We are at the end of another month.  My resolution points, while still far ahead of my overall goal's pacing, did not see much movement this month.  All in all, this month p[assed by pretty quickly and largely uneventfully.  There were a number of highlights (or lowlights):

Easter was amazingly fun with the pleasant early arrivals of my brother and my oldest daughter.

Spring break was mostly uneventful.  Unlike more productive spring breaks from my past, this was a much more sedate week where I did not get much done (I didn't even finish a video game).  

Speaking of video games, this month saw Mario Kart 8 overtake Starcraft II as my most played game of the month.  We have been playing the game nearly every night as a family.  And while there is a lot of yelling (especially if I get hit by a blue shell on the last lap), there is even more laughter and fun.

My youngest daughter dumped her long-term (over a year) boyfriend.

My eldest daughter started dating (something she generally avoids).

I was accepted as a Reader for the AP World History test.

I started looking into further education degree options.

Trevor has been running (and improving) in the 200 and 400 races at school.

I went on a date with my wife (seeing my daughter's concert and then going out to dinner with friends).

We had a couple of good gaming sessions, one which I ran.

In the end, there hasn't been anything earth-shattering in my life, which is good since I like the Earth in one piece.

I know that this is a terrible thing to say about myself, but I have difficulty keeping a secret.  Now, I think that if a person's life (or significant factor of that life) was on the line, that I would be able to keep a secret to my grave.  Short of that ... 

Part of the problem is that I love being the center of attention.  One sure way to get people's attention is to be a source of information for them.  I love informing people about nearly any kind of information, even including gossip, as I want people to listen to me (which is probably why I'm a teacher).

Another issue is that I generally think that information is better shared.  I believe this to the point that there are secrets in my life about myself  that I have been told (by people who know) not to share with others because of people's prejudices and beliefs.  Some of these are particularly embarrassing, but I would prefer for people to better understand me even if it leads to their condemnation and disgust.  Still, to spare their sensibilities, I don't share them.  I know that part of this desire to reveal all is due to a series of lies that I told as a pre-teenager that caused problems and misunderstandings (some still ongoing) once the lies were discovered.  

It's for these reasons that I despise court decisions that impose gag orders or companies that require secrecy (of items beyond the normal trade secrets) from their employees.  I know that there are good reasons to keep some things secret, but I still hate the need.

There are some secrets that I keep from more general knowledge because they are not mine to share, but most of those have even been discussed with a number of people whom I care about and trust.  Should you tell me a secret, I can almost guarantee that my wife will know within the day.  Some of those other friends will know whenever I next see them (if it's something that I think they care about or that I just really need to share).

All that said, I don't want people to keep things secret from me.  I like knowing, even if it is something that does not directly impact me or those close to me.  Just don't expect me to keep it completely secret for long ...

I really don't like mushrooms.  I have even used the word "hate" when talking to people about my feelings for them.  While I understand that hunger has forced people to try to eat nearly everything that nature has provided, I do not understand why, in times of plenty, people would still eat something that has a flavor not much unlike the soil from which it grows.

I've been told a number of things regarding my aversion to mushrooms.

1. They're delicious; you should try them again.
-They're not and I have.  I've tried them fried and stuffed (which usually improves the taste of foods to me), only to find that there are fried and stuffed foods that I cannot abide.  My mother is convinced that my tastes will change as I get older, and that might be true as I'm no longer choking on them when I accidentally or deliberately come across them.

2. You can hardly taste them.
- No, YOU can hardly taste them.  For me, they stand out like no other flavor I've tasted.  People have tried hiding them in food presented to me for years, and even tiny amounts make me hate even the food that they have touched.  On a side note, if you can't hardly taste them, why would you add them to otherwise perfectly good food in the first place?!

3. Just pick them out.
- I've tried this, but they transfer their flavor to anything they touch.  I used to take the time to remove them from foods, but I have found that I hate the food I am eating due to the lingering flavor nearly as much as when I don't pick the mushrooms out.

I have gotten better about eating them without making an issue about it, but they ALWAYS ruin the meal for me.  Just the other day, they were polluting the soup that I had brought to lunch.  I ate it anyway, but the experience was strong enough to make me drop the topic I planned for this entry and write about mushrooms instead.

If I wanted to eat fungus, I'd chew on my toes.  (If that statement bothers you, you have only a glimpse of what I think when I see mushrooms).

Off the coast of India is an island inhabited by people who have not progressed beyond the neolithic age in technology.  India has claimed protective responsibility for the people and does not allow people to come within three miles of the island.  Over the years, there has been limited contact with them, but as much of it received a hostile response (such as the killing of two men who were fishing illegally in their waters and then throwing spears at the helicopter that tried to retrieve them), the quarantine around the island has been more strictly enforced.

I wonder what life is like for people is such a culture.  Obviously, they have some sense of the larger world around them.  Because of their location, they don't see many planes or boats, but what about those that they do see in the distant sky and water?  Is theirs a happy lifestyle?  Is it brutal and short?  How would they react if suddenly pulled into our electronic world?

My carpool copilot, who brought this island back to my attention, noted that this is an interesting example of how a culture can stagnate when it is isolated from interactions with others.  We also connected this idea to a popular idea in modern historical thinking that hunter-gatherer sorts of societies are happier, longer lasting societies.  But neither of those ideas are what have rattled around my brain for the past several days.

Instead, I wonder if our world is its own primitive island in the middle of what is actually a thriving cosmos.  What if the numerous alien species that surround us have avoided us like some sort of nature preserve (a type of "prime directive" like the one seen on Star Trek)? I wonder what kind of people, then, act as our protectors, making certain that other outside forces do not exploit us or our resources for their benefit.  Along this lines, I can't help but wonder if "fishermen" have landed on our "shores" from time to time and seen the same sort of violent response that those near India did.

I do not believe that we are alone in the universe.  Everything that we know will be seriously challenged once my belief is proven.  For now, however, we are content to stay on our primitive island.

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus tells us that He is the Good Shepard, who cares for us and tends to our needs.  He will go to any length to return the lambs that have been lost to Him, going so far as to even lay down His own life in their stead.  He is always present, extending His care and love over all of us, whether we have turned away from Him or not.

Jesus's love for us is true unconditional love.  He tells His disciples that God gathers all of His people to Him, not just those who followed the Jewish faith.  His Gospel is meant for all people, not just a chosen few.  We are all called back to the fold of our Shepard.

So many people seem to turn away from God out of fear that they will never be accepted by Him.  They feel that they have taken some unredeemable step, from which there is no return.  Unfortunately, I know of Christians who express this idea to other, judging others without mercy or love while ignoring their own faults.  Jesus has provided salvation for all of us.  There is nothing which we can do that forever cut us off from His love.  Even when we turn from Him, He has not turned from us.

No matter how lost we might become, Christ finds us and gathers us in His arms.

Daredevil - The new short superhero series on Netflix is now one of my favorite superhero series thus far, and that's saying something.  I say this despite the excessive violence in the show (a general trend in television that disturbs me) and my feeling that the last few episodes of the series could have been something more.  I know that they are tying this in to four other short series, so I am excited about the future.

The Imitation Game - Alan Turing is one of the greatest heroes and most brilliant minds of the twentieth century.  Janelle and I watched this movie about him along with Trevor, who seemed to really connect with the story.  It led to some good conversations about being different than "normal" and why it is important to treat all people with respect.  I'm glad we saw it today.

GNOME - We had a GNOME (Guy's Night of Monster Evisceration) today, and I felt that it went quite well.  As DM, I feel that I did well in presenting interesting scenarios and a decent overarching story to tie several loose ends together.  It was a fun evening.

Aches and pains - The pain in my tailbone feels like it has been getting progressively worse.  I have the special cushion now for my computer chair, and that seems to help a little, but obviously not enough.  While the ball of my left foot and my toe have improved, today I pulled a rather large splinter out of my right foot, a foot which has been aching since.  

Nightmares - Rowen has been having nightmares the past couple of nights, but he has no memory (or at least can't explain) what they are about.  We comfort him as we can, as we have each of our children when they go through these phases, but it still hurts my heart that I can't do more for them.

Mario Kart 8 - As I've said in previous posts, we have been playing this game often as a family.  I've looked forward to doing this more and more each day.  I know that this kind of family activity doesn't last forever, so I want to get as much enjoyment as I can out of it now.

While I am not a big fan of laissez-faire economics, I like the main ideas behind capitalism.  In general, I believe that the best economic system is one in which people invest capital (whether it be wealth or labor) into an idea, organization, venture, or product that they support, and that they receive just compensation for their time, talent, or treasure.  I believe that different endeavors should be worth different values, and that those values should be based on the time and effort provided for that endeavor as well as the demand society has for such an endeavor.

In a perfect world, these endeavors would be provided by individuals or groups of individuals who have the best interests of our entire world in mind.  Unfortunately, more and more people and organizations who identify themselves as supporting capitalism have placed short-sighted self-interest above the quality of their product, the well-being of the people involved in creating it, and the overall health of society and the world.  I don't feel that these people are actually following capitalism.  Instead, they follow an economic system that emphasizes avarice, suffering, and dishonesty; a system that I call "miserism."

Don't bother looking it up; as an economic system, this blog is the first place that it is mentioned.  While the underlying idea of investing capital with the intention of receiving compensation for that investment remains true, in the case of miserism the prevailing method of doing so involves making cuts at other people's expense (whether this includes cutting the wages or benefits of workers or reducing the quality of the product) in the hope of profiting for oneself. 

A miser, like Scrooge from A Christmas Carol, is person who cuts expenses to an extreme in an effort to hoard wealth.  Often, misers are stingy in all aspects of life, to the point that they truly become miserable, living a wretched life.  However, in this case, there are beneficiaries to miserism.  While they have made life wretched for others, they rarely live such terrible lives themselves.  They profit from the misery of others without suffering from the consequences of their decisions and actions.

While I know that this kind of miserism has been around for as long as humans have tracked wealth, the resurgence of miserism in current economics under the guise of "good business" has been truly disturbing.  Somehow, the public thinks that losing benefits, pensions, insurance, and wages are all part of this "good business," not realizing that they are no longer part of a capitalistic system, but a miseristic (again, my own term) one.

For a period of nearly fifteen minutes today snow was pouring down from the sky and hammering the windows of my classroom.  Had the temperature been lower, I have no doubt that it would have been a white-out.  As was, the temperature was well above freezing (nearby readings being between 38 and 41 degrees according to the Weather Channel's website) making this a highly unusual phenomenon.  I am certain that there is a reasonable and scientifically supported explanation for this freak event, explained with forces and circumstances that are beyond any human's mind to completely take into account (a butterfly flapping its wings in China, or some such thing).  Yet there is a part of me that can't help but wonder if it is more super than natural.

After all, the word "spirit" originally meant wind or breeze.  Our spirit would leave our body with our last breath.  Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into His disciples.  We bless people for sneezing due to the fear of their spirit being exposed.  Wind, as a largely invisible force, can powerfully move people and objects like the unseen hand of God.

Now, I know more about the actual science behind our understanding of how these forces work.  Hurricanes, tornados, even windy days can be predicted with varying degrees of certainty depended on the available data.  I understand the forces behind the tiny dervishes that sweep up snow or sand in a circling dance, but I can see how people without that understanding explained them away as spirits and ghosts that could bring both beauty and mischief to their world.  In some ways, we've lost a lot of the magic of the world simply through our growing understanding.

Still, I wonder: what message was today's snow storm trying to bring and for whom was it intended?

This one wasn't the worst that I've been to, but union meetings have been exercises in controlling depression and reigning in an overwhelming sense of futility for as long as I have been a teacher.  I love teaching, exposing young minds to new ways of thinking about their world and showing them how to express what they learn in ways that inspire the soul.  But when the current trend for how education is being handled is laid our in front of me, when we spend time looking at yet another way that our lives are going to become more difficult due to finances or burdensome regulation, I can't help but wonder if there's still time to enter an engineering program.

I know the phrase refers to something else entirely, but today I was able to tighten my belt by another notch.  I had done so by accident last week and not realized until later in the day that I was feeling a little tight around the waist.  Today, my normal belt notch simply left my belt too loose.  I was able to bring it in a notch without sucking in my abdomen or even holding my breath.  More importantly, it was able to stay that way for the rest of the day.

This may be a minor victory and it might be short-lived, but I felt better about myself today than I have in years.  I have quite a ways to go before I'm close to the shape that I want to be, but I've been making positive progress this year, a trend that I hope that I can continue.  One of my main concerns is that I will become overconfident and start backsliding again.

In the end, I just have to stick to ... one notch at a time.

As Janelle and Katrina were with Trevor for his confirmation retreat yesterday and all went to mass at the shrine in Grass Lake, it was just me and the two youngest who went to see the First Communion mass today.  Despite it being over an hour and a half long, the two boys were very well behaved.  In fact, Connor asked me why that mass was shorter than normal; he was quite surprised to find that it was longer.  It was a beautiful service, and the more enjoyable as we were all packed in so close together, which sounds strange, but was true nonetheless.

Today's second reading (which was accidentally read first) warns of people who claim to be Christians, but don't follow the Commandments.  Two thousand years ago they were having the same problem as now: people who use Jesus for their own ends but who don't do what He asks.  I'm not one to point fingers in this regard.  There are a number of areas in my life where I could do better, but I take the easy way instead.

The Gospel has Jesus appearing to His disciples while they are hiding.  To prove that He is not a ghost, He asks them for something to eat (all they have are a couple pieces of baked fish) and then eats it in front of them.  Even today, people are constantly putting Jesus to the test.  Even when He "passes" the test, they are still too willing to dismiss what they have seen.  Jesus puts up with these demands with patience.  He knows that what He offers is not easy to believe.  Even His own disciples struggled, He cannot expect us not to.

Meanwhile, Jesus patiently loves us.

During my upper elementary and middle school years, my best friend was a thief.  He was also an artist, a visionary, an inventor, and was interested in many of the same things that I liked, but he also couldn't stop himself from stealing.  From the third grade, we would stay over at one another's houses and each time he left mine, something would go missing.  Usually, he would return whatever he took the next time he visited, but when he left again something else would be gone.  As I think on it, I realize that I spent more and more time over at his house rather than him coming over to mine.

I couldn't stay mad at him for his kleptomania (which unfortunately extended beyond his relationship with me), because I somehow understood that it was his way of dealing with the inequality between our family's financial situations.  Now, I often complained about how we didn't have enough to get everything I wanted, but being with my friend helped me realize just how well off my family was.  To my friend, I had more toys than any person could play with at one time while he had very few.  It wasn't theft to him if the person didn't notice it was gone or had the means of easily replacing it.  People who had more or who didn't full appreciate what they had deserved to have their things taken from them.

Our relationship made me recognize just how good I had it (although understanding did not affect my behavior), but it also helped me understand both the unfairness of our social system and why people feel stealing is justified.  In a sense, my friend was right.  I hadn't done anything more than he did to deserve the better lifestyle that I enjoyed.  

Unfortunately, there are many people in the world that believe that stealing something that they believe the owner won't miss is justified.  These people don't just steal items, though, they steal other people's health and time.  Our economic system is based on how much a business can "steal" from its employees in "cost saving measures."  Sure, there is an agreed-upon wage, but that itself is based on the worker not fully understanding (or being able to do anything about) the unfairness of the transaction.  Money itself is valueless, but is exchanged for the priceless commodities of health and time.

I know that there are resources in the world that are finite and that there will always be an unequal distribution of them, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take steps to reduce the inequality in our world.  My friend may have stolen from me, but I realize that I should have given him more.

I have never had an alcoholic beverage, but I am occasionally around family and friends who drink.  While I have my own reasons for not drinking, I do not begrudge them their enjoyment.  For that matter, I believe the drinking age should be lowered, or actually abolished entirely, but that's a different topic.

One thing that amazes (and entertains me) when it comes to watching my friends drink is how quickly their inhibitions disappear.  Often, it only takes half a drink (well less than would physically affect them) for them to start talking and acting in ways that they would normally avoid.  All it takes is the slightest edge of a buzz.

It even affects me to a degree.  I find myself more willing to open up, say what's on my mind, not be able to concentrate, and even make more of an ass of myself than normal.  There's a social aspect to being intoxicated.  Some of it is merely the pleasure of having other people around us.  Some of it is the tribe mentality that we have from our ancestors.  I believe that only a small part of it is the chemical itself.

I don't know if I will drink in the future.  My 42nd birthday is coming up this year, twice the legal limit to drink.  It has long been on my mind as to whether that fulfills the original obligation of my pledge, or if my decision to not drink goes deeper than that.  All I know is that if I do decide to drink, that I would want to do so with friends.