Kid Fundraiser Bleg

Yes, I've become one of these parents. Jada's after-school program is having a plant sale to raise funds. There's a whole lot of really good stuff you can buy: annuals, perennials, herbs and veggies, hanging baskets, and even beginner bundles. If interested, let me know and I'll send you an order form; I need to get your order in by April 15 at the very latest. Thanks, and see you in the garden!

Huang Family Newsletter, March 2011

Crazy month for the Huangs. Amy and Lee both had major dental work done. Lee had speaking engagements in New York, Trenton, Pottstown, and Philadelphia. We were without Internet for 10 days (and, on a related note, goodbye to Verizon and hello to Comcast). Jada and Aaron went to birthday parties and puttered around downtown. Lee's mom had some major health complications but is now physically stable and recovering nicely. We could all use a nap (and your prayers).

Oh, the Places He'll Go

The David Oh campaign train is picking up steam:

* Newly redesigned website. (Scroll through for my endorsement. Indeed, how about someone who actually wants to serve the people and make Philadelphia and Philadelphians great? By the way, I didn't get promoted at my job; I'm not vice president yet.)

* Marquee endorsements - Republican ward leaders, Fraternal Order of Police, Fire Fighters Local 22.

* He even won the Philadelphia City Council at Large GOP March Madness contest, which came with its own "One Shining Moment" tribute video courtesy of Philadelphia Libertarian Examiner.

If you're interested in hearing more, a City Council at Large debate will take place on May 12 at WHYY, hosted by Committee of Seventy. My colleague Andy Toy will also be there, scrapping for a seat on the Democratic side. With the DROP fiasco casting a pall over many incumbents, this year's race will have particular vigor and urgency, so stay informed and be active.

Time and Money, Circa 2011

Is it me or does it seem like in our adult lives, we never have time, money, and energy? When we're first getting started, we have time and energy but no money. Once the kids arrive, we have money and energy but no time. Then, once the kids have finally gone, we have time and money but no energy.

Well, it's hard to quantify energy, but it's fun to talk about allocations of time and money, something I've done every couple of years now. (Go here and here for previous versions.) Here are my rough estimates for the present day, for our family of two kids and two jobs:

TIME
Sleep 30%
Work 30%
Kid errands (bedtime, meals, shuttling) 10%
Religious (personal prayer, church meetings) 5%
Adult errands (paperwork, chores, house) 10%
Adult fun (dates, leisure, exercise) 10%
Family fun (zoo, play dates, horseplay) 5%

Kids are more independent, but there now seems to be more administrative stuff, so the fun portion is still tiny.

MONEY
Taxes 20%
Savings (retirement, college) 20%
Giving (church, charities) 10%
Mortgage/transportation 10%
Utilities (house, phone) 5%
Day care 10%
Groceries, personal care 10%
Home furnishing/maintenance 5%
Health care 5%
Leisure, discretionary 5%

Gotta love public education. Nesting means house-related expenses register as more than a blip now, while paying into health care makes that register as more than a blip now as well. Adding Amy's salary into the mix, without a commensurate increase in some categories, also changes some of the percentages.

It's fun to do this and see how allocations change over time. We'll see what 2013 (and beyond) brings.

I Can't Get No Satisfaction

It is not uncommon for Christians to observe dissatisfaction in the lives of non-Christians as evidence of the "God-shaped hole" in their hearts that they are trying in vain to fill with something else that doesn't fit. Those who have not placed their trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior, so the argument goes, are desperately seeking satisfaction and not finding it: not finding it in casual sex, or worldly accomplishment, or material goods. Not even finding it in seemingly good things, like family or love or public service, may be even sadder still, and validation of the worldview that says that only God satisfies.

All well and good. I have nothing bad to say against such a line of thinking. However, what I often perceive is the opposite: it is those around me who are satisfied, and I who believe in Jesus dissatisfied. Let me explain, though, that far from contradicting my statements above, this is actually confirms them.

The rub here is whether there is anything more to our existences than this earthly life. If this is all there is, then many around me have peace with that and go on to live happy lives, filling them with experiences and pleasures to content their hearts. If there is any thought about the consequences of our present behaviors on if or how we will exist after we die, whether a vague understanding or a sharply vivid one shaped by a particular religious persuasion, it is usually the sense that if we are generally good people then we will be alright. (Of course, there are some who are very religious, have a clear opinion on the afterlife, and live their lives consistent with that worldview, but they are in the minority.)

I think differently. For one, I believe in a God who has standards, who judges fairly based on how we live on this side of eternity, and who has been clear about His own character and the conduct He seeks from those He has created. And, though I believe in the assurance of redemption through the saving work of Jesus through the crucifixion and resurrection, it does not remove from me the dissonance between a holy God and my own unholy life. Resultingly, part of me is at ease as I consider my secure status as one forgiven, but part of me is (I think correctly) not at ease as I consider the difference between how I ought to live and how I actually do live.

For another, I am not like many around me who seem generally satisfied with their lives, with the ways they spend their time and money, and with the things they derive pleasure from. With eternity in mind, I often feel the dissatisfaction of life on this side of glory. As John Piper says in his book, "The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God," there is a threefold frustration in man's earthly existence: we lack things perfectly worthy of taking pleasure in, we lack the ability to perfectly take pleasure in them, and we are constrained by our finiteness in taking pleasure in them long enough.

And so while I am, on one level, content and grateful and happy and rich, I am on another level profoundly dissatisfied. For I know that one day, the limitations Pastor Piper references will be gone: we will see God, supremely worthy of adoration, face to face; our bodies will be transformed so that we can take in that delight without any flaw; and we will be free to do so forever. And so the reality of those limitations keeps me from being completely satisfied on this side of glory.

Maybe you are a Christian and think me overly heady, or dour, or even blasphemous. Maybe you believe in another faith and find my musings narrow-minded or ignorant. Maybe you are of no faith and diagnose me as depressed or repressed. Maybe you are right. I have a long way to go until I am correctly satisfied where I ought to be and dissatisfied where I ought to be. Until then, I press on, and muse along the way.

Making Our Home in the City

Strangely enough, on a day in which I felt very suburban - drove the car to the strip mall, loaded it up with groceries, came home, and then drove it out again to another strip mall to load it up with stuff from Lowes - the Huangs essentially announced their commitment to urban living and to their current location.

University City, of all places, is a wonderful and yet weird place to settle. In the almost 20 years I've been here, it's improved remarkably, particularly as a place to raise kids. And yet, it is for many people a short stop en route to somewhere else: students moving on after they get their sheepskin, academics stopping in for a spell to teach and research before heading home, or young'uns eventually trading city life for the picket fence and 2.3 kids in the 'burbs.

In terms of profession and lifestyle, it hasn't been hard for us to like where we live: jobs galore, good school options for our kids, and tons of fun things to get to by foot or public transit. Perhaps, though, in the back of our heads we've been reluctant to fully settle in, because of the transience of many of our relationships. Even in our church, which has been there for 170 years and consists mostly of people within walking distance, we've seen so many dear friends come and then go, to other cities or to the suburbs or to the mission field.

But, as we perused the aisles of Lowes and picked out things for our indoors and our outdoors, we essentially said to ourselves (and then stated for the record out loud once we returned home): here we are, and no matter who else comes and goes from our little circle, let's get comfy. Because we're going to be here awhile.

I am embarrassed to admit that there are many basic things inside and outside our house that belie the fact that we've been here 11 years. But, over the next few months, we hope to make the place more like home. Who knows, maybe about a decade late, we'll have a housewarming party.

These I’s Tanks Are On E

One of the four axes in the famous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is “introvert” (“I”) versus “extrovert” (“E”), which is more than just whether you are gregarious or shy, but perhaps even more so whether being with people energizes or drains you. Amy and I are both fairly strong “I’s,” and while we enjoy the company of people, after a while it can get tiring and we need some alone time to recharge. Thankfully, we know this about one another, and one of the ways we look out for one another is to make sure the other has this recharge time.

Lately, though, we’ve both needed it and haven’t had much oomph to help the other get it. Both of our jobs are very demanding, not only intellectually but also in terms of interacting with, listening to, and directing others. Those times are broken up only by our times at home, when we are in constant interaction with two very noisy and needy little people, who are our biggest delights but who are no different than anyone else in causing us to feel drained from the contact.

It’s been an extended season of lots of high-intensity socializing on the work and home fronts, and I think Amy and I are a bit dizzy from it. At times, we wonder aloud about jobs that are quieter and more self-contained, or kids who are the same. But do not mistake these observations as complaints: we love our jobs and our kids, and are thankful for everything. We’re just a little in need of some cave time.

Center City, Here We Come

I worked at my first job for ten years and have been at my present job for five. And, including undergrad and grad schools, all of that has been in University City, where I've lived for the last 20 years. There's obviously a convenience factor associated with being able to walk or bike everywhere, and since both my kids' schools are also in University City, adding them to the commute has been relatively easy as well.

Well, next month marks our firm's move to Center City. And while I still haven't decided for sure how I'm going to get the kids to and from school (if I bike it, it's a few miles further, and if I bus it, I'll get stuck in rush hour traffic on the way home), I am looking forward to the convenience of being downtown during the work day.

Yesterday was a nice example of that. I had a presentation first thing in the morning and a second presentation mid-day, both downtown. So I decided to kill the time in between at our new office. (It's currently inhabited by the firm we're moving in with.) It was nice to not have to shuttle back and forth between Center City and University City via subway. And when a co-worker of mine had to bail out on a lunch gathering and an email went around asking if anyone wanted to take his place, I was able to take his spot and head down the street at a moment's notice before heading over to my second presentation.

I think I'll still feel like a fish out of my usual University City water. And, simple-headed as I am, commuting in and out of Center City will at first leave me agape at the tall buildings and more bustling street scene. But I'm sure I'll adjust over time. And, if yesterday was an indication, it'll sure make making meetings easier.

2011 MLB Predictions Guaranteed or Your Money Back

Here in Philadelphia, the season of the greatest promise in franchise history is already giving way to nervous hand-wringing. And we haven't even thrown out the first pitch.

I'm guessing it's a slow start and more nervous hand-wringing, but a steady hand by Cholly helps the Fightin's gut through the tumult and ride their marquee players to a second title in four years. That's right, Aaron, I'm pulling you out of school in seven months for your first championship parade.

Meanwhile, for once, I get to show my kids where my true baseball allegiances lie deep into October. Go Green and Gold!

NL: Phils, Brewers, Giants (WC: Rockies)
AL: Red Sox, Tigers, A's (WC: White Sox)
WC: Phils, Giants, Red Sox, A's
WS: Phils over Red Sox

Ode to a Ginseng Dad

Tiger Mom, meet Ginseng Dad. He is your less well-known but equally formidable Asian parent, in this case not a cruel Chinese mother but a stoic Taiwanese father. The methods may not be as sensational, but they are fearsome and cutting nonetheless: steady stoicism in the face of success after success, the pained expressions and laments of disappointment when we fall short, and the sharp calling of your name when you are on the brink of bringing embarrassment to yourself or the family.

Most of all, a quiet but steady work ethic, which leaves a deep impression on you despite very few if any outward "teaching moments." It is a work ethic that wakes up early to enroll you in a good school, that tends to the most mundane of house chores without fanfare or complaint, and that makes available every educational or extra-curricular resource that has potential for self-advancement.

I have always loved my dad, but I'm sure it will come as no surprise to him or to anyone that I did not always like him. But now that I am myself a dad, I have new-found respect, appreciation, and affection for him. While there are ways I parent differently than he did that I am glad for because I think they are better, there are far more ways I fall short of what he did that I would want to do myself but do not.

The Ginseng Dad will not get a New York Times bestseller written about him, nor would he want it. But I know a lot of Taiwanese people my age who are grateful for their Ginseng Dads, as I am for mine. In my multi-ethnic neighborhood, all of us hard-working parents are trying to fusion our way to the right parenting style: a little bit of Tiger Mom, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I am way behind on so many fronts. But I may have a secret ingredient: my stew has a little ginseng in it.

Lazy Linking, 39th in an Occasional Series

Stuff I liked lately on the Internets:

39.1. How do you beat the salad bar? Go for the most expensive stuff on a per-ounce basis. My high school buddies reading this are nodding in approval. [Hat tip: Marginal Revolution.]

39.2. I was a little early, but I knew this product would eventually be invented.

39.3. "Egalitarian, merit-based. That came from Noyce. Anyone can speak in a meeting, but you must speak with data. That came from Moore. Take risks, embrace innovation, but do it with discipline. That's Andy Grove. World-class manufacturing came from Craig Barrett. I've added a marketing component." That's a nice summary of five generations of Intel leadership.

39.4. My favorite "Economists in Love" interview so far: Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers.

39.5. These are not your mother's historic preservationists - nowadays you're likely to hear them talk about environmental sustainability, new urbanism, economic stimulus, and tourism.

39.6. "Selling" naming rights to a charity.

39.7. #1 cola? Coke. #2 cola? No, not Pepsi anymore - Diet Coke.

39.8. Experts weigh in on the impact of the return of high gas prices, and whether and how to seize the opportunity to implement sound transportation policy.

39.9. Looking to make your head hurt? Read this article about what the biggest number is. [Hat tip: Big Questions.]

39.10. Caterina Fake says social media is so popular because we all have a fear of missing out. Myers-Briggsians, does this mean we have all become ENFP's?

Position Opening - Children, Youth, and Family Director @ Woodland Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia PA

[Note: I have posted this before but we have yet to fill the position. Please pass along to any who are interested and have them contact me.]

***

Job Title: Director of Children, Youth, and Family (CYF) Ministries

Hours per Week: 15-25

Paid?: Yes

Start Date: Negotiable (prefer Summer 2011)




Overview of Position and Opening:

Woodland Presbyterian Church is a multi-ethnic, multi-generational church located in an urban setting at the intersection of campuses and community. We are a PC-USA congregation that was first formed in the 1860’s. Our Sunday morning worship service typically draws 100 worshippers, including 15-25 children. We believe that children, youth, and families are all important members of the family of God, and therefore their spiritual growth is an integral part of the overall health of the church and its mission to the neighborhood around us. The Director of Children, Youth, and Family (CYF) Ministries works in collaboration with other staff, Session, and volunteers from the congregation towards that end. There is always more to do than the time allotted each week, so prioritization, efficiency, and delegation are important components of a successful CYF Director, as is the ability to work with a wide range of children, youth, families, volunteers, and staff members.

Woodland’s staff presently includes a full-time Interim Senior Pastor, a full-time Sexton, a part-time Administrative Associate, and a part-time Music Minister. It is our preference that we are able to fill this position in time for a Summer 2011 start date. If you are interested in this position, please submit your cover letter and resume to Lee Huang, Chairperson of the Personnel Team, at jobs@woodlandpres.net (email), fax (215 386-1725), or mail (42nd and Pine Streets, Philadelphia PA 19104). We will try to answer all inquiries and will contact you if we would like to set up an interview.



Responsibilities/Duties:

Leadership

• Connect the work of CYF to Woodland’s larger work, and communicate that work to congregants and to other stakeholders

• Serve as a public face, point person, and final decision-maker for all aspects of CYF

• Represent CYF and its agenda via interfaces with internal (worship, building and property, outreach, education) and external (partners, community, Presbytery) entities



Recruit, Train, and Disciple Members of the Congregation into CYF Ministry

• Encourage those with a heart for children and family ministries to get involved

• Recruit and support volunteer leaders

• Direct the training of volunteers in teaching and in working with children



Direct Ministry Responsibilities

• Supervise volunteers in the following programmatic activities and age groups:

 Sunday School for infants (0 to 18 months), toddlers (18 months to 4 years), children (4 years to 9 years)

 One-week Vacation Bible School summer camp

 Other offerings as mutually determined with staff and Session (examples: Christmas pageant, service opportunities, missions trips)

• Establish relationships with parents and families and be sensitive to their needs and concerns

• Become an active member of Woodland and participate in Sunday worship service periodically as a member of the ministry staff, for purposes of promoting and forwarding the ministry of CYF

• Explore and supervise ministry initiatives for pre-teens and teens, including connection to other churches to pool youth ministry activities

• Explore and supervise family ministry initiatives, including connection to other local resources to provide spiritual guidance to young families

• Commit to pray regularly for CYF leaders and volunteers, children, and families


Administration

• Attend weekly staff meetings

• File a quarterly report of past and future activities and accomplishments to Session

• Develop and enforce policies relating to all aspects of CYF ministries (for example, ensuring that the appropriate back ground checks are carried out on all volunteers working with children)

• Develop and monitor CYF portion of the church’s budget



Oversight and Support:

The Director of CYF Ministries will report to the Head of Staff and will attend weekly Staff Meetings.

The Session will ensure that the following support mechanisms are in place so that Employee is in the best position possible to serve in a way that is fulfilling to her and productive for the church:

a) inclusion in a staff team in which everyone's position description is known to one another so that staff members can better support and collaborate with one another,

b) 1-2 deacons assigned to pray for and support Employee in her work and to help advocate for the work of CYF in the broader work of the church,

c) Annual check-in sessions with the Personnel Team for purposes of receiving encouragement and advice as well as together clarifying the position description going forward.



Compensation:

Salary, benefits, and vacation are negotiable. Consideration will be given to funding and enabling various professional development avenues, such as books and conferences.

A Prayer for the World

As a belated response to all the tumult in the Middle East, Japan, New Zealand, and elsewhere, I note that in my "year of memorizing Bible verses" schedule, since earlier this month I have gotten stuck on the passage below. It is by far the longest I've attempted to commit to memory, and because it has seemed to hold particular relevance for the moment we are now in, I have lingered on it for longer than all of the others. Won't you consider saying/praying it with me for a little while longer?

Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change
And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea;
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
The holy dwelling places of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered;
He raised His voice, the earth melted.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our stronghold.
Come, behold the works of the LORD,
Who has wrought desolations in the earth.
He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth;
He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two;
He burns the chariots with fire.
"Cease striving and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

1st Annual Ultimate Chef for West Philadelphia's Own Center for Culinary Enterprises

If you're a foodie, your mouth will water when you see all the good stuff lined up for May 11, when the 1st Annual Ultimate Chef takes place at WHYY in downtown Philadelphia. Guests will be treated to "a culinary battle of epic proportions, featuring the talents of some of the region's finest chefs." Translation: a 5-course tasting menu brought to you by the industry's biggest names. And all in support of West Philadelphia's own Center for Culinary Enterprises, a project of The Enterprise Center. You're going to want to check this out.

PS Speaking of culinary delights and non-profits doing good, I would be remiss if I did not also mention a foodie-related fundraiser being held - tonight, actually - by another West Philadelphia entity I have a connection to. ACHIEVEability is hosting "Food for Thought" at the Navy Yard, and you can find out more here.

Net Loss

If you’re wondering where I’ve been the past ten days – by far the longest I’ve gone between blog posts in many years – I wish I had a more noble answer for you. But chalk it up to having no Internet service at home, being incredibly busy during that span, and not having much to say anyway during that time span.

(By the way, I don’t want this post to turn into one long Verizon rant, but basically they screwed me for eight days, giving me all sorts of conflicting reasons for why my Internet was working, wasting my time every night, and then concluding by telling me I could wait another 12 days for a technician to come out and see what he could do. I canceled on the spot, dialed up Comcast, and was quickly told they could have me up and running within 24 hours.)

One dear Christian brother of mine told me he had had a recent spell of three days without Internet, and it did him wonders – he and his wife actually had good conversation in the evenings, he got to catch up on reading books, and he generally enjoyed the detoxification from being online all the time. Another dear Christian brother of mine responded to my sighing about not having Internet access with a “good for you,” and proceeded to tell me he wished his Internet would go down because he found the whole thing more pain than pleasure.

Alas, I’m not nearly as deep as these two friends. It was not lost on me that my unplanned Internet fast began right before Ash Wednesday. Could it be that while others were giving up chocolate or meat or sports websites that God was asking me to give up connectivity? Surely I sure needed such a break, whether from the time spent poring over websites or blabbering away on my blogs.

If that was the lesson, I most certainly failed it. Unlike my one friend, I did not use the time away from the web to strengthen my relationship with my wife; if anything, I did damage, responding to her gracious acts of empathy in the midst of my frustration against Verizon by spilling over some of that frustration upon her. (It’s the “perk” of being a loved one, is receiving the collateral damage of someone boiling over.) And unlike my other friend, I did not see the time away from the web as a moment of relief from the information overload; if anything, I pined all the more, sighing aloud everywhere I turned because I could not get access to something I would’ve otherwise quickly looked up. (I suppose it would have been one thing to just give up Internet for a couple of weeks, whereas for me it was taking away Internet and replacing it with hour upon hour of frustrating tech support conversations.)

It did not help that web-related to-do’s were starting to pile up, like bills and taxes. It definitely did not help that, even worse than not having Internet access, one to three hours each evening was spent on hold with Verizon, yelling at Verizon, explaining the same thing over and over again to yet another wave of Verizon customer service representative. In short, it was an awful time away.

In the grand scheme of things, ten days is nothing. I could still check my emails off my smart phone (although I don’t have a very good one, so it was slow and clunky). I live close enough to home that the times I had to be home to wait for a contractor were not too terribly inconvenient. And, I did try to reign in my frustration and general sense of discombobulation in the spirit of seeing this all as one big object lesson from God about taking a break from things and being able to let go of frustrating incident after frustrating incident.

Nevertheless, it was a miserable time. And, if it was a test, I failed badly. But, for better and worse, the test is over, and I am connected again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check today’s weather, catch up on ten days’ of econ blogs, and download that tax form I’ve been unable to complete my return without.

Body Talk

Warning: corny Christian analogy ahead. Earlier this month, I did something I hadn't been able to do in two months, which was to run outside. Between snow on the ground or good football/basketball games to watch the next morning, it was all treadmill, all the time. It was fun for awhile, and is easier on the joints, but, having run out of sports to look at, I was plumbing the depths of my limited DVD collection and finding Season 1 of CSI Miami to be acceptable but not gripping.

So it was with great anticipation that the snow finally melted away and I could resume my favorite outdoor running routes. My first run was on a surprisingly frigid but bearable morning. As I ran and sipped water from an old water bottle, water splashed onto my porous old gloves. I didn't realize how cold it really was because I was working up a good sweat, not having pounded the pavement or done really steep hills in awhile.

But then my fingers started feeling tingly. Instinctively, I switched the water bottle between hands to avoid having to hold this cold object with any one hand for too long, then pulled my gloves down and balled up my fingers, and finally alternating sticking hands in my armpit. Mercifully, I ended my run, rubbed my hands together, and headed inside, where I doused them with warm water and massaged them back to non-tingly status. Grabbing my gloves with my bare hands, I realized the fingers of the gloves had frozen over. Again, didn't realize it was that cold out.

It occurred to me that, no matter how zoned out I was as I was running, my body knew how to react to this unanticipated stress. Pain radiated to my extremities, and I responded by pressing those extremities against other parts of my body to warm them up.

I wondered if there wasn't a lesson or two here for the Christian community. Sometimes it is those who are on the front lines who get all the glory, but we forget that there is a whole support system in place, of nerves and vessels, to make sure that our extremities can do their part. And, when those extremities are stressed beyond their ability to cope, it makes sense for them to retract for a bit, pressed up against others, to get warmed up.

Some of us all of the time, and all of us some of the time, are the metaphorical hands and feet of Jesus, out there touching and walking. We do well to remember that we are connected to a larger body, not off on our own. And we do well to remember when we are not playing the role of the extremities, to do our part to support and warn and enable them. And, finally, we do well to have moments of being pressed up against each other, neither forsaking those precious times together nor thinking that they are the end all and be all of being alive.

The human body is an amazing creation, the way different parts are so different and yet inextricably linked. It is my hope that the body that represents the people of God here on earth can be similarly different and yet intertwined.

Lazy Linking, 38th in An Occasional Series

What I liked lately on the Internets:

38.1. Want to get a Kindle but don't have the money? Just wait a few months: it'll be free soon.

38.2. Christians afraid their smartphones are a constant distraction should instead use them to get constantly distracted with the Bible.

38.3. Vegas and Phoenix are hot, but not in the way you think: real estate heat map shows clearly how much values have fallen there.

38.4. Katja Grace raises awareness about why raising awareness is no good.

38.5. Will tough fiscal times move us to be smarter about the way we run our schools? David Brooks hopes so.

38.6. Guy Kawasaki has Bieber fever.

38.7. Another thing cities are better than suburbs for: stoking revolutions. (I would add: "And hosting championship parades.")

38.8. I'm not sure what the author's intended take-away is for this article, but for me it's "I still think the way you do water conservation is to price it correctly."

38.9. How to save for retirement? Try hanging on to those nickels.

38.10. To the pizza guy who tried to hurt his competition by releasing mice in their shops, I don't know whether to slap you in the face or slap you on the back.

38.11. Two of my colleagues join up with the former mayor of Milwaukee to pen a really nice op-ed on something else that needs to be reformed about Freddie and Fannie, which is their current bias against Main Street.

Saturdays

For Amy and me, yesterday epitomized the evolution of our lives:

* Before we got married, Saturday meant going roller-blading and canoodling in the park.

* After we got married but before we had kids, Saturday meant working for Amy while I cleaned house (or, right before we had kids, went to two grad school classes).

* When we first had kids, Saturday meant the zoo or some other fun adventure.

Now, Saturday means:

* Waking up early and dragging my sore body through the streets of Philadelphia for a run before the kids wake up.

* Going grocery shopping while Amy does the laundry.

* Doing the taxes while Amy cleans house.

We broke up all that fun with periodic calls to our kids to come down for mealtime or to clean up the mess that has become their rooms and play areas. I tell you, we live a wild and crazy life, the two of us.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Game Night at the Huang House

The first-ever Game Night at the Huang House last weekend was a raging success. We had bought "Sorry" and "Connect Four" for Jada's birthday, and decided to play them together as a family. Strange how they've tricked these games out for the "Nickelodeon" generation: "Sorry" featured the ability to build and move walls, as well as something called "The Claw," while "Connect Four," with its tilted board and adjustable flippers, resembled a pinball machine or a carnival game.

No matter: once we learned or relearned the rules, it was off to the races. When Amy was the first to get all her pawns safely home, she and Jada and I exulted . . . and Aaron sulked. Our attempt to get him to cheer with us only made him want to overturn the board. We called a family meeting to explain that within us four, we "rejoice when others rejoice, and suffer when others suffer," to paraphrase a concept from the Bible. That seemed to calm him down a bit, as did him finishing in second.

Methinks another Game Night is in order in the near future. Let's hope the kids grow up fast enough that we can tackle "Life" and "Monopoly."

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

Week-long diversion to the U.S. Virgin Islands aside, I've had my nose to the grindstone of late at work, powering through a lot of different engagements. So it will be fun to get out of the office a bit in the weeks to come, as I have four speaking opportunities in the region:

* March 11 (Philadelphia) - Historic preservation at Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission

* March 12 (Pottstown) - Economic value of protected open space at Schuylkill Watersheds Congress

* March 16 (New York City) - Fair lending at Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development

* March 25 (Trenton) - Urban agriculture at Isles Inc.

Not sure what I will be able to convey to these audiences, but you can bet I will be taking notes on my fellow speakers. Should be fun. (In a nerdy, wonky sort of way.)

Vanity Fare

Here's what I tweeted from the dentists' chair last week:

puffed daddy: dental appt leads to unexpected root canal, which leaves my face mighty swollen

It turns out it wasn't the unexpected root canal that left me puffy; it was the dentist's inadvertent prick through the top of the tooth area and into the rest of my face. The area under my left eye immediately filled with pain and then pressure, and then that swelling spent the rest of the week sliding down my face. Plus I was left with a mark under my eye that completed the effect of looking like I'd taken a mighty punch in the face. It was, to say the least, a little uncomfortable and a little embarrassing.

Thankfully, though, there was no pain, which my apologetic dentist told me over the phone a couple of days later meant that the issue would resolve itself over time, and that there was no abcess or infection in there. Which freed me from pangs of worry over my health.

Interestingly enough, though, it did not free me from all pangs of worry. Muser that I am, I could not help but think about how this little incident exposed my vanity. It turns out I do actually care about my appearance, more so than I'd probably like to admit to myself or others. I found myself feeling worse about myself, allowing my mind to wander over the remote possibility that my lopsided face would linger and then what would I do with myself, wanting at times to hide and not engage with the rest of the world around me.

In the grand scheme of things, this was a little blip. And yet that is precisely my point. If something as minute as this was causing my self-image to shake, how much more might my identity and confidence be rocked if something more significant happened to my physical appearance? For someone who purports to be defined first and foremost as a child of God, whose value derives not from my looks or my accomplishments or my inherent goodness but from what my Savior has done for me, this little trial exposed me as awfully vain.

The thing about the Christian life is that it is full of these little tests, these looks in the mirror, these step of faith moments. Sometimes we pass, and sometimes we fail. But, by God's grace, we keep moving forward.

50,000 Hits

We celebrate another milestone here at Musings: 20,000 hits as of May 2009, 30,000 hits as of February 2010, 40,000 hits as of November 2010, and now 50,000 hits as of March 2011 since I put a counter on the site in February 2005 (which was two years after I had launched this blog in February 2003). Thanks for visiting, and I hope you'll continue to stay engaged.

Note 1: This is visits to my Blogger page. I realize this stuff gets automatically posted to other places, most notably Facebook, but I haven't figured out how to keep a counter of those reads.

Note 2: My YouTube page is also over 50,000 hits. One of the more popular videos is "Mean Goose," in which my concern for my son's safety and well-being is trumped by my commitment to getting some really good footage. It was not one of my finer moments. But it is a classic clip.

Boys Will Be Boys, the Aaron Huang Version

Any of you who have boys (or have been boys) will probably resonate with this. Aaron got a Power Rangers book as a birthday favor, and has insisted I read it to him every night at bedtime since then. One morning, he came downstairs and, in an ominous voice not unlike the one I have used to read the book, announced that he was now a Power Ranger. Apparently, this transformation could only be completed by drawing a big green blob on his forehead with a permanent marker. I’m pretty sure I cannot imagine Jada, or any other girl, behaving in this way at age four. What is with boys? And how is it that so many of us end up surviving childhood intact and go on to live somewhat normal lives?

Things That Make Me Happy, the "My Daugher is Happy" Version

Near the top of all parents' wish lists is that their kids find good friends. Perhaps even more than the parents themselves, a child's peer group holds incredible powers of influence over that child. It may very well be that the most important thing a parent can do to raise a kid right is to make sure they find good friends and to help them be good friends to others.

So I could not contain my happiness watching Jada at her first ever birthday party with school friends. These six girls happily did crafts, cracked jokes, and raced around our house. Jada was so happy you could practically see her tail wagging. Best of all, these girls all seem so sweet and nice, and they genuinely enjoyed each other and being with Jada.

Sure enough, the very next day, Amy took Jada to the doctors' in the morning. Jada was miserable, and not just because the pediatrician's office isn't the funnest place. No, she missed her circle of friends. And, when Amy returned her to school, they made eye contact with Jada, called out her name loudly, and raced over to her to dispense hugs and catch her up on everything that had happened that morning while she was out.

Amy, in the meantime, took it all in, grinning ear to ear. I think the happiest a parent can be is when they see their child happy. Especially when that happiness springs from having good friends.

What Am I Working On

As has become my custom every three months, here's what I'm working on now at work. I won't repeat anything from last time that I happen to still be working on, and for confidentiality's sake I have to blur some of the details for some of these studies.

* Conducting an analysis of a major municipality's spending distribution to minority, women, and disabled owned businesses.

* Conducting an analysis of the racial, ethnic, and income distribution of home lending, business lending, and branch locations of all the banks that a major municipality has its deposits with.

* Producing a "state of the local banking industry" report for a local jurisdiction.

* Updating a cost-benefit model we produced for a local jurisdiction for use in evaluating candidates for tax incentives.

* Updating an economic impact report we produced for a local jurisdiction of business investment generated by a tax incentive program.

* Comparing a local jurisdiction's tax incentive program with that of competing jurisdictions.

* Quantifying the economic, fiscal, retail, and real estate impacts of the programmatic and construction efforts of a local non-profit.

* Updating an environmental scan we conducted for a local university of key trends affecting its operations.

* Helping a group of neighborhood institutions set up a special services district.

* Quantifying the economic and fiscal impact of proposed construction projects seeking federal stimulus dollars.

Recommended Reads, Fifth in a Series

Stuff I'd recommend from the past three months:

* The Best and the Brightest (Halberstam) - A young and charismatic new president representing a new era and a new way of doing government, only to get bogged down in a war he kind of inherited and kind of exacerbated. We do well to know our history, lest we repeat it.

* Democracy in America (Tocqueville) - What a fantastic collection of musings by a young Frenchman on what democracy looked like in a young and growing world giant. As famous as this book is, I was constantly and pleasantly surprised at how relevant it still read.

* American Beliefs (McElroy) - Loved loved loved this look at traits forged at the inception of our nation that have continued to shape how we see ourselves as Americans. Especially fun to read right after Tocqueville.

* Nurture Assumption (Harris) - What's more surprising, that a child psychologist would dare claim parents have so little influence on how kids will turn out, or that she would be able to state that case so persuasively and humorously?

* Unpoverty (Lutz) - An unvarnished look at how the rest of the world lives. And yet, for the gaping divide in income levels, we all have a lot in common: a commitment to a better life for our family, and an irrepressible spirit to make that happen.

* National Bank of Dad (Owen) - How one dad teaches his kids about money. In a nutshell: give them responsibility over it. A lot more than I'd be comfortable.

* My American Journey (Powell) - Colin Powell's autobiography, as of 1994. Fun to see how each life experience shaped the way he approached the next assignment and formed the "rules for life" he orients his decisions around.

Things That Make Me Happy, the "Run Mitch Run" Version

It's not easy to be a Republican in my neighborhood. Last weekend, I canvassed a one-block radius from my house with my kids, seeking signatures to help David Oh get on the ballot for City Council at Large. Because he is running as a Republican, only registered Republicans can sign the petition. I was given a list of 800+ names (they don't clean these rolls very well - there were names from my house, for example, who haven't lived there in over 10 years), and only 40 were R's. We hit those houses and found none of them. And I was not surprised by this at all.

I admit that some in my party have said and done things that are cringe-worthy. But I still believe in the essential tenets of that party. But I do not often have those tenets backed up by the words I take in from those people I tend to interact with or those media outlets I tend to frequent. So it is nice to find someone serious who affirms them, and who does it so persuasively and humbly and gravely. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the wonky Republicans' choice for President in 2012: Mitch Daniels.

Read this speech, which he gave last week to the Conservative Political Action Conference. Here is a fundamental view of government, as described by someone who put it into practice at a state level and who would like to see it happen more at a national level. I would like to hear more. But what I've heard so far makes me happy.