Year: 2007

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Morning Frustrations

I planned on being at a client’s office at 7am this morning and skipping lunch so I could get back home for a productive afternoon. However, a nervous stomach and throbbing head kept me in bed. I don’t use an alarm clock but I sure have a snooze alarm. When a 100 pound German Shepherd rolls over on your legs, it is like having an extra feather down quilt thrown over you on a cold, lazy winter Saturday. Molly obviously knew I needed some extra Zzzs.

So, the stomach bug has Cathy too. It’s 9:35am and I have been unable to leave the house. She’s camped out in the water closet, Amy has me cooking cinnamon rolls, and other distractions have kept me chained to these 4 walls.

So, instead of getting anything done, I am pacing the floors and debating just staying home to work on other high priority projects.

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What do you dream?

Last night I dreamt that I solved a mathematical proof that no one else had ever done. I was in a debate with colleagues over how the equation would graph and in the dream I held a piece of graph paper where we had begun our chart of the data. It was evident that the equation would graphic either into a logarithmic curve or an endless spiral.

In another dream, I had gone back to school and was living in a single dorm room in Greeve Hall, an all boys dorm on the UT campus, but in the dream it was located on the same side of the street as Clement Hall. One part of the dream had something to do with playing cards. Another part had to do with my friend Vania making a huge cry for attention by climbing to an unsafe height and announcing to the corridor that he had a plan. The head resident, a woman, disgusted with me how she felt he was making an huge cry for attention. The dream had great detail from the cherry hand rails to the elaborate paneling on the walls and a jaunt outside revealed a store on the first floor with a variety of vividly colored items inside.

The second dream did not top the proof dream. I woke almost able to write out the formula.

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Feels like someone’s messin with me

So my development server is suddenly giving me 404s instead of webpages. Ok. I can deal. Let’s take a break and get a round tuit and figure out why Noah’s sound on his computer isn’t working. See, I have a game I want to share with him. We got the sound working but the game which lives on my desk is no where to be found. So all things constant appear to be in flux today. This isn’t right!

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Happy Birthday Evan!

Two weeks ago it was Cathy’s birthday. This past Thursday, Noah turned 11 years old. Today Evan turns two! Two very fast years. When Amy was born, I bought a book and started writing her a letter a day which became a letter a week, then none at all. When Evan was born, I bought a book and never put word one in it. Ah! Good intentions replaced by actual doings. The upcoming birthdays are Amy turning five on June 10 and Sarah turning 14 on June 24 then Tommy turns 17 on August 15.

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Can you cope?

Cathy posted regarding her cycle of stress by which she feeds her headaches. Dr Michael Benjamin (or a robot representing Dr Benjamin or possibly a consulting group in India) commented on Cathy’s post (which is slightly ironic because one of Cathy’s degrees are in Psychology). Kris and Cathy both visited the good doctor’s myRay site and liked it. Naturally, I had to take a moment to see how crazy I am. The results? I short I’m a disappointed, angry, critical control freak that feels excessive guilt, burdens myself with responsibility that isn’t mine, craves more intimacy, and desperately needs a steak. A brief clipping:

  • You have a tendency to think and analyze. This is very important to you.
  • You do not seem to be able to “think your way out” of stress.

    • This causes you to think more with increasingly fewer results for your thoughts.

  • You can easily get into a vicious circle and feel perplexed.

[Source]

And the best sentence in the evaluation (which regular readers of Reality Me will appreciate): It is easier to be more open when writing, than in face-to-face relationships..

The detailed results:

Continue reading Can you cope?

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Children, left to their own…

So this morning had a plan. At 5:15am I would be on a video conference with London that would end at 6am. At 6am I would rouse Noah, make sure he was fed, clothed, etc and send him off at 6:54am to his last half day of the 5th grade. At 7am, I rouse Sarah, make sure she is fed, clothed, etc and instead of sending her to the bus at 7:34am I would drive her to make sure she was at school early (8am) so that she could participate in BNN’s filming the 8th grader’s last day.

Plans! Technical issues got the video conference off to a late start. I got Noah started then checked on him to find him staring blankly at our barren kitchen. He didn’t want cereal so I ran down options: oat meal, cream of wheat, eggs, … We hit on eggs! So I roll into EduDad and prompt Noah to get a frying pan while I get a bowl and crack two eggs into it. Noah looks in the closet where we keep glassware, then he looks in the drawer under the stove, and finally in the cabinet by the stove where pans are kept. He adds some milk to the eggs and we beat them well. The pan is oiled and cooking commences. I instruct him on when and how to stir the eggs and I return to my video conference. 20 minutes later I check on him and he is still stirring the most well-done eggs you’ve ever seen. I failed to tell him when to remove the eggs! "I was waiting for you to come upstairs so I could ask what to do." Why didn’t he come downstairs and ask for help?! Of course, I feel rotten. With one minute to spare, he slams down his burnt eggs and goes to his bus.

I rouse Sarah and return to my conference call. We wrapped at 7:46am which was still enough time to get Sarah to the school but she’s AWOL! And Noah left the stove on! I call Sarah’s phone, the one she left at her friend’s house, and leave a voice mail but I know what she’s done. In her desire to be an independent teen and trying to not interrupt my work, she has acted on her own. However, as a parent, I want her to always say goodbye! I want her to say good morning. I want her to sneak into her mother’s room and get her mom a peck on the cheek! AND we had a plan. I was supposed to drive her to school.

I find the choices they made this morning amusing and good for their growth and learning; however, I feel that I bungled being a dad this morning. I feel I let Sarah down.

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LOST Review

Oh that was good! They got me! You know. One question I find myself asking: Setting aside Ben’s mind games and apparent evil nature, have The Other’s (I don’t count Patchy) done anything terrible that wasn’t directly a result of an action of an Ocean Flight 815 survivor?

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Marriage has challenges

I think one of the biggest challenges in marriage is finding new ways to piss off your spouse so that they don’t get bored with the old ways of pissing them off. Watch for my upcoming book release, "365 Ways to Tick Off Your Wife" and its sister publication, "365 Ways to Apologize (Without saying the word sex)."