Proverbs on Arguing

I can't remember who it was that suggested it but I started reading the Proverbs chapter for that day a few months ago. Today is October 19th, so I read Proverbs chapter 19, you get the idea. I normally read to the boys (5 and 7) before they go to sleep at night and about a week ago I didn't have a book. So, I grabbed my son's Bible and read the Proverbs of the day for them before bed. It was so great, that even if I have a book to read them now we read the Proverbs first.

The thing that we have been dealing the most with lately is the boys arguing with each other. Yes, they are young and they are brothers and they will fight and argue. However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't correct the behavior and live in a home with no peace. Isn't it amazing what happens when you are consistently reading God's word! This week has been really bad with the arguing and check out some of the verses that jumped off the page to us from Proverbs 17 and 18 below. These are taken from the New International Reader's Version (NIrV) which is great for kids. I hope that these verses may be an encouragement/challenge to you also.

• Proverbs 17:14 “Starting to argue is like making a crack in a dam. So drop the matter before a fight breaks out.”
• Proverbs 17:19 “The one who loves to argue loves to sin.”
• Proverbs 17:27 “Anyone who has knowledge controls his words. A man who has understanding is not easily upset.”
• Proverbs 18:6 “What a foolish person says leads to arguing. He is just asking for a beating.” ("beating" is pretty harsh!)
• Proverbs 18:13 “To answer before listening is foolish and shameful.” We have talked a lot about listen before you speak and this was great confirmation.
• Proverbs 18:21 “Your tongue has the power of life and death.” We had a good discussion on speech that brings life (like encouragement, compliments, thank you, and "I love you" ) and death (being rude, name calling and cut downs, arguing, yelling at each other, etc.).

Notes from a championship team

Fantasy baseball this year was fun! Winning is always fun but it was also great to get to know a different group of people. I was asked to join an already established league of mostly people from the northeast (New York, Baltimore, and that region).

Cheesehead's Awards:
* Best Closer: K-Rod (Francisco Rodriguez) – LAA (Papelbon runner-up)
* Best Power Hitter: Ortiz – Bos (Berkman and Hafner runner-ups)
* Best Early Season pickup: Jonathan Papelbon – Bos (April 11)
* Best Mid-Season pickup: Jered Weaver – LAA (June 12)
* Best Late Season pickup: Frank Thomas – Oak (when he got hot and Hafner went on the DL)
* Best Trade Bait: Chris Shelton – Det, when he was hot I got Zambrano and BJ Ryan for him and Guardado (traded on April 20th). Zambrano and Ryan went on to be premier players for me and Shelton and Guardado dropped off the face of the earth after the trade!
* Most elusive stat: Holds – I scrambled for those all year.
* Most volatile position: Relief Pitchers (see “Most elusive stat” above) and Shortstop (Peralta, Furcal, Glaus, and Hanley Ramirez all played there for me).
* Biggest Risk: Picking up Clemens early and taking up an important roster spot for so long with no production.
* Best move I didn’t make but should have: Picking up Scot Shields one day earlier. I decided not to pick him up on one day and changed my mind the next day. When I went to grab him another picked him up and kept him all year.

General notes:

• All of my positions had a player in the top 5 final rankings.
• I squeaked by in the Starting Pitcher department. Zambrano was the #5 starting pitcher in the final rankings. Schilling was out of the top 10 and Zito rounded out my best three on down the list.
• I was too loyal to Pudge (could have upgraded him in July or August) and Mark Buehrle. I’m not kicking myself for keeping Dontrelle Willis all year – it’s tough to give up a 22 game winner with an ERA under 3 from the year before.
• I had 7 players in the top 20 final overall rankings for our league – Ortiz (7), Berkman(11), Utley(13), Papelbon(14), Guerrero(16), A-Rod(18), Crawford(20).

Mamaw's back home

Thank you for your prayers and concern for my grandmother. She has recovered well from her incident and is now back in her retirement home. We did have to move her to the “assisted” level of care instead of “independent” but the transition was smooth.

Her facility is around 80% independent seniors and 20% residents who need some sort of help. She had to change rooms since her old room did not have the proper alarm systems that are needed but that turned out to be a blessing. Her new room is just down the hall and around a corner so it wasn’t difficult for my Mom and me to move her on our own. Her new room is in better shape, has a much better view, better sunlight on the windows, and a better area to entertain the kids down the hall if needed.

She is now getting assistance mainly with them administering her medications but also checking on her periodically (especially at night) and being available to assist her with a few other things if it’s ever needed. My Mom and I have also taken a more active role in helping her keep her finances straight and things of that nature since her cognitive ability has suffered some lately.

We are very thankful that this specific event did not result in more long-term or serious consequences. We are also thankful that it made it clear that we needed to take steps to minimize the risk that future “events” will result in serious consequences.

Make it obvious!

It seems like everywhere I drive lately in Dallas there is construction going on. Yesterday, on my way back to the office from lunch I got some dirty looks from some construction workers as I drove by a job site. When they started yelling, I looked over and saw a worker over by the side of the road with a stop sign and I realized that they expected me to stop! Since I was already well on my way through their zone and there wasn’t anything going on that I could tell, I just kept going and cleared the way for them. I started thinking about what I did wrong and what lesson I should learn from it.

Replaying the scene, I realized that there was a normal stop sign on the corner (that I stopped at) before entering the construction zone. I did my normal looking around to make sure no one was coming and I did take note of the construction going on. I realized too late that the worker standing on the side of the road had a stop sign pointing toward me and that he expected me to heed the sign. He wasn’t in the middle of the road (but right by the curb), he wasn’t holding the sign (it was resting on the ground), he wasn’t waving the sign, and he wasn’t doing anything else to get my attention until it was too late. I understood that I really had not done anything wrong. If they really wanted me to stop, they should have taken action that caused me to notice.

After this thought process, it occurred to me that this experience had application on the Web – make it obvious. As one very good and simple book that I would recommend on Web usability states clearly in it’s title Don’t Make Me Think (by Steve Krug, currently in its second edition)! If you want me to take a specific action or do something that’s important on your site, then make it obvious and don’t make me have to scan the whole page carefully and over-analyze my options. Put a call to action in “the middle of the road” which on the Web is 1.) in the middle of the page, 2.) the upper-most section (the masthead), or 3.) the right-hand column. Also, make it clear what is needed from the user – do I need to just click, enter some information, etc.