When do you speak up when you think a friend is in the wrong?

Two things have come up in the recent past for me - probably more - but these are on my mind this morning. 

First - an old friend came over yesterday - a friend from high school, and our first few years of marriage, but I haven't seen him in years.  And by years I mean like maybe 15 of them.  Anyway - he was in town for an HS reunion that I couldn't attend, and was eager to stop by.  He started asking me about my kids and where we'd moved from/to recently - but shortly after that the conversation turned to him.  Just him. Only him. Well him and his amazingly successful family.  At one point I was getting cold sitting on our deck when the sun moved so we were in the shade - so I suggested we go for a walk.  We walked slowly for 1.25+ miles and he talked nonstop.  Finally - at the point he was leaving (2.5 hours later) he asked one question about me - well - he asked if my dad was still alive.  I was able to say "No - he died last April..." and before I could get the date out he was telling me about how ever since he was in 4th grade he was sort of psychic and knew when people had died - and the guy who designed the playground at some school somewhere, whose wife had died that he saw in a grocery store - yeah - okay - I'm done here - I don't remember the rest.  Anyway - think about that.  I had nearly told him my dad had died and his response was "oh hey that reminds me of a story about how interesting I am."

So - how do I respond? I'm so tired of people tolerating mediocrity - but I don't think it's my place to intercede here.  Should I call him and tell him he was selfish? (sounds like an attack) Was I just being selfish because he was so selfish that I couldn't be selfish enough myself? Should I call him and ask him if he's okay because I thought he was acting strangely (sounds passive aggressive) Should I just engage him in some sort of normal "I haven't seen you for 15 years" type of relationship to try to get to know him better and find out if there is something tragic going on in his life that led him to need to seek me and tell me all about himself? (I'm not sure I have room in my life for this level of involvement). Do I commit to pray for him? (That's always a good thing to do but again there are limits to prayer time). Do I just let this thing fade away until the next reunion that I don't go to?

I'm not really asking for advice here - I'm mostly just laying this out. By God's grace I'll come back and tell you what I decided to do.  For now - I can tell you that I'll be praying for him.

Second - and this one is very different - is about a friend who I believe is not only involved in, but a 'purveyor' of a pyramid scheme.  Actually I need to think on this one for a while before I write it. 

Dumb things people say about the Columbia River Crossing

There was an accident on the Interstate Bridge today.  The Columbian posted an article about it here. The first comment at the bottom says: "...what a tragedy that a new bridge could already be funded and slated to be built. Now we will live for decades with this growing traffic nightmare. I still don't get WHY the citizens of Clark County that commute aren't outraged by the lack of action on the part of Washington State Senators."

Of course - if only we had spent $3.4B on a new bridge we wouldn't ever have accidents or traffic jams any more.  Do people really think that way? Is this person just looking for any excuse to complain about not getting a new bridge?  FYI: I have driven from the 'Couve to Oregon for work for 19 of the 26 years I've been out of college.  I know what it's like.  And no - IMHO it's not worth $3.4B to fix it. And no - it shouldn't include light rail.  Not because (as some of the anti-bridge crowd love to say - making themselves look pretty foolish) of the 'crime train' - Vancouver has *plenty* of crime without Light Rail - in fact Oregon should be worried about us exporting some of our criminals that way.  No - the reason is that LR is simply not the right mode of transportation for this area.  What is?  I don't know - but what I do know is that the inventions around transportation seem to be coming at us at a faster pace than ever. 

I don't know what is going to be the solution to mass transportation in this area but I'm 100% confident that it's not light rail.  Spend the $3.4B on creating better jobs in Clark County, then traffic across the bridges every morning and afternoon.

Maybe - create jobs in Vancouver by bringing some new big business here - something that will bring lots of dollars and lots of family wage jobs to the area.  Like - possibly - an oil terminal? Nah - Vancouverites are against that too, apparently.

Introduction

Hey all (so like really, who is all - no one is going to know I'm writing this) I wanted to call this blog a bunch of different things.  419er (taken!) AG4G (taken!) psychedelicatessen (taken!) so I settled on TerselyWordedLetters. I used to own that domain name and I posted a ton of fairly well written, albeit hostile, letters that I would write to places that provided me with crappy customer service. I'd get free hotel rooms, meals, etc.  But I was mostly just being a jerk. I'm done with being a jerk.  I've been a jerk to a lot of people for a lot of my life, and I decided it would be better to tell the people personally that I wasn't happy - and let them resolve it without dragging their names across places.  I still post on tripadvisor and yelp periodically, both good and bad reviews - mostly because I use those services quite a bit and want to help the content. 

What am I going to post here?  Who knows.  Every once in a while I think I know something, or come across something, that other people might find useful.  Then I think - Hey - if I had that on my blog and people could find it, I'd be helping people!  Then I think  - and hey - if I'm helping people with my blog, why not put up some ads on it so I can get some money!  Yeah - unfortunately too much of what I think of comes back to how much it's worth.  That's not great of me.  I call myself a Christian but far too often I think of money.  In fact I haven't thought of God since I finished my quiet time and journaling at about 7:00 this morning. So I'm going to go pray a bit now - oh - and my stupid timer just went off meaning I have to do a set of pushups again.  Trying to get those last 10(ish) pounds off.  I'll probably write more about that later.  Thanks for reading post 1.