boblog

Now that we’re seemingly fully entrenched into the new year, it’s time to set a few things straight, to re-adjust some things that have gone all akimbo, gotten out of sorts or off kilter, whatever a kilter is. I don’t remember seeing one of late, especially on my morning drive to work, but it must exist because there are now so many things that have gotten off of it. So many so that it’s becoming more and more difficult to take people seriously based on the use of their very own language.

I remember, and you, being the exceptionally brilliant people that you are probably do also, way back in the 20^th century hearing radio and television commercials for some kind of program, probably software, that promised to increase your vocabulary and improve your knowledge of word usage to such a degree that people around you would be astonished at your intellectual grandeur. Or, something like that.

The tag line was always, “People judge you by the words you use.” This, I think, was to induce a sufficient amount of guilt in you so that you would realize your deficiency and immediately purchase said product that was guaranteed to teach you how to speak and write better. Yeah, right.

I mean, sorry, but you didn’t pay attention in high school or college English classes so, what makes you think you’d stick with any self-help, study-at-home, software program? But, I suspect some people sent in the requisite $29.95, or whatever it was, and are now reaping the benefits of that advanced education. Or, more than likely, said program is safely tucked away in a cardboard box with all their other detritus in the garage or local land fill.

But, be that as it may, their tag line is still true, at least to those of us who know the rules. The rest of you couldn’t care less or, as the hoi polloi  like to say, could care less. <Insert Bart Simpson shudder here.> I, we, those of us who actually care about the words we use in order to convey meaning (i.e., communicate), do judge you by the words you (mis)use. Especially those of you who work in the media (e.g., radio, television, newspapers, web, magazines) but including all you business people (analysts, managers, trainers, writers) and especially the Marketing folks (copywriters). You should know better. But, alas, apparently you do not.

And what is most disheartening is the fact that you really don’t seem to care. You’ve been surrounded by such a gaggle of incompetent but arrogant offenders for so long you think that since there are so many “saying it that way” it must be right. So as to not seem out of step with the in-crowd you so want to impress, you blithely adopt their mispronunciations with glee hoping you, too, will be endeared to the power brokers who will welcome you into the fold because of your lockstep adoration and conformity. Please, give me a break.

You know, an occasional flub is understandable. But, the constant and consistent misuse of the simple rules of grammar and word use by writers and reporters who should be the public standard-bearers makes me think y’all must be as dumb as a sack of rocks. Just goes to show you that you don’t really have to know what you’re doing to get a job in any communication arena.

Anyway, that being said, here are some of your more egregious errors. These are the words you are using incorrectly that are the equivalent of fingernails scratching on a blackboard to the rest of us. Here they are in no particular or significant order. Learn them. Live them. Use them. And, remember, we’re listening. You’re welcome.

Here’s how to solve the so-called Social Security problem. You know, that government program signed in 1935 by President Roosevelt that was intended to provided benefits to retirees and the unemployed funded by dedicated payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act Tax (FICA).

The general consensus (rightly or wrongly) is that Social Security is bankrupt and getting worse. Supposedly, there won’t be any money there when people retire, people won’t get the money they’ve paid into it, and it’s costing more in payouts than it’s bringing in through payroll taxes.

Fine. Here’s how to solve that problem.

The government should stop collecting the tax. Period. Just stop it. Never take another dime from anyone’s paycheck to fund the Social Security program. Pick a date, like January 1, 2015, and just stop.

If you have paid into the SS system at any time prior to that date, you will receive the appropriate payout at the time of your retirement. If you have not paid into the SS system, you will never receive a payment from the SS system at the time of your retirement or at any other time. Period. If you’ve paid in, you will get your money. If not, you get nothing. Period.

The government should spend $10M creating and presenting a campaign to inform people that (1) the SS system will stop on 1/1/15 and (2) YOU (possibly in conjunction with your employer) will then be responsible for your retirement savings.

This program will be created with absolutely NO help from any advertising / marketing company. The government has plenty of smart, talented people who can write, produce, and present this message. Radio, television, and internet companies will give the government free time to run the messages explaining the new program.

Companies with one or more employees will develop a simlar program exaplaining how it will or will not participate in the employee’s retirement savings efforts. No company will be compelled, coerced, or required by the government or any union to provide any retirement savings program. No employee, self-employed person, or company will be compelled, coerced, or required by the government or any union to participate in any retirement savings program other than to develop an education program explaining savings options, plans, or resources available to the individuals.

Schools will provide education about how important it is to establish a retirement account early in life and how to do it in its most simple form with resources on how to get more information from various sources (banks, investement borkers, financial planners, books, etc.). This education will start in the person’s freshman year of high school and will continue every year thereafter until that person graduates from high school or college. This education program will continue through the first four years of a person’s participation in any military service unless the person graduated from college.

As of January 1, 2015, (our fictional date example) YOU would be responsible for your retirement savings. I know that’s a complicated statement for some to comprehend so let me say it slowly for those in Wylie and other slow-to-get-it places: after that date, there is no such thing as a government-sponsored Social Security program that will pay you money when you quit working.

If you want to have money to live on when you get old, you will have had to save enough in your younger years to provide for your well-being. Otherwise, call your brother-in-law. Call your mother. Call your rich uncle but don’t call the government. As of that date, the government is out of the retirement savings business. Period.

When I was a kid, pre-junior high, I had a little terrier mix mut of a dog. He was white with black spots, kinda like Eddie, the dog on the TV show Frasier. I liked Eddie, even though I’ve heard Jack Russell terriers can be a handful to train. I was sad when Eddie died back in 2006.

Like a million other kids my age, my dog’s name was Snoopy. Wonder where I got that name? One day just before Thanksgiving when I was about five years old, my dad, my grandad, and I drove to the outskirts of town to buy a live turkey for Thanksgiving. Mind you, this was Lawton, OK, in the mid-50s, so the outskirts weren’t that far out.

It seems the turkey rancher/farmer/handler also had a “mess o pups” to get rid of. I didn’t know at the time that he meant litter but it’s funny how I can still hear him saying “mess o pups” in that southern, been on the farm all my life, Oklahoma drawl.

My sister has a dog. They run around and make noise, barking at anything, real or imaginary, that walks, floats, drives, or scurries by within their eyesite. The dog is a dachshund and they seem to rule the house but that’s usually true of most pets. When they got the dog it was originally to keep my mother company but they wound up snuggling into both their hearts.

So, of the first and fourth paragraph, which one provides the most details about the dog? Are you even sure how many dogs are involved in the fourth paragraph? The more you read it, the sillier it sounds. You don’t know who does what!

You don’t know if I’m talking about my sister, the dog, my mother, or just how many dogs there are. You know why that paragrahp is so unclear, misleading, and uninformative?

Noun – pronoun agreement. It’s that simple.

I saw this partial sentence today in a computer manual, “When I search for a customer using their last name, …”.

Did you see it? There’s a singular noun (customer) with a plural pronoun (their). Not only does that just not make sense, it’s misleading and unclear.

As writers, especially technical writers, we have a responsibility to be as clear as humanly possible. We, with the words we put in our documents, are supposed to help people do their jobs better and easier by providing clear and concise text and instructions.

We don’t help our readers when we jerk them around by abusing the rules of the language. Singular nouns require singular pronouns: the man took his hat, the woman drove her car, the customer typed his username, the dog chased its tail. Plural nouns require plural pronouns: the team won their last game, the ducks flapped their wings, the turkeys ran toward their pens.

Yes, I now why it happens. The politcally correct schools have raised a generation of writers and would-be writers who are afraid to use personal pronouns for fear of offending someone.

Well, I say hooey. I’d rather take the risk of offending someone than purposefully obfuscating the very information my reader is looking for.

After all, when you can’t see in the dark, who do you want helping you through the dark forest: someone who gives very specific details on where to step, where to turn, where not to put your hands? Someone who genuinely tries to help you? Or, would you rather just have some general, and often misleading, instructions to decipher in your state of panic?

For me, I’ll take Snoopy anyday. You can have the turkeys.

That’s not something you usually say in public or, for that matter, to anyone; the spouse or kids maybe but I suspect you’d better be prepared for the ensuing explanatory conversation to say nothing of the quizzical look.

Since we moved to Austin from Allen we’ve been looking for a gym that has an indoor running track. It’s just getting way too hot outside to run. The gym we belonged to in Plano had a 1/12th mile indoor running track that was perfect for getting your run on without having to battle traffic, bugs, and the brow-beating sun.

After 12 trips around the oval you had run a mile; assuming, of course, you successfully navigated the lungers going the wrong way, the chit chatters discussing who-knows-what while taking up two lanes, the guy/gal hitting on the guy/gal in the outside lane, or the doofas running the wrong way who apparently just can’t read the sign that explains how it’s clockwise MWFSS and counter-clockwise TT. I was never sure which was more baffling to the wrong-way goober: the clockwise/counter-clockwise conundrum or the fact that there was a placard with rules on it at all.

So, when we got to Austin we immediately started looking for a gym with an indoor running track. Nada. Not to be found anywhere in central Texas. Oh, yeah, there’s the UT track but you gotta know a guy to get in there and being new to town, I don’t that guy.

I visited with the managers of several gyms to which I was still a member: we pay our dues annually. All the managers were happy to welcome us to town, excited about getting our memberships transferred, and ensured us they would contact us the very next day with how to do that. Since the next day and a couple of weeks had passed, I decided to revisit those managers to see how to get our membership transferred to a local gym.

No dice. Can’t be done without an upgrade. Upgrade? Yeah, well, those silly old Plano gyms were a different “type” of gym. Our facilities are full activity centers. Huh? So, how much is that and what’s it take?  Will check with corporate and get back to you tomorrow about that. Have a great day. <insert goofy smile from manager here>

Months later I’ve given up. There’s been no response from any of the managers of the gyms who’s name I shall not in my disgust and disappointment reveal but might mention that it has a number in its name that is very similar to a hit TV show on Fox with a guy named Jack as the main character that just ended.

Looks like we’ll be confined to those dreadful machines that are less effective not to mention just plain goofy looking. Sigh. I know, we could get up really early and run but running around the neighborhood in the dark just doesn’t seem like a good idea. Plus, I like to sleep.

But, that has nothing to do with why I like my thin buns. Thin Buns are little hamburger-like buns from Earthgrains that have about half the bread volume of regular buns. Think buns fresh out from under a 90-pound weight – squished, squashed, flattened, kinda like pita bread but tastey and less rubbery.

I wanted to eat less bread on my lunchtime sandwiches so I was glad to find these new little buns. They’re just the right size for lunch and when paired with some crunchy Sun Chips and Diet Dr. Pepper, you gotta satisfying lunch experience. Yes, sir. Just the right size for hand-held munching while running around the track.

117 miles on the Harley this afternoon. 80 degrees and sunny. Just couldn’t let it sit there in the garage. So, after a semi-successful trip to Lowes for a new lawn mower then mowing the lawn (as opposed to mowing the roof?), it was time to ride.

I headed south on 183 just like I do every morning on the way to work. Goes right down the western side of the big airport so it’s always fun when you get to the north edge of the runway and there’s this big jet just taking off. Guess that means the wind is out of the north today. Hmmm, doesn’t feel like it. What’s really fun is to see a jet taking off early in the morning through the fog. The headlights look like something out of Close Encounters.

The first thing you notice when you ride into Lockhart is the bar-b-que smell. The second thing you notices is there are bbq joints everywhere. Seriously. All small Texas towns have their bbq places but Lockhart seems to be the epicenter of bbq heaven. As you ride in over the bridge, you’re accosted by the Kreuz Market.

I hit town in mid-afternoon and the parking lot was packed. This place seems as big any any Target and people of all sizes, mostly XXL, were coming and going. I walked in just to take a gander and the line to where you order your food had snaked around to the front door. I literally opened the door, took two steps, and stop at the end of the line. And hungry hippos were piling up behind me quickly.

So, not to be caught in the current, I slipped into a couple of dining rooms to see what there was to see and found a sea of picnic tables and all the little piggies head-down into their, uh, meals. The smell was delicious as any bbq joint, good or bad, is. But, this was bbq grazing on a grand scale.

After checking in with Gowalla, I headed downtown to see what there was to see and found a street fair on the town square. It has a magnificent, old, Texas granite court house that looks just like you think it should. There were about two dozen E-Z Up booths set up around the court house selling all kinds of trinkets, doohickies, and prizes hand-made by local artisans. The corn dog tent gravity was very, very strong but I resisted. Even had a band up on a grandstand made up of local country/bluegrass-type musicians…the band members, that is, not the grandstand.

Met a guy from Arlington who came down to peddle some vacation packages. Seems he’s a marketing guy who works for a large hotel chain who, apparently, has travel and vacation packages.

Decided it was time to move on so I headed back west to pick up 672 north then FM 20 to Bastrop. This has to be one of the best motorcycle roads in the state. Some twisties, some hills, tons of scenery, and nearly deserted. One of the best rides of my life. Bastrop, on the other hand, was truly sucky.

Not the town but the ride home. I missed FM 962 and wound up on TX 71 which is just another wide, four-lane expressway between towns. Too fast, too many cars, and too windy. That’s the best thing about county roads: no wind. The roadside trees usually block the wind and that makes for a slice-through-the-air ride.

But, I finally got to 973 out by the Austin airport and quickly elected to take it to Manor, which is just east of the house. Got almost through Manor when some goober in an old, orange beater drove up to the intersection, looked right at me, and instead of stopping at the stop sign (probably because he couldn’t read), pulled onto the road right in front of me. Without my expert driving skills I’d have been like the proverbial bug on the windshield. I rather vocally expressed by displeasure of his driving and decision-making skills.

Speaking of bugs,  you know what it looks like when a big, juicy, yellow-gutted bug hits your car windshield when your driving down the highway? Sure, you do. You know what it looks like when that kind of bug hits your eyeglasses as you’re riding down the road on a motorcycle? I do.

Oh, and you can always tell it’s spring time in Texas when you’re riding down the highway and notice (among all the roadside garage sales, onion salesmen, and pickup trucks selling pinatas and just about everything else you can imagine) a small hand-printed sign with an arrow pointing horizontally to you that reads, “YAK BURGERS”. Alas, the yak burger gravity was not that strong.

Turns out we both had the day off (me from work and the wife from job hunting) so we decided to head out on a discovery trip to McKinney Falls State Park just south east of Austin: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/mckinney_falls/.

It was fantabulous. As soon as we parked and walked down the trail into the clearing that leads to the lower falls, I knew I had been there before. Back in the stone age when I was an assistant leader of Boy Scout Troop 12, we had camped here on one of our summer outings. Probably the one where we went to Corpus Christi. That was a fun trip, except for the part where someone stole a bunch of our stuff out of the trailer. Oh, well….

As we got closer to the falls, I could just see the scouts (and the leaders) running across the boulders and wading in the water which was very cold today. Those are good memories and it is such a strange and warm feeling when you realize you’ve been there before and the memories start flooding back.

So, we bought a season pass that will get us into any Texas state park. It’s actually cheaper than paying the per person day rates. I’m looking forward to visiting there again (the walking trails along the Onion river are amazing) and to going to some of the other state parks. McKinney Falls is only about 15 minutes from our house (but, of course, in Austin, everything is about 15 minutes away). Maybe we can take the niecelet there for an afternoon romp. And maybe, before it gets too hot, we can explore some other state parks on the Harley.

But, we have to go. The Hill Country is now our new home and we have to explore, and learn, and hold hands as we experience as many new adventures here as we can in the time we have left.

I sat at the kitchen table tonight watching, feeling really, the tears drop into my Lean Cuisine sesame stir fry with chicken.

I have no right to have that dinner. I have no right to have the table or the floor on which it sits or the room it inhabits or the furnace that keeps it and me warm. I am blessed.

There are so many millions, can you get your head around that number – millions? – millions of people in this United States of America that don’t have heat tonight. They don’t know where the next meal is coming from or if, even.

The best thing in their lives is the fact that their kids get to go to school tomorrow morning and there will be heat there to keep them warm and they don’t have to die today. And I sit there and listen to 60 Minutes and feel the  warmth well up in my tennis shoes and the tears salt my dinner and wonder why me?

I have no right to that dinner because what, exactly, have I done to deserve it? Why has God blessed me with so much and what does He want from me? Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe He doesn’t want anything other than acknowledgement that He is in fact in control. His thoughts are not my thoughts and there are, in fact, just some things I can’t and am not supposed to understand.

I admit it: I don’t understand. I am so incredibly blessed and I cannot in any sense of the word or the world explain it.

I used to think it was just Americans but I’ve just about decided it’s not us. I’m hearing more complaints from people who have gone off to some idyllic vacation spot only to be constantly harassed by the incessant drone of pounding man-made noise: usually music.

There’s the old joke about the quiet, secluded island motel owner that immediately runs to turn on the loud Musak when he sees the incoming patrons. One of them complains about the music being so loud and he says, “Well, yes, you’re Americans, right. Americans must have constant music playing, yes?”

No. It’s time to stop. Turn it off. Be quiet. As they say back home, “Shut the f up. Turn that sh**t off.”

We’re tired and tired of it. No one comes to heaven (e.g., Nassau, a lonely Greek island, or the Hill Country) to be constantly bombarded by the headache producing pounding of inane tunes that one one really cares about.

We came here to be QUIET! I really would prefer to hear the sound of the wind in the palms, the music of the waves breaking on the beach, the gulls crying out for morsels as they circle overhead, the kids squealing as they play in the sand.

Your island charm is not improved by the pounding hip hop, classic rock, lounge hit mix.

Turn it off. Let me relax in peace.

I guarantee you, if you do, I’ll probably come back in the future and the size of your tip will increase today.