Requiescat in Pacem, Rafael Ramos

The City of New York, and the New York Police Department, buried one of our (their) own today.  Rafael Ramos was buried.  Officer Ramos was assassinated last Saturday with his partner, Weinjin Liu.  As I watched the funeral this morning, I could not help but be moved by the words expressed by the pastors and government leaders.  It is true, police officers put it out there every day.

My uncle, Rich, was a cop.  His son, Jim, is a cop.  It's a job I could never do, I don't have the patience for law breakers, nor do I have the patience or understanding required to deal with people I would never associate with.  Cops do.  Every day.  I get that.  And I appreciate the hell out of it.  I'm the guy who walks around the city on Thanksgiving shaking the hands of NYPD officers and thanking them.  It's a tradition I started my first Thanksgiving out here, and I will continue it as long as I am here.

Rafael Ramos was a testament to the NYPD and what makes cops great.  He was a spiritual man and has a wonderful family.  He cared about his community and he cared about his brother and sister officers.  From everything I've heard, he was a perfect cop.  Who got killed simply because he was a cop.

There's a rift here in the city between the NYPD and the Mayor.  I don't understand it, frankly, probably because I'm not a cop and I don't have bi-racial children like the mayor does.  The mayor said some things about how he's not comfortable with his kids being dealt with equally by cops and, in saying that, made the cops somewhat irate.  To the point where they actually turned their backs to the monitor when he was speaking today at the funeral.

And, therein, lies the problem.  We are becoming an intolerant society.  We are becoming intolerant of people with different opinions, different ideas, different skin colors, we are becoming intolerant of different.  AND THAT HAS TO STOP.  But it won't stop, and we all know it, until our government and leaders learn how to be tolerant.  Every day we hear stories from just about every house of our government about how they don't agree, about how the views of one political party or group are not tolerant of the view of the other.  Every day we see fingers pointed across the aisle or somewhere else.  We've become a nation of 'blame the other guy'.

And that leads cops to turn their back on the mayor at a funeral.  That leads to a government that can't pass laws.  That leads to people treating people differently.  A society of intolerance is a society that is doomed to fail.

And if it does, Officer Rafael Ramos will be sorely disappointed.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The train has been moving along nicely as of late, but usually comes to a screeching halt over the holidays.  It's good, because it gives me a chance to do some reflection on where I'm at, what I'm doing (or not doing) right, and what's and who's important.

It started, actually, last weekend.  I spent some time in Dorado, about 25 miles outside of San Juan, in Puerto Rico.  Five days of sitting by the pool with one of my best friends was exactly what I needed.  It was an insane few months between Labor Day and Thanksgiving at work, doing seminars in 19 different cities all over the US and Canada.  I was not home for a full week until the week of Thanksgiving, and now we're in full on 2015 preparation mode.  So those few days sitting by the pool and not answering emails (but checking them, of course, because nobody wants to come back from a few days away and wade through hundreds of emails) were just what the doctor ordered.

But what sucks about this time of the year is being alone.  I think I blogged about that my first year out here in NYC, but my circumstance is a little different now and I'm in a MUCH better place.  Of course, that doesn't mean that I didn't move the Kleenex box out to the living room on Christmas Eve and listen to Christmas music and cry a bit.  Yeah, it sucks being along on the holidays, but that's what I chose.  It would be nice, though, if some of the friends I have out here would invite me over.   But I get it, Christmas is family time.  And it's when I miss mine the most.

It's funny, Christmas.  It makes me hearken back to a few years ago when I was working at St. Rita's and have such fond memories of all the people there.  Getting ready for Christmas in the parish was such a fun time!  The highlight every year was usually me arguing with Christina Quast over how the environment should be set up.  And I'm happy to remember that I usually won those arguments!  I do miss belonging to a faith community, mainly because I still consider myself a Roman Catholic who just can't live with some of the changes to the Mass (see my previous blog) and the continuing refusal of the hierarchy of the Church to take responsibility for some of the scandals and crimes made by priests and bishops.

Back to Christmas...  I find it funny (the ironic kind of funny) that for one day a year everybody talks about peace, puts things aside for a day, and spends it with their family.  These couple of days are usually filled with peace, joy, happiness, and laughs.  And every religious tradition has something like Christmas, but I'll stick to Christmas because that's my religious tradition.  We take the day or two off and relax.  And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.  But here in the United States in particular, we go back to being our regular selves the next day and look forward to the next Christmas and pretty much forget about the holiday we just celebrated.

And that's where we make our biggest mistake (and I'm just as guilty).  We forget that Christmas is about the Incarnation of the Son of God.  We forget that Christmas is designed to remind us that He needs to continually be born in us, every day, not just on Christmas.  We forget His message of love of God and love of neighbor.  We go back to the status quo, where everyone is in it for themselves and not even giving one damn about how we get to where we want to go during that journey, no matter how much it hurts others.  We forget Christmas on December 26.

I'm going to try very hard not to do that.

Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving is usually a time for me to reflect on a lot of things, and this year is no exception.

Reflection #1 - I really don't blog enough.  I find that blogging about important things is something I'm not really doing enough of right now.  There's lots of things going on like "why don't we know what's going on in Africa?" or "just what the heck is happening in Ferguson?" or "why is Black Friday such a big deal when the deals are better on Christmas Eve?"

Reflection #2 - Happiness is something to strive daily for, and I don't do a good job of that.  It's pretty easy to sit in the recliner and pet the cats and watch the gecko (don't ask) and watch TV and wonder why I'm not very happy.  Because I'm not really trying to be happy all the time and I'm not looking for ways to be happy.  Probably should do more of that.  Thanksgiving this year is a great example.  I tried to convince people that I was going to be perfectly happy sitting in the recliner with a TV dinner or two and watching football.  Then my friend, Allie, texted me and we got together in the afternoon at a cool bar on the Lower East Side, drank cheap (but good) alcohols, ate some chicken wings, watched football, and had a blast.  Sometimes happiness finds me when I'm not looking for it too hard.

Reflection #3 - I miss my children (and my grandchildren).  I've got a little better at reaching back to them, but I can always do better.  The thing I regret the most about relocating to NYC (there are few things, but looking at my weather app and seeing the weather in Minny, leaving THAT is something I don't regret one bit) is not being close to them.  So I've got to do a better job at reaching out and getting back to visit.

Reflection #4 - I'm lucky to be involved in a platonic relationship with someone awfully cool.  It's fun once in a while to cook with someone, to argue over what's for dinner, to have a few drinks with, to travel with.  It helps that she's very active and encouraging me to be more active.  It helps that she's Asian (Korean, actually), which exposes me to different ways of thinking and acting.  She's given me a real good glimpse into 'managing circles' so they don't intersect.  I don't like that.  But I like having someone to hang out with on a pretty regular basis.

Reflection #5 - I'm sad I've lost my relationship with the Church.  It wasn't really my choice, I had to stand by my word.  And it's only one word (plus some behaviors I don't approve of) that caused this.  The Church changed the word, "all" to the word, "many" in the words of institution of the Eucharist.  That limits God's ability to welcome all and gives people the ability to decide on the many.  And that's just not my image of God.

Refection #6 - I never thought I'd blog about this, but I'm really excited for the Gopher football team.  It's been a fun season of trying to watch every game and I never expected them to be in a position to play in one game to get to the Big Ten championship game.  And that's pretty darn exciting.

That's about it for today, need to get some cleaning done before the weekend.  I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and please, seek happiness.

The #8 Train Looks at Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies

It would be irresponsible to blog that I hated the book.  Because that's SOOO not the case.  There were elements of it that I absolutely adored...  The Burns stuff makes me laugh out loud every time I read it, the chapter on Jesus was phenomenal, anything that had to do with the economy and the greed in our culture was (my opinion) spot on.  I got lost in some of the sci-fi and gaming stuff, I expected to, they just haven't (yet) piqued my interest.

However, there's an underlying anti-religion message.  Keep in mind, that is vastly different from an anti-faith message.  Religion is the communal expression of a shared faith.  Be it the Catholic religion, the Jewish religion, the Hindu religion, the Buddhist religion, you get the point...  Faith doesn't mean squat if it can't be shared, examined, torn apart (more about this in a bit), and subjected to some scrutiny.  I believe that people don't come to blindly accept a faith anymore.  I think there is far too much evidence in our scientific world to suggest that we can pretty much explain just about everything.  And that's cool.  But it can't explain that feeling I have when I see my children (or the ultrasound pictures of my daughter's twins).  There's something THERE.  I don't know what it is, but I think it's the work of the Divine in my life.

I've come to learn to have a profound disrespect for my Church.  It's sad, really.  I wanted to be a Catholic priest.  I would have been an awesome priest.  But they wouldn't let me, because I also wanted to be a Dad.  My choice was amazingly correct.  But I studied the religious aspect of that faith (ad nauseum) and the historical implications from whence it came.  I understand how theology adapted to changing society.  I understand what happened to the Church (note the capitalization) during the feudal society and the role of the Catholic hierarchy in that society.  And I understand that the choices the Church made were easy.  After all, their priests and hierarchy were the only ones who knew how to read and write!  You see, we have a problem, honestly.  We blame the Church.  But the Church was simply adapting to the way society was working.  That's kind of like all religions have worked over time.  Now, does that make religion itself bad?

There's one more step we have to take, though, before we answer that question.  Once we "get" the history, we need to realize how it's applied TODAY.  The thing that drove me away from the Catholic Church was the sexual abuse crisis.  (See past blog on Penn State.)  At no point in history should the sexual abuse of children be condoned.  So, when a pedophile is a priest and offends, the ONLY fix to that is to say "you aren't working as a priest anymore".  Instead, bishops all over the world were complicit in allowing these guys to not only continue to function in their ministries, they just moved them somewhere else WHERE THEY COULD DO THE SAME THING.  And assumed no culpability for that.  To that, I say "bullshit".  Pedophilia is a disease.  It should be treated.  I pity the men that have that disease, in the same way I pity those who have other psychological disorders.  I can't blame them for this.  I blame a structure that perpetuated it and never confronted it.  And I, personally, need to get past this.  I know men who are no longer priests because of this and I know their victims.  I know men who are still priests (and some are now deceased, RIP Paul Dudley, one of the finest men I've ever known) who were wrongfully accused.  Finally now, it's become a legal issue and not an issue of canon law.

But let's go back a couple paragraphs and look at what religion should REALLY be.  It should be a ritualistic expression of an individual's faith celebrated in community.  The rituals and the teachings of the religion should reflect the community.  OR (and this is a big OR) it should provide the ability of the religion to provide guidance to its adherents as to what they should or should not believe.  Sounds Jonestown-like, right?  In the final analysis, if a "real" religion doesn't exhibit cult-like features, it really shouldn't be a religion.  "Cult" has a negative connotation (thanks James Jones and the Moonies), it shouldn't.  A cult is close-knit group of people who are trying to live out their faith as they understand it.  And they get together once in a while to share how that's going and celebrate it.

When we're doing it right, that's Church.

July 4 - What Does it Really Mean?

I will never purport to be an expert on the beginnings of the Revolutionary War, nor will I purport to be an expert on the signers of the Declaration of Independence, nor will I purport to be an expert on what was going through the minds of people in the late 18th century.

Here's what I learned in my formative years...  People of the colonies were tired of British rule.  They wanted  to be able to govern themselves, to have their own way of doing things, and to be responsible for themselves.  Pretty noble, I think.  And, with the help of the French and the Germans, they went to war for those noble purposes.  And the war was won.  I guess that's a good thing.  Had to do it again a few years later, but the British finally figured out that this very large hunk of land probably wasn't worth governing from London.

And we, as a nation, grew.  We expanded to those hunks.  I grew up in one of them.  And I now live in one of the original hunks.  And we prospered and continued to grow.  We, as a nation, grew to be one of the greatest superpowers in the world.  We went to war several times (the Mexican American war, World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict, Vietnam, Iraq I, Iraq II, Afghanistan, and probably a few others that I can't remember) and we've done pretty well in those.  And. over the years, we've become a superpower.

Superpowers (I'm not going to say dynasty, because 237 years just can't constitute that) come and they go.  Superpowers usually advocate for a way of life.  The Soviet Union advocated marxist communism, China advocates a variant of that, Saudi Arabia (make no mistake, they're a superpower) advocates an islamic government.

As I look around the world, it appears as though our country is on a path to support democracy.  Again, I guess that's noble.  Democracy is a good thing, and it's worked pretty well in the diversity that is our nation.  And we believe that democracy is something that should be supported worldwide.  That's where we've got it wrong, my friends.

What we should be advocates for is something more basic than a form of government.

We should be advocates for peace.  "We don't negotiate with terrorists" is a common policy.  I just heard on the news "we need to pave the way for democracy".  We hear it every single day, where this country is in the face of other countries advocating democracy while those countries are warring internally and we are telling them they must be democratic.  Stop it.  Just stop it.

평화.  That's the Korean word for peace.  Pyeonghwa.  When we're talking to countries about what's going on and what we want, that's what we should want.  Not democracy, not to be an ally, not to create a global economy where they can be a part.  PEACE.  That's what we should want for them.

And we shouldn't be afraid to talk about how we're not peaceful.  We shouldn't be afraid to talk about how we spy on our own people.  We shouldn't be afraid to talk about basic human rights and how we struggle with providing them.

Think, for just a few minutes, about how the conversations around and about our foreign policy would change if we advocated for peace and not democracy.  [Here is your thinking part]

The funny thing about peace is that it's something we have to seek.  It won't find us.  And that's where this blog starts to end.  We can't advocate for peace if we don't seek it ourselves.

I tattooed 평화 on my left arm to remind me that I need to always seek it.

Easter 2013

As I begin this blog with some crying and trying real hard to figure out what Easter means, I know some things...

I know that Jesus rose from the dead.  I feel it.  I can't explain it.  I'm sorry that I can't.  There's no evidence of it, and he may not have even risen from the dead.  But he's alive.  Just like my father and my mother (Happy Birthday, Mom!) and Pappy and Gram and Grandma Schultz and Uncle James and...  they're all alive.  And my brother or sister, the one I never knew about.  They're all here tonight.  And I'm celebrating Easter with all of them!

Because I am learning that Easter isn't about Jesus.  It's about us.  It's about me and it's about you.  It's about all of us learning that there are times that we get put into the grave.  We get put there, sometimes because of our own choosing (in my case), sometimes not because we choose it.  Easter is about coming out of the grave.  And I can't come out of the grave right now, and that's very sad for me.  Which would explain why I'm blogging and not attending a really cool Easter Vigil somewhere in New York City.

The grave sucks.  My daughter asked if she could come to New York and spend Easter with me, I refused. She was on spring break from school (where she is the MOST AWESOME student in the college she is attending) and the MOST CREATIVE person I've ever known (sorry Maggie, the pelican painting is amazing, but your Katniss dress is a VERY close #2).  I regret so much that I missed, mainly because I am still in my grave.  I missed seeing what was going on with my kids.  Their resentment is completely understood.

I missed a chemical dependency or two (or maybe three).  I missed a lot of things in their lives that 'normal' parents would not have missed.  I missed them because I was 'too busy' and 'providing'.  The reality was I was blind to what my children needed.  And that blindness, that total disregard for who my children were becoming, effects us to this day.  I know three of the most amazing people on this planet.  My oldest daughter is one of the most creative costumers in the world.  My middle daughter has created some of the most beautiful pieces of art that I've seen in a long time.  My son is one of the most creative comics and teachers that I've ever come in contact with.  And I don't tell them that enough.  And it's good that I don't need to, they know it.  But it would be good if I could tell them.

I hope their graves are not as deep as mine.  I don't think they are, and I hope they aren't.  I dug mine.  I dug it when I took the job I have.  I dug it when I moved to New York.  It just gets deeper as I realize that, on Easter, my highlight will be cleaning my apartment and writing a technical specification for a demonstration.  I tried to make friends here.  I have some.  But none that care enough about me to make sure that my Easter is spent around people who care about me.  They have their own people who they need to make sure are OK on this feast.  So I am spending Easter alone.  Heck, even Jesus didn't do that!

My grave is there, the rock rolled over, the cloths draped over me.  All of the regrets, all of the pain, all of the bad decisions I've made, all of the wrong things I've done, they are the cloths.  Like Jesus, I am waiting for the Father to reach down and tell me...

ARISE, MY LOVE.  THE GRAVE NO LONGER HAS A HOLD ON YOU.

When that day comes, this planet will hear the rejoicing!

Under the Sea, Well, Not Quite...

Scuba diving for me has been a wonderful diversion and an escape.  I've been to some very wonderful places and have had the privilege to dive with some of the finest people in the world (my family included).  When I came to NYC, I was faced with a diving dilemma, "where can I dive and work as a PADI professional?"  So I did what anyone would do to find a scuba diving shop, I Googled them!

My first 'hit' was at Pan Aqua dive shop on the west side of Manhattan, the same side of the island I am on.  I sent them a couple of emails with no response, which seemed odd, but I understand busy.  I had been to the shop before and knew that the equipment I brought with me was lined up exactly with what they were selling, so it seemed to be a very good fit.  After not hearing from them after a couple emails, I thought I'd stop by.  So I did, introduced myself, let the folks know that all I wanted to do was help with classes and that I'd pay my own way if I had a chance to dive.  I was told, to my utter shock, that they didn't need or want any help, that they had plenty.  So I walked out the door never to return and sent an email to the folks at Empire Divers.

It took about 10 minutes for my phone to ring.  Cliff and Debbie wanted me to come in to the shop and meet me and talk about what I wanted and discuss how I could help them.  Yeah, I went that afternoon.  I was in the pool a couple of days later doing a Scuba Review.  That was early in the summer in 2011.  By the end of the summer, I was going out to their open water classes at Dutch Springs and helping out there.  When the outdoor diving season ended, I stayed busy at least 2 days a month in the pool and was helping out in the dive shop one or two times per week.

I guess it was January when I was at the pool with Cliff and he approached me to let me know that he needed an instructor and he thought I could be a fantastic instructor.  (One of the instructors that I worked with at Dutch from Empire, Joi Petrik, moved to Hawai'i.)  I told him that I was flattered and that he was probably right, but that I honestly couldn't afford it.  At that point, right there, Cliff offered to pay for the Instructor Development Course and the Instructor Examination if I worked for him for a while.  Naturally, I told him I would think about it.  Yeah, that thought process didn't take too long and the next day we were looking at IDC options.

The choice we made was to use Course Director Steve Scigliano at Swim and Scuba in Rockville Center because Steve was able to put together an IDC that went for 5 consecutive days in February, which worked perfectly for my schedule.  During the IDC, Cliff even did his IDC Staff Instructor course, so we had an opportunity to 'reverse commute' every day to Long Island.  The IDC was grueling and intense.  The days were about 10 hours a piece on site, plus the commute, plus 3-4 hours of homework each night.  I felt like I was back in college (and actually paying attention)!  I capped my IDC experience by going to Nassau (on miles and points) for a long weekend and doing some diving with Stuart's Cove.  Perfect way to decompress after a long week, that's for sure!

I then went to work in the shop as an Assistant Instructor.  I was teaching classes and meeting folks and having fun until it was time for the Instructor Examination.

The IE was held in Allentown, PA (the open water portions were done at Dutch Springs).  I went out on Friday evening and stayed in Allentown at a Hilton Garden Inn that was wonderful.  I did my best to get a good night's sleep, as the IE began bright and early on Saturday morning at 7:00.  As my father taught me, 15 minutes before is on time, so I showed up at the hotel where the academic portion of the IDC was being held at 6:45.  Lots of people were taught the same lesson, apparently, and I ended up in the front of the room!

The first part of the IE is academic.  You take a series of tests that center on standards and procedures, equipment, the dive environment, physiology, physics, and decompression theory.  You have to score 75% or better on each section of the exam, or you have to retake that section the next day and, if you can't get the requisite 75%, you have to schedule to do that portion at another IE.  So there's some pressure there to not fail, and that's OK.  When one of the examiners asked us candidates if we were nervous, most of us said we were.  Then he asked why.  I, naturally, blurted out "Physics".  Sure enough, I had to retake the Physics test on Sunday morning!  But I did fantastic on the rest of the exams!

The next portion of the exam was an oral presentation.  OK, it didn't really matter what topic I was given.  The IDC prepared me with the presentation format and the required elements.  And I speak in public for a living.  This wasn't hard at all.  3.8 out of 5 because I didn't use props and didn't cover something that I didn't think was all that important.  Needed a 3.5, on to the pool.

I arrived at the pool and I was the only one from my IDC there that day (the other two guys, Dennis and Bob, did all of this on Friday because Bob is Orthodox and Dennis is just a better man than I to volunteer to spend his Friday with Bob), so I was behind the 8 ball a little bit.  I didn't have anybody to help with equipment set up and double checks.  As I was finishing up my preparations, the staff told me to hurry up and get ready and go join a group.  I did not complete my checks, but they assured me that I would be OK. So I put my scuba unit on and swam out to join the other group.  As we descended, I put my regulator in my mouth and took a breath.  Off an empty tank.

Needless to say, the Instructor Examiner was not one bit happy.  He said, rightly, that he could fail me right at that moment.  Until I let him know that I was not given the time to perform my predive checks by the staff who was hurrying me.  He told me to get out of the pool, swap my tank, and join another group.  I got another chance.  But I was not one bit happy about it, as the tank was one of ours from Empire and should have been full (because we filled them when we inspected them about 6 weeks prior, but they were used for a couple of classes) and the staff shouldn't have been so insistent that I hurry.  No matter, it was still my fault for using an empty tank.  Will never happen again.

I ended up doing the skill circuit (5 skills the examiner chooses for you) flawlessly and ended up with a 4.2 out of 5.0 on my confined water.  Then it was back to the hotel to study physics while the rest of the candidates went to dinner and the casino.  That was just fine with me.  After a day like that, I was in no mood for hooting it up at a casino!

I got a decent night's sleep, was ready for the physics make up, and got to Dutch Springs in plenty of time to reconnect with Dennis and Bob and a couple of other "old guys".  It was awesome sharing this experience with men my own age (and a couple even older than me!).  We began with a rescue exercise (everyone has to perform a rescue of an unresponsive diver at the surface), taking turns as rescuer, victim, and equipment handler.  I think I did alright, 4.8 out of 5.0 because I didn't take my mask off immediately.  Then it was to the platform.

We were assigned skills that we had to work with our 'class' on performing.  Mine were easy (regulator recovery and partial mask clearing), and I did fine.  One of the guys had the Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA) and picked me to do it with.  Thanks.  So as we started up, the Examiner told me to take a breath.  I did, we went back down to the platform and started up again.  I took a breath about 5 feet from the surface, but the 'instructor' did just fine.  The Examiner, however, told me that he needed to see me do one flawlessly before I could pass.  So, when everybody got to the surface, he and I headed back to the platform so that I could perform a flawless CESA.  Done.

We debriefed the dives, I got a 4.8 out of 5.0, and the Instructor Examiner extended his hand and said to me, "Congratulations, Mr. Instructor."  Wow.

I became a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor on June 3, 2012.

I certified my first open water divers on June 10, 2012 and, during the summer, was lucky to certify a total of 30 Open Water divers, 3 Advanced Open Water divers, 3 Rescue divers (one being my daughter, Katie :)!), 1 Peak Performance specialty diver, and certified 2 people in Emergency First Response.  I spent 10 weekends at Dutch Springs during the summer of 2012.  I had some wonderful times with some wonderful people.

I started "Team Fun", consisting of people that I've been lucky enough to certify.  We have team meetings and I'm putting together a bunch of ideas for things we can do.  Keeping people connected is very important in diving, but using diving as a connection point for folks is also a very good thing to do.  And because I believe that diving isn't really diving if you're not doing and sharing it with other people and I also believe that diving is, fundamentally, fun.  And when I'm teaching, I do my best to help people concentrate on the fun aspects of the sport/activity.

I became a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer on November 30, 2012 with specialty certifications in Deep, Boat, Underwater Naturalist, Underwater Navigator (hahaha), and Multilevel Diving.

I am looking forward to spending some time in the classroom and the pool this winter.  Right now, I don't have any vacations planned to dive destinations this spring, and that's OK.  I'll have fun with our customers!

Diving catch up...  done.