It’s an exciting day to be an American. Regardless of your political leanings, you should be proud to see the smooth transition from one leader to the next. Like football players from opposing teams that hug after a game of pounding the snot out of each other, our politicians put their bruised egos aside and participate in this great American Democracy. The cooperation and honor shown in recent weeks truly stirs me.

President Obama has been saying that there is no place on Earth, except America, where his story could happen. That stirs me as well.

His Inauguration speech  will focus on our responsibility to help our country and our responsibility to help others. When I think about helping others, I recall one of my favorite C. S. Lewis quotes, “She’s the sort of woman who lives for others…you can tell the others by their hunted expression.”

I’ve seen so many people act like they were trying to help others, and often completely believe it, when their results were self-serving and worse. So why am I blathering on about all this on a ConstructionKnowledge blog?

The ConstructionKnowledge.net website promotes competence. If you choose responsibility, if you choose to try to help others, you will be much more effective with competence. I love to see competence coupled with integrity. I see it on the jobsite almost every day and it always brings me joy.

So if you wonder why I bother with all this stuff, that’s a big part of the answer.