Student: What does my family need more from me? Time or money?
Master: Balance.
Blog
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I disciplined your children
It takes a village right? Of course, now-a-days, people seem afraid to address other people’s children, particularly if you are a man. Wonder why that is!
Last night we were watching Sarah perform at Bearden High School along with several other bands. It was a great show! But at one point I snapped. I watched 3 younger boys, 11 or 12ish, tossing an empty 20 ounce beverage container back and forth like a football. They pause and one of the boys rips the label off, tearing it into 3 pieces in the process, and threw them to the ground. I spoke instantly and instinctively. "Gentleman! I need you to pick up this trash and throw it away." The guilty boy responded, "Oh that just fell off." I had to continue firmly, "Now you are lying to me. I saw you tear it off. Pick up the trash and put it in that trash can over there." They did and I am sure they had some words for me or perhaps gestures when my back turned. I saw them playing later and made a point of kindly thanking them for doing the right thing, "Thanks for throwing the trash away. I really appreciate that." I received a polite response, "No problem."Should I have ignored it? I don’t think so. In bygone times, it would have been expected and appreciated. I am not sure what parents think or expect today. Maybe those boys will think the next time they or someone with them litters or thinks about vandalism; maybe it will make all the difference. I hope that when my children step out of line, someone steers them back onto the right path.
Post narration: [audio:http://realityme.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/idisciplinedyourchildren.mp3]
Update: Be sure to read Barry’s post on Disciplining Other Children! I like that Barry reminds us to let the child’s parent do the disciplining if the parent is nearby.
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Quote of the Day
The sentence I read that made me laugh out loud today:
If “The Secret” had a plot, it might go something like “Tony Robbins uncovers the Judas Gospel and learns to use the Force.” [Source, LA Times, Self-help gone nutty]
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Contests without strings
I must say, I go through phases of loving contests. Blogging seems to present opportunity for contests that do not come with strings attached or hordes of junk mail. Contest Blogger has announced that Romance Tracker is having a Love Contest and that you can be placed in a drawing to win $100 simply by linking to their home page with the anchor text "love" (as I just did). Be sure to follow up with an email to let them know you created the link. You can also simply subscribe to their rss feed and email them. Good luck!
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Video Done Right
I love The CommonCraft Show! I wish I had the time and equipment to produce such quality videos. If you still read blogs and new sites in a browser instead of a feed reader, let The CommonCraft help you with this video!
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Quit Moving My Cheese!
I think my wife got into the Someone Moved My Cheese a little too much. I try to live my life as if I were blind. Blue socks are on the right hand side toward the back in the sock draw. The flashlight has a specific home and so forth. Things have their place. My wife thinks things should randomly move around the house!
I plan ahead for the children’s lunches. Everyday I have to have $8.75 cash on hand to make sure the children get to eat. So the day before I make sure I have 8 ones and then I get 75 cents from the coin jar. Today we are running late. One child is already in hysterics over missing the bus. The moved cheese? The coin jar is nowhere to be found.
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Need input from SEO/copyright experts
Hello world of Search Engine Optimization! The content thieves are frustrating. But does having someone reprint the first few sentences of a post and link back to you really hurt? What does it do for pagerank? Isn’t it simply a qualified link back to Reality Me? For example, hawaii-vacations.expert-travel-help.info has reprinted Darren’s prize list. Should I really care? Is it worth the fight?
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Heroes text message
Boys like to blow stuff up, don’t kno why, but this will b fun. Watch it crumble on Monday. Corinthian fall
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Juggling Urges
I have taken to practicing juggling in the carpool line. My 5 ball juggling has really started to clean up and today I started trying to work a couple of behind the back throws into the 5 ball routine. I’ll practice many things in the carpool line. I haven’t done anythings scary yet but still the mothers in the carpool will get out of their cars and chat with one another all while avoiding me. So yes, sometimes I do get the urge to juggle machetes.
Thanks Willful!
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Dear Substitute Bus Driver
If you are going to lie and claim that you stopped at the two stops which you didn’t even slow down for, you better be able to substantiate it! And how is it that your bus appeared so empty? Were no children at any of your stops today? An official complaint has been filed with the transportation department. Next time stop your bus even if you do not see any children at the stop.
If you are a Knoxville parent searching for ways to deal with busing issues, be sure to put the transportation department’s phone number, 865-594-1550, in your cell phone’s address book. We would have fewer busing issues if the school owned the buses instead of contracting them.
Update: The bus did eventually pickup the high schoolers. Turns out their official stop is on the other side of Northshore Drive and roughly 80m (120feet) walk down a busy, overgrown, narrow road with no sidewalks. This would be the section of road with 2 crosses and piles of roadkill. So the substitute driver likely stopped at only official stops. I have to file paperwork to make the stop that the bus has stopped at for at least 7 years into an "official" stop.
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Windows Knows How to Make Me Angry
Nothing gets my goat quite like walking away from the computer only to find that it decided to reboot itself. I didn’t give permission to do that! And I definitely didn’t give it permission to lose my browser session. I had those 20 some odd web pages open for a reason!
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Morning Sex Is Like Russian Roulette
Warning! Turn your virgin eyes away! The following allegory alludes to one of the three taboo subjects which should never be discussed outside the walls of your own home. I happen to be typing this from within the confirms of those walls so its kind of okay. Today’s taboo subject is sex! As for the other taboo subjects, I posted about drugs on Friday and post about politics far too much.
What guy doesn’t dream of his daily alarm clock being a beautiful nymphomaniac using the bed as a trampoline while yelling "ride ’em cowgirl!"? Guys in late high school and throughout their college years love to joke about their morning wood. But these young turks are single and naive for it is not morning "wood." The term is "morning would." Because you would if you could but you can’t because if you try you die. It’s similar to the praying mantis
"Placing them in the same jar, the male, in alarm, endeavoured to escape. In a few minutes the female succeeded in grasping him. She first bit off his front tarsus, and consumed the tibia and femur. Next she gnawed out his left eye…it seems to be only by accident that a male ever escapes alive from the embraces of his partner" Leland Ossian Howard, Science, 1886. [Source, The Female Praying Mantis: Sexual Predator or Misunderstood by Michele Doughty See also, You Give Love A Bad Name]
Or perhaps the spider.
in over 60% of cases the female then eats the male. [Source]
So in the morning when you arise, just observe your wife in her restful bliss, put the gun down, and go, uh, read the newspaper.
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Quote of the Day
This made me laugh hysterically.
“We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.†Robert Wilensky
Thanks to JBB of Lumbering Through Life! As an aside, I disagree with stance that Twitter’s 140 character limit is in place as an etiquette and means of keeping thoughts concise. The 140 character limit is to enable Twitter to send message by SMS and keep the message within a single text message. I believe different people are finding different uses for Twitter. I have chosen not to follow a couple of people because of their topic choices and style. I think Twitter’s will fall into 3 groups: self-promoters and linkers (using Twitter to post URLs to blogs and websites), news/media alerts, and voyeurs/exhibitionists/chatters. The first group, the linkers, will use Twitter to promote traffic to their own sites or sites interest them. The news/media alerts will be a group sharing relevant information that is happening now. The chatters will use Twitter as a replacement or complement to IRC and the instant messengers. Not everyone will enjoy the style of all three groups.
Update: My wife agrees with jbb.
