something to me the other night about how we as youth leaders need to keep up with the way the world is now in order to understand our kids. We need to recognize that sit and listen is just not feasible in this world of media bombardment. It is truly an unrecognizable place to me sometimes.
So we came to the realization that the kids are better multi-taskers than we are, (even though I am quite good) and we need to play into that.
Also, I think this means we must buy a Wii. How can we stay in touch with the younger set if we don't know what they are experiencing? And since they don't bottle angst, or box adolescent crisis, I think a Wii is the best way we can understand. This is of course 100% incompatible with almost every other goal and aspect of my life, including reading 40 books this year, fixing my old Corvette, stripping paint off the trim upstairs and painting and myriad other things that I want to accomplish but cannot if I am playing on the Wii. Also, since I don't have kids, I don't have to put on heirs and draw boundaries and stuff. I could (and would) play deep into the night.
Does Nintendo put out an eye cream that reduces bags? That would be a good incremental business for them. I guess I am not going to get one... yet. We'll see if I still have these unnatural urges toward the end of the year.
And Finally
I travel a stretch of I96 which is a main artery in southern Michigan. It stretches coast to coast, east to west across the fattest part of the lower peninsula. It is mostly well maintained, unlike many of Michigan's roads and it is not a slave to truck traffic like it's cousin I94 to the south. I mostly like this road. I know it blindfolded. I know where the cops sit, I know where the bathrooms are, I know where the best fried chicken ever can be gotten. All along I96.
What else I notice is the number of dead deer. It is excessive. On a round trip from Grand Rapids to metro Detroit, I will spot 3o sitting on the side of the road in various states of gory rot. Some look like they are napping, others look like something or someone was very angry and took that anger out on the deer.
My point- We praise Jane Goodall for her work with the chimps. There is federal money all over the place for researcher who endeavors to make primates communicate through sign language (which is admittedly better than communicating through kinesethetic fecal maneuvering). I suppose this money is there because as humans' closest cousins, we want desperately to prove or disprove (depending on what side of Darwin you fall on) how close or far apart we really are.
Great. But what of the deer? I like venison meat, but deer on your grille is not a substitute for having deer on the grill. There are too many deer, even after hunting season. They are a menace. I have lost, no joke, 5 company vehicles to deer since the fall.
I am not advocating killing, so save your cards and letters. I think hunting is fine, but let's explore something even more effective... Teaching deer to look both ways before they cross the road. The signs we put up are clearly ineffective. Motorists recognize the sign as a place where deer may be present and crossing. I think deer flock to it. Like it's the sign for a bus stop, or a nightclub. The signs need to be much more graphic.
We need to record the sound of deer being hit by cars and play it at irregular intervals at night along the road to keep the deer from venturing out. In the winter, the asphalt road stays warmer longer than the woods, so they congregate en masse in the road and get taken out whole families at a time. How about some solar powered warming pads off in the woods where they can hang out and, I don't know, be deer?
Or we can go with gore. Show them films of the after effects of deer, narrated by that stern sounding guy who did the driver's ed films.
"Timmy was too cool to listen to his father, Buck and hung out in the road with the rest of his young friends (flash to a very dead Timmy with a Toyota logo embossed into his ribcage). Timmy doesn't hang-out in the road, anymore..."
We have to get through to these carrion that this can't, um carry-on! For the sake of our shiny grilles and unrumpled fenders and hoods, for our unbroken windshields and for the safety of the deer that they may grow up big and strong and get shot to death by rednecks like god intended and turned into sausage and eaten thus completing the circle of life. We should, nay, we must to something.
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