Posted by Jon Wise on Feb 20, 2010
So I’ve been traveling for business for a few months now, and its high time I record some observations…
The first is that men (and perhaps women, although I’ve had less samples to observe) traveling on business are a solitary bunch. Although they represent families, employers, teams, and sometimes even churches, while traveling we are each alone. Despite spending the day with partners, or customers, or other team mates, at the end of it, we retire to a hotel room alone.
The strategies employed to manage this loneliness are varied — almost as much as the temptations available — but everyone I’ve come across has recognized the need to employ self-discipline in order to survive. What’s just as interesting is how readily we each compare our routines with each other. One guy I frequently see on my trips is very regimented in his diet — going so far as to buy groceries upon arrival in each place he visits, so that he’s not tempted to splurge on eating out. Others have a strict morning exercise routine in the crappy little gyms that hotels usually have.
For myself, I’m frequently traveling from east coast time to west coast, which makes it very easy to wake up in the morning, and very difficult to stay up at night. This means that my mornings are purposefully full: I do my stretches, read my Bible, spend some time in prayer, and allow myself one Starbuck’s Chai Tea Latte (my only coffee for the day) on the company’s dime. If I have extra time, mornings are also a good time to call home.
Another thing people do when they travel is try to fill their evenings. Customer and sales guys, partners — even ones with some tension in the relationship — will invariably look for a business reason (excuse) for dinner, a hockey game, a scotch tasting… anything to avoid the hotel room for a little longer. This usually works fine for me, although being an introvert near the end of my day (where 9pm = 12am with the time change) sometimes leaves me exhausted. If I do end up in my hotel room, I’ve taken a page from a long time mentor and resolved not to turn the TV on. Downloaded TV shows on my laptop ensure I’m not watching anything my bride’s not also watching at home. And accountability software on my computer, that reports any risky material to a friend at home who also travels for work, ensures the loneliness doesn’t lead to temptation.
Almost everyone I’ve come across has similar rules and strategies, so although our missions are different, with this shared need for self-discipline, and a common aloneness, there’s an almost instant comradery when coming across another guy traveling on business, which is something I’ve never really experienced at any job I’ve had before. It’s like we are lone warriors of the Kingdoms of the Fortune 500, knights of the board room, ronins on a lonely path welcoming the chance for a drink and a conversation — about anything. Even about faith…
Posted by Jon Wise on Feb 09, 2010
We have friends who have two amazingly smart, well-adjusted and entirely pleasant children, who have been home schooled their entire lives. In standardized testing, they typically score 4 grades above where they’re supposed to be in school. Their eldest, who’s only just pushing at her teen years has already taken PSATs with scores sufficient to get her into pretty much any college she wants.
Having known them since they were born, we haven’t needed much convincing on the benefits of home schooling. However, we’re aware – having known other kids who have been home schooled who aren’t as well-adjusted – that there are also risks/potential problems with home schooling. Social consideration, of course, being significant.
You’re welcome, dear reader, to chime in with thoughts on the subject, as we’re currently gathering such opinions, but its not likely you can introduce any new variables that we haven’t already been considering.
Home schooling is on the rise in the States, one of the foremost reasons given by surveyed parent’s who chose this path being that they desire a better religious education for their kids. I won’t say that’s not important – it is – but I doubt I weight that factor for the same reasons as many Christians. I do not, in fact, want my kids to grow up ultra-conservative. I’d much rather see my kids grow up with an excess of compassion than an excess of indoctrination.
That said, I understand the importance of shaping our kid’s understanding of the world according to Truth, as well as Grace, and acknowledge there are things in the public school system that we would prefer to have taught differently. What I struggle with is that I don’t want my kids to arrive at adulthood without being able to understand, and have respect for, differing points of view. If they learn only our point of view, then how are they going to react the first time they meet someone different than us? How can they be effective on a missions field, or in a workplace, if they grow up without tolerance for differing perspectives? Although we don’t want them to be of the world, we do want them to be effective in it.
On top of that, and the aforementioned (and obvious) social implications, I worry a little bit that our house might become a semi-permanent cradle. With me working at home, Nicole functioning as the in-home teacher, and our little village being a little bit isolated from the 3 neighbouring, larger cities, it would be very easy for our kids to grow up thinking that our home is the center of the universe.
All this is coming to a head because, ridiculously, we have to enroll Benjamin in school now if we want him to attend Pre-K in September. Because his birthday falls at the end of the year, our choices are to either enroll him as too young for his class, or too old. Both possibilities pose risk that, with him at a public school, we won’t be able to determine quickly enough if he’s struggling at school, and why.
I have two theories on my own education (and frustrations with it) that combined suggest to me that if we put Ben in school too late, he might end up frustrated, bored and unable or uninterested in performing according to how he’s evaluated… but that if we put him in too early and he learns differently than the teachers expect, he might get steamrolled.
If our kids learn at home, they’ll have 1 full-time teacher, and 1 part-time teacher available to them to help them learn however they need to, and at whatever pace works for them. And our field trips? They’d be world-wide…
Posted by Jon Wise on Dec 30, 2009
2009 is fading fast, and a whole new year stretches out before us. Before things slip away, I need to take time for my annual jonandnic.com re-cap…
For starters, this has been easily the most normal year of our lives — where by normal, I mean relatively sedate. We haven’t announced plans to move to another country, we haven’t worked 3 jobs between the two of us, and we’ve managed to fight off the yearly itch to find another place to live. We haven’t even made any major purchases this year. 2009 has, for us, been about shedding our youth, and finally embracing adulthood and parenthood.
Not that these things are without adventure or challenge – just that the adventures are of a different variety and the challenges are a little smaller in scale. It turns out that we won’t actually fall over dead if we’re not constantly changing things up — we just have to learn about some different roles, and focus on some different goals.
With that in mind, we set out to do things like improving our home and gardens, finally dealing with my persistent back issues, and sending out some great young people on adventures of their own… not to mention marrying off Nic’s sister and going on our first ever family vacation!
In fact, we were feeling so good about this new normal life of keeping our kids alive and legal, that we hardly noticed when a good old-fashioned adventure snuck up on us out of the blue. Suddenly the life we were much more accustomed to was back with a vengeance — and it came to us, right here in our comfy little home, without us having to go anywhere to find it.
So comfortable were we that we almost turned it down — our own voices from our not-to-distant past, as well as the encouraging voices of family and new friends, made sure we didn’t. Which is good, because we don’t plan to ever!
And with the decision out of the way, I was off for 3 months of travel and trial, while Nicole’s mettle was tested on the home front — not alone, thanks to the afore-mentioned friends and family, but certainly more independant. Proving once again that when God sets a task before us, He sees it through for us.
Of course we continue to see all of these things — both the lessons in stability and those in adventure — as preparation and equipping. In the past year it’s become increasingly obvious that our own plans are meaningless… but as He did for a cop from Canada (and a teacher and a nurse that I know pretty well), we are confident that God is putting together a plan for us greater than we can imagine. As of 2009, we’re done trying to guess what that is, and done trying to put our own plan into place. We’re following God where ever He leads us, and obeying whatever He asks of us — even if we don’t understand it at the time.
Here comes 2010, and we can’t wait to see what He has in store — for us, and for you. A belated Merry Christmas, and an on-time Happy New Year to all of our readers. Thanks for hanging in there with us during a fairly blog-sparse year… hopefully next year will be better!
Posted by Jon Wise on Dec 21, 2009
It certainly has its challenges, but having our two kids so close together is pretty great. Abi has never known what it was like to not have Ben around, and Ben doesn’t remember what it was like to not have Abi around. If we split them up, they cry for each other. When Abi wakes up from her nap before Ben does, she’s excited to wake him up too.
Similarily, putting them in the same room has had its challenges, but its been worth it. When they wake up in the morning, instead of wailing for one of us to come get them, they often play together quietly in Ben’s bed until Nic is ready to get them up. Of course, sometimes they play together when they should be napping together — you’d be amazed at how much of Ben’s bunk bed two toddlers can pull apart in 30 minutes!
The other day, our banker swung by with some paperwork for us to sign, and she said “It must be so nice to have twins!” She’s not the first person to make that mistake. Up close, its apparent that they’re different heights, but from a distance — or when they’re crammed into their double stroller — it’d be easy to be unsure. Abi’s vocabulary is advanced, and Ben’s remains a little behind. He can certainly put together more complicated sentences than her two-worders, but he rarely does it in front of strangers (and never on-demand) so they may seem to be about the same maturity that way.
Unfortunately, despite how much Ben loves her, Abi doesn’t count as his best friend. That title? Well, that’s reserved for his pretzels…
Posted by Jon Wise on Dec 07, 2009
I learned a lot this weekend, about a subject that I’ve only been peripherally aware of, and interested in, for the past few years. Allow me, if you would, to regurgitate some of it here for education and admonition…
In the 70’s, during a war we probably had no business involving ourselves in in the first place, the US became determined to stop the supply lines of weapons coming into Vietnam. To that end, under Nixon and Kissinger, two separate bombing campaigns were carried out on Cambodia – a neutral and defenseless country, that had no recourse save that promised to them by communist propaganda. A faceless, unseen enemy – us – dropped over 200,000 tons of bombs on the confused and terrified people of Cambodia, despite the fact that they had done nothing to provoke the attacks. More bombs were dropped on that little country than all of Europe during World War 2. The nation was devastated.
Opportunistic communist guerilla’s used the hatred and fear we inspired in the people to seize control, kicking off a civil war that ended in literal genocide. Between the lives shattered by American bombs, and those wiped out by the communists leaders that American activities had catalyzed, over 3 million were killed. 3 million non-combatant men, women and children, from a country who’s only offense was being located near a country that America was interested in controlling.
Make no mistake, the greater killing (or at least the more personal one) was performed by the communists. But they would have remained little more than thugs and terrorists had the American attack not taken place, forcing the desperate and decimated people to turn to the only organization promising hope and retribution in their country.
But the West wasn’t done raping this little country – literally. When UN aid was finally sent in, UN troops – including those from Canada – took advantage of the desperate people they found, buying little girls to abuse sexually during their off hours, teaching this nation – now devoid of any educator leaders, thanks to the genocide that had taken place – that the quickest way to put food on their table was to rent out their children, as early as 5 years of age, for sex with Western pedophiles. The UN troops brought not just abuse, but sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS, sparking a nation-wide epidemic. Directly, and indirectly, my country and yours, dear reader, have on our hands the blood and innocence of an entire country.
We are so proud, in our first world nations, of our great civilization and our great accomplishments. We sit in our comfortable churches, and assuage our guilty consciences with the little tithe we might throw into the offering plate, or that one time that we helped out with a project in our church building or community… while the side-effects of this decadent culture we live in are simply statistics to us. We take no responsibility for the pain in the rest of the world – not even the pain we are responsible for.
Cambodia remains a broken, hurting country, where thousands of children will each be raped literally hundreds of times over this Christmas season – the average child prostitute has sex 8 times per week night, sometimes for as little as $2. Meanwhile, the Bible commands us to do something about it. If you’re accustomed to pausing at Christmas time and considering those less fortunate than you, perhaps you might want to do some reading on the situation in Cambodia in 2009. I know most of us we’re not taught about it in school – it was only in the past year that I’d ever heard the term “Khmer Rouge” – but the injustice continues anyway. And maybe we should spend some of our Christmas money this year, or our time in the coming year, doing something to help.
Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. – Isaiah 1:17
Posted by Jon Wise on Dec 03, 2009
Six trips in 8 weeks. Six journeys across the continent, 3 time zones, hotels, rental cars, taxi cabs, and California… so much California. I used to think it would be cool to live there, now I’m convinced that its a place you should only visit.
Last night I got up on a brightly lit stage and presented to about 200 people some of my employer’s upcoming products. Some really good ones. The lights were too bright to see my audience, but that was probably a good thing. I brought notes (in case I froze up) but I didn’t use them. I forgot they were even there the moment I started talking. I spoke a little too fast — something I often do when I’m nervous — and I glossed over a few of the finer points I meant to communicate, but over all the talk went well. I think I’ve subconsciously adopted some of Steve Jobs’ presentation style from all the keynotes of his that I’ve watched online over the years. If I can even learn to re-implement his Reality Distortion Field, I’ll have to move over to sales.
I still can’t believe I’m doing this job. By “doing” I really mean just hanging on for the ride — I haven’t actually entered any of my results into the system. Its all I can do to keep from getting more than 2 weeks behind on my expense reports — which is really the only process I’ve actually learned at the company. The rest will probably wait until Christmas break… then I’ll have some sort of metric to determine whether or not I’m succeeding at this gig.
I have one more week of travel left. Sunday I’ll leave for the Seattle area for the entire week. There’s a posh Executive Briefing I’ll be at, a number of team meetings, and a swanky Christmas dinner party for our group. Nicole will be using a free flight I got by accepting a bump on one of my trips to fly out and join me on the Wednesday for two days. We’ll be doing a lot of our Christmas shopping at the company store, so if anyone wants any software for Christmas, drop us a line!
I miss my family a lot when I travel. Ben misses his daddy a lot too. Every time I return home, he yells “Daddy! You came back!” — as if he’s surprised about it. Hopefully he’ll figure out that I’m always coming back. Fortunately the travel won’t always be like this. Things should slow down significantly next year. They’ll have to, because I’m pretty sure I used half my annual travel budget in the past 2 months!
Posted by Jon Wise on Dec 03, 2009
When I travel somewhere I new, I make an effort to see at least one local site or attraction. Sometimes that means hoofing it for a mile or two. In San Francisco, it meant taking their sketchy, ornery, broke-down transit system. So, that was awesome. But I did make it to the Golden Gate bridge, and back (eventually) and it really was awesome…
Posted by Jon Wise on Nov 27, 2009
I’ve done two things really well since this traveling started: eating and sleeping. Seriously, I can fall asleep at any time of day, and sleep hard. And I can follow-up a meal with another meal… and still be hungry in a couple hours.
I have two more trips of my whirlwind tour left before Christmas. Monday I head off to San Francisco for a speaking gig (I have a small part in a multi-day, 200+ person conference.) And the week afterward, I’m back in the Seattle area. This time Nic is going to fly out to join me for a fancy staff Christmas dinner, and a little tourism.
We’re very much looking forward to a nice break over the holiday season.
Posted by Jon Wise on Nov 16, 2009
I have to admit a little disillusionment with blogging. The quality and quantity of blogs I read have dropped off, and I can only find Facebook and Twitter to blame. I still refuse to use, or read Twitter, but Facebook is kind of taking over online social interaction. In truth, its closer to what I originally envisioned when I wrote my first website engine than what Wordpress and the like have become, but I do despair at the “soundbite-like” nature of the content on Facebook.
That’s not why my blog has been updated so infrequently lately, though. I’ll do my best to maintain both types of online communication (unlike some other bloggers out there – you know who you are!) Rather, my biggest constraint has been time. For the past month, I’ve been travelling fairly continuously between home and the West coast.
Don’t mistake this for complaining. I genuinely enjoy traveling, and going new and different places. I’m currently on my 3rd trip to California, this time to Los Angeles, and I’m excited to be going there for my first time.
A typical week has me traveling Sunday or Monday, at a partner or company event for 2-3 days, then home by the end of the week. I have a business day or two to try and keep up with paperwork, and the weekend to spend with my family, or on a few relationships we feel are important right now.
Of our whole family, Ben has probably had the hardest time with this change. He’s extra whiny and needy lately, and cries for Daddy when he gets disciplined (which is a lot more frequent these days.) And although I enjoy the adventures, it would be nice if they weren’t quite so lonely. Right now my boss is meeting me at my destination, to help me ramp up, but otherwise its rather isolated – like being alone in a crowded room.
Of course, his company won’t last long, as I’m finally starting to feel like I understand my new job. Fortunately, the travel isn’t likely to be as frequent once this ramp-up is done. And I do hope to take Nicole along on one of my trips in the near future – preferably to somewhere sunny.
And then, of course, there’s a totally different kind of travel adventure coming up. We’re very early in the planning stages right now, but this summer we aim to return to Asia for a two week whirlwind visit of as much of the continent as we can pull off. And that trip won’t be nearly so lonely. I can hardly wait…
Posted by Jon Wise on Nov 08, 2009
- Airports that don’t have free WiFi suck. I can’t stand it when I join an “open” network only to find out that AT&T or TMobile want to charge me $9 for a day of Internet access. I’m only going to be in this airport for an hour, I don’t want to pay $9 to update my Facebook or write a blog entry… ya bunch of jerks. Ad supported WiFi would cover your costs without offending your customers.
- Airports that don’t have power outlets suck. I’m in Dallas Fort Worth right now, and each gate has clusters of leather chairs with two AC outlets, and two USB ports, for every four chairs. That’s classy.
- Ever since people started posting on Facebook about how they, or someone they know, have H1N1, I’m suddenly a germ-o-phobe. Every door knob is a disease laboratory, and every hand railing is crawling with Swine Flu germs. I know that its been hyped way out of proportion, but I really can’t afford to get sick right now. I have 4 more weeks of travel, and then I can relax. Until then I told Nic that she if or the kids get the Flu, I’m moving out until they’re better!
- Sitting in an exit row is good.
- Sitting in FRONT of an exit row is NOT good — the seats don’t recline. Not even an inch.
- Boeing airplanes have much better seats than Airbus airplanes.
- Not all Terminals are created equal. Some of them don’t have Starbucks in them!
- Time has lost almost all meaning to me. I’ve been changing time zones more frequently than my body can adjust, so I’ve just given up trying. Still 4am in the morning is freaking early, no matter what time zone you’re in — or are going to.
- Update: I am in the OC. California in November is much nicer than Ontario in November 
