Stay to the Right, Pass on the Left

You’re on a four lane road and there is one car on the right.  Can you stay in the left hand lane without passing?The answer generally speaking is no.  The vast majority of states have “Stay to the Right” laws.  Of course Ohio tends to be a little ambiguous, but the general law is there. 

It is one of my incredible pet peeves is when people are blocking the left lane.  I don’t know why it bothers me so much, but it does.  The amazing thing is that 80% of the time it is women.  This is just observation, not scientific evidence.  Lest you think I am a male chauvinist pig, my mental tallies as my wife will support are pretty accurate.  Men do other bad stuff on the road but women are the lollygaggers. 

The other night, I was driving home and I got behind a women who decided the left lane was her personal lane for nearly a mile.  I could not pass her because she was doing exactly the same speed as the car on the right.  I unfortunately have a habit of tale gaiting people like that.  The car on the right turned right at a light and the women on the left rolled down her window and asked me (actually she was pretty nice – I wouldn’t have been so nice) if I knew that she was driving the speed limit (it does not matter by law if you are doing the speed limit or not)  I asked her if she knew that she was breaking the law by camping in the left lane.  She said she didn’t know that was the law.  Now I felt bad because I was pretty snippy.  We do things in cars we wouldn’t ever do in person because we have anonymity in cars.  I wouldn’t push her the left if she was slow standing in a bank teller line. 

Anyway, the law is stay to the right and pass on the left.  You will then avoid the wrath of Spoorts.  I will try not to get so upset about it.   

The High Life God’s Way

If I could tell you that you could have life, joy, and pleasure, what image would you conjure up?  Would it be some image of party time?  You remember these Miller High Life commercials?  It suggests simple pleasures.

Psalm 16 – says the God will make known to me the path of life; in His presence, there is fullness of joy; in His right hand, there are pleasures forever. 

Meditate on that verse for a few moments.  God is giving you the High Life literally.  Next time you see the Miller High Life guy think of this verse. 

To illustrate the case in point, when are you at your times of most extreme joy?  For me, it is when things from a worldly perspective have gone south.  Joy is extreme in relationship with our Creator and relationship with people.  That joy is full.  The joy the world offers is temporal – it does not last.  It is inner joy – joy that comes from deep within like a “wellspring of life”. 

Pleasure likewise does not come from transient things, things that will fade away.  Pleasure comes from relationship.  it may be a seeing creation in all its fullness (which we see through relationship with the Creator) – a sunset, music, smell of blooming roses.  Maybe it is pleasure from friendships – a night out with close friends or seeing a daughter off to college.

Now that’s living the High Life!

Pac-Man and Business Strategy

A few months ago I downloaded the Ms. Pac-Man game for the iPhone at a whopping cost of .99.  I loved this game when I was a little younger.  It was definitely one of the few arcade games I played in my youth.  Now that I can play virtually all the time for free, I am finding I am spending a little too much time but I am absorbed with the “strategy” of getting to the next level.  As I thought more about it, there is a lot of concepts in playing Pac-Man that apply to business strategy.  I keep thinking of new ones and thought thus a series of blog posts is born.  However, you will have to wait until the next blog post to find them out. 

I have been an entrepreneur for the past 22 years.  I am onto my fourth and fifth business.  I didn’t plan them in advance.  They just came my way.  The first three ended up very successfully, but not without great struggles.  The fourth one has struggled mightily and may not be salvageable. It is still in play.  The fifth one is just getting started, but it looks incredibly exciting.  No matter how many attempts I make to move into a different vocation, God keeps putting these businesses in my path.  Over the course of these many years, I have learned many lessons from the “school of hard knocks”.  As I play Pac-Man, I am finding many of these lessons I have also learned in business. 

Below is the Pac-Man board.  It changes as you progress further levels.  Let’s get into our lessons.

Lesson #1 – On the first board, eat as many Pac-dots as possible before going after the power pellets.  The power pellets turn the bad enemies into edible creatures that you can devour for points.  Reason is that you have lots of time in this first board before the enemies get real close to you to pile up the points.

Translation – build infrastructure first.  Be careful that you don’t get over-anxious.  I find that my tendency is to do too much too fast.  Consequently we outgrow our infrastructure too fast and it puts the business at risk.  Generally we have more time than we think.  Usually there is not an immediate “enemy” and we have time to do things right.  As I have gotten older and the over-anxious mistakes pile up, I am becoming more cautious. 

Things to Rent

From the WSJ this morning.

In China, they must be hard up because you can rent a bridesmaid.  Their business has been so good, they are rapidly expanding. 

Forget the normal bachelor party bad stuff and rent a theater that you can play XBox 360 on the big screen and of course all of the fantastic sound system.

And last but not least, how about renting paparazzi for the day so you can feel like a celebrity. 

Growing in Holiness, Incarcerated in Flesh

In the movie Benjamin Button, the main character is mentally immature, but starts out in an old person’s body.  As he matures mentally, his physical body becomes younger and younger to a point where he is an old man mentally in a very young persons body. 

The Christian is the opposite.  The body of the Christian is decaying, but the spiritual man is being “renewed day by day”.  The body for all of us breaks down over time.  Some of us are able to slow the decay, others of us experience a rapid decay through circumstances or out of neglect.  But nobody can stop the decay ultimately despite all best of intentions.  The death rate is 100%.  The inner man became a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) yet is still imprisoned in the old body. 

But my inner man is a different story.  The inner man can actually grow – grow in holiness.  I can become more spiritually mature even as my body degenerates (Eph 3:16).  For every verse that we are told to take care of our body for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit, there are 10 verses describing our growth in the inner man.  It is a battle!  My decaying flesh wages war against the new person inside of me.  My desire for holiness constantly facing the forces of decay generating from my body of sin.  Paul describes this battle in Romans 7:21-25.  He says “wretched man that I am – who will rescue me from this body of flesh?”  What is my desire?  Where am I spending my time?  How well do I know Him who saved me?

In the glorious resurrection body, the inner man meets up with a perfect body and that becomes our body for eternity.  I can’t wait for that body.  Each ache is a painful, a reminder of my bodily atrophy.  There is a reason the Scripture says that “all creation groans awaiting redemption”.   In the meantime, I seek perfect holiness which is only possible through the transformation from within.   Thanks be to God who makes such holiness possible!

Biking Surprises

I love biking.  I have stated that in this blog before like this one. This summer, my trips have gotten longer and longer.  My Saturday rides are approaching 35-40 miles.  I am building up to a 50 mile ride.  A few weeks ago, I did 38 miles in high heat and humidity and I was totally shot for a week. 

One of the things I really love about biking is seeing things that you don’t expect.  Unlike running, going off for a “trip” takes you to areas you have never been before.  A few weeks ago, I discovered Lake Rockwell, a very large reservoir in Portage County, the same country we live in.  It is probably several miles long and a road runs along it.  I stop at a particular spot and just sit by the lake.  There are no houses that I can see for several miles.  All you can hear are the fish on the lake.  Very peaceful.

I have another ride that takes me to Punderson Lake Park.  Along the way, I was shocked to see of all things… a castle. 

Yes, you said that right, a castle.  It is even identified as a castle.  Note the following sign.

It is protected by Ohio Castle Law 184.  At first I thought that somehow was a real law except if you read closely it says, violators will be shot.

At Punderson is a beautiful state park.  There is a small lake and beach.  I watched a family on a couple of row boats and kayaks.  I came to find out this is a multi-generational outing sponsored by Grandpa.  They even had the dog with them.

We have had such a great summer thus far and it is winding down.  I have put close to 1000 miles on my bike this summer.  I take it out every opportunity I get.  There is so much more to explore and see.

Taxed to Death

I was booking my rental car for an upcoming trip.  I am a Avis Wizard member so I always look at Avis first, but then I dutifully shop around.   I was pleased to see that Avis had a $301 weekly charge for a compact car.  This was about $100 cheaper than what I saw outside of Avis.  So I booked it and Avis tells me it will be $387.48.  Huh!  What’s up?  Did I miss something?  So I look at the bill.

$.50 per day Energy Recovery Fee
$2.00 per day Florida Surcharge
$.02 per day Waste Tire/Battery Fee
$.78 per day Vehicle License Fee
$1.00 per day Customer Facility Charge
11.11% Concession Recovery Fee
6.0% Sales Tax

So $86.48 went to taxes and fees or 28.7% of my charge.  And we are going to a VAT tax like Canada to cover all of this drunken sailor spending?  The problem with these fees and taxes is they never go down, they only go up, and up, and up. 

Max the Dog and Remorse vs. Repentance

This is not a post about Max the dog.  I have written plenty of posts before about Max, our wonder dog.  This is a post on the difference between remorse and repentance illustrated through Max.  Hang in there with me.

To Max, we are his god.  One, he greatly desires a relationship with us.  He lives for our approval and generally will follow us in obedience.  We are a poor excuse for the god that Max follows.  We will discipline Max out of anger.  We will try to wrestle his blue toy away from him.  When throwing the stick, we will fake him out on the throw.  Nevertheless, to Max we can do no wrong and we are his god.

Max gets in trouble with chewing things off of the counter.  Most times, he will chew them when we are not around and he knows it.  He just can’t help himself – if it is there, he will get it and chew it.  Certain things he leaves alone such as fruits and vegetables.  He is a meat and potatoes dog.  So these are not a temptation for him and we as gods can leave them on the counter.  No matter how many times we come home and beat the tar out of him for chewing something off of the counter, he still does it every time if we leave the tempting thing on the counter.  Max means well, but he can’t help himself.  After all, he is a dog.  He is remorseful meaning he feels bad because he has offended his god and he knows he will be punished.  But he is not repentant meaning that he has the capability and the power to change his behavior.  He lacks what we humans have which is the ability to repent if we have supernatural power within us.

Judas was remorseful.  He felt bad for betraying Christ, but he was not repentant.  Peter was repentant and became a driving force for advancing the gospel.  Repentance means I do a 180 degree shift and have the potential to change if I have the Holy Spirit living inside of me.  Further, repentance means I genuinely desire a change to please the God who saves me.  My ability to change is not enough on its own.  I cannot change sinful behavior on my own.  It requires a supernatural change within me.  But God in His desire for a relationship with me gives me that ability to change.  2 Corinthians 7:10 states it succinctly - “Godly sorrow produces repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow produces death (DQ – remorse)”.

So when I see Max the dog, I see myself in my unregenerate condition.  But thankfully we have a master God who regenerates us and actually provides the means for true repentance.

Getting Close to the Athletes

I have attended pro baseball, football, basketball, and soccer games.  However, there is nothing to compare to attending a golf tournament.  This is one of the rare events where you can actually get close up to the athlete.  We are talking like a few feet.  You can hear them chatting with their caddy and you can see the clear sound of club hitting ball.  You can go pretty much wherever you want to go.  It is an all volunteer help at the course too so you feel less threatened.  Two years ago, I followed Phil Mickelson and it was only a handful of us back then.  I also followed Sergio Garcia and helped him find his ball which was actually lost in the rough under the trees. 

I followed Phil Mickelson again this year and he had a little more of a crowd following.  Like two years ago, we also followed Tiger Woods.  That requires strategy because he has three times or more the following anyone else has.  However, we went to the first day of the tournament so we were able to get real close.  It is apparent to me and others that Tiger simply isn’t there.  He looks like he just isn’t into it.  No smile, but yet no eye of the tiger either (no pun intended).  There are guys like Mickelson who while serious have a good time out there.  And believe me Mickelson was all over the place like Tiger.  Someone commented they always wanted to play like Tiger and now they are.  I digressed. 

Attending a golf tournament requires a viewing strategy unlike other events.  Some people camp out at one spot and stay there whether at the stands behind some of the greens or on a chair alongside the course.  Advantage there is you can see multiple players and you don’t have to get sweaty walking around.  Disadvantage is you see one type of shot.  We prefer to walk around with a given player pair.  So we did that with Mickeson-Mcilroy and Woods-Westwood for 9 holes each.  You see the good and the bad.  We saw Mickelson hit a bad shot but then save it by holing out from off the green.  We saw Anthony Kim hit a log wedge between two branches.  We saw a guy get pegged with an errant shot by Westwood.  You see a little bit of everything. 

I thank Charles Schwab for the tickets.  It was another memorable experience. 

Which Page is It?

Recent headlines:

Twitter trouble: McDonald’s crude tweet leads to lecture

Edwards: Cleveland is Dullsville

Lawson at practice after jail

XX girlfriend calls local reaction unfair

All of these on the same section.  It was the Cleveland sports page on Tuesday, August 10, 2010.  What is wrong with this picture?  Sometimes reading the sports page is like reading the a) police blotter, or b) the business section, or c) the comics. 

When You’ve Had Enough

By now you’ve probably all heard about Steven Slater the flight attendant for Jet Blue that “lost it” after a rude passenger refused to sit down as the plane was still moving towards the gate, cursed Slater out and then hit him with the suitcase.  This caused a Slater meltdown.

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Apparently we all can identify with this guy as we have all thought about just chucking it like he has and giving up on 28 years of a career.  So Mr. Slater has achieved something like folk-hero status. 

While I empathize with Mr. Slater’s encounter with the rude passenger, it is not an excuse for that behavior which reflected poorly on himself and Jet Blue and could have put maintenance personnel at risk.  The Proverbs constantly give the direction to hold our tongue and that it is a sign of maturity.  From a business sense, it is a sign of professionalism.  There are so many times I wanted to punch the lights out of customers, employees, board members, etc. but didn’t.  I thought it, but didn’t.  Why can’t we honor people that hold up to true professionalism and dignity and not those that seem to flip the bird at society?    Unfortunately, I think others are now going to follow this guys pattern and unlike Mr. Slater, they will not find folk-hero status but the unemployment line and a bad record to boot.  

My Office at Panera

I have had a number of business meetings at Panera.  When I meet at Panera, I notice that there are a lot of business meetings going on.  In fact, I have noticed the same people can be there multiple times.  I have speculated that Panera bread is the office for a lot of people.  Panera has long had a policy of free Internet and I think that enters into it.  Starbucks used to charge for Internet, but now they give it away as does McDonalds.  I have seen people who get a cup of coffee and then spend hours using the Internet at Panera.  I noticed most recently that Panera has instituted a policy where you are limited to a half hour during peak times.  This is to avoid situations where at lunch you can’t find a table because free-loaders like this are monopolizing the tables.  If you are Panera, you can gently encourage, but then do you really need a big guy to act as a bouncer and forcibly evict these free-loaders?  After all, Panera does not make money on these people.  They don’t trusting that most people recognize that Panera is not the library. 

Thoughts From Hebrews 12:1 – Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus

In the last of the reflections on Hebrews 12:1, we learn that Jesus is the focus of our eyes.  He is our sole purpose for the race.  Without Jesus there would be no race worth running.  In the process of running, there has to be a goal.  Runners running the race dream of the finish line and crossing the tape first and finishing the race triumphantly.  Our race is based on vision that is up rather than vision that is out. 

The writer to the Hebrews further defines Jesus as an example we can look to.  Jesus authored (literally pioneered) faith and He perfected it.   Without Jesus, there is no faith.  Even our faith is inspired by God. 
The faith is illustrated in its graphic entirety.  It was for the joy set before Him, our rescue.  If there was but one of us, He would have pursued us.  He endured the cross, despising its shame. 

What greater endurance could we have as a model than the God-man enduring a Roman cross and human punishment accompanied by divine punishment?  My God, My God, why have you forsaken me was His cry.  He rose in triumph and is now sitting at the right hand of the Father.  Jesus crossed the finish line and we can too. 

The Death of the Small Market Sports Team

The haves and the have nots.  That is the world of professional sports.  I live in a small market sports city, Cleveland, OH.  You know we have had our share of heartache.  I have written in previous blogs about my shriveled Cleveland sports heart.  However this post is not unique to Cleveland but the whole balance of competitiveness. 

Cities like Cleveland, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh in sports like baseball and basketball have the odds definitely stacked against them even with the “luxury tax” and the “salary cap”.  New York has multiple individual players that make more than the entire Cleveland baseball team.  So every few years the team is forced to unload and reload. 

Think about it that Cleveland has had two recent Cy Young award winners in CC Sabbathia and Cliff Lee.  Had they had any reasonable chance of signing them, they would not have traded them.  I am drooling thinking of what having those two would have meant to our team.  Most recently, the Indians went on a trading binge dumping 5 of their veteran players to contenders.  So we now have a minor league team playing in a major league ballpark and charging major league prices.  Well if I am going to watch a minor league team, I will go up the road to Eastlake or Akron and watch one for far less money.  I think baseball in particular is in for a really rough patch when it becomes the big cities and the rest of the teams are there for batting practice.  

At least with football you get to see guys hitting each other at high speed.  Browns training camp started this week.  Oh, I digress.

Blue Screen of Death

I am writing to you now after much difficulties getting back up and running.  A few weeks ago, I started having some issues with my hard drive.  I would get a cryptic error message of Raid(0) in my system tray followed by sporadic Blue Screens of Death.  That is not a good combination, I assure you. When I looked it up on the web, it gave an ominous tone that the drive was failing.  You can play Russian Roulette daily and see what happens or you can take the steps to try to move on.  

Fortunately, I had both a backpack drive and also had subscribed to Carbonite backup so I knew I had backup.  However, neither one backed up my programs, only my data.  Further, I had nothing that backed up my operating system.  Sony in its infinite wisdom decided not to ship recovery disks.  The web site gave very little instruction on how to actually create recovery disks.  So I had two wonderful experiences with Sony (lol).  One was I called customer service and asked to order recovery CD’s.  After giving both my product ID and my serial number, the customer service agent said that she still could not get a part number and I would have to ask a manager override the next business day.  I then tried the chat window in customer support.  They give you 15 minutes “free” (I am out of warranty) before charging you to help.  After farting around for 20 minutes (you know chat sessions – they spend 20 minutes just messing around), she sends me a link that allows me to create recovery CD’s.  Problem was it did not match what was showing on my computer.  However, she did offer to help me FOR FREE if I would sign up for an annual support plan.  I was somewhat curt and told her that I have no desire to compensate Sony for having me backup my own operating system.  So I looked through all of the nice Sony videos and there was a link buried in one of them with how to create recovery CD’s.  I’m in business and was able to create recovery CD’s. 
The next day, I stop at the Geek squad and have them swap out drives.  After mentioning my wonderful experience with Sony they parenthetically commented “Sony does stuff like that”.  I should also mention that to swap the drives according to Sony’ web site would have cost me $680.  I bought two drives for $200 as my notebook actually has two drive bays.  Geek squad was wonderful.  There is actually good customer service in this world if you look hard enough. 

So eagerly with anticipation I go back to my office and try to recover from my CD’s.  NO GO!  Sony keeps thinking I am recovering onto the original hard drive.  Do they not think that hard drives fail.  Well to make a very long story short, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 rather than trying to upgrade.  This set me back $80 more than if I had bought the upgrade version, but at least I have the peace of mind that I actually own the operating system and not some cryptic recovery process. 

My report card -
Sony – F
Circuit City/Best Buy - B+
Spoorts – C- for stupidity, but A+ for diligence.

But I am up and running after spending all day Saturday reloading programs.  I would like to add another blog post on actually the good process of weeding out all of your junk you accumulate on your computer over time but enough for now.

Thoughts from Hebrews 12:1 – The Race Objective

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin which so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

We are not just in any race.  We are in a race that is waged daily over men’s souls.  I regularly have to remind myself of that fact.  I would very nicely want to get into the routine of life without recognizing that there are only two things that matter – people and the word of God.  We had some longtime dear friends over Friday that we had not seen in a while until a recent wedding.  As I have gotten older the importance of gaining friendships is so much more important than it ever has been.  Today after our baseball game, I hung around with our team.  They have a post-game social event after every game and I usually skip out.  I am very comfortable competing between the “white lines” but it is work for me to actually be social.  However, since I know many of them may not know the Lord, it has become increasingly important for me to get to know them outside the “white lines”.  Given up to my carnal self, I would avoid all human contact and live on an island somewhere. 

So this race is not just any race.  It is defined by the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations.   Our role in that Great Commission is unique to us.  God uses all sorts of divine appointments to give us a “custom race”.  I pray that I can run in such a way as to win the prize as Paul states.  It is interesting that Jesus marks the race, but He also gives us the means to win the race.  The stamina and strength are only truly possible with His life through me.