Hey kid: Shut up

From a story in today's Cincinnati Enquirer exploring a phenomenon it calls "premature affluence":

What makes parents do it, experts say, are motives that range from sheer financial ability to "guilt giving" to make up for an absence of parental time or attention. And then there's simple convenience - a 16-year-old with his own car, for example, can haul younger siblings to soccer practice. Worse still, some parents give out of dread of what happens if they don't. "I've had parents tell me they're scared to come home from the store without a certain toy," said psychologist Buffone.

Scared? Scared?

A fellow parent once gave me his No. 1 Rule of Parenting, and we stick with it: "Never take shit from your kids."

Scared. Give me a break.

Thing is, if parents have already created this expectation in children old enough to cause that fear, they've already lost. It's too late to undo that.

And don't even get me started on the "guilt giving" thing.

Quick breather

Today, for the first time in several days, I didn't spend every waking moment thinking about, talking aobut, using, testing, and cursing at software. Here's what I did instead:

-- Slept like a baby on an Airbus A320, not worried for a second that the landing gear might go sideways ...
-- Went to a birthday party. The guest of honor was turning 5. About 30 of her friends were there to share the joy, including my three children. Talked football and airplanes with the guest of honor's dad, who is an Air Force pilot. On Nov. 11, he's leaving for Turkey for 15 months.
-- Hung out with the kids after coming home from the birthday party. We watched Shark Tale for the 23rd time. The animated Robert De Niro is pretty funny.
-- Played guitar and sang. Did neither very well, of course, but my audience of zero didn't care.
-- Monitored the Young Daughter after a CAT scan this afternoon. She had two seizure episodes earlier this week. Anxiously awaiting the results to determine what the next step is.
-- Standing watch at home tonight while The Wife takes a night off. God, she's earned it. She's been dealing with pretty much everything while I've been holding the hand of the software I'm installing. Everything, of course, ranging from dealing with normal life plus seizures plus bad news from the extended family.

It's been a long damn 168 hours for both of us. I plan to be unreachable for the next 12. Then it's time to get up and do it all again.

We can help

Their dog crapped in our yard. Usually, that's not a good way to get to know someone.

But my wife, of course, is a Dog Person. When the very apologetic woman with the black lab and the 7-year-old boy in tow stopped to apologize -- "I don't have a bag, I'm so sorry" -- The Wife assured her that it was OK, and that it certainly was not the first or last dog turd that would find a home in our yard.

I must point out that nobody gets out of our yard without getting to know The Wife. This is a woman who met one of her best friends in the checkout line at Kroger, and another in a random outing to the park three days after we moved to Florida the first time. When you and she cross paths, you will get to know her, and in minutes, you'll be giving her information you wouldn't just give any stranger. She's irresistable that way.

This stranger, with the kid and the dog, somehow let slip that she was visiting from New Orleans. Well, not "visiting," exactly. They got out of their East New Orleans neighborhood just before Hurricane Katrina dropped in with its 125-mph shredder.

She and 10 of her relatives are staying with relatives in our neighborhood. They don't know how long they'll be staying. They don't know if they have a home to go back to. They only know what they see on CNN, and what they see on CNN doesn't exactly make them optimistic.

The 10 range in age from 7 to 87. The black lab is one of four dogs who made the involuntary trip east on Interstate 10. They got out alive, but with only enough to get them through a few days. The "few days," of course, has turned into "indefinitely." And nothing is more indefinite than homelessness.

"Well, we'll help you," The Wife said. Understand, this was not, "oh, my gosh, you poor, poor people," or "oh my gosh, survivors in our midst!" or anything like that. Just a matter of fact: "Well, we'll help you."

And help she will. While I was in the air from Connecticut on the way home, she rallied a few of her friends in the neighborhood and made a plan.

The first thing, above all else, to take into consideration was the people's dignity. These are middle-class people, just like us, just like everyone around us, who are not used to taking handouts. They don't need a handout.

There are things they do need. Their hosts are going to see some pretty high utility bills with 10 extra people in the house. The dogs need food, and toys. The boys, ages 7 and 13, need something to stave off boredom -- and, more importantly, things to call their own, as they only carried with them what they could.

So: Her next step was to lead the coordination efforts, and to emphasize that this was not Goodwill. "I don't want them to wind up with a bunch of castoff stuff that these people will just have to move," she said. So she's serving as the neighborhood clearing house for material, making sure that each individual person's needs are filled -- from the 7-year-old's Hot Wheels to the matriarch's clip-on earrings.

Later that afternoon, she met the woman again in the park by the school. This time, the 87-year-old grandmother was with her, soaking up the sun in her wheelchair, looking little the worse for wear after two weeks of hell. The Wife shared her plans with the people, and quietly but firmly rebuffed their protestations. The old woman took my wife's hands. She looked her in the eye. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you, and bless you." She said a prayer.

"You're welcome," my wife said. But the old woman didn't let go.

"Bend down here, please," the old woman said. My wife leaned her 6-foot frame forward. The old woman made the sign of the Cross on my wife's forehead. She said a prayer in a foreign language; The Wife thinks it was Latin. The Wife, of course, is resolute. This is not sympathy she's providing; it's help. But it was hard for her to keep the tears in, and it was impossible for me as she related the story to me.

Later Friday evening, she held a meeting with the family to assess each person's specific needs.

Today, she's working with banks -- after hours -- to establish an account for them.

Tomorrow, after the logisitics get worked out, she and her two friends are going to canvass the neighborhood and get these people helped.

No sympathy. No pandering. Just help. It could be us next time.

This, folks, is what makes her The Best Woman in the World.

They're people, too

New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass is the latest Louisiana public official to lose it on TV. And the worst is yet to come for these people.

God help them. They have the most difficult jobs in America right now.

Hang on while I get the sand out of my hair

That would be appropriate, of course, only if Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff had hair. He was playing the "Uh, nobody saw this coming" defense in his presser this afternoon.

Mr. Chertoff, they saw it coming two years ago:

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/?/washingaway/

And the National Weather Service put this in its normally dry, straight-to-the-point advisory on Sunday afternoon:

WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

Don't give me the "Nobody saw this coming" bullshit. Save it for the hearings.

Textbook example of failure

We're learning more lessons than a classroom full of first-graders. We still don't know the worst of the Gulf South tragedy, and already we're talking about "lessons learned." That learning comes too late for many, many people. But maybe we'll be better and smarter next time.

LESSON ONE: (blank), shelter and (blank)
Three basic human needs: food, shelter and clothing. We all learned that in first grade. One is not enough without the other two. If you're going to send all the people who can't get away to a large sports arena, make sure the damn thing is stocked with food and water. For good measure, park a couple of tankers outside to take over when the plumbing quits. In short: Do the same level of minimal planning that you'd do if you were planning to hold a football game or a boxing match or a Billy Graham Crusade, only over the course of several days.

LESSON TWO: Geography
You have a river flowing on one side. You have a lake on the other. You've built walls to keep a dry area between the two. A short drive away is an ocean; an ocean with waters that run 90-plus degrees Fahrenheit in the summertime, acting as fuel for tropical weather systems. Don't stand up there, Mr. FEMA, and tell me that "nobody thought about a hurricane and a flood at the same time." Hell, my wife and I thought about that Saturday night, and we're not exactly disaster planning experts. Maybe there'll be job openings for us at FEMA soon.

LESSON THREE: Sociology
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued the mandatory evacuation order on Saturday, and offered up the Superdome as a "shelter of last resort." The Wife, upon hearing of this Saturday night: "The roof's gonna peel off that thing like a tuna can." My reply: "Yep, and there's gonna be several thousand cranky, unhappy, hungry people in there."

In general, who won't heed a mandatory evacuation order?

1/The stubborn
2/The stupid
3/The poor and/or infirm
4/People who have issues regarding respect for authority

(And hey, put your deck of race cards away. Notice NO REFERENCE to race in any of the above. Millions and millions of white people - some of whom to which I am related - fit all four of the criteria.)

In the midst of a natural disaster, you're dealing with about 75,000 people who fit at least one of the above four categories. Under the best of circumstances, that's not going to be an orderly group of people.

A group of 75,000 people in a small area who are not scared, bored, hungry, tired, dehydrated, and defending the lives of themselves and their children is going to be hard to manage. Throw in any one of those mitigating circumstances -- never mind all of them -- and you might as well light up a Lucky Strike on a drilling rig. The fact that somebody thought it would be OK to toss them into the Superdome with no food, water or security is simply the height (depth?) of idiocy.

There's nothing inherently wrong with being stubborn, stupid, poor or infirm. But those people needed a leader, or perhaps several leaders, and those leaders needed to be leading from the minute those people hit the Superdome's concourses. Authorities under no circumstances should have treated them like animals, but they should have understood with whom they were dealing and planned and acted accordingly.

LESSON FOUR: Division of power
City government is responsible for the cities. County government (or, in Louisiana, parish government) is responsible for the parishes. State government is responsible for the states. Federal government is NOT responsible for filling in gaps caused by the incompetence of the other three. We can't talk out of one side of our mouths about wanting less federal government and then talk out of the other side asking where they were in our time of need. When the time comes to go back and assess the failure in New Orleans, that assessment starts at City Hall, works its way to the parish government offices and then heads northwest to Baton Rouge, and stops there.

Should Washington have stepped in sooner to cover for that failure, which became obvious Monday afternoon? Perhaps. But that then calls into question the need for local and state governments at all. Should Washington have come through with the money to finish the levee project? Perhaps, but once it didn't, it was time for the state to step in and adjust its budget.

We've seen something awful. This is the worst disaster in American history since the Civil War. In terms of death toll, it's going to make September 11 look like a bad car accident. In terms of sustained human suffering, it's going to rival and perhaps eclipse the Great Depression. Nobody has addressed for even a second a question of what all these people holed up in the Astrodome and Alamodome and Reunion Arena and other assorted large sporting facilities around the South are going to do in two weeks.

It's time to find out if the United States has any social conscience at all. Pray for us.

Sad wordplay

New Orleans' airport code is MSY. All I can think when I see that is "misery."

A tip for the New Orleans Police Department

... and for law enforcement throughout the Gulf South:

See a looter, shoot on sight, shoot to kill.

This should be pretty simple.

Shoot to kill. Or, if you don't want that on your conscience, shoot to hurt, and let whatever's in the floodwaters do the rest.

Fuckwads.

Watch out, NOLA, and stay safe

Back on Thursday, I was leading system training a group of newsroom users up in Illinois. We were having a good time using the new editorial and page-building system to make fake pages, trying to wind "Katrina," "Waves" and "Sunshine State" into one headline. ... and don't it feel GOOD! (There, now the song is stuck in your head, too.)

Now, it doesn't seem so funny.

In 1998, I was a graphic artist at the Medium-Sized Newspaper in Florida. Hurricane Georges was bearing down on the Gulf Coast, and as the only member of the Sunday night staff, I was assigned to assemble a graphic on what would happen to New Orleans if the Big One ever came across Lake Pontchartrain. The scenario I drew was basically really, really awful; levees breached, pumps overwhelmed, devastating damage and loss of life in one of America's great cities. I called the newsroom of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans to verify a couple of facts I had found in my research. "Hang on," the very nice young editor on the other end of the phone said, "we just lost power again." I apologized for taking her away from her work on what was certainly a very busy evening. "That's OK," she said. "We can't really do anything anyway. We're just waiting."

Georges veered off and took down a couple of Motel 6s in Mississippi. New Orleans was spared that time.

I found myself walking around in the French Quarter a year later, taking a break as I drove from Florida to Texas to take the job at the Very Large Metropolitan Newspaper. I went down to where the river starts to meet the Gulf, and looked at the system of levees and dikes and pumps that I had drawn, sight unseen except for photographs. And I thought, Yeah, if that storm had hit, that would have been really bad. I can't say I fell in love with the city; even on a Saturday afternoon, the smell of debauchery hung in the air. And that's not a pretty smell. I ran into a lot of people from the fringes of society as I walked around and looked at the great architecture and the restaurants and the nightclub with the sign that read, "Come in and see if YOU can guess what gender they are!" But as a party town, I could certainly see the appeal.

I hope all the doomsayers are wrong on this one, but it doesn't look very good for the City of New Orleans. My thoughts are especially with all those people at the Times-Picayune building with their families and sleeping bags and snack foods, wondering what hell they're about to witness and then have to write about and photograph. I won't be calling this time, but if I was, I'd be sending prayers and best wishes.

Why bother?

I had a bad day at work today; the kind of bad day that makes you want to re-think your entire existence, your career, your way of life. Basically, I'm creating failure, and I'm surrounded by failure. Without going into specifics, I can guarantee we have no happy customers today, and no happy employees.

Bad days always end, however, and they often end at home. There I have three kids and wife who I love more than anything int he world and who, on most days, think I'm OK.

Bad days never really end, however, because at the end of a bad day, there's the wallowing and the what-if and the what-now, all the kinds of things you think at the end of a bad day.

We all talked about our days at the kitchen table. My entry: "My day was bad." The Young Daughter, 4, starts singing, "Bad day, bad day, go away, my day was BAD!" Flourish, big smile, mouth open wide enough to land a 757. That's her way of saying she cares.

I tucked the Young Daughter in tonight. I sighed deeply. The Young Daughter said, in reply, "What?" I said, "I had a long day."

She replied, "Yeah, I had a long day too in the hospital."

--------

Normally I'd mark that down as a perspective builder. But hers is one more situation about which I can do nothing. Meanwhile, I have a Vice President of Sales, an office fulll of co-workers and 12 customers who don't give a flying fuck that my kid has a tumor in her head, even if they knew, which they don't.

I have to deal with all that, too. The one and only thing I can do for the Young Daughter and the rest of the house is to generate income and maintain a vaild health insurance policy. Walking out in a huff is not going to be the answer, no matter what.

----

But I'm at my end. I just can't do anything to fix anything. Working harder isn't the answer; in 12 hours of work today, which started with a phone call to Europe at 5:30 a.m. my time, I accomplished about an hour's worth of actual accomplishment. This time last year, I was the new guy who didn't know what I was doing. This time this year, I have the word "Senior" in my title; I don't know a lot more about what I'm doing, but I'm expected to impart that knowledge to the three new people we just hired, boom-boom-boom, as well as manage the four projects I have to manage, as well as trying to write documentation.

Meanwhile, The Wife spent a good chunk of today on the phone with doctors. The Young Daughter has a team of specialists doing battle against the dread disease. They're all very good doctors, individually. Until today, they had been concentrating on their own little areas, in isolation. The Wife finally demanded today that ONE of them take charge of the situation. ONE of them has to know a little bit about everything. As I put it, "Somebody needs to be the project manager." I think she made some progress. She's taken charge of the situation the best way she knows how, which is to say, she has taken charge of the situation, grabbed the situation by the neck and is leading it in the right direction. She's not a neurologist. She's more important. She's a mom. My admiration for her keeps growing by the minute, even as I know she's nearing the end of her rope, too.

So what it comes down to is this: My problems mean really nothing. My bad day means really nothing. Which, at this very moment, just makes me ask the question above.

Barrier to the abyss

I'm back from Canada. I still have $50 Canadian in my pocket ($41 US, roughly) and a few more words in my French vocabulary. Montreal was wonderful; saw Andy Roddick get eliminated in the first round of a U.S. Open tuneup, heard lots of French, saw lots of fantastic architecture. I'll be back in mid-September. The chill of fall will likely already be in the air.

Returned Friday for an appointment with my daughter's pediatric neuro-oncologist. The fact that my daughter even has a pediatric neuro-oncologist is bad enough. We were making prepartions for the Young Daughter to begin chemotherapy to combat these tumors in her head. Made the appointment for the surgery, read the literature, began getting ourselves mentally prepared.

Then: Well, not yet. No growth in the tumor. No chemo yet.

This is good news. Sort of. The tumors are still there. She'll have to do it eventually, probably sooner rather than later. But not yet.

This is good. And bad. We wait.

Reward

After a really bad travel day, after which I said for the 10th time, "I'm never flying US Airways again," knowing full well that I will, I wound up here. It doesn't suck.

First day of school

The Old Daughter came home from her first day of middle school today. She announced that she was no longer going by her first name and wanted to go by her middle name.

Her first name is pretty cool. Her middle name is a family name, not one that most 11-year-old girls would want to carry.

Why? "I wanted a change."

Well, you don't change stuff on the first day of middle school, not when you're riding a bus for the first time and not when we might need to find you by the name we know. She was taken aback by that, and reacted accordingly, and somewhat emotionally. Well, that was not the way we wanted to start middle school.

We compromised: Academically, she must be known by her first name, or if she wants to use all three of her names, fine. Her friends can call her anything she wants.

I wonder if we handled that the right way. Thoughts?

A simple "thank you" would have sufficed

By all accounts, the crew of Air France 538 deserves to be lauded for its quick response after Tuesday's crash in Toronto -- which happened less than an hour before I took off for Detroit. The crew emptied an Airbus A340 in 90 seconds. An Airbus A340 is a big damn plane. Two aisles, 2-4-2 seating in the main cabin. A total of 309 people survived the crash, breakup of the plane and subsequent explosion.

As usual, however, you can't please everyone, even if you save his or her life. From msnbc.com:

Gwen Dunlop, a Toronto resident who was on the flight returning from vacation in France, said when the plane first touched down the passengers believed they had landed safely and clapped with relief.

"Only seconds later, it started really moving and obviously it wasn't OK," said Dunlop. "At some point the wing was off. The oxygen masks never came down; the plane was filling up with smoke."

"One of the hostesses said, 'You can calm down, it?s OK,' and yet the plane was on fire and smoke was pouring in," Dunlop told The AP. "I don't like to criticize, but the staff did not seem helpful or prepared."

Ungrateful bitch. Shut up and be happy you remember how "unprepared" they seemed.

Summer of bleah

Yeah, geez, I lost TWO WHOLE MONTHS there. I'd like to be able to blame some sort of computer crash or sunspots or something, but the bottom line is, well ... I just haven't felt very inspired to post.

Two whole months. During those months, I've eaten lunch on Chicago's Magnificient Mile, stepped out onto the rocks in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine, turned 37, and taken my family to Washington, D.C., on vacation.

I became the proud owner of a 1989 Honda Pacific Coast 800, putting me back in the saddle after a 10-year hiatus.

That was the cool stuff.

I also worked my ass off, slept very little, ate too much and walked through the time basically uninspired.

Alas, that wasn't the worst.

The Young Daughter's dread disease has begun to manifest itself in ways that are a lot less benign than the little spots on her skin.

She's 4. She's grown a half-inch in the last 18 months. She's begun to have mild seizures. She walked around last weekend with an ambulatory EEG device, a mass of wires glued to her head to try to discern what's going on in there.

As The Wife put it: "You know, it doesn't get any better from here. It only gets worse."

That's probably the case. In the best-case scenario, we listen to medical professionals tell us to "check back in 6 months" while they wait to see if anything changes. We buy medicine, we schedule doctor appointments -- four last month alone -- and we wait.

So, that was our summer. School starts Thursday. Life continues to move forward, and it'll move forward at the pace at which it always has. The Young Daughter doesn't cope. She just lives, with a smile on her face and a 100-decibel sentence at her lips.

Her favorite song is Travis Tritt's "It's a Great Day to Be Alive." She discovered the repeat button on her little CD player and sets it at night to play, over and over and over, all night.

There's a message in there.

Random stray thought

What amazes me is how 10 days pass in the time it used to take for one day.

The May installment

Since we've apparently gone monthly, it seems a little disappointing to think I'm burning the May installment on May 6. But: We've got a big trip coming up, nine days to wrap up the New Hampshire project. Then on to Illinois, with interludes in a little Central New York burg I'll call the Town of the Living Dead.

So, might as well get it over with now.

The Little Sister had a kid today. A girl. Don't know anything more yet, other than that she arrived sometime around 5 p.m. CDT via c-section. Everybody's healthy and happy, I'm told. This is a good thing. I haven't talked to the Little Sister near as much as I should have over the last, oh, 20 years or so. There's no animosity between us, certainly; neither one of us is big communicators, and her definition of reality is, shall we say, somewhat different from mine. That's OK; when we do talk, we usually find plenty of room to meet in the middle.

When it was announced that a little niece was on the way for me, I had trepidation. She and the baby's father aren't married; he, in fact, is nearly 12 years younger than she. On the surface, this sounds a little less than ideal. But by all accounts, he's a very good guy, and he's helped her keep her head on straight. I mused later that having a child might be the very thing to get her back on track and help her stabilize a bit after a rough decade. In my last several conversations with her, that theory seems to have been confirmed. This is a very good thing, and I hope the trend continues.

And no matter what, it's always a happy day when new life appears.

-----

New life has also blessed the family in canine form. Go here to see The Wife's Thousand-Dollar Puppies. One could have been yours, had you put your name on the list eight weeks ago. But you didn't, so you're out of luck. I've admitted before that I'm not exactly a dog person, and I continue to not be. These little guys, however, are cute as they can be, and pretty damn low-maintenance to boot.

-----

When I left the Medium-Sized Metropolitan newspaper last year to start The New Life, I left hoping that several people who were in similar ruts to mine would also take the plunge. Thankfully, they have. Lynniechan is on her way to becoming a full-time massage therapist, a job for which she would seem to be very well-suited. As a top-notch athlete (rowing), she has above-average knowledge of how the human body works. She likes people, as long as she can keep unwanted communication to a minimum. She, like many of us, hasn't updated much lately, but when she does update, it's obvious she's a lot happier now than she was this time last year. I know I'm a better person after I get a massage; she's contributing to make the world a better place by making lots of people into better people.

The Tiffster has joined the revolution, taking off her copy-editor green eyeshade and heading to the world of online journalism. After years of doing work at a level up here (think really high) and getting recognition at a level down here (think sewer), she's finally in a spot where she can call a lot of her own shots and have a chance to really shine. One of the things that online journalism has been short of in its infancy is, well, journalists. The Tiffster is one of the very best, and readers of her newspaper's site are in for a treat starting June 1.

RER blew everything up. He left a fairly cush (if extremely underpaid) job as a TV reporter to be ... a poker blogger. Three years ago, of course, there was no such thing as a poker blogger. Check the stuff out here. I don't know much about poker or poker blogging, but I know the man is racking up frequent-flyer miles at a faster rate than I am, and while I'm schlepping off to places like Central New York, New Hampshire and rural Washington State, he's going to Monaco, Paris, Copenhagen and London. A poker blogger. How cool is that?

------

We're planning an actual family vacation this year. We haven't had one of those since 2001, when we spent a week at a beach house in South Carolina. This year's destination: Washington, D.C. All three mini-humans are old enough to find something to appreciate. The Old Daughter, our history geek, will enjoy pretty much everything; The Boy is ready to wander the Air and Space Museum all day long; and the Young Daughter will have a great time at the National Zoo. Throw in some top-notch architecture for The Wife and my getting to watch it all, and it should be a great time. Love those Delta SkyMiles and Marriott points.

-----

There you have it. See you in June. Or, who knows, maybe before.

Uh, where am I ... ?

Dateline: Washington, D.C., a little after midnight.

I love baseball; I haven't followed it daily and religiously for a few years, but I still love the opportunity to sit and watch a ballgame. I had this opportunity Tuesday night. I celebrated the way I usually celebrate when I watch a game on TV: I feel asleep. Woke up in an oops-I-fell-asleep-watching-TV fog about 20 minutes ago.

The fog, of course, obscures whatever it is I was just going to type. So now I'm kind of winging it ...

I just noticed that I missed an entire month of posting, for the first time since we launched this forum back in October 2001. I guess I can't really be surprised. March 2005 was a busy month, too busy; the kind of month where the engine was running at redline but the car wasn't really going anywhere.

When I finally escaped the March madness (not to be confused with March Madness, in which three of my Final Four picks were eliminated before the round of eight), I emerged with a nice raise, a new Blackberry, five more pounds, and ... well, and an April calendar that is almost as packed.

The questions come up:

Is it worth it? Well, yeah. It's paying off financially, I'm learning a lot and I'm enjoying myself.
Well, I wasn't really asking about you. What about your family? I miss my family. They say they miss me. I try to maximize the time I have at home. One of the reasons that the travel schedule has become so frantic is that I'm taking those Businessman's Special flights, the flights that 1/allow you to leave at 5:55 a.m. to make a 10 a.m. meeting and/or 2/leave the job site at 9 p.m., which get you home at 2 a.m., but at least it's home and not another night in the hotel room. Some of my co-workers prefer a more relaxed travel schedule, where they have an extra night on either end of the trip and less rush to the airport. Not me, not now.
OK, come back and answer my first question: Is it worth it? Well, it beats the hell out of spending 9 hours a day behind a desk.
You haven't answered my question. Hey, you know what? You're starting to annoy me. Define "worth it." I'm still trying to.

Ugh, the fog. I hate falling asleep while watching TV.

So anyway, I have a BlackBerry. No more searching for wireless hotspots in airports. I could conceivably post directly from my airplane seat before they tell me to turn off all portable electronic devices. E-mail, AIM, phone and the web, all at my fingertips, all the time.

All. The. Time.

Overall, this is probably not a good thing.

Time to concede to the fog. Time to go to sleep for real. Day 103 of 2005 starts for me in a few hours.

Nothing left of me

Just had a long, long five days in southern New Hampshire. Talk about leaving it all on the field. I am just flat exhausted. So tired I can't sleep. I hate that feeling.

All I can do is write about it

I never intended for this to become a monthly publication. Really, I didn't. It's just ... well, anything I use to finish that sentence would simply be an excuse, and there is no room for excuses here.

I think a lot. That's what you do when you're on the road without anybody; you think. It's rare for all that thought to generate any end result, but I do it anyway because that's all I can do.

A roundup of the recent:

Denmark was fabulous. Cold, but fabulous. The thing that surprised me the most: How not different everything was. I had no trouble finding McDonald's, Burger King and 7-Eleven. People drive on the right. Coke and Pepsi and Marlboros are consumed in large quantities. Sure, some things were quite distinct from what we're used to in the U.S. Gas sells for about $6 a gallon. The sign on the beer cooler in the 7-Eleven translated to, "Don't even think about buying beer if you were born on or before March 8, 1990." More than 49 percent of Danes would have voted against George W. Bush.

But overall, I really expected to feel much more like a foreigner than I did. I'm not sure to what that should be attributed.

Going back to the Very Large Metropolitan Area was a little weird. I was at the same time homesick and so, so glad to be gone. I visited the Very Large Metropolitan Newspaper while I was there; the bad mood created by October's layoffs still remains, like the smell of mildew in a car after the windows were left open during a rainstorm. I finally settled on, "It's very good to have lived here." I'm glad I was there; it's a good thing, however, that I'm not there now.

Now, I'm in a small town in southern New Hampshire, watching the World Champion Red Sox (as they are known here) taking on the Yankees on Opening Night. Last time we were here was in late February. We visited a restaurant in downtown Boston. On the bar TV: A replay of Game 5 of last year's World Series, as if it was on a continuous loop. Oh, yeah, the Patriots won the Super Bowl, too. But the Patriots could win the Super Bowl every year and still not inspire the passion that's generated by the World Champion Red Sox.

The Boy turned 6 last week. He has his first girlfriend, a charming and beautiful little girl named Amelia. He told The Wife, "You know, most of the boys in my class don't like love." He thought about it for a second. "But I think love is important." Spinning lines like that, he has to be very careful about peaking too soon.

The Wife's Champion Dog is pregnant. Anybody want a $1,000 puppy? (You think I'm kidding.)

David Wells just gave up a run-scoring balk. I think I actually heard somebody say,
"Gohddammit, ya fat bastahd!"

Dateline: Anytown, DK

I'm sitting in the international departure terminal in Newark, N.J. In a little more than two hours, I'll be leaving United States airspace for the first time in my life.

I'm going to Denmark, home of the company for which I work. I'll spend a week meeting my Danish co-workers on their home turf and learning more about our product from the people who actually assemble it. I'm repeating the phrase Jeg taler ikke dansk (I don't speak Danish), which in my southern U.S. accent comes out sounding more like "Yay taylor iggy dance." They tell me that's how I'm supposed to say it. The fact that I taylor iggy dance is OK; most of the Danish are conversant in English; many speak it better than you or I.

The Airbus A330 on which I'll spend the next eight hours is parked right outside the window by which I'm sitting. I'll land at 7:35 a.m. in Copenhagen, which will be 1:35 a.m. EST. Another 45-minute flight to the city in which I'll be staying, and I'll be a foreigner for the first time.

I have three books, four magazines, a digital camera, this machine, 900 songs in my iPod, a bottle of Dasani and a bag of miniature Reese's peanut butter cups. I have a passport, a boarding pass and 1,000 Danish kroner in my back pocket which I purchased for 202 American dollars. The femte kroner note features a picture of a fetching woman in a hat, the first time I've ever seen a picture of a woman on money. The woman's name is Karen Blixen. A quick Google reveals she wrote Out of Africa, among many, many other things during her 70-year life which ended in 1962. Imagine the Americans honoring artists on their money. We're stuck with #$#*(ing politicians.

It's going to be an interesting week. Check back for updates.

Time again to talk music

A long-overdue discovery and a rediscovery ...

The discovery: My heart is still seared from listening to Eddie from Ohio's Julie Murphy Wells sing "Oh My Brother." Oh my God, what a voice, what a delivery. I'm embarrassed to have not discovered this Virginia-based fusion of folk and bluegrass and soul -- i.e., music -- 10 years ago. They've been around since '91; I've known about them since '01, thanks to RER; yet I didn't give them a serious listen until a couple of weeks ago. They're more than worth your time. A good portion of their catalog is available on iTunes. I'm currently listening to their two live albums, Portable EFO Show and Three Rooms. I'm told they're way better live than in the studio. My next task: Hope my travel schedule and theirs converges at some point.

The rediscovery: Growing up in Springfield, Mo., I always kind of took the Ozark Mountain Daredevils for granted. A pretty good country-ish rock band, kind of like a hillbilly-flavored Eagles. I found a few of their songs on iTunes not long ago, and am reminded that my dad's former high school classmates were actually a helluva band. Recommended cuts: "If You Want to Get to Heaven," probably their best rock-'n'-roll song; "Jackie Blue," which had a run at Billboard's Top 5 in 1974 and was, I learned, remade by Smashing Pumpkins; and "Homemade Wine," off the best album you've never heard, Men from Earth. Some of the ex-Daredevils, including Michael "Supe" Granda and Ruell Chappell, are still hanging around Anytown making music. One, Steve Canaday, died in a plane crash in 1999 after a stint as Lee Roy Parnell's tour manager. These guys were probably the biggest stars to come out of Anytown before Brad Pitt. Worth a listen.

Your turn; tell me what you're listening to these days.

Once, it's a tragedy. Twice, it's a crime

A school district in Florida has suffered the deaths of two children in the last four months because of a bus driver's incompetence. That's two too many.

It's time to start holding some people criminally responsible.

Wait ... um ... hey ...

God, it just got a little crazy there for a while.

A co-worker's death. A business trip extended by the flu. The Young Daughter's dread disease rearing its ugly head. A little too much reality to digest all in one month.

A couple of weeks ago in New Hampshire, my new co-worker and I didn't feel very good. I plowed through the workshop we were conducting; she curled up in a fetal position in her hotel room for most of the trip. We somehow made our way back to the airport Thursday morning. She resumed the fetal position at the gate. I went to the bathroom to throw up.

When I came back, I decided I wasn't quite ready to fly just yet and went to tell the gate agent this, so she could put me on a later flight. Then I discovered I was using the gate agent's counter to hold myself up. I told her, "I think I need medical attention." Next thing I knew, I was in an ambulance.

I called The Wife. I didn't tell her much. She, of course, went into an utter panic. Early the next day, she found herself in New Hampshire, too, sitting beside me while I grumbled in my hospital bed about being hot, then cold, then hot. The Company was kind enough to fly her up there for me. It was a lifesaver.

I was kicked out of the hospital Saturday morning, with a diagnosis of flu and pneumonia. The Wife and I spent the next two days in a hotel room in Manchester, N.H., where I, well, slept from Saturday afternoon until the kickoff of the Super Bowl.

It was the next Friday before I felt like I was back at full strength. Basically, flu sucks. It's the first time I've had it in probably five years, and by far the worst that I've had it. Damn that shortage of flu shots. Next year, I'm getting in line.

-----------------

How about this lede: My kid has a brain tumor.

OK, it's a very small brain tumor. As yet, it's not threatening anything. It's something that bears watching, say her doctors, but nothing more than that at present.

Benign tumors are a symptom of neurofibromatosis, a mysterious genetic neurological disease. Of course, best we can tell, it's nowhere in our genetics; we're not comforted by the fact that 50 percent of the cases occur spontaneously, with no genetic basis.

The tumors don't cause any serious medical problems, unless they get too close to a vital organ, or the brain. That's why this bears watching.

Right now, everything's fine. She's 100 percent fully active and healthy. We check it again in a couple of months. Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center are working on a cure. We root for them like we've never rooted for anybody in our lives.

--------------------

I shook off the flu just in time for my brutal travel schedule to resume. This gave me the opportunity to visit California for the first time. Not just California, mind you: San Francisco, California, which is my new favorite city, based on only four hours there. My God, what a beautiful place. Water, mountains, the Golden Gate, great restaurants every-friggin'-where you turn. I can certainly see the appeal, and why people are willing to pay five times what they'd pay to live anywhere else.

The co-worker who was in Montreal urged me to eat dinner at a delightful downtown restaurant called The Crustacean, which, as you might suspect, serves seafood. It's seafood with a Vietnamese twist, however, I had a whole dungeness crab simmered in a three-wine sauce with black pepper and scallions, with garlic rice on the side. It was fabulous, and worth almost every bit of the per-diem-plus that I paid for it.

I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, just to say I did. Dipped down into historic Sausalito, and racked my brain trying to think of that sticks-in-your-head-like-glue song, "Sausalito Summer Nights." (Answer: The one-hit wonder Diesel, in 1982.) We drove to Frisco in the Rambler/The radiator running dry ...

Next week: New Hampshire, again, reluctantly. I get home Friday with enough time to do laundry and sleep before boarding a plane for my first-ever venture off United States soil.

I'm headed to the home office in Denmark for some training. I'll spend a few days with a customer in Copenhagen, and a few days at the company's Scandinavian headquarters in a little North Sea town called Aalborg.

Then, back to New Hampshire. Then Minnesota, then Dallas for a big trade show. It'll be my first time back in the Very Large Metropolitan Area for something other than an airport layover since leaving in 2002.

All the time on the road is good; it means The Company is prospering, which means The Family and I are prospering.

But it also means an awful lot of stuff is whizzing by at 542 mph. I'm moving, as Seger once sang, eight miles a minute for months at a time.

I'm going to go take a minute I have now to go hug some people I love. You go do the same, and be thankful you can.

Sharon, 1966-2005

She didn't make it. Dammit.

Melanoma. Fought it like hell for two years before finally turning away Sunday.

Dammit. 38 years old. Two children, one born the same day as our son, one born in late 2002. Two little girls.

Madison, Hannah, Brian, peace to y'all. I don't know what would bring that peace; something much stronger than all of us. Peace to y'all.

Goodbye, LZ

In 1989, I was pretty much at a life crossroads. I had just been promoted to a full-time job in the career of my choice. I was 21-going-on-16, and in the process of attempting to piss it all away. Drinking too much, driving too fast, spending money I didn't have, hanging out with people who had no vision of their own futures.

I became aware of the uncomfortable position in which I had put myself by the time 1989 became 1990. I began turning the corner, and had a lot of help from friends and family and career mentors in making that turn.

One of those mentors was the then-new editor of the Anytown Daily Bugle. He was a relatively young guy himself, and he had made a few bad choices during the early years of his career. He shared the consequences of those choices with me, and showed me how focusing on work could help pull me out of my personal downward spiral. He had no reason to do this; it's not typical for a top editor to pay any attention at all to a young sports copy editor, unless there was a screwup in print.

But he did, and I responded by working at about 114 percent of my talent level. Some of the best work I ever did came during that 1990-92 era, and the learning I did during that time laid the foundation for the job I have today. I have a file in which I've kept every complimentary letter or memo I've ever received relating to my work. I have a sheaf of them with the initials "LZ" at the end. He made sure that every good move I made was noticed, and through my boss, that every bad move I made was corrected.

He promoted me into my first management position in late 1991. I was going to be assisting our young sports editor in running the department. Then, in a surprise move, the sports ediitor left to take a job in Florida. Suddenly, for a month, I ran the show.

I'm not sure I did it very well, but I kept things afloat and kept us from embarrassing ourselves in print. The editor hired another man who became one of my mentors as sports editor, and I settled in as his assistant in January 1992.

At the end of December 1991, we all received an extra payroll envelope with our Christmas bonuses, which by then had dwindled to $30 per employee. Imagine my surprise when I opened my envelope to see an extra "0" after the "$30."

In it, a handwritten note: "A little something extra. Great work this month. Looking forward to the future. -LZ"

I'm not sure what happened in the summer of '92 between him and the publisher, but he quit. The publisher was, um, moved to a corporate damage control position shortly thereafter. A new editor took over; I learned a lot from him, too.

But I'll never ever forget the lessons I learned from Lou Ziegler, especially those relating to how to treat the people who work for you. Praise publicly and frequently; criticize privately and only when necessary, but every time it's necessary. I took those lessons to bigger jobs and bigger places, but the techniques and the results were the same.

Lou died Saturday at 56. He was running the newsroom in Fargo, N.D.; despite his declining health, he was still teaching and helping people until shortly before his death.

Peace, man, and thanks for helping me save my career.

Hey Julio, another drink, por favor

Did the Leader of the Free World just say we need more Hispanics here to "do jobs Americans won't do?" Twice?

Jobs Americans WON'T DO? We're too good for work all of a sudden?

And worse, a room full of journalists didn't call him on that remark?

"Jobs Americans won't do." As I recall, from 1789 to 1863, we called that slavery.

Screw us.

A comprehensive update

It's 7:31 a.m. in central Minnesota. The temperature outside is 18 below zero, and it's not expected to get much warmer. The sun is poking its head up over the eastern horizon; it appears as if it's trying to decide whether it really wants to come up or not.

My first start-to-finish project with my new company is scheduled to launch on Monday. So far, everything's on track and in order. I've been lucky enough to have been working with very skilled people on the customer side. If everything goes as planned -- and there's no reason to think that it won't -- a small newspaper in central Minnesota will be using a computer system that I installed, starting Monday.

This for me has been the culmination of a wild, wild year. Eleven months ago, I was sitting on the other side of the computers, doing the same thing I had been doing for all of my adult life and a good chunk of my late adolescence. I was bored to tears, tired of the constant second-guessing that goes on at every level of a newsroom, and frustrated with the thought that, because I had devoted my entire life and what little formal education I had to the pursuit of journalism, I wasn't qualified to do anything else.

Then this thing fell into my lap. I was given the opportunity to use what I knew about how a newsroom works in conjunction with what was arguably my best natural skill -- manipulating the technology -- to help design, sell and install that technology in other newsrooms. It gave me a chance to make good on one of my frequent grumbles: "When I design my own computer system, it sure as hell isn't going to work like this one ... "

Well, OK, I'm not exactly designing it, but I'm getting a chance to contribute. My newsroom experience has gained me much respect inside the company and with customers. People don't second-guess every decision I make. I don't second-guess every decision I make. In short, career-wise, it so far appears that I've made a perfect landing.

I pointed out last year, when I was deciding whether to do this, that it's a volatile industry. And it still is. We're hiring a bunch of people right now. A lot of those people might be let go if business takes a turn. I might be let go if business takes a turn. Our company is one of the smaller players in the industry; the chance of being bought out is very real, at least in the medium term. A lot of uncertainties are attached to this gig.

But one thing is certain: So far, it works for me. Right now, I'll take that.

-----------------------------

The new career has meant a new lifestyle for the family. After nearly a decade and a half of working at night, on weekends, working a non-set, uncertain schedule, having to drop everything and come to work to cover a major news event, I'm now leading the normal life of a 9-to-5er.

Well, almost. I'm also on the road most weekdays and a few weekends. If we have to work for a client on Monday, we have to travel on Sunday night. So it's not perfect.

But it's better than the previous arrangement. My weekends have largely been free to spend with the family; to let The Wife pursue her pursuits without worrying that she's going to get a call at 2 p.m. Saturday saying I have to go to work because a terrorist was found in the Middle East. We're able to have weekends with the kids and explore the wonder that is Florida. I have friends in our neighborhood, friends outside of work. We spend weekend nights with them, drinking, talking, basically just doing what humans are supposed to do in their time off: relaxing.

I'm home for dinner most nights. We have what's called "Circle Time" at dinner, which The Wife devised as a way to give the kids a forum to report on the events of their days. The Old Daughter lists hers off methodically. The Boy breathlessly speaks of the latest book he's read or the five or six people he played with at recess. The Young Daughter stretches out her time by reporting what she's done, then repeating it. I usually say, "I helped people with their computers." What I'm doing is not nearly as important as what they're doing.

-------------------------

The travel is rough sometimes. I enjoy being out and seeing new things and meeting new people. I don't like being away from the family for extended periods. But the perks are good.

The Wife and I used those perks -- a bundle of Delta SkyMiles and Marriott Rewards points -- to spend her 34th birthday in beautiful downtown Manhattan. The Wife has always wanted to see a Broadway show. So last Saturday, we went to a Broadway show.

It was weird to think that it was almost as easy for us to go to a Broadway show on Broadway as it would have been to go to a Broadway show in St. Petersburg. We left Friday night, went to the show Saturday and came home Sunday. Spent $400 on food, transportation, show tickets and stuff.

We ate lunch Saturday at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. We ate lunch Sunday at an Italian joint in Little Italy. Both would rank near the top in our experience of those restaurant genres, although neither was ranked high enough in the eyes of travel-guide writers to merit a mention. That's part of what makes New York fun: The ability to discover great stuff just by looking for it.

We saw Wonderful Town at the Al Hirschfeld Theater on West 45th Street. Brooke Shields played the lead. She's actually far more talented than her career credits would suggest. Live theatre seems to be her niche, and she has a much-underused gift for physical comedy. The music was good without being cheesy. The seats were comfortable. The company was great. It couldn't have been a better evening.


This is not the kind of thing we'd be able to do if I wasn't doing what I was doing. It doesn't take all of the sting about being away from home, but it helps a little bit.

------------------------------

Life's not perfect. It never is. But mine right now is basically a sequence of perfect moments. That's about as close as you can hope to get in this less-than-perfect world. I didn't just change careers on Feb. 4, 2004. I changed everything, and I dragged four people along with me for the ride.

Risky? Yeah. But so far, worth it. The lesson: You're never bound to something that sucks unless you choose to be bound to something that sucks. It takes more than a finger-snap and a decision, but really, in the broad sense, not that much more.

New York, New York

Trip report to come. Let's just say that it was everything we expected and then some. Nothing about that city is overrated.

Welcome to the new life

It's 7:45 a.m. I'm awake before everybody else, which is the new "normal" in our house. After years of being a night person, I've learned to enjoy a good sunrise.

It's Jan. 2. Tomorrow, I'll be on an airplane for the first of two times this week. I'll be heading to New Hampshire for work until Wednesday, then on Friday, The Wife and I are leaving to celebrate her birthday in New York. We've never been to New York. (I'm listening to suggestions, by the way; we're only going to be there for the weekend, so we're going to be trying to pack a lot into a very short time.) This is also the new "normal" in our house, a house from which 12 months ago we were lamenting the fact that we didn't leave very often.

Roughly this time last year, I urged my readers -- which is to say, I urged myself -- to break free of whatever was binding them to stuff that sucked and to head out in search of something good. In a triumph that ranks as one of the biggest triumphs in my entire existence, I have done so. I hear tales from elsewhere of others doing so, too: Otis, Lynniechan, Janel (aka West Virginia Mountain Mama), countless other people I know.

It can perhaps be attributed to some form of mid-life crisis. But the best way to deal with a crisis is to face it head-on and take action. I'm proud of everybody I know who has done so in the past year. That includes myself.

Happy 2005, y'all. May it be a year of doing whatever the hell you want to do.

Peeking from behind the barrier

See, I wasn't going to go an entire month without posting something. I just need to gather my thoughts a bit. It's been a wild month; travel, parties, gifts galore, excitement and bliss and wonder. Basically, all the reasons one would wake up every morning.

So today, the day after Christmas, I'm surrounded by the debris from the Mini-Humans' barrage of Christmas joy. Dora the Explorer is praising my youngest from the TV screen. The oldest just emerged from her room, wearing a new outfit. The Boy is trying to decide which of his new pirate ships should pillage the castle.

Had a good conversation with my little sister last night. She's going to give me a niece in May. It's the first time I've spoken to her since the news broke. Life has been kind of a struggle for her the last several years, to say the least. Much of the drama has been self-created, but that hasn't made it any easier. Anyway, for the first time in, like, ever, she has a reason now to believe in the future. I couldn't be happier for her.

No work Friday, no work yesterday, no work today, no work tomorrow. No thinking about configuration issues or search requests or integration with existing systems. See how I'm not thinking about it?

This is what contentment feels like. I feel the overall inspiration coming back. I'm starting to feel like Me again. This is a good thing.

Good stuff all around

Good suggestion from utexas.edu, which has resulted in dark text on a light-ish background. This isn't the final design -- in fact, it's still mostly the generic template you'll see on 24,695 other sites. But at least it's an easier-to-read generic rendition.

Good news from the Carolinas. Always glad to hear things are going well for Otis and his group.

Good company for Thanksgiving dinner -- The Wife and the Mini-Humans. We have no family nearby, and their visits to us are reserved for Christmas. We were invited to a friend's dinner, and The Wife (who doesn't give up traditions easily) was strongly considering it. She presented the idea to the children; the younger two were all fired up about hanging out with their friends, but the Old Daughter vetoed it. "Thanksgiving is for family," she said. "That's our tradition. We should stick to it." So noted. It's comforting that a kid who has seen so much change in her life can find something to use as an anchor. Further evidence that when it comes to her, I really have nothing to worry about.

Good story in one of the Edge of America's rags today, worth a look. Brian Griese is a son of privilege. Thankfully, he knows it, and chooses to use the gifts he has received for the good of others. Few causes are more noble than his cause.

Good to be able to paint the outside of your house in late November. Bad to have to paint the outside of your house in late November. But good to be able to do it.

Good to watch The Wife lounging on the couch watching her favorite movie, Gone With the Wind. A well-deserved reward for a great Thanksgiving dinner, and for making my life generally, well, good.

Good to hear good reports from Anytown about Thanksgiving. My grandfather got out of the house and went to the celebration, which probably wasn't easy for him. Today marked the first time since 1937 that he wasn't celebrating my grandmother's birthday with her. The aunts and uncles and a few cousins got together, and, I'm told, a reasonably good time was had by all.

Awful lot of goodness around. Be thankful for all of it.

Silent cry, invisible tear

Looks like bad weather today in my hometown, not unlike a November 24 from 17 years ago. Today's a little bit of a rough day. Not that every day since that day hasn't been in its own little way, but when those numbers all come together, a "1," a "1," a "2," a "4," for some reason, it's just a little bit rougher.

I miss my father. Yeah, I know, he's still here. But the brutal truth is, he's not. And I think that sucks.

It's OK for me to think that. And I'll be fine, in a while, for a while.

I just needed a few minutes alone with November 24 to tell it what I really think of it.

Yasser Arafat, 1929-not soon enough

Proving once again there is no justice in the world, gallstones got him before the Israelis did. The fact that his name is on the Nobel Peace Prize is an insult to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin and to Shimon Peres.

Speak ill of this dead bastard all you want.

Nothing matters and what if it did?

Click, Drag and Delete have been pretty busy tonight. I keep trying to write something coherent, but bullshit comes out instead. My tolerance for bullshit is pretty low, and getting lower all the time.

I've been trying to make sense of the post-election babble. What are people really trying to say? Because 51 percent of us were too stupid to vote for W, the country's going straight to hell in a handbasket? Funny thing; most of the people who seem to be the most blue about Kerry's loss have access to computers and a good command of the written word, and jobs that give them a platform to share their feelings. Most of the people who stand around with my wife waiting to pick up their kids from school couldn't be more pleased with the election results. I know of nobody among the rapidly widening circle of friends we're gaining here on the Western Edge who voted for Kerry. If they did, they're doing a good job verbally faking their happiness over the result of the election.

What does that actually prove? Well, really, nothing. My suburb might or might not be typical. I would lean toward "not." A majority of my neighbors are officers in the Air Force, who work at the nearby base that houses Central Command. Some of them are headed to Iraq soon. Some of them have had to send people who report to them over there. All of them have strong feelings about the war, for and against. All of them voted for Bush.

It seems very possible that we're outgrowing our little democracy. What "unites" us? Really, nothing.

It took the deaths of 3,000 people who decided to not skip work one Tuesday in 2001 to get us to unite for a common cause, and that lasted, what, about two months? Then we were back to bitching and squabbling and back-biting. And that's not the fault of the left; if we must resort to schoolyard discourse (and apparently we must), the right started the whole "we're perfect and you're stupid" thing. They started it ...

An aside that doesn't really fit in anywhere else in this rant: Stop trying to convince me George W. Bush is a knuckle-dragging functional illiterate. He's not the most articulate person who's ever stood in front of the Great Seal. But last time I checked, they weren't just handing out degrees from Yale, even to people whose dads went there. I dropped out of a not-very-prestigious state university. I'm not going to pretend I'm smarter than somebody who found a way to make it through Yale.

God knows there's hypocrisy to spare in both red and blue hues. Bill Clinton was a womanizer who got a hummer from a chubby babe right there in the Oval Office. His successor sat in that same Oval Office and sent people off to die for ... well, for ... well, to defend us against ... uh, dammit, we had to bomb somebody! Michael Moore is a lying sack of shit. So is Ken Lay and the rest of his Enron cronies. I'm not sure any of Moore's lies have cost anybody their retirement savings.

Bottom line: We're facing a pretty serious hero shortage on both sides. Why? Because the good people are too damn smart to get involved. Colin Powell knows better. You know somebody's gunning for Barack Obama, the latest political Flavor of the Month,; not to attack his political ideas, all of which are sound, but to find out which of his college girlfriends he cheated on or how many speeding tickets he has or some other indiscretion with an actual relevance value of zero. We're going to be stuck with Hillary Clinton in 2008, not because she's the best or the brightest, but because she has good "name recognition."

The pool of statesmen and stateswomen is pretty thin these days. Good leaders are out there, but they're too busy leading to get caught up in the smoke-and-mirrors act that is the United States political system. The truly intelligent and visionary people don't want to play the game -- or they get drummed out of the game. (See index entries "McCain, John, too much integrity for own good," and "Dean, Howard, too visionary and passionate to be taken seriously").

Besides, we don't really want a leader as our president. We want somebody who looks good on TV and who can quip one-liners. We don't want a human; we want an image. Is Arnold Schwarzenegger the governor of California because he has an advanced degree in international economics? No. Did you know he has an advanced degree in international economics? Probably not. Lots of people have degrees in international economics. None of them was the Terminator. You likely won't see any of them as the governor of California.

So, now that I've declared the Repbulic extinct, what do I care about? I care that I'm not paying more than my fair share of the tax burden. I care that the things for which I am paying those taxes are of the highest quality, and are being built and maintained by people who are themselves being paid a living wage. I care that my children are safe, and I know that's primarily the responsibility of my wife and me. I'm less worried about international terrorists than I am about the registered sex offender who lives eight houses away from us. I care that the person who's being paid to watch him while he's on probation is doing her job. (We checked. She is.) I care mostly about stuff that's happening within about a 12-mile radius of wherever I am at the moment.

The most important vote I cast last Tuesday wasn't for president; it was for sheriff and the county commission.

I'm not choosing to be isolated; I'm choosing to mind my own house, and to take as much control as possible of what I can see. I'm participating in the process, but only to the extent where it affects me. I don't care what they do in Boston. I don't care what they do in Wyoming. I'm not sure anybody else in my immediate line of sight does, either. My hot-button issue is not abortion, or gay marriage, or "moral values," whatever the fuck that means. My issue is taxes. Bush sees it my way on taxes. Therefore, I voted for Bush. It's up to the people I send to Congress to keep him honest. (My vote for Senate went to the Democratic candidate, who lost to her slimebag opponent by about 132 votes ... Oops, there we go with the schoolyard stuff again. My bad. But he is a slimebag.) Bush wouldn't have been able to send all those people off to die if Congress hadn't let him. Kerry wasn't going to do anything about it anytime soon. All things being basically equal -- and they were -- the Republicans keep my taxes low, I'm voting Republican. As soon as the Democrats find some way to make it personally beneficial for me to vote for them, I'll vote for them.

So much for "united" states, huh? That's pretty much what I'm suspecting.

A logical criticism for what I have just written would go as follows: "You wrote god-knows-how-many-hundred-words and I still don't know what you believe." If that's the case, you weren't paying attention, and I'll sum it up in a few sentences.

I believe in the power of the individual, and I believe in the power of integrity and vision. Few of the choices with which I was presented last Tuesday showed me any of that. I support integrity and vision, no matter what party provides it. Does that explain anything?

(I'm not sure that this was any lower on the bullshit scale than any of the stuff that fell victim to Click, Drag and Delete, but I needed something to show for the last hour of typing. If I lose my balance while standing on this fence, it's really going to hurt my nuts. Click "Publish Post" and go on to the next thing, I guess.)

A weekend in Florida

On a beautiful Saturday in November (and here in Florida, there is rarely anything other than beautiful days in November), here's the way my two days off are shaping up ...

Surrounded by chaos: I have four extra children this weekend. The three younger ones pair off with our three quite nicely, and the oldest one is 11-going-on-34, so she's actually quite helpful. However, there is no way to have seven kids in your house and have peace ? no matter the hour. One of the kids who isn't ours was in bed with us last night.

The kids belong to friends of ours. They're off at the husband's 20-year high-school reunion in Wisconsin. Compounding the pain: The Wife is off at a dog show. I'm not yet at the edge of my sanity, but I can certainly see the edge from here. Thankfully, I have a bottle of 80-proof Danish liqueur within easy reach, when it becomes necessary. (Memo to Department of Children and Families: For me, not the kids.)

The friends who left us their kids are the most interesting people I think we've ever known. He is a major in the Air Force, tall, good-looking, flies KC-135 airborne refueling tankers when he's not leading his troops. He went to the Air Force Academy on a wrestling scholarship. I forgive The Wife's crush on him. I can certainly see why. His wife is also good-looking and in excellent shape; she is a nurse, the PTA president, a volunteer for god-knows-how-many other causes and still manages to find time to raise four smart, well-adjusted, good-looking and talented children. Their son is 5; he plays on my son's football team, and also plays the piano and does complex math. Their daughters are 4, 8 and 11, and are all smart and talented in their ways.

I can get through all of that without having to mention that they also face with grace and aplomb the daily challenges of being an interracial couple. He's white and grew up in rural Wisconsin; she's black and grew up in inner-city Chicago. That's the only thing that visibly separates them from the rest of us average suburban folk. For them, however, it's a complete non-issue. Yes, they take some crap every once in a while, but not nearly to the degree that they would have, say, 30 or even 20 years ago. For all the backward steps the country is taking as this tilt to the right continues, we certainly seem to be making strides against the cancer of racism.

The price of victory: The Boy's 3-7 football team somehow managed to squeak into the league playoffs. This sucked, because we were more than prepared for the season to be over. The coaches are becoming more annoying, and getting up at 6 a.m. every Saturday is just getting old.

In a stunning development, our Broncos pulled out a most unfortunate victory. This means yet one more week of football practice and one more Saturday of being awake at an ungodly hour. Thankfully, we're playing the champions of the other division, who went 9-1.

This experience has certainly confirmed all of my previous bitching about organized youth sports. Two weeks ago, one of our team's assistant coaches was kicked out of the game for questioning the officials. A parent was kicked out of the stands shortly thereafter. They weren't being violent or belligerent, just annoying and immature. Their reactions were well out of proportion to the importance of a game involving 5- to 7-year-old boys.

Because the coach was ejected, he was barred from participating on the field the next week. So he instead sat atop the press box with a video camera ... and a cell phone. He was calling plays down to the remaining coaches on the field.

I can't imagine any circumstance under which that would have been necessary.

New arrival: We have a new Champion Dog wanna-be in our house. A cute little golden retriever puppy replaced The Wife's male dog, who had behavior issues that derailed his chase for a championship. I don't like dogs, at all. This is a well-known fact. However, I'm going to take a shot at getting off on the right foot with this dog. Maybe if I'm reasonably nice to it, it won't hate me so much. Wish me luck.

Well, kids are starting to holler at each other in the other room. Guess I should see what's going on. Where's that liqueur again?

What's new is old again, or something like that

It's time for a change here at Dateline: Anytown, USA. It's been a while, and the debris was starting to get pretty thick. I was writing my name in the dust. The stench was not yet overwhelming, but it was certainly noticeable. And the occasional cockroach crawling by was yet another sign that I needed to do some serious cleanup.

I had three choices:

1/Put in the necessary mental elbow grease to do the much-needed renovations
2/At least do the minimum to clean up the existing mess
3/Blow the whole damn thing up and start over

Because I'm lazy, and because I secretly enjoy a little bit of violence and mayhem now and then, I chose "3."

So much to talk about. So much has happened over the last several months. So many new adventures, so many new towns, so many takeoffs and landings. Lots of new people, which has been a good thing for me; I'm making progress against rapidly advancing agoraphobia. I'm not exactly a social butterfly, but I'm no longer actively avoiding other humans.

So much to think about. Wondering if my former Governor can fix in four years the damage he's done in the previous four. I earlier said I wasn't going to tell you how I voted. I'm going to go back on that, because it deserves some reflection, and because I kind of like pissing you off. I voted for Bush -- not because I think he's done a particularly good job, but because I think the Democrats can do better than Kerry, and I want them to focus on doing so in '08. Kerry didn't show me anything to make me think he was a better alternative, at least not in the short term. Remember, he got hornswoggled by that whole WMD thing, too. I have a history of votes that I question later: I voted for Perot in '92. I have a feeling I'm going to be questioning this one soon.

So much to be pissed off about. As mentioned in a post in the dusty forum, my former employer laid off a whole bunch of people last week. One of them was the best human being with whom I had ever worked. He was my boss when I had the boring job that I whined so much about. He was the only good thing about that job. He was also the only bad thing about that job. He never quite got his arms around the upper-management thing. After I left in '02, he got shoved aside and shoved aside and shoved aside until he finally was pushed off the edge. He's 43, with a kid in high school and a kid in middle school. I'd like to think he'll have no problem finding another job; he's smart and he's skilled. But it's not a great market for 40-ish white males, so ...

Some 60 people were excused from further participation. I know about 25 names. To a person, most of them were older people; some of them were people who hadn't kept up with the technology, some of them were people whose jobs had been kind of phased out as the newspaper reduced its coverage, and some of them were certainly less than competent. But I hate it when anybody leaves a job under any terms other than his or her own, through no real fault of their own.

And I especially hate it when good, hard-working people are victims of mismanagement by those in very high places. This newspaper pissed away more than $60 million over the last five years; $40-some million on a bad technology investment and the rest on refunds to advertisers after it was revealed they had been fudging their circulation numbers. Upper management was quick to say the circulation scandal had absolutely nothing to do with the layoffs. Upper management is, of course, full of shit.

Now, of course, the question looms: How in the hell do I wrap this up with something that'll make you come back for the next one? I've asked myself that question every time I've sat in front of this (or any other) keyboard over the last three years. I've never come up with a good answer for it. But y'all keep coming back anyway, for some reason. I'll keep searching for that answer.

This is only a test

If this were an actual post, it'd still be boring as hell. But it's not. It's just a test.

Meanwhile, back here at the funny farm ...
We're off to a good start with Election 2004 here in Florida.

Now hear this, America
The way I see it, folks, we have two choices:

We can let the ruling class decide who leads our country for the next four years

We can be the ruling class.

Choose the latter. Get the hell out and vote tomorrow.

As always, I don't care who you vote for, and I'm not telling you who I'm voting for. I do care that you put in the time and effort to make the decision. Don't leave it up to the radicals on either wing. You have an opinion; scream it from the rooftops. I want to hear you.

Dark day in Texas
Several friends got hit in a mass layoff at the Very Large Metropolitan Newspaper. I'm sad about it, and very pissed, because it's largely the result of high-level mismanagement.

More on this topic later.

Needing some music
My iPod count stands at 504 songs -- pretty weak for a guy who claims to love music as much as I do.

So: I'm asking for your help. Recommend five songs to me -- from any genre; you don't have to know or care what I like. I want to know what YOU like, and I want to share it.

I buy songs pretty much exclusively from the iTunes music store, but if you happen to spring a song on me that I can't get there, let me know where I can get it.

Anyway: Five songs, from each of you. Click on "Enlighten us" and enlighten my iPod before my next road trip.

For the record, here's five from my playlist:

Baby Girl, Sugarland: Newly created "supergroup" featuring three notable singer-songwriters from Atlanta's music scene. They put together a helluva band. Their CD is scheduled for release Oct. 26. Another good song, not yet generally available: "Down in Mississippi (and Up to No Good.)

Love Means Never Having to Say You're Hungry, Charlie Robison: From his new album, "Good Times." Raunchy, not-safe-for-the-minivan paean to ... well, let's just say you won't be able to hear this song without thinking about a certain Dixie Chick's, um ... well, just listen to the song.

Lough Erin Shore, The Corrs: Instrumental from an Irish band of siblings. The rest of their stuff is a little too poppy for me, but man, what a bunch of great musicians. Amazing violin, piano and tin whistle evokes the best of Irish music without making you think of "Riverdance."

Kick my Ass, Big and Rich: Actually, this whole album is worth a listen. Big and Rich is heading for some serious commercial success, which means you should take a listen before Nashville beats them down and turns them into everyothercountryradioact. You won't find too many albums that combine straight-up country, hard rock, rap in Spanish and Bon Jovi-style power ballads.

Pocahontas Proud, Gretchen Wilson: "I'm the biggest thing that ever came from my hometown," hollers the Redneck Woman, and it's hard to argue against that statement when one's hometown is Pocahontas, Ill. I like Gretchen Wilson mostly because she reminds me of every third girl I knew as a teenager in Anytown, girls from the surrounding small towns who drove Chevy 4x4s and would beat you up as soon as hold your hand. I like that in a woman. (A little bit about my taste in women: I think this picture is just about the hottest picture of any woman on the Web.) I like this song because I appreciate people who understand where they came from and are proud of it.

Your turn. Five from you.

That's him. The fat guy
I'm generally a pretty average guy. The one thing that has always made me different from you is that I'm really, really thin.

I didn't weigh 100 pounds when I graduated from high school. The first time I had my body fat measured, during a physical for my track team, my body fat registered 1.8 percent. I could buy my clothes in the children's section until I was 26.

Even with the inevitable settling that comes with adulthood, I still tipped the scales at around 130. (I'm just shy of 5-foot-7). I took great pride in being able to maintain a slim profile, despite eating large quantities of whatever the hell I wanted and drinking enough beer on some nights to make you puke just from watching me.

I knew it was going to catch up to me eventually, I really did. And I probably should be glad it took this long.

I stepped on a scale a few days ago for the first time since February. That time, I weighed 134. I almost had a heart attack when I saw the number that popped up the other day. (OK, the heart-attack thing might have been because of the clogged arteries, but anyway ... )

One-fifty-seven.

Damn near 160 pounds. Once again, just shy of 5-foot-7.

I knew something was up during one of my road trips earlier this summer. I packed my normal bunch of clothes, and suddenly, my slightly snug 31-waist pants didn't fit at all. They weren't "slightly snug," nor "really tight." They would not snap around my waist, despite my best efforts to suck it in.

This happened, I swear to God, overnight. I found myself in Washington state suddenly having to shop for pants. In a 33.

So, now, I'm faced for the first time ever with the idea that I might have to care about getting my weight down, or at least making sure it doesn't go up any more. I actually might have to start somehow forcing myself to eat fat-free stuff. (God, I hate fat-free stuff.) Two words: Light beer. A few more words: A lot less of it. And, oh yeah, exercise ...

Part of it is more of the Inevitable Settling, now that I'm closer to 40 than to 30. Part of it is my new job, where I find myself sitting a lot in 757s and in airports and behind desks, and eating restaurant food on other people's money.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not in danger any time soon of being the blubberbutt you see walking away in a TV news story about how we're making the planet sink because we're all so damn fat. And vanity was something I gave up when I started losing my hair, anyway.

The reason it concerns me, mostly, is because I have heart disease coming at me from both sides of my family. I don't really need to make things any harder on my ticker than my genetics already dictate they're going to be.

I'm easing into this. I'll mix a few diet sodas in with the four or five regular sodas, and maybe even a glass of water occasionally. I'll eat well one day, and like I usually do the next day. I had a morning walk for a while as part of my routine, but time and the need to sleep has been stealing that. I need to get it back.

And in that paragraph above, I just mistyped "steak" insead of "steal." And I paused for just a second and I thought, "Mmm, steak ... "

Innocence rules
The Old Daughter finally unleashed her first curse word.

She didn't say it to her teacher, or to her mom, or to her gramdma. Nobody heard it at all. She whispered it to herself in her bedroom. Several months ago.

We would never have know had she not come out of her room this evening, sobbing. "Mommy, I gotta tell you something," she blubbered. "I said a bad word. I feel terrible about it."

Then she told us the part about having whispered it to herself in her room several months ago. "I just" snif snif "wanted to see" snif snif "what it felt like."

I'm not too worried about teenagerhood, all of a sudden. I think she'll be OK.

And frankly, as far as I'm concerned, as long as she doesn't say it to any of the aforementioned authority figures listed above, she can say whatever the fuck she wants to say.

Too tired to duck again
I'd start an eyeofjeanne.blogspot.com, but geez, I'm so bored with the whole hurricane thing at this point. This one is probably going to hit us with more than a glancing blow. We're not prepared, other than what is left over from Charley and Frances and Ivan.

This whole Edge of America thing might be up for discussion soon.

Whew. OK
So perhaps I can go through the week without having to do another hurricane blog. Perhaps that damn storm will fall apart somewhere in the Gulf before it hits Mobile, Ala. For the sake of the Mobilians, I hope it happens that way.

Bringing an end to a month's worth of hurricane panic forces me to resume the focus on what we so loosely call "normal life." You know, that thing that involves a morning routine, then work, then an evening routine, followed by sleep, lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. That cycle seems refreshing now that "hurricane panic" isn't in the mix anywhere, at least for the moment.

It's September, which means it's time for football. Up until this year, it was the kind of football that kept my ass firmly planted on the couch on Sundays -- you know, the 1 p.m. game, then the 4 p.m. game, then, if my long-suffering wife had finally given up, the 8:30 p.m. game. This is followed, of course, by Monday Night Football, for which I probably won't last past halftime, now that I'm a member of the Real World, that World which is at work by 8:30 each morning.

But that routine has been shaken up a bit by Saturday morning football -- football of the flag variety, featuring kids ages 5 to 7. Mine is No. 14, the one on the bench checking out the cheerleaders.

The Boy's team suffered its first loss on Saturday, leaving them 2-1. They pretty much took it in stride, however; at least, the players did. All they knew was that when the game was over, it was time for Laffy Taffy and juice boxes. The coaches, of course, were deeply disappointed, and grumbled and mumbled about lack of execution and concentration to a bunch of boys who can't read, much less have any idea what "execution" means.

These coaches held the game up for nearly five minutes disputing a fumble call at the goal line -- in a game involving 5-year-olds. Talk about needing to get a grip.

But: These coaches had spent much of the week at their real jobs. One owns a construction company; he's been working his ass off helping people in Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte recover after Charley and Frances. One is a deputy sheriff; he spends his days dealing with "crapbags," as he puts it, and loves nothing more than to hang out with a bunch of innocent kids, hoping to play some part in keeping them from growing up to be crapbags. They can be forgiven if they want to win a football game a little too much. As important as their real jobs are, it's heartening to know that a little boys' game can be that important to them, too. If it helps them stay sane, I'm all for it.

As for me: I'm back on the road next week. Two days in Minnesota, three days in Illinois, in the never-ending pursuit of deploying better software. Thankfully, the hurricane threat in Minnesota is minimal. I'll miss next Saturday's game, most likely; unless we make dramatic improvements in the software in Illinois between now and then, I'll be landing at my home airfield just about the time the final horn blows. But that's OK; I'll still have Sunday, and I'll be able to explain to The Boy once again that guys in the NFL don't wear flags.

Surely they're kidding
From the National Hurricane Center ...

Hunkered down, again
Well, guess it's that time again here on the Edge. Go here for the official word, and go to eyeoffrances.blogspot.com for what it looks like from our backyard.

He's a divider, not a uniter
Singeth The Boy:

"This land is your land/This side is my land ... "

It's not really a new post
Mostly, this is just typing exercise. I just need to loosen my brain a little bit. And lucky you; you get to watch.

I'm on vacation this week, for the first time in a long time. It doesn't mean I don't still have a pile of work to do; that pile's still there, and it's still laughing at me every time I look at it. This vacation, for me, basically just means I work when I want to, and I can lean on my, "Well, I'm on vacation," reply if anybody asks anything about anything.

A smart person would have taken the battery out of his laptop and stored it somewhere off-site. But my intellect can certainly be called into question.

In totally unrelated events, my son is playing flag football. He's 5. I've ranted about the folly of organized youth sports before, but hey, when in Suburbia, do as the Suburbanites do. He doesn't get much playing time; he's a lot smaller than the other 5- and 6-year-olds on his team, and it's very possible he's a victim of his genetics in that he's not exactly blessed with natural athletic talent. His only appearance Saturday was on the kickoff team after his team's second touchdown. He did chase the returner with abandon, and almost ran him down, but it didn't matter, because the ball had been blown dead 30 yards back.

There was a little bit of miffedness among the family unit about The Boy's lack of playing time. Dragging him out of bed at 6:45 on a Saturday morning so he could play for one kickoff seems a little silly. But, as that discourse was being discoursed, the usual Perspective Builder came into sight: The team's waterboy, a crew-cut 5-year-old in an electric wheelchair, gamely wheeling himself around and spraying the players with water. Bet he'd be really happy to get in for one kickoff. Bet his parents would be positively giddy.

So, no more whining about The Boy's playing time. We can still whine about the coaches, for whom it seems to mean a lot more to be 2-0 than it does to make sure all the kids are learning how to play football. But I'll keep that waterboy in mind.

Saturday, of course, followed Friday, at which The Wife had to attend a hastily called parental conference for The Old Daughter, who had an incident of speaking out in class. This followed days of warnings about speaking out in class. She is genetically programmed to be a talker, and she's learning how to use that switch that tells her mouth to stay shut when her brain comes up with something it thinks needs to be said. But sometimes that's a tough lesson to learn.

And the Very Cool Mother-in-Law is visiting this weekend. We're about to launch another enhancement to The Freelance Gig in a couple of months. I'll be working my ass off -- while I'm working my ass off -- but the result is going to be very good, I think.

Finally, the 5-day forecast track for Frances is now touching the southern tip of The Edge. It's too early for action, they tell us, but you might want to check your hurricane shutters just to be sure.

There. My typing fingers feel a little looser, and more comfortable now.

The happiest day of their lives ... so far
Otis and Mrs. Otis welcome a new addition to the world. We welcome him as the newest addition to our family. They're 24 hours in, so I know they're all three tired -- but not too tired to know that they're about to embark on a wonderful journey.

Congratulations to Otis and Mrs. Otis. And congratulations to us, too, because our world just became a better place.

We're hiding over here
Go to eyeofcharley.blogspot.com for ground-level updates, courtesy of us, on the progress of Hurricane Charley as it approaches the Western Edge of America.

And wish us luck. For you praying types, we'll accept those too.

Here it comes
Hurricane Charley is on its way. Nobody knows what's going to actually happen here on the Western Edge, but we're getting ready for the worst. We are not in an evacuation zone, but we're really close to it.

More later if/when something actually happens.

Deep sigh
For the first time in a long time, I wrote a post that I thought was moderately entertaining.

I hit the wrong button. It's gone. And I'm too damn tired to rewrite it.

Ugh.

Wish I had said it first
"Media's the plural of mediocre." --Jimmy Breslin

Wondering here in Allentown
Business this week has brought me to the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area of Pennsylvania, and of course, I have Billy Joel stuck in my head. And it's getting very hard to staaaaaaaaayy ...

In my quick tour of the area, I have to question why anybody did stay. It's a shell of a city. The local section of Thursday's newspaper was essentially a six-page crime report. The downtown Bethlehem area has some very cool architecture, but it morphs quickly into a depressing neighborhood of dilapidated row houses, places whose occupants would apparently rather mill around outside than inside. A city government official in Easton made news earlier this week by calling a newspaper reporter a "stupid bitch" in the middle of a public hearing. (To his credit, he did resign the next day.) Some of the surrounding area is very pretty, but it doesn't take long to wind up in another depressing little town where nothing has happened since 1940. And normally, I like small towns.

In a word: Yuk.

The last thing you see before the little regional jet lands at the Lehigh Valley International Airport is a big hole where a strip-mining operation kept families fed for the first half of the 20th century. The hole's still there, and there's nothing anybody can get out of it and nothing anybody can do about it. It said to me, "Well, we got ours; you go find a way to get yours."

It's a shame. Small cities in the United States should be centers of innovation and ideas and creativity. Industry and the trades should provide a living wage (Everybody had a pretty good shot/To get at least as far as their old man got). I understand how capitalism works, but I think we're starting to see some of the long-term effects of capitalism on humans. I hope I'm not right about that.

Summertime blahs
My recent reticence is not attributable to anything other than that I'm receiving an awful lot of input these days. But that's a good thing:

This job, about which I was so worried two months ago, is starting to pan out very well. I'm enjoying my little adventure into the real world, and learning a lot that has nothing to do with software. (Thankfully, I'm learning a lot that does relate to software, in an effort to actually keep the job.)

We're getting settled on the Western Edge. The house is good, the yard is good, the neighborhood is good. Kids like it, The Wife likes it, I like it. Nothing about which to complain, or expand upon.

And my life is a large step forward toward completion because I now, like 94 percent of the rest of the world, have an iPod. (Happy birthday to me! and thanks, guys.) From you, I seek recommendations for new stuff to put on this little white box of joy.

A decade of delight
Here in a few minutes, as I write this, I'll be the parent of a 10-year-old daughter. Time flies when you're having fun.

The Old Daughter has seen a lot in 10 years. She has moved 10 times. She has so far only spent one full academic year at the same school. She's been in the tailwind of our pursuit of the Best Possible Situation, and thankfully, she has been very adaptable. I hope to not have to be testing that adaptability again any time soon.

Along the way, she welcomed a brother and a sister after spending almost five years as an only child. She adapted to that well, too, and has been a wonderful role model for both of her siblings.

Sometimes I forget she's a few minutes away from being 10. She can analyze thoughts and concepts in nearly adult fashion; you can tell there's a lot going on behind those eyeglasses, and it's fun to run ideas past a brain that performs at a high level and is unburdened by years of preconceived notions. She also has a maddening tendency to act half her age sometimes. She's a wonderful and complex person, and it's fun to watch her become a person.

I don't have a favorite child. No parent of multiple children does. But each of our children is special in his or her own way. The Young Daughter will always be the Baby. The Boy will always be the only boy. The Old Daughter will always be the first.

A couple of our regular readers are going to become parents soon. I don't claim to be the least bit qualified to give out parental advice, and wouldn't for a second think of doing so. But I do hope they feel a little bit better about their impending parenthood by participating in this forum, and following along as I muddle my way through it -- if nothing else, hopefully, they'll gain the security of knowing that if I can do it, they certainly can.

Anyway, happy birthday, Old Daughter. And thanks for being you.