According to Daddeaux...

It is said that the secret to happiness in the working world is to find what you truly love to do in life, then figure out how to get someone to pay you well for doing it.

I haven’t figured out the secret exactly, but I’d like to think I am getting a little closer.

I love to write, and never did I consider that I might pursue it as an actual means of sustenance. But then…

I haven’t posted to my blog in a while, and it has been refreshing to receive quite a number of emails inquiring as to why. It seems some folks actually do appreciate what I write. Now if only I can figure out a way to get someone to cough up a few Benjamins.

Before anyone thinks I have gone off the deep end and will soon quit my job and move my family to an obscure retreat in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains and spend the next decade penning trashy novels or how-to manuals, I actually do enjoy my real job as an engineer—a job in which I am paid well enough to allow my lovely bride to stay at home as a mom and to keep the bottomless pits known as my children on a steady weight gain. However, I slowly am convincing myself that perhaps I need to take the risk and develop a manuscript to market to a few publishers.

My blog hiatus has not been totally spent pondering where my future writing might take me. But even had I wanted to write over the past two or three months, I doubt my attention span on any one particular topic would have been long enough to generate a full paragraph, much less an entire column. My mind has been cluttered with a broad and very deep assortment of things. So with a nod to those individuals who have missed me enough to ask what has been on my mind, this column is for you. Here they are, in no particular order, the Random Musings of the Man Called Daddeaux:

• I am beginning to hate anything that ends in –oma. In a very short period going back to the middle of last year, I have lost friends to lymphoma, melanoma, and multiple myeloma. I am really starting to worry about my acquaintances who have chosen to make Oklahoma their home.
• If you are asked to describe your church and your first response involves mention of stained glass, landscaping, or curb appeal, you might want to ask yourself why you are attending there in the first place.
• Only a father knows the real pain of disassembling a baby crib for the last time when his youngest child graduates into a normal bed.
• Just because I disagree with a particular lifestyle or political view—perhaps even to the point of loud vocal objection—the Savior I worship never bestowed on me the right to hate anyone who chooses to embrace that view. And I abhor anyone who represents himself as a Christian who might do so.
• It is high time for Congress to call in some experts to help balance our abysmal federal budget. My first suggestion would be inviting a few parents from single-income households. If Joe the A/C man and his wife can live on $74,500 a year, I think they could show a few Washington windbags a thing or two about squeezing a penny.  Yes, Mr. Congressman, your tax policies do impact real Americans.
• Despite the obvious elation that the days of taking out home equity loans to pay for diapers may soon be over, it is still a heartbreaking thing to hear when your baby says he wants to use the potty.
• Love is a universal language. Unfortunately, so is jackass.
• The world is in dire need of a universal mandate on reasonable and acceptable gifts from the Tooth Fairy. It seems that little winged woman left a kid at my sons’ primary school $35 for a front tooth! Now all four of my children are working their molars with channel locks.
• A church should be a family, not run by one.
• There is an indescribable closeness to God when you’re standing on the bow of your boat in a thin fog with a graphite rod in your hands, gently pulling a plastic worm around a cypress knee.
• When Judgment Day arrives, I want to be there when the current executive management group of Walmart gets to see Sam Walton again. I hope he tells them that they will have to wait for a CSM before they can get through the Pearly Gates. And I hope St. Peter only opens up three entrances right about the time they are ready to pass.
• The more time and emotional energy you have to spend to come up with the words to defend a decision you make, the less likely it is that you made the right decision.
• There is no salary, raise, bonus, or anything else associated with a job's financial compensation that is fat enough to offset working among peers that you consider as true friends. 
• If you are a woman and you opt to show a length of cleavage that could be measured in feet rather than inches, please do not act appalled that people—men, women, and children—stare. People stare at the Grand Canyon, too.
• I think Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” advice has a statute of limitations. I believe in second chances for first mistakes. But take this advice from a fellow, ma’am: after that, he’s just a cheater.
• Along those same lines, if it was a cheating situation that got you together with your significant other, chances are it will be a cheating situation that tears you apart. That is not my opinion; that’s statistics.
• Little boys are 95% deaf starting about age 3½. I am anxious to know when it ends, although I think my dad might be right in saying some time around age 23.
• Little girls are live action training videos for persuasive, quality salesmanship.
• It may seem completely counter-intuitive, but having your mother-in-law move close by really is a refreshing thing.
• The Middle East is a theater of brutal war, and has been pretty much since time began. Any American diplomat who wants to lay claim to being an “instrument of peace in the region” or a “steward of goodwill” is one pompous blowhard.
• If we really are interested in true peace in the Mideast, why has no one suggested a crawfish boil? There is healing in sucking the heads, I guarantee. 
• You don’t get to be a dictator by surrounding yourself with noble, upstanding people. Keep in mind, if they were willing to screw their own families over to get in your good graces, they will screw you harder if the money or power is right. 
• On a related note, someone ought to tell old Muammar down in Libya that Q is always followed by U. If your name does not abide by conventional spelling rules, you can’t be a dictator. It ought to be a law. (That very likely could be what all those Libyans are upset about right now. “You think you can push us around, big boy? You can’t even spell your own name!”) 
• Now that I know how it feels to have my son want to do something else rather than spend time with his old man, I wish I could go back about 25 or 30 years and change a few of my decisions regarding how to spend my Saturday mornings. 
• Having lived a bit of life myself, and in doing so done a few things that I was less than proud of, I truly think that God has a keen ear and a soft spot in His heart for the victims of addiction. Amy Grant’s song “Better Than A Hallelujah” tows a lot of weight. 
• Regarding the exposed corruption of so many municipal law enforcement agencies, I hate that my children do not list police officers among their lists of everyday heroes. Unfortunately, I cannot blame them. 
• The leadership of the Christian church (all denominations) is steadily increasing in age. Just a thought, but despite brilliant medical advances, humans still do not live forever. Might be about time to start rethinking church polity.
• As a father of four and the sole income for my family, there have been a few months where being able to pay the phone bill was a serious concern. But we did it. So, I think I am a little more than justified in my disgust when I see commercials extolling the virtues of government-supported cell phone and home phone service. “Government-supported” simply means the money that otherwise might have gone to paying my own utility bill is instead going to some public welfare sponge.
• If paying for your six-year-old’s iPhone service is a line item on your monthly budget, forgive me for saying so, but you are making too much money.
• If the public education system is truly meant to impart knowledge to students, it is about time to go a little retro and reinstate systems which actually measure it accurately. Standardized testing ain’t the ticket.

Oops. I guess I need to apologize for what has turned out to be a rather mad regurgitation of a hurricane of things whirling around through my mind for the last few months. (That is just the stuff I could come up with in the fifteen minutes or so left during my kids’ naptime.) Clearly, my break from writing has not been for a lack of material. It’s just that I would need way more than a single column to cover it all. Good grief, I would need an entire book!
 
Hmm…now there’s an idea.