Energy Efficiency Requires Community

As you know, I love simplicity, and for me that means seeking to own a minimal amount of possessions. As such, I am thinking a lot about the home that I own. It's a bit much, and the energy costs alone are a bit daunting. Beyond just downsizing, I often think about living off the grid completely, and finding alternative sources of energy.

A conversation with my youngest brother was most helpful on this topic, and gave me something new to consider. I was trying to get to the bottom of some specific metrics for energy efficiency, and I was asking him questions about it. He is in engineering school right now, surrounded by some of the most capable people for solving energy efficiency problems, and has been there for almost two years now. Here is what I asked him.

"Do you think it is possible to create a recommendation for the most efficient way to live off the grid, including specific energy source with exact model specs, ideal square footage of house, room sizes, ceiling height, insulation type, and even land size for food production?

His answer to me:

"Well possibly, but I think you may have a problem. Efficiency for energy cannot be achieved in isolation. Efficiency for producing energy is achieved much like other things in the economy, through specialization. If a person tries to be completely self-sufficient, he forfeits the value of specialization in the market, and forfeits efficiency in doing so."

Of course. It's not what I wanted to hear exactly, but then again I think it was exactly what I wanted to hear.

Part of me wants to be completely self sufficient, not depending on anyone. Another part of me desperately wants to depend on people, all the time. Off-the-grid is not the answer for energy efficiency. The grid is what makes it efficient!

It is important to acknowledge that not every grid is efficient just because it is a grid, and that many cities and towns are using 100 year old systems that are not efficient. I get that, but my point is that isolation can never truly be the most efficient way to live. We need community. We need to share.

Trading, Gift Giving

An idea has been percolating for a few weeks that is a bit controversial. I'll say it as a statement. The barter system increases one's quality of life.

Trading for things, giving gifts, doing favors for other people is better than buying things with cash. This is a very complicated argument, which I don't intend to tackle fully with this one blog, but the idea can be boiled down to something fairly simple. Cash removes any obligation between the two people who are exchanging things.

Instead of explaining why that is, think about the things that you own. Now think about the things you paid cash for (which may be everything that you own). But now try to think of something that you traded for, or something that you received as a gift. Think about how that impacted your relationships. Now think about how it would feel if everything you owned, including your house, was a part of a trade of some kind. 

What if you had to borrow all of the tools to finish your basement? What if people traded their time to help you in the basement for a meal, or something else you gave them?

What if your lawn care was a trade? 

What if your child care was a trade?

Cash makes our exchanges less personal, and therefore decreases our quality of life.

For me personally, there are very few things that I own that I traded for. I intend to change that in the future. I am actually going to look to trade things first, and resort to cash as a secondary option. It's a lot more of a hassle to be sure, but I think it might just be worth the hassle.

Capacity to Nurture

First of all, baby number two has not yet arrived. The baby is 34 weeks in development now, which is the minimum I was hoping for before the baby arrives. We are happy about that. Mom has had lots of help from family friends and church. She is still looking forward to being able to eat and do things normally after the child gets here, but she's also happy to give the baby as much time as possible.

My awareness for nurturing is strong right now. When I hear someone say, "He was like a father to me." I  hear, "He nurtured me." When someone says, "She has always been there for me no matter what." I hear, "She nurtured me." It just seems to be a key concept in parenting, and friendships too, and it's at the forefront of my brain often.

Nurturing another child is intimidating to me. Last week I asked my dad how he nurtured seven children. I didn't want to know how to nurture little children, I think I learned that part by being nurtured by him when I was young. I wanted to know where he found strength to keep going.

Life is not easy right now. There were a lot of what I refer to as "meltdowns" in my house in 2013, and heck, there were meltdowns last week. I'd like to say that these meltdowns are all from the toddler, but it's the adults that are overwhelmed in our house much of the time. My wife and I have always had good days and bad days historically, but there is something about having a child that challenges us further. I think young children have a way of keeping adults at their emotional limit. Kids bring out the worst of me, and make me more in need to nurturing, and I think the same is true for Katie.

Facebook posts don't usually offer this perspective. Facebook captures the special moments of children with beautiful photos. Other people's kids seem so easy for them to nurture. My daughter does make me smile and laugh almost every day. But the truth is that I hold onto those moments and take beautiful photos of those moments because I'm trying to survive. Many days my only goal is to survive for the next five minutes, until nap time, or until bedtime.

My dad did give me some good advice, as did my brother who has three kids of his own, and a friend who also has 3 kids. They confirmed that my situation is normal, and that young kids do tend to push people to their limit. They also encouraged me take care of my self, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Practically speaking, they encouraged things like reading the Bible, listening to spiritual teaching, and taking 45 minute breaks away from the family to workout, or read, or do something for myself.

I am hopeful that I can and will be ready to nurture another child, but if you have any secrets to add to that list or just survival techniques, I'm all ears.

Finding Strength in Nurturing

Right now there is a lot going on in our house. We are preparing for the new baby. This means several tasks are underway, like getting our toddler into her new room, organizing baby clothes, and organizing the house. On top of this the toddler is sick and growing some mean canine teeth that seem to be causing her some grief.

On top of that, my wife has a new challenge for her second pregnancy, gestational diabetes, so she has to have a really strict diet until the baby arrives while testing her blood sugar five times a day. If you know my wife, you know that she is a picky eater and hates having strict rules about her food. Having a giant baby inside her belly isn't making the days go any smoother either.

My biggest question is this. How to I stay strong emotionally for this house?

This idea has been a key to helping me grow. I had never thought about nurturing my wife until October of this year. The responsibility for that had never actually occurred to me. I also hadn't thought about what nurturing means to me.

When my life feels out of control, like right now, the thing I need the most is nurturing. The thing my wife needs often is nurturing. What does nurturing look like to you? Have you thought about it at all?

For me, it's easiest to understand when I think about a child in a tough circumstance. Maybe she is being bullied, maybe she is sick, maybe somebody yelled at a boy and upset him. That's when I see the need for nurturing. They need empathy, understanding, some logic and a friend. When I think about a situation like that, I instantly know how to nurture.

I've started to become aware of my own need for nurture too. I've started to be aware of times when I feel like a teenager who just got beat up at school. I've started to recognize when my friends are nurturing, and what that looks like. It's really helpful to me to understand that. Hopefully it's a helpful concept to you too.

The Work Community

I started working from home full time three months ago. Before I took this new position, I had been at a desk in a cubicle for 8 years. People talked about working from home in the same cryptic manner they talk about having a child. Unspecific statements like "It will be an adjustment." were common.

When I interviewed for the job, the interviewers would ask about my time management skills, and whether I would have a place to work that was free from distraction. These were my best guesses on what the adjustment would be. Check, time managment. Check, office upstairs. I was prepared.

Turns out my biggest adjustment was unrelated to time management or finding space away from my wife and toddling daughter. The biggest adjustment for me has been the mental shift. I don't have two communities that are exclusive anymore. I'm always at work, and I'm always at home. There is no line.

When I worked in a cubicle, talking about home while at work would be considered "unprofessional." Likewise, talking about work too much at home would be wrongfully "bringing my work home with me." The end result was two separate communities with two specific locations, with social pressure to keep them separate.

Now that I work at home, I still have colleagues, teammates, a boss, and a "virtual community" that I work with. I don't believe in virtual communities by the way. I argue that the purest form of community must share a common location which is frequently frequented. Being physically at home while I'm working keeps me from ever changing communities during the day. I never make the mental shift of being at work. I'm never "at work" anymore.

I love it. I love the adjustment. I don't mind always being at home. I don't mind letting go of that work location. It doesn't bother me at all. I wouldn't say that I'm used to it yet, 8 years of a cubicle is a long time, but I'm getting used to it. It feels a lot more natural to talk to my wife about a meeting with a client than it ever did at work.

Vulnerability in Community

To be vulnerable with someone is a scary thing. To carry secret burdens is a much scarier thing. Trying to determine when and how to be vulnerable requires a little bit of thought. This blog is going to process those thoughts out loud.

I believe that communities must share a location to actually be a community. If a person wants to count the number of communities that they are a part of, they simply need to count the number of locations that they frequent. If you recently moved out of your city, it's very easy to know how many communities you had. Simply count the number of going away parties you had before you left.

My wife and I have two communities currently, but we just added another a couple weeks ago. We started working out at a different church in town multiple days per week. We don't know anybody really, but we love the community already.

That said, I would not say that I'm vulnerable with any of my communities in Kentucky yet. We do have a lot of trust with people in our communities, and we feel very committed, but we don't necessarily share personal things very much. We don't necessarily hear a lot of personal things with other people either. I'm starting to believe that transparency in community is rare.

As a male, I think vulnerability is more challenging for me than for my wife. It seems that she is more comfortable talking with the women around her about more personal things. Perhaps this is a gender thing.

Talking about problems is a downer. It's not really a community building activity. Sharing a meal, telling funny stories, playing games, and watching sports are much safer and easier ways to build community than talking about depression, failures in marriage and parenting, or being angry deep inside. Staying positive is critical to keeping a community together.

Regional differences exist. Colorado had lots of vulnerability, and very little fun. Communities in Colorado share their problems, but have a harder time laughing together. In Kentucky and Alabama, we laugh together a lot, but rarely share personal things. I think maybe my northern friends have the best balance actually. Those mid-western states may be able to teach us all some things about community.

I'm still trying to decide what this all adds up to. I think vulnerability is important for long term health, but I'm also concerned that the wrong kind of vulnerability would just make the community uncomfortable and unhealthy.

Technology & Community

Is technology helpful to communities or harmful?

Technology advancement has had an impact on everything. The question is never whether technology has impacted something, but how. Communities are no different.

While many people look for impact of technology by focusing on the younger generation and the technology they use, I don't see this as the most important group of people or the most important technology. Instead of looking at cell phones and video games and teenagers, I prefer to look at the industrial revolution, and also the dramatic increase of intellectual jobs in the market. My reasoning is simple. Communities started breaking down before Nintendo, XBox, and iPhones ever existed. Put another way, I think the garage door opener had ten times more impact on the community than the Nintendo did.

Communities are people who know each other face to face, who trust one another, and rely on one another. Some define them as broader groups, but I'm specifically talking about smaller communities. These types of communities are rare in today's American culture, and I think the shift happened during the Baby Boomer generation, not during Generation X,Y, or millenials.

Technology like automobiles, tractors, combines, and airplanes seem to have impacted community much more dramatically than computers. Communities used to be self sufficient with crops, livestock, clothing tailors, and builders. Commuting to work was rare. The obvious example are the Amish and Mennonite communities who have resisted industrial technologies, but who clearly have tight knit communities.

Mennonite communities have a set of values that the industrial revolution took away from the rest of us. Sharing things, and depending on your neighbors is a good thing. Committing to a location is valuable.

While we may not be able to undo the industrial revolution, I do think we can try to undo the independent way of thinking it brought us to.

A World Without Community

Society at large has the power to encourage or discourage behavior. Laws are passed to protect individual rights, individual freedoms. On the other hand, a society at large has very loose moral rules. In the United States, the constitution does not address our morality, just our rights. It speaks to the value of human life, but not to the character of a man or woman.

A small community, on the other hand, is able to hand stories down from generation to generation. It is able to teach moral behaviors, and is concerned with character. It respects the individual rights outlined by the laws of the land, but also is able to uphold and encourage a moral code.

A community knows itself and knows its place in a way that is impossible for a public (a nation, say, or a state). A community does not come together by a covenant, by a conscientious granting of trust. It exists by proximity, by neighborhood; it knows face to face, and it trusts as it knows. It learns, in the course of time and experience, what and who can be trusted.

Wendell Berry uses "public" and community in opposition to each other often, but really they are not separate. The important thing I think is to realize the role that a community plays as a part of the larger public. It provides the moral code. It establishes how a person behaves, and how men and women relate to one another. 

Berry on Community

I am convinced that a lack of community causes many problems in our culture. My thoughts on this are evolving, but have been heavily influenced lately by Wendell Berry, an author from Kentucky who was recommended to me by a friend because of Berry's interest in the local community.

Berry takes my concerns about lack of community a step further than I have been able to take them, and he provides a framework of language that is quite helpful. I do not see Berry as infallible on the subject. Actually, I disagree with many of his perspectives emphatically. But he has propelled my thinking to a different level, and for that I am incredibly grateful.

I will post two or three blogs on his essay, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, soon. In the meantime, here is an excerpt from this essay that I love.

...community is a locally understood interdependence of local people, local culture, local economy, and local nature.(Community of course, is an idea that can extend itself beyond the local, but it only does so metaphorically. The idea of a national or global community is meaningless apart from the realization of local communities.)

A community identifies itself by an understood mutuality of interests. But it lives and acts by the common virtues of trust, goodwill, forbearance, self-restraint, compassion, and forgiveness. If it hopes to continue on as a community it will wish to--and will have to--encourage respect for all its members, human and natural. It will encourage respect for all stations and occupations. Such a community has the power--not invariably but as a rule--to enforce decency without litigation. It has the power, that is, to influence behavior. And it exercises this power not by coercion or violence, but by teaching the young and by preserving stories and songs that tell (among other things) what works and does not work in a given place." 

 More soon...

(Thanks to Elena for the recommendation on this essay by the way. I am grateful.)

Community: The problem of abstractness

Failing to understand the origin of the food that we eat is more than just a health hazard, it's an economic problem.

As the cost of food rises around the world, consumers are beginning to search for alternatives to the grocery store. The search through farmers markets leads us to an interesting discovery; the land that we live on cannot grow all of the food that we eat.

Believe it or not, the salmon from the grocery store do not swim in the lakes of Missouri, nor does sugar cane grow in Colorado, nor coffee anywhere in North America. In fact, the land directly surrounding most of our cities could not sustain the foods that the cities eat.

This situation not only creates an abstractness to the food that we eat, in that we know very little about our foods quality, but it also leaves us without an alternative source. If we knew 3 dairy farmers, we would have an alternative source to milk. As it stands, we only know the grocery stores, leaving us very few options if the price of milk were to change like the price of petroleum.

I have no reason to believe that this will cause any immediate problems, but the abstractness increases the risk. My thoughts on this are still developing. More to come.

Parenting, 5 Months, Stuff They Don't Say

The stuff they tell you is true about kids. Here is the stuff they don't tell you.

You can't eat your dinner.
We were warned that we would need date nights after the baby was born, but I thought it was about romance. That part never really worried me. I knew we would make time for each other, and we do. Well it turns out that the problem is not about romance at all. The issue is that we can't eat our food. Of the hour that we are at the restaurant, 45 minutes of the time is spent walking the baby outside the restaurant. It is very difficult to eat dinner when you are outside the restaurant.

So, you do need a date night, but not for romance. It's so that you can eat your dinner.

There are places you can't go.
There are places that you just can't go with kids. Quiet restaurants are completely out of the question, too embarrassing to have the crying baby or kid throwing a fit. Also, sports bars often don't allow kids. If you have a favorite pub or sports bar and you are about to have a child, say goodbye to it. That's not your place to watch the game anymore. Babies and great beer places don't mix.

Side note, I am becoming more convinced of this every month that passes. The Starbucks "third place" of the next generation is the American pub. First dates used to happen at starbucks, they will start happening at a beer pub. Real estate agents and financial advisers across the country will meet clients in the pub instead of starbucks, even at lunch. The trend is really really strong. It is the young, hip, progressive thinker's place to be right now, and the momentum is hitting critical mass. It is extremely cool to know your favorite brewery right now, and it is becoming uncool to be clueless about beer. This trend will probably give way to a new legal drinking age of 18 as well, but that one may take a while.

Oh yes, the child. The worst part is the social life.
Being a part of a community is hard enough in this day and age. Being a part of a community with a 5 months old child is darn-near-impossible. It is totally fine for making friends, but it's really hard to frequent a location at all. So the community can't really happen. There is not a place in the world right now that I really want to bring our child to regularly.

There is a positive side though. At 4 months, we finally started to see a return on investment. The child can now recognize us as parents, and gets really excited to interact with us. This is rewarding after serving her without much return for 4 months. Believe it or not, it makes us want to have more kids. It gives us hope.

That's what they don't say about parenting at 5 months.

Community Part 4

Action Items for a Better Community
I have a feeling that a lot of people would like to change their communities in some way. Maybe we want to develop new communities because we recently moved, or maybe our communities have changed on us because other people moved, or because we started dating, got married, had a child, got a sickness, a child left the house, or we really want to spend all our time with our new dog.  For whatever reason we feel like our communities need to change, and we don't know how to do that.

Since location is so critical for community, I wonder if  we can start with location first, and then work on the attachments after that.

For finding a location, here are some questions I've been asking.

• Does it attract interesting people because of its qualities? 
• Can you contribute something to the location to enhance it? 
• How close is it to your house?
• Do you know your neighbors? 
• Can you hang out with your neighbors at all? 
• Are there any community events for your town? 
• Is there a local breakfast place, coffee shop, or place where people gather that you can visit? 

Building attachments at your location.

• Have you tried to be vulnerable at all? 
• Do you have a chance to share something that you are passionate about? 
• Is it a place that your family fits in and feels a part of the community?
• Is there some kind of activity that will give the community a sense of achievement?
• Do you admire any of the people in your community?
• Have you ever told someone in the community that you like them as a person? 

I hope these blogs on community have been entertaining to think about! Wish us luck as we keep exploring the communities of Bardstown, Kentucky! 

Community Part 3

Here are a few scenarios related to location, and community. It has been valuable for me to think through these possible scenarios as I think about my current communities.

Friends without a location
A friend gets a job in another city, and now she lives far away from her community. Before she left, she had a different going away party for each location she frequented. The whole community is sad at each location, not because they are no longer friends, but because they feel like the have lost her from the community.

She can no longer share the location with them, so she is no longer a part of the community. She can still chat with her old friends online, travel back to see them inexpensively, even do a video conference with multiple friends at the same time, but she cannot truly be a part of the community any more.

I think this is a big challenge of globalization. Sometimes its hard to realize how important community attachments are, but even if we do realize how important they are, it can be hard to move in and out of communities so frequently.

A location without friends
When I was in middle school, my family had season tickets to the Air Force Academy football games for many years. By many standards this would be the perfect place for a community. I know that hundreds of college football stadiums around the country are great locations that house thousands of small communities. Strangely enough, for my family, it was not a community location at all.

I'm not identifying this as a negative scenario, I'm simply observing that this situation can exist. It is possitble to have a great location for a community, and to visit it frequently, but never have community there.

For us, we really weren't looking for community at the football stadium, just family time. We sat next to different people every week. We didn't tailgate with a regular group. We didn't meet up with anybody consistently before, after, or during the game. It was a great location, and great family bonding time, but was not a location for community for us.

Friends and a location without frequency
Since I've been married, we had a small community of friends in a different city. We used to visit our friends in Gunnison every year or so with a group of people. It was a fantastic group, and we all developed strong attachments with each other.

Again, this was a positive annual gathering, and I am glad we were able to do this while we could. Nothing negative about this. At the same time, it wasn't a community. The frequency simply wasn't enough, and the distance between us was too far. We are close friends, and always will be, but we are not a part of the same community.

More soon. Also, this was my 300th blog post. I'm proud. Cheers!

Community Part 2

A physical location is a prerequisite for community.

My closest communities throughout my life can all be traced back to a location. Growing up, my most common locations were sports fields or church buildings. In middle school my community revolved around the basketball court in our driveway. In high school the locations were a tennis court, basketball court, and church. In college it was a park where we played ultimate frisbee, and classes.

Knowing the location indicates a member's involvement in the community. For example, in middle school, knowing the hardness or softness of the basketball backboard was an indicator of commitment. Knowing the backboard meant that they knew me, and my friends too, and they were a part of the community. The same was true at church. People in the community knew where to park for which service, which door was likely to be unlocked, and the closest bathroom at any given time. If a person was unfamiliar with the location, it indicated that they were not a part of the community.

Today I have many friends worldwide, but all communities that I've been a part of shared a location. Friends may exist that are not a part of my community, and we may be very close. But unless we hang out at a consistent location, it's hardly a community.

Therefore, communities are not virtual, they are physical. I believe this is true for Facebook, fantasy football, fantasy online gaming, and many others. They can never be a community by themselves. Also inferred in this line of thinking is that even if a group of people likes each other, is committed to each other, and has things in common, they are not a real community without a common physical location.

Next, we are off to ideas of globalization, and the practical challenges of building community. More soon.

Community Part 1

I'm starting to believe that a location for a community is a prerequisite to having a community at all.

When we lived in Colorado, our community was all spread out. We lived 20 minutes away from where we went to church, and 30 minutes away from where I coached basketball, and our friends were usually at least 25 minutes away from us at any given time.

Many times while living in Colorado, I imagined a perfect world where all of our friends lived in the same neighborhood and worked in the same square mile. We all shared lawn mowers and  power tools, and we grilled and had drinks together every night of the week. I still fantasize about that sometimes.

Since we moved to Bardstown, we unfortunately have the same challenge we did in Colorado; our friends are scattered all over. Some are in Bardstown, some are 25 minutes away at the winery, some are over an hour away in Indiana. Being involved in a community is not so easy when the community lives and gathers all over the place.

I'm thinking a lot about this, and I've been writing a lot about it. I have 3 or 4 blogs to publish with all kinds theories, judgmental statements, and stereotypes just for you. Well, hopefully it won't be too bad, but I will try to keep it exciting!

What Does Becoming A Father Feel Like?

Becoming a father, and having a child is just like They said it would be (those elitist people who try to describe something that we, those who never experienced the same thing They did, could never understand).

I wanted the birth of my first child to be an incredible and unique experience, but I grew tired of the same old phrases from They. "You have to experience it to understand it." And, "It's unlike anything you have ever felt." Just sounded too generic for me.

I hate admitting that They were right about it. I have never liked blog posts like this one. We are all human right? What is so special about having a child anyway? Sigh.

I am They now. I am trying to describe what it felt like to have a child. Contrary to what They said, it was very similar to other things I have felt before, but it was indeed unique. This is what it felt like to me. 


Waiting for Good News
Have you ever been waiting for news, not sure if it would be good or bad, and the news was good? It felt like that right before the baby was born, knowing everything was probably okay, but not quite certain.

My Team Won the Championship
Have you ever been sweating in your chair as the final seconds of the game clock run out in a championship game, and your team wins? It felt like that when the baby came.

Love at First Sight 
Have you ever seen someone and felt like you would openly give them your heart without even knowing them? It felt like that, when she looked at me for the first time.

Everything is Right in the World
Have you ever had a moment where complete strangers felt like friends, you didn't have an enemy in the world, and everything else will be okay? It felt like that especially in the hospital with every stranger I walked past.

A Religious Experience
Have you ever felt like you encountered your creator? It felt like that. I was a baby all of the sudden. Then I was a father of a baby. Then I was outside my body, outside of time and space for a second... or 2 hours maybe. Somehow that all made sense and I felt very close to God.

Big Data

Big data is a buzz topic. I normally don't find buzz topics very interesting, but this one has intrigued me.

Phil's quick definition: Big data is what Google does.

You want to find something on the web, but the web is flipping huge. Google boils down that large information to something that you are looking for.

Here are some things to know about big data that might be helpful to know. 

1. It can't be done on your home computer. As incredible as our personal computers are, they are too slow for big data.
2. It is expensive for the equipment. The company I work for just started a big data project that is going to require 20 different servers to essentially run one analysis program. To give you a visual, that's like a computer the size of a refrigerator that costs $50,000.
3. The research projects that Universities have done with big data have started to draw attention of companies that want to spend money on big data projects. In other words, the industry is growing, and very few people are experts in the field (I think of my very smart brother who is about to graduate high school).

You may have seen studies that caught your attention from big data already. One study looked at twitter to gauge how people are feeling around the world at any given moment. More recently, a university did a study that included more data than just twitter. They included blogs, facebook, any social media that they can find to draw a correlation between how people felt on a given day, and how the stock market reacted for the next 3 days.

Other studies get more specific to a company. They might be trying to answer a question like, "After a commercial in the Superbowl, how did people feel about your company?" Theoretically, someone who pays $5 million for a commercial, could watch the entire country's reaction to its commercial in real time. They may even be able to predict sales for the next week more accurately depending on the reaction a commercial had.

My examples surround marketing as you can tell, but there are more practical uses for this too. When networks go down at gigantic companies, it causes problems. A website goes down, email is unavailable, all kinds of problems can occur. The company I work for is using big data to solve those problems. It analyzes an entire network of computers, with enormous amounts of data (logs from servers, reports from load balancers, and many other tools) to hone in on the problems of a huge network

That's all. I'm just interested, and thought you might not have heard about it.

3rd Floor, 5th Bathroom

At about 10:00 each morning, the demand for toilets on Fort Knox increases. This can be a problem as there are only 3 total toilets, in 2 mens bathrooms, on a floor of 300 I.T. employees (a career field that is predominantly male.)

The main problems with this situation is obvious; there should be more bathrooms and more toilets. There could be many reasons for this, but it seems easiest to summarize it this way, "It is a government building."

Another element of this toilet problem is the timing of the cleaning of the restrooms. I definitely am grateful to have a cleaning service and consider this a luxury, but I must say that they have odd times to vacuum and clean. Like, while we are working. It sure would be more convenient (for us and them) to let them clean in the evenings after people had gone home. We can probably chalk this issue up to a government process as well.

I have learned to deal with this situation. Usually I avoid the 10 o'clock hour, but I have mapped out 4 bathrooms (8 toilets) on 2 different floors as a contingency plan. Yesterday marked a new level of planning for me, and I felt like it was a big step that I wanted to share. I added a 3rd floor and a 5 bathroom...

 

That's right. Of my 4 restrooms, 2 were being used, one was being cleaned and the other was being used for urinalysis testing. Sigh. 

I refuse to add another bathroom to my plan now. I have reached my limit. Five is enough. If I cannot find a toilet by the 5th bathroom, I'll just stand by the stall and wait.

Simplifying My Taxes, A Letter to the IRS.

While I'm simplifying my life one segment at a time, I decided I would take on the greatest challenge of all, simplifying my taxes. Turns out there are laws about this... Which led me to writing this letter to the IRS.

Dear IRS,

I'm writing you to discuss the simplification of my personal taxes. See, I want to pay my taxes. I'm thrilled to give you my money in exchange for the right to work, live, and own property in the United States. I couldn't be happier about the arrangement we have going here. My challenge is this, I just can't figure out how much money to give you.

I know how much money I made last year exactly, and I know exactly how much was withheld from my paycheck and given to you. I just can't seem to figure out what that is worth to you. It appears that I will need to fill out the following forms to figure this out.

• 1040
• 740mp
• Colorado Partial Year
• 740 full year
• Schedule A
• 3903
• Schedule E
• 4562
• Schedule M
• Schedule D

Is this really necessary? I'm an honest guy, and have no desire to cheat you out of any money. How much do you need? Do you need to have about 10% of what I made? 15%? 20%?

If you really want me to fill out all of these forms I will, but hey it's me, Phil. We've done business together for years. You know me, I know you. Just tell me how much I owe you, and I'll give it to you.

It doesn't have to be a flat tax, but couldn't it at least be simple?

Your Favorite Tax Payer,

Phil

The Goal 2012 - Rebirth of a Ballpoint Pen

In 2005, I learned to eat M&M's slowly. In 2010 I finished an entire tube of chapstick one year. In 2012, I am attempting to accomplish something equally as challenging.

I, Phil Mondy, intend to use an entire ink pen until is completely void of ink and no longer writes. I intend to do this by the end of the calendar year 2012. Furthermore I intend REFILL that ink pen with a new cartridge of ink, giving that shell of a pen a second life!

It was early in 2011 when this idea first came to me. I received a set of pens from an online deal site by the name of woot.com. The box of pens came with all of the necessary components I would need for this accomplishment, refills for every pen in the box.

'Absurd!' I thought to myself, having rarely heard of a person owning a pen long enough to empty it's contents completely. Even in all of such cases I'd heard of, the pens were simply disposed of. On the other hand, what was I to do with refills that came with my pens? Kids are starving in Africa! I decided I would put the refills in the drawer in the laundry room for further consideration.

Time passed, and the thought occurred again. Could it be possible?  Probably not, but I started to believe the impossible could happen.

Now here I am, against all odds. I'm going to do it. I will refill a pen in 2012, and give it the gift of life again. There's no turning back now.