The Gamble Family (.Net)

The following was taken from one of those Internet emails that I was sent, but it is very good.

An Old Farmer’s Advice

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

Keep skunks and bankers and lawyers at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered…not yelled.

Meanness don’t jes’ happen overnight.

Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.

Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Every path has a few puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.

Don’t judge folks by their relatives.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.

Don’t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t botherin’ you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin’.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in.

If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

Last night, my wife and I attended Cirque du Soleil’s presentation of Delirium in Nashville. The presentation was a combination of music, theatre, dance, acrobatics, and modern technology, all combined into an explosion of visual overload.

The presentation was somewhat different from what you expect from typical Cirque du Soleil. There were less acrobatics, and more theatre. The performance was simply astonishing. Throughout most of the show, there was a sheer curtain in front of the live stage. The curtain provided a projection screen, on which suplimentary visual effects were projected. The overall effect was a seemless blend of projected imagery and live performance. And, of course, there were the acrobatics - A woman performed trapeze-like maneuvers on a loop suspended high above the stage, four men created human jigsaw puzzles in an awespme display of strength and balance, women performed mid-air dance maneuvers suspended above the stage in what appeared to be silk enclosures, just to name a few.

To give you an idea into what it took to create the performance, consider the following statistics:

-	Above the stage, 2 special rail bridges designed especially for Delirium support 130,000 pounds of equipment.
-	The main character alone requires 4 motors for his actions in the air balloon.
-	3 enormous generators are needed to run the event.
-	20 18-wheel trailers transport the technical equipment from arena to arena.
-	14 tour buses transport the artists and the crew.
-	There are 145 people on the tour, including 45 artists, 75 technicians and 25 management and artistic support personnel.

If you get a chance to catch this performance, I highly recommend it. The images below, taken from the Cirque du Soleil site, will give you an idea as to the visual feast that you will experience.

As I grow older, I realize that I am being torn in equal, but opposite directions. I am both a Techno-geek, and an “old school” man. Since my professional background is a combination of electronics and computer software, I have always attempted to keep up with the ever-expanding world of technology. I love (or at least appreciate) computers, digital cameras, PDAs, MP3 players, and the like. Yet, I also appreciate the feeling of a fine pen gliding across smooth paper, 1095 steel Old Timer knives, and those last few seconds before sunrise when the holiness of God seems so thick in the air.

These distinctly different worlds often collide in my life. They compete for my time and energy. The conflict makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes the word “progress” is a contraction in itself.

Most of us have come to depend heavily on the hi-tech wonders of today. If I don’t have my PDA with me as I walk down the hall at work, I feel naked - like some essential part of me is missing. All of the information that I routinely need access to is stored in that device: Phone numbers, appointments, quotes, etc. They can all be retrieved in seconds with a stroke of the stylus. Microsoft One Note has become my life-blood for note taking and information gathering on my laptop computer. I ripped my entire CD collection into MP3’s, and then sold all of the CDs at a yard sale two years ago. All of the photos that I have taken over the past four years have been taken with a digital camera (and I’ve actually printed only a handful of them). It sometimes seems that too much of my time is spent downloading the latest upgrade to my favorite software goodies. How did my priorities get so skewed and my attention so diverted?

Then, there are those other parts of my being that relentlessly beckon me to a simpler time. As I said earlier, I love the feel of a fine pen gliding across smooth paper - The heft of the pen in my hand, the sensation of the point moving across the paper. I love to hold an Old Timer pocketknife in my hands. Old Timers were (until July 2004) one of the last “Hand-made in the USA” knife brands left. When you hold an Old Timer, you are immediately connected to it’s point of birth - To the many people that took part in stamping the blade, cutting the Delrin scales, assembling the pieces, and then grinding the edge. I carry my dad’s 61OT Old Timer in my pocket often. Everytime that I pick it up and hold it, I feel his touch and his spirit. I miss him. These are only two examples of the point that I’m attempting to make when I say that I am torn between two lovers.

We have gotten so caught up in “trying to keep up” that we are loosing touch with where we came from. My wife and I were going through some old photographs a few weeks ago. The photos came from my mom’s house. The pictures date back as early as 1900. As we looked at them trying to identify the people in the pictures, I made the comment that she and I were perhaps the last generation that will ever care about these photos. They are pictures of my ancestors, going back to my great-grandparents. What will become of my history? I don’t perceive that my 23-year old son has any interest in these pictures or in knowing about the people that God brought together throughout all of time in order for him to be conceived. If not him, then who?

Why are we so focused on the tomorrow, on what needs to be done, on hurrying from one appointment to the next, while at the same time, moving all to quickly away from our past? How much faster can our fast-paced lives get without our minds, our very existence, spontaneously combusting? On some days, I feel the future gently seducing me, and on other days I feel it dragging me along in a death grip.

Give some thought to the list below. The items represent the past and the present. Some of the comparisons represent progress, some represent regression, and others simply show that we haven’t necessarily moved from where we were. I’ll leave each one up to you to decide.

Green chalkboard	Dry erase whiteboard
Fighting the Nazis	Fighting terrorism
Intimate conversations	Text messaging on your Blackberry
Country dirt roads	Black-top interstate highways
Speaking from a podium	Conducting a web conference
Marijuana	Crystal Meth
Lynyrd Skynyrd	Smashmouth
Made in the USA	Made in China
Maxwell House	Double Latte
Turning a page	Dragging the scroll bar
Family evening meal	Eating a burger on the way to soccer practice
Thanksgiving at grandma’s	Thanksgiving at Cracker Barrel
Wood-burning stove	Microwave oven
Love letters	Email
Shelby Mustang GT	Lexus LS
Playboy	Internet porn
Cash	PayPal
Newspaper article	Daily blog
Encyclopedia Britannica	Google

I will leave you with this parting thought. You can have anything you want if you are willing to risk losing everything in order to get it.