A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
Evan, 3 years old: "Bye-bye Daddy!"
Dad:"Bye-bye."
Evan:"Thank you Daddy."
Dad:"You’re welcome. I love you!"
Evan:"I love you too Daddy"
These exchanges make me melt. Evan’s speech has inflections, pauses, and energy that we take for granted. His words say, "I have mastery of this language but I am still learning." I love to see a child grow!
Knoxville needs a sign ordinance.
I have had a post in draft that I thought Dr. Helen would enjoy but I just haven’t found the time to finish it. Today she posted "Every possible form of interaction between an adult and a child is perceived as yet another opportunity for child abuse." and I commented with the story from my post:
We are creating a horrible side affect in the way our children perceive the world. The lack of trust and an understanding that most people are good will impact the choices they make in our future as they become voters and influence laws in our society.
Last year I dropped by the high school band practice to give my daughter some money since she decided to stay from practice to the game instead of coming home. My wife and 3 other children were in the van as I approached the field. The girls on the flag team became concerned because "a creepy stalker guy" was approaching the field. Their response was an immediate jump to the negative.
How strong was the impact of this experience with my daughter? Two days ago I offered to drop by during band camp to offer support to the team and my daughter begged me to stay away. She reminded me specifically that I am “that creepy stalker guy.” Wow. Gee. Thank you society for the hollow feeling you have put in my chest, destroying bonding opportunities between my daughter and me, and embarrassing my daughter in front of her peers.
How can we be raising happy children to become happy adults when we are teaching them to focus only on the negative…and a negative that is highly unlikely?
As a male in our society, I encounter these horrid attitudes more and more frequently particularly as I lead scouts or visit schools. Boy Scouts of America has added training for the adult leaders as well as the children regarding child abuse. Nothing is more uncomfortable than talking to an 8 year old about potential child abuse except maybe talking to a second grader about sexual harassment but that’s a different a story for a different time.
Recently, an adult was asking about how to handle my children while they were at camp and I instructed, "Be firm. Be direct. Tell them they are being annoying." He said he couldn’t do that to another person’s child. You know. We used to say, "it takes a village [to raise a child]." Now everyone in the village is a suspect for an imagined crime that has yet to happen. I believe in the school of hard knocks. I believe in common sense. And I believe in people! Wrong me once, shame on you; wrong me twice, shame on me. I will protect my children within reason. I will not/cannot bubble wrap them and protect them from every sharp corner or hard surface. They will learn more and live fuller lives by me allowing them to fall down or break a bone than by my words and fears. I will teach them trust, and impact upon them common sense.
See also: Slate, 800,000 Missing Kids? Really? Making sense of child abduction statistics.
After a false start at 3am, I woke at 5am to taxi a child around town and have landed at my keyboard to frantically get some code out in the next hour. How goes your Thursday?
I spent the morning banging on the keys on my keyboard taking stress breaks to jot a few words here and abuse Twitter (Twhirl makes it a bit too easy to use Twitter as a chatroom). I had a couple of posts I wrote several days ago scheduled for today so it probably looks like I blogged all day. I made great progress before the crack of dawn and through early morning. About lunch time I had to address the monkeys on my back. See, they’ve been getting fat and are weighing heavy without my permission.
One of the monkeys and I are fighting over whether or not the food was deserved, and, in the meantime, he’s cramming it down like the crops will run out tomorrow! I call him Chubs along with some words I won’t print here. He wants me to spend a couple of hours documenting the food to prove ownership. I cannot take that time from my clients so I delay the documentation until tomorrow and start pounding keys.
Another monkey taps me on the shoulder and explains that the commitment he made to me cannot be honored because he is changing the rules. That tune plays out to eight grand a year so it’s painful tap on the shoulder. There is an opportunity to get that monkey to stick to his commitment but it will require phone calls, emails, online chats, and, you guessed it, paperwork and documentation.
I am back to pounding keys to make my clients happy. They happen to be the ones who provide food for my monkeys. At 3:40pm, one of my monkeys decides that I should take action by 4:00pm or else I’d receive a hefty food penalty. I feed that monkey! And decide to make good use of my time. On the same trip, I drop 90 gallons of clothing and toy donations at Goodwill. (three 30 gallon trash bags of stuff = 90 gallons) I also drop by the grocery to make sure my family has dinner. And PetSmart since the dog food ran out. One of the monkeys burp. No! He belches!
I make it home by 5pm to return to coding at a panic’d rate. May I code until my fingers fall off!
Dad:"Who put the roll of toilet paper on the bathroom floor?"
Amy, 6 years old:"Not me."
Dad:"Didn’t you just use the bathroom?"
Amy:"Yes."
Dad:"Then you put the toilet paper on the floor."
Amy, the wordsmith:"No. I didn’t put the toilet paper on the floor. I dropped it on the floor!"
Friday Tommy has Freshman orientation. We have a ton of paperwork to get done before and during orientation. I have yet to see the campus. If I can arrange a babysitter for 12 hours on Friday for a 3 year old, 6 year old and two German Shepherds, I can accompany Tommy and Cathy on the orientation. We have never used a babysitter other than relatives. Exactly how does one go about getting someone to come to your house and deal with your screaming children for twelve hours?
In other miracles, I kindly request the Tennessee Lottery Corporation to select my numbers. Yes, after hearing about Russ’s doorman, I bought a ticket for tonight’s Powerball but I purchased it with ad revenue from TNLotteryResults.com.
Mobile post sent by djuggler using Utterz. Replies.
Mobile post sent by djuggler using Utterz. Replies. mp3
Evan, 3 years old: "I play with this."
Mom, exacerbated :"You’re just trying to drive me crazy!"
Evan, matter of factually:"No." (his no sounds like an air bubble popping out of a fish tank).
Evan:"Amy help."
Frequently people will ask, "Now, what do you do?" Which is a really hard question to answer without people making the wrong assumption, "Oh! My nephew just took a class on that at his high school. He does the same thing." Videos better explain my job:
Of course, that doesn’t apply to any of my clients who read Reality Me!
Noise canceling headphones and Harry Connick, Jr. at deafening volumes.
I woke at 3am! and went back to sleep… Recently I watched a Penn & Teller Bullshit! episode on the subject of sleep. Yes, they have a wikipedia page. In one part, a scientist dispelled the "myth" that we need 8 hours of sleep. Instead he suggested that people who sleep 4 to 5 hours a night, live longer. I love collecting links on sleep and I am certain I recall recently reading scientific proof that we indeed need 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Personally I think it has more to do with a combination of waking up during the correct phase of sleep and your personal Circadian rhythm coupled with your health (eating, exercise, stress, etc.). See, when I arose at 3am, I was wide awake and ready to work. Habit drove me back to the covers, and the desire to be relieved of some of this stress in my life but working would have served my cause better than sleeping. Or meditating, chanting, stretching, exercising, …
Sleeping less is not a poor health choice. If your body needs the sleep, you will sleep. Sleeping less is a matter of will power. Btw, I haven’t used an alarm clock in 6.5 years and can still wake up within 10 minutes of the time I want to arise. Back to work!
When using SuperGlue to fix something, don’t lick your finger to polish off some excess glue then lick your finger again.
I just received this spam in email and it is so bad that I’m actually tempted to reply!
hello
My name is tessy.I saw your structuretoday and became intrested in you, I shall like to know also you more, andI want, that you have sent e-mail to my e-mail address, thus I can give you mypicture for you, that the nobility, whom I. Here – my e-mail addressI believe, that we can move from here. I wait for your mail to my e-mailaddress above. (Remeber the distance or color has no value, but
business oflove alot in a life),Please my love sends you an e-mail address to this my e-mail .kiss and love please contact me in is my mail
My reply should be something like:
hi.tessy
you are emailtoday generated me hot.for you. Please sends mypicture for your mail to my e-mailaddress above.I wishes to use my .tongue of imtaciy inyer arm puts of arousal zones, and massages you of my eyebals .kiss nd love please contact me is my mail.
What in the world do these spammers expect?
We interrupt this regular scheduled blogging for programming. I’m dragging. I must bring coffee back into this house. I wonder how sickly those energy drinks makes one feel. Must break to juggle and get some oxygen back into my blood.
On a side note, I got the boys sent off to Boy Scout camp this morning. They are lined up for a week of horseback riding, swimming, canoeing, leather work, first aid studies, wood working and archery. They should have a blast! The at the end of the week, Tommy has freshman orientation. Now we need a miracle to happen so we can find a baby sitter for the three and six year old and the two dogs for Friday.
