scripturient

#288 In which our hero considers a birthday of some import.

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:43:00 +0000

There’s a tall thin man standing in the shadows
When he calls your name his voice is strong and clear
It’s a dark and smoky place, so you can’t quite see his face
He pulls you close and whispers in your ear

I turned 40 last year. Actually, since my birthday is in December, it was the end of 2008. I’ve been trying to organize my thoughts since then… and I’m not sure I’ve come to any sort of conclusions. Forty is a pretty significant age… by most reckonings, my life is half over. Then again, if I die at 65, like my father, I only have 25 years left. Either way, it’s pretty sobering to consider your mortality.

And he tells you he was born into some money
But it didn’t mean he had to sit around
And he knows a thing or two about the things that you should do
If you don’t want to take life lying down

What I’ve really been thinking about is what kind of mark I’ve made on the world to date. Have I made any sort of difference? What kind of legacy would I leave if I kicked off tomorrow? Have I done anything worth remembering?

First of all hang out a lot with Hemmingway
Spend some time fighting bulls in Spain
You should go three rounds with Archie Moore and Sugar Ray
It’s so damned scary you won’t mind the pain

I dunno. I look at my wife… I’m made her life happier. Not always, I suppose, but most of the time. We’ve been married for eight years, and they’ve all been happy. And we’re still in love. That’s more than a lot of people can say.

Be ringside at the rumble in the jungle
Make friends with Hunter S. and Jackie O.
And when they shoot poor Bobby down, you wrestle Sirhan to the ground
Love your friends and miss them when they go

And I look at my children. I’ve had a bigger impact on their brief lives than anyone else I’ve ever met. And they’re turning out great. So maybe I should be happy with that, that they’re growing up healthy and smart and funny. They’re supported and loved. Who know what the future holds, I’m guessing there will be a lot of yelling and hurt feelings in the preteen and teen years, and maybe beyond. But I do hope they always feel the love of their parents.

So, is that enough? That I’ve helped raised some good kids?

You should write a book or two and start a magazine
Even if it never makes a dime
You should swing out by your feet above the circus ring
At the very least throw parties all the time

I’m always reading about people who have made such a tremendous difference in the world by this age… hell, well before this age. Bill Gates was in his early 20s when he founded Microsoft. Steve Jobs was also in his early 20s when he founded Apple. Stephen King had published four novels by the time he was 30. Lee Clow was named Creative Director of Chiat/Day before he was 40.

And so on.

Enjoy yourself, do the things that matter
Cause there isn’t time and space to do it all
Love the things you try, drink a cocktail wear a tie
Show a little grace if you should fall

But I have enjoyed my life, almost without exception. And I’m the happiest I’ve ever been right now. Love my wife, love my kids. Have a hobby I enjoy a great deal, and, incidentally, I’ve made some significant achievements in said hobby. I don’t have a lot of friends, but have powerful relationships with those I do.

So why do I feel like there’s so much more I should have achieved by now?

Don’t live another day unless you make it count
There’s someone else that you’re supposed to be
There’s something deep inside of you that still wants out
And shame on you if you don’t set it free.

“A Talk with George” by Jonathan Coulton.

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#287 In which our hero discusses what he's been reading in the past year (part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Cell by Stephen King (audio book)

When I was younger, I was a huge Stephen King fan. I read everything he put out. As I got older, I became a little tired of his writing (Will this Dark Tower saga ever end?) and then finally disgusted (Bag of Bones? More like Bag of Shit). So, it was with some reluctance that I picked this audio book off the shelf.

Shortly into it, I remembered why I so enjoyed King in the first place. And also why I grew to dislike him. The story treads very familiar ground (at times I felt like I was reading “The Stand Lite”) and King deals out all the old familiar tropes that he likes so well. But, his story telling is always engaging and there were a few truly suspenseful moments.

King also has a distinct style of dialogue… I find it hard to describe, but I immediately recognize it when I read it (or hear it, in this case). It’s not that his characters sound phony, and it’s not even that they speak in contrived sentences… it’s more like they speak a unique dialect based on old-fashioned movies. I found myself thinking, “that’s an odd way to express that” in many places. Perhaps that’s how King really talks. Again, it all felt very familiar.

A thing of note: the audio recording had clearly been re-edited at some point. There are odd passages when a jarringly different voice actor inserts a phrase here and there, sometimes even a single word. Distracting, to say the least.

The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III (audio book)

I picked this up at the library after learning from the cover blurb that they guy also wrote “House of Sand and Fog.” I never read that book, but I heard good reviews about the movie, which starred Jennifer Connelly, and I have a serious thing for Jennifer Connelly so, in a round-about fashion, I was really attracted to this book.

Now, this isn’t a nice book. It’s not pornographic or gory or violent (even though there are elements of all of the above in it) but it does dive into great depths in the mind of a terrorist. A September 11th terrorist, to be exact. This is unsettling, to say the least.

That said, I enjoyed this book a great deal. I walked away feeling like I had a better understanding of terrorists and why they feel driven to do the things they do--not sympathy, mind you, but understanding.

I connected with the characters, even the “villains,” and enjoyed how they were intertwined in the plot. I was even rooting for the redneck fuck-up.

Now, as is my wont, I usually look up Amazon.com reviews of these books after I’m done reading them. I was surprised to read that a lot of people thought this novel was overly long, and plodded in places. I, in contrast, felt like it kept a quick pace, especially once the major tensions were established.

However, I suspect this is, again, the result of listening to the novel as an audio book and not actually reading the words on the printed page. I listen to these books exclusively in my car, so I’m only ever giving them part of my attention anyway (the majority part being not driving into another car). So, it’s possible that I tuned out for a moment during another description of Al-Qaeda training camps or the patrons of a strip club or whatnot. While I’ve fretted that I might be having a lesser experience with the work since I’m listening and not reading, in this case it may have actually improved the experience.

Regardless, I think this is a great book.

Just After Sunset by Stephen King (audio book)

As I wrote above, I was/am a big fan of Stephen King. I don’t slavishly follow his work any more, but I notice it when it comes out. That’s why I was so surprised to see this on the library shelf, a collection of short stories that I knew nothing about. So I picked it up.

I’ve always liked King’s short stories, and these were no different. I enjoyed them all, most notably Willa, N. and The Things They Left Behind. The last so struck me that I listened to it twice (I really enjoyed the voice actor in that one, too). After listening to this, I realized that I had already seen N. when it was adapted to (or maybe it was written specifically for) a series of animated shorts hosted on the Internet. As I write this, you can still find the episodes on YouTube.

Forever Summer by Ray Bradbury (audio book)

It’s been a while since I’ve read any Ray Bradbury, so it took me a minute to get into the swing of his rhythms again. Because Bradbury has a definite style, one I’ll call “American Hokey.” Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy his writing, but a lot of it has a wide-eyed, Norman Rockwell, gee-gosh-golly quality to it, especially when he’s writing kids. And about 65% of this novel is written from a 13-year-old’s perspective. Some sample dialog:

“Let’s get out of here, Doug. I got the willies!”
“The willies, heck! I got the heebie-jeebies!”

And while it’s incredibly corny, it’s also sweet. Since I was listening to an audio book instead of reading the printed word, this hokum come through even stronger, especially considering that the voice actor made the decision to give the protagonist’s 10-year-old brother a lisp. “You thure ‘bout that, Doug? That thure looks thuper thcary!”

When I started listening to audio books, I wondered if I was missing something by not actually reading the words and processing them myself. For most books I think it works out just fine, but this is one case where I think I would have gotten more out of it by reading it the traditional way.

One last thing. The entire novel was a nice coming to age, young vs. old, ah youth! tale that unfolds by comparing and contrasting a 75-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy. Then, in the final chapter, the old man has a conversation with his boner. Needless to say, I didn’t see that coming. Not only does he talk to his boner, it talks back. Tells him that he’s going away now, and won’t return. Then, the same boner suddenly appears on the 13-year-old, apparently for the first time. The results are unintentionally hilarious. Especially when the boy asks his new-found boner if he is his friend, and the boner replies, “the best you’ll ever have.” I laughed out loud in my car.

The Last Centurion by John Ringo (audio book)

I picked this up on a lark because the back blurb indicated it was about a pandemic plague that wiped up a large portion of life on earth. For some reason, I’m drawn to stories like this. That said, it turned out to be mostly a true war sort of tale, which doesn’t appeal to me. But, in the end, I liked this book… mostly.

The story is the first person account of a soldier who was on the front lines when the world-ending flu spread across the globe, and what he did to lead his men back home. I think I enjoyed it because I like engaging stories that reveal to me a part of the world I don’t know; in this case, the American military.

The author relates, in what seems to be a high degree of accuracy, how the military works, how they would respond to a disaster of this magnitude, etc., etc. He goes into great detail about military equipment and procedures and strategy and other things I am largely ignorant of. Hey kids, learning is fun!

However, the voice of the protagonist (i.e., the author) is painfully didactic at times, and just annoying. Some of the themes beaten over the head include: global warming is bullshit, city folks are stupid, farmers make the world go ‘round. And, y’know, whatever, that’s fine… it’s your book so you can have whatever point of view you want. But it just got tiring to hear him go on and on about how the “ants” (smart, salt-of-the-earth people like farmers who planned ahead) were superior to “grasshoppers” (soft, soiled city dwellers who had no commonsense and were caught with their pants down when the world collapsed). Yeah, we get it. You don’t have to go on for 10 pages detailing how the “tofu eaters” (a euphemism used ad nauseum for liberals) screwed things up.

I enjoyed most of this book, but the proselytizing became overbearing by the end, and I was glad to be done with it.

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (vol. 13) edited by Stephen James

I inadvertently read this book twice.

I bought this book years ago, started to read it, but never got the whole way through. I’m not sure why. So when I finally picked it up again, I just started from the beginning instead of trying to remember where I stopped.

However, it seemed like I was familiar with every story I read. I’ve come to the conclusion that I must have read everything save the last story or two. But, it wasn’t bad to read it again; most of the stories were entertaining.

However, the editor clearly has a different interpretation of what “horror” is from what I do; with few exceptions I didn’t think the stories were especially scary or suspenseful.

Out of all the stories the only ones that stick with me (as I write this months after the fact) is “Our Temporary Supervisor,” by Thomas Ligotti and “Shite Hawks” by Muriel Gray. These are also the only two that really got under my skin. So much so, that I think I’ll seek out some of their other work.

Dune by Frank Herbert (audio book)

Sometimes I’m in a big hurry in the library, so I grab the first audio book that seems interesting and get out. That’s why I ended up with Dune, even though I had read it years before (and the first couple sequels, I believe).

It’s fantastic writing, no-one will even dispute that. And I’m amazed that more than 40 years later, it has aged so well, remaining relevant and engaging as it ever was.

I was delighted when I started listening to it to find that it had a full cast of voices. Most audio books have one reader and, like ‘em or hate ‘em, you’re stuck with that voice for the next 10-20 hours. But, for reasons I cannot understand, only parts of this book used the full voice cast. You’d be listening to one section where Baron Harkonnen was voiced with evil glee from an actor with a deep baritone, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen was acted out with wonderful treachery by an English actress, Paul was voiced by a young man… then in the next chapter, it was just the narrator, voicing all the parts again. It didn’t seem like there was any rhyme or reason to it; it’s not like specifically exciting or climatic events got the full cast. It made the audio book a little jarring, as the main narrator made some different acting choices than the main cast, as if they never spoke or compared notes on the characters. Odd.

Still an amazing story, though.

Tales from Jabba’s Palace edited by Kevin J. Anderson

A long time ago I read “Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina” and hated it. I enjoy the Star Wars universe, but I was annoyed with this book because nearly every character you see in the Cantina scene in the movie is represented in this book. And not one of them is there simply for a drink after work; everyone is achieving their destiny or some such bullshit.

This book (also gifted to me by the same guy who gave me “Glory Lane”) is along that same lines. However, for some reason changing the setting to Jabba’s palace made it more palatable for me. And maybe because most of the stories centered around one main conspiracy, I found it to be more cohesive. Not a terrible book; but not one I’d ever return to, either.

The Devil You Know by Mike Carey (audio book)

Another “this looks good, I need to get out of here” selection from the library. But I enjoyed this one immensely.

I love contemporary horror, and this book had that with a great helping of humor alongside it. Plus, the author/protagonist is English, and stories sent in England always sound so quirky to me. And the voice actor had a wonderfully engaging accent, too.

You can tell that I really enjoyed this book because after listening to the audio book, I went out and bought the actual paperback so I could see the words for myself.

The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key

This is a book I read probably when I was 13 or so. It really stuck with me, so much so that I was moved to look it up and buy it from Amazon a couple of years ago. It sat on my bookshelf until I finished my last (hard copy) book and was casting about for something else to read. So I read this.

I didn’t know at the time that Alexander Key also wrote “Escape to Witch Mountain.” But after re-reading this book, it doesn’t surprise me. It’s definitely an early adolescent book, a little heavy-handed with the morals at the end.

Fangland by John Marks (audio book)

Another book that I think I enjoyed more than I would have otherwise because I learned something from it; this time, how a televised news program operates.

The protagonist is a female field producer for “The Hour,” a thinly-veiled version of “60 Minutes.” The author clearly has some experience with the show or programs like this, and goes on at length about its internal operations.

At its heart it’s the story of a woman who encounters a modern day vampire, and the fall out of that encounter. It’s sufficiently scary in parts, and has several inventive twists on the tired old vampire mythos. It also has a surprising amount of sex and blood, with an ending that was both oddly off-putting and satisfying at the same time.

It’s told in first person, a narrative mode that has a soft spot in my heart. Several of the characters recount their version of the story, and although this can get tiresome, I thought the author handled it deftly enough. Even though he does lapse into straight third person for a couple scenes that just don’t work from a viewers perspective. Something I always hate--it seems like a cop-out. If you want to write in first person, you should tough out the tricky parts, too.

I Am Legend (and other stories) by Richard Matherson (audio book)

I had also read “I Am Legend” before, albeit in comic book form. I enjoyed it, even though it was severely dated in parts. And the science that Matherson works so hard to establish fall apart in the end (the vampire bacterium causes fangs to grow on the infected? Really?), but otherwise a good, satisfying story.

The audio book also included several short stories, some of which I had read/seen in one form or another in the past. They all tend to be the of Twilight Zone variety, i.e., build up the tension then introduce a twist ending. Not bad, and some quite good.

“I Am Legend” was read by one actor, who sounded great. Another actor read all the short stories and, frankly, some of his accents/inflections detracted from my enjoyment of the book. At least once his delivery was so convoluted that I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman

This is a book that The Scientist got me for my birthday. It's about improving your writing, from a professional agent's point of view. It's interesting, even if a lot of the advice seems pretty obvious to me. Then again, I like to think of myself as a capable writer, and a lot of the insight seems geared toward the very new writer. Still, it's all good review. I haven't finished it as of this writing... mostly because it's more textbook than absorbing read. But, I'll finish it here soon, probably over the Christmas break.

Ohio Oddities: A Guide to the Curious Attractions of the Buckeye State by Neil Zurcher

Another birthday present from my wife. I love weird roadside attractions like The World's Biggest Frying Pan or whatever, and this is full of them. It's not the kind of book I'd read cover to cover, but it has an honored place in the bathroom, and I'll definitely get through all of it in time.

Fray (volumes 1 “Busted” & 3 “Sex & Death”) edited by Derek Powazek

"The Fray" used to be my favorite website. It featured true stories about a variety of topics, with beautiful accompanying illustrations or photos. I read it for years, until the guy in charge, Derek Powazek, shut it down, saying that it had run it's course. That was years ago. Recently,
for no real reason, I looked it up again. Turns out that Powazek is still compiling personal stories, only now in the form of real, tangible books (I guess they're really more like magazines). Out of the three currently available, I bought two (they were on sale together).

I finished the first (Busted) and am halfway through the second. I'm enjoying them... but they're really reinforced that true stories aren't always great stories. Most of these are well written, but seem to peter out in the end. Because that's the way real life works, I suppose: you have an interesting experience, but rarely does it conclude in a dynamic, exciting and satisfying fashion, like it does in fiction. The books are filled with beautiful illustrations as well.

And that is it! The last couple of books on the list will get me into 2010, where I'll start a new list.

And, if you're keeping score, that's 12 books and 11 audio books that I've consumed in 2009.

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#286 In which our hero discusses what he's been reading in the past year (part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:07:00 +0000

Some time around the beginning of this year I started writing down everything I read. Well, not everything, just novels and collections of short stories. This is something I had been meaning to do for a couple years, mostly to figure out how many books I read a year. Because this question comes up from time to time, and I really have no idea.

Once I started on the list, I figured I might as well write a little review of what I thought about the book, too.

You’ll notice that around March I discovered audio books. It’s not like I didn’t know about them before, I just never bothered to check any out of the library. But, being that I have a 40 minute commute twice a day, five days a week, it gave me something to do other than listen to the news.

Holy crap, I wish I had started listening to audio books years ago. As you’ll see, I’ve been tearing them up.

Also, I suppose I should include SPOILER ALERT because I'm not taking any pains to conceal the plot. I'm just writing about what I thought, which may include the ending. Be ye warned.

So, here’s my ear-end wrap-up of what I’ve been reading.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

I was out with some friends, and the topic of great sci-fi literature came up. This book was mentioned and several people around the table enthusiastically agreed that it was a great one. So I picked it up.

While I enjoyed it, this book left me with the same feeling that I’ve experienced with a lot of old (circa 60-70s) sci-fi. That the story wasn’t the point, that it was only there to set up a bigger and (in the author’s mind) more important thing. In this book, the preface by the author even states that his real reason for writing the book was to introduce the idea of Ender being a “speaker for the dead.”

And that’s all well and good, but it left me feeling that the bulk of the manuscript was hurried, like Card wanted to get to what he considered the good stuff and the bulk of the story was just in the way. And when we do get to the “good stuff,” it seems like it comes out of the blue, like a tacked on ending. The entire book is about Ender being a war strategy prodigy, and the twist ending (which I saw coming a mile away) in which he successfully defeats the aliens. This battle at the end, which seems like it should have been the big climax, felt anti-climatic. Mostly because that wasn’t the author’s idea of the climax, it was the last 20 or so somewhat rambling pages about what Ender did after the war. And the whole “Ender fought against the aliens so much that he formed a kind of psychic bond with them” was a huge WTF? moment for me.

Enjoyable old-school sci-fi, but not the best I’ve ever read and not, despite what was said around that pub table, one of the greats of the genre.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

And enjoyable horror story. It read to me like it was written by a younger and more in touch with the times Stephen King. Which isn’t surprising, I suppose, since Joe Hill is the pen name of Stephen King’s son.

Some of the early ghost-in-the-house stuff was really pretty unnerving (which is the point) but I was less impressed with the second half and climax. Very nice coda to the story, however.

Soon I will be Invincible by Austin Grossman

As a comic book geek I was instantly drawn to this story. I had read a favorable review and stuck it on my Amazon wish list (this is SOP for me… any book that sounds interesting goes on my wish list immediately or I tend to forget about them. This way I can review my list when I’m looking for something new to read or, even better, sometimes one or more of these books magically appear at my birthday or Christmas).

As I write, the concept (superheroes/villains in the real world) appealed to me, but I’m afraid it was better in the abstract than in the reading. It was good, don’t get me wrong, and I tore through it… but it seemed that I had read better executions of this concept before, most notably “Astro City” and “Ex Machina” (both real live comic books, not novels, so maybe the comparison isn’t really fair).

But, the ending did catch me off guard--which it shouldn’t have since the author played fair with comic book logic--and I found it very satisfying.

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

I have been reluctant to pick books from the “Literature” section of the store before, since I’ve found that this label often translates to mean “inaccessible.” I enjoy reading, but I don’t want to labor to finish a book. That’s why I’ll probably never read Moby Dick… even though it’s a classic, etc., the bits and pieces I’ve read of it are dense, and it takes some doing to get through them. No thanks.

But I was pleased to find that Cormac McCarthy, despite being labeled “America’s Greatest Living Author,” writes in a clear, straightforward manner. It’s not without art, but his prose never feels like it’s in danger of collapsing under it’s own weight.

My one beef, though, is how he eschews proper punctuation, especially the “quotes” mark. This made it hard to follow some of the he said/she said dialog in the book. This complaint comes from a deep part of my brain, which says that if I have to follow proper punctuation in my writing, he should have to, too.

However, this punctuation omission is mostly forgiven because the dialog is so damn strong. There’s nothing that takes me out of the narrative faster than ham-fisted, fake-sounding dialog. McCarthy’s dialog rings true to me in every instance; it sounds like read people talking. I really love it.

That said, this was an odd book. The first hundred pages unfold at a rapid clip, and it sets all the characters on what seems to be a well-used and understood path. The resourceful everyman will defeat the overwhelming obstacle of the psychotic hitman, perhaps with the winking approval of the weary sheriff, and emerge with a few more scars, wiser for the experience.

But that’s not where the book goes. Not even close.

Instead the everyman dies, well before the end, and does so “off camera.” His death is senseless and, to me at least, unexpected. I went back to make sure I hadn’t accidentally skipped a chapter.

Then, as things are wrapping up, the psycho killer shows up at the dead man’s house to kill his wife, who’s been innocent of any wrong-doing in the entire novel. And after he kills her, he gets away. Not without injury, but still, he’s never caught. In fact, the killer is actually rewarded in the end, moving on to bigger and better clients. It is the complete opposite of what you’d expect to happen.

And finally, the grizzled old sheriff who took on the case is left with no resolution, to final fulfillment, no “it was all worth it” moment. He just fades away, his soul disquiet.

I was so surprised by the ending of this novel that I immediately went out and rented the movie. Surely, I thought, the movie doesn’t end on such a downer. They must have Hollywoodized the ending to make it more digestible to a mainstream audience.

Nope.

Even the movie ends quietly, without any real revelations, no neat tied-with-a-bow conclusions. I really respect the film makers for that (but then again, it was made by the Coen brothers, and they’re phenomenal).

I think what I liked best, in both novel and movie, is that it all rings true. Unlike most novels, where the author jumps through considerable hoops to make the good guy win in the end, that doesn’t happen in real life. The good guy can do all the right things, and still lose. The bad guy can be really bad, but still get away scott-free.

Glory Lane by Alan Dean Foster

This book was in the unfortunate position of being the first one I read after No Country for Old Men, a great book. It is also in the unfortunate position of being a shitty book.

Now, I’ve read a lot of Alan Dean Foster, he was a mainstay of my early teen years. I like his stuff. But this book was just a turd, start to finish.

I probably most enjoy the dialog in the books I read. Again, this book suffered from the fact that I had just finished No Country for Old Men, which had great, realistic, telling dialog. This piece of crap had that overly-clever, look-how-cool-this-character-is dialog. For example, here’s a bit from the main protagonist (a spike-haired punk rocker) as he tries to hit on a cute girl working behind the counter at a bowling alley.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“Well now, that’s a leading question, isn’t it? I mean, it presupposes that I need help and that you could be of some assistance to me without even knowing what my problem is. Fascinating concept. You aren’t by any chance telepathic, are you?”

Ugh. And here’s a bit where he’s about to be thrown out of the same bowling alley by the owner.

“We don’t want your kind in here.”

“My kind?” [He] tensed as he glanced diffidently at the big hand, but didn’t otherwise react to the touch. “What kind might that be?”

“Bums. Jerks. Punks.”

“Ah. Now there you have me, sir. I will admit to the third. As for the preceding pair I’m afraid you’re way off base, but then I can see that you didn’t quite complete your graduate degree in sociology so I suppose we need to make some allowances.”

While this is painful to read, I also found it nostalgic. Because this is the kind of stuff I loved to read when I was 14 or so. I imagined that kids older and cooler than me (which wasn’t really saying much) really did talk like this, and I wanted to grow up to be as cool as they are. Now, I see that it’s just bullshit writing, with no ring of truth to it. This nostalgia is the only thing that kept be reading… that and the fact that the book was given to me by a friend.

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill (audio book)

While I wasn’t blown away by Heart-Shaped Box, I enjoyed it enough to try some more of Joe Hill’s stuff.

Am I ever glad I did.

This collection of short stories is really amazing. I found it far more enjoyable than his novel-length work (but, to be fair, I’ve only read one of his novels). I enjoyed some of the stories more than others, of course, but I don’t think there was a clunker in the lot. And a couple, most notably “Abraham’s Boys,” “In the Rundown” and “Last Breath” were really remarkable. These three in particular are creepy, emotional, moving and really got under my skin.

But the standout, in my mind, was “Pop Art.” The concept is so ludicrous it shouldn’t work, but shortly into it my skepticism was completely gone and I was wholly into the story. I’m a sucker for stories like these anyway, but I haven’t been so moved by a story since, perhaps fittingly, Stephen King’s “The Body.”

It’s worth noting that this isn’t a collection of horror stories per se, in fact, many of them are rather sweet (or, at least, bitter-sweet). I find this collection even more impressive since Hill is so often working outside his chosen genre.

Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk (audio book)

Wacky. That’s what this book was. Soaked with sex and wacky. I may have learned a little about the porn industry, but it’s difficult to determine what is factual, and what is just made-up bullshit. I suspect that a lot of what I thought was too crazy to be true probably IS true. I guess this was a fun book but, honestly, it’s so demeaning and misogynistic at it’s core that it’s difficult to get past it. Like all of Palahniuk’s stuff, not for everyone.

Twisted Little Vein by Warren Ellis

I’m a big fan of Warren Ellis. I’ve read several of his comics, and thought some of them (most notably “Transmetropolitan” and “Planetary”) were amazingly nuanced and insightful works of art. That’s why I was so disappointed in this, his first prose novel.

The over-arching theme--that America has slipped so far into depravity that many of the formally marginalized acts by the sick and twisted are now mainstream--is gleefully hammered over your head time and time again with great ham-shaped mitts.

And much of the writing simply does not work. I wouldn’t have expected there to be so much dissonance between a comic page and a novel page, but there is. In the comics you can slip in some outrageous act in the background, and it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the narrative. But in a novel, when that same outrageous act is described in detail, I found the entire novel coming to a crashing halt. It doesn’t help that the book is set in modern day, providing the additional hardship of limiting the amount of disbelief I was willing to suspend. So when, say, the Secretary of State mysteriously visits the protagonist and injects himself with monkey feces to get high… I’m sorta not buying it.

Probably most damning is that this book pales compared to Transmet, which is much better and was written nearly a decade earlier. Many of the same themes are explored, but being that Transmet is set in the future, Ellis’ tendency to invent outrageous drugs/sex acts/etc. (Bowel Disruptor, anyone?) adds to the setting, unlike his novel, in which they detract (e.g., Godzilla bukkake porn – ugh).

It’s sad, because Ellis is a great writer, but he seems hell-bent in this book to push the Mad Englishman persona he has so skillfully developed as a personal brand. I suspect that his secret ambition is to have Twisted Little Vein shelved at the local Borders with Naked Lunch, Still Life with Woodpecker, Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas and other works that appeal to college kids and pretentious douchebags. Sadly, they’d be better off heading over to the comic book section to see his good writing.

To be continued.

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#285 In which our hero recounts his quest for the perfect man bag (part 4)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:45:00 +0000

The first thing I put together was the handle. I really wasn't sure how this would turn out, and I looked at it as a bellwether of the entire project. It's constructed of two pieces of leather, but the way its assembled I ended up sewing through three layers. It went surprisingly well.

I was super happy with the results. It looked, I dare say, professional. I showed it off to The Scientist and my children, all of whom were much less impressed than I. After the handle, I began to feel confident that the entire satchel was going to end up looking pretty close to what I had in my head.

Because that's the painful part... I've worked on lots of leather projects where the end result fell well short of the image I had in my head. The projects weren't bad, per se, just not what I was hoping for.

The handle done, I started on the main body. First I sewed both gussets to the center divider piece.

Also, I forgot to mention, at some point I decided to cut down the width of one of the gussets. I was afraid the bag would be too thick (girthy) and would look more like a piece of luggage than a briefcase. This ended up being a good decision, as my laptop fits perfectly snug in the smaller pocket.

After that, I sewed on the front of the bag.

You can see in the photo above both gussets sewn to the center divider. The front buckles are also sewn on, as they share a seam with the bottom of the bag. That done, I started on the back piece.

This was a little tricky because I'm sewing through three pieces of leather (the gusset, the back piece, and the back pocket). It's not the sewing part that was hard, it was making sure all the holes lined up correctly.

Remember when I wrote that I was a little laissez faire with the measuring part? This is where it went wrong. Somehow I made the back pocket piece about half an inch wider than the back piece. If I just forced all the holes to line up, there would be an unattractive bulge with that pocket. It would clearly have to be trimmed.

In this, I got really lucky. The pocket piece overhung the pack piece by half an inch, and my seam allowance was a quarter of an inch. This meant that I could trim a quarter of an inch off, and the already punched holes wouldn't show, I could punch new holes and everything would line up just about perfectly.

At this point there was also a problem with the gusset and the main body lining up right. This was a much more serious problem. I'm still not sure what went wrong. And to make it right, it was a brute force fix. I basically cut a wedge in the bag, pulled the edges together and pulled really tight on the thread. Again, I got really lucky. It's virtually invisible from the outside. You can definitely feel it on the inside, but it's low enough in the bag that you can't see it unless you really stick you head in it and go looking for it.

Then, I ran into another problem.

Like I wrote before, I had used a belt blank to fashion the shoulder strap. By my rough estimates it was just the right length. But when I actually attached the bag to the strap, it hung too low, almost to my knees.

I was afraid that cutting the strap and adding a buckle would make it too short. But, other than cutting off the buckle on the end and refashioning that entire thing, a buckle in the middle of the strap was all I could do. And it was the easiest fix. So:

It actually turned out really well. There was plenty of length left for it to hang right. And I had always imagined it with a buckle on the strap anyway.

I added the handle assembly to the bag, and it was done!

Well, almost done. I went to Things Remembered and got a brass plaque with my name engraved on it a couple days later. Once that was riveted on, then I was really done.

The the photo above, you can see the two-tone affect from the straps finished with gum trag. I didn't like it at first, but have since grown really fond of the look. As it ages and gets all the little nicks and scuffs that come with use, it'll look even better.

Of course, as the person who made it, I see all the mistakes. But even so, it's really good looking, I have to admit. And it should last a lifetime. Even if it starts to fall apart, I know how to fix it.

The best part (other than being able to tell people, "Yep, I made this") is that I paid considerably less than the $800 it was selling for in the Filson catalog. I have maybe $200 worth of materials in it, but that includes leather I didn't use and can use for other projects, plus some left over hardware (D-rings come in packs of a dozen, for example). Plus my time, of course.

So, after years of searching for the perfect mag bag, I finally made one myself.

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#284 In which our hero recounts his quest for the perfect man bag (part 3)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:43:00 +0000

First up: cut out the big pieces. This is always the most nerve-wracking part, for me, at least. Math is my enemy, so I end up checking and re-checking my measurements half a dozen times. And since I'm very much of the "eh, close enough" school, this sometimes bites me in the ass (as it did at a later point in this project).

But, after some trepidation, I had the major parts cut out.

There are four pieces that make up the bag, sewn together with two gussets (that's the two long strips in the foreground). I also cut out all the little fiddly bits of leather: straps for the front, straps to hold the buckles and the parts of the handle. I had a pre-cut length of leather for a belt, but I decided to use that as the shoulder strap.

When you're sewing thick leather, it's not like sewing cloth. You use a dull needle (actually, a pair of dull needles) called harness needles and push them through holes that have already been punched in the leather. There are a couple handy tools I have to help get the holes evenly placed from the edge and evenly spaced apart. But there's no shortcut in the actual punching of holes part.

I punched somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,300 holes. One at a time, with the awl shown. It's tedious, and probably the worst part of a project like this.

Next: dying.

I dyed all the pieces before assembling them to keep it simple. It's easier to get an even coat of dye of a flat piece of leather compared to something already assembled. What you see above is after three or five applications of dye (Fiebling's Professional Oil Dye, Dark Brown, if you care). The leather really soaked it up, and it took six coats before it looked even and not splotchy. And it still wasn't the rich, dark brown I was hoping for. Different leather's take dye differently, so you really never know how it's going to look until it's in the leather. The back pocket is cut from a different hide, and turned out a little darker than the rest.

This caused me a little consternation at first. I really liked the color of the Filson satchel, and had hoped to match it as closely as possible. But the leather just wasn't getting there. So I moved on to the next step: finishing the edges.

I don't have any photos of this part of the process, maybe because it's fairly labor intense. And it is also one of the most important. Nicely finished edges really make a project look professional.

Here's the thing: if you've ever picked up a solid leather belt (not one of those crappy ones with two thin pieces of leather sewn together over a cardboard core) or a nicely-crafted bridle, you can run your hand along it and it feels great. What you're reacting to, if you were conscious of it or not, are the edges. When you cut heavier leathers you end up with a squared-off edge, which feels sharp and uncomfortable in your hand. If you round over this edge it feels much nicer.

My process of finishing an edge is to first use a tool called, fittingly enough, an edger. This takes off some of the sharpness of the edge. Next I use fine grit sandpaper to smooth off the remaining edges and give it a rounded profile. The sandpaper leaves it with an almost furry appearance at this point. To give it that nice, slick surface, I use a product called Gum Tragacanth. It's designed for this purpose and, apparently, it's used in confections, too. I had no idea. But you dab a little on the edge, rub it briskly with a piece of canvas, and it leaves a smooth, slick edge.

It also darkens the leather. I wasn't careful enough when I was finishing the edges of the straps and got some of it on the surface of the strap. This left an unattractive blotch of darker leather. To hide my carelessness, I just finished the entire surface of the straps with the gum trag, making them a uniform color.

Now, this darker color was closer to what I had hoped the body of the bag would become. I toyed with the idea of slathering gum trag over everything, hoping it would result in the color I wanted. But, two things stopped me: 1., gum trag also softens leather, and as I've talked about before, I didn't want a floppy bag; and 2., it's not a water repellent. So I only did the straps this way. This decision payed off big-time later.

After dying the leather and finishing the edges, I had to figure out how to finish the leather (that is, treat it to be water repellent). The obvious choice is a commercial sealer that would protect it 100% from water. But I've used these acrylic sealers before, and while they work great, they can leave the leather looking a little plastic-y. Then I considered beeswax, which is supposed to leave a really nice, deep luster. But I've never worked with beeswax as a sealer, and I didn't want this to be my first experiment with it. I also briefly considered shoe polish.

I ended up just oiling it with linseed oil. Linseed oil is also supposed to soften leather, but in my experience it doesnt have much affect on thicker leather like the kind I was using. It'll work itself out of the leather eventually, and I'll have to re-oil it every now and again, but that's fine. I'm hoping that the oil will also darken the leather over time.

With everything dyed, sealed and edged, all that was left was to actually put the thing together.

To be continued.

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#283 In which our hero recounts his quest for the perfect man bag (part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:15:00 +0000

The first step is creating this bag was getting the pattern right. The Filson catalog only had the one picture of the satchel, I didn't even know what the back of the thing looked like, let alone how the insides were assembled. So there were details I needed to work out. And, honestly, I still wasn't sure if I could even pull it off.

But, since we live in an age of wonders, I went online and found exactly what I was searching for: this forum includes a post by "TidyBeard," who bought an actual Filson Field Satchel. Most helpful to me, he took pictures of nearly every conceivable angle and posted them.

This not only gave me what I needed to draft a pattern, it also confirmed something I suspected all along: the craftsmanship on this bag wasn't that impressive. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Filson's bag isn't well-crafted, because it is. It's just that it is a straightforward, rugged construction—by design. Take a look at this:

Ignore that this is a woman's purse. See how fine the stitching is, especially down the center? And see how there's a sort of yoke around the opening in the top? Construction-wise, there's a lot going on with this bag. That's craftsmanship well beyond my abilities.

But the Filson bag has big, bold stitches. I can do that. The photos I found online also allowed me to figure out the pattern... which wasn't complicated. It's basically three rectangles of leather sewn together with two gussets. Add a couple straps and buckles, and you have yourself the perfect man bag!

I drafted a pattern out of plain paper, very roughly. Like I said, there were no confusing parts, so it didn't take much time. Actually, the majority of my time was spent figuring out the dimensions. Thanks to TidyBeard, I had a handle on the dimensions of the actual bag, but I made mine slightly larger, so my laptop could fit easily inside it.

Next was a trip to the leather store.

I brought all my pattern pieces so I could make sure I got a big enough hide. If you're not familiar, leather typically comes in three sizes: the entire hide (basically all of the usable leather off a cow in one piece), a side (half a cow) or double shoulders (pretty much just what it sounds like). Double shoulders tend to be the finest leather, but they are also the most expensive (and more to the point, they typically aren't big enough to yield the size pieces I needed). I didn't need an entire hide, so I looked at the sides.

A little more background. The thickness of leather is measured, oddly enough, in ounces. One ounce equals about 1/64 of an inch. Since leather is a natural product, it's not completely consistent across the entire hide... the leather is thicker in some spots, thinner in others. Therefore leather is usually sold in a range, i.e., a "6-7 oz. side." To give you some reference, belt leather is generally about 7-8 oz., or roughly 1/8" thick.

The leather used in the Filson bag is really thick. In the catalog it's described as "genuine bridle leather,"which really doesn't mean anything. "Bridle leather" is more a descriptor of how it can be used, not it's weight. But, looking at the catalog and online photos, I'd guess it's about a 10 oz. leather.

So I went into the leather store with a 9-10 oz. side in mind. But, talking to the owner convinced me that this was overkill, that I could use a lighter weight leather and still get a very rugged bag with plenty of body. Plus, he had some 6-7 oz. leather on sale. I bought a side of that, plus a side of 4 oz. leather to use for the gussets (they are designed to collapse or fold in on themselves, so they needed to be lighter than the main body). I also bought some of the brass hardware I'd need, namely D-rings and buckles; and a bottle of dye.

I took all this stuff home, and there it sat in the basement. For months.

Every once in a while I'd bring up that website and look at all the photos of that great Filson bag. I'd think about tackling the project, then the mood would pass.

It was a pretty big project, using rather expensive materials. I didn't want to jump into it and screw it up. And I wanted to make sure I had enough time to invest in doing it right.

Finally, I took a week of vacation time I needed to burn. I didn't have any plans, other than a few around-the-house errands, so I decided to tackle the construction of the bag.

Once The Scientist was off to work and the kids were deposited at school, I trundled down to the basement and got to work.

To be continued.

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#282 In which our hero recounts his quest for the perfect man bag (part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:32:00 +0000

I have a long history with man bags.

It started in college where, like everyone else, I had a backpack to hump around my books. I believe it was the same backpack I used in high school. Some of the backpacks I see today are really cool with ergonomic strap placement and multiple zippered pockets and WiFi and God knows what else... but the bag I used was a plain old blue nylon backpack.

And this served me well for the first couple years of school. Then I came across an army gas mask bag at the Army-Navy store near campus. It was made of heavy, well worn canvas. I thought it was really cool.

And yes, I drew a unicorn on it with a black Sharpie. I hoped it would look like a cool military emblem, but it's clearly more Hello Kitten then Semper Fi. Regardless, I hauled around a lot of books in it.

After I graduated college, I didn't really have a need for a book bag any more. I worked in a restaurant for a while, then got a job at The Columbus Dispatch newspaper. There was nothing to carry to and from work, other than my lunch, and I just carried that in a plastic bag.

After I left that job and moved to Cleveland, I was suddenly in need of a bag again. I was taking the train to work every day, and carried with me the newspaper, a book, my lunch and any work I may have taken home with me.

So I found a new bag.

I got this from The Fray, a website that used to be something very different than it is today. When they offered an interesting messenger bag via CafePress (a brand-spanking new online service at the time) I bought one.

This bag carried dozens of books and hundreds of newspapers on my daily commute. I loved how obnoxiously bright and yellow it was. It also saw me through a couple layoffs and one firing. Presumably unrelated to my choice of bags.

I was still carrying this bag when I came to the agency where I'm working today. However, by this time I was more serious about my career, and I was starting to think that I would be better off with a more professional-looking accessory. So I bought this:

I was hot for hemp at the time (not like that!) so I was really happy when I found an all-natural hemp messenger bag (this one was from Ecolution). This is the bag I've been using for the last two years and it's been great. Well, for the most part. My only complaint is that the bag is a little bit... floppy.

And, now that I look at it again, it sorta looks like a woman's purse.

So, even though I liked my hemp bag, I continued to search for something better: the perfect man bag. Much like I had been enamoured with hemp, later I decided that canvas was the way to go. So I searched around on the Internet and found this:

Cool bag, but just as floppy as my hemp one. I was becoming clear that I just wasn't going to be happy unless I found a bag with some body to it. Thinking back to my college days, I tried another military bag:

It, too, was made of a canvas too thin to hold its shape. This was also a reminder to pay better attention to dimensions when ordering online. This bag, even if it was heavy enough, is too small to carry everything I need it to carry.

So I continued to search. And did you know that there are numerous websites which have hundreds of bags from which to choose? I wasn'tsurprised, but I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of styles.

However, most of the messenger style bags which I favored where made of nylon, which just didn't appeal. That said, a quick google search for "canvas messenger bags" gave a lot of results. But, I was now gun shy of ordering a canvas bag in fear of it being too thin and floppy yet again.

I also half-heartedly looked at leather bags. Most of the leather ones just didn't do it for me... most were of a thin leather that wasn't as rugged-looking as I would like (and again, many looked more like a purse than a manly-man's bag).

Then I found it.

I was flipping though the Filson catalog one day. Filson is an outdoor clothing outfitter, kinda like L.L. Bean on steroids. My one brother-in-law favors their clothes so I've seen them up close... their "tin cloth" material seems durable enough to damn near stop a bullet. But, unbeknownst to me, they also manufacturer other stuff besides clothing, including footwear, luggage, hats... and leather goods. Including this:

The Filson Leather Field Satchel.

I feel in love with this thing as soon as I saw it. It was everything I was looking for in a bag: sturdy, cool-looking, professional in appearance... it had it all.

It also had an impressive price tag: $795. Seven HUNDRED and ninety-five dollars.

I know to a lot of people that price might seem a little steep, but not outrageous. Well, I'm here to tell you, it IS outrageous.

Because here's the thing: I have done some leathercraft over the years, and I know that even the finest leather materials don't come close to justifying that kind of cost. And I didn't believe that there was an unreasonable amount of labor in it, either.

I suppose, like anything else, if you don't know what goes into making something, then you can only assume that the given price is a fair one. Looking at this bag you might assume that $795 (plus shipping) is the going price and that's all there is to it. But I knew better and there was no way in hell that I was going to pay that much money.

Then I really stopped and studied it. And I came to a realization:

I could MAKE this bag myself.

To be continued.

***

FAB AD

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:55:00 +0000

Advertising can suck.

Not advertising in the sense of a commercial coming on just as the movie was getting good, or half a dozen inserts falling into your lap when you open a magazine. I mean Advertising, the industry, capital “A.”

I’ve been working in advertising for almost 12 years. I’m a copywriter, and in the decade plus since I’ve been a professional advertising writer, I’ve written copy for nearly everything you can name: print, TV, radio, online, direct response, experiential, outdoor… I’ve never done skywriting, even though I’ve suggested it a couple times.

My experience in this industry is that most everything you do is extremely frustrating. Nine out of ten times when you recommend something interesting, engaging or “out of the box” (dear God how I hate that overused term) the client tells you how much they love it, how much they appreciate your thinking… then they take the safe, boring route.

I’ve seen great ideas destroyed by a casual glance. Wonderful concepts die a painful death because another idea is 2% cheaper to produce. Powerful executions that never see the light of day because the client is too cowardly to take even the smallest chance.

I’ve written entire ad campaigns knowing that it was an exercise in futility; that the client was too enamored by the status quo to give my ideas more than a passing glance.

As I’ve gotten more experience and become better at my job, it seems like the clients have pulled back even more, become terrified to try something fresh. I’ve never had a shortage of idea, just a shortage of client with nerve.

And I’m not even talking crazy, wild ideas. Just things that haven’t been done a thousand times before. Something that’s not a print ad with a coupon. A 30-second radio spot. A banner ad that links back to the client’s (worthless) website.

Over the years, my frustration has done nothing but increase. There are days when I can barely stand the monotony of writing the same bullshit claims for the same bullshit products over and over. Days when I’d love to spit in the eye of the sycophantic account managers who are nothing more than order-takers for the client. Times when the sheer banality of my job forces me to get up and walk away from my keyboard before I start to weep.

But then, there are days like today.

Today I sat down with an art director to brainstorm some concepts for a corporate video. I’ve worked with this guy a lot, and we’re good partners. We think along the same lines. Oddly enough, when we work together I often come up with visual ideas, and he comes up with copy ideas.

We walked into a conference room with ZERO ideas. This video is going to come together quickly, and we needed something, and we needed it now.

Ten minutes in, we had the skeleton of an idea. Twenty minutes in, it had flesh and began to breathe. We played off each other’s thoughts, each building on the last, improving with every step. We finished each other’s sentences. We got up and paced the room, getting excited about our shared vision.

This is why I’m still in advertising. This is what makes it all worthwhile.

When you work with someone smart and creative and collaborative to pluck fantastic ideas out of thin air and mold them with your brains to create something amazing… there’s nothing else like it. Nothing for me, at least.

We came up with a truly kick-ass idea. And because we were working against two other teams and didn’t want to walk into the presentation with just one concept… we did it again. The second idea wasn’t as inspired as the first, but it was still damn good.

And they got better as I put them on paper, working out the details, finessing the language, adding in little things that maybe only mattered to us. My partner and I talked about it some more, hammered out some things we didn’t agree on, and they got better yet.

I live for days like this.

Of course, it will never be filmed as we envisioned it today. In fact, it may never go any farther than the client pitch. And even if it does, it’ll be picked apart, watered down and chewed up until only the remains bare only the slightest resemblance to what we dreamed up.

And that’s okay.

Because today was about creating a great idea for a corporate video, and we did that. Big time. Hours later, I’m still jazzed about it. This is why I got into advertising. This is what it’s all about.

I love my job.

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#281 In which our hero relates the events of The Great Daycare Debacle (part 5)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:29:00 +0000

But, before we confronted the director, we needed a back-up plan. The Scientist and I were trying our best to be fair, and were willing to hear this guy out… but we both expected the conversation to end the same way: with us yanking the girls out of that daycare on the spot. And if that was going to happen, we needed somewhere else to put them.

We revisited the list of acceptable daycare centers in the area. On was still out because they wouldn’t transport Lily to Kindergarten. We went round and round, but kept coming back to the one center that I liked so much, but was too expensive.

The Scientist got creative with our finances, and it began to appear like we could swing it, just. Or maybe we’d be slowly sinking into debt. Either way, we had gone the cheap route once, and it had bit us on the ass. We weren’t going to do that to the girls again. You get what you pay for, after all, and we were willing to pay what it took, even if it meant maintaining more debt than we wanted for longer than we wanted.

We called the “good” center first thing in the morning and scheduled a meeting. We dropped the girls off at the “bad” center, then headed right over to the other place.

We told this new director our tale of woe, and she was horrified. She reassured us that the children always come first, and that they’d never transport in a private car, and they had an established curriculum, etc., etc. I had already been there once, so I had heard all this before. We talked money and how soon the girls could start (immediately, was the answer, thankfully) and so on. We told the director of this new place that we still needed to talk to the director of the old place first. She was very understanding. We took a bunch of paperwork with us, and drove over to the “bad” center.

The director of this center is a very cheerful guy. A very “no problem!” sort of guy. While this is generally a good attribute, it wasn’t winning him any points when he told us that the illegal turn and subsequent citation was “no big deal.”

We sat down and asked him to tell us what happened. He repeated the story pretty much as it had been told to me the day before from the teacher. She made an illegal turn, got pulled over, was so upset that she couldn’t drive back to the center.

So I asked, “She was cited for an illegal turn on red? That was the ONLY citation?” And he assured me that yes, that was the only citation.

Then I told him that Lily had told us that the teacher’s license was expired.

He danced around this for a moment before confirming that, well, yes, as it turns out, her license was expired. We told him that we were pretty horrified that he didn’t know that one of the teachers in his employ was transporting kids with an expired driver’s license. I mean, isn’t that his job to keep track of things like that? He told us that it wasn’t expired when he put her on the center’s insurance.

He tried to glad-hand us some more, reassuring us that he really was taking the situation seriously, but that in actuality it was no big deal. Frankly, I had heard enough already, and decided to end it right then and there.

ME: So, when you told me that Miss A--- was only cited for an illegal turn on red, that wasn’t the truth.
DIRECTOR: Well, at the time, I didn’t know her license had expired.
ME: But when I asked you the question ten minutes ago, you DID know.
DIRECTOR: Well, um, yes, I guess I did.
ME: Okay, we’re done here.

We pulled out the kids on the spot and took them over to the new center.

The director of the new place was very accommodating, and let the girls spend the rest of the day there, getting used to the place. We took a little time with the director, making sure she knew Lily’s schedule of when she had to get to school, and when she had to be picked up.

I was a little concerned that no other kids in the center were going to Lily’s Kindergarten, meaning that she was the only one to be transported to this particular school. This was the issue at the last place. But the director assured us that it wouldn’t be a problem. And I wasn’t really all that worried; this place had it’s act together.

We picked up the girls at the end of the day, and they had had a fantastic time. They actually didn’t want to leave. Very encouraging.

The Scientist dropped Lily off at school in the morning, after briefing her on how she was going to get back to the center at the end of the school day. Things were going seamlessly.

Then, at 3pm, the school called my wife. No-one from the new center had shown to pick up Lily.

I was furious. Bad enough to think that my little 5-year-old daughter was standing at the bus stop waiting, waiting, waiting for a bus that never came; but we had just told the director at the new center about all the bullshit we went through in the past couple months. She was SO horrified and SO sympathetic and now this?!

As my wife was rushing out of work to pick up Lily, I called the center.

ME: Let me speak to the center director.
FLUNKY: I’m sorry, she’s out right now. This is the assistant director, can I help you?
ME: Yes, you'll do. This is Lily’s father—
FLUNKY: Oh yes! We’re just waiting for Lily to get back.
ME: Well, you’re going to be waiting a long damn time because the school just called to say that your bus never showed up!

She was, of course, very apologetic and blah, blah, blah. I drove over there after work to talk to the director, who was equally apologetic. She is a bit of an over-talking and rushed over my words in her haste to reassure me that this would never happen again and I finally had to say, let me finish! to say my peace.

She told me that it was just a scheduling problem, that they thought they could make a stop at another school before picking Lily up but it took longer than they thought and it was fixed now and would never be a problem again.

Then, the next day, it happened again.

While I am quick to anger, my wife is much less so. But after having to leave work early two days in a row she was in a rage to put mine to shame.

This time, the bus actually got there, but just after the school’s cut-off time. The school, which is really strict about these things, told the bus driver, basically, sorry Charlie, and wouldn’t release Lily. And honestly, I’d glad of it. I like it that her school has a no compromises policy on stuff like this.

So, we had another discussion with the center director. We told her that if she couldn't get her act together enough to pick up our kid on time, that we were gone. She told us that she had a new plan, that they were actually going to get another bus from a nearby center and that she, the center director, was personally going to drive Lily to and from school.

Good.

I’m pleased to report that this new center has been successfully transporting my kid for months now. No emergency calls from the school. No problems.

And both girls love it at this place. They are learning things, and we get daily report cards on their progress.

It took some doing, but it would appear that we finally got it right.

fin

###

#280 In which our hero relates the events of The Great Daycare Debacle (part 4)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:12:00 +0000

So it came to pass that I didn’t get to any of the projects I had planned for when I had the house to myself, because I was too busy calling and visiting daycare centers. I stuck to commercial centers (we weren’t going to put our kids into private care again) that were reasonably close to the house, so that narrowed the choices down to four.

Finding daycare this time around was a little trickier, since Lily would be going to Kindergarten in the fall, meaning the center would have to transport her to school in the morning, and pick her up at the last bell. Then she’d be at the center until The Scientist or I could pick her up around 5:30.

One school on the list didn’t transport to her Kindergarten, so it was right out. Another one was at the intersection of two really busy streets, and I thought it would be a nightmare getting in and out of there. A third was fantastic, but just too expensive.

That left one.

This center was housed in an old schoolhouse, so it had plenty of big, spacious classrooms. But “old” is the key word here. It was a little run-down… not dilapidated, but certainly not new. The basement smelled like mildew. The (admittedly large) playground had old, rusted climbing toys. And a swing set without any swings.

I had my reservations, but the people (especially the center director) were really nice. The classroom sizes were small, meaning that our kids would be getting lots of individualized attention. And they had a curriculum plan in place so the girls would be learning something. And we could afford it.

And, honestly, I was running out of time.

I really wanted to put our kids in the awesome center, but since we didn’t have the money, this was probably the next best thing. Or, maybe the only viable option.

So, The Scientist and the girls returned from their trip on Sunday, and we got them ready for the new place on Monday. The beginning of Kindergarten was still a couple months away, which was good in that it gave Lily plenty of time to acclimate to the new place before another disruptive element was added to the routine.

The girls quickly settled in to the new center. And things were fine… not great, but fine.

There were some things that didn’t really raise a red flag, but were a little… off. The woman who monitored the girls first thing in the morning was strange. Quiet, withdrawn, emotionless. Not someone you’d look at and say, “Oh, she just LOVES children!”

After a week or so there, we asked the girls if they were having lessons. They said they weren’t. This confirmed something that we had seen… it appeared that no matter what time of day we picked up, they were just playing. Education is very important to both The Scientist and I, and when asked about the curriculum the center director kept telling us that the teachers were “working on it.”

And then one day some little bastard in the classroom wrote “Kick Me” on the back of Lily’s white shirt, in ink.

We knew this wasn’t the best situation, just an emergency fix. And again, it was what we could afford. We rationalized it by saying that Lily would soon be attending Kindergarten, and would only be spending a few hours at the center. And Macey… well, Macey got the short end of the stick. But there wasn’t much we could do about it.

Lily eventually started going to Kindergarten. We had some bothersome conversations with the center director about transportation. We made it clear that she had to be AT school at a certain time, and had to be picked up FROM school at a certain time. His attitude was very much, “don’t worry, we’ll get her there one way or another!” Which isn’t what we wanted to hear… he may have been lackadaisical about it, but we wanted to know EXACTLY when she would be getting there and EXACTLY who would be driving her to school.

The center had some scheduling issues with Lily. Since she was the only one being dropped off/picked up at this particular school, they had to work around it to get all the other kids where they needed to be. I tried to be understanding and considerate about this… but the director said, “Eh, if she’s a little late, she’s a little late.” To which I relied, “No, she can’t be a little late. She needs to be on time, and it’s YOUR job to make sure she’s on time.”

Things came to a head a couple months later.

At this point Lily was being transported by a teacher in her car instead of the center’s van. This made us a little bit nervous, but we were told that the teacher was "certified" to transport children, whatever that meant. And I guess it didn’t really make a difference if it was a van or a car, right?

One afternoon I showed up to pick up the girls, and Lily’s teacher rushed over to me. She told me that there was an incident, and she wanted to explain what happened before we heard it from Lily.

It seems that this teacher made an illegal right turn on red, and was pulled over for it. She had never gotten a ticket in her life before, and was so upset by the situation, she explained to me, that the center director had to come pick her and Lily up.

Now, I wasn’t that upset by this. I mean, I knew the intersection she was talking about, and even though it’s labeled no right on red, I could see making that mistake. And I’ve been ticketed myself for an illegal turn on red. Lily wasn’t upset or frightened by the experience, and there was no accident or near-miss that might have put her in harm’s way. I was prepared to let it slide.

Then, Lily and I had a conversation on the way home:

ME: Lily, what happened today?
LILY: Nothing.
ME: No? You didn’t have a police man stop you on the way home?
LILY: Oh yeah! Miss A--- broke a law!
ME: I heard! And were you frightened when it happened?
LILY: No.
ME: Was Miss A--- upset?
LILY: No, not really.
ME: No? She wasn’t crying or anything?
LILY: No.
ME: Did the police man say anything to her?
LILY: Yeah! He said she turned wrong.
ME: Yes, she sure did.
LILY: He also said that her license died a year ago.
ME: Wait, what did he say?
LILY: He said her license died a year ago.
ME: Did he maybe say her license expired a year ago?
LILY: Yeah! That’s what he said!

No-one had said anything to me about her license being expired, and I had no reason not to believe my daughter. She sometimes tells tales, but this didn’t seem like something she could make up.

The Scientist was equally concerned about this development. A minor traffic infraction is one thing, but being lied to was something entirely different.

Now, driving on an expired license is a dumb thing, but not necessarily a dangerous thing. It wasn’t like this teacher would drive safer with a valid license. But the real issue was that we were be lied to. Or, at the very least, not told the entire truth.

This incident, in addition to all the other little things that we didn’t like, pretty much decided it for us. We didn’t want the girls there any longer. If the teachers would lie about something like this, then they might lie about other, more important things. And we were not going to leave our kids in a facility that we didn’t trust.

So, we planned to confront the center director the next morning.

To be concluded.

***

#279 In which our hero relates the events of The Great Daycare Debacle (part 3)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:28:00 +0000

The new daycare was a storefront building. Actually, two storefronts with the dividing wall removed. The space had some nice advantages over the rooms at the church, notably better security and self-contained kitchen space. But, there were some rather big drawbacks, too.

Overall, the space was smaller. Half of the place had been a dentist’s office, and was still very compartmentalized. The other half of the space was essentially one huge room, which would serve as the infants and really young kid’s space. Also, the only outdoor space was a small, fenced-in section of asphalt. This was a huge bummer for the girls, especially after the huge yard and swings and climbing equipment of the church.

Since this was an emergency move, the entire half for the infants wasn’t ready. A big sheet of plywood blocked the entrance to that side. It was really cramped.

But, the girls still got to hang out with all their little friends all day, and still had their favorite teacher, so all was well.

For a time.

Then, Susan ran into money problems again. A significant amount of the kids in her daycare were lower income, and those families paid for daycare with the help of government vouchers. Which was actually great for Susan because, unlike a lot of the parents, the feds always paid tuition on time.

Well, since Susan had moved in and started operating the daycare before renovations were completed, that meant that she was no longer certified by the state. And while you can legally operate a daycare without state certification, there are consequences. The biggest one being that you are not allowed to receive vouchers. Susan found out the hard way that a big part of her venue stream was suddenly shut off at the tap.

Then, things just got weird.

Susan was apparently have troubles in her marriage. Which is none of my business. But it was made my business when her husband emailed a copy of an IM chat to all of the parents in the daycare. In this chat Susan was flirting (rather innocently, IMO) with some other man.

A month or so after that, Susan’s husband called The Scientist at home. He told her that Susan had left him, and that she was now living with another man. And this man had a criminal record. He provided his name and birthday and invited us to look up his record on the Internet.

Which we did, of course. It wasn’t a violent crime, but it still made us feel strange. The Scientist asked one of Susan’s kids (her kids were always with her at the center) about this guy, and she replied that he was fine, “as long as you give him his respect.” This unnerved me, and The Scientist, too.

We both knew that if Susan was living with this guy, he was going to be around the center and, by definition, around our kids. And we didn’t like that.

There was some other stuff happening at the same time, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some of the little stuff, but the end result was that we decided that it was time to pull the plug on Susan.

It certainly wasn’t an easy decision, especially considering that we had been with her for more than four years and our kids loved it there. But we worried that things were only going to get worse, and perhaps even get to the point where unsafe things were happening.

As it happened, The Scientist and the girls were out of town for a week visiting the in-laws when all this came to a head. The Scientist and I hashed everything out over the phone. I had some time off, so I took it and started to look for a new daycare. Thankfully, there are plenty to choose from in our area.

I found one (more on that later), I signed papers, and it was a done deal. The girls would be starting in this new place the Monday after they returned from their trip.

All that was left was to tell Susan.

I wasn’t looking forward to it. I suspected that she would feel betrayed. Which, I decided, was fine… she could feel however the hell she wanted, because I no longer felt like my kids were in a safe environment, and that was that. It was good that my wife was out of town and I handled the “break up.” The Scientist probably would have apologized, and over-explained and most likely cry. In contrast, I went in, pulled Susan aside, and told her that we were leaving the daycare.

I told her that there was just too much drama around her. Between her husband calling us, her new living arrangements and some other things, we were done. I told her that we weren’t mad at her, but we couldn’t stay. There was no drama in this moment, just me telling her the way it was going to be. I collected the extra clothes the girls had there and their medical records, and was gone.

Meanwhile, The Scientist did her best to prepare the girls for the change that was coming on Monday.

To be continued.

###

#278 In which our hero relates the events of The Great Daycare Debacle (part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:03:00 +0000

I’m not always as quick on my feet as I’d like, but if you give me the chance to prepare some remarks in advance, I think I can lay down a pretty good argument. So I spent some time putting my thoughts together, and I thought I had a pretty good set of points in favor of the day care moving into the church. They were, in order of importance:

Much-needed income
Lots of new people (i.e., potential members) coming to the church for the first time
More diverse people coming to the church

The “debate” – if you want to call it that—was conduced pro/con/pro/con, with me speaking second.

I found the “con” arguments not very convincing, since they basically boiled down to “we don’t wanna.” One presenter tried to bolster his argument with numbers, basically trying to say that Susan wasn’t going to be paying enough compared to what other tenets paid. Which was absolutely ridiculous, considering that one of the other tenets was a kindergarten co-op which hadn’t had a rent increase in 15 YEARS.

All of this information was presented and we were told that the powers that be would discuss it and get back to us with a decision.

During this entire process The Scientist and I were encouraging Susan to NOT move into the church. I mean, the church was sending a clear signal that they (or, at least, a significant number of them) didn’t want her there… why go knowingly into a situation where the people are already biased against you? But Susan was determined.

Things drug on for weeks, and finally through whatever maneuvering needed to be done, Susan’s contract for two rooms in the church was approved.

As predicted, there were a lot of sour looks from the trustees. And, frankly, they continued to do whatever they could to screw Susan over. First, they made her pay rent that was considerably higher than what other renters were paying. They made her agree to clear the snow and ice by the side entrance herself. She was responsible for hauling trash out to the dumpsters. I found the entire thing rather un-Christian.

That said, Susan was far from the perfect tenant. You’d think that she would tread softly, being that she knew she wasn’t exactly being welcomed with open arms. But she didn’t. She moved in and made herself at home. She helped herself to room within the church’s kitchen, which wasn’t mentioned in the contract. She allowed the kids to run around in the gym, which wasn’t one of the rooms she contracted for. She basically took advantage of what little goodwill there might have been. Even those in the church who wanted her there started to give her sideways glances.

The Scientist and I both saw this, and cautioned her. But Susan is very much a “ask forgiveness, not permission” sort of person.

So, things were a little contentious at the new space. But, after a year or so, things pretty much settled down. I don’t know if the church saw that she wasn’t going to be as big a thorn in their sides as they thought, or maybe they just really started to like the new income.

Susan expanded at the church, renting two more rooms for a total of four. She and the church came to an agreement about using the kitchen and the gym. Honestly, things were pretty good for a time.

Now, The Scientist and I still had qualms about certain things. We were both on her board of directors, but were rarely informed of any significant changes. Staff turnover was higher than we would like. Some of the women who worked there seemed a little lazy. EVERYONE who worked there (including Susan) were on their cell phones ALL THE TIME.

But, we never felt like our children were in any danger, and Susan was pretty aggressive about introducing a real curriculum. Our children (Macey had been born by this time and was at the center) were learning things… it wasn’t just a babysitting service.

But, the wheels really came off a couple years later.

Susan had always wanted her own building. She wanted a space were she wouldn’t have to deal with so many restrictions and, I suspect, so many sour faces. One day she informed The Scientist and I that she had found a place, and was moving forward with plans to open a second center.

I was really annoyed with this. As a board member (The Scientist was the President of the Board, no less), she should have consulted with us first. But by the time we were brought into the loop she had already signed a contract.

My wife had more important concerns, namely, could Susan afford to open a second center? We weren’t privy to her financials, but even though I’m sure she made a profit, she wasn’t raking in the dough by any means. And the space she had put money down on needed significant modifications. In fact, other than the lobby, the entire space had to be gutted and rebuilt from scratch.

But, Susan assured us that she had run the numbers and it was going to work out. She could maintain the current center in the church, and open the new one at the same time.

Somehow the church got wind of this new center, and started asking Susan if she was leaving. No, no, she told them, I’m opening a second location, not leaving the first.

Then, a series of events occurred that didn’t surprise The Scientist or I at all. The construction of the new center was more expensive than anticipated, and took longer than planned. Susan began to run out of money, and became late in paying her rent to the church.

The church—never happy with having her there in the first place, remember—saw this as an excellent opportunity to drive her out (this is only my opinion, of course… but events really seemed to support it).

They demanded the rent in full, even after Susan made it clear that she didn’t have it. One evening (she was already three months late at this point) members of the trustees approached her and demanded she write a check for a partial amount on the spot. She did. At this point Susan’s story and the church’s story diverge: Susan claims that she told them right then and there that there wasn’t enough money in the account to cover the check, but if they wanted one, by God she’d write one. The church claims that she never said anything about insignificant funds. Sadly, I believe the church.

After the check bounced things really came to a head. The church changed the locks on her, and said she couldn’t get back in until she paid in full. They did let her go in and retrieve some of her stuff and pack it over to the new site, but locked her out again (in the pouring rain) before she got everything, screaming at her the entire time.

At this point Susan decided to just go ahead and dump the church and open up in the new space, even though it wasn’t finished. Frankly, I think this was her plan all along: to string along the church until the construction in the new place was done, then jump ship. Even though she swore she never intended to leave.

The screaming/moving/raining incident happened on a Friday, and the next Monday we took the kids to the new place.

To be continued.

###

#277 In which our hero relates the events of The Great Daycare Debacle (part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:23:00 +0000

Daycare was one of the biggest challenges The Scientist and I had to address early on in the child rearing process. I mean, not just us, most all working parents, but I don’t really care about anyone else’s childcare problems. We don’t have any family in the area (none close enough to sit daily, at least) so we were going to need outside help.

We were told repeatedly that if we wanted quality care we needed to get daycare locked down before we even had children. So, when my wife was seven months pregnant or so, I started to look for daycare. This task fell to me since I was laid off at the time.

We started with the big centers, the KinderCare’s and Child Time’s and the like. We found them to be too expensive. So we started to look for in-home day care. The Scientist had a list of providers that had been vetted to some degree by her employer. So I started there.

Most wouldn’t even talk to me.

That is to say, when they learned that my child hadn’t been born yet, they wouldn’t. “Call back when she is three months old,” was a common sentiment. This, of course, flew in the face of what we had been told about getting everything lined up well in advance.

But a few showed interest, so I went to check them out. One lady had an incredibly small and cramped house, and another wasn’t home when I showed up at our pre-arranged time. Both of them didn’t make the cut.

I interviewed one woman who seemed nice, had a big house with a huge fenced-in back yard, and seemed loving. She was already watching a couple kids, and had room for one more in the fall (when The Scientist was expecting). I liked her, and told my wife that I thought this could work out.

The Scientist went to visit herself a couple days later, and agreed. “Susan” was our new daycare provider!

As new parents, we were freaked out by the prospect of having someone we didn’t really know that well mind our children for five to eight hours a day. But we both needed to work, so we didn’t really have much of a choice.

We liked Susan, and Lily seemed to be doing just fine. She met a bunch of other little kids and developed friendships. In fact, if nothing had changed, our kids might still be happily spending their days with Susan today.

But things did change.

Susan started to get more inquires about childcare than she could manage in her home--Ohio regulates this, and there’s a limit to the number of children who can be watched by one person. In fact, Susan already had an assistant who came in to help her out. It was getting really crowded. So Susan began to think big and branch out into a commercial space.

As coincidence would have it, the church that The Scientist and I attended had some empty rooms in its education wing. These were basically two classrooms that were only being used for storage and the occasional Sunday school. Susan got wind of this and inquired at the church about renting them.

And here’s where it all started to go downhill.

A little background first: this church is a small Methodist church (although the religion really has nothing to do with the rest of the story)--small, that is, in the number of parishioners; the building itself is rather huge (and ugly, it was constructed in the late 60s, I believe; it’s a big grey cinderblock square with an attached bell tower). It’s also an old congregation. The Scientist and I were welcomed with open arms as everyone was happy to see “young people” in the church again. My wife and I were both in our late 30s when we started going there.

We also quickly realized that everyone had their designated roles and didn’t take kindly to anyone trying to rock the boat. How much so we wouldn’t realize until later.

So, Susan sent a letter to the church outlining how she’d like to move her daycare into the empty classrooms. As is their typical process, this letter was shunted to the trustees for consideration.

The trustees, without comment, rejected the idea.

Now, something I didn’t mention was that the church is poor. With a dwindling congregation and a giant space to heat, the bills far surpassed the income. I was puzzled why the church would turn away anyone who came offering money.

Now, I have my theories. The obvious one is that since Susan is black, and the church congregation is wholly white, that someone in the church didn’t think it would be a good fit, to put it charitably. I hope this isn’t the real reason, and I don’t think this church is racist by nature… but I can’t rule out the idea, either.

Another theory (and probably the real reason) is that no-one wanted to deal with what they feared would be additional work to accommodate the day care. The kids would be using a side door that’s not usually used, so in the winter someone would have to shovel and ice that area of the sidewalk; there would be extra trash that would have to be hauled to the dumpsters in back; and, good heavens, can you imagine the noise of a bunch of kids running around in the hallways?

I don't know what made the trustees say no, but no they did say.

This not only puzzled me, it puzzled Susan, too. So much so that she went directly to the pastor for more information. Turns out, the pastor didn’t know anything about it. That is to say, none of the trustees bothered to tell her that a potential revenue source had come knocking, and they refused to open the door.

Now, I should also mention that the pastor at the time had only been at the church for a year or so, and was not very well liked. She had some new ideas that weren’t well received, and her sermons tended to ramble and go long.

But this pastor saw an opportunity to beef up the bottom line and probably--less opportunistically--thought she could reach out to the community, help foster quality child care in town, help a local small businesswoman, blah, blah, blah. But really, I suspect dollar signs were the first thing she saw. I know that’s what I would have felt in her position.

So the pastor pushed back on the trustees, and it got a little ugly. Like I said, everyone had well defined roles in the church, and the trustees didn’t take kindly to this new pastor trying to force something past them. There were meetings and heated words and finally the higher-ups got involved.

The church had a “charge conference,” in which a high-ranking official for the region came in and had a town hall-style discussion in which both sides, pro and con, had time to present their position.

Susan asked me to speak in favor of having the center move into the church.

To be continued.

###

BEAT REPEAT

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:21:00 +0000

History Repeats

In 1856, United States senator and noted abolitionist Charles Sumner delivered a fiery three-hour speech on the senate floor in which he condemned slavery and those content to see the practice continued. He was particularly unkind to fellow senator Andrew Butler.

Two days later, while Sumner wrote letters at his desk in the empty Senate Chamber, Preston Brooks, a congressman from South Carolina and Andrew Butler’s nephew, approached Sumner. Brooks is reported to have said, “Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine.” And then he began to savagely beat Sumner with his metal-capped walking stick.

Sumner was unable to rise from his desk to defend himself, as it was bolted to the floor. He was finally able to tear the desk from the floorboards and, blood pouring down his face, stagger into the aisle to collapse. Brooks continued to beat him until his cane broke, at which point he quietly left the chamber and the unconscious Sumner.

Tensions were high in America at this time, it being less than five years away from the beginning of the Civil War. This division was perhaps no better illustrated than by the aftermath of the attack.

While Northerners were horrified, Brooks was heralded as a hero in the South. In an editorial, The Richmond Enquirer declared, “We consider the act good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences. These vulgar abolitionists in the Senate must be lashed into submission.”

The House moved to expel Brooks, but the vote fell short. Back home, Brooks was sent dozens of new canes, at least one of which was accompanied by a note which read, “Hit him again.”

This all occurred more than a century ago, and it’s easy to think of it as ancient history. We, as a nation, are much more advanced today, right?

I’m not so sure.

Flash forward to September 9th, 2009. In a joint session of congress, president Barack Obama discusses his tumultuous health care reform plan. In the middle of the president’s remarks, congressman Joe Wilson (who, like Preston Brooks before him, represents South Carolina) jabs a finger at the president and shouts “You lie!”

This outburst is not only against congressional rules, it is a nearly unthinkable breach of decorum.

Unthinkable, that is, at any other time.

While our nation isn’t facing a civil war, we are divided by an ideological rift that seems nearly as severe. The public “discussion” of health care reform has become anything but. The discourse has coarsened to the point that it’s become scary. Protesters carry signs portraying Obama as Hitler; a supporter of the administration had a finger bitten off during a scuffle; and some protestors have arrived at events openly carrying guns.

And while no-one has yet sent Joe Wilson a new cane in the mail, he did receive more than $1 million in new campaign donations in the days following the outburst. On September 15, the House approved a "resolution of disapproval" against Wilson, on a near party-line 240-179 vote… in other words, most of Wilson’s fellow Republicans didn’t see the need to register disapproval at what he did.

The parallels are unmistakable. More than 150 years ago, this sort of furious name-calling and righteous anger let to the most divisive and bloody period in our nation’s history.

I wonder what the next three and a half years will bring?

###

#276 In which our hero encourages, nay, begs, his children to enjoy soccer practice.

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:57:00 +0000

Couple of months ago The Scientist was browsing through the catalog put out by our city’s recreational board. They offer a wide variety of “enrichment” programs for kids and adults (in fact, I took their “creative writing workshop” offering for a year or so). There’s a bunch of kids’ program, including sports. We thought the “Hummingbird Soccer” program (kids 3-6) sounded good.

We talked it up, and they seemed excited about it. They sometimes kick a soccer ball around with the little boys across the street, and it was strictly beginner level, so we thought they’d get something out of it.

Now, The Scientist and are aren’t die-hard sports fans by any stretch. While we’re both very active and competitive in our given activities, these activities are far from mainstream sports, and I’d be surprised if anyone thought of us as “jocks.” So we’re really just trying to expose the girls to sports, not force them into it. Personally, I think team sports are extremely important for the lessons they teach about teamwork, working together, dealing with losing, etc. And, y’know, who doesn’t want to be the guy sitting in the stands bragging, “That’s MY daughter who just made that goal!” And at 4-years-old and 5-years-old, respectively, we didn’t expect our kids to be God’s gift to athletics, but we thought that at the very least they’d get to run around with a bunch of other kids their age and have a lot of fun.

They did not. In fact, they hated it.

But not right off the bat. In fact, it started on a very promising note. The first day we were one of the first to arrive, and they got first pick of the soccer balls they’d use that day, and got their team t-shirts (they were both on the “red” team). All told, there were probably 40 kids on the field, in about eight teams. The first half of the one hour practice was drills. The coach had them kick the balls around, kick them in the goal, etc. Fun stuff. Them seemed to be enjoying it. For the most part.

About 20 minutes in we noticed they started to run off the field to visit us. First, they wanted a drink of water (which we completely forgot to bring the first session, since we’re terrible parents), then they just wanted a hug, then they started to complain they were tired.

We were very accommodating of this at first (“Okay, here’s your hug. Umph! Great, now, ha-ha, get back out there! “) but became a little more stern as they starting coming off more often. And when the actual 20-minute scrimmage started, it got really obnoxious.

See, there were mostly fine with drills. But when other kids tried to take the ball away from them or blocked their shots, holy shit, that was not cool with our children.

“They won’t pass the ball to me!”

“They’re faster than me!”

“He kicked the ball away from me!”

And so on. Clearly, they didn’t understand the “competitive” part of competitive sports. And it didn’t help that there were a couple of older boys who were both serious about playing and had some skills (for 6-year-olds). One kid in particular loved to come running at whoever had the ball and take a sliding kick to knock it away. He did this to Lily at least twice. “Lily would be having a better time,” I remarked to The Scientist, “If fucking Pelé would relax.”

It was at this point that they really started to whine and cry. Now, The Scientist and I were really trying hard not to be those asshole parents you see on the sidelines berating their kids. However, we didn’t want them to outright quit without trying either. “Come on girls, get out there. Your team needs you!” I tried this one several times. “Only 10 more minutes, girls! Try to tough it out for 10 more minutes!” I tried that, too. Finally, it came to: “Lily! Macey! Go!” This in my dad big voice.

I started to feel like a big dick, commanding my whining and crying kids back to the field. But I’ve seen this behavior before, especially in Lily. If things don’t go her way right away, her first reaction is to take her ball and go home. I hate this. So, yes, I made her play.

Well, I couldn’t make her play, of course. What I made her do was stand on the field. And both girls did this… stood in the field sniffling, making only token efforts to kick at the ball if it happened to come near them. When the final whistle finally blew, both girls couldn’t get off the field fast enough.

Thus began eight weeks of suck.

Most every week, it was the same. They'd complain that they didn't want to go to soccer, that it wasn't fun. When we got there, they'd have fun the first half of the practice, then the wheels would fall off when it came to the game.

One day it started to rain, hard, just as we pulled up. "Well, girls, it looks like soccer is going to be cancelled for today." Huge cheers from both girls.

I was very, very tempted to just pull the plug, tell them they didn't have to go any more. But the thing is that the eight week session was already paid for and, more importantly, it was the principle of the thing. They needed to learn that not everything is fun right off the bat, especially anything involving competition. And they needed to know that there are things you need to practice before you have any skill in them.

So we kept going.

The big complaint became that they got tired in the middle of practice. So I started to bring "energy pills." Let me explain.

A year or so ago, Lily got into the habit of saying that her stomach hurt her every night at bedtime. We didn't really believe her (it was clearly a stall tactic) but we starting giving her a single Rolaid. She ate it, said her tummy didn't bother her any more, and went to bed. But, we started to feel weird about doing this... Rolaids are a kind of medicine, albeit a weak medicine. Still, there was no reason to dose our kids (because Macey got in on the act, too) every night for no reason.

So, I bought a bunch of candy bracelets at the store and cut the strings. I took the candy and put it in a plastic tub, and told the girls this was the new tummy medicine. So, one "tummy pill" a night, and all was well. At some point we stopped calling it tummy medicine and started calling it tummy candy, just so there would no confusion about when medicine was, and when it was okay to take it.

This candy became our de facto cure for just about everything. Tummy hurts? Here's a tummy candy pill. Eyes itchy? Here's an itchy eye pill. And so on. So, when the complaining about being tired at soccer practice hit a fever pitch, I broke out the energy pills. The girls were allowed five a day (since they were so strong). I don't know where as it really helped. But it did give me an excuse to send them back out on the field; "You had your energy pills, now get back out there!" I was waiting for some other parent to chide me for giving my kids speed, but they never did.

We missed a couple weeks, due to vacation. The girls didn't mind. Then finally, the eighth and last practice rolled around. We told the girls that this was it, the last hour of soccer, and they needed to play today, but never had to play soccer again in their lives if they didn't want to.

Amazingly, Lily had the best day out of the eight. She was engaged, active, drove the field a couple times, and generally seemed to be having a good time. She didn't come off the field crying once.

Macey, on the other hand, was having a melt down. She stomped around, head hung low, complaining about how tired she was, so very tired. As it turned out, the red team was split into two, with Lily going with the older kids to a different field, and Macey and the younger ones staying where they were. Even with the level of competition reduced, Macey wasn't having it.

Finally, The Scientist pulled her off and promised that if she kicked the ball once, just once, that we'd all go to McDonalds for lunch. So she gave the ball a half-hearted kick when it rolled right to her, looked at us to confirm that that kick was good enough, then called it a day. Even though the game wasn't over, she ran over to the field Lily was on and started screaming, "Lily! Lily! Come on! Mama says we can go to McDonalds now!" She was none to happy to learn that we weren't going that instant.

At the end, all the kids gathered and they passed out trophies. Everyone got one, it was part of the fee. It was nice, I suppose, and the girls were happy to get something, but, I dunno, it just doesn't seem to send the right message.

I mean, my kids barely participated. I'm not saying they should be punished for this, but I don't think they should be rewarded, either. And get a trophy? For what? Showing up six of the eight weeks and half-assing it around the field? Maybe I'm just a prick, but effectively telling all these kids that the slightest effort on your part will score you a trophy isn't the best message. Eh, maybe at this age it's only about encouraging them to stick with it. I'm no coach.

I talked to Lily afterward, and told her how proud I was that she stuck it out, and how cool it was that she really seemed to be getting the hand of it this practice. She agreed that it was better this time, more fun.

ME: Fun enough that you might want to do it again next summer?
LILY: (immediately) No!

So, my kids have their cheap plastic trophies, and that seems good enough for them. They're well on their way to becoming nerds, just like their parents.

#275 In which our hero keeps his eye on an odd office in his building.

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:11:00 +0000

The building I work in used to be a big warehouse. At some point it was refurbished and transformed into offices. But they cut away the floors in the center of the building, leaving a really cool open atrium kind of space. Some of the offices have windows that face into the atrium.

There’s also a breezeway from the parking lot across the canal, which is where I park. I walk across the breezeway every day, past an office that has a row of windows looking out into the atrium. But by the way they’re positioned, they’re also looking into the walkway. So anyone sitting in that office is pretty much at eye level for people walking in to work.

This is going somewhere, so stick with me.

So, this one office space was vacant for a long time (there’s also an office on the opposite side, but the tenants of that space were smart enough to install blinds, which they never open). One day when I was walking in, I saw that a business has moved into the space; architects, judging from the rolls and rolls of blueprints.

The space is basically one big open room, with a conference room (which also has a window opening to the atrium) and a couple small offices with doors on the far side. There also appears to be a small waiting area and reception desk, but I can’t really see that from the walkway.

The new tenants moved eight or so big wood desks into the space, abutting them back to back, like an office environment from the 50s. I thought it was interesting, and looked forward to seeing people sitting in those desks, staring across at each other, sketching architectural renderings longhand and smoking Lucky Strikes.

But no people ever came.

Days, then weeks went by, and I never once saw a person in the office. I supposed it was possible that they were out in the field, overseeing construction or something, and only occasionally came to the office. Maybe after 5pm, when I was already speeding north.

So I took note of one desk in particular, which had a fat, loosely rolled blueprint atop two small, tightly rolled blueprints. I watched to see if they ever moved.

Every day, as I walked in, I took note of the blueprints: one fat on top of two tight. No lights were ever on in the office, no signs of people having been there. And the blueprints never moved.

Now, it wasn’t like the place was just a storage area, there were desks with chairs, a big conference table in the conference room, staplers and the like… clearly people were meant to work there.

But no-one ever did.

This went on for months and months. One day I took a side-trip around the corner to look at their front door. It had the company name stenciled on it, and they were commercial architects, as I suspected. There were no lights on, and I wasn’t brave enough to try the door.

Almost there.

Then one day, I came walking across the breezeway as normal to find a work crew in the office. They were hauling out all the big 50s-era desks and replacing them with modern-style cubicles. On my way out I saw that they must have installed a dozen of these cloth-lined cubies, each with its own desk, overhead drawers, chair and computer.

And still, no people working there.

I found this all more than passing odd. I asked a couple of people at work about it, but they were as clueless as me.

Then! One day, I came to work and saw a woman working! She was sitting in one of the cubies, with her computer and chair positioned so that she was looking out the window. She had brought in a picture to hang on the wall, and some deck doo-dads to personalize her space. It looked like she was going to be there for a while.

And now we get to the part that bugs me.

Every morning when I come to work, if she’s already there working, I’ll glance over at her, and she’ll look up over her computer screen, and she’s give me a dirty look, as if to say, “What are YOU looking at?”

She is literally the only person in an office FULL of cubicles, all but three of which do not face this window, and run no risk of having the occupant accidentally make eye contact with another human. If you’re so annoyed that I’m peeking in on your own private work world… then move. Anywhere. Or just turn your computer so that it’s not facing the window. It’s really that easy!

The odd thing is, I still haven’t seen anyone else there. Just this one woman with the miniature stop sign and photos of (presumably) her children on her desk.

Maybe I’ll get a sheet of paper and write a little sign to hold up next time I pass:

GET SOME BLINDS

###

#274 In which our hero sorts a great many comic books.

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:04:00 +0000

The Scientist and the girls are away for a week (!) visiting the grandparents. This left me with a lot of time on my hands in the evening, so I decided to undertake a big chore that I’ve been putting off for a long time: organizing my comics.

I’ve been collecting comics since I was in 5th grade. This means that a large portion of my collection is old superhero comics that no longer hold any real appeal to me. Not that I’d throw them out! So I have a bunch of longboxes in my basement filled with bagged and boarded comics that I haven’t looked at in years and years.

All of my books are alphabetically sorted and, honesty, that’s the problem. See, if I start collecting a new comic that starts with the letter “A” then if I want to file it properly, I’d have to find room in the “A” box for it. Add enough new comics and you have to displace some into the next box. Displace enough of the second box, and it cascades down and down until I’d have to fuss with a dozen boxes or so. Ugh.

So, instead, I keep a couple short boxes and file away my new comics in them. The idea being that I’d let them fill up, then have one big sorting session and put everything where it belonged.

That was about three years ago.

And, as I’m still getting new comics (not a lot, I probably get 2-4 books a week) I had something like 400 mixed comics in shortboxes; some in the basement with the rest of my collection, some in my bedroom.

I knew it was going to be a major undertaking, so I didn’t enter into it lightly. And I certainly wasn’t going to leave a bunch of my comics around where the kids could get at them. So, when it was decided that The Scientist would be taking the girls with her, leaving me alone in the house for a week, I knew it was time.

Step one: haul all boxes up out of the basement.

I suppose I could have done this in the basement, but I knew I’d be spreading out all over the room, and it would be more comfortable in the living room.

As any serious long-time collector can tell you, the photo above doesn’t show an overwhelming number of comics. I never bought a huge number of books, even in my hey-day. And as I got older and typical superhero books started to lose their appeal, I bought less and less. And there was one point where I decided that comic books were kid stuff and I was done buying them. I think that was around age 19. I think it lasted all of a year.

Why this is such an ordeal is that I have to pull out every comic, make sure they’re all in numerical order within the title, organize all the titles alphabetically, then stick them back in boxes. And, of course, stop and read a comic every now and again.

That’s what sucks up so much time, of course. If I just buckled down and powered through, I could probably finish in half the time.

But these comics are, in a very real sense, the only tangible reminders I have of my childhood. There are certain issues, or moments within an issue, that stick with me today. The death of Dr. Doom. Yellow Jacket sabotaging his career. The Invisible Girl having a miscarriage. Jesse finally kicking Jody’s ass. Dream challenging a demon to a battle of wits to retrieve his lost helm. Rorschach unmasked. The Bowel Disruptor.

And so on.

So I get sucked in and find myself reading. And reading. And while there are a lot of books that still hold a special appeal to me, I also come across ones where I'm like, "why the hell did I ever buy this?" And I have to read it to try to figure out the answer to that question. Bottom line is that it always takes way too long to get this chore done. I'm lucky that I had an entire week.

ABOVE: halfway done.

Turns out I have a comic for every letter of the alphabet (thank you Quantum & Woody and Y: The Last Man) and I also have a robust "S" section. Long runs of Sandman, Starman, Sin City and a surprisingly large assortment of Spider-Man and Superman comics; surprising only in that I've never really gone out of my way to collect those titles.

ABOVE: 95% done.

The clock started to run out, because the girls come home on Sunday, and I was busy all day Saturday. So Friday night I buckled down and finished sorting, and boxed everything up again.

ABOVE: 1:30am, done! All that's left is to hump all these boxes back into the basement.

Until next time.

###

#273 In which our hero writes his yearly letter to his dead father.

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:06:00 +0000

Dear Dad,

Yesterday was Father’s Day. The Scientist had to work, and I had a bunch of stuff to do around the house, so it wasn’t exactly the most festive Father’s Day ever… but I did spend a bunch of time hanging out with the girls.

I am sometimes amazed at how much of me I see in them. Lily looks like me, so there’s no denying parentage there. But more so, she acts like me. She’s timid around strangers, until she warms up to them. She’s sometimes nervous to try new things, and frets about how things will happen, who will be there, if anyone will talk to her, and so on. She’s quick to feel wronged, and have her feelings hurt. She’s emotional and sensitive.

All like me.

Macey acts like me, too, but in a completely different way. She’s pig-headed and quick to anger. She’s more likely to lash out then cry when wronged. She likes to get her own way, and woe be to the person in her way.

This is kinda like me, too. Maybe more like her mother, though.

So it had me thinking of how I’m like you. I know there’s a physical resemblance, because people have remarked on it. I am balding now, just like you did. But more than looks, I think I act like you.

I remember how much you hated unexpected delays and hassles. And how quick you were to get angry about them. I’m like that, too; even though I’ve made a concerted effort to be more mellow, to try to just go with the flow and not let it ruin the day. I’ve been somewhat successful in that endeavor.

But on a more positive note, I have your sense of humor. I’ve always been the “funny friend,” which is a blessing and a curse, I suppose. But I laugh a lot, and the fact that my wife can make me laugh—HARD—is proof positive that I’ve married the right woman.

Mom sometimes slips and calls me “Ted,” which means she sees you in me as well. You’ve shaped me in ways that I can’t even imagine. And if I ever have cause to doubt that, I need only look at my watch.

I wear my watch with the strap on the top of my wrist, and the numerals facing down. I’ve never really given it much thought as to why, this is just how I wear my watch. To me it’s just like the fact that I wash my left armpit in the shower before my right… it’s not a conscious decision I’ve made, it’s just something I do, and have always done.

However… this isn’t really the case. I recently came across a newspaper clipping from when I had won some sort of drawing contest when I was 10. In it, there’s a photo of me holding the winning drawing, and you can clearly see my watch. It’s an oversized black plastic deal with, God help me, a built-in calculator. But I’m wearing it with the face on the top of my wrist, like almost everyone does.

You always wore you watch “upside down,” like I do now. I remember asking you about it once, and you told me that you did that because in college you didn’t want to be constantly reminded of the time, so you flipped your watch around so you couldn’t see it as easily.

I’ve also had people tell me that this is a workman’s way of wearing a watch; presumably so the breakable bits were further away from harm for those who work with their hands all day. I guess you could say that I work with my hands, if typing counts. Actually, my watch face is more scratched up from clinking on the wrist rest then it would be if I wore my watch the “normal” way.

I look at 10-year-old me and see that I did make a decision about my watch at some point. And that decision was to wear my watch like my dad did. Just one more way that I’m like you.

And I wonder what little things the girls will pick up from me. The way they brush their teeth? Tie their shoes? Ride a bike? I hope I can continue to be a mostly good example to them. Like you were for me. I miss you, dad.

Your son,

Craig.

***

#272 In which our hero receives a message from the past.

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:05:00 +0000

I’ve previously mentioned this cool website, Futureme.org, in which you can send messages to yourself in the “future,” that is, these messages are stored somewhere and not delivered until the future date you set.

I had sent future-me a message at one point, but I forgot how long I set it to wait. Every once in a while this website would bubble up to the surface of my mind and I’d wonder if that message would ever come. But it had been so long I assumed the service just didn’t work.

But I got my past message yesterday!

I had completely forgotten what I had written, and it was really funny to (re)read. Message follows with commentary.

Hello Future Craig!

It is June 10, 2004 as I write this. The kinda cool website futureme.org says it will send this to you any time in the future... I'm going to set it for five years. I wonder what'll be different by then.

Right now, Lily is only seven months old. Just in the past week has she started to really crawl, she can get around now! By the time you read this she should be walking and talking (something she can't do at all now), and will be even more a real little person. I hope to God she finally grew some hair.

Wow, it’s amazing how little I knew about kids then. I though she’d be walking and talking at age 5? Holy crap, this kid can run like a demon. And talk? She spins these amazingly elaborate tales that never fail to surprise and delight me. She’s so much more of a real person at age 5 that I could ever of imagined.

And it’s hard to remember that it took Lily so long to grow hair. Now she has thick, luxurious red hair halfway down her back.

You're working at ADPRO right now... it's not terrible.

Well, it certainly got terrible. This would have been my first year there, and it was, as reported, okay. Not terrible, not wonderful. That would come later. As an aside, I’m going to censor some of the names that follow, but I don’t have to obscure the agency name since it went out of business less than a year after firing me. No real surprise there… it was struggling financing well before I started working there.

Your boss is XXXX XXXXXXX, who isn't a horrible boss, but he's clearly out to cover his own ass first, and screw everyone else. At the beginning of the month you were turned down for a raise, even though XXXX (says he) wanted to give you one. You're still more than a little bitter about that.

This was the first sign that ADPRO was not a healthy place to work. My boss outright lied about compensation, making it sound like it was likely that I would get a raise at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months… while the truth was that no one in the agency had received a bump in compensation in YEARS. So yeah, I was bitter… and still am. This is alleviated somewhat by the information I received a while back that my former boss is now working for an extremely small shop (like 5 people) and the two principals work him into the ground and don’t appreciate his work. This may or may not be true, but I choose to believe that he’s getting a taste of his own medicine now.

You work with XXXX XXXXXXX and XXXXX XXXXXXXX, graphic designers.

The first of which was fired four months before me, the second of which quit several months after me. I’m not in touch with either any more.

AE XXXX XXXXX is one of the bigger assholes you've ever had to work with.

Man, that was the truth. In a weird twist of fate, this guy came in to interview at my current agency. I really wanted to run to the general manager and torpedo any chance he had to actually getting hired… but I didn’t. I guess I believe that what comes around goes around, and I’m not willing to roll those dice. Man that guy was a dick. He wasn’t hired here anyway.

You and [The Scientist] and just starting to pack up the house in preparation to moving. Actually, [The Scientist] has started, and you're dragging your feet because you fucking hate moving. I hope you guys found a nice house... bigger, nicer room for Lily, bigger kitchen, PLEASE.

This must have been when we were just moving stuff into a storage area to de-clutter it and make it feel bigger. We ended up selling our house much quicker than expected, and had to scramble a bit to find a new one. Which we did in short order. But not without first having to deal with a bunch of bullshit which is chronicled here.

And a bedroom for Lily's new brother or sister? S/he should be born by now, huh? Wonder how that went. Another C-section for [The Scientist]? I hope it was less stressful for you guys this time.

Let me do the math. This was sent June 10, 2004. Macey was born June 9, 2005. So, The Scientist wasn’t even pregnant yet, by a couple of months. I don’t really remember this, but The Scientist and I must have planned when we were going to try for #2 pretty carefully.

[The Scientist] just started the job at XXXXXXXX. Knowing her, she'll be at this job for 10 years. I hope she still likes it... after hating her job for so long, she deserves one that she likes at least a little.

She still likes it. So, yah!

You're still driving the Neon. I really hope by the time you read this that you have a new car.

Ah, my old red Neon. How I loved that car. I really wanted to get another manual, but The Scientist insisted that I get an automatic. Which has worked out for the best, I suppose. But I miss that zippy little 5-speed.

You love your wife very much. Looks like[REDACTED].

This section detailed some personal stuff that my wife and I had to work through which you--nameless, faceless Internet--need not know about. Suffice it to say that we did indeed work it out.

Man, she's one hot piece of ass.

That sentiment is no less true now than it was five years ago.

Hope all is well with you and yours,

craig, circa 2004.

The Scientist thinks I should write another one. If I set if for another five years, that would make Lily 10 and Macey 9. I can’t even imagine what those kids will be like then. And The Scientist and I will have been married 13 years.

Here’s hoping that her ass remains as hot as it is now.

***

#271 In which our hero discusses the manner in which the man decides if his oldest child is fit for school or not.

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Sat, 30 May 2009 13:10:00 +0000

Several weeks ago my 5-year-old, Lily, was evaluated for acceptance into Kindergarten. We were briefed on this evaluation at the mandatory parents' meeting (along with dress code, religious requirements--it's a Catholic school, after all--etc.). We were to drop off our kids at the scheduled time, then leave. They would be tested in 10 areas.

A brief aside about language.

At the meeting, the principal told us several times not to refer to this evaluation as a "test" because he didn't want our children to be apprehensive about it. He said to just tell our kids that they would be playing some "games." Again, he didn't want a bunch of 5-year-olds freaking out about a "test." Now, what kind of anal, too-tightly-wound child is experiencing test anxiety at five? I know my kid has never been tested for anything so far, and even if she had, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't care if she passed or not.

It just strikes me as a self-fulfilling prophesy when you start talking like this. "Don't call it a test, they're freak out if they think they're being 'tested'!" Instead of avoiding "scary" words like test, why not just teach your kid to deal? "Look, Jimmy, it's a test, and you might do well on it or not. But even if you blow it, it's not a huge deal. You'll face LOTS of tests in your life."

Anyway.

The kids would be evaluated in 10 areas, the results being grouped into three categories: Strength, Average and Need. If you kid shows a "need" in four or more areas, you're supposed to sit down with the kindergarten teachers and principal and devise a plan. I kinda think this means that if your kid is struggling in four or more areas, you might not be invited to attend this particular school.

So, Lily has her test and it's no big deal. She says she had fun for the most part, but some of the games were boring.

Couple of weeks later, we get the official letter from the school. It doesn't say she "passed" because, presumably, that would put undo pressure on the administrators or some such shit. But it is a "welcome to" letter, so my kid is in!

Here are the categories Lily was tested in, and the results (I've included some of the definitions that were included with the letter because, frankly, if I hadn't read some of them I wouldn't know what my kid was tested for):

Visual Motor Integration ("the ability to coordinate vision with motor movements")
Result = STRENGTH!

Visual discrimination ("ability to recognize differences and similarities among things that we see")
Result = STRENGTH!

Auditory Memory ("refers to how well one listen and is then able to repeat what he has heard")
Yeah, that should be "how well one listenS" and also, nice sexism, school board!
Result = Average

Draw-A-Person ("used to help assess visual-motor ability along with visual-memory")
Result = STRENGTH!

Test of Auditory Analysis Skills ("refers to hearing sounds and auditoraly discriminating individual sounds within words")
I think when I was a kid this was called "listening."
Result = STRENGTH!

Peabody Picture Vocabulary ("refers to one's understanding of words that are heard")
Why does this one get a brand name? Who's this Peabody, anyway?
Result = STRENGTH!

Articulation ("ability to express thoughts and ideas.")
Result = Average
"Average"? Holy crap... anyone who spends more than a couple minutes with my daughter knows she has NO trouble expressing her thoughts. In fact, after a while, you might wish she'd STOP expressing her crazy, creative, endless thoughts.

Fine Motor ("ability to plan and perform movement using small muscles of the hands and/or fingers)
Result = Average
Again, maybe I'm just the doting father, but you wouldn't believe the detailed little clay creations this kid has made.

Basic Concepts ("major ideas, generalized from particular instances or experiences")
Result = Average
I'm not even sure what this category is telling me. Additional examples make it seem to relate to colors, letters, numbers, shapes and the like. And if that's the case, my kid has it down. She knows all of her colors, shapes, numbers and the like.

And that's the entire test. I'm clearly biased, but I suspect that Lily just got bored of all the questions and started to slack off. I've seen this before.

But, we'll see how she does in Kindergarten. I'm sure she'll do great. As long as no-one mentions the word "test."

***

#270 In which our hero invites Oprah Winfrey to go fuck herself.

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:07:00 +0000

On Google! News this morning I saw this headline: “Oprah apologizes for slamming author James Frey.”

If you don’t remember, James Frey is the guy who wrote “A Million Little Pieces” which was purportedly his wholly true autobiography; but later it came out that the author had altered some events, and completely made up some others.

There was a bit of hoopla when this information came out. And honestly, I understand none of it. I mean, I never read the book, but apparently it was good enough that people got something out of it, and well-written enough to shoot up to the top of the best seller charts (and, of course, Oprah had a lot to do with that).

But, apparently, the people who read it, and were moved by it, suddenly found all of their enjoyment negated by the fact that it was, in part, fabricated. Stories came out that they felt “betrayed” and “mislead” and other bullshit that seemed completely overblown for a book. I mean, these people weren’t duped out of the last penny of their retirement money… they spent $20 on a book which—up until the instant they learned about the made-up parts—they really enjoyed reading. Nevertheless, many of these disgruntled readers demanded their money back and—unbelievably—got it!

Now, I’ve read my share of shitty books. Some of these books were by respected authors, people who had written other books that I enjoyed. But never once did it cross my mind to demand my money back from the retailer because the “reading experience” didn’t live up to my expectations.

So I had no respect or sympathy for these dillrods who wanted some sort of retribution for reading this book. And Oprah Winfrey was at the front of the fucking bus when it came to seeking revenge.

She named “A Million Little Pieces” to her book club, which naturally catapulted it to mega-best seller status. And, to a degree, I get why she was so pissed. She talked him up, fawned over him, related how inspirational and moving the book was… and then she found out that some of BS she was spouting was based on, well, BS.

It’s her reputation on the line, and so she should protect it. But Jesus, she raked this guy over the coals. She had him on her show so she could spout venom at him and humiliate him on a national stage. For an HOUR. She was relentless in tearing him down. I felt bad for the guy; he took his lumps like a bad puppy and did little to defend himself.

Shortly after the televised beat-down, Stephen King wrote an editorial in Entertainment Weekly that I found very interesting. You can read it in its entirely here, but the part that jumped out to me was this:

“The amazing thing is that anyone—including Oprah—believed any of Frey's stories once they realized he was trying to manage good sobriety without much help, because this is a trick very few druggies and alcoholics can manage … Substance abusers lie about everything, and usually do an awesome job of it.”

King, as a recovering addict and alcoholic himself, writes with an insight that Oprah could never have. So, should Oprah have suspected ahead of time that Frey’s book just might be embellished a bit? I dunno… most non-cynical people tend to assume the best, I guess.

But I do think that when you start up the massive book-selling machine that is the Oprah Winfrey Book Club, and you pluck books out of the rank and file of mere mortals and invite them into the halcyon company of the gods (especially those books written by admitted drug addicts and liars) that you just might get burned every once in a while.

But Oprah was pissed and wasn’t shy about letting people know about it. And his guy suffered considerable fall-out. Lost his publishing deal. Had to give back millions of dollars. Was branded a fake and liar. And, let us not forget, that the part about him being a recovering addict was absolutely true… having your world crumble around you like that cannot be good for your sobriety.

And honestly, I’m willing to give Oprah her you-fuck-with-me-I’ll-fuck-with-you moment. But now, she’s going public with an apology SIX years after the fact? That reeks of hypocrisy and disingenuousness.

Let’s break it down for a moment: Oprah was angry because she took James Frey at face value… that he had a hard battle with drugs and alcohol and, through amazing force of will, emerged on the other side better and healthier. She really believed that he could stand as a shining example of what people can achieve if they put their mind to it. But then it turned out that it wasn’t (all) true.

Now, let’s go back to 1988, when Oprah revealed her amazing weight loss on her show. I don’t watch The Oprah Winfrey Show, but this event was all over the place, you could hardly miss it (wheelbarrow full of fat and all). Oprah had a long and difficult battle with her weight and, through amazing force of will, emerged on the other side better and healthier. Not only had she lost the weight, she was now committed to a healthier lifestyle that would keep the weight off. She stood as a shining example of what people can achieve if they only put their mind to it.

Only, she gained the weight back, didn’t she?

Where are the people demanding their money back for show tickets? Where are the outraged women who thought, just like Oprah, that they could lose the weight, only to find out that their example had stumbled? Where the hell is Oprah’s public lambasting for saying one thing, then doing another?

As far as Frey goes, he’s taking the high ground. He’s quoted as saying, “It was a nice surprise to hear from her, and I really appreciated the call and the sentiment.” What he didn’t say was what he was probably thinking: “But, y’know, I’m still a little pissed about her aggressively dismantling my career and life six years ago.”

I’m waiting for her to do an hour long special in which instead of the gentle platitudes about how she “let down her fans” with her yo-yoing weight loss and gain, she really tears into herself and says how she has lied and mislead everyone about her commitment to a healthy lifestyle.

THAT is an Oprah Winfrey show I’d tune in for.

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#269 In which our hero’s children pose with a giant anthropomorphic rabbit.

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:47:00 +0000

Let me tell you about Easter. Yeah, not exactly timely, I know. But worth it. Stick with me.

The in-laws came up for Easter. It’s an eight hour drive from Maryland for them so, to make it worth their while, then generally stay for a week or so. For the most part I like my in-laws, so that’s not a big deal. But sometimes, after a week, it starts to get old, y’know? Mostly because they mess up the carefully orchestrated routine we have in the house. And this sometimes leads to no nap on the weekends, which is just not acceptable.

Anyway, by the time Easter rolled around, they had already been here for five days, so I was getting a little on edge. That Saturday was a jam-packed day: swimming lessons, Easter egg hunt at the church, going out for dinner… it promised to be a busy day. And potentially a nap-free day which, again, is just no good.

So we load up the entire family (in-laws included) and head out for swimming lessons. A little about that first.

We signed up Lily for introductory swimming lessons. The class is for five- and six-year-olds. Macey, who is four, was obviously too young. There was a class for younger kids, but it was full-up when we scheduled. Being that we think it’s important for our kids to learn to swim, we went ahead and signed-up Lily, thinking that Macey would catch up the next year.

I wasn’t in town for the first class, so The Scientist took both girls. Lily’s class isn’t parents in the water, so my wife stayed by the side of the pool with Macey and watched. Long story short: when Macey figured out that she wasn’t getting into the water, she had a huge fucking meltdown. This lasted, apparently, for the entire duration of the class (45 minutes) and well into the ride home.

A helpful employee of the pool saw this happening, and offered to let Macey into the littler kid class, even though it was full. So, my wife explained to Macey that NEXT TIME, she can get into the pool, too. This did little to stem the flow of tears, from what I’m told.

Flash-forward one week.

The entire family (in-laws included) shows up at the pool, only to be greeted by a group of parents and kids standing outside a locked door. It turns out that the powers that be decided to cancel lessons over the Easter weekend and not bother to tell anyone. Macey, as you can imagine, was NOT pleased by the news that she would have to wait another week to get into the pool. It’s worth nothing that she wasn’t nearly as displeased as The Scientist, who was ready to tear someone’s head off.

We go back home, kill a little bit of time, then head off to the Easter egg hunt at our church. We did this last year, and it was about an hour of crafts which were met with poor to middling enthusiasm from the girls, followed 15 minutes of Bible lessons, follow by 15 minutes of screaming, running around looking for plastic eggs filled with candy. The last part, as you might imagine, was the best received.

The entire family (in-laws included) show up to the church, and it’s strangely quiet and empty. We ask a fellow parishioner who happens to be there and she says, “Oh, the Easter egg hunt was cancelled. No-one told you?” This is mostly our fault, being that we’ve been more than a little lackadaisical about our church attendance in the last, oh, year, and we hadn’t bothered to add the girls names to the sign-up sheet, assuming that two more among the droves that would be there wouldn’t make any difference.

So, for the second time in one day, the activity that our girls were really looking forward to was cancelled. They’re grumpy, my father-in-law is grumpy, and I’m maybe the grumpiest of all. I don’t like to see my kids disappointed, which sucks, and I didn’t get my nap, which sucks ever harder.

The Scientist and I do a quick huddle to figure out what to do next. We both feel like we owe the girls some sort of entertainment; to just slink home and plop them in front of the TV seems like a cop-out.

I suddenly remember that I saw the Easter Bunny at the mall last time I was there. So we pack up the entire family (in-laws included) and head off to the mall.

When we get there, there’s no Easter Bunny.

Thankfully, he’s just on a break. We have 15 minutes to kill, so we wonder around the food court, get a pretzel, buy The Scientist some underwear at Victoria’s Secret, and head back.

When we get back to the photo area, suddenly there’s a line of 20 people. My comment at seeing this was something akin to, “Oh, fuck me!” But we get in the line. And wait. And wait. And wait. You wouldn’t think it would take so long to sit a couple kids on a guy in a bunny suit and click a photo. But it is taking a long time. The kids are restless and bored. The in-laws have bailed on us and are resting on a bench away from the madness. I’m just about at the end of my rope.

But then something happens which turns everything around.

There are two families in front of use, each with two little kids. The first family gets up there and the older kid sits down next to the bunny, no problem. But the other kid wants nothing to do with it. He’s got that three-year-old version of “no fucking way” written all over his face. He literally digs in his heels and his father ends up dragging him beside the Easter Bunny. And this kid is howling the entire time.

Now, it probably makes me a very bad person, but I find this incredibly funny. I mean, I sympathize with the parents; like us, they’ve waited a half hour or so, and now their kid is blowing up. Finally they station this screaming, tear-streaked kid on the opposite side of the bunny and say, “Just take the picture. Just do it.”

This is absolutely the best part of all, because they’ll have that photo to embarrass the kid with for the rest of his life. Priceless.

So the next family gets up there, and it’s the same deal. The old brother hops up, no problem, but his brother is screaming protests the entire time. His parents try to talk him down, but he’s not having it. At one point, the older brother looks at us and shrugs his shoulders as if to say, “whatya gotta do?”

They also receive future photographic blackmail.

Then I start to fret a bit that MY kids are going to freak out (making it 3 for 3). But they don’t, they’re total professionals.

Oh yeah. Thumbs up for the Easter Bunny.

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#268 In which our hero thinks about his oldest daughter, and how she continues to grow up.

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:42:00 +0000

Today my oldest, Lily was evaluated for Kindergarten.

Today is the 10^th anniversary of the Columbine shootings.

Today, I’ve been thinking a lot about these two things. It’s just a coincidence, of course… one has no relation to the other. But I think about Lily, my silly, sensitive, giggly child and how she’ll be in school this fall. Real school, not day care. It’s a big thing, a sure sign that she’s getting older. My days of being her favorite playmate are numbered. And as frustrating as it can be to listen to her whine, “Daddy, play with me! Play with me!” when all I want to do is sit and read the paper for a damn minute, it makes me a little sad to think that there will come a day when she won’t say that any more. Soon enough she’ll want to play with her real friends, and won’t have time for me. She might even be embarrassed by me, at least in public. My hope is that this embarrassment is only in public; the day she starts being embarrassed to be around me even in the privacy of our own home… well, that will be heartbreaking.

At this kindergarten they have a big lunch room, where all the grades eat at the same time. I can’t imagine my little girl collecting her tray and sitting at a table with her friends, eating and chatting. She’s so little yet! And, of course, I worry that no-one will want to sit next to her, will want to be her lunch buddy. I worry that other kids will be mean to her, make her cry. I want to protect her from all of that.

But I can’t. And whatever she faces in kindergarten or elementary school will be nothing compared to what’s to come in middle school and, yikes, high school. She’s so emotional now, so sensitive. She gets her feelings hurt if I tell her that whatever I’m doing at the moment is more important than playing with her. How can she possibly survive high school?

I’m speaking metaphorically, of course… but 10 years ago today, a lot of parents where not.

As a parent I can’t help but put myself in the position of those parents who stood outside a high school building in Colorado for four hours, waiting to see if one of the dead was their child. How can you possibly endure such a thing?

The world we live in seems so ruthless, so dangerous. It seems foolhardy at best and criminal at worst, to send your children out into it unprotected. But that’s what we have to do. The alternative is to have a woefully sheltered, backwards kid… and I’ve seen kids like that. It’s not desirable.

In our living room we have an old green chair. Since we rarely use the living room, it’s almost never sat in. In fact, it is used much more often as a ladder to get to the Playskool slide that sits next to it. However, whenever Lily is really upset about something, something we can’t talk out, I’ll scoop her up and sit in the green chair and just let her cry. It’s become shorthand in our house. “Honey, are you really upset? Do you want to go sit in the green chair?”

Usually a good cry in the green chair will set things right, or at least help Lily get over the worst of it. This probably helps me was much as my daughter, because when I’m powerless to help her, when I can’t fix the problem, I can still let her sit in my lap on the green chair and cry.

But Lily’s problems today are that her sister broke her favorite toy, or that she didn’t get to watch the TV show she wanted, or that there wasn’t any more lemonade or countless other things that seem so minor to me that I have to remind myself that they matter to a five-year-old in a way I can no longer understand.

But, the day will come when the problems are that the boy she likes doesn’t like her, or that she doesn’t have a date to the prom or that her best friend’s parents are getting divorced or who knows what else. Big problems. Problems that even 40-year-old me (or more like 55 by then) can understand.

And I won’t be able to scoop her up and take her to the green chair any more. And even if I could, she probably wouldn’t want me to. She’ll be on her own to face the big bad world.

And when she’s even older yet, and living on her own? How can I know she’s safe if I don’t see her every night? How do parents deal with that? I suppose, like most things, it becomes easier the more often it happens.

But how do you deal when something unimaginable happens, like Columbine? Waiting outside in the cold, hoping for the best, fearing the worst? Twelve kids died that day. And none of their parents thought anything about them going off to school. Assumed they would be safe and that they’d see them for dinner that evening.

How do you go on if your kid doesn’t come home for dinner and is never coming home for dinner ever again? How do you get over that grief?

I have to think that you’d have to sit in the green chair for a long, long time.

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DAUGHTER FODDER

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:24:00 +0000

One reason I love my youngest child:

Last week Macey went upstairs to use the potty. She’s been doing this lately… she seems to like the upstairs bathroom better than the downstairs one. I don’t really know why. Regardless, she had been gone for some time, so I called up to her and asked what she was doing. I couldn’t make out her reply so I went upstairs.

ME: What’s going on up here?
MACEY: I pooped, and my poop stinked, so I gave it a courtesy flush.
ME: A what?!
MACEY: A courtesy flush!

Don’t ask me where she got the concept of a “courtesy flush.” But I totally believe her that it was justified.

One reason I love my oldest child:

Couple of weeks ago at dinner time, Lily, out of the blue, turns to me and says, “Daddy, tell me everything you know about vampires.”

I laughed out loud, because there was an edge of urgency to her voice, like she knew something I didn’t know.

So, I spent the next five minutes telling her about vampires. I started with the obvious stuff: they have pointed teeth, they drink blood instead of eating food, they burn up in sunlight, you have to put a stake (“What’s a stake?” “It’s a big pointed stick”) through their hearts to kill them, they can turn into bats and wolves and mist (“What’s mist?” “Like fog?” “Oh, okay”), they sleep in coffins…

Every time I paused, Lily would say, “Daddy, keep telling me about vampires.”

I had to really dig deep to think of what else I knew about vampires. They can’t cross running water (right? I think I read that somewhere), um… I seemed to remember that to be sure they were dead you had to cut their heads off and fill their mouths with communion wafers--but I keep this bit of knowledge to myself. I mentioned that Nosferatu was one of the first vampires (in the movies, at least)… both girls are familiar with Nosferatu because he makes a cameo appearance in a SpongeBob SquarePants episode (yeah, really).

And that’s why, an hour later when The Scientist came home from the barn, the entire family was sitting around the computer watching Nosferatu clips on YouTube.

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#267 In which our hero discusses a movie that he may have mentioned his desire to see in passing, pt. II

noreply@blogger.com (craig) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:59:00 +0000

Part I here.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE, BUT UNDERSTOOD.

The pacing.

This was, by far, my biggest gripe about the entire movie. It just seemed like everything moved so fast. Of course, there's a lot of ground to cover in the comic, and Zack Snyder seemed determined to keep as true to (and as much of) the source as he could. But the result, in my opinion, was a breakneck pace. I kept thinking to myself, “Wow, this is good... imagine how much better it would be if they had more time... like a 12-hour HBO miniseries.”

So, even though I enjoyed seeing all this little moments from the comic, none of them got as much attention as they deserved. Take Rorschach's series of interviews with the doctor in prison. This is reduced to a single encounter lasting a minute or so. I'm curious if people who hadn't read the comic felt the same as I did. The comic unfolds at a somewhat leisurely pace, comparatively. But if you hadn't read the book, maybe it just seemed like an action-packed movie.

After watching the movie, I have a renewed respect for how well the comic narrative is put together. One event flows nicely to the next; and things that you thought were just set dressing turn out to be important in the end (Oh, the crazy guy with the END IS NEAR sign was really Rorschach? That missing comic book writer was key to the mystery? In the end Ozymandious refers to The Black Freighter thing going through the entire movie? No shit?)

The fast pace also forced some of the things that unspooled organically in the book to seem rushed to the point of incomprehension in the movie. Doctor Manhattan is the perfect example of this. In the comic he started out in a full black body suit for a costume. As time passed his costume became skimpier and skimpier until he wore nothing at all. But in the movie, rather than this being an illuminating metaphor for him becoming more and more disassociated from the human race, he starts out in a Speedo then, a scene later, he’s naked.

Sub-plots.

There was no way that everything was going to fit in this movie, but some of the critical sub-plots which needed to be there were almost just mentioned in passing.

The Comedian/Silk Spectre I/Silk Spectre II sub-plot is a perfect example. We see the Comedian trying to rape Laurie’s mother, then we find out he’s actually Laurie’s father. No time is spent developing this incredibly complicated and human relationship.

And there are other odd incongruities, things related to sub-plots that weren’t developed. Like Bubastis. Without the tie-in to the squid, and the explanation that she (Bubastis) was an early triumph in genetic manipulation... there's really no reason for her to be in the movie. In fact, I have to think that virgin viewers would think, “Um, what the hell is that? And why's it in this movie?” Also, near the end when Doctor Manhattan reassembles himself (again) he speaks the line right out of the comic; “It didn't kill Osterman, did you think it would kill me?” And I had to stop and think, have they established that Doctor Manhattan's real name is Osterman? Was that even mentioned?

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE AND DIDN'T UNDERSTAND

Silk Spectre & Ozymandias’ costumes

Like I said, I liked most of the costume updates, but these two really fell flat for me. From the first still I saw of Silk Spectre’s costume I didn’t like it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for skin-tight latex on the ladies, but her costume seemed needlessly complicated. I guess that’s a corset thing around her middle? It just seemed to me that you could have updated his costume, kept it sexy, but not have had so many moving parts. But I actually have much bigger issues with Ozymandias’ getup. I understand that the gold and purple thing of the comic doesn’t seem especially heroic onscreen… and they did capture the Egyptian feel of it in the movie. But I hated the giant foam muscles. Not only was it obnoxious (and way too reminiscent of the worst of the movie Batman suits), it didn’t feel true to the character. Ozymandias never enjoyed playing superhero like the others, and he certainly didn’t need to enhance his look with fake muscles. If anything, it seems like Ozymandias would have a simpler, more functional costume.

Laurie and Dan getting mugged.

This is right out of the comic, of course... Laurie and Dan and jumped by a gang of toughs in an alley, and they have to fight them off. But unlike the comic, Laurie and Dan seemed to have no qualms about MURDERING several of them. As in, NiteOwl snaps a guy's neck, and Silk Spectre stabs a guy in the neck with a knife. They're still supposed to be superHEROES, and this just seemed way out of character.

The ending.

Yes, I know I wrote that I was okay with the ending… and mostly I am. But there’s something fundamentally different about positioning the attack as being from Doctor Manhattan and from an alien squid. In the comic, it’s made clear that the squid appearing wasn’t an act of war, it was a mistake. As such, the world unites to deal with something that may or may not occur in the future. This, in my mind, makes it much more conceivable that Adrian could guide the world toward a new utopia. Because this wouldn’t happen in the movie version. If all of the world’s governments thought that Doctor Manhattan attacked them, and that he might do it again at any moment, this wouldn’t lead to utopia… if anything, it would lead to the largest police state ever known. I can’t imagine any politician would support funding for the arts when a giant blue mass-murderer was on the loose. If anything, the world would be united in building the biggest gun possible. This would lead to a state of unending war preparation… something not conducive to enlightened thinking.

I’m sure there’s plenty of other little things that I loved or hated that I’m forgetting at the moment. I did only see it once. After I’ve watched it a bunch of times on DVD (oh yes, I’ll definitely be buying the super-duper extended director’s cut platinum edition) will I pick up on everything.

Maybe I’ll even go see it again in the theater. But if I want to, I best hurry… it’s kinda tanking. Which really tells me everything I need to know about want non-fanboys think of it.

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