Two posts in two days...how likely is that to happen anymore? Not very...not unless its the holiday season and I might actually be able to grab the time and have the brain power to fuel it.
Just a quick thought today:
What could you do to improve your life immediately in some way, with the stipulation that a) it can't cost anything to you personally and b) you would and could actually do it and stick with it?
And I mean actually improve your life, not just something warm and fuzzy and unimportant? I know nobody really reads this outside a small circle, but just in case, please, use the comments section.
Consider this a twist on the "If you could do anything..." question. It's more of a "What can you possibly, realistically, do?" type question.
And of course, part 2 is, if you CAN think of something, why aren't you doing it yet? How do I know you aren't doing it? Well, I don't, but if it took you more than 5 seconds to pop out the answer, you probably aren't doing it.
Here's mine, sort of. I'm losing weight, and/or keeping it off. Though my day to day life doesn't REALLY feel like it is improved as a result, and I am not actually actively doing anything to make it happen (its just a result of our lifestyle which did undergo some relatively major changes since we found out Felix was coming). So, I really need to come up with some other things.
One other thing I'm doing is going to the company well and getting out as much training, etc, as I can that they will cover. This does immediately improve my life because it actually does help me do my job better and prepares me for whatever my next steps are. It also, I hope, causes my company to value me more because they are investing in me and they should be interested in protecting their investment, getting the most out of it that they can. And self improvement is life improvement, right?
The challenge is to figure out as many of those things as you can and to do them.
Discuss.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
scratch
I just deleted the post I started writing yesterday. I had good intentions but somewhere around character 3 or four it all started to go pear shaped. Rants about sub-prime mortgages, mortgagee's, corporate bailouts, financial ruination, mental duress, etc etc etc...not a very happy xmas message.
So, starting again from scratch.
The only thing I will say of a negative nature, or somewhat negative nature, or hinting upon my/our/everyone's current negative nature is from "Oh, the Places You Will Go!" by Dr. Seuss. Paraphrased, of course.
Somewhere about seven pages in he talks about when you fall from your high heights and you are left in the lurch by your cohorts.
So, we're feeling the slump. Edging towards the waiting place. We're sort of in a slump/waiting place combo-hybrid.
So, nuff about that.
Merry Xmas happy holidays, hope everyone has had an enjoyable day off from regular work, if you had one, and perhaps a long weekend to come. These next two weeks are so borderline, especially what with the possibility of long and longer weekends depending on when the big days (25th, 1st) fall on. There should be some sort of quasi-leap yearish rule that says if xmas and new years are on a Thursday, everyone just automatically gets off from the 25th to the 2nd. I mean, really. But then again...if that happened, what the hell would we all do on the 26th through the 31st with houses full guests and no place to send them out to? It'd be like some sort of holiday vacation grudge match fo some. I know that for me, going to work is an important part of maintaining my sanity. Not that I'm a work-a-holic or that I don't like my family. Of course not. But I get grumpy and antsy and crabby and listless when I don't feel great about myself, and this time of year I'm generally feeling less great about myself than usual. Its a time of year when the great juggling acts I've been performing tend to wear thin, the punchlines are already old and worn out, the balls are greasy from handling and sweat. In general, it feels like an ending without a necessarily wonderful denoument and the trailers for the coming sequel don't look like lots of fun. We'll see. But in general, I tend to get less than wonderful to be around all the time right now. But I'm trying! We're all trying.
We had a nice little gathering for NYCXMAS II, or Xmas in the 3rd year of Felix (he's 2.5625 years old). Just Felix, mama, daddy, uncle Glen. I got a Flip Mino pocket digital camcorder (yay! Andrea's dad basically read my mind) which I used to film most of Felix's gift-opening shennanigans. Felix got books and toys and musical instruments (slide whistle, kazoo), and of course (yay!) clothes. Andrea got books of various shapes and sizes right from her wishlist, so she was very happy about those too. We all had a good, small, tidy xmas. Full of wonder and possibility.
If i get approval from the chief, I may see if i can post the Felix highlight reel or perhaps host it somewhere for them that should be given access.
Happy holidays. Merry Merry.
It's hot as hell in here because Glen is doing some kitchen magic. We all look forward to that!
So, starting again from scratch.
The only thing I will say of a negative nature, or somewhat negative nature, or hinting upon my/our/everyone's current negative nature is from "Oh, the Places You Will Go!" by Dr. Seuss. Paraphrased, of course.
Somewhere about seven pages in he talks about when you fall from your high heights and you are left in the lurch by your cohorts.
You'll come down from the LurchThat's about it for me and us and etc. I am personally slumping, but only in regard to the mountain of hackenkracks looming up before me. We as a family are majorly slumping because, well, when you have big hard decisions you naturally get slumped. And of course, the whole country is in a horrible horrible slump, has been for a year or two, so that's that.
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a Slump.
And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
So, we're feeling the slump. Edging towards the waiting place. We're sort of in a slump/waiting place combo-hybrid.
So, nuff about that.
Merry Xmas happy holidays, hope everyone has had an enjoyable day off from regular work, if you had one, and perhaps a long weekend to come. These next two weeks are so borderline, especially what with the possibility of long and longer weekends depending on when the big days (25th, 1st) fall on. There should be some sort of quasi-leap yearish rule that says if xmas and new years are on a Thursday, everyone just automatically gets off from the 25th to the 2nd. I mean, really. But then again...if that happened, what the hell would we all do on the 26th through the 31st with houses full guests and no place to send them out to? It'd be like some sort of holiday vacation grudge match fo some. I know that for me, going to work is an important part of maintaining my sanity. Not that I'm a work-a-holic or that I don't like my family. Of course not. But I get grumpy and antsy and crabby and listless when I don't feel great about myself, and this time of year I'm generally feeling less great about myself than usual. Its a time of year when the great juggling acts I've been performing tend to wear thin, the punchlines are already old and worn out, the balls are greasy from handling and sweat. In general, it feels like an ending without a necessarily wonderful denoument and the trailers for the coming sequel don't look like lots of fun. We'll see. But in general, I tend to get less than wonderful to be around all the time right now. But I'm trying! We're all trying.
We had a nice little gathering for NYCXMAS II, or Xmas in the 3rd year of Felix (he's 2.5625 years old). Just Felix, mama, daddy, uncle Glen. I got a Flip Mino pocket digital camcorder (yay! Andrea's dad basically read my mind) which I used to film most of Felix's gift-opening shennanigans. Felix got books and toys and musical instruments (slide whistle, kazoo), and of course (yay!) clothes. Andrea got books of various shapes and sizes right from her wishlist, so she was very happy about those too. We all had a good, small, tidy xmas. Full of wonder and possibility.
If i get approval from the chief, I may see if i can post the Felix highlight reel or perhaps host it somewhere for them that should be given access.
Happy holidays. Merry Merry.
It's hot as hell in here because Glen is doing some kitchen magic. We all look forward to that!
Monday, December 01, 2008
It's Official
We're in a recession, have been since last December. Funny how you can't be in a recession until you log 4 quarters of decline, but once you are in recession, the past four qualifying months are retroactively designated as recession. It almost seems superstitious, like not having a 13th floor even though it is actually impossible to not have a 13th floor if you build a building with 13 floors. Sort of like, don't tell the kids and everything will be OK. Hell no it won't. We've all been watching as the economy circles the bowl for over a year. Who on earth thought, "No, just wait, its not a recession yet...just give it one more month..."
So, uh...what's happening, then...my paycheck will stay the same. It certainly shouldn't go down. Inflation is sort of a fairy tale right now. Maybe prices falling a little bit will be a good thing in the long run. Our electric bill went fro $100 to $35 between October and November and honestly, we didn't use THAT MUCH more in October. The energy prices have been falling because, you know, not so much demand for energy since all those factories and plants and offices everywhere are closing, not so many people are going to be buying utilities for their empty properties...demand goes down, prices go down. Those of us who still need it, or at least will be continuing to pay for it, will get a slight break.
We'll see. Once again, we go into the holding pattern: Have a job? Sit tight. I waited out the IT slump of the early 2000's and then took off my career development. Right now its not an IT slump yet, but we'll see. All you IT types, just focus on two things: Keep your job and make sure everyone realizes that they NEED YOU (and somehow you are saving the company money).
So, uh...what's happening, then...my paycheck will stay the same. It certainly shouldn't go down. Inflation is sort of a fairy tale right now. Maybe prices falling a little bit will be a good thing in the long run. Our electric bill went fro $100 to $35 between October and November and honestly, we didn't use THAT MUCH more in October. The energy prices have been falling because, you know, not so much demand for energy since all those factories and plants and offices everywhere are closing, not so many people are going to be buying utilities for their empty properties...demand goes down, prices go down. Those of us who still need it, or at least will be continuing to pay for it, will get a slight break.
We'll see. Once again, we go into the holding pattern: Have a job? Sit tight. I waited out the IT slump of the early 2000's and then took off my career development. Right now its not an IT slump yet, but we'll see. All you IT types, just focus on two things: Keep your job and make sure everyone realizes that they NEED YOU (and somehow you are saving the company money).
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Post Turkey Day
We had a quiet little Thanksgiving here in the great north east, a place some consider to be the center of the universe, or perhaps at the moment, a great gaping black hole that threatens to suck everyone and everything in with its financial collapse.
Regardless, we had a bountiful thanksgiving dinner. We had purchased a 13lb turkey at the farmers market. It was the smallest one they had and I don't think a single ounce was from water-injection. It was possibly the best (and continues to be on day 3 of turkey for lunch and dinner) turkey I can remember.
And life rolls on. And on.
One of our favorite sources of entertainment, bloggingheads.tv, has had more than one diavlog (its bloggingheads lingo) comment on the notions of being thankful for atheists vs. theists. Specifically, without a god to be thankful to for everything, can atheists truly be thankful, and if so, how do they do it? Well, of course we can, and both Bob Wright and George Johnson answer that question quite well, I think. Not to mention that Bob's conversation with Joel Achenbach is really fun and entertaining. But anyway.
Which brings me to another topic, often discussed amongst studies of atheism vs. theism: happiness. Some studies have shown that American atheists tend to be less happy, at least on paper, and mostly through their own reporting. I think what is more likely is that the way atheists and theists define happiness may be very different(maybe) or that perhaps atheists tend to be a bit more honest with themselves (and questionnaires) when it comes to reporting their sense of happiness. I have always felt that one of the fundamental purposes of faith is to release oneself of responsibility for certain things. If you don't know where your next meal will come from, a situation I'm sure many atheists and religiously faithful find themselves in these days, this situation causes a lot of stress. However, the atheist most likely is considering only the reality of not knowing where the meal (or money for it) may come from and so sets about it. The theist does and feels pretty much the same, but also has some extra little boost they can use when they are feeling particularly hopeless, and that is that a) God will provide or b) everything that happens is God's will. While it doesn't seem very comforting to me to consider that I'm going hungry because God planned it that way, I can see where it may reduce my stress just an eensy bit or at least my sense of personal failure or despair to feel that I am not really at fault for my predicament or for failing to find a positive outcome. So, yes, I'm hungry, but somehow its serving a higher purpose.
And if the industrious atheist and theist do find their next meals, they will both be happier for it, but the theist is happy to have a meal and also grateful to god for having provided it and thus feels more justified or assured that there is a god. Its a positive feedback loop. The atheist, most likely, is happy to be eating but pretty unhappy about being in that situation and generally feels less than happy on the whole.
This is a topic I think about quite a bit. There has also been a lot done on this (or similar) topic in general lately. There is this Slate article which refers to this Science article and this book. And it seems that bloggingheads.tv has had many people discussing the origins of morality and the misnomer that it relies upon religious belief. Surprise, it seems like morality and religion are not actually dependent upon each other at all. Or perhaps, if you've had your eyes open for the past 10,000 years, not so much of a surprise (or 6,000 years for you YECs). Why do I think about atheism so much? Well, perhaps it comes with age and becoming more self-conscious. I would hope that as humans mature they feel compelled to examine their own inner workings. Perhaps is where the mid-life crisis comes from. Having acheived some level of contentment with their lives through hard work or other means, people come to the point where they start to examine themselves. Perhaps the mid-life crisis is the result of existential upset when the examination happens or perhaps the crisis occurs as a means of running away from the examination altogether. And does the mid-life crisis require that you attain that contentment in advance of your ability to handle the introspection? Has our crashing economy, and crashing global economies in general, removed us all (except for they that already have means to pursue introspection at leisure) from the danger of facing the dreaded midlife crisis? I mean, who has time to ditch your wife and kids and buy a sports car while the economy crashes around you? Only people who don't have to worry about economy because they have enough money, I guess. So in large part, the title of my blog becomes obsolete for 99% of us (myself included).
So, hooray! We've finally done away with the scourge of the midlife crisis. Unfortunately, the solution was to replace it with something else; whole life crisis.
Regardless, we had a bountiful thanksgiving dinner. We had purchased a 13lb turkey at the farmers market. It was the smallest one they had and I don't think a single ounce was from water-injection. It was possibly the best (and continues to be on day 3 of turkey for lunch and dinner) turkey I can remember.
And life rolls on. And on.
One of our favorite sources of entertainment, bloggingheads.tv, has had more than one diavlog (its bloggingheads lingo) comment on the notions of being thankful for atheists vs. theists. Specifically, without a god to be thankful to for everything, can atheists truly be thankful, and if so, how do they do it? Well, of course we can, and both Bob Wright and George Johnson answer that question quite well, I think. Not to mention that Bob's conversation with Joel Achenbach is really fun and entertaining. But anyway.
Which brings me to another topic, often discussed amongst studies of atheism vs. theism: happiness. Some studies have shown that American atheists tend to be less happy, at least on paper, and mostly through their own reporting. I think what is more likely is that the way atheists and theists define happiness may be very different(maybe) or that perhaps atheists tend to be a bit more honest with themselves (and questionnaires) when it comes to reporting their sense of happiness. I have always felt that one of the fundamental purposes of faith is to release oneself of responsibility for certain things. If you don't know where your next meal will come from, a situation I'm sure many atheists and religiously faithful find themselves in these days, this situation causes a lot of stress. However, the atheist most likely is considering only the reality of not knowing where the meal (or money for it) may come from and so sets about it. The theist does and feels pretty much the same, but also has some extra little boost they can use when they are feeling particularly hopeless, and that is that a) God will provide or b) everything that happens is God's will. While it doesn't seem very comforting to me to consider that I'm going hungry because God planned it that way, I can see where it may reduce my stress just an eensy bit or at least my sense of personal failure or despair to feel that I am not really at fault for my predicament or for failing to find a positive outcome. So, yes, I'm hungry, but somehow its serving a higher purpose.
And if the industrious atheist and theist do find their next meals, they will both be happier for it, but the theist is happy to have a meal and also grateful to god for having provided it and thus feels more justified or assured that there is a god. Its a positive feedback loop. The atheist, most likely, is happy to be eating but pretty unhappy about being in that situation and generally feels less than happy on the whole.
This is a topic I think about quite a bit. There has also been a lot done on this (or similar) topic in general lately. There is this Slate article which refers to this Science article and this book. And it seems that bloggingheads.tv has had many people discussing the origins of morality and the misnomer that it relies upon religious belief. Surprise, it seems like morality and religion are not actually dependent upon each other at all. Or perhaps, if you've had your eyes open for the past 10,000 years, not so much of a surprise (or 6,000 years for you YECs). Why do I think about atheism so much? Well, perhaps it comes with age and becoming more self-conscious. I would hope that as humans mature they feel compelled to examine their own inner workings. Perhaps is where the mid-life crisis comes from. Having acheived some level of contentment with their lives through hard work or other means, people come to the point where they start to examine themselves. Perhaps the mid-life crisis is the result of existential upset when the examination happens or perhaps the crisis occurs as a means of running away from the examination altogether. And does the mid-life crisis require that you attain that contentment in advance of your ability to handle the introspection? Has our crashing economy, and crashing global economies in general, removed us all (except for they that already have means to pursue introspection at leisure) from the danger of facing the dreaded midlife crisis? I mean, who has time to ditch your wife and kids and buy a sports car while the economy crashes around you? Only people who don't have to worry about economy because they have enough money, I guess. So in large part, the title of my blog becomes obsolete for 99% of us (myself included).
So, hooray! We've finally done away with the scourge of the midlife crisis. Unfortunately, the solution was to replace it with something else; whole life crisis.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Big Day For real
So, I waited in line for about an hour to vote. Andrea had gotten up early and gone to vote so she wouldn't have to stay late at work. I emailed her about the lines and seeming lack of resources at the voting place (a school). She emailed me from work while I was in line, "No doubt. Make you miss Minnesota? just wait until you get to the archaic lever machine!" to which I responded "Voting at the Iron Maiden." When I finally wound my way up to the voting booth (only one per district!!! and there were 10 districts voting at this spot! wtf?!) I entered and found that I wasn't far off. A little boy and his father were ahead of me. Right before they went in the boy commented (he couldn't have been more than 5 years old, probably 4) that it looked like a giant toilet. I had to agree. After you set your levers, the voting official has to hit a silver lever on the side of the machine that looks exactly like a toilet handle. The metaphor of this official "flushing" away the previous person's vote was somewhat chilling, but then when you consider that we live in New York City, our votes are, essentially, being pissed away. I mean, Obama is a foregone conclusion in this state. But you know, you gotta do it.
I actually have the day off. My whole company if off today. That's nice. I'm taking the opportunity to get some work done :) Yeah, lately being at work is almost more distracting because there's so much going on there. Today I'm working on some development that I really have been having a hard time getting done at work. Made a lot of progress. That will let me save some boring/nuts and bolts stuff for when I am actually in the office. It has also been difficult because we've been touring preschools for Felix and sometimes we have one or two a week, which means I've taken a lot of half-days. Having that sort of break in your usual work flow can be pretty disruptive. Wish I was cutting things up because of fabulous vacations or something, but I don't see THAT happening any time soon.
So, this is my one treat, sort of. I'm taking a quick break to put a post in here.
Having election dayy off sort of sucks. We got up and voted and now its just sit and simmer and try to distract yourself with something (in my case, work) until later this evening when the real race happens. And I think it will be even worse since we're on the east coast so the final verdict, unless its a complete landslide, won't be in until like 2am? Oh well. The joys of being first. Hurry up and wait.
I actually have the day off. My whole company if off today. That's nice. I'm taking the opportunity to get some work done :) Yeah, lately being at work is almost more distracting because there's so much going on there. Today I'm working on some development that I really have been having a hard time getting done at work. Made a lot of progress. That will let me save some boring/nuts and bolts stuff for when I am actually in the office. It has also been difficult because we've been touring preschools for Felix and sometimes we have one or two a week, which means I've taken a lot of half-days. Having that sort of break in your usual work flow can be pretty disruptive. Wish I was cutting things up because of fabulous vacations or something, but I don't see THAT happening any time soon.
So, this is my one treat, sort of. I'm taking a quick break to put a post in here.
Having election dayy off sort of sucks. We got up and voted and now its just sit and simmer and try to distract yourself with something (in my case, work) until later this evening when the real race happens. And I think it will be even worse since we're on the east coast so the final verdict, unless its a complete landslide, won't be in until like 2am? Oh well. The joys of being first. Hurry up and wait.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Big Day
No, I'm not talking about Halloween, though that is starting to be a big day again since Felix can probably enjoy it and, as such, we can start to enjoy it again too. No, what I mean is next Tuesday. Voting Day. Liberation Day. What have you. I do have one VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE to impart to anyone who reads this blog (if anyone still does):
If you are still honestly UNDECIDED (i.e. not just saying that to avoid talking about your true feelings/leanings), you should go to work on Tuesday and work really hard and all day and then go home and go jogging or do some yoga or maybe go shooting at the gun club, whatever. But DON'T VOTE. If you can't make up your mind until you enter the voting booth, you SHOULD NOT VOTE. And I'm not just being snippy or snotty or snooty. For the good of everyone, for Democracy itself, and to be a good patriot, do whatever you can do to avoid VOTING POORLY. Voting poorly means just casting votes willy nilly without really knowing what or who you are voting for. You don't get behind the wheel of a car (hopefully!) unless you really know how to drive, so don't get behind a ballot without knowing what you are doing. Your negligence, like unskillfully driving a car, can hurt people.
And honestly, if you've made it this far without figuring out who you like better or despise least, you really aren't equipped to cast a vote. You do not get a learner's permit, you do not get to retake the test if you screw it up (not for four years, at least, and then its usually too little too late).
So, everyone who knows who to vote for, go vote. Everyone who is that mysterious demographic that has been loved by both campaigns for the past 3 months, stay home.
If you are still honestly UNDECIDED (i.e. not just saying that to avoid talking about your true feelings/leanings), you should go to work on Tuesday and work really hard and all day and then go home and go jogging or do some yoga or maybe go shooting at the gun club, whatever. But DON'T VOTE. If you can't make up your mind until you enter the voting booth, you SHOULD NOT VOTE. And I'm not just being snippy or snotty or snooty. For the good of everyone, for Democracy itself, and to be a good patriot, do whatever you can do to avoid VOTING POORLY. Voting poorly means just casting votes willy nilly without really knowing what or who you are voting for. You don't get behind the wheel of a car (hopefully!) unless you really know how to drive, so don't get behind a ballot without knowing what you are doing. Your negligence, like unskillfully driving a car, can hurt people.
And honestly, if you've made it this far without figuring out who you like better or despise least, you really aren't equipped to cast a vote. You do not get a learner's permit, you do not get to retake the test if you screw it up (not for four years, at least, and then its usually too little too late).
So, everyone who knows who to vote for, go vote. Everyone who is that mysterious demographic that has been loved by both campaigns for the past 3 months, stay home.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Vacation 101
Andrea flew to Latvia yesterday (Poland actually, she didn't arrive in Latvia until today) to visit her long lost friend who is now 9 months pregnant. I had entertained the idea of taking the whole week off myself and spending some hardcore quality time with Felix. Well, being as deeply involved and highly instrumental in my numero uno biggest project this year, taking a whole week off from work didn't seem like a good idea. For me or for work. Instead I'm taking today and tomorrow off. Next monday is labor day (yes, already, summer is over!) so I have that off and I'm taking the following thursday and Friday off to cover for the nanny. So, this week is 3 days at work and next week is only two, so I guess I really am getting a whole week off right in the thick of things. Just not all in one lump.
What was I saying? Oh yes. So while Andrea if "on vacation" I'm also "on vacation." What that means is that rather than just having my same old day home with Felix I'm trying to do other fun stuff with him so it is like a vacation for him too. At first, when I was actually entertaining the idea of a whole week off, there was the option of connecting with my parents and relatives in Boston. It would have been just Felix and I hitting the road and hooking up with the rents and relatives in Beantown. There was some disappointment all around when I decided we just couldn't do that trip. But really I just couldn't swing a whole week off and looking back, it would have been absolutely insane to try and set up this trip at the same time as getting Andrea set up for her trip...and even more insane to actually go on it. So, on our abbreviated vacation schedule, Felix and I went to the New Yor kaquarium at Coney Island this morning and saw the fishies. Between yesterday's trips to and from the airport and today's jaunt to Coney Island, Felix has logged around 3 hours on trains of various sorts (subway, AirTrain, LIRR). The verdict so far: AirTrain and LIRR are good, subway is not so good. At every subway stop Felix looks to me and says, "Done." Which is really his was of asking "Can we get off at this stop?" and stating, "I no longer find this amusing."
After spending all morning at the aquarium, we walked across the boardwalk and across the sand to the atlantic ocean. Felix and I got our feet wet. As the water rushes back out to the ocean, it does its best to suck the sand out from beneath our feet. I had forgotten all about that. Felix was holding my hand as usual so he didn't fall down, but he did end up dangling from my arm and saying "Up!" which means "I'm done walking, pick me up right now please."
So, on day 1 of our 2 days of vacation we saw the fishies and touched the ocean. We also skipped our nap entirely and had blueberry crumble at Dizzy's for dessert.
Tomorrow? Maybe go to the beach, but I don't know...maybe in the afternoon. I don't want to interrupt Felix's napping schedule. Today he skipped completely because we stayed out too late. I don't want to do that two dayys in a row. Felix could decide he doesn't want naps any more and that would be BAD. On a positive note, Felix demanded that he sleep in his crib. Why is this a big deal? Since we moved to New ork, Felix has rarely slept a full night in his crib alone. After a week or two of Felix waking us (and our neighbors) up with screaming fits, we just started putting him in our bed from the start to avoid the screaming fits. Last week I took down one side of his crib in hopes of avoiding the ever more inevitable head injury that Felix would sustain when he finally scales the side of his crib before figuring out what happens after he makes it over the top of the rail. So he's been napping with the crib half-converted into a big-boy bed and tonight he demanded (in a whiny sort of way) that he sleep there. It was one of my pie in the sky goals to ween him off of the mama-dada bed while Andrea was gone and boom, he's done it on his own.
What does tomorrow hold? who knows...
What was I saying? Oh yes. So while Andrea if "on vacation" I'm also "on vacation." What that means is that rather than just having my same old day home with Felix I'm trying to do other fun stuff with him so it is like a vacation for him too. At first, when I was actually entertaining the idea of a whole week off, there was the option of connecting with my parents and relatives in Boston. It would have been just Felix and I hitting the road and hooking up with the rents and relatives in Beantown. There was some disappointment all around when I decided we just couldn't do that trip. But really I just couldn't swing a whole week off and looking back, it would have been absolutely insane to try and set up this trip at the same time as getting Andrea set up for her trip...and even more insane to actually go on it. So, on our abbreviated vacation schedule, Felix and I went to the New Yor kaquarium at Coney Island this morning and saw the fishies. Between yesterday's trips to and from the airport and today's jaunt to Coney Island, Felix has logged around 3 hours on trains of various sorts (subway, AirTrain, LIRR). The verdict so far: AirTrain and LIRR are good, subway is not so good. At every subway stop Felix looks to me and says, "Done." Which is really his was of asking "Can we get off at this stop?" and stating, "I no longer find this amusing."
After spending all morning at the aquarium, we walked across the boardwalk and across the sand to the atlantic ocean. Felix and I got our feet wet. As the water rushes back out to the ocean, it does its best to suck the sand out from beneath our feet. I had forgotten all about that. Felix was holding my hand as usual so he didn't fall down, but he did end up dangling from my arm and saying "Up!" which means "I'm done walking, pick me up right now please."
So, on day 1 of our 2 days of vacation we saw the fishies and touched the ocean. We also skipped our nap entirely and had blueberry crumble at Dizzy's for dessert.
Tomorrow? Maybe go to the beach, but I don't know...maybe in the afternoon. I don't want to interrupt Felix's napping schedule. Today he skipped completely because we stayed out too late. I don't want to do that two dayys in a row. Felix could decide he doesn't want naps any more and that would be BAD. On a positive note, Felix demanded that he sleep in his crib. Why is this a big deal? Since we moved to New ork, Felix has rarely slept a full night in his crib alone. After a week or two of Felix waking us (and our neighbors) up with screaming fits, we just started putting him in our bed from the start to avoid the screaming fits. Last week I took down one side of his crib in hopes of avoiding the ever more inevitable head injury that Felix would sustain when he finally scales the side of his crib before figuring out what happens after he makes it over the top of the rail. So he's been napping with the crib half-converted into a big-boy bed and tonight he demanded (in a whiny sort of way) that he sleep there. It was one of my pie in the sky goals to ween him off of the mama-dada bed while Andrea was gone and boom, he's done it on his own.
What does tomorrow hold? who knows...
Saturday, August 02, 2008
These are the Saturdays of our lives...
Saturday, Aug 2, mid-summer, you might say.
Looking back on this time last year I find that we're in sort of a bizarro version of the same situation. Bizarro in that so many things are reversed or queered in relation to my (and our) state exactly one year ago.
For instance, I am in the dead midst of the delivery of the biggest project I've worked on at work this year, and let me tell you, I'm totally changing the way we carry out some very important aspects of our IT. Not only that, I'm putting in place a framework that will just as drastically change (and improve) how we carry out a whole other side of how we do what we do. I am on the top and everyone seems to be waiting with great anticipation to see how this young (I'm still young!) guy who showed up last year and started changing things around is going to once again totally change the game in a way that will make life better for everyone. Pretentious? Moi? No, seriously. You might think that how a computer gets from box to desk isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things, but if you're one of the people who has to move that computer from box to desk and deal with people who are getting the computer, then how easy and how fast makes all the difference in the world. Not only that, but my company is not some monstrosity like Target that has money falling out its ass. Budgets are really important and the fact that I'm probably going to bring things from A to B for way less money than it has ever cost is a pretty big deal.
So, the second side of the bizarro factor (totally heavily awesomely employed vs. unemployed) is that though I'm on a super steep climb to greatness, I'm even worse off financially now than I was last year at this time and all my hard work will not pay off in dollars and cents for almost a whole year. So I go from being unemployed with an uncertain near future and a nice big financial cushion to being well employed, amazingly bright future, and suffering from nearly crushing financial burdens. I've never made more and I've never been worse off, all at the same time. It boggles the mind.
How did we get here?
Well, since this time last year the cushion has been steadily depleted due to the house not selling. It remains not sold. It is now being rented, essentially as my favorite charity since I still have to spend hundreds and, hopefully for only the first months as a rental, thousands of dollars on the house every month. So, while I have renters to help reduce the amount of mortgage I'm paying, I am still paying a mortgage, and for the past few months it has been the full mortgage, plus bills. So, there will be no more bills, but the mortgage is still there and the renters aren't paying for all of it. After the property management company takes its cut (about $100), what we get in rent covers about 2/3 of the mortgage, which has also recently gone up to cover the increased cost of insurance due to us needing rental insurance instead of regular home owners insurance. So there's that. Any savings we may have had are gone into the house already. On top of that, as I've mentioned, there's the extra moneyy we need to pay off the city to allow us to actually convert to a rental property, which is an additional $1000. And our rent on our apartment went up. Luckily I was able to negotiate $50 increase instead of the $150 that our landlord originally proposed, so that shouldn't seem like a huge hit, but it all adds up.
Gee, that doesn't sound like we should be all THAT bad off, right? I mean, its not like we own a car and have been pouring our paychecks into the gas tank, right? Wrong. I don;t know whats going on in the rest of the country, but everything here is getting more expensive due to the gas situation or attempts to cope with it. Milk is $5 a half gallon. Most food items have gone up in price 10 to 50 cents. Doesn't sound like much, but it all adds up. When we moved here, we spent about $60 at the farmers market and then another $40-60 at the grocery store every week. Now the farmers market trips average about $100 and grocery store is more like $60-80. That adds up quick. Anyone who has their eyes open these days is getting intimately familiar with the feeling of being "nickle and dimed to death." Its for real. It sucks.
STILL, why are things seeming to get worse? Well, its all back to the house. See, the biggest bill for the first half of the year was the rent bill, which came out of one paycheck. The mortgage and house bills were being paid out of my old 401K dispersal. So the first paycheck would cover rent and necessities like child care, groceries, etc. Then the second paycheck would pay the local bills and necessities for those two weeks. And the wonderful thing was, the second paycheck would usually not be depleted by the time the next one rolled around, so that would help make life feel a bit more comfortable. Well, for several months the first paycheck goes to rent and such, then the second paycheck goes to mortgage and such. Up until maybe three months ago we'd managed to pull money out of several magical places. The tax refund paid for most of the mortgage one month, then the economic stimulus package paid for it the next, then a huge refund from the gas company (because no gas was being used all winter while my house froze and burst all my pipes) paid for more than half of a mortgage payment. Over the past year Andrea had saved up enough money to basically split rent/mortgage with me (she'd pay rent and I'd pay mortgage) I think twice, which also helped a lot. But we finally reached the point when we'd run out of places to pull money from. All along we've been doing the same sort of financial balancing act, like a shell game in some ways, that by all rights we really shouldn't have had to do had things just gone a little bit differently.
Anyone who knows the story of our whirlwind move to NY knows that the only thing that was missing from our fairy tale was this one loose thread, the house that had not sold yet. And that thread just kept getting yanked and pulled until it feels like the whole tapestry is unraveling. The job that was supposed to be the big opportunity turned out to be a frog in a prince's disguise. The assumptions that influenced our initial decisions were turned invalid and hence we find our fairy tale, though full of wonderfully bright and amazing plot points, turning more towards something of the Brothers Grimm.
The hope is that this month is the pivot. We will get our first full injection of rental income (though I'm still afraid that amount will be less than expected due to "property management" costs that are deemed too trivial to require authorization). Last month was specifically grueling due to the ways that the days fell on the calendar which had me getting my first paycheck early in the month (10th) and the second on the 28th, which enclosed a 3 week stretch between them, each of which required purchase of groceries and payments for the nanny. I've checked my calendar for the next time that the paydays fall in that sort of pattern, which is October, so that hopefully I can be better prepared. But the hope is that the mortgage will hurt less this month, so that second paycheck will stretch longer and help provide some more room to move at the beginning of the next month, and so on and so on, until we are back into a more stable cycle. We're trying to stay positive and support eachother, but we're all under a lot of stress so sometimes it can be hard. Add to that the other every day stresses and some days seem like they're not even worth getting up for. Of course, Felix doesn't let anyone sleep in much, and seeing his smiling face is more than enough to make any one of us get up and charge into the day no matter what. But I'd be lying if I said we don't discuss the pros and cons of making another big change, calling it quits and moving back to the midwest, back to our house, back to our old lives, or whatever semblance of them we can recreate there. Since we've signed our tenants up for a 1 year lease and we've just renewed our own, we're rather committed to at least one more year here. We have decided that we will give it our all and make it work, and if things haven't improved, then maybe we will come back to the middle west. Maybe we'll take it by storm, maybe we'll slink in under the cover of night. Maybe we'll be in yet a whole new place one year from now: moved to a nicer apartment or put a down payment on a brownstone, start up a design studio, gone into consultancy, making a million bucks...who knows. For the next couple weeks, it still feels like we're in the bottom of a well. But maybe we'll see the sun soon enough.
Stay tuned.
Looking back on this time last year I find that we're in sort of a bizarro version of the same situation. Bizarro in that so many things are reversed or queered in relation to my (and our) state exactly one year ago.
For instance, I am in the dead midst of the delivery of the biggest project I've worked on at work this year, and let me tell you, I'm totally changing the way we carry out some very important aspects of our IT. Not only that, I'm putting in place a framework that will just as drastically change (and improve) how we carry out a whole other side of how we do what we do. I am on the top and everyone seems to be waiting with great anticipation to see how this young (I'm still young!) guy who showed up last year and started changing things around is going to once again totally change the game in a way that will make life better for everyone. Pretentious? Moi? No, seriously. You might think that how a computer gets from box to desk isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things, but if you're one of the people who has to move that computer from box to desk and deal with people who are getting the computer, then how easy and how fast makes all the difference in the world. Not only that, but my company is not some monstrosity like Target that has money falling out its ass. Budgets are really important and the fact that I'm probably going to bring things from A to B for way less money than it has ever cost is a pretty big deal.
So, the second side of the bizarro factor (totally heavily awesomely employed vs. unemployed) is that though I'm on a super steep climb to greatness, I'm even worse off financially now than I was last year at this time and all my hard work will not pay off in dollars and cents for almost a whole year. So I go from being unemployed with an uncertain near future and a nice big financial cushion to being well employed, amazingly bright future, and suffering from nearly crushing financial burdens. I've never made more and I've never been worse off, all at the same time. It boggles the mind.
How did we get here?
Well, since this time last year the cushion has been steadily depleted due to the house not selling. It remains not sold. It is now being rented, essentially as my favorite charity since I still have to spend hundreds and, hopefully for only the first months as a rental, thousands of dollars on the house every month. So, while I have renters to help reduce the amount of mortgage I'm paying, I am still paying a mortgage, and for the past few months it has been the full mortgage, plus bills. So, there will be no more bills, but the mortgage is still there and the renters aren't paying for all of it. After the property management company takes its cut (about $100), what we get in rent covers about 2/3 of the mortgage, which has also recently gone up to cover the increased cost of insurance due to us needing rental insurance instead of regular home owners insurance. So there's that. Any savings we may have had are gone into the house already. On top of that, as I've mentioned, there's the extra moneyy we need to pay off the city to allow us to actually convert to a rental property, which is an additional $1000. And our rent on our apartment went up. Luckily I was able to negotiate $50 increase instead of the $150 that our landlord originally proposed, so that shouldn't seem like a huge hit, but it all adds up.
Gee, that doesn't sound like we should be all THAT bad off, right? I mean, its not like we own a car and have been pouring our paychecks into the gas tank, right? Wrong. I don;t know whats going on in the rest of the country, but everything here is getting more expensive due to the gas situation or attempts to cope with it. Milk is $5 a half gallon. Most food items have gone up in price 10 to 50 cents. Doesn't sound like much, but it all adds up. When we moved here, we spent about $60 at the farmers market and then another $40-60 at the grocery store every week. Now the farmers market trips average about $100 and grocery store is more like $60-80. That adds up quick. Anyone who has their eyes open these days is getting intimately familiar with the feeling of being "nickle and dimed to death." Its for real. It sucks.
STILL, why are things seeming to get worse? Well, its all back to the house. See, the biggest bill for the first half of the year was the rent bill, which came out of one paycheck. The mortgage and house bills were being paid out of my old 401K dispersal. So the first paycheck would cover rent and necessities like child care, groceries, etc. Then the second paycheck would pay the local bills and necessities for those two weeks. And the wonderful thing was, the second paycheck would usually not be depleted by the time the next one rolled around, so that would help make life feel a bit more comfortable. Well, for several months the first paycheck goes to rent and such, then the second paycheck goes to mortgage and such. Up until maybe three months ago we'd managed to pull money out of several magical places. The tax refund paid for most of the mortgage one month, then the economic stimulus package paid for it the next, then a huge refund from the gas company (because no gas was being used all winter while my house froze and burst all my pipes) paid for more than half of a mortgage payment. Over the past year Andrea had saved up enough money to basically split rent/mortgage with me (she'd pay rent and I'd pay mortgage) I think twice, which also helped a lot. But we finally reached the point when we'd run out of places to pull money from. All along we've been doing the same sort of financial balancing act, like a shell game in some ways, that by all rights we really shouldn't have had to do had things just gone a little bit differently.
Anyone who knows the story of our whirlwind move to NY knows that the only thing that was missing from our fairy tale was this one loose thread, the house that had not sold yet. And that thread just kept getting yanked and pulled until it feels like the whole tapestry is unraveling. The job that was supposed to be the big opportunity turned out to be a frog in a prince's disguise. The assumptions that influenced our initial decisions were turned invalid and hence we find our fairy tale, though full of wonderfully bright and amazing plot points, turning more towards something of the Brothers Grimm.
The hope is that this month is the pivot. We will get our first full injection of rental income (though I'm still afraid that amount will be less than expected due to "property management" costs that are deemed too trivial to require authorization). Last month was specifically grueling due to the ways that the days fell on the calendar which had me getting my first paycheck early in the month (10th) and the second on the 28th, which enclosed a 3 week stretch between them, each of which required purchase of groceries and payments for the nanny. I've checked my calendar for the next time that the paydays fall in that sort of pattern, which is October, so that hopefully I can be better prepared. But the hope is that the mortgage will hurt less this month, so that second paycheck will stretch longer and help provide some more room to move at the beginning of the next month, and so on and so on, until we are back into a more stable cycle. We're trying to stay positive and support eachother, but we're all under a lot of stress so sometimes it can be hard. Add to that the other every day stresses and some days seem like they're not even worth getting up for. Of course, Felix doesn't let anyone sleep in much, and seeing his smiling face is more than enough to make any one of us get up and charge into the day no matter what. But I'd be lying if I said we don't discuss the pros and cons of making another big change, calling it quits and moving back to the midwest, back to our house, back to our old lives, or whatever semblance of them we can recreate there. Since we've signed our tenants up for a 1 year lease and we've just renewed our own, we're rather committed to at least one more year here. We have decided that we will give it our all and make it work, and if things haven't improved, then maybe we will come back to the middle west. Maybe we'll take it by storm, maybe we'll slink in under the cover of night. Maybe we'll be in yet a whole new place one year from now: moved to a nicer apartment or put a down payment on a brownstone, start up a design studio, gone into consultancy, making a million bucks...who knows. For the next couple weeks, it still feels like we're in the bottom of a well. But maybe we'll see the sun soon enough.
Stay tuned.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
quick bit
Felix's 2nd birthday party was fun. The day itself had many adventures and stories that maybe someday I'll recount here. Maybe not.
Life rolls on, sometimes rolling over you in the process.
We've definitely had our share of ups and downs this past year and they don't ever seem to stop, so just rolling rolling rolling. All this rolling has lost me another 10lbs. I know this because today I took Felix for his 2nd year checkup and in order to get his weight they had to weigh me holding him and then me alone and subtract. Felix does NOT like the doctor's office. I weighed in at something like 152lbs, which is 10 pounds less than the 162ish weight I've been around since this time last year.
that's all for now.
Life rolls on, sometimes rolling over you in the process.
We've definitely had our share of ups and downs this past year and they don't ever seem to stop, so just rolling rolling rolling. All this rolling has lost me another 10lbs. I know this because today I took Felix for his 2nd year checkup and in order to get his weight they had to weigh me holding him and then me alone and subtract. Felix does NOT like the doctor's office. I weighed in at something like 152lbs, which is 10 pounds less than the 162ish weight I've been around since this time last year.
that's all for now.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
catching up
OK. So we've rented out the house and that causes a bit of anxiety for me because, you know, someone is living in a house I own. In a way, I'm now somewhat beholden to complete strangers when it comes to the "livability" of my house. Not that the house is in any way deficient or in disrepair. Almost the entire inside was replaced in the past six months thanks to my real estate agent and insurance company. But the point being, when you own a house and you live in it, you get to prioritize things. If someone else is living in the house, they may not have the same priorities, or even the same sense of import. I have no idea if I was a typical renter. Generally, unless something was majorly wrong, I didn't bother the land lord with it. If it was something small I would do it myself or adjust. I never experienced anything big going wrong in a rental, I don't think. But I also have known, or lived near, people who seemed to be on their landlords about every little thing. I dunno. I guess I'm a little nervous about the property management company as well. I mean, I expect they are professional and do a good job, but in all honesty one of their sources of income comes from the fee that I owe them when they take care of repairs. Basically, they get 10% or $25 (whichever is more) any time they oversee repairs. This of course comes with them having their own stable of "preferred" contractors, etc... So, on the one hand it is in their interest to have work done on the house because they get paid whenever that happens. On the other hand, they don't want me to go blabbing to everyone else that once we had a contract they wrung the hell out of me and my bank account. So, like anything, its a delicate balance I'm sure. Hopefully they prefer the easy method of collecting rent and keeping the peace for everyone.
Sigh. I guess I'll need to make sure i have clear and open lines of communication with my next door neighbors.
OK. So Felix turns two this month. Amazing. And here's the standard stuff: He's a genius, he's brilliant, he's super sharp tacks, etc, etc. He's eager to use the potty and he's even managed to use the actual toilet (with the potty seat inserted) for both #1 and a tiny #2. He's not speaking in sentences yet but he does use words and he has entered the parrot phase. He quickly mimics words on the first hearing. If you can use the word in a way that he really gets, he adds it to his vocabulary. Example: Now whenever we go under some sort of structure (bridge, tunnel, scaffolding) he shouts "Echo!" He has his own idiosyncrasies, of course. He says "No" but he only nods his head up and down for "yes." Although sometimes he nods up and down for other than yes, perhaps just in agreement or to say "Whatever you think is right."
He tumbles, is working on his first unassisted headstand (actually, he's done headstands already but they tend to turn into somersaults). He balances on the curb of the walking paths in the park. He's a star at soccer. yes really. He loves to fly his kite though we've not done it on a good kite flying day (so we get very tired when we fly his kite).
I am deep in the middle of completely re-engineering the workstation desktop at my place of work, a project I have been looking forward to since I started there. All in all it won't be a drastic change for the users since we're staying on Windows XP and Office 2003, but the behind the scenes stuff will be very very different from what was done previously. Needless to say, I'm doing my best to drag this company into the 21st century. Looks like we might just do it, too.
Andrea still is unhappy with her job, but we've figured out that while we certainly won't be saving up for any posh retirements or vacations but we could continue to live on what I make if Andrea quit her job and stayed home with Felix. Not that she wants to do that exactly, but she definitely feels like that would be a step up from what she's leaving Felix at home with a nanny for now. So, I guess that's sort of like good news?
It's been a hell of a year since we moved out here. And the winds of change just keep ablowin'.
Sigh. I guess I'll need to make sure i have clear and open lines of communication with my next door neighbors.
OK. So Felix turns two this month. Amazing. And here's the standard stuff: He's a genius, he's brilliant, he's super sharp tacks, etc, etc. He's eager to use the potty and he's even managed to use the actual toilet (with the potty seat inserted) for both #1 and a tiny #2. He's not speaking in sentences yet but he does use words and he has entered the parrot phase. He quickly mimics words on the first hearing. If you can use the word in a way that he really gets, he adds it to his vocabulary. Example: Now whenever we go under some sort of structure (bridge, tunnel, scaffolding) he shouts "Echo!" He has his own idiosyncrasies, of course. He says "No" but he only nods his head up and down for "yes." Although sometimes he nods up and down for other than yes, perhaps just in agreement or to say "Whatever you think is right."
He tumbles, is working on his first unassisted headstand (actually, he's done headstands already but they tend to turn into somersaults). He balances on the curb of the walking paths in the park. He's a star at soccer. yes really. He loves to fly his kite though we've not done it on a good kite flying day (so we get very tired when we fly his kite).
I am deep in the middle of completely re-engineering the workstation desktop at my place of work, a project I have been looking forward to since I started there. All in all it won't be a drastic change for the users since we're staying on Windows XP and Office 2003, but the behind the scenes stuff will be very very different from what was done previously. Needless to say, I'm doing my best to drag this company into the 21st century. Looks like we might just do it, too.
Andrea still is unhappy with her job, but we've figured out that while we certainly won't be saving up for any posh retirements or vacations but we could continue to live on what I make if Andrea quit her job and stayed home with Felix. Not that she wants to do that exactly, but she definitely feels like that would be a step up from what she's leaving Felix at home with a nanny for now. So, I guess that's sort of like good news?
It's been a hell of a year since we moved out here. And the winds of change just keep ablowin'.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
d-day
As much as moving here has been good to us (my job, great neighborhood, Felix's classes and being near the park) or bad to us (Andrea's job, no dishwasher, bare bones laundromats, high cost of living, "the house", education system for Felix) or indifferent (death, taxes), its nice to know that there are some pleasant surprises. I had taken Felix ti the park this morning so he could practice riding his new trike ($3 from a stoop sale), Fisher Price sort of tricycle/big-wheel hybrid, and we had a good time. Felix goes down for his nap and i run out the cycle some laundry that we hadn't had done yesterday. I decide to go around the block on my way back instead of coming back the way I came. I discovered that all of 7th Ave is blocked off and there are stalls set up all along it as far as you can see in both directions. It's a fricking festival on my street and I didn't even know it!!! And try as I might, I can't see any visible signal as to what its about. Yesterday was a gay pride parade up near the park, but this doesn't seem to be related to that. Maybe its just park of "Celebrate Brooklyn" since that just started this weekend. But seriously, it has more the feel of "On June 15th, every business on 7th Ave is just going to roll out its front door and start selling on the street." Seriously. Its amazing. When Felix gets up from his nap, we're all going to have to go down there. Holy shit.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
post of substance
some more meaty news from our corners of the world: we may, just may, have the house rented out starting July 1. Our management company is still running their background checks but they seem pretty confident that the application will get approved and we'll be honest to goodness absentee landlords in no time. This also means that we are required to pony up the city of Minneapolis's residential-to-rental conversion protection money. They recently (March I think) enacted a policy that required single family homes being converted from residential to rental property to pay $1000 to cover "up to four inspections" with the left over going into the general fund. This is required along with $61 for your rental property license. See, they used to require rental properties to be inspected every five years and it was your standard inspection rate of about $150 to $200, just like the HUD inspection you get when you prepare to sell a house. So this thousand dollar "inspection fee" is complete and utter bullshit. Our fucking republican governor has been holding the tax rate down, peeling back taxes to the wealthy, and not allowing any new taxes so government at all levels are having some serious budgetary problems. What they are doing instead is to write bonding bills and increase "fees" on everything they possibly can. This last one just takes the cake. See, the municipal governments are stuck so they are looking for money anywhere they can find it. SOmeone comes up with a bright idea like, "Hey, because all these poor fuckers are screwed due to the housing market falling through the floor, there are a lot of people trying to rent out the houses they can't sell to cover their payments. We can just tax those poor bastards and voila! Easy free money for us!" Nice. Really fucking swell. Pardon my language, but I get this way when something is really just out of line with this system.
Its another case where the people who are really in need are the ones who are getting squeezed even more. I mean, I'm looking at taking out a loan or putting this on a credit card somehow, just so we can get the house rented. Its really fucked up. The woman who wrote this ordinance and pushed it through the committee said it was a measure to protect renters from slumlords and substandard conditions. Hey, guess what? You could still do that if you charged the regular inspection rate...its not like we're really paying for 10x better inspections by 10x better inspectors with our 10x higher inspection fee. No. Not at all.
So it just pushes the loss we're taking on the house out that little bit more. I mean, hey, what's $1000 anyway? I make more than that in a week! But then I also spend that much, or more, a week when you figure in groceries, bills, child care, my own rent AND mortgage, etc... It's just a really sickening prospect, like I'm some poor fuck who has to go to the "Checks Cashed" place to PAY someone to give me my own MONEY. I'm not used to being that guy. I have a bank account and a 401K and a college education, a credit card and a debit card and a REGULAR 30 year mortgage (not sub-prime). I relocated for work and now I'm being punished for it because it put me and my family in a situation that the state, county, and city governments has us over a barrel. I didn't vote for any of those fucking people. And yes, you can bet your ass I've already written to some of them.
In BETTER HUMORED news, Felix has taken his first pee pee in the potty chair. Last night after his bath he sat on the potty and pee pee peed, over and over. Still no poo poo in the potty, but if he is allowed to he'd sit naked on the potty all day, trying to squeeze out some more pee pee. I think we're off to a good start.
The heat wave is supposedly on its way out, which is just as well since i can't afford to buy a new AC for a little while due to the previously mentioned ass banditry by the good old city of Minneapolis.
Work is good, very busy, getting busier. I'm really rolling into some hard core stuff on the PC refresh project. We've all but signed on the dotted line with one of the vendors and I really need to start building our new image. And at the same time I'm planning on bringing our whole process into the 21st century. Just since I've arrived I've replaced the network boot floppy disks (yes, for real) with WinPE CDs and cut the reimaging time from 50 minutes to 10. You start out strong like that and people tend to expect something from you. I intend to deliver on this next project as well. But man, we only have until August to do it. Good times, here we come.
Well...after the initial ranting and raving, I don't even know what I'm in the mood for now...
I've started writing a book. Maybe a book. I'm not going to say too much about it. I'm working on writing something. Turns out that the subway can be a good place for working on story ideas and watching TV shows (due to heat wave related switching issues, I was able to watch about six episodes of Naruto Shippuden while riding in to work on Monday morning).
Its another case where the people who are really in need are the ones who are getting squeezed even more. I mean, I'm looking at taking out a loan or putting this on a credit card somehow, just so we can get the house rented. Its really fucked up. The woman who wrote this ordinance and pushed it through the committee said it was a measure to protect renters from slumlords and substandard conditions. Hey, guess what? You could still do that if you charged the regular inspection rate...its not like we're really paying for 10x better inspections by 10x better inspectors with our 10x higher inspection fee. No. Not at all.
So it just pushes the loss we're taking on the house out that little bit more. I mean, hey, what's $1000 anyway? I make more than that in a week! But then I also spend that much, or more, a week when you figure in groceries, bills, child care, my own rent AND mortgage, etc... It's just a really sickening prospect, like I'm some poor fuck who has to go to the "Checks Cashed" place to PAY someone to give me my own MONEY. I'm not used to being that guy. I have a bank account and a 401K and a college education, a credit card and a debit card and a REGULAR 30 year mortgage (not sub-prime). I relocated for work and now I'm being punished for it because it put me and my family in a situation that the state, county, and city governments has us over a barrel. I didn't vote for any of those fucking people. And yes, you can bet your ass I've already written to some of them.
In BETTER HUMORED news, Felix has taken his first pee pee in the potty chair. Last night after his bath he sat on the potty and pee pee peed, over and over. Still no poo poo in the potty, but if he is allowed to he'd sit naked on the potty all day, trying to squeeze out some more pee pee. I think we're off to a good start.
The heat wave is supposedly on its way out, which is just as well since i can't afford to buy a new AC for a little while due to the previously mentioned ass banditry by the good old city of Minneapolis.
Work is good, very busy, getting busier. I'm really rolling into some hard core stuff on the PC refresh project. We've all but signed on the dotted line with one of the vendors and I really need to start building our new image. And at the same time I'm planning on bringing our whole process into the 21st century. Just since I've arrived I've replaced the network boot floppy disks (yes, for real) with WinPE CDs and cut the reimaging time from 50 minutes to 10. You start out strong like that and people tend to expect something from you. I intend to deliver on this next project as well. But man, we only have until August to do it. Good times, here we come.
Well...after the initial ranting and raving, I don't even know what I'm in the mood for now...
I've started writing a book. Maybe a book. I'm not going to say too much about it. I'm working on writing something. Turns out that the subway can be a good place for working on story ideas and watching TV shows (due to heat wave related switching issues, I was able to watch about six episodes of Naruto Shippuden while riding in to work on Monday morning).
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
heatwave
yep. super hot here. our AC is a sad sad sad unit. luckily there are plenty of places for Felix and the nanny to go during the day that have air conditioning (or sprinklers).
Luckily it should get down into the high sixties tonight, which is really what makes the heatwave hard to handle; unrelenting heat 24x7. When its 90s all day and then doesn't go below 78 at night, an apartment like ours doesn't exactly cool off. But with 68 temp, I think we can flush out some heat and suck in some cool. and we've finally gotten some thunder and lightening that we've been complaining about not having since we moved here. 2 nights in a row!
woo.
Luckily it should get down into the high sixties tonight, which is really what makes the heatwave hard to handle; unrelenting heat 24x7. When its 90s all day and then doesn't go below 78 at night, an apartment like ours doesn't exactly cool off. But with 68 temp, I think we can flush out some heat and suck in some cool. and we've finally gotten some thunder and lightening that we've been complaining about not having since we moved here. 2 nights in a row!
woo.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Vacation
I took today off from work using an actual vacation day. The people I work with seem to take a lot of vacation. Not that we get more vacation time than usual, just that people seem to actually go on vacation or take days off to go other places. I mean, I work with one guy who took two weeks off (one week off at a time, a couple weeks apart) and just stayed home because he was in danger of losing those two weeks due to the carry-over limit, so obviously he isn't a vacationer, but it seems that everyone else around me is off a few days here and there, a week here, a week there...and they're always seeming to actually go places, not just stay home. Sadly, I was not one of those people. I took the day off to spend the day with Felix. Our nanny needed the day off so I stayed home. Now, I've done this several times in the past but I always did the "work from home" scenario which boils down to watching Felix and my email at the same time and then furiously responding to emails and trying to accomplish something during his nap time. Not today. Since I took it as vacation, I decided to treat it like vacation. Felix and I hit the bricks and we had a great day.
Just a warning: if you haven't guessed, this is going to be one of those posts where I extol the awesomeness of having kids. Seriously. There's a lot of stuff that sorta sucks and there's social and cultural baggage to deal with no matter where or who you are when you have kids, there's no escaping that stuff. But the kids themselves, wow, awesome, amazing. Watching them grow up is incredible.
So today we walked to Target, which is about a mile away, and on the way we stopped at Area Kids and got Felix his sneakers. When the weather turned nicer we bough him a pair of sky blue Crocs which he seems to really like, but when he starts doing soccer (or toddler soccer, really) he needs sneakers. So we got those. Then we went to Target and bought him two hats (one floppy fishing-style sun hat with a chin strap, one baseball-style hat with no unfortunate branding or product endorsements). I discovered that at Target they stock, in their grocery section, Organic Valley brand milk. This is the brand of milk I usually get for Felix. This is the milk that he drinks a half gallon of approximately every three days, give or take. And I've been buying it from our local groceries for $4.99 a half-gallon (sometimes its on sale for $3.99). Some stores don't even bother to put pricetags on the milk anymore because of the way things are increasing. Anyway, at Target they have gallon jugs of Organic Valley milk for $3.99. Of course the shelves were bare and it was a vendor stocked item so the Target people had no way of knowing when they would actually be resupplied. Oh well...something to look for each time I go to Target. Two years ago the idea of purchasing milk by the gallon jug was synonymous with throwing money down the kitchen sink drain. In fact, other than for cooking, we almost never bought milk until Felix was old enough to start drinking it. Now its a staple.
I had promised Felix we would stop and play choochoos on the way back from Target but just two blocks away from BN Felix passed out so we went home and he napped for about 50 minutes in his stroller. That was the only down side today, Felix only taking a very short nap. Ah well, it was a vacation day so I suppose I shouldn't have had any aspirations for my "free time" anyway. I did manage to take a shower and make a simple lunch. After he woke up and ate lunch we did go to Barnes and Noble and played with the Thomas trains they have there (brough Felix's own train, a Gordon I believe) and read some books. Then we went up to one of the playgrounds in the park and played for about an hour. Finally, we walked home taking the long way through the park. Felix did not walk to or from Target or BN but when we left the playground Felix was on foot. In the park I felt relatively safe letting Felix do some free walking. You don't walk anywhere with a toddler unless you have LOTS of time and no specific plans on actually arriving. So we walked through the park and picked up sticks and rocks and whatnot. Felix is prone to suddenly just plop down and sit for a short spell, all the while grinning and laughing at the fact that he has sat down and made you stop for a second. He also has a hard time resisting the urge to sit on flat surface that seems to have been intended to be sat upon by anyone with legs of his specific dimensions. This means he loves to sit on curbs, rocks, steps, mounds of grass and/or dirt, etc. Pretty much anything that is between five and ten inches high and is not covered with spikes or broken glass. Since our kite flying this past Saturday, he also has taken to laying down in grassy fields and looking up at the sky. He usually precedes this by pointing to the spot right next to where he intends to lay; this is where you should lay, this is not a suggestion but a command.
He didn't make it all the way home on foot. We were almost about to leave the park when Felix decided that he didn't want to follow me anymore. He walked about 30 feet into a grassy area and waved, shouting "Bye!" then turned to try and join the outfield of a local softball crew. He had a meltdown as I swooped him up and took him back to the stroller. But he had done a LOT of walking and running up to this point and it was pretty warm and very humid, so he was pretty well exercised by our day together. We stopped at a grocery store and got some things for dinner. Upon arriving home we found Glen in the kitchen cooking dinner already. Luckily I had only gotten a few things that didn't require much prep and would easily keep until tomorrow. After dinner Andrea gave Felix his bath and then brushed his teeth and put him to bed. She came out of the room and said, "He was super tired. It was so easy to put him down. You must have worn him out. I don't think [the nanny] wears him out like that." Which makes a certain kind of sense.
It is days like today that make me think I could maybe handle being a stay at home dad. But then this would not have been my vacation day, it would have been my work day, and whats to say that I would feel differently if I was doing this every day of every week. But it's definitely a wonderful way to spend a day here and a day there. I do think I could stand doing it full time...I may have the mentality for it. Of course...start adding in housework and such and who knows...
Just a warning: if you haven't guessed, this is going to be one of those posts where I extol the awesomeness of having kids. Seriously. There's a lot of stuff that sorta sucks and there's social and cultural baggage to deal with no matter where or who you are when you have kids, there's no escaping that stuff. But the kids themselves, wow, awesome, amazing. Watching them grow up is incredible.
So today we walked to Target, which is about a mile away, and on the way we stopped at Area Kids and got Felix his sneakers. When the weather turned nicer we bough him a pair of sky blue Crocs which he seems to really like, but when he starts doing soccer (or toddler soccer, really) he needs sneakers. So we got those. Then we went to Target and bought him two hats (one floppy fishing-style sun hat with a chin strap, one baseball-style hat with no unfortunate branding or product endorsements). I discovered that at Target they stock, in their grocery section, Organic Valley brand milk. This is the brand of milk I usually get for Felix. This is the milk that he drinks a half gallon of approximately every three days, give or take. And I've been buying it from our local groceries for $4.99 a half-gallon (sometimes its on sale for $3.99). Some stores don't even bother to put pricetags on the milk anymore because of the way things are increasing. Anyway, at Target they have gallon jugs of Organic Valley milk for $3.99. Of course the shelves were bare and it was a vendor stocked item so the Target people had no way of knowing when they would actually be resupplied. Oh well...something to look for each time I go to Target. Two years ago the idea of purchasing milk by the gallon jug was synonymous with throwing money down the kitchen sink drain. In fact, other than for cooking, we almost never bought milk until Felix was old enough to start drinking it. Now its a staple.
I had promised Felix we would stop and play choochoos on the way back from Target but just two blocks away from BN Felix passed out so we went home and he napped for about 50 minutes in his stroller. That was the only down side today, Felix only taking a very short nap. Ah well, it was a vacation day so I suppose I shouldn't have had any aspirations for my "free time" anyway. I did manage to take a shower and make a simple lunch. After he woke up and ate lunch we did go to Barnes and Noble and played with the Thomas trains they have there (brough Felix's own train, a Gordon I believe) and read some books. Then we went up to one of the playgrounds in the park and played for about an hour. Finally, we walked home taking the long way through the park. Felix did not walk to or from Target or BN but when we left the playground Felix was on foot. In the park I felt relatively safe letting Felix do some free walking. You don't walk anywhere with a toddler unless you have LOTS of time and no specific plans on actually arriving. So we walked through the park and picked up sticks and rocks and whatnot. Felix is prone to suddenly just plop down and sit for a short spell, all the while grinning and laughing at the fact that he has sat down and made you stop for a second. He also has a hard time resisting the urge to sit on flat surface that seems to have been intended to be sat upon by anyone with legs of his specific dimensions. This means he loves to sit on curbs, rocks, steps, mounds of grass and/or dirt, etc. Pretty much anything that is between five and ten inches high and is not covered with spikes or broken glass. Since our kite flying this past Saturday, he also has taken to laying down in grassy fields and looking up at the sky. He usually precedes this by pointing to the spot right next to where he intends to lay; this is where you should lay, this is not a suggestion but a command.
He didn't make it all the way home on foot. We were almost about to leave the park when Felix decided that he didn't want to follow me anymore. He walked about 30 feet into a grassy area and waved, shouting "Bye!" then turned to try and join the outfield of a local softball crew. He had a meltdown as I swooped him up and took him back to the stroller. But he had done a LOT of walking and running up to this point and it was pretty warm and very humid, so he was pretty well exercised by our day together. We stopped at a grocery store and got some things for dinner. Upon arriving home we found Glen in the kitchen cooking dinner already. Luckily I had only gotten a few things that didn't require much prep and would easily keep until tomorrow. After dinner Andrea gave Felix his bath and then brushed his teeth and put him to bed. She came out of the room and said, "He was super tired. It was so easy to put him down. You must have worn him out. I don't think [the nanny] wears him out like that." Which makes a certain kind of sense.
It is days like today that make me think I could maybe handle being a stay at home dad. But then this would not have been my vacation day, it would have been my work day, and whats to say that I would feel differently if I was doing this every day of every week. But it's definitely a wonderful way to spend a day here and a day there. I do think I could stand doing it full time...I may have the mentality for it. Of course...start adding in housework and such and who knows...
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
good news
well, sorta good. after sitting in the pediatrician's waiting room for almost 2 hours we found out that A) Felix totally healthy except for a little seasonal allergy that's causing his runny nose (rose fever?) and B) strep throat almost never cultures in the throats of children younger than 4. So, the one time I could have WebMD'd...scratch that, WebMD says nothing about toddlers and strep throat (other than that strep can be a cause of vomitting, yay). Anyway, so he's healthy, for once, and Andrea and I have started antibiotics, which apparently (according to WebMD) is something you do mostly to stop being contagious. Yes, thats what it says. You get better in about a week no matter what, but if you take antibiotics you stop being contagious in 24-48 hrs. No antibiotics means you can continue infecting people with strep for about 3 weeks, even after you are "all better". Isn't that wonderful?
Monday, May 12, 2008
Ill
Last night was not pleasant. I woke up with the chills and couldn't get warm enough. Also, my whole body ached, so no matter what position I shifted into it it felt like I was laying on round rocks. And, the crown jewel, a super inflamed tonsil. I felt like utter shit. Stayed home from work and tried to sleep all day. Eventually went to walk-in at the dr. office (3 blocks away) and the dr. says, "Looks like strep, smells like strep. I think its strep. Your test came up negative but these quick read things aren't 100%." Yep. I seem to recall having similar "non-strep" strep throat when I was younger. It was like a walk down memory lane. That same feeling that something had glommed onto the back of your throat, slowly oozing something. So, here I am, already started my 5-day cycle of antibiotics... I think Andrea is going to go to the doc tomorrow and I'm thinking that since I just started antibiotics, I should work from hom tomorrow. Maybe I should bring Felix in to the peeds and have him tested.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Posting
I know its been a long time between posts, but such is life. Work continues to go well for me. I had a meeting with my HR rep which was nice. It was not a special meeting, just her annual face to face to keep in touch with her IT people. I came out of the meeting with a good feeling about working there and the possibility of advancing myself. It's nice to feel like people are looking out for you and interested in your development. Oddly, I seem to get along pretty well with HR and a certain type of management. I think it is obvious pretty quickly that I am pretty ambitious and motivated. I'm something of a "low hanging fruit" for people who's job it is to get their employees/clients advanced. When your advancement reflects well on other people and other people's ratings on how they are doing their jobs, it is a good thing to be an easy win for them. They are more inclined to give you help because they know it will come back to them more easily than a "tough case" type of person (which I also used to be and, not surprisingly, had little or no relationship with my HR and management). So that;s good.
In less great news, my uncle was killed in a car accident on the way home from my parents' house a little over a week ago. I had done Skype with them and Felix just two days before and seen him and my aunt talking and hanging out at my mom and dad's dinner table. Then on Friday I got the phone call from my brother. There's a way that someone says your name that you know they are about to give you bad news. I could tell that Dave was going to tell me something tragic even though he sounded calm and even keeled. When you get that call, you immediately assume the worst. I remember that as he said my name the second time (the kicker in the "I have bad news" greeting) my brain started to anesthetize, preparing for a really really bad piece of info. But I think my brain also picked out things that it used to remain calm and pre-judge the severity of the news. Even though I was intellectually gearing up for news that my mom or dad was injured or dead, something unconsciously ruled those things out. He started to tell me about my aunt and uncle leaving the house that morning and, I'll be honest, I felt terribly relieved. I knew that I could cope with that. I love my relatives, I truly do, and I'm very sad that anything bad should happen to them. But there's no denying that a child fears the death of a parent or sibling more than anything. An adult fears the death of a spouse, a child, or a close friend more than anything. I think you fall into one of those two categories automatically depending on the context of the news you receive. Since an uncle is not #1 on either of those lists, I knew that I'd be able to handle it without my life being turned upside down. Let me repeat, I love my uncle and have very fond memories of him, I mourn his loss. But I was incredibly relieved to find out that it wasn't any of my immediate family members that was the source of the bad news. After getting off the phone with Dave I sat and thought to myself, wondering quite uncomfortably why I wasn't feeling very broken up about it. Was it just that I was so relieved it wasn'ty mom or dad? Was it that I thought about how my uncle was just a really nice guy, but getting older, and luckily to not waste away? I'm sure he would have had many years ahead of him if not for the accident, but who can say? There is speculation that what killed him in the accident was quite possibly his heart giving out. Of course, if it wasn't that, it was definitely the trauma of the accident. Either way, he went quickly, which is ideal, I think.
Anyway...when someone you know dies, it causes you to think and review your own feelings and thoughts and what you believe in. It makes me wonder if I feel guilty for not being so upset BECAUSE I'm atheist or INSPITE OF being atheist? My initial reaction to the news was "Well that sucks. What can you do?" Which seems really sort of easy. No wondering and questioning and speculating about God's motives or etc...I know that accidents happen, nice people die, and there's nothing more to it than that. Do I feel bad for not feeling bad?
In less great news, my uncle was killed in a car accident on the way home from my parents' house a little over a week ago. I had done Skype with them and Felix just two days before and seen him and my aunt talking and hanging out at my mom and dad's dinner table. Then on Friday I got the phone call from my brother. There's a way that someone says your name that you know they are about to give you bad news. I could tell that Dave was going to tell me something tragic even though he sounded calm and even keeled. When you get that call, you immediately assume the worst. I remember that as he said my name the second time (the kicker in the "I have bad news" greeting) my brain started to anesthetize, preparing for a really really bad piece of info. But I think my brain also picked out things that it used to remain calm and pre-judge the severity of the news. Even though I was intellectually gearing up for news that my mom or dad was injured or dead, something unconsciously ruled those things out. He started to tell me about my aunt and uncle leaving the house that morning and, I'll be honest, I felt terribly relieved. I knew that I could cope with that. I love my relatives, I truly do, and I'm very sad that anything bad should happen to them. But there's no denying that a child fears the death of a parent or sibling more than anything. An adult fears the death of a spouse, a child, or a close friend more than anything. I think you fall into one of those two categories automatically depending on the context of the news you receive. Since an uncle is not #1 on either of those lists, I knew that I'd be able to handle it without my life being turned upside down. Let me repeat, I love my uncle and have very fond memories of him, I mourn his loss. But I was incredibly relieved to find out that it wasn't any of my immediate family members that was the source of the bad news. After getting off the phone with Dave I sat and thought to myself, wondering quite uncomfortably why I wasn't feeling very broken up about it. Was it just that I was so relieved it wasn'ty mom or dad? Was it that I thought about how my uncle was just a really nice guy, but getting older, and luckily to not waste away? I'm sure he would have had many years ahead of him if not for the accident, but who can say? There is speculation that what killed him in the accident was quite possibly his heart giving out. Of course, if it wasn't that, it was definitely the trauma of the accident. Either way, he went quickly, which is ideal, I think.
Anyway...when someone you know dies, it causes you to think and review your own feelings and thoughts and what you believe in. It makes me wonder if I feel guilty for not being so upset BECAUSE I'm atheist or INSPITE OF being atheist? My initial reaction to the news was "Well that sucks. What can you do?" Which seems really sort of easy. No wondering and questioning and speculating about God's motives or etc...I know that accidents happen, nice people die, and there's nothing more to it than that. Do I feel bad for not feeling bad?
Monday, March 31, 2008
Buyer's market?
No kidding. I am, of course, referring to the housing market. I must admit that right now would be the ideal time to get into the real estate business in the "Rich Dad Poor Dad" sense, the buy low, sell less low...
I mean, if you are in that business and you were picking up lots of properties in the past three years and now at full inventory you're probably screwed, but if you are just starting out, say you somehow have a bunch of money that you'd like to invest in real estate before the rebound starts, well, now is probably as good a time as any. People like me who are selling their homes not for profit but to remove the financial burden of owning the home, you'd be sitting pretty. I myself am looking into some options because I need to do SOMETHING in case we can't get renters placed pronto (and let me tell you, Pronto is slipping by quickly).
Anyway...if you have a bunch of cash laying around, I'd say wait about 2 more months and then buy your houses and whatnot. Then plan on owning those houses for the next seven to ten years, you know, until all of us who had our home ownership-worthy credit dashed on the rocks when we lost or short-sold our homes to you are able to start buying homes again.
I personally have no desire to own a house right now. It was a bit of a rush to own land and a home, but really I'm not in the place where a house is really a smart investment.
I mean, if you are in that business and you were picking up lots of properties in the past three years and now at full inventory you're probably screwed, but if you are just starting out, say you somehow have a bunch of money that you'd like to invest in real estate before the rebound starts, well, now is probably as good a time as any. People like me who are selling their homes not for profit but to remove the financial burden of owning the home, you'd be sitting pretty. I myself am looking into some options because I need to do SOMETHING in case we can't get renters placed pronto (and let me tell you, Pronto is slipping by quickly).
Anyway...if you have a bunch of cash laying around, I'd say wait about 2 more months and then buy your houses and whatnot. Then plan on owning those houses for the next seven to ten years, you know, until all of us who had our home ownership-worthy credit dashed on the rocks when we lost or short-sold our homes to you are able to start buying homes again.
I personally have no desire to own a house right now. It was a bit of a rush to own land and a home, but really I'm not in the place where a house is really a smart investment.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Whats up doc?
Yes, I've been pretty quiet on here lately. Anyway, lots going on, its "that time of year" in a lot of different ways. It's spring, it's tax time, it's time to get SOMETHING figured out about the house, be it renters or arm wrestling with the bank to avoid credit record apocalypse, etc.
We all do what we must to get by and stay sane, right? Right. So, one thing I'm doing is starting up a little side project. Unfortunately, this side project requires a little bit of anonymity so I'm not going to just point you all to the website because, well, what would the point of that be? Also, its not an incredibly brilliant project, so in many cases if you were to hear the concept you'd scratch your head and say, "Wha? You're doing what? I don't get it. I mean, I don't know why you're doing this. Is anyone actually doing it? I mean...what's the point?" And the point is...its the internet, stupid. Let's see if I can take a somewhat shaky idea, throw behind it all the mighty engines of the internets and pull something out of it, be it money, fame, or just warm fuzzy satisfaction that I actually turned one of my silly 11pm "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if..." ideas and tried to make it fly, or at least tried to see how far it could be thrown before rolling to a stop. So, unfortunately I will not be telling you anything more about this project except that I'm not putting much time into it at all. But I think its fun and it gives me something to scribble ideas about on the subway. And thats all I'm saying about that.
It is somewhat spring like, more and more each day. Today it got up to 60 degrees and tomorrow it is also supposed to be warm AND rainy! Sounds like spring to me! Never mind that we got -5 inches of snow this year. It got chilly. I only HAD to wear my woolen parka maybe a handful of times, and even then only because I was going to be outside for a couple hours at a time. Today I didn't even wear a jacket. I wore a short sleeve shirt! With an undershirt, of course (I'm not completely barbaric), but short sleeves none the less! Most New Yorkers are still wearing their winter or late fall coats and jackets. What a bunch of pussies. Like even the most surprising change of weather would land you in what, 40 degree weather for a few minutes? Rain? Gimme a break.
Felix is a dancing fiend. If it were appropriate, I'd post footage. But since this blog, as niche a readership as it has, is still public and so not a place where I am supposed to be posting videos of Felix. Not to worry. Perhaps on the next family video uplink we'll get him to show off his moves a bit.
And just in case you didn't know who you were supposed to be voting for (if and when you ever have the opportunity), it's Barack Obama. Whatever it is you heard that makes you worried or unsure, forget about all that. It just means you've got some issues with your poli-sci-centers in your brain. I'll take the heat on this one, I'll take it off your worried shoulders. You vote Barack because I said so and its just like you chose not to vote except that this time you actually did the right thing, see? Don't think about it too hard. Just vote. Barack.
We all do what we must to get by and stay sane, right? Right. So, one thing I'm doing is starting up a little side project. Unfortunately, this side project requires a little bit of anonymity so I'm not going to just point you all to the website because, well, what would the point of that be? Also, its not an incredibly brilliant project, so in many cases if you were to hear the concept you'd scratch your head and say, "Wha? You're doing what? I don't get it. I mean, I don't know why you're doing this. Is anyone actually doing it? I mean...what's the point?" And the point is...its the internet, stupid. Let's see if I can take a somewhat shaky idea, throw behind it all the mighty engines of the internets and pull something out of it, be it money, fame, or just warm fuzzy satisfaction that I actually turned one of my silly 11pm "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if..." ideas and tried to make it fly, or at least tried to see how far it could be thrown before rolling to a stop. So, unfortunately I will not be telling you anything more about this project except that I'm not putting much time into it at all. But I think its fun and it gives me something to scribble ideas about on the subway. And thats all I'm saying about that.
It is somewhat spring like, more and more each day. Today it got up to 60 degrees and tomorrow it is also supposed to be warm AND rainy! Sounds like spring to me! Never mind that we got -5 inches of snow this year. It got chilly. I only HAD to wear my woolen parka maybe a handful of times, and even then only because I was going to be outside for a couple hours at a time. Today I didn't even wear a jacket. I wore a short sleeve shirt! With an undershirt, of course (I'm not completely barbaric), but short sleeves none the less! Most New Yorkers are still wearing their winter or late fall coats and jackets. What a bunch of pussies. Like even the most surprising change of weather would land you in what, 40 degree weather for a few minutes? Rain? Gimme a break.
Felix is a dancing fiend. If it were appropriate, I'd post footage. But since this blog, as niche a readership as it has, is still public and so not a place where I am supposed to be posting videos of Felix. Not to worry. Perhaps on the next family video uplink we'll get him to show off his moves a bit.
And just in case you didn't know who you were supposed to be voting for (if and when you ever have the opportunity), it's Barack Obama. Whatever it is you heard that makes you worried or unsure, forget about all that. It just means you've got some issues with your poli-sci-centers in your brain. I'll take the heat on this one, I'll take it off your worried shoulders. You vote Barack because I said so and its just like you chose not to vote except that this time you actually did the right thing, see? Don't think about it too hard. Just vote. Barack.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Do yourself a favor
Watch this and pay attention.
Important dialog on Obama's recent Speech
In case you didn't get it when you heard the speech, maybe this will help.
Important dialog on Obama's recent Speech
In case you didn't get it when you heard the speech, maybe this will help.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
self-plug
I'm going to post my video-blogs, however infrequent, on premidlife-video. I think it makes more sense to keep the different styles of blogging seperate.
Also, we've discovered blogging heads. I came across it on the NYTimes website. I like the concept, I just wish there was a wider variety and more frequently added content. Actually, they do pretty well considering the high quality content.
Also, we've discovered blogging heads. I came across it on the NYTimes website. I like the concept, I just wish there was a wider variety and more frequently added content. Actually, they do pretty well considering the high quality content.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
never ending story
no, in this case I'm not talking about dad's medical situation. Instead, i'm talking about Felix's "medical" situation. Anyway, he's had a cough of various shapes and sizes since about October and as you know at the end of December he had a rip-roaring ear infection followed by a stomach virus a couple weeks ago, followed by instructions by our pediatrician to go ahead and take the amoxicillin we didn't use before because Felix still had fluid behind his ear drum and she was afraid it would turn into a sinus infection. So a week ago we started him on his amoxicillin. During that time his mood has greatly improved though his nose has not. In fact, he now has a cruddy hacking cough and runny nose, and some sneezing too. Clear snot, though, for the most part. Well, last night he looked like he was starting to get a rash. light pink spots all over his chest and even on his face. Hrm. Well, this morning it seemed a bit more pronounced. And when I got home from work today the kid looked painfully rashy, covered head to toe in a dark pink rash. The thing of it was, despite looking terribly rashy, he was perfectly happy, in fact in some ways seems even happier than he has been, just following the trajectory of his "recovery" I guess. So, he looks horrible...looking at him makes me feel like scratching myself all over. But he doesn't appear the be itchy at all, or even uncomfortable at all.
So it's pretty disturbing to look at. I get on webMD and look up chicken pox. Well, maybe, but it seems to be too dense of a rash for chicken pox. Then we look up measles and, holy shit, it looks just like measles! But he was vaccinated (I looked at his records, he got them at the beginning of the summer) and measles is supposed to be incredibly rare in the USA. Hrm. Andrea's freaked out because she thinks he may have an immune defficiency. Now, in most cases that seems a little nuts, but given my family's medical history (my brother had an immune problem when he was a baby...got chicken pox 3 times!) its not something you can just rule out. The nanny thought the rash was caused by the only thing that was different between yesterday and today, which is that he was eating red grapes yesterday and today. Ok, logical, rational, not unreasonable...but when you see pictures of measles and they look just like whats on Felix, its hard to shake it. I keep thinking, "Well, we know it's not bacterial because he's been on antibiotics for seven days now. If it is caused by a virus, there's nothing they can do but treat the symptoms, which he has none of. No fever, no soar throat, no aches, not vomiting or diarrhea, no pneumonia. The kid is happy as pigs in mud. So what do we do?" We of course get on the old Google-o-meter and start looking for pictures of rashes. It certainly looks like measles (you can google "looks like measles") but despite the endless pages and pictures describing and documenting measles, they all have something very much in common: they almost immediately state how rare it is for anyone in the US to contract measles IN the US. So then i get to thinking...he's been on the amoxicillin for a week, maybe its related to that? The drug info says it can cause a rash, hives, siezures, and death. Have you ever really read the list of possible side-effects on any prescription drug? Good grief.
Anyway...so I google "Amoxicillin rash" and BADA_BING. Describes a rash that shows up between day 5 and day 16 of amoxicillin cycle, is not itchy or irritating at all, and goes away in a few days. I then look for pictures and again, find amoxicillin rash that looks EXACTLY like what Felix's rash looks like. Big sigh of relief.
That's not to say that's exactly what it is, but so far it makes the most sense. Also, it lets us know that if he does start to show other symptoms we can rule in or out that or other things and take him to the doctor. But really, unless he starts acting sick or his rash turns into big hairy eyeballs all over his body, we're not going to worry too much.
Go google.
So it's pretty disturbing to look at. I get on webMD and look up chicken pox. Well, maybe, but it seems to be too dense of a rash for chicken pox. Then we look up measles and, holy shit, it looks just like measles! But he was vaccinated (I looked at his records, he got them at the beginning of the summer) and measles is supposed to be incredibly rare in the USA. Hrm. Andrea's freaked out because she thinks he may have an immune defficiency. Now, in most cases that seems a little nuts, but given my family's medical history (my brother had an immune problem when he was a baby...got chicken pox 3 times!) its not something you can just rule out. The nanny thought the rash was caused by the only thing that was different between yesterday and today, which is that he was eating red grapes yesterday and today. Ok, logical, rational, not unreasonable...but when you see pictures of measles and they look just like whats on Felix, its hard to shake it. I keep thinking, "Well, we know it's not bacterial because he's been on antibiotics for seven days now. If it is caused by a virus, there's nothing they can do but treat the symptoms, which he has none of. No fever, no soar throat, no aches, not vomiting or diarrhea, no pneumonia. The kid is happy as pigs in mud. So what do we do?" We of course get on the old Google-o-meter and start looking for pictures of rashes. It certainly looks like measles (you can google "looks like measles") but despite the endless pages and pictures describing and documenting measles, they all have something very much in common: they almost immediately state how rare it is for anyone in the US to contract measles IN the US. So then i get to thinking...he's been on the amoxicillin for a week, maybe its related to that? The drug info says it can cause a rash, hives, siezures, and death. Have you ever really read the list of possible side-effects on any prescription drug? Good grief.
Anyway...so I google "Amoxicillin rash" and BADA_BING. Describes a rash that shows up between day 5 and day 16 of amoxicillin cycle, is not itchy or irritating at all, and goes away in a few days. I then look for pictures and again, find amoxicillin rash that looks EXACTLY like what Felix's rash looks like. Big sigh of relief.
That's not to say that's exactly what it is, but so far it makes the most sense. Also, it lets us know that if he does start to show other symptoms we can rule in or out that or other things and take him to the doctor. But really, unless he starts acting sick or his rash turns into big hairy eyeballs all over his body, we're not going to worry too much.
Go google.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
mr. mom
I stayed home with Felix again today because our nanny called in sick this morning. On the one hand, its great that I can do that but on the other hand...it would be nice if we had some sort of back-up child care so that when this happens (and I'm sure it will) again it doesn't have to throw mine or Andrea's day into chaos. Despite it all, I managed to work from home for a couple hours and make some serious headway on a problem/new area of development. The wonders of virtual infrastructure...
Anyway, I also managed to record a short video blog but its not a good one so I think it will end up in the bin.
Felix had his 18 month appointment on Tuesday. The doc looked in his ears and told us that we should go ahead on use the oral antibiotic prescription that we got two weeks ago when Felix had his eardrum burst. She said she could see some fluid still back there so she advised that we run through the course of amoxicillin to keep it from turning into a sinus infection. Seems like she was just in time too, since Felix has started to get very cranky and needy like he did when he was sick. I think its mostly due to some heightened teething activity (I think his molars are doing the heave-ho or something). Poor kid. So, the results of his appt? low % weight, high % height. He's slim and tall. The doc was asking the diagnostic questions and the first one just totally threw me.
"Can he run?" I blinked at her.
"What?"
"Can he run? You know, he'll be probably a little stiff in the legs at first but..."
"OH. Right. Yeah he runs. It's all he does. Can he sit still, that's the real question!"
etc.
He runs, flips pages in a book, had 15-20 "words", he definitely seems to understand us, he feeds himself, he can drink from a cup, he can drive a car, he can vote, etc...
So, yeah. it was a bit of a rough day, had its moments. I look forward to not staying home tomorrow.
Anyway, I also managed to record a short video blog but its not a good one so I think it will end up in the bin.
Felix had his 18 month appointment on Tuesday. The doc looked in his ears and told us that we should go ahead on use the oral antibiotic prescription that we got two weeks ago when Felix had his eardrum burst. She said she could see some fluid still back there so she advised that we run through the course of amoxicillin to keep it from turning into a sinus infection. Seems like she was just in time too, since Felix has started to get very cranky and needy like he did when he was sick. I think its mostly due to some heightened teething activity (I think his molars are doing the heave-ho or something). Poor kid. So, the results of his appt? low % weight, high % height. He's slim and tall. The doc was asking the diagnostic questions and the first one just totally threw me.
"Can he run?" I blinked at her.
"What?"
"Can he run? You know, he'll be probably a little stiff in the legs at first but..."
"OH. Right. Yeah he runs. It's all he does. Can he sit still, that's the real question!"
etc.
He runs, flips pages in a book, had 15-20 "words", he definitely seems to understand us, he feeds himself, he can drink from a cup, he can drive a car, he can vote, etc...
So, yeah. it was a bit of a rough day, had its moments. I look forward to not staying home tomorrow.
Monday, January 21, 2008
MLK
Hey, guess what holiday I'm not used to having off from work is being celebrated today, by me, at work?
Yes. I come in and the hallway is dark and there's one guy here and he seems surprised to see me.
I asked, "Are we closed?" and he says (verbatim), "It's a holiday dude!"
"Oh...well, I'm here today."
Yeah, well this threw me a little bit. See, MLK is Jan 15th and today is Jan 21. But I guess MLK is like Presidents day where it may BE on a particular date but for some reason it is recognized on a specific Monday (providing everyone with a 3-day weekend). Also, for the past seven years I've worked in a place where MLK was not specifically a day off from work. You could take it off, to be sure, (you'd get some weird looks if you are whitey, though). I don't even know if schools kids get the day off in the middle west where I'm technically from. But here in NYC, they place is rather ghosty. I got to sit down on the ride in.
Well, just was well, since i was out for the last half of last week due to illness (and covering for the ill). And after that super long "weekend" I was not going to be staying home today. No sir-ee bob. So Andrea and i might meet up later and go see a movie.
Yes. I come in and the hallway is dark and there's one guy here and he seems surprised to see me.
I asked, "Are we closed?" and he says (verbatim), "It's a holiday dude!"
"Oh...well, I'm here today."
Yeah, well this threw me a little bit. See, MLK is Jan 15th and today is Jan 21. But I guess MLK is like Presidents day where it may BE on a particular date but for some reason it is recognized on a specific Monday (providing everyone with a 3-day weekend). Also, for the past seven years I've worked in a place where MLK was not specifically a day off from work. You could take it off, to be sure, (you'd get some weird looks if you are whitey, though). I don't even know if schools kids get the day off in the middle west where I'm technically from. But here in NYC, they place is rather ghosty. I got to sit down on the ride in.
Well, just was well, since i was out for the last half of last week due to illness (and covering for the ill). And after that super long "weekend" I was not going to be staying home today. No sir-ee bob. So Andrea and i might meet up later and go see a movie.
Friday, January 11, 2008
effing aholes
Despite having been seriously rained on earlier in the day, I was having a fairly nice Friday. However, on the elevator ride down to the street level (I'm on the 11th floor) at the 10thf floor two guys got in, a middle aged white guy and a youngish (late 20's maybe) hispanic or asian (or perhaps both) guy. They obviously worked together. It was these two guys and myself in the elevator only. The older guy says something, I don't know what, but nothing too out of the ordinary. The younger guy says, and not quietly, "That fucking bitch." The other guy says something neutral, sort of how you talk to someone you are trying not to rile up, but also not really trying to encourage them either. "God! That fat fucking...I hate that bitch." It quickly becomes clear that Mr. foul mouth is unhappy with some woman he works with, most likely his boss or someone else above him. Possibly someone on his level that he's in competition with, but I get the feeling its someone over him. But here's the thing...this asshole is just swearing left and right about this woman and here I am, complete stranger, trapped in the elevator with him and his non-confrontational schmoe co-worker. What kind of inconsiderate asshole thinks its OK to do that in an elevator? It makes me so mad, I've been having elevator revenge fantasies all night. What a fucking jerk.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
weekly
Odd, it feels like I've been blogging every day, yet there's nary a posty between here and a week ago. In truth, since the new year (since Dec 25th, actually) I've been journaling on paper while I wait for and ride the train to and from work. This is both helpful and a hindrance because I am more free to write my thoughts in my private journal but I also find I put a lot of content in there that would also end up here for general consumption but that never makes it here because, well, who has time (or motivation) to transcribe and edit one's handwritten personal journal for a publicly available edition for blog? Not I.
So, here's the weekly roundup:
Felix - 200% better than before.
Will & Andrea - worse, better, better.
Glen - Honestly, tonight id the first time I've seen him since my last post.
Work - great. getting busier all the time. I have to come up with some annual objectives. If nothing else, working at Target more than prepared me for the kinds of HR hoops you have to jump through in any company that actually has an HR department.
Play - what? what's that? oh, been dabbling with my webcam and that security cam from A's dad. By tomorrow I should be able to cobble together a little pirate studio. The only problem with the webcam is that it's, well, very cheap and very low quality. The few times we've done skype between NYC and the middle-west they said I looked like I was starring in one of those Al Quaeda videos that they shoot in the mountain caves of Afghanistan. That and my laptop mic-jack is somewhat unreliable. But anyway, hopefully the ATM-cam will provide much better video quality. With that in place, hopefully we can make the most of things like Skype and perhaps I'll start video blogging. Why not? everyone else is doing it.
Dad - Dad had his surgery today and though it took longer and was "more difficult" than expected, it was without complication and as far as we know, successful. No news on the actual effectiveness until Monday, or maybe Tuesday.
So, here's the weekly roundup:
Felix - 200% better than before.
Will & Andrea - worse, better, better.
Glen - Honestly, tonight id the first time I've seen him since my last post.
Work - great. getting busier all the time. I have to come up with some annual objectives. If nothing else, working at Target more than prepared me for the kinds of HR hoops you have to jump through in any company that actually has an HR department.
Play - what? what's that? oh, been dabbling with my webcam and that security cam from A's dad. By tomorrow I should be able to cobble together a little pirate studio. The only problem with the webcam is that it's, well, very cheap and very low quality. The few times we've done skype between NYC and the middle-west they said I looked like I was starring in one of those Al Quaeda videos that they shoot in the mountain caves of Afghanistan. That and my laptop mic-jack is somewhat unreliable. But anyway, hopefully the ATM-cam will provide much better video quality. With that in place, hopefully we can make the most of things like Skype and perhaps I'll start video blogging. Why not? everyone else is doing it.
Dad - Dad had his surgery today and though it took longer and was "more difficult" than expected, it was without complication and as far as we know, successful. No news on the actual effectiveness until Monday, or maybe Tuesday.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
doh
not able to update much this week. Felix has been steadily getting better but also morphing symptoms. The rest of us have been somewhere between getting worse and getting better. I feel like crap most of the time, had fever and chills last night. Felix can be happy one moment and then suddenly cranky, usually with his fist stuck all the way in his mouth. Tonight he did it again and some fluid started draining from his ear. Then he was magically a super happy old Felix. Eating and laughing and dancing and playing...but still leaking from his ear. So we called his peed office (after calling grandma first) and the doc told us the same thing that mom said. Burst ear drum, nothing more to do, treat fever with tylenol/motrin, see you in the morning. I'm sure I will be one of many people lined up outside the Dr. office at 9am, but whatever. Every day this week I've emailed my boss saying "I'm probably going to be late or out today because of Felix" and I always end up going in, usually not too much later than usual. Well, tonight I PROMISED I was going to be in late. I wouldn't be surprised if we show up at 9 and wait until 5 to be seen.
Otherwise, things seem to be ok. It is now 2008, which means I instantl,y accrused 2 weeks of vacation. Not that I'm able to go anywhere, what wit our most uncertain conditions of our real estate in MN, the health of our son and ourselves, and of course, a brimming work schedule. But hey, Suzanne is etting married so we'll have to get back to the middle west at least for that.
The house is being thawed out slowly. The disaster recovery guy said, "The good news is, there doesn't appear to be much additional damage being caused by the melted water. It all seems to be ending up in the basement." Seems odd to me that they thaw out the pipes to ALLOW damage to take place before fixing it. I guess it is easier to locate all the leaks when the melting water is allowed to do more damage...in a weird way. I mean, I guess they are going to fix everything so I shouldn't care if they tear the whole house down before building it back up, so long as it is the same or better when they are through.
Otherwise, things seem to be ok. It is now 2008, which means I instantl,y accrused 2 weeks of vacation. Not that I'm able to go anywhere, what wit our most uncertain conditions of our real estate in MN, the health of our son and ourselves, and of course, a brimming work schedule. But hey, Suzanne is etting married so we'll have to get back to the middle west at least for that.
The house is being thawed out slowly. The disaster recovery guy said, "The good news is, there doesn't appear to be much additional damage being caused by the melted water. It all seems to be ending up in the basement." Seems odd to me that they thaw out the pipes to ALLOW damage to take place before fixing it. I guess it is easier to locate all the leaks when the melting water is allowed to do more damage...in a weird way. I mean, I guess they are going to fix everything so I shouldn't care if they tear the whole house down before building it back up, so long as it is the same or better when they are through.
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