It’s one of those things that when you tell someone you get one of two responses: “Yeah, Right!” or “Wow, Neat!”, though the first response is usually silently spoken behind a polite smile.

My grandpa would come home from work and try to describe what they were building and the details that went into it. Nobody at the time could understand what he was talking about “Your building a … castle? For real? You built a … tree? Why not just plant one?” He and Disney actually had a personal relationship as well. Disney would sit on one of the docks for lunch. None of the other construction workers felt comfortable enough, but my grandpa would sit right next to him and have lunch together talking about families and dreams.

Disneyland has far more educational value than half the school slums in our country, but you have to dig for it. Try reading a few books on how Disney performed his work before the next time you visit… or just to learn a few tips and pointers to improve your own personal business and achievements. Our family favorite is the “One-Up”.

When Disney walked into a room to see the story boards (a concept he invented and everyone uses today) he would listen to people’s ideas and envision something fantastic. When it came down to building the parts, whether it was a ride in an amusement park or a frame still for a movie, he would look at it and say to the engineers and artists … “That’s great. Now one-up it.” One-up means to overachieve… to excel.

When we build something we get stuck in the forest and can’t see it through the trees. When we step back we can see areas of improvement. “One-Up” means changing how we see things for a minute… to step out of our mind, or to step into a fresh mind depending on how you view it … and making the experience better.

With the common proverb (by Julius Caesar) that “experience is the greatest teacher”, it makes sense that walking through one of the greatest creations of the greatest teacher of details, magic and experience (speaking of Disneyland and Disney) would lend to teaching a thing or two.

Reflections and Resolutions don’t make a happy rainbow…. it’s more like an oily stain on the street that, after a dismal rain, makes a rainbow-like blob that mirrors the shoes on your feet.

I think of my regrets. I already have several this year. I think of beginnings and endings. Too many “should-a-done” and “wish-I-did” items to list. It’s always depressing, cold and ugly outside this time of year. But then I look at the other side of the same hand. I can overpower those regrets and move them behind me (even the ones I already have in the past 6 days). I can think of growth and changes. There are plenty of “like-to-do” and “let’s-try-that” items that life becomes exciting again. Besides, my awesome neighbor across the street snowplowed my driveway when me and my family were so dog sick we couldn’t even get out of bed to thank him. You just don’t get neighbors much cooler than that!

I’m lousy with promises to myself. I either get all emotional (good and bad emotions) and throw out my resolutions like baby with the bathwater or I get forgetful in my lethargic tired self after a long day’s work. How many times have I promised myself that I’d learn the violin… or that I’d stop biting my fingernails… or… no need to continue.

Nevertheless, I’ve learned that if I write down what I want to achieve it’s more likely (through some subconscious level) that I’ll achieve the goals, so here it goes.

1. Stop biting my nails. Fingernails… I quit biting toenails long ago.
2. Really enjoy life with my family. Drop the pessimism.
3. Take several pictures a day and post at least two pictures each day (one of myself and one of whatever) with a focus of improving and experimenting with style, light and composition… but no matter what, take some pictures and post two each day.
4. Play music more regularly … as in “play a musical instrument”… not as in “play the radio”.
5. Get my home office clean and dump out the old junk
6. Become more giving of my time, money, resources, etc.
– pick a charity to sponsor and give weekly/monthly to it.
7. Really apply myself to all the (Jewish) Holidays… including Shabbat. It’s so tough to push aside my desire to clean … but I’ll find a way.
8. Save Money and get as much out of debt as possible.
9. Finish the back yard… deck, garden and playground. We can only afford this because of doing #8.
10. Learn Hebrew. At least get good enough to say some phrases and read some basic literature.
11. (Re)read the books on my reading list:
– How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dalie Carnegie
– Getting Things Done – David Allen
– Six Attitudes For Winners – Vincent Peale
– Organizing For Dummies – Eileen Roth
– more to come…
12. Make some awesome preserves.
13. Blog more regularly… as in no more than 7 days between posts. If anyone besides my wife starts showing interest then I’ll blog at least twice a week.
14. Write up some reviews on the iPhone apps I’ve collected.
15. Try a food I haven’t had before (must be kosher).
16. Lose waist… I don’t mind having the same weight if it’s all muscle around my body, but this fat belly of mine has got to go!
– Better Food Habits (eat less)
– Exercise (move more)

That’s it for now.

I was bullied from Kindergarten all the way through High School. The bullying was directed by teachers – not just from other students or peers; Teachers were the main criminals. Who do you turn to when you’re six years old and your teacher is calling you names like “loser” and “a nothing – a nobody – that’s all you are and all you’ll ever be” in front of class. What about when you’re twelve and a teacher holds up a playboy in class, telling the girls that if they don’t look like that they won’t amount to anything in life? Or when you’re thirteen and your coach makes crude remarks about you in front of other boys in the locker room? What about when you’re sixteen and the teachers choose to look the other way while you’re getting the crap beaten out of you in the hall?

School is a crime against humanity. The system wreaks from the inside out. Although I don’t condone what happened at Columbine, those kids had enough. They talked and adults didn’t listen. When nobody listens, you have to make some noise… sadly, their noise was through bullets ending the life of others (both guilty and innocent of bullying). The big noise now is through Facebook announced suicides.

Although suicides are among people of all race, creed and color, the big craze now is in homosexual suicides. I can say from experience that this has been going on for decades and has only started getting recognition. When the other boys don’t know why you’re different, they just start assuming you’re gay and call you names and treat you accordingly. I was never gay, but apparently many guys in my class thought otherwise… or they didn’t know big words like “unique” or “introverted” or “sensitive” or “empathic”.

Last weekend I recounted to my daughter why I delved into the occult when I was twelve. It was to escape the pain… Even the memories are painful. Memories of having my face buried in a toilet full of feces then flushed… of opening up my locker to find it full of used condoms… of having a boy force his groin up to my face in gym class… of being physically bullied so much that I passed out in the school hall… of having someone dump a bottle of skunk essence on my head then being sent out of class because I smelt so bad it was disrupting… and the smaller continuous things like being flicked in the ear each day on the bus… having chewed gum or thumbtacks stuck in my seat… and all the degrading names… the list goes on. I felt like even God couldn’t do anything about it. The fantasy of the occult promised super powers and magic that anyone caught in the fabric between childhood and adulthood while in the midst of despair would reach for. I bit that apple, but it didn’t give me anything more than paranoia to add to the pain and darkness.

I certainly thought of suicide, and so did one of my friends who did eventually go through with it. My parents knew some of what went on and took it to the school council. They balked at my parents. If this were happening today, lawsuits would be involved. Back then, the council members were only embarrassed enough to make arrangements for me to cut gym class, but forced me into special ed because I was different. Had I lived in Colorado Springs back then, I probably would have gone through with suicide because it’s so common here that I would have had the “support” of both bullies and peers to “off” myself. (Sadly, Colorado Springs has the title for the second highest suicide rate in the nation. First billing goes to Las Vegas.)

If you want to do something about it, keep your kids out of school or become hot-damn determined to go to every PTA meet and visit campus weekly. It’s already been proven that kids can learn reading, writing, arithmetic and history through a better environment than what our government provides. Let me add that they can also learn more about life and live a happier one with some dignity intact by keeping them out of school. When my dad confronted the dad of one of the school bullies, merely stating that he needed to have a talk with his child, the parent’s response was a threatening “so what are *you* gonna do about it?”

When morally cheapened parents put their kids in a rotting system that spends every effort being politically correct and conforming children into the same mindset, teachers are robbed of their own human rights, are stripped of authority and anarchy inevitably takes over.

If children choose to go to college, warn them about fraternities and sororities that condone hazing, sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse. These debase human beings to the behavior of animals. There are so many great clubs and organizations that an “all boys” or “all girls” club is purely unnecessary and pointless. Better friends are made elsewhere.

… And when it comes to being bullied, it’s the hope from a good friend who stands up for you that makes living the next day a viable option.

Consider that there are alternatives to school. The most successful people in the world are the drop-outs: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ansel Adams, Julie Andrews, Billie Holiday, Tom Hanks and a list of nearly a thousand others who make the top 1% of the world’s revenue and political influence. School is not for everyone, and it’s apparent that going to school could even hinder your child’s future success. I’m not saying these people weren’t educated – I’m saying public school’s version of “education” isn’t suited for the greatest achievers… In most cases that’s who the bullies pick on – perhaps because that’s who they fear.

They also poorly engineered a deck and built it without a permit and mounted it to the foundation of the house. What I mean is the numskulls took the protective siding off the house and without flashing or caulking just bolted the deck beams into the sill plate and stem wall. It’s now rotted and needs to be replaced. We knew the yard needed work when we bought the house, but the expense is insane! For removing rocks (that were put down directly in the dirt… that means without any tarp or weed guard), tearing down a rotting deck, removing several of the ill-placed deck posts, regrading the lawn for drainage and installing a new sprinkler system (the old one died) the cost went over $9k.

Word to the wise out there… clearing out a yard can be as expensive as putting in a new one. This holds particularly true if the previous owners didn’t think ahead, didn’t pull any permits, and didn’t do the yard right.

So since we have to invest so much money into the yard, I’ve thought of doing some magic on it. If Disney could make a castle look bigger than it really is, why can’t I make a yard look bigger, too?

The August 15th 2010 post on Ray Kleim’s Haunted Dimensions about Fred Joerger made me think about how this could be done. Objects at the back of the yard need to be slightly smaller and slightly up hill compared to items closer to the door and windows of the back yard. To avoid flooding issues, I refuse to grade the yard to slope uphill from the house, but placing items such as bird baths on a brick to raise it an inch is doable. Here’s the “formula” I discovered. Whether it’s the correct math or not, I don’t know. It’s just from observation.

The size of the distant item can be mimicked by a smaller yet closer item of size X when the percent difference of the two objects are reflected by the distance between them (Distance B) and the distance of the smaller item to the eyes of the beholder (Distance A).

Viewer …[distance A]… Small Item …[distance B]… Large Distant Item
Viewer …………………[Total Distance]……………… Large Distant Item

If the small item is 50% the size of the large item, distance A and B are the same. If the small item is 25% the size of the large item, distance A is 25% of the Total Distance. To create a perceived distance that extends my back yard another 5 feet, the fence plank dimensions along the back need to be reduced by a percent of B/T given that B = perceived additional distance and T = total actual + perceived distance.

Since my yard from the back door to the back fence is approximately 45 feet, the formula would be 5/(45+5) or 5/50 or 10%. So if the planks are 6′x6″, I would shave 10% off of all sides, making them actually 90% their actual size. This would require shaving roughly 7″ from it’s height and 1/4″ from each side of the plank. To make it look near perfect, I’d need to raise the ground along the back fence by 3″ to 4″. As mentioned before, I don’t plan on regrading the yard, but I could add a couple of inches more rock along the bottom of the fence.

What would all this achieve? The perception, from looking out the back windows of the house, of a yard that’s 225 sq feet larger than it actually is. The trade-off is that from the back of the yard looking towards the house, the yard would “feel” smaller.

Learn about forced perspective from the following videos:
LOTR Forced Perspective Moving Camera (and platform)

Ames Room Illusion – Temple Grandin

For some reason I thought hair could grow an inch a month, and having a good employment from a company that seeks out ways to help the community, there was support from them as well as my family to continue after this goal.

The truth is that my hair grew out only a third to a quarter of an inch a month, making it a 30 month run before I could cut my hair without shaving myself bald.

I chose Wigs for Kids for several reasons. First and foremost, they ask no money from those who receive the wigs. Secondly, they focus their attention on children. I remember being constantly picked on and abused by my peers throughout the schooling years so this was a personal goal to help at least one child not suffer the humiliation I went through. Finally, because they have such strict requirements, very few of the donations are thrown away or sold. People who participate in Wigs for Kids don’t do it on a whim and are careful to make sure the hair gets to them in a qualified manner.

As an adult with a full head of hair I was criticized by those around me. Although it’s certain the judgmental behavior came from people of all ages, it was children who out of natural lack of verbal constraint audibly expressed condemnation. I felt a need to excuse my choices and told people at random why I was growing out my hair; it was often because of my fear of attention rather than my desire for it that people were told my motives.

Children usually don’t get that chance with their peers from whom biting harsh words are thrown. When dignity and support is torn from a child it ripples into the rest of their lives. Likewise, when support is given in the face of indignant situations, it can make a child stronger – possibly even a Tour de force that positively impacts other lives.

As it turned out, last weekend I reached my goal! To make the finish line even more emotional, the barber who cut my hair has a niece with leukemia. Even in rough economic times we can help. If you’re not growing out your hair, raise awareness. Pass around addresses to the facebook video or to one of the blogs or posts. Tweet it. Get people involved in hair clubs where, instead of trying to grow hair for themselves people are growing their hair for others.

Peace!

The Paurian Cafe started out as a sounding board, but as time passes, and as I supposedly mature, it becomes more apparent that personal sounding boards and web journals generally don’t help the public who have an actual and realized need.

What do people need? What do they want? Where are we heading from this point?

Irresponsible people in government have an idealistically optimist outlook. They have for years. A politically influential man told me in June 2008 that we had eight more years before our nation would collapse. That in eight years, we would no longer be “America”. He didn’t say we wouldn’t be “America as we know it,” but that we would no longer be American soil. I wish I had started investing in gold then. I thought of doing it last spring, but decided to put that money towards refinancing our house to lower the monthly payments. We’re living in times where every decision we make is invariably a bad one depending on who you listen to.

Why don’t we give them a dollar per age per week like the “average” American family? Well… we don’t want to give them too much because learning to save and plan for specific “goal” purchases while developing the behavior to fight off impulse purchases work best on smaller allowances. If they could get away with buying impulse items and still get their “goal” item in a short period of time it wouldn’t have the same effect.

Here’s the “catch”:

1. Necessities come from Mom and Dad. Splurges come from your allowance. They were good about not asking for extras before, but now they are ready to learn to ask themselves the value of what they want to purchase.

2. 20% is put in a savings account. 10% is donated and 70% is for whatever the child decides. We help the child learn about saving up their 70% for the toys they want.

3. Chores that aren’t finished by a given deadline go up to the lowest bidder who has already finished all his/her chores. The person who was supposed to perform the duty must pay the lowest bidder. For example, if child A doesn’t want to wash the dishes, children B, C and D offer their bids to do it. Child A then has to pay the lowest bidder their asking price. It’s capped according to the chore and immediate need.

We first tried giving them all the money up front at the beginning of the month. All the excitement fizzled out by the end of the first week.

That’s why we divided their age by fourths, then hand out that amount each week (they make a little more money that way, but I don’t care as long as they learn good lessons with it).

They can occasionally get paid bonuses for chores that Mom or Dad forgo, provided they have already done their chores. This further motivates them to be done so they have that availability.

Using this method they learn about saving, spending, earning, preparedness, frugality and charity. So far it’s working well. We adapted the idea from Jim Fay’s Love and Logic.

Twenty months ago when visiting friends at the corporate office, there were some jokes and remarks about the owner, the VP of production and some other guys growing out their hair long. I took up the challenge for vain purposes at first, to fit in as one of the guys.

A few months later an opportunity to help others through this silly endeavor became evident. Children undergoing chemo treatment or suffering Alopecia could use a wig or hair extensions. Ironically, one of the younger stars on Flickr that I’ve come to admire (for her willingness to humble herself and her professional, yet fanciful style) has Alopecia and uses hair extensions.

So it was decided to grow out my hair the required length for donation. It hasn’t been without it’s sacrifices. And as I’ve come to even like having long hair it will be another sacrifice to cut it back. Still, there’s good with each season in life and the satisfaction of knowing how the past 20 months of minimal effort will bring peace to a child or young-adult’s life brings a great satisfaction.

What I’ve learned over these past 20 months:

1. Hair doesn’t grow out at the rate of an inch per month. It’s more like 3/8 of an inch permonth.
2. As a long haired man, I’ve “frightened” many grown-ups… until I started looking more like a smiling Jesus hippy.
3. The younger the child, the less affected they are to seeing long hair on a man.
4. Each inch of long hair from the forehead causes another annoyance until it reaches about 7 inches long.
   • First it gets in the eyes
   • Six weeks later it’s into the nose
   • another six weeks and it curls into the mouth
   • Yet another six weeks it tickles the chin

   This is probably why so many long-haired women have short bangs.

5. Nearly all shampoo has lauryl sulfate in it. This chemical weakens the hair and over-strips the protective oils from it. (Great site about shampoo ingredients.)
6. When doing any type of physical labor that requires you look down, any hair that isn’t tied back obstructs your view.
7. It’s difficult to pull back all your long hair and the one strand that isn’t bound with the rest will find its way into your face when you roll down the car window to let in the outside breeze.
8. Long braided pig-tails and a bandanna doesn’t make me look as cool as it does for Willie Nelson.
9. Long haired men that walk with confidence are stereotyped as successful photographer/musician/artist.
10. Women who brandish well-kept natural long hair have garnered my respect.

I notice myself being drawn to that question – particularly in lyrics and music. The question raises serious naval-staring moments. I’m really nobody; nothing important; dust or vapor in the wind; a shadow before sunrise.

What makes me so important to others? I’m not special or particularly good looking. If there was anti-charisma, you’d certainly attribute that to my character. I’m not being humble here, just honest. So why would anyone find me special?

I think Antoine de Saint-Exupery stated it well in “The Little Prince”

“Anything essential is invisible to the eyes…. It’s the time that you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important…. People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said, “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose….”

I suppose I’m a little wild, like the fox or the rose and people who have personally spent time chipping away at that to tame me has also acquired a special sense of responsibility and uniqueness for me.

There’s a proverb that states “Where your treasure is, your heart is also.” The more we work at something, the more of our personal selves are put into it and the more it’s treasured. It’s what we choose to treasure that alters the world around us and changes other people – and not necessarily because they’ve changed, but more because of a change in our perception.

One of the famous signature quotes from Thoreau is “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” However, he was mistaken. It’s when men don’t lead that they end up in these moments of desperation and if they become complacent in it they ultimately live their lives in quiet – maybe a grunt here or there at the water cooler, but they ultimately die out quietly and unnoticed.

So it’s not that most men lead lives of quiet desperation; it’s that what they follow leads to it.

In Proverbs 7, King Solomon talks about what happens when we follow our heart rather than lead it. Emotions change; sometimes emotions change as quickly as weather in the mountains. Since our hearts are so indecisive, they can’t really be trusted.

I’m not saying our hearts shouldn’t be heard. The poetry and beauty that mankind has added to this world depends on the heart, soul and mind down to its core. However, directing life on a series of decisions based on what feels good has a proven track record of causing destruction.

It’s like that scene in The Incredibles with the cape discussion. Bob (Mr. Incredible) wants a cape because it appeals to his feeling of a superhero. Edna has to go on a lengthy monologue that explains how capes spelled the demise of one superhero after another. After all that, Bob decides he doesn’t really want a new suit.

I’m not entirely certain, but I think the cape on Superman was little more than his baby blanket bound around his neck. You could even say that Superman was the first security-blanket-loving-Linus character.

Back to the point – bright men come up with ideas but often seek bad counsel. They give up and feel hopelessness choke out their creativity. In their shame and reluctance they remain quiet when new ideas come to mind which makes them feel their desperation even more. They followed the wrong counsel – the wrong advice – the insecure heart. So shed that cape, turn off the TV, pick up a good book and change the way you think. Let wisdom and understanding guide you and you won’t end up quiet or in desperation.