Up at 3 AM again. Just me and Ryan's fish, Marlin, who has lived with us one year. I think I woke him up by turning on the kitchen light. I think he just shot me the middle fin-bone.

Do we still call it "Ryan's fish" if I'm the one who has to change the water? In doing so, I broke the bowl, so we got a bigger one--guess that makes the fish get bigger, because he seems to be. Then, instead of a bowl with straight sides we got one with curved sides. Great--our fish feels like he's tripping on acid all the time now--his spatial relationships are all messed up.

Also: Katilyn is the one who remembers to feed him every day.

Someone from Dell in Round Rock, TX googled my blog and read the Smmmmmmmokin! entry about when my computer caught on fire. They came back to it ten times over a period of about an hour. I was a little flattered because it looked like they read some other stuff too--no comments, though...I just hope they don't send Guido over to "take care of the squealer..."

One Year Ago...

A year ago, my sister Nicole and her husband, Nate, were visiting us from Seattle. It was a very nice visit. This may sound kind of weird, but it was the first time she was ever in our home. Nicole is actually my half-sister from a father I have never met-Even though she's just eight years younger than me, I didn't even know she existed until two years ago, when, after a very long search, I found that side of the family using the internet. It was a very emotional time, and very exciting that she came to Texas to visit.

Also during that time was the landfall of hurricane Katrina. I have several friends who live in the affected area, and at least two of them were displaced by the storm. They were lucky enough to get out alive with their families, but the devestation was enormous.

Here's a disaster tip: If you are leaving your home during an evacuation, you may want to throw out any spoilable food in the refrigerator. Turns out that, if you end up staying away from your home for an extended period of time and/or the power is off in your area for days, your refrigerator turns into an incurable bacteria infestation and mold farm. Most of the residents were instructed to duct-tape their refrigerator shut, disconnect it, and roll it out to the street in front of their house.

September 1st of every year is the beginning of dove hunting season, and is something I usually look forward to each year--last year was no exception. But as I was preparing for my trip, I read an Email from one of the hurricane-displaced coworkers to a group of colleagues, including me, which had a pretty desperate tone to it. I could read that he was out on the ledge and begging to be talked back inside. I have to admit, it was pretty awkward for me--he works in my company and I know him relatively well, but we have a relationship with a little bit of an edge to it. I know quite little of his personal situation, and it may be even fair to say that we have been rivals in the past.

I took about an hour to think about it, and then at about 2:00 AM wrote back to him exactly what I would do in his situation. Not warm and fuzzy things like "Don't Panic" (Yo,wassup Douglas Adams!), but extremely direct things like "Call Mr. X and tell him that you will be needing help. Suggest that he assign you to xxx and pay you a salary of xxx as a temporary measure."

I wrote up about five very precise recommendations, and apologized for my directness, which he had really not given me permission for. I even offered for them to stay at our home if that would be helpful, although I'm not sure that would even be feasible.

I sent the Email.

A year later, I'm not sure of the impact of my Email that night. You know, this story isn't about me, but I'm glad I did something. I've been desperate before and felt like nobody really wanted to hear it. I wonder what it would be like to sit homeless and hungry on the street and watch people go into a restaurant.

The colleage did thank me, though. He actually did get a position as I recommended, but I'm not sure if it was a direct result of my midnight musings, or if it was just an obvious move that other people thought of, too.



I'll probably never forget the despair that I read in that note. I wonder if I would do more if I were rich...

One kind of funny moment is when we were on the hunting trip in south Texas, which is synonymous with "the middle of nowhere", and Nate and I pulled up to an intersection under the highway. A group of redneck-looking people were holding plastic buckets out, presumably for us to drop money into. One of the buckets had a red-crayon-scrawled sign which read "Katerina Victims Fund". Perhaps it wasn't an official donation station...

I remember several periods in time which coincide with world events:

-When Reagan was shot (I was in 5th grade)
-When the Space Shuttle exploded (actually both times, but I was thinking of 1986)
-The Oklahoma City Bombing
-When Princess Diana died
-The San Francisco Earthquake in 1989
-The World Trade Center attack on 9/11
-The Tsunami of 2004

I know exactly where I was when I heard about these things, and can tell you what I thought, whom I was with, etc. The most dramatic feelings I have were about 9/11, and I thought maybe I would write about it this year...but maybe not.

When I was in college, I was working on a research paper and got distracted by a paper done regarding the JFK assasination. Since I'm from Dallas, and have been to the site of the shooting, I was naturally interested. This was perhaps the first televised global tragedy, and affected people very deeply in a unique way. The researchers polled people about their emotional response to the tragedy, and we can all probably relate to it--anger, sleeplessness, crying, agitation, fear, etc.

My editor kind of shot this idea down as corny, but I thought about inviting people to send a short few sentences of what they remember about 9/11 and when they saw what was going on. I am certain we all have a story we could tell...Who knows, maybe another year...

The Conversation

Part I

For about three weeks I've had this draft on my blog about Union Square. In a short summary, I got obsessed with Union Square in San Francisco for about three weeks (I know, I'm weird sometimes and there's no cure). When I came back from my trip out there (during which there were no earthquakes), American Movie Classics was running a movie called "The Conversation" which is a terribly dated but psychologically intriguing seventies movie starring Gene Hackman as a Private Investigator hired to record a private conversation in Union Square. Cindy Williams, who played Shirley (or is she Laverne?) in the famous sitcom from the seventies is one of the people being bugged. During the conversation, she sings hauntingly "When the red, red robin goes bob, bob, bobbing along..." this got stuck in my head for about two weeks before it got replaced by "Henry The Octopus" from the Wiggles.

Part II

Here's an excerpt from an actual coversation at our house

Someone is washing dishes--their spouse comes up behind them. The person washing dishes says "I just wanted to let you know that I forgive you for snapping at me earlier."

Stops washing dishes. The water is still running.

"I know how terrible you must feel about the way you treated me. I know that's not the way you want to be with me."

"Hmphf."

"I just wanted to let you know that it was okay so you wouldn't have to sit there, washing dishes, worrying if I'm mad or if we're going to have another argument."

"Yes, well....That's what you thought I was thinking, huh?"

"Umm hmmm. And I thought I'd let you off the hook so you wouldn't have to sit there and think about all the ways you could start apologizing and relive the whole thing in your mind--I wanted to spare you that pain and embarrassment."

"Well, I appreciate that."

"Well, I love you and don't want you to feel bad."

"Awwwww...."

"Plus I know you would just pout and see if you could bait me into apologizing first..."

"Hey!"

"...even though I didn't do anything at all wrong except get mad about you being snippy."

Laughing "Well, I'm glad that's over with. And you've been so gracious about the whole thing."

"Yes, well, I'm here to please."

And that's how you stay married for 15 years...and counting.

Moral Victory?

My whole life I have felt deep inside that I’m a good guy. In fact I know that I am. I had a rocky start to things and a pretty unhappy childhood, and found myself at age eighteen broke beyond belief, kicked out of my parents’ home for no good reason and on foot. I nearly starved to death, eating one meal every two days and even suffered the happy embarrassment of having cans of corn and beans brought to me from a church’s food pantry—at one point I lost about forty pounds in six months due to malnutrition (I've contemplated going back on this diet). I fought through it with a happy attitude, making barely minimum wage, going to school without having enough time to study properly, working hard and getting promoted, and out of sheer luck meeting and marrying the right girl.

I don’t have an ounce of bitterness over any of the events—in fact they make me laugh a little bit. The strongest steel comes from the hottest fires and that sort of thing. And I have certainly had to learn how to be tough. I remember a psycho boss who was having PMS decided to use my employee review to blindside me about an issue during my semi-annual review. I sat still, quietly and calmly asking her for examples of the issue she was raising, which infuriated her more.

For the record, I was being accused of not acting like a team player because I overrode one of my colleagues’ poor decisions on a project—I heard her points and explained to her why I disagreed: I was personally responsible for the project and this was a case where there was no middle ground. Someone had to make the decision, and it fell on my shoulders. Besides which, this had occurred two months before and I had never heard an objection—I guess my colleague had just run to the manager, and when my boss was writing up my review the day before presenting it to me this conflict had somehow become a focal point of her comments about me. There was no question that I had made the correct decision, which resulted in a procedure change which saved the company a quarter of a million dollars! But back to the psychotic boss…

As I sat and endured the tirade, the boss got madder and madder—her face grew red and she started peppering her language with obscenities. I stayed very calm, probably more out of confusion and trying to see what she was getting at than any type of self-control, which is typically my weak suit in the face of emotional events. I’m sure my face was red, too, though. My heart was pounding so hard in my ears that I could hear the blood sloshing around—I needed this job so I could finish college. I couldn’t lose it. And this company had a strict employment policy—if I lost my temper they could certainly justify firing me. I remember the tiny white flowers on long green stems on her desk sat in a blue ceramic bowl with tiny white pebbles. I must have been staring at the pebbles, because they’re embedded in my memory. She had let the water stand in the bowl too long: the soil reeked of some sort of bitter mold, and it wafted in the air like smoke--for a little while, I thought it was bad breath from the boss. The bitterness floated in the air. I must have tuned her out—she wasn’t making sense.

Finally, exasperated, she stood up, screaming, grabbed my review paper with the paragraphs of criticism about me in her left hand and made a fist, crumpling it and throwing it on the floor. She screamed “F*** you, F*** you!” at me then threw open her door so hard that the doorknob made a hole in the wall. She pointed toward my desk and told me “Now get the hell out of my office!”

Like I said, I needed the job. I didn’t get mad, and I was through trying to convince her to reconsider her stance. I would love to say that, as I was sitting in stunned silence staring up at my boss shrieking at me from her doorway, that I was like a chess grandmaster playing out every possible move, and that I chose to sit still and quiet because it would play out perfect. That’s what happened, and it actually was the perfect move, but I think it was just that I was in shock and my knees refused to work.

My boss just threw her hands up in the air, looked at the ceiling, and let out an exasperated sigh. She stormed out of the office, out of the work area, perhaps even out of the building. I just sat there, but it had the appearance of holding my ground.

My boss was frustrated with me to the point of driving me out of the company, and I just sat there. I wonder if some people would look at that as an act of cowardice. It seems that lots of folks get so hung up on what is fair and ideal that they get outraged over being treated improperly, and insist on exacting some sort of retribution for maltreatment.

I just knew one thing: I needed that damn job and the paycheck that came with it. I had adapted this crummy position and schedule and income into my plan, and I didn’t want to leave, especially on someone else’s terms. I was living life in semester-shaped chunks, each one getting me a little closer to graduation and my goals. And as she stormed out of the office, I felt that I stood about a millimeter away from having to rewrite my life plan, and this crazy chick was holding a knife to the thread. I felt indignant, not that I had been mistreated, but that this situation threatened my future so decisively. I decided not to go for any moral victory, but just grab onto this job with both hands and try to survive.

I ended up getting my moral victory, too. A year later, right before getting fired for a similar outburst with one of her peers, my manager apologized for her behavior. It was a nice, unexpected bonus, and I guess it was unnecessary at that point—I had survived. I even went on to become the top-rated employee in the company, and the aforementioned project which I went on to complete resulted was very high-profile. A year after successful implementation, the president of the company flew in and took our whole mid-management team out for steak dinner. For one night, anyway, I was the toast of the company.

My dilemma is the question: Did I take the moral high ground or the moral low ground?

Viewed in a vaccuum, the morality of the situation may dictate that I stand up to the manager and insist upon hashing out the issues properly and completely. Since she seemed to be so angry, perhaps I should have appealed for us to go into her manager. I should trust that the company wants to be fair and just, and won’t support this insane treatment of employees. If this wasn’t upheld, I almost certainly had legal recourse against them, right?

I know other people who would hold a blood grudge against someone who insulted them in this manner. They would never be able to let it go, to act civilly to this person, to report to them as a boss, or even smile at them. I wonder if my ability to get over it is a strength or a weakness.

My interpretation, though self-serving, is that the moral victory is best viewed from a distance. In this case, a year later I still had a job and she didn’t. By enduring the outburst without losing my cool, I lived to fight another day and perhaps win the war instead of focusing on a battle I was certain to lose. It was certainly humiliating to sit in the chair and take the abuse from a raving maniac, but I couldn’t afford to sit at home, unemployed and unable to pay for my tuition, and be the winner of a moral victory.

And there are other factors. Perhaps in retrospect it is interesting to note that her husband was having an affair behind her back, and was openly mistreating her five-year-old son (from a previous marriage). She was unpopular among her peers (go figure), and was obviously miserable. The job was all she had, and, as I said, it was a crummy company. I, on the other hand, was working toward something else—I had hope, and even felt “above” all of the mediocrity of the company and all of it’s beaurocratic nonsense. I never felt the tedium of knowing that, unless I did something drastic, I would be waking up to trudge in to the same cubicle ten years from now, and that must be the frustration she was feeling. She was still crazy, though, and as she was escorted out the door in tears, I was guilty about the mixture of sadness and joy that I felt.

Just for the Record

States I have visited...










your own visited states map or check out these Google Hacks.

Snakes on a Plane--Rejected Concepts

1. Snacks on a Plane!
2. Soap on a Rope!
3. Snakes near Mike!
4. Wasps in an airport! (Thanks, Stormfilled)
5. Bunnies in a Garden!
6. Mimes in a Phonebooth!
7. Flakes on a Plane!
8. The Rain in Spain!
9. Sheikhs on a Plane! (reloaded)
10. Crepes on a Train!

Snakes on a Plane!

Okay, that's a movie I'm not going to go see...EVER! I guess someone is trying to give me a heart attack. I really don't even like snakes in the zoo.

Last week, Fran called to tell me that she was leaving her friend's house and a 4-foot snake was crawling over the road slowly. She rolled over it and felt a crunch. Then she stopped and put the car in reverse. No crunch. She looked over to see it lying in the grass on the side of the road, hissing.

She asked me to star in "CSI: Reptilia" and go to see if the body of the snake was still there. I found the scene of the crime, a big splat on the road with a slithering blood trail leading off the road. I extrapolated the path to where it could hide in cover, looking carefully as I walked--then I spotted it. The snake had actually died in the process of crawling over a short garden fence, so half of its body was on one side, and half on the other. Decidedly gross.

I called her and reported "One down..."

Now for something completely different....

I'm not sure where I get the reputation for being rough on my stuff, but I've earned that rap somehow. I think I have at least a semblance of light touch in my hands, and I'm pretty dextrous, but nevertheless I seem to get jabs....

Fran: "Hey, Bull! The China Shop called--they were wondering when you were coming back in..."

So, when I traded my phone in for one of those nice, new palm phones with the stylus (you know, one of those pen-thingies that you use to select on the menu screen--detachable/highly loseable), Fran's response was "Wow! That's neat. I'll give you two days before you lose that stylus..."

My work partner, Joe: "I'll set the over/under on you losing that stylus at two weeks." But we didn't set a dollar amount. Mostly, I must say, because I was a little doubtful myself.

I've had it 24 hours now, and I've already dropped it onto the floorboard of my car and had to rummage around for it in the 100-degree heat. Twice.

Today, I was returning from a pretty long day. I was walking up to my car and spotted my stylus on the ground next to my car tire. I looked around to make sure no one was watching, then, embarrassed, I reached down quickly and grabbed it. Whew! Dodged a bullet--I almost didn't make it 24 hours...

Then I went to put it into the holder in my phone and was shocked to learn that my stylus was still in place. Somehow, I found a duplicate of the EXACT SAME stylus that goes with the phone. On the ground next to my car. It is actually a little scary and puzzling, but I'm just going with it. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here, but do I get to collect double if I hang on to it for the whole term of the betting period?

Fran's explanation: "God gave you an over/under of 1 day!"

Smmmmmmokin'!

It's not often that I have one of those literally jaw-dropping moments, but it happened yesterday when I read that Dell had decided to recall a bunch of laptop computers because the batteries could spontaneously combust. I caught myself staring into empty space, remembering an incident from about a year ago...

It starts with a small indulgence that I allow my son, Ryan. I'm not sure exactly how it started, but I let him play a game called "Rise of Nations" on my computer. I think the game is a good exercise for him--it makes him manage resources, build a civilization, read maps in 2D space and research technology--this type of thinking is certainly beneficial. The fact that he then takes these newly-developed skills, builds an army, and sets out to annihilate other civilizations is at least slightly controversial. The game has several levels of difficulty, so I can usually rig it for Ryan to win.

A couple of times, we have met with some of my friends who like gaming and we will network our computers, order pizzas, and play all night (yes, we are dorks as grown-ups just like we were dorks in college...) Anyway, one time I brought Ryan along and he allied with us against the computer and we helped him along--he even got to be the one to march in at the end and defeat the computer, and everyone seemed to get a big kick out of that.

It has raised some eyebrows when Ryan is in full battle mode--One time I was a little afraid that he would cause some kind of shell-shock flashback when he was showing an air force veteran how he was launching an fighter assault from an aircraft carrier. Other times, I am pretty sure that people disapprove of the "Conquer the World" attitude of the game. But it's just a game (the parent justifies to himself, trying with all his might to muster a clever analogy to chess...)

So, flashing back to about a year and a half ago, Ryan was about an hour into Rise of Nations, and I was filling out some papers on my desk. I smelled the unmistakeable odor of electrical smoke and melting plastic, and looked up to see a thin line of smoke rising up from my laptop.

"Ryan! What's going on?!" I shouted. I had one of those mind-racing episodes where I flashed back to everything that I had ever done to this computer. Anything I had ever spilled on the keyboard, Kaitlyn prying the letters off, dropping a book on the plug, the fact that the onboard NIC never worked, and why in the world did it only have one USB connection...

I jumped up and unplugged it quickly. Then I unplugged all the peripherals--printer, etc. and waited until the smoke settled. I was really glad that I was right there when it happened--sometimes I let Ryan play the computer in another room while I read or do other work. Also cause for alarm is the fact that I tend to just leave the computer on all night--in the room next to Ryan's bedroom.

I couldn't figure out where the smoke was coming from right away--the whole base of the unit had "that smell."

Ryan's explanation: "I think it's because I nuked France."

I had to laugh. The I tried explaining that it didn't work that way, but he was pretty sure that he had pegged the cause. Apparently he had ferociously nuked them repeatedly.

I got on the phone with Dell and got a very smarmy customer service operator. The guy I was talking to was extremely suspicious that I had done something drastic to the computer. Then I got a little defensive that I had been letting a then-six-year-old play with my computer and, in particular, what I was letting him play. I thought I should cover that part up. Apparently, he couldn't accept the story that "the computer was working great. Nothing weird. Not plugging anything in. Just sitting there computing away. Then it caught on fire." No way, he says.

I've started to notice a very common theme of "blame the vicitim" in almost everything I see. No wonder lawyers have so much business, because it's damned annoying to call and ask for help to be met with "Okay, now what did you do to get yourself in this predicament?" mentality. Unfortunately, if you ever go to Wal Mart and see the average Dale Earnhart fan, that is probably a pretty good assumption, but in this case I was fairly sure that this was some type of malfunction of the electrical system. In fact, a pretty serious malfunction.

The smell seemed to come from where the AC adaptor plugged in to the back of the computer--near where the battery is mounted. The heat caused the plastic PCI slot dust plug to melt inside the socket. I used a pair of needlenose pliers to yank it out. The computer could run off AC power but not battery power after that...

It actually took nearly a month to get any kind of response or help from Dell. I was shocked, because up to that point I had received excellent service from them. Their explanation was that my computer was "outdated" (it was about a year old or so!) and that they were going to replace it with an equivalent system, so they had to go down to the dump to find the discarded parts that match my specifications. Apparently, there is a big scam whereby people try to trade in outdated computers to get updated replacements, and there was no way I was going to get away with that!

I finally received a computer to replace "little smokey"--it had cracked stickers that said "REFURBISHED"--stuck everywhere. To make matters worse, this started to feel like some backroom deal where I was being done a begrudged favor--Someone apparently didn't enter this computer's serial number into their system, so when I called several months later to get some support, they had it listed as...well, someone else's computer. It's a good thing I'm not paranoid...oh, wait...

So, I started dreading the idea of taking this thing anywhere for fear of being accused of possessing stolen property. I finally ended up with a new computer and tossed the old one (figuratively).

I started thinking about this yesterday--this "blame the victim" thing worked pretty well in their favor. I was defensive, and was forced to put up a convincing argument to get any service. In other words, I was fooled into not feeling the appropriate response: Outrage, anger, disgust, entitlement (ie. entitled to an immediate replacement). I kind of didn't want to tell them the part about 6-year-old being at the wheel when the ship went down, because I was afraid that that somehow voids the warranty (yeah, I know, that could have been thought out better...)

A laptop by nature is to be carried out into the world, where it is likely to encounter trauma of some kind or another, so they asked questions like "Do you sometimes run this off battery power?" "Umm hmmmm...." Kinda like asking "Do you ever put something flammable or explosive inside your car, like, say gasoline?" "You never drive it on a rigid surface like pavement or anything, do you?"

When I had my first job at the ice cream shop, and old lady that I worked with named Phyllis called me over. She was smoking a cigarette and wearing a silly white ice cream shop hat. Phyllis had beautiful blue eyes and had a voice like sandpaper. She was about 60 at the time but looked about 80. "See that over there?" She pointed to a stoplight hanging over a busy intersection. The lightpost, for some reason, bobbed up and down violently in the wind. "Mark my words, some day that light is going to break off and kill someone! I just wanted to tell someone so you'll know I was right about it!" Well, the light is actually still there and it never fell off and killed anyone, but I know the feeling. Something's wrong and you want to call it out.

Well, I ran across this problem over a year ago and didn't have the guts to be outraged. I let this guy railroad me into thinking it was my fault somehow and that he was doing me a favor by helping me. Kind of wish I had that smart-ass rep's phone number so I could call him and put him in his place...

Gerrymandering

School starts Monday--Ryan will be starting second grade. This, like many other changes in life, has generated a little controversy in our circle of friends.

Since Ryan started kindergarten, Fran has organized a monthly outing of a group of the moms--everyone is invited, and the group has gotten larger. Some of the more fun teachers even come along at times. One of the things that it helps out with is "how to find your way through the school system". In some ways it is good to temper your expectations and take some of the things that happen in the classroom less personally. For example, we thought Ryan's teacher last year didn't like him because she was very defensive when we asked about his progress. It turns out that she is just "that way". It wasn't about us--funny how often that is the case.

Another thing we kind of picked up on is that the student distribution to different teachers isn't necessarily a random process. Teachers get together and discuss groups of kids that should be split up next year for academic reasons, social harmony, or even something obscure like parental involvement (One class did not have any parents volunteer for "room mom" for parties, etc because they all worked).

Ryan has a nice core group of friends, and Fran was worried (beyond reason) that he would get isolated from them this year. Additionally, there was a particular teacher that was said to be "THE BEST" second grade teacher ever. The bylaws of the school state that you are not allowed to request a specific teacher, but you could specify the teaching style that would work best with your child. So, Fran begged me to draft a letter that walks this semantic tightrope.

Essentially, here's what my letter said :

Dear Principal:

I'm writing in response to the information you asked for regarding our child's personality and placing them with the right teacher for the second grade. I feel like I need to explain myself a little more than that sheet allows.

When my husband and I went to the open house, we had the opportunity to meet and chat with the second grade teachers and while we have nothing negative to say about any of the teachers, we both were very impressed with Mrs. X in particular. She visited with us and Ryan (and our Kaitlyn!) for a little while and explained a few things about the second grade in general and her classroom and methods (and of course her guinea pig). We got a really comfortable feeling with her and especially the way she interacted with Ryan. They just seemed to "click"!

Ryan is a very bright child and although we think he'll do his best with any of the teachers, he is very self-critical at times and does best in a positive, nurturing environment. We know very well that we aren't supposed to ask for a specific teacher. We just thought sharing our experience at open house and the positive interaction we were so impressed with might have some weight in your consideration.

Thank you for all you do!

Guess what? When the class rolls were announced, Ryan is enrolled in Mrs. X's class!

We met her last night and she is indeed a wonderful teacher. Ryan is excited about learning how to write cursive, tell time on a clock, and some of the other fun stuff. Also, incredibly, Mrs. X is a big proponent of creative writing, and send a whole sheet home explaining how we should encourage our kids to embrace the process of creative writing without being overly judgemental of punctuation, grammar, and spelling at this point. Hee hee! Like she's preaching to the choir, here. Additionally, there is the opportunity for the kids to write and an independent publisher will publish their stories.

The downside comes in now--Ryan was put into this class, which I suppose is the most desireable group, along with four or five of his friends. But the boy whose mother is Fran's best friend was placed into a different class. She was absolutely livid about this, especially after she found out that Fran had "written a letter" to the principal--her statement: "I guess I'm losing out because I followed the rules." And this may be true. It was a pretty traumatic thing, with about a dozen phone calls going back and forth between our houses and then from the friend to the principal. We certainly didn't want to feel like we were gloating, so we suppressed our celebration a little.

The boy in question is a good boy for the most part, but he is 6 months older than Ryan, has older brothers, and tends to be a little dominant (and somewhat mischevious--a great skill learned to cope with older siblings). So maybe this is a good time for Ryan to stretch his wings a little, and may be a good time for this boy to make and maintain friendships rather than depending on ready-made buddies that he's known since preschool.

As usual on the first day of school, I am expecting Fran to shed a few tears as her little boy walks into his classroom wearing an oversized backpack, a few inches taller and a year wiser.

Breakfast this Morning

A cup of coffee and a fortune cookie...

Fortune: Be prepared to receive something special.

I'm ready! And, if I may say, it's about damned time.

Haiku: Reloaded

Blistered soil, gawking
Grieve as thick, solemn clouds pass
Granting no pity

all is forgotten
of rest, peace, quiet, fun
each Monday morning

Crushed goldfish crackers
Saturday morning cartoons
tiny arms, big hugs

Towering redwood
Palms grasping rough, aged skin-then,
I feel you quiver

Smiling, deceiving
Foot solidly held down flat
Hiding the worn sole

If you ever get a chance to see the Redwoods...

Fran and I agreed that we had to go back to the Redwoods north of San Francisco when we were there a couple of weeks ago. The last time we were there, we bought her mom, who has a severe case of the "Green Thumb", a redwood seedling. So, maybe 2000 years from now these trees will be considered indigenous to Texas.

The light was gorgeous, the weather was thankfully 40 degrees cooler than when we left home, so the walk in the woods was very enjoyable. Being among these trees makes me feel very peaceful.

I'm not sure why, but there were about four people with New York accents who were incapable of speaking at regular conversational levels. They had the same decibel level as a jet plane at takeoff, which was causing advancing groups of birds to take flight in fear. They were screaming to each other about things they needed to do when they got back from vacation--it seemed to be sacrilege. Another woman walked by chatting mindlessly on her cellphone. We just turned to each other and shrugged.

I took about 50 or so pictures, and then the battery ran out in the camera. There's a ring of huge trees called Cathedral Grove, which will, I suppose, remain undocumented here. As we walked back to the entrance, we spotted a black tailed deer munching lichens from a fallen log. I looked at Fran, then at the camera bag, and then just enjoyed watching the deer. He stood there for several minutes, seeing the people but apparently not worried. Then, he wandered slowly back into the woods.

Last time, we were the last people on the bus back to San Francisco. We lollygagged in with two steaming cups of hot chocolate and received glares from the out-of-breath people who didn't stop at the gift shop. This time, we were determined not to receive such daggers, so we decided to forego the extra long hiking trail and turned back with an hour to spare. We did a little shopping, decided to go for hot chocolate again since we could with the chilly temperatures, then lollygagged back to the bus, where we were again the last ones on with hot chocolate and glares and daggers and...etc etc.

As the guide said "The difference between a tourist and a hitchhiker is about one minute."

We were walking down the boardwalk, I spotted a camera shop and we went inside and asked if they would mind charging our battery for us since we didn't have the charger on our vacation. Since it was Fran and not me, and since it was a guy, he smiled and agreed. I stood by the front entrance and was thoroughly checked over by a bald, burly Russian man who glared at me with his huge hamhock arms crossed.

I didn't realize what a treasure I had in the camera until we were back home. 

More Tea, Anyone?

My cell phone rang at 7:30 PM. It was an unfamiliar number.

Was Fran stranded at a gas station somewhere?

Is someone in the hospital?

Is it a telemarketer? Did someone find something I've lost? Couldn't be that--when I lose something, it tends to be gone forever...Like that shiny new $450 watch I absentmindedly left on the table at the restaurant while trying to set the time correctly.

No--it was a customer--a new account I'm inheriting from a colleague--and he was calling to chew me out. Lovely.

I actually thought it was a joke for a second--the guy stuttered and lisped like a drunk Elmer Fudd--Actually, he is an engineer wondering where the heck his "stuff" was...7:30 PM?
I was home with the kids alone, and Kaitlyn was acting a little bit needy. I had already read her a couple of stories, and she had been rummaging around the house looking for new little treasures. She was on pace to break about two figurines per day wherever we went over the past couple of days, and I feel like I've just been following her around saying "no" to everything she wants to do.

When you see a two-year-old grabbing things and running, like a bag of chips, a pair of scissors, a glass clock received as a wedding gift, a picture frame, or a jar of vitamins, it is important to stop the child before she hurts herself. But, reflecting back on the day and realizing that you've constantly been lecturing the child, you worry about crushing the child's spirit by being negative all the time.

It was just then that Kaitlyn dumped a freshly-made pitcher of sweet tea onto the kitchen floor. An entire pitcher...on the freshly-mopped floor. In the process, the full pitcher, before spreading out across the floor, landed on her big toe, causing her to scream loudly.

At this point, I ran into the kitchen, with Elmer Fudd still complaining into my left ear (at this point, he had said everything that needed to be said at least twice, and it had reached a ridiculous level of being unreasonable, so I was ready for the call to be over). I leaned over to pick Kaitlyn up and the phone cut off--excellent, one less thing to worry about. I set it down.
I told her "No, Katilyn!" and then, realizing that she was very upset, held her until she calmed down. Then I set her down in a chair and went about cleaning the kitchen floor. I used bath towels--it was two gallons of sticky sweet tea, and I realized I was going to have to mop again after putting the kids to bed. I was so angry that I turned and snapped at Kaitlyn, who started crying again. Ryan also snapped at her--it made me realize that he was just following my bad example--I leaned down and told him to be kind. It made me uncomfortable to see my behavior toward Kaitlyn modeled by my 7-year-old.

I served them their dinner, bathed them both, dressed them in the pajamas, and put them to bed with a quick story and their bedtime prayers.

Fran called to check on everything, and I jokingly said that we were reenacting the Boston Tea Party in the kitchen. I started to feel guilty, realizing that, even though I couldn't help it, I had left Kaitlyn unsupervised with the tea, and that she was just acting out her curiosity. She has a very sweet personality, and it made my heart ache to consider the confusion that she must be experiencing now--She is very bright, and she is naturally testing the boundaries of her world.
After cleaning up, I went upstairs to where Kaitlyn was asleep in her crib. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek and told her "Daddy loves you, Kaitlyn." I always talk to the kids when they are asleep--I believe they subconsciously hear everything and that the message gets through.

My theory of parenting is that you are a guide to help your child through the uncertain times of childhood. Discipline is actually the process of helping them along the path, and there's no room for anger in this process. I'm so thankful that we have such a clever, wonderful child--so many other kids I see just seem to have no personality or depth to them, and our Kaitlyn is so bright and beautiful. I know that I do a lot of things right in parenting--it's one of the things that I think I do best. But there are still some things I need to work on.

Sailing in the Bay

I really wish I were a good photographer. Unfortunately, I'm lucky enough to have a nice camera but not skilled enough to use it properly. My strategy is to make up for it in volume. I shoot tons and tons of pictures and then pick the ones I like, crop them to make them interesting, and enjoy them. I think I have a pretty good eye for composition--especially in "post production" mode.

This day, my wife and I took a bay cruise in San Francisco. It was the closest I got to getting into a fight in ten years--We were signing up for the cruise and Fran was handing the girl a coupon for $5 off or so, and she ran my card through the machine before discounting the price--it took a matter of seconds. She sheepishly looked at me and told me that she couldn't offer the discount because she had already run my card through. I nicely and politely asked to speak to the manager, who flatly told me that they would not honor the coupon. I told them to cancel it, but they have signs everywhere saying that the tickets were non-refundable. I hadn't signed the receipt yet, so I told them I would just call my bank and cancel the transaction, but I realized that this would be a huge hassle.

I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists, heart pumping and, through my set jaw, hissed in a rage, "I'm about to F*** somebody up!" Realizing that I was on vacation and looking across the bay and seeing Alcatraz and not wanting to get sent there for smacking around a day laborer, or worse, getting smacked around by a day laborer, I turned around and walked off, leaving the tickets. My wife, who really wanted to go on the cruise, and who has the ability to separate the issue of pride from being bamboozled out of a whole $5, signed the receipt, scooped up the tickets, and followed me down the boardwalk.

I hadn't been that pissed off in a long time, so maybe it was good for me--maybe it cleaned out my arteries or something, like crimping off a hose so the water pressure can reach the other side of the garden. It didn't feel good at the time--I was embarrassed about losing my temper, and also embarrassed about losing the argument.

We turned a corner on the boardwalk full of tourists, and three topless women were standing on benches, holding signs saying something to the effect of "Boobs not Bombs". It was hard to argue with that well-thought-out logic, and hard to remain mad while laughing.

We took the bay cruise, and I snapped this picture, among about a hundred others (including the great shot of the Golden Gate Bridge enveloped in fog down below). I thought for a little a while about throwing my radio headset overboard to stick them for the $5 they cheated from me. I'm glad we went on the cruise, though. It was a highlight of our trip.