Hard To Want

Howdy

2009-06-28T09:35:00.002-04:00

I am way beyond the point of apologizing for not being around; it's just that I've been knee-deep in the business of life and blogging doesn't fit into that. I've considered starting another blog somewhere else so that I can opine on the state of politics and leave comments off. Another for sports perhaps, leaving this for life happenings. I don't know, but I don't feel the urgency. Lately music has been my thing. Sometimes my focus is on recording, then on singing and playing, other times on improving on the Telecaster and playing killer riffs. Other times I'm just working my butt off at work, trying to be The Man at What I Do so that I can be the last man standing when the company goes through another round of layoffs.

Right now I am in Houston visiting family. It's just Jackson and me right now; mom and Emmett stayed behind to make the trip easier. It's heart-warming what a little separation can do for a family. Jackson and Emmett talk to each other every day on the cell, and we exchange "I miss you" messages back and forth, with the occasional picture attachment.

Here in Houston, my first official act as a cool dad was to upgrade our full-sized car rental to a convertable, which through some haggling with the Hertz agent turned into a rag-top Shelby Cobra. It's gorgeous, and baby does she scream. It's added a whole new dimension to the trip that I never expected. My son and nieces and cousins are loving the looks we get from pedestrians and other motorists as we prowl the streets with the top down.

We'll be home in a couple days. As much as Jackson and I are enjoying ourselves, we are looking forward to sleeping in our own beds again. My mother's side of the family is so spoiled with their big and beautiful homes--and I'm glad that Jackson is getting a taste of what it is like to live the priveleged life (dual shower heads, whirlpool tubs, self-balancing swimming pools, spacious skies and amber waves of grain). They all love me so much and I am truly blessed to have them.

That's about it for now. Just checking in really. I'll stop by and say hi over the coming weeks. Be well.

Oh, I saw the new Star Trek. Call me sentimental, but I loved it. Better than any of the motion pictures except for maybe Wrath of Khan, and even that may have been exceeded. Acting was great, story was great, Uhura was a freaking knock-out, Scotty was out Scottied, Bones was dead-on, Spock was a stud, and Kirk got punked for a change--and the original flavor that made the original series a cult favorite was recreated from Roddenberry's recipe, with a few extra spices sprinkled in.

Tell Me About The Good Old Days

2009-04-30T09:46:00.001-04:00

I'm pretty excited about the new guitar I just bought. My wife and I have decided to not spend any money that we don't have, and definitely not on frivolous things such as toys. So I sold my motorcycle that I haven't ridden since Jackson was born. I called a local mechanic so that I could get the bike back in running condition since the throttle was sticking and it was leaking gas. When I told him what kind of bike it was, and that it was in otherwise mint condition with less than 10K miles on the engine, he decided to buy it himself.

We made a deal after some haggling back and forth, something I totally suck at by the way, but in the end I think I got a pretty good price for it. So my with my wallet loaded, I decided that this money was all mine. It wasn't for paying the bills or doing something really responsible like an adult would treat it. Nope. For the first time since I was a bachelor, I was going shopping for boy toys. There was also a sentimental aspect to this train of thought. Although I didn't ride that motorcycle anymore, which I gave up because I wanted my children to have a father when they reached puberty, I still loved that bike. I know it sounds corny, but that bike was my buddy. We toured California together. Down highway 1 from San Francisco to LA, to Palm Desert, Sequoia National Park, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite. We learned the streets of San Francisco together and took in the breathtaking views from Twin Peaks and the overlook across the Golden Gate and into the wetlands beyond.

When I signed over the title to the mechanic, I took what I knew was going to be my last look at the bike. He patted me on the shoulder because he just knew.

So I have to respect how I spend every cent of the money I sold her for.

I've been a big fan of Brent Mason, who is a Nashville session guitarist. You can pretty much hear him on any album recorded by any country artist in the 90's. His sound defies imitation, and I had long since given up even trying. But of late I've been seeing YouTube videos here and there of guitarists that play a style called "chicken pickin'" which is Brent's style as well. YouTube is an incredible source of guitar lessons, and there are resources that enable you to copy a YouTube video locally to your computer, and free software that will scrape the audio from a video into an mp3 file. On top of that, there is software such as The Amazing Slow Downer that will slow down a recording without altering the pitch, meaning it plays just like the recording only slower, just as if the artist was playing it slower for you. It really is as advertised: totally amazing.

I noticed that almost all the chicken pickers have Telecaster guitars. I asked my guitar instructor why that is, and he pulled his out and let me play it, telling me that you just get more pop and bend out of the strings than you get with a Stratocaster, which I already have. So, long story short, I spend seven hundred dollars of my motorcycle money on a new Tele, and I totally love it.

Ninety more went to Mr. Doug Seven. He's a Brent Mason enthusiast and he publishes videos on how to play in that style. I'm on disk 1 of four working on riff one of around nine. It's insanely fast.

Ok, so the point of all this. It all goes back to the early days of life when my Grandma Rose would listen to me sing along with the radio. She asked me to make a cassette tape for her so she could listen to me some more, and I always told her I would. Now I'm 45 and still haven't done it. So I spent two hundred more dollars on a Tascam recorder that will facilitate the recording of my guitar and voice and whatever else into the computer. I have to figure that out still, but I've got everything I need now to make it happen.

The only question left was which song to start with. I've decided on the Judds song called Grandpa Tell Me about the Good Old Days or some variation of that title. I'm going to change Grandpa to Grandma and give it a go. A long time ago I tried to figure out what the guitarist was doing with the main riff, but it was beyond me. Picking around with it yesterday, suddenly I know exactly what he is doing. It's really such a pretty sounding song. If you've never heard it before, look it up. If you've ever thought that life was simpler in your Grandparents' day, when families stuck together through good times and bad, and a man's word and a handshake was all the assurance you needed, then this song will resonate with you.

Colossal Blunder

2009-03-17T10:18:00.001-04:00

I don't know if I have the courage to tell you about every fax pas I've committed in my lifetime, so far, but I have to tell you what happened to me yesterday.

A friend of mine—I'll call him Oniondude—from the last company I worked at likes to send me links from The Onion, which many of you know about already. I don't find it particularly funny most of the time. Satire has to be done with just the right touch and I don't often appreciate what I read there. It's sort of ironic because I can laugh from the start of Top Secret to the end (especially the exploding Pinto scene).

Earlier in the day, I had been working on a tough issue at work, and the newest addition to our software development team—I'll call her Mary—happens to have had some experience in the arena I was investigating, and she sent me her notes on how to set up my software tools to do what I needed them to do. It worked wonderfully, and I would have been sunk without her. So at 5:30PM, after finally getting everything up and running, I wrote an instant message to her, "It works! Wahoooo!"

No reply. I was thinking it was after five and she had gone home.

Twenty minutes later Oniondude sends me an Onion link entitled: Houston Rockets Catch Tracy McGrady Masturbating To Tape Of His 41-Point Performance. I didn't bother to read it and was going to ignore it, but he wrote me back:

"that is great!"

Ok, he wanted a reaction. I typed, "I would masturbate to my own perfomance too. Not sure how long it would take to wear off."

A minute later: "did you mean to send that to me? i'm not getting it. sorry"

Huh?

I looked at the IM screen. It was Mary who had replied, our previous conversation having overlaid the one I was having with Oniondude.

I felt a thousand sizzling hot prickles on my face.

"Oh, my, goodness—I am sooo sorry. It was replying to a friend about an Onion article."

"don't worry. no prob :) just making sure it wasn't some new fangled programming joke"

"I'm glad you have a sense of humor… I would never do that out of the blue. That's going down in my history of big whopping blunders, and the list is pretty long already."

"definitely. i like have a laugh. well, if you don't have a list of blunders you may not be living life fully :)"

Can you imagine what could have happened if she weren't so cool? My GOD! My legs were shaking after the adrenaline wore off. I thought I was going to get fired for sure.

So, does anyone care to share a similar story? Feel free to post about it and put a link in the comments.

Snow Business

2009-03-10T08:52:00.001-04:00

My wife told me I should write this down, and my preschooler thought it was funny enough to tell his teacher about, so it's at least worth committing to my blog.

I've been a little skeptical about global warming lately—not that I'm discounting it or even changing my pattern of conservational behavior—but it's been so dang cold this winter, and the snow has been relentless. I'm sick of it. My snow blower has been on the fritz ever since I ran over a stick and took out the right front blades. Technically it still works, but I have to go over everything twice.

It's of significant importance that I keep the face of our driveway clean, since it slopes for a stretch of fifteen to twenty feet to the street; and ours is a blind driveway—which roughly translated means you never really know if some crazy teenager or Boston commuter is coming until your headlamps kiss the median.

So this morning I had a bright idea. I backed the Saturn to the road's edge, then parked the Expedition (bought before global enlightenment) in front of it, both vehicles spanning the incline. The thinking here was to keep the snow from burying the incline so that I didn't have to shovel it. Sound thinking, but just a bit too late since the snow had already coated the driveway. But the Expedition held fast. So, I made of ass of u and me when I decided it would remain so.

I went inside where my wife had the kids bundled up in winter coats, boots, hats and mittens. From that vantage point, I could see something didn't look right from the laundry room window. I could have sworn that the Expedition was not where I had parked it. It appeared to be where the Saturn used to be.

And sure enough, the Saturn was in the middle of the road with the trailer hitch of the Expedition pinned under its bumper.

Thankfully nobody hit it.

So I pulled the Saturn into the neighbor's driveway.

When I picked Emmett up from preschool, the teachers laughed and told me about Emmett's recounting of the story.

Apologies All Around

2009-02-19T09:02:00.001-05:00

Sort of. I apologize for not responding to comments, which has been a trend for me going on the order of months now. I'm in a transitional phase and I'm not sure what's going to give. My wife approached me with the idea that I might have attention deficit issues, so I went to a doctor and he prescribed me some medicine that I am trying today for the first time. I'm already feeling something, though I can't say for sure just what. But so far this morning I have replied to three emails, written two others that have been long overdue, and my thoughts seem to be more focused on what I have to do.

Distractibility is my biggest issue. It seems that with my overwhelming workload lately that instead of focusing on getting it done I'm getting nothing done at all, as if the burden of wanting to write, play guitar, get my finances in order, read, play my games and be a kick-ass awesome parent—oh, and be good at my job—has become the weight of the earth squared, and I've dumped the whole thing.

By the way, Beth (it was you I think), thanks for turning me onto the short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I finished Gatsby, but I have to say, as much as I enjoyed it, the short stories are (to me) infinitely better. I can't stand being told someone is a great writer only to be annoyed with their florid use of the language. Fitzgerald is so not intimidating at all. He can describe people with such ease and eloquence, and follows the inner dialogue of people in so many situations. He's so intuitive. Well, I'm just soaking it all in. I've promised myself that I will go back and reread it all and write down every line that moves me. I'm actually thinking of writing a program that will categorize the type of passage so that I can recall it later when I'm looking for a way to say something. Sort of like, and maybe just like, the way you can attach labels to blog posts. But this I want to have locally so I don't have to rely on blogspot to be around. Someday we're all going to lose everything we've ever written in blogland.

My family life has been astoundingly wonderful. I've always been happy at home, but happy in a way that is deferent to the way things were before I met my wife. Marriage isn't always easy, and can sometimes be difficult, but I've never ever thought of throwing in the towel. But there has been a change lately. My wife is happier than she has ever been, and her relationship with the kids has taken a joyous turn. Where before it could be strained, it's mostly smooth and easy. They laugh and play games while I'm typing away at the keys. The kids play with each other so nicely. There are fights like you would always expect, but nothing a little room time can't clear up like magic. My kids are so well-mannered. I remember in the old days when Jackson was only three how parents would warn me of times to come. "You'll see; you just wait…" And it scared me, even as I bravely told them and myself that it would be different for me, because—and I have to be frank here—I knew that I was a better parent. And that's not to say bad things don't happen to good parents, because they do, but good things happen to good parents too, and there is a reward for doing things right.

My tenth anniversary was just last week. We got a babysitter and went out. At dinner I presented my wife with a diamond necklace that I got from Macy's the day before. Funny story behind that, but I'll stay on track (the drugs are kicking in). I told her that I was glad that she was the mother of my children. She waved it off and said, "I'm the sure thing." But I pressed on. The truth is, like Helen Hunt to Jack Nicholson, she doesn't just make me want to be a better man, she makes me a better man. Without her I would be lost. All my dreams, my hopes, my aspirations, would be nothing without her. She's the first and last part of everything I need. And that's the truth.

Happy tenth, baby.

The Great Gatsby

2009-01-26T08:47:00.004-05:00

I'm currently reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I know this is the pop-culture equivalent of discovering that Darth Vader is Luke's father, but Fitzgerald is an astounding writer. Normally I don't hear the genius in the work of others. I'm told by my peers that such and such is brilliant, but I don't see it. I see big vocabulary, perceive theme like an unlocatable sound that bounces off walls, understand that I'm missing the metaphor, and always wish I were more perceptive. But this novel was written with me in mind.

I almost skipped it because I read a critique of Fitzgerald's antiquated use of dialogue attribution. And I see what he is doing and I don't care about that. He said quickly. So what? I'm learning that there are simply different tastes and no two pallettes the same, and some people have become too smart for their own good.

It's the way Fitzgerald uses light that floors me. Light brings the scene to life. How it shines on the edge of a newspaper (can't you just see that?), or illuminates a doorway.

Take this for example: For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened--then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

Does it get more perfect? It does if you read on.

The living backdrop is a character too.

"Oh sure," agreed Wilson hurriedly and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls.

Wilson is colorless and bland unless I miss my guess.

His characters have traits that I recognize. Take this description of Tom:

Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body--he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat.

This got me thinking about my dad for some reason, which then became inspiration.

A short, short story

2009-01-14T10:57:00.005-05:00

Leave it to Jason to kick me in the butt and get me writing again. He's sponsoring another of his famous contests, which always gets my blood pumping. I can't believe it, but this is actually his tenth, and each one attracts more visitors than the previous.

Please stop by and read my latest entry. It's not my usual, if I have a usual. It's not dark or twisted, just real.

** Update **

Well this is a nice surprise. I received enough votes from the contest participants to get one of the readers choice awards--very cool. Thanks Jason for hosting another great contest! I really appreciate the votes. It's an awesome feeling to have made that connection with so many people.

What I Want To Do

2009-01-02T09:11:00.001-05:00

When I was a little boy, I dreamed of the day that I would grow up and be a scientist, a robotics scientist that could breathe life into my favorite Sesame Street characters, starting with Ernie.

What happened?

Life, I suppose, is the easiest answer—a dismissal for sure, but truthful. I never was a good student, but I was doing ok until I got to high school. The seeds were planted, and by then I had the ear-marks of a drop-out. It took me three years of college until I did just that.

What a poor wandering lost soul I was.

I know now that this was all on my parents. A child of multiple divorces, living with an alcoholic father and step-mother, both too self-absorbed to be bothered, except to throw tantrums when evidence of their failure arrived in the form of report cards. Sure, I had every bit to do with each decision I made, but I was a rudderless ship, and I bashed myself for not supplying one of my own. But now I'm a parent I know that I was still a child, more so than any of my peers. I never grew up until I got married if I were to be perfectly honest, and in many ways I still am.

This could never happen to my sons. I—we, my wife and I both—pay attention. We're involved. There is no way that they will be wandering the early like Cain in Kung Fu when they graduate from high school. They've got partners in this life. They'll never be alone as long as we live.

I remember my physics class in high school. The teacher, Eldon Dennis, was a bit flabbergasted that I would have even attended in the first place. I was just awful. I didn't care a lick for hard work, analysis, mathematics. I was the anti-student. Yet there I was in a class with the best and the brightest. And yet I stuck with it. I would have failed, but the assistant at the time sold me a copy of the final exam.

Ever since then, I've thought that physics was simply beyond me, even though I went on to college (my second college) and got through Calculus II without much difficulty. In fact, after Calc II, I was beginning to think I had missed my calling, since the solving on an equation gave me such satisfaction. And really, until I had taken Calc, I didn't realize just how real-life math is. By that time, on the brink of graduation, it was too late to get serious about it.

So here I am, a forty four year old man who thinks he's still in his teens, thinking that I should have traveled another path. It was clear what I wanted to do when I was a kid, pining to make fantasy come to life. But I have to wonder… even now, is it too late? The answer is a bit complicated, but I have to think that it's not. I'm roughly half way through with this life, so that leaves another half for a do-over.

I want to sit down at my computer and draw a design, then I want to build my machine with movable parts, complete with gears and levers. I want to build an engine—and not just the engine, but the tools that make the parts of the engine, and the tools that make the tools that make the parts of the engine—and perhaps a trebuchet in my back yard to hurl dead squirrels into the woods. This might be my father working his way out of me, but I realize now that this is what I've always wanted to do.

Today I build software. Whoopdie-doo. It's kind of sad, but the only reason I still do it is because it pays the bills. I'm not complaining. If it weren't for software, I don't know where I would be, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be sitting in a house that I call my own. The problem with following your heart is that you have to be in touch with yourself enough to know what your heart is.

My wife started a new tradition this New Years day. Each of us wrote down our resolutions on index cards and put them into a box which we will open next New Years day. My wife wants to write my grandmothers a letter every month, and my five-year-old Emmett wants to learn Kung Fu (Kung Fu Panda, if you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and treat yourself to the best movie made in a long time—Jack Black is perfectly cast!), and Jackson (nine) is keeping his a secret for now (but I know it has something to do with learning basketball). Mine is two-fold: start into the process of night-school or online educating myself in mechanical engineering, and to write a short story of at least three thousand words and submit it for publication.

No more goofing around.

Not Alone

2008-12-15T10:08:00.001-05:00

I don't know what the hell is going on with the world, but I am surrounded by disaster. Thank goodness it hasn't touched me yet, but I feel as if there is some Kharmic warning festooning about me. First a friend of mine was tragically ran over in an attempt to stop the vehicle he had forgotten to put in park from running over his pregnant wife who had fallen in front of the vehicle. Not even a day later, I sent an email out to some of my friends whom I haven't spoken to or heard from in a long time, in order to get their addresses so that I could send each of them a Christmas card. I came to find out that another guy I used to work with, Ryan—the absolute nicest guy on the planet—lost his wife last month. She wasn't even sick with anything major like cancer. The week before she died in the hospital, she came down with flu-like symptoms. Tests revealed that a virus was attacking her heart, then suddenly she was gone. Can you believe that?! Ryan was there beside her when it happened. She was perfectly healthy.

Ryan had to sell his home and move in with his parents. He's left alone to raise two girls, ages 6 months and 3 years. It's hard enough with two parents. I called him and offered my condolences, but what can one really offer in that situation except empty words? Awful, just tragic.

I thank my lucky stars and twenty other clichés.

Then, last night, my friends down the street from me lost their home in a fire. They were out when it started—thank GOD! The neighbors said that it sounded like a howitzer had gone off. Apparently a propane line had exploded. My friend came home to see the fire only in the back porch area, but it quickly spread. The fire department killed the power in my neighborhood, prompting me to go out and see what was going on. I had to sneak through the woods to get there because the police barricaded the streets. I just knew it, after talking to people who were walking up the dark streets that the house was my friend's. "The eighth one on the left," came one answer to my inquiry, which was second-hand information as reported by a fireman.

When I got there my fears were confirmed. And there was my friend, with his family, huddled together on the street outside their blazing home, tears in their eyes. The flames and burned through the roof by then. Again, I just didn't have the words. What do you say to someone who is watching everything they have in life going up in flames—all the memories, the pictures, the videos of their babies being born, the pictures their kids had drawn since preschool, the love and care put into every choice detail of their home, their financial records and the sentimental memorabilia from their own childhoods—everything wiped out, leaving them with nothing but the clothes on their backs?

At least they had their lives, and the insurance to build another home—hopefully. You never really know how good your insurance is until you need it.

If somebody asks me how I am, I have to say that I am fucking wonderful, the king of the world. I am alive, my kids and my wife are healthy, I have a great job and I can pay the bills. My wife is calling all the neighbors now and trying to collect donations of kids clothing and money to help them get through this. They have family close by where they are staying. I've offered to watch the kids for them, and to be there for whatever they need. There's not much I can do by myself, but I hope the neighborhood will come together and show them that they are not alone in this world.

Rock and Roll to the Rescue

2008-11-19T08:45:00.004-05:00

Both my boys love the song Smoke on the Water, which is so funny because I remember when I lived in Couer D' Alene, Idaho and hearing it for the first time. I was in 5^th grade. It was one of two songs having a catchy and distinctive guitar riff—the other being Love is Like Oxygen—hard crunching, repeating, toe-tapping. It was common to see your friend tucking their lower lip under the front teeth and doing a spot-on imitation. It may have inspired many first-time air guitarists, and not a few of the real thing.

At the dinner table Emmett sang his own words to the song instead of eating, real imaginative lyrics such as, "Poop on the water, and farts in the sky," while mom and dad rolled their eyes and said for the hundredth time, "No poop-talk," (trying not to smile).

Then Jackson got into the action, as he didn't like what was on his plate either. When Jackson gets involved, it's like that mythical amp from Spinal Tap that cranks to 11. In other words, it gets loud and out of control.

"Ok, settle down boys," I said, which has the effect of a lion cub facing down a stampeding herd of wildebeests. But after a few gentle reminders that there is food on their plates and that there are people starving in the world that would kill for a single bite (yes, it's true, we've become our parents), the boys went back to a subdued state of planning their next diversion. It came in the form of a question. The question.

Jackson asked, "Where to babies come from?"

Easy: "From momma's belly."

"But how does it get there?"

My wife and I exchange The Glance.

I decided to dance around a bit. I am the master of diversion after all. "It's like a seed, Jackson. Like the flowers we started in the egg carton (irony, eh?) at the start of summer. The seed grows into a baby until its big enough to come out of mommy's belly."

That should hold him.

Jackson is in third grade now. Though it may not sound like much, it was in fifth grade when we were introduced to sex education. If the pattern held true, that's only two years away. Perhaps the timing for modern audiences is a bit late.

"But how does the seed get there?"

Is verklempt a word? If it means to be at a total loss for words, that was me. It was time to pass the baton. My wife smiled as she took it and used it for an air-microphone, took a deep breath and screamed, "SMOOOOKE, ON THE WAAATER…"

And we all joined in, "…and fire in the sky-hayyye."

And that is the story of how Rock and roll saved the day.

Over the Weekend

2008-11-10T08:23:00.001-05:00

It was our last game of the flag football season on Saturday. We were slotted to play the Chargers, who we beat handily earlier in the year. As game time approached, the Chargers' coach said to me, "We're playing the Patriots instead—it's the closest game we've had all season."

The Chargers haven't won a game all year, so I understood. It also gave me a chance to prove something, even though I was afraid it might backfire.

All season I have taken a backseat to my assistant coach. I was in over my head organizationally. I had to put together the game plan, the order in which kids played and which positions, assuring opportunity at every position for each kid at least once. At first this was a strain, but by the end I had a system that worked easily.

What's been happening over the course of the season is that I would practice the kids while my assistant was at work, then on game day he would ignore everything that I had practiced the kids with and make up plays in the huddles. The kids were confused, fumbling and throwing interceptions. Not only that, but my son was losing interest in the game.

Once you relinquish authority or responsibility, it's hard to take back without causing resentment. But last weekend I did just that. And by some miracle it was accepted not only without complaint, but with support. Still, during the game I got a little friction when it came down to actual decisions.

The problem we've had all year is that the kids were doing in a game something they had never practiced. So I stuck to the basics. I designed a set of three plays that start exactly the same but with different end points. First you give the ball to a running back and have him run around the outside. Next you do the same but have the running back give the ball to the wide receiver for a reverse. Third, and this is where the money is, do exactly as in the latter case, but have the running back fake the handoff for the reverse and go.

On Saturday, when the running back did this, the defender totally bit on it and chased the receiver, leaving the running back with nothing but pasture between him and the endzone. It was pretty sweet.

On defense, I kept telling the assistant to put the fastest kids on the ends to keep the other offense from going wide on runs, forcing the opposing running back to run back into the middle of the field, right where our other kids were waiting. My assistant kept on calling my fastest kids back into a safety position, and even complained that I was taking our best players out of the play. I did the Dr. Evil "double-u, double-u, double-u dot zip it dot com!" to him. The other team only scored one time, and only then due to an illegal block that the refs didn't call.

We scored four or five times. The same team we played the week before and tied them in a shootout. I should have had the confidence to run the team like I knew it should have been run all season. We might have run the table. It was quite an accomplishment all the same. We started the season unable to execute a play, and ended on an incredibly high note, with nary a mistake made.

I'd like to take all the credit, but I can't. Even though I've been complaining about the assistant's handling of the play calling, which just wasn't his strength. In practices before the games, he came up with some drills that focused on handing the ball off on the run and pulling flags that the kids really got into and made it fun and challenging. A coach has to manage and utilize resources to maximum effect.

I can't wait for next season. The parents have been telling me that the kids had a blast this season, and all but for a few games I had perfect attendance.

Tomorrow I have to tell you about a conversation we had with our kids. The dreaded question: where to babies come from?

Kids, Elections and Progress

2008-11-06T09:10:00.001-05:00

Both of my kids participated in elections at their schools in the week leading up to November 4th. I'm sensitive to any bias teachers put forth to students. If I were to ever find out that a teacher or school official exerted any sort of political influence on my children there would be hell to pay. We all know how academia stands on the political spectrum, and it's my job to teach my children to think for themselves. As I will demonstrate.

In both instances though, the teachers didn't offer any opinion, and the ballots cast were anonymous. You can guess who won in an overwhelming landslide at both schools. In Emmett's preschool, the results were posted on each classroom door. One classroom over from Emmett's reported that it was Obama, seven votes to one. In Emmett's however, McCain won eleven votes to three.

Emmett has always said that he was going to vote for Barack Obama, but of course he has heard his parents talking about it. I kind of liked that he was thinking on his own instead of taking everything we said as the gospel. After picking him up and on the ride home, he told me that he voted for John McCain.

"Why, Emmett? I thought you were voting for Obama."

"Leighton talked me into it."

"How did he do that?"

"He said we were best buddies and that I had to vote for John McCain."

Leighton's mother was in the armed forces and went to Iraq for Desert Storm.

This upset me just a little. "Don't get me wrong, Emmett, I love that you voted for McCain, but you shouldn't vote for someone because it makes someone else happy. You have to make up your own mind and do what you think is right."

He chewed on these words, then happily reported, "But I wanted to vote for John McCain."

That night Emmett wrote Senator McCain a letter. He drew a picture and had his brother inscribe, "Dear John McCain, I'm sorry you lost the election. Will you draw me a picture back?"

Jackson wrote two letters, one to each of the candidates. To Obama he told him what a lopsided victory he won at his school, and that he was happy that he (Obama) had won the election. And "could you send me a signed picture of yourself?"

To John McCain he sent a similar letter (sans election results), expressing regret that he lost the election (the irony was not lost on me), and that all his ideas were right and Obama's were wrong.

Ok, so you think I've ruined my child. But rest assured that what I am telling my kids is that Obama is now our president, and as such our respect is his to uphold. That is a far cry from what I have observed in the reverse, and I plan to be an example of how to support a president whose ideas and ideals I oppose. There may come a time where that will be stretched to the snapping point, but I hope to remain constructive and open.

As for all the simple-minded rednecks that can't handle a black president (am I allowed to notice that?) drive yourself over the next available cliff. The Klan party is over, has been over. I'm surprised that there is still a forum for this kind of thinking, if this can even be termed thinking. This aspect of the election makes me happy and proud that race is no longer a majority issue among free-thinking people. Maybe during upcoming elections the opposition won't accuse the other side of racism. But as Steve Martin would say, "Naaahhhhh!" As long as it works to silence critics it will be used, but at least now there is precedence and history to counter with, dampening its effect.

To wrap up, my grandmother voted for Obama. She lives in Ohio. She's always been a Democrat, and is bitterly opposed to the war, which tipped her hand towards Obama. But grandma is just short of a klan type. She has never had a nice thing to say about blacks, and that's putting it kindly. In her own words, she justified her vote for a (insert n-word) because Joe Biden is a good man, and, well, let's just say she doesn't have high hopes for Obama's health.

We have a long way to go in this world. But progress has been made. My grandma voted for a black man. Read that again slowly: my grandma voted for a black man. Do not underestimate the size of that mountain.

Doing Ok

2008-11-05T14:40:00.002-05:00

No surprises in the election. Obama won and my blog buddies are vindicated after eight long years. I'm trying to be optimistic that Obama will be a fair leader. Now everyone gets to find out what he is really like, beyond the hype and the promises that even the heralded factcheck.org says he can't possibly keep (same for McCain; I read more than a paragraph). All I pray for is that he puts country and security ahead of party, and that he'll seriously consider the consequences of pulling out of Iraq before it is ready to take care of itself. You can be strong without being a bully; put your fists at your side and relax if you will, but be ready for the sucker punch, because it's coming.

These are serious times. Stand up to our enemies and be diplomatic in equal measures; be tough and compassionate. Show us that there is iron in your words, and I for one will support you to the end.

Please, don't lambaste me in the comments. Nor do I want to hear how wonderful he is and how he will win me over and yadda yadda yadda. This is your day and you've never been prouder to be an American. I wish I could share in that optimism.

There are no words that will make me believe. I'll have to see it for myself.

Sweet Relief

2008-10-29T10:33:00.006-04:00

I won't say what it was about, but my wife was as mad at me as she has ever been for the last couple days. It was to the point that I actually thought she might leave me.

It definitely wasn't about politics, so get that off your mind!

Up until we made up yesterday, I had to seriously consider what it would be like if she did leave and take my children away from me. My oldest son needs me more than my youngest does, and it would kill him, after all the promises I made that divorce happens to other families. My youngest son would be lost without his mother. He's my bestest little buddy, but he's momma's cuddle bug. As a child I went through divorce four times; the first two were devastating.

And of course there is my wife, who admittedly I take for granted in many ways. I've always been secure in the fact that she loves me. We aren't just some couple that have fallen into a rhythm of co-existence. We work on being better for one another. Last weekend was devastating, and it demonstrated how disatrously close any relationship, no matter how strong, is one wrong move away from destruction. Alliterate much?

And as a side note, here is a survival note for all you husbands out there. Women think completely different than we do. They are emotional first, and that trumps reason. That's not to say reason doesn't exist, but emotion needs an outlet and the best thing, if you have the stamina, is don't staunch the flow until it's all out.

But in that time when I was considering my future alone, I really came to appreciate what I have. I didn't care about politics, my future, playing my guitar, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, not even about eating. Nothing mattered anymore.

Life is back to normal again, and I'm the luckiest guy I know.

Victor Davis Hanson

2008-10-25T20:06:00.004-04:00

If I had to choose one person in this world I would like to meet, Victor Davis Hanson might just be the one. In conservative writing circles, he is highly regarded. I first read about him in a column by James Lileks, one of the wittiest writers I have ever read, and whose political observations I respect immensely. He commented once that VDH had made a reference to something he (Lileks) had written, and was so moved, so humbly honored to be linked by someone he considered to be in a whole other league. I had to check him out.

And guess what--his humility was well-justified.

I linked VDH to a friend of mine once, and after initially being impressed with the article, he was able to debunk all of it by telling me that Hanson was a Hoover Institute Fellow. Hanson's most recent missive details the state of the political race as he sees it today. This is a great summation of the frustration I feel with Palin-bashing and the inevitable course towards a socialist society that we are heading.

Read it here.

In other news: PUMAs and Democrats for McCain? Sounds like wishful thinking, but I don't think anyone voting for McCain is going to be fooled into staying home on election day.

Orson Scott Card : Democrat

2008-10-21T23:38:00.009-04:00

Now here is a Democrat who tells it like it is. Orson Scott Card, I salute you, sir. Better than I could have ever said it, this is the bare-knuckled truth that needs to be told.

Has anybody been paying attention to what Biden has been saying lately, predicting an international crisis specifically because Obama will be president? Hillary supporters are questioning whether or not Biden is hinting at a potential Obama-instituted military draft. Palin is starting to look like a genius.

Here is a conservative argument against Obama as president. Is he really going to take down missile defense systems? When Obama says cut spending does he really mean to scale back on defense spending? Naive to say the least, and very dangerous.

Forgive me, Mr. Tolle

2008-10-06T08:40:00.008-04:00

It's easy to forget that Jackson is only eight years old, given his height and maturity. He has a tendency to give up too soon on new things. He simply loses interest. There's no communication for the most part. Under questioning, he tends to allow for anything I suggest as the cause, leading me to think that he either doesn't know or doesn't want to talk about it. A couple months back I finally got to the bottom of it.

I'm not sure if I posted about this, but I pulled him from our local soccer program and myself from coaching and participating in board activities. Jackson didn't want to play anymore either, so that made the decision final. If he had wanted to play I would have tolerated the cock and bull. I asked him if he wanted to try flag football instead. He said no. And here we went again. Always no to something new.

"What is it about football that you don't like?"

"I don't know."

I had to be careful here. For some reason I really want him to play football and I have to do the Eckhardt Tolle self-test. Why is it so important to me? He recently quit his guitar lessons (Beth, you knew this was coming!) and I let him off the hook. Music should be fun, not a chore. I haven't given up; I'm just considering a new angle. But here is a sport that is, for the time being, non-contact that involves a lot of running—one of Jackson's favorite things in life. So I tried this:

"You love playing tag with your friends at recess, right?"

"Yes."

"Flag football is just organized tag. The guy with the ball is It."

He still looked dubious. I pressed on.

"What is it that you don't like about it?"

He seemed to struggle for a moment, but then pushed out the golden nugget. "I don't know how to play. It's confusing."

So there it is; he's just like me.

Long story short, he agreed to play with my assurances that the game is easy to understand once you have played, and that I would make sure he understood. Turns out I went one better when the league coordinator told me they needed a coach.

So I'm baaack in the saddle again.

We won our first game and got slaughtered in our second, but in the latter case we learned a fair clip about defense. Jackson ran a touchdown on his first touch in the first game, but in our second game, we were pretty much shut out because the team we played had played together to two previous seasons, and was all reverses and fakes—their QB (the coach's son) had a beautiful fake pass that turned into a handoff to his runningback waiting behind him. My boys were totally confused until I put my two fastest kids on either end of the field and told them not to move until they were sure the ball was going the other way. After that, we shut them out. The damage was already done, but we left a better team.

Jackson told me afterwards that it wasn't as fun anymore. I thought about telling him about how it's not winning but in how you played the game, but that is the age old cop-out. Instead I said, "It wasn't your fault or the fault of any of your teammates that we lost today. That was all on the coach for not having you ready to play. We'll work on a few things this week and you'll see what a difference it will make."

So yesterday we won by three touchdowns, but it could have been a whole lot worse. In our previous game, the kids couldn't snap the ball quick enough and didn't know the plays. Our defensive issues I've described. This week I created three plays that always start the same way, so that the center, quarterback and running back either go right or left. Easy. Nothing to remember. The only differences are these: in the first case, the running back runs the ball; the second, the running back gives the ball to the wide receiver for a reverse; and in the third, the running back fakes the reverse and passes the ball. Then we practiced ad nauseum the snap and handoff to the running back.

The difference was remarkable.

The highlights of the game were amazing. Almost every player had a touchdown. Jackson's came on defense. Twice he picked the ball in front of the receiver and ran it back for a touchdown. We even had one of our kids throw a touchdown pass that was so pretty you wouldn't have believed two kids were involved. The pass was a spiral that hit the other kid in stride.

Jackson told me after the game that on one of his picks he duped the quarterback by letting his guy go so that he appeared to be wide open.

I think he's starting to get it.

After the game, one of the boys from last week's team, the aforementioned QB and coaches son, had a birthday party, so all the kids gathered and played even more football. I was on the sideline. Jackson lined up as a runningback and a kid on the other team said, "If Jackson gets that football we're dead!" He did get the football, and it was the prettiest run I've ever seen him do. In the first game we played, he ran around the corner and just sprinted away from everyone. On this day he looked more like Adrian Peterson or Barry Sanders, planting and switching directions three times while ever pressing forward with defenders grabbing at the ghost images he left behind. He's long and lean, and by far the fastest kid in the league.

Are you sensing a little pride?

You'll have to forgive me, Mr. Tolle, but my head is swelling.

I Wonder

2008-10-05T11:08:00.005-04:00

You might think from my last post that I'm voting for McCain. I'm not voting for Obama for the reasons I stated before and others I didn't (and nothing racial in case someone wants to pounce on that). I've decided that after the bailout bill I can't vote for either candidate. McCain's main message is that he is going to make anyone famous that tries to put pork into a bill that crosses his desk. How about the 150 billion of just such in the bill he just voted for? If he was serious then he would have voted against it. Instead, just like Obama, he didn't think the political risk was worth it.

This two party system creates the illusion that someone is right and someone is wrong. We stack what we like in the left column and justify and minimize everything else in the right. I really like what Palin said about living within our means, just like our parents told us to do when we got our first credit card (for the record, my first credit card was backed by my bank account so there was never any choice for the first couple years--and my dad has never had a credit card because that leaves a paper trail for the government to follow).

Palin isn't running for president, and she isn't ready for that anyway (so take a deep breath and count to ten). I think she'll become the next Alaskan senator and work her way up the chain. I'm pretty sure Obama is going to win because the country is in a panic and change will be the biggest motivating factor. Obama will spend and increase taxes and kill jobs and make things worse, unless the economy is ready on it's own to adjust upwards, which I doubt. Meanwhile jobs will still move out of the country because it will be increasingly cheaper to do business outside the country. McCain, I hate to say it, really does mean more of the same. He proved it with his vote for the bailout.

So strap up people. I really have no idea what all this means, but it's got me spooked.

Palin

2008-10-03T08:28:00.002-04:00

I have to say that the last couple weeks, since I last posted, have been a real low point in American journalism--and that is really saying something. Gibson and Couric did their level best to take Sarah Palin out of the race, and very nearly succeeded. Last night's vice-presidential debate reset the typewriter of this election to the home position. Palin held herself up high and squealched any and all doubts her supporters had about her. The key word being her supporters. I would also add that she likely attracted many fence-walkers as well.

She wasn't perfect, avoiding questions that she either didn't want to answer or couldn't answer, while Senator Biden was direct. The difference between the two in my estimation is that Palin didn't pretend to know what she didn't know; Biden on the other hand, and quite cleverly I should add, made deliberate or willful misrepresentations on a range of topics, including John McCain's voting record. These canards served to create the illusion that his arguments had substance. Palin talked straight, and the contrast was sharp.

A long time Washington insider would have flayed him alive, but that leads to the next subject: Respect. We heard a whole lot of it last night, such that I haven't seen since Ross Perot lost the presidency to Bill Clinton and told his booing supporters to get behind their new president. Biden not only showed respect for Sarah Palin (er, Governor Palin), but also for John McCain. I walked away from this thinking that Joe Biden is a good man.

Listen, I know many of you don't think Sarah Palin has the experience necessary to step into the role of Vice President. I'm sympathetic to that view point. I'm a bit of a dreamer and a romantic, as are many Obama supporters. I can't help but get the Jimmy Stewart vibe from her, a small town American headed to Washington to break through the barriers of politics to make a fundamental difference. It takes force of character and charm. Regardless of how this race turns out, we haven't seen the last of Sarah Palin. With a couple more years of schooling she'll be Hilary Clinton times two with a personality akin to ol' Bills.

What I find ironic is that so many of her detractors women. I respect any criticism that speaks to her credentials or past history as it applies to the job she has done in office. Recently Sandra Bernhardt commented that Palin would get gang raped if she walked alone in New York City. I understand that Palin is not her candidate, but is this necessary? Have some respect for a woman who has achieved so much to be standing toe-to-toe with Joe Biden on the national stage. Women have come a long way. And not just any woman, but an attractive woman that is not hiding her femininity to fit in with the male establishment. It's a huge stride that should be aknowledged instead of mocked.

None of this is taking anything from Obama, whose achievements deserve similar attention. This election for me comes down to who is better on economics and security. My opinion is that Obama's taxation policies will take money from the rich, which on the surface seems fair. The net effect however will be the loss of jobs as corporations scale back to pay for the costs, which will have the further effect of decreasing tax revenues and increasing payouts for unemployment and possibly other social programs. I also don't believe in the time-table pullout from Iraq. We leave when we can and no sooner. Politics cannot determine war policy, and that is exactly what Obama represents.

Democrats are licking their chops over the damage that the bailout has caused the McCain campaign, and it might just be the golden egg that gets their candidate elected. But I think McCain has it in his back pocket that it was Barney Frank and like-minded Democrats that blocked efforts by the Bush administration to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, which may have prevented the current crisis.

Be Very Afraid

2008-09-13T22:50:00.006-04:00

If you saw a recent interview of Sarah Palin by ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, then you have been sold a bill of goods. Follow this link if you want to see how ABC News edited her responses to radically change the meaning of her words. And if you don't believe in media bias after this, then you are simply beyond reach. This isn't a rah-rah for Palin. It simply scares me to think that so many people have been intentionally misled by a news source. But this is nothing new, and yet still I am shocked.

This is the kind of thing that puts someone in office, opponents getting caught doctoring interviews, like the Dan Rather business of falsifying a letter purported to have been written decades ago on a typewriter when it clearly originated from a word processor.

I was hoping this election was going to be about the issues. McCain has some disingenous ads making false claims about Obama (go to The Curious Villager if you'd like more info). It pains me to see that. I've often thought that if I were ever to run for office, I would only stick to what it is I plan to do, not how the other candidate will utterly fail. And now the media is up to its old tricks so as to make Palin look like a bubble-headed prom queen.

It makes me sick. All of it.

Just pay attention people. Even so, you'll never know for sure if the dog isn't wagging you.

** Update: More ABC partisanship

Air Barber

2008-09-08T13:42:00.008-04:00

When Marion Barber -- the newest cast member of Heroes -- was asked about his secret to horizontal hang time, he replied that he jumped into the air like normal, hoping for a few extra yards, when suddenly he remembered that the tax extension he filed back on the 15th of April at 11:59PM expires next month -- and he forgot to fall down. He glided past a slack-jawed defense for an easy score.

When the Browns head coach Romeo Crennell came to his senses, he protested the game. Though nothing has been made offical yet, league sources have indicated that their investigation has revealed trace amounts of flubber on bottom of Barber's cleats.

That's my caption. Care to give it a crack?

It's The Same Everywhere

2008-09-06T10:02:00.004-04:00

I lifted this from a website I found by following through from Instapundit. It's a reproduction of a conversation a member of our military had with an Iraqi man. The whole article can be found here (check it out, it actually contains some good news about the Al Anbar province, where Iraqi security forces have assumed control from the Americans).

Just read:

Him: “Are you married?”
Me: “Yes”
“What is your opinion of marriage?”
“I’ve been married 13 years; I don’t have an opinion anymore.”
“In Iraq they say a husband is like a monkey, a donkey and a dog. At first she loves you like a pet monkey, then she orders you around like you are a donkey, then you are an old dog, you bark and bark and no one listens.”
“It’s just like that in America too.”
“Is it true in America you only marry one women?”
“Yes”
“And in America if you leave she gets half?”
“Yes”
He rolls his eyes and says “Thank God I am Iraqi.”

Just To Say Anything

2008-09-05T15:38:00.001-04:00

I thought I should at least let everyone know that I am still alive. It's hard to say what direction I'm taking right now as it pertains to writing. I'm not in the place I was before about writing, and yet I don't want to give it up. In fact, it is still very much my ambition to write a novel, and perhaps a contest or some other form of inspiration will kick me into high gear. But right now, I'm just content. I have a great story in my head right now, but it really has two parts, and that other part isn't totally clear to me. The concept is catchy and pretty amazing, but it's like two slices of bread that needs some meat to finish the sandwich.

Definitely do not interpret this as me being down. I'm not. I feel good actually. My guitar lessons are coming along and I'm really picking up on things. My birthday is coming at the end of the month and I've "asked" for a recording device that comes with two microphones that plugs into the computer so that I can record what I am up to. I am planning to put some of what I am practicing here, so stay tuned. Right now it's pretty much bluegrass music, so don't get too excited. And it's not that bluegrass is my thing either—though it comes close—but technically it's a lot of fun.

Yesterday I got my hair cut at the local barber shop. Joe, who usually does the job, was just finishing up with a customer so I was feeling fortunate with my timing. However, the older fella who owns the place popped out of his chair when he saw me, all smiles. His buddy, to whom he had been chatting said, "Time to go to work, huh?" Something in his manner persuaded me to give him the business.

I'd been to him once before, the first time I had ever been to the barber shop. He reads Civil War fiction and loves history. And when I had seen him last, he had offered me his copy of Killer Angels. So I asked him conversationally if he was the one that liked this kind of thing, which of course I already knew he did (but it had been a long time ago), and we started in on Gods and Generals, Gettysburg and a few others.

Where I live it's mostly white bread and I don't see too many people of color around. And so it was with some surprise that as I was talking about how General Sherman pioneered the concept of attacking the enemy's infrastructure and thus crippling its ability to sustain a war, I noticed that a colored man was in the chair opposite me. The entire conversation I was just having replayed in my head, and I felt guilty that I had brought up the subject matter. It was innocent, a total coincidence, but I was convinced that the man was thinking that the first thing I thought of when I saw him was the Civil War. I was further convinced when he glared at me on the way to the register. I felt like explaining, but what could I have said.

Maybe he reads my blog?

My son took his first lesson. I gave him my first guitar—the guitar that I learned with. I just saved three hundred dollars if he quits. But somehow it seems that by giving him mine he is more excited that if he had gotten his own. He actually practices. I've started him off with the first song I ever learned: Greensleeves, or the Theme From Lassie, neither of which he as ever heard of.

And just call me a glutton for punishment, but I am coaching again, but this time it's flag football. The program is sponsored by the NFL, so I got to choose which NFL team I wanted to be. You'll never guess which I chose. And just to mess with me, the other coaches kept trying to tell me I had to be the Eagles or the Redskins. In the deep south they would say, "Them's fightin' words!"

A Biannual Event—A New Post

2008-08-18T11:34:00.001-04:00

Lately it seems that my sons are getting along better. Partially this has a lot to do with my youngest, Emmett, getting older and more of a companion and contributor to the fun. Like my little brother, he finds the greatest delight in every silly thing his older brother says—or grunts or screams. It can be a bit maddening.

Some quick highlights.

Friday I took the day off and went with the family to Ogunquit, Maine. I'd never been there before. My wife loves the beach and I don't have much use for it—at least I didn't before Friday. Ever since Garp lost his son to the Under Toad (a child's mispronunciation of under tow), I've had the fear of losing my own children in the same way. The ocean can be harsh. But at the beach in Ogunquit, the shore feeds so gradually into the sea that the grade is barely perceptible. It's a sandbar in fact, such that you can walk in ankle-deep water for at least a hundred yards. The waves were beautiful, so we got boogie boards at tourist prices and went for a romp. I transformed from grumpy old man to old man of the sea. Now I'm thinking about getting a surf board.

This is sorta cute. While I was sweeping the pool yesterday, the kids made water balloons, then got down to their skivvies and went swimming with them. The water balloons all had names. But the one that stood out was Snot Knowledge. No idea where it came from.

My oldest son Jackson is going to start taking guitar lessons. Willingly. Oh. My. God. Pinch me.

I've resigned from the soccer board that I previously belonged to, and have decided not to coach any more. Too much drama was my answer to the question: but why?! Oh, and incidentally, I said, Coachzilla owns the soccer board. But she quit the board, I was told. But she'll be back. When she left you she was but a learner, but when she comes back, she will be the master.

Jackson doesn't want to play anymore and Emmett can't be bothered anyway.

Oh, we saw the new Clone Wars animated movie. Much, much, much better than episodes I through III. They finally ditched Hayden Christenson and got some voice talent. The action rocks and the characters were actually likeable.

I'll stop by and say hi as I get the chance. Football is gearing up and my Boys have a lot of work to do. I'm really excited about Felix Jones.

What? You don't know who Felix Jones is? As Yoda once said, "You will. You wiiillll."

Play Guitar

2008-08-04T08:40:00.003-04:00

My latest obsession is more productive than my previous addiction to Call of Duty 4, the latter of which I hope I am truly over. Since I bought a new computer with the latest video technology, I had been on a power binge of gaming every night until two in the morning. It became an awful feeling, knowing that I should be getting to bed but being unable to step away. The addicting part of it was that I wanted to be the best at it but kept coming up short.

But hopefully that's all over now. I have a few buddies that I play with on occasion, and I'll save myself for those times.

But the good news is, I have something new to occupy my time. Of all things, it's my guitar.

I am taking lessons again. The beauty is that I'm already a pretty good player, and by that I mean a passable strummer on the acoustic with some ability to play leads. I'm solid but by no means flashy. If you asked me to play a song you would glaze over in thirty seconds. That's because I really don't know anything you would want to hear, and I've forgotten everything I used to know that would come close.

My intention was to learn songs that people like to hear, but songs that have a little pizzazz, something to make the guitar sound interesting. Oh, and songs that are within my singing range.

The guy I am learning from is a bluegrass guitarist, but he is purportedly one that can play any style. I asked him if he knew how to play Drive by Incubus (definitely out of my range), and he replied, "What by who?"

I'm thinking at this point that rumors of his diversity had been greatly exaggerated.

So I said, "I like country music as well." I didn't want to admit this because all I know are country songs, and I don't meet many that want to hear it. But I could see that it had pepped him up.

"Who do you like? Name a few artists."

Before I could stop myself I blurted, "George Strait and Alan Jackson."

He had his pencil poised over a notebook page, but he dropped both. "Ah, classic country—ok. Play me something you know."

Not to be sidetracked down the same old road, I snapped the capo on the fifth fret and said, "Have you heard of Death Cab for Cutie?"

"No," he said with a hint of disappointment.

I rattled off the intro to I Will Follow You into the Dark, which I had just finished learning the day before. As I'm playing he rifles through a stack of papers and puts one in front of me entitled Walk on Boy.

"Have you heard of Doc Watson?"

I told him that I had with a hint of resignation. Doc Watson was old school country.

"It's similar to what you just played." He put a CD into his computer. The first few strums from the speakers sounded so typically bluegrass that I almost refused, but then Doc Watson played a riff that arrested my speech. The shock was mild, but the guitar instructor saw it and played it back for me.

"That's awesome."

So now I can mostly rattle off that riff, the part that he transcribed for me. I've immersed myself in this song and am feeling that old feeling once again, the love for my guitar. My old friends remember this way, but this time I actually have some talent.

My next lesson is this Wednesday. I've got the solo down and am learning the nuances of the verses, which fly counter to how I normally strum. I'm wondering how the instructor will react when—and hopefully if—I play it just like the recording, even learning some of the parts he didn't transcribe for me. I'll settle for the parts he did for now.

In other news, I had a great idea for a novel. Unlike my previous ideas, it's clean and simple, easy to explain in a sentence or two. What has killed my previous efforts is the lack of a focused overall concept. This recent idea was inspired by a conversation I had with some friends over the weekend. When it struck, I told them about it, which was based on the story they just had told me about their relationship. When I told them the twist (there's always a catchy ending to my ideas, or they aren't worth my attention), they both loved it.

It needs a middle part.

But I'm working on it.

She Be Cranky

2008-07-24T14:27:00.005-04:00

Having been up until two in the morning after my work computer contracted the Trojan Vundo virus (I swear it wasn't my fault) I slept in. I was pensive though. Normally when I'm all alone, after the wife and the little lump called Emmett—otherwise known as our son and the thrasher—get up before me I stretch out and have my best dreams. Not on this day. My brain was all whirls, clanks and thunks, working on a game plan. How was I going to break it to my boss?

Best, I thought, to be a man. Just own up to it and get it over with.

So when she walked in to the bedroom, I blurted, "Honey, my computer has a virus."

She stopped and glared at me from the foot of the bed. Lips taut. "A virus." Not a question, an accusation.

"Yeah, a pretty bad one too."

"On your work computer. Because of that software you downloaded?!"

Across my field of vision scrolled a list of responses from which to choose, but none with the impact necessary to divert this conversation from the waterfall toward which it was heading.

I opted for blather.

And as I relayed the circumstances of my terrible tragedy she turned up her nose and went into our bathroom and shut the door behind her.

Great.

This called for something drastic, some token of my enduring love. That's when it hit me. The replacement outdoor light! It was sitting in a box, in the garage, where it had been for a month now. I popped out of bed and jumped into my shorts. I had a purpose as I descended, step by gigantic man-step, into the basement for my toolbox, then up again and into the garage and through the side door.

She watched with a wary eye from her flower garden—where she goes to be alone—as I handed her one of the wireless phones and said in my handyman, Johnny-On-The-Spot voice (think Gaston from Beauty and the Beast), "Tell me when the light goes out."

As I headed to the breaker box, I tried the phone, "Can you hear me?"

A brief pause, then, "Yup."

Audible. Monosyllabic, but a start.

When I clicked off the right breaker switch she said, "That's it."

Two syllables. Even better.

"Thanks," I said, but the line was already dead.

She had relocated by the time I got back outside. I prefer to be alone anyway. Less pressure that way, because I tend to blunder through these things, and I prefer to experience these journeys alone and let others see the polished final product.

Just as I was wrapping it up, I stumbled and stepped on her new Azalea bush. It snapped like a dead twig. I picked at the branches and it came completely off, broken at the nub. I saw my life flash before my eyes. She loves that bush, and was so proud when she put it in.

So I did what any good husband would do and carefully put the branches back into the dirt and propped it up like nothing ever happened. It was perfect. She didn't notice a thing as she admired the newly installed light. She was so happy.

And as with all little fights that we have, there came the moment of confession. She told me, "I was a little mad about that virus."

"I know."

"You did? But how?"

"I'm instinctive that way."

She smiled. "That computer is your livelihood, our livelihood. You can't be taking chances like that."

"I know. But you have to keep in mind that I am a gambler by nature, and a lot of what we have today was gained because of that willingness to take chances. I just made a mistake, one that won't be repeated."

And so the make-up dance went back and forth for a few more rounds, and we were a happy couple again.

But there was still the lingering issue of the Azalea. What to do, what to do? I could go buy a new one, but it would have to be a close facsimile or the jig was up. That was the terminus of the Big Brain Express, so I asked her to take the kids with her to check out the new paint job a friend had just had done in her kitchen.

"Are you high?"

Ok, nix that plan. If I brought the kids with me, the little parakeets would be singing my death tome when she got back. There was nothing more to do about it, as the odds were remote that I could pull it off anyway.

"Uh, honey, I have a bit of a confession to make."

She was intrigued. "And that is?" she said dubiously.

"I stepped on your Azalea. It's broken."

"It looked fine to me," she said.

"That's because I propped it up to make it look ok."

"You what?!"

Then she burst out laughing.

Situation Normal

2008-07-21T07:58:00.003-04:00

A special thanks to JC for hooking me up with the 411. I thought I was screwed immaculate, but Malwarebytes worked like magic. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Rinse and repeat. Thank you!

When the problem first arose, I did some research and actually saw that Malwarebytes was used by other folks having the same problem, but this virus seems to have evolved, or I didn't install Malwarebytes from the desktop, or both. I'm not sure what the magic combo was.

In order to get Malwarebytes, I downloaded from my wife's laptop and network tranferred the file, but the virus wouldn't let me run the installer. But I was able to run another application mentioned in the solutions of others called Avast. I ran a complete scan with Avast which found one dll infected by the Vundo Trojan virus. Once Avast had taken that out, I could get to the internet again--and I could run Malwarebytes.

A full system scan with Malwarebytes turned up 150 affected files and registry entries. I deleted them all.

And like magic, everything was back to normal.

Unbelievable.

I spent most of yesterday backing all my personal files to an external hard drive. I also went to Best Buy and bought another computer for personal use. I'm using it now to post here. I am going to try to stay off blogger (which was not responsible for this virus, by the way) while on that machine, and I won't play any games there either. Music will come from this machine as well. Strictly business, that's my motto from now on.

That was close. Too close.

Slammed

2008-07-20T11:24:00.002-04:00

It hasn't been a great couple of days. Nothing I can't survive, but I've never strung together so many bad things all in a row.

The worst though is that my computer--my work computer--is infected with a virus. As viruses go, it is quite sophisticated, and has me backed completely into a corner. It has disabled the internet (I'm writing this on my old laptop), barred access to my System Restore utility, blocks any attempt to run a spy sweeper, and has basically taken over my entire system.

Ironically, it works by alerting me to the fact that I have spyware on my system. It takes a form that appears legitamate, posing as the Windows operating system itself, and directs me to a recommended a website that can help, which is of course the same web site that has perpetrated this virus.

Thankfully I still have access to internal and external hard drives. I am in the process of backing up all my files, work and otherwise. Then I'll get aggressive about removing the virus, but I don't have high hopes.

The Latest

2008-07-16T08:51:00.007-04:00

Quickly, Jason has another of his famous contests going on, and I finally got off my duff and entered again. It's a bit sappy, and not my usual, but I kind of like it. You can check it out here. I've met a few new people like I do every time I participate, and it really is a lot of fun.

Man, I have been bizzzz-ee at work. So I have an excuse. Sorry I've sort of dropped off the map lately. Some things I've been working on for over a six months suddenly went south, so my manager and I came up with a plan to get around it. Everything was working fine until one customer had a particular setup that caused my stuff to not work, and an easy solution wasn't available. The plan involved me rewriting an entire section of code, and it had to be done instantly. I worked from sun-up till midnight most of last week getting it done, and of course there were other problems and subsequent fixes, problems and fixes, over and over until it was mostly resolved.

Yesterday, the day before official release, I took a day off and took my family to Canobe Lake (an amusement park). When I got home at 9PM through two traffic jams, my work inbox was crammed with still-yet more errors to fix, and the rantings of a panicked manager (the manager of my manager) who didn't know I'd taken the day off.

So I was up until midnight again fixing problems. But I wiped them all out. Now I'm waiting for the verdict, and hoping I don't lose this freaking incredible job that I have.

I'm not that worried about it, but you never know what can happen.

We took our dog with us to the park, which is allowed by rule, but we certainly got the hairy eyeball from passersby. Right out of the gate. The people in the car next to us stared at us as we deployed the family plus dog. Rudely. We were approached more than once on the subject, and I heard families discussing it with their children as we passed, "that's just ridiculous to bring a dog here!"

She's just a small thing, not like a Rotweiler (check that spelling because I'm too lazy to), a Dobie or a Pit Bull. I'm not sure what had everyone's panties in a collective bunch. I remember in the old days when there were no fences between yards and dogs ran free and kids were allowed to roam in their neighbor's back yards. I hate to say it, but America has gotten to be way too uptight.

Anyway, the car parked next to us had a cracked driver's side window, and it was still there as we were leaving, so my wife dropped a napkin onto its front seat that said in her distinctive feminine handwriting, "Fuck you" and a smily face where the period would go.

God bless her.

One other funny thing, before I forget. We had Brinks Home Security over at our house to replace a battery and transformer that went dead on our alarm system (it was way past due). Two young guys, professional and efficient. We always offer something to technicians that come by--for cable installations, dishwasher repair, furniture delivery, etc--such as water or snacks. My wife was making sandwiches for the kids, and said, "Can I offer the two of you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?" One of them, without missing a beat said, "No thanks, I have to drive."

Status Update

2008-07-02T09:08:00.005-04:00

Quickly.

I had my wisdom teeth removed on Friday. Call me Bill Murray if you will, but I have really enjoyed the whole experience. I love that (cue the Eagles, Mr. DJ) peaceful easy feeling of nitrous, and Vicoden is to die for. But best of all, my wife has been pampering me. I haven't had to lift a finger.

Freaks and Geeks. Rent it. It only lasted for a season, but it touched me. I'll admit to getting misty eyed when it was over. The characters where like old friends in the short time that we were together, and they grew up in the same era I did. I played D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) for instance. The pop references were dead on.

I'm working on season two of Dexter. My wife and I are hooked. Great writing and acting.

Still haven't talked to Dad, and I can't get my brother on the phone. Thanks for the support, all! I was touched by the comments.

Work is crazy, but I love it.

Coming Out

2008-06-23T10:29:00.004-04:00

My brother called me on Saturday. His voice was tight, arrow sharp. Driven.

"What's dad's number?"

No hello, how are ya? "You sound angry."

"I want to talk to him before he dies."

"I don't understand."

"Just give me his damn number!"

"Hold on." I looked it up on my cell phone and repeated the numbers. He dismissed me with a half mumbled thanks.

Neither of us got the better deal in the high stakes parental lottery. We have different mothers, he and I, but our father is one and the same. His mother was my first (and long time ex) step-mother, the one who has inspired more than a few posts and a short story on the subject of abuse. She favored my brother John and beat me for the crime of being alive. My father, on the other hand, favors me and completely ignores my brother and my sister, but cries on holidays that nobody calls.

When my brother John was a boy, I'm guessing around middle school age, my aunt told me that when she asked John about his father, he simply started bawling. A little boy whose father totally abandoned him. No calls, no support. Gone.

I've asked Dad several times. What don't you call? Because, he said, he's got nothing good to report. Believe me, I've tried to reason with him, that the simple regard would be enough, an assurance that he was thinking of his son. Love doesn't have a price tag. It simply is, and only needs expression to be real.

Now his son is almost forty. And in most ways I still regard my brother as that little boy who never grew up.

Until now.

He called back an hour later. I can't reconstruct the conversation we had. My brother is a lot like his father. In some ways a carbon copy. He has a little girl that he adores and takes care of, but he has another little girl that he won't acknowledge. A little girl that will grow up resenting the father that abandoned her. The girl's mother was a one night stand. One night of mindless drunken fun with a lifetime of consequences.

Might he get an angry call years from now? Will the pieces come together in his head? Will he regret and make amends, or will he turn away unable to bear the weight of a lifetime of wasted opportunities?

My father is getting old. He's lived in the shadows, evading creditors, many of whom used to be his friends—and most importantly the government. He's volatile, turning on those closest to him with irrational anger and sometimes violence. He calls me regularly, and wants me to move my family near to him. I don't have the heart to tell him no. But I won't say yes. How could I sacrifice the house that love built on the altar of dysfunction and delusion? I love him, but not more than my children. I made a plan with my brother to go into business with him in Houston. My wife is on board, and we are just waiting for the real estate market to rebound enough to make it possible to sell our home and make the move.

But I haven't told my father. He has so little. It's his own damn fault, but guilt tears at me like a desperate drowning cat.

It turns out that I don't need to worry about it anymore.

It's taken care of.

My brother did it for me.

Father’s Day

2008-06-20T10:06:00.007-04:00

I had big plans to write a long post about my special Father's Day, but I have a small problem: my memory ain't what it used to be. Although several New Years resolutions have been made, I still don't carry around that notebook to record those cute little moments, nor do I used the digital hand-held tape recorder my wife gave me two years ago that I swore I would always have at my side. So I have to rely on this rusty bucket called my head that retains memories like a strainer holds water.

The day was about the little things. No big presents or grand gestures of love. Nope. But lots of little ones.

The store bought card (pictured) from Jackson was perfect. At a glance it might seem that he picked a card off the shelf at random, but far from it. I like to sit on the diving board of our swimming pool, feet dangling in the deep end, while I play and sing to the kids while they splash around at the other end. When Jackson was a only three or four, I would play a little as he went to sleep. I've never considered him a fan, and I've never gotten a request, so this card is nothing short of perfection. Gee, you're great Pa! Now can I have some money? Look out world; he's one smart kid.

From my wife the card said simply: Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am to be sharing my life with you. Sue me, but I got a little choked up. It's official. I'm getting old.

One of the highlights of my day, besides sleeping in and playing Call of Duty while the wife was doing yard work, was my little Emmett sneaking up behind me while I was sitting at my desk. Buck naked—as usual. He lifted his left arm and pointed at his arm pit with his right index finger. "See, daddy? I'm growing some fuzz." And for the record, not even close!

I'll end this with something Jackson did for me in his second grade class. The paper is titled, "Top 10 Reasons Why I Love My Dad." Each of the top ten was started for him with a blank underlined portion for him to fill out, similar to the concept of a Mad-Lib. Here is what he wrote:

10. I love my Dad because he reads me stories.

9. I love my Dad because he helps me do my homework.

8. I love my Dad when he makes me laugh by when he says jokes. And tickles me.

7. I love my Dad because he taught me how to read.

6. I love to hear my Dad sing everything.

5. I love my Dad because he finds time to play with me.

4. I know my Dad cares because he is my father.

3. I know my Dad is smart because he is my daddyo. ( I read this out loud originally as "he is my daddy, yo!)

2. I love my Dad because he works so hard at work.

1. I love my Dad because he's the BEST DAD EVER! (Ok, this line was preprinted as is, but I'll take it anyway)

A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

2008-06-16T08:36:00.002-04:00

OK, I Won’t Keep You Hanging

2008-06-16T07:51:00.001-04:00

Sorry about the brevity of my last post. Yes, it's more soccer drama, and at the time of posting, I just didn't have the energy to write the words. Now that the weekend has passed, I'm back on center.

I live in a small town. This has some well-documented disadvantages. You never know who you can trust. Before the soccer board meeting I had sent out an email to my friends to come and support my candidate for in-town soccer coordinator, a position of which whose occupant was in contention. The other candidate was part of the problem and frankly had to go, but he was also in all other ways a good guy. My wife and I were conflicted, felt bad even, that we would be standing up publicly against him. He left the soccer board meeting when I showed up, throwing in the towel as it were, which elated my wife and me.

Well, that person directed an email to me on a distribution list that includes a great many people in this town that was similar in nature to that of Coachzilla's earlier email to me, except this one was even more pointed. At this point however, after enduring the personal attacks to date, I found myself strangely calm, almost numb, objective even. I simply took it in and wrote back to the list. I will not respond to personal attacks, but will gladly take it offline. My only concern is for the kids of our in-town program, and how best to create balanced teams for the enjoyment of all. I refrained from saying more. Believe me, there were lines that were written and deleted, written and deleted, edited for neutrality.

For some perspective, this man was the coordinator of the under six soccer teams, Coachzilla of the under eights, and both are together as coach and assistant coach on a team (with their own kids as members) in each. Both teams have the best talent, and in each case, there are a string of complaints from parents and coaches about team stacking. I won't go into all the examples, but when I heard that the same pattern was being repeated by this duo in the under six league that they have been doing together in my son's league, I had to take action. The difference in the case of this guy and Coachzilla is that I actually think he is a decent guy who is either behaving badly or is being used. Either way, he had to go.

He got wind of what I was doing, so a good part of this town has labeled me as trouble with a capital T. I have become a divisive character that has come to represent the numerous folks that have had enough. Fine. When I really think about it, I prefer having the reputation as someone who will stand up for himself and his beliefs than someone who sits idly by, complaining about everything and doing nothing.

I saw him at the final soccer event on Saturday and walked right up to him and told him that I hoped someday we could still be friends, that if he walked away from the soccer board because of me it was a mistake, that he should come back. He told me that he heard I had a problem with him every time he went to the grocery store or the post office, and that he was sick of it. Then, I said, we should talk about it some time.

And that's where it is. I'm not sure if I got through to him or not, but I hardly think you should condemn someone based on what some gossip relates to you third-hand. Some of what he says is technically true, but I am perfectly willing to speak to him about my feelings. But I think he knows that. And I further think that he was just using me as an excuse. Because, as I said before, I've come to represent a group of people whose voice is growing in volume. He wasn't running from me. The man saw the writing on the wall and spared himself the indignity of being voted out.

One of my soccer mom's told me that Coachzilla confided in her that she (Coachzilla) felt bad about our recent falling out. My answer: "And you believed her?"

Strangely though, throughout this most recent development, Coachzilla has stayed out of it. There are three possible explanations. The first is that she really does feel bad and has come to realize the error of her ways. The second is that she lost her cool in the last meeting and got slapped around like a pinball, deciding now to let someone else carry the torch. The third, and most likely, is that she is biding her time, a lioness crouched and concealed in the waving grass by the watering hole, waiting for me to placidly dip my head for a drink.

The Drama’s Not Over Yet

2008-06-13T15:25:00.001-04:00

Let's just say that I've made some enemies here in my small town.

Stay tuned…

A Bit Geeked

2008-06-10T07:35:00.002-04:00

It's getting to be that time of year again. Can you smell it in the air? Football season is almost upon us. Well, maybe not for most people, but for pigskin-heads like me there isn't any other sport. So while the NBA finals have the rest of the country glued to their sets, I am combing my favorite Dallas Cowboys websites for any information about voluntary workouts, waiting with baited breath for training camp to begin.

I won't bore you with it; I promise!

What is interesting though is a new blog by Dallas middle linebacker Kevin Burnett, who gives the inside scoop of the off season, and fields questions from his readers. And what he is discovering is that his fans are very well informed. It's amazing how much football knowledge is out there. I don't even bother to comment. Burnett has been stunned by the responses, and even comments at one point that some of the fans should coach. I thought he might have been facetious.

So saddle up. If you have a favorite team that is not from a certain Texas town that doesn't start with big D, then my condolences. Our major weakness, our only weakness, i.e. our secondary, was plugged in the off season in a most unimaginable way, with a first round draft pick and the free agent signing of the equivalent (legal troubles aside, see Tank Johnson for historical precedent), not to mention a seventh round pick that many experts say might be the steal of the draft. All our skill players at every other position are back and signed long term. So mark it down. The Cowboys will DOMINATE. I'm biased of course, and I think I might have said this last year, but this is not drug induced.

Toke. Strained voice. Cowboys. Superbowl. Champions. 2009. Nobody even comes close.

Exhale.

And cough.

Now back to work.

Ramping Up

2008-06-09T09:06:00.007-04:00

My writing instructor and friend, David Daniel, has just published his latest novel, Reunion, which is available at bookstores and online. I encourage you to pick up a copy and give him a read. He is a brilliant writer, with such a knack for turning a phrase. As a young man he published somewhere in the magnitude of eighty short stories, though that number could be much greater. It's funny, but as a wannabe writer it would make sense if I were a better observer, so that factoids like the one I just "quoted" could be a bit more reliable. Let's just say for argument's sake that Dave has written a shitload of short stories. The man is a machine. His prose at times has a poetic lilt. He's given me permission to take an expression of his and mold it into my own, but to me it just feels so, well, not right. He insists that as long as you don't copy another's works, if you pull it with your own strings, it transforms into something uniquely you. "Call it inspiration," he said with a paternal smile. "Art imitates art, and we are all inspired by others. Nobody writes in a vacuum, and all authors were and are all readers first."

At his Reunion launch party, I met some of his closest friends, guys he met in the service back in the days of Viet Nam. By the way, David is a conscientious objector, and did not suffer the horrors of that blight of a war. In fact, the theme of his latest novel is about the loss of innocence, in those far away high school days before the world would change forever. But as I was saying, many of his friends are poets and writers at various levels of success. Most have books you can pick up at the local Barnes and Noble. One in particular is a columnist, whose columns my wife has read in our local town paper.

The question was always posed to me that night: "Are you writing?" No, I would reply, I'm taking a break. "Why?" I lost my confidence and my way. I told them how my self-doubt had stopped me cold, how what others thought of my writing became more important to me than my own opinion. One man in particular really let me have it. "What the fuck are you doing writing for the sake of other people? Huh?" His face was in mine now, his anger genuine. "Why do you write stories? What made you want to put something down on paper?" Because, I said, I have something to say. I might not know what it is, but when I'm writing it, and I'm in that zone, there is no better feeling in the world. Like free-falling. "Then sit your ass down and write, and don't give a shit who's going to read it. Do it for yourself." He accented his last syllable with a thumping finger poke to my chest.

I bought him a beer, which tamed the savage beast.

It helps to be surrounded by people with like interests, because they just understand.

And they know just what to say to get you through.

Oh, and if you do pick up a copy of Renunion, take a look at the acknowledgements section. You might see a name you recognize.

Let There Be Justice

2008-06-05T12:39:00.001-04:00

I'll be damned if there isn't justice in this world after all.

I really don't have a lot of time, so here it is in a nutshell. Last night only four more parents showed at the Soccer Board meeting (besides us), so our numbers weren't strong. But I think it intimidated the competition because he shook hands with the board president and said, "I think it's for the best." So it was no contest. My man got the job. Now Coachzilla will be a coach like any other, not only lacking control over player placement, but now she has an enemy in the captain's chair. We'll see what kind of coach she is with a normal team of kids—which may just work out in her favor, she being an excellent skills coach.

Towards the end of the meeting, and right before the elections, the president asked if anyone had any observations about the past season, things they would like to see changed. When nobody offered anything up, I said, "Ok, I think there needs to be more parity in the league. There's clearly a handful of teams that have all the talented players—"

Coachzilla interrupted. "Oh, like there hasn't been any effort to balance teams!"

I felt my face turning red. It's a flaw of mine. But I pressed on. "I realize that there has been some effort," I partially lied here to keep it clean, "but—"

"You have no idea how I have busted my ass to make this league right," she screamed.

Another parent, "Coachzilla, you need to let him finish a sentence."

"But he's accusing me of—"

"Nobody is accusing you of anything, Coachzilla," another voice chimed in.

"There are a couple teams that are really struggling," I continued, "such as Coach D and Coach…" I drew a blank.

"DON'T NAME NAMES, SCOTT!" She was getting shrill.

"Coachzilla," another parent chimes in, "you need to calm down."

I continue. "I'm not here make accusations, my only interest is making a set of teams that are roughly equal so that on any given Saturday they might win. Nobody is getting steamrolled, and no one is mowing."

"Oh, and I suppose we should just ignore parent requests then," Coachzilla supplied. "What do you do when a parent doesn't want to play on someone's team? Huh?"

"You tell them," I said, "that you will take that request into account when you make your final roster decisions, that although you respect their wishes, your first priority is to the kids, that creating equal teams fosters a better and more friendly environment for all."

More guffawing and jawing and huffing and puffing etc.

"Listen," I said, "by the time the kids are 8, we as coaches have spent three years with them. After peewee, we sorta know who the players are, U6 even more so, but by U8, there is absolutely no excuse to have overloaded teams."

This went on for some time, and I rarely got to finish a sentence, and what you see above is my reconstruction of a lot of bickering, so it wasn't all so smooth. But a few voices from the board, voices I have known and didn't think supported my way of thinking, spoke up that night. From now on, before a new season begins, all the returning coaches will get together and talk about rosters and what can be done to equal things out.

And no more parent requests.

Ahhhhh.

So a major victory was scored by the good guys last night. No more nepotism in this league. I have to give a special thanks to my wife who made all the phone calls, who organized our strike, who got me going on the path. Last night I discovered that if I keep my head and speak my mind, that others actually do listen and respond. Who'da thunk?

A New Sheriff?

2008-06-04T10:27:00.003-04:00

Against my better judgment, we played Coachzilla last weekend and got our butts stomped six to one. It would have been worse, but the game was called in the early fourth on account of thunder showers. During the game, Coachzilla recused herself to the sidelines, giving the reigns to her assistant coach, who is also the coordinator of the entire in-town soccer league, meaning he has the ultimate power to move players from team to team. My wife was appalled that Coachzilla didn't actually coach the game, and it was concerning to me too. I was sure that somehow it was a manipulation on her part to make me look like a bully, that I had cowed her into submission.

So my wife called the assistant coach and asked him point-blank why Coachzilla sat with the parents. He claimed that he wanted to coach the game, that Coachzilla was doing him a favor by letting him.

Silly man. Doesn't he know that this is a small town? That people talk? Turns out that Coachzilla openly admitted that she gets too worked up when she coaches against me, and that she gave herself a timeout. Isn't she a noble beast?

My heart wasn't in the game, and neither were the kids'. And Coachzilla's team was possessed, running like their asses were on fire. And up six to one, they were still playing for blood. My defenders for some reason ran to the other side of the field, so Coachzilla-Junior sent his son to our side of the field to camp out, waiting all alone for the ball to come his way. The kid scored twice this way. In the big leagues, this is called being offsides, and I would never condone our kids playing like this. But technically it's legal at this level. Again, my heart wasn't in it. As I saw this happening, I could have prevented it by calling it out to the defenders, but a part of me just said, "Take the victory then leave us alone."

But tonight there is a big vote coming up. Parents of children that play soccer can attend. Coachzilla-Junior wants to continue having control over the league, and Coachzilla wants a power position as well, so she can continue to gather the young talent on her PeeWee and Under Six teams, cutting out the players that can't play so well. A coach from Under Six is running for the position of in town coordinator. My wife and I have called all our friends, including parents on my past and present teams, to come and vote against them. I don't think the opposition even knows we're coming. It's going to be an eye opener when so many people come to this meeting to voice their strong desire for change. The new guy wants to institute a system that we currently use for baseball placement. Have an evaluation day then divide the teams up equally, giving all the kids the best chance to have fun, not to get blown out or to blow away, but to compete on an even playing field.

How novel.

So cross your fingers that we have enough kick to buck these crooked cowboys. It's high time we had a new Sheriff to clean up this town.

Toast and Patch

2008-05-30T09:20:00.001-04:00

I was so wrapped up in my little soccer drama last week that I didn't give proper homage to my meeting with the Ultra Toast Mosha God—who from here on out will be referred to as Toast for reasons that should be obvious—and his buddy Patch last week. It's a little sobering to live just outside of Boston and have to be shown around the city by two tourists from Bristol, UK. And ironically it turned out to be de-sobering as well.

My newest friends got a first-hand glimpse at a previous-me, the me that could be, the me that wanders off the reservation, away from responsibility and sensibility and into the world of no consequence. It was quite liberating. Thank goodness the guys couldn't stay out longer. After three beers I was in the mood to rock and roll, and when that happens I could wake up anywhere from somebody's couch to a back alley dumpster.

I was worried driving into the city that I wouldn't recognize Toast from the few pictures I had seen of him. Our plan was fairly loose, to meet at Quincy Market. As I approached the Government Square exit and examined the Big Dig tunnel roof for loose tiles, I imagined half the night being pissed away, fruitlessly searching for someone I had only seen in blog photos.

I was a half hour early so I took the time to find a parking place, avoiding the garages—a great investment for the owner to be sure—to save myself thirty dollars. A short casual, people-watching stroll later, a block away from and in full view of its pavilions, I asked a young couple if they could direct me to Quincy Market. They smiled and pointed.

Doh! Thanks.

All my worries were for naught. The two of them were the only two on the steps, reclining casually like two sleepy cats, exuding a comfort and world-ease that unconsciously invited the same to passersby. A quick glimpse of his profile and I knew it was him.

I think I said, "Are you the Ultratoast?" I meant to say the whole thing, but does anyone really know it? Does he? Try saying it out loud. Ultra Toast Mosha God. It takes practice. Come to think of it, I totally forgot to ask him what it means.

And how would my greeting have been perceived if I had mistaken someone else for him? An overactive imagination could have supplied a few interesting explanations for sure. I had uttered a code phrase, for instance, that demanded a scripted answer, like "Only with magna-butter and deoxyribonucleic-marmalade," or "Nine out of ten dentists surveyed prefer Jeannie over Samantha any day."

At any rate, he was not what I expected. I had in mind someone around five foot eleven. As he rose to shake my hand, we stood nose-to-nose. At six foot four I have gotten used to being upwards to a head taller than most everyone else. I had the same experience with Mr. Schprock, a notable absence from this get-together, who already had plans for the evening of a fun and family nature. Bummer. He would have really enjoyed this.

Toast introduced me to his buddy Patch, who reminded me of Adam from the second season of Heroes—blonde hair, square jaw and a friendly, welcoming air. We all shook hands and exchange pleasantries, the like of which nobody can ever remember. It didn't take them long to figure out that I knew nothing about the city. The Celtics were playing and they knew of a nice quiet bar where we could get a beer and take in the game. They seem a bit shocked and amused that I didn't care one way or the other about basketball. Perhaps their idea of the typical American was influenced by crowd shots at Fenway and the movie Independence Day—which might not be far from the mark.

As we walked along on the city sidewalks, Toast brought up that business with my soccer team, which he had taken the time to read about on my blog. I felt a certain ease with Toast and Patch that I can't really explain, other than to say that I have been a long time reader of Toast's, and many are the stories of parties and excessive alcoholic consumption—which reminds me of the good times I once had with my buddies. His blog is clean, but there are hints of political incorrectness here and there. So on this night, for old time's sake, and because I damn well felt like it, I stepped up to the plate and let her rip. Such was my disposition when Toast pushed my hot topic button, the big red shiny button, i.e. Coachzilla, so I let he and Patch know what I thought about her in the most base, guttural and Anglo-Saxon way possible, distilling my words and syllables to their lowest common form. "She's a…"

As Twain wrote in Tom Sawyer, let's draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene.

This had the happy side-effect of setting the tone for the evening. As Toast would later write, "He is so open that it would seem rude to not join in." It took a little while, perhaps like those first few face-twisting bites of an orange with freshly brushed teeth, but they got the hang of it.

Their quiet tavern had filled up in their absence. Standing room only. We picked the only spot open to us, which is classically the most annoying to waitresses, obstructing their path to the drink ordering station at the end of the bar, denoted by the pair of hooped brass bars that resemble in-ground swimming pool hand rails. Toast offered to buy the first round, and who was I to argue.

The roar of the bar crowd proved to be the undoing of any meaningful conversation—my ears already have a constant hum from cranking my Sony Walkman as a teen. But before we departed for greener pastures Patch introduced me (fact check: was it Patch that suggested it?) to Smiddicks, my new favorite beer. As Jules would say, "Mmmm-hmmm, this is a tasty beverage."

We found an Irish Pub with far less people, but roughly twice the noise due to a solo guitar player/singer, but we managed to squeeze in conversation between songs. I noticed that Toast had long fingernails on his right hand which he purposely allows for picking at the guitar. As we approached the bar, Toast sang a line of the song the guitarist was performing. His voice was perfect. I regretted that he didn't have his guitar with him. As it turns out, he plays sometimes at establishments he passes through. Too bad this wasn't one of them.

I bought the first round as lips loosened even further. Mainly the conversation centered on the fairer sex, though I decline to delve into the meatier details contained therein. But I made a connection with Toast on the subject of mindless sex vs. meaningful relationships, although he might not have realized it. As a teenager my beer-toting, braless and saggy-breasted step mother used to tell me that I was way too serious when it came to girls. She might have had a point, but I was always searching for "The One." And I don't mean Keanu Reeves, even if he could act. So it was pleasantly and mildly surprising when Toast told me that he is not into one-night-stands; that he is searching for his soul-mate. Growing up in the era of Porky's and Spring Break had programmed my mind to prioritize the former, even though my heart was never into the hunt.

But life has a way of testing our convictions. No sooner than we had taken our next sip and set our glasses down did a beautiful blonde traipse by our table, arresting our conversation into awed silence. Toast looked up and gave me a wry smile. "You know that stuff I was just saying? Forget about all that."

I could go on and on. I started this post on Monday, and here we are almost a week later. Time to publish this bad boy. So Toast and Patch, cheers to both of you. Thanks for making me one of your stops. It was truly a pleasure.

Upcoming

2008-05-28T11:23:00.002-04:00

I'm working on a post that details my meeting with Ultra Toast Mosha God, but it is taking me a while to get done. I volunteered at my son's preschool this morning, which is my normal time for wasting company money.

More later. I'll be dropping by and saying hi.

And by the way, after my son's second grade concert last night we took him out for ice cream and ran smack into Coachzilla. I acted like nada mucho and was as pleasant as a sunny day. It's better that way.

Headaches and Handshakes

2008-05-22T11:49:00.004-04:00

I want to recap what became of my refusal to rematch Coachzilla, as Alan so eloquently coined. My own nickname for her also starts with a C, but this blog is PG-13.

In a nutshell, I've decided that Coachzilla doesn't just have ego problems. She might be certifiable--a criminal genius in the mold of Dr. Evil. I wrote a nice polite letter—and I really mean it was polite—respectfully declining a rematch. I'll tell you what, you be the judge.

Hi (Coachzilla),

I've been doing a lot of thinking about having a rematch with your team. Last year when I asked you for the same, I mentioned it to another parent who thought I was putting too much pressure on my kids. So I took back the request. I don't want to do that to them this year either. That was a big game for the kids, a real bright spot for the season, and I don't want to take that away from them. If you want to have us play (Coach A) and (Coach B) again, that's fine. A couple of my kids got hurt playing (Coach C) and I would rather avoid that one as well. Sorry if this disappoints you, but I have to put the feelings of my kids first.

Scott

This was her reply:

Sorry, but the schedule is already set. The strong teams must play each other again as I stated at the beginning of the season. I already changed the new schedule twice for other coaches and I'm not changing it again. I gave coaches an opportunity to voice their opinions two weeks ago. If you're putting too much pressure on your kids, then you need to re-evaluate your coaching style. My team has nothing to do with it and I'm not juggling the season so teams can keep their records in a league that doesn't keep stats.

This really teed me off. Actually, it sent me into a rage. While it's true that I had a chance to contest the rescheduling of the games, it didn't really sink in what she was doing until I had time to think about it. I'm a slow burner. Last year she had an undefeated team, and my team had only lost one game. I thought it would be really cool to rematch her so that my team would have a chance to be considered the best. One of the parents looked at me askance when I mentioned a rematch, and it hit me that I was using the kids to glorify myself as a coach. But notice how in her reply she takes that single instance and twists it to epidemic proportion. But what really got me is how she accused me of trying to preserve my team's record. I replied that I was insulted, and she wrote back, cc'ing league management. I had a discussion with the league president, and he told me that he put her up to the rescheduling of the games because some of the weaker teams were getting beat ten to nothing. So I was wrong that she was abusing her power, and I wrote her back and told her so. I added the lines: I really wish you wouldn't have called my motives into question. I'm a reasonable person and I always try to do what's right.

Here's what she had to say about that:

I didn't call your motives into question. Several parents and other coaches did, as well as what I have witnessed during two games against your team.

Last season you promised your team ice cream if they beat my team and did this in front of me and my players. This season you left one of your weak players in net the entire game and rarely subbed your strong players. While I understand you had only two subs, those subs complained that they got no playing time. Additionally, you were witnessed yelling at your own son during a game after he was hurt and doubled over in pain. This is not criticism, this is a suggestion to back-up and think about what our purpose is when coaching U8. I am an intense coach as well and have had this same conversation with myself many times. You are not the only coach I have spoken to this season. And I am not the only coach to have an issue with your team. As coordinator of the program it is my job to check in with you now and then and point you in the right direction. If you see this as a personal attack, then I'm sorry. My timing in speaking to you after our game may have been unfortunate but I would have said the same things to you later in the day.

If you choose not to play my team, then you are doing a disservice to the kids. I will not reschedule and my team will simply have a scrimmage that day.

(Coachzilla)

She totally missed it that I had capitulated, deciding to play the game, thus perhaps some of her anger. But look at the attacks on my character! Last year, before the game, I took my kids to the other side of the field, away from all eyes and ears and told them that if they won the game I would buy them ice cream. This is something we did in Little League when I was a kid, and I thought it would be extra motivation. But it was a mistake, and it was more of that pressure that I shouldn't have been applying. But I did this away from her. It's just that one of the kids ran over to her side and told her kids. She makes it sound like I used pyrotechnics and a pa system. Mind you that she cc'd league management with this.

As for yelling at my son… With this statement she knocked my teeth out. At the end of the last game, Jackson took an elbow to the stomach. He had his hands over it and was walking down the field, slightly stooped but moving. The other team was advancing on our goal and had he been running he could have prevented it. Had I known the extent to which he was actually hurt, I would have called a timeout. As with most kids, my son tends to dramatize when he gets a bump or a scratch. I yelled out for him to run twice, and when the goal was scored and he still wasn't running, I knew something was really up. This comment from Coachzilla really hurt me deep.

I called my son's school and told them to make my son a walker. I was picking him up. I was reeling with guilt and shame, and frankly near tears to think that my son would think I valued the outcome of a soccer game over his well-being. I put my arm around him as he met me outside the cafeteria, where we were surrounded by other waiting parents, just beside the school busses that were being boarded by the other kids. As I was struggling for the words, we walked in silence beside Bus 5 when a head popped out of the rearmost window.

"Hey Coach!" It was one of my boys.

"Hey Austin," I replied as I watched his smile widen.

Over the top of his head came another of my boys, waving frantically, eyes pinched in a gesture that I could only explain as proud. "Hey Coach!"

I pointed at him, feeling a little emotional now. "Hey Luke."

Beside the next bus, one of the kids that doesn't get to play as much as the others pounded on his glass and waved hello as well. And another as we got close to the parking lot.

On the ride home I asked Jackson, "Am I a mean coach?"

"No!"

"You can tell me, Jackson. If you ever have a problem with me I will listen. I promise I will."

"I know, dad."

"Do you think the other kids on the team are having fun? Do they think I'm too hard on them?"

"Dad, why did Austin and Luke, and Patrick and Hanna say hi to you?"

We both laugh.

And everything is ok.

The next day I saw one of the coaches from the Navy Blue team, who, if I can intimate from Coachzilla's email, complained about my treatment of my injured son.

"Coach C," I said, "It has come to me via the grapevine that you may have taken issue with the way I treated my son at the end of our game the other day."

"What are you talking about?" She looked bewildered.

I explain. The add, "I want you and everybody else to know that I love my son more than anything in the world. I would do anything for him." My eyes are a little glossed and I am cursing my lack of control. She sees this and puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Listen," she said, "we're competitive coaches, and some of the others just don't understand. When one of our kids goes down, we yell at them three sometimes four times before we realize that, oh shit, he really is hurt."

"Exactly!" I can't believe what I'm hearing. "You never know when they're really hurt because kids are always being over-dramatic."

"Listen," she said, "people around here talk sometimes just to hear themselves talk. Don't worry about it."

So Coachzilla put the Jedi Mind Trick on me, and I bought it for a day. She is softening me up for our rematch, but I'm pressing on with the way I've been doing things. I'm pretty sure there is nothing I can do to please her aside from throwing the game. It scares me what she did, and to the length she was willing to travel to knock me down. My wife told me that anyone who has met me for ten minutes knows that I would never mistreat my kids, much less my son.

It turns out that Coachzilla is defending herself in the Peewee league at an all-coaches meeting for her aggressive style of coaching five-year-olds. Apparently she has compiled a team that is dominating the other teams and she has pissed off every other coach and parent there as well.

I've decided that no further comment is needed by me. I must never underestimate her again. She really tried to hurt me.

Bad Parenting/Bad Coaching

2008-05-19T09:30:00.001-04:00

I'm not sure how this is going to come off, so I'll just tell it and let you decide. Amazingly enough, this involves little kids—not high school or college age. These are eight-year-old kids. I coach my son's soccer team, and we had a great season last spring, losing to only one team. We lost one of our best players this season and got another who has never played and can't really run, shoot, dribble or pass, so I expected that this would be a lesson to the kids in "you win some, you lose some." And that has turned out to be the case.

Realize before I go any further that I probably know every kid that plays on every team since I have been volunteering at my son's school for in-school class assistance and at recess, and I have been coaching since Peewees. The one team we lost to last season went undefeated. The coach is very good, but she is also in charge of the league, and has the authority to move kids from one team to another. So what she does when she has a player of similar skill sets to the boy that joined my team this season, she finds a reason to cut him or her. Two seasons ago, she got rid of a sweet girl because she got in a fight with one of the other players. One season ago, she was "told" that my team was too strong, so she gave me one of hers. Then, stunningly, she was winning every game, and rubbing it in after each one, bragging about her strategy and her coaching style.

So by a miracle this season, two of my less-skilled players didn't make the game that we played her team, so I never had to sub out my stars, and we beat her by a single goal. When I went over to her sideline, I explained that it was unfortunate timing for her that our team was stacked the way it was. In other words, I was trying to be gracious. She cut me off and asked me what business I had playing a kid in goal for the whole game (we're supposed to switch goalies every quarter) and I told her that nobody wanted to play it but the kid that did. Then she told me my kids were too rough, which is maddening because my kids are constantly reminded about sportsmanship and fair play, even when teams like hers (yes, I said hers) is throwing elbows, pushing and shoving. I gently reminded her of this (I have witnesses that will testify in court that I was saintly in my patience with her), and she said, "I already talked to my kids about it now talk to yours!"

She had one other criticism, which I bore silently. Then I took my kids out for ice cream.

The next week, as in this last weekend, we played Navy Blue. We went down three nothing within minutes and I thought we were goners, but the kids rallied to tie it up at half. Navy Blue went up again, and again we tied. Now all game, two or three of their kids were elbowing and pushing. But worst, which is illegal at this level in our league, they were slide-tackling, knocking our kids on their faces. The ref was just a passive kid, and I should have protested before it got out of hand, which it was about to. Our star forward took a cleat in the thigh. He buckled over and lay in the fetal position crying. I didn't see who did it or if it was on purpose. I took him out and the game continued. Then, with thirty seconds left in the game, the same kid elbowed my son in the stomach and took the ball down field while my son stumbled forward, arms crossed over his midsection, a couple of other kids of mine looking on concerned. Navy Blue scored and won the game.

It happened so fast that I didn't think to stop the game. The other team celebrated, did the chant and came to shake. I hollered over to the other coaches that they should wait since my kids were in traction.

Kids. Right now I just want to scream. The coaches from the other team didn't even apologize, nor did they seem to think anything untoward had occurred. I wanted to rage at them, but I didn't want to be like that coach I was just describing, even though it would have been justified to do so. They would have just written me off as being just like her, a sore sport and so competitive as to have lost my perspective.

The only thing I told my son after the game is that if another player plays him dirty like that again, to feel free to knock the kid straight on his ass. Because the kid isn't going to learn any lessons from his parents, one of which was his coach, the other looking on from their goal. The only way a kid without any guidance is going to learn sportsmanship is to hear it from the birds whistling around his head. No way am I putting my son in harm's way again by putting a sheep in with a den of wolves. When in Rome…

Anway, I'm pretty steamed right now. Now the team that was undefeated last season, that lost to us this season and to the same Navy Blue we just lost to, wants a rematch. Last season I asked the coach for a rematch to end the season, but a parent from my team said that it might be putting too much pressure on the kids, so I told the team's coach I had made a mistake. She curtly told me she wasn't going to do it anyway. With roles reversed, she didn't bother to ask me this season; she simply used her scheduling authority to make it so, under the political guise of "keeping it competitive."

We're talking about kids, aren't we? Or is this a staging ground for the egos of frustrated parents. I think I realized the latter was my own case last season and had the fortitude to recognize it and keep it fun. But now what do I do?

Should I refuse?

Five Things

2008-05-09T10:25:00.003-04:00

I wasn't officially tagged for this, and I won't tag anyone after me. Trevor once commented to the effect that the bloggers who do not get tagged are hurt by the omission. I've felt that disappointment too, so I'm not going to do it. Besides, at the rate I've been posting, this is similar to that mythical tree falling in the woods.

But this meme from ZombieSlayer's blog is kind of interesting because it poses some questions I'd like to answer.

Ten years ago I was:

At my age and stage of life, what I am doing now and what I was doing then only differ by employer and pay scale. Psyche! I was living in my San Francisco apartment back then, and life was totally different. My first-born had yet to make an appearance, and my then girlfriend had just moved in with me. This was that magical time in any new relationship when all your friends disappear and new ones appear in couples. One by one the implements of my bachelorhood were replaced with floral vases, paintings of scenic landscapes, matching table settings and cookware. I learned to say please, thank you, I'm sorry, and yes dear, of course you are right. I also learned that burping was not a compliment to the chef.

Five things on today's to-do list:

I filed an extension to my taxes on April 15^th at 4:45PM, then made a mad dash for the post office which closed at 5. I got there just as the door was being locked. I'm kind of on a new kick—or should I say an evolving kick—to never pay another professional for what I can do myself. This started with the swimming pool. After getting stuck with a bill for five hundred dollars for closing the pool for the winter, I have been doing it myself since, for around thirty five dollars. Then I moved on to installing my own dimmer switches, then graduated to running a new outlet directly from the fuse box. I re-planted grass in my front yard, but I may have to get bailed out of that mess. So now I am doing my own taxes, with the help of Turbo Tax that is. I'm finding that there are a great many more deductions than those that my accountant was able to find. Despite only paying a portion of the estimated taxes that my accountant insisted I do, according to my numbers I still have money coming back. That's the only real item on my list right now, other than getting the house ready to sell if the market will bear it. I really doubt that's going to happen this year. I'm also thinking about growing some vegetables in the back yard.

Things I'd do if I were a billionaire:

Of course this would take some serious thinking, but I would find a place in America where the absence of a common source of income had been removed, and the people there are lost and unemployed. I'd pick a wide open field with a view of the mountains, alongside a lake and rivers and streams--and build a town. I'd create homesteads and give them away to anyone that agreed to farm the land. I'd invite and finance businesses that provide all services that are required for a community to be self-sufficient, the only requirement being that I am a majority shareholder in that business but a silent partner until such a time as that business infringes upon the environment. There would not be a drop of oil in town, unless it was prefixed by Olive. In the mountains I would build a massive wind farm, and start a company to employ the people to build turbines. There would be an ordinance prohibiting any sort of gas consuming vehicle within the range of all this. Anyone caught breaking this rule would have their car impounded and recycled. All homes and businesses would have solar panels, which my new company would provide at cost. I would create a mini-intelligence agency, whose only purpose was to find and prevent any corruption in the governing of this community. I would buy and store the material necessary to build a crenellated wall around the whole thing, and the weaponry and ammo to arm the potential guards that would walk its perimeter—not to protect anyone from terrorists, but from our own, if there ever comes a day when the people can't feed themselves any more.

Or I would start a technology company under the auspices of some abstract concept like "B to B Commerce", and hire all the best hackers from every college. Then we would systematically break into every known government database, into the bank accounts of oil barons and no-bid government contractors, and divert their moneys to making this planet a better place to live on. I'd call this company Sherwood Industries, and my phalanx of programmers the Merry Men (even though a great many of them would be women).

I'd start an online community that brought together people from all sides of the political spectrum, and hire charismatic speakers to spread the message that the people are tired of two-party politics, that democracy doesn't work when it is hijacked by the media and the elite that control it. I would start my own media empire that would be untouchable by anyone. Each station would be independent, just like the sections of a worm that can survive if cut off from the main body.

In short, I would do what I could to keep America free in the strictest sense of the word. I would take back what has been taken from us and bring us closer to the promises made by our Constitution.

Three bad habits:

I'm totally with Zombie on this one: video games. I don't know what to do about this. I think I am a lot like my mother, having an addictive personality. I have to be addicted to something. To pretend otherwise will land me in AA. At least it's video games. To date, I have played Call of Duty 4 for an hourly total of nearly ten days. That's two hundred and forty hours, two complete work weeks. And you wonder where I've been.

Coffee—again with Zombie on this—is another. Although I'm not as bad as I was when I commuted to work. There I would drink it just to be doing something. Now I only drink around two cups a day. But that is fully loaded with caffeine, and that can't be a good thing.

I'll have to ask my wife for a third. I suppose she would say that I don't do my laundry like I should. She has boycotted doing it for me, which is a theme in my life. You see, at heart I am a total slob.

Five places that I have lived:

Akron, Ohio – Where I was born and where, for years, I yearned to return. When I did, I was perplexed to see how run down it was compared to the other places I had lived.

Niscayuna, New York – I remember this most fondly when I was a kid. There was a network of trails in the woods behind my house that in one direction led to a golf course. I came back for a night visit when I was first on my own and passing through the area and found that it has all been developed with new homes.

Juneau, Alaska – A great place to be from, and even a better place to live if you love a glacial backdrop and have a taste for the outdoor life. The former I have to admit never really got old, but the latter was not me in the slightest. The most memorable characteristic of my high school brethren was a tendency to settle arguments with a fist, which was not my gift. But come to think of it, that was the way of things at every school I went to. If I could have only learned to go right down the middle with a haymaker, how easier life might have been.

Hayden Lake, Idaho - Turns out that I wasn't far from the heart of the Arian Nation when I lived here. When I pointed this out to my father, he told me that some of his friends at the time were heavily involved. Now that's scary.

San Francisco, California – I already mentioned it earlier, but I would like to point out that I have never lived in a more beautiful city (and I have lived in quite a few, more than I have listed here) than San Francisco. This city is contained in about a seven mile by seven mile box, but is packed with wonderful surprises. You could be a block away from a children's park or a highly eclectic street of shops and not even know it. There is a pride in knowing your way around the city, and where to find a great place to eat for pennies on the dollar. Of all the places I have ever been, this is the one that I would go back to if I had enough money to do so comfortably.

Five jobs I've had in my life

My first job was toting supplies for my dad and his cronies on various home building projects. My official title was Dumb Ass, Shit Head, Lazy Ass, Dumb Fuck, Shit for Brains, and Slow Leak, depending on the day. Ah, those were the days.

At sixteen I was a windshield washer for a Chevron gas station.

After that I bagged groceries for the super market in the same shopping center. I got fired for calling in sick and playing the junior-senior football game, which we, the juniors, won. It was worth it

After that, McDonald's. The hardest job that I have ever had.

My dad met the woman that he is still married to today when he picked her and her girlfriend up on the side of the road hitchhiking. He was running a major construction operation, with about a hundred employees, composing three framing crews, crews for soffet, vinyl siding and manual laborers for set up and clean up. When he met the love of his life (he was still married at the time), he dropped all these responsibilities into my lap and disappeared.

Candidates: Take Note

2008-05-05T08:40:00.006-04:00

I posted before about the book I have been reading, The Shell Game, which is basically a fictional account of the world in 2012 headed for the next 9/11. If you are a hardcore liberal, then all the events woven into the lead-up to the upcoming Armageddon will be familiar at best. This will be enough to derail any conservative or Neocon from getting past the first chapter. But for me, a guy who definitely supported the Neocon view of the world, this book is upsetting. And the fact that it has taken me so long to read is a testament to that. It's not that I believe everything the book's author, Steve Alten, proposes as fact, but I cannot discount him either.

The man has done too much homework. You would just have to read the book to fully appreciate just how true that is.

Without permission from the author—but I'm sure he will forgive me—I am going to reproduce a section of his novel. It echoes my exact sentiments on the upcoming election. I've said it before that I need to hear something from the candidate that I will vote for, and that as of today, I have not heard it yet. Natalie (Magnetbabe) told me that I could do some research to determine the positions, and that is true. But the kind of message I'm looking for would find its way to me all by itself.

The following passage needs a bit of preamble. Jennifer Wienner is an ex-Republican strategist who up until recently had vociferously defended the actions of the administration and its war on terror. She dismissed any rumblings of truth as conspiracy theory. But when Republican president McKuin (sounds a little like McCain, no?) has a "stroke" in accordance with one of those crazy theories, she is finally spurred to take action. McKuin is succeeded by the Vice President, Neocon Ellis Prescott. And with him running on the Republican ticket in the '12 election, Jennifer jumps sides and approaches Senator Mulligan, the Democratic nominee for president.

Here it is. And please, please, please, if any of you presidential candidates are reading this (Hillary, Obama, McCain), you will have my undying devotion if you will only have the balls to say and do what this fictional character proposes:

(Excerpt from The Shell Game, pages 243-245)

Senator Mulligan chides him with a look. "What Silas means is we feel pretty good going into the convention. Guess no one expected us to take the nomination from Senator Clinton."
"Sorry to rain on your parade fellas, but the only reason you won the nomination was because the GOP wanted you to win. Their aim was always to drive Hillary and the other front-runners out of the race. Like it or not, you won by default. And here's another reality check, just in case you don't read the papers: Prescott has three times your war chest and a 7 percent lead in the latest poll. Your campaign's floundering; unless you pull a rabbit out of the hat at the convention, you'll be dead as McKuin come November."
Whitener begins to retort, but Mulligan signals refrain. "Fair enough. But if we're in such dire shape, why the sudden interest? I've never heard of a born-again liberal."
Jennifer smiles. "I'm not a liberal, I'm a realist. We're entering dangerous geopolitical waters, and the Neocons prefer force where tact is needed. America needs to steer the western world onto a new course, the question is whether you have the balls to see it through."
"I'm listening."
"The mistake all Democrats make is moving to the center to try to win votes. Americans need a clear choice, not Republican-lite. You need to carry a new message of hope to the American people, and that message is no more oil. 'In '13 we go green.'"
Mulligan glances at the negative response from his staff. "An entire campaign on the environment? I don't know—"
"Not just the environment—energy. Your platform will radically wean us off oil. If Brazil can do it, so can we. No more oil means creating a new infrastructure, one that produces good jobs that will remain in this country. New jobs mean a new tax base that will help clean up the deficit. They ask you about Iraq, and you tell them we went in for oil, but since we won't be needing oil anymore, our boys and girls can come home, and anyone who refuses to allow our kids home is obviously not a patriot or a parent. Every time the Rove Rats toss another God, gays, or guns grenade at you, you'll repeat this exact phrase: 'The election's far too important to the future of our country to be caught up in the usual republican horseshit."
Senator Mulligan looks around the room. "Horseshit? You really want me to use that word?"
"Yeah, I do."
Cesar Diaz shakes his head. "You'll lose the Christian right."
"You never had the Christian right. Let the American public see you as the no-nonsense guy you are, not the wimp these middle-of-the-roaders have turned you into. Speak your mind, but stay on message. When they ask you about Kyoto, you say we'll sign, even if China refuses. Then you force the Chinese to stand alone. They'll cave, believe me. They can barely breathe in their big cities. When the media corners you on abortion, you look them straight in the eye and say, 'I'm all for outlawing abortion, but only if we start doing a better job educating our teenagers about having unprotected sex.' When they ask you about the war on terror, you go back to the energy message, and how it's America's addiction to fossil fuels—an addiction fueled by oil pushers like Ellis Prescott and his new running mate—that helped hijack our foreign policy. Simple message: No more addiction. We create a twelve-step program to wean us on green. In '13 we take our country back from the pushers. You repeat that every day in every interview, in every debate, on every bumper sticker, and you'll win the White House."
Suzie Perlman claps.
Cesar Diaz is not as enthused. "What about money? You start targeting big oil and the military suppliers and—"
"And what? You think the scraps they're tossing you now are meant to feed you? Wake up, Amigo! Those funds are designed to keep you in line. Stick to your message, and money will come—big money---because the majority of Americans actually feel the same way you do, only they've been waiting for a democratic candidate with a set of testicles who can rally the troops while not looking like some staged, gun-toting dork. Bill Clinton may have dipped his wick in the Oval Office, but his poll numbers never dipped; that's because America likes a man in the White House who has something hanging between his legs, not some prissy Ivy Leaguer who spends his weekends sailing. And no photo shoots with Hollywood celebrities! You think Jack and Jill Average American can relate to these people? You graciously accept their contributions and tell them we'll see 'em at the inauguration ball. Until then, just sign the check, and stay the hell off the TV."
Jennifer looks around the room, the men dumfounded, Suzie grinning. "Any questions?"
Senator Mulligan smiles. "When can you start?"

Life

2008-04-09T10:20:00.004-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about what life is all about. It's kind of corny, but for me it has really boiled down to what Val Kilmer said at the end of Tombstone, and I'm paraphrasing a little: "There is no point to life, Wyatt, there is only life. So go out and live it."

When we were kids, didn't we always think there was some goal to achieve, like our life was a story that just had to have a happy ending? It was always about the future. Some day I'll be rich and drive a Ferrari (I'm too tall for one of those by the way, ditto for the Lambourghini).

I hate to say it, but now my only goal is to pave the way for my children to follow the same dreams, and hopefully make them come true. It's not that I've given up on my own dreams, but I don't feel them as passionately as I did before. It could be the lithium...

(I'm joking about the lithium by the way.)

That might seem defeatist, but it makes me happy to release myself from those lofty expectations. My dad always had his head in the future, promising that someday we would own a ranch and raise horses and grow fields of corn. I suppose we came close when we bought a farm back in the eighties. We had no money, but that never stopped dad. Let's just say he found a way to subsidize our little experiment in life, and all told, I wouldn't take it back for the world. Dad was crooked, and I would never in a million years emulate his style, but he had brass ones, and there were some good times in between the depressions.

Now I have my own kids, and thinking about their future and what a responsible parent could do to make it the best it can be is what moves me anymore. Yesterday I was working and Emmett came in and poked me in the neck with Chopsticks. Later he gave me a Black Spiderman tatoo. Then he told me a story. And like so many times when the kids, so animated and beautiful, go into their tales, I don't hear what they are saying. I'm mesmerized by their faces. Emmett brought me back to my high school reunion when I attempted to talk with Dennis, the king of our graduating class. Dennis was on my football team, and I saw him in the bar where I was playing pool. The winner of the Handsome Harry contest for our school, Craig, interrupted our conversation to tell Dennis a joke. His hat was on backwards and he still looked as young to me as in '83. His face was alight, so eager to please Dennis. Just like my son before me.

I still bear the weight of that night, when I realized after ten post-high-school-years, I was still that awkward kid, invisible to the royal elite. But now I am Dennis to the three most important people in my world. The least I can do is shed the past and pave for the future.

I'm certainly trying.

And what makes me such a special dad. One simple thing: I never grew up. And everyone knows it. Three days ago, Jackson wrote the word "poop" in invisible ink and his spy-pad, the writing only visible under a black light. His pen has such a light where the eraser would normally be, and as I walked in I saw the word just before he clicked it off and put on his guilty/innocent face.

"Did I just see the word poop!"

"How did you know?!"

"I saw it."

"But how did you read it so fast?"

"It's what I call a sight-word. The kind that is instantly recognizable. It's not like I had to go," I wore a dopey face and pursed my lips, "puh... oooooooo... puh..." I pondered the phoenetic sounds then said with more confidence, "Puh oooo puh. Hey, wait a minute, that's poop!"

He was still laughing when I put him to bed.

The Shell Game

2008-04-01T09:28:00.002-04:00

I'm reading an absolutely frightening book called The Shell Game. It's a political thriller forecasting the inevitable conclusion of modern events. Its detractors will label the author as a liberal loon, a radical and conspiracy theorist. But nobody could justifiably call his work under-researched.

My friend Eric had me read a book a while back regarding Peak Oil. I don't remember the title exactly, but I'm sure it is still on my shelf. It really freaked me out. Badly. For a while I told all my friends about it, the implications of just a shortage of oil. Forget about the taps going dry. It only takes for oil to cost more in oil to retrieve to cause the dominos to fall, a situation that could possibly already exist.

My friends would smile and nod and ask patronizingly, "How long do we have?"

The fact is that we, as Americans, have no clue what's really going on in Washington, even those that do listen to NPR. We can debate whether or not whistle-blowers are telling the truth or not, if the Patriot Act really is necessary or is just an intentional and aggressive erosion of our rights. We take sides by choosing Democrat or Republican, as if either choice will make a difference. There isn't a politician out there that has a chance of getting his or her party nomination, much less elected to the presidency, who will do what is necessary to put our people in a position to survive the end of cheap energy. We think we live in a democracy, that grand a beautiful illusion, but we do not. We are ruled by money—a shitload of money.

Those of you that have known me know that I have been a Bush supporter. That has officially come to an end. Will I vote for Obama or Hillary? Not on your life. Not unless there is no other choice. I will "waste" my vote on an independent candidate that sings the right song. In my opinion, if the right candidate did ascend to the presidency, he or she would be murdered within a year. Like I said, money rules, and money kills. I just hope that our hero will be carrying a grenade, pin pulled. We need a champion. To quote The Shell Game:

The brakes are shot and civilization is being diverted, instructed to gaze in the rearview mirror as we drive ourselves off a cliff, only you're too busy micro-managing your life to see what's happening.

What would you do to survive if there was no more food at the grocery stores? Or if water no longer poured from your faucet?

And if you think that isn't possible, consider that it is oil that creates the fertilizers that coax the soil into producing agricultural products at unsustainable rates. The population has grown in proportion to that capacity. Without oil, food production drops, and with it so too the population. It's that simple. Add to that the conundrum of our global economy. We used to be an agrarian society, but now we import most of the food we eat. Our farm lands are being paved over. So if food can no longer be imported, then where is it going to come from? Answer: nowhere.

I know most readers have developed distaste for what I am saying. That's ok. I get it. But I have kids to take care of, and turning away from inconvenient truths is no way of going about it. I don't have a plan yet. But it's developing.

Just When I Thought…

2008-03-18T09:08:00.002-04:00

I spoke a bit too soon when I gave my opinion on Wicked. The first half was brilliant, but the other… perhaps too abstract and slow. It was as if, with the end approaching, the author simply threw up his hands and said, "This has gotten out of hand, now how do I kill her?" I really became attached to Elphaba because she was smart and had a big heart. Her life was tough, and her beliefs were mocked as paranoid, though all along she was spot-on. I was sure, after all her suffering that eventually something wonderful awaited her at her end of the rainbow.

Uh… not so much.

From a gratification standpoint this novel completely failed. Obviously there are many out there that love this from cover to cover, but I for one will not read any more of Maguire's novels. He hammered this poor girl relentlessly. Ok, for a short while she found a ray of happiness, but that was simply used to make her life even worse than it was. Even her friends were a disappointment, her family too. In the end I was well beyond depressed; I was disgusted.

In the first half Elphaba was in college. It wasn't easy being green, but she had finally made some good friends and was enjoyed for her wit. She was approached with an offer that could have made for an interesting second half, but the offer was barely a factor in the upcoming events. Later Elphaba found the Grimmerie, a book of magic from another world. Cool, I thought, this could get interesting! Nope. Another non-factor. In fact, nothing interesting happened whatsoever in the second half unless you enjoy watching someone you love wither and die from a terminal disease.

And the ending! What the hell? I'm convinced that the author got lost and had to wrap things up. What a total disappointment.

I remember once that a blog-buddy Janie read a short story of mine and told me to rewrite the ending because from a satisfaction standpoint it let her down that the protag had been dreaming all along. She wanted me to make it real instead. If I were a proof reader, my advice would be to live up to the promises made in the opening chapters. Let her be just a little bit capable.

It reminds me of an expression from an eighties ski movie, "We were small but we were slow."

This steaming kettle boils down to one word: bummer.

Wicked

2008-03-10T10:53:00.003-04:00

I haven't been hooked on a book like this since I was a teenager haunting the local drug store for the next in the Dune Series. Gregory Maguire rocks!

To Summarize

2008-03-03T08:22:00.007-05:00

Where have I been? Let me count the ways.

I'm going to relate a story about work. Hang with me, there are other subjects below.

Remember when I waxed poetic about the boss and how he respects me? That theory was tested sorely. There is a genre (if you will) of computer programming dealing with what is called multi-threading. What this means is that there are two (or more!) "things" going on at the same time that sometimes need to synchronize with the other. This can be a nightmare, and has been mine for the last three weeks. We have a software release coming up to a major customer, so now there is a team of quality assurance folks that have been telling me about problems without providing much more detail than that. The longer these problems persist, the more my credibility slips. So all that goodwill I built up--remember?--took a shot in the gut.

My boss put it to me like this: I had until last Monday to fix it or we had to "punt." Meaning that if the problem couldn't be fixed, I had to back off everything I had been working on to the last functional state.

I worked through the weekend. My wife and kids had to take a backseat for the first time in I can't remember when. Daddy was a bear.

Come Monday evening I was forced to make the call. I was frustrated. Totally defeated. How close are you my boss asked me? Very close, but I've felt like I've been very close for a week now but it keeps coming back. Ok, he told me, send me a list of everything you've done and I'll take a look.

So this is what I did. In that process I saw something very odd in what I had done. Without explaining, I simply took it out. Voila. Problem fixed. For good. There was one other item that had persisted and I found that too. The quality assurance folks tested again and I was exhonerrated for all of it.

I tell you this: I was on the brink of despair. My job was still secure, but come April I will have to negotiate a salary, as I am a contractor now, and this situation wouldn't have helped. At least now I can say I was able to work through a hard issue.

Ok.

We're not broke, but we're not rich. We went a little crazy on Saturday and outfitted our four-person family in skis. Except for me. I got a snowboard. On Sunday we all went to the bunny slopes.

Jackson is one of those kids that doesn't have much patience for trial and error. If it is hard, he might not make it past the rookie stage of the game. We rented snowboards a month ago and he didn't like it. I tried to talk him into a new snowboard, but he opted for skis.

Good choice.

I could not get him off the hill yesterday. He was a natural.

Emmett is four years his junior. I held Emmett's hand and scooted him across the base while he learned to just keep his balance. After a while I gave him a push and ran after him while he slid on his own, screaming, "I'm skiing!" We went up the conveyer belt and I pointed him in a safe direction and let him go. Somehow he always managed to point right at a clump of trees or some obstacle, so Daddy was running like hell the whole time. Next time I think I'll get him in a lesson. If he could only learn to stop and turn we could all go at the same time.

As for me, I learned to turn on my front edge without falling every single time. Backwards is still a problem, but in my defense I only got about six or eight runs on the slope before it was my turn with Emmett again. I landed on my tail bone three or four times, each being worse than the previous. I couldn't bend over or pick up so much as the tv remote that night, and today I am like Christopher Pike at Kirk's trial in the Menagerie.

In other news, I am totally addicted to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. This might offend some of my liberal friends, as this is game is about nothing but killing and killing again. To me this is cartoon violence, however graphic. I've been playing this multi-player, against snot-nosed kids that aren't even old enough to drive a car, and getting my butt handed to me. I'm getting better at it, but still, there are so many people out there to whom the game controls are second nature.

As for writing, well, that's the thing. I've put too much pressure on myself, and now I have to take a break. For a simple western short story I have researched and read and pondered and speculated and stressed. I'm sick of it. I need a break. I bitched about not being recognized in Jason's contests and now I've marked myself as a baby--and rightfully so. If I want to be a writer I have to handle rejection, and I'm not very good at it. Maybe I'm not cut out for it. I'm not giving up, but I see some of my co-bloggers having success and I can't even place in a contest. I've managed to exclude myself from even being invited and lost a few blog-friends in the process. And it all goes back to handling rejection badly.

So, it's time to hang up the pen, take a sabatical and come back fresh when I'm ready.

Quick Hits

2008-02-14T13:08:00.003-05:00

So I've been more absent lately than my usual, but I have a good excuse.

Same old. Work.

But in a good way. I'm delivering some stuff I've been working on for quite a long while now. It's deep-in-the-weeds stuff that makes a great impression with the boss and only the boss, the only person who can really understand what an endeavor I've undertaken. He's a cool boss to have. He really trusts me, and that is a rare commodity in this business indeed. He has basically been at the company from its inception and has written most of the software that I am now modifying. So when I call him and say that I need to make a change to it, I expect that he would be leery or more inquisitive as to the what and why. It's not like he doesn't ask, but he is satisfied quickly that I'm on the right track.

I would be a fool to work for anyone else.

Now I just have to prove that his trust is well-founded.

Happy Valentines Day!

A couple cute things that my son did. First, which actually isn't so cute--more on the gross side--he has discovered that the base of this thumb can come "unhitched" if you will. So he can basically move the bottom of his thumb from side to side in little jerks. It's freaky. It was one of those family moments with Emmett standing on our bed while Jackson, my wife and I were cracking up and cringing at the same time.

Did you know that Emmett can spell? He's only four years old but can spell almost any word. For instance, "Hey Emmett. How do you spell encyclopedia?" Answer: "H-J-K-11-12-14-16-20."

He's been playing Metroid Fusion on his Gameboy, both of which he inherited from his older brother when Jackson got the Nintendo DS. It's one of those games that has a boss every so often that needs to be defeated before moving on to the next level. For some reason he calls each boss "L-M-N-O-6", which sounds like "Elemenosix." Super cute.

And lastly, and only because I'm drawing blanks on anything else at the moment, Emmett came out of our room yesterday when his momma's suede high-heeled boots, which fit his legs perfectly. He looked like puss-in-boots from the Shrek sequels. Don't worry, we've got pictures.

Winning Ticket

2008-02-07T09:00:00.001-05:00

Emmett won his first raffle last Friday. The prize: a laundry basket filled with cars and trucks, and puzzles and games of a related theme. It was a monster pick. The raffle was sponsored at Jackson's elementary school, so there was a swarm of hopeful kids in and outside the library when the principal called out Emmett's name.

I didn't expect to win anything because we had been through this drill twice before in years past. I was sitting in the cafeteria with a friend when a mother raced around the corner and hollered the winning news. Taking the prize basket and negotiating my way back to my seat, I felt like a scantily clad woman suddenly dropped in the midst of maximum security prisoners. Lifers. These kids, and their parents too, stared at me like I was a grade A prime cut of meat. Who am I kidding though? I had to refrain from sticking my tongue out and chanting nanny, nanny billy goat!

Suddenly Emmett was a celebrity. Every kid his age has a built-in urge to fit in and play with the older kids, and the older kids know it. Thank goodness I was there to supervise. There were some duplicate Matchbox cars that I allowed him to give away to one of Jackson's friends. Other kids I didn't even know were begging to "borrow" certain items, like a little Hot Wheelz scooter (if you can believe it). The kid's mother put the kibosh on that. It's hard to imagine a parent that wouldn't, but such do exist in shockingly large numbers, parents that can't bear to tell their little angel no.

The experience reminded me of the time when Jackson was Emmett's age. We were at Marine World in Vallejo, California. It was one of those low-probability games where you purchase a bucket of plastic rings and try to loop them over the top of a bottle. It seems easy at first because of the sheer size of the tightly packed grid of bottles. We had nearly gone through the entire bucket, and Jackson wanted to throw the last one. He over-handed it, a fast ball right down the middle, and it stuck as if he had thrown a dart. The prize was an enormous red Chihuahua dog, which I had to carry to the car in the parking lot far far away. Same thing, all the people staring and I thinking eat your heart out, as if this monstrosity I held aloft was the Holy Grail.

There is just something about winning a thing that makes it special. It's attached to the end of an inexhaustible string, a tether that leads across time to wherever and whenever you are.

Congrats to Eli and Co.

2008-02-04T09:00:00.001-05:00

I'm sure Beth has already composed her masterpiece, a love ballad to the brothers Manning. But I have to add to her chorus. Congratulations to the Giants who played the most outstanding defensive football game I have probably ever seen. The Superbowl is almost always a foregone conclusion. In the nineties it always came down to the NFC championship, and in the Patriots/Colts era it's been the AFC championship. Hardly ever do you see two teams really duke it out in the Superbowl. That certainly changed this year.

Three weeks ago, the Giants beat my Cowboys. They played hard and deserved the win, but they wouldn't have won if Patrick Crayton wouldn't have stopped on a route with 23 seconds left to go in the game, or if the same wouldn't have dropped a pass earlier, or Anthony Fasano wouldn't have dropped a pass in the end zone. I could go on. The bottom line is, it is nothing short of a miracle that the Giants even got to the big game. But I can promise you this: only the Giants could have did what they did to the Patriots.

The Giants did the impossible. They made Tom Brady look human, as in to err is human. Brady spent as much time on his back as he did standing up. And when he did get a little time to scope downfield, he heard the footsteps of Strahan, Umenyiora and Justin Tuck. There were even a few rookies getting in on the sack fest. Randy who? Only Wes Welker performed like he did all season long, but that was not nearly enough.

The Pats defense did a great job as well. It came down to which team would make the big play. Manning wasn't perfect, but dammit man! he was Cool Hand Luke. It came down to the last drive of the game, the Giants needing a touchdown. If you didn't see it… You don't have to be football fan to appreciate how that went down. There were two minutes, thirty seconds left in the game. The Giants were pinned at something like the fifteen yard line. They really hadn't done much with the ball all day, only having scored a touchdown and a field goal. Troy Aikman, the announcer who knows a little something about winning Superbowls, said that the Giant's situation was what every quarterback dreamed of, four points down and needing a touchdown to win.

And I'll be darned if Eli didn't deliver. Assante Samuel, a defensive back for the Patriots, could have ended the game with an easy interception that went right through his fingers. He had two palms on the ball too.

Then Giants receiver David Tyree catches a desperation pass after Eli barely escaped a sack. Tyree (see the image to the left) brought the ball down onto his helmet and pinned it there with one hand and never dropped it. What the…? Unbelievable. Then Plaxico Burress, who hadn't been a factor all night, catches an easy floater in the end zone, just like he and Eli, wearing shorts, practiced before the game. Wow.

But still, there were thirty five seconds left, and the Patriots had all their timeouts, but great coverage on the kick would make the Pats work for it. But the Giants defense clamped down. Ruthless and decisive.

My condolences to my good friend, Mr. Schprock. But I have gotten so sick of hearing about the dominance of the AFC. And there is just a little bit of poetic justice to how the season ended for the Patriots, who got caught videotaping signals of their opponents, then got a slap on the wrist (relatively speaking—that same slap on me would have me living on the streets). The Cowboys quarterbacks coach, Wade Wilson, was suspended for a quarter of the season because he tested positive for a drug that he had taken legitimately by prescription, but Belichick paid a fine and a draft pick (they had two first round picks and still have the seventh overall), and was not suspended. Oh, and he got coach of the year. I'm not saying he isn't the best coach that ever coached the game, but I would say he got away with one. Then for half a season he ran up the score on weaker opponents, playing for blood when the other teams were already bleeding out of every orifice.

My apologies to fans of the Patriots. Sincerely. But if the Patriots would have won that game, in my mind, a great injustice would have gone unpunished. There should be honor in sports, and nobody likes a bully.

But today is about the underdog. Nobody gave little Davie a chance against Goliath.

How do you think Archie Manning feels right now about his boys?

Movie Review: Juno

2008-01-28T08:59:00.001-05:00

There were two things I knew for certain when I walked out of this movie: first, this was the best movie I have seen in at least a year; and second, Ellen Page is the greatest actress of her generation. The last time I was stunned this way: Natalie Portman in The Professional. But Page is much better, if not quite as cute. Talent trumps all, and Ellen Page is the real deal. Her comic timing is impeccable, and Humphrey Bogart would be proud of this young woman who has his knack for acting without speaking.

What could have been American Pie meets She's Having a Baby quickly establishes itself as an original. Hard to do with all the elements of a typical high school flick: the popular jock, the geeky friend (Michael Cerra) who loves Juno (Ellen Page), her parents she leans on for support, the cheerleader girlfriend(Olivia Therby). But nothing goes quite the way we've been programmed to expect.

Take the scene where Juno tells her parents that she's pregnant. I won't spoil it for you, but how do you expect that scene to play out? Let's just say that in this brilliant screenplay by first-timer Diablo Cody, the parental units are not just mindless automatons. For the first time in history of the genre (if this can be nailed down to a single genre), parents have been allowed to think and to be an important part of their child's life. Stand up and clap for Allison Janney, as Juno's stepmom, and J.K. McGruff, as her father. Funny and simply lovable, they made it real.

You would expect at some point to meet a bad guy, someone whose intentions are bad. You might think we've finally met one or both of them in Jason Bateman (he's been gone way too long!) and Jennifer Garner, a couple that by all appearances has that which any American couple aspires. But not even within their damaged relationship can we really assign blame. They should have just agreed to see other people. Juno is the match that lights that cinder box, but again, not in any way you would expect.

This movie reminds me again that Hollywood has lost its spark. Perhaps it's been too busy telling us how to vote and defending child rapists rather than applying itself to the business we pay it for. Juno hearkens back to the old days when I would quote all the funny lines from a John Hughes movie, and my schoolmates already knew them by heart. I can only hope this is just a small sample of things to come.

This is so my sense of humor

2008-01-26T07:42:00.001-05:00

This reminds of pranks that I've played in the past. Now if I could only remember...

MotherLoad

2008-01-24T08:44:00.000-05:00

The game is called MotherLoad. My three-year-old found this when he was supposed to be playing another daddy-sanctioned game, but his little fingers are guided by the spirit of the surfer. I'll have to keep an eye on him!

Anyway, the game is highly addictive once you figure out how to play it. I was supposed to be researching for my WIP last night, but three hours later I decided I should probably get some sleep.

Click on the image to check it out.

Caveat emptor!

Do You Know Who This Is?

2008-01-21T14:56:00.001-05:00

This girl needs my help.

Sigh.

Not only is she beautiful, but she's rich. (How rich? More than you can imagine. I can imagine a lot.) Or should that be the other way around?

You see, she has fifteen million dollars in a bank account and needs someone that she can trust, namely me, to invest it for her here in America. Smart too. She wants to diversify across market sectors.

The money was willed to her by a rich uncle (who was recently poisoned--long story). Now she has to move the money out of her account, and soon, before her brothers get their hands on it and leave her penniless.

I have to help, if not for her, then to strike a blow against the injustices of patriarchical society!

Oh, and she can't wait to meet me. She's single too. In life, it's really about timing. What are the chances?

The Boston FBI informs me (with a chuckle) that they already have reams of info on this one. But thanks for calling.

Third Tynes a Charm

2008-01-21T08:12:00.000-05:00

The first thing I did this morning was to google the title of this post. The results were exactly what I expected. It was too much to hope for that nobody else thought of that newspaper headline to summarize yesterdays NFC championship game.

(Lawrence Tynes missed two field goals that would have iced the game in the fourth quarter. In overtime, he nailed his third attempt, splitting the uprights.)

My previous post was intended to be an actual post. I've been composing in Word, which has a feature now to auto-publish to a blog. For some reason, before I was finished it simply published it before I was finished. I hadn't had a post in a while so I figured what the heck.

I'm down to three lady bugs, by the way. One more went to the Lady Bug Picnic In the Sky.

2008-01-17T10:45:00.001-05:00

Emmett is running up the steps; mommy is gone away for an appointment. Surprise, he didn't come into my office—yet.

Now that the fog of the football season has evaporated into the clouds, I'll take this moment to look around and breathe the air.

How many there were to start with I can't remember, but I'd say I've lost five or so ladybugs from their little bug hut home I have beside me on my desk. It makes me a little sad when I see one on its back, sometimes just a tiny leg swaying ever so slightly.

Jackson just got back from school—early release day, you see. Momma is out for a couple hours, so I'm hanging out here, trying to work and squeeze in a post.

Concession Speech

2008-01-13T20:45:00.000-05:00

For the rest of the season, I'm officially a Packers fan.

I don't want to talk about it right now, other than to say that when the ball was intercepted in the endzone to end the game and the season, I had a moment of utter dispair. After I stopped the Tivo from recording, deleted it, and turned the TV off, my wife said quietly, "I'm sorry."

"I can't believe we lost to the GIANTS..."

Then, without saying another word, I walked up stairs, flossed and brushed my teeth, took a deep breath, went downstairs again and joined my wife and kids at the table.

I said, "Ok, I'm over it now."

Thanks for one hell of a season, Cowboys. Thirteen and three, first round bye in the playoffs, and a young, talented roster to take us into the future.

Not too shabby.

Leave Tony Romo Alone!

2008-01-11T15:17:00.001-05:00

This won't make much sense if you haven't been following Jessicagate, the Cowboys or football in general, but you have to check out this parody of the infamous Chris Crocker YouTube video. I have no idea who Chris Crocker is, but he certainly seems to have affection for Britney Spears.

Turn down the volume knob, ok?

Getcha Popcorn Ready

2008-01-11T08:19:00.000-05:00

My manager is a Packers fan, as is my wife. I just found out that one of my coworkers is a life-long Giants fan. At least nobody with any direct influence over my well being has a Jones for the Seahawks.

So, this weekend is shaping up to be an unstable stick of dynamite.

Everyone knows I'm a huge Cowboys fan, and I have not been encouraged by the way my team played down the stretch, but it seems that everyone in the media has completely written them off. I've sort of come to expect it, but it still kind of stings to be reminded.

Eli Manning, the younger brother of Peyton Manning, played two good games back to back. The first, against the Patriots, was a valiant effort for three quarters. The loss though was perceived as a win. The following week, the Giants beat the Buccaneers in a wild-card matchup. Now, according to the mediots, the Giants are resurging; Eli is playing "within himself", and will be too much for the struggling Cowboys to handle.

The Giants pass rush will be too much to handle too. But what these people seem to be forgetting, or at least attaching no significance to, is that the Cowboys line has held that monster pass rush in check for two games this season, games that the Cowboys won, and kept Tony Romo upright but for two sacks. In two meetings, our defense was missing one of its two starters. The first time it was our star corner Terrence Newman; the second time it was Anthony Henry. And both times, Eli Manning torched the backup Jacques Reeves, who has shown some spark, but would not normally crack the starting lineup on any NFL team.

But nobody pays this fact any attention. They will however be quick to tell you that in that second meeting, Giants receiver Plaxico Burress was hobbled by an ankle injury.

Well let me set the record straight about what's going to happen on Sunday. The Cowboys, contrary to reports coming from the coaches, will have TO back in the lineup. The Giants will be facing a couple firsts in this meeting. For the first time, their receivers will be facing Terrence Newman and Anthony Henry. And also for the first time, they will be facing Terrell Owens and Terry Glenn, both receivers on a normal day would be drawing double coverage. Terry Glenn has been hurt all year, getting a few snaps in the season ender with Washington to knock the dew off his lilly. Reports from practice say that Glenn is looking like his old self. If that's true, then I give the Giants no chance in this game whatsoever. Because the recipe for beating the Cowboys involves single coverage on wide receivers and crowding the line of scrimmage. If everyone is healthy, then that just isn't possible. Look for big days from TO, Glenn, Witten and Marion the Barbarian.

Like TO says, "Getcha popcorn ready."

Prediction, Cowboys 35, Giants 17.

Another prediction: The media will still find a way to attribute the Cowboys win to luck and poor focus on the Giants part. But the reality will be, that after this game, the Cowboys will have their swagger back and kick buttocks in the NFC championship.

The Super Bowl I don't even want to think about. For all my bold predictions, I'm nervous as hell. The one thing I hate more than losing is to lose when everyone is predicting it like a foregone conclusion.

The Andy Rooney Internet Hoax

2008-01-07T08:39:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the one and only MagnetBabe for pointing out that the email making the rounds purporting to quote Andy Rooney was a hoax. I should have known. Every time I get an email from my cousin I normally double-check it for accuracy. This time I just assumed it was true.

Doh!

I remember watching Dennis Miller on his HBO series having an entire episode to rebelling against racial sensitivity, but it wasn't totally revolutionary because it is the kind of thing you would expect from a comedian whose job it is to pick at the scabs of status quo. Someone like Andy Rooney -- well, it was too far from the norm to have accepted it at face value.

I promised a reply to MagnetBabe's comment, which as I've come to expect from her, is intelligent and passionate. Here it is:

Opinions that are not grounded in reason and are instead the influence of ignorance should be stamped out rather than given a forum. One could say that in the first comment here Alan stamped out "Rooney's" opinion that the United Negro College Fund and Miss Black America represent reverse racism, as he very should have. That was an ignorant opinion that "Rooney" was either too lazy to look up the history of or too racist himself to care. Or just trying to cause a stir, in which case it worked.
The statement about homosexuality didn't directly imply that the writer thought homosexuality was wrong. But in a similarly dangerous manner, it displays tolerance of people who think homosexuality is wrong. To me, shrugging your shoulders at someone attempting to exert moral authority over a population of people is not acceptable and rather than simply taking it at face value as opinion I would argue that this thinking ought to be stamped out rather than perpetuated throughout society. To me, "homosexuality is wrong" accepted simply as opinion bears an unsettling resemblance to the "opinion" that "evolution is just a theory", another opinion that should be stamped out rather than tolerated a minute longer.

I would counter by saying that while the above is well-stated, it is some pretty fancy stamping. And before anyone thinks I'm opposed in any way to homosexuality, or that I am applauding the opinion that homosexuality is wrong, please reconsider. I tolerate different opinions, not just the opinions that I feel are worthy of consideration. I know plenty of people that think homosexuality is wrong, as well as people who are prejudiced. They are most certainly ignorant, and easy marks in conversation. The only way to get through to people like this is through discourse, not by treating them like lepers and banishing them to a white supremicist commune. You are an idealist, Nat, and I really admire that about you. Your parents raised you to see the world as it should be, and have backed that rhetoric with action. But you can't bully people into your way of thinking. It's not realistic. In fact, it's a perfect recipe for lifelong frustration and bitterness.

On the opposite end of the family spectrum is my grandmother. She hates everyone who is not white, and I'm assuming homosexuals as well. She used to use the n-word with regularity until I brought my kids around. We were watching an Eddie Murphy movie Daddy Day Care when my grandma, right in front of the kids, said "That n--- sure is funny." The kids didn't hear because they were too focused on the movie.

Grandma, don't use that word in front of my kids.

Why not?

Because it's disrespectful, and they're my kids and I'll raise them as I see fit.

Well what do you call them?

I just say 'that man' or 'that woman' and point. I don't refer to anyone as a white man or woman and they seem to understand who I mean. Names help too. Like, 'Eddie Murphy sure is funny.'

She looked at me with a gleam in her eyes. I'm not sure if she was proud or just thought I didn't get it, but I think it was the former. I have to admit that if she would have persisted I would have threatened to leave, but my point is that I talked to her about it, and hopefully made her understand just a little.

And as for exerting moral authority over a population of people, that's some pretty strong stuff. If I am not allowed to do this, then I must accept polygamy, or men who treat their women as chattel, and a host of others that I can't think of, simply because they are a population of people, and that I object on moral grounds. I don't think so. And I hardly see the correlation between the denial of evolution and moral objection. One is felt in the heart while the other is denying an entire body of science.

And don't start thinking I'm a creationist (not that you would!). The whole thing is absurd. That's not an opinion. It's a close cousin of conspiracy theory. Religion has no place in schools, just as it has no place in government.

Kansas, We Have a Winner

2008-01-03T09:23:00.001-05:00

The state of Kansas has become the focus of research for my expansion of my flash piece for Bernita's contest. It will probably amount to one sentence out of hundreds, but I want to be as authentic as I can when portraying the life of a boy growing up in the lawless old west. I've always liked historical fiction. Kansas turns out to be the perfect setting. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska act opened up the two territories for homesteaders, and some ninety thousand people started their journey into the west from the mouth of the Kansas River, which is commonly referred to as the Kaw. Beyond that begins the Great Plains, which for some unknown reason, already had trails leading across them. The speculation was that perhaps it was the Buffalo or the Indians that had blazed them, but they already existed.

I found two books from my local library. The first is The Kaw: The Heart of a Nation. I've only just started it, but this is definitely the focus of my research. Not only do I get exact descriptions of the landscape throughout the state, but of the pioneers that came from all parts of the world to settle there. There are descriptions of the initial settlements, wages paid, famous outlaws, the division of the prairies by barbed wire. This is going to be a cover-to-cover read for me. I'm tentatively setting this story in 1865, just after the Civil War. Kansas was an anti-slave state, but neighboring Missouri was pro. In fact, Kansas was the staging ground for the Civil War. My two characters were initially white, but now I'm thinking that my boy character is white, and that the other is an ex-slave that escaped from Missouri into Kansas and was taken in by the boy's father. This man and the boy's father both join the Union forces, leaving the boy and his mother to survive alone for the entire four years of the war. That's the start of it.

The other book I have is Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier. This is a collection of first-hand accounts from – you guessed it – women of the Kansas frontier. I'm looking forward to this too, because this should give me everything I need to convey the life of a family on its own without a man to help. Life back then was terribly brutal, and I want to capture that.

Lastly, I found a link to nineteenth century slang. And Wikipedia is just amazing. I've been reading about hoop skirts and bustles to start with, but the links take me sometimes seven degrees of separation from my original subject. For instance, I was reading about the hoop skirt and somehow ended up on escarpment.

If only we had these tools in high school.

Andy Rooney

2007-12-28T09:39:00.001-05:00

I got this in an email from my cousin. Roughly translated: this is probably already made the rounds and I'm the last one to hear of it. But this is the kind of talk that needs to happen on a regular basis. Hard talk. Telling it like it is. I may not agree with every aspect of what Rooney is saying, but I really appreciate that someone is willing to travel crossways across the grain. In particular, I like his views on the hypocrisy of reverse racism. Whites in America have become docile house pets. We watch the Mind of Mencia, laughing until our drink comes out the nose holes while he flips white people the bird. As I've said, that's all well and good, but have the cojones to take a little of your own medicine. Not gonna happen. Not in this lifetime.

Here it is:

I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers.. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. Try to have things like the United Caucasian College Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment Television, or Miss White America; and see what happens...Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door.

Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game .

I believe they are called the Boy Scouts for a reason, which is why there are no girls allowed. Girls belong in the Girl Scouts! ARE YOU LISTENING MARTHA BURKE ?

I think that if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it is not a phobia, it is an opinion.

I have the right 'NOT' to be tolerant of others because they are different, weird, or tick me off.

When 70% of the people who get arrested are black, in cities where 70% of the population is black, that is not racial profiling; it is the Law of Probability.

I believe that if you are selling me a milkshake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper or a hotel room, you must do it in English! As a matter of fact, if you want to be an American citizen, you should have to speak English!

My father and grandfather didn't die in vain so you can leave the countries you were born in to come over and disrespect ours.

I think the police should have every right to shoot you if you threaten them after they tell you to stop. If you can't understand the word 'freeze' or 'stop' in English, see the above lines.

I don't think just because you were not born in this country, you are qualified for any special loan programs, government sponsored bank loans or tax breaks, etc., so you can open a hotel, coffee shop, trinket store, or any other business.

We did not go to the aid of certain foreign countries and risk our lives in wars to defend their freedoms, so that decades later they could come over here and tell us our constitution is a living document; and open to their interpretations.

I don't hate the rich, I don't pity the poor.
I know pro wrestling is fake, but so are movies and television. That doesn't stop you from watching them.

I think Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny he made and continue to make more. If it ticks you off, go and invent the next operating system that's better, and put your name on the building.

It doesn't take a whole village to raise a child right, but it does take a parent to stand up to the kid; and smack their little behinds when necessary, and say 'NO!'

I think tattoos and piercing are fine if you want them, but please don't pretend they are a political statement. And, please, stay home until that new lip ring heals. I don't want to look at your ugly infected mouth as you serve me French fries!

I am sick of 'Political Correctness.'
I know a lot of black people, and not a single one of them was born in Africa ; so how can they be 'African-Americans'? Besides, Africa is a continent. I don't go around saying I am a European-American because my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was fromEurope . I am proud to be from America and nowhere else.
And if you don't like my point of view, tough...

The Yoko Reference Was My Own

2007-12-19T12:04:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to say, that in my previous post, I referred to Jessica Simpson as Yoko Ono, the notorious femme fatale credited with breaking up the Beatles. Well, as it turns out, that reference was made by at least one other Cowboys blogger the day before.

In the interest of deflecting any plagiaristic accusations, I came up with that on my own. After the game, I didn't read about the game, stayed away from the blogs and sports shows, so I had no outside influences. Not that anyone would notice or care. This isn't a football blog, and nobody but Bailey comes here to read about the Cowboys (but I'm glad she does!).

And as they say in Mexico, hay no comparison!

As it turns out, hating on Jessica Simpson has become a sport after the collapse of the Cowboys versus the Eagles. In light of that, I retract my comment. At least in my case, it was a total joke--but an original one, and one that didn't require a whole lot of imagination.

It's easy to blame the presence of a woman. Not just any woman, mind you. Simpson is to hot what a blazing super nova is to a lighted match. I get it. But if Tony Romo is incapable of playing football from here on out because his sexual diving rod is pointed true north, then don't blame Jessica Simpson. You might as well blame it on Rio. It's the player that needs to step it up, and he will. Just hopefully this year.

Oh the Weather outside is Frightful

2007-12-17T12:49:00.001-05:00

Our driveway is a solid sheet of black ice, and there was a run on the local hardware store. Think Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. Instead of a bank and a pathetic stack of money, it was Aubuchon Hardware and a palette of salt. I bought the last four bags and thought I would fight my way back to the truck.

We are low on food. Oh sure, we have boxes of Mac & Cheese, microwave popcorn, pb&j and lots of bread. But nothing to eat. Yesterday we decided to lump it. Wait out the storm; let the sun come out and set us free. We were good with that. Good that is until the television blinked out.

First my uniform: snow pants, winter coat, Elmer Fudd hat with macho ear flaps, Darth Vader gloves. Last bag of salt, next-to-last bag of sand, show blower, shovel--the works. Half hour later, wipers thumping, freezing rain, we're slogging our way to New Hampshire. Ice storm or no we are not paying taxes for a major purchase. Costco. Philips forty-two inch plasma flat-screen. Just enough room on the credit card. McDonalds drive-thru. Home again. Will it fit in the entertainment center? I measure, cross-check the width as reported on the box. No—Khaaaaan! Wait, that's the box width, not the unit. The reality? One inch to spare. I hook it up.

Sweet Lord! Football has transformed into a wide screen religious experience.

Half time already. Dallas down seven-three to the Eagles. Romo not playing like himself. Already with two interceptions. Wait! Is that Jessica Simpson in the stands? I holler, "Yoko!"

Game over—oh well. It's only one game. Hey, we're twelve and two. Nothing to sneeze at. Move on. I'm over it.

But I do think about deleting my last two football posts.

Promise

2007-12-14T09:49:00.001-05:00

I've haven't been writing much, not here on my blog, not even on my novel that is dying a slow death. I'm not giving up, but that is the truth of it. I used to blog almost every day, and the confidence it gave me was energizing. Without it, I'm losing my flare. The words that come to mind are empty, repetitive and boring. So I need to back in gear. It has been suggested to me in the past that if I put so much energy into my blog that I would burn out for the real thing. I think I might have bought into that in a small way.

Anyway, I happened upon a contest that one of my fellow bloggers is having, and in the absence of any motivation whatsoever to do work yesterday afternoon, I applied myself to submitting an entry.

I've always wanted to write a western. You may or may not know that my avatar is a picture of the great Wyatt Earp. I love country music, or at least I used to. It's changed, and that's just the way it goes. When my dad complained about it, I didn't listen, so I won't expect any sympathy. But it's not the same anymore. You may have read somewhere that my favorite team is the Cowboys. Coincidence? I think not.

I don't watch westerns and I don't read them, except for Lonesome Dove, which is a masterpiece of literature by Larry McMurtry. I make no lofty claims to be near as talented, but one has to start somewhere.

Here's hoping I don't fall off the wagon again. It's time to get back to the routine of writing every day, whether it is here or elsewhere.

So thanks Bernita for having this contest. And I hope to see that Jason has some more in the near future.

Here is my entry:

Promise

Bobby snatched his pistol from his right hip holster and started into his pivot—
Crunch, head jerked forward, ringing like a gong.
Dog tired.
"Whoa. It weren't that hard," a gruff voice said. A tug on his gun hand. "Now gimme that." The loss jarred Bobby awake. The Colt. His daddy's Colt.
"That there was a love tap t'get yer attention." Cole spiked the shovel into the dirt a hairs breadth from the tip of Bobby's boot. "Now dig."
"You gonna do for me like you did my daddy?" Bobby rubbed the back of his head. Bone dry.
"You ain't never had no sense, Bobby."
"So you sayin' it ain't so?"
"I said dig."
"No."
Cole trained the Colt on Bobby's forehead and thumbed back the hammer. "This thing loaded?"
Eyes locked on Cole's, Bobby snatched the shovel and heeled it into the soft earth. "Six feet I reckon?"
The sun turned orange and dipped over the horizon. Bobby looked up in the failing light, neck-deep now in the hole. Cole's face stared down, aglow from the tip of a cigarette.
"The Beaton boys hung your daddy from that branch right there." Cole pointed.
"That's a damned lie. It was you kilt him--for the stolen bank money! "
"No, but they did. Do I look like a rich man?"
Bobby's shovel bit into ground with a hollow thunk.
"He died so's when his boy become a man he'd have the chance his daddy never had."

Happy Birthday, Jackson

2007-12-12T12:39:00.001-05:00

Today is your eighth birthday, Jackson. You don't know that I'm writing this, and you may not know it for years to come. But I want you to know how proud I am, and what has meant to me to be your father.

After you were born, your mother and I bought our very first house to make the best possible home for you. It was brand new, the walls flawlessly white. The one bit of color, and the only color it would get for the first four years was your room. Like the only ornament on a tree. We bought the best of everything: a crib, a rocker, shelves, changing table and dresser, stroller, car seat, Baby Bjorn, even a fancy country-style backpack that we only used once. Everything had to be perfect.

Your mother had a stack of books she read tirelessly, insisting that I read them too. Of course I didn't, because I am just a guy after all. I went to all the classes though. Lamaze. Even one on breast feeding. I saw some videos that still wake me up in the middle of the night.

There is nothing in the world that can prepare a couple for a new born baby. When you first came out, you were like a little alien that looked just like my grandpa. It wasn't real, and yet it was all too real. We had no idea what to do.

The nurse swaddled you in a blanket so that only your little scrunched-up face stuck out. You barely weighed more than a feather. I could hold you in the palm of my hand. And I did, quite often, just for the fun of it. I never let you out of my sight. When the nurses took you to the nursery, I followed right behind in case they tried to switch you out for another.

Despite the fact that we had spent so much time on your new room, you slept with mommy and daddy for the first year. We had read and heard accounts of what kind of trouble we had created for ourselves, that you would never sleep in your own bed. But when we finally did put you in your crib, you didn't mind at all. Lesson in life: don't believe what you read. Parents are just kids with deeper voices. The good ones do what's best for their kids.

I read to you every night, and thank God I did. Now you love books almost as much as you love video games, just like your dad.

Once I sat the video camera up on a tripod and filmed my advice to you in case I was killed in a car accident. I drew a total blank. Feeling embarrassed, I rewound and taped over it. Too bad. You would have seen how inarticulate I can truly be. Hard to believe, I know. It's one thing to know who you are inside, and another to put it into words with such confidence as to inspire the same in someone else.

When I look at you, I see a lot of myself. All the good things and none of the bad. We all have insecurities, and I have plenty. The advantage you have in this life is a mom and dad that will always look out for you. We won't yell or hit or belittle, and when we make mistakes we will apologize. That's a world apart from how we were raised. Instead of passing the buck, the buck stops with us. You will always have the advantage that our undivided attention will afford.

Mere words cannot express the ocean depths of my feelings toward you. When I see you smile your real, ungoverned smile, and hear the musical lilt of your laughter, it lights the darkest of darkest days. You are my son. You are the best part of me. You are the future, and it is my foremost purpose to make yours the best that it can be.

Happy Birthday, Jackson.

I don't think this works

2007-12-11T13:26:00.000-05:00

I found this on Bailey's blog. There is a tool that rates the readability of your blog. Here is the results of checking mine:

I don't think it works though. I ran a check of some of my blog buddies and got a lot of elementary levels back, which is clearly not the case. Jaye at Jayes Blag though, scores very high, College Undergrad. That one does make sense.

I added the Library Thing to my sidebar. I'm in a deep-reading phase, taking notes and paying special attention to descriptive passages. It's amazing how difficult it is to describe how one walks from one end of the yard to the other. So I'm taking notes.

Vive los vaqueros.

The demise of the New England Patriots has been greatly exaggerated. So too the dominance of the Cowboys. Still, 12 and 1 and counting. A win is a win. And a come-from-behind victory with two minutes on the clock is the stuff of legend.

** Update **

In response to Beth's comment about the Colts: they definitely have a chance. More than a good chance, a great chance to go all the way. I'm overstating my confidence level in the Cowboys, by the way. Eight parts confidence, two parts wishful thinking. They have a long road to the Superbowl. Green Bay is not a gimme game just because we beat them once. Seattle is coming on strong, and the Giants aren't going to roll over and play dead either. In the AFC, I seriously doubt the Steelers are scaring anyone after getting humiliated by New England, but the Jags aren't to be overlooked. When the Colts are in the playoffs, they'll have Marvin Harrison back but will have swapped for Dwight Freeney. Regardless, nobody in New England will honestly be able to profess confidence when those two teams meet again.

Work, Kids and Football

2007-12-07T07:59:00.001-05:00

I have finally submitted something to my employer that showcases everything I am capable of doing given enough time. In case some of you are wondering, I have been working on a web page that employs some of the latest and greatest technologies. It's nothing you as the general public can browse to and see. Though it is a web page, it is also an internal application bought and paid for by customers of my company. It's pretty cool just the same. The stuff I'm doing now is the next evolution in web page development. It's a damn good thing I'm on top of it. I have to be if I want to stay in the business.

As I was bringing my coffee upstairs, I took a moment to glance at my two kids sitting on the couch together. Emmett adores his older brother, Jackson. They were sharing a blanket. Jackson had turned off the television after a half-hour (twenty minutes on TiVo—sans commercials) of Ben-10, and was playing Nintendogs on the DS. I could tell by the sound of dogs barking. There is a feature of the game that displays a record player—you know, a phonograph record, 33 RPMs. The kids have mastered the art of using the stylus to drag the needle to the record, pressing the "record" button and making silly noises until the needle reaches the smooth middle. Then they laugh—no, they crack up—at the grunts, screams and fart noises they have left behind.

Hours of quality entertainment.

As I saw their two heads pressed together, faces alight from the glow of the screen, I gave myself a mental pat on the back. They will always have each other, long after I am gone.

My football team has quietly advanced to an eleven and one record. If it weren't for the raging success of the New England Patriots, our ascension would have attracted a lot more attention. This is the best time to be a fan of a football team, after years of rebuilding and frustration, to be a witness to the magic before the world knows what is about to happen.

The Dallas Cowboys are going to win the Superbowl this year. I can feel it. The Patriots are fading down the stretch while the Cowboys are getting better each week. Our defense is getting ferocious. New stars are blooming on each side of the ball. Bill Parcells built this team, but it took Wade Phillips and Jason Garrett to take advantage of the considerable talent Bill had collected.

If you love another team, I understand that you either don't or won't believe. Feel free to tell me so. But come February, in Tempe, Arizona, allow me to say that I told you so.

MySpace

2007-11-26T08:44:00.001-05:00

A very long time ago I set up a simple MySpace page out of curiosity. It was nothing more than a simple bio; nothing that would give away any deep secrets about me, nothing to inform a reader anything more than there is a guy in this world whose name is Scott.

A year or so later I find out that my niece lives on MySpace – who incidentally is only eleven. I told her about it while visiting with her in Houston, showed my profile to her, and watched as she clicked on my photo until you could see electrons in orbit around a single atom of my nose.

When I had gone home, I wrote her a note using MySpace, and found that she was no longer on my list of friends. I called her up and asked what happened, but she played Jimmy-the-Dunce, saying she didn't know.

I let it go. Fine. Big, dorky Uncle Scott's picture was too embarrassing to include on her list of friends. It hurt my feelings, but I let it go.

That is my brother's daughter. My sister's daughter is only ten, who recently got her own MySpace account and is masquerading as a fifteen-year-old. She found me and added me to her friends list a couple weeks back. My sister too, and a couple cousins as well. They've been leaving comments on my photo – derogatory comments, suggesting that there are younger photos I should use instead. I didn't feel like commenting back and frankly I didn't have the time, and still don't. Work has me nailed to the wall and I shouldn't be spending the time to write this.

I talked to my brother and mentioned about how his daughter deleted me from her list of friends. He concluded that she was probably hiding from me. I gladly accepted that explanation because it hurt my feelings a hell of a lot less than my own explanation. But last night, my sister commented something to the effect that she found out the real reason my brother's daughter had deleted me, and that she, my sister, was deleting me for the same reason. Fix your page, she said, and then add her back.

Then her daughter wrote me a comment soon after, saying to fix my page, that I am married and don't comment back, that I was spying on her.

Excuse me?

I've been steaming about this ever since. The very first thing I did is deleted the MySpace account altogether. What started out as an experiment has turned into me being accused of being a voyeur or worse.

I'm so mad about this, on so many different levels. The absolute gall of my sister, and the disrespect! If I were there in Houston there would be a whole lot of attitude adjustments going on. To think that they feel they can treat me that way. Like I'm competing in some beauty or popularity contest. Since when do I have to earn the right to be friends with family?

You see, this is the kind of thing that fractures me from friends and family, the kind of thing that makes me want to scream, "Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?!"

Football and Life As I See It

2007-11-07T20:11:00.001-05:00

Some of you are probably wondering what I have been doing that I can't even visit or update my blog. It's a lot of things, really. Some I can't talk about, others are just not that interesting. Does anyone really want to hear all the minutiae of my job? It's exciting, believe me—but only to me and the few guys I work with.

I can't resist at least putting in a plug for my football team, the Dallas Cowboys, who are doing the impossible this year. They've won every game this year except for that heart breaker against the Patriots. But I have to say, this is shaping up like a really good movie. On one side, you have the New England Patriots, who have achieved dominance in the salary cap era. But unlike my beloved Cowboys of the 90's, they aren't withering away into obscurity. Quite the opposite—they are the toast of the league, and quite possibly one of if not the very best team that has ever been assembled. That's debatable.

And then you have the Cowboys. Once great, now a has been. Ever since we lost Troy Aikman, we've gone through a host of quarterbacks. To be the quarterback of the Dallas franchise used to mean you were the best of the best. There was a mystique. The search seemed hopeless. The magic was dead. And then came Bill Parcells, who said let there be a quarterback, and behold, there was one. An undrafted free agent from Eastern Illinois quietly signed a contract to be the third string quarterback behind Quincy "Where is he now?" Carter and Chad Hutchinson, both of whom no longer play in the NFL.

You might have heard of him. He just signed a contract for 67 million dollars. He's young, good looking, has that small town, all around nice guy feel to him. He's been connected with first with Jessica Simpson, Carrie Underwood and most recently Britney Spears, though he denies anything to do with the latter, saying that they were simply at the same party. Riiiigggght... He probably doesn't inhale when he smokes either.

It didn't last with Ms. Underwood because, as she said in an interview with a reputable newspaper (let's just say, inquiring minds want to know), that he was just too much into football. Awww.

His name? Aw come on. You already know it. Of course you do. If you don't, then wait until February when they ask him the question they ask every Superbowl winning quarterback: Where are you going now?

The Patriots put a putting good stomping on the Cowboys a couple weeks back. I watched it in the enemy lair of one Mr. Schprock, who forced me to give him a high five when Randy Moss caught what at first glance seemed to be a touchdown. In the third quarter the Cowboys moved into the lead, the first such occurance for the Pats all year. Mr. Schprock was not happy. But he had the last laugh as the Pats tore us limb from limb, punching it into the end zone when the Cowboys were already buried. But if you were paying attention, this was a much better game than it seemed.

That's all I'll say about it now. We'll be back. And this time we'll be loaded with all our starters. And we're getting better every week.

So maybe football has me a little distracted.

I can't write about it here. Most of my readers have already clicked over to comment on the first line.

I haven't been writing, or even reading for that matter. I need to get back into it, but life is pulling me in different directions right now, but I can't let it tear me apart. Life is good and all those type of disclaimers, but I am distracted by family stuff, work stuff, and the daunting threat of moving across country. I'm not even sure I have the money to do so, and I'm taking a hard look at it. But the idea of digging into the financials is intimidating, and could destroy the world as we know it. Sometimes I think about when I was young, single, no responsibilities. Man, that was a piece of cake. But now I've crested forty and I'm losing my youth in ways that I can feel and see.

I don't know what I'm saying exactly. But I have to do something different than what I'm doing.

Kinda Tagged

2007-10-12T07:41:00.000-04:00

You can pop over to MagnetBabe's blog for a more in depth description of what this meme is all about. Basically this is a trail that leads back to the originator of this meme. Each blogger has picked and linked his or her three favorites posts and included the preceding chain of bloggers and blogger links.

Revellian dot com - SEO Keywords For Beginners, Content: The Kings Illegitimate Stepchild, Tales of Blogger-X Illusion

Mariuca - Wishing On A Falling Star - Love In Disarray, In Love With A Dream, The Good Client

Mariuca’s Perfume Gallery - Perfume Shopping Spree, Defining Beauty, In Full Splendour

Speedcat Hollydale Page - Rocket Boy in Hawaii - DC9, Speedcat’s Death Ride into Terror!, The Boy Inside All Men

Terri Terri Quite Contrary - Just How Immature Are We?, Finding a Voice, So Much More to See than the Game

Mahala- Uncle Huberts Custom Cows, Pray for the Child at Big Lots, The Legend of Saushie's Crotch

Tiff - How am I like Ron Weasley, A Social Experiment, Absolutely Boring Entry 101

Cosmic Cat - Just An Ordinary Thursday Night..., Not Gone With The Wind. Just Gone., The "Weekly Thoughtful Reminder" And Other Hazards Of Working

Field Lines - Even MIT Girls Get the Blues, Bye Bye, Friend, Bad Hair Day

Hard To Want - Knock Knock, Off to College, Sorry Darin.

So in selecting mine, which at the time of writing this sentence I have not done, my dilemma is to settle upon what flavor of writing I wish to share. In the beginning I used my readers as remote therapists, then moved on to memoirs of my childhood; sprinkled along the way were cute stories about my kids. So I suppose the way to go is to choose an example of each.

So here goes.

This goes way back to my early days of living in Massachusetts, having recently moved here from California. I was just starting into my routine of working at home. Jackson, then only five years old, told me the cutest Knock Knock joke. And coincidentally, I called it Knock Knock.

As far as memoirs go, there are quite a few to choose from. This was a difficult decision. I see that I only had three comments on this post, and some of my others had plus-twenty, but this is a story I like to tell to anyone who will listen. It's from my college days, which resembled the old west because of the constant threat of getting my butt kicked. And that was the thrill of it. It's called Off to College.

My last is a confession of blatant cowardice when I was in sixth grade. I was mortified of the paddle, which was used liberally in our school system as a means of correcting behavior. If a teacher ever touches my kids in a rough way, I will personally show up in the classroom, drag the teacher by the hair to the nearest restroom and shove his or her face down a dirty toilet and flush. But in those days it was acceptable, and even encouraged by parents, especially mine. I had a hard time writing this post. It was my very first, and it shames me to this day. It's an apology to my best friend at the time, someone I don't know anymore. It's called Sorry Darin.

As for who to tag, that's a tough one. This is best for bloggers that tell the occasional yarn about their life, or just have some real knee-slappers once in a while. Trina hits on all cylinders, as does Mr. Schprock (hint, On God). Trevor is just not normal, and Jaye is a bit whacked as well. Beth (hint, your first "experience") should try this as well. Dig into your archives and choose well, my friends. All of you have some tough decisions to make, should you accept this mission.

Novel Research

2007-09-21T08:26:00.000-04:00

I'm at the end of a development cycle at work. Tonight they lock down all the work we've been doing so the quality assurance people can make sure it all works with the intention of releasing it to the public. This is when my job gets hairy and scary.

I enjoy my job, but have I ever been so scarce as I have been for the last three or four months?

Just to let you know, I am trying out a new concept. I started a blog where I pose questions for professional people to answer. Right now I am searching out policemen, especially policement from the Houston, Texas area, where my work-in-progress ( WIP for those in the know ) is based. It's funny, but the wording of some of my questions is so poor that I'm afraid anyone who does stop by won't believe I can actually pull off a novel length work. I'll just have to edit when I get the chance. I've already got one lead on a Houston policeman, and I've emailed him to stop by. We'll see. This is a bit over my comfort zone, to approach strangers asking for favors. I feel like a poser for one thing, like I'm actually a novelist. I would feel better with one piece of work under my belt. But building a house starts a shovelful of dirt in an empty field.

I'm also storing my links there. One such link came from Jaye over at Jaye's Blahg, which contains references to character naming resources. You can get lost in link-land once you get started. It's fascinating.

I have about ten posting ideas, but I want to spend the proper time with them. I hope to make a round of visits soon.

More Bumps in the Road

2007-09-13T09:14:00.000-04:00

This morning I took Emmett to preschool as promised in yesterdays post. As my wife got him dressed, he picked up where he left off yesterday. By the time I had him in his seat, he was full-on crying about not wanting to go.

Anyone who has gone through this with their three-year-old will understand how difficult this is. But, as per Tee's comment, I had a secret weapon.

"Do you want a lollypop?"

"No!"

"Well, why don't you just hold it for me," I said as I handed it to him, his eyes following the motion like a cats to a ball at the end of a string. He managed to grab it from me without breaking his rythym.

"But I don't want to go to school!"

"What don't you like about school?"

"I don't get to see Kyle b-because he's n-not in my school anymore."

Kyle is still his friend, but since Kyle is a little older, he is in a classroom across the hall from Emmett. "But you see him on the playground, right?"

"Yes, but I don't want to go to school!"

"Do you need help opening that lollypop?"

He got quiet. "I can do it myself."

I heard the wrapper crinkle, so I adjusted the rearview mirror and saw him put the green lollypop in his mouth. Then he muttered almost under his breath. "Don't. Want. To-go. To-school." Little tears had stalled in mid-flight on each cheek.

We chatted for the rest of the trip. Talking about it seemed to calm him down. I think once he really analyzed it, school was about playtime and friends, two of his favorite things next to treats. But as we got closer, he reminded me that he didn't want to go.

"Let's go up together and we'll see what you think," I told him.

"And if I really hate it we can go home?"

I didn't want to lie. If I would have said yes, then technically it wouldn't have been a lie. If he made a big enough fuss, we would go home. If I said yes, then he would hold me to it. So I gave him the answer that most parents come to use far too often.

"We'll see."

Entering the classroom, I gave his teacher a look I cannot describe, but she understood my meaning. Code Red Alert.

She was very sweet, but Emmett went full-out, crying and begging to go home. At this point my resolve almost broke. When I took a step, he took twenty small ones in the same span, holding onto my leg and screaming.

The teacher was good though, this not being her first rodeo. She coaxed him towards the painting easel as I walked a small step behind. Then I leaned over and said in his ear, "I'm going downstairs for a minute, but I'll be right back."

He let me go.

Actually, that was a lie, one that I hope he forgives me for. I didn't go downstairs, and I didn't come right back. I hid on the other side of the door and looked through the crack, though I couldn't see him. He cried for a little while then stopped. Then started up again. I was on the verge when the teacher from across the hall saw what I was doing.

"It's hard, isn't it?" The look on her face was pure empathy.

"I feel like a traitor."

"Is that your boy with the orange shirt?"

"Yeah."

"He's in good hands with Miss De Matteo. She's kneeling down and talking to him. He's very close to picking up a paint brush." She looked again. "Oh yeah, he's thinking about it."

On the way home, I stopped at a local country store and bought him a candy snake that he talks about so much. That's what he'll get when his momma picks him up today.

Monday, we do it all over again.

*** Update ***

When I picked him up at school, he was sitting in a circle on a mat with the teacher along with the other children. When he saw me, he hollered "Daddy," jumped up and into my arms.

"Did you have fun?"

"Yes!"

I looked at the teacher who told me that it only took five minutes, and he had been happy ever since.

In the car, he told me how much fun he had, then chittered happily all the way home. We'll see how it goes on Monday now. But I think it will be much easier.

Bumpy Start

2007-09-12T08:59:00.001-04:00

This morning my second grader got on the bus. He went to the back and waved, like he does every morning, behind the glass of the rear exit door until the bus rolled out of sight. And there was me at the end of my driveway as the morning commuters launched past. Did they question the sanity of the tall, spastic, goofy guy who waves at them with a stupid smile on his face?

My preschooler cried his way out of going to school this morning. Momma negotiated for about fifteen minutes in the driveway beside the car. I could hear them outside my home-office window. Tomorrow, it looks like it might be my turn to take him in. It's time for a little daddy-tough-love.

Only the Good Die Young

2007-09-04T10:23:00.001-04:00

I expected the usual freak-show, something akin to the department of motor vehicles when I walked into the shabby lobby of the courthouse building, but the people were strangely personable. The waiting room was filled with my fellow prospective jurors, some sitting around a long meeting table, others on chairs that lined the four walls. Overhead was a drop-ceiling, and the walls were wood paneled. Thankfully I wore a tee under my long-sleeved dress shirt, and more importantly, that I had brought John Irving's Widow for a Year to keep me company. I would turn out to be a long morning.

When we had filled out some basic information and had settled into the routine of being alone in a crowd, a dapper gentleman presented himself as the one of two judges, and thanked us for being there. There were seven cases being considered, and our presence, he told us, was just the threat needed to force settlements out of court. He was probably no older than me, slightly graying hair that seemed to lay just right for him. His manner was gentle, but his station implied a fierceness of character that was at odds with his appearance.

We sat in that room from eight thirty to eleven before we were summoned to the courtroom. Court officers stopped by to give us periodic updates, imparting amusing anecdotes with the casual practiced ease of comedians. They had trapped us in a little white box, but at least we were made to feel appreciated.

I knew that my chances of getting picked were pretty good when the clerk had first handed me a little white card featuring a bold number one on it. I had filled out an information sheet, which I perfunctorily scanned checking no, no and no, until I read the part about swearing that everything I had written was true and nothing was knowingly omitted, punishable by blah-blah in prison and blah-blah Perjury blah-blah. So I fessed-up to my one arrest, how I stuffed a beer glass into the inside pocket of my jean jacket at a college bar, how I tried to run and ended up face-down as the bottom rung of a pyramid of steroid-enhanced bouncers. When I heard that the case involved a drunken driving charge, I was sure I was going home. The defense surely wouldn't have a problem with me, but the Commonwealth certainly should have. No such luck.

From my initial vantage point as I sat at the back of the courtroom, I couldn't help but be a tad envious of the lawyers. This always happens to me when I meet someone who has succeeded in life, whether he or she is a commercial real estate tycoon, a heart surgeon, or a basement tinkerer who stayed true to a childhood dream that lead to the special effects studios at Skywalker ranch. These lawyers were regal in their sharp suits and short tidy hair; they were Chad and Biff, Greeks from rival fraternities, presidents of their respective houses. The defense lawyer—what the hell, we'll call him Biff—had a Colgate smile that projected confidence and not a small bit of that necessary evil that my fellow jurists all recognized.

Not until they opened their mouths was the spell broken. The prosecutor, Chad, laced his fingers together and steepled his thumbs as he paced before the jury box. He explained in excruciating detail how alcohol impairs our judgment like a teacher might address a group of special-needs students. His delivery was stilted and altogether unimpressive. Maybe I've watched too many court dramas, but this was a real let down.

Biff was another story. He had every bit of the confidence he had projected, but as he opened his mouth at such a close distance, I could almost imagine the smell of his breath. My face, quite expressive if I'm not careful to guard it, must have compressed into a protective grimace. Two sentences into Biff's address, and I had him pegged as a scum-ball lawyer, and as much as I hated to admit it, he was already winning.

The first witness was the officer who brought the charges against the defendant. Standing at the raised podium, the officer was still shorter than me, and he had a nervous habit of twitching his head like a bird after every statement. He was obviously nervous. Aside from his shaved head, he hardly resembled any rendition of a prototypical cop. He looked more like the awkward kid at school that even the geeks picked on.

He pulled over the defendant at 1:30 in the morning and asked the accused if he had been drinking. Yes, three or four beers. Do you have any disabilities that would prevent you from passing a road-side sobriety test? Yes, I have bad knees. So the officer proceeded to have him walk a straight line. The defendant walked straight, turned around, walked back and stumbled when nearly complete. Why? Bad knee; it gives sometimes.

A full hour later, the accused is at the police station blowing .03 above the legal limit. Case closed? Not quite. The defense offered that studies have shown that alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream at different rates depending on the person. At 1:30 AM, who can say what the defendant's blood-alcohol-content was? The prosecution didn't even address this point. The jury concluded that the dexterity test was inconclusive, and that since it was on the Commonwealth to prove the defendant guilty, and since the Commonwealth did nothing to address the defense's assertion concerning BAC, we found for the defendant. To the last person, we all agreed that the defendant was lying about everything. Of course he stumbled because he was drunk, and of course his BAC was the same or worse at 1:30 than it was at 2:30. But we all agreed that reasonable doubt was presented and not refuted by the prosecution.

The judge took us into chambers afterwards to thank us, and we told him what happened. It turns out that the BAC reading is considered by law to be the same within three hours from the time of consumption of alcohol, and that the only question to the jury is whether or not the breath-test is admissible. Why didn't the prosecution tell us that? "He would have been stepping on my toes," the judge said. He looked thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose he could have asked the officer 'Are you aware of the law that states…', and of course the defense would have objected, but I would have allowed it." The judge had been impressed with the defense lawyer. This was the first time in the courts history that a lawyer had used that defense. "I'm going to tell the defendant that he should kiss his lawyers feet."

But he also told us that we brought up some real concerns that he will address with his superiors. His hands were tied too. There is a script that he reads from such that it prohibited him from telling us those aspects of law that would certainly have convicted the defendant. It would have saved us the better part of day in useless deliberation.

There was one woman on the jury who stood against all of us, saying that she had no doubt about the defendant's guilt. We countered that we didn't have any either. The issue was about reasonable doubt, and whether or not the prosecution had proven the defendant's guilt. She held us up for a morning and half an afternoon, and nobody blamed her. What we were doing was taking the system literally, using the facts presented and not inferring from personal opinion, which she clearly was. In the end, she signed her name to the verdict, but she was not happy.

As we were preparing to deliver the verdict, she called us all a bunch of liberals.

"Excuse me? Did you just call me a liberal?" I said.

"Yes I did."

"I'm not a liberal."

"Yes you are."

"I'm a liberal because I can make an objective decision setting aside the bias of my personal opinion?"

Her lips tightened. She wasn't convinced.

"I voted for George Bush," I continued. "What kind of self-respecting liberal would do that?"

That did the trick.

I’ve Got a Thousand Ideas

2007-08-24T08:01:00.001-04:00

But for now, just accept my sincerest hello, hope you're doing well. I'm behind on work after burning two days serving jury duty, which was a first for me, and a real learning experience. We let a guilty man walk because we took the law seriously.

I hope to pay everyone a visit soon!

I Want My Two Dollars!

2007-08-08T07:32:00.001-04:00

There is a kid that wants so badly to have a play date with my son Jackson that he is starting to hound me in my dreams. He was in Jackson's first grade class, where I volunteered once a month as an assistant. I was mortified on one such occasion when he sat in front of me and jammed his hand down his pants between his butt cheeks. He was also on my soccer team, put there by league management because he monopolized his previous coach's time with endless questions and requests.

Towards the end of the season is when it started—the incessant drone, the rata-tat-tat of request after request for a play date, right in front of his parents who never took the hint. The reasons why I won't are two-fold. First, as bad as I feel for the kid, he's got some filthy habits. And two, his parents are strange. Strange can be good, but between them and myself there always hangs an oppressive and uncomfortable silence. With play dates come the parents, and if that doesn't work out, then the kids don't work out, not at this age. I'm damn sure not dropping Jackson off at their house, and that kid is not coming over here unless he wears latex gloves and he agrees to a prison-style hose down.

When soccer season ended, I thought I was free of this persistent menace. But this week Jackson is taking a community course on building with Legos. There are other courses going on at the same time. Walking down the hall to drop Jackson off, I heard a familiar voice come from an adjacent classroom. I panicked, looking for nooks and crannies, perhaps an open locker to jam myself into—but it was too late.

"I want a play date with Jackson!"

"It's a complex thing with work and all…"

"I think I've been very patient."

"I know, but I… I'll…"

"Let's get it done before Labor Day, ok?"

I have to walk this gauntlet for three more days, and baby, I'm counting.

I told my wife about it, and she got a big laugh. That is, until I told her that next time he asks, I'm going to tell him to have his mother give her a call. A bucket of ice water to her face would have chilled her less.

In The Rain

2007-08-01T08:16:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was a departure from the norm.

The kids were stir-crazy. And by that I mean, they were bored – laying around like limp weeds, picking fights, tattling on each other – and the wife was low-energy and in low spirits. So we decided to go for a hike around Walden Pond.

It was overcast, so we brought a few umbrellas just in case it started to rain. By the time we pulled into the parking lot and paid our five dollars, it started to sprinkle. No big deal. It was warm.

On the trail, it came down a little bit harder. There were puddles forming, and I was wearing my brand new sneakers. But the puddles were easy enough to avoid. The kids were loving it as the drops polka-dotted their shirts. Normally I would have cautioned them to stand under the umbrellas, but they were like antelopes sprinting up the trail ahead of us and back. What the hell. They were having fun, and like I said, it was warm.

Then the rain started falling in earnest. It was awesome. Walden Pond was being assaulted, and the water level was rising. We crossed a little land bridge and continued on. And why not? The rain around here never lasts for very long.

Water poured through the forest, downhill toward us and into the pond. The puddles merged into a running creek now, impossible to avoid as I waded in ankle deep water. It was hard to hear one another as we finally decided to turn back. The little land bridge was gone now, but we didn't know it yet. We blew right by thinking that by keeping the water on our right we would eventually make it back. But the trail was no longer familiar; the brush became dense and nearly impassable. We abandoned the umbrellas altogether.

Thankfully my wife figured out what had happened with the land bridge and we were able to wade our way back to the main trail.

There were only three other people left when we emerged at the trail head, soaked to our underwear. We all had a laugh at ourselves as the kids went swimming fully clothed.

Weeds: Masturbation Lesson

2007-07-26T15:10:00.001-04:00

Warning!

If you are offended by the explicit references to masturbation, please do not press play.

You have been warned.

We have just rented the second season of Weeds and just saw this for the first time last night.

We. Loved. This.

Nobody ever talked about sex with me, and not that I welcomed the subject either. This guy approaches the subject of masterbation like one would the subject of say, detailing a car. No big deal kid.

Understand that this family is raised by a single mother (who happens to be a pot dealer) whose husband (I think) got killed before season one even began. She called a plumber to investigate clogged pipes, who found that somebody had been flushing tube socks. Turns out the boy was using them to clean up his emissions if you will, and disposing of the evidence. She tried to speak with her son, but the talk went nowhere, so she asks her husbands brother to try having the talk instead.

And so, without further ado, here is what he had to say.

Quickly

2007-07-23T12:30:00.001-04:00

I can't believe how busy I am. Working at home was supposed to be a way to gain more time, but instead it has been the great vortex. Now I do my own laundry because I am at home to do it. And the kids are in the office all the time, wanting to play games, or just to see me. For instance, I wrote one sentence and Jackson came in to tell me that Emmett knocked over a pile of clothes. The little guy announces every time he has bathroom business. It's cute but distracting. I've got more tasks around the house to do, and lunches last an hour and a half, ten minutes of which is spent eating.

There is a pile of papers on my desk of people and places I need to call, bills to contest.

As for that business with my father, I did indeed go the route of asking for the bill to pay directly. Dad didn't even blink. And more than this, he understood the reason why and didn't give me an ounce of grief. It turns out that the insurance wasn't cancelled, but there are two possibilities of how to proceed. The first is that they let him pay back retroactive, and thus my money flies out the door, money I don't have. Or two, they simply reinstate him with a four month waiting period. The latter case involves his wife finding out that he let the policy lapse, and that is what I hope happens. It would serve him right to eat the shit stew that he cooked up.

What else.

I've been trying to learn Hey There Delilah on the guitar, and have actually done it. It just needs some polish. A little out of my singing range during the chorus, but I'm not getting paid for it. I'm also trying to learn Sublime's What I Got, Iz's Somewhere Over The Rainbow (I play guitar, not Ukelele, so it is only approximate), Death Cab For Cutie's I Will Follow You Into The Dark and Oasis' Wonderwall (because I heard Charlie playing it on Lost). In my spare time of course.

Still plotting, but that has taken a slow-down turn. I lost inspiration for a while, but watching a few movies, and reading the latest Harry Potter, kind of got me back into the groove. Something my mentor said has been haunting me too, that I have too many characters. Now I want to create even more, and it's got me a bit down. I have to believe though that my instinct is driving me in the right direction, that I should just do it and ignore that.

The new Harry Potter is gripping. Rowling is a great story teller. That could have something to do with why she is richer than the Queen of England, right? I'm only on page 187 right now. The ladies at the library started reading it the night before and finished it before I even had a copy in my hand. That's dedication. And that's how you judge success.

Hit Up

2007-07-16T14:27:00.001-04:00

My dad just hit me up for twelve hundred to pay for the insurance policy that he let lapse. This happened a couple years ago, and I ponied up then like I'm doing now. What can I do. He's my father and as much as I know that he has done this to himself, I don't have a choice.

That's not true, but it's so true.

A year or so ago, my dad called me and asked me to finance his move to Alaska. He had a job lined up sitting behind a desk and designing plans for a friend's construction outfit. I called his friend and had a little talk. It had the flavor of a cold call, because I've never actually met the man, though his son was on my high school football team.

"When is the last time you heard from my father," I asked him.

"Oh, I'd say... it'd have to be going on twenty years now."

"So I take it then that he doesn't really have a job with you if he comes to Alaska?"

He laughed. "No."

I thought about this for a moment. "Would you give him a job if he asked?"

"I don't want you to take this the wrong way--"

"Don't worry about it."

"--but your Dad was a loose cannon when he was here the last time. I have no reason to think he would be any different now."

"No, you understand him perfectly, Tom. I appreciate that you told me."

Dad's made many requests for my money, and each time it is so difficult to say no. Now he's getting old. His back and hips have had surgery, and there is more damage in need of repair. Thus the emergency we have today.

But how in the hell did he let something so critical just go away? I'm tempted to pull the net. Five years ago he wanted me to cosign for a cabin costing eighty grand, with his wife on the other line telling me to refuse, refuse, refuse him because she would rather die than move to that cabin.

I had a plan that I could take a second mortgage on the house and borrow enough to buy a fixer upper and have my dad do the work. It was almost set when his wife called me and reinforced the nagging doubts in my head. "Don't give him a dime, Scott. He means well, but he will spend it all. All of it. And you will lose everything."

I see my kids faces, and I wonder if I will some day be like this. Please God don't let that happen.

If I listed out all the scams, cons and outright crimes my father has committed, you would be stunned. There's something wrong with him. Up in the head. He's a force, a wrecking ball, and someday he will be mine to take care of.

I'll Keep on Plugging

2007-07-14T13:35:00.000-04:00

It's highly unusual of me to post on the weekend, but I felt like I should reply to all the responses to my last post. First, it is nice to be appreciated. More than nice, actually. When the blog started, it was, as Natalie (magnetbabe) pointed out, a place to lay out some of my memoirs. More than this, it was a place to confess all my sins. To my knowledge, I have never lied about my part in things. I was going to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that anyone who ever said a bad thing about me was absolutely correct. I told you about the time I laid the blame on a friend in fifth grade, how he accepted it, and how the teacher exposed my black little soul. I can still feel the sting.

I worked through my childhood, through all the step mothers, life with my philandering father. And then the well went dry. What else was there to say?

I found a post where I promised to write a new short story every week or some such. And that might have happened if I didn't lose my job in California. Life changed and my priorities with it.

And now I'm writing a novel. At least I hope I'm writing a novel. I'll only be certain when I finish. The blog has become a hodgepodge of posts about what I have determined to be of no interest to anyone. When I wrote my memoirs, there was an energy there, and a punch that I knew would be sure to knock you in the jaw. I want to feel that again.

But it feels good to hear that, despite it all, you don't mind having me around. I'll keep on plugging. And you never know, I might just find my wings again.

Nada Mucho

2007-07-12T10:04:00.000-04:00

I'm going to attempt the blogger rounds today, throughout the day. There is a little break in my action, which sounds like I'm out-of-my-mind busy, but the truth is, that's only a part of it. I'm not sure if I'm going to be a full-time blogger anymore. In the library just the other night, I was describing to a lady friend the experience of watching the opening scene of Star Wars for the first time. Afterwards, she told me I should write about it. My first thought was to build an entire story around a fictional character set in that time, and not to share it here on my blog.

This is not to say I quit. But I have gone stale. What motivated me in the beginning is totally gone. Perhaps because I've written a few scenes with characters that are so charged with life that my own seems mundane. Or maybe I just want to save it; instead of telling the truth, as I like to do, I could really lay it out and have some fun with it.

I have a deep admiration for writers that can take their ordinary day and turn it into something special to read about. Someday I might be that kind of writer too, but there is something lacking in my appraisal of the world around me. There is something there, inside, simmering, steaming to come out. For some reason, the blog is not providing its release. Maybe it will in the future, when I figure out what it is that is bugging me.

Sometimes Too

2007-07-03T15:25:00.000-04:00

I'm in the mood to write something, to stretch a bit. Outlining is good but it can be a stumper to creativity. Working at home has presented some unique challenges that I shan't go into. But less time is what it all boils down to. And the time I do have I am extremely not motivated.

But, Emmett said two cute things this weekend, and I thought I would share. We spent the waning daylight trolling in a river on a friend’s boat, and the captain let my son Jackson take the helm. That evening, after our guests had treated the boys to ice cream, Emmett sat on a high barstool next to the kitchen island chatting happily with our friend Terri.

He told her, "I always like your house."

He's three years old mind you, and just as cute as can be imagined. He asked Terri if she had ever seen a cartoon the name of which she couldn't make out. She said she hadn't.

"He picks his bugars and eats them."

"He does?" She said does more like du-uhhhhh-zzzzz…

"I eat my bugars some times too."

SNL- Sally O'Malley

2007-06-22T10:37:00.001-04:00

We have a new appreciation for Molly Shannon after this one.

SNL - Urigrow Commercial

2007-06-22T10:36:00.001-04:00

To entertain you while I'm away.

Sounding Like a Broken Record

2007-06-20T09:29:00.000-04:00

I have a really great idea for a blog post, but I don't have the time to devote to it right now. It doesn't paint me in a good light, but I'm going to be honest with you about how a teenaged boy once thought.

But not today.

Thanks for the well wishes, the comments and the visits. I'll be back when things slow down. I haven't done any writing in two weeks, so what free time I get I need to at least get some done.

Making a Splash

2007-06-15T08:40:00.000-04:00

I've been diligently trying to make a splash at my new job. For those who don't know, I took a chance on a Michigan company that hired me sight-unseen over the phone. Contrary to my wife's suspicions, they are on the level, and I came home from my visit with them with all my organs. As soon as my name was on the dotted line, they let down their guards and told me that filling my position was difficult. They struck out twice trying to do so. The first developer worked for three months before admitting he was in way over his head. The second played cool, but was totally unreachable for two weeks. When the company called, the wife answered and would say he just stepped out.

So that is the environment I stepped into. All eyes were on me. I got myself an MSN account because they all communicate via the MSN messenger. At first I would get two or three messages first thing in the morning: "u there?"

They gave me an easy assignment as a test to see if I could deliver. Part of the assignment involved a technology I've only heard about, but have never personally worked with. Fine. They knew that from the interview. Sometimes it pays to be honest. But what I did say is that I'm capable of picking up the new stuff and making a go of it. They took me at face value.

I backed up the talk, finishing the assignment in one day.

No ticker tape parade. But I can only imagine the collective sigh of relief.

But working at home is presenting me with some challenges that I hadn't foreseen. I'm working harder than I did when I went to the office. My writing time has been impacted. I used to go away and do so at lunch, but now I barely even take a lunch. My friend Clay called it new-job-enthusiasm, and baby I've got it. The wife has suggested that we eat lunch, take a walk, then I should sit down and write every day.

How's that for support!

The Hits Just Keep On Coming

2007-06-12T07:48:00.000-04:00

You may recall the post in which I declared that against my initial instinct, I forced my son, Jackson, to play baseball. This caused me some inward reflection. One the one hand, Jackson didn't want to play, but on the other, he never really wants to try anything new unless it involves the Nintendo DS or mass consumption of sugar. He is seven years old after all; even though he looks older, and in many ways acts older, he's still just a little boy.

This weekend I was painfully reminded that he was on the field against his will. It didn't help that we just saw Meet The Robinsons, where we come to find out that the bad guy started down the dark path of his life because he fell asleep in the outfield and lost the little league championship for his team.

Jackson struck out three times in a row. I sat next to him on the bench and tried to console him, but he was on the verge of tears and was unreachable. We'll go to the batting cages this week, I promised. Everyone goes through a slump; you just have to work through it. Hollow words upon deaf ears. His heart was broken.

I questioned the decision to make him play. Were those welled-up tears because he had let me down? All my words of reassurance would never take that away. He would believe only what he felt in his heart, that his daddy wants him to be a good baseball player, to go onto the majors and make millions of dollars.

His next at bat, a miracle happened, a crushing ground ball through the infield. His smile as he leaned toward second was the healing balm of my heart. Thank God! The next at bat, same thing. At this point I hoped the game would end, but his name came up again.

I was all nerves as he stepped up to the plate. You might be laughing right now. It's of little consequence, you might think, a little league game like this, so early in life. But, in my opinion, this is the time when patterns are learned, and what, for better or for worse, will be repeated throughout a peron's lifetime. For instance, if I would have pulled him out and let him quit, he would likely always be a quitter, and never know what its like to fight through adversity.

His last at bat, Jackson hit a rocket into the outfield, over the fields heads and it rolled to the fence. I could have killed the first base coach for not sending him to second base, but I'll take it nonetheless.

The best part is, the coach gave Jackson the game ball. One of his teammates, who is also in Jackon's first grade class, said that he has never seen anyone from the team hit a ball harder.

This is what I was talking about. That's the feeling you don't get sitting at home playing Gameboy.

A Vision

2007-06-08T10:55:00.000-04:00

At the airport in Detroit, I met the two guys with whom I will be working, assuming I like the job and they like the code I produce, for the next several months or even years. The guys both work remotely for the company, and have been for six plus years apiece. So we all met at the airport and went to Enterprise together to pick up our cars.

Individually we were responsible up front for charging for our own accommodations, including the car. I got the smallest compact, but as I was being escorted to it, the man said to me, For seven dollars more a day you can be driving a Mustang--how would you like this black one?

One look and I said gleefully, I accept!

But first I had to talk the guys into doing the same, which they did.

So already I was taking advantage of my new employer, but so were the incumbents.

I met up with Kathleen as well, after asking the wife for permission. I thought about just doing it and saying nothing, but how would that have looked, huh? I called Mr. Schprock for advice on the matter, we being two bloggers who have met and have an interest in meeting our fellow bloggers when opportunities like this arise. Be up front about it, he advised, supporting the decision I had already made. My wife was really cool about it.

By the way, Kat is super cool!

I was the new guy, that's for sure. I'm used to being the center of attention because I'm so fucking funny, but I had to take a back seat on this trip. The guy I'm working for is a story teller just like me, and I squelched the urge to offer counters to his stories at a company dinner. A little voice told me to keep my mouth shut. I've heard that voice before, and though I rarely listen to it, it has never been wrong.

I managed to get some reading done on the trip. And I worked on the dreaded outline for my story. Lo and behold, it produced positive results. I might actually have most of the story worked out from beginning to end. Not totally, but in essence it's there. In two weeks I'll present it to my writers group and see if they don't think so too.

I met out with my writing mentor last evening for a few drinks. We bounced around Lowell and hit three pubs. He's a university professor, and knows almost everyone there. He's got the gift for gab, and really draws others into a conversation. Our waitress at the last stop was, how should I put this, out of this world. My mentor asked her a question and she broke into a long animated talk about her future ambitions with nursing, dancing, etc. I barely heard a word of it because I was too busy watching her mouth form the words. She had perfect everything, and was so unpretentious and sweet. She reminded me of the kind of girl I had a crush on in college, the kind that dated presidents of the best fraternities. I was also reminded of Rachel Smith, our Miss USA that fell down and popped back up and went back to work like there was nothing to it.

I'm married, so don't get the wrong idea. She was a vision, and so is my wife.

Entrepeneurial Spirit

2007-06-01T23:47:00.000-04:00

This has been my week between jobs. Last week I said goodbye to my old company, and I felt a pull. The pull of self doubt. Pull is actually a weak word -- tug perhaps is more appropriate. But this week I find myself completely at ease. The people I thought I would miss so much, let's just say not so much. This isn't my first rodeo cowboys and girls.

I know these lyrics by heart:
I've been in and out of love and in between
And now we play the final showdown scene
As the credits roll the sad song starts to play
And this is where the Cowboys rides away.

Into the city named for the man who defeated Santa Ana after the massacre at the Alamo. Did you know that Santa Ana went into exile in Cuba after that? And that he was brought back by the Americans on the condition that he rally popular Mexican opinion on the side of America in the southern Texan border dispute, thirteen years before the Civil War? He was given troops, and then he marched against us.

I had no idea.

Thank you Jeff Shaara for making it so interesting.

Ah, so, like I was saying...

I'm flying to Michigan to meet up with my new employer on Sunday. My wife asks me if I'm sure this company is legit; I say I guess so. How do you know they aren't organ harvesters?

My son (two weeks ago?) got paid thirteen dollars for a back rub at school. He's in first grade (to give you perspective). Keep in mind that we had to piece this all together and pay a visit to the school principal.

It all started with a note from the teacher reporting that my son was inappropriately touching a girl in his class.

Now I don't know what races through your mind when you hear (or read as it were) such a statement, but head was spinning. He wasn't much use under interrogation. Funny, but he was not unlike Bill Clinton, deftly dodging the questions, not really answering, or playing along with the scenerios I posed, that kind of thing. Then it was useless to keep asking.

Then I saw the money in his Pokemon wallet. I said Where did you get that money? He says her name. For what? Rubbing her back. I think, I thought you said it was an accident. But then I think, No, I suggested that it was an accident and he played along.

I go downstairs and tell my wife. I'm calling her parents, I say. I can't have them thinking that we would keep it. No, my wife says, Let's talk to the principal.

Next morning I'm in the front office. He's a fuzzy little man, a pip squeak, the kind that always got picked last. I interrupt the coffee talk he's having with the secretaries, or whatever they call themselves these days.

We go into a side office and slide him the money and explain.

He laughs, says What kid would turn down money? I laugh too, say, I have to admit, I admire his entrepeneurial spirit. But where did the girl get all that money?

He scratches his head, says I'd better check and see if she still has her field trip money.

I Feel It!

2007-05-28T12:39:00.001-04:00

Congratulations, you are officially the conduit of my writer's block.

Give yourself a hand!

You see, I am officially writing a book. Now keep in mind, I've said a lot of things in my life, but this time I really mean it. I've made claims that simply weren't true, though I would have denied it at the time, even to myself.

Some have been blatantly false, as in I was just taking a piss. To feel good, because growing up, feeling like me sometimes was too much to bear. That's not the way of it now, so don't feel sorry; it was a different time. One of my college favorites was pretending to be the quarterback of the Washington State Cougars. You had to be pretty stupid to believe it, or perhaps I'm being too self-deprecating. Any guesses on what my name was during the spinning of this yarn?

I also used to pretend to be a member of a "cool" fraternity, to see how the sorority girls would react. There were some houses that were known for only admitting the creme de la creme, so naturally, I wanted to see what it would be like to be part of those elite, and to see if the girls believed it was possible. Most of the time they did. I met a girl in Boston right after I had graduated from Potsdam, so I was still young and could pretend to be in school still. She was gorgeous. And after telling my story for an extended time, I could see that she was actually falling for it in a bigger way than I had expected. And that's when I knew I had blown it. I said I was a Sigma Chi, which I had been for a couple months. She asked me for the secret handshake, which I knew. But something in my manner gave me away. I'm guessing it was my guilt. As she stomped away, I knew I had given my last performance.

But I'm way off on a tangent here. I'm talking about the lies I tell myself, which naturally extend to the rest of the world. I tell myself that I can do anything, that I can learn guitar for instance, that soon I will be good enough to be in a band; I'm a great singer, though I'm actually quite limited; I'll someday own my own computer software company; I'm a great manager of people. It's the power of positive thinking on steroids, and it has its advantages. But after awhile, people stop listening, or glaze over as I describe my newest, biggest dream. Writing, however, is more than a dream. I'm actually doing it.

My mentor has read quite a bit of my work in progress, and for the first time, I'm getting the sense that he really believes I can do it. Not that he hasn't been in every way quite positive and complimentary, and maybe nothing on his end has changed; maybe the change has occurred inside me.

Either way, the result is the same.

I'm tasked with outlining my story, and that is how I started this post, looking at the blank screen of my outline and thinking, "What else could I do right now to avoid this for a little while more?" But I did manage to eke out some more details (I started this post late last night), and even came up with a killer ending, and more than one scene in between.

It's gonna happen. I feel it!

I'll Miss it Here

2007-05-24T14:02:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow will be my last day at my current position here in Watertown, Massachusetts. As a send off, a bunch of coworkers took me out for drinks. I got the night off from father duties in order to really take advantage of the night.

I was pleasantly surprised at the turn out. You gotta love it when you reach for your wallet and they tell you to put that thing away. I stayed out late, drank more than I have in who knows how long, then drove to my faraway home in boonesville. By the way, I know it's irresponsible to drink and drive, but like Sam Kinison once said, I don't want to drink and drive; it's just that there's no other way to get the fucking car back to the fucking garage.

By the way, Sam was eventually killed by a drunk driver.

That's no joke.

So I am trying not to think about it, but I'm really going to miss these guys. Tomorrow I'll be going out to lunch with the crew, so today was my last trip to the Meat Spot deli, where I have gone faithfully for almost a year now. They are the best people; Dick and Harry are the Armenian brothers that own it. Karen, Dick's wife, always has a smile and book recommendations for me. Their daughter works during the summer once in awhile, and has Karen's looks and personality -- cute as a button (and miraculously only in eighth grade). I brought a coworker who just started yesterday with me, and introduced him as my replacement. Harry though... he's my favorite. Quiet, unassuming, a perfect gentleman, the kind of guy you love to make laugh. As they bid me heartfelt goodbyes, I promised to bring my wife in sometime to meet them. Walking back to my car, I have to admit that I felt a little misty.

I'm getting sentimental in my old age. Good people are never to be taken for granted.

Eight Random Facts about Me

2007-05-22T08:37:00.000-04:00

I've been tagged by Toni, Shawn and Jason. It's about time I got on with it.

1. I was one of the last kids in my school to swear off Sesame Street. When I was in eighth grade, I still had a stack of 45 RPM records with such famous hits as the Sesame Street theme song, Somebody Come and Play, I Love Trash, I've Got Two Eyes, and Big Bird's alphabet song (the one where he finds the alphabet chalked onto the sidewalk and thinks its one big word). I couldn't get enough. While the world dreamed of living in a yellow submarine, I was playing games at the ladybug picnic.

I put them away for good when my step-brother announced it to my schoolmates.

The great sadness of my childhood was that Ernie, Bert, Grover, Oscar, Big Bird, Kermit, Cookie Monster, The Count (ah, ah), et al were not real. I dreamed of a living, breathing Muppet world and vowed when I was in sixth grade to bring them to life, so I bought a science book from the grade above me and read it from cover to cover. When I finally went to college, Robotics seemed like too much math, so I settled for a generic computer programming degree instead.

2. When I was in fifth grade, all the neighborhood girls three or more years younger than myself had crushes on me. Nobody my own age, of course. So I set up a kissing booth thinking to make a few dollars. This created a "swarm" of about fifteen girls, so I crawled on top of a mobile home trailer and dangled my hand. The first stepped up and pecked at it like a woodpecker until I jerked it back and closed up shop.

There was another girl that was older than me that always referred to me as dimples. She always greeted me on the bus as such, then laughed as I squirmed and turned red. If she ever saw me around the neighborhood, she would chase me, threatening to kiss me if she caught me. I was too fast.

3. I've always had a dream, and not so coincidentally, same too with my father. Thankfully, I at least was instilled with a worker gene.

4. In college, while wrestling with Jeff Gordon, I threw him onto his guitar, snapping the neck clean off it. I didn't have money or any access to money, so he took my skis as collateral until such a time as I had it fixed. At the end of the school year, situation unchanged, I took my skis back. He asked, "How do I know you'll make good?" I answered, "You don't."

That summer a friend bet me that he could shimmy up the side of a skinned log we had stuck in the ground as the first ingredient of a home-made crane. He didn't make it five feet. Instead of paying me, he offered a guitar that he had taken from a previous business partner who had screwed him out of some money. I accepted. The next semester started without me in attendance, but I took a special trip to Washington State University in order to make good on my word. The guitar was far superior in quality and sound to the one I had broken. It even had built-in pickups for plugging into an amp. I was feeling quite magnanimous as I handed him the guitar in a beautiful, hard-shell case.

Jeff picked it up, strummed it once, leaned it against the wall and said, "Thanks. I've got a lot of homework to do, so if you don't mind…"

5. I have an obsessive personality, whatever that means. For example, when I finally got it in my head that I wanted to play guitar, I drove everyone absolutely bat shit crazy talking about it. I played Johnny B. Goode in my room over and over until Dave Haase finally told me to play something else. Then I went through a Doors phase. In college it was The Wham Rap, which led to Lip Synch. Later, much later, in the bars, happy hour, after work, it was Karaoke. Then it was La Fonda Del Sol where a band had me sing Cover of the Rolling Stone. Then it was softball. Now it's writing. I talked a lot about it as recently as a month ago, but now, for some reason, I don't blather on about it, preferring now to get something done and let the work do the talking for me.

6. I'm phenomenal at making new friends. Keeping them… now that's the trick.

7. At forty two, I think I'm finally over high school. Maybe.

8. I have an infinite capacity to love and forgive, and I often wonder why people don't see that. Then again, maybe they do.

I'm supposed to tag eight people, so here goes: Tee, Mr. Schprock, Beth, Jen, Natalie, Toast, Peter, Unlucky Girl. I'm not sure if the last two would even be interested, but I think they would be interesting.

Coach Johnson

2007-05-18T08:56:00.000-04:00

I don't know if I've told this story before, but all this discussion of junior sports, about winning and effort and what's important, has got me thinking about a time when effort meant more to my coach that the actual results.

Damn if I'm not forgetting my team name at the time, but I was in sixth grade in Akron, Ohio. We were playing the best team in our league. They could hit and field, and didn't have a weak player on their team. At least that was my impression. They would eventually take the championship trophy home. But on this day, they had to go through us.

We were pumped. Though we were huge underdogs, in our hearts we knew we could beat them. I played first base, and can still remember the intensity I felt on the field. The only play I can remember was a line drive shot over my right shoulder. I reached up with my glove hand (my left) and pulled it down to end their inning.

It was electric. We really came to play.

But in the end, we lost.

There were two traditions after any little league game in those days. You shook hands, and then the winners went for soft serve ice cream at the custard stand.

Shaking hands was always a perfunctory ritual. Get in a line, shuffle forward, slap hands on the way by muttering "Good game, good game, good game..." But today, as we passed by, I got real hand shakes. I felt the relief, saw it in their faces, heard it in their voices. "Great game, oh my God! That was close, nice snag you had there..."

Still.

Heads low, we gathered around the coach as he called us in for the obligatory speech. I'll try to reconstruct it, but keep in mind that this is only a reflection of the emotion I can still feel after all these years, after the details have faded away.

"You boys played one tough game out there today."

I thought, "Yeah, but not good enough."

"I have never been more proud of you than I am right now. By all rights you should have won that game, and it's only by dumb luck that you didn't. You played your hearts out."

He looked at each one of us, making sure we were paying attention. There was no mistaking his sincerity. "Now I'm not supposed to do this, but..."

We perked up like dogs hearing a sound outside the human range.

"I'm taking you all out for ice cream."

Today we have a thousand flavors to choose from, but back then it was chocolate and vanilla. I've probably sampled each of those myriad flavors since; but never, ever, has an ice cream tasted so sweet as that plain vanilla cone did that day.

His name was Paul Johnson. I'm betting that his son, Paul Johnson, Jr., my erstwhile friend, classmate and teammate, is a little league coach today.

A Word of Explanation

2007-05-16T13:53:00.000-04:00

I'm getting the feeling from the response to my last post that I've sold myself as a different kind of person than I am.

I love kids.

And many of you know that. But I have to be clear on one point. As a coach, if I have six kids on the field and six sitting, the six that are on the field need to be playing to the best of their ability. I don't mean to say they should be the best in the league, and not even the best they can be. But they better be out there trying and paying attention. Or they will be pulled out until they get that.

I'm not going to be responsible for scarring kids for life, and if you ask any parent whose kid is on my team, you would not get one of them saying that I'm being unfair in any way. I had one parent observe that his kid hadn't played in a quarter, but one kid has to sit every quarter of a game, and that has to cycle through every kid in my team. The only criticism you could level, and one that would fall on deaf ears, is that I don't make my best players sit out.

A game is about having fun. On that we all agree. Where people diverge is on what the definition of fun is. Fun for me is hard play, and yes, winning. Winning is fun. There I said it. Winning is FUN. Losing is not fun. The trick is balancing a winning strategy while spreading the play time around to all the kids involved.

So, to be clear, I have several players on my team that have absolutely no soccer skills. They can't kick, pass, stop a ball or get in someones way. They simply do not exist on the soccer field. They get equal playing time, and when they make a play, any play, coach Scott is out there letting them know.

But, I'll admit that I did want to have an assembly of kids that could really play the game, mostly so that my son could know what it was like to be on a team of crackerjacks. I still remember when I was a kid and won a little league championship. The feeling was beyond description, and it lasts a lifetime. And it doesn't happen to everyone, and maybe I'm hopping on that ride too soon. But I promise that I'm not taking it out on the kids, that they are having fun, and I would rather shoot myself through the head than to give them a bad experience of the scarring variety.

We've all had them. I'll never forget mine, and I won't be responsible for dishing them out. I still want to win my games. I give it my all just like I want my kids to give me theirs.

Sweet and Sour Weekend

2007-05-15T10:24:00.001-04:00

Mother's Day we took my wife to the Brimfield Antique Show. I was prepared for an extremely boring day of shopping. As it turns out, it was kind of neat. The proprietors of each station are some kind of hybrid between carnies and deadheads, selling some pretty random shit. I should have kept a notebook of some of the more obscure, such as a child's toy that I remember from my own childhood. It was one of those panels that have a series of knobs that click, whir and ding, a rotary telephone dial. Funny thing is, for as old as it is, my kids zoned in and went to work on it. I had to pull them away.

One station had old band equipment, used up trombones and tubas. There were ancient baseball mitts, catchers gear, helmets, and bats. Arrows with the guide feathers stripped. Crazy. And old man scrutinized us as we sifted through the trash. As we left, he seemed angry that we didn't buy anything, picking up the tuba and slamming it with a thundering crash back onto the pile of twisted brass.

I ended up buying a collection of old pinup art of sexy ladies in embarrassing situations, such as the time Marilyn Monroe stepped over the street vent, and she had to hold her hands down in front of her to keep it from blowing up. My wife is still trying to figure out why.

The day before, on Saturday, my son had his sixth game of the soccer season. You may already know that I am coaching this team.

Now this is where some of you are going to diverge on your opinion of me. This is an under eight league, meaning that the kids are only seven years old. I am all about having fun; but fun for me is all about winning. I could amend that by saying that I can take losing as long as our effort was a hundred percent. But to me, there is no sense in playing anything unless you are there to play.

There is another coach in the league that handpicked her team and gave everyone what was left over. When I was asked to coach originally, I was able to have a few choice players as well. My aim was to have a team that could compete on game day, so my son could have that experience. Last year the coach didn't care, and it trickled down to the players. I could see it on the kids' faces that they didn't like losing.

So once I had my team in place, the aforementioned coach didn't like that my team looked so good, and it got around that I was stacking my team (I know this sounds ridiculous, we are talking about kids here--I get it). So, I gave one of the other teams that didn't have many talented kids basically my best player. So, the aforementioned coach decided that she had a kid she didn't want, so she gave him to me.

That same player's father this weekend complained to me when we were up five to four with three minutes left in the game that his son hadn't played in a while. It was true, but one kid needs to sit per quarter due to the number of kids on my team. It was his turn. However, I acquiesced, and put his son in the game, the same kid that just earlier was contemplating the mystery of a hole in the ground while he should have been defending.

The other team tied it up. Then, when we got the ball back, this kid gets the ball and dribbles it backward, toward our goal. He passes it to the other team, and they scored the winning goal.

I have been going back and forth about this in my head. My whole goal for this season has been dashed. Now I have to be a smiley bobble head and say that it's just about the kids and having fun.

But I tell you what, I could have strangled that kids father. At the same time, I'd hate to be in his shoes.

Oh, by the way, my son is totally digging baseball. We bought a new bat and a cool batters helmet, and suddenly he thinks he's Big Papi.