http://www.twocoppercoins.com "But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny" --Mark 12:42 Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:52:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Thursdays nights are for swim lessons.  I teach for fun at the local YMCA.  Sometimes though, like tonight, I'm the one who's taught -- or reminded of -- the important lessons of life. Mateo is my four-year-old energetic curly-haired student.  We were practicing our kicking by "racing" each other across the ... http://www.twocoppercoins.com/?p=308 Some towns may call them "Food Banks" -- charities that give away groceries to those in need.  But in my fair city, where the SF Food Bank is a government-funded entity, us little guys are known as "Food Pantries". My food pantry is known as the Excelsior Community Food Pantry or ... http://www.twocoppercoins.com/?p=303 Money can make people feel a lot of things.  But according to a recent study, the mere act of counting money makes experiences less painful.  University students who participated in this psychology study were separated into two groups.  One group counted cash, while the other counted sheets of plain paper.  ... http://www.twocoppercoins.com/?p=298 Sometime before kindergarten, I learned the difference between boys and girls. Then, when I was in college, all of my sociology friends told me that my "social constructs" about the differences between boys and girls were incorrect. Not only were the wrong -- they were also hurtful. The very ... http://www.twocoppercoins.com/?p=293 Hayley and I just got back from an incredible 10-day China trip.  It was foreign, yet familiar.  The country has a rich, brutal, and ancient history.  It also has an ultra-capitalistic, gaudy, and messy modernity.  Here are my top 10 from the trip: 1)  Chinese hospitality is second to none.  Upon ... http://www.twocoppercoins.com/?p=283 This Sunday, I saw something quite surprising at church.  In the middle of church service during communion, a bunch of the grade-school children from Sunday school bounded into the sanctuary.  They cheerfully danced up to the communion table.  The church elder offered them the bread.  The children grabbed a piece, ... http://www.twocoppercoins.com/?p=279 "Oversized" passengers who cannot fit into their assigned seats will now be paying more on United Airlines flights, according to this NPR report.  They'll need to buy an extra ticket, upgrade, or refund their ticket. Many folks -- like the Canadians, whose airlines provide a free seat because they treat obesity ... http://www.twocoppercoins.com/?p=276 It seems like everybody, myself included, is worrying about job security today.  A number of my friends have lost their jobs.  Yours and mine may very well be in jeopardy.  Sure, there are some glimmers of hope on Wall Street.  But the stock market is what they call a "leading ... http://www.twocoppercoins.com/?p=267 I have a time-honored tradition* of responding to some of Hayley's blog posts. Our friend Rahul calls it "competing blogs". I like to think of it as complementary blogs. But I digress... Hayley's recent post expressed some of the busyness that we've experienced recently. Like Hayley, ... http://www.twocoppercoins.com/?p=261 Remember that age-old Aesops fable, The Ant and The Grasshopper? The version I was told as a child depicted the Grasshopper singing and dancing during the lazy summer months, while the Ant fastidiously worked and stored away food. When winter came around, the Ant had food but the ... http://www.twocoppercoins.com/?p=257