Reality Me » Tommy

Of Being Dad – Where I explain life

Doug McCaughan — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:57:29 +0000

This morning I had the occasion to explain life to my 20 year old:

You eat, sleep, shit, shower, contribute to society, and play. Live a simple, honest life. Basically, follow the 12 points of the Scout Law and you’ll be happy.

Of Being Dad

Doug McCaughan — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:20:38 +0000

File this under things that make me twitch.

Tommy, in a phone call to me: "By the way, my laptop hasn’t worked for the past week and a half or so. Says something about no bootable media."
Me: "Did you install anything recently or drop it?"
Tommy: "No but there are two screws missing on the bottom."

Of Being Dad

Doug McCaughan — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:20:38 +0000

File this under things that make me twitch.

Driving Video

Doug McCaughan — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:25:15 +0000

From the mouths of babes

Doug McCaughan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:32:50 +0000

Tommy, 19: "I can’t find the snake."
Me: "What happened?"
Tommy: "He was on my lap. I fell asleep."

The snake is fine. It just had a good explore.

From the mouths of babes

Doug McCaughan — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:23:07 +0000

Teenager 1, after walking through the mud, cracks joke: "We’re lucky. In Tibet they’d pay thousands of dollars for this treatment."
Me: "You really don’t know what Tibet is, do you?"
Teenager 1: "No. Well, it has something to do with religion."
Teenager 2: "Yes, it’s in Jerusalem."
Me: "Uh, no."
Teenager 1: "I think it borders China."
Teenager 2: "Well it has something to do with the Jews."
Teenager 1: "It’s mostly a tourist attraction right now."
Teenager 2: "Yup. A tourist trap."

Happy Birthday Tommy!

Doug McCaughan — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:52:56 +0000

My son turns 19 today! I’m getting him a t-shirt that says, "I turned 19 and all I got was this stupid blog post." I am proud of Tommy’s accomplishments. He has grown up to exceed everyone’s expectations. Happy Birthday Tommy!

School Costs How Much?!

Doug McCaughan — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:02:11 +0000

Ooops. I screwed up the paperwork. The financial aid office has explained that we have to pay 100% out of pocket for my son’s Fall college…on Tuesday.

I’ve explained it to the younger children like this: "Since your brother is going to college, we are going to be eating Ramen…lots of Ramen!"

Another Snow Day

Doug McCaughan — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:06:28 +0000

Monday saw school canceled early. Yesterday the road conditions did not permit school and the children stayed home to play.Today, it is too cold for school. Even Lincoln Memorial University closed leaving the question "how will students living on campus eat today?" Perhaps we need to have some homebound lessons.

Why do we blog?

Doug McCaughan — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:40:12 +0000

One reason I blog is for the memories. Some trackback spam caused me to re-read my post Such an inappropriate dad and that started my day off with a smile because that picture and Tommy’s statement show he far exceeded what The They ever thought he would do. Without the blog (and the trackback spam) that memory might have faded.

From the mouths of babes

Doug McCaughan — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:55:59 +0000

Tommy, back from college for 9 days: "Dad, is it normal to have all the skin on top of your foot just die?"

From the mouths of babes

Doug McCaughan — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:17:41 +0000

Tommy has returned from college for a 9 day Thanksgiving break. Noah is home from school. Evan is up from his nap. Cathy has taken Sarah and a friend to the movies.

Evan, raising one finger then another like a peace sign: "I have Noah at home. I have Tom at home."

Love and importance!

From the mouths of babes

Doug McCaughan — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:52:29 +0000

Dad, excited to see Tommy calling from college: "Hello!"
Nothing
Dad: "Hello?"
background noise
Dad: "Tommy, you there?"
Tommy: "Tech support question."
Dad, of course, why else would family call me: "What is it?"
Tommy: "My friend’s computer boots but goes to a blue screen before getting into Windows."
Dad: "Does he have a warranty with someone?"
Tommy: "BestBuy but the nearest one is in Knoxville."
Dad: "Then he needs to find a way to get to Knoxville."
Dad: "Okay. Can you boot into safe mode?"
Tommy: "Same thing happens."
Dad: "Is this a desktop or a laptop?"
Tommy: "A laptop."
Dad: "Has this computer been dropped?"
Tommy: "Well, yeah."
Dad: "Go to BestBuy."

Evening is upon us – Football!

Doug McCaughan — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:42:46 +0000

Bearden High School has a home game tonight. Sarah will be demonstrating her excellence. Last year we discovered it was neither cost effective or prudent to take the whole family so Cathy and I take turns going to the games to support the ~~team~~flags. Alright, usually Cathy goes. So tonight’s evening chaos is brought to you by Liquid Plumber, The BHS Band Boosters, McDonald’s, and the RedCross babysitting training. Participants in tonight’s chaos are Amy, Evan, Noah, and Dad. Absence from this evenings show is Tommy who stayed at the college to chill with his hommies, Sarah who when not flirting with Zak is spinning flags on the field, and Mom who is taking pictures of Sarah flirting with Zak. Mom shoves down a McDonald’s cheese burger and is out the door leaving Noah instructions to get the trash out of the kitchen then help Dad with Amy and Evan. Amy is told to help Dad with Evan. Mom leaves. Noah goes to the back of the house and plays video games. Dad blinks at the trash. Amy and Evan erupted into loudness contests. Dad tries to figure out how to divide time between refereeing Amy and Evan, working on the tub, and coding web applications. It’s quiet upstairs… too quiet…

My Sunday – a week at the University

Doug McCaughan — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:43:09 +0000

I woke up this morning before everyone else and promptly began programming. As the morning wore on, Tommy’s departure time to return to school neared. His grandparents and Noah were to take him back to the University. Granny has not seen the campus and Noah was under the impression that it looked a lot like Hogwarts. I found a round tuit and decided to look at Tommy’s laptop which I’d been ignoring for work. LMU has 3 websites the students are required to use; a web-based email client (no pop3 or imap enabled on the exchange server which bites so I have been unable to setup GMail to check the Outlook Webmail), a blackboard (basically a portal by which professors can communicate with the students by posting assignments, slides, links, documents, etc), and a webadvisor (effectively a forum for the students to communicate as well as listings of groups, activities, etc on campus). The fourth website is a public calendar announcing events, activity schedule, and so forth. Tommy had looked at none of these. He had administrative e-mail a week old. He an assignment from a professor being ignored. And to top if off, I counted 30 hours of Internet gaming! Basically, if he wasn’t in class, he was playing games on the Internet. Two nights the gaming did not stop until 12:30am. I was beyond angry!

Now, in Tommy’s defense, this was first week of school, first week of not being under mommy and daddy’s thumb, first week of true independence. I am sure that many freshman behave this way. Also, Tommy has to figure out how to take in this new world which is overwhelming to him and a safe haven is his gaming. I simply fear Tommy falling behind and not being able to catch up.

So after a couple of hours of yelling, tears, and lectures, to which I am certain Tommy turned a deaf early early on, I installed some software to track his usage of ALL software, not just the Internet. (Thanks Tim!) I started to do some tricks to redirect certain gaming sites to education sites but really could not afford the time away from work so Tommy and I came to an agreement. At first the agreement was that the laptop would not go back to the University until he showed some seriousness about his studies; however, the laptop is a requirement of the university. We laid out some pretty clear expectations for Tommy and he is being given another chance. If he messes up, I will be severally crippling that laptop. Cathy will be spending this week on the phone with Tommy. I believe we also need to consider some serious NASA level check lists for Tommy. 1) Open eyes 2) Yawn (note: if yawn does not come from mouth, you could still be asleep, return to step 1) 3) Scratch 4) Sit up…