Alphabet List

I got the idea for this post from Shweta, who got it from Jackie, who named her post "I Like This Thing Rachel Copied From Sami..". So, I'm not really sure who came up with this idea ( though, I guess if I'm going to give props to anyone, it should be Sami ( whoever she is ) ), but it seemed like it would be fun, so here goes ...

A-age: 39

B-bed size: king

C-chore you hate: I have a rather large backyard with a good number of trees. This is nice ( and quite beautiful in the fall - see this post ), but the trees happen to be sugargum trees. These trees drop MANY MANY thousand spikey balls ( about an inch in diameter on average - see photo below ) each winter, and I've got to pick them up put them in bags each spring. This really breaks my back every year. The basic tool I've been using to gather these things is a rake, but they don't respond that well to rakes. Because of the spikes they tend to stick to the ground, so I often need to rake over the same spot about ten times before I even get have of these spikey little balls to move. I often need to get down on my hands and knees to pick them up. As much as I hate this chore, I really have no choice. The spikes on these things can be rather sharp, and it seems like these things never rot ( When they have been there a few years, the spikes wear away a bit. You would think that would be a good thing, but having your yard full of really old sugargum balls is like having a yard full of marbles. It's really not safe to walk on those things. ). Worse yet, I need to stick them in brown paper bags that are 4 feet high and have an opening that is only about 1 foot square ( The county requires that you put them in these bags, or else they won't collect them ). Once I manage to get a bunch of these spikey balls in a pile, it's a real pain in the ass to transfer to contents of the file into to tiny openings on these bags ( especially when the wind is blowing ). I swear - I love trees, but if it was legal to cut these trees down, I'd be outside with a chainsaw in about an hour ( and the only reason it would take an hour is that I would have to go out and buy the chainsaw first ).


Hey, I just found this website when searching for the image above on Google. I'm seriously considering buying one of these things.

D-don't eat: I wouldn't want to eat whale, dolphin, or one of the great apes, but aside from that, I'll willing to put pretty much anything into my mouth. Not that I'd want to eat just anything on a regular basis - I do try to eat rather healthy. I'm still progressing towards being 99% vegetarian ( I don't have any moral problem with meat, but I think eating lots of meat is really bad for the planet, so I'm trying to reduce my meat consumption each year. I've gotten to the point where more than 70% of my lunches are vegetarian, and I plan to increase that percentage each year. ), and when I do it meat, it's usually something relatively healthy like chicken or fish. Still, I make exceptions, because I really have 3 modes of eating:

Everyday eating mode: This mode is for the meals I have on a regular basis, like the meals I have at home or the lunches I eat at work. I don't want to get into any bad eating habits ( For example, as much as I might love super greasy deep fried foods and rich desserts, eating that stuff every day would certainly lead me to an early grave. ), so I trying to keep the vast majority of really unhealthy foods out of my regular eating rotation.

Going out to eat with my family mode: I don't go out to eat every day, so when I do I like to expand my horizons a bit. These "out to eat" meals are where I eat most of my burgers and fries. Still, I don't always eat that kind of stuff when I'm out to eat. Last Saturday I was out to eat with Ruth and the kids ( at a place that had plenty of fried and greasy choices ), and I had a meal that consisted of crab cakes and broccoli.

Vacation mode: If I was on vacation 365 days a year ....
1) I'd weigh about 400 pounds.
2) The world's supply of sugar would be in danger.
3) The milk producing cows of the work would be bone dry ( CHEESE, ICE CREAM, PUDDING, ICE CREAM FLOATING IN A BOWL OF PUDDING COVERED IN CHEESE!!!! MMMMMMMMMM!!!!!! ).
4) I would cause so much global warming from my meat eating that we'd all be about 10 feet under water.
Yes, anything goes when I'm on vacation. F*ck it! I'm on vacation!

E-essential start-your-day item: I'm not emotionally attached to any of these things, but I certainly would start a day without soap, toothpaste and mouthwash. Oh, and if this question was supposed to be about coffee ...
1) I've been caffeine-free since 1998.
2) I'm wide away within milliseconds after my alarm goes off.

F-favorite board game: Depends on the crowd. I've probably spent more time playing Strat-o-matic baseball than any other game, but that's really only an option if you are in a group of male baseball nerds. I've always thought that Trivial Pursuit was a fun co-ed game. You can really learn a lot about a couple by how they resolves disputes when they are on the same Trivial Pursuit team.

G-gold or silver: Not sure how to answer this question. I'm not a bling guy. The only piece of gold or silver I have ever worn ( or every will wear ) is my wedding ring. I'm going to have to go with gold, because is is worth way-more per once than silver ( Also, it's a damn good conductor! ).

H-height: 6 Feet, 1 inch.

I-instruments you've played: I can't really play any musical instrument. Yes I did play "the recorder" in school, because they kind of force you to do that, and I have enjoyed making up little melodies on keyboards/pianos from time to time, but both my attempts to learn how to play a musical instrument in a formal way ( guitar / piano ) ending with me quitting before I learned too much. It would have never worked. I have a good ear for music and all, but I have ZERO dexterity/flexibility in my fingers. I've never been able to to move my pinky finger at all with also moving my ring finger. Hell, I can't even touch type. All the fine blogging you've ever see on this site has been done using the hunk-and-peck method

J-job title: Software Developer

K-kids: Michael is 6 and Peter is 4.

L-living arrangements: House in Edison, New Jersey.

M-mom's name: My Mom passed away in 1996. Her name was June.

N-nicknames: Never had a nickname.

O-overnight hospital stay, other than birth: I was hospitalized for a bad asthma attack when I was four years old. I wrote about this experience at the beginning of this post.

P-pet peeve: I'm a pretty affable and agreeable fellow. There really isn't lot that makes me angry on any kind of consistent basis. It's not that I never get peeved about anything - it's just that I don't get peeved about anything consistently enough that I would call in a "pet peeve". There are a few things I could mention ( and I think I might have already answered one of these "pet peeve" type questions in another one of these multiple question blog posts ), but I'm in a good mood right now and I don't want to spoil it by dwelling on the negative.

Q-famous movie quote: "Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try" - Yoda, from "The Empire Srikes Back".

R-rightie or leftie: Right-handed.

S-sibling(s): My brother Craig is 3.5 years younger than me.

T-time you wake up: 6:07 AM on work days. On weekends, I'll try to sleep past 8 AM, but my kids usually wake me up before then. Before I had kids, I used to sleep until at least 11 AM each weekend. Kids really change you.

U-underwear: This may be TMI, but I wear briefs. I'd give these reason why I go for briefs over boxer, but that would be REALLY TMI.

V-vegetable favorite: I eats LOTS of Chinese food, and my favorite vegetable with Chinese food is broccoli. However, broccoli can actually be quite boring if you find yourself eating it all by itself. My favorite vegetable as a stand-alone food would be corn-on-the-cob.

W-ways you run late: I don't do late. I'm the kinda guy who gets to places an hour early all the time because I build in a one-hour train-delay ( or a one hour traffic jam ) to my estimate of long it will take to get somewhere. Of course, 2 little kids can occasionally ruin your best laid-out plans. I'm still rarely late, but if I am, the answer to "way you run late" would be "kids".

X-x-rays you've had: Aside from the dental ones? Well, I'll save this story for another time ( Heck, I might have already told this story - I really don't remember ), but I was once in a cast for two months due to a basketball injury, and X-rays of my left foot were involved.

Y-yummy food you make: I'm no chef, but I can make a mean omelet when I want to.

Z-zoo favorite: I've always liked the monkeys, but the sea-lions are always really cool too.

Old Body

My left foot is killing me today.

Not that I'm surprised by that - it's something that I'm starting to get used to. My foot's been that way for about 4 or 5 months now. When it first started, it felt like a twisted ankle, but I couldn't actually remember twisting my ankle. Anyway, it didn't really bother me too much. Back in my teen years, when I was playing pickup basketball just about every day, I used to sprain my ankles rather frequently. I've dealt with severely sprained ankles in the past, and this just felt like a minor strain. The ankle pain I was feeling was the kind of thing that would usually go away in just a day or two.

But it didn't go away. It hasn't gone away. In fact, it seems like it's getting progressively worse over time. Not a lot worse - it's not like I'm in severe pain or anything - but it has started to get annoying.

As I said before, I don't really remember a single event that led to the pain. The pain just came out of nowhere one day, and it has just kinda lingered since then. With that in mind, it has occurred to me that this is some kind of repetitive stress injury. In other words, I'm getting old.

( Actually, I'm not even sure if "repetitive stress" is the right term. I think "repetitive stress" usually means something like Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. What I'm talking about is an injury you get from overuse, like Tennis Elbow, or knee injuries from running too much. I'm too tired to look up the proper term for that right now, so I'm just going to use the term "repetitive stress" in this post. )

I probably have some kind of slightly torn tendon/ligament , or some kind of small stress fracture in one of the bones in my foot ( The pain seems to be concentrated on the left side of my left foot, where the top of the foot meets the ankle ). Ruth ( my wife, who in case you forgot, is a doctor ) initially thought it was a stress fracture, but we are now both leaning towards the theory that it is a ligament/tendon thing. The pain is actually worst when I first wake up in the morning, or when I've been sitting for a long time without moving. The first step each morning was starting to get REALLY painful until Ruth told me to try moving my left foot/ankle around for about 15 seconds each morning before taking my fist step. This seems to cut down on the pain A LOT, so Ruth thinks it's probably some kind of tendon/ligament issue. She says the tendon/ligament probably contracts at night when I'm sleeping and becomes less flexible. This lack of flexibility leads to micro-tears in the tendon/ligament when I take those first steps, and probably does more damage to whatever happens to be damaged.

So yeah, I've got low flexibility in the foot, and probably some kind of tears in the tendons/ligaments related to the lack of flexibility. It would probably take an MRI to be absolutely sure ( and I doubt any doctor would recommend an expensive MRI for minor pain - and frankly I would feel like a real wuss if I demanded an MRI because of some minor ankle pain ), but the bottom line is ... I'M OLD.

But as I said, the pain's not that bad. Once I get the foot/ankle all warmed up, I don't really notice any pain at. In fact, I can run long distances on my treadmill without feeling pain. Yes, I can run to my heart's content - and that's probably at the root of the problem.

( Lots of running ) + OLD = Repetitive Stress Injury

Repetitive Stress Injury + Running = Worse Injury

However, it hard for me to stop running, because I believe ...

Body - Running = Out of Shape Body

Life + Running = Longer Life

Lungs + Asthma = Weak Lungs

Weak Lungs + Running = Strong Lungs

Weak Lungs + Swine Flu = Death

You get the idea. As a person born with asthma, having a strong lungs and a strong cardio-vascular system is very important to me. Running is a great way to keep my heart/lungs in tip-top shape. I really don't want to stop running, but it's becoming clear that all the running I'm doing is starting to contribute to my joints breaking down.

It's not just my ankle. I've had issues with my knees for as long as I can remember. Even in high school, they would occasionally swell up on me. It's not that I really get knee pain, but if I do too much running my knees get all spongey. I'm pretty sure "spongey" isn't a word, but what I mean is that if I run too frequently, my knees feel like they are made out a sponge-type material rather than something solid. It doesn't really hurt, but it can be rather disconcerting - you kinda feel like your knee might give way any second. Well, I'm probably overtstating things, it's not really that bad ( yet ) but I've always worried about how my knees would hold up as I got progressively older.

We'll about 17 months ago or so, my left knee almost did give out on the treadmill. Actually, it didn't come close to giving out, but it did start to feel rather funny. I probably should have stopped running immediately, but I stupidly tied to "suck it up", and ran at full speed for about 10 more minutes. As soon as I got off the treadmill, I knew I had made a mistake. My knee just wasn't working right, and I realized that I was going to have to quit my running routine for a while. About 2 months past before I decided to to try running again. My knee still didn't feel quite right by then, so I started running significantly slower than I had before, vowing to eventually work my way back to my pre-injury speed. I'm almost all the way back to peak form ( I'm hoping to match my personal best time for 2 miles by the time I turn 40 on January 15th ), and my knee feels reasonably fine ( though who knows how it will respond when I start running at full speed again ), but now I've got this issue with my ankle. About 6 weeks ago, I took 3 weeks off from running to see if my ankle would heal, but if anything, it felt worse after those 3 weeks. So eventually I said "Screw it! I'm just going to deal with the pain and start running again. January 15th is right around the corner, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to meet my fitness goal!".

The point of all this blabbering of mine is to try and express how conflicted I feel. I've figured out by now that running is both very good for me ( My heart, lungs, general fitness, etc. ) and very bad for me ( my OLD joints ), and I'm not sure where I should go from here. I know there are non-impact ways to get good cardio-vsacular workouts, but I don't really enjoy doing the non-impact stuff, and if I don't enjoy doing something, I'm not going to be motivated enough to do it. I really can't see myself quiting running anytime soon. If that means my joints break down, so be it, but I really can't see myself quiting now.

What I worry about is that I'll someday be a 70-year old man who has the heart and lungs of a 30-year old, but has the joints of a 100-year old. That would be rather ironic. There I would be limping around all the time after a life of working out hard, while some 70-year old dude who spent his life eating chips while watching TV would be able to walk around without a problem.

Things are kinda like that for me now, to a certain extent. Thanks to my intense workouts, I can do athletics things that most guys pushing 40 couldn't dream of doing. However, I'll occassionaly walk around with a slight limp, and my knees tend to make cracking noises whenever I move them. However, if I need to ( for example if I'm several locks from the train station and my train is going to leave in a few minutes ), I can break into a sprint that would put most 20-year-olds to shame. However, after that, I'll go right back to being an almost 40-year-old limping guy.

Yeah, so all this exercise make me feel both young and OLD. Actually more OLD. Each ache and pain reminds me of my mortality. I'll probably never lose the desire to work out hard, but ultimately, my body WILL betray me. Eventually, my joints WILL break down. Still, I'd rather go out fighting than slowly let my body go soft while eating chips and watching TV. I'm just going to keep on running and enjoy the ride for as log as I can.

Rich

Election Day self-promotion

Tomorrow ( November 3rd ) is Election Day in the USA, so I'll be getting up at about 5:30 AM tomorrow so I can be one of the first people to vote ( The polls open at 6:00, and I've got to get back to my house with the minivan by about 6:24 in order to get to catch the 6:40 train to work. I walk to the train station each day and leave the minivan at home with Ruth and the kids. If the polling place was on the way to work, I'd just walk the the polling place and then to work, but the polling place is in the opposite direction from the train station. The only way I can vote in the morning and still make it to the train station on time is if I avoid all lines by being one of the first people to vote ( Actually, last year I made it back to the house by 6:17 AM after voting, so I guess I do have a little time to spare, but for all I know there could be a 10 minute line at the polling place if I get there at 6:05 rather than at 5:55 ). I need to vote in the mornings because the polls close at 8 PM. I get home 6:45 PM on my best days ( if I catch the 5:54 train home and there is no train delay ) and usually not much after 7 PM on most days ( I seem to be getting the 6:11 train home a lot these days ), but if there are a lot of issues at work, I could easily get home past 8 PM. I'm very big on making sure I do my civic duty, so I always try to vote early on Election Day. Every vote really matters this year. There are no national elections in the USA in odd-numbered years ( Except for an occasion special election when somebody vacates his/her office before his/her term is over. There is one congressional election like that this year, but it's in upstate New York ), but the Governor's seat in New Jersey is up for grabs this year, and it's supposed to be a really close race.

Anyway, considering that voting is the theme of the day, I figured I'd post the clip of my "Vote" Madonna parody below. Most of you have probably already seen it, but a little self-promotion never hurt. ;)

Funerals

There was a death in my family this week.

Before you start offering your condolences, consider the following:

1) The deceased ( my Great Aunt Elsie - younger sister of my maternal grandmother ) would have been 92 in about a month.
2) She's been going progressively senile* over the last few years. She spent the last 9 months or so in a nursing home, and frankly, she could barely recognize anyone anymore.
3) With number 2 above in mind, I though it was actually a blessing that she passed away.

( * - I'm not even sure if "senile" is a PC term anymore, but it just seems more to the point to say "senile" than to say something like "suffering from Alzheimer's disease". I don't think it's disrespectful or demeaning to say "senile". Senility is what it is, and there is no need to sugar coat it. Heck, considering that I've always looked and felt young for my age in a physical sense, it's probably inevitable that my mind will give out before my body does. If and when that happens, I hope my grandkids can just say "Gramps has gone senile", without feeling the need to get all clinical about it. )

Also, I've gotten pretty philosophical about death over the years. I accepted a long time ago that I'll probably see most of my significantly older relatives die during my lifetime. My maternal grandmother passed away in 1980, my paternal grandmother passed away in 1983, my maternal grandfather passed away in 1990, my paternal grandfather passed away in 1993, and my mother passed away in 1996. So, by the time I was 26, I only had one living direct ancestor ( my Dad ).

So death really doesn't bother my much. I love my old relatives and all, but I've already accepted that a day will come when they will not be around.

Death is natural. Regardless of our religious beliefs ( or lack thereof ) and belief in an afterlife ( or lack thereof ), I think we all need to accept that nobody lives forever on this Earth. Everyone passes from this Earth, and we need to be ready to accept that.

So, with that in mind, I hope I don't seem really insensitive to you when I tell you that when I got the news that my Aunt Elsie passed away on Thursday night, my only response was "Well, it's for the best". It really was for the best. Two of my Aunts from my Mom's generation and my Aunt Elsie's younger brother and sister ( all of whom live in the same retirement community ( the community my Aunt Elsie lived in before sent was put in the nursing home ) ) had been spending a lot of time visiting the nursing home. I think they all felt kinda guilty for putting Aunt Elsie in the nursing home, even though it probably was the best thing to do at that point in Aunt Elsie's life. Considering my Aunt Elsie's advancing senility, I doubt that either she or her relatives were getting much out of the nursing home visits. The visits were just making everyone feel guilty and sad. I think it is for the best that she finally passed on.

Anwway, my Aunt Elsie's funeral is on Monday and her wake is on Sunday ( I'm writing this before going to bed on Saturday night - it's actually 12:19 AM on Sunday as a type this ). Working is too crazy right now for me to even think about taking Monday off on short notice.

OK, that last sentence is a lie. Work is crazy right now, but if I had to take time off to do something I considered really important ( like something for my wife and kids ), I wouldn't hesitate taking a day off. In truth, my busy work schedule is just a convenient excuse for me to skip the funeral.

It's not that I get sad at funerals ( I didn't even shed a tear at my Mom's funeral ) - it's just that I don't believe in funerals. I don't believe in them at all. I honestly think they are a waste of time. If it was socially acceptable at all, I would never go to another funeral for my entire life ( including my own - I've decided to specify in my will that my body should be donated to science when I die. That way, my remains will be put to use for a noble cause ( training medical students ) and my kids won't have to deal with funeral arrangements or waste their valuable time by visiting my buried rotting corpse someday. ).

Yeah, I know, while anyone with half a brain will tell you that funerals really don't benefit the deceased ( If there's no afterlife, the deceased won't know and won't care about what is going on at a funeral, and if there is an afterlife, no just God is going to the let the quality of a funeral determine how a soul will spend his/her afterlife. Yeah, I know some religions ( including mine ) require a certain kind of funeral, but if you really think your God cares about this kind of stuff, then you must think your God is petty bastard. No just God is going to keep somebody out of heaven because that person didn't have the proper funeral ), most people will tell you that funerals exist to comfort the close relatives of the deceased.

REALLY?

I was only peripherally involved in my Mom's funeral arrangements, and let me tell you, I didn't find any comfort in it. Arranging a funeral is a real pain in the ass. Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but I think the last thing most people want to do after a loved one dies is a bunch of arrangements that keep acutely reminding you that your loved one certainly is dead, and that you are responsible for what happens with your loved one's body.

Yeah, everbody greets you at the wake and funeral and says stuff like "I'm sorry for your loss" of "He/She was such a wonderful person", but what would we expect them to say? They are certainly not going to say something like "Good riddance, I'm glad that bastard is dead!". I really feel like everybody is just going through the motions at a funeral. I'm not saying that people are being insincere - most people really are sorry for your loss, and most people really do think the person who died was a wonderful person. It's just that everything that is said, sincere or not, seems to be part of an elaborate routine that is the same at every single funeral. I don't need my friends to tell me that they are sorry for my loss. I know my friends are sorry for my loss. If my friends were not sorry for my loss, these people would not be my friends.

I dunno, I'm just not a funeral person. I hope people don't think I'm some kind of insensitive bastard, but I just don't see that point. Sure, some people do need a lot of consoling when a person they love dies - but I think all the consoling could be done without are the pomp and circumstance of a wake and funeral. I actually think a funeral can get in the way of the consoling. I person needs to be consoled after a loved one dies, I think the most effectively way to do that would be to have everyone gather to talk about deceased in an informal way, and I think that should only be done when the relatives of the deceased are ready to talk. Perhaps some people who lose a loved one will want to wait weeks or months before talking about the deceased. Perhaps some people won't want to talk about the deceased at all. People deal with grief in different ways. I think it's wrong that society forces many of use to spend an afternoon in a room with our loved one's corpse just a day or so after our loved one dies. Not everybody finds that particularly comforting.

So yeah, no funeral for me on Monday, and I'm not really happy about having to go to the wake tomorrow. Sure, I'll go, but it's an hour-and-a-half drive each way, and I was really looking forward to spending a relaxing Sunday afternoon with kids this weekend. Work is really wearing me out and I really needed that mental break ( and physical break - I think I'm coming down with a cold ).

Yeah, I'm definitely donating my body to science - I don't want to put anyone else through this crap.

Rich

Old Books

The photo above shows a bunch of my old college textbooks I found lying around when I was in the process of organizing the storage room of my basement ( The work to finish our basement was completed about a month ago. The vast majority of the basement is completely empty now ( with nice floors, walls, ceilings, lights, etc. ) and most of the stuff that used to be strewn about the entire basement is now jammed into a single storage room that takes up about 25% of the basement. The storage room is so full that you can barely move inside it. The only way we'll ever be able to find anything in there is by taking an inventory of everything in the storage room and getting rid of anything that we really don't need ). I've come to the conclusion that the time has finally come to get rid of these old textbooks.

I've been holding on to all of them for the last 20 years of so. I always kinda figured they'd be good to have it I ever needed to brush up on my Math/Science/Engineering. Sure, I could have sold back most of them to the campus bookstore when I graduated ( and I did do that with some of my books ), but considering that the store would have only given me about $10 dollars a book for books I spent $50 to $60 each on ( which at the time, seemed like A LOT of money - especially considering inflation over the last 20 years and the fact that I was a poor college student at the time ), I figured it made sense to hold on to them. Sure, I was going into a field ( software development ) which didn't really require me to use my Engineering education, but I figured I'd hold on to the books just in case the the software development thing didn't work out.

Well, more than 16 years have passed since then, and I'm still working as a software developer. There are certainly times when I hate my job, but I really couldn't see myself doing any other kind of work for the rest of my life ( Well, unless I had the guts to take a big pay cut, but I'm not going to risk that anytime soon with two little kids and a big mortgage ). I'm probably never going to need to brush up on the information in those books ever again, and even it I did, a musty old book isn't the source I would use. As I looked over all these old books a few weeks ago, it suddenly occurred to me that they've invented this thing called The Internet, and I hear that you can use this Internet thing to look up just about anything. If I really wanted to brush up on my Vector Mechanics, Thermodynamics, or Laplace Transformations, I could use this new-fangled Google thing, and I'd be good to go.

So, I've decided that the books have got to go. They're just taking up space, and they could do the world a lot more good if they were available for somebody to read in a public library. So, I've decided that I'll be making a trip to my local public library soon. I've now got the books in a box in my garage, and as soon as I find some spare time on a Saturday, I'll be taking a trip to the library.

Still, I must admit that I'm really not in a rush to do this. As much as it makes sense to get rid of the books, I think I still have a little bit of sentimental attachment to most of them. There are a lot of memories in those books, and part of me wants to hold on to them so Michael and Peter can use them someday. However, as heartwarming as the idea of passing my books down to my kids might be, I'm sure they won't want to look at some musty old books when they'll probably be able to look at every book in the world using some Kindle-type device.

Still, I'm already shown two of my books ( Calculus and Robotics ) to Michael, and the books still sit in a box in my ultra-crowded garage.

Well, I guess we'll see what happens, but if this is the end for my old books, I just wanted to given them a proper send-off in this blog post.

Well, I'll be signing off now. I wanted to write more this month, but things have been really busy both at home and at work. Hopefully, I'll blog a lot more in November.

Rich

What America Means to Me

This post is a response to this post by Pax, particularly this passage:

"Sitting there in that class, awkwardly shifting in my chair made me realize how uncomfortable I am in myself as an American. This attitude is nothing new, but I sadly have no Patriotism to this country. I'm not sure if I've ever known what it means to be an American-- because I'm not sure there is really such a thing. In most countries, there's not as much ethnic diversity as in the US-- whereas the US is a wonderful mix of mutts. We don't really have a place to belong and the label of American more satisfies location rather than mindset-- and for some reason whenever I say this I offend lots of people."

Well, I'm not offended by the passage above, but I do disagree. Well, I do agree that the US is "a wonderful mix if mutts", but I think that America *is* about a mindset. America was founded on a mindset. People came to the New World to find freedoms they couldn't find in their mother countries. People came to America to get a fresh start. In the Old World, you were often bound by your social class, but in America, a man could go as far as his imagination and effort could take him. I know it's a bit of a cliche now, but America has always truly been the Land of Opportunity.

Of course the world has evolved, and the USA is no longer as unique as it has once been. In addition to the world changing, the USA has also changed a lot over the last 233 years. A lot people think it hasn't changed for the better. A lot people will tell you "This country aint what it used to be.". I actually agree that this country "aint what it used to be", but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. In fact I think we are a far better country than we were 233 ( or 133 or 33 ) years ago, and I think out best days are ahead of us.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not one of these jingoistic fellows who thinks that the USA can do no wrong. Unlike some people, I don't think patriotism and dissent are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, I don't think one can be truly patriotic without dissent. Patriotism without dissent is almost by definition jingoism. True patriots should want their country to be strong and successful, and there are few things that can cause any organization to fail more spectacularly than overabundance of yes-men.

I couldn't help but think of this yes-man brand of "patriotism" as I watched an interview with a father who said he objected to the speech President Obama was going to give ( and subsequently did give, but not before parents pressured school boards into making sure kids were given the option to not watch the speech ) to the nation's school children. The father said that he didn't want his son to watch the speech because he believed Obama was going to highlight America's problems. He said he believed that the USA was the greatest country in the world, and he didn't want his son to be told anything different. If I could have spoken to this guy ( and to be honest, I was screaming at the father in the TV screen like a lunatic as I watched the interview ), I would have told him the following:

"I agree with you that the USA is the greatest country in the world, but I'm a bit disappointed that you apparently have no desire to keep it that way. Apparently you think the USA should just rest on its laurels. Apparently, you think the USA should do nothing to improve itself. How can we possibly continue to be the greatest country on earth unless we strive to be the best? A true patriot should always want the USA to get better, and we can't get better unless we admit our faults and work to correct them. If history shows us anything, it's that complacency is the enemy of success."

Of course, this guy probably would have replied with something like ...

"Screw you, Commie! USA! USA! USA!"

So yeah, there are a lot of problem with this country and I'm not afraid to acknowledge them. We still have big problems with racism, sexism, and homophobia, our health care system sucks, our national debt is huge, our politicians are largely beholden to corporate interests, many people are apathetic about the state of the country, and lately it seems that least apathetic people are also the most ignorant people. I'd list more problems, but if I did, this blog post would go on forever.

Still, I'd rather live in this country than any other. I'm still proud to be an American because I still believe in America's ideals. I still feel we can live up to those ideals. America isn't as great as it could be and it's quite possible that we've been surpassed by other nations in many different ways. However, I firmly believe that there is no country that has a much potential as the USA, and I still have confidence that we will eventually live up to that potential. We have potential that no other country has, because even 233 years after its founding, the USA is still unique. It's unique in a way that can be be summed up by these iconic words at the base of the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor, You huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed, to me: I will lift my lamp beside the golden door.

As some long-time readers might remember, this is the second time I've quoted the passage above in a blog post. Sorry for being repetitive, but I couldn't resist quoting Emma Lazarus' words again, because I think they really sum up what America means to me. If had to pick one word to epitomize the past, present, and future greatness of the USA, I would pick "immigration". Immigration is really what makes American unique. Sure, other countries have immigration, but very few countries were built on a foundation of immigration. As Pax put it, the USA is a "wonderful mix of mutts". We have a tremendously heterogeneous population. Most other countries in the world have homogeneous populations. If you go to Japan, you'll find that most people are ethnically Japanese. If you go to Germany, you'll find that most people are ethnically German. In countries like Germany and Japan, it's still unlikely that an immigrant will ever be considered to be a "real German" or a "real Japanese person". In the USA, you don't have to be from a specific ethnic background to be considered an America. Sure there are still a lot a people in the USA who think "real American"="white American", but the USA did just elect the son of an African immigrant to the highest office in the land ( see this post for my thoughts about that ) . In the USA *anyone* can make it to the top, and this gives us an advantage over most other nations in the world. Immigration gives the USA a far deeper talent pool than any other nation in the world. In Germany and Japan, all the most important jobs are held by the best German people available, or the best Japanese people available. In the USA, the most important jobs will ideally ( admittedly, the USA has not lived up to all of it's ideals perfectly ) be held by the best people, regardless of their ethnic background. ( Hmm, I hope it doesn't see like I'm picking on Germany and Japan. Those were just the first two countries with homogeneous populations that popped into my head. However, I can't help but think that the heterogeneous nature of the USA's population is one of the reason's why the USA prevailed over Germany and Japan in World War II ( admittedly, with a lot of help from the UK and Russia, which certainly have much more homogeneous populations than the USA ). After all, if Germany hadn't driven out so many brilliant non-Aryan scientists, Germany would have certainly developed the Atomic bomb before the USA ).

Admittedly, there are still a lot of people in the USA who believe in racial purity ( and whites are not the only people guilty of this ), but those people are living in the past, and people like my bi-racial sons are the future. If you look at the demographics trends, you'll see that the USA will probably not be a primarily white nation by 2050. I believe this is a very good thing, because the USA should not be about race. A truly multiracial USA can be a model for the rest of the world. As I noted in the video below, I really feel that the best long-term way to combat racism is to become to become such a multiracial society, that the distinctions between races start to fade away:



Another thing that gives the USA great potential is the natural entrepreneurial spirit of American culture. Sure, some people might call it simple greed ( and there's certainly far too much of that ), and perhaps there are not as many Horatio Alger stories in the USA as there had once been, but there are still plenty of success stories in the USA that are uniquely American. For example how many other countries could produce a Bill Gates? Now, I'm not a huge fan of Bill Gates ( I'm writing this post on my Mac ), but the circumstances of his success might make one exclaim "Only in America!".

Bill Gates was a brilliant young man. He scored 1590 out of 1600 the SAT ( Note: This is a standardized test that pretty much all college-bound high school student take in the USA. ) and was accepted into Harvard University. After about a year at Harvard, he decided to drop out and start his own software company. According to his Wikipedia page ( which cites Gates autobiography ), "He had talked this decision over with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start a company.".

How many other nations on earth does something like this happen? In most nations, if you were accepted to ( arguably ) the most prestigious university in the country, you would never think of dropping out, and you would almost certainly not get the blessing of your parents. Let's face it, dropping out of Harvard to start your own company is a huge risk, but Americans have a mindset that often leads to that kind of risk-taking ( BTW, Steve Jobs was also a college drop-out. ).

Of course such risk taking is not always a good thing. Personally, I've never had the guts to take those kinds of risks in life, and more often that not, that kind of risk taking ends in disaster. For every Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, there are thousands of people who wished they never dropped out of college. However, there's something I love about that. There's something I love about a culture that lends itself to both spectacular successes and spectacular failures. Take the US education system for example. Every year statics are released about the math and science proficiency of school children around the world, and every year, the USA performs terribly compared to the rest of the world. However, take look at this link. That link is a list of all the Nobel prize winners by country. As you can see, the USA has had far more Nobel prize winners than any other nation. Of course, the USA has a rather large population, but even if you take the population differences into account ( see this link ), the USA still does a lot better than lots of countries in which school children vastly out-perform US school children. How does one account for that? How does one account for that fact that the USA is apparently full of ignorant school children but brilliant scientists? Well, I think it has something to do with the American mindset. Countries with highly performing school children tend to have societies that place a high value on education. These societies also tend to value conformity. For better or worse, the USA isn't like that at all. I'm not saying it's good thing that the lots of folks in the USA don't value education, but I think it is a good thing that there is probably a lot less societal pressure to perform well academically in USA than in a lot of other nations. The USA may have a lower percentage of high-performing school kids than other nations, but because of the lack of societal pressure to perform well academically, I think that high performing students in the USA are probably ( in general ) a little more self-motivated than high performing students in other nations. For better or worse, there's a lot of academic freedom at each level of the US education system. Kids are given the freedom to make choices, even if they are the wrong ones. Of course, most students do make the wrong choices, which is why we are a largely ignorant nation full of people who don't believe in evolution and think that the sun revolves around the earth. Of course that same system also produces good number of self-motivated people that make the right choices. These are the types of people who win Noble prizes or change the world in other ways ( Gates, Jobs, Edison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, etc. ).

Of course, I'm not even sure if the "American Way" is the best way in education or anything else. I'm not really trying to put any other nation down. All I'm saying is that the "American Way" is certainly unique, and I certainly love it. That's why I think America really is a about a mindset. For better of worse, I think there is an America way of thinking. It's not like we have a hive mind or anything, but I think that there are certain attitudes that most Americans share. While an Ivy League educated northeast liberal like myself may not have a lot in common with some guy from South Carolina who goes to anti-Obama rallies, I think we are probably both strivers, both believe in freedom of choice, both have an entrepreneurial spirit, both love our country passionately, and both want to do what we can to make our nation better. That's all part of the American mindset that I think most of us share.

So, I guess, the bottom is that I love my country, but I love what it has the potential to become even more. I hope that in 100 years, the USA is a completely multi-racial society were everybody kinda looks vaguely like Tiger Woods ( OK, perhaps that's a bad example because Tiger isn't exactly Mr. Handsome, but you get the idea ). I hope we live up to Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that we can be a nation where people "will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character". I hope we can be a nation that continues to lead the world in innovation and ambition.

Actually, truth be told, I wish those kind of things for the whole world, but unfortunately, most countries don't have the societal structure to pull this off. In lots of countries, half of the people ( the women ) are treated like second class citizens. In lots of countries, you can't rise to the top unless you practice a certain religion, have a certain color skin, or were born into a certain social class. The USA certainly hasn't eliminated problems like sexism, racism, or religious discrimination, but I see the potential in the USA to rise above these hurdles. There's so much potential in the USA, and I think the USA has a responsibility to live up to its potential. I know it sounds corny, but if the USA can truly live up to its potential, the USA can be a beacon of hope for the rest of the world.

OK, well it's getting late, and I should probably finish this post. However, considering the patriotic mood this post has put me in, I've decided to finish it with the link below:

Reading is Fundamental