420 Summit

Two summers

We dropped Amanda (or Pooh, or RnBMandy, or Manders, or whatever the hell she is calling herself these days) off at camp yesterday. A wonderful camp that we are all very happy — thank-you Christine — she fell into.

The downside: my baby girl looked so very small next to that big building.

Then we have Nicholas — who doesn’t call himself anything other than grouchy — who should be hanging himself from cliffs in Yosemite as I write this. But he’s not.

He managed to break his arm three days before summer vacation started. Effectively ruling out Outward Bound, and pretty much anything else, for the rest of the summer. So, he gets to spend the summer at home and at the doctors, playing video games and watching his sister pack.

I think I’d be grouchy too.

11 days ago

Downpressor Man

I’m not big on self-pity and blaming others for personal problems. My general attitude has always been along the lines of: “Get a job,” “Stop doing drugs,” “Act civilized!”

I may not actually do any of this, certainly not all three at the same time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sound advice.

But, and it’s a big one, sometimes doing the right thing just isn’t good enough. Sometimes, people mess with you and yours, for no good reason. They do it because they are ignorant, feel threatened or are just plain mean. They do it because twelve bucks an hour is more important than a person. They do it because they don’t know any better. They do it because they have been taught that the best defense is a good offense and might makes right. They do it because they believe poor people are stupid, addicts lack self control, and homosexuality is a lifestyle choice. They do it because black kids don’t have fathers and Latino kids have three.

They do it because nobody tells them they can’t.

When this behavior becomes the norm, when it is accepted, embraced and institutionalized, rather than regarded as an aberration, you have… The Man.

You drink your big champagne and laugh
All along that day
I wouldn’t like to be a flea
Under your collar man

All along that day
You can run but you can’t hide
Telling you all along that day
You gonna run to the Lord
Beggin’ to hide you

You gonna run to Jah
Beggin’ to hide you
All, all along that day

And I said Downpresser Man
Where you gonna run to
Where you gonna run to Downpresser man
Where you gonna run to

I said all along
All along, along that day Downpresser man

Right now, The Man, is fucking with the wrong people.

19 days ago

Big Girl Hair

With a summer of, as she puts it, elite camps ahead of her, Amanda decided it was time for a haircut. This was her first. Sure, she has had a few trims and a couple of gum removal surgeries, but never a haircut. In a real salon. By someone both sober and trained.

This way she will be prepared for both Vassar and Concordia. Yep, thanks to some kind folks and a bit of creative financing, Ms. Amanda should have an interesting summer.

90 days ago

Connected

At least they aren’t talking to each other — I don’t think.

118 days ago

World domination

Still here, still alive.

I’ve just been busy taking over the world.

136 days ago

Winter blues

My son buried his friend today.

Justin, an apparently healthy thirteen year-old, died of a heart attack late last week. His service was today. Because Nicholas wasn’t in school last Thursday and Friday, he missed out on the collective grieving process and only found out when a mutual friend called to discuss transportation to the funeral. A funeral we didn’t know was going on.

There are better ways to break the news to a kid. While not ‘best’ friends, these guys spent a few years together and Justin, along with his twin brother, paved the way for my country mouse in the heart o’ the ‘hood. Nicholas admired his good cheer, quiet authority and common sense.

Tonight, when he finally settled down, Nicholas announced that he wanted to pay his respects by copying what he liked most in his friend. Rather than dwelling on his sense of loss he said he wanted to make something in himself better.

I thought that was pretty cool.

222 days ago

Ahoy!

Earlier today I ran into something I haven’t encountered in years. I was downloading a massive Photoshop composition and was informed by Windows that I didn’t have adequate storage. Considering the size of my drives and how psycho I am about keeping things lean, this came as something of a surprise.

It would seem that my children have discovered BitTorrent and The Pirate Bay — to the tune of forty gigs.

This opens up a whole can of worms. My guys haven’t the slightest concept of intellectual property. Music has always been free for them and they firmly believe that they are entitled to download anything they damn well please. I find myself going into a great deal of detail (I even made them read a EULA) about the difference between licensing something and owning something. Then again, try telling a kid who has saved his hard earned money that he doesn’t really own the box set of CD’s he just bought.

My children are not dishonest. They do not lack a grasp of nuance and will, almost always, make the right decision. I’ve done a pretty good job with the Golden Rule and the right vs. wrong thing. However, they seem truly incapable of understanding that music and video can be owned and that they are expected to pay for entertainment.

They just aren’t getting it and when my eleven year-old asks how someone can own beautiful music, I have to wonder if she doesn’t have a point. I asked her how she would feel if someone took her art and her response was: “I would just make more and give it to them.”

It doesn’t help that they have good taste and it’s kind of nice having my own radio station.

224 days ago

Slippin' and slidin'

We just did this last Monday.

I spend the last half of the week procrastinating anything I can until Monday morning. That kinda works. When it turns into Tuesday (snow days kill me) I’m in trouble.

This is the last thing I want to read:

A POTPOURRI OF WINTRY PRECIPITATION TYPES…

229 days ago

Only as good as the foundation

Amanda decided she wanted to build a gingerbread house. How hard can it be? Some gingerbread, some frosting and some candy… yeah, right.

Here are a few that went better.

The world’s largest gingerbread house was built last year at the Mall of America. Weighing in at a whopping 15,000 pounds, it took nine days and 1,700 man/hours to build.

While I understand that you could walk through it — there was something about animatronic elves — I’m not convinced it should count. It’s more a steel and plywood house with gingerbread siding.

A little more upscale, and certainly more appetizing, is the largest gingerbread house in Florida. Done a few years ago, and weighing in at around a ton, the Ritz-Carlton version is looking pretty tasty and is the prettiest of the bunch.

In Canada they take this stuff seriously. The Hyatt Regency in Vancouver is doing an entire gingerbread lane. The featured one looks more like a hikers hut than a house, but it’s pretty big (11×9) and looks edible.

Ours looks nothing like any of the above.

229 days ago

Dad is grouchy

Ask me how I spent my day? Go on, I dare you.

No?

Okay, I’ll tell you anyway. I spent the day trying to fix the damage that an incompetent nitwit, displaying the judgment of a micro encephalitic snail, did to my life with a single phone call. I am, in equal parts, embarrassed and livid.

Heads are going to roll. Hell, rolling, even on skateboards, isn’t enough. They are going on pikes. In front of City Hall. Covered in honey and bees. On fire.

Last week my thirteen-year old bruised his back roughhousing with his friends at school. Nothing unusual there. The boy is cavalier with his body and cuts and bruises go with the territory. My guys are 13 and 15 and, shall we say, active. They skate, jump, climb, ski and bike along with doing all sorts of scary shit I don’t even want to know about. If you want to find a good thirty-foot jump off a cliff, anywhere in central New York, just ask them. They terrify me on a daily basis and I don’t like being on a first name basis with ER staff in three counties, but I’m not taking their boards and bikes away.

I did take the archery gear, but that’s a different story.

So, doing her job, this school nurse called to express her concern. As well she should. I thanked her and said that I would evaluate the injury and take appropriate action.

Yeah, he had a bruise, but after spending the next four days playing ball and raking leaves, he said he didn’t feel a thing. The bruising had all but vanished so I merrily him off to school. Seemed the thing to do. You know, since there was nothing wrong with the kid.

Yesterday, the school nurse pulled him out of class and asked him if he had received medical care.

He hadn’t — since there was nothing wrong with him.

Are you sensing a theme?

The nurse then returns him, without ever looking at his back, to class. Then she promptly picks up the phone and calls CPS (Child Protective Services) to file a neglect complaint against me.

Last night, a couple of polite — though bulky — gentleman show up at my door and want to play twenty questions. Bring it on. I know my rights and I know the system. That’s not the issue. These guys are doing their job and will figure it out. Or they can bite me. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

However, I now have a child abuse allegation kicking around in the county database. To put it mildly, this does not thrill me. In the decade that I have had sole custody of my children never has anyone, even my ex and her seemingly endless crop of attorneys — I swear, she must have a lawyer tree — questioned my fitness as a parent. It just doesn’t happen.

At least not until now.

So: I lose a day of work, am embarrassed in my home while dining with friends, provide my lunatic ex with some ammo and get to make new friends in the law enforcement community. Because of spite. That’s all it is. This newbie nurse had a tantrum and messed with my life because I dared to disagree with her ‘professional opinion’.

Well, lady, I have news for you. I have been a first responder and around the medical field since you were trying on training bras. I have forgotten more pediatric emergency medicine and first aid than you have ever known.

I, and I alone, will determine when or if my children need medical attention. I’m not an idiot so I’ll seek the counsel of those whose opinions I respect — no, your not on the list — and then make an informed decision about what is best for my child. I’m a parent. I get to do that.

According to the St. Claire’s ER doctor, that I will now owe a weeks pay to, I am not the first parent you have pulled this on. But I may be well be the last.

Note: since this was written I have met with the school administration. The nurse, who was in the building, could not manage to find five minutes to join us. Maybe she will find time for the superintendents meeting.

232 days ago

Mo' money

We live in one of those Bedford style post-war developments; rows and rows of upgraded and remodeled bungalows, filled with creepy suburbanites lined up in neat hedgerows on oak and maple guarded streets. You hardly know whether to mow the lawn or the neighbor.

Nisky has a very strict policy on trees. They go as far as to claim ownership of any tree within fifteen feet of the curb. This rule, while somewhat dubious legally, prevents the wholesale slaughter of oaks and maples that are more than a hundred years old. We like it, for the most part.

These trees, aside from looking wicked cool, provide employment for those rare kids willing to get out of bed before noon.

So far this weekend, and we’re only two-thirds through it, their combined leaf raking income is in excess of three hundred dollars. These kids are going to town and billing their time at around forty bucks an hour.

Forty bucks an hour. That’s more than I bill.

They could pay the electric bill or get those insanely expensive jeans they nag about. Or, God forbid, pay for some gas, if they were so inclined. They’re not. If I have taught my children anything, it’s that money is made to be spent. Chores, hygeine, the Golden Rule… they passed right over all that business, but they got the lifestyle thing instantly.

I find myself wondering how receptive the neighbors would be to a grown man with a rake.

257 days ago

Ah can't see...

My daughter is blind in one eye.

Amanda spent a long winter walking into walls, falling off of skis and getting totally owned in dodge ball. We had to patch her good eye and let her stumble around for a bit. And I do mean, patch and stumble. No light brighter than a twenty-watt bulb in a dark room. Take the tape off in the tub, but make sure the light is dimmed first. Wear these granny shades in the car, the tape might leak. We’re talking no light. It’s amazing she didn’t toddle off a cliff. This went on for months.

It wasn’t pretty, but we all survived and for reasons that no longer matter, it was necessary. Insurance is good and the brain is a funny thing.

Still, years later; I can honestly say that her vision, or lack of, has had no impact on her life. Until yesterday.

Friday, her class watched some large screen 3-D movie, the kind with silly glasses. Over dinner, Pooh mentioned that she didn’t know what the big deal was. It’s just 3-D. Then she looked wistful and said, “Dad, you know I wouldn’t see it anyway. I never have.”

I’m not looking forward to the day she wants to fly jets.

293 days ago

Randomness

You know you have been spending too much time in front of a monitor when you start thinking in Photoshop.

A nice little late summer storm blew through and the world turned yellow. Nice light. Hmmm… I have filters and a gazillion plugins. Whack it with some Melancholy goodness, tweak the hue towards sepia and pump up the Y in CMYK. I can replicate that hue, over and over and over. Kinda.

We have the technology but not the desire.

Smokers suck and I say this as a confirmed smoker.

Today, at some absurd apple place, as we led the kids through a maze of tourists, bored locals and people who can’t find Vermont, I noticed how many adults were smoking a cigarette in one hand and holding a wee ones hand in the other. This saddened me so I slunk off towards the car and fired up a Marlboro.

We have the desire but not the technology.

293 days ago

Cut nails

My kids tech teacher is making me crazy.

My son brought home a simple HTML assignment — generic old “Hello World” stuff — requiring that they use several different text colors. When I looked at the examples he provided I was surprised to see stuff like:

<FONT COLOR="BLUE">Hello</FONT>

So I gave him a quick lesson in CSS (which he got instantly) and he went ahead and gutted the deprecated <font> tags. I also mentioned that he might be better off sticking to lowercase in his markup and that a DTD was a good thing to have.

He turned in a perfectly sound page that validated and received a ‘C’ because the teacher felt that he hadn’t demonstrated a mastery of the <FONT> tag.

He’s got these kids building sites like it’s 1999.

308 days ago

School daze

Wow, what a week.

We survived, but just barely. Three kids in three schools spread over two districts makes for a grouchy Dad, frustrated kids and a whole boatload of chaos. It doesn’t help that, collectively, we seem unable to read a school calendar — then again, what kind of school district schedules a half-day, on the first day, starting in the afternoon?

I expect that things will settle down, but boy, was I confused.

321 days ago