Friday, September 30, 2005
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Hey kid: Shut up
From a story in today's Cincinnati Enquirer exploring a phenomenon it calls "premature affluence":
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.
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.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
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.
-- 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.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
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.
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.
Monday, September 05, 2005
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.
God help them. They have the most difficult jobs in America right now.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
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.
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.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
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.
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.
Monday, August 15, 2005
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Thursday, August 04, 2005
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?
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?
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
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:
Ungrateful bitch. Shut up and be happy you remember how "unprepared" they seemed.
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.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
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.
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.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Friday, May 06, 2005
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
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.
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.
Friday, April 08, 2005
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.