Chicago...

My wife and I just returned from a weekend in Chicago. We have had the good fortune to travel quite a bit in the five years we have been married, and this was our second trip to Chicago. Last time, we went up for a Cubs game and came right back home. This time, we got to do some sight seeing. Chicago is a neat city. We spent a lot of time around Navy Pier. We brought our five-month-old son, and he enjoyed all the bright colors and noises of the Pier.

We took a water tour of the city and learned a lot about the history of its skyscrapers. We did a little shopping for my wife on Michigan Avenue, and we went to a Cubs game for me.

They are currently filming Transformers 3 in Chicago right now, so on street corners, there are random piles of rubble and charred, crashed cars. It was odd to walk down the street and see it in the middle of the road.

We rode the L, which is Chicago’s public transportation system, and it was easy to navigate and convenient for my wife and I, even with our son. As my wife and I walked around the amazing city, I thought about the differences between big cities and the small town in which we live. While we were in Chicago, we walked or rode the train to anywhere that we wanted to go. This is not possible in our small town. My wife and I live out of town, so we don’t have the luxury of walking to the store or to eat, and there is no public transportation in our town. There are so many more choices of things to do in a big city. Restaurants are open late, there are ball games to go to, and there are even movie sets to explore in a big city. In our small town, restaurants close by nine, the only ball games are when the high school team is playing at home, and beyond bowling and Wal-Mart, there is not a lot to do at night. However, as my wife and I ventured around the city, we discussed the idea of living there, and we decided we were happy where we are. Big cities are exciting and always changing, which is fun, but there is something to be said for the stability of a small town. If something happens to my wife or me, people in our town would notice. In Chicago, we might just be two other people in a sea of faces. In our town, people are ecstatic to meet our son. In Chicago, people tried not to bump in to him while we were walking. We love the idea of our town watching our son grow and blossom. In Chicago, would people notice my son? I know it would be different if we actually lived in Chicago, but I like my small town. I like knowing who is in Wal-Mart with me. I like knowing my neighbors and even people who live down the road. I like being home by nine with my wife and son watching the local news. I like my small town, so while Chicago is nice to visit, it makes me grateful for my home.

General Requirements

As I finish up this summer semester, I am thinking a lot about general requirements. It could have something to do with the fact that I am taking zoology and currently writing a research paper about the effects of Zinc on senescent leaf decomposition in urban streams, which is not something I would research on my own. I am questioning the importance of general requirements. I am a Pre-Physical Therapy major, and I have spent a semester of my life studying organisms that can only be viewed under a microscope. I do not believe the isopods I am studying will ever need a physical therapist, so why do I have to study them? My wife and I discussed this the other night, and she told me that she believed the idea of a general education dated back to the Greeks. Washington University has a theory on general requirements that states they provide a foundation for a major, realize individual student potentials, prepare for membership in the community, and facilitate integration of knowledge. Middle Tennessee University has this to say about general education requirements, “The General Education Program helps provide students with the common, hallmark qualities of an educated person, the skills and interrelated knowledge that are the foundation and scaffolding for an academic major and a future career.” The University of Wisconsin says this about their general requirements, “This core establishes a foundation for living a productive life, being a citizen of the world, appreciating aesthetic values, and engaging in lifelong learning in a continually changing world. These requirements provide for breadth across the humanities and arts, social studies, and natural sciences; competence in communication, critical thinking and analytical skills appropriate for a university-educated person; and investigation of the issues raised by living in a culturally diverse society.” I understand that there are some basic skills that everyone needs to come out of college with, including basic math, the ability to read, write, and speak clearly, and general knowledge of culture, but I think that sometimes colleges take the idea of a general education too seriously. While I understand the idea of being “well-rounded,” I think colleges over estimate the amount of knowledge retained from these classes. My wife took Physical Science while at Missouri Southern, and she did not retain most of the important concepts taught in the class. It wasn’t that she did not do well in the class; she made a B, but she did not see the class as important, so she learned things for the tests, then quickly put them away in her mind. I think this is how a lot of students treat the gen. ed. requirements that are not pertinent to their major, and I think colleges are oblivious to this. I have heard numerous people criticize colleges for using gen. ed. requirements strictly as a way to get more money. If this is the case, I would prefer spending more money on classes pertinent to my degree than wasting time and money on classes I am going to forget as soon as I walk out of the door. Don’t get me wrong, I am not slamming my Zoology professor or class. The professor does a wonderful job of tying micro-organisms functions into a larger scale to make it pertinent to those of us who are not Biology majors, but I wish I could take a class that just focused on organisms directly tied to my major instead of a class that tries to tie those organisms in when possible. I think the purpose of a college is to educate a person in the field they are pursuing, not to try and make them better citizens by being well-rounded. A person can become a better citizen on their own, let colleges focus on education.

Vacation: All You Ever Wanted??

The concept of vacations makes me laugh. We go on vacations to escape the real world and spend time relaxing and enjoying ourselves in ways we cannot at home. This is a great idea in theory, but in actuality, I think the majority of people spend more time stressing out about their vacations than they ever do stressing out about their everyday life. Where do we go on vacation? Where do we stay when we get there? What do we do when we get there? Do I need to buy tickets ahead of time or wait until we get there? If we are breaking up our trip into two segments, do we book a hotel ahead of time or just try and find one when we stop? How much do we put on the credit card? How much cash should we carry? How are the kids going to do? Should we bring their personal DVD players or do we want to try and make them talk to us? These are just the questions that affect the whole family. Then there are the questions the affect each individual. For men, do I bring my wallet or scale back to just a money clip so I can keep it in my front pocket? Do I take the GPS and listen to it tell me directions or do I print off the directions for my wife to bark them at me on the interstate? At what time can I hit big city traffic in which both my wife and kids will be asleep, so they won’t freak out on me? Is it really not okay to wear socks with sandals? For women, how many pairs of shoes should I bring? What about make up? Should I bring the straightener and all the products I need to wear my hair curly? What kind of clothes should I bring? What do I do with my jewelry? What about purses? Did I pack enough for the kids? Is my husband seriously wearing socks with his sandals? All of these questions lead to more stress. In addition to trying to answer all of these questions, people must figure out what they should and should not do once they reach their location. Do we allow the kids to do things on their own or do we stress the importance of spending time together as a family? Do I eat unhealthy the whole time or do I throw in a few salads to make myself feel better? Am I really going to use the gym at the hotel (which leads to the do I or do I not pack work out clothes debate before the trip)? Do we need to buy the picture from the amusement park? Yes, I know we’ll probably only be here once, but do I really need to pay $50 for a picture in which my son looks like someone has shoved bees up his nose? All of this leads to a stressful time which negates the purpose of going on a vacation. I realize that not everyone’s vacation goes like this, but enough people’s vacations do that I think it is worth considering the value of a staycation.

Time in a Bottle

When I was young, I remember my father playing the song “Time in a Bottle” when we were in the car. At the time, I did not get the song. I thought it was stupid. Of all the things to put in a bottle, why would someone pick time? I would have picked a lightening bug or root beer, but that was just me. As I grow older, I am beginning to understand the significance of this song. The chorus of the song says, “But there never seems to be enough time/To do the things you want to do/Once you find them.” This has become incredibly true for me. I have finally decided that I want to go back to school because I want more out my life than just the mundane, but now, I have a wife and a son, and it is hard to spend enough time with them while going to school full time and working full time. I have found the thing I “want to do” but as the song says, “There never seems to be enough time.” It is hard not to be down when I think of the time I am missing out on with my son, but I try and remind myself that I am building a better life for us. Once I graduate, my wife will have the ability to stay home with our children which is something she strongly desires to do, so I know all this time away from her and my son will pay off in the long run, but it seems so far away that it is hard to get excited about. That is what makes time such a tricky thing. On the one hand, I would love time to slow down, so I can savor these sweet moments with my son while he is still tiny and innocent. On the other hand, I would love for time to speed up, so I could be finished with the stress of balancing school, family, and work. It is a paradox. It is a similar concept for those people who write a bucket list. People who create a bucket list write down a list of things that they want to do before they die. The irony of it is that most people spend more time deciding what they want on their list than they do actually living out the items they have picked. My wife is always commenting about things she wants to do before she dies. One day I told her she should write all of them down, and she told me that she did not want to take time out of her living to figure out what she wants to do while she is dying. This is another paradox of life. The moment we start living, we also start dying. If this was not so, then we would not have to stress out about the concept of time. This is why phrases like “carpe diem” have garnered so much attention. We must seize the day because we do not know what the next day holds. We cannot catch time in a bottle, so we must focus on living today.

Golden Rule

I have been thinking a lot about the Golden Rule lately: “Treat others as you want to be treated.” When I was in kindergarten, our teacher told us we would live by this motto. As I have grown older, I have realized that most people do not live by this motto. Most people live by the motto, “Treat others as well as possible.” I heard a pastor do a sermon one time where he discussed this concept about the Golden Rule. The following scenario is how he chose to explain the Golden Rule. Imagine that you have a Snickers candy bar and Reese’s cups. These things have been given to you, and you have a friend with you. You love Reese’s, and they are your very favorite candy bar. You also know that your friends’ favorite candy is Reese’s cups, too. You know your friend would be perfectly fine with the Snickers’ bar, and it would be nice of you to give your friend the candy bar. What do you do? Do you keep the Reese’s for yourself and give your friend the Snickers? Is that not what the Golden Rule is all about? You would be giving your friend other candy bar, and if you were your friend, you would want some candy, right? However, the Golden Rule says to treat others as you would WANT to be treated. If you were your friend, wouldn’t you want the Reese’s? It is your favorite candy bar after all. And if you were truly treating others how you wanted to be treated, then you would want which candy bar was your very favorite. Most of us would feel good about ourselves just by sharing our candy with someone else, but in reality, we are probably still being a little selfish by keeping the best for ourselves. That’s not really the heart of the Golden Rule. That’s the heart of the Modern Rule of “Treat others well.” The Golden Rule is so simple, but it’s really difficult. I’ve explained in my earlier blog that my wife and I are doing the Love Dare. In the Love Dare, there is a lot of talk about conflicts in marriage and how to fight fair. The Love Dare references the Golden Rule in fighting, and it makes a lot of sense. In a fight, sometimes we are so concerned about “winning” that we don’t worry about “treating others the way we would like to be treated.” We think that as long as we don’t yell and say terrible things, we are abiding by the Golden Rule, but in reality, that’s still not treating others the way we want to be treated. We want to be right, we want to win, and we want to walk away satisfied that we got what we wanted. All of that adds up to a lot of worrying about ourselves and not the other person. If we’re treating them the way we WANT to be treated, then we worry less about ourselves and winning and more about the way we want them to feel at the end of the discussion. The Golden Rule: a simple concept with complex applications.

Farewell George

As you know if you have been reading my blog, I am a die-hard Yankees fan. Today is a sad day in the world of Yankees fandom. The controversial Yankees owner George Steinbrenner passed away today at the age of 80. Mr. Steinbrenner had been in ill health for quite a while, so it was not a big surprise that he passed, but it is still devastating loss to both the Yankees and the Steinbrenner family. Mr. Steinbrenner was born on July 4, 1930. He grew up in Cleveland as the son of a shipping tycoon. George tried his hand in numerous adventures and was a successful football and basketball coach before venturing into the world of baseball. He bought the Yankees in 1973 for around 10 million dollars. He was known to have a volatile temper and be over-involved with his team, as Billy Martin could attest to. Martin was hired and fired five different times by Steinbrenner during his tumultuous tenure in the ‘70’s. The two had infamous arguments, but they could not seem to get away from one another. Steinbrenner hired seventeen managers in his first seventeen seasons with the Yankees. His success in the early years lay in landing “Catfish” Hunter and Reggie Jackson who became known as Mr. October. His Yankees won back-to-back World Series in 1977 and 1978, but then, the Yankees World Series winning streak went dormant until 1996. The Yankees won the Series again in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2009. All of those titles mean that the Yankees won the World Series seven times under George Steinbrenner’s ownership. That equals about one World Series every five years. While those statistics are more impressive than any other team in Major League Baseball, they do show that the major argument against Steinbrenner may not hold water. Steinbrenner was often accused of spending too much money and making it impossible for smaller market teams to be able to compete with the Yankees. If you check recent payrolls, which you can here, you’ll discover that the Yankees have the highest payroll by a landslide. However, all of that money does not necessarily translate into winning titles. The Yankees didn’t win a single World Series from 1978 to 1996. That’s a twenty year dry spell. Twenty years that Steinbrenner was pouring money into a franchise and not seeing the results he wanted. As much as people want to criticize Steinbrenner for using his money to dominate the game, it is simply not true. He had twenty years in which he felt that he was basically flushing his money down the toilet. Even recently, he had to stand back and watch the Tampa Bay Rays make it to the World Series in 2008 while his prized Yankees sat at home. The Rays who have the tenth lowest payroll in the MLB managed to surpass his beloved Yankees who come in first in payroll. At the end of the day, Steinbrenner may be overzealous and passionate, but who wouldn’t want that in an owner? What players wouldn’t want to play for a team where the owner was willing to go out every year and get the best players, no matter what the cost? No one I know would protest against that owner. The only people who I know who would protest that owner would be the teams that have to play against his team, and I believe anger drives competition anyway, so if those teams are upset, then it’s good for baseball. So as we look at Mr. Steinbrenner’s legacy, I hope we can put aside the controversy and just focus on his passion. He meant a lot to the game of baseball, and he will be missed.

Baseball

Baseball is considered the great American pastime. Why is it so fascinating? I played baseball up until this past summer. I loved it. It consumed my life. I traveled overseas to play; I was scouted; I devoted my life to the sport. Why? Why is baseball so consuming, so fascinating? In my family, the love of baseball runs through your veins along with your blood. Our lives revolved around baseball. I have four brothers, and all of us played baseball at least until high school, and three of us played baseball in high school. When I was growing up, our summers were consumed with baseball. Family vacations could only happen during the weeks between summer and fall ball. Our schedules were driven by baseball. If something interfered with baseball, then it was thrown to the wayside because baseball was the dominant force in our lives. When my wife and I first started dating, she asked me while I loved baseball so much. I told her about how much I played, practiced, and watched baseball. Being the analytical woman that she is, she wanted to know why I started loving baseball. That was a harder question to answer. My father had always loved baseball, and I grew up loving the sport with him. I remember watching Yankees games on our couch when I was just beginning to throw the ball. I remember him teaching me to throw a knuckle ball and later, a curve ball. He taught me to bunt, pitch, and throw. We would spend hours on end in the backyard throwing the ball and hitting in our batting cage. I would devote all day to practicing while he was at work, and when he came home, I would show him how I had improved on something we had worked on the night before. We would play catch until dinner was ready, and then, we would go back out and play some more after dessert. When my brothers were big enough, I would drag them out with us so we could play a wiffle ball game in the backyard. My mom used to have a quote calendar on her desk, and she cut out one quote that she hung on our refrigerator because it reminded her of our family. It said, “Baseball is a game where little boys practice being men, and men practice being little boys, and they both get really good at it.” She used to joke that the quote was written about my brothers, me, and my father. We used to roll our eyes when she teased us about spending too much time on baseball, but she never really seemed to mind our addiction. It wasn’t until I had my own son that I realized why baseball is so addictive and why my mom never cared that we devoted so much time to it. It was never about the game itself. It was always about our family joining in on the sport together. We spent almost every hour of every night together working on a game which in essence joined us together in something that went far beyond a sport. It joined us as a family, bonded us for life. Maybe that’s why baseball is the great American sport- it helps create the great American family.

LeBron James

Unless you have been living in a vacuum, you have probably heard about the LeBron James drama. In case you have not heard yet, you can read all about it here. LeBron is contemplating leaving his hometown of Cleveland to play basketball at a more exciting city such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Miami. LeBron has decided to make his announcement to the public during an hour long special Thursday night on ESPN. LeBron grew up in Akron, Ohio, which is about an hour south of Cleveland where he currently plays basketball. He went straight from high school to the NBA which is now impossible in case you missed my NBA Blog. He did not have an easy life in Akron, but he grew to be an astounding athlete despite his rough childhood. Now, he has proven to be more than just a high school phenom; he has won the NBA MVP two years in a row, beating the likes of Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, and numerous other stars. After all of his success in Cleveland, he is now at the end of his contract and has to decide where would be the best place for him to continue his career. He has been wooed by some incredible teams, and despite all the press coverage, there does not seem to be a clear frontrunner. LeBron has made no secret of his love of New York City, even wearing a Yankees cap while watching the Yanks taking on his hometown Indians. Does that mean that the New York Knicks have a good chance of taking LeBron way from his beloved Cleveland? The answer is murky. The Knicks have secured Amare Stoudemire to their team, which could be an enticing offer to James since Stoudemire is a stellar player, and the Knicks received confirmation that the signing of Stoudemire would not hinder the pursuit of James. The Bulls were once the frontrunner for James, but they have been unable to secure any other superstars in Chicago, so the buzz around the Bulls seems to have faded slightly. They still have the up-and-comer Derrick Rose, who happens to also be a hometown boy, born and raised in Chicago. Despite LeBron’s interest in the Bulls, he has to be considerate of the comparisons he would get to Michael Jordan if he joined the famed team. Even if James feels that he could possibly turn the Bulls around, would it be worth it if everything he does will be compared to what Michael did? I don’t think so. Although the LA Clippers and New Jersey Nets are still in the running, they seem to have fallen slightly behind the pack, so that leaves people wondering if James is headed to Miami. If he went to Miami, he would be joining greats like Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade, but Wade and Bosh made their announcements this morning, so if LeBron was going to join them, why wouldn’t he have made his announcement, too? Maybe because LeBron still has not made up his mind? Maybe because LeBron wants his own moment of glory when he announces he is leaving Cleveland? Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because LeBron is going to stay put in his hometown where he belongs. LeBron knows that if he leaves Cleveland, it will be devastating to the city. I’ve even heard that LeBron leaving would cost the Cavaliers twenty million, and that’s not even counting the loss in ticket sales if King James is not on the team. Cleveland needs LeBron, and I think that LeBron, deep down, needs Cleveland. It’s his hometown, it’s where he grew up, and frankly, it’s his life. Who would be willing to leave his legacy? Especially a legacy that is unfinished since he has yet to bring a title to his beloved city. I hope LeBron stays in Cleveland because I feel that Cleveland is the underdog, and who doesn’t root for the underdog? Stay put, LeBron. It just makes sense.