Looking to God

My Tools

Posted on July 18, 2014July 13, 2014 by Jack Flacco

I’ve never been much of a tools guy. While other men may enjoy collecting tools, the only thing my tools collect is dust. Yep, not much of a handyman, if you know what I mean. If I had it my way, I’d sit on my rump and enjoy the summer sun while I hire someone to look after everything that needs fixing around the house. Actually, that’s not too far from the truth.

For this Freedom Friday post, I’ll be talking about my tools—what I do with them, and what I think I ought to do with them.

Let me start by saying, I have a lot of tools. I’m going to qualify that statement. I have a lot of tools I didn’t purchase on my own. What’s more? I have a lot of tools my wife purchased for me. There’s a hint in there somewhere.

It all started a few months before my wife and I got married. One day she noticed I didn’t have that many tools and decided to do something about it. Well, I didn’t have that many tools because I didn’t like working with my hands. Anyway, let’s keep on topic. One Saturday evening, I popped over to her basement apartment for a movie night. At the time, Star Trek: The Next Generation was one of our favorite shows and we agreed that she’d tape the week’s episode and we’d watch it on the weekend when we got together. There was a period when we could only see each other on weekends since she lived on one side of the city and I lived on the other.

Although Toronto wasn’t as big as it is today, travelling back and forth in a beat up Honda made the one-hour trip interesting. I once broke down on the highway and had to call for a tow from a gas station ten minutes away. Let me say this, ten minutes is nothing to walk. But when it’s cold, with no cellphones available at the time, and you’re heading up a rural pass in the middle of the night—I’ll admit—it got kinda creepy.

Anyway, back to the story. When we finally settled into a cuddle, she remembered she had something to give me. We did that all the time and we still do. Sometimes we don’t give each other gifts during those mandatory days of giving—Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, birthdays, etc.—but we’ll surprise each other with gifts throughout the year for no apparent reason other than to show our affection for one another. Besides, gifts mean more that way when we don’t have to give the gift out of obligation. All right, ‘nough said about that. Where was I? Right, her gift. She gave me a gift and it was heavy. I didn’t have a clue as to what it could have been. All I knew was she’d always given me things that I needed or wanted. Much like today.

I unwrapped the present, and there in front of me was a screwdriver tool set with a variety of bits and ratchet heads. Believe me, when I first saw it, I wasn’t sure why she would have given it to me, considering I wasn’t a tool guy. Let me tell you. That gift was a stroke of genius. I still have it in its original case.

Since she gave it to me, I’ve hung pictures, taken apart phones, computers, built shelving, put up curtains, built desks, cupboards, tables, chairs, wired cable and more. Do I sound like one of those $19.99 TV commercials?

Adding to my collection, she’s given me a hammer, pliers, drill bits, a drill, of course, measuring tapes, more screwdrivers, a few bottles of crazy glue and garden equipment.

Like I said, if it were up to me I’d sit on my rump and hire people to do the jobs around the house. But I’ve grown. I’ve changed. I’ve gone on to build two basements with my tools—very different from doing nothing around the house.

And it all started with a toolset my wife gave me.

It’s true. Sometimes starting small does bring big things in life.

What’s your favorite tool? Are you a collector or handy-person?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

Jade

Posted on July 16, 2014July 15, 2014 by Jack Flacco

She’s rich, he’s not. They’ve known each other for four years, yet they’ve never met. She wants a party and he’s invited. Her red dress excites him and the way she dances, like something out of her ballet recital, makes him crazy. He’s wanted to kiss her since tenth grade. Women Who Wow Wednesday celebrates Jade Butterfield, the free spirited beauty from the movie Endless Love.

Throughout high school, she lived an invisible life. She didn’t have many friends. Her brother was the only person who cared what happened to her. When David (Alex Pettyfer) comes along, she has all she can do to resist the urge to be with him. How can a girl resist David’s interpretation of love?

They have two weeks together. Summer.

Jade (Gabriella Wilde) doesn’t have to put a mask on with David. She can enjoy shows, theater and dance with him. No one has ever come into her life before to make her feel so free. She’s always had someone control her life, whether it was her father or someone else. Real freedom comes to Jade being in love with David.

The realization sets in of how sheltered Jade was growing up. Her new motto becomes, “Let’s be young and dumb.” She has an awakening that sparks something in her to bring her to life.

Her father, though, believes David is not right for his daughter. He can’t accept the fact that Jade’s in love with him. He will do anything to keep her and David apart, including digging into his past for anything that he can use against his daughter’s boyfriend.

Ultimately, Jade’s father doesn’t believe David’s good enough for his daughter.

From there, things get complicated.

Love is worth fighting for. It is. Jade can’t move on without David, even if she has another guy pining for her affection. No matter what anyone says, she will always be his. No one can control what she feels, how she thinks. No one. How does she feel?

If anything’s certain about Jade, she’s her own person and lives a full life without anyone telling her what to do.

Have you seen the movie Endless Love? What did you like about it?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Kill of the Week II

Posted on July 14, 2014July 13, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Given the past few Monday Mayhem posts have been on the serious side, I thought I’d lighten the mood today. Instead of talking about diseases, viruses, and pork and beans for dinner, I figure I’d make fun of those dratted zombies and see how much I could get away with. Don’t expect any literary brilliance or anything educational. I’m just going to sound off about what makes me happy. And that’s killin’ zombies. That’s right folks. I’m going to talk about my all-time favorite ways to kill zombies.

I really hope you haven’t eaten anything recently. Let’s start from the very beginning. I ordered them from least to greatest, placing emphasis on the most outrageous kill as the last item on the list.

[Disclaimer: Written with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Please don’t be an idiot and try any of these with humans. It’s not only stupid, it’s illegal. You will go to jail. Okay?]

10. Shooting a zombie in the head—Nothing quite comes close to putting a bullet in a zombie brain. Big bonus here is the splatter patterns behind the wall when said bullet penetrates the undead cranium. Not only do you get a dead zombie on your hands but also some very cool artwork to boot.

9. Spraying kerosene over a zombie and setting it alight—What does every living creature fear most in this world? Yep, you know it. Fire. Kerosene to the face of an oncoming undead creature will temporarily blind it. But lighting a match, will be like the Fourth of July all over again.

8. Throwing a zombie off a cliff, watching the impact crack its skull—If anything, this has to be the most fun anyone can have with a zombie. Easiest way to do this is grabbing it by its lapels and tossing it in one fluid motion. The kicker is watching the evil demon burst into a puddle of juices when it hits bottom. Where’s David Letterman when you need him?

7. Smashing a zombie’s head with a crowbar until everything’s covered in goo—Getting medieval on zombies deserves a better rep. This has to be the messiest of the lot. Just make sure you’re wearing a raincoat when caving in the undead’s intellect. Nothing’s worse than having a laundry basket full of dead stuff stuck to fibers.

6. Jamming a screwdriver into a zombie’s temple until it collapses—As easy as it sounds, it’s not. You’re in close proximity with the undead more than any other situation. Best using that screwdriver while standing. If you’re lying down, you’ll have to deal with the drip. Not the most pleasant of situations for a would-be zombie slayer.

5. Decapitating a zombie with a souvenir confederate sword from the American civil war—You want to talk about fun? This is it. You’ll find these heirlooms hanging around garage sales, and you’ve always wondered what you’d do with them. Well, here’s your chance. These suckers are perfect for zombie beheadings. If you can’t find a confederate sword, a samurai sword will do just as well. Aw, heck. Any ol’ sword or knife will do the trick.

4. Strapping a zombie into a car and ramming it into a brick wall—This is the hardest to do. Have you ever tried restraining a zombie? Not easy, let me tell you. You’ll need brute force strength and lots of gumption to get the job done. But once that liver eater’s in the car, there’s nothing much it can do. Best use a rock to hold the accelerator down. Then, watch the fun. If you have several to get rid of the same time, you can shove them all in and call it a joy ride.

3. Driving an ice pick through the zombie’s mouth, severing its spinal cord, thereby rendering it dead—Much like the screwdriver idea, this one is more personal. You’ll once again need to get real close. The best part about it is if you miss the mouth, you can always go for the eye.

2. Clamping a zombie’s head in a paint mixer, watching it spin—I don’t think I need to explain this one. Let’s just say the undead will never walk straight again.

1. Running over a zombie until every ounce of unholy breath expels from its maggot-filled lungs—That’s right. This is the grudge solution. You have a mechanical beast at your disposal and the undead in front. Aim and drive. You don’t even have to do this with a car. You can use a bus, a dump truck, a jeep. The bigger the vehicle, the more of a mess it will be.

This post is based on Zombie Kill of the Week. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it does.

What scenarios would you like to share?

Freedom Friday

Monotasking

Posted on July 11, 2014July 3, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Monotasking is one of those words you hear and quickly dismiss as nonsense. After all, we live in a world where we don’t have time to dedicate 100% of our time to one thing. Right? Multitasking has always been the way to go. But for today’s Freedom Friday post, I want to talk about monotasking vs. multitasking and the benefits of doing one thing and doing it well.

Let’s get some of the definitions out of the way first.

For a long time I’ve been a proponent of multitasking. Who wouldn’t be? The mere definition entices the idea that someone can become twice as productive as, say, performing one task at a time.

But how effective are we when we tackle more than one task at a time? Let’s put it this way, if you have a 24-hour day, it is physically impossible to squeeze 48 hours from it. Experts disagree. Who hasn’t written an email while on the phone? Who hasn’t prepared a post while chatting in a meeting? Who hasn’t checked the sports scores while supposedly researching for their next assignment?

There’s this movement taking place in social circles called Tabless Thursday. It promotes monotasking by encouraging everyone to ditch the tabs in their browsers and work in one window for the entire day. The movement supports one’s ability to produce quality work at the risk of ignoring efficiency.

I’m all up on these interesting trends and for years, I’ve been an efficient multitasker. For instance, I’ve written posts, watched TV and read all at the same time. Don’t ask me if I remember any of it because I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told my wife when she asks me if I hear her voice while I’m reading an article on the internet. The answer is a resounding no. Oh, I’m sure I was efficient, knocking off tasks from my to-do list as if they were all important, but how good had I produced the work on a scale of 1-10?

Multitasking serves its purpose in an aggressive environment where products have to go out the door quickly. However, monotasking has its purpose, too.

Whenever I have to get something important finished, I now turn off the phone, disconnect the internet, hide my task bar on my laptop, and type furiously at my keyboard until I’m done. It’s amazing how much I can accomplish without interruption.

The other argument for monotasking pertains to the quality of work. This, I can’t judge. I can only go by the reaction of the audience to see if my monotasking ways are effective. All I know is I can get the work done at a faster pace considering I have fewer distractions to keep me from accomplishing my goal.

What are you, a multitasker or a monotasker?

What do you think of monotasking? How would you go about adding monotasking in your workflow?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

Veronica Mars

Posted on July 9, 2014June 29, 2014 by Jack Flacco

It starts with a simple request: “I need your help, Veronica.” It then balloons into an investigation of incredible proportions. She’s a girl who picks up her private investigator’s license at eighteen. Don’t let that fool you, though. Her crime solving skills came much earlier when her best friend became a murder victim and she wanted to know who did it. It was her way of coping.

If you don’t know Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell), then you might enjoy this Women Who Wow Wednesday post, as I, too, have grown fond of this woman of many talents.

Veronica’s private eye bug originated with her father, who was Neptune, California’s sheriff. One day, he goes after the most powerful man in town, and the next day, he loses his job. Not a man for taking a loss, he opens his own P.I. firm called Mars Investigations. It only makes sense that Veronica would work there part time, of course. She naturally has her own caseload to solve and follows her dad in his footsteps.

To understand Veronica is to understand her friends. She loses them all with her father’s sudden unemployment. So much for friends. Her dead friend’s boyfriend, Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring), however, is especially a cruel soul. Unlike Veronica who searches for her best friend’s killer by investigating leads, Logan’s distrust and rage fuels his need for revenge. Drawn by the common goal of finding a killer, Veronica and Logan become an item. At the same time, those same qualities that draw people together can also tear them apart.

How can someone quantify Veronica’s skillsets? Yes, she’s angry. She’s Vengeful. But there’s more to her than the dark, brooding character some make her out to be. Some folks call her a marshmallow.

Names aside, her strength lies in her ability to see through the confusion. When threatened, she doesn’t stand aside taking it. She dishes it out and ensures no one can make a comeback from her volley. Her idea of a solution is the direct approach. If things get too complicated for her, nothing quite like a right cross to solve a problem.

Her biggest asset is not her skill with a camera. Nor is it having the ability to mimic accents. It’s not even her willingness to dress different, talk different or walk different. Veronica’s biggest asset is the love she has for her dad. In spite of him losing his job, and her friends asking her to choose, without a doubt she chooses her dad. He provides the love and safety she needs to carry forward with her life and not worry what anyone else thinks. He’s her sounding board, always ready to listen, always ready to step in when she’s in over her head. No one else can replace him. He’s her everything.

Veronica Mars may have an attitude, but her will to stand firm in the toughest of situations makes her a true example of what a strong woman is.

Have you seen the Veronica Mars movie? If so, what do you think of it? What do you think of the series?

Monday Mayhem

Are We Ready?

Posted on July 7, 2014July 6, 2014 by Jack Flacco

A virus can start as innocent as a cough. It can progress to chills and a fever. But unless someone identifies it as fatal, the public may treat it as a simple case of the sniffles.

Are we ready?

If we’ve learned anything from past outbreaks, we would know we’re never quite ready for what would come next when a contagion strikes. Having lived through the SARS epidemic when it hit Toronto in 2003, I saw firsthand what unpreparedness and paranoia could do to a city.

Let’s talk a bit about this for Monday Mayhem.

At the time, I was taking the train in and out of the city. My commute was an hour one way. During the course of the ride, people would come and go, and not a day would go by that the front page didn’t feature the latest SARS mortality rates. The public was on edge. During my rides, a noticeable silence had hit commuters. Many were afraid to speak, as they didn’t want anyone to think they were possible carriers. Who knew if the virus was airborne?

Some riders wore masks, while others sat in different places. The ends of the train, where the single seats rested next to the doors, became gold. They were away from everyone, and the doors would make for a quick exit—just in case. When people boarded, those seats became the first ones to fill.

And if you had coughed, the dirty looks would have carried until the following week where you either had decided to transfer to another car or find yourself another train.

In Canada, SARS had 251 cases with 44 being fatal. That is an 18% fatality rate, the highest in the world. China had 5328 cases, but their fatality rate was an astounding 6.6% (Source: WHO).

Are we ready?

In recent weeks, the Ebola virus has once again resurfaced. Between 1976 and 2012, 2328 reported cases affected regions as far as Juba, Sudan and Orientale Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2014 alone, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia have had 759 confirmed cases so far (Source: WHO).

What makes this outbreak so different is its reach. No longer limited to remote areas, it is now surfacing in populated areas where air travel is common. The CDC says the incubation period can be anywhere from 2 to 21 days after exposure. Symptoms include fever, headache, joint and muscle aches, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, and lack of appetite.

The virus works by suppressing the body’s natural ability to clot thereby liquefying organs.

I can only hope we are ready.

What precautions have you taken to prevent the spread of germs in your household?

Freedom Friday

Without Our Phones

Posted on July 4, 2014July 3, 2014 by Jack Flacco

When did we all of a sudden become so tethered to our phones? Whenever I take the train into the city, everyone has a device of some sort keeping them entertained. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about “the itch”. If you don’t know what I mean, the itch is this compulsion to check our phones. Constantly.

What would the world be without devices?

I’ve spoken about this subject before, but more from the time management, productivity angle. This Freedom Friday post is more from a rant perspective. As you know, I don’t rant on my blog—at least my regular readers know this. I try to keep things on the lighter side. Even my zombie-related posts have a thread of dark humor I weave through it, and for those who can see it, I’m grateful. Sometimes, the only way I’ll know if I did a good job of it is when I get feedback stating such.

But this constant obsession with checking our devices has gotten way, way out of hand.

I’m writing this from the standpoint that I, too, am a big offender. When my book came out last year, I couldn’t go a few minutes without checking my phone. With a blog, a twitter account, facebook page, Amazon and email, I had my hands full. Literally. Things did settle down a few months later, yet what a crazy time that was.

Then there’s the intimacy issue.

When I’m at the mall, I’ll sometimes sit at a bench and watch people. Twenty years ago, people watching used to be fun. Husbands would fight with their wives about the cost of a new dress. Wives would fight with their husbands for checking out the new blond cashier over at the deli. This happened more often than you think, probably still does. And parents would get mad at their kids for wanting that shiny new game featured in the window of the mall’s biggest toy store.

Nowadays, everyone has their head down and they’re not talking with one another.

Ah, but the counterargument to that observation is that we’re all being social online. It’s a different way to communicate. Yes, I agree. It is different. The nuances people use to get their point across while communicating online disappears. Sure we have the smileys, winks and frowns, but where is the involuntary brush of the hair when someone’s lying? Or seeing them bite their nails in conversation because of anxiety? Or hearing the inflection of their voice when they’re about to fall to pieces? Or the tender touch when opening our hearts?

We’re living in a world where bits of information has replaced reality.

What would the world be like if we’d put away our devices?

What about you? Do you find it difficult to put your phone down? What would you do differently to keep that phone disconnected and experience life as reality?

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