Reality Me

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  • How to mobilize a family of 7! (with one vehicle)

    Briefing

    All family members notified that Tommy has to be in Lenoir City from 6pm to 7pm (that’s a 30 minute drive one way from the house) and Noah has to be at a scout meeting from 6pm to 8pm (5 minutes from house). Some people will eat at IHOP.

    Logistics

    We have only one working car. Plans made with scout leader to allow Noah to be dropped at his house at 5:20.

    Troop Commitments

    All family members will be going.

    Readiness

    Troops to be dressed with clean faces and wearing coats. Reminders are shouted through the house. Noah gets scout supplies. Tommy gets attired for horse riding. Sarah helps Amy. Mom and Dad tag team a messy diaper change on Evan. The older children try to forget their coats or replace appropriate winter coats with light wind breakers. (other techniques include the "I have my coat but I am carrying it instead of wearing it" loophole) Inspections are had as Dad paces with the clock ticking over time.

    Transportation

    Loading occurs in shifts to avoid blockages. Noah and Amy are sent first followed by Sarah with instructions to load and buckle Evan. Tommy, often the straggler, is ushered toward the van. Mom and Dad "dog proof" the house removing temptations, such as the kitchen garbage can, from reach of Molly. Dad heads to the car to find Tommy in dispute with Noah over the all important, favored seat because we all know that the other 6 seats suck and the rear seat on the right side of the van is far more comfortable than all the rest. General rule is first to the car gets the choice seat but this makes it difficult for the other two rear seats to be filled–kinda like taking the aisle seat at the movie theatre before the middle seats are filled–so fights always ensue. Sarah cannot sit in the middle seat of the back row because that would squeeze her between her brothers and she must have minimal interaction with her brothers otherwise she might have to acknowledge their existence. Dad nips this in the bud explaining Noah will be first out and Tommy knows he will shortly have the Holy Grail of Butt Cushions. We leave the house at 5:30 to make the first drop-off at 5:20.

    Deployments

    5:35, fifteen minutes behind schedule, Noah is deployed to the scout leader’s house with prayers that he will mind himself for the next 2.5 hours. With 20 minutes left to make the 30 minute drive to Lenior City, Dad makes mild exceptions to the traffic laws to buy a little time. Passengers are in good spirits. 6:03 Tommy is deployed to STAR for his riding lesson and I explain that I will have my noisy distractions just a phone call and few miles down the road. Dad is talking and misses turn to the interstate so the drive to IHOP takes a bit longer than anticipated. 6:18 Mom, Dad, Sarah, Amy and Evan deploy for nourishment.

    Refueling

    Meals are ordered in haste. Evan quickly decides that tonight is not a night to sit calmly in the high chair and instead bounces around in Dad’s lap. Dad crams food into his mouth at a competitive rate. Sarah plays with Evan and holds him to give Dad a chance to chow.

    Withdrawal

    6:50. Dad and Evan roll out for the 15 minute drive to retrieve Tommy at 7:00 leaving Mom, Sarah and Amy to eat the most peaceful meal they have had in ages. At this point my family is scattered in four disparate locations across two counties. 7:05 we approach a very dark barn and a sense of foreboding swells in my chest. I arrive to what appears to be a class running late and just preparing to enter the arena and my mind reels to replan for the 30-45 minute delay but a confused teacher explains that they have just come in and are putting the horses and tack up. I am relieved neither late nor having to make major adjustments in the schedule. Tommy, Evan and Dad head toward IHOP with text messages flying back and forth between phones. The girls are debating walking a half a mile to Target. Tommy tries to sneak a to-go order of pancakes but his phone call is too late; the bill has already been paid and the schedule too tight. The girls remain in wait at IHOP. 7:25 We slow the van and they load ala Little Miss Sunshine. We arrive to pickup Noah with Evan and I bolting from the van as the pack meeting closes spending 10 minutes to discuss leadership matters for the upcoming meetings. The scouts play with Noah’s toy brother until Dad is done. "Does he speak?" "Does he understand what I say?" "Will he do what I ask?"

    Debriefing/Reassignments

    As we approach the house, bathing orders are given and lights out times assigned. Confirmations of completed homework and signed notes. Requests for schedule amendments to the next day’s schedule are called.

    Reprovisioning

    Tommy remains in the van. He and Dad run to McDonald’s to get dinners for Noah and Tommy and apple pies for everyone. 8:35 Tommy and Noah are fed. Clothing is laid out for tomorrow. Mouths and bodies are cleaned and jammied. Books are read. Some computer time is had and the lights twinkle out at the appropriate time for each child. Tomorrow will have a similar script.

  • Encourage Telecommuting!

    I said to mark my words.

    I think in the next 10-15 years we will see a great trend in encouraging people to create home offices and work from their houses (at least part of the week). [Source]

    Companies are already coming on board!

    The [U.S. Patent and Trademark Office] has proposed a telecommuting program whereby its employees would be permitted to telecommute up to four days per week from an approved designated alternative work site–usually the employees’ homes. The agency believes that this program will improve work force recruitment and retention, reduce traffic congestion and pollution in the Washington, D.C., area, and deliver substantial cost savings. It expects to have 3,300 employees participating in this program by 2011. [Source]

    They will reimburse high speed Internet connectivity 50-100%. To assure productivity is not sacrificed, the program will only be offered to employees that rated "fully successful" on their most recent performance review.

    The location of an employee is not as important as the employee’s performance. Employee performance and productivity can be measured. So long as an employee is performing his or her job functions well from home, those functions should be supported. Internet access in this day and age is critical support, and the employer cost of reimbursing such access is nominal when compared with the cost of maintaining an employee in an office at the employer’s premises. [Source]

    They note some of the same benefits I have said of telecommuting.

    There are great conveniences for the employee who no longer has to travel to and from work. And there are societal benefits, such as reduced traffic, congestion and pollution. [Source]

  • TDOT – Weather Omens

    The interstates have been salted. Guess it is time to buy bread and milk.

  • Eye candy for the politicos

    Republican babes! Because Dems aren’t the only sexy people.

  • More Online Educational Resources

    The Internet is packed with more than just information for your children’s education. The Internet has plenty of free online learning resources for adults too! Berkley web and pod casts.

  • Backup! I need backup!

    Multimedia message

    Why would 1 van need 8 police cars with lights flashing? The picture only shows four cars but there were four more.

    Looked like a scene from the Blues Brothers.

    Update: Word around the church is that the van was carrying 3 ladies that were high speed chased after shoplifting from Walmart.

  • Send the bloggers to Guantánamo!

    Are bloggers journalists? If so, will we see bloggers taking Guantánamo vacations without due process?

    A last-minute addition to a federal spending bill at the end of the last U.S. Congress now makes civilians eligible for military courts-martial. With the addition of just five words…makes civilian government employees and journalists eligible for prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice…civilians prosecuted in military court don’t receive a grand jury hearing and are tried by members of the military, rather than by a jury of their peers. [Source]

  • Ted Stevens was right!

    It is a series of tubes!

    Tubes creates personal private ‘spaces’ for your friends, family, colleagues, teams, communities or just yourself, across your various PCs and devices, empowering you to manage your digital life. With Tubes, you can now easily share and distribute your digital content with everyone you know – bi-directionally. [Source]

  • Are clothes lines passe?

    Yup. The dryer has died a horrible death. It would seem the heating element has gone out. That means we have two dryers in the basement without a means to dry clothes. The quandary! Do I repair one dryer, two dryers, or no dryers? I could get environmentally sound and setup a clothes line behind the house. I think perhaps I’ll do some shopping today. Considering the dryer is over 10 years old and runs almost 24/7 I think it has served its time.

    Update: The heating element will be available for $57.06 tomorrow but Dave’s Repair suggests that I am skipping a couple of troubleshooting steps. It could simply be that our dryer vent is blocked (anyone thinking squirrel?) or that our circuit isn’t providing 240V. Hehehe! Whar’s my meter?! The parts supply store also explained that a new dryer isn’t likely to be that much more energy efficient that the efficiency comes from how well it heats.

  • Watered to death

    A woman drank so much water trying to win a Wii for her 3 children that she died. The coroner’s office called it "water intoxication." A radio station had a "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest. I wouldn’t believe this bizarre story if it was by anyone other than the Associated Press (and I still have my doubts). Strangely, the 28 year old woman’s name was Jennifer Strange. Nothing on Snopes yet.

    Can you drink too much water?

  • What’s the hardest thing about working from home?

    It’s the stigma! This post inspired by the implication that our family could do something another family could not do because "they have a job."

    I get an overwhelmingly large number people that either directly or subtly imply that I "don’t have a job" which is really very wrong. I have a job. I don’t have benefits. I have cash flow issues because I do not get paid until the job is complete and I tend to underbid my work. My job is very demanding. For instance, I have 3 projects going right now. One is a 3-5 week project (that means working a minimum of 40 hours per week for the next 3 to 5 weeks). That’s a job! One of the other projects probably has 40 hours in it. That’s a job! The 3rd project is at its tail end but back and forth with the client will consume another week and then we enter the next phase of that project. That’s a job!

    I will work days, nights and weekends to see these jobs done well. I do not take vacations but because I work odd hours I do sometimes take time in the day for the family. However, that does not mean that time is always available. My other jobs include sales and marketing, customer relations and tech support, accounts receivable and payable as well as other accounting duties, and information technologies (to support myself). Additionally, I have started entertaining switching to corporate work and interviewing, social networking, and job searching itself can be a 40+ hour job unless you are willing to take the first thing that comes along.

    My wife has a job! She is raising 5 children. She has meetings at schools, reports, grievances, paperwork, cleaning, cooking, emails, phone calls and more. Her job has no hours because if she is awake, she’s working! That’s a job!

    NEW YORK (Reuters) – A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released Wednesday. [Source]

    I can’t do my wife’s job. I tried. When she is sick I try to do her job but the house looks terrible, the laundry does not get done, the children do not get cleaned well, and I can’t match a child’s outfit to save my life among many other things. When she is not around, I watch the children and try to work but mostly I watch the children. I really respect AT and other single parents. They work much harder than the rest of us.

    Working remotely with so many different people has really shown me that there is a future in getting people away from corporate offices. I think in the next 10-15 years we will see a great trend in encouraging people to create home offices and work from their houses (at least part of the week). [Source] [see also]

    Just because someone works from home does not mean they are playing, goofing off, not working, under no obligation, or don’t hold office hours.

  • Daddy’s a traitor

    And Evan is a manipulator! So he’s tired. He needs a nap. I take him down to the crib and he leans his head forward, turns in slightly, and lays calmly and gently on my chest with his head tucked under my chin. "Protect me Daddy! Don’t abandon me!" I rock him. Give him a pacifier. Then callously place him in the crib, zip up the crib tent, and walk away with my heart broken.

  • Heed this caution!

    Don’t play this game! You’ll lose days! (let me know if you need hints)

  • Are you Web 2.0? Get with the times!

    Have you followed the Web2.0 craze? (Don’t tell anyone but it’s just a buzzword..) Did Web2.0 overwhelm you? Still feel like maybe you aren’t sure what Web2.0 is? Get ahead of the game for the next round! Web3.0 is here!

    Web 3.0? Still not sure what Web 2.0 is? In short, Web 3.0 is the opposite of Web 2.0. This web site is devoted to explaining what exactly Web 3.0 is and how it will ultimately change humanity. [Source]

    Eh? Clear as mud?

  • PETA Wins! The cows are free to go.

    Looks like the future of our meat supply could be from labs not farms.

    A single cell could theoretically produce enough meat to feed the world’s population for a year. [Source]

    This could be a boon to the fast food industry if it meant cheaper meat! But don’t worry. We are at least a decade away before the protests of "that’s not right" come.

    The technology to grow a juicy steak, however, is still a decade or so away. No one has yet figured out how to grow blood vessels within tissue. [Source]