A Well Rounded Weekend

If the title doesn't make sense, reference my previous post where I discuss how I am awesome now because I am married.  In this post, you get an update of both the Vanderbilt Football team as well as some of the more exciting moments from Puppy playtime.

Despite my serious disagreements with Vanderbilt's current administration, I am still a die hard Vandy sports fan.  The spring football scrimmage was on Saturday so my new friend Law and I decided to scout out the team and see how our prospects look for next season.  We were very pleasantly surprised by how many people were there!

My verdict is as follows.. D-line looked good, but the defense as a whole seemed a tad bit misguided without Marve calling shots.  There were a couple severely blown coverages throughout the game, but the DB's looked pretty dang good when playing man-to-man. Overall, the defense should be able to keep us in the game as they always have.  

O-line looked a little soft, and certain receivers need a stern talking to about the amount of effort that is expected out of them to make a catch.  Stacy didn't really get the opportunity to do very much, but Franklin warned of that ahead of time.  I think we are going to be light on offensive star power this year, but it is Vanderbilt, so stars have to be created and not recruited, so I am optimistic a young guy will step up.

As always, James Franklin is the man.  It is so great to see someone who honestly believes in Vanderbilt Football but is willing to admit the reality of the situation.  Previous coaches thought we could just "run the ball" at teams like Alabama, Auburn, Florida and LSU.  The fans quickly realized that when the other team is bigger, faster and stronger, it is pretty hard to score touchdowns using 1960's tactics.  Franklin acknowledges that we have players with much less obvious talent and he plays a more intelligent game, trying to outsmart the other team.  It is finally exciting to watch Vandy play!  Keep up the good work Frankling, and Go Dores!

In true Vandy fashion, the scrimmage was ended by an incredibly over-the-top and excessive fireworks show, that I enjoyed much more now that I don't have to pay for it anymore.

Moving on to exciting puppy news - we found Pippa's baby twin!

Her name is Stella and she is patiently watching in the background as a random at puppy playtime pets Pippa.

Tell me her and Pippa don't have the exact same coat?  Stella will end up being a little smaller than Pippa, but for now she is just a great reminder of what a smaller Pippa looked like.

Lia also found a puppy that looks exactly like Lia's second favorite dog in the world, Willow.  I'm sure you all know about Willow by now.  If you haven't had the pleasure of reading about Willow yet, check out random lia dog post #739.  Or really, any of Lia's posts will do.

For those who like to see puppy playtime in action, I've included a video of Pippa playing with her friend Kota. Kota is a ridgeback and was bred to hunt lions in Africa.  Pippa wasn't phased by the tough pedigree at all.

We have also found a church that we like! More to come on that.

The Cost of Success

As many of you know, Lia and I aspire to be rich people.  We hope that one day we will look back at things like college debt  and budgets and chuckle heartily, rambling on about how bad things were back when we used to buy frozen chicken in bulk at Costco.  This is not our sole intention in life, but let's just say that we hope for, and are actively working toward, a point where finances are not an issue.  I think most Americans are in the same boat.  We all have different levels of ambition, but I believe most people would love to live a comfortable life where all of their needs are met and most of their wants are taken care of as well.

This is why I find the recent rhetoric so disturbing.  When Americans who earn very high incomes are singled out and targeted as somehow being evil or deserving of different treatment, I get a tingly feeling running up and down my spine, and not in a disco boogie kind of way.  Why are we allowed to so openly discriminate against a very small minority that has essentially only committed the crime of being more successful than us?  I think it is fair to say that I am not in the 1% in terms of income or net worth, so why am I so troubled by this movement? 

I'll tell you why… because it sets a precedent that minorities in this country can be ridiculed, persecuted and even legislatively discriminated against  so long as a majority of Americans are ok with it.  Fairness has nothing to do with those who have the ability to pay more being forced at gunpoint to pay more.  If you think that the gunpoint part is being dramatic, don't pay your taxes and see if a fancy little IRS agent with a gun doesn't show up at your door.  Fairness implies that everyone is treated the same, regardless of their differences.  It wouldn't be fair to make your smarter child do your dumber child's homework just because they are smarter.  Both children should do their own homework as it is assigned.  It also wouldn't be fair for one child to do all the chores just because they are better at scrubbing toilets.  The work should be split equally between all parties.  If you continually reward good work with more work and even hostility, you will quickly watch your high performers rejoin the herd.  Fairness means blindfolding yourself and treating everyone equally. Period.

The true issue with the tax structure is not that the top few people are not doing their fair share, but actually that the overwhelming majority of people are not doing anything at all.  I understand that we need to help the needy among us, but come on folks.  When more than half of the country is claiming to be the needy, it is time to take a step back and redefine what being "needy" means.  Most of the needy in this country own multiple cars, have cable television and eat at Chilis way too often.  There are those that are truly struggling and need help, but a vast majority of them are just taking advantage of a broken system.  If anyone would like to argue about whether 150 million people are starving to death, I would be happy to entertain that conversation for about 30 seconds.

More than half of the fine residents of this super cool nation do not pay any federal income tax at all.  Their votes, however, count exactly the same as the dude who is paying millions in taxes.  This is a bit terrifying, since what incentive does someone who doesn’t pay taxes have to curtail spending?  When you walk into a restaurant and you know you are expensing the dinner to your company or client, are you going to order a sandwich or the prime rib?  Economists refer to this as a third party payer system.  Individuals become very price insensitive when they cannot personify the other individual who is picking up the tab.  

People who don't pay any taxes at all now have enough votes to effectively govern those who do pay taxes.  The system is designed to where the poor masses make the laws, but they have to maintain respect and appreciation for the wealthy.  Aristotle saw all of this coming thousands of years ago when he wrote down a few fun things that have proven quite wise.  I've taken some quotes from the Stoa Consortium below (A bunch of professors who cater to people like me who are too lazy to go buy the paperback.)

"democracy...when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers."

"To endure, a democracy, like an oligarchy, needs both the rich and the poor. A democracy that destroys the well-off becomes unstable. Where the people have authority over the laws, demagogues tear the city in two by fighting with the rich."

" In democracies, the rich should be spared and not have their property or their incomes redivided [for distribution to the poor]. They should also be prohibited from spending money on expensive but useless sponsorships of public occasions such as leading choral groups for musical and dramatic festivals or officiating at torch races, even if they want to pay for such sponsorships."

Pippa has taken over my life & other truths

Sean has totally been rocking at this blogging thing and I am so pumped about that because otherwise this blog would have a total of one update this whole year. Sad.

I've been a little MIA recently because being a mommy is  time consuming! Pippa is sooo cute so all I want to do is go explore our neighborhood with her on walks or snuggle her on the couch. My life productivity has really taken a hit. I'm okay with that...I'll never get these puppy months back (I do realize that I sound like a nut and that she is just a dog).

A picture montage of the cutest puppy in the world. Yes, she has a big head. She actually gets personally offended when someone on the street doesn't stop to pet her. "Do you know how cute I am??" Amen sista.

Can you handle that? I can't.

I also want to grumble a bit about how it was 44 degrees this morning here in Nashville and about how I  am sitting in my flannel pj's and a down puffy jacket on my couch because I refuse to turn the heat on in April. Hmph.

I'm gonna go iron now (aka snuggle my puppy). Maybe I'll have something else to blog about one day...don't count on it though.

Mid-Week Crisis

Lia and I have a fun relationship.  I allow her to all-but-ignore my incessant rambling about the future of the world and the role I intend to play in that future, and in return she allows me to incessantly ramble about the future of the world and the role I intend to play in that future.  It works out well because I am able to voice my opinion and see how it sounds out loud, and Lia is allowed to maintain her sanity while continuing to read her mommy blogs.  Once in a blue moon, however, Lia decides to speak up and obliterate my illusion that I have everything figured out.

Let's take my future career choices as an example.  For a number of reasons, I have narrowed my options down to three reasonable expectations for where I want to be in 20 years.  The three roles I have chosen for myself are Governor of Tennessee (or Florida, I'm not picky, but I do love living in Nashville), Major Real Estate Developer (emphasizing in urban renewal and mixed-income mixed-use communities), or Entrepreneur Philanthropist Business Tycoon (likely through a Private Equity or Venture Capital endeavor.)  While I believe all three of these to be quite realistic if I set my mind to it, I had never completely thought through the repercussions some of these choices may have on my personal life.

Lia may have just thought that three prospects was too many, but regardless of her motivations, she recently decided to eliminate one of those options with extreme prejudice.  She set her sights on the Governor role, which I would have to assume is because it is the least lucrative of the three fields and Lia is acquiring quite a taste for expensive puppy toys and doodle accessories.  Either way, Lia forced me to come to terms with what that role would mean.

I think that I would love the problem solving and leadership aspects of being a politician.  You get to apply your intelligence and power on a daily basis to figure out how to manipulate those around you into acting in the way that you perceive to be in their best interests.  You also get unlimited amounts of other people's money to do it and lots of loyal folks with guns to make sure no one legitimately questions what you are doing.  Sounds like a dream job, doesn't it?

But then Lia gets into the lifestyle.  I like people a lot.  I love hearing people's stories and I relish discussing topics with people who really know what they are talking about.  I do not, however, see myself enjoying constant random social functions where I am required to pander to specific groups' interests while pretending to like terrible people and act interested in topics that I find insanely boring.  I also tend to speak my mind, which isn't regarded very highly in a world where everything you say can be used against you and honesty is synonymous with weakness.  I may also struggle with political correctness from time to time, so I could only imagine how often I would make the front page with insensitive comments about how unions are inherently selfish institutions that spit on the consumer and trample the interests of the rest of society while pushing their own agendas forward.

Upon further consideration, I also wouldn't like the job itself very much.  I believe in acting intelligently as much as possible, and the current political system makes that all but impossible.  While I would prefer to start from scratch and use the finest ingredients to make Lia's delicious cinnamon rolls, politics tends toward requiring people to take a spoonful of sugar and somehow make a bucket of dirt palatable enough to not incite the people watching reality TV to leave their couches and revolt.  Most of my solutions to problems require admitting that the current systems have fundamental flaws that are beyond the band-aid approach and should just be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up.  The reality is people love the illusion of change, but they actually hate change when it happens.  That makes green-field system design all but impossible within the current political environment.  Trust me, if people loved change as much as you thought they did back in 2008, I would be out of a job.  Since they don't, band-aid approaches branded as changes/improvements/reforms will have to suffice.

This leads me to one of the many observation's I have made that will help you understand my world view:  Generally speaking, people are confused about who they are and what they actually want.  The example above shows how I am just as guilty as the next person.  Lia was able to poke holes in that one illusion I had created for myself, but Lord knows how many others I am nurturing right now.

I think that this principle has significant implications in that it implies that most people make calculated decisions that we will later refer to as "mistakes."  One example for me is moving to Sunny Isles Beach.  The place looked awesome and appeared to cater to the lifestyle that I thought I wanted.  It turned out that the people there were slimy and the location, while being close to things I thought I cared about, was actually quite far from my true priorities.  We have luckily fixed that mistake by relocating to Nashville and placing ourselves in the middle of all of our friends and restaurants we can actually afford to eat at.  Luckily that mistake only cost us 72,000 happiness units and a year of our lives.

Marriage and children being two obvious exceptions to this next statement, I do believe that people grow out of this lack of understanding as long as they are allowed to make those mistakes.  Imagine if I had coincidentally moved to the perfect location after college and did not realize what I valued in living location until after I had bought a house in the wrong neighborhood?  I am glad that I had the opportunity to make that mistake while being a young renter and still able to correct it. I think it is hard to watch, but you really do have to let people fail in order for them to learn something from their experiences.  As a caring spectator, it is your job to make sure that the person does not cause irreparable harm and then you must also be there to help them recover after the failure.

The exceptions, as mentioned above, are decisions that are permanent in nature or mistakes you only get to make once.  Think about how much worst it is for people who pick the wrong career, or god forbid, the wrong spouse.  This is one of the reasons that I am a big advocate of pre-engagement interrogation.  Lia and I planned out our entire lives before we got engaged, not because we actually thought the plan was going to come true, but rather because we wanted to see whether we were on the same page in terms of our hopes and dreams.  We were close enough to where I didn't feel the need to go back to the market.  This communication seems like common sense, but I am continually amazed at how many people make the second biggest decision of their lives without taking the time to discuss basic things such as how many kids they want to have or their philosophies on managing family finances.

The governor story above is a great example of how listening to a unique perspective and just talking it through honestly can help a person to realize something is a bad decision before they have to go through the pain of actually making the mistake for themselves.  If you are insightful enough to truly analyze a situation objectively, then you deserve to miss out on the pain of a few big mistakes.  Imagine if I had taken a political job in hopes of accomplishing a dream that would have actually been disastrous for my long-term happiness? I would have wasted years of my life and not moved myself any closer to accomplishing what would actually have made me happy.  It is possible that I would have enjoyed the entry level job for a while, but chances are I would have realized my mistake sooner or later.

Sorry that this post turned out to be so heavy.  I don't want to make you question every decision you have made in life, and please keep in mind that I am far more contemplative than the average bear and plan a lot, and I mean a lot, more than you do.  To make sure that I do not feel personally responsible for any major life changes that could occur due to you reading this, I have included the sole message that I would like for you all to take away from this story:  It is a great thing for me that Lia isn't very good at ignoring my rants.

The Case for Local Government

So I got into a discussion last night with one of my buddies and it was a very, very enlightening conversation.  Being that it is tax season and a lot of my self-employed friends are having to write gigantic checks to Uncle Sam, taxes have been a hot topic on a lot of people's minds.  When I say taxes, I am referring to Federal Income Tax.  Please disregard Social Security and Medicare Tax (Payroll Tax), State Income Tax, State Sales Tax, Local Sales Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Property Tax, Estate Tax, Enterprise Tax, Federal Corporate Income Tax, State Corporate Income Tax, Local Corporate Income Tax, Business Origination Fees, Tariffs and Duties, Gift Tax, Drivers License Registration Fees, Court Filing Fees, Parking Meters, Toll Roads, Security Taxes (Airlines), Bus Fares, Sin Taxes (Cigs, Alcohol, Gasoline), Museum Admission Fees, Water and Sewage Bills, and Stamps.  Please forgive me if I forgot to mention any and obviously those taxes vary wildly depending on where you live and what you do each day.

None of those taxes seems particularly bad by itself, but the people who are smart/dumb enough to add them all up before calculating their effective tax rate are the ones walking around with a frown every spring.  I'm not here to demonize and attack a minority in America (the 1% who we all secretly wish we could be) or talk about taxes being too high (in fact, I think certain taxes are actually too low).  I am here to show to you all how truly convoluted our tax structure is and hopefully point out some fun facts about taxation that influence my thinking.

The key point that jumped out at me was how much bigger Federal Income Tax is than all of the other taxes.  If we take a quick look at a typical case for a moderately successful married couple's largest tax burdens they look like this:
Federal Income Tax: $25,000
Federal Social Security and Medicare Tax: $7,000
State and Local Sales Tax: $3,500
Local Property Tax: $3,000

Now why is this shocking enough for me to take time to write a post about?  Because think about which level of government actually provides you with tangible benefits.  When people defend taxation, they immediately go to the big 3:  Safety, Roads and Schools.  My safety is provided to me by the local police and fire departments.  The roads I typically drive on are county roads, although I occasionally use state and federal highways.  I don't yet have children that attend schools, but appreciate that parents get babysitting provided for their kids for 15 years. I am myself a product of public babysitting (no offense to people trying to change that, but you are the one's who best understand what I mean.)

What do those three things have in common?  They are locally funded!  Your Property Taxes and Local Sales Taxes are paying for the public schools in your area, the fire stations in your neighborhood and that cop driving down your street.  They are also paying for those beautiful streets and sidewalks as well as that huge brick library that you rent kindle books from.  Oh yeh, those measly funds are also expected to cover parks, courts, the airport, public golf courses (yay!), emergency management, gigantic convention centers that no one really wants, and of course, those lovely buses that are always going somewhere.

If you take a step back and think about it, your local dollars go a long way.  Some of it good, some of it bad, but you can generally see where the money being spent is in some way, shape or form making your city more livable for at least some portion of it's residents.  You benefit from living in a more developed and awesome city.

When you move to the state level, things get a little more fuzzy.  Your State Sales Taxes and the number of point-of-service taxes help pay for some obvious services:  state highways, drivers licenses, state troopers, state parks, state courts and public colleges.  The state also starts to get into some of the more re-distributive spending.  That is spending that is in no way ever intended to benefit you at all.  These expenditures include Medicaid, Children's Services and Unemployment Benefits.  There are scenarios where people you know may need those services, but taxes wouldn't really be on their mind if they did.  A number of those re-distributive services are assisted through Federal block grants.

If you have read this far and have finally made it to the Federal level, you are going to need 7 lawyers and a crazy straw to be able to tie most things back to you individually.  I can't possibly list all of the things the Feds are doing, but that is because no one in Congress can either.  Let's hit the 5 biggest expenditures:
Medicare and Medicaid: 21%
Social Security: 20%
Defense: 20%
Safety Nets: 13%
Veterans Benefits: 7%

Those 5 cost centers account for 81% of the $3.6 trillion federal budget.  Every one of those is a nationwide safety net in case you are unable to care for yourself, except for Defense and Vet benefits, which accounts for about a trillion dollars spent every year to ensure the Canadians don't try to take Detroit from us.  I'm not arguing about whether or not safety nets are good or bad, I'm just saying that independent people don't use them.

I think the facts here point to one clear principle:  Local Taxes benefit the entire community while Federal Taxes can be considered a combination of charity and paranoia.  So why are federal tax receipts four times larger than all local taxes for the entire country? That's what I wonder.  If you read through all of this, you are braver than most and hopefully a better informed voter for it!

My Confession

As I sit on the back deck and watch my dog dig up the grass that i spent hours planting last week, I can't help but think that I would have drop kicked one of my dogs had they misbehaved that badly growing up.  Now all I can think about is how cute she looks as she destroys my hard work.  Does my dog have some kind of magical powers that allow her to manipulate me, or is it true what all the single men in the world have been saying for centuries?

Marriage makes you soft.

At first glance I cant help but believe they are right.  I have a puppy that I enjoy playing with and refuse to beat mercilessly, I lose bets and have to become a vegetarian for days at a time.. and I'm starting not to mind it, I find myself glancing up more often at shows about married couples that have 20 kids (I will not succumb to the wedding dress shows, those are just pathetic), and I am less confused than I used to be when my wife brings me home new clothes that I wasn't expecting.

The thought even crossed my mind that my hypothetical kids would enjoy Mule Day down in Columbia.  Lia loves to spend time with her own kind!

What has happened to the callous Sean that liked to watch movies where people got blown to bits and then discuss how unrealistic deaths were in movies as compared to actual war footage?  Or the Sean that would hunt Bull Frogs at night with a flashlight and a pellet gun?

I'll tell you what: that Sean is still alive and well.  Although my tolerance for gore has definitely diminished since college, I still enjoy watching violence on a large TV.  I also still enjoy shooting guns... but now I feel the need to say "safely" shooting guns at "non-human" targets.  I also think that I could win a beef jerky eating contest and I still believe that when you need them to, a good dog should be willing to bite someone for you.  I would also gladly take on any challengers for any sport.  I would be happy to play a game of football with anyone of any size, and I am incredibly happy when I am sweating like crazy on a Saturday afternoon while digging old fence posts out of the ground with a spade.  I haven't really lost my edge as a guy at all.. so what is going on?

P.S. - Here is our backyard right now.  I am very proud of it.  If I don't post a follow up picture in about a month, that pride has turned to shame.

I think I've finally come to the truth of the matter.  Marriage doesn't make you soft, it just makes you well rounded.  Now before everyone gets to hollerin' and flinging feces at me, please let me explain myself.  I am no less of a man than I was when I first met my wife.  You can ask anyone who knows me, I have a detailed zombie/apocalypse survival plan, I watch too many sports and violent TV shows, I love to go sleep in a "cabin" without water or electricity, and I still do all the things I did before I got married.  I am actually playing the best golf of my life and my scotch collection is in a great place.

The difference between me and the average single guy that frequents bars on Tuesday nights is that I have branched out beyond the stereotypical male knowledge base and skill set.  I know how to hold a baby and I know that desperate housewives is on Sunday nights.  That doesn't mean I have to ask to hold people's babies or watch that show, but it doesn't make me any less cool to know those things.

I also think that my dog is incredibly cute at this stage in her life.  Just replace the word cute with something cooler, let's say... awesome.  If you don't think that my dog is awesome, then you clearly haven't met her.

Vegetables are still gross and will always be, but you can always justify being healthy by saying it is a man's duty to be there for his family and protect them, and I can't do either of those things if I'm 500 pounds or dead.

Now that I have completely rationalized this weird situation that my life has transformed into,  it is time to get to my honey-do list for the day.  Hopefully I can get done before the Grey's Anatomy marathon this afternoon!!!