Today, I am still cancer-free, due to the grace of God and the prayers of friends and family.  So once again, I say thank you to God because I know that only God can cure incurable forms of cancer.  And I say thank you to all the friends and family that prayed for me – you know who you are.  I owe the last seven years of my life, in part, to you.

God bless us, every one.

The basic premise is

that you ask “why” 5 times and you will come to the root cause of a problem. Many times you can get to the root cause in less than 5 questions. I’m told that this is very similar to a method that was employed by Socrates, but, the Japanese have been around a lot longer than the Greeks, so I suspect that the Japanese learned it first.

Here’s an example that shows how it works: (and this just made up):

Q1. Why was the part defective?
A. Because the machine was not calibrated correctly.

Q2. Why was the machine was not calibrated correctly?
A. Because the regular maintenance was not performed.

Q3. Why wasn’t it performed?
A. Because Bob was out sick and he’s the only one who knows how to calibrate that machine.

Q4. Why is Bob the only one who knows how to calibrate the machine?
A. Because we never trained anybody else on that machine.
Q5. Why haven’t we trained anybody else?
A. Because we haven’t given Bob the time to train anybody else.

The conclusion: Provide time to train other employees and we can avoid defects like this in the future.

It is a great technique and often you can find more than one root cause. For example, question 4 could have been “why was Bob sick?” Asking the right questions takes practice.

Try it out. See if it works for you. Let me know if you have success!

But I think God chose to make Autumn beautiful on purpose.

You see, God loves us. We are His children and He wants us to be happy. (Jer 29:11) Think about the new dad who plays peek-a-boo with his infant child. It is an exercise solely designed to elicit delight in his child. I think God wants to delight us with the beauty he can create. That’s why the Autumn leaves (and sunsets) are so beautiful.

Interestingly, sunsets and Autumn are times that we typically think of as the end (or the death) of something.   There are some that will tell you that when you die, that’s the end.  When they go to a funeral, they think it is the end of that person’s life.  But they will be looking down at the body. That’s just the house you live in while your here.  But as Christians, we know another day will dawn; another Spring will come; and after this life is another life spent with Jesus.  And God seems intent on showing us, on a regular basis, that what we see as the end, is actually cause for great celebration.

So our lives are not so different from that of a leaf.  When we are young, we try to find our place in the world and grow, grow, grow!  Our goal is to be big, strong, and productive. But hopefully,  you will grow to realize that there is more to this world than just this world.  Hopefully, you will appreciate and reflect God’s beauty more and more every day. Become more willing to do whatever God has planned for you — even if it means you have to leave this world to do it. And one day, He will pick you up in His hands and away you will fly!

And won’t that be delightful?!

Shalom!

If you are on an System i (aka AS/400, iSeries), there is a nice little table that is great for trying out SQL tricks.  Everybody has it: QIWS/QCUSTCDT.

SELECT RANK() OVER (ORDER BY LSTNAM), A.*
   FROM QIWS/QCUSTCDT A

This will show all a derived field called “RANK”, and then all the fields in the table.  Since you have sorted the data by LSTNAM and you created the rank over the same field, the first record in your result set will have a rank of 1.  The second will have a rank of  2, etc.

But the really interesting thing is that the rank doesn’t need to be over the field that you order the results.  For example, if you wanted to rank the records by who had the largest balance due, but still sort the list by last name you could do this:

SELECT RANK() OVER (ORDER BY BALDUE DESC), A.*
   FROM QIWS/QCUSTCDT A
   ORDER BY LSTNAM

Does this help?  Leave a comment.

Just to be clear, it’s not like I was having some audible conversation.  It’s not like the clouds parted and a voice from the sky bellowed like James Earl Jones ,  “Hey Dick, how’s it going? How ’bout those Cubbies?”  It wasn’t like that at all.  It was this very quiet voice in my mind that comes up with things that seem to be random thoughts.  They make me ask myself “Where the heck did that thought come from?  I wasn’t thinking about that at all. “  If I wasn’t thinking about it, who was?  I figure that it is the small, still voice of God – or maybe I’m nuts.    (There’s a great quote from Lily Tomlin: “Why is it when we talk to God, we are praying.  But when He talks to us, we’re schizophrenic?”).  Anyway, most of the time, He doesn’t give me any great new revelations, He just points out stuff I already knew – or maybe I knew it, but never really thought about it much – in which case, since God has just pointed it out.. maybe I should give it some thought.

I thought I’d share some things that He pointed out to me today.

• Joy - Of all the emotions that we humans can feel, “joy” has got to be at the top of the list of the best emotions.  It is amazing how much work we will do for just a little joy. I actually spent way more time untangling string, winding string, setting up the kite, waiting for wind, and struggling to keep the kite up  – than I did actually flying and enjoying the kite actually flying.  But it was worth it.  I had a blast when it was really going well.  We’ll wait for hours in line to spend 2 minutes on a roller coaster ride.  Atheletes spend hours upon hours practicing and training so that they can have a few moments to experience the joy of victory.  Joy is a precious commodity.  It is something to be savored.  And it rarely comes without preperation.  You have to seek joy.
• Making Joy – Perhaps the trick is to not see the preparation as a horrible chore that is required to bring about joy.  Perhaps the trick is to find joy in doing something that will bring joy.  I could look at the winding and untangling of kite string with disdain.  Or I could look at it as just part of the formula for flying kites.  Here’s another example: Instead of focusing on the tediousness of making a cake, you say “Yum, this is going to be good”.  I guess the trick is to find joy in the anticipation.   In the computer industry, we call this a paradigm shift.  Change your perspective and you can change your world.
• It is not Good for man to be alone – (This is straight outta Genesis) Even something as solitary as kite-flying is easier when you have a helper.  On days (like today) when the wind is inconsistant, kites will drop to the ground.  Without somebody to hold the kite up again, I had to wind the string up to the point where I could hold the kite up and let it catch the the wind again.  I got to the point where I was ok with that process, but I couldn’t help but think how much easier it would be with a helper – but it would have to be a helper who was committed to helping me find my joy (flying the kite, in this case).  That reminded me that I need to be open to the times when I can be a helper to help somebody else find joy.
• God is in control – even with all the control that I get with two lines on a stunt kite, I am still at the mercy of the wind (provided by God).  No matter how much I wanted the kite to fly, if there was no wind, it wasn’t going to fly.  It was a reminder to me that no matter how much I like to think I’m in control, I’m not.
• Joy is natural – I had a great time flying my kite.  But it wasn’t just the kite that brought me joy, it was the time spent alone with God.  I didn’t need any batteries or even electricity; I didn’t need special software or hardware; I didn’t have to have network access.  Heck, it didn’t even cost me a dime.  It was just me, God, His beautiful sky and a kite that reminded me how great it is to be in the presence of the One who really is in control.

I think I’m going to go make a cake, now.  Ymmm, this is going to be good!

But facebook has really surprised me.  It started when a friend created a facebook group for the band I’m in (Great Buncha Guys).  Then one of the other guys in the band invited me to join facebook.   So I figured I would create an account and it would be just another social networking site to ignore.   For the next 2-3 days my email was flooded!  I’ve hooked up with old high school and college friends, friends from church and all over.  I admit that it has been fun to go back and reconnect with some folks.

For me, facebook has proven to be an interesting adventure in social science.  And it has me fascinated.  I’ve been spending a lot of time on facebook lately.  (I’m sure that it is an unhealthy amount of time.)  Here are some observations that I have found particularly interesting:

• facebook redefines “friend“.
  My wife is my best friend.  I have people that I call my good friends.  I have lots of acquaintances.  And there are friends of my friends that I recognize when I see them.  But I don’t really know anything about them.  To facebook, all these people and more are potential facebook-friends.  If I went to Portage Northern High School in 1979 and so-and-so is going to graduate from the same place in 2010, facebook thinks we might want to be facebook-friends.  The daughter of an acquaintance could be a facebook-friend.  To me, being a facebook-friend is not near as big a boast as being a real-world friend.
• facebook  causes you to personally define “just who is my friend?”
  I have one friend (a real friend, not a facebook-friend) with over 700 facebook-friends.  Really! Obviously, we have different criterion for “who do I want as a friend?”.  Initially, if somebody said that they wanted to be my facebook-friend, I just automatically said yes.  I didn’t want to offend.  But I’ve become more selective now.  If there is some guy in my high school graduation class who never gave me the time of day or who always looked at me with disdain, I’m sorry, you are not going to be my facebook-friend.   I actually had one guy who felt we should be facebook-friends because he graduated with my older brother.  I don’t know the guy.  He lives in a different state.   I added him.  It was a pity-add.  But I have since removed him from my friends list.  And I have ignored friend requests.  Does that make me a facebook-snob?
• In facebook, you have to ask to be friends.
  In facebook, to become somebody’s friend, you essentially have to ask them  “Can I be your friend?”  They send you a friend request and you can either say “yes” or ignore it.  Ignoring a friend request has the same affect as saying “no” except that they don’t get explicitly rejected.  So facebook has taken out a huge impediment to becoming a friend.  This is interesting because in the real-world, people have just become my friends through shared experiences.  I have rarely asked anybody face-to-face “Can I be your friend?”  On the other hand, in real-life, if you asked me if so-and-so was my friend, I might shrug andsay “yea, I guess so.”  But if you asked me if somebody is my facebook-friend, I could give you a definite answer.
• facebook is like an psychotic  little sister who just refuses to be ignored. It doesn’t matter what you do,  facebook is sitting there watching you.  And if you do something, she feels the need to tell on you.  And she doesn’t just tell a couple of people, she tells every friend you have what you have done as if it is breaking news  “Dick uploaded a picture!! Dick uploaded a picture!!”  And she doesn’t just post it on their wall, she sends an email, too. “Dick uploaded a picture!! Dick uploaded a picture!!” .   “Dick said something to somebody!”  It’s a little crazy.  So be careful what you do on facebook.  Every conversation is an extremely public conversation.  Whatever you do will be broadcast to the entire world.  Personally,  I’m scared to update information on my profile anymore.

If nothing else, facebook highlights the need that we all have to be accepted, to be part of a community, to have a support system.   There’s an old song that goes “Make new friends and keep the old.  One is silver and the other is gold.”  And even though facebook-friends are a dime-a-dozen, I think the point is that there is value in any friendship.  Even a facebook-friendship.

Peace!

Ok, I know I’m a Johnny-come-lately to this game, but I just got an iPod.  My birthday was last week and my wife surprised me with an 80 GB iPod Classic.  I have to admit that I’m a little surprised by the effect it has had on me.  First, I’ve got a ton of CDs that I have ripped & burned so that I can play them in the car… or at least I thought it was a ton.   But the iPod has got me going through my whole music library. Turns out that I had maybe one quarter of my music on my computer.  Now (and I’m not done yet, I still have about 15 more CDs to go), I have over 2,400 songs on my computer (and on my new iPod).   And that has not even made a dent into the available space on that 80GB iPod.    I sorta obsessed on iTunes all weekend ripping my CDs for hours at a time.  But what really caught me off-guard with the new iPod was the joy of going through and rediscovering all my music.  See, in the search for more CDs to fill the iPod, I’m finding CDs that I had totally forgotten.  Now I’m rating them and organizing them.  Was it just me or do all teenage boys fancy themselves as some kind of audiophile?  When I was in high school, I could name every album I had, what songs were on them, who played what instruments.  Now, going back and looking and listening to this music again,  it is like finding long lost friends.

The really interesting thing is that, in the search for album art, I’m going out on the web and getting updates on some artists that I hadn’t listened to in years.  I rediscovered Billy McLaughlin, a phenomenal guitarist.  Turns out that Billy has a neurological disorder called focal dystonia that causes him to lose control of his left hand.  Think about it: a guitarist who can’t control his left had.  It ended his career.  But apparently Billy McLaughlin has rediscovered himself.  He has taught himself how to play all his songs (which are amazing) using his right hand.  And he’s still (maybe even more) phenomenal that he was back then.  Talk about being dedicated to your craft!  Way cool.  I rediscovered Jewel who I only sorta liked in the 80s.  But I went out to her web site.  She has a new country music album out and it sounds pretty good.  (Although I don’t think her music has changed much — “Country” music has been redefined since the 1980s).

I’m reminded that, of all the gifts that God gives us, music has got to be one of the best.  It stirs my emotions and gives me life all over again.  What an incredible thing to be able to almost instantly recall and listen to any song in my music collection.