jonathan friesen

The President

Maybe this is true of all kids, but mine seem to have a ridiculously high regard for their dad (me). My neighbor takes apart engines, builds tractors from scratch. To my son, these tasks are nothing, after all, "My dad fixed the hen house door." It's true. I did that. By myself. A five minute job actually took, well, five minutes. The family rejoiced in my skills and we spoke of it at dinner. Pathetic, really. 

But I don't mind. I don't mind that to my son I'm the most gifted athlete in Kanabec county, or that my daughter's pedestal is much higher: "You should be the president," she says. I don't want to be the president. But her confidence got me thinking, could I?

I bet I could. And as I type this, I can't come up with the capital of Mozambique or the date of the Boxer Rebellion. I can't even spell the Iranian president's name. But it doesn't matter. Not a bit. Because I bet that 90% of Americans (the ones who didn't go to grad school) wouldn't care that I didn't know those things.

I bet those 90% would vote for a guy who got up each day ready to work hard. They'd vote for a guy who loves his family, his country, and bets the farm that God is looking down on both. So that would be my platform.

How awesome to debate! I'd love it, to be able to look straight into the camera and say, I don't know. Yes, I failed. Yes, I even ate lunch with the jerk. Yes, he gave me money. I spent it on new skates for my kids. My favorite book? No, not my own. That would be Peace Like a River. 

And my running mate, well, that would need to be my wife, who also gets up each morning ready to work hard. If you are thinking of voting for us, I must warn you: sometimes I get (gasp) angry. Yep. Even at the ones I love. I fumble over my words--sometimes unkind words. I've exaggerated (lied) in the past. And my office is messy. I'd just rather you hear that here than on CNN.

While I'm at it, you should know that both of us on this ticket have raised our hands in church, then fought on the ride home. If you ask us how we are, we'll generally say 'good,' even if we're dying inside, so we have our hypocritical moments. We also drive a gas-guzzling mini-van, have more than two children, and if one of them is sick, we will defy energy-conservation theory and crank that thermostat way up to 72 toasty degrees.

I've never fought in a war, never been a community organizer, and most of my solutions to the world's problems require a generosity that I have never shown. So an in-depth analysis of my ticket leaves much to be desired. But we are generally honest, generally forgiving, generally courageous, and reasonably intelligent, so we have a few marks in the plus column.

But we'd need a logo. "Change" is already taken. "America First" is gone, too. How about, "Work Hard." Not very inspiring, but my daughter would be proud of me.

This Mac

I made the move to a Mac some time ago. If you've done the same, you know about the deck. At least I think it's called a deck. It looks nothing like a deck--not like a deck on a house, not like a deck of cards. But I think Mac people call it that. Anyway, it's covered with icons. I don't know if icons resemble icons either. I thought an icon was something religious folk used to help them worship. But I do admit that that a Mac icon looks more like an icon than a deck looks like a deck.

Anyway, I don't know what most of the deck icons do. I've tried clicking, but I get some user agreement and I don't want to hassle with it so I close it out, and these icons remain mysterious. Except for the goofy face icon. I don't think that's its name (who would worship a goofy face?), but somehow this machine takes a photo of me and gooffifies it.

Oh, the horror. 

This goofy face icon wasn't explained to me when I got this thing, so I don't feel like I understand it all yet. I just click, wait and something hideous comes out.

Yep. Hideous.

Run away! Run away! I apologize to all young children out there, now trembling under their beds, but I include these graphic horrors by way of caution. If the goofy face icon can do this, what other sinister programs are waiting on my deck? 

If those two pictures aren't sufficient justification for a little internet censorship, I don't know what would be.

Useless Things

It's been brought to my attention that my posts here are not substantive. This is completely correct. On this blog, this writer does not give writing tips. (I would if I had some good ones.) I don't sink into politics. I don't even tell you the names of books I've enjoyed or provide inspirational thoughts. It's true. This blog doesn't enrich your life one speck. Nope. It falls under the category of a "useless thing."

Maybe that's okay. My appendix, they tell me, is a useless thing, yet I'm glad it's still around. My baseball card collection--over 200,000 space wasters according to my wife--I haven't peeked at those buggers for decades. Another useless thing. My saxophone lessons, useless. That green is my favorite color, or the existence of my hair dryer given my baldness, useless, useless, I say. My affinity for cheeseburgers, useless to the vegan that I am.

And If I take away all the useless things about me, I'm not very interesting. All important and all crucial and all necessary--makes me tired just thinking about myself. 

So here is my ode to the useless. And that includes this useless blog.