A message to the inept masses and you.

Smart AND Alive

2011-01-20T18:52:00.005-05:00

Somehow I have gained a reputation of someone of intelligence. Not sure how that happened, I wish I did. Group perceptions of me have not always been positive; the weird kid, the small one, the one who never should wear sweatpants without a belt.

For those who wish to shake off the terrible nickname and perhaps move to the next phase of therapy, I have some advice. Follow this one easy step and you will appear as a computer genius:

Read.

I refuse to keep track of how often I'm asked "how did you know how to do that" when I know the answer was staring the person in the face, in English, in 10 point MS Sans Serif. Some numbers don't make you feel better, like the fat content in the Double Quarter Pounder and the amount of calories the average human should never eat.

Suffice to say that I have become accustomed to reading almost everything presented to me. The exception is any email longer than a paragraph. Life is too short to go on and on about whatever caused you to ask me for what I will refuse. Just put what you want in the subject line so I can put "no" in the reply.

Recently I was in a business. On the inside door, in bold letters, was the simple demand:

Please take off your shoes HERE!!!!

I say it is a demand not a request by the number of exclamation points. Someone inhaled a lot of sharpie fumes to make that point 4 times.

I gladly left my somewhat snowy shoes at the door and wandered in. I wasn't sure if each exclamation point was a tally of the number of corporal retributions for breaking the rule, but I could not claim ignorance. The sign could have been an eye test for pilots, the kind they must read while flying past.

During my wanderings in the building I was approached by an employee of the facility. I did not know this person from Adam, although I suspect Adam would also have listened out of fear for physical safety and physical intimidation through sheer size. This thankfully gentle giant said:

Man who could crush me with a handshake: You should wear shoes.
Me: Ummmm. Yeah. About that. Didn't the, you know, wow you're tall. The sign... at the front...
Dude who could seriously scare Chuck Norris: If you don't wear shoes, then the Janitor won't have a job to do.
Me: Oh.

I was tempted to say "With that logic, I should make myself useful by not using the garbage cans? Maybe I get you a second cleaner if I just fail house training and defile the floor? Is there an unemployed general contractor who would appreciate me to do some general mayhem?"

At this point I reflect fondly on public school. Only through the repeated hazings and mistreatment could I learn the valuable lesson of "Shut the HECK up when you have something witty to say." A little part of my logical side died at that moment. That was a small loss compared to the complete annihilation of my existence through a fatal case of foot-in-mouth disease.

I did put on my shoes, and mused gratefully upon the two lessons that have kept me alive, and intact for so long. Read carefully, and don't mouth off unless you have a clear path to run away.

Unfair Match

2011-01-18T22:19:00.003-05:00

Occasionally I get to speak to people about my marriage to my wife (as opposed to my marriage to my work). I get to do so because the person in question actually takes a breath and then I push their inane topic aside for one of my own.

There was a time where I would have believed there was one person who is perfect for you, a match made just for you alone, and you will balance each other out like 500 foxes see-sawing with a Rhino. I now label that time of belief: "ignorance".

One mistake with that daft notion is that people can be quantified simply. I'm sorry, reality (aka life) is not World Of Warcraft, and my being a Level 80 Paladin does not mean I know how to load the dishwasher. You have no idea of the complexities of human relationships until you're stuck in one until death or lawyers (I'll take death every time).

If each personality trait could be given a measure, and then you were objectively measured against someone else, it would not account for what I call the Bat-@#$% effect. That is the theory that covers the cases where I forget how to walk and stumble into a wall, and the times where she remembers where her glasses are. Moments that are crazy as Chiroptera-Feces.

I realize I'm outmatched. For example; my wife is more alluring to men than I am repulsive to women, as is evidenced that she slipped through my vices and we got married. And no, "slipped through my vices" is not an obscure euphemism, so let's burn that oyster right there.

One activity that we compromise on is what TV shows and Movies to watch. I have agreed to endure Glee, Friends, and whatever other program she wants because, well, she has good taste. She has watched Sherlock Holmes and is on promise to watch "Pride and Prejudice".

For Christmas she gave me "Blade Runner: the current final cut". I presume Sir Ridley Scott will continue producing Blade Runner releases like a birthcontrol challenged reality TV star. Every 9 months until it kills him.

My bride had never watched what is the best Sci-Fi movie before Serenity, so she coped through. For me it was sublime, for her it was the equivalent of a cinematic waterboarding; confusing and a affront to her Human Rights.

I guess I'm more effeminate in my tastes, than she is masculine in hers. It's not fair, but anyone who says that marriage is fair has settled for less than wonderful. Wonderful is filling in the inadequacies between the two of you with love, like mortar between bricks of different shapes.

That way your marriage can be built like a brick ....house.

The gift of bartering hope.

2011-01-05T12:30:00.005-05:00

Christmas is typically a time of hope. This is evidenced in the number of statements starting with "I hope..."; such as:
"... I guessed his size right. If not he can always use the shirt as a tarp."
"... I remembered to take the packing slip from kijiji off the package."
"... the extended family has a blanket case of laryngitis."

I was reflecting on the theme of hope after a recent flight. It was a small trip; small plane, small place to go, gratefully small stay. The passengers outnumbered the crew 3 to 2, there were 3 of us. The plane was small enough not to be equipped with bathroom facilities.

This was a wonderful flight with fully catered meals and pilots who professionally steered the glorified tin can with smooth ease. They even offered us a thermos of coffee, which I greedily drank because the flight was just over an hour. I can hold my bladder until we're on the ground.

As it turns out, the pointer/steerers of the metal that floats on air decided against landing in a storm of freezing rain where they could not see the ground from a safe landing altitude. Thus we turned back, another hour and a half home.

I was not worried about the flight back or the aborted landing. I trust the judgement of the men in the front seats. I wasn't hoping to make it back alive, I wanted to make it back with dry pants. I honestly considered re-using that thermos.

In conversations afterwards several people confessed their fear of flying, especially in small planes. I told them this was foolish because I have no tact.

My argument is I would rather be chauffeured around by a couple of people who not only are professionally trained for what they are doing, but also that their life also depends on doing a good job. Most doctors do not have the same percentage chance of surviving the surgery as their patients, except the ones who have pushed the nurses just too far that last time.

Continuing the point, mainly because I have as much empathic awareness as a menopausal wolverine, I debated that if you were still nervous about your pilots you could try to barter them more hope to get home. I provided this hypothetical solution:

Me: "Hey flyboy, eager to get home to the little lady?"
Him: "I'm divorced. From a woman that could be best described as a walwrus with anger issues."
Me: "No worries champ, I know of some great women that I could hook you up with. Some might be married, but I'm sure we could 'arrange' their availability.
Him: "Huh?"
Me: "But if you don't yaw that way I'm sure someone is out there, right inside the terminal, but you have to get us home safe or you'll never know."

See that way you either instil in them hope, or creep them out enough to sedate and secure you so you're no longer aware for the flight. Either way it is far safer than relying on the competence and situational awareness of the average driver on the roads. That is where hope, prayer, and a buffer of 2 car lengths is needed.

Praying punishment

2010-12-16T14:04:00.005-05:00

In my routine of directing at Church I like to pray before we start each rehearsal. This reminds people that they need to be good because it isn't just bad taste to invoke an aneurism on your director RIGHT after praying, it is sacrilegious.

I try to get other people to pray during practice. This is partly because of my concern that I'll really mess up someone with my near heretical ramblings at God, and partly because of my laziness, which if I had more initiative I would harness my children to a rickshaw so I wouldn't have to walk.

This rehearsal we were running about 5 minutes late which is really good for artists. When I asked for someone other than me to pray my older daughter volunteered. The sweet, fair haired 9 year old child folded her hands atop the stuffed animal she had as a prop, bowed her head and prayed:

"Dear God. Thank you for bringing everyone here, even though some of them were late. Please help them learn to be on time. Let us have a good practice. Amen."

The two adults in the room nearly choked on their laughter. Now she is not the first to be passive aggressive in prayer, but the honesty and innocence of it caught me off guard.

For those who weren't aware of it, the Church (pick your denomination) has had plenty of people who want people to change for the good. Unfortunately some just resort to simple manipulation tactics to achieve this.

Listening to her pray it reminded me of awkward times where a preacher would pray "Dear God, let all those who have fallen from your grace by keying new Toyota Corollas be returned to the path of righteousness and reparation for insurance premiums."

There are other types of group praying that are punishment to many involved. The "give thanks for everything and pray for everyone for 30 minutes" prayer is a blight to all those with small children, small bladders or small attention spans. That one is usually right before a meal while the food gets cold.

Then there is the "mumbler with pauses after words that sound like amen" leaves many a person embarrassed for loudly saying "AMEN" before making for the bathroom.

And of course there is the "fit 1st year theology course on the Bible in" prayer where large tracts of memorized scripture are quoted back to God while someone feels compelled to say "Amen" at every full stop, encouraging a re-creation of the book of Ezekiel in random order.

Suffice to say I'll point out to my daughter that out loud public prayer can be heard by others and perhaps she should be discreet about her passive aggression. Perhaps keep it limited to complaining about the incoming dinner.

Childhood Direction.

2010-12-13T21:25:00.005-05:00

It is the most wonderful time of the year. To me that sentence makes sense by substituting the old English word wonderful (meaning full of wonder, awesome, splendid, shiny) with the modern word meaning pathologically over-scheduled.

For me this takes special meaning as I have just finished three months of preparing a large production for Christmas. After dozens of repetitions I now have facial ticks when I hear certain Christmas songs. It's special though because as soon as people saw it they said "Great Job" followed shortly by "What's next."

I'm a director at our Church. This means I pretend to be important and know what I'm doing, I boss everyone around in some hope that I'll be able to make a success of the endeavor. Really it's like parenting, senior management, or politics.

For me it is important as I try to communicate my artistic vision that no one interrupt me. Otherwise they won't fall for it and they'll know I'm making it all up as I go along.

I'd heard that you are never to work with kids or animals. I know why now. I have worked with my own children, and they are animals.

Most of my actors have a deep respect for my authority because they know it is the facade holding back my fragile emotional state. If you don't want to clean up the mess, don't poke the water balloon (which technically I am, except the balloon skin is made of, well, skin).

My children on the other hand have made a life long practice of pushing daddy to the point of gibbering and drooling in a fit of anger or laughter. And so since this month doesn't have enough family dysfunction I have my older daughter in the play for Christmas Eve.

The script is brilliant, written by a close friend and I am enjoying the artistic freedom given to me. The actors have been great to follow direction and offer ideas when prompted. Except my kid.

Me: Ok, I want all of you to show fear. Think of something scary, like fish. I don't know, fish frighten me. So do Tyrannosaurs. Try this, a MER-Tyrannosaur. Then scream and run for the fire exit.
Her: I think they should be happy. It says so in the script.
Me: DARLING, let me direct.
Her: Ok.
Me: Fine, so then the Batmobile will come in stage right, driven by a Caveman...
Her: (To the other actors) You guys be happy.
Me: NO! No. Ok. You all be scared, you (pointing at my daughter) be VERY scared of the angry director who can take away your Chronicles of Narnia cds.

There you have it. Don't bring your work home and don't work with your family. I think I'll use this philosophy on doing the dishes...

Everone fits in, except for her.

2010-10-29T12:39:00.002-04:00

I have heard the phrase "I don't fit in" (or variants thereof) often enough to infer a trend. That trend is if there is a group of more than two people, one will be whiny.

"Not fitting in" to one's family is also cliché. To all those who have felt this way, at one time or another, I have this to say to you: I expected as much.

Families are small groups of humans who are forced together by law and DNA. How does anyone get the idea that members of a family should be identical? Our social nature drives us to quickly identify who is the easiest one to leave out in a situation.

Anthropologically this makes sense because if SOMEONE has to be eaten by the Tyrannosaur then we might as well be organized about the decision. Only the government would form a committee to decide how to respond in an emergency, the rest of us have already decided who we will collectively trip/push down in order to survive.

In my family of origin there were 3 children. It was a perpetual game of survivor where alliances were formed by who had the best toys (me) and who had the most in common (my sisters). Other variables were accounted like who our parents were angry with. I have learned your siblings will stand by you through nearly everything except when Mom finds out who ate most of the cookies in the pantry.

In my current family there are 4 of us. I might have thought that my "odd one out" days were over. I was wrong.

The other week we were gifted a larger television. The caveat was that it needed fixing. Despite the stakes being against me I actually fixed it without breaking it further or injuring myself.

As my wife was recovering from the shock of me being handy I gushed:
Me: "Guess what the TV has!"
Her: "A remote control? Your fist mark in the screen from a fit of frustration? Pneumonia?"
Me: "No, a DVI input!"
Her:
Blink.

Blink.

"So?"
Me: "You can connect a computer to the tv with full resolution!"
Her: "So?"
Me: "Now we can use the tv as a second monitor with my laptop!"
Her: "Why would we do that?"

Undeterred I presented my findings to my children when they arrived home.
Me: "Kids, guess what!"
Them: "What!?"
Me: "We can plug the computer into the TV!"
Older child: "COOL!"
Younger child: "Can I play webkinz on it!?"

As it turns out my wife is the one who doesn't fit in, provided it relates to what a computer can connect to. Now I just have to get the kids to lay off me while I try to get an adapter that will FIT that plug and then get their blasted Ubuntu build to have a refresh rate that actually MATCHES the tv.

Don't try to be funny

2010-10-21T19:54:00.002-04:00

‘Nurds’ are not the most socially capable.

Some of this comes from our desire to assert ourselves in our pecking order. In normal society you assert yourself by lifting something heavy. Apparently it is impressive to show off that you can do more labour than someone far weaker with a set of pulleys and a vague memory of Grade 10 physics.

Geeks on the other hand show off by displaying our superiority of knowledge. If I can make you feel stupid through technical allusions, abstract references and puns then I am your better. Resultantly we are not often invited to parties, evacuations or group pictures.

Another factor is that one does not make their computer run better by discussing NASCAR or by sitting around in a group and sharing feelings. On the contrary, we need to isolate ourselves and work with the computer, alone and uninterrupted. This is applied science!

And then, once in a while, we grow a sense of humour. Being funny: Good. It makes people laugh and helps them feel better about their day and their lives. It would help immensely if we nerds actually cared about others emotions. The only reason we take note of them at all is to factor them into our estimates of job duration and difficulty. A good crier can add 40 minutes to your day.

Being funny as a way to show how smart you are: Bad. I am slowly learning this, but not enough for these poor co-workers who were foolish enough to ask my opinions rather than drinking tequila and asking a “Magic 8” ball.

This first person asked me if I could assist her in the connection of an external monitor to her laptop. I agreed, and provided this additional advice:

Just don't get it backwards. The power and signal only flows uni-directionally. Polarizing it will overload the capacitors in the monitor and the power source will overheat the liquid crystals until they become a vapour. Although this is a colourful trick the mist also happens to be toxic.

If you laughed at that you should make sure you know your own way out of each building you are in, because I suspect the exiting people may not bother you in the event of an emergency.

The second person sent me an email when I was out of town. In my defense it had been a long day and I was frustrated with the problem that had confounded the best techs in our organization; and my incapability of providing any assistance from where I was.

You have both defied the odds and exhausted my cache of reasonable solutions. I will now offer absurd options in hope that they will work where science could not.
When using your computer try:
1. Chewing pretzels with the left side of your mouth.
2. Burn scent-free incense
3. Turn off all radios, lights, and hide anything displaying the letter “L”
4. Rapidly alternate crossing your 3rd and 4th toes
5. Quietly chant the model of your computer
6. Throw a Vachon pastry at the computer unit.
7. Play Peek-A-Boo with the monitor.

So how do you work with a geek when they do this? Intimidate them with how much you can lift. Fear is a powerful motivator.

A special place

2010-08-22T21:38:00.002-04:00

There are many places in my house. There is the place my children scatter shoes like retreating armies do with land mines (with similar effectiveness). That is called the porch. There is the spot that attracts dust, hair an any valuables you need. That is under the refrigerator. There is the place where we don’t allow the children to go lest they ask too many questions about what they find there. Actually, there are two places if you count the filing cabinet that holds our past bills and taxes.

Some of these places seem to come into their own through the passage of time, such as the kitchen counter. It is the place of paper, no matter how many times I move them away there are some there on my return. I swear there are spores of school notices, child artwork and paid bills that react with the moist kitchen air and burst into being.

Other places are decreed either by a single event (the place where all food is thrown out from contact with, also known as the place where the child vomited).

In times past it was not unusual for residences to have their own chapel. They also had parlours, which in my opinion blows away “living room”. Just try saying “Parlour” in your best Larry The Cable Guy impression. If he can’t say it, it must sound intelligent.

I know of one place in my home that is holy. It is a place of reflection, education, inspiration and occasionally perspiration. It is the chapel of my keep, the throne of my castle, you get the idea. This place is sacrosanct, and while it is occupied, all others must give way.

Now it happens that we are blessed with two such places. The upper one is used for many things; brushing teeth, doing hair, preparing for bed. It is a delicate blue hue, with a window looking upon cedar trees in our back yard. There is a tub there where one can bathe to candlelight whilst listening to soothing tones from Bach’s first Brandenburg Concerto.

The other room is a shower and a crapper. I like to think of myself as a considerate man, one who loves his family, and so I use the less convenient of the two for the sake of my marriage. It is quite safe there as there is no space for the door to open when you are inside. Most of our closets are bigger in square footage.

So it was that I was there for one reason or another, forgive the term, engrossed in a John Grisham novel. The dryer was running in the next room, but it didn’t matter too much because I can hear the children coming from two rooms away since they shout their directional intentions around the house. It’s like my whole building is an uncontrolled airspace with those two “I’m going to my room now. I’m using the stairs. I’ve changed my mind and I’m coming back to the parlour.”

So it was, I was quietly reading, when my wife who had crept panther-like through the laundry room burst the door open. I mean that in the full violence of the action. The way the door exploded it reminded me of a swat team, or people in sweats opening a Wal-Mart during a Black Friday sale.

Our eyes met and we both screamed. It was a synchronized “AAAAAAAHHHHH!” The door only opened two inches. This is all that is allowed before the door actually hits me. The lock is so old it is non-existent. My wife mumbled “so sorry” and closed the door again.

In her defense she claims she knocked. If she did I’m certain it was with a straight arm as she pushed the door open like a running back clearing the defensive line. For me I’m shaken that the sanctuary was so interrupted. Thank goodness I was where I was, because she scared it out of me.

As a safe guard I think I’ll get my wife and I to join the children in the chorus of announcing our intentions to enter rooms from across the house. And I guess I should put a new lock on the door.

Unringing the Dead Ringer

2010-05-27T22:46:00.004-04:00

There are a few aspects of movies that I can't stand. One is the oversimplified science. When I type madly at a keyboard and say "the flux diode must have had a conjuncture with a polarized radical ion inciting temporal fusion across the dimensional plane" the only thing that happens is someone within earshot yells "shut up". The fact I'm mocking that person at the time may have something to do with it.

Another is the mono-dimensional character. Every evil person I've met had redeeming qualities: Takes care of their Mom, puts out the garbage, likes kittens (for lunch as well as a tasty afternoon snack).

The last is the "bad guy" who is foiled by kids. Really, where on earth do writers get this Contained biothermal derivative subsisting of fused photosynthesized and motive celluar matter?

At my house or one just like mine apparently.

My wife is at the losing end of the battle to have us (the two small humans who look like me and me) be less competitive. The children behave that way to establish their position in their subculture (aka the family) which is a waste of time because I won't like them more if they win or not. I care if they pick up their toys and bring me my slippers.

I on the other hand am competitive to keep my wife's attention and beat the living daylights out of the NPC characters in Mario Kart. You know how some computer games reportedly cause seizures? Well that one causes road rage. I have said some VERY bad things at Peach when she wins a race.

The other night we were having a game as a family and my older daughter pointed at the younger one, appropriately enough to point out she was winning impaired. My wife used her gift of parenting and told the child "remember, when you point a finger at someone, four more point back at you."

My response would be "the thumb isn't a finger". My child on the other hand (pun intended) proceeded to point all fingers at her sister, with the index standing apart. She smiled triumphantly at my wife who to her credit did not smite me for giggling.

I'm afraid that the children know they can outsmart us and we will continue to fail to foil the plans for later bedtimes, midnight snacks and half done chores. I'm not worried though, I may not be able to unring that bell, but I'm sure I can be the louder ding-dong. I am competitive after all.

Stalin for time

2010-05-24T22:09:00.003-04:00

Capitalize: (intransitive verb) to gain by turning something to advantage.

Budget: A make believe story on a spreadsheet.

One of the key elements to pre-marriage counseling is money management. Surprisingly my wife and I didn't do well on this aspect and have still managed to remain hitched. I blame her good looks and poor pattern recognition of my shortcomings.

If I were asked to describe our financial style in one word I would say "Simple". Money comes in, money goes out.

Our monetary method is somewhat communistic. I don't mean that one of us lives wonderfully whilst repressing the others. It is simply the money goes into the account and is meted out from there.

I never considered having a separate account for "my money". Once I heard of the idea I knew it wouldn't work for two reasons:
1. We are a single income family (that would be realistic communism there)
2. I am a very selfish man (All I need is the mustache to complete the caricature)

This method has helped build unity in the family, allowing us to dole out the money as is needed. The question of who spends the money on bills, food and other items is determined by trial and error, I tried it and it was an error. Thus my wife is the controller of the cash flow, except that she foolishly hasn't taken back my debit card.

To make sure neither of us blows that month's mortgage on knick knacks or a great deal on a 42" plasma tv we have a rule: Any purchase over $100 requires both of us to ratify.

Typically I don't need to ask my wife for anything since I am so cheap and my desires are so whimsical that all she needs to do is ask me if there are pretty colours in the room and I forget what I called to buy.

So the other week it was I who received the call. I was at work at 8:30 in the morning when my phone rang with the home phone number displayed.

Me: Wow, you're up earl...
Her: (Breathless) Honey, I have something important
- here my heart stops thinking a child is hurt or family member is in hospital -
Her: (continuing) to ask you.
Me: Go ahead honey. (Still quite afraid this is going to be a question if I need the car or really ever did care about the cat)
Her: Mamma Mia is coming to town and I want to buy tickets. Can I?

My wife loves the show Mamma Mia. For those who don't know it is a musical that utilizes ABBA songs. I'm still waiting for the musical "Can't Touch This" to come out.

Me: How much are the tickets. (I'm Stalin for time here)
Her: About $80 a seat, I think. Or $180. I can't remember. (I know I have to wrap up the call before she begins to pee from excitement)

In marriage you try to learn from each others passions and gain depth to your life. If you can't manage that you at least let them get what they want once in a while. It is in that spirit of giving that I decided to Capitalize on the situation. I racked my brain for things I always wanted but knew were too big or expensive to ask for.

Me: Ooookay, but if they're $180 a seat leave me out and I'll buy some nice computer games with my share. And if Rammstein ever comes back to Minneapolis I get to go. (Hold my breath here, this was a BIG gamble).
Her: Sure. Bye!

Right. In the end the tickets weren't that expensive but my end of the bargain stands. I get to go see a band that by all odds will never return to the northern US. In principle I gained a concession, but instead of imploding my tympanic membranes with Industrial Metal I'll hold hands and sing along to ABBA.

So that is how you keep a marriage going. Share the wealth, bargain fairly, and be accommodating to each other. Unless she takes my armrest at the show, because I paid good money to put my elbow there.

Exercising Restraint

2010-05-20T22:10:00.002-04:00

Exercising restraint. I'm trying to teach my children that lesson. It applies to so many areas of life: public outbursts, emotional outbursts, and those odd stomach feelings that lead to outbursts of the pants kind.

The lesson must be learned on when to give in to the feelings you have, and when not to. We can not easily control our feelings; yet. Music, alcohol and chocolate do work to degrees, but I recommend none in excess and gravely caution using all three in excess at the same time. Christmas comes but once a year you know.

We CAN control our response to those impulses. For example, I had the following exchange with a friend who I had just informed that a common acquaintance was great with child.

Him: "So-and-so is pregnant?"
Me: "Yup, She has a growth in her."
Him: "Isn't that like a tumor?"
Me: "Until it comes out and screams at you."

I exercised the restraint of NOT saying that with the common acquaintance, or anyone who has or could bear children, within earshot.

Knowing when, and where to give in makes all the difference. Succumbing to the temptation to graze from a co-worker's candy dish is bad; waiting for them to turn their back first is cunning.

Lately I have been trying to get into the discipline of running. This is exactly how it sounds: as painful and difficult as replacing that body wash sponge with steel wool. As a result almost any excuse is a good one.

So when my older daughter called me at the office two weeks ago I had the challenge of exercising my restraint of exercise avoidance impulse.

Her: "Daddy, I want you to get a ride home today."
Me: "Why is that honey, I was hoping to deplete myself of oxygen and dignity today."
Her: "My friend is over and she was hoping we could play 'Capture the flag'".

See I took a day off to help my 9 and 6 year old daughters, and two other 9 year old girls assemble foam swords of their own out of wooden doweling, pool noodles and duct tape. I'm out $10 each, we all have a fun recreation of hitting each other with reasonable impunity.

Now I have a kicking arsenal of safe and colourful re-enforced pool noodle assault weapons. Seeing a 6 year old girl standing at 4' tall wield a 6.5' long lime green sword is a thing of beauty to the eyes and a point of peril to the sensitive bits.

To avoid it being a simple but rousing game of "Daddy Piniata" I suggested "Capture the flag", where we divide into teams, hide a "flag", and then try to steal each others flag. If your flag is stolen you must beat that person until they drop it and then you can take it back.

So when I get a call at work asking me to rush home to play this game some more, I waived my restraint and a good time was had by all. Wisdom is knowing when to give in and when to duck.

The Group Email Cycle

2010-05-17T20:57:00.008-04:00

I would like to address a serious issue in business today. This isn't about taking performance enhancing drugs (coffee) or misuse of the office supply cabinet (scotch tape + phone = dozens of practical joke ideas).

This is a new issue, one that has few parallels to times past. I'm talking about the Group Email Cycle.

As part of the normal routine most office workers are spammed internally. This isn't a medical condition or something you need to look up on urban dictionary . It is the group emails sent to you, and you alone; plus everyone else in the organization.

Most of us quietly grumble about it in the same way one complains about people who can't park between the lines. Annoying: Yes. Will you be the villain in taking justice: Definitely.

And then once every few years someone DOES reply, and uses the reply to all feature. In the days of paper memos you would have to be some special level of angry to xerox a pithy reply to everyone in the organization. Now you just need to be maladroit at using a mouse; and honestly, who isn't.

I was able to observe a cycle in this year's round of server clogging fun. And by that I don't mean LAN admins polka dancing wearing wooden shoes, as fantastically eccentric as that would be.

Here is, the Group Email Cycle (not as long or epic as Wagner's Ring Cycle, sorry to disappoint):

Surprise: This is when people receive an email from someone they don't know on a subject they could care less about.
"Oh gosh, someone just sent me an email about that email I didn't care to read. I'll send them a note to let them know."

Anger: After a few replies to all we move to the angry email phase. This is when the righteous anger kicks in before the cognitive reckoning can say "make sure you're not making the problem worse"
"Some idiot just sent another email about that dumb corporate email trying to fix the problem. I'll point out THEIR mistake and put them in THEIR spot! Then they'll feel so bad they'll thank me, and so will everyone else."

Humour: This phase occurs when someone realizes that everyone involved so far has been hilariously unprofessional, and for some reason feels left out.
"Hey, look at all these emails. Wow, some of these people sure are angry. I'll make them laugh and they'll all thank me and like me ever so much for it. Maybe I'll get promoted."

Surprise (2): This is when people who expected it to run it's course discover to their chagrin that they must continue to click DELETE. In a hope to fix this they send out more email to all.
"Hey, these folk are still at it, and they're getting funny. I'll point it out and they'll all realize this has gone far enough and acknowledge me as the intellectual superior."

Fury: Clearly the most fun of the bunch. This phase is usually a reaction to the humour phase. You can imagine someone shouting out each letter as they type the scathing response in mostly capitals.
"THESE PEOPLE HAVE to STOP! THIS is A WORKPLACE! BE PROFESSIONAL, DON'T HAVE FUN! I'LL CURE THEM WITH CAPITAL POWERED HOLY FURY!"

Management Threat: Finally an email comes out from the sender of the original "To all staff". It is another "To all staff" reminding them that the email cycle has run it's course and they had best get to work.

So what do I say to do with all of this? When this happens save EVERY email. All of them. Then when you go to any new office or corporate function you can make new connections and put yourself at an immediate advantage by saying "Oh, aren't you that person who was part of the reply to all thing a few weeks ago?" Hilarious.

Children, they become you.

2010-04-27T22:37:00.003-04:00

This may come as a surprise, but I do not have a typical approach to parenting. I have a mind for science, or at least that's what I wrote on the donor card. This leads me to see most moments of life as trial-and-error and empirical experiments.

For example; I now know how to consistently trip a circuit breaker, turn chicken into charcoal and overflow the toilet. As nice as it is to practice science with dinner or perhaps the wiring of the home it is a less acceptable attitude with children.

As a result I parent in the Shesaid fashion, which is to do what She said to do. My wife just happens to be educated in Early Childhood Development and is a bit of a subject matter expert since she's the only one of us to have the children emerge out of.

So I try to be a good person. I know that parenting is important and that I should try to teach my kids to do things and have them do what they should. In the end though no matter how many books I read to them or speeches I give or obedience classes I enroll them in they are doomed to become
just
like
us.

Subject number one is my older daughter, hence the numerical sequence starting at one. (Yes, this would make me nothing and my wife the negative one). Last week she had "electronics day" where she could bring in an mp3 player if she ponied up $2. Her top 5 songs were:

5. My Life on the Crazy Train (Mashup of Ozzy Ozbourne, Pink, Kelly Clarkson and Daft Punk)
4. The Final Countdown (Europe)
3. Axel F (Crazy Frog)
2. The Safety Dance (Men Without Hats)
1. Code Monkey (Jonathan Coulton, censored by Dad)

She wanted to play Code Monkey for her class. 9 year old girl wanting to play a joke song about a programmer's lame life instead of High School Musical. I'd worry about it except I'm confident it will keep all but the nerdy boys away from her, and I'm pretty sure I can take them.

At home she choreographed an epic dance number to "The Final Countdown". This was like Footloose meets Cats on Red Bull. She listened to the song about 10 times in a row. I was about to give her my own final countdown.

Not geeky enough? She recently watched Tron for a second time. She liked it so much the first time she needed another fix. Then I was her hero by downloading light cycle games and we played together much to our collective amusement.

The end conclusion I can derive is that the kids will become like us whether we like it or not, so we had better be the best people we can be. And learn to like more popular music for the sake of their social status.

In the meantime I have to say I have one of the coolest 9 year olds ever.

Acceptance (kind of)

2010-04-18T20:47:00.003-04:00

I am now well established in my 11th year of marriage. Over the past 70 months I've changed my mind a lot. It turns out there is a staggering amount you don't know when you're single, and inexplicably a larger amount you're wrong about that you only find out once you're married.

One post-nuptial opinion adjustment was what was best about being exclusive until termination. I won't enlighten you to my previous, not family rated but definitely family growing idea. I will divulge my updated mindset; it is acceptance.

It turns out successful marriage isn't driving each other to be who you think they could become, it's realizing that love can wear sweats and sweat. See acceptance goes both ways, she COULD expect you to keep washboard abs, or she COULD love you with your large capacity Maytag gut. And once you introduce small shouting humans to the mix it's best to keep the pressure in the household low.

Yet you do change each other in small ways, you just do it without intending to. Like how I am subverting my wife into a geek.

The other week I was sick with the flu. I lost a week where I remember about 3 things, coughing, fever and Megaman. See I could not manage the mental capacity for the difficulty of Civilization, so I loaded up an old Nintendo emulator and played some fun retro gaming.

Once recovered I continued in my nostalgia and set up Super Mario Brothers for my wife. She played about 3 computer games in her life, and this was one of them. Having it around again she began to play, then yell at her computer.

So in a twist of fate my wife is becoming a gamer. I'm a ways off from having her write Hello World, but having her rant about flying turtles and mushrooms is nice all the same. It makes up for how excited I get when the Pampered Chef catalog comes.

Be nice and organized. Please.

2010-04-15T21:17:00.009-04:00

The Helpdesk.

It goes by other names. "Service Desk", "Customer Service", "The hotline". I have never heard any of them spoken with enthusiasm. I conducted a short survey today and they both agreed that it was an undesirable business number to call. I believe one person said "it's like violent constipation".

Wow.

To those who don't know what constitutes a helpdesk, it is a phone number you call when you need something fixed, normally electronics. This brilliant, insightful comic will help you understand the process. I myself know people who work, or have worked at helpdesks. Get ready for a shock:

They are nice people.

Why is there the disconnect then? I blame the software. I have used three different "professional" helpdesk software packages. All of them are the logic equivalent of building the Eiffel tower using KNEX made of cooked spaghetti.

When you work on the helpdesk you have angry people who are disappointed with the necessity of calling you; calling you. It isn't your fault they were stuck on hold for 25 minutes, but you're the next one they talk to. It's like being the waiter for a slow chef who makes bad food.

Once you have a description of their problem (filtering out complaints and determining the right symptoms) you must enter it into the SYSTEM. And that, my friends, is as close to purgatory as software gets.

Take something simple, like, a lost email toolbar. You must categorize it, but the categories are not well labeled, descriptive, or logical. It's like trying to complete Zork using Zoolander as a character (he can't turn left after all).

So you select each dropdown in a haphazard guessing game hoping to score pay dirt, which is, to enable the magic button to deposit the ticket into the system. But is email corporate or desktop application? Is it a break, error or data issue?

You must keep moving forward or face starting over. It's like running a maze mixed with a gauntlet crossed with the running of the bulls. It only ends in hitting something, crying and manure. Add to it the pressure to keep the calls quick, solve the problems correctly, and move the backlog of tickets on.

These are not places where people are encouraged to be ingenuous and artistic, fusing passion and energy into technological customer gracing glory. These are places where you must follow the rules and succeed in spite of them.

So please, when you call a helpdesk be patient and organized. The person you eventually talk to is someone's little boy or little girl all grown up and working for minimum wage to listen to you.

And make mention of how they must hate the newest system, they will appreciate it.

Knee Jerk Reaction

2010-04-13T20:50:00.003-04:00

When a friend (or stranger I wish to suitably terrify) is on their way to having their first child (I don't mean driving to the hospital) I try to encourage them. Unfortunately my dictionary was missing a page so I just made my own definition for "encourage", which is "to subdue or subvert emotionally through the use of pessimistic predictions".

Life-of-the-party.

I say something like: "Hey, having kids will change you more than anything. It will exhaust you, make you question your sanity, drain you financially, and no matter how well you do you will suspect you are terrible whilst at the same time judging EVERYONE you know because they don't parent like you do. Oh, and the first time the kid dumps it will look like tar mixed with black licorice."

I cover the important things.

From the time the fleshy pink noisemaker can move you have to be quicker than a ninja goalie. By the way, if anyone wants me to get into hockey that would do it.

Kids are magnetically drawn to what will hurt them. They inexplicably toddle around carrying pull-toys until they embed them in their forehead, they pound their oversized neck ornament against coffee tables sending them to the hospital, they fall down ravines trying to outrun snowballs.

Sorry for all that Mom.

Not only is that needed, but you need the mental adeptness to stop them when they are old enough to outrun you. In a split second you must:

- Determine why what they are doing this time is wrong.
- Decide whose fault it is.
- Evaluate whether positive or negative incentive is required.
- Assess the parenting volume (whisper of death or voice of doom) and voice (icy, restrained, or bezerker goblin with hemorrhoids)

It is at that moment that parents most frequently suffer random temporal negative cognitive development adjustment. You say a stupid.

I regularly cycle through my children's names before settling on "you in my line of sight". I have 2 children. I utter threats that mean nothing like "I'll tear the arms off a cushion-less chair and tickle you with them if you don't stop!" And occasionally I mix truncated cursing with guttural rage that could be confused for speaking in tongues.

The other day my children were avoiding bedtime while simultaneously playing with some helium balloons. It was my wife's turn to get them moving because I had managed to look too busy to be involved. My bride's rapier wit eluded her at this moment. It was like watching palsied mongoose.

Her: "Put those balloons down and go to bed! You heard me."

I looked at the roof where the balloons lay. "Down? If the kids are bright they will try, that will take a few minutes."

I would offer hope to other parents, and the best I can manage is learn to laugh quietly at your spouse when they say those things. The flummoxed inarticulate can still hit.

Played, economically.

2010-04-10T22:09:00.004-04:00

I recently finished reading Freakonomics. It is not a do-it-yourself manual for making money selling animal costumes to grown men. If it were, it would not be described as "do-it-yourself". Oh, and I wouldn't have read it.

Freakonomics is a book that is about economics applied to bizarre, unrelated facets of society. It is similar to "Predictably Irrational", another book by an economist. I prefer the latter book personally, if you must choose between reading one or the other.

My interest in economics springs mainly from my drive to understand theology. I don't mean in a televangelist fraud sort of way either. The part of you that has the part of you you would call the soul would be your brain. You can lose (or replace) any part of the human body and not be considered any "less spiritual". But if you're missing your head, well then...

So studying the brain is the science of neurology, which then leads to the behavioural actions in psychology, which are analyzed in groups as sociology, which can be tracked by their decisions (buying things) through economics.

I'm kidding, I said that to seem smart.

Yesterday my wife showed me a gift-card style coupon from a local store.
Her: Look we get $50 off at this furniture store!
Me: What if we don't buy anything, do they owe us $50 in cash then?
Her: (Ignoring me for some reason) We get it if we spend more than $300.
Me: Oh. (as in "this is the end of this conversation "oh")
Her: But if we go in tomorrow we get $100 off.
Me: So that's 30% at best.
Her: I guess. But our younger daughter needs a new mattress.

Now I must stop and say I thought myself very clever. Not only did I successfully calculate the percentage, but I made the idea of shopping seem pointless. Since I do wish to remain married I showed my true compassion in offering a token concession.

Me: Why not try another store where the odds are better that you'll get 50% off or better?
Her: Ok, hey, I just found one in this catalogue. 50% off. Normally $700!

At this moment my economics reading caught up to me. About 5 seconds too late. She had pulled a marketing trick on me and I had fallen for it. The trick is to get you to compare similar items, but one is modified negatively to convince you that you are making the better choice.

You can do this thought experiment at home. Pretend you get to date one of two identical twins. They are identical except one has been hit with a shovel. A shovel on a backhoe. In the face. Now the one NOT mangled is SUCH the choice.

I decided to be an adult about it. An adult who is a sore loser.

Me: Nice you just played me there.
Her: Huh?
Me: You got me to agree on buying a mattress for our children. Very clever.
Her: What are you talking about?

At this moment I was shaken. Was she really clueless she had used economics to her advantage, or was she so far ahead of me that this was a feint to put me off the scent?

Suffice to say she achieved both goals, convincing me we should buy a mattress for the child and resolving that whether through skill or gift she can run circles around me mentally. It's like she's on a 10 speed bike and I'm riding a tricycle. With a flat.

If anyone could recommend a good psychology book it would be appreciated.

Love the job

2010-03-08T16:49:00.005-05:00

It is a rare gift to have a job where you do what you love. The type of employment where the person is always overpaid because somehow they found the opportunity to be rewarded for what would otherwise be a time-wasting hobby.

For the rest of us we have a few responses. Some are involuntary, like hoping karma will deal those lucky folks a hot water tank failure in the morning. Other responses are our own choices.

Such as, tt is a rarer type of person who chooses to love what they do. These people are above circumstance and are a fountain of inspiration, and jealousy.

I like to think I'm one of those people. At least some of the time. The happy type not the jealous one.

The primary advantage of my current employment is that it is "stable". If my job were a person, it would be the bored love child of Eugene Levy and Ben Stein. Add that to the list of mental images that frighten me.

In my day to day business I COULD get run down by the routine of it. Another, worse response is to become overattentive to petty details, losing proportion faster than a marshmallow in the microwave.

If you have never seen that happen, please go and nuke a mallow now. I'll wait.

Clean up isn't fun, is it? Anyway what I do to keep the freshness at work (aside from putting those car air fresheners in my office) is I have fun.

Fun is a relative term. What is funny to me as a practical joke is someone else workers compensation claim. As a result I try to include everyone in the ha ha moments.

I wear costumes. I play practical jokes that are nice and funny. I put up funny signs on my office door.

This time I modified office equipment. In a fit of routine inspired inspiration I did this to our shredder:

I would say I 'pimped' out the shredder, but with those eyelashes someone would get the wrong idea. And visions of trauma.

Suffice to say it did pick up the office morale that day. Until I proclaimed that I should spend more time dressing up the office equipment. Now I'm not allowed to be left alone with a printer.

So the moral of the story is: Learn to love your job. Since you spend most of your waking life there it's better to enjoy it than be miserable.

Acting my age

2010-02-14T21:15:00.004-05:00

"I may grow old but I'll never grow up." This is popular slogan articulating the desire to live out life as Peter Pan.

I don't mean imagining a 45 year old man with a beer gut sporting green tights, matching t-shirt and a cap with a feather pretending he's capable of sustained unaided flight, as amusing as the vision is. I mean that idea that we'll never stop having fun.

The problem with this statement is that the idea of 'fun' is a subjective definition. What is 'fun' for me at an amusement park would be an inspiring human lunch fountain for someone with motion sickness. What is entertaining for you might just be illegal in Botswana, Azerbaijan, or Mississippi.

This week my older daughter asked me a serious question:
Her: Daddy, why do you act like a little boy around the Wii and Cookies? I'm worried about you.

How does one deal with this, especially when the second child and then your beloved spouse concurs heartily?

The question refers to my giggling, capering and cheering whenever I get:
A) A cookie
B) To play the Wii

Note that this is not the only time I react that way, but those are the only areas she has been able to observe.

I have read that the outward expression of joy and contentment completes appreciation. That no matter how much you think your wife is "allll THAT" it isn't fulfilled until you say it out loud. The meal is not complete without the Belch and the "good grits".

I'm hoping she buys that argument.

Nonetheless I don't agree with the sentiment that maturity is mutually exclusive from enjoying life. I will grow up and grow old and I will celebrate the privilege of doing both. I intend to make the best use of all faculties in that process.

Which is longhand for "I now know when it's appropriate to make lightsaber sounds when holding a yardstick, and I will continue to pretend to be Legolas on frozen snowbanks, but now I can speak Sindarin."

Room for Relationship

2010-02-10T22:29:00.002-05:00

This is the week of St. Valentines Day. A celebration of man's inability to remember to express his love to his mate. So this year instead of offering suggestions on how to procure the perfect gift, I will offer how to avoid inspiring your spouse to recreate the St. Valentines day massacre with you.

Most rooms in a home have their own set of rules. Hang up your coat. Put the footstool away under the chair so I don't trip in the morning. Light a match.

This simple bit of etiquette allows us to function with a minimum of hard feelings due to nagging and being nagged.

Except in the kitchen.

No room is more sacred than the place where we disassemble organisms only to cobble them together in an unnatural form, burn them, then eat the consequences. Cake never sounded so bad.

When I'm in the kitchen alone I:
- Turn on music that my wife hates, and turn it up.
- Tidy up
- Re-arrange the things she put in the wrong spot.
- Cook

She is no different. So one would think "Having the love of your life share a moment of creation with you would be a beautiful, romantic thing". One would be wrong.

I have rarely been in such peril of being impaled. One example is:
Me: Can you pass me the other measuring cup?
Her: Why do you need it?
Me: To measure the water, dear Liza, dear Liza.
Her: Just wash the one you just used.
Me: Why do I need to? We have several measuring cups.
Her: I don't like the extra dishes, dear Henry, dear Henry.
Me: But we have a machine that washes them for you. Why don't we throw out all the duplicates of our dishes then and keep 4 place settings?
Her: Don't be silly.
Me: Is that your word for logical?

This plays out almost every time we work together. Issues of:
Dish reuse
Spice level
Cooking temperature
Variance from recipes
Music to cook to

have all managed to cause one of us to be more helpful by leaving the room.

The solution to all of this is work in the same room, but don't work on the same thing. This week we co-operated because she did the assembly, I did the prep, and the kids stayed out of the room.

So that is my Valentines gift to you. Hire a cook.

"In my day..."

2010-02-04T21:04:00.003-05:00

There are some telltale signs in life. Milestones that blur by like the sign indicating your exit, you notice them in passing just enough to go "was that just...?"

Old timers like to predict these moments of passage to the younger ones because it gives them a sense of pride only found by enduring hardship and then turning around to watch the next fool hit the wall at full kilter. A kinder, softer hazing if you will.

Today I passed a milestone, but the doctor's assure me that is perfectly normal. It still hurts though...

Sorry. Kind of.

Anyway, I realized today that I am not part of "the current generation". The clue came when it occurred to me that I had pride and it led me to delineate this from other people by using the phrase "in my day".

Kids today don't hide their ignorance. This is more than their wearing of clothes that sag and buckle worse than an elephant swimsuit contest. I understand their fashion is making a statement, and the statement is "I reject your reality of looking decent and competent."

No the ignorance is in the questions posed in Facebook, MySpace, and my personal favorite YouTube text comments.

In MY day you had shame if you didn't know something. You hid your inability to fix your car, or motorbike, or simply your 10 speed. You went home and messed up the job royal by yourself. Then you found a friend who could be trusted with fixing your mistakes by giving him a 24 of beer, even if you had to give him your Dads. We were stupid and quiet about it!

I'm not saying things are worse now. On the contrary, I let all the gullible people ask the questions, then I search out the threads and laugh at them. Then I take note of the correct answer.

The future will be a brighter place, if only because we collectively ask the questions that should have been found out through careful research or reckless experimentation.

Bossy is an impolite way to describe efficient.

2010-01-24T21:50:00.002-05:00

People sometimes say I'm a nice guy. These times are not during meetings.

I'm not against meetings per-se, especially ones where I'm the chairperson. All others bore me to death, unless I can dominate the conversation until people confuse me with the chair.

I mean the chair person. I am hardly ever confused with furniture aside from Lay-Z-Boy recliners.

Effectively, meetings are for people unable to articulate themselves in email or are equally incompetent in comprehension thereof. If it could have been done in written communication it would have. The clue comes in when the meeting is little more than a series of dictated memos.

I firmly believe that the purpose is usually for someone to be observed so you know when to S-L-O-W D-O-W-N and repeat yourself based on visual cues. Everyone else is invited to prevent singling that person out. I say this because I'm pretty sure I've been both the filler and the dullard.

The single most frustrating part of the meeting is when someone, often said dullard, becomes microfocused on one minutae of detail and can not let it go. Reasoning with them is like using a laser to burn the eyes out of the person in the mirror.

Them: Will the system be yellow?
Me: Huh?
Them: The screen shows a yellow picture. I don't want to look at a yellow program.
Me: Oh. Ha ha. Yes, the projector has a problem with the pin for the yellow signal from the computer. For the third time, the program won't be yellow.
Them: Are you sure, because I see it's yellow right here.

The only correct way of dealing with this is asking them WHAT colour they want it and then charge them $100 for the change.

This week we had a family meeting. It was to plan out some chores for the week. I pulled out a spiffy bulletin board, printed out chores, applied them to pushpins and attempted to include the children in scheduling the tasks they were to shirk and procrastinate.

What was I thinking?

Quite quickly my younger daughter assumed the role of the dullard. As Master Yoda would say "much of her father I see in her".

Her: There is no downstairs bedroom.
Me: Yes, that is Granny and Grandpa's bedroom.
Her: Thats the basement bedroom.
Me: Same thing.
Her: No it isn't.
Me: What direction do you have to go to get to it?
Her: Downstairs.
Me: Point mad...
Her: To the basement.

The older one continually pestered if we were done yet. This was before we started the meeting.

Suffice to say family meetings adhere consistently to the pattern of workplace meetings, except that at work when someone is assigned duties they don't immediately whine and suck their thumb. They save that for their cubicle.

"I am lame"

2010-01-13T21:24:00.006-05:00

Children don't make you proud, they simply reveal your overwhelming insecurities and evoke a reciprocal coping mechanism.

Before I had kids I made few efforts to change other people into copies of me. I've discovered that you can't change other people, unless you work in a hospital and then it's an ucky job.

I have tried to adjust the likes/dislikes category of my wife. I was subtle by buying her books with positive, motivating messages that I thought she needed to hear but would punch me out for saying. Suffice to say that the gifts she gives me are a LOT better now that I've stopped that.

With your children it is another matter entirely. You DO make them into who they are going to be. And as their little brains develop they reject your weird reality and take off with their friends.

Until those difficult years (which will not affect my offspring because I am in denial) I am ruthlessly vicariously living through their enjoyment of fine arts. Which means I watch Star Wars with them.

Over the holidays we were able to enjoy some good old traditional tv-show marathons. The first one was "Top Gear". If you are not one of the billion people who watch this show (literal, not exaggerated number) it is a British driving program with dry humour and brilliant videography and directing.

I selfishly put the program on and enjoyed show after show. My wife joined in because for some peculiar reason she also likes the show. I think it might be Richard Hammond, but back to my state of denial.

My kids both began to watch. They enjoyed it enough not to whine about Scooby-Doo being on another channel. The only show the one did nag about was: MYTHBUSTERS! And it turns out there was a 4 hour marathon of that program next.

Yes, my older daughter LOVES Mythbusters. So do I. Science. Explosions. It's chemistry class without all the math. And sprinkler systems.

It didn't occur to me that this might have a problem until after the kids were in bed. A news program had a person being censored, repeatedly. During this we heard the unmistakable footfall of a child thinking they were sneaky enough to come downstairs to watch TV after bedtime.

Me: "What are you doing down here honey?"
Her: "I thought you were watching Mythbusters without me."

Instead of inspiring my children to love awesome shows for the intellectual, artistic merit and cool factor that their Dad enjoys them, I have instead fostered a Pavlovian response that will eventually lead them to watching Jerry Springer and listening to Rap music.

My advice to parents is this: You are lame. Repeat that until it no longer hurts. And enjoy the time where your children are oblivious to the fact and will still watch TV and movies with you.

Polite Society

2010-01-10T21:31:00.004-05:00

Polite society can be defined as a group of people who care too much for their appearance to make an example of yours, yet don't care enough to overcome their reservations to save you future shame.

Children are not polite society.

Underdone humans are so impressed with their ability to observe something that they will not hesitate to make it known to all people within earshot. This is candid when other kids do it and mortifying if your own are the ones speaking.

It is a new loop around the nearest star and as such I have taken it on to be in better shape. My goal: 100 miles by the end of the month. Of running, not driving.

Week one went well as I didn't quit. I whined, moaned, lurched, slipped and cursed my way through several runs. Unfortunately due to busy schedules and incapably slow speed of my pace I hardly saw my family as a result.

I would arrive in the door limping and wheezing like Darth Vader on a bender. My family would be in the final stages of leaving for the children's evening activity. The final stages involve my wife badgering, berating, nagging and chasing the children out the door.

In an attempt to make the most of the 15 waking minutes I have with my children I chose to stretch within earshot of them. I strolled to the sink to get a drink, but received my fill before I arrived.

I had taken off my shirt as I was warm and didn't think it THAT inappropriate. I was at least half clothed. And I really wasn't thinking clearly due to what sounded like a partially collapsed lung.

My younger child turned to me, pointed at my bellybutton and said:

Her: "Daddy, you need to get rid of that."
Me: "What, my belly button?"
Her: "No, your fat."

Ok, so I am carrying a few extra pounds of blubber for the long winter. Apparently the 'humane comment' switch isn't active by default.

Me: "Ummmmm."
Her: "It's probably because of those."

She is now pointing at my 'man breasts'.

Me: "Huh? Wha..."
Her: "Well, it's ok, because Grandpa has a baby elephant."

My Dad, the man who taught me how to repress swears and put out fires with diesel fuel has a cute saying. When allusion to his "Molson Muscle" is made he says it's his "Baby elephant, only the trunk has come out so far."

This whole conversation managed to remove my pride, my dignity and any hope of reasoning with that child. It was a flurry of statements more hideously misdirected than the last. Which statement to counter first? I recovered enough to say:

Me: "I think Mom is waiting for you."

I'll let her Mom have the conversations on body image and how men can't carry to term baby elephants. Until then I think I'll only bring that one out to company I don't want to be invited back to.

The power of prayer (or how talking to your invisible friend works)

2009-12-29T13:43:00.002-05:00

As the process of parenting progresses I have found it easier to relate to my children. This is mostly attributed to their increasing ability to speak my language. I tried to use baby talk but I couldn't get through to them.

A result of this increased meeting of the minds is that I can teach them more advanced concepts in life (calculating area of 2 dimensional objects, sorting routines, manipulation using passive speech patterns).

One area that I have been able to instruct them on has been the methodology of prayer. This results not from any particular strength I have in that capacity, but from their mother's reluctance to return up the stairs an eleventh time at bedtime.

Prayer is a fascinating concept. Why on earth do we need to speak to a deity that sees and knows all? We're an inefficient news feed, and don't quote me on this, but I think God gave up watching Fox after they canceled Firefly, so he may have given up on poor reporting altogether.

The only justification to talking out loud to someone you can't see is to benefit yourself. As C.S. Lewis said (at least in the movie Shadowlands) "I pray not to change God's heart, but mine."

As a result I try to get the kids to ask God for what they want, up front. It's bad enough the little heretics want good weather tomorrow to build a snowman, I don't need them adding "attempt to manipulate the divine" to the list of errors.

I thought this has worked fairly well inso that their prayers are honest, candid, and short. That was, at least, until last night.

Last night we were visiting some friends. The adults were discussing things of importance: Disney vacations and how the longest sniper shots are achieved.

Those were separate conversations and were in no way related. Guess which one the husbands were discussing.

Nevertheless the children retired to play board games. As they were playing I overheard my daughter praying, out loud:

"Please God, let me roll an 8."

Ok, it is prayer. It is honest. And it is wildly inappropriate. Not so much that she was trying to win by getting the Creator of the universe to load her dice, but that she sounded like a gambling addict. I could hear echos of "Mamma needs a new Winnebago" in my child's desires.

I will have to choose carefully on how I address this though, as playing craps for God's direction was how the replacement for Judas was picked. Maybe I'll just roll with it.

He said She said

2009-12-22T22:11:00.008-05:00

What you hear is not always what is said. This is true because I can not hear the 10 commandments read out loud without fits of giggles. And let me say that the front pew is not the right place to snort or chortle. In my defense some translations make "covet his donkey" into a very funny sentence.

Being able to see things from another person's perspective is a gift of the wise and the unmarried. See when my wife and I communicate it goes something like this:

What I say:
Don't sigh dear, I'll take care of the dishes if you want.

What I mean:
Please be quiet. I want you to be happy so you feel inclined to make me happy.

What she hears:
Shut up. I'll do the dishes in 5 minutes or the next 5 movies will not include car chases.

This is serious. I make a halfhearted offer, she hears a covenant. She actually EXPECTS me to do what I said I would. To be fair it works the other way too:

What she says:
You look good today.

What she means to say:
You look good today.

What I hear:
RARRRR! (the rest I have to censor here. It IS my imagination after all, or is it...)

What this means is that we continually disappoint each other. We do this without meaning to or wanting to. We simply don't understand that when we say what the other person wants it becomes a promise that is ne'er forgotten.

The cure could be to simply do the dishes, and then subject to open grovelling at any compliment from her (although that might not go over well in the mall). That would require learning, changing and communicating, and isn't that why we got married in the first place: So we wouldn't have to do that anymore?

Another option is to implement proper project management techniques. We could have status updates on chores, reality checks on desires, and we would inevitably utter "Sorry dear, your happiness is out of scope today."

Nah, I'd hate to take the mystery out of it. Besides, I've carefully lowered the bar over 10 years so now she's happy when I fill one sink with water and then get distracted.

If only happiness were the goal of life...

Introducing the Neuman

2009-12-18T23:33:00.004-05:00

I dislike talking about sports.

I used to be a jock. An athlete of some repute, I won awards throughout high school in all the sports that didn't have anyone else participating.

Sometime between the mid 90's and now I have moved from fan to derisive opponent. I think it has something to do with the fact that if all professional sporting events were canceled the only negative impact would be that the Rhino party would receive more votes as Leaf fans tried to find something else to support.

To be fair I also dislike discussing the following subjects:
The weather.
What day of the week it is.
Relationships with low emotional investment.
Celebrities.
Puppies.

As a result I like to discuss things more cerebral in nature, like the benefits of a particular programming language or the difficulties in pursuing world peace. Unfortunately all of these discussions degrade to one of two things.

One end is the predictable "Godwin's Law", which states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

The prevention of comparing SSL to the SS (the SSSSSL?) is achieved by announcing, out loud, "Godwin". It's a geeky punch-buggy to the brain, without the satisfaction, or whining, of actually hitting.

The other eventual degradation is, well, jokes told in Grade 7. By boys.

We have come up with a new law in order to make our workplace one of less chance of harassment, embarrassment and one where we find new parts of the human anatomy to compare projects. It is called "Neuman's Law", which states "As a discussion between nerds grows longer, the probability they will make crude innuendo approaches 1."

We named it after Alfred E. Newman, of MAD magazine. We opted not to use the term "Heffner" as it would self-Neumanate. The result of the new law has shortened most of our conversations from a session of Parliament to 3 sentences.

The benefit is that most of us guess what the next joke would be, so we call out "Neuman" and then giggle at what we could have said. Our maturity is still pre-high school, but at least we're quiet about it.

Unlike those blasted Hab fans...

Of Fortune Cookies and Preemptive Strikes

2009-12-09T21:33:00.007-05:00

This past week we had a furnace failure. When the heat doesn't work in the winter my wife becomes quite industrious. She commandeers all the blankets on the bed to conserve warmth.

As a technician I love to watch other technicians work. Part of it is intellectual curiosity to see the inner workings of someone elses job. The exception to that was when my wife had c-sections with our children. Ignorace == bliss.

The other reason I watch is so I get my turn annoying someone to distraction by hanging around them while they work. I'm polite enough not to say "My furnace doesn't like me" or "I'm just not good with central heating." That would be silly.

He finished the job in 5 minutes. A bit of steel wool and rubbing and the fire just lit up right away. I gladly paid him his money and then bragged about it on facebook.

I'm hoping the previous paragraph gets taken out of context. He He.

Anyway, I did not complain that the job was done quickly. I understand that for him it takes 5 minutes it would take me all day, and I would endanger my household, void a warranty and probably dent the wall in frustration.

In my job I also "just know" how to fix something. Then I get blamed for that knowledge. Yesterday I fixed two devices simply by being in proximity to them.

The client asked (foolishly) "What did you do?"
Me: "I just talked to you and it worked."
Them: "Why wouldn't it work for me."
Me: "Did you try talking to the device sternly?"

As I progress in my profession I become better at fixing things this way. I have now taken to printing lists of commonly asked questions and handing out laminated copies.

Them: "What is the new website address?"
Me: "Look in your pocket."
Them: "Oh, hey, it's on this card."

Them: "Hey do you have the number for..."
Me: "Turn to your right, grab a card, go and read it."

The line between co-dependency and efficiency is kind of blurry. I like to see it as a cross between a fortune cookie and a preemptive strike. I'm not worried, yet. If I start to incorporate "Don't call an ex after you've been drinking." please stop me.

Marriage is a joke.

2009-12-07T20:45:00.003-05:00

I am an adult in the pre-teens. That is a statement of the recognized year not my equivalent maturity. I capped out at 8.

*snicker* Capped reminded me of Crapped.

Ahem, there is question during the year of our lord 2009 whether marriage is worth the effort. I continue to argue that yes, commitment to the institution of marriage or as I prefer to call it: the crazy-house of love, is worthwhile.

Chaining the girl of my dreams to me via a legal document has it's benefits. I can make fun of her and she won't just quit me.

*snigger* 'Chained'

The other week my darling, blushing bride was a mucus tap with a flow control problem. As she oozed around the house like a 1950's horror monster I asked if I could be of assistance. I was thinking of pinning a towel to the back of her bathrobe so she could mop the floors as she went.

Her reply was:
"Nobe. I'mb fine. I'mb jusbt sick fromb the neck upb."
My response was doubling over, laughing and pointing at her.

I thank God for both the wherewithal to have us write down that we promise to love each other forever, and that my wife's uppercut is weakened when she's wearing a bathrobe.

Since that day where I tested the tie that binds us I have found a new hobby. Dishwasher pfishing.

My ever effervescent spouse has a peculiarity with arranging our robotic dish-slave. She insists that the plates must be stacked right to left, largest to smallest.

The joy of finding something like magnetic hill or tormenting a cat with a flashlight beam is that it does not get old. Having control on something that responds predictably is great. If it gurgles in frustration it's even better.

So I will knowingly load the dishwasher as such:
Me: "Oh no, there are no spots for this GREAT, BIG PLATE on the right. I'll just put it at the end here on the left. There, I'm done."
Her: (mild gurgling sound of repressed frustration as she opens the dishwasher and rearrange the plates).

So thanks to the magic rings we wear we can have fun at each others expense and live to tell. If I could do it all over again I would still get married to my wife (as opposed to someone ELSE's wife. Awkward....) but I would change the vows to include:

"In sickness and in health, through jokes practical, implied and public, and will you let him go out to play Unreal Tournament once a week."

Marriage is a joke you play on each other, and love each other enough to laugh at it.

Life is a game

2009-11-30T21:17:00.003-05:00

I am frequently looking for creative ways to teach my children life lessons. This is because the little stumps don't listen to me when I speak in a normal, calm tone. I sometimes wonder if they are playing a long term practical joke so I shout at everyone I meet.

In a duel attempt to be 'fun loving' and 'intentional' I decided I would play a board game with them last week. We played "The Game of Life".

My main goals were simple:

1) Have fun with the kids.
2) Teach them some basic money management.

It turns out "The Game of Life" has little bearing on reality. The wages:bills ratio isn't reflective of our mortgage, there is no "You're addicted to World Of Warcraft, you lose your job and family due to neglect" square, and apparently driving over a mountain nets you $300,000.

One difference in our strategies was that both kids took pride in having kids of their own. I was reminded of Cletus calling out his kids on the Simpsons. Whereas I was sending them a subtle message of being happily married with no kids, and my wife liked to sit in the back while I drove. And I drove a Rolls Royce.

In hopes to aid my older daughter in counting and money management I had her be the banker. This alone thwarted both goals.

She easily forgot WHERE the money was coming from and going to. A quick recap, from my perspective:

"No honey, you can't take your sisters money that she owes the bank and keep in in your pile. That is larceny."
"Darling, we pay our bills from our own money, not the bank. That is misappropriation."
"You little thief, you gave yourself $300,000 when it said you have won $30,000."
"You're not supposed to skim unless you give yourself backdated stock options!!!!"

It reminded me of Enron, or perhaps Arrested Development. Suffice to say the game ended early by a cataclysmic death to all of us by an "Act of Dad" and thus, an early bedtime.

Clearly Life is a game I'm bound to lose, but maybe injustice will prevail and the little miscreant will earn her fortune by stealing from the rich and giving to herself. Then I can live in her basement and play World of Warcraft.

E.T. best get my wife on the phone.

2009-11-27T12:58:00.005-05:00

Formative ideas are curious. Where do we get the thoughts of how things are, or should be?

I could phrase the question "Why do you think that way", but why questions are the most asinine of the question spectrum (that sounds like a fun game show). 'Why' is a fools errand, the typical responses being:
- I don't know
- Because
- an answer that would fit the question if it was phrased 'What'

Besides, you can derive the effective answer to a 'why' with a series of smaller what questions. Why my child was scratched by the cat can be guessed at by this sequence of events:

- Child plays with dolls
- Cat enters room
- Child dresses cat in dolls clothes
- Cat sees itself in reflection in the mirror
- Cat voices objection to looking like Little Bo-Peep after she fell off the wagon.

If asked to articulate where I got the idea of what a married couple should be I would gesture at my parents, in a polite fashion of course. They are a happy pair of humanoids who worked together as a team, sharing the load of raising 3 children successfully into adulthood, and then quietly standing back while we changed majors in college/university.

Except that time when they fought about directions in Duluth.

I never had the supposition that a husband and wife need to be the same in all ways, or any way for that matter.

So it stands that the person who got "more than she signed up for" and me have differing opinions and actions. Where she will remember birthdays, anniversaries, and trivia on which cousin goes with which aunt/uncle set, I remember which remote works the DVD player.

In all our behaviors the most significant difference is the phone.

When the noisy ringy dingy thingy interrupts our house like Cosmo Kramer; she answers it. No matter what. Dinner, movies, I think one time even changing one of our children. If it rings, she answers.

My response is: Let the machine get it. It's more than subjecting our inventions (while we still can), it's my firm belief that whatever made that person call is not nearly so important to me as what I was doing, which was being at home NOT on the phone. I'm right 95% of the time.

I could ask why she cares so much to answer the phone. It might be because her conversations are with toddlers and children all day. It could be that the odds that the person on the other end of the phone is more interesting than me. If so I'm sure she's right 95% of the time.

The differences carry over into how we answer the phone. She is polite and courteous. I try to dissuade all but the most committed caller with my greeting. Examples:

- Ahoy hoy!
- I was expecting your call. (much more fun when you don't have call display)
- Neenhow. Goong-see-faht-eye.
- Do YOU know how to get blood off of the kitchen window?
- I said no anchovies.

So if you call my house you are most likely to get my wife on the phone. Be glad for that.

Why I'm not allowed at parties anymore.

2009-11-19T21:51:00.003-05:00

How did it get this way?

In my life as a technologist I am asked many things:

"Is someone paying you to dress that poorly?"
"Should I move in with the guy if he hasn't moved out from cheating on his wife?"
"Why won't it do the thing?"

Yeah. Not fun. Being the person I am I tune them out and whenever their voice goes up at the end of the sentence I have one answer:

Buy an apple.

When people find out I'm a geek they ask me what sort of technical device they should get. Or they take it as an opportunity to complain about vague computer problems with descriptions that defy my capability to provide a straight answer. Either way they want one thing: free stuff, or good stuff for cheap.

When I respond to any random query with purchase an apple the usual reply is

Them: "I can't afford one. What would you get?"
Me: "An apple. I would save up for it. This is on the assumption I'm you and thus have no talent with computers."
Them: "Can't you just get the music/movies/laptops/mp3 player/phone to do the same thing but pay less?"
Me: "Yes. Yes I can. It's called 4 years of college put to good use freeloading."
Them: "Can't you teach me? Or better yet, just do it for me?"
Me: "So let me get this straight, you want an iphone/ipod/macbook but you don't want to pay for it? Have you considered theft?"

That is why I'm not allowed at parties anymore. That and I make fun of any beer that doesn't have the calorie content of a loaf of bread. Labbatts Blew alright.

Sometimes it's hard to feel sorry for them.

2009-11-11T20:56:00.003-05:00

Part of raising children is instilling into them proper use of the language and good etiquette. Traditionally this is done by the mother, particularly after the father utters 3 of the 7 words you shan't say on TV. In my defense I had spilled scalding coffee on myself.

We are a family that does not swear. This means we are allowed to say Hell, Damn, Crap, and Jeez providing they are not in the same conversation. Words of greater offense can be said very quietly as often as you like as long as the kids don't hear it.

There are a few strategies on why you don't teach your kids their first F-bomb in the first 5 years of life. Mainly it has to do with their total lack of social awareness and restraint, especially when at your parent's house for dinner. The answer to "Where did you learn that kind of language" should never include the words Mommy, Daddy, bathroom or bedroom.

If you do have what could pass for a fit of Tourette's and the kids hear you you can cover it off by not making note of it. It helps to distract them, but be careful. I think I've conditioned my kids that they get to go shopping for candy every time someone hits their finger with a hammer.

If they do repeat the new, unabridged vocabulary do not do the following:

Gasp
Faint
Say "Don't use that effin language"
Laugh

The last one is the hardest for me. The danger is if they clue in that the word gets a reaction they will make all adults their puppets with the gratuitous use of four letter words. Oh, they know how to play us, which is why we must not teach them the tune.

Tonight my younger daughter had a sliver in her finger. This was the usual trauma involving her choice of surgeon to remove the lumber (measuring 1 cm long). She picked Mom.

The delicate procedure performed, a layer of antiseptic ointment and tourniquet applied, the little person was carried off to bed since the anesthetic of "Sit still or else" hadn't worn off yet.

I was saying goodnight to her when she presented her injury for a fatherly kiss in order to speed it's healing. In doing so she flipped me the bird.

Must... Not... Laugh.

If this kid figured out that by presenting the correct appendage manifests into adult hilarity or fury there would be no end to it. I could see myself boarding up the rear windows in the van to prevent retribution from passing motorists.

So if my kid signs to you "F you very much", please just smile and say "Yes, that must have hurt."

All Hallows Even Dress Up

2009-11-05T12:45:00.005-05:00

Last week we celebrated Halloween. We conducted the annual ceremonies including:

- Ritual disembowelment and mutilation of a gourd-like squash.
- Poisoning the local populace with unhealthy amounts of sucrose.
- Presuming alternate appearances to mislead others in regards to our identity.

I put off picking a costume until Wednesday last week. I was discussing my lack of a disguise with a co-worker and I loved the idea of every costume suggestion until I considered my locks. It will be some year in the future that I'll be Buster Bluth.

The problem comes for me in that I have a fine mane of hair. I'm a man in my 30's with a full scalp of follicles. And that visible, dead protein filament is a source of some pride. And warmth.

Realizing that I had few options left I began to muse on people who were famous with my hair:

Fabio
Michael Landon
MacGyver

And there was my winner. I thought it was cool that I MacGyver'd my costume by wearing a leather jacket and carrying around a plastic bag of miscellany.

Now it is time to divulge my ignorance (in this area). I have NEVER watched a MacGyver episode. All I know of him is what I saw on YouTube and whatever Marge Simpson's sisters said about him. To be honest I thought the female obsession with him ended there.

To quote Obi Wan Kenobi: "I was wrong."

I wore the costume to work. People asked what I was. I told the witty "MacGyver'd my own costume" story. Then, if they were female, they confessed their infatuation with the character. To me.

Awkward.

Really, what do you do with that? In my case it amounts to weird pauses and unsuccessful attempts at changing the subject. Clearly they are NOT obsessed with me, but I just managed to dress up as one of their forgotten desires from the 90's. Dang dude, not cool. Not cool at all.

If you are ever caught in that situation, don't try to guess their costume, al la:

Me: "Yeah, MacGyver... so... did you dress up as a participant in 'What not to wear?'"
Them: "Jerk."

I'm thinking Fabio would have been a safer bet. Maybe I'll get a goose mask for next year.

For once it's not me.

2009-10-29T21:53:00.003-04:00

It's nice to not be the one at fault. The struggle to set yourself above your peers is exhausting, or that's what the successful people tell me. It sure is easier when people auto-Darwinate their social standing by insulting someone who is present, or being the one to crack it off.

Our dinner table is a place where once a day we gather as a family to nag the children to sit nicely. Occasionally we actually interact there too. I discourage this because my younger daughter's idea of conversation is similar to having a discussion with a book on tape. The difference being people who record books have to take breaths.

Last week my older daughter was interrupted by the small pink noise generator. She took offense to this and exclaimed:

Child: "That is bloody annoying."

I thought it was a creative, effective and cute way to put her sister in her place. My wife corrected me by correcting her before I could applaud.

Wife: "Don't use that kind of language."

It doesn't help that the kid listens to it when practicing for a role in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". She also hears it in the lyrics of the sea shanties I sing in lieu of lullabies. Hey, I think it's sweet and appropriate to guide my younglings to dreamland with songs of drinking and womanizing.

So of course a few days later my wife and I were working in the kitchen together. And after making a small mistake my wife decried:

Wife: "Bloody Heck"

And the child who had just walked into the kitchen replied:

Child: "Mom, that isn't nice language to use."

At this point I put down the knife and choked on my own laughter. My wife didn't want me encouraging the children to lecture her so she said:

Wife: "Dear, pull yourself together."

Child: "Yes, pull yourself together Mom."

For once it wasn't me. And because those moments are so rare I value them like a supper where no-one wiggles in their chair.

Playing mind games with the kids

2009-10-15T22:28:00.002-04:00

Kids are funny.

I'm not sure where the urge originates, but I love to play practical jokes on my children for my own amusement. It's not uncommon, half of the parents I know do it. Specifically the male half.

I remember my father hiding on us when we were camping. Quality parenting for us included lying in wait for three children walking back from the outhouse in the dark, and then springing out with a snarl like a bear with a fur wedgie.

I continue that wonderful tradition, attempting to set my offspring's emotional development back a few years for a few good laughs.

Somehow though the kids are FAR funnier when they are not trying to be. And I'm the only one not laughing.

Last week we were playing a board game with the kids. We do this to:
- Teach them rules
- Improve their social skills
- Provide us the opportunity to say "Sit still" more often

The game in question was an intellectual game involving questions on various subjects from grades 1 through 6. It reflects badly on us as parents that we did not win said game. In my defense the dice were loaded. In my wife's defense she doesn't think that practicing mental math is a "cool and fun" pastime. WhatEver!

One question was asked of my bright 6 year old. She can read at levels beyond her grade, and she is no slouch in any of the other subjects. The only areas of difficulty for her are legibility and silence. Can anyone say 'Doctor'?

The question was "What is in a camel's hump."

I repressed my laughter so well I'm sure it became a stone somewhere in my abdomen. My bright eyed little wonder pondered it for a moment and then said:

"The passenger's luggage?"

We decided to give her older sister a shot. A good opportunity to let her shine. She didn't.

Older daughter: "Poop"?

These kids must not have seen a healthy camel in their short lives. Its the sort of idea that intelligent design could not have come up with, although I know a few committees who would have. I was still trying to wrap my brain around an animal with a built in flesh-trunk, or worse, a fecal backpack.

The usual guess of water was thrown out there before we could correct them with the right answer of "Fat".

I think I may need to have a chat with them on basic animal anatomy. All I need them saying is "Is that a fanny-pack you're wearing, or are you storing up water for a long march through the desert?"

A windowbar into my soul

2009-10-05T20:52:00.005-04:00

During my career I have been many things: Phone answering service, programmer, guru, idiot, scapegoat, the guy who drank all the coffee. It is not frequent that I am accused of sharing my inner thoughts, except when I forget to put the conference call on mute when saying "pfffft!".

Rarely do you get a glimpse into the soul of another human being than when they are creative. For example, many people look at "Voice of Fire" and say it captures the essence of Enron.

I know this all too well. I do some acting, directing, and on occasion, writing for the Church that I attend. I am hardly nervous with acting, I have slight anxiety when I'm directing, and full Grand Mal Seizures when something I've written is preformed.

It's because I can't hide behind the director or the script as I can when you don't like my acting or direction. If people like my writing, then they like me. I would rather play patty-cake with a cheese grater than have my work disliked.

Thankfully most of my artistic creations in my day job consist of spreadsheets or instructional pages. It is hard to feel hurt when someone doesn't like your email. It's not my problem they don't know how to read sarcasm in my emoticons or plain html.

|:-(.

(that's Bert about to go to the doctor to have that mole looked at)

Except when I'm programming.

I am a notoriously sloppy programmer. I am the only one I know who could make a Gordian knot out of spaghetti code.

Couple it with the usual project planning which has the predictability of a texting driver and you end up with 'artifacts' that reveal my secret names for parts of a program.

I worked on one large redesign which had me program about 25 forms in MS Access 97. For the less geeky that is akin to running the Iditarod with a lone, maladroit chihuahua.

It was a phased release, which is fancy talk for we didn't complete it, we just debugged it until we gave up. Each time I went to the clients I would be surprised at what they could find. Who knew you could insert a colon into a button. I've heard it happening the other way round though...

Then one day someone turned to me in testing and said

Them: "What is bigfreakinform?"
Me: "Huh?"
Them: "bigfreakinform. It says it right there."
Me: "Gee, it was supposed to say 'Good morning'. I'll get around to that."

And for the next 4 years that form which truly WAS a big freaking form held it's name. A small windowbar into my soul. From then on I tried to limit the use of cuss words in my naming of modules.

A time and a place for everything

2009-09-29T22:39:00.004-04:00

I occasionally muse about our capability as a species to communicate, and it amazes me.

The passing of information and ideas between ourselves is tremendously complex. And no where else does it manifest it's infinite intricacies than in a committed, long term relationship, or life sentence as it's sometimes known.

First, are you speaking the same language:

Me: Then the compiler threw a segfault and I was all "duh, this isn't interpreted code".
My wife: Am I supposed to laugh now or keep nodding my head?

Second, are you understanding each others intent:

My wife: I feel tired.
Me: Then exercise, that should get the blood flowing.
My wife: I didn't want you to try to fix me.
Me: Then stop complaining about being broken.

A few weeks ago I was reminded of another way to misunderstand each other and then not talk for hours on end.

The fact that communication rhymes with expectation comes as no surprise. I expect communication to be succinct, functional and direct. Examples would be:

"Kids: Bed. Now."
"Man want food."
"Fire burn."
"You: Love. Now."

3 out of 4 times it works well. 25% of the time I'm lucky if I'm just disappointed.

My wife on the other hand does like to chat, often. Most times this is great because it gives me a chance to ignore the annoying people at my job so I can take important phone calls from home.

We have come to terms with when to not be in contact. If I am directing a drama, she won't call me unless necessary. If I am busy programming, she will avoid me to prevent hearing about bugs I've run into, or worse, want to brag about overcoming.

But when I'm camping?

I was camping in a semi-remote lake a few weeks ago. The fishing was a lot of work involving portaging a zodiac half a kilometer, followed by another half kilometer paddle through a shallow creek. At points a friend and I had to get out of the boat and walk so it could float over sandbars.

I carry a cellphone with me in case of the following:

1. Medical emergency with those camping.
2. Family emergency from those at home.

So when my phone began to ring while I stood knee deep in silty water I feared the worst. When I saw that it was my home my heart ran cold. What tragedy must have transpired to interrupt my one annual weekend of wilderness solitude?

Me: "Hello?"
My wife: "Hi hon. How is everything."
Me: "Ummm, wet. And growing dark. And we haven't eaten in 7 hours. What's wrong?"
My wife: "You know the kid's laptop? I can't shut it down. How do you do that?"

Yes. Tech support up a creek without a paddle. Or a boat as it was dragged away by my buddy who rightfully wanted to eat. I gave succinct, direct, functional instructions, then hung up as soon as I could.

Clearly my wife expected me to be available to chat and overcome problematic beeping electronics. I expected not to. In her defense it IS a Linux laptop that if in the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" adds would be cast as Frankenstein's monster.

In the end all was made well as no one was hurt and I was only the object of ridicule for a few hours.

That is because of another communication tool I've learned. Always end a phone call with your wife with "I love you".

Centre of attention

2009-09-24T20:45:00.003-04:00

There are a few truisms about parenting:

- There will always be food around your house, particular in hard to reach corners of the floor.
- Despite saying "that's why we can't have nice things" you will continue to buy them and hope they won't have Sharpie graffiti on them.
- You are always proud of your child.

I don't know why we are proud of our children. It's not like they have done anything we haven't. My daughters can't outdo us in math for 3 years at least.

Perhaps it's a hope that they are partly us but without all the issues. To that I say "just wait".

Occasionally your child will be the centre of attention. Sometimes it involves states of undress in public assembly, or them quoting you verbatim on sensitive issues, or they decide to hold you hostage through public shaming via a temper tantrum.

Those are not good times.

The other times, times where they are cute or showing off their development that is weeks ahead of average children their age, it is kind of nice.

I'm not sure which one it was the other week.

We were at my cousin's wedding. The food was eaten, the speeches told, and the dancing began. I instructed my children that they were not to touch the wedding cake, presents, or go on the dance floor until everyone was called. I may or may not have made comments about the well being of favourite toys if they failed to do so, but memory is a funny thing.

They were good and waited until we could all collectively humiliate ourselves by thrashing about in a controlled fashion in an attempt to follow the downbeat of the music.

My older daughter didn't even try.

I wanted to have a dance with each of my little girls. A sentimental thing where you dress them up really nice, do their hair, and pray to heaven that someone will photograph you when you're dancing with them and not when you're uttering threats into their little weepy faces.

The older one refused my offers, begging, and pleading for a dance. What a flashback to grades 7 through 12 for me.

Instead she stood by herself, grooving through a repertoire of 12 moves she picked up from Mamma Mia, Hairspray and Elmocize. She was so into the moment she didn't notice other people dancing around her, or even the tempo of the song that was playing. I began to believe she could hear the music about to be played and was keeping time to that.

Her enjoyment of it, and her immersion in the music brought what amounted to a small paparazzi to film and photograph her. Yep, I love the 21st century where everyone is a budding photographer for National Geographic. Myself included. I know at least 6 settings on my $300 camera.

I couldn't tell if I should be proud or ashamed of her, until I realized that the only reason people would film me dancing is to give Johnny Depp someone else to emulate when portraying Captain Jack Sparrow. I think it's time to watch Elmocize again.

Menu for help

2009-09-16T22:54:00.002-04:00

I work in a bureaucracy. I don't know any child who aspires to the lofty goal of order taker and passer on-er. I also do not know of anyone who is grateful for the system, except those who are insulated from the annoying requests of common folk. Think of it as a labyrinth without David Bowie.

There are few warning signs louder than when David Bowie would make your office a COOLER place.

Being a cog in a giant robot that lumbers in circles as a dog would chase it's tail in thick oatmeal has its limits. You can't make the machine flail faster, but you can slow it down.

A wise co-worker once put it this way while on the phone with another office: "Please put me in touch with someone with the power to say YES."

I can't make anything happen per-se, but I sure can put a damper on your day if you need my help. I may not be your sunshine, but I can be the cologne-deficient co-worker between you and the window.

I do try to be above stopping work to show my own power. It may come as a surprise but I don't feel more virile by saying "You don't have the right forms". Nope, THAT wasn't the cause of my emasculation.

But I have found that I do have a secret set of rules on the priority of my work. And this I use almost unconsciously. I suspect most people have this but have not honestly admitted it. I myself just can't pass up the opportunity for bribery.

I evaluate bonuses and penalties in queue position. These are typically applied on your next request for help.

Position -- Cause
+3 -------- Cookies/candy at workstation for me to eat.
+2 -------- Read my blog.
+1 -------- Laugh at my jokes instead of me.
+1 -------- Compliment for my Hawaiian shirt.
+3 -------- I overhear you bragging about how great I am as a tech.
+1 -------- You ask for a technical explanation and listen without yawning.
-3 -------- You show up at the last minute and demand I do the work right away when it wasn't an emergency 2 hours ago.
-2 -------- Asked me to gather information that isn't part of my job.
-2 -------- Asked for help and then are not available when scheduled
-3 -------- Asked for help but don`t follow my directions and then blame me for your continued problems.
-4 -------- Spent 20 minutes of my time telling me how busy you are and why the computers hold you back when the fix will take 2 minutes of your full co-operation.
-1 -------- Mean disposition.
-2 -------- Stinky.
-3 -------- Awkwardly stood too close to me in an otherwise empty elevator.
+7 -------- Can quote Firefly.

I wish I could tell you the queue on any given day, but I make it up as I go along. Can't let the job get boring now...

Inheritance

2009-09-14T22:10:00.005-04:00

Inheritance:(noun)
1 a : the act of inheriting property
b : the reception of genetic qualities by transmission from parent to offspring
c : the acquisition of a possession, condition, or trait from past generations

I wish my parents had kept notes. Note to self: Keep notes.

As a parent I am participating in the longest running joke in history. We like to *THINK* we are doing a better job than our parents, learning from their mistakes. In evidence I either must submit that I have no idea what I'm doing or biology has proved me recessive.

Last weekend I took both daughters out fishing for, you guessed it, pike. All were genuinely excited, especially my wife who opted to stay behind and tend to some unread pages in a book.

One hour later we were sitting in the boat, picnic lunch packed, ready for a morning and possibly an afternoon of catch and release, catching 2 more times for the fishing derby in town.

With it being my younger daughters first time on the lake she had expressed fear that I would drive the boat too fast (~10 kn). I'm not sure if it's the speed (fast things scare her), the noise (loud things scare her), or the movement (et al).

I was a good dad and took it slow. The lines were cast and soon enough my older daughter had this nice fish on her line:

As the fish was brought alongside I heard a hissing and a squealing that meant that the zodiac had been punctured or my younger child had another phobia to identify. It then occurred to me that in all the times she had been fishing there had been no fish caught. Her idea of a live fish was a goldfish.

I hauled in the fish and made sure it would not jump, bite, or blink at any of the occupants. I reflected on my parenting to date as my smaller one considered walking on water as a viable alternative to continuing fishing.

I had never shown her my crippling fear of fish. I had forced myself to grab that slimy emblem of writhing death all while choking back the whimpering terror that gripped me. This was her issue. Or one her mother gave her.

We continued to fish until the older one was bored. That took half an hour. I managed to overcome the younger one's fear of the the 'fast' setting on the boat when we had to battle back against an 8 kn wind.

I guess some phobias are inherited. If so that kid won't be able to watch the horror movies "The Black Hole" or "Mr. Boogedy" until she's 15.

Unless she gets those genetics from her Mom.

What I learned on my Labour day weekend

2009-09-07T22:08:00.005-04:00

I am not a poster boy for our education system.

I can accept it as truism that I fail to be a poster boy for anything positive. If there were a "Soldering hot nerds" calendar I wouldn't make it. Even if it was a "365.25 geeks to put the lambda in your calculus" daily desk calendar.

Enough dwelling upon my inadequacies in a public forum. You might confuse this with a blog.

I don't learn very well from reading. I know this because I don't read manuals before breaking anything I receive. My learning style is a twisted combination of experience and observation.

I learn well from direct experience (a Bologna sandwich will not go away on its own if left in a locker) as well as observed (informing a drill sergeant that you're overqualified for his platoon is not advisable).

My marriage is no exception. I know now not to blame her mood on her feminine wiles, especially if she is just about to. Other things I pick up on by not endangering my life.

I visited my parents this weekend. They had just picked an amount of blueberries that can only be described as a bushel. It was like a Vaccinium version of the 5 loaves and 2 fish. I know this because I helped them cull the proverbial bottomless bucketful.

I say proverbial because I am yet to be satisfied with that description in a literal sense. Some restaurants SAY they have a bottomless glass of pop, but when it arrives I am disappointed to find the cylinder open on only one end. Bah.

Nonetheless as we picked through items ranging from 1cm to 1nm in diameter, attempting to pick the stems off with all the accuracy of a croquet match played using a backhoe to hold the mallet. During this time I had the joy of conversing with my parents.

When you have been a couple for longer than a few months you begin to attempt to finish each other's sentences. My wife does well at this. I do whenever I'm impatient. If I have a minute to spare I have fun.

Her: "Do you remember last week when I found that... that..."
Me: "Elephant in the gutter?"
Her: "No."
Me: "Triscut box attempting a coup of the bowls? The bowl of coup?"
Her: "NO!"
Me: "My directions on the systematic elimination of anyone named Terry? It had 'Culling all Terrys' on the cover."

I get a bonus if I can make her laugh. The bonus is she doesn't try to hurt me.

My parents, being married more than 40 years now, also answer each others sentences. I made a comment about how one of my children had been well behaved at something. My mother reflected on her own journey with fondness:

Mom: "Children are a joy..."
Dad: "That is short lived."

From her reaction he got that one wrong.

So I didn't learn anything new about HOW to finish my wife's questions, but I know WHERE I learned that behavour.

Why? There is no why.

2009-09-03T22:36:00.006-04:00

As a computer technician I struggle to find the proper parallel to my career. Metaphors there are plenty of, like "I am the dung beetle of the cubes. Others take in good stuff, and I make my living dealing with the problems they make from that."

I am not like a firefighter, a doctor, a lawyer, baker or candle stick maker. The best I have come up with is detective.

I don't mean the cool yet inwardly turmoiled crew of a Crime Scene Investigation unit. No, just a plainclothes cop who has to derive meaning from a few clues left there.

And like the more unglamorous aspects of that honorable profession I too must shake down the usual suspects; the client and the computer. This has the normal fun associated with trying to figure out where the cat started to throw up after discovering the trail in bare feet.

The most commonly useless question I am asked when attempting to restore order and peace to the network is "Why do you think it happened?"

Frankly my dear, I don't give a posterior of a Rattus. I honestly don't care why your wallpaper changed from cute puppy to inappropriate and scarring image. I lose no sleep upon the mystery of the missing desktop icons. My brain is not preyed upon by questions on the re-ordering of your favorites.

I do my job, which is undo what you did, doing what you shouldn't, which now keeps you from doing what you are supposed to.

Every once in a while I do care though. Once in a while.

A year and a half ago I was called out to a computer that was, in their own words, "Typing on its own."

Riiight. Was this before or after the pixies and elves made themselves familiar with your bottle of hooch in your desk drawer?

I went over immediately as the suspicion was a virus. I arrived to save the day and ran the client through the usual battery of questions. What was the last thing you did? What were you trying to do? Can you tie your own shoelaces? Innie or Outie?

I sat down and tried to re-create the problem. No more maddening a task there is but an inconsistent problem with a computer. If you can break it again, you can fix it.

Nothing happened. I was about to help myself to their stash in the desk when I uttered "Looks like nothing is happening."

And it typed. On its own.

"What the... There it is again! And again! Those are all words but that is one crazy sentence."

I tried at least a dozen of my best incantations and hexes on the beast (The computer). Nothing. It continued to mock me with what looked like the screenplay plot of the second half of 2001 Space Odyssey.

It was only during a perplexed pause that the answer became clear: The computer typed when I talked.

Somehow the client had managed to activate the "Voice-to-Text" option on their computer. This was an occasion to find out how on earth they had done that.

I could not think of a better practical joke than that one, and I had to know how to do it to an unsuspecting co-worker.

Programming your kids

2009-09-01T22:27:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago a posted a note on how to program your spouse. Although no one has yet written a compiler for marriage I will move on to the next project. That way you are always seen as an innovator and never have to deal with the repercussions of your own bad ideas in person.

At least that is all I have learned from senior management and cabinet minister shuffling.

I realized today that you can, in fact, put parenting into syntax. Here is my attempt to rationalize the random actions over the past 8 years.

First off, as opposed to marriage, there ARE commands that can be issued. Unfortunately your snot nosed interpreter will confuse the first 7 entries as queries and return null. For example:

Dad$:> Hey, you, the one with the poor clothing choice and weird head to body ratio! \\This is the interrupt
Dad$:> Clean up toys \\Enter command.
Dad$:> !Timeout!
Dad$:> Clean up toys /Now \\The /Now option raises the process priority by .01
Dad$:> !Timeout!

Most parents of children over the age of 12 months have actually scripted this whole process into this neat little program:



Function GetTheKidToDoSomething(Demand)
  Do while KidIsIgnoringYou
    Issue Demand
    Issue Random Statement(HollowThreatsArray)
  Loop
Return (UpsetFace, Tears)

On the other hand as a parent you are a runtime system. The child has this figured out from day one and issues interrupts at a frequency of 7 Hz above your clock rate.

A quick note on clock rates. Clock rates are the number of things you can do a second, and are measured in Hz. A Hz is measured by how many eye twitches you get when the little wonder says "Mom?!" when you are on the phone. For example, my 6 year old has a clock rate that exceeds the next CRAY computer.

Variables:
Boolean - Yes/No. This is never used as the child will always return an excuse as a string.
Integer - Useful only in countdowns before you issue the command 'Discipline'.
String - Parent limit: 128 characters. 5 year old limit: 10^47 characters or until they pass out for want of breath.

Conditional Execution:
Conditional syntax usually follows the format of IF, THEN, OR ELSE followed by a loop. For example:
IF you don't sit still THEN I'll say sit still OR ELSE and repeat myself in a minute.

Case notation is not supported as their little primitive brains are full of Dora the Explorer and they can't handle more than one option.

Loops:
Loops are used excessively in parenting as shown in the script above. Once you become a parent you enter the "Parent Loop" which contains all other functions. The parent loop looks like:



FOR the rest of your life
  Love them
  Feed them
  Clothe them
  Fight with them to get them to bed
  Clean up the mess they leave behind 
     (or they leave FROM their behind)
  Worry about them
  Worry about your sanity
LOOP

Functions:
All functions in parenting are defined by their excessive looping and re-use of the string "NOW, I really mean it!" Functions are typically handed off to the spouse process with the statement "You deal with them".

Hopefully that sheds some light on parenting. If not, read a book. I hear they are really good at inspiring short term hope.

Can't type... so... difficulty... candid.

2009-08-24T21:56:00.002-04:00

I am an educated man.

Not that the fact gains me any respect from my children. They still presume I'm incapable of investigating UNDER the covers for contraband books at bedtime.

I took 4 years of college. Interestingly enough the course I finished with was a 3 year diploma. At least I managed to get a few good stories out of it.

I learned a few things for my thousands invested. Sadly most I can't apply in my daily life, like:
- Flaring a Cessna 172 at 10 feet produces a loud bang followed by many little bounces.
- A highlighter can make an aggravating squeaking noise if pressed hard enough on a textbook.
- You can tie up a classmates telnet session for 5 minutes by piping large binaries to them.

One lesson I didn't learn was tact. That would be obvious from my demeanor, so let me clarify. I didn't learn Business tact.

This past week I sent a congratulatory email to a colleague. I send these whenever:
1. They did something brilliant worthy of accolade.
2. They did something bonehead worthy of scorn.
3. They were promoted.
4. I need something from them and can't find another way of softening them up.

This one was not a number 2. Honest praise is easy. Tactful celebration takes thought.

I don't like to lie. There is no indicator for going too far when you do. The odds of sounding like a supercharged hoover are too high for me.

They never taught that in college. How to congratulate without sucking or sucking up. The writing process was as such:

Dear so and so:

- Congrats on being awarded the position of...
- Congratulations on defeating your unworthy adversaries...
- Kudos for seizing opportunity like a viper in an outhouse...
- Congratulations on getting your new job. It must feel good to finally look up a different pair of pants on the corporate ladder...

I was stuck for 20 minutes finding the right words. In the end I was happy with how I managed to phrase it. I think next time I'll let Hallmark do my fibbing for me and send a dang card with "please transfer monies to my department". That or subcontract to the 419'rs for email authoring.

Things I observe at the gym.

2009-08-21T22:14:00.005-04:00

Within a culture there are many havens of special protocol. I would be petrified to go abroad for fear that any other country might be as bat-turd crazy as us.

For those who haven't had the pleasure of a mixed weight room allow me to point out a few items of behavior:

The obvious:

1. Always wear a shirt, unless you're the biggest person there.
2. Always put your weights back, unless you're the biggest person there.
3. Clean your equipment when done, unless...

The subtle:

4. Someone is CLEARLY using a machine and is taking a rest between sets, and you want to use it, you MUST ask:
"Hey, can I fit a set in there?"
The answer MUST be:
"Yes" (especially if you're not the biggest there)
5. You may grunt or moan or scream providing it is on the last 3 reps of the last set. Hearing a 250 pound man scream like a little girl for half an hour while his face resembles a tomato, not cool man. Not cool.
6. Don't stare. No matter what the freak of nature looks like, don't stare.
7. Don't look at your muscle tone in the mirror, even in the change room, unless you're SURE you won't be caught. Otherwise old tomato-head will point and laugh.

No one ever tells you these rules, you pick them up REALLY quickly. Something about survival instinct. Here are two more I've recently observed.

8. Play hard music. Intense painful music. Hair metal is perfect if the screamer is on his 'roids again.

Lately the gym has been tuned into the 'soft rock' station. Nothing breaks a set of muscle tearing bicept curls like George Michael. I nearly died doing the bench press when Tiny Dancer came on. My last words would have been "What the BLANK is that!"

9. Men and women project. Men work all muscle groups above the waist. That's about it. We need a bench press, something to do curls with, and some odd back exercise to prevent us from becoming a hunchback. Our dream is to become 200lbs of muscle on a pair of toothpicks.

Women will work their legs on those machines I expect were liberated from an ob/gyn office when the Soviet Union collapsed. I cringe to even consider what cruel mind contrived a means to work those muscle groups.

This is funny to me because when men and women express what part of the body they most appreciate in the opposite gender:
Girls like guys with great legs.
Guys, well, it's obvious.

You WOULD think we would have figured this out and at least balanced out the workout, but I don't know a guy who does, and the women are never asking to cut in on my sets. I would know, I would have to put the weight back down when they were done.

So I've decided to try those human pretzel makers, but only when I'm the biggest one at the gym.

In other words I'm planning to work out alone.

Surprises, discoveries and funny

2009-08-19T22:09:00.004-04:00

Parenthood asks a lot of you. It demands you to love something unconditionally despite the fact it has no manners or bowel controls when you meet it.

In return you end up asking a lot of things yourself. Like "Who left the crayon in the car?", "How do you get wax off of upholstery?" and the ever classic "Where did she learn that?"

Kids surprise you. Not in a "Here's a cold beer and a copy of Firefly" way, but in a "I thought that was impossible for such a small body to produce so much in volume (Decibel, liquid or solid, take your pick).

Tonight my younger daughter wandered in to show us something. Not unusual, I'm typically grateful that they can bring it to us, and not require "clean up in aisle 3".

Overreaction in 3,2,1...

She was holding out her finger to her mother. My wife tried to crawl over the back of the couch. She pushed the child's hand away and growled "Get that away from my face!"

The kid was offering the last smell of her garlic mashed potatoes. I didn't ask because it would result in a long anecdote about why my children don't know how to behave for their mother.

My wife calmed down when she realized it was food. As the small person with the gap in her teeth meandered back to the kitchen my wife leaned over to me and whispered

"She has been sticking her finger (whisper whisper) and getting me to smell it all day."

Oh. My. Word.

To reveal the mindset of the geek father I will use the Terminator dialog algorithm interface:

Response:
1. Why did you fall for it all day?
2. I don't smell bleach. Do you know what CLEAN is?
3. Segfault.
4. She takes after you.

Sadly number 4 was the best answer of the lot. I don't know where she learned it, or how to make her stop.

Oh yes, and soon after I heard her sweet little sing-song voice call out, announcing for the families curiosity and entertainment:

"There's a log in the toilet."

My six year old has discovered poop, and it is funny. I'll confront this head on and run away immediately instead of delaying the inevitable surprise. Anyone want to go fishing?

Smooth Operator

2009-08-17T22:29:00.003-04:00

Relationships are built on communication. This should be a truism because I've never had a relationship with anyone I don't know about.

When my wife and I were first dating we would chat incessantly on the phone. Most of my relationships with girls involved a fair amount of this, I'm guessing so they didn't have to look at me while doing so.

I don't know anyone who didn't spend long conversations on the telephone with their "one and only, until someone better comes along". I would speculate that the generations before the phone didn't have relationships and dealt with this by arranged marriage.

Actually, I expect that is why Shakespeare was so good at poetry and prose. Our modern day bard could be expected to have this as a sonnet:

"'Oh my love',
he said to her,
cooing into the handset like a dove ordering pizza.
'I miss you already. I miss you the most.'

Her response
transcending words
struck a harmonious chord with his Aorta. 'Nah Ahhh.'
'I miss you more.'

Soul searching
like someone grasping,
reaching for change with a hole in their pocket.
He begins a ritual that will proclaim his hidden emotions.
'Ok, I need to go. You hang up first.'"

The other day this glorious woman who I am too lucky to be married to called me at work. I like that. It's much better than angry people who AREN'T related to me.

Me: "Tech support and darkside therapy. Are your kids out of control AND destroying your ultimate weapon? Do you suffer from rage and vengeance issues from some unresolved parental attachment? Don't give in to your anger, let's talk it out. I'm here for you."
Her: "Hi hon, I just called...(noise in the background sounding like my kids re-enacting Ben-Hur) can you hold on?"
Me: "No? (No response, she is already gone)"

Usually when someone calls and immediately puts me on hold, I return the favour and go do something else. But if it's your spouse you would best consider being good and attentive while she is not there.

I understand that that this was a good reason to call me to not talk. The wee miscreants were, in fact, imperiling each other's lives by fighting while she was on the phone.

Still I must reflect on those days when we would say nothing at all to each other for hours, but actually be making intelligible noise with our mouths.

Geek vs Geek

2009-08-12T22:06:00.004-04:00

Geeks are profoundly insecure. They often live it out in fashion failure and the lording of information over others. Our motto may as well be: "I may be homely and weak, but at least I'm smart."

I was reminded of our bottomless limit of self-esteem issues recently when I heard of a server outage. Server outages shouldn't happen since proper maintenance and log checking should detect any issues before the little people start yelling that their 'Facebook' isn't working.

In response to the server failing I was told that the 'SWAT Team' was dispatched.

???!

I like to believe I'm just as more important as the next person, but this is a new level of delusion of having an interesting life. I envisioned full-body pocket protectors, extendable USB batons, shotguns loaded with compressed air.

I'm hoping that this idea will catch on in other businesses and we can pit them against each other in a no-filesystems barred nerd-off. The 'Geek Squad' vs the SysAdminTerminators.

As for me, I'll just continue endeavoring to make my job as boring as possible. Nothing says "I'm competent" better than this conversation:

Them: My computer just shows me a blue background with something about a Kernel Handler error.
Me: Ok, here is a spare until I fix that one. You DID back up your data on to the server, right?
Them: No.
Me: Then this is a job for, Super Hero IT! (I'd get a tshirt with the acronym because it would be fitting for the moment)

Is it in your DNA, or just in your head?

2009-07-31T21:13:00.000-04:00

Are phobias genetic? Do we inherit them as a instinct to survive the attack of small rodents or hairy arachnids? Or is it a learned overreaction of repulsion that we haven't dealt with since we're still in denial of how poor of drivers we really are.

A few days ago we visited my parents house. Typically its a nice time of relaxation, comfort and love. This time it was rated PG due to mild peril.

Before coming down my Dad cautioned me that "Your younger one will have a roommate." Trying to sound like a good father I asked who would be co-habitating with the 6 year old.

"A bat"

"Oh"

I had a flashback of the paralyzing terror that overcame my mother and one of my sisters the last time we had a bat in our belfry. It was comic to see their eyes bulging with fear whilst hidden between a nearly closed door. This is why a fear of fish is desirable. If one breaks into MY house I'll just wait for it to die.

Still attempting to say things that good fathers do I warned my children about it like this:

"Kids, which of you wants to be a vampire?"

Apparently neither had a problem with a mouse with aspirations of grandeur whipping around their room and squeaking. I wondered how well that would fare when the time came.

As we were unpacking our chiropteric guest made it's entrance. I had no idea grown women could disappear with such skill. I now suspect my wife to be part ninja. She silently whisked herself into a bedroom, and the only announcement of her departure was the door slamming shut.

I carefully tracked our non-avian flight risk with a fish net I won at a fishing derby when Russia could still be spelled USSR. I managed to corner it in my old bedroom. While I was stalking the room and repressing the urge to slur my r's into w's my children demanded to see the bat. They insisted on helping look for it.

Their mother had not emerged from a bedroom yet and would occasionally yell "DO you have it YET?!" I was greatly tempted to lure her out so she could have her fit in full view.

I'm still married, partly because I didn't.

I did have a bat fly around my head a few times. It is odd how they wheel through the air, going right for your face. Not really scary except in a "Oh no, my beautiful face" way. We successfully caught it and released it into the wild of the backyard.

I'm happy to say my children don't share either of our phobias. Theirs still seems to be "resting at the appointed hour."

The long list of things you can't say.

2009-07-26T21:50:00.005-04:00

In every culture there are taboos. Social etiquette that if broken result in forms of discipline ranging from shunning to dismemberment.

When you get married you enter a new culture. Ironically there is less culture, primarily due to less mold in the fridge and dairy products that are not science examples in changing of state.

In order to prevent your spouse from changing states, the key ones from contentment to hysteria, you adhere to set rules. Many of these are things you say, or more importantly, don't say. Such gems as:

1. No, those pants don't make you look nearly so fat as the ones you came in with.
2. I think my mother makes better pork chops. I think her secret was keeping the fluid IN them.
3. You look just like your mom.
4. Remember when our kid threw a tantrum? She takes after you when you miss a sale at the outlet mall.
5. I didn't like "Mamma Mia". It reminded me of "To Wong Foo", only with old ladies.

These are all thoughts that if they do happen to appear in your brain you have the wherewithal to not move them out of your mouth to accommodate your foot.

I humbly wish to add one that is a significant double standard. I'll suggest it as the 'M' word (despite being an acronym with a different starting letter).

I grew up with an older and a younger sister. This was great; they are fun, intelligent, amazing people. I blame the genetic pool.

Still in our difficult teen years my sisters would occasionally fall on a reason for a particularly emotional outburst. I found out that there are no good responses to that. They could say whatever they wanted about me, follow it up with that reason, and I would be the monster for saying:

- That is your problem. You're the one with the defective body, not me. I can keep my emotions in check all year round if I like.

or the even worse:

- I could tell.

Having discovered these pitfalls earlier in life I have since shut up on the subject, at least most of the time. Let me say this to you unlucky men who have not had the tutelage of sisters to magnify your shortcomings by their excellence:

Never tell her that she is emotional because it's "that time".

Just offer her chocolate. It's better than risking the dismemberment.

No sleep makes me stupid.

2009-07-25T20:14:00.003-04:00

I'll start off by saying I'm not a hypocrite. I just believe in double standards.

I consistently tell my children that sleep is vital to their health. I get upset when they don't settle into bed and begin the appeals process with the number one and number two lower courts. They may be tired but they are smart enough to know I won't make them stay in bed if they have to go. I am averse to mess as it means cleaning which means work.

I, on the other hand refuse to get enough sleep. This draws from my sincere belief that it is a rotten waste of time.

I have so much I want to do during the day. By 10pm I have done so little and I have much more slacking off to do. Retro gaming doesn't play by itself.

I received a wake up call this week after another midnight session of 'Syndicate'. I had slept in again and needed food for the day. Breakfast AND Lunch. I took what I hoped were leftovers and then grabbed a container containing a paper towel and three eggs.

I wasn't sure if they were hard boiled or raw. I remembered through the fog of my rest deprived brain that you could spin a an egg on end if it is boiled but not if it's raw.

Or was it the other way around?

I spun an egg and it rolled on it's side. I second guessed myself out of time and decided to roll with it. I put it all together with an apple and called it healthy. Before tossing it in my gym bag I put it all in the plastic produce bag that the apple had rested in just in case there was any mess.

When I arrived at work I went to retrieve my breakfast and found it a bit moist. Thankfully I had packed a second pair of workout clothes that day, again, due to being too tired to think straight. Being a weakling at the gym is even worse if you have egg white stuck to your shorts.

This is the sort of gaff that can't stay quiet. In conversation with my wife later that day:
Her: What did you take for breakfast today?
Me: Remember those three boiled eggs in the container in the fridge?
Her: They weren't boiled.
Me: I know that now.
Her: Why did you take raw eggs to work?
Me: Because I'm... stupid.

The moral of the story is pack your lunch at one in the morning after defeating the enemy Syndicate in Indonesia.

Anti-work

2009-07-21T21:46:00.008-04:00

I love my job, especially all the parts I don't hate.

I have become proficient at my vocation in the past decade. I have moved past the reactive "Reboot" or "Why don't you remember your password" responses. I am proactive, which is to say I have disabled Caps-Lock on certain keyboards.

As a direct result of my expertise I expect I am now being diagnosed by the clients as bi-polar. This is because one of two things happens:

1. I arrive at their computer, sigh loudly, smile, press three buttons and then wander away with half of an explanation of their original problem.
2. I sit in their chair for half an hour fending off sleep.

It isn't my paternal narcolepsy that has me nearly napping at their desks, it's the the second most hated part of my job.

The status bar.

Like most geeks I am obsessed with efficiency. I pre-plan errand routes to prevent doubling back and to maximize waiting time. Within the confines of my own office it is common to see me switching between 3 or 4 different computers pretending to work.

But when the problem doesn't warrant confiscating the computer I support it at their desk. This is a waste of my time.

The problem comes in the unpredictability of the status bar. That offensive graphic which taunts me as it crawls across the screen like molasses chasing a snail.

I can't leave the computer in case a prompt asks me for my genius to apply the correct x/y co-ordinates on the interface to facilitate my endorsement of the current information and initiate the subsequent action.

That means I wait around to hit 'Next'.

For those who have never enjoyed this angle of the tech world, let me give you a play by play.

Minute 1 - Analyze problem
Minute 2 - Curse under my breath and inform client to take a leisurly walk for a coffee. Repress the urge to growl at them while they feign disappointment for the sponsored break.
Minute 3 - Log the client out, log in as all-powerful, initiate install or uninstall or the really dreaded uninstall/install combo.
Minute 4 - Click the gratuitous combination of Yes, Next, Custom, Next, Next, Yes.
Minute 5 - Watch the status bar creep across the screen. If attentive I can observe the narrowing of people due to 4th dimensional space/time relativity.
Minute 16 - Begin playing 'Breakout' on my blackberry in an attempt to stay awake.
Minute 17 - Lose the game. Reflect on what shape the other person's butt must be by sensing the form their chair has adopted.
Minute 21 - Attempt to urge the status bar forward with my mind.
Minute 27 - Begin praying.
Minute 28 - Hold my insults as the client returns and says "You're not done yet?"
Minute 32 - Complete the install with a reboot. Return to my lair and close the ticket so that any subsequent calls start the clock again giving me at least 24 hours before I need to see the status bar again.

So the part of my work I hate is that which is not work, or the anti-work. I love the rest of it.

Except rebooting.

I hope she thinks I'm pretty at least.

2009-07-14T22:33:00.005-04:00

The olfactory value of a rose by any other name depends on marketing. For some curious reason synonyms leave different impressions on us. For example: describing breakfast as "bacon and eggs" is more palatable than "pig calves and chicken zygotes".

And so to sound less draconian I describe punishing my children as discipline. In truth I recognize the significant difference between the two activities. Punishment is dealing pain in return for a transgression. Discipline is nagging your kids until they ignore you.

We are in the cycle of returning our children to normal bed times. This serves two purposes:
-> They are healthier when they have enough sleep.
-> We can stand them when they aren't tired.

The trick is getting them to STAY in bed and not read, play, or kick the walls in order to have the warden visit. I like to try to reason with them on this. Reasoning with an overtired 5 year old can be described as trying to win the jackpot betting on race that has just finished. You know the outcome, you predict it, but you can not cash in on it.

As a result I have to implement artificial consequences, as the natural ones of falling asleep in their cereal and driving their mother batty are not working. Being ever logical I let them pick their doom.

Me: "Honey, what do you need to fall asleep?"
Her: "My music and my Sunny."
Me: "Ok, then if you keep coming downstairs I will take it that they aren't working for you. I will first turn off your music. If that doesn't help you sleep I will take Sunny for a while."

Traditionally this level of warning works well, meaning I turn off the music and take the toy once before they realize I'm serious. The other night the child came down (after multiple tucking in and warnings) and said:

"I came down to see Mommy again. I already turned off my music."

I was honestly pretty proud of her. She understood the results and took them in her own hands.

Then not even 10 minutes later I hear a cacophony from her sister's room which sounds just like the younger one causing a grave disturbance in the force. Upon investigation the little miscreant runs to her bed and dives under the covers.

Me: "I'm sorry honey, but you made your choice. Where is Sunny?"
Her: "I don't have her."

It took a minute of interrogation to derive the location of the toy. It was hidden. Under the bed. Wrapped in a bag.

It is not a good sign that she thinks that she can outwit me this easily. Her opinion of her Fathers cranial capabilities is humbling. I hope she thinks I'm pretty at least.

So now my routine of "Reason, Warning then Discipline" I need to append "Establish credibility". Anyone want to be a reference for me?

Calvin-Bowl

2009-07-11T21:14:00.002-04:00

I swear I used to be rational. I used to have a reason for my actions, a plan to accomplish my intents. Then I had kids.

One of the most significant changes in your life after having children is meal times.

In the beginning it is fairly minor of a change. The kid either downs a bottle or distracts the husband while they eat.

Once the small person moves to mush you now have to wait to eat while giving them their supper. This involves putting 1/8 tsp amounts of mush into the mouth of someone who is enjoying the tactile excitement in discovering their tongue.

This continues until you can slap a cup of 'Cheerios' on the little table and they begin to feed themselves. And the cat.

My kids are now old enough to manage well on their own. They have the dexterity to both feed themselves and avoid stabbing mishaps with the others at the table. It is because of this that I expect the unreasonable.

I expect them to eat their meals.

The younger one gets tired of the table fairly easily. She is bored of sitting there by the time my wife sits for dinner. Every meal I repeat the mantra "Be quiet and eat. Stop moving and eat."

It might seem cruel to disallow discussion over the dinner table but what comes out of her mouth isn't discussion, it's like hooking up a voice synthesizer to a wireshark feed.

So as she staves off the boredom from a half hour of consuming life giving food I invent new rules for table manners in a way that would make 'Calvinball' appear rather linear.

The rules for our meal times include:
-> No toys at the table.
-> Wear clothes when eating.
-> No kicking.
-> No punching.
-> No yelling.
-> No rubbing food on the table.
-> No stabbing the plate.
-> Eat with your mouth closed.
-> Not too much ranch sauce on your potatoes.
-> No talking if you're the slowest eater at the table.
-> No having a second drink of milk.

This week's addition: No interpretive dance at the table.

You can thank the younger one for that. She had been forbidden from speaking but figured that full body sign language was still allowed.

The older one isn't so much an inspiration to create rules as she is an influence to pursue a child psychology degree.

One of her favourite foods is ribs. This is neat, as ribs taste good. Last night she saved her ribs for last, eating all other food on her plate. Then she picked up a rib, looked at it as Hamlet would a skull, and began to speak to it in soothing tones.

"Mmmmm, dead pig grease."

My wife and I responded with a worried look at each other. The child continued uninterrupted as her sister had exceeded her talk to food ratio for the meal already.

"This must have been a skinny pig. Skinny little pig. They must have hit parts off with a crowbar."

I must say that is the first time I have ever heard the word crowbar used in a conversation with one's dinner. My wife and I were now choking on our mouthfuls so she endured:

"I think the pig died from bone loss."

So that may explain the irrational regulations that are held to our board. It also explains several of my nightmares since.

Like so alike and so unlike but still they like

2009-07-07T12:45:00.003-04:00

My wife and I recently took a short vacation together to celebrate 9.6 years of wedded bliss and .4 of simply enduring each other. It rounds out to an even 10 years served in the state of happiness. Since we mutually agree that time off for good behaviour would only result in bad behaviour we took the vacation together, without children.

A wise friend advised that once a year we take time to be a couple and remind ourselves of why we are still married to each other and not to someone else who could care for our children a bit better than the current spouse.

It was on this trip that I discovered how unlike we can be after all this time.

I have flown enough to know that announcing boarding for an aircraft is like offering free beer. Everyone rushes to line up. I watch.

- I enjoy observing people lugging their suitcases, children and egos to the check in desk where they rush through the doors to anxiously wait in the rectangular metal hallway to the airplane.

- After they get through that line they have to slowly walk through the narrow aisle, stopping for each person ahead to precariously balance their luggage in the overhead bin.

- Then they get to sit in a small chair with almost no elbow room and wait for the person with the window seat to stumble over them in an attempt to sit down.

- Then they wait 20 more minutes for the airline to track down that jerk who can't board the plane on time before being entertained by the pre-flight safety demo.

The funny bit is thanks to the new security procedures no one is lightly left behind. The front desk will call pre-boarding, general boarding, and once the plane is almost full they will start the post-boarding nagging of slow people.

I play a game to get in line right before the nagging begins. This lets me skip the lines, the waiting, and the people stumbling on me. The attendants at the gate know my name (they were looking it up to page me a moment before).

I like to think of myself as the smartest of the cattle going to the abbetoire. I skip the waiting and usually only have about 5 minutes of waiting in the seat before things get going.

My wife thinks that is stupid.

So there we were on what could be described as a second honeymoon. We held hands and cuddled in the waiting area and then boarded the flight seperately.

To balance out this observation I found out how much alike we are and how we depend on each other.

At a restaurant we were enjoying our lunch. I was having pasta and like the slob I am I felt some sauce fall onto my chin. Being polite I tried to wipe it off with my fingers.

My wife looked up at me with a hint of "can't I take you anywhere" and began wiping her chin on the opposite side.

I took that to mean I had missed the sauce and wiped the other side of my chin in hopes to shorten her embarassment and thus lengthen our marriage.

I became suspicious when she immediately switched sides on her chin and wiped away at imaginary food.

Me: "Honey, is there still sauce on my chin?"
Her: "No, is there any on mine?"
Me: "No, you never did have any."
Her: "I thought you were motioning for me to clean my face."

Yep. Stuck in a recursion loop. Let that be a lesson to all you who are in a long term relationship. Communication works best when spoken. And let her wait in line as long as she wants if that makes her happy.

Programming your marriage

2009-06-29T09:42:00.012-04:00

I am a geek. A geek in love.

That is the sort of statement that evokes a discomforting amount of empathy for my wife (not to mention a few questions on her decision making). I let her deal with all that, I'm just happy she's happy (enough) with me.

In my geekiness I have been trying to learn a new language each week. These aren't languages I could use on travel (useful) and they aren't made up languages for fantasy novels or sci-fi series (useless). They are programming languages (cool?)

The suggestion of learning a new language a month sounds neat, but I don't have the attention span for that. I figure I'll learn a new one a week and just rotate the first 4 for four or five iterations until I have the equivalent of blink tags for my "Hello World"

This has generated a bit of morbid curiosity in my co-workers. Today one asked what my language of the week was.

I replied that since it is my anniversary I was taking the week off to celebrate me not permanently screwing up a relationship after 10 years. Consequently I'll be learning the language of love.

"And how do you run a command then?" he asked.

"There are no commands issued in the language of love, it's all begging." I replied.

It was then that I decided that I will write my own programming language for married men. Here are the fundamentals:

Variables: Marriage has several variables that can be used:

Boolean: Her Way/Highway.
Integer: All dates are integers. You are either all right or all wrong, there is not a halfway correct guess at her birthday.
Floating Point: Any discussion that is unclear is classified as a floating point. Don't use them unless you want a system crash followed by the couch.
String: A series of characters that form an unintelligible sentence when you try to communicate them.

Conditional Execution:
Conditional execution syntax sometimes follows the format of IF, THEN, AND I BETTER. For example:
IF I want her to see Transformers THEN I need to watch a romantic comedy as well AND I BETTER stay awake this time.

Case notation is also allowed, with the final argument ending in CASE CLOSED. For example:



SHOULD THE CASE BE She wants to visit her brother's nutty family:
    CASE I fake the flu
        I had better have colour to what I'm coughing up this time
    CASE I voice dissatisfaction
        I had best not make negative comment to her family of origin
    CASE I go along and be quiet
    CASE CLOSED

Loops:
Loops in marriage can take any of these forms:

DO WHILE: Do the garbage WHILE you still like being married END
FOR LOOPS: FOR every time I rearrange the kitchen cupboards LOOP her putting up some of my computer equipment for sale on Ebay END

Functions:
Functions in marriage are easy to declare. Simply say what you want to do and end it with the syntax PLEASE.

Here is an example program using some of these lessons.



FUNCTION 'I want to play Quake tonight'
    Declare 'Decision' as BOOLEAN
    Declare 'Pleading' as STRING
    Declare 'Game Start Time' as INTEGER
    Declare 'Game End' as FLOATING POINT

    SHOULD THE CASE BE 'I want to go out and play Quake tonight'
        CASE She is going out tonight
            'Pleading' = 'Good Mom's stay at home with their kids'
        CASE She wants special time
            'Pleading' = 'Sure'
        CASE She says a reluctant OK
            'Pleading' = 'I will scrapbook with you on Saturday'
        CASE She is angry
            DO WHILE she keeps answering
                IF her answer is 'You should know' 
                THEN her answer is FLOATING POINT
                AND I BETTER ASK Is there anything I can do'.            
            LOOP
    CASE CLOSED

PLEASE

Note that the decision is not issued until she compiles it at run time.

√y

2009-06-28T22:53:00.005-04:00

I like to find the root cause of events and actions. It is a curious combination of two bad habits: Control issues and superiority complex. It really helps in parenting.

It requires answering a lot of "why" questions. This is important because you want to have an answer for something BEFORE the kid asks "why not Daddy?" This is critical as "because I said so" translates to "try it to find out" in kid language.

One behavior I wish to exorcise from my "perfect" (sic) children is tattling. I have succeeded so far with the older one.

The reason WHY tattling is bad is because it:
1. Bothers the parents.
2. Is intended to get someone else in trouble.

With the older one I was able to communicate this effectively. I pointed out that tattling was a way of trying to hurt her sister by proxy, namely the parent. And I don't like to be reminded that I have the mentality of a 6 year old so I refuse to be the 8 year old's lackey.

She understood this reasonably quickly (by the 10th reminder) and has since ceased. Her sister on the other hand doesn't get it.

When a child doesn't understand sometimes it helps to exaggerate to the logical extreme. This is how we come up with the "jumping off the bridge if your friends do it" logic. It is also how we sound stupid in public.

The first time I tried to reason with the 5 year old I tried to clarify by saying:
"Honey, tattling is trying to get bad things to happen to your sister. Do you want me to hurt your sister for you?"

Her immediate response of "Yes" was a moment of candid honesty that was rewarded with a time out for hate crimes.

Tonight I tried again, but with a different, albeit humorous tactic. She was attempting to be entertained with a gladiatorial confrontation by informing us of the misdoings of her sibling. As she related this I replied, my voice dripping with sarcasm:

"Since you're going to interrupt us with the news, I'm going to buy a commercial. I'll pay you a dollar to say 'Daddy is the greatest ever, tonight at 9' with each news break"

She turned her bright blue eyes to me, put her little chubby hands around my neck, hopped into my lap, leaned her cherubic face close to mine and said "Daddy, I love you."

Me: "Awww, I love you too darli...."
Her: "Now give me a dollar."

Lovely, now I have to explain why trading love for money is wrong too.

Elevator Etiquette

2009-06-24T20:37:00.004-04:00

Children live in a world full of wonder. That is a nice way of saying they are exceptionally ignorant of the simple physics, biology and chemistry around them.

Moments of amazement and surprise should diminish with age. And yet gratefully, as a gift from above, we can find little wonders every day because we are surrounded by beings whose behavior is random and unpredictable. As I was this week by how people use the elevator.

I work in a building with a lift. Whenever I bring my children along in one it is like they are at a carnival. They fight to press the buttons and then freak out when the thing begins to move.

I take those moments to teach my children the simple etiquette of using an elevator. And to my wonder this week I find I should publish this for adults too.

1. Don't make smells in the enclosed space. It doesn't matter what perforation in your skin that odor comes from, no one else wants it. And if you find it necessary to either refrain from washing your clothes or begin bathing in cologne then just take the stairs you freak.

2. Unless there is only one elevator: let it go. Don't hold it for your five friends who are 'just around the corner'. Other people have places to be, and being held hostage by your buddies tardiness only inspires us to break rule number 1. Remember, the first time is tardiness. The second time we add the prefix RE.

3. Don't talk. This is an awkward enough social situation. Overhearing the continuing conversation of indiscretions resulting from toxic amounts of alcohol consumption is not how anyone wants to spend 2 minutes of their day. Trust me, we all assume you are a loser, don't give us verbal evidence.

4. No touching. My word, no touching.

5. No liquids. If it is moist and in you keep it there. This covers sneezes, coughing, crying and spitting.

6. No jumping. I know it seems funny to shake the little box with the people in it but if you scare someone half to death in the lift they will finish the job on you when you get out.

7. When the elevator stops get in right away or let it pass. Waffling about "it's too full" punishes everyone in the cramped space hanging in the air.

8. Face the door. There is a level of weird reserved for people wearing tuxedos at WalMart and folks who don't face the door in an elevator.

9. Let people get off the elevator before you get on. You may be critically important in your own mind but the 11 of us stuck in the suspended container would rather not be kept waiting while you push your way through the people trying to escape the guy who had a bean chimmichanga for lunch.

I think that covers most of it. If anyone breaks these rules feel free to use this line when they exit and the doors are closing:

"Oh, you should see your doctor about that rash. Mine said it was a good thing I'd come in when I did for mine."

Unless it's your boss.

Almost 6 year old spin

2009-06-18T20:52:00.006-04:00

Humans are separate from other animals in multiple ways. We hide our shame with clothing. We are aware of our own existence. We blog (most of us only once).

It is truly fascinating that as a species we communicate to understand each other. It's way beyond "Stand still while I run away from that predator" or "lets go pick nuts" or even "hey, want to find parasites on me"? No, we as the higher creature attempt to fathom the intent of others around us.

In fact we are so adept at communication that we now have occupations that try to limit that, namely politicians, lawyers and MAN file editors.

In mutating the primal offspring into productive, functional members of society one must teach their children not only how to speak, but communicate. This is harder than it sounds, as we rarely realize that we aren't asking for what we want. Need examples?

"The garbage smells bad." == "Please take the garbage out to the curb you slob of a husband."
"You look good tonight dear." == "Please give hubbie 'special time' tonight."
"Are you going out again?" == "Please stay in, I'm jealous that you have a social life."
"Thanks for making dinner dear." == "Please give hubbie 'special time' tonight."
"May I have a word?" == "Shut up, you are wrong and about to find out how wrong you are."

I know I've done SOMETHING right as today my wife explained an incident between her and our younger daughter.

My diminutive descendant brought this piece of paper to my wife.

"Mommy, does this look like a sandcastle to you?"

My wife was about to diplomatically say no, which in parenting goes like "Kind-of dear, is that green part the ocean?" Before she could the not quite 6 year old said

"It doesn't. That's why I need to play my computer game."

She had recently borrowed an "Arthur Sandcastle" computer game from the Library. And she has been obsessive about playing it. To the degree of imitating a bi-polar Baboon if asked to take a break to eat, rest, or so help us use the washroom.

What impresses me the most is her creative way of presenting the issue. I simply hope in 10 years she doesn't ask for more practice time in the car the same way.

"Daddy, does that look like parallel parking to you?"

That's so stupid.

2009-06-14T22:59:00.004-04:00

I'll be one of the first to admit I'm not the brightest distant thermonuclear reaction visible when our terrestrial rotation directs us away from the center of the solar system. I would be first to admit it but there is usually a lot of people clamoring for that opportunity.

I am reminded of my cerebral boundaries whenever I do my taxes, send an email without spell-check, contemplate the engineering of a piano, or try to understand my wife. And the old ego is continually sober due to the incessant backhands of reality.

As a result I suspend judgment on situations that I don't fully understand. That would be all of them. If I didn't I would be inclined to utter "That is so stupid" continually through my days.

Apparently many people don't let that stop them.

Daily I hear people say things like:

"Why would they put that door there. That is so stupid."
"Look at the design of this interface. How dumb is that."
"It's so retarded that they don't make the windmills more like pinwheels."

I used to try to direct these people to reflect on their own expertise in the field of discussion. Encourage them to contemplate that the person making the decision was not the recent victim of a zombie attack.

I realize I am not surrounded by morons (despite how they drive). People are typically rather intelligent and insightful where they make vocational decisions. Not that I trust them, they are still human and consequently would sell my safety for a cheaper pair of shoes, at least if the current policy on China is any indication.

Now instead of trying to convince people they are dumber than they sound I like to be there when they come to that conclusion on their own. I'll cheerfully agree with them, and one up them until they figure out I'm toying with them.

Them: "Why would they put that stop light there. That is so dumb."
Me: "Totally. It's like they want to stop people from driving. I bet the decision makers were drunk and hopped up on PCP's when they did this. And their parents were siblings. Whose combined IQ's were in the teens. I hate the planner who ruined my life by deciding that. Thanks for pointing that out."

As a public service, before you decree something as dumb, stupid, retarded or any other derision of others decisions please say this inside your head:

"Do I fully understand the situation and am making a rational assessment here, or am I an overconfident, pseudo-intellectual hoping for a chance to be on the Nobel prize committee?"

If you DO manage to solve the world's problems over the post-coffee break discussion at work, let me know, I have my response ready;

"That's so stupid."

Trust em as far as they can run (in the number of seconds that matches their age.)

2009-06-11T13:22:00.009-04:00

Parenting is difficult. It is the only relationship that I know of that demands the balance of respect and interrogative suspicion.

Some people might take exception to my lack of confidence in under-trained humans. In my mind children are innocent only to the extent that the havoc they wreak is a combination of poor co-ordination and ignorance as opposed to malice.

This leaves me imagining the mischief my daughters could get up to when it isn't visibly apparent. This is how I keep the "eyes in the back of my head" myth going. I just 'happen' to show up to catch them because I have complex daddy algorithms running at all times.

(Click the chart to see it clearer, then go buy glasses)

And every once in a while you need to rewrite the whole thing because kids, being human, do something bat crazy that messes up the whole systematic approach. Like the algorithm for "things you step on in the dark".

So the other night we were discussing an upcoming sleepover with my older daughter and one of her friends. We moved on from the subject and a few minutes later she said:

"At least I don't come down in the middle of the night and play with matches."

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Was this the random, hypothetical musings of of an 8 year old or was she tattling on someone by process of elimination?

Being the sensible father that I am I envisioned the 5 year old having late night pyromaniac binges. I pressed the soon-to-be-confessor for details on who in fact DID play with matches in the middle of the night. I dreaded phoning one of her friend's parents with that piece of information.

It turns out she was confusing a story she had read with some creative imagination of her own.

All the same I've added "were the children practicing for arson" to my morning checklist.

------------------

In an unrelated note Happy Birthday to the girlfriend who I was lucky enough to engage, fortunate enough to marry and who had the fortitude to endure 10 years of marriage to me. I love you, and although you are aging I'll take that over the alternative.

Dumping the conversation.

2009-06-07T21:15:00.007-04:00

It is really hard to fit in sometimes. I have had the paralyzing social quandary invoked from accepting the invitation of a friend to a reception or awards symposium. You find yourself the only one in the room with nothing in common to anyone else. And those tend to be cash bar nights too.

Given a bit of warning to these events you can do your homework and avoid wandering on the outside of conversations like a free radical that has no purpose. By the way, that is entirely different than a rebel without a cause.

If it is an awards dinner, Wikipedia the organization and the history. If it is a wedding reception, do a bit of genealogy. Don't worry about finding bad news on either, just remember not to blaspheme the family clan in the receiving line.

But if you end up in a group that has young parents there is always a magic focus point that makes for laughs and a few tears. For people who don't have kids yet here is a gimmie: Bowel movements.

This is a great subject of interest. Learn all you can about size, stages, shapes, smells and textures. A few cute anecdotes can go a long way here. Don't use them as the starter though. Walking up to a group of people and saying "speaking of full shorts..." is going to cost you a lot at that cash bar.

Every young parent ends up talking about poopie so often that they forget their circumstances. More than once I've been at work discussing over the phone the mushier points of one of my offspring's offings. Normally, this has been with my wife, but amazingly not exclusively.

What that you say, you don't have a good turd tale to slide to a skidding stop in your next conversation? Have no fear, you can just say "I know a guy who..." and use this.

This week my younger daughter strode into the living room. My wife and I were enjoying each others company by reading separate books (for those who haven't been married long enough that is what we call 'boredplay'). The little urchin announced

Child: "Guess what!"
My wife: "What dear?"
Me: "You've achieved cold fusion using a dustbuster, a wet hankie and Richard Simmon's video 'Sweatin to the Oldies'?"
(they both roll their eyes at me each time, so fun that game)
Child: "My poop looks like something!"
My wife: "Poop?"
Me: "Solid toots? No, Abraham Lincoln with a bad hair day?"
Child: "A mushroom. Come and see!"

Seriously neither of us did. Make it bad parenting that we demand our children flush their posteriourly created art without so much as a viewing.

So now you can fit in with people who have little kids. You can even practice by dumping your best stories here now.

Creative Movement in your Marriage

2009-06-04T13:00:00.006-04:00

This year is the decade mark of my marriage to my wife. That is 10 happy years of observing what two reasonably sane people can become when they are bound to the same living space.

Being the nerd that I am I make a fair number of observations on our marital bliss. Observations like:

- What happens when you don't warn her about a social engagement? (hint, you miss out)
- Where is the best place to hide when her emotions are in flux due to biological issues? (hint, the garage)
- How do you recover from not wrapping her Valentines Day present? (hint, NOT by buying a card)

Thankfully I do learn from my empirical approach to post-nuptial life. It's a continuing grown-up game of 'if a fork stings me in the electrical socket, does a spoon too?'

After 10 years I may have solved the greatest problem yet: moving furniture.

Yesterday we swapped out the kids old dressers for new ones. This was not a light task and it required moving the new furniture upstairs. In boxes with no handles. And the stairs look like the architect wanted to imitate Salvador Dali.

A sane, rational person would sit down and work out a plan, using measuring tape perhaps, and communicate the roles to all involved.

I eyeballed it and refused my wife's help until I was hopelessly stuck.

I can be a bit terse when I am under physical strain. I am (apparently) unbearable when I am also shamed by my incapability of doing a task.

The hilarity of it is I'll refuse her very sensible advice on how to do the moving because of two simple facts:

1. I'm the man and am physically stronger.
2. Accepting her idea once mine is in motion is an admission of failure to the one who can't bench press what I can.

Clearly when I do physical labour I achieve a level of stupid that could be best described as Cro-Magnon-dumb. (say that 3 times fast)

I did apologize for being angry at her for so effectively being right when I was wrong. And I have learned how to move furniture and not strain my marriage: ask a friend to help. For some reason I don't mind being a mute-donkey with a friend.

To my wife: Thank you for 10 years of giving me a reason to attempt to be the perfect man, resulting in a sulky snippy jerk when I'm not. I'm glad you settled for me honey!

That's because I'm working.

2009-05-31T20:38:00.004-04:00

A workplace is an interesting environment. You spend 12 to 18 years in the grim artificiality of institutionalized life based mainly on what year you were born in. Finally you arrive in the "real world" which lumps you with whoever is willing to pay you enough to keep you doing what they tell you to. Unless you work for Google, where they automatically assign you an oompah-Loompa (or so I hear).

And during the course of your time in somewhere they have to pay you to stay in you make new acquaintances and friends. Or that is how it's supposed to be.

I honestly am a terrible person to have at work. I know some of you would simply omit the last five words to the previous sentence to generalize.

Most days I toil away at my workstation (I call it that instead of a desk to make me sound like I work at NASA). I strive against the forces that hinder our ability to do business, which is code for "I tell them to reboot first and ask questions later".

I have learned to love my job like a trophy bride learns to love her decrepit spouse. I close my eyes a lot and imagine I am working for a more important company. And yes I fake enthusiasm, everyone does.

And to keep that cognitive-dissonance going I am not what people would call warm. Or nice. Or happy. I whisk around as a busy drone bee tending to tasks as efficiently as I can.

During the course of all this people kindly wish to include me as a friend in the facebook of life. They attempt to strike up a conversation, occasionally mentioning that they don't see me around that much.

This is where my years of training with machines kicks in and I reply:
"That's because I'm working."

Right. Not a popular response, no matter how accurate it may be. The implication that they are keeping me from such important work as organizing my papers is no slight slight.

This happens on the phone too. They say things like:
"How are your wife and kids?"
"Sustained. Did you click on 'Start' yet?"

Instead of the class clown I'm the office grouch. I could easily make the time to be more attentive to others, but then who would do my job?

And there I go again... (I meant who would be the office grouch)

Second place personality

2009-05-26T12:22:00.005-04:00

I have a second place personality. You know how people can have a winning or a losing personality, well mine is the kind that strives to impress others only to trip and fall at the finish line.

It's tragically hilarious. I will capture others attention with witty dialog or banter. I can do it for at least 3 sentences. Then without warning my lower opinion of them falls out of my mouth and all over their respect of me. It's like playing a game of craps with my mouth. Sooner or later I'll invite a hard five at my face.

As a child I learned to suppress my wit because I was smart enough to know the cause of my own suffering. Now that it's incorrect to dole out wedgies at work I seem to be making up for lost time.

Yesterday I was in the elevator returning to work from lunch. I wanted to get back from my workout with at least 5 minutes to eat before time ran out. On one of the floors some people got on just after someone exited.

Usually I enjoy the moment of intellectual superiority where I point out they have made a mistake (another misuse of wit). I lord my capacity to determine the direction of the elevator from the indicators on the wall over those who don't know which way is up.

But being in a rush I was less patient and jovial. So as the people attempted to get on I moaned "This one is going up." They clued in only after entering the box that hangs from a hidden cable. Then one person said "I don't want to go up..." and tried to leave, stopping the painfully slow door and causing it to open again. At the same moment her friends pulled her back and said "No..."

This 10 second delay on my break broke me and I said with a smile:
"Don't punish me for your indecision."

They all looked at me and the part of my brain that heeds the teachings of St. Fu was absent. I continued with the same 'winning' smile:
"Why am I being punished? What did I do wrong?"

The succinct reply from the wishy-washy directionally challenged one was the sublime repartee:
"Because you are."

Nice. 25 years and that response still confounds me. It is a logic black hole, it only gets stronger the more explanations you throw at it.

I was tempted to press all the buttons when I exited the elevator and consequently punish all of them, but I only motioned as if I would. My intention was to show I could be a jerk like them, but I'm too weak to be. They probably have forgotten about the rude babbling guy with a palsied twitch that nearly bumped him into the elevator panel.

And that is an example of why second place is the first loser.

Occupo pardus!

2009-05-23T22:36:00.006-04:00

There used to be a concept called "quality time" with your kids. It was popular in the early 90's. I remember this because my Dad often invited me for it in my early teens.

I remember it well because for Dad it seemed "quality time" meant barking my knuckles doing some menial work that was too depressing for him to do alone. Like dig a hole in the backyard looking for the sewer exit from the house. This was to discover his estimate to be wrong by 30 feet only after I had dug a 10 foot hole in the yard.

As a father myself I try to have what would be termed "Positive Memorable Situations" at least once a month with my two young daughters. I think it's important that they develop a strong connection with their father. It's also so my wife doesn't warp them too much.

The main trouble is you can't usually plan or predict these teachable, impressionable moments. You just have to roll with the moment. Perhaps if some Dad successfully plans time with his kids he can let me know the secret. I'm sure it has to do with using the calendar and writing.

So today, my wife and I and my younger daughter arrived home together. The older child was at an activity for the day, a perfect opportunity for 'bonding'.

My wife did something odd as she was removing her wallet and keys from her person. She began to do what could be best described as a personal cancer check of the lower organs, but while fully clothed. She must have caught my "what the mercy are you doing" look as she said:

"There is a hole in these pants. Right here." Gesturing to the location she sought to verify the said wardrobe defect from both sides.

In an instant of cosmic alignment my younger daughter and I both mimicked my wife, only with looks of consternation to match some trying to taste test which motor oil is synthetic.

And that was the magic moment where we connected as father and daughter. We simultaneously pulled our underwear up to our belly buttons and poking fingers at our own midsections. It was classless but fun.

I'm sure that I managed to accomplish the triple task of connecting with my daughter, loosing a little of her remaining respect for me as an authority figure, and ensuring my wife will treat me with the same intellectual fortitude that I displayed in that moment. I'll remember it as the time in the porch that my younger daughter and I gave ourselves front wedgies.

Maybe I can coin a new term for Parent/Child bonding: Occupo pardus!

I sure know what I DON'T love most.

2009-05-19T21:41:00.004-04:00

It is hard to tell what I love most about my wife. I could say that I love everything about her equally but that is a lie. I certainly love her kisses over, per se, her occasional flatulence.

No, the reason it is hard to determine my spouse's most endearing quality is that those most becoming of attributes often cross the line into the "If I could change one thing about you..." field.

It is the nature of us to crave what we don't have. We also occasionally loathe those who have in excess what we are bereft of. The differentiation between respect for difference, acceptance of quirkyness, and premeditation of violence for annoyance usually depends on lighting and perhaps fiber levels in our breakfast.

When it comes to vacations my wife and I are polar opposites. I like the freedom of paying for a flight to a city and then thriving in the panic of finding somewhere to eat, or stay.

My wife on the other hand plans our holidays in detail. As in who will eat what at each meal. She also does this years in advance and for trips we both understand we will not go on.

In comparison, my idea of an adventure vacation is a plane ticket, a credit card, and a spare pair of undies in a carry on bag. Her idea of an adventure vacation includes a canceled dinner reservation.

This works for me. She plans the trip her way, I get the continued bliss of believing that just 'packing up and going' always works, at least when she's around.

I love the planning part of my wife a lot. It isn't in the "good heavens would you just stop!" phase. If she starts practicing our walking pace to streamline her timetable I think I may have a few words. Maybe I'll even be smart and wait until more polite words come to mind before saying them.

She is warming to the idea that unstructured time on holiday is a good thing. That means now I need to learn to plan in case she decided to trade quirks with me.

If that becomes the case my first item will be to hide critical things at work so my employer will be inclined to come and find me wherever we get lost together...

At least I'd have died laughing.

2009-05-16T21:08:00.003-04:00

Driving with children in the car requires more attention than usually given. Obviously the 1/4 sized human tied to the back seat makes most people be more careful when piloting a 1/4 ton of metal in the tantric confusion we call traffic.

You have to tie them in by law, but of course the physics of a 60 pound object ricocheting inside the vehicle after a sudden stop is another good reason. It's kind of funny that not everyone does that with dogs. Should someone have a fender bender, that unlucky individual now has 100 pounds of barking meat careening about the cabin.

This past week we went out for laser tag for my birthday. I'm in my thirties and when asked what I wanted to do for my birthday I said "shoot you all". Laser tag was the only legal choice.

Returning from that I made a short side trip to pick up the NEW microwave for our house. I'm ashamed to say how exciting that was. In addition it goes nice with my new pepper grinder, barbecue brush and tongs and mushroom brush.

The children were pinned to their seats by the requisite straps and were cordially discussing the recent game of pointing fake guns at their family and shooting.

I suggested that they were easy targets because they were so easy to pick out, were slow and noisy. I also mused that the fact they shot their teammates so often was that their mother and I might look similar in the flurry of pretend space battle.

They disagreed though. The younger child argued that we were quite different because, in her own words:

"No Dad, I can tell you apart. Mom is heavier."

Silence from the front seat. I discovered that should I lose the capability to breathe while driving I CAN keep the car on the road. My wife was speechless either due to her suppressed giggling or tears.

My older daughter feeling the binding needs to be specific and correct her sister piped up. Her exact words were:

"No, Mom is WIDER than Dad."

She added the emphasis to ensure that her sister was not confused, and put it in a condescending tone and pace that had the word last two seconds.

At this point I am now driving 20 km/h below the speed limit in an attempt to not drive off the road. The contained laughter poured out as water from my eyes. My wife was now looking like she'd lost something on the floor.

Thankfully we arrived at our destination safely. Once we could breathe I think we mentioned that they should be more polite when addressing people's size and mass.

Our next car will be a limo. That way I can put the privacy screen up when that happens again.

Jobs with benefits

2009-05-11T21:24:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is my birthday. The joy of it is that counting sleep, work and transit time and I'm looking at spending a wonderful 31% of my 'anniversary of breathing air' doing what I want to.

I used to be more positive about work. At least the first week after being hired. My job isn't bad, but somehow the positive-go-getter attitude fades like a skid mark after so many washes.

2 and a half decades ago, when I first joined the military reserves I was so gung-ho. A somewhat jaded superior pointed that out to me saying that 'someday you'll be just like us'.

'How depressing' I thought. 'You're downright ugly'. He also was not a happy little soldier anymore, and he was promising me the same future. 'I won't be that way, I'll serve Her Majesty with all my resolve and vigor' I promised myself.

Two years later I quit because I missed a Weird Al concert to attend a range shoot.

Each subsequent employment has had me make a similar promise to myself. And yet it happens. Work beats the desire to work out of me.

3 years ago I promised myself I would make the my job work by rigidly adhering to the rules and doing the best job I could. I believed I could be the bureaucrat who made the system work.

6 months later I asked for a transfer to another department.

Once there I determined to be the 'fresh blood' that brought new life to the department, showing them that a lack of knowledge and skill can be overcome by trying harder than everyone else.

20 months later I asked to be transferred back.

I'm no quitter. 10 years of marriage, 8 years of parenthood, I even stuck through a whole season of wrestling because I had committed to. No where else in my life am I as negative and cynical as I am at my job.

So to all you young up-and-comers (Perverts who read my blog don't have to re-read the last sentence) consider the new culture of work a positive one.

It used to be you had one career for life and were miserable for it. Now you have just have jobs with benefits.

Your accomplishments won't have a lasting impact (unless they are debacles, then you won't stay around to make another). Your retirement lunch will be later in life with fewer people attending. Still you have the gift of short term, temporary happiness. Enjoy it while you can.

Oh, and learn to love what you do, no matter what the stuffed shirts (perverts get to save time here too) say about dressing up as your favorite Star Wars character.

What's new? How are you?

2009-05-07T22:48:00.004-04:00

It amazes me that people still come to me for advice, or comfort, or first aid. As I slowly degenerate, my patience with everyone diminishes. As of this week it is directly proportionate to the square of the number of words spoken to me.

An example is:

Hi. (Patience 100%)
Am I interrupting? (Patience 91%)
This might be a stupid question but here goes.... (Patience -44%)

I used to try not to be rude. I've done away with that. It kept encouraging people to talk me into a self-abusive state.

Now I openly mock, berate, and simply ignore anyone who has exceeded my patience:interest ratio in a conversation, with one adjustment. Append the equation of (100(1+(|patience:interest|)) to my wife and anyone she wants me to pay attention to. Like the kids.

As if my unwillingness to endure inane dialogue was not enough of a personality fault I've recently realized I actively avoid certain types of people. It isn't based on race, colour, creed, religion, gender, age or even smell. It is based on when I saw you last.

You see polite conversation demands asking how things are going and what is new. If I have seen you in the last 6 months this is pretty safe because mostly everyone I know leads a boring life.

But so help you if I haven't seen you in more than that. The odds that you have been hired, fired, engaged, married, had a kid, had a grandkid, started a band, or begun to collect rocks goes up exponentially.

And even if you haven't had anything new or interesting happen polite society demands that I not let that be and shake you down for info until I find something that proves you aren't a time traveler or have been in prison.

The crux of the problem is I will see these people when I have somewhere else to be right away. So I have 3 choices available:

1. Meet and greet you, spending the next 30 minutes JUST outside the grocery lineup while my family waits for me to return with the required fixings for dinner.
2. Meet and greet you, but shrug you off by avoiding any leading questions of new or interesting happenings in your life. Effectively this is saying "I'm sorry you recognized me over here."
3. Boldly sneak away and hope you don't notice me. Have a back up plan of pulling the fire alarm if you do and making a run for it.

I am still slightly upset with myself for practicing that third option so frequently, albeit without ever having to use the alarm. So I apologize for my behavior, but I am confident you'd rather me treat you like a social pariah than be rude to you. That way you can continue to tell yourself "maybe he didn't see me because of his apparent neck injury and spinal fusing. Look at the poor guy limp...".

And hey, here, now, tell me: How are you? What's new?

Seeing is better than hearing.

2009-05-03T21:59:00.002-04:00

It has been said that children learn more from what they see than what they are told. I would believe that, because my kids don't react to me SAYING 'go to bed' or 'stop hitting her' or 'good heavens no that's flammable'. They like to wait until I do get up and physically assist them.

I used to think it was smart that my cat would do that. She would obstinately stare at me from the table as I bellowed for her to get her litter stained feet off the dinner table, and only move once I pulled my sorry butt reluctantly out of my chair.

Now when my kids do that it's just annoying. I know they don't have hearing troubles because occasionally I whisper 'chocolate to eat' and they come running from across the house. They rarely outrun their mother though...

As part of teaching them by 'seeing' I let them watch me play video games. This works because I'm selfish and can hide it behind their incapability at the games without any practice.

Today my younger one pulled up a chair behind me while I was 'flying' in a flight simulator. I made a game of it and said she could be my passenger. She put on a cute little pretend seatbelt, helped pick the airplane (a Bell Ranger helicopter) and the airport (Toronto city centre).

Me: "Ok honey, where do you want to go? The Eaton's centre? The training office I was at the other week? The Skydome?"
Her: "No, just crash into a building. How about that one?"
Me: "That's the CN tower, it's the tallest free standing structure in the world"
Her: "Oh. Crash into it."
Me: "You were born in 2003 weren't you."

I'm just happy she was so scared of the real plane this year that she didn't say anything. Sometimes the crippling fear of children can be advantageous.

I just hope I don't get pulled over by the police with her along. I don't want to think of what she'd suggest to the officer, but I imagine it would involve beatings and cavity searches. She would learn a lot from seeing that day...

Foot -> Floor

2009-04-27T21:36:00.003-04:00

"There comes a time in every marriage that a man must put his foot down. "

That is what I call a dumb statement. How do you know this is in EVERY marriage. What about quadriplegics or amputees? I know a saying can't cover all the corner cases, and I guess the inclusive addendum of "or poke her with his crutch." would give the wrong impression. Substituting prosthetic for crutch is no better by the way.

It is amusing to me to imagine having to actually 'fight' with my wife for what I want. Our negotiations are usually brief and respectful, like:

Me: "Honey, I insist we buy a new computer."
Her: "No"

Her: "I was thinking of going out this..."
Me: "Yes"
Her: "You don't know where I'm going."
Me: "I don't need to. I just need you gone so I can make cookie batter and eat the whole batch myself. Without baking it. WITHOUT all your reminders about hospital wait times."

Me: "Darling, can I get you to wear..."
Her: "No."
Me: "But you didn't hear..."
Her: "No."

Straightforward. The rule of thumb is who cares more wins. This weighs in her favour because I don't suffer some weird werewolf cycle, and because boys are taught the valuable lesson in the schoolyard that caring for something means that is what the bullies break first.

And then the other day she decides to redecorate. With hanging pictures. That I don't like.

Maybe "don't like" is a bit strong. It is the subject matter of the picture, and the placement thereof. The pictures were from her parents house (add one point to her for caring more) and they have now given to her to hang up (add second point for potential guilt).

At this point I normally give her free reign and start to barter for 'benefits and future considerations'. Except this time the picture was of some children getting ready for a bath. And she wanted to hang it right outside our bedroom at eye level.

Add 10 points to me for Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot.

It was that last point that had me put down my foot, so to speak. I was not going to spend the next 60 years of my life walking out of my bedroom to have some kid's bathtime heinie pointed at my face. Not gonna happen.

She ended up not putting up the picture. I expect it to go up during my next trip out of town, but if that happens then I think I'll revisit the wardrobe discussion from before.

Freud would have laughed too.

2009-04-25T23:32:00.004-04:00

There is a saying that goes "I may grow old, but I will never grow up." I would say that applies well to my father who despite working for a bureaucracy and raising 3 children kept his sense of humour.

I often enjoy his anecdotes of practical jokes and general enjoyment of the more serious moments of life. The honest fact is during the traditional reading of the 10 commandments in Church my father and I have a charismatic moment of emotional fits of laughter. We can never get past coveting our neighbors 'ass'.

There are times where it is inappropriate to have a giggle breakdown. A videoconference is one of them. It gives the impression that there is a problem with the equipment or an earthquake has struck the office.

Interrupting is a bad thing. And so no matter how funny the moment is, pinch your mouth closed, tear up like someone had onions for lunch, and see if you can hold your breath long enough for the funny moment to pass.

A few weeks ago we were discussing some new servers and server housing equipment that was coming to the office. This is exciting because our lives are boring. I was so into paying attention for mistakes that we were half way through the topic before I clued in and said to my in-room co-workers (our microphone WAS muted):

"Do you realize he has been discussing big racks for 5 minutes and none of us commented on it?"

Loss of composure in: 10 seconds.

That did it. The presenter continued to discuss the problem of ensuring the equipment would fit by saying "We could get a tape measure to assess the racks. You guys haven't had a problem with humongous racks up there, have you?"

It must have been fun to see us begin to glow red trying to contain the outburst. Then all three of us began to bellow in laughter, tears running down our faces.

The worst part is trying to point out to a grown man in a business meeting that you're laughing at what he is saying because it sounds like boobies. No lesson in college prepares you for that. Thankfully I've never had to explain to a priest why I get so emotional during the reading of the 10 commandments.

I may be increasingly cellular degenerate, but I'll still find body parts funny.

Ken 2.0 and Ken 2.0a

2009-04-14T23:16:00.004-04:00

I really hope to be a successful parent.

This isn't a cry for help from someone who skipped those classes in grade 5. Trust me, I know how it works. I would draw you a word picture but that would make you jealous.

My measure of parenting success is that my children surpass me in ways that are good. Despite this noble pursuit, my wife does discourage me from introducing my children as "Ken 2.0 and 2.0a". Something about them being scared or scarred.

Some things are going well. They read better than I did at their age. They are both better than me at drawing. They are considerate and polite enough to dupe everyone else but their parents. So far so good.

May I mention that my children so easily exceeding me in all areas is no poor reflection on my parents. I was just a terrible child, able to dupe only my dear Grandmother, who for some reason attributed all my wrongdoing to my sisters and parents. I don't think any words can describe how beautiful it is to be rotten and have a sibling blamed for your rottenness.

Part of helping these beta versions actually reach their release date (when they are eighteen) is some simple "what is good for you" sessions. And by sessions I mean telling them what they must do.

There are some things, like roads, large areas of open water and train tracks, where you do try to put some fear and respect into the innocent dears. They just have no concept of what one tonne of metal moving at over 1.16 meters per second in a 0.83 meter per second speed limit does to an otherwise healthy waterbag with limbs.

There are other important, although less dramatic lessons that they pick up. Like don't eat rocks, don't throw rocks, don't throw your food. And not smoking.

The other day I came home to see chalk drawings on my driveway. Among the typical replicas of crime scene outlines (in hot pink) there was this dire warning:

"Beware"
"Dangerous"
"No Smoking!"
"Or Else"

This was followed by the usual smokebusters symbol and two stick figures who were holding cigarettes. Their eyes had been replaced with X's to symbolize their sudden demise to the side effects of taking a puff in my driveway.

It was a bit macabre and zealous, not to mention quite threatening. I don't know who told my older daughter that smoking was unhealthy, but I want to interview them on their techniques. And then write a book on that and profit from it.

You have been warned: don't smoke around Ken 2.0

Surprisingly Complimentary Spouse

2009-04-11T21:31:00.004-04:00

In our culture there is a courtship ritual before lifelong commitment. It's called engagement. It's the last chance to evacuate before you have to hire someone to get you out of the marriage.

(by that I mean lawyers, not hit men.)

It is unreasonable to expect that you'll find everything out about your life mate at that time, but you hope to eliminate any major surprises. Like other marriages or a damagingly obsessive collection of Precious Moments figurines.

Throughout our marriage my wife and I have surprised each other many times. Sometimes they are good surprises, like trips, parties, or letting someone purchase the complete Granada television series of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett.

What can I say, it was a good week.

Some surprises are not so nice, like food forgotten in the car on a summer's day, or leaving a marker in a pocket in the wash, or forgetting that Valentines day comes in February and not March.

I like to think that married couples are complimentary. Not only in saying that you don't really look like a lumpy pink prune when you're naked, but also in that one's interests balance out your spouses.

I am now at a loss though, because my wife did surprise me twice recently. Two of her 'must see next' movies are:

Die Hard 2
James Bond: Quantum of Solace

Blink. It still astounds me that my darling bride of a decade wants to see violent movies where men take off their shirts and sweat and swear and...

I just never expected her to be 'into' those films. I like those styles of movies enough, but I don't own a single movie from either series. I'd rather my hero's be wielding swords, or laser guns, or shovels.

It's ok though. I'll watch those movies, but I get to pick the next one after that. I'm thinking the BBC series of "Pride and Prejudice" starring Colin Firth. I don't think that will surprise her, but it will bring that sense of balance to the marriage.

Fair=(x(A/B))+1

2009-04-07T21:27:00.007-04:00

Siblings. It is hard to describe what effect they have on your life. I never had a moment of my life where I was my parent's only child, although I have had a few moments were I think I was disowned. Like the day I forgot Mom's coffee at home.

Being a brother or a sister means you have to share. No matter what bunk your parents tell you about "loving everyone equally" you know it's not true. See if they REALLY loved you they would have let YOU sit in the front seat after your older sister left for university, and not let the youngest get perma-shotgun.

Not...bitter..

Most of sibling life is a vain attempt of achieving the unnatural state of discord also known as "fair". Fair is loosely defined by this equation:

Fair=(x(A/B))+1

x is the item in question, be it Smarties or minutes with a toy. A is the age difference in years from the next sibling. B is the birth order ranking. Then once you have the amount calculated, fair is only complete when you have one more than the next person.

Since my children were, and still are not twins I was able to observe this effect on my older daughter. And the result was what can be best described as giving her a little human pet that she thinks she needs to house train.

One item of chagrin is the seating arrangement at the supper table. The coveted position is beside my wife. They cry about who sits there. They push. They deviously switch food and table settings to get their way.

I'm in no way scarred by this. I just suggest they flank my wife and leave me to have all the elbow room on my side of the table.

My older daughter has observed that her little sister gets the privilege of being inadvertently elbowed by my wife while kicking me in the legs more often. When she bemoaned this my suggestion was to stop the noise she was making and come up with a solution.

Her idea was great. She would chart how often each child sat beside their mother. The advent of this dinventory resulted in this exchange:

Older child: Ok, so you sat down beside Mom tonight. I'll write that down on my list.
Younger child: Then I'll erase the list.
Older child: Then I'll write it in permanent marker.
Younger child: Then I'll throw it out.

It was like a transcript of "World's worst hostage negotiators".

Suffice to say that now I have an idea of their futures. The older one will likely be an engineer or perhaps an accountant. The younger one will be either a politician or a CEO for a large organization.

Who are you VS Who you are

2009-04-04T19:08:00.003-04:00

Identity: (5) The sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time and sometimes disturbed in mental illnesses, as schizophrenia.

Isn't it funny that in contemporary English the question "Who Are You" is not equivocal to the statement "Who you are". In fact it is normally confused with the question "What is your name"

In ancient times the 'name' of a person would consist of the whole of the person, their acts and reputation. Now days it reflects on the social leanings of one's parents, as in:

You: Who are you?
Them: My name is "Sunflower Daisy Starstruck".
You: Were your parent's hippies?
Them: WHOOOAH, are you psychic?

When we try to define who we are that is a complex undertaking. We don't see ourselves in a vacuum. If we could our thoughts would be akin to "Good heavens I can't breathe... aaarrrgh". I say thoughts because in a vacuum no one can hear you scream, normally because the motor is too loud.

Our 'identity' is interpreted by how others perceive us, but this is a shifting thing too. For example, in my office I am identified as "Ken the geek". This changes when I am at a convention for geeks. Then I am "Ken the guy who double dipped in the guacamole".

So when I have the benefit of insight from a complete stranger I tend to consider it. After all, they don't have the usual context to compare me against. It is like an empirically pure, uninfluenced perception into my soul.

I change buses at the bus station each day. Being cold I often go inside the heated shelter to wait. And one of the people who commonly waits there is someone I'll refer to as "Ed".

Ed is a big guy. He is about 6'5", around 300 pounds. He wears a toque most of the year, and his glasses are something out of a 1970's police show. He is also someone you would define as 'challenged'.

Ed is gentle and sweet, and in appearance and intonation reminds me of "Lenny" from "Of Mice and Men". I say "hi" to Ed almost every day. He never replies.

It would be easier to take if he didn't go out of his way to talk to every woman present. He'll call out "Hi Lady" until he get's a response. Then some small talk will ensue. In 10 years of riding the bus I think he's given me the time of day once, and one weather report.

And then, this week for the first time he addressed me. Without knowing my name I expected him to call out "Hi Man", but he gave me one of those unique, profound revelations into how the world perceives me.

He yelled "Hey short guy!"

The saddest bit to me was there was no question who this gentle giant was talking to. I engaged in some conversation, but I was too embarrassed to be witty.

That may be a new nickname for me on the bus, but it isn't who I am. Except to Ed.

Business, Career and a Dress code.

2009-04-01T21:21:00.004-04:00

Work is something you do, a career is when your work becomes your identity.

For some people their career has respect built right in: Doctors, Nurses, Police Officers, Military personnel, 'McDonalds' line managers. They all have more respect than what people give a professional bureaucrat.

It could be that all of them get to wear uniforms. By the way, the thin difference between a uniform and a costume is when everyone wears the same costume it's a uniform.

I grudgingly accept that after a decade I am officially in a CAREER. Not because I chose it, but because I failed to chose to avoid it. And now I am a professional order follower and repeater of the popular line 'please reboot'.

I once asked a project manager if they ever dreamed as a child that they would one day grow up to nag other grown ups about their inability to finish their work. Silly question, any child who dreams of that would spend their adult life in a different institution.

I mock bureaucracy a fair amount here and it really does deserve it. No one aspires to build an empire that has no limits to the number of rules it can impose on itself.

A business is an artificial entity without a soul or a mind. This differentiates it from political lobbyists because a business wasn't born normal. A business exists simply as a vehicle to make money.

When the business's business is to NOT make money then you have what amounts to a lobotomized Frankenstein's monster suffering from manic depression. And much like that monster, no matter what food or organs you put into it the result would be the same: A mashup of Pinocchio and Night of the Living Dead. By the way, I don't count charities or not for profits here because they do want to make money for their clients.

I have had the pleasure to work with dozens of motivated, professional people who are good at what they do. And yet somehow we still end up with the maddening situation of waiting for someone to get back to someone for some information that a team of 7 year old sleuths could track down.

In an effort to bring some dignity back to my job I may try wearing my Hawaiian shirts as a uniform. That way people can take me seriously when I say "Don't worry, corporate told me to do this, and as long as I don't think about it, it should work out fine. And if not, just please reboot."

I'm sorry you're a big baby

2009-03-29T20:10:00.004-04:00

I like being married.

After 10 years I'm glad that I can still say that. Positive reinforcement really does help.

A lot has changed in that time. I've purchased a house, had two children, (well my WIFE had the children, but I WAS there for both the start and finish of that job). I've learned a lot about life and love and happiness.

When you get married you begin the biggest fix-it project of your life. You get to spend the rest of your life hoping, and if you dare, trying to get someone to be a smidgen more civilized than they were when you both said you accepted each other unconditionally.

And if you are smart you realize this is impossible, and you need all your attention to adjust your young to a society that demands they wear clothing and not consume things found on the underside of furniture.

Going into the marriage I gave my bride-to-be this caveat: Do not, under any circumstances, wake me by shaking me. Or touching me.

I like to think I'm a laid back, relaxed kind of guy. The truth may be that I am a lazy man with poor fashion sense, but that's close enough.

I do have a bit of a high strung undercurrent though. I discovered that while on ship, when someone came to wake me to change the watch. He reached out and shook me, I woke up just in time to apologize for punching him backwards into the bulkhead.

I did change my ways right away. I whined if she so much as put her ice cold feet against me. She adjusted to taking up the majority of the bed since I would only roll away. A win-loser situation if ever there was.

After ten years something strange happened. We fought. While asleep.

This is the sort of occurrence that doesn't ever happen on daytime TV. She kept trying to pull almost half of the covers to her side of the bed, I kept saying nasty things about her whining.

So then the question is, do you apologize for the fight you both had while almost fully unconscious?

I never asked her for amends for whatever may, or may not have been, said in the delivery room. But it IS strange to call the one you love a 'big baby' and not have her revisit why you are an epic failure as a bachelor.

I said I was sorry anyway, because I do appreciate the fact that I am married.

Little trains of thought

2009-03-27T20:51:00.004-04:00

I don't know why it's called a train of thought. A train is linear, it is serialized, and not by adding iron, riboflavin and hocked by freakish leprechauns with their shriveled marshmallows. That probably explains why his eyes are so disproportionately big. Shudder.

Typically following someone else's process of ideas is akin to a comic of Billy from Family Circus wandering around the neighborhood. Except that imagine that Billy's blind and dizzy. And drunk.

I had that surreal experience this past weekend with my older daughter. We were watching a lot of Mythbusters. Why? Because they BLOW THINGS UP!

Since she was so influenced by the show she will not be getting a chemistry set any time soon. As a child I was SO peeved that my set didn't include the Anarchists cookbook. I can't expect any more purely studious response from her now that one of her favourite shows includes heavy use of C4.

So in between sessions she watched an episode of world's funniest animals. I thought nothing of it because I need something to look down my nose at. So my wife watched the show with her while I went and read a cookbook.

Returning half an hour later I walked into a room bubbling with excitement like a Sodium Bicarbonate and Acetic Acid cocktail. My daughter had a PLAN, and if you know her, this happens at least twice a day. Usually it involves markers, water, paper, and an attempt to wallpaper one of the few nicely painted surfaces in my house.

This one involved taking photos of the cat with poop on her bum.

My intellectual response was something like: ?????!!!!!?????

She explained that you could submit photos and videos of funny animal moments to the show. Then she explained that it was funny when the cat had a turd stuck to her little hairy butt.

My wife gently explained that this may not be the funny that the show's producers wanted to see, although I could imagine a headline of 'Scat Cat' working quite well. Then the rest of the picture filled in with this statement from the child:

Her: But it's always funny when she is like that on your bed.

Yep. It was like looking at a magic eye poster and realizing the picture is of a family member's washroom, in use. Not something you ever want to think about.

So I'll have to agree with my wife, the bed needs new sheets.

Question the Answer

2009-03-23T23:05:00.003-04:00

I am a red thinker.

I don't mean in some Lenninist fascin, it is the result of taking the 'Smart Skills' personal evaluation.

Red thinkers are categorized by attention to detail and desire for data. We don't mention the pocket protectors or the tape around glasses, but it's strongly implied.

As a result of my attention to detail I'm a grammar geek. I try to make this a public service by pointing out when people are incorrect as often as possible. I do this as an adult because it's impolite to give wedgies in the office environment.

I'm not bitter that bullying went out of style AFTER I graduated public school. Hmmph.

One way I'm hurtfully helpful is I try to ask questions that require a yes or a no answer. It's partly for efficiency as I don't really want to hear what other people think, and partly that I doubt the average persons ability to succeed at anything harder than true or false tests.

I also answer the questions asked, but this often bothers folks. I have had to adjust my retorts to respond to the question asked and the one intended. In other words I'm a moist grammar checker.

A difficulty from this behavior, aside from social shunning and threats against my person, is that I often receive the benefit of someone else's half baked guess at what my true question was.

This defeats the purpose. I used to try to correct them, but now I just make it a game. I call it "Question the Answer".

It's like Jeopardy without money or fame amongst the over 60 crowd. I simply ask the question that would provide the answer I was just given. I tried this on a co-worker this week and had to stop myself so I didn't get hurt, either from him or from my own laughter.

Me: Will your project be done this week?
Him: It's not a matter of finishing it, it's a matter of getting the specifications right.
Me: What is the matter with the project?
Him: Nothing is wrong with it, I'm just working on cosmetic details.
Me: Are you working on cosmetics generally, or just the fine detail work?
Him: All I need is to get the interface to work fluidly with that guy's back end.
Me: Is there anything you want to tell me about your love life?

Yeah, it's a hoot. Try it sometime when you have nothing between you and a quick exit.

My Secret Identity

2009-03-19T22:16:00.006-04:00

Hobby: a pursuit outside one's regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation. Merriam Webster Dictionary

I am one of peculiar pass times. In my culture it is common for a man of my age and social position to enjoy watching sports; namely Hockey, Football and NASCAR.

For some reason this doesn't appeal to me. And it isn't some inclination away from activities that portray groups of mostly men in Gladiatorial themed competitions.

Ok, maybe it is, but I'm smart enough not to point out that Freud would have a few words for the most virulent of that fan base. Especially when they watch the sport live and half naked.

I will be in trouble for that one methinks.

My hobbies are ironically presumed less characteristic of a man. Writing, acting, classical music and of course, cooking. I have only recently been re-instated to the kitchen at my home.

I was once allowed to be a cook right after we were married. It took a Christmas dinner party conversation on the finer points of pastry creation to convince my wife that I belonged elsewhere. She simply said 'I need somewhere where I'm better than you.' My reply of 'you COULD practise for the bedroom' was thankfully held until now.

Another one that just got me in trouble.

Nonetheless my re-introduction to the culinary mastery came from a series of business trips that wore out my wife's palette for fast food and frozen pizza. By the way she is a great cook and has a higher success rate on recipes, I think because she follows them.

I was making homemade pizza this week, reviewing my favourite cooking show as I did it, when she asked:

Her: Why are you trying to do it perfectly?
Me: Because I love doing this. Do me a favour, turn up the Rossini on the stereo please.
Her: But why don't you just let it be good enough?
Me: Because in my day job I never get to see anything like this.
Her: A lump of dough?
Me: A COMPLETED work. Of my own hands. My chief challenge of my day job is heroically struggling against a bureaucracy that measures jobs in fortnights.

And so in a floury rant at my wife I discovered why I pursue creative outlets like that. My job is so mind-numbingly unimportant that being able to make a perfect pizza becomes not only an obsession, it becomes my secret identity. And not the one that involves flying using underarm deodorant.
The pizza crust was a bit of a failure by the way; but at least I enjoyed the short journey to 'eww Dad, this tastes ucky'. It's far better than the much longer, boring epic quest to be given an award certificate with my name misspelled on it.

So what do you do to escape the insignificance of your contribution to your place of employment?

Who's your daddy?

2009-03-15T21:47:00.005-04:00

Parenthood is an odd occupation. It's surprising how few people remain their normal sane selves after they have children.

With mothers it's somewhat understandable. Having a three month hangover followed by your hips partially dislocating and then pushing a bowling ball out ANY orifice will have permanent psychological effects.

For fathers watching that happen leaves it's own marks, like the permanent imprint of her fingernails in your forearm while you listen to her frighten the anesthesiologist with her impression of 'Dr. Claw having a fit of Tourettes'.

One way I've noticed I'm 'different' in a 'special' way after having kids is wanting them to know who I am. This goes deeper than 'who's your daddy', although reminding them that I happen to be better than them in everything is nice too. Just because they are small doesn't mean they don't want to school me in any contest, like the 'My little pony' board game.

I think we want our children to really know us partly for validation and partly for legacy. I hope that I have more to offer my children than 50% of their chromosomal odds and the opportunity to observe how not to do things first hand. I want my company to be a positive influence on their life, that I can be a hero, and not just a vaudevillian clown.

I want them to understand me, to know what motivates my decisions. Surprisingly I also want them to respect me, which is pretty much mutually exclusive. You don't realize how boneheaded a lot of your choices are until you try to explain them to a 5 year old.

Her: Why can't I have the pudding, Mommy said I could.
Me: Because I don't like talking to your mother about parenting.
Her: Why?
Me: Because I feel stupid when I do.

Her: Daddy, why did you say you were going to do the dishes, and then didn't.
Me: Honey, Daddy is tired.
Her: Why?
Me: Sitting at my desk all day sucked the life out of me. And I wanted to make your mother stop whining about you two. Promising things to people has that affect.

And I realize that now that my older daughter has me figured. Recently she looked fondly at me and said:

Her: Daddy, do you know what we should do for your birthday dinner?
Me: [thought bubble]Go stay at your grandparents for half an hour while Mommy and I have 'fancy time'? [/thought bubble] No honey, what?
Her: We should serve you only meat. And Beer.

For eight years old she's surprisingly clever. Still I reminded her she had forgotten dessert. Children are unbearable if they think they are right.

The brain stem is disconnected from the vocal chords.

2009-03-10T11:15:00.008-04:00

I like to think of myself as a somewhat romantic man who is in touch with his feelings.

Empirical process makes me it's effeminate dog in this matter. Whenever I get a chance to sweep my wife off her feet I use the vacuum and suck at it.

The other day I was showing off my new found strength. I've been working out at the gym for the last six months. Now I no longer get repetitive stress injury from typing.

I decided to pick up my wife. In the movies and on tv it looks quite easy. I've done it before.

In our wedding reception we had a "show us how to kiss and we'll match" game. My new father and mother-in-law proceeded to do this, no matter how much it scarred us. He lifted his wife into his arms and kissed her deeply. Of course he is a foot taller and about 70 pounds heavier.

My wife and I are closer in stature, nevertheless I picked up my new bride and tried to drive the image of her parents kissing 'like that' from both of our minds. And my best man just happened to quip "Wow Ken, I'm surprised you could do that."

Thanks. Thanks a lot man.

10 years later I decide to see if we can still pull that little maneuver. To which my wife, perhaps speaking from the terror of being dropped on her head said: "You don't want to kiss a hippo, do you?"

This is one of those "do I look fat" moments. A chance to soothe her ego and remind her of my undying love and affection for her. So I responded:

"If I were turned on by hippos I should see a doctor baby."

Worst. Answer. Ever.

I don't know what was worse about it, my callous acceptance of her reference to her body being a large African quadruped, or my spin to hit on her in hopes of some 'fancy time'. I briefly considered going limp on the left side of my body to pass it off as the sign of a sudden stroke.

Thankfully she found the humour in it and didn't seek to put me in a situation requiring a doctor, or a lawyer, or crime scene unit team. That's part of why I love my wife so much. She can take a joke, like being married to me.

I guess it was a privilege

2009-03-06T21:38:00.007-05:00

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone," it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

---------------

Last week I had the privilege of sitting in on question period in our national house of parliament. And most of the words in that sentence don't mean what they say. Just like the people talking in the parliament.

It is not a house, no one lives there. This Parliament doesn't have a Dr. FuNkenstein (but that would have been SO cool). The speaker just sits there and is talked to. Few direct questions are asked and fewer are answered. And I truly doubt privilege covers the experience properly.

I love the fact that my political process allows me to sit in on my employees whenever they are 'busy at work'. The problem comes in the fact that I am thoroughly unhappy with their performance.

And it was a performance. It was like watching a grade nine pep rally face off. Except there was no mooning or streaking, which would only have raised the dignity of the whole affair.

When I described the event to my wife she thought I meant there were a few schools attending the session and were ill behaved. "No" I explained "the students sat quietly and followed the rules."

Both sides of the house would shout and clamor to drown out the opposite side if they said anything they didn't like. They were rude. They made faces at each other. There were demeaning and disrespectful gestures and body language used.

If any of them had the wherewithal to disassemble a pen I am darn sure spitballs would have been flying. And worst of all they hardly achieved anything in over an hour of work, but all felt too tired to stay after the cameras were turned off.

And had I not been so afraid of the police with their phasers set to 'make him pee his pants' I would have said this piece:

"MR SPEAKER! I am appalled at the behavior of these people. I would call them representatives of our citizens but for the obvious fact that the people of our country are more civilized than apes in expensive suits. I call on you to get order of this house before they begin to fling feces literally instead of just out of their mouths.

I would never accept this behavior from my own children, my nieces or nephews, or random children I see in public. I demand that you impose a 40 minute detention and have them put their heads on their desks so they can think about their bad attitude."

Either that or just have a full run through of something Funkadelic so the whole experience can be surreal. I would be a lot less disappointed if their costumes were not suits.

What are you thinking?

2009-03-03T21:57:00.009-05:00

There are a few chosen professions where you enact your trade via proxy. In some cases it is clear why this would be wrong, like, say Firefighters. Or Natural Gas technicians.

But geeks are in the more benign category of careers for remote helping. Inso that we won't kill you, but you'll want to see a doctor about us after a while.

Most of my interactions on the phone are pleasant. They involve co-workers that I enjoy spending my ever shorter life with. And they are typically professional and wish to get the job done, mainly because it involves them getting on with their day by working instead of conversing with people who talk through their noses, or other orifices.

But once in a while you get a special treat of a call. And that is what I want to discuss today. These calls involve people who on that day are vague to a fault, confused almost with purpose, and for some reason don't want their computer fixed before you suffer major head trauma from the inside out. Sometimes the person on the other end of the conversation is a relative, which makes it even harder.

And as a person who could be considered 'special' in social interactions I am too timid to push them to getting on with the call. And because your week probably needed a seasoning of the macabre I'll let you read my thoughts. I have an unspoken dialogue that sounds a lot like this:

Me: - Tech support, we fix your everyday.
Them: - Yeah, my program isn't working.
Me: - Must not reply 'all your base belong to us' - Which program?
Them: - This one!
Me: - If I pretend I'm dead maybe they will go away. ...
Them: - The thingy to do the forms.
Me: - If I chloroform myself right now, is that considered self inflicted injury? - Oh, how far do you get?
Them: - Nowhere.
Me: - Then by logic you haven't tried anything. You're either depressed or lazy. May I recommend an Anthony Robins tape to you? - Ok, can you click on Start, then Programs, then click the program icon.
Them: - Why are these computers so slow?
Me: - Shut up. ...
Them: - You computer people aren't good at making them work better.
Me: - Please shut up. ...
Them: - And my icons keep moving around, can you fix that?
Me: - For the love of mercy shut up. - Can you see the icon for the program?
Them: - I can't see anything.
Me: - Dear heaven you've gone blind. - It should be in the program list. Can you read the list out to me?
Them: - Can't you just come here and fix my problem?
Me: - Yes, but the computer would remain untouched and one of us would have to plead insanity. - No. Just look for the icon that looks like a Jackal with a hernia.
Them: - Huh?
Me: - No Mom, I don't want to be a writer, I want to fix computers all day and have fun. - It's red. Looks like a box.
Them: - I don't see it. I just see this rectangle here. It's orange. Can you do something about the printer, it's making funny noises.
Me: - Happy Happy Joy Joy. I don't think you're happy enough. I'll teach you to be happy. Hahahahahaha --Just click the orange rectangle. Do you see the program now?

I'd be lying if I said that call ended in less than 5 minutes after that. I expect that as some cosmic joke I'll become suddenly telepathic and end up getting fired or brought before a human rights commission at the UN.

Of course the days that I'm not so swift with third level support I expect them to not think this when the network lights go all blinky.

You go there, I'll go here

2009-03-01T22:08:00.004-05:00

Opposites attract. In a magnetic sense this has merit, providing enough iron ore is involved. Typically in marriages this is one person knows how to iron, or they ask the other person to do that job.

And I admit that I am the one who does that duty here. I refused my own mother to do my ironing after I distrusted her with my uniform. I didn't want to ever blame her when the drill instructor bellowed at me. Its never a good idea to discuss anyone's mother on the parade square.

One area that my wife and I are delightfully different is our definition of the word 'vacation'. For one of us it involves hotels, sandy beaches, amusement parks, quality food and more than enough pampering. I don't know why she wants all that.

My dream vacation involves any of the following words: Romania, hostel, Bulgaria, camping, Siberia, Bungee, Baikal, pack mule, Mongolia, lost. I want it to be like an episode of the 'Amazing Race'. We're halfway there already with the bi-polar fits when we're lost.

I always thought the idea of separate vacations was a result of two vehicles and improper directions. Now in my own life it is a matter of practicum. The only way I'll be able to transport her to any of those places is if she is tied up. And I don't want to begin that discussion again. That's another opposite.

Its funny that this never came up in the pre-nuptual counseling. Finances, life goals, number of kids. Never the top 10 places to visit. Her ideas all involve cruises or relaxing at a hotel. Is it wrong to want to suffer in the wild as far away from other humans as possible?

Maybe as time goes on she'll come around and find the joy in sleeping without the comfort of spas, air control or walls. Until then I'll keep suffering along on her 'relaxing' trips to hotels and beaches and amusement parks. It's a hard life being married.

But I'll be darned if we stay at one of those 'value' hotels, I have my standards after all.

I think she has my eyes.

2009-02-24T16:38:00.003-05:00

As a parent I am always eager to find out if my kids are really like me. It's a weird game to play in a marriage, as you both compare what aspects of the child's behaviour and mood are like you, or more tellingly, like your spouse's parents.

It's really a continuation of the one-downmanship/one-upmanship you get when you marry someone. In merging two families together you tend to compare (sometimes unwillingly) the benefits and fallbacks of lineage.

For me it results in my family comparing how hard it was to have me around instead of my wife for those first 23 years. Hard stuff to hear from one's siblings. Or parents.

Now we do that with our kids. Here are some interactions:
Me: Her laugh sounds like mine.
My wife: No, yours sounds like a donkey having a siezure.

My wife: I think she has my eyes.
Me: Is that your excuse for not being able to find anything?

Me: She is so not a morning person. That is just like you.
My wife: I was a morning person before I was married. Maybe it's you.

When you DO find some positive trait that your child emulates it is pure joy. Going to Walt Disney World we were to discover which child had my fortitude for thrill rides, and which thought that an elevator was extreme test of will.

It turns out the older one takes after me. We stopped worrying about her when she rode Thunder Mountain the second time and described it as "boring". She and I even rode the teacups, the vomit inducing centrifuge that poses as an amusement ride.

I went easy on her until she practically yelled "faster!". By the end we were both incapable of standing upright or locating what side of our face our nose was on. And she started to cry because we didn't have time to ride them again that night.

My younger daughter takes after my wife that way. She is the only person I know of who thought the Monorail was too intense for her little capacity. Just so you know I'm still talking about the younger daughter.

It took two days to convince her to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. She was positive it was a death drop ride. Of course once she rode it she was thought that it was safe, and even fun. Getting her to ride anything was a mix of bribery, blackmail, threats and coercion. It was like living out scenes from Law and Order.

Maybe someday she will come to love all that simulates death by violent means, but until then I'll have to keep a cache of toys and chocolate if there is any family ride we want to do. Like a major airline or moving sidewalk.

Grown-up age kids.

2009-02-19T20:44:00.004-05:00

There used to be a popular poster stating "Everything I needed to know in life I learned in Kindergarten". I couldn't agree with it, I didn't learn that you couldn't get 'pantsed' if you were wearing a belt until grade 10.

I don't know why but a lot of school age behavior carries on into the grown up workplace. For example, in high school there were grad dues, bake sales, and various fundraisers that you were pressured into participating in, all in the name of 'school spirit'.

School spirit by the way isn't the Mickey of Rum behind the bleachers, nor is it 'Moaning Myrtle' (I still get the wrong impression writing that name). It's the belief that your school is better because you have to go there.

At work there are bake sales, co-worker's kids selling raffle tickets and cheese, and of course 50/50 draws. And to my chagrin 50/50 is not a statement of the odds involved, but when the Doctor says that its entirely different.

Here are some games played in the business world:

The "I'm not here so you can't ask me a question teacher" look. This is common in meetings when project assignments are being handed out. Everyone stares at the table and won't make eye contact. It's like we're having a moment of silence in anticipation for whoever ends up with this job.

"Not It!" This is when paperwork is being delivered and no one will touch it with their hands. The rule is that if it touches your body or lands on your desk it's yours. My co-worker's policy of pack-rat clutter desk works well, as the paperwork just slides away.

Phone Tag. As the name implies you leave voice mail messages for each other, but refrain from giving the information the other person actually needs. See how long you can be unproductive without getting fired.

I guess what I'm saying is this: Kids, stay in school. You can't be taught this stuff anywhere else. Except in the Military. Or prison.

Definitely expected NOT to.

2009-02-17T22:48:00.003-05:00

Humans, as social creatures, will adjust their behaviour to match the expectations of the group. This is usually a positive thing, forcing people to repress their tendencies to assault, steal, walk around naked and vote for single issue parties. Occasionally though it is outdated and unhelpful.

I was shopping for shoes this weekend. Nice work shoes, not sneakers or workboots or rocket roller blades. I had to look for STYLE.

I must confess that I was not born with any fashion sense in my DNA. I have more capability of developing gills than I do of picking out a good pair of pants. I don't remember willingly buying anything clothing related for myself before the age of 30. My life was one of hand-me-downs, cast-offs, and occasionally Mom taking me shopping by telling me we were going for ice cream.

'So what' you say. 'You have your wife or your mother, take them along.' This is good advice, and I have been satisfied so far. But dang it, I'm in my 30's. I should be able to pick out a decent shirt to wear, on my own, like a big boy. And no, I'm not comforted by all the other guys with their wives/girlfriends/mothers waiting outside the change room to make them 'turn around so I can see how it fits' while they all wonder when they'll get the promised ice cream.

Sending me into a store unattended yields the same result as sending a colour-blind chimp with a lobotomy. I find this out when I bring the items to my wife, or mother, or 8 year old and they say 'yech, that looks awful, put it back'. It's particularly embarrassing when the 8 year old diss' you in front of a bunch of 20 something metro guys. I know I could take the lot of them, but they do look very smart in those fitted shirts.

When I was in my 20's I was either too busy to care, or I was already engaged or married and figured I didn't need to look good anymore. I achieved that tremendously.

Now I'm in my emotionally fragile 30's. I know I'm no longer young, and I'm not 'old' yet, and I desperately want to look good before gravity takes too much of a hold on my skin.

So today I asked a coworker, a GUY who has fashion sense, what the secret is. He gave me good advice on clothing cuts, colour matching, and why I should never let my chest hair show. Anymore.

I do speculate how this affected anyone overhearing the conversation about my pants:

Him: You're lucky because you have a great a**.
Me: Thanks.
Him: You just want to make sure you have the creases in the right spots, which you do.
Me: So there should be more than one?

I don't like being helpless, and I intend to learn how to dress myself before I'm 40. And for darn sure I'm taking myself out for ice cream after.

Stuff you ask yourself

2009-02-13T22:46:00.007-05:00

Parenting is a role infused with questions. You will question if you are doing a good job. You will question your sanity. And you will question how the children managed to paint yogurt on the underside of the table.

Thankfully the empirical indicators of the answers abound. Catching the children squeezing small yogurt cups until they pop would be one. Finding yourself repeatedly muttering to yourself "If you THINK that I'm going to let THAT happen you have got another thing coming!" would be another.

But it is a special treat to discover that your attempts at parenting are better than Mowgli's option of being raised by wolves.

As as side effect, or benefit, the children inexplicably become like you. I guess we should see it coming, given that we do react akin to our parents, right down to the emphasis of the words repeatedly muttered to ourselves.

My older daughter is turning 8 next week. For her birthday she chose a theme based on a Disney movie.

She want's a Pirates of the Caribbean party.

Now yes that IS tremendously cool, at least for her 30ish year old dad. Her school friends didn't understand, but if my little girl would rather exemplify Captain Jack Sparrow over Hannah Montanna I am all for it.

It results from letting her watch the original movie before going to Walt Disney World. I wanted her to know something about the ride before going. And I wanted her to like more movies that I do.

We as good parents are doing our part in preparing for her party. My wife has researched party games, cake options and sent out pirate themed invitations. I'm growing a beard to look more 'piratey'.

Then this week I get a call from my wife. I was at work, and the kids were at breakfast.

Me: "IT support, we're smart so you don't have to be."
Her: "Hello"
Me: "Hi honey, what can I do for you."
Her: "Talk to your older daughter. She is convinced that since pirates didn't brush their hair she shouldn't either."

I had to convince the child that her time to be a pirate was the day of her party, not the two weeks leading up to it, and that all hygiene, including bathing, would be required. Then this morning she said "I need to eat my vitamin C because pirates didn't get fruits or vegetables."

Dang, the kid is staving off scurvy. I'm beginning to question if this is going too far.

The 7 stages of giving

2009-02-09T20:41:00.007-05:00

Marriage has it's effects on you. If you're like me some of those effects are:

- Higher society than my neer-do-well bachelor friends
- A cessation of public health notices on your domestic premises
- The bliss that I'm obliged to write on this line
- The morally accepted benefit which I will only imply here
- Kids (as a direct result of what was alluded to above)

One of the smaller benefits is the co-dependence of my calendar amnesia. Before I was married I didn't send out cards. If someone was important enough to remember, I bought a gift. That pretty much left my mom and my girlfriend.

Now there is a stream of birthday, anniversary, and holiday cards coming from my house, with my name on them, which I have never seen. This makes for awkward conversations like:

Me: "Cute birthday card, who is it from?"
Them: "You."

Them: "Thanks for the card. It really meant a lot to us."
Me: "No problem. Congratulations and I hope you had a happy...?"
Them: "Funeral. My mother died."

Aside from those moments there is another drawback to having no recollection of what month it is and who came out of whose whatever whenever. That is when I should get my wife a gift.

Being Valentines day in less than a week I thought I should help the married men out there articulate the situation they are in. I call it "The 7 stages of giving".

1. Shock/Disbelief: "Why do they have all this Valentines Day candy out still. Some sale, it has to be almost a year old by now. Oh... My..."

2. Denial: "I'm sure she won't care that I didn't get her anything. I can say we saved money in a hard economy. She'll love that. I'll put the extra ten in her RRSP."

3. Bargaining: "If I offer to take the kids, and let her Mom stay here for the weekend, and actually fix those outlets that I started putting in for the 2004 Olympics she might forget about this."

4. Guilt: "I am the worst husband ever. This is even worse than the time I used her maternity swimsuit to be "Andre the Giant" for Halloween.

5. Anger: "Why don't they advertise for this stuff?! This is all 'Hallmarks' fault! It's a conspiracy to ruin perfectly functional marriages!"

6. Depression: "I might as well have that operation we talked about. I'll never get any 'benefits' again."

7. Acceptance: "It can't be helped. I'll have the kids scrawl 'I Love You Mommy' on a napkin and get a 'Snickers' from the corner store. Like last year."

Now that you can identify the stages, take care guys. To save you trouble here is a trick. Hit the sales at stores she likes throughout the year. Keep a secret place where you can pull a present from when needs arise.

Jewelry, bath stuff, books, s-crapbooking stuff and a framed picture of you and the kids all work well. Avoid items like chocolates, flowers, and puppies. They don't keep too well in the back of the garage.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to stage two.

The unspeakably happiest place on earth

2009-02-04T20:45:00.003-05:00

Part of the joy of traveling is the chance to be introspective. A new environment and atmosphere is conducive to a better understanding of yourself. It's also awesome to bail on work for two weeks.

We recently returned from Walt Disney World. 2 weeks in Florida, and then the 50 degree centigrade change to the temperature at home. During the visit I had the chance to learn a few things about myself.

I have always liked the most thrilling, gut-wrenching, vomit-encouraging rides at parks. I used to think it was the feeling of disconnect between the motion of my skeletal structure and my internal organs. Now I know differently.

It was on Expedition Everest that I found myself laughing, giggling and enjoying the moment. It wasn't the giddy spinning in the dark or the unnatural plunges towards the earth.

It was people screaming.

I'm sorry to say that the cries of utter terror from complete strangers evoke a happiness in me that I'm not entirely comfortable with. I actually revert to maniacal laughter, complete with the "BWU" in front of my "HA HA HAAA's".

In case I needed further evidence of my unspeakable joy, I have but one regret from my two week visit in the happiest place on earth. I was able to ride the "Dinosaur" ride which consists of a rather gentle boat ride in dim lighting. Then with much roaring and flashing of light a giant carnivorous dinosaur lunges at your vehicle.

Oh, did I say that half the attendees of the ride were under the age of ten.

So I had my near-eight year old on the ride with me. And like most thrill rides a picture is taken at the opportune moment of greatest excitement. And my regret is not keeping the picture from our vehicle.

What was unique was that each person had a look of mortal peril. Half of the adults and children had eyes and mouths open, frozen in film to commemorate their shared pant wetting. The other half had resigned their dignity by squeezing their eyes shut and cowering so to not enjoy any of the non-going-to-eat-you-painfully parts of the ride.

I will always wish I had a perpetual reminder of corporately celebrated panic, but I can at least still hear those screams when I close my eyes at night. Am I alone in this?

I don't think I will be asked to promote Walt Disney World any time soon.

Why I believe in Drive-Thru

2009-02-01T23:02:00.002-05:00

Recently I was able to enjoy a two week vacation with my family. This isn't a conflicted statement, I actually liked having my wife and kids in close proximity. The success to this is staying up later than the rest of them to have a few minutes of quiet each day.

The first day of the trip was a 6 hour drive. Driving with an almost 8 year old, a 5.5 year old, and a (I swear she still looks) twenty-ish year old person is more dangerous than it sounds.

Mainly it's the kids. They don't realize that piloting a near ton vehicle with 3.85 Joules of energy on snow covered roads is tricky enough. So you have the older one attempt to whistle the theme to the "Pirates of the Caribbean" using her repertoire of a single shrill key.

Meanwhile younger one decide that 'Purell' hand sanitizer should be used to clean the interior of the car. I thought someone had stuffed a cantelope and cucumber into the air intake of the car.

Four hours into the trip we pulled over at a fast food restaurant for lunch. It just opened and we were the first customers. I can only hope my mistake was caused in part due to exhaustion and part due to stress.

I like to have the children order their own meals. This gives them the practice of demanding older people do their bidding, because I'll be darned if I let them rehearse on me.

As all had ordered I implored my older daughter "Please tell the lady what you want for lunch." My child did so and ran off to join the rest of the family while I paid. As soon as I had received my credit card back the counter attendant moved away and my heart gained density fourfold.

I realized that I was suddenly very unsure of the gender of the person who took our order. It was either tremendously effeminate male or a woman who was mannish in appearance, slightly endowed and did not feel the need for support.

When you make a mistake like that in public you can't very well yell "I'm sorry, I meant tell the nice MAN your order." That is a shortcut to having your order special made for you.

So I had a cripplingly awkward time waiting for the food to arrive at the counter. I shuffled away as soon as it did, avoiding all eye contact with the person. Despite a longing to know if I was in the wrong or not I felt it best to do the brave thing and go to the car and sleep until the family came out when they were done.

From now on it's drive-thru on road trips. Sure it will reek of hand cleanser, and I'll be pulling french fries from the seat cushions for the next quarter, but it beats facing that hideous embarrassment ever again.

Quick Update

2009-01-31T14:49:00.001-05:00

Dear readers, I will have something to read posted sometime this weekend. My apologies about the delay but I have just returned from vacation. Ken

Making my kids into who they are.

2009-01-17T22:12:00.005-05:00

I am a father of two wonderful children.

I repeat that sentence to myself a lot. It speaks to my loose grip on reality that I need affirmations like that.

Almost 8 years into being responsible, at least in a legal sense, I still find it amazing that the half-sized humans living at my house are in fact 50% or more me. On the rare occasion that I do realize this fact I well up with a fierce, protective emotion towards them. I suppose that's the feeling Mom's have most of the time.

There is wisdom in correctly identifying your role in the relationship to your child. There are some obviously wrong ones, like pet, owner or puppet-master. Then there is the subtly wrong one, friend.

The short reason for this is respect. A child needs boundaries, structure, rewards, discipline and protection. Being their buddy can seem cool and progressive but in the end it makes it hard to get them to take the garbage out.

Now that my children have developed personalities beyond 'sleepy food to poop transmogrifiers' I am seeing the affect my DNA, and chillingly, my personality is having on them.

This week my older daughter had to stay home from school because she was sick. So she curled up on the couch and watched three of her favourite movies back to back.

That isn't strange for a child. What is strange is that she picked the original Star Wars Trilogy. I had a sick day just like that 9 years ago. I'm just praying she doesn't find out about the Star Wars conventions.

The second edition of my spawn has taken a great affection for a computer game. That isn't odd. But it's not Webkinz or Care Bears.

She has a creepy skill and passion for 'One Must Fall 2097'. This is a 'Mortal Combat' knockoff from 15 years ago. The 5 year old bounces on the couch, mashing the controller with her little fist, and when she wins pumps her hand in the air saying 'I Win, you're dead!'

It's like a mashup of a Mormon commercial meeting Chucky from "Child's play".

This is where the value of keeping the parental role can really pay off. After losing a game I can say 'Go to bed' and then proceed to play until I max my robot out so I don't lose the next battle.

Middle-Hero in training

2009-01-14T21:10:00.003-05:00

I like to think of myself as a helpful person. That in no way has any bearing on the reality; which is I'm a busybody.

It wasn't hard to make the transition from geek to mother hen for all of society. I didn't worry about what others thought of me. Most people fail to hide their contempt or utter disinterest. And I'm opinionated. That seems to be all that is required.

I prefer to imagine that I am the 'nice guy who stood up for everyone' to all those around me, but I expect that in a follow up interview I'll be pointed out as the man who wasn't there.

For example, I have not restrained my tongue on the bus when people have acted badly. Unfortunately at those moments the brain condition that delays witty repartee by two days still exists. In it's place is the catalog of parental scolding.

Although I must say it IS effective to say "No-one here appreciates that sort of language" to a foul mouthed 20 year old on a bus.

Beyond doing impressions of 'Granny' from the Beverly Hillbillies I'm also a middle-hero in training while waiting in line.

You see, I have a heart for those in the service industry. Sometimes they need one.

Kidding aside I have worked both at the counter and in the kitchen. I know what a bad customer can do to a sensitive, acne prone young man who is just trying to prove to the girls that he really is straight.

Because of that when I am in line I try to enjoy the experience. And those who know me fear that phrase. What that means is that I actually converse with the person taking my money away from me. They never give me my money back by the way. No harm in trying.

Today I was in line at the local sub shop. The lineup took 15 minutes to move to where I could order my sandwich. The attendants were clearly run off their feet and stressed. I formed a plan as quickly as I could.

With five minutes remaining I had it. If the line became long behind me I would fake a stutter. Yes, a speech impediment to truly outdo Porky the pig.

My plan was to allow the poor girl working on my sandwich the time to catch her breath, relax, and get my order right. That way I could slow the line down tremendously without provoking anyone to be angry with me for doing so.

And although I didn't have to execute it (the plan, not the sandwich-maker), I did mention my plan to said submarine assembly technician. She was grateful for the gesture, but pointed out they act like they were dervishes in a good whirl so people wouldn't be mad with them.

After all that I succeeded in making one person happier today, albeit by planning to do something.

I really need to get out of bureaucracy.

Surprise Chocolate!

2009-01-10T21:16:00.003-05:00

We have a rule at our house, and it is called 'No games'. This isn't a 'keep Ken off the computer so he can parent and stuff' thing. Nor is it a 'Don't play twister with the extended family while wearing stretch pants' concept. It's a relationship guideline.

I have seen enough couples play mind games that are pulled directly from Archie comics to know I don't want that. Perhaps I'm missing the intrigue of manipulating my wife into ironing. Maybe my wife doesn't develop the Soduku solving skills by trying to figure out where I am sneaking off to when I say I have a business meeting. But I doubt it.

Of course this requires us to use the seemingly less popular way of relating as a married couple; direct communication. But this works surprisingly well.

Except when it comes to candy.

With all of our enlightenment my wife and I are yet to reach a conclusive protocol for dealing with sweets that are in the house. Particularly mine.

I discovered this early on in our post-single lifestyle. I came home one day wishing to indulge in a chocolate bar.

Me: Honey, where is my Butterfinger?
Her: Look down.
Me: Ha ha. We agreed not to nickname body parts. Where is my chocolate bar?
Her: I ate it.
Me: ? (picture incredulous look consisting of open mouth and widened eyes)
Her: I was hungry so I ate it.

Now although I may not be the swiftest knife in the jar, I did eventually figure out that she would eat whatever chocolate or candy I was fool enough to leave out, despite entreaties to the contrary.

So I started hiding my goodies.

Yep. A 30 something year old man, in a stable, happy, fulfilling marriage, hides his Toblerone's from his wife. There is a level of co-dependency there that I'm unwilling to address, mainly because I want to eat my candy.

The problem is I'm just too wily. Consequently I now have this terrific game of 'surprise chocolate'. That is where you are doing something; putting away groceries, plumbing, changing the cat litter; and you find a chocolate bar from time immemorial. I'm not even middle aged and I'm hiding my own Easter eggs, so to speak.

So if this is all I have to put up with I'm happy. I just hope she doesn't take a liking to my pickled herring. (And yes, I'm referring to fish in a jar sickos.)

Coming soon to you: The smells of home, while you're away!

2009-01-07T20:30:00.004-05:00

There is a long running debate on whether children are more affected by nature or nurture. Usually the arguments posed by either camp are wonderful examples of pop psychology mashing it up with statistics dropouts.

Inadvertently as a parent I have had a fairly long experiment. I don't nurture too well, I don't want the kids thinking they have a firm foothold on the premises. Besides, when I hear nurture I think 'breastfeeding' and my kids are too old for that now. And I'm a bit hairy.

On a recent business trip I was talking with my older daughter on the phone. It is a good chance to practice remote interrogation techniques. I swear my kids have some non-disclosure agreement on their learning at school.

After a good 3 minutes of shaking her down to get that she made a snowman at recess, my almost 8 year old says 'Sorry Daddy.'

The hair on the back of my neck rose. My beloved laptop was at home. Images of pouring apple juice from the keyboard danced through my head. I hesitantly asked for what she was apologizing.

Her: 'I just farted.'
Me: 'That's ok honey, I don't think I can smell it from here.'

Undeterred the child continued: 'I could fart into the phone.'

I paused to consider which to take more offense to. Her persistence, her idea that this was appropriate, or her knowledge of how telephones work.

Me: ???? 'Nooooo. Don't do that. People put their mouths near the phone.'
Her: 'No, I'll do it by the earpiece'

She was really pushing for this.

Me: 'No honey. Don't put on your butt what people put to their faces.'

It's the best I could come up with. What is really terrifying to me is how often she has done this and NOT apologized. Her little mind must have been racing on why Daddy wasn't reeling from her noxious gasses.

I imagine there is some macabre market for that sort of 'smells of home while you're away'. Perhaps this is why video phones never took off, maybe this is a more normal occurrence than I want to think about.

So if you ask me if this was a natural thing to do, or if by some freak act of parenting we gave her this idea, I'll point my finger at my wife (and hope she doesn't pull it). After all, she is the nurturing one.