Entry 490: Welcome to Miami

Getting ready to head out of town.  Early tomorrow morning, we embark on a road trip to Miami, F-L-A.  We are taking our talents to South Beach.  Actually the bulk of the trip will be spent at a retirement community in Tampa (and on the road), but that doesn't sound nearly as exciting.

[This song is so old it can legally drink -- crazy.  Also, an Eva Mendes appearance in the video, before she got big, and way before she collaborated again with Will Smith in the all-time classic "Hitch."  (You forgot that movie even existed, huh?)]

This will be my first trip to S's parents' new place.  It should be good -- relaxing, hopefully.  I'm not too excited about the drive.  We have to break it up into two days, each way, so we're spend four days on the road.  We strongly considered flying, but flying is so expensive this time of the year.  Also, it comes with its own annoyances -- getting to and from the airport, dealing with delays, not having schedule flexibility, not having (or needing to rent) a car in Florida, being limited in what luggage we can bring, etc.  With kids these annoyances are exacerbated, especially dealing with car seats.  I hate car seats, so much.  I mean, it's good that they keep kids safe(r), but they are such a pain when it comes to traveling.  I can't wait until we are done with them.  Although, the way laws are now, you need a booster seat until you're, like, 175 pounds or 25-years-old.  You'd think car companies would invent some sort of standard, adjustable, built-in seat-harness that would work for kids and adults, but they haven't for some reason -- maybe they're in cahoots with Big Car Seat.

Actually, why don't cars have that?  Why aren't the backseats of cars built specifically for kids, considering that's who mostly rides in them?  Then, if an adult needs to sit in the back, you can pop out the standard kid seat and put it in the trunk or something.  Doesn't that make infinitely more sense?  Or better yet, the seat could be adjusted for adults or kids the same way the driver's seat can be adjusted for different sized drivers.  Imagine being able to take a Lyft or ride in a friend's car knowing that your kids will always fit.  What a Utopian thought!

Anyway...

In my last post I said I would give my ranked list of Democratic candidates.  But, then I said I might not because I might not feel like doing it this week, and that indeed is the case.  Well, actually, it's more that I don't the time than I don't want to.  There's so much to do, and I need to do it, in part because it needs to be done, in part to keep the peace.  S can sometimes get, let's say, particular about trips like this.  Basically, she wants to do everything her way, but she also wants me to do a lot of it.  This wouldn't be a problem if I was a mind reader, but sadly I am not.*  This used to cause a lot of squabbles, but I think we're getting better at handling it.  For my part, I just do things my way, and then at least they're done.  For her part, I think she's getting better at not sweating the small stuff.  There's a big out-of-sight-out-of-mind component to this too.  Like, if she's away on business then she doesn't really bother about the kids, because she knows I can handle them.  But, if she's at home watching the kids eat, then she gets all stressed if one of them doesn't finish his milk or something like that.  So, if I just do things and say "don't worry, I took care of it" then things typically go more smoothly.

Well, that's my take on it, anyway.  If you asked S, she might have a totally different opinion on the matter.  But, as I frequently say, I'm the one with the blog, not her, so you necessarily get my point of view.

Until next time...

*Back in, like, 2005 I did online dating, and one of the profile questions was, "If you were a superhero, what superpower would you want to have?"  I put "mind-reading," thinking it was a somewhat interesting, outside-the-box answer.  But, then, like, 75% of the profiles I viewed said the same thing.  It makes sense; in dating the ability to read minds would be very helpful.  Although, thinking about it now, it's a pretty creepy answer.  Mind-reading is a total invasion of privacy.  I wouldn't pick that as my superpower today out of respect for everybody else.  (I might pick to have the brain processing power of a supercomputer.  That'd be pretty cool.)

Also, I'm not sure how helpful it would be to read people's thoughts.  Would you be able to make sense of it or would it come out as a dreamlike stream of consciousness?  And it certainly wouldn't be fair to judge people on their thoughts.  I think some terrible thoughts; everybody thinks some terrible thoughts .  We literally can't help it.  We have no control over what horrendous things pop into our heads at a given moment.  What makes us who we are is how we act (or don't) on these terrible thoughts.  And that we do have control over... I think.

Entry 489: Realpolitik

I figured I'd talk about politics in this post, in part because politics is less annoying right now than my day-to-day life.  My youngest son is wearing me out.  Nothing serious, but he's going through a tough stretch at the moment, for some reason, and he's been a struggle to deal with.  I'd rather watch the impeachment proceedings on endless loop than listen to him whine again.  To make things worse, S is out of the country for work, so it's all on me.  She gets back tonight, and it will be none to soon.

Wednesday was particularly bad.  It was an hour-long temper tantrum before bed.  That's the worst time too, because it prevents him from getting a full night's sleep, which is what he needs most.  He was really tired yesterday morning.  I wanted to let him sleep and take him to school late, but that doesn't work, because I have to take his brother to school on-time, and so he'd have to get up and go with me anyway.  Also, he had a field trip that he would've missed.  That's actually a good thing -- the field trip -- because it's about a 45-minute round-trip bus ride, and kids his age often doze off during bus rides.  He was much easier to deal with last night, so I'm thinking he might have caught some Z's.

He's an odd kid, not in a bad way, but sometimes in an exacerbating way.  He's super particular about the most random things.  It's like he has a mild OCD-ish condition.  I've never known a kid so fastidious.  When he puts his jacket on, he gets really upset if the sleeves of his shirt roll up at all; his socks have to be perfectly lined up on his foot -- seams at his toes, tread on the bottom, pushed down on his ankles; his bed has to be made to his precise specifications before he'll sleep in it -- all blankets smoothed out perfectly across the four corners; and he's always grousing about his pants being too tight or his shoes being too hard or his milk being too hot or too cold or something else that's not exactly to his liking.  Sometimes he gets really upset about it too.  That's how most of his tantrums begin -- something trivial isn't perfect, and it snowballs from there.  I do my best to nip it in the bud, but once the wheels come off, it's nearly impossible to get them back on.  At some point, I just throw up my arms and let him cry about it, because I literally don't know what else to do.  Sorry, kid, nothing in life is ever exactly the way you want it to be.  Go ahead and cry if it makes you feel better, but it's not solving anything.

Which is actually a good segue into politics, because I'm hearing a lot of liberal complaints about the slate of Democratic candidates, and my feeling is: Don't pull that shit in this election.  When people ask me if I'm for Biden or Sanders or Warren or somebody else, my answer is "yes."  Every candidate has flaws, some of them big flaws -- Biden is a past-his-prime gaffe-prone white guy; Sanders is way to the left economically of the median Democratic voter; same with Warren; Booker doesn't excite people; Buttigieg is too inexperienced and privileged; Klobuchar is the female version of Booker; Steyer and Bloomberg are super rich dudes trying to buy their way in; etc., etc., down the long (but rapidly shortening) line.  Fine.  But, we gotta roll with what we got, and we need everybody on board, begrudgingly or otherwise, with whomever comes out on top.  Because it's either them or Trump, period.  Worst case scenario isn't John McCain or Mitt Romney -- that flank of the GOP is dead (in McCain's case, literally, RIP) -- it's a whole new, meaner, more vicious animal.

And, look, maybe everybody will get on board in the end.  It could be people are just fired up now in the primary season, and once a candidate actually emerges, "anybody but Trump" will carry the day.  I hope so, but I'm a little worried -- not full-fledged freaking out (what's the point?), but a bit on edge.

With all that said, I do have candidates I like more than others, of course.  My previous list has totally disintegrated, being that my top candidate is not even in the race anymore.  I'm not going to make a whole new list, but I'll give you the abridged version.  It's based almost exclusively one criterion: most likely to carry the swing states needed to win the Electoral College.  Admittedly, this is not a very good criterion, because it's almost totally unknowable.  We have little idea what will motivate the electorate in the tiny slivers of swing areas to turn out on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November next year.  All we can do is guess, and my best guess, based on the elections -- special, midterm, gubernatorial, etc. -- since 2016, is that we need somebody moderate in demeanor, who will push a slightly left-of-center agenda on economics (expanded Obamacare, infrastructure, stronger unions, higher minimum wage), immigration (expanded legal immigration, humane treatment of all immigrants, reasonable border security), guns (anti the insanity we live with now), climate (less fossil fuels, more renewables), and the military (strong defense, not too hawkish), while being pretty liberal on social issues like abortion, LGBTQ rights, and racial justice.  Oh, and also somebody who is totally charismatic and will inspire tons of different types of people to vote for them -- basically another Barack Obama.

But, there is nobody like that among the Democratic candidates.  So, again, we have to make due with what we got.  As Dan Savage likes to say about love, and it works for politics too: There is no 1, but, there are a lot of .65s that we can round up.  To that end, based on my criterion above, I give my top-five candidates below.  First, however, I want to emphasize that this is not a list of the candidates whose policies I most like.  That list would look totally different.  One of biggest fallacies people make in politics is assuming the positions they hold are also the ones that would be the most politically advantageous to adopt (Mike Pesca once called it MSNBC-itis).   I'm trying not to make that mistake.  The counterargument, however, is that nobody knows what's politically advantageous, so you might as well do what you think is right, and work to make that the popular position.  I understand that, and it could be correct.  I even espouse that philosophy at times.  So, I could be approaching this in the totally wrong way.  We likely will never know, at least not until it's too late.  That's the problem with predicting the future.

Anyway, my list...

Actually, I have to go.  Something just came up.  If I get a chance, I'll finish this post later this weekend.  That's unlikely, however, because we have a pretty packed weekend.  Instead, this will probably sit until next week -- the world's worst cliffhanger.  And that's assuming I even feel like writing about this then.  I might post about a totally different topic.  That's the luxury of having a blog with a readership in the low double digits.

Until next time...

Entry 488: When We Was Fab

I've been thinking about deleting my Facebook account for years.  I'm the person this Onion article is making fun of.  I can't stand Facebook's corporate philosophy and their bullshit "free speech" stance on misinformation, and every time Mark Zuckerberg opens his mouth, I cringe that somehow this fool is one of the most influential people in the world.  He's probably number one on my dumb-smart people list -- my list of people who have amazing mental abilities in one narrowly defined area and couldn't be less impressive intellectually outside this specific milieu.  (Actually, Zuck can't be #1; I just remembered Ben Carson exists.)

However, I never actually push the delete button on Facebook, because there are parts of it that I really like and that directly benefit my life.  It's an easy way to keep up with people you care about, with whom you might otherwise lose touch (and that's a lot of people!).  And even for people with whom you would keep up otherwise, Facebook is a decent supplement.  I get to see pictures of my nieces and nephews and other close family members and friends I otherwise wouldn't see.  For somebody who lives thousands of miles from so many of his love ones, that's important.

Then, there are just practical things Facebook is good for.  My Krav Maga gym has a Facebook page, and I use it all the time to keep abreast of class announcements and things of that nature.  As I mentioned before, the old building exploded, and so things were really up in the air for a few months schedule-wise (they still are, but at least we have a new permanent location), and that Facebook page was a great resource for staying in the loop.

Finally, there's the nostalgia factor, and I'm a nostalgic guy.  I love thinking back on people I knew and things I did in the past.  And it doesn't happen often, but every once in a while I get contacted by somebody on Facebook, and I'll be like OMG!  I haven't thought about this person in forever!  How do they even remember me?!  (Of course, I remember them, because I remember pretty much everybody.  It takes some prompting now, but it's still there!)  This happened to me twice in the past few months and both times it brought me a little bit of joy.

The first was with a guy who was on my rec baseball team as a teenager.  I played on a team with a bunch of kids from a different school, and I felt like I never really fit in.  A lot of them were city kids, whereas I was a suburb kid, so they had a bit of an edge to them, a front, that I just didn't have.  There was one kid in particular who I thought really didn't like me.  He never did anything explicit to make me think this; I just got a dickish vibe from him -- too cool for school.  I was only on the team for a few seasons, and, like I said, I didn't go to school with my teammates, so I never really saw any of them again.

So, imagine my surprise when I got a friend request from this dude on Facebook.  I accepted it (I don't hold grudges and I'm down to be friends with whomever), and I checked out his page, and he seems like a cool, down-to-earth dude now.  It's got me rethinking things.  I mean, maybe he really was a dick back in the day, but he's since matured and change -- or maybe, and this is the more likely scenario, I had it wrong all along.  Maybe he always was a decent guy, and I just never picked up on it.  Sometimes you get a bad first impression, and it becomes a self-actualizing loop.  You think somebody is a dick, so you don't engage with them, and then since they don't engaged with you, you think they're a dick.  There have been numerous times when people have told me that when they first met me they thought I was aloof or super serious, which couldn't be further from the truth.  But, then I was thinking the same thing about them, and that ended up being equally wrong.

Another thing I try to keep in mind is that you never know what type of shit people, especially young people, are going through behind the scenes.  If somebody is standoffish or cold toward you, it could be a manifestation of their own shit and actually have little to do with you.

Anyway, the other person who contacted me is this guy M I went to grade school with.  We didn't really know each other that well, he was a grade below me, but we were in the "challenge program" together, and we were both out-of-district because of it, so we rode the same bus home, and it was a long bus ride.  I think they only had one bus for the out-of-district kids, so it meandered all throughout the city.  As a result, I ended up hanging out with everybody on the bus.  It was a make-shirt nerd crew (and I was the de facto leader).

I remember M well -- he was hard to forget.  He had a big Afro; he wore glasses with an elastic band on them; he was supremely intelligent (the smart kid among the smart kids)*; and he had a serious potty mouth -- even by ten-year-old boy standards.  I saw his profile picture on Facebook one time -- a friend of a friend -- and I was going to send him a friend request, but then I didn't, fearing that he wouldn't have positive memories of me, if he remembered me at all.  He got bullied a lot, and I have this weird recurring thought with kids I grew up with who were bullied a lot that I was one of the people doing it, and I don't remember it.  It's totally irrational, as not only do I not remember being a bully, nobody's ever told me I was one.  I don't know where it comes from.  But, whatever the case, I didn't friend request M.

*He was a perennial contender in the school spelling bee, and I remember one year some friends and I made picks of who we thought would go the furthest, and he was my pick.  He went out super early on MARTYR, and I was so annoyed because I knew nobody else in the competition knew it had an irregular ending, but he just got the unlucky draw.

This was probably a few years ago, and then earlier this week, M mentioned me in a comment about our old challenge class, and a different Facebook friend tagged me in it, and I was pretty surprised by it.  So, this time I did friend request him, and he accepted it, and then he messaged me some random memories from the bus, and I returned with some of my own, and it's been a really nice little interaction.  And there's no way it would have happened without something like Facebook.

Anyway, it's late, and I feel like this post has been more rambling than usual, so I'll wrap it.  But I'll leave you with George Harrison's "When We Was Fab."  According to M, this song came on the bus radio once, and I went on a funny rant trying to break it down and analyze what the hell it was about.  (I obviously hadn't discovered the Beatles yet and probably didn't even know what "fab" meant.)  I have absolutely zero recognition of this, but I do remember the song -- and it immediately transports me to that time in my life.

Until next time...

[In the song he says "long time ago when we was fab."  The Beatles broke up in 1969 and the song came out in 1987.  So, his "long time ago" wouldn't even push us out of the 2000s today.  Nothing fucks with my head more than time.] 

Entry 487: Thanksgiving Break, 2019

It's the last day of Thanksgiving Break, 2019, and it was a mostly successful break.  Everybody got sick at some point, but nothing serious.  There is a case of the sniffles going around.  I've been kinda snotty and sore-throat-y since Tuesday, but it hasn't been enough to knock me out of commission.  It's a slow burn illness.  I worked from home Tuesday and Wednesday, so I haven't been in the office in a week.  The kids didn't have school on Wednesday and S is between jobs (she starts a new one tomorrow), so it's been a full house the past week.

We did our best to stay busy and keep the kids involved with activities -- you know, idle hands and whatnot.  If they're left to their own devices, it's a countdown until they start fighting.  Lil' S1 is old enough now to know how to push his younger brother's buttons, and Lil' S2 isn't old enough yet to know how to ignore it.  Sometimes they have some funny arguments though, such as the following:

Big: Do you know where your Dog Man book is?

Little: It's at Ava and Thatha's.  I lost it.

Big: You didn't lose it if it's at Ava and Thatha's, because you know where it is.

Little: No.

Big: Yes!  How can you lose something if you know where it is?  I left Pokemon cards at Ava and Thatha's so that I can play with them next time we go there.  I didn't lose them, but you would say I lost them.

Little: No.

Big: Yes!  The way you say it, I would have lost them but I didn't!  But that's how you say it.

Little: No!  I didn't say that!  You're making me sound worser!  You can't do that!  That's not fair!

If I had to pick a winner, I'd give this round to Little Brother -- "You're making me sound worser!" was a nice rebuttal, the four-year-old equivalent of "don't put words in my mouth."  He just needs to learn to keep his composure, but I think that's literally impossibly for a kid his age.

Anyway, Thanksgiving day was quite nice.  We hosted what ended up being a pretty big dinner -- 11 adults and six kids.  I made deviled eggs and cranberry sauce, both of which I love making because they are both so easy and yet so delicious.  For the eggs, I mix the yolks with mayonnaise and yellow mustard and sprinkle on paprika -- that's it.  For the cranberry sauce, I mix the berries with (way too much) sugar and OJ and boil it until the berries pop and then let everything congeal -- that's it.  So simple, but always such a hit. 

I also was in charge of the turkey, which was also really easy because we bought it precooked from Whole Foods.  All I had to do was pop it in the oven for an hour and a half to reheat it.  I didn't have to worry about meat thermometers or overcooking or, worse, undercooking it and giving everybody salmonella.  Again, easy-peasy.

I completely gorged myself, naturally, and I've been hitting up the leftovers all weekend.  I "invented" a new sandwich.  It's a grilled cheese with turkey inside, but the bread is coated with mayonnaise instead of butter (try it, seriously), and then once it's done, you open it up and put on some cold cranberry sauce and dill pickle slices.  Absolutely divine.  Friday night, I had two of those suckers, and a massive slice of cherry pie with whipped cream, as an after dinner "snack."  I mean, what's the point of doing strenuous workouts on a regular basis if not to eat like a glutton every once in a while?

[Originally Eric Stoltz was cast as Marty McFly in "Back to the Future", but the director Robert Zemeckis didn't think he was right, comedically, so he put Michael J. Fox in and basically reshot the entire film.  Pretty crazy.  Spike Jonze did that with Scarlett Johansson in "Her" (originally the part was performed by Samantha Morton), but that was just a voice, not a live action part.  Good move by Zemeckis (and Jonze, probably).  I think Stoltz is too emo for Marty McFly.]  

Yesterday we went to the Natural History Museum (technically, the National Museum of Natural History, but I've literally never heard anybody call it that) with another couple and their two kids.  It was a good way to spend an afternoon, even though I've seen almost everything in that museum a dozen times.  (It's the museum I've been to the most in DC, by a large margin.)  There was a new dinosaur fossil exhibit, but the kids, surprisingly, weren't that into it.  My kids really liked the Insect Zoo, where they can hold cockroaches and pet walking sticks, and our friends' kids liked the gemstones.  And of course all the kids liked the Doritos at the museum cafe.

Apart from the museum, it's just nice to go out sometimes and be among the people, especially on a crisp, clear late November day.  It feels so quaint and yuletide.  We took the Metro, which is good for about ten minutes.  After that, the kids get restless and start climbing over the seats and wrestling each other in the aisles and whatnot.  It's fine when the train is nearly empty, but that's usually not the case.

Last night, after the museum, S went over to a friend's house, so the boys and I watched a movie.  Lil' S1 is at the age where he can appreciate actually good films and not just that cartoon crap.  (Lil' S2 is only good for about 15 minutes either way.)  So, I can pick out decent stuff to watch with him.  I thought about Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark last night, but S said it was too violent, so I went with Back to the Future instead.  Lil' S2 loved it, as did I when I was his age.  He mostly understood it too, although I had to provide a running commentary to fill in the gaps.  He's eager to watch part two, but I think I'm going hold off as long as possible on that one.  It's just not as good and not as suitable for kids.  Although, he might like it if only for the hoverboard scenes.

Alright, I'm out.  Until next time...

Entry 486: School Stuff

With S out of town for the week on work, I've been doing all the parenting myself, which means I've had to pay closer attention to some of the school stuff S usually handles.  I'm reasonably informed about what's happening in my kids' school lives.  I drop them off every morning, so I know all the people who work at the school, and I know a lot of the other kids and parents in their classes. I go to half the parent-teacher conferences, because S and I usually split them up evenly.  And I get bombarded with automated text messages and emails telling me the latest classroom news -- some of them I even read.  But, I just want the big picture.  I feel like I don't need (nor do I want) the details about specific assignments and projects and such.  My view on that is that's on the student.  It should be structure in a way such that they can manage things on their own with minimal parental involvement.  I think it's better for the student that way, and I know it's better for the parent that way.

S agrees with me on this in theory, but in practice, once one of the kids starts to struggle, her Mama Bear instincts take over, and she feels compelled to help them.  Then we have an argument, because I feel pretty strongly that learning to overcome struggles will be far more valuable to our kids in the long run than will getting a 3 instead of 2 in social studies our the next report card.  It got to the point to where S said, "Do you want our kid to be held back in second grade?" which if you know DC public schools, is extremely unlikely to happen, and if it does (but it won't), then maybe it is for the best.  Because both our kids were born in August, they're just as close in age to the children in the grades one below them than they are to the kids in their own grades.  I think this matters, at least a little bit.  At some point, it won't, but for now it does.  Development is still month-to-month at their ages.

But, since marriage is a compromise and all that.  I've been trying to not be so militant about my no-help policy.  This especially comes into play when S is away and filled with anxiety (and maybe some guilt) about not being with her kids.  She was especially worried about this big project Lil' S1 had due -- he had to research numerical facts and then present them on a poster board with pictures -- so I assured her I would work on it with him.  It went fine.  The only things I did were Google and print pictures of things he told me he wanted (he doesn't know how to do that, and I don't want him using my computer to try to learn) and trace some of his letters in marker, because it would have taken him all day to do it by himself.  This seemed reasonable.  It came out decently.  He said the presentation went well, and the only comment he relayed from his teacher was that he got a point taken off because he didn't write his name on it.  Then he tried to blame me for it, which is a perfect example of when helping is counterproductive -- he should feel full ownership of his work, good or bad.

The other thing I've had to work on him with is his spelling.  Apparently, they have weekly spelling tests, and he's been scoring in the 0%-10% range.  His teacher mentioned it to me one time during drop-off, and I agreed to help him, and then I said that I didn't even know he had spelling tests.  The moment it came out of my mouth I realized, it was one of those things you say in your own defense, but it actually makes you sound worse.  She gave me a look of astonishment (not in a good way), and then said, "I post them on Rallyhood every week."  I smiled, shrugged, and assured her that he would do better in the future.  See, I learned from my previous mistake.  I didn't tell her that I still hadn't created a Rallyhood account and was only vaguely familiar with its existence.

So, we did some spelling words.  He's a dreadful speller, which is somewhat strange, because he's a pretty strong reader for his age.  I'm not super concerned that he become a crack speller.  I would guess my spelling skills are well above that of the average adult, and it doesn't really help me much in life.  I know many intelligent people (e.g., my wife), who aren't great spellers.  It's not that important a skill, considering we communicate mostly through devices that literally spell for us.  But, what studying spelling words can do, I think, is train him to focus his mind on something that he doesn't particularly love.  That is a very important life skill.  No matter what school we attend, or what job we hold, there are always parts we don't like, and being able to do those parts efficiently, nevertheless, I suspect, is crucial to our success and satisfaction in those endeavors.

Plus, I've long felt that rote memorization gets a bad rap as a learning technique.  Everybody is always about "the concepts," which is great, but in my experience the concepts are often facilitated by the memorization.  All the basic math formulas I learned in pre-college -- Pythagorean theorem, quadratic formula, limit definition of a derivative, etc. --  I memorized and used without having a deep conceptual understanding.  And then later, with more experience, I gained this understanding, in large part because I already knew (through memorization) what they were and where to use them.  The what and where led to the how and why.  I still remember looking over a friend's algebra homework as a freshman in college, and seeing how they completed the square, and having an epiphany: That's how the quadratic formula is derived!  If I didn't know the quadratic formula by heart and hadn't memorized the step-by-step process of completing the square, would I have made this connection?  I doubt it.

Anyway, back to Lil' S1, we spent a long time on his spelling words, and he only learned five of the ten words on his list, and I'm not convinced he will retain even those when his test comes around.  But, I think we made some progress.  He did much better toward the end.  We all have our memorization techniques, and I think Lil' S1 was starting to figure his out.  I feel confident that we can get his scores up in the 80%-100% range before too long.

One thing that helped a lot was motivating him through "extra" iPad time.  I use quotes because I just adjust the baseline, so that it's actually just normal iPad time.  He usually watches 15-20 minutes at night, and so I told him he could have five minutes plus an additional two minutes for each of five words he could spell correctly without looking at the sheet.  So, he took a few minutes to study, and then I administered the "test," and after not being able to memorize any of the words for the previous 45 minutes and complaining about it constantly ("Daddy!  I don't know how to learn things!"), he magically got every single one correct.  I was happily surprised.  I guess that's the power of the carrot -- figuratively speaking, of course.  If I offered my kids a literal carrot as a reward, I don't think it would work very well.

I'll keep you all posted on how it goes.  But, to put things into perspective, both my kids seem to be happy and well-adjusted little boys.  They both seem to "get it," meaning they know how to function within their little stations in this world.  That is probably much more important than what percentile they fall into scholastically.  One of Lil' S1's good friends was admitted to the psychiatric department at the children's hospital last night.  I don't know why exactly, but I do know an ambulance had to come get him at school, and they don't send ambulances to schools for nothing.  It's obviously a sad situation all around.  His parents are going through a terrible divorce, and it seems like their dad is running away from it all, putting everything on their mom's plate, and she just can't handle the full load.

We help out when we can, but there's only so much we can (or, truthfully, are willing to) do.  Last night for instance, she texted S and asked if she could come over and spend the night at her house with her youngest child (the little brother of the kid in the hospital), so that she could stay at the hospital with her oldest son.  S isn't in town, so she can't do it, and I have to watch my kids so I can't do it.  Plus, that's a big ask, in general.  We know these people, but were not super close friends.  But, maybe that shouldn't matter.  Maybe you should just help people who need help, because it's what you should do.  I don't know.  I mean, what I would like to do, all things equal, is phase these people out of our lives.  It's too much drama, and their kids get along less and less well with our kids as they get older.  Lil' S2 doesn't even like their youngest son, even though they're the same age.  (This kid has a serious temper and a hitting problem -- a legit one, not a playful, watched-too-many-episode-of-Power-Rangers one -- which explains why Lil' S2 doesn't like him.  I wouldn't like him either.)  But all things aren't equal, and these kids need stable adults in their lives, and this woman needs help.  Knowing this, is it ethical to say "it's not our my problem" or "I have my own family to worry about" and wash your hand of the whole situation ?  I don't know.  I really don't.

But I do know that suddenly spelling test don't seem like a very big deal.

Until next time...

Entry 485: Impeachment and Whatnot

The impeachment trials have started as you've undoubtedly heard.  They're are a good thing, I think.  The only reason they wouldn't be is if they turn public favor toward our scurrilous president, but I don't think they will do that.  They might not do much good in that regard, but I think they're unlikely to do much bad either.  Plus, public opinion aside, somebody has to hold this guy accountable for his misdeeds, and it's certainly not going to be the Republican-held Senate.  They're ride-or-die with Trump, as has been confirmed and reconfirmed many times.  Reps give public rationales about why they still support Trump, but there really is only one rationale: He's their guy and they will defend him no matter what he does -- literally.  That's it; that's the bottom line.  Everything else is just spin.

I'm keeping up on the proceedings, but I'm not absorbed in them.  It's the ongoing struggle of staying informed and staying sane.  The NPR Politics Podcast has gone to a daily format, which is nice because each episode is only about 15 minutes long.  At 1.5 speed (you get used to it), skipping the ads, you can usually knock those suckers out in under 10 minutes.  Supplement that with The Weeds (twice weekly) and The Political Gabfest (weekly), and you've got yourself a pretty solid information base.

I also have a subscription to the Washington Post, but I don't read it all that often.  I mainly have it to support my city's paper -- real journalism is important, y'know.  The subscription was a Christmas gift my dad got me -- or, technically, that I got myself.  We do a not-so-secret-Santa gift exchange each year in my extended family, and last year I drew my mom and my dad drew me.  I asked for the subscription to the Post, and my mom wanted a subscription to Acorn TV, but it got too confusing setting up and paying for an account for the other person, so we just agreed to pay for our own thing and call it good.  Actually, that's not a bad way to do gifts now that I think about it: You make a pact with a friend that you are each going to buy something nice for yourself.  That way you get exactly what you want, and you still have that sense of connection with another person.

In other news, speaking of subscription services, it sounds like Disney+ is the new BMOC.  I doubt we will get it, but maybe...  I would like to check out The Mandalorian, and The Simpsons catalog is quite enticing, but my kids have never been specifically into Disney movies, and we already have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Plus, and HBO Now.  At some point you have to cry uncle on the streaming services or you will end up paying way more for TV than you did before you cut the cord.

Actually, you can get a package of Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ for $12.99, which isn't terrible.  I would do that if ESPN+ actually was ESPN+ -- meaning it has everything ESPN has plus additional content -- but it's not.  For example, you can't get Monday Night Football on ESPN+, and that's the only thing I watch regularly on ESPN.  It's always the NFL, man.  They're going to be the last thing traditional cable has.  Their Sunday Ticket is probably single-handedly keeping DIRECTV in business, and their live games on NFL Network and ESPN are huge money deals.  (ESPN paid in the billions for Monday Night Football.)  So, I doubt the NFL is going to make their non-network games available on a $12.99/month streaming services anytime soon.

The model I would like is a pay-per-game model.  Like, if I could stream a non-network NFL game the same way you can rent a movie -- a $5 one-off -- I would probably spend at least $15 a month doing that.  But I'm just not going to pay $60 a month for a year-round DIRECTV subscription and then pay an additional $100 a month during the football season for Sunday Ticket.  Although, I did do that for two years, and the Seahawks made the Super Bowl both years, so, hmm...

Right now I have a pretty good system going -- I have solid network reception with my HD antenna, and then I have my parents' cable login credentials for everything else.  I still can't watch some Seahawks games, but that's fine -- it motivates me to spend more time with the kids.  I also have my friend JY's cable credentials, but he has Xfinity, and they went to a "two step" authorization, so every time I want to log in, I have to hope he's looking at his phone to send me the temporary pass code.

"Hey, man, can you send me that five digit code you just got?"
"37861"
"It expired -- you didn't reply fast enough.  Hold on, I'll get you a new one."
"Dude, I'm on vacation in Maui."

(Actual conversation.)

Well, I started out with a political post and somehow veered off into streaming services.  I should probably wrap it up here, as my Lil' S2's Netflix (speak of the devil) show is about to end.  He's really into Power Rangers these days.  He loves fighting and wrestling and playing "football" (i.e., wrestling with a football involved).  It's actually gotten to be a bit much.  He will just walk up to S or I and start kicking and punching us.  The other day he socked me in the ear -- like right on the tip of the ear -- and it legit hurt.  I'm watching him for the day, while S is at an all-day robotics event with Lil' S1.  It started at 8:30am and doesn't end until 4:00pm!  She's been texting how boring it is.  I would feel guilty for getting out of it, but we actually did stop by for a few hours.  Plus, she's leaving for a work trip early tomorrow morning and not returning until Friday.  So, I will be doing more than my fair share of childcare very soon.



Until next time...

Entry 484: Owner of Broken Phone

My phone broke.  It's pretty annoying.  It doesn't get service.  Sometimes I can get it by turning the phone off and on again and taking out the sim chip and putting it back in and praying to Amen-Ra, but then it just goes out again an hour later.  I looked for solutions online, but nothing worked, and I'm loath to spend a year of my life in a help session with a robot or a contractor in Bangalore.  I'm just gonna get a new phone.  It's time for an upgrade anyway -- unfortunately.  I hate upgrading things.  I absolutely despise the pressure to constantly get the "latest and greatest" when I'm perfectly happy with my old thing that was the top of the line, like, four years ago.  But so it goes.  It's Tim Apple's world, and we're forced to live in it.

Well, maybe not "forced," but at least compelled.  I thought about going rogue and just not having cell phone service.  I can still use a lot of the functionality on my phone without service, provided I have a WiFi connection.  All the apps work and I can still receive iPhone-to-iPhone texts and calls.  But there are a few crucial things for which I need service, such as the ability to speak with coworkers when I work from home and the GPS map app.  I use those two things all the time, and it adversely affects my life to not have them.  So, I think a trip to Verizon is on the horizon.  In the meantime, here's Andre Rison.

[Fun fact: Andre Rison is the only player in NFL history to post 1,000 receiving yards and have his house burned down by his girlfriend in the same year.]

In other news, it was a busy week, since I last posted.  We took the boys trick-or-treating, which was a huge success.*  I dressed up like Billy Hoyle from White Men Can't Jump.  It's one of those costumes where 65% of the population will have no idea who you are, but the other 35% will so appreciate it that it makes up for it.  One guy said it was, "the best costume of the night," and this ten-year old boy said, "I know who you are!  You're the guy from White Men Can't Jump!"  I was amazed he'd even seen the movie.  It's almost 20 years older than he is.  It was pretty cool.

*Happy belated birthday to my sister K -- sorry, I forgot to reach out on your actual birthday.

My kids went as transformers and got so much candy we hid three-fourths of it after they went to sleep, and they didn't even notice.  I've been dipping into it a little bit, but I'm not huge on Halloween candy.  Twix are good and Snickers are decent, but I don't like much beyond those two things.  I'm a snob when it comes to candy.  I like the fancy shit -- See's candies and salted dark chocolate and the like.  The typical Halloween stuff -- Skittles, Milky Way, Starbust, etc. -- don't cut it for me anymore.  They aren't worth the calories.

The day after Halloween, we dropped the kids off at school, and then hightailed it to Columbus, Ohio -- a seven hour drive -- for our friend R's wedding.  We should have just flown.  Originally, we were going to bring the boys, and we didn't want to pay $1,500 in airfare, so we didn't buy tickets.  But then S's parents agreed to watch them, and for some reason -- inertia, I suppose -- we never reevaluated our decision to drive.  We could've saved a lot of time.  Oh well.

It's not a terrible drive.  It's pretty in a lot of areas, but it's depressing in others, because you drive through these cities that progress forgot.  Lots of abandoned shopping centers and run-down buildings and dilapidated homes.  When you see swaths of the country like this, you really do understand why so many middle-Americans have so much resentment toward "coastal elites" like myself.  Why this resentment manifests in Trumpism and not, say, Bernie Sanders-style redistribution, however, is something I still don't have a good grasp on (or maybe I do: racism).  Although, I only saw one "Trump, Pence" sign the entire drive, so I'll consider that a win.

S feels especially unwelcome in such parts of the country given her brown skin.  We try to stick to making pit stops in urban (or at least urban-ish) places.  That's one nice thing about this country: Even in the reddest of states there are always pockets of blue in the cities.  And Ohio is a straight-up red state now.  It swapped with Virginia, which, thanks largely to the ever expanding DC suburbs, now has a completely Democrat-majority state government.

A funny thing about S is that she will chalk up every travel inconvenience to being in a different state.  We stopped at a gas station, and they had a mini-mart, but no public bathroom.
"What?  They don't have a bathroom.  That's weird," I said.
"That's Ohio for you!" S responded.
I started chuckling, "Oh, apparently I didn't know that Ohio was known for it's lack of gas station bathrooms."

Anyway, the wedding and the related wedding activities were all really nice.  So many friends together in one place -- I love that.  The ceremony was one of the best I've ever witnessed.  It told the story of how R and her now husband M met.  I think R wrote it, and the officiant is an actor, so it was very well-written and well-delivered, funny and heartfelt, not too long nor too short.  It was excellent all-around.

The reception was fun also, but the dance floor never really got going until the very end.  R and M built the playlist themselves, and they made a fatal mistake (IMHO) of picking music that's fun to listen to and reminisce to, but not good to dance to.  Take Billy Joel's Only the Good Die Young for example.  That's a perfect song for a bunch of middle-aged, drunk, white people (the primary constituency of this wedding) to sing along with at a bar, but it's a bad song for dancing.  Every time the dance floor really picked up for a moment, one of these mood-killing songs would come on, and everybody would leave to go get a drink or mingle.  There was no consistency.

The thing is, you just gotta stick to the classics, even if that's not normally your preferred style of music.  When I made the playlist for my wedding reception, it was all dance hits people know -- C+C Music Factory, Rob Bass, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Technotronic, Salt-N-Pepa, LMFAO, Black-Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, etc.  Most of that is stuff I would never listen to on my own, but it's great for weddings because it gets the party going on the dance floor and that's where the party's at.  Toward the end of the reception, another person who was frustrated with the musical selection strong-armed the DJ (who didn't seem to be doing anything at all) into putting on some actual dance music, and everybody got super into it, and it was a fun way to go out.



After the reception, we went to the after party back at the hotel.  Unfortunately, we were staying at a different hotel down the street, so we had to bail "early" (around 12:30 am), because S was tired.  I could've stayed out all night, but it's just as well.  This way I wasn't a slug on the drive home.  In fact, I drove the entire way.  I told S we would switch when I got tired, but I never got tired.  We made it home about as fast as one could make it without risking a reckless driving ticket.  There was almost no traffic, and we stopped only once, briefly for gas -- we didn't even get lunch.  Neither of us were hungry, probably because we ate (and drank) so much the night before.  In fact, other than a small breakfast at the hotel, I didn't eat anything until 8:30 that night.

The boys were safe and happy when we got back, which was great.  I hear they are surprisingly easy to manage when we are not around.  It's a different story when actually are here, but I'll save that for a different post.

Until next time...