WTF are we doing?

Posted on August 29th, 2011 by craighope

I am generally a good mannered and jovial guy who likes to have fun and laugh.  Lately some things have been bothering me.

Fall Sports have begun, school started for the kids, and the 2012 election cycle about to really get moving there are things that need to be discussed.  I apologize if I offend anyone.

We have 2 voting tribes in this country.  Republican and Democrat.  We also have a non tribal faction.  Call them Libertarian or Independent.  Whatever you call them, they sway our general elections.  People on the left and right are going to vote like they always do along tribal lines.  That much we know.  The people in the middle are a different stripe.  They can shift directions.  Kudos for their voting efforts.

Voters are generally apathetic and uneducated on issues and policy.  They tend to be especially uneducated on how policy directly effects them.  Too many voters in the middle fall prey to attack ads (notice how these ads show up the final day before the election) and issues that don’t really matter in terms of policy that makes this country great (social issues).

I would implore people to stop watching real housewives and start reading up on your candidates and the issues.  There is no excuse in this information age.  The information is readily available.  Read both sides of the issue.  Avoid blogger and opinion pieces.  Don’t read material that supports your preconceived thoughts/opinions.  If you’re a lefty, don’t watch MSNBC.  If you’re a righty, don’t watch Fox News.  Watch and listen to the other channel.   …this is just an example.

Where are we headed as a nation?  We are slowly creeping toward an unsustainable entitlement driven society.  We have labor that is too expensive because of unions who bully the process and neglect to train and educate their own ranks.  We expect the top wealth to support the bottom 50%.  We have a mentality to help the less fortunate at any cost while not investigating the paths to help those who can help themselves.  We have an education system that throws money at the wide range of problems without holding parents and students accountable.

Feeding this is a generation of coddled kids who lack a work discipline, an inability to compete while thinking they are “competitive”.  Video games, helicopter parents who gush over their kids, and excessive participation trophies do not lay a decent enough foundation for creativity, the ability to deal disappointment and failure, or a drive to make something out of nothing.  Sprinkled into all of this is a hair trigger on playing the victim card in life.

Times are tougher economically.  People are out of work.  Business is not hiring (draw your own conclusion why).  They are not dire and will improve.  We see those with less than they had in the 90′s but yet more than those had in WWII.  There are enough programs to tide us over until we pull ourselves up.

We have a banking system holding toxic assets that has shrunk credit and lowered interest rates.  This helps upper end borrow at nothing, invest, and produce decent returns but the same banking system is not lending to small business.

What can we be doing?

Start with an education.  We need less emphasis on liberal arts and more focus on technical skills.  Accounting, science, and trades are the key.  Empower a generation with skills that solve problems and build something.

Healthcare is not going to improve because everyone pays an insurance premium.  Health only gets better by eating right and exercising more.  I know this sounds simplistic but it is largely true.  A healthy society is a happy and capable society of workers.  Less disability thus less entitlement spending.

Politics will change if everyone understands the issues at hand and stops blindly following their tribe.  This is the information age.  We can elect true representatives if we work at it as much as we do our devotion to little league.  60% turnout during elections is shameful.  Those 40% have no right to complain about government when they are unhappy with the results.  Cast an educated vote and not an emotional vote.

No matter where you lean (left of right), you have to figure out a way to pay for your program.  If you want everyone to have free healthcare, free retirement, you have to fund it somehow.  If you want businesses to go unregulated, you have to find a way to fix any collateral damage of unemployment, crime, and environmental issues.

My name is Craig Hope and I can use your vote.  

In the News…

Posted on May 10th, 2011 by craighope

There are some things that deserve comment.

Pippa Middleton

I have never thought Maria Shriver was attractive.  I think Pippa Middleton is an easy “7″ but not as “hot” as people seem to rave about.

As a conservative, I am disappointed at who we have (thus far) running for 2012.  Newt is not the answer.  I would never vote for Palin.

Floods happen.  Don’t buy property in a flood plain.

This nation should cut spending more than it should raise taxes.  It’s common sense.  Would you take a cash advance on your Visa to pay your cable bill?

We need to get the hell out of Afghanistan.  They are living in the stone age and don’t want to change.  Why should we impose the Kardashians on them?

Amnesty for immigrants and raise consumption tax on goods and services.

If you buy a large SUV or Truck because you think its safer, YOU are now the menace on the road.

I don’t watch Oprah.

Teens today who smoke should not be allowed to vote when they turn 18.  They have proven 1. They make bad decisions.  2. They fall easy prey to their equally stupid peers and can’t think for themselves.

You can save money by stop thumbing through catalogs.  Out of sight, out of mind.

I’ve never ridden on a train.

Avoid going into debt with student loans with a major in social work.  Get the accounting degree first, then save the world.

Obama proved he was a US citizen and not a Muslim all in the same week.

Glaciers were melting long before humans drove cars.

Baseball is a nuanced game and full of players who barely graduated high school.

I need to eat more chicken.

Torment of the Tidy

Posted on April 19th, 2011 by craighope

I am not OCD with cleanliness.  I do prefer to be organized and have things in their place.  Having kids…err, living with kids creates a direct conflict to being a tidy person.

I used to be way more tidy when I was younger and the days before having kids around.  My college roommate Adam can attest to this.  He was not so tidy. Everyday he would return to our dorm room and flop his book bag right behind the chair to my desk.  Every time I needed to use the desk, I had to push the damn thing out of the way.  It drove me crazy.  Adam never grasped what the bid deal was.  After a while, I know he did it just to get a rise out of me.

Fast forward to the toddler years.  All the stuff that accumulates with having babies/toddlers/kids is a maddening.  I quickly learned to let it go.  It starts with the primary colored rattles, swings, saucers, special spoons and bowls, sippy cups, and all the other wrangling devices we use to confine the toddlers. These just make their home in the living room for about 2 years.  Your house looks like the physical therapy gym for Willie Wonka’s staff.

Why can’t it look like the Pottery Barn for Kids ad ?!?!?!?!?!!?!

Our kids are old enough now to manage their own tidying.   Notice that I said “old enough” and not “willing”.  It’s a slow program thus far.  They do a fair job at “cleaning their rooms” which is to say the merely move all the crap from one location to another with a slightly less cluttered feel.

*Warning* If you are full OCD, you should probably stop reading now or pick up the phone and schedule an appointment with your therapist.

The behavior that drives me nuts?  Leaving things around.  They leave their socks in every room.  And not just a pair, they leave one sock here and another sock over there as if they are leaving breadcrumbs to find their way back.  I don’t get it.  They leave the drawers open after they retrieve something.  Board games are never put back together and they leave the pieces and cards all over.  I have a basket in their room where I simply toss the random stuff to be later sorted out.

Our house was built to accommodate a small version of the Brady Bunch.  The kids rooms adjoin with a bathroom.  Two sinks, one for each.  Shower and toilet.  You’d think the universe is in order.   Oh… NoOOOO!!!!   The little buggers have to use our bathroom.  Is there some human nature where primping is communal?  It was our desire for them to use THEIR bathroom, to have them fight over the time spent in there and bond over the experience.  Mostly just don’t mess up our bathroom.  Isolate your filth in your bathroom.  It hasn’t worked.

In our bathroom, Emmie leaves her box of earrings on the counter all the time and neglects to put back in the drawer.  She brushes her teeth in our bathroom and leaves her toothbrush laying out.  She will shower in our bathroom and leave her dirty clothes on the floor.   …are you dialing your therapist yet?

I will be in the other room knowing she is brushing her teeth and hear the “SPLEUPHT” of  her spitting efforts.  I use the term “spitting” quite loosely.  It resembles the sloppy sneeze of a rhino instead of the precise spit of a viper (“spsst”).   The end result is a constant dried pasty film on the sink basin and sometimes the clump of toothpaste that never seems to breakdown during the brushing process.  It’s annoying and disgusting.

The bedrooms are insanity.  Toys and pieces of toys are everywhere.  About twice a year we will get in there and go through everthing and tidy up by consolidating those board game pieces, throw out old toys, DVD’s back in their jewel cases, and generally put things in their place.

The Little Pet Shop toys are the worst.   Each character has 23 pieces.  Where do all the stuffed animals come from?  I fear I am going to move the stuffed animals and find ET staring back at me.

This euphoria of tidiness lasts about 10 hours.  And within 2 days, it looks as if nothing was ever cleaned up.  The room looks like mobsters came in to ransack the place.

The kitchen.  You can imagine.  Adults are bad enough.  Kids leave wrappers everywhere, crumbs, and the floor is nothing but dried mac and cheese and cereal bits.  Here is a slight upside though.  Go buy a rechargeable vacuum that can be quickly deployed for getting that stuff sucked up.  The kids actually like to do this one.  We bought the Electrolux broom.  It is a dust buster on a stick but with more umph than what we grew up with.

We have tried to implement programs of allowance.  They don’t last.  The kids are well fed, their clothes are clean, so why should they bother.  We figured that throwing a few sheckles at them, they might come around.  We share the same last name which means we can’t violate any labor laws.

I have but one victory in all of this chaos. I have successfully trained them to leave the TV remote in the same place. Thank God for that.

I suppose I will just have to live with it.  Or I can kick my other plan into action.  I want to hire a non-english speaking 18 year old Swedish maid.  I am taking applications.  I will do my due diligence and check references on Angie’s List.

Send photo’s with resume.

How to effectively communicate…

Posted on March 14th, 2011 by craighope

Much of our interactions with others occurs via texts, Facebook, email, phone calls, and sometimes in person.  It can be very asynchronous.  I personally don’t mind it.  Some people prefer to engage in the communication and resolve the item immediately to some closure.

Either way, with this new pace there are some things we should consider before sending that text, email or Wall Post on Facebook.

By the way, a great book on communication (in general).  Crucial Conversations.

1. Stop forwarding emails with no context. We have all received the email with the long winded diatribe about why conservatives are smarter than liberals or why Bush lied.  Aside from the annoying political slant of the content, you need to at least forward with comment (“I found this funny… enjoy.”  or “what a crock… be appalled with me on this…”).  In a business setting, when you forward me something at least tell me what you want me to do with this.  It isn’t always obvious.

Even worse are those urban legend emails about winning a trip to Disney if you forward to 100 people.  This crap has been around since AOL was the king online service.  Stop it already.  Before you forward this crap, get some info on the topic from Snopes.com.

2.  Proper “Reply” vs “Reply to All”.  If you receive an email that was addressed to all parties and your response will benefit the group, reply to all.  If your response won’t be appreciated by the group or sensitive in some way, then by all means reply to the sender.  I don’t know how many times trying to figure out a date or time for the group when everyone starts replying to individuals and the conversation gets way off course.

3.  Facebook Wall Posts vs Messaging. I don’t know what people are thinking sometimes.  I often see a Facebook wall post with somewhat personal information/questions that are way better suited in a more private setting.  Everyone can see the wall post!  Send those private things through messaging.

4.  The Voicemail that says “hey its me, call me”. It makes more sense to actually leave a message about the subject you want to discuss.  Open ended “call me” is my signal to call back whenever.  I do this a lot.  I call back much later than the originator expected.  ”why didn’t you call me yesterday?”  …”cuz you didn’t say to…”

5.  Avoid all of the above while drinking. I think this is self explanatory.   We don’t want to put ourselves in any situation where the NFL has to investigate texted pictures or voicemail from a mistress.  Loose lips sink ships.

6. DO NOT BCC !!!!!. The dreaded Blind Carbon Copy.  If the BCC victim ever finds out, that person is pissed.  Or worse yet, someone forwards an email that was BCC’d and the victim eventually sees it.  Bad Times.

7.  Stop attaching funny videos. This is what YouTube is for.  Just put the link in the email.  For crying out loud, this is 2011.

8.  Proper use of “lose” vs. “loose”, “too, to, two”, and I see this one a ton.  ”with all intensive purposes.”  It is “intents and purpose”.

Tone:  It is important to convey your message properly.  Sometimes the tone gets misinterpreted.  Short and abrupt messages can come off as bitchy or rude.  I personally assume nobody is trying to be rude because putting rude comments into writing can be professionally limiting.  But I have witnessed occasion where people thought it was rude.

Thanks Mr. Obama, you did something right.

Posted on December 21st, 2010 by craighope

…but I still won’t vote for you in 2012.

Love makes the world go ’round.  I love having extra $ in my paycheck.

Here is a quick Kiplinger article on what it means to you.

Extra money to “We the People” = more money to spend or save.

If we choose to save, we add solid assets to our banking system.

If we spend, we add jobs to those providers to make the goods or offer the services.  Thus, they continue to earn and thrive (and get a tax cut).

What can you do with an extra $50 to $100 per month?

Note: next task, lower our national spending.

I would rather keep money flowing in a free market than allow our professional politicians “decide” what they think it best.

This John Kerry clip sums it up nicely.

Unsubscribe…

Posted on November 9th, 2010 by craighope

Unsubscribe

I get junkmail all the time.  We all do right?

We buy something online or even at a store and they grab your email address.  Yes, I recognize we volunteer the info and it is partly my fault.  I am simply too lazy to give them a fake email address.  I have thought about giving a fake email address but chicken out thinking that they see right through my act as I stammer out “craig dot smi… sampsonite! at compuserve dot com”.

Anyway, I digress.  I clicked that “unsubscribe” link from an Aeropostle email and it tossed up a message that it would “…take 5 business days to take effect.”

What!?  5 business days for an automated software driven method of information collection?  Does my request get emailed to some intern at Aeropostle who then has to update the mainframe by retyping my email address?  This should be immediate.  My regional bank offers online banking and my debit transactions are posted almost immediately.

It makes no sense.

Who not to sit next to…

Posted on November 5th, 2010 by craighope

Here is a good book idea.  A book that lists out all the crazy undesirable people you want to avoid sitting next to on an airplane.

We recently flew and my wife and I sat next to nice older guy who was heading to Arizona for his yearly Navy reunion.  He talked our ear off.  We discussed politics, pets, and how his wife hates to travel.  He pulled the curtain back on his life way too open.  His daughter is an overweight hairdresser who married a douchebag.  His own mother was a hateful person.  Get the drift?  I digress.

All I wanted to do is read my book and keep to myself.  Yes, I might be an ass for my self absorption but hey, that’s what I want.  I bought a ticket to fly somewhere, not a ticket to a social hour.  Reading on the plane is a good place to block out noise with the steady drone of the engines.  Here’s a tip.  Put in headphones early.  Get seating and go dark.

Anyway, there are many different types you want to avoid sitting next to.  The obvious is the overweight mouth breather.  Babies are cute, but the screaming child is not fun.  The restless toddler who has the parent that does nothing is annoying.

Any more?

TIMEOUT! “Fox News is ‘destructive’…” ????

Posted on September 28th, 2010 by craighope

This pisses me off.  Obama has had a burr in his saddle for Fox News since the beginning of his presidency.  That’s fine.  I understand why.  He disagrees with the viewpoint.  Fine.  But he claim it is “destructive” based on “… I think Fox is part of that tradition – it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view,”.

MSNBC follows the same theme with a liberal point of view.  Let’s be fair and declare MSNBC destructive too.

As a consumer of news and analysis, I get who is who and what their agenda is.  I appreciate both sides.  Understanding the agenda as it relates to the content allows us to absorb the material.  After all, we are thinking people.

I just think it is very un-presidential for Obama to target one organization simply because he disagrees with the viewpoint.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/28/obama-fox-news-is-destructive-to-america/?hpt=T2

Olive Garden, I gave you a chance

Posted on September 16th, 2010 by craighope

Olive Garden

Swing and a miss!   Just got back after a 2 hour adventure at the local Olive Garden.  Thirty minute wait to be seated and about 1 hour 15 min to get food.  Not a good showing.

We gave it a chance.   We held off on going until now.  New location.  New staff.  Etc.  The kids wanted pasta so I decided to take them to Olive Garden.  Lee’s Summit opened this location about 3 weeks ago.  I figured they have worked out the kinks with their service as many new restaurants do.  Didn’t matter… or they needed more time.

The 30 minute wait to be seated is not so bad and I can live with it.  You get that at many places.  The kids are another story.

I hadn’t been to an Olive Garden for 15 years.  I think the last one I patronized was over by the old Bannister Mall (it became a chinese buffet after that, which I probably frequented more).  I digress.

The Olive Garden TV commercials are so inviting.  It shows young, diverse, fit, smiling couples with nice teeth bubbling with excitement to eat pasta and bread sticks.  They look like they are having so much fun.  I want to have that kind of fun.  I can have that kind of fun.  Olive Garden should be full of vivacious people like this.

Au contraire….

Here is where reality smacks you in the face.  It starts outside the front entrance where people are smoking.  Quite a few people. (You have seen these power smokers… the older lady who smokes the Virgina Slim and her hand never leaves her face and the cigarette stays 1 inch away from her lips between drags.)   As they take years off their lives, the smell of cigarettes wafts into the foyer where everyone else is waiting.  Very unpleasant and the kids made mention of it more than once.

There were a number of people who left their table, exited, smoked, and returned (looking back, I know now this was related to the long wait for food).  How did we know they were the smokers?  They smelled like ashtrays.  It was gross.

I never did see any of those young, diverse, fit, smiling people with nice teeth.  Quite the opposite.  It WAS diverse for sure.  The diversity consisted of the elderly, Nascar fans and possibly an overeaters anonymous meeting.  The bottomless pasta bowl and free bread sticks were the sirens calling them in.  Where else can you get a sit down dinner of 1200 calories for $10 or less?

Let’s begin with salad.  ”Salad” in the academic sense.  It had lettuce and was coated with some sort of oily substance.  Too much onion.  The only saving grace was the cameo appearance by the tangy banana pepper.  The bread sticks were good.  Kids loved them.  Not my thing, but I will offer a small gold star.

My glass sat empty for too long between replenishment in the 1 hour 15 minutes we sat at our table.  Another mark in the bad column.

The kids ordered normal kid fare.  Spaghetti with red sauce and chicken fingers (the boy loves his chicken fingers like Hugh Hefner likes blondes).

I ordered something lighter (The Venetian Apricot Chicken).  Sounded tasty right?

[Jeopardy Theme]

[tick, tick, tick]

[montage of me with a gray beard, kids with their graduation caps and diplomas]

Here comes the food.   You might have thought they make the pasta in house as long as it took.  Chicken fingers are your normal crap.  The spaghetti with red sauce left me unimpressed but I didn’t have high expectations from the kids menu.

My chicken dish was the equivalent of a high end frozen dinner.  The chicken breasts were flat (I prefer mine busty and full.  These were more like Goldie Hawn).  The broccoli, asparagus, and tomatoes were limp and bland.  The “citris” part of the dish must have been orange marmalade slathered on top.  Trust me when I tell you that the picture below did not resemble my dish.  (well, maybe the Goldie Hawn part)

Olive Garden: Venetian Apricot Chicken

To the server’s credit, at the 40 minute mark she recognized terrible service and was doing as much as she could.  Her tea replenishment picked up as soon as she caught on.

Will I go back?  Maybe, but I will give this place some more time.  I hope they get more microwaves in their kitchen to keep up with the demand.

PS.  Ron Best is listed as the General Manager.  I am not throwing him under the bus, but he needs to be informed.  They win as a team and lose as a team.

Buildings and Books

Posted on September 8th, 2010 by craighope

The news has been full of angry and outraged conservatives chiming in on the Mosque in New York and the Florida nut job buring Quran’s.

This country can have some difficult situations to make sense of sometimes.  The religious right push for oppressive positions but forget about forgiveness.  The liberal minded will side with whomever they want to like them, but never offer any shame or societal justice.

Both of these groups/people have the right to do their respective poorly tasted activity.   We all agree that these acts are seen as poor judgement.  We don’t all agree how to deal with them.  Let’s not forget that we are founded in freedom free and this Country is based on some simple principles.

As a conservative that can sound somewhat liberal at times, I encourage the right leaning mouthpieces to quiet down and find a better argument and another way to vent over the Mosque issue and trying to back Obama into a corner (he is doing ok on his own).

Here is a good book understanding how to achieve peace.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time

Be an active member of your community and this country.

Citizen You: Doing Your Part to Change the World