the above picture shows bella and alex reading in the neighbor's jungle gym, probably on a weekend we were house or dog sitting. this custom-made but simple play structure was in place when we moved in and still stands today, fifteen years later (and soon to be four families) later.

a few houses down the way a family built an extravagant play structure for their two girls that included s ...

we were at a theatrical production of les miserables in salt lake city. our family sat in the last row of the hale's intimate circular auditorium. this would be my third show at the hale and my family's second. during one particular scene, the necessary prop was lowered from the ceiling. it stood in the center of the round stage as one of the most scant arrangements used through the night containing only a metal gate supported on either side by two stone pillars. in the scene two star-struck lovers stood on either side of the locked gate longing for one another through their drippy sentiments exchanged between the gate's bars. in the middle of the heated scene my seven year old leaned into me for the following whispered conversation:

ANTHONY
dad.

TROY
yes.

ANTHONY
why are they talking through the gate?

TROY
because she is locked in her house and he is on the street.

ANTHONY
but why doesn't he just walk around?

TROY
(muffled laughter)

ANTHONY
i mean, can't they see the fence doesn't go very far and they could just walk around that stone part?

TROY
well, because ...

ANTHONY
then they wouldn't have to talk through those bars.

later in the show when they brought out a grown up and highly decorated Cossette, anthony quietly asked why little bo peep was in the show. this one caused laughter by a small circle of seats surrounding him.

so, if you ever want to make a high-brow show more entertaining, i reckon for the right price (some sweets from the intermission stand) you could have anthony accompany you and ask the questions that need to be asked.

marty believes that if you make it fifteen or twenty years in marriage you should get to have a second wedding shower namely to replace the things you received the first time because after a decade of use, many of them are starting to wear out or are broken or are way out of style. while i chortled at her suggestion when she initially floated out there, holding one of the struggling items up in example as she spoke, i must confess the notion has been rolling around by brain long enough now that it has nice rounded edges and the sheen of a glassy marble, which is the look all our best thoughts take on in time—in my metaphorical world at least.

granted this time through i think marty would kindly request to swap any suggestive lingere purchaces for a more practical set of wool socks. and sad as it is to report, i would support the request. you would too if you ever had her ice-cold feet graze against your calf at 2am on a winter's night.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. me-minus

sometimes our kids become unglued. when this happens, in our home, they are sent to their room. marty has all these calm, mature lines for such moments like, "kids who need to cry do so in their room, my living room is for happy people" or "you need to go to your room until you're able to make good and respectful choices to those around you". sometimes you have to help a child to their room but mostly they go on their own volition.

i find children claiming to be cured of the evils that afflicted them are not as cured as they might think or say. similar to the other baubles in my modest collection of knowledge, it took me longer to procure this particular gemstone than it probably should have. in defense, let me say you too may have been fooled when a cute pig-tailed girl of four calmly approaches you, says she feels all better now and can she go back to playing. one might even applaud their own parental acumen at righting a world that almost went all sideways and screamy. it is only when the small, adorable child rejoins the others, mostly siblings, calmly sits down, carefully selects a block and then brains the unsuspecting mark in the temple that you know a few bad clouds might still be lurking in the folds of their demeanor.

after being burned by this scenario more than once, i created a test for my recently pardoned children. when a freshly quieted child comes to you and gives the "all clear" sign, ask them to come right before you. when they do, stare into their eyes. the stare begins the test. a child not fully ready will not be able to hold your stare for more than a few seconds. they will try but will uncomfortably avert their eyes before long. this child needs to cook in their room a bit longer. for a child that holds your gaze, wait about ten seconds and then carefully place your three middle fingers on the center of their forehead and give them a gentle nudge, a nudge strong enough to push their forehead back about three inches. the cured child will smile and ask what you are doing and why did you just push them in the head. the un-ready child's eyes will flare with contempt and their miniature frame will lunge at you, their small fingers unmistakably targeting your carotid. this child is not ready.

for what it's worth, i've yet to meet the child who can successfully fake their way through the stare and push test.

the last seven days floated more innovative ideas before me than any other week in the history of troy. a few you may have heard or seen as well, assuming you too are not enforcing a news embargo, but a few will be new to you.

item one told of "the coach that never punts or kicks off" (video) but instead runs on every fourth down and only does onside kicks. it seems he read this study by some harvard prof who has the math to support the approach, and this coach has seen a great deal of success from it. i'm confident i'm not the only one wondering if this is all true, as it seems to be for skill levels found in the sub-college ranks at least, i'm left wondering how has no one seen this before?

for the second item, a friend over lunch told me of a teacher at his kid's school who has his students learn the lessons at home via web videos (e.g. what is the pythagorean theorem?) and do their homework in class where, if confused, they have access to the teacher and others learning the same concept. when i mentioned this to marty she had heard of it, being in the industry and all, and said the practice is called 'flipping' the classroom. given all the great web fodder out there, cases in point, i can see this as being a highly profitable approach, especially if it means my kids not having to turn to me for help with things i didn't understand the first time around.

the third bit of inspiration i bumped into came from the mother of one of my former students. she told me that when her three boys were young they got very little television. she policed this in the following way:

• each boy would pour over the weekly television listing that came in the sunday paper where they circled two hours worth of television from the offerings.
• the marked up schedule would then get posted, like on the fridge, for reference. then everyone knew when they had to be home for tv, being the pre-tivo age, and the boys would look forward to their windows of time.
• alternately, and probably more importantly, they could look at the movie section of the same paper and direct their two hours at a theater movie instead of television.

i can just imagine the excitement and anticipation surrounding this ritual and how it would make special something that for must of us has become a completely numb and expected part of life. i'm anguished i didn't learn of this practice ten years ago. i find it beautifully thoughtful, inspired even.

the last item comes from my own desk. perhaps all the innovation happening around me moved me to keep up. the everyday problem i held in my hand dealt with alex and the time we spend together. it's not that our time together is strained, it's just not as vibrant and easy as i would describe my relationship with my other kids. as such, i sat down to reflect on this and inside ten minutes came to the conclusion that i was trying to push alex towards things i wanted him to do instead of leveraging one of his many interests. when i considered how i would feel if someone did that to me, i concluded i would think:

1. that the person was an ass.
2. and that the person might be acting a bit like their own father.

these two lines of thought put a quick end to that. minutes after this epiphany i called bookguy, a fellow i knew to be a minecrafter (minecraft being one of alex's core interest at the moment), and asked for some advice. then, minutes after getting home from work, i sought alex out and after the usual check on the day i asked him if he could do me a favor. being the helpful man he is he of course said yes and gave me his attention. i asked him if he would teach me how to do minecraft like he does. his late in the day expression brightened more than a little bit.

if a doctor's mandate is to do no harm i think a father's mandate could be 'don't be a dick' because who wants a selfish dick for a father. i wouldn't be surprised to learn twenty years from now that those ten minutes of reflection might be ten of the most important minutes i spent in regard to my boy aleo.

those are four examples where things that happen everyday were re-thought and from those re-contemplations, life got changed. these thinking organs we got are pretty dang impressive. so think. think hard. improvement is everywhere.

if you prefer something with some meat on it: and for those who are more hankering for a chicken mcNugget:

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. player

over the summer marty found herself catching up with an old girlfriend for a few days. during their visit our dishwasher saga got shared. the moment marty concluded the roller coaster of woe the girlfriend, anne, said, "it's your refrigerator". i wasn't there but in my mind i heard marty correct her saying "no, not my refrigerator, my dishwas...

part three is over here

a few years ago i asked my students to attend a talk given by a special guest visiting our school. the man speaking was an alum of the university and now the ceo of a large investment firm. he stressed, emphatically, the importance of excellence and making sure that all of your work and all of your interactions were thoughtful and nothing short of outstanding. in the class i teach, excellence in your work served as a cornerstone, if not the entire point, of our lessons and we were deep enough into the semester that my students knew being excellent and thoughtful took time, like a lot of time (e.g. to make a good, passable twenty minute presentation can take four to five hours, but to make a great, memorable presentation you're looking at more like like fifteen to thirty hours, depending on how soon the inspiration comes). to this principle one of my students asked the man, "i understand the importance of being excellent but can you speak to how one is to find the time and energy to be excellent all of the time?"

to say i wasn't proud and impressed by my student's cogent question would be a full-on lie, especially next to the other ridiculous questions being wasted on this guy. unfortunately the man's answer kinda just stuck to the rallying cry of there is no rest for the successful and they are always working and they are always excellent which was a mainstay of his overall talk.

the next day in class we discussed the talk. someone commented that they felt his answer to the girl's question was lacking. i agreed but then defended him saying that it's hard to have a bulk of questions fired at you, moments after completing a talk, and get all of them perfect (which unfortunately soils his be excellent all of the time argument). i told them given his experience and how thoughtful his talk was if he were given a few minutes to properly ponder the question he might have said something like: fact is, i wouldn't have been surprised to see this man clap his knee while in his first class seat home as he thought of a better answer to the young, eager girl's question. he might have even mumbled audibly as he realized the missed opportunity to have been excellent.

part five

the interested in boys switch got thrown on bella recently. both before and after the switch a few boys have shown interest in bella. obviously since the switch, bella has shown interest in a few boys. also obviously, bella has been asking when she can start dating. the short answer has been "not yet". her repeated and consistent reply has been "then when?". marty is inclined to say something like...

i have a friend (and former student) who makes iphone games. he works with his brother and they are a most colorful duo. every week they send a mailer out to their followers about what they've been up to. there's always loads of kookiness in their sendings but then again, who'd expect anything less from a group that calls themselves butterschotch shenanigans. at the base of a recent update mailer was the following.

and before you start, and if you're like me, i'll save you the trouble of looking up the fact the TL;DR stands for "too long, didn't read".
and if you're into mobile gaming, their ever-curious wares may be found at butterscotch-shenanigans.com

i have a website idea for someone—a site that records funny things said by adults around kids, that the kids don't get, and no other adults were around to hear.

my contribution would be when alex and i shared the following exchange.

ALEX
dad, why do you call everyone 'bud'?

TROY
because don johnson already took 'pal'.

if you don't get the reference it means you did something more interesting with your friday nights in the late eighties than watching miami vice.

the director of my office sent an email to our young, female center coordinator. in the message he meant to request the following. instead his email read when i arrived at the office, because of the dropped 'contact', the recipient of the message read the sentence to me, asking what she should do. before i had time to respond a graduate student in our space who overheard the question said, "the only proper response is to write back and ask if you can please them one at a time or have to please them all at once."

this was far more entertaining than anything i had planned.

some have asked about the reference to the line "marty had the best answer to this" from last week's gallery posting about our dinner-time questions. i intentionally did not include it there to give folks some time to think about what they might do.

to repeat the posed question: if you wish to think on this a bit further, stop reading. if you want to hear marty's solution, read on.

the kids answers involved repeating the series of numbers and running home as fast as they could. i confessed that i'd surely bumble the string so instead would take a rock and scratch the number into the hood or fender of a car, run home, get a pad and paper, run back (hoping the car hadn't driven off or the police hadn't been called) write the number down, and leave a note on the windshield for the car owner to call me. marty, after scolding me for giving the boys bad ideas about scratching things into the paint jobs of cars produced the most elegant answer saying she would place rocks, twigs, grass or anything she could collect and count into her pockets. the first number would be high on her body, like in a shirt pocket and the numbers would travel down her body. so if the first number was five she'd put five pebbles in her shirt pocket. if the second number was seven, she'd put seven pebbles or twigs in her front pocket, working her way down and around her body to her shoes or even her socks if she still needed counting receptacles. upon arriving home, she'd empty her pockets, inventorying the contents, make the call, and collect the jack. i thought it an ingenious answer, even deeming it superior to my "buy a new hood or fender" option.

a neighbor boy came over to play with anthony. he's a little older but the two boys visit one another often and without invitation. they will at times play for hours and hours without supervision or issue. during the boy's visit this last weekend, he and anthony were butting heads about something. in response, anthony took the initiative to call the boy's home where his mother answered.

MOTHER
hello

ANTHONY
ben is being mean.

MOTHER
oh. anthony. hi. uhm. well i'm sorry.

ANTHONY
(silence)

MOTHER
i guess you should maybe send him home.

ANTHONY
ok.

without as much as a goodbye, thanks or grunt of acknowledgement, anthony hung up the phone and yelled out, "ben. you have to go home."

that is the sort of self-sufficiency marty and i can surely get behind.

last week our family watched a film called babysitter beware for our friday night movie. there was a scene at the beginning of the film where these kids put a dog's shock collar around an evil neighbor's neck and then repeatedly tricked him into shocking himself. on the following tuesday at breakfast, anthony said the following in regard to that film. i stopped making my lunches contemplating his notion, shook my head in agreement and told him i thought that he was right and that would have been a smart and funny add. i finished lunches marveling at the human brain, and the young mind sitting in my kitchen presently, that conjured that specific thought days after the initial experience.

for any envious of me getting to be entertained by my witty six year old so, let me share what came out of my cerebral cherub's mouth seventeen minutes later after i pissed him off for goofing around in the backyard when he was supposed to be getting in the car. after finally sliding into the backseat and slamming the door in a huff, he proceeded to light me up.

ANTHONY
i wish i came out of someone else's stomach.

TROY
what? why would you say that? we're going to school, we're not playing in the backyard.

ANTHONY
i wasn't playing. i was trying to walk to the garage without getting mud on my shoes.

TROY
well, i'm sorry. i didn't know that was what you're doing.

ANTHONY
i didn't want to track mud into my school. what kind of parent yells at their child for trying to be respectful of their school?

welcome to another glorious day in the corps of parenthood.

while walking out of a gas station, anthony grabbed the handle on the door and pulled. the door didn't move. marty said the sign says PUSH anthony. he did and we exited the store. as we walked to the car anthony, our six year old, asked, "why would anyone put a handle on a door you have to push?"

marty and i exchanged silent expressions and she said, "i don't know anfer. i don't know."

now before we celebrate a mind as keen as anfer's just yet, allow me to share this second conversation.

TROY
look, there's church butte road.

ALEO
church butte road. ohhhh!

ANFER
yeah, does that mean there's like a church with a giant butt?

MARTY
it's not that kind of butt anthony.

ANFER
oh! then it's the kind of church that butts in line in front of other churches.

an excerpt from a bookguy email about a comment made by his seven year old daughter.

from a bill murray interview. when asked if he thought he was a gifted actor, he replied, "i'm pretty good at what i do. i'm as good as anyone in my neighborhood."

what a great answer to a really un-great question.

in a recent family meeting talking about what and wasn't getting done in the house, marty confessed that she didn't know how i, their father, is able to get his stuff done and be calm and have leisure time when she's struggling on all fronts.

i was readying my dissertation on my methods and strategies, yesterday's regiment being part of it, when alex beat me to it. without even lifting his head from his plate flatly said, "it's because of coffee and tea." the whole table looked his way as we absorbed his unusual contribution.

not only was i surprised by his agility to so rapidly connect the two, i was also embarrassed that his answer was far more insightful, to the point and more accurate than my own.

during the year i collect bits and pieces of information that i think might be helpful to share with my kids when the school year fires up. marty's insistence on a no-exceptions family dinner table makes for a perfect platform for me to subject enlighten my children with my sage counsel. a few examples.

we have been long told two things. one, that we have a certain potential fo...

because of the way the daily school schedule cycles, once every seven days marty can eat lunch with two of her past colleagues (and friends) who still work at the school. they've known each other for about fifteen years and have remained in touch outside of work while marty was away. they are both guys and they are both bald. one of the guys recently brought a new, younger teacher to their lunch ritual. caught off-guard marty and the other fella paused at seeing the outsider. the new blood sensing the awkward silence said, "oh, what, i'm not cool enough to eat with two bald guys and a crazy woman?"

without missing a beat marty replied to the circle of four, "wait. what? there's a crazy woman? which one is she?"

the night of the first day of school, our dinner table hopped with lively sharing of stories and adventures. one of my favorite blips that happened that day took place at the very start of bella's latin class. after the bell rang and the sixth graders settled down and looked front at a man they didn't know leaning on the edge of the desk. he said ...