Book List

Just for giggles I've decided to keep a list of books I've read. As you'll see, I'm not the world's fastest reader.

2008 (so far)
The Worst Hard Time - the Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan. Nonfiction.
About: people who didn't leave the Dust Bowl.
My thoughts: Wow! Books like this remind me to be grateful for all that I have. The Dust Bowl and Great Depression were events almost unimagineable to us younger generations. Also, an event almost completely human-made. A good read for those who don't have an understanding of man's effect on the environment.
Lasting Image: the "dusters" - incredible black storms caused by high sustained winds and loose topsoil. Sometimes achieved zero visibility. Also caused blindness and "dust pneumonia" - and death

Candy Girl - A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper by Diablo Cody. Nonfiction.
About: an ordinary woman who decides to become a stripper - in Minneapolis!
My thoughts: I first saw this book reviewed in Entertainment Weekly magazine. It got high marks and sounded interesting. But I'd forgotten about it until I learned the author had also penned the screenplay to Juno, so I went back and got it. Diablo Cody is a fantastic, original, and very clever writer. She bares all in the book (and as a stripper). It was fascinating but at the same time, not at all surprising. A fun read. Short book.
Lasting Image: the clientele from her time working in "the box" at Sex World - especially a certain --- Licker, and her first foray into baring all at the Skyway during Amateur night, particularly the use of the word "staunch". Eww.

2007 (in reverse order as far back as I can remember)
A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger. Nonfiction.
About: Junger, author of A Perfect Storm, also a Belmont, Massachusetts native, coincidentally was a wee child when one of the contractors who built an addition on his house turned out to the Boston Strangler. Or not.
My thoughts: Junger reviews events surrounding the killings of the Boston Strangler, how the man who confessed to being the Boston Strangler may or may not be accountable for a murder that occurred in his neighborhood. It was a great premise but I found the book disappointing due to the complete lack of resolution. Sometimes you have to accept that you'll just never know.
Lasting Image: Just inside the front cover there is a family photo showing Junger as a child, in his mother's lap, and in the background are the contractors who'd just finished the addition on his parent's house. One of the contractors is the Boston Strangler.

Carnival Undercover by Bret Witter and Lorelei Sharkey. Nonfiction.
About: everything you wanted to know about amusement parks, travelling carnivals, etc.
My thoughts: it's pretty light fare, but hey, who doesn't want to know how to win those big stuffed animals at the State Fair?
Lasting Image: remembering to cut a hole in some plywood so I can practice the softball-in-the-milkcan game.

Thunderstruck by Erik Larsn. Nonfiction.
About: how the murder of a woman and low-speed getaway pushed the fledgling "wireless" radio into public consciousness.
My thoughts: if not for the Titanic, everyone would know this story. It rivals O.J. Simpson's low-speed getaway on that famous Friday night in 1994.
Lasting image: a doctor, who had murdered his pathetic faux-debutaunte wife, escaping across the Atlantic on a luxury liner with his mistress disguised as a young boy, is captured when recognized by a fellow passenger. Because of the new "wireless" radio communication, the ship's captain is aware of the impending capture, which is then leaked to the press, so that the whole world is left waiting for the ship to arrive in North America for the arrest.
Lasting Image: Marconi had no scientific training. He stole the idea, which was only theory at the time, and worked tirelessly using only trial-and-error to build the device. He was also part P.T. Barnum - quite the marketing guru.

Next Phase

Katie and I reached a new phase in our lives Friday night. We probably reached it earlier but we didn't know until Friday night.

I'll set the scene - a darkened movie theater, credits rolling (for Fred Claus, a steaming pile of feces on the holiday movie list). Katie, the kids and I are donning our winter coats to head back out to the van.

Owen says, "What if there was a Santa Claus?"

I looked to Katie, who was deflating like a stuck balloon. No, it was more like her puppy had just been assassinated. She was the embodiment of disappointment.

When he saw his mother's disappointment, Owen tried earnestly to backtrack. But the damage was done. It was too late. We finally had the proof that our children no longer believe in Santa Claus.

We knew Megan no longer believed in Santa. I don't remember the exact age she stopped believing, but it's been a while (she's 14 now).

We also knew Jackson no longer believes. It's been well more than a year for him (he's within weeks of his 11th birthday). We did ask him not to tell Owen, who we thought still believed in Santa. He's 9 and probably should have figured it out long ago.

But in our naive desire to keep our kids young, Katie and I spent the entire season pretending that Owen still believed. We covertly carried "Santa's" gifts to a secret hiding spot after purchase. We spoke in hushed tones about which gifts were Santa's and which would be from us. We threw stern looks toward the older siblings every time they mentioned the myth of Santa.

All for naught.

I personally do not remember ever believing in Santa Claus (thank you very much, 10 older siblings, for ruining that for me!). Katie and her younger brother believed for quite some time - deep into elementary school. And even when they no longer believed, they hid that fact from their mother because, they reasoned, it might reduce their Christmas bounty.

Katie and I spent much of Saturday in a subdued state of mourning. After Santa evaporates, this becomes a pretty cruel world, doesn't it? What's next? I guess we won't be sneaking money into their tooth fairy pillows the nights after teeth fall out.

Ugh. They grow up so fast.

More Dead

12-29-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

12-30-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

12-31-07 - 2 dead mice found in basement, heads crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

1-2-08 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

Death toll for the season: 12

Two items of note: 1) we've gone a few days in a row without a dead mouse; and 2) the squirrels are pulling the baggies of dead mice out of the garbage cans and leaving them in the driveway and yard.

Who knows what surprises are in store when the snow melts?

Infestation

12-24-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

12-26-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

12-28-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

Death toll for the season: 10

Don't know the reason for the sudden string of killings - I guess a family of the little buggers must have moved in.

Unfortunately one of my Better Mousetrap brand mousetraps broke so I can only kill one at a time. Guess I better get to the hardware store.

Giving Blood Part 2 - Natalya Returns

First, read this post from 2006. It describes a less than fulfilling attempted blood donation.

Guess who was there to take my blood today?

After filling out the forms and answering the not-so-discrete questions about my travel and sexual history, a lab-coated Memorial Blood Center technician led me to a table with a left-armed drawing position (I prefer the left arm, thank you very much). The technician manning this and an adjacent, right-arm drawing table, was Natalya - she of the "oops" incident from a year ago.

Yikes! Was I actually going to have to ask for a different phlebology technician? I debated mentally.

"Look," I'd say, "it's nothing professional, but I just can't have you 'oops-ing' me again."

Then I thought - if she was that bad, would she still be working for them? After all, she appeared to have properly handled the woman next to me. No oops-ing today. No blood on the floor and alarmed stares from other blood donors. So far.

Before I really had much more of a chance to think, a different, much more experienced looking phlebologist approached and took care of me.

A one word response to all of this - "Whew!"

All went well, and I'm currently running a pint low. And I'm happy that 3 people will receive parts of my blood and help them (hopefully) return to good health.

Death Toll update

12-16-07 - 1 dead squirrel found in bottom of empty garbage can outside garage. No obvious external injuries. Cause of death: suicide.

12-19-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

Death toll for the season: 7

2007 Non-Demominational, Non-Personalized, Holiday-Type Newsletter

Presenting the 2007 Non-denominational, Non-Personalized, Holiday-type Newsletter of the Gonzalez Family

I Spoke Too Soon

12-13-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

Death toll for the season: 5

Wouldn't you know that as soon as I said "seems like it's going to be a pretty light year for dead mice" that I get another one.

Christmas Letter Update - I Got Nothin'

Every year I seem to hit this roadblock, but I'm more stuck than I've ever been. I'm gonna go ahead and blame my job. It's 9:53pm and I'm ready to drop. The thing I need most for creativity is extra brain cycles. Spare mindshare. And I don't have any. I leave for work by 7am and arrive home after 6pm. I'm in meetings 7 hours a day, and now I've taken over responsibility for a project because someone else is out on medical leave. I literally eat my lunch in meetings and go to the bathroom walking from one meeting room to another.

So don't be shocked if the Annual Non-Denominational, Holiday-Type Newsletter is a bit late this year.

Dead Mouse Update

11-30-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement under ping pong table. Cause of death: toyed with to death by natural predators.

12-8-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

Death toll for the season: 4

It's been a light year for rodents and I'm not sure why. Don't really care, either. I'm just happy I haven't had to find one by smell. God, I hate that smell - the smell of rotting rodent. It's indescribable.

Complete This Sentence

Here's a fun exercise that I'd really like a bunch of my friends/family to try. But first a little background.

I'm reading a book called Happier, which can be found at any book store with a self-help section. In the book there are a series of exercises intended to help you decide for yourself how to be happier. One exercise is to finish a series of sentences, like:

*Things that make me happy are ...
*To bring 5 percent more happiness to my life ...

I think you get the idea.

So, today, for the first day in a year of riding the bus to work, I had to run twice to make it to the bus; once in the morning and once at night. It occurred to me, while making my mild sprint this afternoon, that I believe every time I have to run/jog/increase-my-gait-even-a-smidgen to catch the bus that I lose a little bit of my soul.

You probably think I'm nuts. That's okay, I can live with that. But then I thought - I wonder how others would finish that sentence.

I'm asking that you all please complete the following sentence in the comments:

I lose a little bit of my soul every time ...

One Less Pristine Tooth

A quick note - I had a cavity filled today. I'm not a huge fan of Novocain, that's for sure. I gave blood last Saturday. It took 8 minutes and 5 seconds (they time you now, for some reason). I swear that the Novocain needle was in my gum longer than than the bloodletting needle. [Insert bone rattling shiver here.]

You know what else I hate? My plaque-infested tooth didn't hurt when I woke up this morning. However, now that it contains a white, plastic filling, it's actually kind of sore. Pretty hard to explain to the kids why they should have their cavities filled if it only creates pain for them in a place there wasn't pain before.

Notes on a Youth

Here I am - but I don't know the date. It's a school photo, but not from kindergarten, of that I am sure. So it's sometime after that.



I thought it might be fun to make fun of me, as if I was looking at the photo for the first time and I didn't know who it was. Here goes:

"What a cute little girl!"

"Note the narrow shoulders and vastly over-sized head."

"Looks like the nose is already full grown."

"Is that hair or is he wearing a helmet?"

"What pretty brown eyes! What's her name?"

Feel free to chime in.

The Killing Season

It's not even cold yet for October and I've killed 2 mice so far this season. I'll keep track on this blog again this year.

Season count:2 - 1 by Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap, 1 by cats.

The Last Whimsy

I am still alive, and working on several new pieces - including stories about public transportation and more tales of interest from CCRB (concentric-circled retail behemoth) like how to write "brand". (Oh. My. God! Our internal communications organization has actually published a memo on the proper way to exhibit CCRB "brand" while writing! Holy F**king S**t! Is this necessary? In this memo I learned, among many golden nuggets of great information, that it is "brand" to end an email with "Thanks!" and not "brand" to end with "Thank you." Like, you know, whatever. We're The Gap, not Brooks Brothers.)

For giggles I re-read several old posts and now am wondering where my whimsy has gone. For example, I went to the dentist Monday morning and learned that I've grown another cavity in one of my pristine teeth (that is, one of the few teeth in my mouth that doesn't already have a filling). In the past I could have written an entire post about the experience - expecting that my terrific storytelling could make something so mundane seem interesting - even funny.

Not anymore. Just a dull trip to the dentist. I need to find my whimsy. Need to do more solitary chores - more biking to work and clearing brush. That's it - my whimsy's out in the back yard.

Help me find my whimsy. Please.

Take care.

The Joy (and Horror) of Randomness

In my estimation, people who listen to music (most everyone) tend to fall into one of two groups:

1. People who like to hear certain songs in a certain order. These people fill their iPods with playlists (they don't buy the Shuffle because it only takes 1 playlist) and seldom, if ever, use the "shuffle songs" function.
2. People who nearly always put their music on shuffle. These people revel in the surprise of their favorite songs mixed together in a different order. "Ooh!" they gasp at the start of each song, "I like this song, and I like it even better after ..."

I tend toward Group 1. The main reason for this is that I listen to fairly wide variety of rock and roll artists. I have a playlist, for example, consisting completely of The Fray and Coldplay because they have a similar sound. I've also found that The Beatles don't mix well with any other groups. Neither do They Might Be Giants. So it would be discombobulating to me if When I'm 64 by The Beatles was followed by Rock You Like a Hurricane by The Scorpions, which was then followed by Don't Panic by Coldplay. That's just an odd mix. Discombobulating.

That said, I go through phases where I tire of all my playlists and use the shuffle function just for giggles. For a few days I revel in the joy (or disappointment) of the randomness of the order of the songs. I do occasionally stumble across artist/song mixes that, had I not heard them randomly assembled, I would never have put together myself. Then I put a few new playlists together and move back to Group 1.

I began enjoying the randomness on Monday, July 30th. It was refreshing, revitalizing music that had become stale to me. I had extra bounce in my step as I strode down Nicollet Mall heading to work that Monday. I don't remember hitting skip (a practice I use to move on to the next song when the randomness gods don't offer me a nicely flowing music mix) for all of Monday, nor even Tuesday or Wednesday.

Wednesday, of course, is the day the randomness gods played with our great city, dropping a random collection of vehicles, commuters, construction workers, et al, 64 feet into the Mississippi River during the busiest moment of the day.

Just think of the crazy randomness of it all. The driver of the UPS truck, interviewed in his hospital bed, described honking at a school bus full of kids, waving, then looking over to his left and seeing a Tastee truck, and having been a former Tastee employee, actually recognizing the Tastee truck driver. "Hey, I know that guy," he said to himself.

Then the bridge collapsed. The UPS driver lived - obviously. As of this writing the bus driver remains in serious condition. That all the kids made it out of the school bus essentially unhurt is, well (I'm tearing up), proof that even the randomness gods follow Alfred Hitchcock's first rule of moviemaking: never kill the kid. The Tastee driver did not make it, his truck one of the vehicles engulfed in flame immediately after the collapse.

All that in about 2 seconds.

I've already heard stories from people who took a different route home that night - thus avoiding calamity. I don't know if we'll ever hear the stories of the ones who took the different route that night and didn't make it home.

But what to make of it all? God's will? Karma?

Life happens. Death happens. It's better to be lucky than good. There are many things in life over which we have no control. For these things we accept the results of our natural lottery ticket and help those who scored a worse fate than us. No regrets. No gloating. We just shake our collective heads, clean up, rebuild, and move on.

By the way, I'm still shuffling my songs and kind of digging it. Good and bad.

Back from the Edge

Ah, the new job. I've noted in the past that I've taken a new job, and if I understand the company policy, I'm not allowed to say who I work for on this blog because I haven't run it by corporate communications and I might tarnish our "brand" - it's all about being "brand" where I work. I'll refer to my employer by the letters CCRB - an acronym for "concentric circled retail behemoth" - for short. Not to be confused with RBTSWW - "retail behemoth that starts with 'W'". We're definitely not RBTSWW. They're evil. We're good. Anyway...

I think there is no worse feeling for me than to have a feeling and not know why I have that feeling. So, right now, at this moment, I'm experiencing dissatisfaction with my new job. I'm finally writing about this because sometimes writing about it helps. Or at least it helps me figure out what's wrong.

So what's wrong? Oh my, I don't even know where to start...

1. This IT organization boasts more than 3,000 employees. Change is constant. This creates several problems for me, the foremost being that I don't relish meeting 3,000 people. Meeting people is awkward. There's not much I dislike more than awkward social situations. I find myself walking down 15 floors of stairs rather than take a long elevator ride with one of these new acquaintances.

Even worse, social networking is highly encouraged. It is even one of the tenets of the 4 pillars of employee development - the E's of excellence - namely "maximizing relationships". From what I've been able to figure out, "maximizing relationships" means getting people to do your work for you. That may be my cynicism breaking through. I would be more in line with something like "nurturing relationships" because the word maximizing implies use - as in, I'm going to use you for something I need, whereas nurturing implies some level of work on my part to make the whole grow. Which brings me to the next ... opportunity.

2. Language. CCRB has its own language. Most corporations do these days. It's the Stepfordian adherence that frightens me. The people who've been around for a long time, I believe, have actually eliminated the word "weakness" from their vocabularies, replacing it with the much friendlier "opportunity". In fact, "opportunity" means anything negative. The only thing it doesn't mean is ... well ... opportunity. Also, we don't "team up" with people, we "partner". What is this desire to turn nouns into verbs? We also "status" with people.

3. Feedback. What would happen if every time you opened your mouth everyone within earshot felt the need to provide feedback on your utterances? It would get really f**king annoying, wouldn't it? Welcome to CCRB - aka Feedback Central. Giving feedback is encouraged. Unfortunately, giving useful, insightful, constructive feedback isn't taught. Some people are good at it, but many aren't. Seeking feedback is also encouraged. As far as I can tell, I'll not be seeking much feedback. I'll be teaching people how to give constructive feedback.

4. My specific job - aka The Meeting. Before I jump into the aspects of my job that I dislike, please let me start by saying that I understand this will probably sound like so much whining. Ooh, my job is so tough, yada yada yada. About a billion people on this planet would give up one or both gonads to be in my position - happily! So that said, I embark...

As in any corporation, there are layers of management between any worker and the people who run the company - the Chief Something Officers. I report through the Chief Information Officer. Between me and the CIO, there is my boss, her boss, his boss, her boss, and then a Vice President, and then the CIO. How many is that? 5? 6? Depends how you count it. Anyway, in ascending order the titles go - expendable worker drone (me), manager, group manager, senior group manager, director, VP, CIO.

The 800 pound gorilla effect - defined as the point in which expendable worker drones become intimidated by management so much so that their speech becomes unsteady and their movements rigid - generally starts at the senior group manager level. So you can have a meeting with managers and group managers and the workers tend to behave as normal, but once the SGM enters the room, people sit straighter, strictly adhere to the language rules of #2, etc.

Okay, so that's the background you need to understand my job. I work in Problem Management. A somewhat meaningless term outside the inner circle of large Information Technology organizations. Our job, as a group, is to work with the rest of the organization to minimize the impact OR prevent problems. At CCRB, Problems are defined as, in simple terms, unplanned global outages.

Here's an example: for several hours 2 days before Christmas none of our cash registers were accepting debit cards. That's bad. Something obviously went wrong. My job (and there are 4 others in my group who do the same thing) is to work with the teams that support all the software that has to do with debit transactions and figure out why it happened and how to make it so it doesn't happen again.

By the time I get involved, the problem is already recovered - that is, the cash registers were again accepting debit cards as a valid form of payment before I even get involved. There are several other organizations whose purpose it is to get the problem recovered. I just work on resolution - ie, the stuff to make it never happen again.

(Small digression - is that a niche within a niche, tucked into a pigeon-hole, or what?)

This isn't the bad part of the job, by the way. This is the good part. You'll know when I get to the bad part. Trust me.

On average, we have about 15 of these "incidents" per week. You don't read about them in the newspaper (hopefully), but they happen. If that seems like a lot, consider this: we've had a 10% year-over-year drop for 3 consecutive years. So it used to be worse. (If you want to see an incident for yourself sometime, I suggest trying one of our store kiosks or shopping on our website. But you didn't hear that from me.)

Once my group has completed analysis, we assign actions that will prevent recurrence of this problem. And then we find a speaker for the incident. To speak at The Meeting.

Each Friday, all of the SGMs and above (including the CIO and all of her direct reports) meet for 45 minutes to review the previous week's problems. Each "owner" of the most egregious of these incidents - there are usually about 5 - is asked by my group to speak at this meeting, ostensibly to share "learnings" about the incident so that no one else suffers the same fate.

Let me put the meeting in my somewhat more pragmatic terms - each Friday, the 75 most powerful people in the organization meet and listen to the managers of the people whose groups caused the previous week's most egregious and impactful problems.

Needless to say, these managers do not relish this "opportunity". Why? Let me count the ways:

1. Public speaking - in front of the very people who will determine your future at CCRB. No pressure there.
2. Implied blame - "owning" an incident means, for all practical purposes, that it was your group's fault. And from experience I can tell you that about 60% of all problems could have been prevented with better planning and testing. So the message is typically about how their group f**ked up. Sweet!
3. Most managers aren't involved in the day to day operations of the group, so they end up spending a considerable amount of time trying to draw from their subordinates the information they need to convey at this meeting. These IT geeks don't communicate well to begin with, especially with the intricate technical details surrounding these complex applications or hardware. Sometimes it's like waiting for the proverbial room of monkeys with typewriters to accidentally type the complete works of Shakespeare.

Because of all this, many managers try to wriggle out of these speaking opportunities. Frankly, I'd be concerned about them if they didn't.

Here's my job - this meeting. Yep. Okay, it's half my job. I prepare the presentation, convince the speakers of the importance of having them speak, then prepare the executive that actually runs the meeting. He's a VP. Like all sycophants, I hang on his every word, jump with great vigor when he says jump, and never tell him how much work goes into this meeting. Bad news rarely makes it to him.

With any job there are rules. These are mine:

1. When "convincing" a manager of the importance of their speaking engagement, I am not allowed to invoke the name of the VP. He doesn't want you to speak. He with the power, who inspires fear. Nope. Me - I want them to speak. I envision most of these managers thinking, "And you are? Nobody? An expendable worker drone? Ri-ight." I am allowed to invoke the name of my group, but that really sounds like a copout. But it's all I have. These managers (frequently group managers and even some SGMs) outrank me and will likely determine my future with CCRB. No pressure there.
2. This particular VP is even a more finicky writer than I am. I am responsible for the content of a 20+ page presentation, that is really a compilation from about 5-10 sources. So I play editor to all the contributors. I am the nitpicker. "Could you change that word, please? It is the wrong 'too' - it should be two O's, not t-w-o." I can't believe I actually have to tell people this, but I do.
3. I'm copy machine guy. We hand out paper copies of the presentation, so on Thursday nights (or Friday mornings) you'll find me hogging the department printer. Making copies. That Electrical Engineering degree is really paying off!
4. I have butterflies every Friday because, if a speaker doesn't show up, it's my fault. It's not really my fault - it's a CLM (career limiting move) for the person who didn't show up - but everyone looks at me and mouths "did you talk to so-and-so?" while I file through my week's conversations to try to remember specifically that I had.
5. Hanging around for feedback. I find an excuse to hang out in the meeting room until the VP leaves to see if he has any feedback to take into next week's meeting. I always pre-arrange for someone to fake a conversation with me until he leaves. How's that for planning?

So that's it. That's my whining. It doesn't seem so bad now that I've written about it.

Because this post is so long, I've skipped some less important details. In fact, I've made some improvements to this whole process that has made The Meeting almost bearable. I'll write about that next time.

I hope you've enjoyed this ride, because it has been therapeutic for me. Thanks for your patience.

Didn't want to go to work today

It's July 5th, I was up late watching fireworks. I'm tired and looking forward to a pressure filled day. Yippee-kie-yay!

Why didn't I take today off?

Career Crisis: Day 255

More later...

Coming up for air

It's been a month and I can honestly say that I haven't had a single night with enough energy to post anything. The new job is terribly time and energy consuming and when blogging time rolls around, I got nothing.

Just let me leave you with this thought - life is all about minimizing and maximizing. Maximize things that bring you joy; minimize things that bring you suffering. Minimize the commute; maximize laughing out loud time. Minimize face time with people who cause you stress; maximize face time with people who bring you contentment and joy.

Pretty lame, huh?

Even a Ten Year Old

[Dinner conversation from about a week ago.]

Jackson (my 10 year old): Why is there so much fighting in Iraq?
Me: Do you mean why is the US there or why is there fighting at all?
Jackson: Both, I guess.
Wife: [Rolls her eyes.]
Me: It's like this - imagine hundreds of years ago someone from Minnesota killed someone from Iowa. People in Iowa got mad and killed a Minnesotan. So the Minnesotans got mad and killed more Iowans. Then the Iowans killed some more Minnesotans. Do you follow?
Jackson: [nods]
Me: After a while all they remembered were that Minnesotans killed Iowans and Iowans killed Minnesotans. Then one day a very powerful and bad man killed a whole bunch of Iowans and Minnesotans - more Iowans than Minnesotans, but he killed both sides just the same. Then everyone was afraid of the man.
Jackson: [nods again]
Me: They were so afraid they stopped killing each other.
Jackson: Then what?
Me: Then someone else came in and got rid of the powerful and bad man. Do you know what happened then?
Jackson: The Minnesotans started killing Iowans again?
Me: Yep.
Wife: Why is it that our 10 year old can comprehend something our president couldn't?