a couple days ago, max brantley, on the arkansas blog, posted a list of city employees organized by place of residency (little rock or non-little rock). the most skewed numbers toward non-little rock residents—confirming brantley’s suspicions—were police and fire employees.

non-little rock fire department employees outnumber little rock employees by an almost 3 to 1 margin (295 to 110). despite the margin being more narrow, the far more troubling numbers, to me, are non-little rock police employees who outnumber little rock employees by more than 100 (365 to 252).

for quite some time, i’ve been a relatively outspoken proponent of public education. quite frankly, i wish it was the only system of education we had (for many and varied reasons). my feelings have only grown stronger over the last month as lucy—our oldest child—has started pre-K.

one of the things i’m keenly aware of—relative to my advocacy of public schools—is that the public education system isn’t healthy. for various reasons, i certainly think it’s healthier than private or home school alternatives, but nevertheless, it’s a long way from where it should and could be.

i’ve never had an addiction. well, at least the kind that necessitates an ‘anonymous’ group. you know, the kind where you get up and say, ‘hi, my name is ryan and i bite the heads off of my little ponies or i’m an alcoholic or i like to lick concrete.’ never been to one of those.

but it might be good to reveal, publicly, to readers of this blog one of my lifelong dark not-so-secrets.

i’m a crier.

i’ve been wanting to create an infographic for a very long time. not only do i love them, but i’ve had a particular project i’ve been working on for quite a long time that lends itself to an infographic. while i’m still working on that project, i recently had an opportunity where this type of presentation seemed like a good fit.

the project was a handout/”promotional” graphic we assembled to solicit volunteers for our 4 primary connecting points at eikon. we’ve been preparing to put a little more shape and form to these various aspects of our church and lining up volunteers was one of the primary things we needed to do in order to bring that to fruition.

UPDATE :: i assumed this story would get a lot of response, but even i was surprised at the overwhelming reaction (it is now my most read post of 2011). i appreciate the reposts, retweets and other things that start with ‘re-‘… i wanted to offer an update and unfortunately, the update is much less heartwarming than the original story.

as of yesterday afternoon—ironically just hours after posting the story—my friends were kicked out of the house. i’m still not too sure of all the details, but it seems the woman had nothing to do with it. it was out of her control. my understanding is that she is the manager/caretaker of the house (and has lived there for quite some time) and a family member is the actual owner. once the owner found out, he kicked them out.

so, they’re back on the streets.

given the immense response, i thought i’d put it out there to see if anyone knew of any alternative housing situations for my friends. they need to stay in the downtown area if possible because they don’t have a vehicle. it’s just the 2 of them, so it wouldn’t need to be much.

if you have anything or know of anything, please contact me and i can offer some more information. you can leave a comment or email me at ryan [at] beingryanbyrd [dot] com. thanks in advance!

we have a beautifully strange little group of people at eikon church. (i tell them this often.) we certainly embrace our quirkiness and a couple nights ago at our weekly gathering, i was able to express that uniqueness in an unexpected and fun way.

if you listened very closely a couple days ago, you could hear the collective gasp of the residents of little rock, the state of arkansas & the entire south. why?

because it snowed.