Tag: Experience

Route 66

 

This is my Route 66 birthday. Like the iconic roadway from Chicago to Santa Monica, my life has had a diversity of experiences. I have stood on the heights of success and in the depths of despair. My days have taken me across fertile plains, grand rivers, through majestic forests, as well as being forlorn in the empty heat of a desert. I have met wonderful, generous people and have known my share of duplicitous hypocrites. My days have seen the road ahead for miles, beautiful sunsets, creation’s monuments, and have felt the awe of being so small in a landscape, vast.

Attractions along the way have included millions of written words, tens of thousands of students, hundreds of speaking opportunities, scores of essays, contributions through ten books, trips to five continents, four higher education degrees, three teaching levels, two educational awards, in one full life. I have taught junior high school through Ph.D. studies over forty years. The craft of teaching has been plied in both Christian and public settings.

My family has been my heart, hearth, and home; my friends have brought joy and encouragement. As for those who did me harm, Joseph said it best, “God meant it for good.” With Paul I would claim both, “I have known what it is to be in want and to have everything I need.” And for the abundance of life, David speaks for me, “All things come from You and of Your own we have given.” Traveling West toward the setting sun, I cast an eye East, to remember the bad and the good, to thank my family, friends, and my Lord for bringing me across my Route 66.

My Experience Having COVID-19

 

COVID-19 under the microscope. 3d illustration. Photo by shutterstock.com

In case anyone’s curious about one COVID-19 experience: Two friends, my wife, and I went to London the second week of March on a long-planned vacation. Did the whole tourist thing, but tried to be safe by washing hands, Purelling, etc. We came home on separate flights on March 14. and immediately went into self-quarantine.

Quote of the Day: Experience

 

“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.” — Vernon Sanders

Boy, isn’t that true. I cannot think of all of the times I flunked a test I did not know I was taking. Fortunately, even though I paid in hide a few times, my misjudgments have never resulted in death, mine or others. Yet.

Member Post

 

June 8, 1998 has significant, personal meaning to me. Every year, on this date, I reminisce, cry a little and smile a lot. This year marks twenty years since that day. Oh my, how time flies! It seems like just yesterday, but when I consider all of the events of the last two decades, it […]

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In a college philosophy class, my atheist professor (at a Catholic university) once questioned the significance of the Golden Rule. Is the idea truly particular to Christianity? “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you” seems to have been understood long before Jesus.  At the time, I tried to argue with him […]

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Adams’ blog had an amusing Twitter interplay  http://blog.dilbert.com/post/148152679301/experience-is-overrated between Sadams and Kristol on the value of experience when judging political candidates. While I am normally a Kristol fan, I think Adams won this round, and makes some logical arguments on Trump’s ability to learn. Your thoughts? Preview Open

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I hold to a very important theory: the theory that we get knowledge from experience. I call this theory empiricism. In doing so I depart (a little) from some common uses of the word “empiricism,” such as this one from Wikipedia, which is more specific than my own; and I admit that none of the uses from the dictionary […]

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Funny, normally the levelers known as Socialists or Communists prefer to bring the high-earners down so everyone is “equal”. This business owner in Seattle tried it the other way, making the minimum salary at his tech firm $70,000 per year. Yes, even new hires with less experience were paid at that rate, higher to start […]

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Limits to Curmudgeonhood?

 

In a conversation last month, the subject of curmudgeonhood came up. There were some advocates of a minimum age restriction that would start somewhere around fifty. In short, their view was that curmudgeonhood was earned through experience.

My dictionary’s* definition of curmudgeon is: “A surly, ill-mannered, bad-tempered person; cantankerous fellow.”

Mike Rowe on Selling Pencils and the Difference Between Qualifications and Competency

 

2940983659_0482a018e4_oOn his Facebook page, former Dirty Jobs host and prominent blue-collar trades proponent Mike Rowe was asked to respond to Howard Dean’s comment that Scott Walker’s lack of a college degree makes him”unknowledgeable” and that we should require presidential candidates to have a bachelor’s.

Rowe’s response is well worth a read. It’s hard to quote it without ruining the great story he tells about how he landed his first job in television, but here’s a bit toward the end that circles back to Walker and the election:

Look at how we hire help – it’s not so different than how we elect leaders. We search for work ethic on resumes. We look for intelligence in test scores. We search for character in references. And of course, we look at a four-year diploma as though it might actually tell us something about common-sense and leadership.