It finally bothered me enough that I looked it up. My brief research has led me to several sites that advocate for the “too-er” pronunciation:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tour

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:en-us-tour.ogg

Best of all, here’s the theme song from Gilligan’s Island – remember their “three hour tour”?:

Gilligan’s Island Intro

I found several different versions of the intro being sung by several different groups. It seems that if you pronounce “sure” like “shore”, you’re going to rhyme “shore” with “tour”. But if you pronounce “sure” like “shoo-er”, you’ll rhyme that to “tour”. INTERESTING!

After asking this question to other people who live in York County, I’ve been inundated by advocates of the “tore” pronunciation. Is there something in the Pennsylvania Dutch accent that is causing this?

How do you pronounce “tour”?

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Many times in my life I have filled the role of the critic. It’s easy to point out the shortcomings of others because, as the Arbinger Institute tells us, we are then able to justify our own negativity toward that individual or group. This more common than you might think. The obvious example of this is in politics…”Barack Obama really screwed that up, etc. etc.”…but what about an example that is a bit closer to home?

There you lie, asleep in bed, with your wife by your side. Cries from your newborn shake you from your sleep, and looking at the clock you see that it is 3:30 in the morning. Who should go to see what is the matter?

It’s your wife’s turn…you wake up every night…she gets to sleep in while you go to work…she wasn’t very nice to you yesterday…come to think of it, she really dropped the ball when she forgot to take your other child to tee-ball practice. She should have to get up! And there you lie, pretending to sleep until your wife gets out of bed.

We justify our own negative traits by criticizing others. But as Roosevelt so eloquently pointed out, there is no honor in being the critic. It is he – or she – who is actually in the arena, marred by the metaphorical dust and sweat and blood, who deserves the honor. Yet so often it is that same individual who is too busy to seek any honor.

Perhaps it’s too late to consider it a New Year’s Resolution, but I am determined to lose myself in the arena. I refuse to be a critic any longer.

From Early Season NFL Thoughts on September 19, 2011:

New England and Green Bay are for real, and they are my Super Bowl favorites.

Hey, one out of two ain’t bad. And Green Bay was right there. So close.

From NFL Conference Dominance on December 21, 2011:

The balance of power is shifting once again, so it shouldn’t surprise anybody to see a big streak of NFC Super Bowl victories. My guess is that we’ll see the NFC winning more interconference games as well.

The NFC did win the inter-conference play battle, and then the won the Super Bowl. That’s three championships in a row for the NFC…it’s clear that the balance of power has swung away from the AFC. It seems that even the NFC’s average teams will be able to beat the AFC’s best.

So let’s talk about last night’s game. Did anybody really want to win? Both teams appeared reluctant to deliver a knockout punch. The Giants had their opportunities early, staking a 9-0 lead, but the offense sputtered and Brady’s Patriots were able to recover to go up 10-9 at halftime. Then the Patriots had their opportunity to run away with the game, going ahead 17-9 in the third period. Even at 17-12 and 17-15 they had their chances to pull away but several crucial dropped passes gave the Giants just enough momentum to keep up. And then New York, pushing down-field with mere minutes to play, allowed Bill Belichick to outsmart them with that nifty “parting of the waters” defensive maneuver that gave the Patriots another chance to score with under a minute to play.

Even the final play of the game – the Hail Mary – failed to convince me that these guys wanted to win. Only one Patriot was able to put his hands on the ball…Gronkowski and Welker stood a few yards away from the ball, obviously anticipating a tip, but far enough away to not have a chance to catch the tipped ball. There had to be five Giants directly at the point where the pass was coming down.

It was, from my perspective, a truly disappointing game from start to finish. Any of the other NFC teams would have given us a much more entertaining match-up and game. And frankly, most of the other AFC playoff teams would have done the same. The Packers, Saints and 49′ers all made headlines consistently throughout the year for their stellar offenses and/or defenses. The Giants snuck into the playoffs…literally…by winning a few games down the stretch. The Patriots didn’t beat a team with a winning record until Denver in the playoffs…Baltimore and Pittsburgh would have provided a much better opponent. But instead it was a rematch of four years ago, and the game played out nearly identically. Mediocrity met mediocrity. Mistakes. Curious playcalling. And, of course, one big play by a Giants receiver that Eli Manning will undoubtedly receive most of the credit for.

Super Bowl XLVI was yet another forgettable game played by forgettable teams with a forgettable result.

Here’s hoping that next year brings us something a bit better.

It started quietly enough. We managed to recover from Christmas and New Years and things were running smoothly for the next two weeks.

Then, on January 15th, we started going downhill. Manda and a friend left on the 14th – a Saturday – to spend the weekend in Philadelphia and New York City. Manda called me early on Sunday morning to report some car trouble. The “Check Engine” light had come on and they were taking it to a PepBoys just outside of Philadelphia. Her car had given her trouble last January as well and it turned out to be a dirty sensor (dirty, dirty sensor!) so initially we hoped that it would be something similar – an easy and cheap fix. But then came another call – this time to inform me that they thought it might be the head gasket.

Shoot.

The estimate? $1,500. Ouch. December is a financially straining month, with Manda’s birthday + Christmas parties + gifts + our wedding anniversary, so the sudden and unexpected need to drop such a large amount of money on our best-working car was not welcome. But the prospect of purchasing another vehicle was even more unwelcome, so we said “fix it!”.

Having only one car, I drove Manda to work each day that week. My car – a 1996 Volvo 850 – wasn’t in the best shape of its life but it had never given me any major problems. I didn’t think that a few extra miles would do anything to it. Then came Friday morning. January 20th. The Friday from Hell.

Per our new routine, we all hopped in the car to drive Afton to the bus stop which is just a few houses uphill from where we live. I had turned the car on to let it warm up – it was about 20 degrees outside that morning – and after pulling up to the bus stop I noticed that the car was running roughly. Specifically, it was sputtering every few seconds. The bus came and went, and as I turned the car around to drive Manda to work it really started “dipping and recovering”. I applied the gas and followed the bus downhill to its next stop, and as we idled behind the bus the car completely died.

Turn the key.

Vrooooo vroooo vroooo vrooo vroooo … dead

Turn the key again.

Same result.

Over and over I tried turning the key, only to hear the engine failing to start. I’m not a car mechanic by any stretch of the imagination so I couldn’t begin to understand what might have happened. I hopped out, let Manda get in the driver’s seat, and we pushed the car back to the curb.

What the h-e-doublehockeysticks.

As we walked home, we called our respective places of work and informed them of the new development. My employer was fully understanding, and throughout the day they called several times to find out if I needed a ride to work. Manda’s employer was somewhat less understanding, but they didn’t fire her or anything. We walked in the door, threw our coats on the floor, and laughed. There was nothing left to do. We were without a car, without money, and without hope.

Not thirty minutes later, the PepBoys in Philadelphia called us. After sending her car’s damaged parts out to be repaired, they discovered that her cylinder head had cracked. Twice. So instead of $1,500 we were now looking at a repair bill of nearly $3,000. In their opinion, it wasn’t worth repairing.

Shoot.

Well, we bummed rides for a day to pick up groceries and have lunch. Then we sat at home and examined the position that we were in. We had felt those same feelings of despair exactly one year prior, when a similar string of misfortunes had befallen us. In January of 2011 we ran out of heating oil while on vacation, repaired Manda’s car, broke the drier, broke the garage door, and crashed my truck. This year’s first month was looking just as bad as last year’s.

Life is nothing but a series of ups and downs, and January was no different. On that day we hit rock-bottom. Things have turned up since then. Manda and her father co-signed on a “new” car at a fair price. My car miraculously started while we were pushing it into a position to be towed, and I think I know what is wrong with it. But this January was a bad one, and I will certainly not forget the lessons that it has taught me.

The very nice and well-intentioned folks at Pinterest automatically scanned my Facebook and Twitter lists to see if anyone I knew was already on the site. Lo and behold, they found some! And so my Pinterest account was suddenly filled with gift wrap, dresses, shoes, lingerie, and most of the other items listed in that annoying song “My Favorite Things”.

I suddenly discovered that Pinterest is used almost exclusively by women.

That may have dissuaded any other hairy fire-wielding man-brute from using the site, but I was determined to conquer Pinterest and make it mine. So I quickly started unfollowing all of the more feminine boards that I had been subjected to without warning and, in their place, began to pin things like facial hair and man caves and football pictures.

An example of non-female Pinterest boards.

The good and wise husband that I am, I have one board for “Manda’s Favorites” so that I can pin anything that she says she wants and not worry about forgetting. If I had one weakness, it would be my inability to recall the millions of things that she has said “I want that” about.

So to the fathers of the world, I say “join Pinterest”. And if you want to follow me, you can do so at http://pinterest.com/douglasrwalters/.

There is one particular scene in the film that I’d like to focus on for this post’s purposes. In that scene he is with four of his male friends at a bar. In walks a blonde and four brunettes. It becomes apparent that the blonde is the most desirable of the women. His friends come to him and begin discussing Adam Smith’s theory of competition – that “individual ambition serves the common good”. In other words, each of the friends would compete for the blonde and the losers would be left with the brunettes, their “second choice”. Nash, however, identifies something new:

“Adam Smith needs revision. If we all go for the blonde, we block each other. Not a single one of us is going to get her. So then we go for her friends but they will all give us the cold shoulder because nobody likes to be second choice. But what if no one goes for the blonde? We don’t get in each other’s way and we don’t insult the other girls. It’s the only way we win.”

He continues:

“Adam Smith said the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what’s best for himself, right? That’s what he said, right? Incomplete. Incomplete! Okay? Because the best result would come from everyone in the group doing what’s best for himself and the group.”

It’s a fascinating line of thought, and one that runs contrary to the classical capitalist belief that says individuals are better off chasing their own success instead of worrying about the success of others. And it’s quite different than the opposing view of socialism which tells us that individuals must be forced to worry about the success of the whole group instead of their own. Nash has shown us a means whereby individuals can voluntarily seek out strategies that will ensure a good result for themselves and the whole group. It doesn’t necessarily mean that an individual will reach the best result – remember, the best result in the original example would have been getting the blonde – but I’m sure that none of them minded their successes with the brunettes!

What can we learn from this? That there’s a third alternative to the left-right, Democrat-Republican, Liberal-Conservative, capitalist-socialist problems that our nation is dealing with. I’ll give you an example…a business owner who uses local foods to produce healthier meals for his or her customers. The local foods cost more to procure, thereby lowering his profits, but his customers are happier and healthier. And possibly more likely to return. That’s a win-win situation!

What are your thoughts? Feel free to share them in the comments are below!

Fast forward to January 25, 2012. Thanks to the permanent internet connection on my iPhone, I was logged in 24×7. Updates were pushing to my phone on a regular basis. Numerous times throughout the day I’d stop everything to check my Facebook news feed. I had 250 friends, dozens of pages that I “liked”, and a few pages of my own. Any time I wanted to argue with somebody, I knew exactly where to go.

This all leads me up to yesterday, January 26. I had finally come to the realization that Facebook (among other things) had become a serious distraction for me. Most apparent was the fact that I was using Facebook as a way to escape from stress. Mother-in-law coming over? Get on Facebook. Work giving me headaches? Check Facebook. Too much schoolwork? Must visit Facebook! My virtual life had become a way for me to hide from my problems.

No more! I deleted my Facebook account yesterday.

I certainly don’t expect anyone else to follow suit just because of my experience. Some people have Facebook accounts and rarely check them while others have found other ways to ensure that they aren’t experiencing “digital overload”. But for me, the easiest way out of the mess was to just remove Facebook from the equation altogether. Cold turkey. Like a Band-Aid.

One day has passed and I’m already feeling a lot better. No more notifications buzzing on my phone…no more emails…no more friend requests. Deleting the app from my phone was really satisfying. Sure, I’ve still got Twitter/LinkedIn/Pinterest/Gmail/Wordpress/Foursquare to deal with, but Facebook was the worst one because it was a place for arguments and debates which just added to the stress. Tweets are short and sweet. LinkedIn is just a home for my resume. Blogging on WordPress is, in my humble opinion, quite therapeutic. Facebook was the tumor at the heart of my digital cancer, and with that gone I feel confident that I can find better ways to cope with stress and communicate with people who are important to me.

Have you deleted your Facebook account? Never had one? Feel like its ruling your life? Post your comments!

I know this because she has told me many, many times.  Just as much as she loves her job, she hates having to go to work. She enjoys what she does but the culture at her workplace is abysmal and draining. There is poor leadership, an unmotivated workforce, and a blatant disregard for the company’s mission and values.

This morning she mentioned that one of her coworkers was going to call out sick. She knew this because said coworker posted on Facebook that she wasn’t feeling well. Then she said something very interesting – she said that she was glad. The conversation went something like this:

“You’re glad that your coworker is sick?”

“No.”

“Well what are you so happy about then?”

“When somebody calls out sick, everyone works better because they have to work together.”

That was a bit surprising, a different perspective to be sure. I always considered it a negative thing to have an employee call out for some reason, but in this case my wife’s coworkers are forced to forget their drama/dislikes/personal problems for a day so that they can provide the same level of service to customers with fewer staff. This may not be true in all organizations, but it makes me wonder if this could be an effective method to use in an organization that is suffering from a case of poor culture. Perhaps by moving an employee out of the suffering department into a different one temporarily, the other employees will be forced to forget themselves and will be able to rally around the organization’s mission and values – perhaps a better leader will step forward who can drive the organization away from the issues that were holding them back in the past.

I’m sure that there would also be downsides, but I thought it would be worth posting and getting your feedback on. What do you think about the solution I have proposed?

A while back I was reading a self-help book (maybe it was by Covey, I don’t recall) and it helped me to understand the difference between our circle of interest and our circle of influence. So many of us, myself included, spend the majority of our time involved in our circle of interest. This is a problem because our actions have little to no effect on those things. So we’re thinking and reading and debating and getting all upset or emotional about things that frankly, we’re not even connected to. Instead we should be using our time and effort on things that are within our circle of influence, and as we do so we’ll eventually grow that circle to the point where it might come to include some of those things that we were interested in but could not yet influence.

The weak little human being that I am, I spend a lot of time thinking about deep things (hence the title of my blog!) related to politics, or sports, or psychology, or changing the world. I haven’t ever sat down to figure out how much time I’ve wasted, but I know it’s a lot. I have a family, and a job, and responsibilities at church and in the community so I have to come to grips with the fact that I am killing some serious time worrying about my circle of interest when I should be actively engaging those things within my circle of influence.

How does one go about changing their focus from interest to influence? I don’t have all the answers to that question, but as I sit here and think about it, it’s obvious that you just have to start doing things. Like, with your hands. Take up a hobby. Volunteer somewhere. Get yourself away from the computer or the television. Do something with your kids. Research your family history. The possibilities are endless. The key is to take some sort of action. As one of my favorite church hymns states:

There are chances for work all around just now,
Opportunities right in our way.
Do not let them pass by, saying, “Sometime I’ll try,”
But go and do something today.
’Tis noble of man to work and to give;
Love’s labor has merit alone.
Only he who does something helps others to live.
To God each good work will be known.

What will you do to focus more on your circle of influence this year?