Jason's Blog | jasonskaare.com

168 "all-grown-up" photos added

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Skaare) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:45:00 +0000

I added six new galleries in the "Grown-up" area of my photo section, including:

5 pictures within the "Jeff and Julie" gallery

30 pictures within the "Last Shots in OH" gallery

15 pictures within the "NYC Apartment" gallery

47 pictures within the "Relaxin' in CBus" gallery

25 pictures within the "Relaxin' in NYC" gallery

46 pictures within the "Tuba Christmas" gallery

112 trip-related photos added

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Skaare) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:39:00 +0000

I just added three new galleries to the "Trips" area of my photo section, including:

9 pictures within the "Chicago Cubs" gallery

63 pictures within the "New England" gallery

40 pictures within the "Grieb New Year" gallery

173 family photos added

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Skaare) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:33:00 +0000

I've added several new galleries to the "Family" area in my photos section, including:

17 pictures within the "Irish Festival" gallery

11 pictures within the "Visting D.C." gallery

48 pictures within the "T-Day Parade" gallery

57 pictures within the "Visiting Justin" gallery

Portfolio and photos updated

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Skaare) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:21:00 +0000

Hi all - I just added a bunch of content to fill in my "Portfolio" section, and brought all my photo galleries up to date since my year-long web hiatus. Newly included: photos from my trip to Hocking Hills, Relaxin' in Columbus pictures, a couple weddings and more events from 2007. Take a look!

The site is back!

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Skaare) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:08:00 +0000

My site is back! After being absent for nearly a year, I finally got my site back up. Why was it gone you ask (or, even if you didn't)?

I switched from DSL to Cable, not considering that losing the free address provided by SBC might screw things up: specifically, when it stopped working my site stopped being renewed, and jasonskaare.com disappeared. This annoyed me, but I was busy, and didn't pay it much mind. I avoided paying enough mind to miss renewing my domain by a few days, and suddenly jasonskaare.com was the property of someone else.

No longer a half-hearted attempt to play around with design and throw up some photos, jasonskaare.com was now a list of links, taking you to anything that had "kaare" (apparently something Scandinavian?) or "Jason's" in the title.

I sent the new owner a sad note, pointing out that all of my friends and relatives knew this site, and pleading for my name back. I asked forgiveness and mercy for my stupidity, but didn't hear anything back. Surprisingly despondent (seriously! - it was amazing how sad it was to think you lost your name online forever), I gave up, and moved on.

A few months later, I randomly checked for the availability of jasonskaare.com, if only to see again how it was locked out for five years. Lo and behold, it was available, and inside of 15 minutes I had re-purchased it. I guess the new owner took pity - or at least apathy - on my name after all. And so, here is my site again! And - as always happens every few years - it has been updated with some new tricks and styling I have learned. Hopefully this version will last a few months before the coding behind it becomes hopelessly obsolete.

Loving the bandwagon: The World is Flat

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Skaare) — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 23:36:00 +0000

While I only sporadically do this, there were several recent events I wanted to comment on. Also, I didn't think my last blog posting was all that great, and wanted to give it another go :). Not wanting anyone's eyes to bleed, I'm going to give these items each their own installment, so stay tuned for another book review (man that sounds sad) and a run-down of the cruise I returned from yesterday.

On a flight a couple weeks ago, zipping briefly to LA on business, I decided to finally tackle Thomas Friedmans The World is Flat. For those of you unfamiliar, The World is Flat is very much in vogue right now, sitting on influential bedstands in influential bedrooms at influential homes in places like Washington, D.C. and New York. Buying it is practically an intelligentsia-membership requirement: when our new CEO was asked what books he is reading, it was the first one off his lips.

I had put off reading the book because it is non-fiction, and because it is huge. I read Friedmans The Lexus and the Olive Tree for a course in college, and did indeed enjoy it. As an excellent guide to understanding past and present factors in globalization and cultural friction, it was a cogent and comprehensive look at our world nearly a decade ago. The World is Flat is Friedman's follow-up to that book, reviewing the developments of those arguments and many more factors in a brief history of the 21st century. However, with a lot of fictional fun and fluff books contending for attention at bedside, this gi-normous, wordy, not-guaranteed-to-entertain tome had a hard time making it to the top of my list. Deciding to bring only it on my flight was making the tough choice to deal with any potential boredom and do the right thing in absorbing what it had to say.

This book was awesome. I was engrossed from the start, and found myself radically inspired, optimistic, depressed, anxious and frustrated, along with a handful of other emotions I'm probably just not remembering now. Examining the course of global business through outsourcing, insourcing, and just plain sourcing; evaluating the drivers that have shaped the past decade, and will influence our future profoundly; understanding the state of American capitalism and education; glimpsing the capability of globalization to enhance and strengthen local cultures rather than steamroll over them and many other compelling arguments and research make this a vital read in considering what you want to do through your career, how to understand recent news, and key issues to consider the next time you vote.

I found myself very energized about the technological and social changes that are just starting to make themselves seen now, and very worried about what America's role will be in shaping these growing treds going forward. And it was very revealing to explore just how complicated and confusing issues of globalization can be. Take an example from Arkansas: the Democratic administration outsourced the operation of it's unemployment office to an Indian firm. Ironic to be sure to see formerly U.S. government jobs to go to a foreign firm to help support other Americans out of work. Local Republican efforts made a field-day of the story, and the contract was cancelled. While millions had been spent on the Indian firm - who by all accounts had thus far done an excellent job - the work was given to an American firm that charged a great deal more (and also wasn't located in Arkansas).

In the end, a Democratic administration tried to source work to the lowest bidder regardless of the company's national origin (rather than protecting American labor, as might be expected), a Republican opposition opposed the move (rather than supporting free trade and less government spending, as might be expected), and Arkansas taxpayers and workers lost out all around: once for having a lot more money spent on their unemployment program than originally planned, twice for not being able to properly spend that money on the training that would avoid future unemployment, and again for not even getting the jobs that went from India to the large American firm. As is so often true, the politically acceptable course of action (and what media outlet wouldn't support the steps that were taken) ended up bringing about the poorest result. But doing the "right" thing (which is admittedly very hard to figure out) would probably have not been possible in the public eye. We're in fascinating times, but not easy ones.

Definitely, definitely read this book.

A quality lunch

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Skaare) — Wed, 03 May 2006 23:39:00 +0000

From the luck of knowing good folks at work, I've gotten to participate in a number of cool events. These events are cool because they a.) tend to focus on excellent causes, b.) offer free, semi-decent food (but inevitably good desert) and c.) involve me getting out of work and feeling all "special" and "corporate-y." There was a Red Cross luncheon a couple weeks ago, the Alzheimer Association's "Coach Tressel's Spring Preview" and today, the Columbus Speech and Hearing Center's annual Great Communicator's Luncheon.

They always manage to pull in good speakers for the Communicator's Luncheon. I've seen Madeleine Albright as well as Steve and Cokie Roberts, and I know in other years they've had Rudy Guiliani, Colin Powell, Lou Holtz and Tom Brokaw. This year's speaker was General Tommy Franks, long-time army big honcho more recently known for leading Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq.

It wasn't the usual speech that eventually got around to how communication is - you know - great. Now each speech I've heard in the past has been excellent, so don't think I don't appreciate that message or find it to be an unimportant/less important one than what we ended up hearing. But certainly, a speech on communication at a Communicator's Luncheon isn't wildly unpredicatible. Instead, General Franks spoke in relation to far more current subjects. Going through a quick sketch (with very humorous anecdotes) of his past and up through September 11th and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, he repeatedly came back to the same line, "Ain't this a great country?"

I did wince the first time he said that (and the second, and the third). I heartily agree with the sentiment, but as an opening line it didn't bode well for a new and insightful line of thought. However, with some quality quips and a great - if measured - manner of speaking, I ended up quite impressed. It is refreshing to remember how awesome our nation. We get to support and oppose whatever we like. Obvious and a fair bit sappy, yes, but still true. With the gloom of current events and disatisfaction that seeps in through the TV and online news, it is easy for that negativity to influence how we feel about America and our future as a nation. In particular, here are a couple paraphrased lines of thought I found effective as a wake-up from the everything's-going-to-pot duldroms:

Did we send enough troups in Iraq? Whose fault is it? Good questions. There are different ways to answer the first, but I can put the second to rest. If there weren't enough troups, it's my fault. Donald Rumsfeld is not man enough to make me change my stance now, and he wasn't then: the number of troops, the timing, the methods, the phases - all were my original plans. If someone is to blame for the troops or the way we prosecuted the war, it's me. So there's your answer. Let's move on already.

Someone once asked me, what is the difference between terrorists and terrorism? I said I don't know that I'm qualified academically to answer the question, but I can offer a perspective. Terrorists are individuals like Osama bin Laden, and we know how to deal with them. It might be really difficult to accomplish those actions, but we know how. Terrorism is much harder. There are millions of households that support bin Laden - millions - and we have to figure out why. It is hard for us as Americans to understand how the best thing a mother or father would want for their nine-year-old son is to be a suicide bomber. That is terrorism. We need to show these families that there are better things to aspire to: to find new things for those nine-, ten-, eleven-year-olds to grow up and be. Just like we did through the Cold War, we have to offer the same tools that helped our youth then succeed and vis-a-vis the Soviet Union: free market, free enterprise, free thought, free speech. And winning the war in Iraq - seeing it through completely to the end - is vitally important in accomplishing that goal.

I'm often asked if I think Afghanistan will succeed. And my answer is: "I don't know." I don't know if it will work out. But I do know for the first time in 2000 years they have a chance.

We always have the government we deserve, because we get to choose it. Don't like how things are going? Vote differently next time, locally, state-wide, and nationally. Get your voice heard, research the facts, listen to old people like me and make up your own minds.

A self-declared independent made a four-star by a democrat who went to high school with Laura Bush, his remarks could certainly be interpreted both as approval and disapproval of the current administration and recent events (with my excerpts, I'm doing an injustice in my paraphrasing and selection of his full text). But with both conservatives and liberals sharing the Cardinal Health tables, I saw everyone impressed and thoughtful with what he had to say.

If you get a chance to hear him, it is definitely worth it. Always fascinating to hear from the people who have so strongly shaped recent events, and always better to get information, opinions and thoughts direct from the source.

[ Unrelated - did you see Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent's Dinner? You can find it on YouTube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcIRXur61II) Edgy, probably a little heavy on the "truthiness" to be considered appropriate, but definitely worth seeing the guts it took to be that persistent. ]

Cool quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Skaare) — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 23:39:00 +0000

There was a great quote by C. S. Lewis in the Palm Sunday service today, prompting me to go out and find it to put up here. Along the way, here are some other ones that struck me as I came across them:

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

And the quote I was actually looking for:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son Of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.