Yikes, so much going on. The real shocker was on the 14th, a 5th grader at Owen's school died. You might have seen it on the news... his heart stopped when he was hit with a football in the chest. Really random, really horrible. I really don't like talking to my 6 year old about death.
The kid turned out to be the son of the woman who runs a house cleaning business. Her mom cleaned our house. It brought it home a little more, but really, it was just a hug your kid week. Really depressing.
We have a new deck, which is nice, though now I wonder whether we should be spending any money at all.
Crazy weekend coming up with anniversary Thursday, Nathan's birthday Friday, Nathan's birthday party Saturday. Nathan is a good boy.
Please win Barack.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Game on
I'll gloss over the things giving me IBS this weekend, and get to the theme of the weekend: Games. Ok, it is a weak theme, and it is only based on 2 things, but here they are:
1) Showed up at Owen's soccer game Saturday morning (drizzle, wet field), and one of the coaches couldn't make it. I volunteered to be a coach for the day, which essentially meant being on the field and trying to help manage a 3 on 3 game. I had Owen, a boy named Connor, his twin sister Claire, Jillian, and Catherine. Owen can play, Connor can play, Jillian can even play, but Claire and Catherine... it isn't so much they can't play is that they can't pay attention. I also had to shuttle kids in and out while quelling my inner instinct to stick with Owen, Connor and Jillian. This was fine except for:
a) One point where I had the 3 girls in, 2 of which couldn't pay attention, and even served to distract Jillian to the point where the other team scored like 5 goals in 5 minutes; and
b) The Euro kid (Marcus), who seemed like he was on the Danish U7 team. No kidding, he slide tackled Owen. Kid was 6. Now if I'm on the sidelines, I'm not sure what to do, but when the kid is playing intense like this, it took everything I had not to yell at the other coach on the field. Also took a lot to get Owen not to smack him one (and Owen would have taken out the trash).
Anyway, I learned that coaching 6 year olds is exhausting, but also that I can set up a really good corner kick at this level. Almost the goal of the year.
2) Sunday, Owen has his quiet time after lunch, which usually involves him being in his room, listening to CDs of stories, and reading or making a fort. After quiet time, he came downstairs and shows me this series of 9 drawings he made on pieces of paper about 1" square. I have to say, they were pretty creative. Including: a) A globe b) His desk at school c) 2 trees (an apple and a pine) d) The "Ratmobile" e) A picture of a mountain with 2 guys going up the mountain, and 2 guys skiing down the other side; f) Another picture of mountain climbers; g) A "farm" (read: Garden) with vegetables growing, complete with little signs with pictures of carrots, etc.; h) A picture of a dog, with a leash extending off the picture (implying someone is walking the dog; and i) Of course I can't remember the last one.
So he explains all these drawings to me, and I'm just tickled with his creativity and initiative. Then he asks me to rank them in order of preference, and does the same with Katie. Then he decides he is going to come up with a game for these, and talks a completely convoluted nonsensical game that I kind of dismiss. But then he comes up with another game; which involved hiding each paper, then Katie and I try to find them. When you find one, you get the points associated with it, which are 9 if you find your personal favorite, 8 for 2nd favorite, etc. The trick is you get the points associated with your ranking if you find it. Anyway, he hides these and Katie and I spend awhile looking for them, and he's tallying up the points, and all I can think of is, well, WOW. This was done all on his own, with his own initiative, his own thoughts, his own creation. The game was even fun! And competitive (Katie accused me of shoving).
Good times.
1) Showed up at Owen's soccer game Saturday morning (drizzle, wet field), and one of the coaches couldn't make it. I volunteered to be a coach for the day, which essentially meant being on the field and trying to help manage a 3 on 3 game. I had Owen, a boy named Connor, his twin sister Claire, Jillian, and Catherine. Owen can play, Connor can play, Jillian can even play, but Claire and Catherine... it isn't so much they can't play is that they can't pay attention. I also had to shuttle kids in and out while quelling my inner instinct to stick with Owen, Connor and Jillian. This was fine except for:
a) One point where I had the 3 girls in, 2 of which couldn't pay attention, and even served to distract Jillian to the point where the other team scored like 5 goals in 5 minutes; and
b) The Euro kid (Marcus), who seemed like he was on the Danish U7 team. No kidding, he slide tackled Owen. Kid was 6. Now if I'm on the sidelines, I'm not sure what to do, but when the kid is playing intense like this, it took everything I had not to yell at the other coach on the field. Also took a lot to get Owen not to smack him one (and Owen would have taken out the trash).
Anyway, I learned that coaching 6 year olds is exhausting, but also that I can set up a really good corner kick at this level. Almost the goal of the year.
2) Sunday, Owen has his quiet time after lunch, which usually involves him being in his room, listening to CDs of stories, and reading or making a fort. After quiet time, he came downstairs and shows me this series of 9 drawings he made on pieces of paper about 1" square. I have to say, they were pretty creative. Including: a) A globe b) His desk at school c) 2 trees (an apple and a pine) d) The "Ratmobile" e) A picture of a mountain with 2 guys going up the mountain, and 2 guys skiing down the other side; f) Another picture of mountain climbers; g) A "farm" (read: Garden) with vegetables growing, complete with little signs with pictures of carrots, etc.; h) A picture of a dog, with a leash extending off the picture (implying someone is walking the dog; and i) Of course I can't remember the last one.
So he explains all these drawings to me, and I'm just tickled with his creativity and initiative. Then he asks me to rank them in order of preference, and does the same with Katie. Then he decides he is going to come up with a game for these, and talks a completely convoluted nonsensical game that I kind of dismiss. But then he comes up with another game; which involved hiding each paper, then Katie and I try to find them. When you find one, you get the points associated with it, which are 9 if you find your personal favorite, 8 for 2nd favorite, etc. The trick is you get the points associated with your ranking if you find it. Anyway, he hides these and Katie and I spend awhile looking for them, and he's tallying up the points, and all I can think of is, well, WOW. This was done all on his own, with his own initiative, his own thoughts, his own creation. The game was even fun! And competitive (Katie accused me of shoving).
Good times.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Biden my time
Yesterday was hectic. I really wanted to watch the debate with others and yell at the TV, but I had agreed to deal with the kids while Katie had her book group at the house. I made the mistake of taking the kids out (tired, as they are wont to be on a Thursday night) for dinner and basketball.
So we are on our way home at 7, and Owen is being contrary, egging Nathan on, and Nathan is being his almost 3 self, bitching about whatever happens (good or bad), and them both exhausted. So I promise:
1) Chocolate milk
2) Licorice (in straw form)
3) Movie (upstairs, in mommy and daddy's room, to avoid the book group).
So once we get upstairs (which was no easy feat), and my temple veins are throbbing, we finally get Space Jam on. A short aside here: Space Jam kicks ass. From the horrible Barkley/Ewing/Shawn Bradley acting to Danny DeVito voicing the bad guy, to my kids loving to sing along with "I believe I can fly", the movie really has it all.
So what happens? 5 minutes in, Nathan craps his pants. This is a bigger deal than it used to be, because Nathan wears underwear now. Now this means he's gonna need a bath, which we were going to get away without. It also means I have to drag him away from Space Jam, just before Barkley's talent gets drained away and Vlade Divac gets worried that this is a strange virus he can get from the locker room.
This involved a lot of screaming. Not so much fun. Then the bath, and Nathan flat out refuses to sit down, screaming constantly. It's a battle. It's on. I lose. I take washcloths and clean the crap off his butt and legs. Then come the jammies. And I'm close to snapping here.
Long story short: Nathan crashed hard... Owen was a saint, and I watched the debtate on TiVo. It all worked out, but man...
Tonight: The Silly Sox Hop. Enough said.
So we are on our way home at 7, and Owen is being contrary, egging Nathan on, and Nathan is being his almost 3 self, bitching about whatever happens (good or bad), and them both exhausted. So I promise:
1) Chocolate milk
2) Licorice (in straw form)
3) Movie (upstairs, in mommy and daddy's room, to avoid the book group).
So once we get upstairs (which was no easy feat), and my temple veins are throbbing, we finally get Space Jam on. A short aside here: Space Jam kicks ass. From the horrible Barkley/Ewing/Shawn Bradley acting to Danny DeVito voicing the bad guy, to my kids loving to sing along with "I believe I can fly", the movie really has it all.
So what happens? 5 minutes in, Nathan craps his pants. This is a bigger deal than it used to be, because Nathan wears underwear now. Now this means he's gonna need a bath, which we were going to get away without. It also means I have to drag him away from Space Jam, just before Barkley's talent gets drained away and Vlade Divac gets worried that this is a strange virus he can get from the locker room.
This involved a lot of screaming. Not so much fun. Then the bath, and Nathan flat out refuses to sit down, screaming constantly. It's a battle. It's on. I lose. I take washcloths and clean the crap off his butt and legs. Then come the jammies. And I'm close to snapping here.
Long story short: Nathan crashed hard... Owen was a saint, and I watched the debtate on TiVo. It all worked out, but man...
Tonight: The Silly Sox Hop. Enough said.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Potty time!
Big news is that Nathan is in underwear. Holy moly I can see the no diaper light at the end of the tunnel. He'll regress, but the wheels are in motion. Please Please Please.
Owen got a short buzz cut per his request, though his request to get it short, with a bald circle in the middle was not granted. Sorry son.
Off to Seattle this weekend, just Katie and I. We'll probably just chill, and might see our friend (via sister) Kerri if she ever emails back. That crackhead.
Not too much else right now. Happy for my Chargers.
Owen got a short buzz cut per his request, though his request to get it short, with a bald circle in the middle was not granted. Sorry son.
Off to Seattle this weekend, just Katie and I. We'll probably just chill, and might see our friend (via sister) Kerri if she ever emails back. That crackhead.
Not too much else right now. Happy for my Chargers.
Friday, September 19, 2008
No one knows what is going to happen
Being in the mortgage industry, I've had a lot of people ask me what is going to happen with the economy over the past few years. I told anyone who would listen in 2004 that there was a mortgage crisis pending, and as I kept saying it would get worse, I never imagined all of this.
So I still get friends asking me what is going to happen. Now I have no answer. Either do these guys: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/diamond-and-kashyap-on-the-recent-financial-upheavals/
And so if the really good economists can only mostly explain what has happened and what is trying to be done about it, and really don't know what is going to happen next, I'm folding my hand. That being said, I bought Activision stock today, because I think people are going to be all over the new Guitar Hero (in stores October). I do know that people like their video games, and this play rarely disappoints.
I feel very fortunate to have a good job and mostly financially secure in these difficult times. I am on the fringes of it in my business, as we are kind of innocent bystanders, but I am more enthralled with the scope of the crisis. The last real financial crisis (S&L) happened when I was in college, and before that were the problems of the late 70s and early 80s, of which I had no recollection other than only being able to get gas every other day.
So though it sounds harsh, this whole crisis is somehow... fascinating? To a business minded guy like me who has seen almost nothing but good economies in his adult life, the flip side is the equivalent of a mechanic popping the hood on a car to see what is wrong. I'm really trying to soak up all I can about this, because I've never been through such a failure on such a scale.
So to sum up, I'm turning this thing around and going academic on everyone. Watch what happens, soak in as much as you can, and then figure out for yourself what it all means. No one else knows! Your guess is good!
So I still get friends asking me what is going to happen. Now I have no answer. Either do these guys: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/diamond-and-kashyap-on-the-recent-financial-upheavals/
And so if the really good economists can only mostly explain what has happened and what is trying to be done about it, and really don't know what is going to happen next, I'm folding my hand. That being said, I bought Activision stock today, because I think people are going to be all over the new Guitar Hero (in stores October). I do know that people like their video games, and this play rarely disappoints.
I feel very fortunate to have a good job and mostly financially secure in these difficult times. I am on the fringes of it in my business, as we are kind of innocent bystanders, but I am more enthralled with the scope of the crisis. The last real financial crisis (S&L) happened when I was in college, and before that were the problems of the late 70s and early 80s, of which I had no recollection other than only being able to get gas every other day.
So though it sounds harsh, this whole crisis is somehow... fascinating? To a business minded guy like me who has seen almost nothing but good economies in his adult life, the flip side is the equivalent of a mechanic popping the hood on a car to see what is wrong. I'm really trying to soak up all I can about this, because I've never been through such a failure on such a scale.
So to sum up, I'm turning this thing around and going academic on everyone. Watch what happens, soak in as much as you can, and then figure out for yourself what it all means. No one else knows! Your guess is good!
Monday, September 15, 2008
David Foster Wallace
Being out of touch (or maybe it was just reported), I just found out this morning that David Foster Wallace killed himself. For those of you don't know, he was a brilliant author who wrote some short story collections (the eclectic Girl with Curious Hair), a tome of a novel (Infinite Jest, a book with 125 pages of footnotes), and essentially reinvented the essay as a mode of writing, at least with my generation. In the latter category was the really funny and insightful "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never do Again", which had some great writing, both funny and insightful, and funny, and also funny.
But what I really admired about him was his ability to write, and sometimes to write sentences just because he could. That may seem odd, but consider this sentence, toward the beginning of Infinite Jest:
"He reached up to his chin, where there was a wen." This sentence added nothing to the narrative. Really, nothing. The only reason it was there was because 1) He wanted to show off that he knew the vocabulary word "wen" - a small facial cyst; and 2) More importantly, read that phrase again "where there was a wen." Brilliant. So brilliant that when I read Infinite Jest, 11 years ago during a period I was unemployed, I was awed to the point that I kind of wanted to be an author to create a sentence like that. Honestly, if I could write 5 sentences that good in my life, I would feel like I could call myself a writer.
RIP DFW. Perhaps you couldn't generate any more of those perfect phrases.
But what I really admired about him was his ability to write, and sometimes to write sentences just because he could. That may seem odd, but consider this sentence, toward the beginning of Infinite Jest:
"He reached up to his chin, where there was a wen." This sentence added nothing to the narrative. Really, nothing. The only reason it was there was because 1) He wanted to show off that he knew the vocabulary word "wen" - a small facial cyst; and 2) More importantly, read that phrase again "where there was a wen." Brilliant. So brilliant that when I read Infinite Jest, 11 years ago during a period I was unemployed, I was awed to the point that I kind of wanted to be an author to create a sentence like that. Honestly, if I could write 5 sentences that good in my life, I would feel like I could call myself a writer.
RIP DFW. Perhaps you couldn't generate any more of those perfect phrases.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
We have contact
I have entered the world of disposable contacts. The only real thing this means is that I can get sunglasses without question as to whether I can put prescription is. Oh, and I am likely to scratch my eye.
Owen lost another tooth. He's getting $2/tooth, and now that the $1 Gold coins are out, it seems like Pippi Longstocking money. He likes those coins.
Nathan and I go to Starbucks together on the way in to his day care when I take him in. Lately we go to one near us that has a grocery store near it. Last week, we saw a Mother's cookie truck, went to look inside, and the guy let us in the truck. Nathan was blown away. So many cookies! We haven't seen the Mother's truck since (the "cookie truck") but we have seen the "beer truck" "bucket truck" (a cherry picker), and today, a "bread truck." Good times.
Back to school night tonight. Not likely to be kegstands.
Owen lost another tooth. He's getting $2/tooth, and now that the $1 Gold coins are out, it seems like Pippi Longstocking money. He likes those coins.
Nathan and I go to Starbucks together on the way in to his day care when I take him in. Lately we go to one near us that has a grocery store near it. Last week, we saw a Mother's cookie truck, went to look inside, and the guy let us in the truck. Nathan was blown away. So many cookies! We haven't seen the Mother's truck since (the "cookie truck") but we have seen the "beer truck" "bucket truck" (a cherry picker), and today, a "bread truck." Good times.
Back to school night tonight. Not likely to be kegstands.
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