I wrote this a few months ago for Josh's birthday. I couldn't post it at the time, but now I think is a good time...
Happy Birthday Josh.
Thanks so much for being a part of our lives.
It's impossible to think back on the last few years and not remember you as part of it.
You walking up to our house in Chapel Hill with Abby and N just to say hi. All your interesting knowledge about Crystallography which you patiently explained. Your excitement at finally being a dad. Your patience with our kids as they yelled in your arms. Home made bread. Pork-fest. Smarmy comments during Passover dinner. The first time I ever heard the phrase "fundy". Hiking in Eno.
This week we will all be together in the house where most of us last saw you. While I know it's not going to be fun remembering you there and how you aren't, I feel sure our time together missing you will be fun in all the right ways.
The last 9 months since you died have been, well, unpleasant. It's been hard to watch Lauren deal with it. She was so gracious in insisting that my home make-over efforts actually helped when clearly it was a bad replacement for what she really needed... you.
It's been interesting seeing how people other than the ones you lived with have dealt with the loss. I saw Morela recently and she said that your death has given her the clarity to focus on her own career. She realized that you can't count on your mate to be there, so she needed to take the reins on her newly expanding opportunities and not be timid. Not that Morela is timid in any situation, but it made a big impression on her.
Others see your loss as a reminder that you need to appreciate the time you have. Spend more time with friends and family, keep in touch, write emails, call. As I write this, I remember that this was certainly something I vowed and now that time has passed I have lapsed back into my old habits.
Most recently we have shared pictured from the beach last year. It's difficult & sad to see those pictures of the last time we were all together. But more importantly it makes me really happy to see you so happy with your wonderful family.
Happy Birthday Josh, sorry you weren't there to help us celebrate it.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
J learns a new language
J has learned a new language. It goes something like this:
Picachu is strong but not as strong as BObachu
and Bobachu is stronger than Wallychu but his sidekick is Pokewonk who's sidekick is
Frankenchu who is an even trade for Gigamon
Ad infinitum
for 20 minutes, each way to and from camp.
so I guess we like Pokemon now.
Picachu is strong but not as strong as BObachu
and Bobachu is stronger than Wallychu but his sidekick is Pokewonk who's sidekick is
Frankenchu who is an even trade for Gigamon
Ad infinitum
for 20 minutes, each way to and from camp.
so I guess we like Pokemon now.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The NPR Effect
I started a new job last week and so far it's great. I enjoy the people, the work is interesting and challenging, and it even looks like I get to suggest some re-organization (my favorite)!
My only complaint is the commute. The office is located at 360 and Bee Caves, about 12 miles from the house. Add in the "for the summer only" dropping off of J at his summer camp and I am driving about 30 miles per day.
So what, you say? So what indeed. Plenty of people drive a lengthy commute to work (although with the cost of gas, that dynamic may change when people begin to choose the "right job" in future) and 15 miles isn't that bad, really. Plus, the benefits of a steady paycheck and fulfilling work vastly outweigh the negatives of too-much-time-in-car.
But then one has to consider the "NPR effect". That is the effect of additional time in the car has brought me into the dreaded window of... hearing the stories I heard in the shower again when I am in the car. Ugh. Since NPR runs their morning programming (lasting 2 hours) twice in the morning, the story you hear at 6:20 am is the same as is broadcast at 8:20 am.
I guess I can work on getting out the door faster, thereby missing the repeat, or getting up and into the shower earlier. Neither of which is easy as it's not just me who has to move faster...
Or I can spend my nights and weekends working on a teleportation device, thereby solving my own problems, the problems of the earth and oil consumption etc. Of course, my teleportation device would run on the whine which emits from 4-6 year olds when you ask them to "hurry it up" in the morning, an inexhaustible resource.
My only complaint is the commute. The office is located at 360 and Bee Caves, about 12 miles from the house. Add in the "for the summer only" dropping off of J at his summer camp and I am driving about 30 miles per day.
So what, you say? So what indeed. Plenty of people drive a lengthy commute to work (although with the cost of gas, that dynamic may change when people begin to choose the "right job" in future) and 15 miles isn't that bad, really. Plus, the benefits of a steady paycheck and fulfilling work vastly outweigh the negatives of too-much-time-in-car.
But then one has to consider the "NPR effect". That is the effect of additional time in the car has brought me into the dreaded window of... hearing the stories I heard in the shower again when I am in the car. Ugh. Since NPR runs their morning programming (lasting 2 hours) twice in the morning, the story you hear at 6:20 am is the same as is broadcast at 8:20 am.
I guess I can work on getting out the door faster, thereby missing the repeat, or getting up and into the shower earlier. Neither of which is easy as it's not just me who has to move faster...
Or I can spend my nights and weekends working on a teleportation device, thereby solving my own problems, the problems of the earth and oil consumption etc. Of course, my teleportation device would run on the whine which emits from 4-6 year olds when you ask them to "hurry it up" in the morning, an inexhaustible resource.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Summer Camp is a breeding ground
Since my kids have been to more schools than I choose to count, we have had our fair share of germs. With each new school all of our immune systems are taxed by slight mutations of germs which take out each of us in turn. J even missed the very last day of kindergarten when he came down with strep for the nth time.
Now that J is in summer camp, he's been exposed again. No, not a cold or cough, but songs from bigger kids.
Today on the way home he was singing a song about how he hated Barney and the many ways he would harm the big guy. The song was brutal, but I was fascinated because I had never, not even once, turned on Barney. I am sure he knows who this purple dinosaur is, but it was incredible to think that he could sing such a graphic song about someone you hardly knew.
Today I was trying a new tactic where I let a kid be a kid for a minute or two before we talk about what the song means etc. and how wrong it was to sing about maiming etc. Rather than make him stop mid-song, I was letting it continue and figured we'd talk when he was done.
Just as I thought the song was finished J started up a new stanza. Since P was in the car too, J obliged by changing the lyrics to the other acceptable version where Barbie was shot, mutilated, and killed in various ways. Again, I decided to wait.
"A B C D Barbie is my enemy..."
Just as he was finishing P pipes in with
"I love that song, it was Barbie Island Princess, right?"
Once I stopped laughing I tried to explain that I was not laughing at the song, but P's reaction to it and I could see that I had lost the battle on this one.
Now that J is in summer camp, he's been exposed again. No, not a cold or cough, but songs from bigger kids.
Today on the way home he was singing a song about how he hated Barney and the many ways he would harm the big guy. The song was brutal, but I was fascinated because I had never, not even once, turned on Barney. I am sure he knows who this purple dinosaur is, but it was incredible to think that he could sing such a graphic song about someone you hardly knew.
Today I was trying a new tactic where I let a kid be a kid for a minute or two before we talk about what the song means etc. and how wrong it was to sing about maiming etc. Rather than make him stop mid-song, I was letting it continue and figured we'd talk when he was done.
Just as I thought the song was finished J started up a new stanza. Since P was in the car too, J obliged by changing the lyrics to the other acceptable version where Barbie was shot, mutilated, and killed in various ways. Again, I decided to wait.
"A B C D Barbie is my enemy..."
Just as he was finishing P pipes in with
"I love that song, it was Barbie Island Princess, right?"
Once I stopped laughing I tried to explain that I was not laughing at the song, but P's reaction to it and I could see that I had lost the battle on this one.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
When is a good time to become World Aware?
J is home today as it is the FIRST DAY OF SUMMER (as he loudly proclaims). The last day of Kindergarten was yesterday (which he spent at home with Strep, is now recovered), and he is excited about the summer, especially the summer camp he is going to (horses! a creek! a swimming pool!).
This afternoon we were walking into the HEB to get some groceries and a panel van with two concert speakers strapped to the top drove by the front door. Blaring from these speakers was a girl talking. She was informing people about the number of people who are executed each year in the US and Texas in particular. She went on about lethal injection and capital punishment as we made our way into the store. I would guess they picked this spot as there is an early voting location next door, but it was a bit surreal.
This led to the inevitable questions from J. "What's capital punishment?"
We discussed how bad people have various grades of bad and how some of the super baddies are sentenced to die themselves. J was interested, but not overly so, so I felt like I had managed this speed bump well.
It did makes me wonder when it's ok to expose kids to things like capital punishment and the like. We haven't been shielding them, per se, but we have been avoiding the question. I tend to turn off NPR when they are in the car, we don't turn the news on in the evenings when it used to be a staple pre-kids. The few times they caught something about the Iraq war we have had to have a sad conversations about the soldiers, President Bush, why we are there, etc. All hard questions to answer, so I guess we started avoiding the question.
When I was a kid, and there were only three "real" channels and the other one or two on UHF, I remember my parents turning on the news nightly and me proclaiming my immense boredom. Yawn, the oil crisis, yawn, the hostages in Iran, yawn, bombing Syria. World events were not particularly interesting to me, so I don't know how much explaining my parents had to do about iffy things I had overheard. Apparently I was so disinterested that my 5th grade teacher commented on it on my report card. I am paraphrasing since I don't have it here, but it said something like "Suzy is very interested in her own world and things immediately within it, she is quite unaware of the world outside of her." Actually, I remember it was a bit more catty than that, but you get the gist.
Now that I read the paper, watch the news, listen to NPR and generally hold up my end of the adult bargain, I wonder when I should start to permeate the kids with the outside world. I am starting to think that explaining how the world is scary or crazy or sad is a small price to pay for my kids to who know it exists and that the tv isn't just for Backyardigans and Indiana Jones movies.
This afternoon we were walking into the HEB to get some groceries and a panel van with two concert speakers strapped to the top drove by the front door. Blaring from these speakers was a girl talking. She was informing people about the number of people who are executed each year in the US and Texas in particular. She went on about lethal injection and capital punishment as we made our way into the store. I would guess they picked this spot as there is an early voting location next door, but it was a bit surreal.
This led to the inevitable questions from J. "What's capital punishment?"
We discussed how bad people have various grades of bad and how some of the super baddies are sentenced to die themselves. J was interested, but not overly so, so I felt like I had managed this speed bump well.
It did makes me wonder when it's ok to expose kids to things like capital punishment and the like. We haven't been shielding them, per se, but we have been avoiding the question. I tend to turn off NPR when they are in the car, we don't turn the news on in the evenings when it used to be a staple pre-kids. The few times they caught something about the Iraq war we have had to have a sad conversations about the soldiers, President Bush, why we are there, etc. All hard questions to answer, so I guess we started avoiding the question.
When I was a kid, and there were only three "real" channels and the other one or two on UHF, I remember my parents turning on the news nightly and me proclaiming my immense boredom. Yawn, the oil crisis, yawn, the hostages in Iran, yawn, bombing Syria. World events were not particularly interesting to me, so I don't know how much explaining my parents had to do about iffy things I had overheard. Apparently I was so disinterested that my 5th grade teacher commented on it on my report card. I am paraphrasing since I don't have it here, but it said something like "Suzy is very interested in her own world and things immediately within it, she is quite unaware of the world outside of her." Actually, I remember it was a bit more catty than that, but you get the gist.
Now that I read the paper, watch the news, listen to NPR and generally hold up my end of the adult bargain, I wonder when I should start to permeate the kids with the outside world. I am starting to think that explaining how the world is scary or crazy or sad is a small price to pay for my kids to who know it exists and that the tv isn't just for Backyardigans and Indiana Jones movies.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
A test for web customer service
Lately I have been inadvertently doing a survey of online service provider's customer service.
I have been trying to gain access to my frequent flier accounts just to see what was going on with them. We are finally in the traveling mode again after 5 years of mostly staying home, so I was wondering if I had any miles to play with. I even downloaded MilePort in order to track them more diligently (and signed the kids up for accounts too!).
The contenstants:
United Airlines
American Airlines
Frontier Airlines
Delta Airlines
Continental Airlines
The test:
It's been a while since you have accessed their website, and therefore you don't remember your
a) login name
b) password
to complicate things
c) you have moved physical addresses (perhaps multiple times)
d) you have abandoned your old email address due to masses of spam (and an inadequate spam filter)
The results:
All the sites are equipped to handle b. You have those security questions for that reason.
But without A (login), you don't get a chance to remember your elementary school's name (also a challenge for someone who went to 6 different ones, but I imagine in that I am an outlier).
Which leads you to the problem with your lack of D (email address on file which you have access to). They are happy to email you your login, but Mindspring is blithely bouncing all those emails!
So, I resorted to calling customer service.
Everyone was able to verify enough information with my address(es), old emails, new emails, etc. to give me the information and tools I needed to gain access with the exception of Delta airlines.
Delta apparently believes that their frequent flier miles are worth more than my bank believes my money is worth.
It took recitation of my prior physical addresses IN FULL to get her to admit that I had an account, which I then had to confirm my birthdate (which they had wrong) in order to get her to give me the number.
She then told me that she couldn't help me with the pin/password, but I could go online and have it emailed to me. I explained the email-address problem and she was completely unable to help. She couldn't update that information. She could mail me the pin, but it would go to the address in North Carolina, and no, she couldn't update the address.
She suggested that now that I had the number, I should try and guess the pin, but that it would lock my account after three tries, so stop after two and come back later and try again!
Her final suggestion was that I go in person to a Delta ticket office (of which there are none except at the airport) and show them my ID so they could update the information or send me a pin (she wasn't sure what would happen), and it would be super if I brought along something with my Chapel Hill address on it(!).
I was stunned by the labyrinth of security put around what turned out to be 500 measly points (yes, I was able to guess in three tries) until I thought back to when I was changing my name from Ward to Bates.
I remember irately yelling at someone on the phone about how stupid it was that I could change my name with a simple phone call at places like my bank, but they wanted to see me in person???
And then I remembered, that was Delta.
I have been trying to gain access to my frequent flier accounts just to see what was going on with them. We are finally in the traveling mode again after 5 years of mostly staying home, so I was wondering if I had any miles to play with. I even downloaded MilePort in order to track them more diligently (and signed the kids up for accounts too!).
The contenstants:
United Airlines
American Airlines
Frontier Airlines
Delta Airlines
Continental Airlines
The test:
It's been a while since you have accessed their website, and therefore you don't remember your
a) login name
b) password
to complicate things
c) you have moved physical addresses (perhaps multiple times)
d) you have abandoned your old email address due to masses of spam (and an inadequate spam filter)
The results:
All the sites are equipped to handle b. You have those security questions for that reason.
But without A (login), you don't get a chance to remember your elementary school's name (also a challenge for someone who went to 6 different ones, but I imagine in that I am an outlier).
Which leads you to the problem with your lack of D (email address on file which you have access to). They are happy to email you your login, but Mindspring is blithely bouncing all those emails!
So, I resorted to calling customer service.
Everyone was able to verify enough information with my address(es), old emails, new emails, etc. to give me the information and tools I needed to gain access with the exception of Delta airlines.
Delta apparently believes that their frequent flier miles are worth more than my bank believes my money is worth.
It took recitation of my prior physical addresses IN FULL to get her to admit that I had an account, which I then had to confirm my birthdate (which they had wrong) in order to get her to give me the number.
She then told me that she couldn't help me with the pin/password, but I could go online and have it emailed to me. I explained the email-address problem and she was completely unable to help. She couldn't update that information. She could mail me the pin, but it would go to the address in North Carolina, and no, she couldn't update the address.
She suggested that now that I had the number, I should try and guess the pin, but that it would lock my account after three tries, so stop after two and come back later and try again!
Her final suggestion was that I go in person to a Delta ticket office (of which there are none except at the airport) and show them my ID so they could update the information or send me a pin (she wasn't sure what would happen), and it would be super if I brought along something with my Chapel Hill address on it(!).
I was stunned by the labyrinth of security put around what turned out to be 500 measly points (yes, I was able to guess in three tries) until I thought back to when I was changing my name from Ward to Bates.
I remember irately yelling at someone on the phone about how stupid it was that I could change my name with a simple phone call at places like my bank, but they wanted to see me in person???
And then I remembered, that was Delta.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Back from the beach!
Yesterday was the end of our yearly trip to the beach. We had a really wonderful time hanging out with the other 4 families and seeing how much all the kids had grown in a year. No one got sunburned and all the kids took turns freaking out and requiring a little time away... a total success in my book.
Our return flight was to be expected in this day and age of flying. The flight from RDU to Charlotte was completely packed and when I checked in I saw that I had three seats for me and the boys in three different rows. Obviously this wasn't going to work as I was the only person who wanted to sit next to a 4 and 6 year old, but the ticket agent was powerless to help. She recommended I try the gate agent.
The gate agent was surprised and dismayed.. not at my predicament, but in my insistence in asking her to help. She sniffed and said that this was a problem for the flight attendant to sort out. (how crazy of me!)
On the plane we easily sorted it out by being the last to board and loudly proclaiming when we got on that "we are seated all over this plane". People dove out of their seats when faced with a 4 year old in a pink tiara with matching shoes and bag. We ended up sitting at the back of the plane with the transferring flight attendants and pilots. P sat next to a very nice (and hopefully junior, he was quite young!) pilot who was nice enough to answer all of his questions about the plane. P was very interested in the timing of when we had to put our trays and seats up and down, when he could and couldn't get out his Barbie computer, what that ding was, etc. The Stewardess behind us was interested in teasing P about his tiara and threatening to take it for herself. I'd like to see her in a fight with a determined 4 year old, but happily her teasing was just that. She did spend a lot of time telling the pilot seated behind me all about how much she loved getting drunk on 6th street, and proceeded to tell J how sure she was that his mommy did too once upon a time. Ah, I love it when people project.
Incredibly, the next flight from Charlotte to Austin was exactly the same, seats everywhere, people gleefully moving to get away from the kids, surly flight attendants sitting in the back row gossiping about the passengers...(this is a direct quote) "If they expect to sit together, they should have gone online and reserved their seats ahead of time" and the inevitable judgy question "I just have to ask, why is he wearing a tiara?"
To which I reply "He loves princesses, don't you?"
Our return flight was to be expected in this day and age of flying. The flight from RDU to Charlotte was completely packed and when I checked in I saw that I had three seats for me and the boys in three different rows. Obviously this wasn't going to work as I was the only person who wanted to sit next to a 4 and 6 year old, but the ticket agent was powerless to help. She recommended I try the gate agent.
The gate agent was surprised and dismayed.. not at my predicament, but in my insistence in asking her to help. She sniffed and said that this was a problem for the flight attendant to sort out. (how crazy of me!)
On the plane we easily sorted it out by being the last to board and loudly proclaiming when we got on that "we are seated all over this plane". People dove out of their seats when faced with a 4 year old in a pink tiara with matching shoes and bag. We ended up sitting at the back of the plane with the transferring flight attendants and pilots. P sat next to a very nice (and hopefully junior, he was quite young!) pilot who was nice enough to answer all of his questions about the plane. P was very interested in the timing of when we had to put our trays and seats up and down, when he could and couldn't get out his Barbie computer, what that ding was, etc. The Stewardess behind us was interested in teasing P about his tiara and threatening to take it for herself. I'd like to see her in a fight with a determined 4 year old, but happily her teasing was just that. She did spend a lot of time telling the pilot seated behind me all about how much she loved getting drunk on 6th street, and proceeded to tell J how sure she was that his mommy did too once upon a time. Ah, I love it when people project.
Incredibly, the next flight from Charlotte to Austin was exactly the same, seats everywhere, people gleefully moving to get away from the kids, surly flight attendants sitting in the back row gossiping about the passengers...(this is a direct quote) "If they expect to sit together, they should have gone online and reserved their seats ahead of time" and the inevitable judgy question "I just have to ask, why is he wearing a tiara?"
To which I reply "He loves princesses, don't you?"
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