But I'll be danged if I ain't just as good!

I love line from Oklahoma, "I don't say I'm better than anybody else,: But I'll be danged if I ain't just as good!" ("The Farmer and the Cowman")

We have to stop putting women on a pedestal or in the gutter. Women are humans. Men are humans. One is not better than the other. One is not worse than the other.

Women are not more spiritual than men. Men are not more capable than women. It has been posited as self-evident that all humans start out as equals. Perhaps a better way to say it is that all humans have an equal capacity to improve. And really isn't that what brings meaning to life; that I can be a better husband, father, provider, etcetera etcetera?

So let's stop it. Stop comparing ourselves to others, men women or children. Let's be willing to be vulnerable and begin improving in non-trivial ways.

5 Love Languages

If love is the greatest force in the Universe then it would benefit us to express it in a way that the receiver is tuned into. Here are 5 love languages that can help us in our practice.

Words of Affirmation

Acts of Service

Receiving Gifts

Quality Time

Physical Touch

More detail at "Understanding the Five Love Languages"

If you know better, do better

I found out that my good friend Sam Meacham took his life Thursday morning Mar 19. At the time I was taking time off to celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary. I was checking into work so as to not have a bajillion emails to sort through when I came back. My friend and workmate Jerry messaged me on Skype and then called me up to tell me. It was a total shock to me and from what I have gathered from everyone else near him too.

I have worked with Sam for at least 7 years. We had more than a casual business relationship. I remember clearly how he was hired. I had been hired in July 2005.  A couple of years later we convinced management to hire another programmer. We went through several people. Then we came to Sam. At the time, I was the only formally trained programmer at the Mapping Center. Gene and Jerry were trained GIS professionals that had started up programming out of their interest and the needs there.

After our first interview with Sam, I told Gene, Jerry and Cliff (our boss) that our second interview was not so much to convince ourselves that Sam was qualified. It was to convince Sam that he wanted to come and work with us.

I remember that one of the concepts that peaked his interest was Object Relational Mapping (ORM). It was something that I had been studying at the time and was trying to find a good solution for. For the first several years, that was something he worked on. He eventually wrote his own code because of the lack of adequate solutions out there. NOEF is his creation and what we have used as our DB to Code mapping solution for every new project for many years.

He also had a hard time finding a solution for connecting server side code in C# in ASP.NET to client-side javascript data structures. So was born another solution, restcake.

These are only the most public software tools he created. There are dozens of other ones he created. He created software to generate a Visual Studio project so that Natalie and Matt could more easily start a new, custom solution for a customer. He created an error logging system that is used in all our projects. He created a user system that all of the internal customers of the Mapping Center, now Location Analytics and Mapping Center (LAM). He figured out how to get a bigger extent in the Google Maps API so we could generate high resolution output fit for printing. I could go on...

He was, without exaggeration, ten times as productive as me and had much more maintainable and extensible code. Joel Spolsky was right

The real trouble with using a lot of mediocre programmers instead of a couple of good ones is that no matter how long they work, they never produce something as good as what the great programmers can produce. ("Hitting the High Notes", Joel Spolsky, July 25, 2005)

But it wasn't his amazing intellect and work ethic that impressed me the most. He was fearless.

I am a practicing Mormon. Sam was born in a home of practicing Mormons. The details of his early life with the LDS faith and his family are not mine to tell, but to summarize, a few years ago, when he moved to Seattle. He started a journey that led him to agnosticism and then atheism. He fearlessly followed his conscience wherever it took him. He searched out evidence but also was introspective, thoughtful and listened to his heart.

He seemed to settle into a life without a formal religious component. But he didn't seem to have the nihlism. He seemed to have meaningful relationships with his wife and children. We both work from home. And we sometimes will be on Skype calls. I remember often his wife bring him a delicious lunch and how he would thank her warmly. Or when one of his kids came in his office, he would ask them how things were going or answer their questions no matter how juvenile they might seem to others. He cared what others thought.

He was genuine. I heard and saw from the Memorial service last Saturday, how he reached out to his sister in law and sat down with her when she felt lost settling into a new home in Seattle. He talked and listened until they worked it out. Or how he, without hesitation let his best friend live with them for an extended time. He never hinted at when his friend might leave. There was only patience and love.

One of my favorite stories was from another friend who said that he got an empty box as a birthday present from Sam. Sam told him to not open it, because it was filled with love. His friend admitted that he was a little disappointed because he wanted something more materialistic. He later realized that Sam really did not have the means to give him that. And what he did give was worth more than any traditional gift.

He gave his son several tons of dirt for his birthday present. Sam was generous. At work and at home. I was pleasantly surprised to see Jerry get up before me at the memorial service and share how Sam always was willing to help other programmers. He was patient and thorough. I do laugh at the times that he would tell me that Jerry was asking him something. Sam said that he would purposely not answer Jerry because a lot of times, Jerry would figure it out by himself. I am sure he did the same for me. I often would ask him something only to figure it out myself after a few minutes or a few hours.

I now no longer have the luxury of asking him.

I learned from Sam that it matters more who you are rather what religion or belief you have. Who you are is the sum result of your thoughts, words, actions, habits and character. It is your essence. Sam was a good man. I have no doubt that God will see that. I expect Sam to recognize the new information that he has now. That he has not stopped existing. He will act accordingly.

Several people at the memorial repeated something Sam would share, "If you know better, do better". That is the essence of the call “Will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?” (3 Nephi 9:13)  Repentance includes turning away from things that are unhealthy. To do better when you know better. What Sam said reminds me of what Abraham Lincoln said, "When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion."

I was so glad to go to the memorial service on Saturday. It seemed that I had been privileged to know several of the pieces of Sam's puzzle. On Saturday, I saw so many more that I had never seen. They were wonderful and they fit into the character I knew Sam to have.

I recognize that funerals bring out the rosiest of pictures about those passed on. Sam certainly was not perfect. He had his faults. But he was an exceptional person. He was authentic. He was kind. These are two of the attributes I heard a lot on Saturday.

I will miss Sam terribly. I will have to figure out the rest of my career. I had hitched my wagon to his. I am ten years older than he. I figured he would help me and inspire me and be with me for the rest of it. He will not.

I am not sure what it was that led him to take his own life. I only hope that he is finding peace now. I know that God will be merciful to those who give mercy. It seems Sam fits that very well.

Fare well my friend, until we meet again.

"ontological realities, not only in religion but also in science"

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Therefore, if we embrace any reality as "objective," existing independently of human invention, of the kind claimed in religions like Catholicism or Mormonism, then we do so on faith, as a matter of choice. Operationally speaking, the only reality we "know" is that which has been constructed by our families and passed along to us as part of our cultural heritage. In this way of looking at reality, it is easy to see how different claims to truth are embraced as ontological realities, not only in religion but also in science, in politics, and in many other fields of human knowledge. Where religion was concerned, at least in my case, it became increasingly obvious that if I were to continue as an active believer in the LDS faith, it would be mainly a matter of choosing to embrace a certain construction of reality, not the result of a meticulous process of testing and proving incontrovertible claims about the supernatural... (Armand Mauss, quoted by Clean Cut)

The Power of Personal Stories When Giving Talks

From "The Power of Personal Stories When Giving Talks"

Too often when we begin a talk, we feel the need to dance around for a bit. We tell stories of how we received the assignment, we try to be self-deprecating about our (very limited) abilities as a public speaker, we try to frame the topic by reading from the dictionary, and on and on and on. What I loved about the talks today was that there was none of this dancing around–they went straight into the stories they were going to use to frame their talks.

Love is the Answer

My son wrote a touching letter last week. Love is the answer. It really does not matter what the question is, love is usually the answer whether we answer in words or service or prayer.

Love is the reason why I trusted my parents when they taught me about Jesus. So that I would be willing to test his words in my life and develop my own testimony independent from them.

Love was the answer in my darkest hours. The love of God I felt when I prayed. The love of my wife and family. It was a reflection of the love of God.

God wants to mold us like clay. If we allow him to, he will shape us into what we cannot yet imagine. But the analogy is lacking. We are not objects to be acted upon. We are agents to act for ourselves. If we are willing, we will partner with God to forge our own path with Him. A path of service and love and ministering. Full of meaning and joy.

We just have to be willing to work hand in hand with our Father.

I Do not Give Up

“Sometimes I say to God—as I strive for perfection—…’Father, don’t give up on me. I’m trying. Don’t let me fail. Please don’t get discouraged.’ I’m always directed by the Spirit to the words of Isaiah when he wrote, ‘[God] shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth’ (Isaiah 42:4). Then I hear the Lord say, ‘Michael, if I’m not going to be discouraged until the whole world is a place of righteousness and judgment, do you think I’m going to be discouraged with you, when you want so badly to please me and to conquer yourself? I don’t get discouraged, Discouragement is not part of my character, I am not impatient. I am never anxious. I do not give up. Keep trying.'” (Walking on Water, Michael Wilcox, quoted in "It’s Not Wise to Think of Heavenly Father as a Mortal, Fallen Man, Like We Are")

An Emerging Group, a Subset

Hugh Hewitt: ...how does the United States stack up in terms of the climate of openness to religious flourishing and freedom, of all sorts?

Jeffrey Holland: Yeah, well that’s a good question, Hugh, because I think in some ways, as secularism prevails and the 21st Century unfolds, in some ways, we’re less reverent, we’re less spiritual, maybe less religiously affiliated as a nation. But within that, there is an emerging group, a subset, if you will, that I think is more interested, are more willing to listen to the missionaries. Maybe a little harder to find, but when you find them, these are people that probably are more interested now in a way than they were 20 years ago. Maybe it’s the issue of the day, maybe it’s the kind of political and social phenomenon you’ve already referred to, but something is getting their attention that say maybe we ought to have more faith, maybe there ought to be more religion, maybe there ought to be more devotion. So maybe it’s a kind of a polarization. I wouldn’t say sheep or goats or wheat and tares. That sounds too ominous. I’m not an apocalyptic guy.
("A Conversation with LDS Elder Jeffrey Holland", Hugh Hewitt, Feb 27, 2015)

The Simple Defined by Something We Cannot Know

"How can something so simple as a circle — the most simple shape in the universe — how can it be defined by something we cannot know?"
("Why Math geeks are so excited about March 14, 2015, at 9:26:53", David Blatner, author of “The Joy of Pi”, Mar 13, 2015, PBS Newshour)