Category Archives: miscellaneous

family, miscellaneous, Writing

Getting Back Into a Routine

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I’ve said it before: I enjoy routine. To be able to start each day in the same way, to progress through the day with the same activities as the day before. The routine will vary between weekday and weekend, but each has its own routine, and I like each in its own way.

I was in a good blog routine, until my website was stolen sometime between Jan 15 and 22. I had just missed making a routine blog post. I went to do the next routine post and…couldn’t log in. Someone had changed my user name and/or password. It took three or four days to figure out what to do with it, pay for some beefed-up security, and get my site back. I think it was Jan 24 or 25 when that was accomplished. I made a quick blog post about it, and, since that time…nothing. No more blog posts. In fact, very little writing. I was thrown out of my routine.

But here I am, back again, on a routine Monday, with my routine blog post. I also had some success working on my work-in-progress of late. I’m now past the midway point, approaching the three-quarter point. I think I can finish by the end of February, which might mean publishing in March. Now, I also need to get back to a routine blog posting schedule. I’m going to stick with Monday and Friday. That was working well, describing my weekend activities on Monday, and my weekday activities on Friday.

Along with that will be discussion of my work(s)-in-progress, my reading and reviews of books read, my observations of the world, and here and there a post about any old thing I think will attract readers. So, look for me to be here more regularly. I don’t plan on disappointing you.

Oh, yeah, a few days before I drafted this post, and a couple of days after, I had a pair of personal calamities. I’ll talk about them as well.

 

miscellaneous

Hacked

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The word “hack” appears to be undergoing some changes to meaning, and I didn’t get the memo. Our pastor has a sermon series going on titled “Life Hacks”. It’s steps you can take to improve your Christian walk. So, I’m learning that “hack” is a noun meaning “a clever tip or technique for doing or improving something” [Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary].

Who knew? I mean, why didn’t someone issue an announcement about this? Hack doesn’t mean that. It means to chip away at something, as with an ax. It means to cough sharply. It means to attempt to gain illegal access to a computer or related technology item. It doesn’t mean a clever tip or technique.

I’m being somewhat facetious. Yes, I’ve heard this newer use of the word, over the last five to ten years. How in the world the old uses for hack have been supplemented by this newer use I don’t know, but this old Baby Boomer doesn’t approve.

But, using the older meaning [an act or instance of gaining or attempting to gain illegal access to a computer or computer system], this website was hacked. It occurred sometime between Jan 15 and Jan 22. I tried to login on the 22nd to make a post, having skipped my normal post on Jan 19th. I couldn’t get in. Someone had changed either my password or user name, or both. Nothing on the site seemed to be changes; I just wasn’t able to get in to manage the site.

Monday I was in no mental condition to deal with this. I started investigating this on Tuesday, but wasn’t able to get much done. I did some checking through WordPress.org, but wasn’t able to figure out much. Finally, on Wednesday, early morning in my pre-work time at the office, I started dealing with it through my web hosting service. They were helpful. They directed me to a security company they work with. I bit the bullet and subscribed to a service to get a firewall and heavy-duty scanner set up. It took over an hour on the phone, but it got done. I had immediate access to my site.

So, I’m back, after a week of not posting then two days of being locked out. I still have more security stuff to do, and I’m in the self-education phase of that. I hope in a day or two at most I’ll have all the other stuff done, and will feel more confident about jumping back in and posting regularly.

miscellaneous, Writing

Not Really Feeling It

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I missed blogging last Friday. I had a couple of things in mind that I could post, but I wasn’t really feeling it, so I didn’t. Not really feeling it today, either. This is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, but I’m working. The forecast last night called for snow starting in the early morning, perhaps as early at 5 a.m. I decided if it was snowing when I got up, I’d take the day off. I was up around 5:15 a.m., and looked outside. No snow. Went back to bed, and woke up a minute before the alarm was to go off at 6:00. Looked outside. No snow. So I stayed up and went about getting ready for work.

Next year, on a day like this, I'll be in the sunroom, only moderately heated, with a cup of coffee and a good book.
Next year, on a day like this, I’ll be in the sunroom, only moderately heated, with a cup of coffee and a good book.

6:26 a.m. rolled around; I had everything ready to go to work. Opened the garage door. No snow. So I got in the car and drove to work, stopping for gasoline along the way. Got to work around 7:00 a.m. Still no snow. Disappointed in the no-show snow showers, I quit looking out my window. Until around 10:00 a.m., that is, when I looked out and saw it was snowing, just starting to stick to the ground.

Around 10:15 a.m. I stepped outside the building, just to be in the snow for a while. As always, I found it refreshing. At noon, if it’s still snowing, I’ll go out for a little longer, just to feel the snow hitting my face, and dreaming about being a kid again.

I’m not sure what to do about the blog. When I began this many years ago, on the Blogger site, the prevailing wisdom was that a writer should have a blog. Now, I’m hearing new prevailing wisdom, that the Age of the Blogs has passed, and maybe a writer doesn’t need one after all. I’ll be thinking about this, and deciding what to do.

Meanwhile, enjoy your holiday, those of you who get one. Enjoy your snow day, those of you who like snow. Possibly I’ll see you on my next regular blogging day, Friday.

miscellaneous, Writing

A Gathering of Writers

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About a month ago a I saw a notice for a writers gathering on Sunday, Jan 2, in Bella Vista. It’s been close to a year since I’ve gone to any writing event, either as a participant or observer. That was a small group, but it was good. So, I put this event on my schedule and looked forward to it.

There’s just something about being with other writers. I can’t explain it. It just gives me a boost, and makes me write all the more.

So yesterday I got home from church after picking up lunch from Wendy’s and dropping recyclables at the AARP recycling center. That gave me an hour to eat, rest a bit, and drive the fifteen minutes to the venue. I got there at exactly the time it was supposed to start, and found…

…one other car there—a pickup, actually—with one man in it. He rolled down his window and said he was calling the organizer to find out what was going on. Two or three calls later he got the word: It was cancelled.

Disappointed, I drove the fifteen minutes home, got some coffee, and checked the website. Now, when I first heard about this event, I didn’t see it on the organization’s website. Rather, it was on a Facebook page for the Ozarks region, a place where a number of organizations share their information. Now, I checked the organization’s Facebook page and, sure enough, there was the notice that the event had been cancelled.

Shame on me for not double-checking, or for not going to the organization’s own Facebook page instead of to that other page.

Ah, well, I went to The Dungeon with the mug of coffee, but didn’t feel much like writing. I looked over a few things, did some planning, but, otherwise, just pulled up some oldies on YouTube and listened to them. That, is always time well spent for me.

family, Genealogy, miscellaneous

2017 Re-cap

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While I had much family here for Christmas (some still here, till tomorrow), I didn’t worry about keeping to my blog schedule. So here I am, writing this post on New Year’s Eve, my birthday, for posting tomorrow. I think what I’ll do is just paste in our Christmas letter, perhaps adding a few comments at the end.

=============================================

Christmas displayDecember 2017

Greetings family and friends!

This branch of the Todd family has fallen into routine. Not a rut, for that has a negative connotation. Routine, on the other hand, can be good. It helps you to be efficient in your activities, and to effectively complete all tasks you need to complete. Yes, routine is good.

the four EsOur routine was broken a few times this year, three of them being extra significant. In June we drove, in caravan with our daughter Sara and her family, to the quadrennial General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene in Indianapolis. Richard was a delegate to one of the pre-assembly conventions. We went along to help out with the four kids, and, of course, to see old friends. Last time we attended general assembly was in 1980 when it was in Kansas City. The trip was good, without unsafe incidents of car trouble. It was indeed a good time. We saw those old friends, worshipped a great God with thousands of others, and were renewed and refreshed. Our accommodation was an older home rented by the week. We had a yard and parks nearby, so the kids had room to run.

Richard and SaraThen, on the way home, we spent a week in Branson, at a townhouse that is part of our timeshare company. We saw plenty of sights there. Branson has so much to do, for all ages. When someone wasn’t up to something, we just stayed at the townhouse. Miniature golf, Silver Dollar City, and a whole lot more filled our five days there. While we were gone for the almost two weeks, Lynda’s brother was here from Santa Fe to be with their mom. So we got to see him.

Another unexpected “event” came from Dave’s genealogy research. For years he has been trying to find out more information about his (supposed) maternal grandfather. Having only a name and a few anecdotal statements by his grandmother, he hit dead ends. Until DNA relatives showed up in 23andMe, and he was able to make connections. It turned out his grandfather had two other families, and he is now in touch with most of his previously-unknown first cousins from those families. Getting to know all these people, through Facebook so far, has been a delight.

And Dave had another “event” that broke up the routine. He’s been Corporate Trainer for CEI for eleven years now, and figured he’d stay that until his retirement at the end of next year. But, in early November his boss asked him to take on management of projects that have moved into the problem stage after construction. It started with three projects, is now up to four, and more are in sight. This has taken him back to his project management days. It has certainly been a change, as his hours have increased as he deals with the problems, leaving him almost no time for training. He thinks this new normal will take him right up to retirement.

Lynda has had some physical challenges this year. She’s had severe aches and pains show up in her legs, that caused her doctor to put her on a new medication. It turned out that med has some bad side-effects, however. She weaned herself off that med before things got bad. Now she’s wondering if other meds she takes have caused other problems, such as morning listlessness and what she calls “brain fog”. She does a lot of studying of health issues, and is hoping to gradually get off some meds and see if that helps. Meanwhile, she continues with stock trading, with Dave’s help from time-to-time. It looks like the year will turn out profitable.

We made several trips to Oklahoma City for grandchildren’s birthdays. They are growing up fast. The three older ones are in school, and little Elijah gets into everything when his sibs aren’t around. They teach him well. All three seem to like school, and to do well at it. Richard continues to split his time between pastoring the church and managing the R.O.C. ministry.

Charles at podiumCharles is now working two jobs. He continues as a dean for the College at the University of Chicago. He is also a dorm parent for an off-campus dorm. In both of these he stays busy. He will surely advance through university administration. The dorm thing is temporary. He plans on doing that for a year or two, then seeing where life and career takes him. Because his dorm job required him to be there over Thanksgiving, our family gathering is a Christmas this year.

EMB at birthdayEsther, now 92, continues as always, a little slower, a little farther removed from the world around her, but still kicking. She hasn’t had any new health problems develop this year. The biggest thing was the death of her sister, Faye, in July. We made the trip back to Meade for the funeral. So Esther, the oldest of four sisters, is the last still alive.

O Come O Come EmmanuelWe close this letter with a wish for the best for each of you. May God bless your lives, filling you with good things, and may they spill out with compassion for others.

Love,

Dave, Lynda, and Esther

===============================================

Emmanuel has come. We had a good Christmas with much family here, and contacting many more by phone. Yesterday I spent a quiet birthday with my mother-in-law and brother-in-law, as Lynda is in Oklahoma City for babysitting. For the moment, all is well. 2017 was a challenge in many ways. May 2018 be better.

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, memories, miscellaneous

Death In The Journey

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Death does in fact change life, for those who are left to mourn.
Death does in fact change life, for those who are left to mourn.

In my last post, I started talking about the life journey I’ve been on. Several times death has punctuated that journey. At least once that death was life-changing. I allude to this in my most recent publication, When Death Changes Life. While those collected stories are officially fiction, they do come from a point of knowledge about how a death in the circumstances described will impact a family.

In my melancholy moments, I often think about another death: that of Chemala Johanan Babu. He worked for me in Kuwait. When I changed companies there and became a Director of Infrastructure Engineering Services at Kuwaiti Engineers Office, I inherited a crew that was working offsite. We were partnered with a British firm to improve one of the interstate-quality highways in Kuwait. The crew we supplied was mostly CAD technicians. They worked under the supervision of the Brits, in their office, although they were employees of our company. I had no need to do anything regarding this team. The Brits processed everything about them, even their timesheets. All I had to do was watch their billable hours get added to our department’s.

I met them all only once. When I learned that I had this crew working offsite, since I hadn’t met any of them, I made a trip across the city to meet them. They were all names to me, who became faces, but faces I wouldn’t ever have to deal with. Babu was one.

Nothing to do with, that is, until the job they were working on came to an end, and these men (about eight of them) would have to be let go. It was a sad day when I had to write them all a memo, telling them their assignment would come to an end in a month, and that we had no other work for them, and thus would have to let them go. Sad, yes, but they knew it was coming. They knew they took an assignment that would end at some point, and that their employment wasn’t needed after that. Kuwait allowed workers in their position to shop around on the open labor market, and hopefully they’d find a job with another engineering company.

The day after that memo was out, Babu was in my office. I recognized him, and realized I had seen him one other time, at the National Evangelical Church of Kuwait. There were two large Indian language congregations (Tamil and Malayalam, if I remember correctly), typically each over 1,000 in attendance, that met very early Friday morning, much earlier than the English Language Congregation, all of us sharing the same facilities. I had seen him there once, not sure why the two of us were there at the same time. Now here he was, the third time I’d seen him. I’d met him once, and then seen him. Now seeing him again, I realized who he was.

He came to plead his case to remain employed. He really needed the job, he said. There was something about his visa that wouldn’t allow him to stay in the country unemployed while looking for a job. He would have to go home. At least, now 27 years after the event, that’s how I remember it. I felt sorry for him, and said I’d see what I could do.

I checked with the other directors, scoured my own department’s workload, and had nothing. I did, however, have the promise of a couple of projects that would start soon. One was another roadway project with a different British firm; the other was improvements at a university campus. Neither project was guaranteed, but both looked good. We would know on both in a couple of months.

I decided I could take a chance, keep Babu on staff for a month while we waited on those projects, and help him out. If those projects both came through I would have to hire someone. I reasoned that keeping him on staff for a month without billable work would be no more expensive than having to go through a hiring process.

I called the off-site office to tell him the good news. He wasn’t there; had been that morning, but not since lunch. He didn’t call me that day. The next day I called again. He hadn’t yet reported to work. Later in the morning I learned the awful news. The previous day he had been to the Indian embassy on some personal business. Taking the bus to near the office, he crossed a six-lane road on foot. Except he didn’t make it. He was hit by an Iraqi driver who was in the country illegally and driving without a license. Babu was killed instantly.

A day or two later I went to pay my respects to the family. He had lived with his sister and brother-in-law in one of the poorer sections of Kuwait City. I went there to find the streets packed with people from southern India, all coming to mourn with the family. One of our senior mechanical engineers was from Babu’s province and language group. He met me and brought me up to the house, through the crowd.

Inside, I met only the brother-in-law, as the sister was wailing in another room and didn’t want to meet anyone. He and I talked about what would be done with the body, if the police were notified, if there were any mourning rituals I could participate in (such as fasting). It was a good ten-minute visit, and I was off again. The mechanical engineer thanked me over and over for coming. I hope it helped them.

So, this was part of my life journey. Not a happy part, obviously. But, as I said earlier, it’s something that always comes to mind in my melancholy moments. As I get older, and am nearer to death myself than to birth, death will become more and more a part of my life. I’ll have many more chances to grieve, and to mourn with others. Yet, the story of Babu will stay with me, forever a memorable part of my journey.

Christmas, miscellaneous

A Day Late

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I often write my Monday blog post on Sunday afternoon, and schedule it to post on Monday at 7:30 a.m. This past Sunday, alas, I spent that time working on our annual Christmas letter. Normally I write this, then Lynda edits it—sometimes lightly, sometimes severely. It gets done, as do the cards, and they go out. Seems like fewer and fewer each year.

That took up most of my free time Sunday afternoon, so I didn’t get my blog post written. I wanted to do it Monday morning, in my personal time at the office before I start my work day. Alas, other things got in the way. My devotional reading ran long, and morphed into editing. I read in my Harmony of the Gospels, either the text or the Passage Notes. Right now I’m in the passage notes. I read those notes related to a certain passage, then I go back to the text and read the harmonized passage. It’s a good way to do it, except I tend toward editing rather than just devotional reading. Still, I enjoy this, and don’t mind if it runs long.

But that meant I had less time than normal before work started, and I had to get to my long to-do list before I could tackle writing this post. So, here I am, writing it a day late.

And, I have nothing more to say, really. The days are busy, the evenings full, and sleep is a welcome escape from all I have to do. Retirement is now 1 year and 26 days away. Perhaps that will be a welcome relief as well.

Documenting America, Engineering, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, miscellaneous, Writing

When Busyness Leads To Weariness

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Sold one of these this week.
Sold one of these this week.

The good news first: I sold 5 books this week.

Two of them were direct sales to someone who buys all my print books when they come out. The other three were on-line at the Kindle store, most likely to a man from church I met with this week. He has a book idea and wanted to discuss the self-publishing process with me. We met for lunch in my office on Tuesday. He mentioned particular interest in two of my books, and those are two that sold. Maybe he bought those, and a third one as well. That puts me at 70 sales for the year. Not great, but certainly better than last year.

Meanwhile, on the engineering front, I’m now up to four problem projects I’m dealing with for this one client. I wrote about this situation before. My wife asked me how long I would be dealing with these. I told her 1 year, 1 month, and 1 day, my (then) countdown to retirement. These are consuming just about all my work time, forcing training issues into the background.

And then, two different people have asked me to work on specifications for their projects. One is a mostly done spec that needs correcting. The other is a spec for a project that’s part of a nation-wide rollout program for which we have standard specs. That will be about a day’s job. The spec to edit may only take a couple of hours.

Put into this mix a trip to St. Louis next week (maybe) to see the site of one of these troubled projects, and you have a real problem as to time to do anything. I’ve written nothing this week. Christmas is coming, and right now it looks like I won’t have any writing time till after that. Maybe, I suppose, I might be able to carve out an hour here and there, but that’s about all.

It’s making me very weary. I had three nights this week where I slept poorly. Last night was better, but I’m not yet caught up. A heavy day of yard work and other chores awaits tomorrow. I sense a very weary Saturday evening, and falling asleep either on the couch or in my chair.

miscellaneous, Writing

What’s Consuming My Imagination

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This is the e-book cover. The print book cover will be very similar.
This is the e-book cover. The print book cover will be very similar.

It’s been a while since I wrote anything new on my works-in-progress, or even about what new things have come to mind. I guess it was less than a month ago that I laid out my 4th quarter writing plans. Nothing has changed in these plans—officially, that is. I published When Death Changes Life as an e-book, and am about a week away from having it published as a print book. So that’s good. I haven’t yet resumed work on Adam Of Jerusalem or The Gutter Chronicles: Volume 2. However, Sunday afternoon I actually wrote a little on AoJ. And today I looked at prior edits to TGC with an idea of typing them later. So both works are simmering, and may boil soon.

But, I find my gray cells consumed—my creative gray cells, that is—by two other things. Some things I’ve been discussing with my grandchildren, especially my oldest one, have gelled into what could become a book, or more likely two small books. For now I’m titling this Nine Life Freedoms Gained and Lost. For some time now I’ve noticed how my grandchildren have developed, and how freedoms have come to them. The first freedom is learning how to walk, which is a freedom of mobility. How much more territory can a toddler claim than a crawling infant?

The second freedom is when you are potty trained, and free from diapers. This is a freedom of control over bodily functions. It gives you great freedom of movement; you aren’t tied to a toilet any more, or, worse, covered in a diaper. It signals physical growth.

I started thinking of these somewhat over a year ago, maybe even two years ago, as I watched my grandchildren develop. Since they live four hours from me, and I see them five or six times a year, I see their development in spurts, not continuously. I’ve noticed these freedoms they develop into. I’ve thought about the additional freedoms they will someday have. I’ve expanded this into a total of nine. This was all sort of organic, I guess you would say. I was mainly trying to understand the growing up and maturing process, not thinking about writing a book.

I’ve also noticed over the same time period how these freedoms are lost to people as they age. The ability to walk is lost in whole or in part as your legs grow weaker with age. Incontinence is the manifestation of loss of the freedom of control of body functions. The other freedoms, gained during childhood, youth, and early adulthood, are slowly lost with age. Perhaps not all of them, and perhaps some not at all, but all can be lost. It is when one of these freedoms is lost that the person requires a caregiver. The caregiver has to help the person who has lost one of more of these freedoms.

This has been rattling around in my head, consuming so much of my creative gray cells that I’ve had little energy left for actual writing. That it could possibly become a book became evident to me in the last month. But would it be a book for parents, for caregivers, or for both? The latter didn’t seem like a good idea, and the first one seems to be too crowded a field. That meant it would be a book for caregivers. Today in church it hit me that perhaps I have two books here: Nine Life Freedoms Gained, which would be for parents; and Nine Life Freedoms Lost, which would be for caregivers. They wouldn’t be large books. I’m somewhat leery of starting them. For now they are nagging ideas. At some point I’ll put a little more on paper. Perhaps that will free up my mind for other things.

Speaking of other things, a new book idea came to me a week or two ago. Yes, yet another book idea. This one came to me as a title. I was studying in Romans for teaching Life Group when this idea came. I was thinking of Paul’s impact on the early church, and how the story and teachings of Jesus were disseminated. The title came to me: And So It Begins: The First _____ Years of Christianity. It would be non-fiction, but would draw from what I have written or plan to write in my church history novel series.

This book, if I ever write it, is further down the road than is the freedoms books. It will be after AoJ and one more book to be sandwiched between Doctor Luke’s Assistant and Preserve The Revelation. I’ve already written some ideas for the contents. Once I get them put in a notebook, and hence retrievable in the future, their activity within my mind will soon die, and I can concentrate on current work.

miscellaneous, Racism, rant

NFL Player Protests

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I wrote a post some time ago about Colin Kaepernick’s protest during the playing of the national anthem at the start of NFL games. Since then, many other players have joined the protest. They won’t stand for the anthem, looking at the flag with their hand over their heart. Instead, they stand, kneel, sit, or raise a fist. What Kaepernick started has grown significantly. No end is in sight.

The protest is mostly by black players. It concerns unfair treatment of black Americans by police forces throughout the nation. They say that police are harsher in their dealings with Blacks, and are more likely to shoot and shoot to kill, whereas with Whites the police try more extensively to work it out with verbal commands. I hope I’ve stated this position correctly.

The protest is very visible, as they intend for it to be. It has also produced considerable response from NFL fans, a response that is, perhaps, exactly opposite of what the protesters want. Fans are tuning out in anger. Attendance at NFL games is down this year. Television ratings are down. Both of these drops seem to be more than statistical anomalies, and rather reflect that something’s going on. The NFL has suggested it’s due to over-saturation, and that they’ve gone too far in pushing the NFL out to the public. Most people, however, believe the drop in attendance and viewership is fan backlash against the protests.

You could say that the fans are making their own protest, a private protest against the protesting players and against the league, which is allowing them to do this. But is a silent protest any good? Shouldn’t protests be visible? Otherwise, how to you bring about the change in the situation you’re protesting? To not do a thing is passive. To do a thing is active. Players are actively protesting, and fans are passively protesting the active protest of the players.

I haven’t heard any fans who say the players have no case, or are protesting a problem that doesn’t exist. Fans are simply saying the protests are at the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong way. Or, perhaps another way of interpreting this, is fans truly aren’t sympathetic to the protest, i.e. they don’t see the same problem as the players see, and thus don’t want to hear about it. They don’t say this, but they believe this. Who knows which is correct.

Into this mix, throw in the concept of free speech. The players have a right to protest, a God-given right of free speech protected from government interference by the Constitution. Yes, this is true. Also true is that everyone who works for a living gives up some of their rights when they enter their employer’s place of business. Some even give up some of this right outside of the place of business. A public school teacher who posts nude photos of themself online, outside of normal working hours, will almost certainly be fired. Long ago I realized that I shouldn’t put political bumper stickers on my vehicle, since my employer seeks to win public projects and any political display by me might hurt those prospects. My employer never said don’t display political leanings in a way that would harm us. It wasn’t necessary to mention it; I was smart enough to know not to. But, had my employer said that, my rights would not have been restricted. It was an employer saying that, not the government.

So where am I going with this? I look at the protesting NFL players. Their employer—either the teams or the league—could restrict their free speech as a condition of employment. But the teams haven’t, and the league hasn’t. What’s going on, however, is they are losing their audience. Their protests are backfiring. Because the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees you a right to free speech (i.e. no government infringement on free speech) but it does not guarantee you an audience. You have to earn an audience, earn it by the way you protest and the words you say. Earn it by making plain what it is you are protesting, not just grandstand the problem. Earn it by trying to actually make a change, not just call attention to it.

Someone might say, “Some are in a position to make changes; others are in a position to call attention to the changes needed but not necessarily to bring about the changes.” That’s a valid argument. However, everyone needs to consider the effectiveness of their work (in this case their protest), and decide if the audience is getting the message, which would suggest that change is coming. If the audience isn’t getting the message, or if the audience is rejecting the message, it’s time to reconsider the protest methods and perhaps do something else.

This is where we are right now, it seems to me. The NFL players who are protesting are losing their audience. Meaning they aren’t bringing about the change they desire. It might be time to change tactics.

I assume the NFL players are trying to make me see the need for a change: that I’m part of their target audience. I don’t know for sure if that’s what they want, but I think that’s the case. I’m just a part of who they want to reach. They want to reach the whole country. I’m part of that demographic.

I would say to the players: Look around you. See how your protests are being received. Is your message getting through? If not, change what you’re doing. Protest in another manner. Or, better yet, rather than just calling attention to a problem, DO SOMETHING to solve the problem. Your platform is huge; your influence is great. If you would work to solve the problem, rather than just call attention to it, maybe, just maybe, you will change the world.