Now I Know

My daughter came to me today with a connundrum.  She has a longstanding friend who recently told her that he's developed romantic feelings for her.  When he initially told her this, she acknowledged his feelings, but said that she thought of him as a friend.  Since then, she's come to the conclusion that she has feelings for him as well.  She asked me what to do.  I told her to go for it.  She's concerned that things won't work out, and that she'll lose the friendship.  I still said that she should go for it.

When I was younger, I had the same thing happen to me.  I met Debbie my sophmore year in high school.  She was a freshman.  The first time I talked to her, I wanted to be more than friends, but she put me in the friend zone.  I was okay with this.  Over the years, we spent hours on the phone, hung out together all the time, and shared everything... except romance.  When I graduated high school and went into the Marine Corps, we still kept in touch... letters, phone calls, and the mandatory visits when I was home on leave.

When I was in the Persian Gulf, I called her one night while I was on liberty.  We talked for about 30 minutes, and during the call she said the magic words... "I love you."  I still remember it like it was yesterday.  I laughed out loud and said "WHAT?!?"  Yeah, that totally came out wrong.  I immediately apologized and clarified that my laughter and dismay was out of pure joy.  I had waited years to hear those words from her.

We corresponded incessantly during the remainder of my deployment, and when I returned to the States, I immediately went home... home to her.  We were inseparable until I had to return to duty, but we maintained a long distance relationship.  I flew her out to see me... the one and only time I did that for anyone.  We spent another glorious week together.

After that, things started falling apart.  I was a conservative member of the Armed Services, and she was a liberal Political Science major.  Both of us believed that our world view was superior to the other's... mine because I was out living in the real world and experiencing things she couldn't see in school... hers because she was receiving higher education, and I just wasn't enlightened.  Our conversations were increasingly confrontational, and then less frequent.  Eventually, I came home on leave again; but I knew that we had to end things.

When things ended, we went our separate ways.  Within a year, I got married and had my first child.  She went to law school and became an attorney.  As you'd expect, things were never the same between us afterwards.  I still called and sent cards for a few years, but eventually we drifted apart.  For a long time, I suspected that I broke her heart, but years later I learned that I probably loved her more than she loved me.

To this day, I occasionally wonder how she's doing.  Don't get me wrong, I know she's successful, and I strongly suspect that she's happy.  That's not really the point though.  The point is that I knew what I wanted.  I hung in there.  I won her heart... for a short time.  In the long run, things didn't work out, and we went our separate ways.  With all of that said though, I don't regret taking the chance.  Realistically speaking, we probably would have gone our separate ways whether or not we made the leap and tried a romantic relationship.  This way though, I will not spend the rest of my life asking "What if...?"  Now I know.

A Quick Look at the Manchester Whitewater Park

I took my wife and grandson on a brief excursion to Iowa's newest water attraction, the Manchester Whitewater Park.  Since I had the boy with me, I didn't run the rapids, but I did stop to take a good look at the park's layout; I surveyed each drop, and watched a few paddlers enjoying themselves.  I also saw a couple of folks on inner tubes, and even witnessed a couple running the rapids in their open canoe.  (They made it through the first five drops and spilled on the last one.)

The river flow was low and slow today.  The Manchester USGS gauge showed a depth of about 4.1 feet, and a flow of about 160 CFS.  Higher water will make a tremendous difference from what I'm reporting today.

I had a great initial impression walking the length of the park.  There is ample parking at the upper end of the park, with easy access to the water.  Furthermore, there is a sidewalk along the entire length of the park, and you can quickly and easily put in directly upstream or downstream from all of your favorite features.

During the small amount of time I observed boaters in the water, I saw people primarily hanging around the second and fifth drop.  This is partially because there were people fishing on the first and last hole.  Apparently the guy on the first drop was kind of rude.  He was fishing with a treble hook, on the edge of the wave, and refused to move his line, even when people were trying to just run though to get to the other features.  The folks on the last drop were significantly more friendly... but then again, they were actually catching fish.

Last time I was in Charles City, people were wondering about the differences between the two parks.  All drops in Manchester are significantly narrower than the drops at the Charles City Whitewater park, leaving noticeably less room to roam across a given feature.  I estimate that each feature was about seven to eight feet wide today.  In my opinion though, this offset by the increased number of features available in the Manchester park.  The Manchester park is a good 50% longer than Charles City.  This means a significantly longer walk from the last feature back upstream to the first, but it's not a difficult walk by any stretch of the imagination.  And again, there are more features, so it's quite foreseeable that you'll take fewer walks back upstream in Manchester than you will in Charles City.

Here are some photos of the drops for your review...

Notice the ease of access to the drop, by walking along the rocks to the actual feature.  Each drop has this type of easy access.

This is the first drop.  The wife and grandson in the picture should give you a frame of reference for the size of the wave and feature.  All drops are roughly this wide.

Second Drop

Third Drop

Third Drop, closer up

This isn't an actual feature, but it has the potential to be fun.  In low water, you will drag going through this.

Fourth Drop

Fifth Drop

Sixth Drop

There is also a place to rent kayaks and tubes

If you're looking for more of a paddling oriented review of the park, feel free to look at this YouTube video.

What Goes Around?

On more than one occasion, I have talked about my older daughter's ex-boyfriend... the biological father of my grandson.  Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have nothing but contempt for this individual, and knows why.  The guy is currently 23 years old, has assaulted me and broken my nose, has run over my daughter with his truck, absconded with my grandson, and has been convicted of two felonies.  (That's just the highlights.)  He hasn't seen his son in over seven months, and hasn't paid a nickel to support the costs associated with raising a child.  To make matters worse, he tells anyone who will listen that it's my daughter's fault that he can't see his son, which is absolutely false; and during the most recent custody hearing, he told the judge that he had another child on the way, and that he was ready to stop fighting to see my grandson so that he could focus on the baby on the way.

When he ran over my daughter, DHS got involved.  They determined that he was a danger to my daughter and grandson, and gave him supervised visits with the boy.  He was told that he needed to complete a psychological evaluation and a drug abuse evaluation, and to get counseling if that's what the evaluations determined he needed to do.   He was given three one-hour supervised visits per week in the interim.  Over the next year, he made no attempt to complete his evaluations.  He was inconsistent in visits to the point where DHS dropped him down to one visit per week.  Eventually he quit showing up altogether.

His felonies consist of first degree theft and burglary.  His assaults on my daughter and me brought about two more convictions, but he has served no jail time to date.  A few days ago, I found out that he got busted for OWI. In addition to the OWI charge, he's been charged with speeding (20+ over the speed limit), driving without a license, driving with no insurance, failure to obey a traffic signal, interference with official acts, providing false identification and not wearing a seat belt.  When he got busted for the OWI, the court saw fit to re-evaluate his felony convictions.  (The first conviction earned him a deferred judgment, and the second conviction earned him a five-year suspended sentence.)  Based on the County's inmate roster, he's still sitting in jail.  Makes sense.  In order to get out on bail, he needs to come up with about $15000 in cash.

IF he's convicted, there's a reasonable chance that he will finally spend some time behind bars.  It's not guaranteed, and I'm not going to hold my breath.  But I am holding out a bit of hope that what he sent around will finally get back around to him.

Another Evening with Slipknot

Back in November, my best friend and I went to see Slipknot and Korn in concert in Moline, Il.  (Click here for my blog post on that concert.)  I was actually supposed to see that concert with my younger daughter, but she had a scheduling conflict, so I went with my friend instead.  It was a crazy good time.  Last night, Slipknot played in my hometown, and I was able to attend that concert with my daughter, and like the concert in November, I had a blast.

Doing a concert in my hometown is great.  I know the city, so I was able to find a parking spot that was free, easy in, and easy out from the venue... no waiting for all of the other cars to leave.  In addition, we stopped at a restaurant downtown and grabbed a quick bite before hitting the concert.  Once we arrived at the venue, we saw a group of conservative, evangelical Christians picketing the concert.  I didn't thoroughly read their signs, but what I read didn't incite anger on my part.  The signs weren't full of hate and anger.  Those of you who know me, realize that I'm a Christian.  Part of me was tempted to ask the protesters if they believe that it's possible to be Christian AND attend the concert, just to find out.  In the end, I didn't, and am glad I made that choice.

We arrived at the show kind of early.  This gave me a chance to grab a beer.  My daughter also took the opportunity to buy a T-Shirt before the concert started, and we were able to get relatively close to the stage.  This worked out well, because by the time the opening act was halfway through their set, we were in the third row.  By the time Slipknot came on, my daughter had worked her way front and center, with me right behind her.  This, by the way, is the first time I've seen a band twice on the same tour, and I once again left the concert very impressed, though the reasons were somewhat different.

Don't get me wrong, the crowd was incredibly energetic (probably, in part, because Slipknot was playing in their home state), and the band was on.  But I was taken by the fact that security was constantly giving water to a very hot and thirsty crowd.  I also saw that the band did a few things differently between the concert in Moline and what they did last night.  This tells me that they don't have everything rehearsed, and that the interaction with the crowd is at least somewhat genuine.  During the concert, custom percussionist Chris Fehn (AKA #3) went through the pit, and gave my daughter a high five.  Later in the concert, Mick Thompson (AKA #7) threw out a pick, and my daughter got it.  What's really cool about this is that I got a pick from the exact same band member when I saw them in November.  What are the odds?!?

I was also impressed with the security folks in general.  They weren't Nazis, trying to crush our fun.  In addition to them constantly providing us with water, they were going out of their way to make sure that everyone in the front was safe and having fun.  There were a couple of them who were very obviously watching out for my daughter... they gave her water every time they brought it out, and they frequently checked in with her to make sure that she was okay... not getting overheated, crushed by the crowd and so forth.  After the concert was over, I made a point of thanking them for watching out for the kid, and for doing a grand job in general.

By the time the concert was over, I was physically drained, and my clothes were soaked with sweat.  I suspect I lost a couple of pounds in water weight.  But I created another lasting memory with my younger daughter.

Proud to be Cheap

My kids spend a lot of time and energy teasing me and calling me cheap.  There's something they don't understand though... it doesn't bother me.  In fact, I wear that moniker kind of proudly.  It's a trait that I came by honestly.  Furthermore, "cheap" often translates into "Dad doesn't buy me everything I want."

When I say "I came by it honestly," I mean it.  Both sets of grandparents were alive during the Great Depression.  My mom's dad used to tell me stories about how his family couldn't afford peanut butter.  He had friends whose parents were on welfare, and got peanut butter for free, but my grandfather's father, who had a job, couldn't afford peanut butter.  As a result, my grandfather always had peanut butter in his house, and he ate it at least once per week.

My dad's parents were adults during the Depression.  They never talked about it, but it was obvious how much of an impact it made in their lives.  They never wasted anything.  My grandmother made her weekly grocery list on cardboard scraps.  They washed and saved the Styrofoam trays that ground beef comes on.  My grandmother made seat cushions by crocheting used bread wrappers.  They had a party line until the day my grandmother died.

When my parents were first married, there were times they had to choose between deodorant and food.  I remember my mother darning holes in my father's socks instead of throwing them away and buying new socks.  I remember my father putting cardboard in his own hole-ridden shoes so that we could have new shoes for school.  In a neighborhood of two-income families, my mother was a stay-at-home mom.  I grew up watching a black and white TV, with no cable, when my friends all had HBO and color TV.  When I was a teenager, I finally convinced my parents to subscribe to cable TV, on the condition that I paid for it.  And even then, my parents, who owned the one (black and white) TV in the house, had first say on what we watched.

When I joined the Marine Corps, I made decent money as a young, single guy with no bills, but I made the mistake of maxing out a couple of high interest credit cards.  I paid them off while I was serving in Desert Storm.  When I returned from Desert Storm, I actually had a few grand saved up.  Shortly after that though, I met and married my first wife, who had zero financial discipline, and I made the mistake of allowing her access to my credit cards.  In about a year, I went from having a few grand in savings to being over $10,000 in debt.  It took us about four years to break the debt cycle, and once the debts were paid off, she saw it as an opportunity to spend the extra money, instead of saving for a rainy day.

We were debt free for the next few years, but as I mentioned, I didn't have any money.  Despite this fact, my first wife insisted that we stop renting and purchase a home.  I agreed, and had a plan to start saving for a down payment, but in the end, we moved into a home we really couldn't afford, with zero down, and a loan that was exclusively in my name.  Three years later, she dropped a bombshell and said that she didn't want to be married to me anymore.

I sat down and figured out the bills, and cut my expenses to the bone.  I ditched cable TV.  I had to keep Internet access for work, but I turned the thermostat up to 78 degrees in the summer, and 64 degrees in the winter.  We went weeks on end without eating meat, and I went for months without touching a drop of alcohol.  I refinanced my house to lower my monthly mortgage payment.  Despite all of this, I was still $500 per month short of paying my mortgage.  Fortunately, my close friend Antoine moved in.  If he hadn't become my roommate, I would have lost the house.  (We also had a **LOT** of fun as roommates, but this story isn't about our fun; it's about how I became a cheapskate.)

Fast forward a bit more... I met another woman, she moved in, and we got married.  (Antoine moved out during this time.)  She made (makes) significantly more than I do.  The money crunch is gone, and I'm not living hand to mouth, but if you ask my kids, I'm still cheap, and I'm okay with that.  You see, I'm old school... I was brought up to believe that the man should be the primary bread winner, and I'm not.  This in and of itself doesn't bother me, but I'm cognizant of this fact.  I carry a proportional amount of financial weight based on our income, but I don't carry 50%.  I'm not crazy generous with money because in order to do so, I'd have to spend her money... and it's not my place to claim her money.  I'm not crazy generous with money because I save money for a rainy day.  I can't count the times I had to fix a car in the freezing cold in order to get to work.  I can't enumerate all of the instances where I had to eat rice to make rent.  Saving for emergencies has not brought me ahead financially, but it's absolutely cushioned the unexpected blows.

Let's take things a bit further.  We live in a modest, split-level home built in the late 1960's.  It's more than we need, but less than we could afford if we stretched ourselves.  But the point is that it's more than we need.  Why upgrade?  I drive a 13 year old truck that I've owned for 11 years.  It's got almost 200,000 miles, and it's starting to rust.  But it's reliable and it's paid for.  Why would I buy a new vehicle and have years of car payments?

My kids call me cheap, but like I said, I came by it honestly... three generations of hardship has made an impression on me.  If I've done my job, my grandchildren will be calling my kids cheap.

Israel and Palestine in Layman's Terms

Yep, Israel and Palestine are in the news again.  The crux of the most recent iteration of page one news is that Benjamin Netanyahu came to the U.S. and delivered a speech to Congress.  In the speech, Netanyahu supported a two-state solution to the Palestinian problem.  This caused a major drop in Netanyahu's domestic ratings immediately before an election, so he retracted, and he got re-elected.

Fast forward a few days.  America is pissed, and our official line is that the Israeli occupation of foreign land must end, and there needs to be a lasting peace.  Now it's time for my two cents:  They're all full of shit, and here's why...

Let's go back thousands of years.  Around three thousand years ago, Israel was a reasonably large empire.  This empire was based on a covenant with the One True God.  For the next thousand years or so, Israel's empire ebbed and flowed.  Around zero B.C. Israel was effectively a state in the Roman Empire.  Let's fast forward a bit more, and for the sake of oversimplification, Israel effectively ceased to be a country.  Historically speaking, most people in this situation would either be eradicated, or would be assimilated into the conquering culture.  This didn't happen to the Jews.  For thousands of years they managed to maintain their heritage.

Now, let's fast forward to the Holocaust.  Millions of Jews were exterminated.  I submit that the world must have experienced some sort of guilt over this, so the UN created a new Israel.  Look, in all reality, the Arabs were understandably pissed about this.  After all, they lost some of their land.  So, over the next 20-odd years, they let their anger fester, and they decided to kick Israel's ass.  But Israel was smart.  They struck the first punch and in six days, they managed to double their land, and completely remove the country of Palestine from the map.

Here's my take.  Israel saw the writing on the wall.  They knew they were going to get their asses kicked, but they didn't wait to get attacked.  They, justifiably, struck first.  When all was said and done, Israel said "Hey, we'll give all of your land back, as long as you acknowledge that we have a right to exist and leave us alone."  EVERY country involved said "Oh, HELL NO!"  Egypt has made peace with Israel since then, but that's effectively where we are today.  The Arabs don't want to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Here's my take.  It's a little bit nuanced, so bear with me...

There were a bunch of bullies on the block who wanted to kick Israel's ass.  They all started following Israel home after school one day.  Israel saw what was happening though, and opened a can of whoop ass on ALL OF THEM.  Palestine got the worst of it.  They lost everything.  This wasn't a fair fight to begin with.  Israel was way overwhelmed, and they STILL managed to kick ass.  Palestine, who was one of the original aggressors, lost everything, and how they're whining about it, and acting like they're the ones who were wronged.  Fuck them!

Now, with that said, I have nothing against them trying to carve out a homeland like what Israel got after the holocaust.  In fact, I applaud them for going to the UN, the same international body that magically created the country of Israel.  But I CANNOT support the UN creating a new Palestine at this point in time.  The Palestinians fought Israel and lost.  Now they're saying "we want our country back."  Where are the consequences of aggression?  I will admit that it's reasonable for there to eventually be a Palestine, but not today.  The Palestinians absolutely CANNOT have their country restored while the original aggressors still live, or else there is no real consequence for their aggression.  In fact, I believe that the consequence should last through their children's generation, and their grandchildren's generation.  That's the time that the retribution will be fully paid.  The UN can consider creating a new Palestine after the death of the last grandchild of the original generation of aggressors.  Not before.  Otherwise, aggressive countries will believe that they can act with impunity.

My Thoughts on Net Neutrality

A couple of days ago, I asked my Facebook friends to share their thoughts on Net Neutrality.  The overwhelming majority of people who commented oppose Net Neutrality on the premise that government intervention stifles innovation.  Now that a couple of days have passed, I think it's fitting that I answer my own question.

Before I answer the question though, I am going to take a step back and address my friends' position that government involvement stifles innovation.  At a macro level, I generally agree with that statement.  In fact, I'll take things even a step further, and say that governmental interference not only creates unintended problems, it's also horribly ineffective at addressing these problems once they appear.  Social Security is a prime example.  The overall assertion, however, is a very black and white statement, and we live in a gray world.

For the purpose of this discussion, I am going to posit that government and business are opposite sides of the same coin.  Government is corrupt and inefficient.  Business, however, is corrupt and greedy.  Business, left to its own devices, will chase profit at the expense of everything else.  This greed is why America has a minimum wage, a 40 hour work week, environmental laws and anti-trust legislation.

I have no problem with Internet service providers making a profit.  I do, however, believe in Net Neutrality.  I have a problem with ISPs becoming the de facto gatekeepers of the internet.  I have a problem with the idea that ISPs can force vendors to pay for faster service on the front end, and then force subscribers to pay for faster service on the back end.  I also have a problem with business having the ability to slow down or effectively block traffic that they consider competition or objectionable.  This is the alternative to net neutrality.  Innovation and the free flow of ideas is still stifled, but in a different way.  It's business stifling the competition instead of the government.  Net neutrality is designed to promote competition and information by making sure that an ISP cannot impede traffic flowing across its network.

Let me use a couple of hypothetical situations to make my point.  Let's say that Disney buys Mediacom.  Not likely, but it could happen.  Disneycom decides to block or significantly slow all internet traffic going to streaming companies that compete with NBC, Disney, Pixar, etc. unless they pony up some extra cash.  How does this benefit the consumer?  Alternatively, let's say that the new Comcast CEO is a hard core Catholic who decided to slow or block traffic to sites that have to do with pornography, contraception, homosexuality or whatever.  How does this promote the free flow of ideas?  As I said, these are hypothetical situations to make a point.

Like I said, I generally agree that government is inefficient and stifles innovation.  I also, however, believe that business is greedy and will do anything it can to make as much as possible.  In this case, I believe that net neutrality is the best option for the consumer in the long run.