This weekend we had a great plan all setup. My mother was supposed to come from Arizona for my sister's 50th birthday. We were going to drive up to the motherland, beautiful Virginia, for a getaway weekend. Sometimes you just cannot plan for the chain of events that occur.
Last weekend I took our van to get the oil changed and in anticipation of the big weekend I wanted to be all set. I told the Meineke man that I had seen stains on the driveway and to make sure the leaks did not come from our van. When I checked back in with him after an hour, he showed me how the radiator had a crack in it. I asked for a quote on the work and he said $850. That was odd to me since a couple of years ago I had the radiator fixed in my son's car for $400. I immediately went to a good friend who has his own car mechanic shop and asked him to check it for me. He told me I was the first person to complain about the high price at Meineke and he would find out the cost and get back with me on Monday. Sure enough, he quoted a little over $400. Since I was taking off from work on Friday, we scheduled that day for van radiator overhaul knowing I would be all set for the weekend trip to Virginia. One other odd thing about radiators... In the good old days you could fix radiators by pouring a solution into them and it would clog the small leaks in no time. These days of advanced technology, radiators are plastic, which means if the crack you have to replace them. When you get a crack the cold to hot temperature changes make them fail even faster. Sounds like progress to me. Except for the fact that plastic is lighter, but then again our van gets 14 miles/gallon, so I am not sure that lighter radiator is helping.
On Tuesday night my mother called and said she saw the forecast for ice and snow and extremely low temperatures and cancelled her flight. Which was pretty disappointing, but she had a cold recently and was afraid the cold might trigger more sickness. Our well intended plans were starting to fall apart.
On Wednesday our dishwasher stopped working. We had this same thing happen a couple of years ago and when I tried to find someone to fix it, they all told me to forget it as the dishwashers are self contained and it was cheaper to buy a new one that fix an existing one. And guess what? The dishwasher is plastic! Two plastic failures in the same week. We let the completely full dishwasher sit, until Friday. I took off the water line to check to make sure the water was flowing, which it was, so it was indeed the motor inside the plastic housing. I turned off the hot water shutoff value and sat down to read the newspaper. My daughter came down to cook her morning eggs and yelled to me to come over as water was flowing on the kitchen floor. I opened the cabinets under the sink and saw a lake had formed, which I cleaned up quickly. I thought that was odd, but checked the hot water line and it was indeed off. I left the find a new water hose, just in case the one had a leak in it. The odd thing was the length from the hot water line to the dishwasher was 10 feet. They only make dishwasher cords in 4 and 6 foot lengths. It took 4 stores to find the connections I needed to get it to work with a 10 foot ice maker cord. When I got back my daughter again told me a flood was happening in the kitchen. I checked the hot water shutoff value again and this time being wiser, I turned on the sink faucet cold water and saw water pouring out of the hot water dishwasher connection, which was plastic of course, connected to a PVC plastic water line. The custom builder who built our house liked to make sure everything was custom built!
On Saturday morning we picked up our fixed van for the bargain price of $420 and thanks to our corrupt Meineke shop, my friend had made some money. Since snow and ice were in the weather forecast we put off our trip to Virginia for one more day. Now that we had a van we could go find a new dishwasher. My wife and I checked every store we could find as we typically like to buy scratch-n-dent or discontinued high ticket items. We found a high end model normally selling for $498 which was marked down to $298, which was cheaper than almost any other one we could find. We brought it home and when I tried to install it I found that the connectors I got the day before were not right. Off to my favorite home improvement store as there was a plumber who worked there who had always helped me in the past. He fixed me up and by 8:30pm last night I had the dishwasher working. The place we bought it said the really high end dishwashers are stainless steel and are very quiet, we chose the quiet plastic model because of cost!
This morning we woke up to my daughter vomiting, which she has continued for 3 hours. Sounds like that seals our Virginia plans. What sounded like such a good idea has not worked out and we are $750 poorer as well. What a week!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
food and family
It is almost impossible to get our whole family together at this stage in every one's lives, but for my wife's birthday we came close. Since my wife was born and grew up her whole life in South Korea, she really likes Asian food, so we went to P.F. Chang's. I had always heard that it was a very expensive Chinese restaurant, which it was, but the atmosphere was really great for such special occasions, plus I did not have to pay for the bill so it was even more special! My wife's parents, my wife's sister and a really good friend of theirs as well as our children were all present. My oldest son is currently a waiter at another lesser food establishment so he could appreciate the high cost which means high tips and even said he would like to work at a place this nice. This is the first event in the series of landmarks for this year and hopefully they will all be as nice as this one. The older you get, the more the events themselves are not the focal point, but who is present to share them with you and this is why this one was so special.
Speaking of my waiter son, he rode is the car with us and as we talked I realized how much he has become responsible in the last four months. Can I dare say matured? For me, the idea of becoming mature means taking the responsibility you have been given and using it wisely. I see in the American Heritage Dictionary they define maturity as "The state or quality of being fully grown or developed". I am not sure when I can say any of my kids are fully grown mentally, but he is definitely on the path to getting there. I think life should be about getting better with age and learning new things all along the way, so I guess I will never fully achieve this goal either, which is good. The other good thing about my son is that is he learning what he is not good at doing, which is just as important as knowing what you like to do. This for me also is maturing.
To end the day, our two youngest children huddled on the floor in our bedroom to watch a 2004 Bollywood movie called Bride & Prejudice with us. We had all four watched this together before and the kids liked the line "no life without wife" so they did not mind seeing it again. It was nice to have them watch it with us as who knows how many more times this will happen as it is not "cool" to watch Indian movies with your parents.
Speaking of my waiter son, he rode is the car with us and as we talked I realized how much he has become responsible in the last four months. Can I dare say matured? For me, the idea of becoming mature means taking the responsibility you have been given and using it wisely. I see in the American Heritage Dictionary they define maturity as "The state or quality of being fully grown or developed". I am not sure when I can say any of my kids are fully grown mentally, but he is definitely on the path to getting there. I think life should be about getting better with age and learning new things all along the way, so I guess I will never fully achieve this goal either, which is good. The other good thing about my son is that is he learning what he is not good at doing, which is just as important as knowing what you like to do. This for me also is maturing.
To end the day, our two youngest children huddled on the floor in our bedroom to watch a 2004 Bollywood movie called Bride & Prejudice with us. We had all four watched this together before and the kids liked the line "no life without wife" so they did not mind seeing it again. It was nice to have them watch it with us as who knows how many more times this will happen as it is not "cool" to watch Indian movies with your parents.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
music and teenagers
My teenagers often asked me if I like the music they are currently listening to on their iPods. The question comes up most of the time because they are into retro music that was popular 20-30 years ago. I am beginning to understand the truth behind the Indian school of thought that life is circular. Long hair was popular when I was a teenager and is now popular. Bell bottom jeans are starting to become the "in" thing again. Rock bands of the 70's and 80's are touring again and making tons of money doing it. We seem to be making the same mistakes over and over again!
To end 2007 I picked up a book we gave our teenage son who has rock star aspirations. It is such a shocking book of unbridled hedonism and self-pleasure which was the norm for rock-n-rollers of the 80's. My teenagers don't understand why I did not like Motley Crue, Black Sabbath or Blue Oyster Cult when I was their age. For me as a teenager these bands were just too weird as they were forcefully against anything Christian and went the other extreme to openly talk about satan. Not that I was in anyway following Christ or his teachings, it was just too odd for me. Then my teenagers ask about AC/DC, Led Zepplin, Guns-N-Roses, Metallica and such bands who the local red-necks around me enjoyed so clearly I could not listen to them. I went to the logical extreme and listened to bands no one in the whole area I lived in had even heard of, who were at the real edge of the culture. After reading this book, I see what sex, drugs and rock-n-roll can do to a person. Please do not read this book as it will send your system into a state of shock. Here are some quotes from this book:
The most amazing news for me is that Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx's girlfriend Vanity has since becoming a follower of Christ. It is such a huge transformation to go from immersed in drug addiction for so many years to what I see on her web site today. As opposed to the shocking web site Nikki Sixx still has but at least he claims to have left drugs and alcohol addictions behind. Sometimes I wonder whether people really believe in what they are doing, or they do it for affect to shock people and to make money. I can only make sure how I live.
To end 2007 I picked up a book we gave our teenage son who has rock star aspirations. It is such a shocking book of unbridled hedonism and self-pleasure which was the norm for rock-n-rollers of the 80's. My teenagers don't understand why I did not like Motley Crue, Black Sabbath or Blue Oyster Cult when I was their age. For me as a teenager these bands were just too weird as they were forcefully against anything Christian and went the other extreme to openly talk about satan. Not that I was in anyway following Christ or his teachings, it was just too odd for me. Then my teenagers ask about AC/DC, Led Zepplin, Guns-N-Roses, Metallica and such bands who the local red-necks around me enjoyed so clearly I could not listen to them. I went to the logical extreme and listened to bands no one in the whole area I lived in had even heard of, who were at the real edge of the culture. After reading this book, I see what sex, drugs and rock-n-roll can do to a person. Please do not read this book as it will send your system into a state of shock. Here are some quotes from this book:
- Why take a shower if you're only going to get dirty again?
- Why make your bed if you're only going to sleep in it again?
- I've never been to Eden but it's nice I hear tell, When I die I'll go to heaven 'cause I've done my time in hell
- Days like these I hate to leave my house. I can muster up a fake smile and be cordial, but deep inside I feel nobody really likes me... and worse...nobody understands me.
- I love playing our music but I can't take the monotony of playing the same set every night.
- Stood in front of the mirror today and all I could see was death.
- I dreamt my whole life of making music and I have every reason to be happy yet I can't be.
- In the mornings when I wake I can smell death on me. It's right around the corner and unless I get out I'm not gonna make it.
- Why did my mom always want to be with someone other than me?
- My life is loud. Everywhere I go, people are talking to me, but nothing is as loud as the screams in my head. They are far off, distant, and I can't make out the words...I have come to realize it's most likely the drugs.
- You gotta give it away to keep what you get.
- What I've learned in this life so far is to let the little things go as much as possible and try to swerve to miss the big things.
The most amazing news for me is that Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx's girlfriend Vanity has since becoming a follower of Christ. It is such a huge transformation to go from immersed in drug addiction for so many years to what I see on her web site today. As opposed to the shocking web site Nikki Sixx still has but at least he claims to have left drugs and alcohol addictions behind. Sometimes I wonder whether people really believe in what they are doing, or they do it for affect to shock people and to make money. I can only make sure how I live.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Ganges
Now I am beginning to wonder if I should change the name of my blog to "IndiaImpressions" or maybe "IndiaAmerican" as it would appear that I am infatuated with the great country of India and it's people.
I received a book named Ganga: A Journey Down the Ganges River by Julian Crandall Hollick. I finished reading the book in 3 days during the week off for Christmas and New Years. The web site for the book has some really nice photos and accompanied radio broadcasts from which the book originated. Over the next few days left in my vacation, I hope to listen to the NPR broadcasts so I can comment on them. I really enjoyed the book as it gave me a better understanding of Indian mind. The Ganges is considered a holy goddess and therefore cannot be polluted but it can be dirty. Even if it dried up from what we westerns think of as factory pollution and human waste dumping freely in the Ganges then the goddess will live on. Since this British man spent 20+ years in India researching the Ganges, the book has valuable insights to help a weak American grasp such deep concepts.
In the future I hope to walk parts of the Ganges with a good friend of mine, who has walked almost half of it in bi-yearly two week jaunts and has only 20 more years to go to complete the walk.
I received a book named Ganga: A Journey Down the Ganges River by Julian Crandall Hollick. I finished reading the book in 3 days during the week off for Christmas and New Years. The web site for the book has some really nice photos and accompanied radio broadcasts from which the book originated. Over the next few days left in my vacation, I hope to listen to the NPR broadcasts so I can comment on them. I really enjoyed the book as it gave me a better understanding of Indian mind. The Ganges is considered a holy goddess and therefore cannot be polluted but it can be dirty. Even if it dried up from what we westerns think of as factory pollution and human waste dumping freely in the Ganges then the goddess will live on. Since this British man spent 20+ years in India researching the Ganges, the book has valuable insights to help a weak American grasp such deep concepts.
In the future I hope to walk parts of the Ganges with a good friend of mine, who has walked almost half of it in bi-yearly two week jaunts and has only 20 more years to go to complete the walk.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Real men can weep
My blog, which started out as a collection of web design problems and solutions as I encountered them, has turned into a discussion of Indian movies and the Hindi language. Having lived in India for two years, when I was but 20 years old, there is something that happened to me while I was there that I have not been able to remove since - I just love to be around the people of India and to learn more about the culture.
Last night was very interesting... My wife and I wanted to see a movie at the local Indian movie theater. I read the reviews in the local newspaper of the new Indian films currently showing and one of them sounded bad while other one had a certain appeal. A really good friend of mine once told me that he did not like movies that invoked your emotions as the director was manipulating you. I understand his view, but for me a movie has to stir up your emotions or make you contemplate life in order to be a good movie. There is no way I could watch so many Indian movies without this view, as I still believe the goal of an Indian movie is to make you cry, laugh, and dance, but not particularly in that order!
The movie we choose to see was Taare Zameen Par. I was really wondering what we had done as the opening credits were quite strange, but it all made perfect sense by the end of the movie. In summary, I have never ever wept as much as I did last night. I wanted to quickly leave the movie theater when the movie was over, in case I saw someone I knew and had to show them my red eyes! The movie was so emotional for me due to many reasons...
When I was in the first grade I had severe learning disabilities as I had dyslexia. My first grade teacher hated me and it was a mutual feeling. I would not sit still and I could not read, but I loved to draw - not a good combination when the whole goal of the class was to learn how to read. In the rural Virginia school I attended, they decided by the third grade whether you were in the smart class or dumb class and split you up. My mother was determined not to allow me to get into the dumb class as you basically never got out and by high school you were delegated to shop, woodworking and industrial classes. Looking back this seems so cruel and such a bad educational system. Anyway, for two years my mother tutored me and somehow using the local library as a resource learned how to help me get over my dyslexia. I actually only learned about this recently. Throughout my life, few things have come to me easily and I just overcame by working as hard as I could.
Our daughter had similar reading disabilities and had trouble reading until she got into the third grade. The schools now are much more forgiving and she was given special reading classes and taken out of her normal classroom every day for 1-2 hours of tutoring with teachers who specialized in disabilities. Now she loves to read and had the highest grade for reading in her last year of elementary. One of our boys has suffered thru his disabilities, but much later in his life. With the internet providing so much information, my wife has become an expert at helping him. I can just imagine what would become of them both 100 years ago, when ignorance on such issues ruled.
One more point... I have had many Indian friends over the last 25 years who have attended private Catholic schools in Indian as they are considered the best education you can get. Once you get to be college age, if you are the absolute best you can try to get into one of the 5 Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) universities as many of my friends were able to. One of them told me there were 25,000 applications for the 1000 freshmen allowed to attend. Just imagine how privileged you are when you graduate from these universities - truly the cream of he crop. What happens to everyone else who does not make it? It reminds of of professional sports in USA. There is an excellent book that documents just how hard it is to get into pro sports called Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport.
Back to the movie, I think so many factors came into play to cause such emotions to flow. Having lived the subject of the movie and having seen my kids live it as well along with having lived in India, it all came to life in this movie. When watching the movie, I thought I had been there before. In researching it this morning I found out that I had indeed been in the same location for a month when in Mahabaleshwar, Maharastra some 25 years ago. When watching the movie I saw a sign that said New Era High School and the town of Panchgani.
It all just leaves me speechless.
Last night was very interesting... My wife and I wanted to see a movie at the local Indian movie theater. I read the reviews in the local newspaper of the new Indian films currently showing and one of them sounded bad while other one had a certain appeal. A really good friend of mine once told me that he did not like movies that invoked your emotions as the director was manipulating you. I understand his view, but for me a movie has to stir up your emotions or make you contemplate life in order to be a good movie. There is no way I could watch so many Indian movies without this view, as I still believe the goal of an Indian movie is to make you cry, laugh, and dance, but not particularly in that order!
The movie we choose to see was Taare Zameen Par. I was really wondering what we had done as the opening credits were quite strange, but it all made perfect sense by the end of the movie. In summary, I have never ever wept as much as I did last night. I wanted to quickly leave the movie theater when the movie was over, in case I saw someone I knew and had to show them my red eyes! The movie was so emotional for me due to many reasons...
When I was in the first grade I had severe learning disabilities as I had dyslexia. My first grade teacher hated me and it was a mutual feeling. I would not sit still and I could not read, but I loved to draw - not a good combination when the whole goal of the class was to learn how to read. In the rural Virginia school I attended, they decided by the third grade whether you were in the smart class or dumb class and split you up. My mother was determined not to allow me to get into the dumb class as you basically never got out and by high school you were delegated to shop, woodworking and industrial classes. Looking back this seems so cruel and such a bad educational system. Anyway, for two years my mother tutored me and somehow using the local library as a resource learned how to help me get over my dyslexia. I actually only learned about this recently. Throughout my life, few things have come to me easily and I just overcame by working as hard as I could.
Our daughter had similar reading disabilities and had trouble reading until she got into the third grade. The schools now are much more forgiving and she was given special reading classes and taken out of her normal classroom every day for 1-2 hours of tutoring with teachers who specialized in disabilities. Now she loves to read and had the highest grade for reading in her last year of elementary. One of our boys has suffered thru his disabilities, but much later in his life. With the internet providing so much information, my wife has become an expert at helping him. I can just imagine what would become of them both 100 years ago, when ignorance on such issues ruled.
One more point... I have had many Indian friends over the last 25 years who have attended private Catholic schools in Indian as they are considered the best education you can get. Once you get to be college age, if you are the absolute best you can try to get into one of the 5 Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) universities as many of my friends were able to. One of them told me there were 25,000 applications for the 1000 freshmen allowed to attend. Just imagine how privileged you are when you graduate from these universities - truly the cream of he crop. What happens to everyone else who does not make it? It reminds of of professional sports in USA. There is an excellent book that documents just how hard it is to get into pro sports called Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport.
Back to the movie, I think so many factors came into play to cause such emotions to flow. Having lived the subject of the movie and having seen my kids live it as well along with having lived in India, it all came to life in this movie. When watching the movie, I thought I had been there before. In researching it this morning I found out that I had indeed been in the same location for a month when in Mahabaleshwar, Maharastra some 25 years ago. When watching the movie I saw a sign that said New Era High School and the town of Panchgani.
It all just leaves me speechless.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Remembering in Tears
So it is Christmas and time for me to reminisce about Christmas' past as this is my 48th Christmas. The up and coming year will be a year to remember enduring feats. My sister is turning 50; I will be married 25 years; two sons will be out of the home (hopefully) and other personal landmarks.
Last night I watched It's a Wonderful Life on TV with my wife. I think I had seen it when I was a just a young whipper snapper, as a couple of parts seemed familiar. Watching that movie made me become nostalgic as we just gotten back from eating at Olive Garden for my son's 17th birthday, when I turned on the TV. My son told me twice during the evening how much he liked that movie. They just don't make them like that any more - I am talking about both my son and the movie!
This has been an emotional couple of weeks for me. It started off last weekend when I rented an Indian movie called BLACK, which I had watched on the plane to India in February of this year. I cried like a baby on the plane and was hoping no one was watching this American man with tears running down his face. India has a way of invoking a broad range of emotions in anyone. I must say that in the privacy of our bedroom, the tears on the plane were nothing compared to my uncontrollable sobing. I tried to turn over so my wife would not see a grown man cry. It amazes me that a movie can invoke such emotions. In this case, the subject matter helps as the movie is an Indian version of the life of Helen Keller. I remember hearing about her when I was a boy. Reading her story now reminds me how little I do with what GOD has given me and how she overcame such huge obstacles.
The next crying event of this week was a CD my wife gave me to listen to in my car driving to work. I thought it was going to be something to stimulate me to think and to challenge me to be a better person. It turns out my wife wanted to embarrass me in public as I was crying huge tears in my car! Just a newer case of someone doing amazing things with their life as David Ring has Cerebral Palsy and yet he did not just give up, he travels all over the USA as a motivational speaker. He motivated me to cry that is for sure. Such an amazing story of how someone can take the little GOD gave them and use it for great good. The CD I was listening to is available on-line at Focus on the Family as a 3 part series called "Victorious Living".
Lastly, a good friend of mine, sent me a YouTube video of Evel Knievel speaking at Robert Schuller's church. I remember when I was a young kid how I marvelled at Evel Knievel's daring antics. A couple of years ago we saw his son at the NC State fair jump a bunch of vehicles just as his father had done many years before. I had anyways heard Evel Knievel liked to live life in the fast lane or cars and women. It warmed my heart to hear that in his last moments of life on this earth he wanted to follow in his Creator's footsteps. I was even more amazed at the comments in this YouTube video as they are people that really take offense to spiritual things. Reminds me of how I used to be many years ago, but that will have to wait for another day.
Last night I watched It's a Wonderful Life on TV with my wife. I think I had seen it when I was a just a young whipper snapper, as a couple of parts seemed familiar. Watching that movie made me become nostalgic as we just gotten back from eating at Olive Garden for my son's 17th birthday, when I turned on the TV. My son told me twice during the evening how much he liked that movie. They just don't make them like that any more - I am talking about both my son and the movie!
This has been an emotional couple of weeks for me. It started off last weekend when I rented an Indian movie called BLACK, which I had watched on the plane to India in February of this year. I cried like a baby on the plane and was hoping no one was watching this American man with tears running down his face. India has a way of invoking a broad range of emotions in anyone. I must say that in the privacy of our bedroom, the tears on the plane were nothing compared to my uncontrollable sobing. I tried to turn over so my wife would not see a grown man cry. It amazes me that a movie can invoke such emotions. In this case, the subject matter helps as the movie is an Indian version of the life of Helen Keller. I remember hearing about her when I was a boy. Reading her story now reminds me how little I do with what GOD has given me and how she overcame such huge obstacles.
The next crying event of this week was a CD my wife gave me to listen to in my car driving to work. I thought it was going to be something to stimulate me to think and to challenge me to be a better person. It turns out my wife wanted to embarrass me in public as I was crying huge tears in my car! Just a newer case of someone doing amazing things with their life as David Ring has Cerebral Palsy and yet he did not just give up, he travels all over the USA as a motivational speaker. He motivated me to cry that is for sure. Such an amazing story of how someone can take the little GOD gave them and use it for great good. The CD I was listening to is available on-line at Focus on the Family as a 3 part series called "Victorious Living".
Lastly, a good friend of mine, sent me a YouTube video of Evel Knievel speaking at Robert Schuller's church. I remember when I was a young kid how I marvelled at Evel Knievel's daring antics. A couple of years ago we saw his son at the NC State fair jump a bunch of vehicles just as his father had done many years before. I had anyways heard Evel Knievel liked to live life in the fast lane or cars and women. It warmed my heart to hear that in his last moments of life on this earth he wanted to follow in his Creator's footsteps. I was even more amazed at the comments in this YouTube video as they are people that really take offense to spiritual things. Reminds me of how I used to be many years ago, but that will have to wait for another day.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Hidden secrets of every society
My wife and I saw the Indian movie Provoked this weekend. It did not shock me that there was only one other couple in the theater with us when we saw it, as I do not expect this movie to be popular. It is not your typical feel good movie, but a true life story of an abused wife who kills her husband. We get used to bad news in the west, but to even talk about a husband abusing his wife is shocking for an Indian topic. Shocking that someone would try to make a movie about such a taboo topic.
I was 19 years old when I first went to India. I knew very little about India, except that Indira Gandhi had something to do with it and that my mom always told me "eat all your food since children are starving in India". For some odd reason I thought India would be full of highly religious people. I still remember how shocked I was the first time I saw drunk men in a remote village. I had the strangest misconceptions, but what to expect at such a young age! I would not have been able to handle such a harsh topic as wife abuse.
Becoming wiser in my old age, I now understand morals have nothing to do with culture as there are good things about India and America and at the same time evils I really don't want to know about. There are so many good things about the Indian culture that I really like and appreciate the more I get to know Indians. I have to say that I am a better person because of becoming immersed in another culture other than my own.
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