Squeaky Wheel

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease". I had someone quote this to me recently; a project manager for a project my company was subbing for. His thought was if I pestered the right people I could accomplish what he wanted done.  Except in this case, what he wanted done was for a roll of rare material that no one stocked in Canada (because it's the slow season for roofing) to suddenly appear.  He squeaked my wheel further by alluding that we would likely not be considered for a big upcoming project if we couldn't get this done.  Oh, did I mention that this wasn't my project but that I was filling in for a sick colleague and my boss who is away on holiday?
There are times that a squeaky wheel gets some grease, however in today's consumption culture a squeaky wheel will likely not get you grease but someone will replace that wheel.  It's somewhat ironic that I say this as a major squeaky wheel was elected president, but look at the potential damage that could cause. The reality is I could be a squeaky wheel and deliver on this, but I likely will damage the relationships I have with our suppliers who are actually working hard on this
The world, it seems, is producing more squeaky wheels making it to be a loud annoying place.

I hate Cancer!!

Sounds like a no-brainer, who doesn't hate cancer?  Unfortunately, I don't know if I really did hate cancer before like I did now; it doesn't really hit you until it hits closer to home.  Like other things in this world I seemed to just accept cancer as something that happened in this world; I never really lost someone to cancer.  My Nana died of cancer, but I just accepted it as the way she went; she was in her 80's and didn't seemingly suffer from it in front of us, she found out she was full of it on a Friday and died that Sunday.  However, recently I have been rocked by cancer, I recently understood why many shake their fists and cuss at cancer, and I like many have been questioning life because of cancer and feeling the lack of fairness in cancer.  Two dear people, not people I was close with, but somewhat connected to died of cancer this last month.  One a 37 year old wonderful man named Jeff who had an evident love for Jesus, was reaching unbelievers in his community, passionate about missions, and was a loving husband and father.  The other a sweet 32 year old woman who was a devout pastor's wife, mother of three, piano teacher and had an infectious smile and laugh.  These recent death have made me hate the sting of cancer.  These deaths have made me utter, "It's not fair"  My family may disagree, but I feel like it should be someone like me who should take the hit from cancer; I am doing nothing, no child calls me daddy.  Or why can't the guy doing life in prison get cancer?  Why do these people who had so much to offer, who were absolute joy to many have to fall?  It's times like these that I have to remind myself of the reality of this world; this diseased, fallen world.  The nature of sin in this world, the nature of our choices is like firing bullets into a crowded building: they're going to ricochet and hurt people that don't deserve it.  It's not a time to curse the one who made the building, but regret firing the bullets and move away from firing more.  This Fallen World points to the hope of the bright future.

Walmart....stupid walmart

Uggghh, I hate WalMart!  I hate it on so many levels.  My local WalMart has the rudest shoppers; people who cut you off or practically run you down with shopping carts.  The parking lot is full of lunitics who don't know how to drive; maybe they hate it as much as I do.  Generally, the brightest and best of society isn't on display in WalMart; single moms with spoiled, obese children or gang initiations of theft.  If all this weren't enough, as I have grown older, and become more informed about things, I hate WalMart for what they stand for and have done to our economy and society.  When I was younger, there were so many different department stores to shop from, so much variety, but now there is only WalMart.   The literal goal of WalMart is to choke out competition and take a monopoly on the local economy; I'm not sure why this is cool with WalMart, but normally we call this communism.  When they first came to town, they were all about smiling service, and cheery attitudes, but now that's all gone.  Now that they have choked out the local competition and made low-price addicts out of all of us, they can have a "who gives a crap" attitude when you shop there.  Their express lane checkouts sum it up:  they herd you through these lanes like cattle, which is what you are to them, cattle.  They let you pasture in their stores, fatten up on their cheap Chinese-made products, and put you through quickly, so they lighten the wallets of the next cow behind you.  I try not to shop there, but sometimes I have to because there is nowhere else to go.

Bob Ross is dead

Who the heck is Bob Ross?  Oh, you don't know!  Bob Ross was the genius behind a popular painting show on PBS in the early 90's. (wikipedia page)  Bob was an amazing painter who taught everyone in a half hour how to paint beautiful landscapes.  Bob was definitely a throw-back:  He had a hippie-esque feeling to him, and the dude still sported an afro.  I was watching Bob the other day and the first thing you feel is relaxed: he speaks through the whole show with soft, low voice that reassures you like a parent when you're scarred.  Secondly, you're impressed with how much he loves painting.  He uses phrases like, "Ain't that neat!" or "This is my favorite part!" or "The canvas is the world under your control"; much like a child with a coloring book.  In the end of a non-stop half hour program, Bob has transformed the white canvas into a snapshot of a great landscape.  Two things strike me about the Bob Ross experience:  Why don't we have shows like this anymore?  A half hour of no commercials, relaxing/soothing environment, and confidence building experience to go out and do something.  It just doesn't exist anymore.  TV is meant to sell you crap, make you unsatisfied with what we have, and make us drones that stay put in our chairs.  The other thing about the Bob Ross experience is I think that we should all spend time in art time.  I used to spend a lot of time drawing as a youth; sometimes it was my refuge from my troubles, a chance to relax and escape.  I'm not sure why I don't draw much anymore.  The creative mind, I believe is a gift from God, and we should exercise it with leisure sometimes, just for our enjoyment.  Whatever you do, whether it's music, visual arts, or just coloring a book we should do it.  It seems as this world continues to plummet, it becomes more void of relaxing, casual art.

Decadent production

Something that has become clear to me recently is how we waste our resources; that is, the amount we consume in North America and what those resources could be used for is kind of disgusting.  For instance, I watch a lot of food network, and in particular, I watch a show called "Unwrapped".  Unwrapped is a show that shows how some of our favorite food is produced.  One thing I have discovered if you mass produce a food product is that you have to have a irrelevant, but impressive statistic in reference to how much of your product you produce.  If someone make chips they will say, "We produce enough chips everyday to fill a 2000 sq ft. house."  Or their BBQ sauce could replace one of the oceans in two years. There is two levels of waste here: not only the product produced and consumed, but some guy has a job that figures out how to explain how much they produce. If you look at the statistics on what people produce and what people consume it's disgusting.  I know in Prince Albert, the top selling product is chips.  Potatoe chips roll into a store everyday in Prince Albert; one particular store I know receives 3 shipments a week in sometimes of the year.  It baffles my mind when you think about all the cars, boats, and snowmobiles that a small town like Prince Albert sells every year.  Look around your house and see what your decadence means.  Keep your junk food receipts for awhile.  How much change do you have around?  What do you spend on TV and movies in a month?  How much weight in garbage do you throw out a week?  I want to punch myself in the gut and kick myself in the crotch when I think about it, but it's a good exercise to do.  When you start evaluating things like this you realize how much you truly have, and how much you really can help others.  The rest who don't, can get sucked into the mess of this world with messed up priorities.

Rain, rain. Go Away!

I'm sure there are many farmers in my area who would agree with this; I'm sick of rain!  All spring and now into my vacation time it's rain.  I wonder what it was like in a pre-fallen world when we didn't have rain?  That's right, no rain.  There's a popular theory that before the flood, the world was a tropical greenhouse with thick moist air to nurture plants and no rain; and the first rain would have come during the flood.  Sounds pretty cool to me!  Rain is good for growing things, but it's often inconvenient sometimes; like when you're having an outdoor wedding, a vacation, or washing your car.  We wouldn't have people's homes flooded out.  We wouldn't have water sources contaminated with flash floods.  The only good thing about rain is how it develops a trust in God.  People pray lots to God for rain; to make it stop, to water their plants.  Kind of like how sin in general makes people turn to God.  In the next world there will be no rain, but until then I will cope with the rain here.  At least I have a God to turn to with that.

Computer Programs designed to make you spend money

Recently Rachelle and I each purchased a program for our different line of work; Rachelle bought a card program for photography and I bought a overhead program for the church.  Both these programs are great! The church is now singing all our songs from the screen upfront; and Rachelle can offer thank-you cards etc. to her clients.  The thing that gets me fuming about these programs is that they are really designed to make you a customer of their highly, over-priced related products.  For Rachelle's program, she has to buy backgrounds of different colors or pattern, and I do mean she has to, no importing her own.  For the church program, I don't know where to start.  This program was advertised as having a large database of hymns and songs, which is true, except there is nothing that was written in the last 30 years. Then they have a store with various backgrounds and videos; the backgrounds are like $5 for a simple background I could easily find on the net, and the video clips are priced at $20.  That's right, $20 for 2 minute clips; and a lot of them are not originally produced material, many of them are from Bluefish tv for $2.  The point is when did computer software programmers become drug dealers?  They get you with one fix and then keep you coming back for more, dumping out your money until you are broke.  This can be said of many things in life; for example, cars.  The average car is not built to make it past the first years so you keep buying new.  How come you can't sell a product that will last a long time and the customer never has to make another transaction with you?  You know who's someone I respect; Sorel boots.  Sorel boots were made so good that they went out of business; people would buy a pair of boots and they would last for many years, instead of buying new ones year after year. I know, I know.  I just answered my own question, you need to sucker customers so you can continue to make money.  Live the big dream.  With computer programs like the ones recently purchased, it is no wonder people are pirating software all the time.