Sweet Home … Carbondale

We took a trip down to visit our oldest boy in college this weekend, after he had moved himself down there on Thursday. I’d been having a bit of a rough time with the move, as I noted Friday: Goodbye is the hardest word.

I feel a lot better now, after taking this trip to see him. We’ve got mental images now, of him in his house, in his neighborhood, on campus, at the rec center. We’ve seen the streets that he rides, and the sidewalks that he walks. So, instead of just being “gone”, he is in a new place that we can picture. It seems to help. Now, it’s less about his absence, and more about his new presence somewhere else.

We left early Saturday, drove 5+ hours, arriving around 12:30 p.m. Lunch, then a grocery run, some errands, rest for a while, then take a cruise around campus. Then in the evening, hang out at his house on his front porch, have a couple beverages, while our kids play XBox in his living room. On the flat panel LCD. A roommate with some cool electronic gear? Priceless!

Pizza around 9, then head off to the hotel so that James could go out and enjoy his last Saturday night before the start of his first semester away at school.

Sunday morning, to Wal-Mart for a bike lock and a couple of SIU items, then drive around campus a little more. Late a.m., pick him up and to the bookstore to buy his books. $550 and 30 minutes later, done. College has gotten expensive, in case you hadn’t heard. Then lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings, back to his house, and time to head back home.

I’m really glad we went. And I’m thankful, too. I’m thankful that he’s so excited about being there. It’s probably more about being on his own, away from home and everything that goes with it, than it is about college itself. But he’s so much more grown up now than he was a year or two ago, and about as ready for college as he’ll probably ever be. So like I’ve mentioned to him once or twice, this is his one big chance to finally take advantage of his abilities and talents, and do some hard work, and get a degree, and use it as a ticket to success in life. I see the degree itself as more important than the major, much of the time, and especially if you are a people person, like he is.

So life is chugging along for us. We were all definitely a little bit sad when it came time to leave Sunday afternoon. After we pulled away, nobody said anything for a few minutes. Jake, our ten-year-old, took it especially hard. But he perked up after a while.

He told me later that listening to “Sweet Home Alabama” on his iPod helped him feel better. Neither of us knew why, exactly. But then, who cares?

And at least for today, we’re all mostly focused on how great an opportunity this is for James, how much he needs this as a young adult whose time has come to move on, and how happy he is to be moving on with his life.

It was a good trip. For all of us. For a whole bunch of reasons.

Goodbye is the hardest word

My oldest son James moved down to Carbondale yesterday to go to college at Southern Illinois University. They are known as the Salukis, but please don’t hold that against them.

It’s been a rough week in all kinds of ways. Last minute preparation, including him finishing painting our house (!), plus packing up the rented truck. Then he hit some horrible weather on the way, featuring a tornado warning. Good times!

But the roughest part is feeling like a major part of our life together is now just … over. It’s done. He’ll be 21 soon, and he has lived at home longer than most kids that end up going off to college, so there is that. But even if he comes back in December for awhile, or next summer for a couple of weeks, it’s never really the same any more. You can’t keep pretending they are still kids just because they live with you.

We can’t go back in time, but sometimes I think it would be nice. I’d go back to the days when he was 4 or 5 years old. We had fun together. I’ve never forgotten that. Neither has he. We bonded really well, and I loved being his Dad, and he knew it. I’m pretty sure he loved having me as his Dad.

As I write through my tears, I don’t know why this bothers me so much. It just does. Maybe I regret missed opportunities, or just worry too much. Maybe I depend on him to give me something in my own life, and maybe I shouldn’t do that. Maybe we’ll all be better off and he’ll be fine. Maybe this will be the best thing that ever happened to him, and I’m over-dramatizing.

I do know this: no matter what happens, I’m going to miss him.

I learned a lot being his Dad. It was challenging plenty of times, and I can’t say I always earned passing grades, either. But whatever it was, it was there, every day, like the Sun rising in the morning. There is immediacy and intimacy about living with people that disappears when they aren’t part of your daily space and time any more.

But he’s all grown up now … more or less … and he’s all moved out. And so that time of our lives is over.

And I grieve for that.

It was quite a ride, featuring laughter, tears, ball games, disappointments, injuries, and arguments, all the things that fit together when you live with your child. O-v-e-r.

Tomorrow we leave, early in the morning, to go see him in his new digs in Carbondale. He is so excited, you can just hear it in his voice every time on the phone. I’m very happy for him, and happy to see him so enthused and primed for his entire “away at college” experience. It’ll be very good for him, in all kinds of ways.

And then Monday, it’s back home, and his room will be just as empty as it is right now.

Maybe someday that won’t sting so much.

Just Plain Cool Movie: “My Date with Drew”

Brian, Drew, and Serendipity

On a lark, I switched the TV over to a movie called “My Date with Drew”, about some guy’s quest to get a date with Drew Barrymore. I figured it would be ok, but probably silly and boring, and within 5 minutes I’d flip over to Sportscenter or something.

But I got drawn in by likable people (including Drew herself), a compelling story, and a positive, life-affirming ending.

The guy is a 20-something filmmaker named Brian Herzlinger who gives himself 30 days to get the date with her, and especially all the various hijinks and crazy schemes cooked up by Brian and his merry band of assistants to make this happen.

I found it impossible not to like Brian. He’s energetic, positive, funny, self-deprecating, yet he thinks he’s a complete loser and will have nothing to say to her, if he can even get the date.

Which requires, of course, that he even gets to talk to her. Here we have the true challenge.

Spoiler alert! Stop reading now if you don’t want to know what happens.

Taking the Costco Plunge

After years of holding out for some now-inexplicable reason, we finally saw the light and joined Costco this weekend.

Costco, for those who’ve never heard of it, is a discount retailer that requires a yearly membership to join, similar to Sam’s Club. We could just as easily have joined Sam’s as well, but there isn’t a location that is very close to us. In fact, the closest Costco is about a twenty-minute drive, so that isn’t super-convenient either. But it’s close enough, starting now.

We went to the Bloomingdale store at around 12:45 on Saturday. Parking lot: big, and jammed. The membership process was easy, and fairly quick. We opted for the Executive membership, which costs $100, instead of $50 for the standard membership, but you get 2% back on your purchases, so it will easily pay for the difference if we spend $2500 in a year there. Which shouldn’t be very hard, since we spent over $100 the first day we went, mostly on food.

We spend an unbelievable amount of money on food, for a family of five. $250 a week, more or less. And we don’t buy lots and lots of extras, like chips, pop, convenience items, etc. (we do buy some of those things, but not much).

Places like Costco and Sam’s have good deals for families like us with their large packages of frozen meats, like hamburgers and chicken. Also deli meats, and the largest tub of yogurt I’ve ever seen, four pounds of yogurt. You need two hands to lift the thing.

And they had a ten pound bag of apples for like $8. Usually, people that buy ten pounds of apples have 6 kids, or horses. We, however, have a 10-year-old son named Jacob.

We go through all that stuff really fast, and it is all pretty expensive at our local Jewel Food Store.

So even though a Costco run takes forty minutes round-trip, we’ll find a way to squeeze in one or two trips a month, if we can save some bucks on the food bill, not to mention all the other things they have there. Like wine, beer, booze, a pharmacy, even golf balls!

Just two things to remember. One, we now need more storage space in our house. And two, we must never, ever go to Costco on Saturday afternoons.

Whistling Past Ancient Memories?

This can’t be good.

Every time I get one of these emails announcing somebody from my high school class has joined classmates.com, I don’t remember who it is.

We only had about 500 kids in my class. Obviously, I didn’t know every single one, or even most of them. But I thought I knew at least the names of nearly all of them.

Hey … maybe the folks who’ve been joining recently are those exact same people I didn’t really know at all!

Yes. That must be it.

Oh, shut up.

You Deserve … Well, SOMETHING Today. Not Sure What Though.

Since Monday is also known as “Free Coffee Monday” at McDonald’s, I decided to stop in on the way to work this morning and grab one.

Small, and black. Like Flip Wilson.

Surprise #1: “That’ll be $1.18, please”. What happened to Free Coffee Monday? Still not sure, because the cashier’s answer was inaudible.

Surprise #2: So I tried to hand her $2. She took $1, and gave me back 46 cents. No, I didn’t get it either. Maybe it’s some new Impromptu Whiner’s Discount.

Surprise #3: After sipping the coffee a couple of times, it tasted a little odd, so I took off the lid. It had cream in it.

So my free black coffee became a 54-cent coffee with cream. Maybe McDonald’s itself could use a little jolt of Free Coffee Monday.

Rediscovering a Long Lost Classic

Eddie and the Hot Rods “Do Anything You Wanna Do”

An anthem for the young. And maybe, the not-so-young.

Congratulate Me

Next Stop:  World Domination

I fixed my very first toilet this weekend. It was rough, but I got through it.

And really, there wasn’t that much water in the basement when I was done.

It had been acting weird lately. Flushes okay, but fills reeeeaaaalllllllyyyy slowly. I did notice, though, that it would fill normally if you shut off the inlet valve and turned it back on right away. Weird.

My total experience with fixing toilets prior to this: replacing a couple of flappers. And this is after being a homeowner for over 20 years. Yeah, I’m not sure how that happened, either.

Offering Thanks

It isn’t every day that we get to thank God for miracles.  Today is an exception.

My Uncle Bill has kidney disease, and has been on dialysis since August.  He’s only 56 years old, and in excellent health otherwise.  He played football at Wheaton College — just one mile from where I live now — and he looks like he could still suit up and play, right now (he weighs less today than he did then).

His wife Betsy is a genetic match and so they were told she could potentially donate a kidney, and they’d pinned their hopes on that.  Later, they were given the devastating news that a previous health concern with her would prevent her from donating.

But new doctors and hospitals changed that diagnosis.  As it turns out, the previous health concern was trivial, and she was cleared as a donor a couple of weeks ago.

Yesterday they did the transplant surgery, and it was deemed an immediate success, and both are recovering today.

I just want to offer my thanks to God, for a gift of life for my uncle, his wife, and his 3 kids.

One day at a time, and today is a great day!

Blog Post Announcing a Break. Oops. Break’s Over!

So … I guess I took a week-long break last week. Didn’t really plan it, it just sort of happened.

Not sure why.  Maybe it’s because the news is b-o-r-i-n-g these days.  Oh, so a Democratic president is pushing through $800B worth of pork within 3 weeks of taking office?  And the media thinks this is a great idea?  And yet, polling tells us that the more people read about the “stimulus”, the less they like it?

Wow, sure couldn’t see that coming!

Or maybe it’s because I’ve been spending more time chilling in our living room, listening to my middle son Jacob play his new guitar.  We just bought him an Epiphone Les Paul “Special II”.  It’s amazing what you can get for $169 at Sam Ash these days.  I’ll post a pic later.

Now we just need a decent amp; the cheap 12 watt Kustom is not really cutting it.  He’s going to play at school next week, to audition for a talent show, with his friend Ethan; they’re going to play “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi.  Yes, our house sounds a lot like 1985 radio lately.

I’ve been very impressed with Jacob’s commitment to learning how to play.  He picks it up multiple times per day, and also plays our other guitars.   We have four of them now (2 electric, 2 acoustic).  We should start a string band.

Let’s see, what other reasons do I have for not blogging much?  I haven’t been surfing the ‘net as much either, for some of the same reasons.  And since blogging is primarily reactive, I don’t write as much, either.  Although, I have been writing for The Love of Sports, and had three pieces published lately: a lamentation about The Saga of Chief Illinwek, and a piece about Tiger Woods and his Dad, And the Son Becomes a Father, and a silly list of Top Twelve Fun Facts about the IFAF.  Please, click and read. Here’s my author page.

Plus, blogging is getting boring.  Yet again.   Let’s see, going back to the Spring of ‘03, this has to be, what, the 5th or 6th time I’ve gone through something like that?  Yeeesh.  I don’t know how people do it, day after day, year after year.  It’s like having your brains, and your life, sucked out through a Silly Straw.  In fact, this long 3 day weekend, I hardly touched a computer at all.  Didn’t really miss it, either.  That’ll change, though.

All I can say is, thank God above for Turner Classic Movies.

Oh, and BookTV, where over the weekend, I saw George Friedman, who wrote “America’s Secret War”, talk about his latest book “The Next Hundred Years”.  Which I ordered today, in fact.

All you folks out there who think you know what is going on in the world, because you listen dutifully to NPR or read the Washington Post?  Might want to read Friedman’s “America’s Secret War”.  You may find your world view altered slightly.  I’m just sayin’.

Mad Skillz

Content Warning – Parental Guidance Suggested

Having 3 sons means you are privy to a very special kind of humor in your household.

Counting My Blessings

As usual, I don’t count my blessings nearly often enough, so with Christmas upon us, now is a great time to do that. And since I have a website, right here is a great place to do it..

• I’m grateful that … this year I got to see my Uncle Bill for the first time in close to 15 years. He’s the closest thing to a big brother — or any kind of brother — that I ever had, and we have been separated by thousands of miles and other barriers for too long. He’s only 6 years older than I am so the “Uncle” tag is a little misleading.
• I’m grateful that … even though I lost the job I had earlier this year, and don’t see those people much any more, I have yet another good job 20 minutes from home, and I was only out of work for 3 months, so we didn’t really go through any tough times.
• I’m grateful that … my kids are happy and healthy, despite my influence in their lives.
• I’m grateful that … my oldest boy is starting to show signs of maturing into a grown up young man, and none too soon, I might add.
• I’m grateful that … my middle boy is so even-tempered and happy all the time, because he brings joy to me, and my wife, and others too, just by being himself and having fun with life.
• I’m grateful that … my youngest boy is still only 7, and in first grade, so I can pretend I still have young kids at home, before the race from First Grade to Senior Year is over too fast.
• I’m grateful that … my wife puts up with my weird ways, and tries to understand when I’m not in the mood to talk about something, and has faith in me, and in us, that we can work around such things.
• I’m grateful that … I have my health, and can still bike, and run, and swim, and work out at the Y. Lots of people my age can’t, and while there are no guarantees for my own future in that department, I plan on taking advantage of it for a long time.
• I’m grateful that … I’ve come to grips with my own place in the world, my strengths and weaknesses, and am pretty OK with it.
• I’m grateful that … my wife has found the things that make her happy, and let go of some things from the past that were holding her back, and we both see the [positive results of it every day.
• I’m grateful that … my Dad lived until I was 47 years old, and even though we developed some distance over the last few years of his life, his influence on me is lasting and I think of him often (I miss you, Dad!).
• I’m grateful that … my Mom is still alive, and in decent health (although it could be much better), though I wish she didn’t live 900 miles away.
• I’m grateful that … my faith journey has been gently guided by my wife, who is very driven by her own faith journey, even though I find reasons not to be. Maybe someday I can be more like her. I am trying.
• I’m grateful that … I have a blog and can therefore find the outlet for my need to put words on “paper”.
• I’m grateful that … my attitude about life is more positive now because I (try to) have faith that things will work out. And they usually do.
• I’m grateful that … I’ve forgiven myself (mostly) for a huge mistake in judgment I made in my early 20s. Beating yourself up doesn’t undo something you did; it’s important to not just resolve to do better next time, and to learn something from it, but to forgive yourself and allow God to forgive you, too.
• I’m grateful that … I was born in a country guided by the Founding Fathers, who were wise enough to use liberty as the guiding prinicple of the Constitution, which allows nearly unlimited mobility and freedom to be or do anything you want, at your own benefit / peril. Whatever you make of yourself is mostly due to things you did before, and most places in the world aren’t that accomodating.
• I’m grateful that … we have the most powerful and benevolent military ever to occupy this (or any other) planet, and we use it mostly for only the right reasons, and the fact that we have it at all provides untold and under-appreciated levels of security (and therefore freedom and wealth) for everybody who lives in freedom everywhere in the world. Really.
• I’m grateful that … I’ve been able to make a decent living using what God gave me: my brain, and a personality that is just social enough to fit in well enough in nearly every environment and every personal situation I’ve been in.
• I’m grateful that … my life has worked almost exactly the way I wanted it to. Education, marriage, family, kids, just enough prosperity but not too much (I hope).
• I’m grateful that … I woke up today.

If you haven’t counted your blessings lately, now might be a good time.

Merry Christmas and a Healthy and Prosperous New year to all!

A False Dichotomy

I heard on the radio yesterday that a new poll says most people are confident that Obama will fix the economy.

Then, this: only one in three wanted tax cuts, yet 8 of 10 want to prioritize on fixing the economy and creating jobs.

Ironically, tax cuts are more likely to accomplish both of those other goals than to prevent them.

Raising taxes reduces tax revenue and slows economic growth and makes jobs go away. If this seems counter-intuitive, then instead of questioning the concept, it might be time to question the underlying assumptions, which are not backed by history.

The economics of a free market is one thing that everybody who votes should really try to understand better. I’m no expert, but I do know that when it comes to the economy, government doesn’t fix anything — it can’t, because it doesn’t produce anything other people want to pay for. It just gets in the way. And the evidence is pretty clear that higher taxes are bad for everybody, not just the people paying them. Yet every election cycle, we hear all about “tax cuts for the rich”, which is code for “the wealthy are screwing the rest of us”. It doesn’t really work that way, but we hear it anyway, and lots of people buy it. Don’t fall for it.

I’m a relative newcomer to the power of the free market, just in the last few years, after having read various free-market economists like Thomas Sowell. A book by Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies, was also very influential in changing my thinking about the power of markets (a website for it is  here). And anything by P.J. O’Rourke, but especially All the Trouble in the World, which is an instant classic, and caused me to think “wow” on nearly every page just for the quality of writing therein.

The truth of the matter — which is why politicians never mention it — is that tax policies advocating higher taxes are really about class warfare. They want you to think of the economy as a big pie that has finite size, and more pie for others means less pie for me. But free market economies grow, and shrink, and they do so because of things like tax rates, and interest rates, and other factors that affect investment decisions. And when free market economies grow, or shrink, they do so for nearly everybody, not just rich people.

So — even if your main objective is to help poor people — the sensible thing to do is to advocate for policies that encourage investment. Choosing instead to raise taxes in order to spite rich people, AND inevitably hurt the poor and middle-class, is not just mean-spirited, it’s dumb.

But enough of my pitiful attempts to explain this, read the experts (and excellent writers, to boot) like Sowell and Postrel and O’Rourke.

Just for fun, a bonus chart of the highest marginal tax rates during the Great Depression, which increased from 25% just before to 79% in 1939. How’d that work out?

The Cubs Feast on Bullpens

Tonight I’m watching the Cubs game, and Cole Hamels of the Phillies is just mowing them down. This guy is really good; he pitched seven innings, gave up only four hits, just one run, and even though he was facing Ryan Dempster, who has been just about lights out at Wrigley this year, he was ahead 4-1.

So finally, in the top of the 8th, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel removes Hamels for a pinch hitter.

Which is just exactly what the Cubs needed. In the bottom of the 8th, Mike Fontenot leads off with a pinch-hit homer to make it 4-2. Now the top of the order is up; Soriano hits a double to center, Theriot hits a single to right, and suddenly it’s first and third with nobody out. Derrek Lee draws a walk. Bases loaded. Up next? Aramis Ramirez.

Now, if you’re Charlie Manuel, this is the absolute last guy you want to see come to bat with the bases loaded, nobody out, in the 8th inning of a close game, especially when you just took out your ace, and have to rely on your overworked bullpen.

Moonrise, Over End of Practice

Last night, as my youngest son’s first flag football practice was ending, the nearly-full moon was rising over the trees. I had to take 3 separate shots, underexposing by a little more each time, to darken the sky enough to see the moon. The sharpness isn’t the best, since I used a 1/15 shutter speed, and the colors are a little off, but all in all, I like the end result.

You might have to maximize your browser to fit it all in (or click on it to open in a new tab/window).

You Been Owned!

An actual put-down delivered by our 6 year old son, to our 9 year old son, in the car the other night:

Your face is stupider than a stupid sack of potatoes!

None of really knew what this meant, but we all laughed really hard.

This has “classic” written all over it, and is now destined to live on in our family as an inside joke, forever. Or at least until a better one comes along.

Feel free to use it without attribution. Our gift, to you.

Well. THAT Was An Interesting 24 Hours.

Last night, about 7:45, some serious weather rolled through the Chicago area, including a lightning show with the usual thunder — many of the lightning bolts were very close, like within a half mile or so — and prodigious amounts of rain and wind. Our power went out at about 8:15.

By 9:30, the storm was mostly done, and our kids went to bed. Still no power.

By 10:30, we were getting pretty tired, but I wanted to listen to more of the Cubs game, which had been delayed by nearly three hours, so I stayed on the front porch and listened to it. I ended up falling asleep out there, then woke up around 12 and upstairs to bed. Still no power.

At morning light, as usual, I woke up. Still no power.

We went out for coffee, juice, and rolls at Panera at 9:30, and then to the library so we could get some books and check email and whatnot. Got home 11:15. Still no power.

Went to the food store, to get ice, to pack coolers, so we could save the stuff in the fridge. Immediately went back to the food store to get more ice and a cheap styrofoam cooler because we didn’t have enough room for everything. Got home 12:45. Still no power.

Did some household errands and read some of the Wall Street Journal, did some weeding in the yard, then went to the pool. Got home 4:45. Still no power.

Finally, while getting an early dinner ready before Jacob’s football practice, the power went back on at 5:15.

21 hours of no electricity. Yep, we were living like freaking pioneers.

We were actually somewhat lucky, since the weather wasn’t super hot today — I’m really glad it wasn’t 95 degrees. It was about 86 or so for a high, with medium humidity. Not bad at all.

So this is part of the reason I didn’t post anything today. You’re welcome.

Mining the Classifieds for Pure Comedy Gold

Saw one on Craigslist where they want ASP.NET (mostly VB.NET) and other related web technologies, “strong creativity, knowledge of web site design and good design techniques using Microsoft ASP and ASP.NET”, database knowledge including optimization of SQL stored procedures plus SQL Server experience, and “strong troubleshooting and communication skills with the ability to multi-task”.

Those are some pretty marketable skills there.  This is for the Chicago area, where good, experienced software developers are pretty much in the $75-$110k range. 

Hmm, I wonder how much they’re paying … oh, here it is: $50-$55K.

HAHAHAHA!  Good luck to ya!

You could hire a college kid for that, and then watch the college kid learn how to design robust, scalable software on the job, by trial and error.  By “trial and error”, of course, I mean “your customer beta-tests it when it goes GA, multiple times, and finds many large and catastrophic bugs”.  You could do that.

You could also buy a Yugo instead of a BMW.  It’s cheaper, you know.

Tacos for Breakfast

This morning I was sitting with my nine year old son in our living room, in our big red chair, him on the huge oversized armrest, me in the cushioned part, watching Wimbledon tennis on ESPN2.

Suddenly he announces, “I have a taste for … tacos”.

It was just after 8 o’clock.

Then we laughed.  And for a few seconds, life stood still, and it was good.  It was one of those silly episodes from my life, and his, our life together, that seem disposable, but are in fact the glue that holds people together, the canvas we write our favorite memories on.

Word has gotten around in this household:  apparently, I’m a sucker for a silly kid, and somehow I have THREE of them; not sure how that happened, except that I love to laugh with my kids, and they all seem to learn that early on, and so they make me laugh.  Huh.  What is THAT about?

Being silly just to get Daddy to laugh?  Who could imagine such a thing?  Clearly, a riddle for another day.

But he wasn’t just being silly; he actually wanted tacos at 8 in the morning.  Which is still a little silly.  Not completely, though.  That actually sounds kind of good, to be frank.

Maybe tomorrow morning.

A Quick Heads Up

Try Not To Be As Dumb As Me

If you have a Liftmaster garage door opener, and the light behind the push bar (on the switch) starts blinking, and your remotes then stop working … it might be something as simple as “somebody done pushed the ‘LOCK’ button”.

Which, apparently, causes the the light behind the push bar to blink, and the remotes to stop working! Who knew? I’ve seen that button on that thing for years now.  No idea what it did. Never pushed it. Never read about it in the instruction manual.

So after about 3 weeks of no working remotes, and the damn light flashing at me every time I walked by, and pushing the button and running out of the garage AND stepping over the safety beam thing that stops the door WHILE ducking to avoid the door — about 30 or 40 times between me, my wife, and our kids — I finally remembered to look into this online, and found the answer in about 10 minutes.

As it turns out, guess what?  Somebody had pushed the LOCK button! So by pushing it again, it was all fixed. The blinking: gone! The remotes: working!

So once again, we learn the valuable lesson that reading the manual often leads to fixing problems.

Hence, the acronym RTFM: Read The Frigging Manual.

Usually the “F” stands for a different word.  See if you can guess what it is!