It's Good Friday. This doesn't mean much to me, other than my Facebook feed gets inundated with prayers and Bible quotes that I don't fully understand. I was thinking that being a non-believer and trying to follow religious mumbo jumbo must be similar to not liking sports and being in the company of a bunch of sports fans talking about sports. You understand the basics and get bits of the terminology here and there, but overall you're not really sure what's going, and you'd just as soon change the subject.
For example, I don't really understand the story of Easter. I think Jesus died on Good Friday and was resurrected on Sunday. But I'm not sure exactly why Jesus died. I've always heard that he "died for our sins". But what does that mean? How (Why?) does somebody die for somebody else's sins? And who exactly killed him? Were they in on the "die for our sins" deal? And if Jesus didn't die, what would have happened to us and our sins? I don't get it. I'm sure I could find a website that would happily provide me all the answers to these questions. But the truth it is, I don't really care. Just like how a non-football fan couldn't less what a cover-3 defense is -- that's how I am with the story of Jesus.
Don't get me wrong, Jesus is just alright with me. He had some pretty cool messages: take care of the sick and poor, love thy neighbor, and whatnot. I just don't believe there was ever a man who was also the son of God who physically walked among us on this Earth. Frankly, I don't know how any grown person can believe it. I can kinda sorta get on board with religion if it's completely in the abstract. But once literal interpretation of fantastical scripture is involved, I'm out. And by the way, isn't it such a shame that Jesus lived 2,000 years ago, before the advent of things like movie cameras and tape recorders? I mean that whole resurrection thing must have been quite a sight. If only he had lived in today's age, somebody could have captured it on their cell phone and put it on YouTube. Then everybody would've been a believer. Like I said, it's a shame.
Anyway ... I think I need to take a break from Facebook. I've found myself getting really annoyed with people's posts lately. For one thing those fad "What ___ are you?" quizzes just need to die. The thing about a fad is that eventually it goes out of fashion, but that "eventually" somehow hasn't arrived yet with these stupid quizzes. For another, I have friends who are continually putting up posts that are just getting on my nerves -- some are political, some are medical, some are just completely vapid. (I won't say anything more than that on the off chance one of them actually reads this blog.) The thing is, I like all these people, and it's Facebook -- they can say whatever they want. It's my problem that I'm annoyed. So I think the solution is to just not look at it for a while. It's a shame too because I like a lot of the posts I read on Facebook. I suppose I could fiddle with the settings, but that just seems like more trouble than it's worth. What I need is a single setting that says "Baby pictures, broad strokes of people's lives, and legitimately funny or interesting comments or links", and then anything that doesn't fit into one of those three categories gets filtered out.
In other news, Lil' S is doing just fine -- getting bigger as kids will do. He's also been waking up really early recently, which is an unfortunate trend. Today he woke up a 5:50, about an hour and a half earlier than I'd prefer. Being that he woke up last night and started wailing right as I began to doze off around 12:30, and it took about twenty minutes to give him milk and calm him down, and then it took me about a half hour to get back to sleep, I'd reckon I got about 4.5 hours in. Eh ... I'm used to it. That's the thing about parenting: You get used to it, just like anything else. When I wasn't a parent I used to be very suspicious of people who acted as if parenting was the most difficult undertaking in human history (so difficult only a billion people can do it!), but I didn't really have any grounds to stand on. Now that I am a parent I can say -- it's not that hard. It's not easy, but it's not the most difficult undertaking in human history. I'm not a stay at home dad, but I'd rather be one than be, say, a lackey on a construction site like I was one summer in college.
Along these lines, I came across this video (on Facebook of course) and shook my head in annoyance. For one thing, I saw the reveal coming three seconds in. For another, I would be pissed if I sat down to do a job interview and got a righteous "lesson" on the difficulties of motherhood instead. In general, it's pretty mean to interview (presumably) unemployed people for a job that doesn't exist. If you're going to do it, the payoff had better be much better than this drivel.
So ... I noticed my trash bin somehow got swapped with my neighbors'. All the bins have numbers, and I wrote down ours when we first got it. Now I see the one with our number is in my neighbors' yard, and we have one with a different number. I don't really care -- they're all the same. But I wonder if we took theirs or they took ours, and if they notice/care. I'm debating whether or not I should talk to them about it or just let it ride. I think I'm going with the latter. No harm, no foul. (Know harm, know foul.)
Before I go, a few bits of good news to share. The first is that I got another crossword puzzle accepted by the NY Times -- that's two on the docket. The second is that I got fully reimbursed for all that work I had done on my hand (all to find out I possibly have arthritis that I will need to manage the rest of my life). Apparently my work contributes to something called an HSA (health savings account), which is basically a cash account you can use on medical expenses. I had roughly $2,000 in it, and I racked up a total bill of about $1,400 in copays and deductibles, so I scheduled a reimbursement check, and it came -- just like that. I couldn't believe how easy it was. It's kinda sad that I get so excited when things actually work as they should ... but here we are.
I felt stupid at first for not knowing how my HSA works earlier, as I could have used it on medication and a dental copay (relatively small amounts). But then I thought, how should I have know about it? It's not like managing HSAs is an innate human skill or I took a class on HSAs in college or anything. Yes, at some point I'm sure I received paperwork on it. But I don't always read that stuff, and when I do, it usually doesn't stick. The truth of the matter is that we're so inundated with contracts and legalities in modern society that it is basically impossible to keep up with it all without a law degree (and I suspect even if you have one). Just to buy a house alone S and I had to sign close to thirty documents. There is no way for the average person to retain what it all means. Toss is credit cards, car payments, health insurance, college saving accounts, etc., and there is no way for the average person to keep up with all of it. Hell, you need to "sign" a several hundred word agreement just to buy a $1.99 song from iTunes. It's ridiculous, and it's why I'm not going to feel stupid or beat myself for not knowing about something like an HSA right away. And, damn it, you shouldn't either!
Alright, that'll do 'er. Until next time...
For example, I don't really understand the story of Easter. I think Jesus died on Good Friday and was resurrected on Sunday. But I'm not sure exactly why Jesus died. I've always heard that he "died for our sins". But what does that mean? How (Why?) does somebody die for somebody else's sins? And who exactly killed him? Were they in on the "die for our sins" deal? And if Jesus didn't die, what would have happened to us and our sins? I don't get it. I'm sure I could find a website that would happily provide me all the answers to these questions. But the truth it is, I don't really care. Just like how a non-football fan couldn't less what a cover-3 defense is -- that's how I am with the story of Jesus.
Don't get me wrong, Jesus is just alright with me. He had some pretty cool messages: take care of the sick and poor, love thy neighbor, and whatnot. I just don't believe there was ever a man who was also the son of God who physically walked among us on this Earth. Frankly, I don't know how any grown person can believe it. I can kinda sorta get on board with religion if it's completely in the abstract. But once literal interpretation of fantastical scripture is involved, I'm out. And by the way, isn't it such a shame that Jesus lived 2,000 years ago, before the advent of things like movie cameras and tape recorders? I mean that whole resurrection thing must have been quite a sight. If only he had lived in today's age, somebody could have captured it on their cell phone and put it on YouTube. Then everybody would've been a believer. Like I said, it's a shame.
Anyway ... I think I need to take a break from Facebook. I've found myself getting really annoyed with people's posts lately. For one thing those fad "What ___ are you?" quizzes just need to die. The thing about a fad is that eventually it goes out of fashion, but that "eventually" somehow hasn't arrived yet with these stupid quizzes. For another, I have friends who are continually putting up posts that are just getting on my nerves -- some are political, some are medical, some are just completely vapid. (I won't say anything more than that on the off chance one of them actually reads this blog.) The thing is, I like all these people, and it's Facebook -- they can say whatever they want. It's my problem that I'm annoyed. So I think the solution is to just not look at it for a while. It's a shame too because I like a lot of the posts I read on Facebook. I suppose I could fiddle with the settings, but that just seems like more trouble than it's worth. What I need is a single setting that says "Baby pictures, broad strokes of people's lives, and legitimately funny or interesting comments or links", and then anything that doesn't fit into one of those three categories gets filtered out.
In other news, Lil' S is doing just fine -- getting bigger as kids will do. He's also been waking up really early recently, which is an unfortunate trend. Today he woke up a 5:50, about an hour and a half earlier than I'd prefer. Being that he woke up last night and started wailing right as I began to doze off around 12:30, and it took about twenty minutes to give him milk and calm him down, and then it took me about a half hour to get back to sleep, I'd reckon I got about 4.5 hours in. Eh ... I'm used to it. That's the thing about parenting: You get used to it, just like anything else. When I wasn't a parent I used to be very suspicious of people who acted as if parenting was the most difficult undertaking in human history (so difficult only a billion people can do it!), but I didn't really have any grounds to stand on. Now that I am a parent I can say -- it's not that hard. It's not easy, but it's not the most difficult undertaking in human history. I'm not a stay at home dad, but I'd rather be one than be, say, a lackey on a construction site like I was one summer in college.
Along these lines, I came across this video (on Facebook of course) and shook my head in annoyance. For one thing, I saw the reveal coming three seconds in. For another, I would be pissed if I sat down to do a job interview and got a righteous "lesson" on the difficulties of motherhood instead. In general, it's pretty mean to interview (presumably) unemployed people for a job that doesn't exist. If you're going to do it, the payoff had better be much better than this drivel.
So ... I noticed my trash bin somehow got swapped with my neighbors'. All the bins have numbers, and I wrote down ours when we first got it. Now I see the one with our number is in my neighbors' yard, and we have one with a different number. I don't really care -- they're all the same. But I wonder if we took theirs or they took ours, and if they notice/care. I'm debating whether or not I should talk to them about it or just let it ride. I think I'm going with the latter. No harm, no foul. (Know harm, know foul.)
Before I go, a few bits of good news to share. The first is that I got another crossword puzzle accepted by the NY Times -- that's two on the docket. The second is that I got fully reimbursed for all that work I had done on my hand (all to find out I possibly have arthritis that I will need to manage the rest of my life). Apparently my work contributes to something called an HSA (health savings account), which is basically a cash account you can use on medical expenses. I had roughly $2,000 in it, and I racked up a total bill of about $1,400 in copays and deductibles, so I scheduled a reimbursement check, and it came -- just like that. I couldn't believe how easy it was. It's kinda sad that I get so excited when things actually work as they should ... but here we are.
I felt stupid at first for not knowing how my HSA works earlier, as I could have used it on medication and a dental copay (relatively small amounts). But then I thought, how should I have know about it? It's not like managing HSAs is an innate human skill or I took a class on HSAs in college or anything. Yes, at some point I'm sure I received paperwork on it. But I don't always read that stuff, and when I do, it usually doesn't stick. The truth of the matter is that we're so inundated with contracts and legalities in modern society that it is basically impossible to keep up with it all without a law degree (and I suspect even if you have one). Just to buy a house alone S and I had to sign close to thirty documents. There is no way for the average person to retain what it all means. Toss is credit cards, car payments, health insurance, college saving accounts, etc., and there is no way for the average person to keep up with all of it. Hell, you need to "sign" a several hundred word agreement just to buy a $1.99 song from iTunes. It's ridiculous, and it's why I'm not going to feel stupid or beat myself for not knowing about something like an HSA right away. And, damn it, you shouldn't either!
Alright, that'll do 'er. Until next time...
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