Happy Birthday Joshua

2
January 11, 2012

Yesterday, you turned 5.   I am having a really hard time processing this, because I can barely remember what life was like before you, and at the same time, the last 5 years have flown by.  In so many ways you have become such a big boy, and I am so proud of you.  But I can’t tell you how much I treasure the child you still are.   Your birthday was pretty hectic,  I rushed off to work in the morning and got home shortly before your bedtime.  It was a challenging day, but I can barely remember why.  But what I do remember was not the stress of the workday or commute home. What I hope to carry with me always was the following: I’m sitting in the basement watching TV, decompressing from the day and the phone/intercom rings. It was you . You asked me if I could please (I love when you say please) come upstairs and tuck you back in bed.  As I made my way up the stairs, I saw you standing in the darkened hallway waiting for me. Blanket wrapped around you. Teddy Bear, Godot, in your arms.  You waited patiently, clicking your flashlight on and off. I tucked you back in an gave you one more Happy birthday kiss and you gave me such a hug. I know someday you won’t need me to tuck you in anymore, and I know with every passing birthday, that day comes closer and closer. But that hug was the best present you could have possibly given me on your birthday!

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: Family, Kids, Parenting

I hope my kids do better

1
January 3, 2012

I don’t talk about work much on my blog but part of my job is to help teach managers how to shut down inappropriate, abusive and otherwise destructive employee behaviors. I have been working in Management, HR and employee relations for so long that it’s a bit second nature for me. Recently after doing some training a couple of the managers patted me on the back and told me how impressed they were with the way I shut down some push back in a training session I had conducted at their site a couple of weeks prior. I had to stop and actually replay the training in my head to figure out just what they were talking about. The “push back” was really pretty minor from my perceptive and easily shut down; I barely registered it. But I have spent the better part of my career training managers to handle situations like that. Too often people simply freeze up when someone puts them outside of their comfort zone. But I was just reminded of a time before I had those skills.

Two “friends” were saying pretty horrible things about another friend. I say friends in quotes because – well, it was high school and I was still developing my understanding of just what friendship is. Much to my shame, I just sat there. I didn’t tell them to STFU or in any way attempt to shut it down. While I didn’t say anything negative myself, I was part of the problem. My not calling them on their horrible behavior essentially provided tacit approval for it. These people made my friend’s life hell and I did nothing to stop it. Yes, I was 15 and full of my own insecurities and desire for acceptance, but I could have done better; I should have done better.

I think about this with my own kids. Will they have the fortitude to not sit idly by while others are being bullied? G-d for bid they are on the receiving end of that kind of behavior, will their friends have more courage than I did. I can’t go back in time to change my reaction, or lack therefore of, but I hope I can teach my kids to be a better person that I was.

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: HR, Kids

Mississippi voting on amendment to declare fertilized egg a person – WTF

8
November 4, 2011

Currently the state of Mississippi is voting on an amendment that would declare a fertilized egg a person. No, I’m not kidding – this amendment would define personhood as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”

They want to call a fertilized egg a person? WTF? This is a nothing more than a reckless attack on women’s reproductive rights. Full disclosure, I am pro-choice, but come on! A fertilized egg, a person????!!!. OK Mississippians, before you vote on this, ask yourself this question. You walk into a burning building and you see a 6 year old child and a container clearly marked Human Fertilized eggs. You can only save one. Would you hesitate before saving the ACTUAL child? Think on that at the voting booths.

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: Health, Political, Rants

What drives me?

1
October 17, 2011

I was reading one of my favorite blogs http://dialmforminky.com, and Stephanie was discussing what drives her http://dialmforminky.com/2011/10/what-fuels-me-besides-starbucks-you-mean/ I have been giving this topic quite a lot of thought myself lately and I haven’t really been able to quantify it. So I am attempting to do what I always do when I am trying to figure something out -write and/or talk about it until it makes sense in my head. So this post is pretty much stream of consciousness, lunch break therapy. Please feel free it skip it if you are looking for well organized and written prose. But then again, if that is what you are looking for, this is probably not the blog for you anyway.

Today I am feeling a bit lost and I realize I have lost sight of the forest through the trees of me. Too often I identify myself with the things I do, the metaphorical trees I plant. But it is all too easy to forget I am bigger than any one of these things. At various points in my life, I have been driven by different desires. Puffing up my already over inflated ego was certainly a long running theme. The ego thing still rears its ugly (but admittedly effective) head. And maybe that is healthy to a degree, in a take pride in your work kind of way. Today it is my kids more than anything else, that drive me. But I spend more time parenting employees than I do my own kids. Ultimately though, I know the hours and work I put in are for my family. My kids are my world, but I am also more than a parent. I have outside hopes and dreams, wants and desires. Like Stephanie, I have a need for creative expression. A need that sadly is rarely satisfied. My creative writing, with the exception of sporadic blog posts, has fallen away. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a poem or story.

I think for me, what drives me in large part is tied to how I define myself. I define myself as a parent first and foremost. I always knew I wanted kids, but I never knew how much it would change me. It became my center, but still not all of me. I have also always defined myself as an athlete and runner. For many years I wasn’t, but it never stopped me from thinking of myself in those terms. It was the realization that myself image was out of whack with my reality, that has pushed me to run again and consistently. I have been using Facebook and an iPhone app to help drive that change. I track all of my runs with Runmeter. Its Facebook integration helps me keep it real, so to speak. I’ve gotten to a respectable distance, now I just have to work on my speed. I want to think of myself as a runner, so by posting my running statistics in a mostly public fashion, I force myself to stick to it. Now there are plenty of other reasons I run. It is time to think, it feels great, reduces my occurrences of migraines, and it is doing wonders for my fitness. But the thing that drives me to run, is the desire for an internal and consistent self image. The goal being that eventually I will run regularly, not just because I want to think of myself as a runner, but because I truly am. I am starting to feel out of sorts when I don’t run, so hopefully I am moving in that direction.

I have thought of (and tried) ways I could do something similar with writing but I realized today, I no longer define myself as a writer. It seems odd to say out loud. I went a lot longer without running than I ever did without writing. But there it is. If I never publish “that novel”, I will be OK with that. Heck if I never write another short story or poem again, I would be OK with that as well. But if I no longer define myself as a writer, how can I address the desire for creative expression? I can’t paint or draw a straight line. I’m not much of a photographer. Yes, I could still write, and maybe someday I will take it up again, but in the mean time I have lost a large part of how I define myself in regards to creativity. But I need to remember, creativity goes beyond any single creative hobby or actions. I am creative in the ways I solve problems at work, parent my children, fix things around the house. But is that enough… I don’t know. There is something missing in regards to a creative outlet, and outside the context of writing, I’m not sure I know how to find it.

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: Family, Health, iPhone, Parenting, running, writing
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5K race, heartbreak, walls, clicks and other ramblings

1
September 27, 2011

So I ran my first 5k race since High School. Interestingly enough it was at my old high school on a modified version of our Cross Country course. Right before the race, a fellow Alum asked me what my goal was. I replied, to not embarrass myself too badly. I didn’t, and I actually did better than I thought. Partly because I usually run by myself, so I do think I ran faster with the “competition”. But I also I realized my iPhone App, Runkeeper isn’t properly tracking my runs, it listed the 3.1 miles as only 2.93. I believe this is because the course at Bullis turned in on itself in several place, and went through a wooded trail (Oh Puke Hill, you weren’t as big as I remember, but you were still painful.) The run was similar to my neighborhood workouts, I’ll pop into cul de saqs, up and down dead ends, and weather/light permitting, I’ll take the heavily wooded Cabin John Trail from Goya to Tuckerman. I don’t think the GPS is capturing my full distance, making me appear slower than I actually am. Not that I am still not painfully slow compared to High School but I am getting there. And as a wise friend frequently reminds me, it’s the journey, not the destinations.

After the race another dear friend of mine asked me how it went. When I explained that I ran faster than I thought, she quipped that she would set a personal speed record just getting “the heck out” of her old high school. I have to admit, I understood the feeling. No matter where you were on the popularity spectrum, high school is painful. I think that is where most of us really learn to build walls, to varying degrees of height and depth. The walls are a survival mechanism for the countless intended and unintended hurts we all give to one another. But sometimes I wonder if those walls do more harm than good. Do we make ourselves into the proverbial bubble boy. When we do let things/people through, are we that much more raw/fresh/immune comprised….

I say high school is when we learn to build the walls but in truth it goes back much further. Partly for me, high school sticks out because I went to the same school from 5th trough 12th grade, so it is all kind of blurs together as one school/experience in my head. But I know it went back further. I have some clear memories of early childhood. One in particular I have never forgotten. I was 5 or 6 and some little kid wanted to play with a group of us. I don’t know why but I didn’t want him to play with us so I taunted this poor kid relentlessly until he went home crying. I never forgot the look on his face. I can also remember being on the other end of that type experience. Sadly, I am now starting to see it with my four year old; and it is HEARTBREAKING! Josh is a very social kid, and has a lot of friends, but even at 4 you start to see clicks form. There are two boys in particular in his class, who really don’t play with him, then a third who seems to go along with the other two when they are around. Josh must have told me 10 times last week how these three boys would not let him play Super Power Rangers with them on the playground at school. So my first thought was excellent, two of those boys aren’t particularly well behaved and well and I really don’t want you to know what Super Power Rangers are anyways, hence why the little TV we watch is PBS. Then I saw his hurt, and I just wanted to hold him and squeeze the pain way. But that hurt is nothing compared to what I have seen at Shul lately. There is this girl, she is a year older than Josh (he digs the older girls) so she is in kindergarten and is no longer in preschool with him, but he still sees her at Torah Tots on Shabbat, and Josh just LUV LUV LUVs her and she is just plain mean to him. He looks at her all googly eyes and tries to talk to her, and she just ignores him or worse, tells him to go away. IT IS PAINFUL. This is one of the most social, friendly and emotionally intelligent 4 year olds you will ever meet. I have no doubt Josh will do fine in life. He is everything I mentioned before, plus handsome, athletic, and has an amazing mind. I know in life he will have his heart broken and I have no doubt he will break his share of hearts, but it pains me to know the walls start forming so early in life.

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: Family, Friends, iPhone, Judaism, Kids, running

And here is why I’m glad I’m not modest.

0
September 16, 2011

Today like many other Americans I had to go through a TSA naked scanner. This is not the reason for the post, that would be my accidental public nudity. I just found myself thinking for the second time today, it’s a good thing I’m not modest. But before I get to my exposure, please excuse my TSA rant. A couple TSA agents effectively being able to see me naked doesn’t really bother me personally, though I can understand how it could for others. For me it is more about the fact it is for the most part ineffective; thanks to plastic and ceramics, it will not stop anyone with a modicum of savvy from bringing a weapon aboard. So I think it is ridiculous to violate people’s privacy for something that doesn’t actually work. In general I get annoyed whenever I’m forced to do something that is pointless, especially if I know it can have an emotional impact on others. Ok on the the nudity.

I’ve spent most of this week in Stuart, Florida at the Marriott Hutchinson Island Resort. For the record this is hands down the nicest Marriott I have ever seen. I had a spacious hotel room with a private bedroom and a balcony off the living room with an amazing view of the pool, palm trees and a bit of the ocean (I was on the first floor so the ocean was partially obstructed by the tiki bar and palm trees). The costumer service was phenomenal. I can’t remember the last time I stayed somewhere where everyone on staff was at the top of there game. Sadly I was there for work and had little opportunity to enjoy. My days started fairly early in the morning and continued well into the night. Also for the 3 days before my trip, for whatever reason, I wasn’t sleeping well. Needless to say, when I was in the room I was a bit of a zombie.

Since my flight wasn’t until 3 pm today I actually had the opportunity to sleep in late and go for a run on the beach. Which also gave me the opportunity to de-zombify and I suppose increased my observation skills. I come back from my run and hit the shower. I mentioned that the suite had a private bedroom. Consequently I never bothered to draw the curtains in the living room. I simply dressed in the bathroom and closed the bedroom door when I was sleeping. So after my shower, I’m standing in the bathroom completely naked. I was shaving, primping and etc, when my eyes caught glimpse of the gorgeous view through the mirror. First I start thinking to myself, man I love ocean. And that really is a pretty pool. What a beautiful day. And that is a really clear reflection through this big giant set of mirrors. Oh if I can see the people on the deck they can see me. Oh and this is day four and most of the time I have been in here has been night time with the lights on so there was likely and even better view. I wonder if that is why the couple in the hot tub waived to me the first night after I showered, dressed and sat out on the balcony. Oh well, good thing I’m not modest. I hope they enjoyed the view!

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: public nudity

First day of school

2
August 28, 2011

Tomorrow (Monday) is the boys’ first day back in pre-school. Two years ago, when Josh started his first day, I was a wreck. I can’t remember if he cried; if he did it wasn’t much. I however was in tears (overprotective control freak much…) Tomorrow I will not cry. No really, I won’t. Had this been Elijah’s first year, as was originally planed, I can’t say I would be ask confident in my no cry declaration. But we ended up needing to start him last year due to some family drama and Melissa needing converge for her Monday morning class. This year Elijah is going 5 days versus 3, and they are both staying until 2 versus 12:30. But essentially this isn’t anything new for them. In fact Elijah has the same teachers and almost all the same kids in his class. Now for Melissa, it is a big change. This will be the first time in 4 1/2 years, that she will actually regularly have some time without the kids.

So this is great for everyone. Well not so much for our bank account (Great school and totally worth it, but seriously who knew preschool was so expensive.) Besides I can’t actually have a breakdown since I am flying solo tomorrow. Melissa managed to pull Jury Duty.

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: Kids, Local

Psychic Preschooler Earthquake Detector

0
August 24, 2011

Joshua*, my Psychic Earthquake Detector.

For those of you living in a cave, somewhere outside of the North Eastern United States; the DC Metro area had a fairly significant** earthquake yesterday. While noticeable seismic activity in this area is a bit rare, we did have a much smaller quake last July. Other than college I have spent my life in the DC area, and I can’t ever recall anything like these last two quakes. Nothing that I ever felt, or that I can recall receiving anywhere near this much press.

So on to the psychic detector. Josh has mentioned last year’s earthquake a few times, but not in a long time. It wasn’t as big as yesterday’s, and when your 4, a year is a long time. Yesterday Melissa took the kids to the Chesapeake Bay to visit a friend. We just got back from an wonderful trip to the beach where you have to cross said bay. So if anything would be popping into his head on that trip, you would think it would be our recent vacation. Not so much. When they were driving there, Josh randomly asked Melissa if she remembers the Earthquake from last summer. This was several hours before the Earthquake hit. Then after it happened he told Melissa he knew it was coming; he felt it when he was sleeping.

I love science and I pride myself on my ability to think critically. But I’m not so arrogant to discount the possibility that there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. I understand confirmation bias, and I understand statistically with all of the kids in the area, someone might randomly have asked about last years quake. It could simply be the equivalent of winning the lottery. The title of the post was more than a little tongue in cheek. I have no idea if it was coincidence or something outside the realm of current science. Honestly when I hear about things like this, I tend to dismiss them. I’m a bit cynical, whether by nature, or to many years of doing employee relations/investigations. People’s perceptions are often skewed, and still others are just plain liars. So take this for what it is, a very cool anecdote.

* I picked the picture of Josh passed out at dinner on our recent vacation because he claims to have dreamt the earthquake was coming. That and I think it is adorable.

** I know it wasn’t significant by west coast standards but a friend of mine, Stephanie of Dialmforminky summoned up pretty eloquently why it was significant for us here

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: Dreams, Earthquake, Kids, Local, Psychic, Skeptic

Conversations with my 2 1/2 year old

0
August 23, 2011

Elijah: Daddy, Plex not wuurking. (hands me the iPad)
Me: Did Ema say you could watch TV
Elijah: Yes but plex not wuuuurking
Me: OK let me look.
Elijah: you fix it daddy?
Me: Yup. for some reason the iPad was on our guest network, not the main network so it couldn’t see the server. It should work now.

I hand it back to him. He opens up plex, goes to the Kids TV folder and pics his show and episode. Seriously he is 2 1/2

Elijah: I watch “Super Wide”, Daddy
Me: That is “Super Why” honey
Elijah: No “Super WIDE”
Me: Its Super Why
Elijah: Super WIDE
Me: Elijah, I promise you, the name of the show is “Super Why”
Elijah: Wide, SUPER WIDE
Me: Really honey it is Super Why
Elijah: Don’t say that Daddy
Me: But
Elijah: NOOOOO SUPER WIDE.
Me: OK honey

I hope this is not a portent of things to come. Stubbornness runs on both sides of his family tree.

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: Apple, iPad, Kids, TV

OSX Lion is officially out

3
July 20, 2011

iTunes, App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store(affiliate link) 29.99 in the Mac App Store

I hope to do a more comprehensiveness review later. I have been playing with the beta for a while and am mostly pleased with the direction of OS X. Not surprisingly given the success of Apple’s mobile platform, they have taken quite a few elements from iOS and moved them to the desktop. There are new Multi-touch gestures and scroll works like the iPad/iPhone. There is a clear push to full-screen apps, creating a more immersive experience, similar to iOS. And of course, the auto resume/save function which also echos the iOS task management system is a welcome change.

I will say, right now this is more of an evolutionary update than revolutionary. But at $30, it is priced right. That said, come Fall, once iOS 5 and iCloud (underpinnings for which are built into Lion, and won’t likely be available to snow leopard) are released, Lion will be a must have if you are an iPad/iPhone user.

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: Apple, iPad, iPad & iPhone App Review, iPhone, Lion, OS X
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