Should I celebrate my son’s confidence in himself or should my feelings be hurt? Every time a Boy Scout outing comes around, I ask my son, "do you want me to go on the outing?" You know.. maybe having dad around is uncool then again maybe having dad around is fun. His response? Flatly, "I don’t care." And he really means it. I’ve read about helicopter parenting and I don’t be that. I know as parent you can’t be the best friend either but I’d like us to have fun together. Don’t get me wrong, I think we have good times. I get excited about spending time with my children. I just wish they’d share some of the enthusiasm.
Category: Daily Life
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
My Wife’s Got Style!
Yesterday Cathy appeared on WBIR’s Style. She was interviewed a month ago or so. They edited their story very well! I really enjoyed watching Cathy, Dr. Helen, and Katie Allison Granju talk about blogging. Read WBIR’s style story on Local women share their lives one post at a time and watch the video interview. The interview includes Katie Allison Granju, Dr. Helen, and Cathy. I really thought Cathy looked great! She saw it a little differently.
How many days I can live today?
I need to spend the day:
a) working
b) preparing for the camping this weekend
c) fixing the Jeep
d) shopping
What do programmers do?
Word problems! Programmers solve word problems.
My challenge is that I have sales people with base locations. Their territory allows them to sell a handful of products but each product can be sold a certain distance from their base location. Product A is eligible to be sold within 10 miles of base location product b 30 miles and so forth with product f being nationwide.
I have to create an interface which allows the end user to say "I’m here and want product ___" and then I show them all the qualified sales people who can get that product to them.
The program should also read the user’s mind so that the dropdown of regions will only show regions that sales people can actually get products to. The mind reading has to happen since product f is nationwide all regions should always be listed…well…unless the user wants product a….
That’s programming!
Knoxville Asperger Support Group / KAEC
Meeting Announcement
The upcoming meeting dates for the Knoxville Asperger Support Group are:
- Novemeber 19, 2007
- December 17, 2007
The support group has a Yahoo Group which can be found on http://groups.yahoo.com/ by searching for Knoxville_Aspie_Support. It meets the third Monday of every month unless there is a conflict or holiday at the West Branch of the Knoxville Public Library (map) at 100 Golfclub Rd from 6pm to 7:30pm.
The Knoxville Asperger Support Group is a no charge, open discussion on the subject of Asperger Syndrome. Typically attendees are caregivers of children teens, and adults although folks with Asperger’s often attend to provide input, ask questions, or seek out others with Asperger’s. All are welcome!
Potential Special Topic
Dr. Dan Murphy of the School Board has proposed turning KAEC into a middle school to serve the Sequoyah Hills areas. He is making the rounds to several PTOs (will be at Rocky Hill Elementary on Dec 10 at 6:30pm) to garnish support for his proposal. When asked directly as to what would become of the KAEC students, Dr. Murphy gave an ambiguous answer. In my mind that means they either have no plan or will bus the children to Karns. As a parent of a child with Asperger’s, you stand a chance that your child will spend some time at KAEC. This is a topic that needs to be discussed immediately.
I’ll fight for you
I’ll go to the mat for you but your story better be straight! I tell the truth and I will passionately stand behind that truth. If I fight for you and the truth becomes tainted, or the facts you gave me turn out to be not so factual, we both end up looking bad. Worse. The next person I try to help will be hampered by the doubt created from your inaccurate facts. My integrity is my most valuable asset.
Who is this guy?!
Told you he’d be back. They always come back. See also and the show.
A Powerful Desire to Post
Blogging is addictive. It feels good to let my thoughts flow through the keyboard to the web. I think some people find it shocking that so many people willingly give up their "privacy" but that is a lack of understanding or rather a different paradigm of privacy. Despite the candor with which I seem to spill every moment of my life, the truth of the matter is the readers of Reality Me see but a glimpse, a keyhole peek, into the complex adventure of my family. I often wish I could spill more. Sometimes I am amazed at the luck, the good fortune that befalls us to let us carry on the way we live our lives. We walk a tightrope and I know one day we will slip but I think we will recover. The details of our high wire act I cannot share at this time. It just wouldn’t be appropriate. I know you shouldn’t air your dirty laundry but you do welcome your neighbors into your house even if the kitchen sink is a mess. Come into my house, sit in my parlor, and hear my tales. And eventually, perhaps I’ll tell the whole convoluted story.
Hello?
What’s the tensile strength of the human mind?
Because I’m not sure that people are designed to go through this intensity of continuous stress…
And today started off so well…Now I’m seeing stars
I have been working a project that no person in their right mind would have accepted, particularly at the pittance of the budget alloted. It is a train wreck but today, after several hours of feeling like I was trying to fill the ocean with sand from the beach, I felt the train was back on the track! The client is in a timezone 7 hours ahead of me so I have to work furiously to have this done for their opening business day. Then I had a meeting to help the boy scouts plan for a high adventure trip next summer. During the meeting, at 4:30pm on a Sunday, I get a message that another parent has called my wife to consult on the 3-D solar system project that he knows all parents have probably been working so furiously on for the whole weekend (or longer). Solar system project?! To be built to scale! And with excellent report attached.
So, a pot of coffee brews as I tear the house up looking for objects that are to scale (a trip to AC Moore for Styrofoam would have been nice!) and watch the business day in my client’s timezone come ever so much nearer. Let’s go upstairs and figure out just what the world revolves around.
I’m not yelling. I just want them to hear me!
I thought yelling at them made the homework get done faster. Stop! You’re getting tears on your project!!!
Be your own client
I think all too often we consulting programming types say, "one day I’ll take the time to write something for me." One day never comes.
Don’t wait for your "ship to come in" and feel angry and cheated when it doesn’t. Get going with something small.
– Irene Kassorla
Something small…
Veterans Day parade was much fun!
Evan, Cathy, Molly and I picked up Granddaddy and the 5 of us when downtown to watch Sarah march with Bearden High School’s band’s flag team in the Veterans Day parade. We parked in the State Street garage for only a dollar and walked 2 blocks to be near the front of the parade route. The aircraft fascinated me. 
I loved the helicopters playing overhead. The vintage planes doing the missing man formation was excellent. As a matter of fact, all the military vehicles were awe inspiring. Evan waved at the tank driving down the street and the turret spun around to wave back at him! Those things move quickly!
Evan was in a foul mood to begin with and getting him to wave took some effort. The nice lady who got near him and showered him with candy helped a lot. After the attack of the "cannie!" he was much chipper and social. About half way through the parade he started to get into the waving.
Molly was on great behavior but quivered whenever a noisy vehicle or drum section of a band walked by. She was on alert whenever Evan would wander too far. She has to be able to see him and much prefers to be beside him. 
She was a hit with all the police officers and many of the military. You could see them in the parade pointing to her, smiling and chatting amongst themselves. She eventually relaxed enough that I didn’t even have to hold her leash.
I was disappointed in the attendance at the parade. More people should take time to let this parade be their lunch break or to bring their families out. The weather was perfect. The patriotism high! Mardi Gras spoiled me for parades and I never thought I would enjoy this kind of parade again. I was wrong. This parade left me feeling very good!
Btw, Barney Fife was there! He’s great! Don Knots would be proud.
Respect the single parents
I don’t know how single parents like AtomicTumor (or is he?) manage to work and still be such awesome parents. With two of us, sometimes I don’t feel like there is enough parent or energy to meet the demands of the children much less the demands of the children and work! And some mornings there is this game that goes on. Evan wakes and announces himself and I lay in bed waiting for Cathy to get up while she lays in bed waiting for me to get up. I always lose this game; after all, I’m the morning person.
We should all reach out to the single parents in our lives and offer to care for their children one Friday night so that they can sleep in on a Saturday morning. I bet they’d love that! Don’t get me wrong. Nothing is better than spending time with the children but everyone needs a break to catch their breath every now and then.
