After Marty got her online-curriculum process in place, she turned her attention to students who seemed to be struggling with this new virtual schooling. Her idea was to invite small groups to video chats and talk through the challenges they were having. Before doing a for-real call with her first set of students, she wanted to practice running a Zoom meeting. Like all of us, she had heard the horror stories and didn't want to be the next casualty. To this end, she sent an invite to Bella, Alex, Anthony, and I. In the invitation, she asked us to (1) join her on a practice Zoom call and to (2) try to wreck the meeting.

At the appointed hour, I joined the meeting. Marty's office is right next to mine, so after joining, I went to her desk to explain the process. Bella was down the hall in her room, and the boys were downstairs in our "computer cafe."

Bella was next to join the meeting. Bella and Marty were talking nicely when Alex chimed in. The second he appeared, he started screaming. Loudly. Then Anthony popped up and started screaming too. Also loudly. Remember, Marty asked the kids to try to wreck her call. I've held many Zoom calls since starting my company, and the most significant challenge I've encountered is a lagging internet connection. I was about to learn how badly one of these could go.

From the moment they joined, the boys were screaming jokes and trading memes, totally taking over what moments earlier was a peaceful conversation between Marty and Bella. Marty immediately got flustered and asked how she could shut them up, hands flared over the keyboard. I, leaning over her shoulder, helped her find the Manage Users / Mute option. She hit it for Alex, and his voice dropped out. Then she hit Anthony's switch. But the moment she muted Anthony, Alex's voice returned, saying demonically, "I will not be silenced, mother."

More panic. A deeper dive into the settings revealed a second mute switch that would let the meeting organizer mute people and keep them muted. After silencing Alex a second time, you could see she was starting to understand the setup. But the moment she killed Anthony's mic, Alex started writing on the screen in a huge jagged scrawl using the Annotation tool--TURN OUR SOUND ON!!!

It took Marty a few moments to find how to disable the writing tool. All the time this was happening, Bella was helping Marty find the settings and giving her additional suggestions.

BELLA
Mom, make sure you don't have any porn tabs up.

MARTY
I tend to not run a lot of porn in my browser, so I should be safe.

BELLA
Well, check your history too. People have been bitten there also.

MARTY
Again, I think I'll be safe Bella.

BELLA
And make sure other people don't play porn on their screens.

MARTY
They can do that?

To this question, Bella changed her background to a beach scene. In the time we asked her how she did that, she changed the picture to an old boyfriend. While we asked how she did that (again), she contorted in her bean bag chair, pretending to make out with his large smiling face. While we looked for how to defend this setting, Bella put up a textbook drawing of a penis with some medicinal (I hope) thing on it. Even though Marty had figured out how to silence the boys of both their verbal and annotated barbs, we could still hear them downstairs howling hysterically at Bella's phallic background.

After much laughter and more than a few obscenities from Marty, she figured out how to run a defensive zoom campaign. Granted, she spent the whole time squinting at her screen and hovering over her keyboard in a frenzied battle-pose, which made her look like our own Ender Wiggen.

In one of her first meetings, she had a couple of kids show up she didn't recognize. She immediately asked them who they were and why they were there. When they didn't respond quickly, she bounced them from the room without pause or question. She then turned her attention back to her for-real students as if not a thing had happened.

If you would like to rent out the DeArmitt-children for your own Zoom training or Marty to run your Zoom-events, they all have an unprecedented amount of free time on their hands.

TOMORROW: Part 5 - Soapy Bottoms

a few years back our car broke down in sidney nebraska. we were en route to utah for our spring break holiday. we left sidney with a surprising number of good memories and warm feelings having made the most of our two days in the small town.

a perfect example. one day while out for a walk (to the original Cabelas superstore), we saw this statue honoring the pony express. as the family read the related plaques that circled the impressive monument, bella climbed onto the horse and then called to me to take her picture. as i set up, marty snuck into the background and photo-bombed the shoot. then the boys joined in. and then, well it is just how things tend to unfold around here ...






























in the end, we were able to pull out a decent family photo but those never seem to come at a simple trajectory.

and this episode reminds me of a story that marty tells of when she was a young girl. she grew up in a house with three older brothers. the few times she would bounce downstairs wearing any sort of makeup she would get mercilessly taunted by her brothers. a popular one was for them to ask who beat her up and if she would just give them their name they would go give them a good pounding. this constant jibing kept marty from ever drifting too far into the it-girl lane (it-girl/it-guy being what my family calls the fashion-governed, opinion-driven in-crowd). i'm thankful for this because i share marty's brothers sentiments about makeup on marty (but probably for different reasons)--for me it is not just that it doesn't look right on her, but i think it makes her look less beautiful, or rather, she is always more fetching without the 'enhancements', however minimal she claims they are. marty has no prayer with me because there has never been a day where i haven't thought marty looked her best in the first moments of the day where she is minutes out of bed, wonky hair and all. she hates my position on that but i stand by my claim. this is the life of a natural beauty.

but back to my other natural beauty, bella. i've seen some moments where bella has begun the slide into the it-girl world but each and every time our family tugs her back to the ground and keeps her from ever taking that part of the game too seriously.

how about that stranger things? if you're one of the six people who haven't seen it yet, worry not, no spoilers here so don't sweat reading on.

the show is crazy well-done. the story. the mood. and particularly for season two, the music. it is doubly poignant for me as i was the same age as the characters in the time it was set. i may have also, like the characters, been on the edges of ...

a supplement to yesterday's soccer-story.

after the last game on the soccer schedule, we invited the team to our house for an end of season party. it was a remarkable mix of kids spanning all three middle school grades. this is the second year we have hosted this event. i was disinclined initially to make the offer for an odd reason. last year's party went so well i didn't think we could replicate it and the only thing that could happen is it would be a disappointment. i was wrong.

marty and i did next to nothing. we cleaned the bathroom, ordered some pizzas, and whipped up a few pitchers of kool-aid. aside from that everyone, and by everyone i mean every last player that was at the game, came over and enjoyed an easy, laughter-rich afternoon full of trampolining, xbox tournaments, slack-lining and basic juvenile ribbing.

at one point a lid came off a kool-aid pitcher as one of the boys was filling his cup and the bright red liquid raced everywhere. even that misfortune proved to be a non-issue given that the kid responsible reacted quickly and took care of the mess. my favorite part of that moment was the memory it jostled in marty's mind. she re-told the kitchen about when bella, at around age five, spilled a FULL pitcher of kool-aid half in the refrigerator and half on the floor. after walking into the room and surveying the result, marty wordlessly walked to the wall-phone, dialed a neighbor lady and said, "can i send my kids down to your house for a bit?". after a short pause while the other lady talked, she added, "oh no. nothing is wrong, but if they stay here i'm going to kill at least one of them."

for what it's worth i think it would take more than spilt kool-aid for marty to slay someone else's child. so the middle school soccer team was safe enough on this day, even with a near equal kool-aid catastrophe.

in a weekend bout of exasperation that she was losing the reins on her home's space, marty emptied two crammed basement bins of stuffed animals on the living room floor. she called her three children and explained that all of these forgotten toys were about to be donated. the only way one could stay in the house is if you, the child, wanted to keep it AND could say (a) where it came from, and (b) ...

marty took anthony up to the bank to deposit money into his account. anthony, aged ten, handed his slip made out for over one hundred dollars over to the teller. she pulled it towards her, lit up and said, "boy that is a lot of money--where'd you get all this money?"

to this anthony said, "i sell things in the alley."

marty instantly knew that sounded a lot worse than it should. ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. front yard

the playground at anthony's elementary has two kinds of parents strewn about before morning bell: all the parents of the new kindergartener-crop and me, the parent of a now fourth grader. the kindergarten parents huddle expectantly. in these two and three person clusters you can see them pensively exchanging trials (and tips) about the rigors of turning your baby over to the education-machine. i'm...

our doorbell has been busted since we bought our house. fixing it is on the list. that said, if it was in the top 1,000 things to be addressed, i'd be surprised.

the two wires that are connected to the home's doorbell system are there, sticking out of the wall and if you rub them together you can make the doorbell go off. since day one the kids have preferred sounding the doorbell this way than if there was a proper button in place. recently that has stopped working though and the doorbell seems dead as a, well, doorbell.

on a no-screens saturday and in a bout of complete and utter boredome (lucky him), anthony took it upon himself to craft a new, working doorbell which he proudly displayed for me when i returned from a morning of tennis. i tried it out and complimented him on how well it worked. this was a genuine compliment as i was pretty impressed with how stable and functional it was.

a little bit later anthony came into the bathroom while i was showering and told me he was happy with his new doorbell.

ANTHONY
yeah. i think it turned out pretty well.

TROY
i agree. super good for a V1.

ANTHONY
what's a V1?

TROY
version 1. it means it is your first attempt.

ANTHONY
what do you mean first attempt? it is done.

TROY
yes. you have a working doorbell but when you make something yourself, you will sometimes think of ways to make it better. if you think of something and then do it, then you will have V2, or version 2, which should theoretically be better than version 1.

ANTHONY
but how would i improve it? it works.

TROY
uhhhm. what would happen if it rained? is your note protected.

ANTHONY
oh. no. it isn't.

TROY
what do you think would happen to it if it rained?

ANTHONY
i think the words would blur out and it wouldn't be readable.

TROY
so, since that is outside, your design should account for that. you should think about things you could do to make it so i can last through the rain.

version 2 proved to be a marked improvement both to the doorbell and anthony as an inventor.

version 1 is shown below

before bed, marty reads harry potter to anthony and i. we are on book 5. this is her second time through the series as she read the books to alex and bella several years back. i read the first four books to anthony but he and i flamed out as i kept falling asleep during my reads. this is why marty took over. she is admittedly WAY better at reading potter than i am as she does animated voices and has an enviable reading stamina, even when exhausted. while she reads i work on my crossstitch. anthony, well, he is almost always moving about the room in some way, either walking back and forth on the bunk bed rails (until he slips and painfully wedges himself between the bed the and wall) or plays hot lava traversing the small space by jumping from object to object. the only time he is still is when he's eating an apple, his pre-bed snack. humorously, this allows him to be just as loud when he is sitting still as when he is balancing, climbing, and jumping about the room.

part of his apple ritual stands as one of my favorite anthony-isms. when he is done he goes to his second story window, loudly throws it open, reels back, and chucks his apple core onto the front yard. the first time i saw him do this i asked, a little alarmed, what he was doing. he casually said he was giving the rest of his apple to nature, you know the squirrels and birds or whoever might come upon it and need a snack. when he saw the expression on my face he added, "mom said it's ok". then the next morning as we head off to school, he will sometimes point out his apple, saying, "hey there's my apple from last night" and he will sometimes glance at an empty part of the yard and wonder aloud who got to enjoy his apple last night. i'm left wondering, not aloud, what the hell i'm going to to do for entertainment when my children are grown and gone.

at a holiday gathering someone asked me how the kids were doing. the following stories spilled out and i thought i'd share them with those of you i might not bump into at a holiday event.

ANTHONY
i was approached by a parent at anthony's elementary. she introduced herself and explained someone told her that anthony might be a good fit for an equations team her husband runs. i told her that anthony did seem to like math so, yes, he may be interested. she said that the program was for older kids and that they had already started the training but it might not be a bad idea to get him in this year so he could familiarize himself with the process. i took anthony to their next meeting. the "coach" got the other kids working and said he was going to be over here getting anthony setup. the man proceeded to unpack a game. while doing so he started asking a third grade anthony questions like:

• do you know what the square root of 9 is? he did.
• how about the square root of 81. he did.

then he asked if anthony knew what powers were. he did not. the man explained and then ran anthony through some problems which anthony answered without fail. he then taught anthony how to play the game. after the session i thanked the man for teaching anthony and letting him sit in this year. to this the man said, "sit in? i'm going to have anthony compete this year! he's great!". if great means that in third grade he already knows more about math than i ever have, yes he is great.

ALEX
alex is in a robotics club. in this club the team gets a challenges to solve and then works as a team to solve the challenge. this year the team assigned nicknames to all the members. alex's nickname was "the guy who can fix anything". not too bad a designation on a team that exists to solve problems.

BELLA
bella is at a new school district. we were a little curious how she would fare entering an entirely new population of people without a history or reputation. two months after her arrival she was chosen as one of five female school ambassadors. these ambassadors are existing students who show prospective students around to interest them in the school. this is obviously a role the school's administration does not take lightly and for bella to get tapped this soon after her arrival gives marty and i the sense that our baby girl will perhaps be ok out there in the bigger world.

while walking to school with anthony he asked, after a natural pause in our conversation, "so dad. what is something you really want, that cost less than 20 dollars?".

while i was reflecting on things i talked about how the best present for someone was something they really wanted but for whatever reason wouldn't buy themselves. after a few minutes i told anthony that something i've been intrigued by for a number of years were mounted insects. after explaining what they were he asked why i would want that. i told him that from my photography contest i've come to be amazed at some of the insect-photography, especially the up-close macro images that people have sent in of bugs and stuff and that they are really very extraordinary and if they could be enlarged to, say, the size of one of these houses we were walking by they would be the most extraordinary things we've ever seen, both in their beauty and detail.

a few days later i mentioned anthony's question to marty. she told me she was well aware of the conversation because anthony then went to her and said he needed her to help him buy me a mounted insect for my birthday. after looking a bit, anthony found one that was $30. when marty asked him if he had $30 he said sure, walked to and opened one of his bedroom windows, pulled a velcro wallet from the outer jamb and produced the requested $30.

yeah, what, like you don't keep your money hidden in a window jamb?

and for reasons i can't explain (in that marty has confessed ignorance) both of my boys have taken a great interest in getting me a birthday gift this year. i'm admittedly a little easier to shop for since i went on my spending fast (ref). also, i'm a little more eager for the goodies given i'm no longer buying myself each and every bauble that catches my eye. i have the sense it's all going to taste a bit sweeter this year.

marty, bella and i were walking home. as we were crossing a street bella yelled "SLUG BUG!" and gave me a hard shot in the arm. that side of my body sagged from the unexpected blow (she is not the small and defenseless girl she once was). as i began my whiny "what didya do that for?" the guy inside the vw beetle guffawed and yelled out his passenger window, "Man! I love that shit!". his comment got bella and marty laughing. the humor missed its mark on me and my sagging arm.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. worm-age

here i offer a glimpse into a newly minted nine year old's mind click to enlarge

multiple people commented on the family pic a few weeks back that showed marty and anthony on the tramp (ref). they liked how the poles for the safety enclosure were stacked up on the side of the tramp, precariously close even. one commenter (bookguy, ahem) suggested i situate the poles around the tramp in some sort of mad max like configuration to further incent younglings to not fall over the edge. obviously i would never do this, but i also wouldn't make the suggestion aloud in front of two of my three kids.

no. i'm not talking about that kind of family tramp. i'm talking about the family tramp that the neighbors who moved away gifted you before their departure. i don't think a week had passed since members from both families hefted the awkard ring over the three-foot fence (pictured in the background) that marty commented on how comfy of a bed it looked like. then, i don't think two days passed befor ...

i was making some new benches for our front porch (in part due to a new, totally sweet, dowling jig i recently bought). i was modeling them after a bench i made several years ago. between my superior skills (compared to several years back) and improved tools (uhhh, dowling jig), i considered upgrading to a higher grade of of wood. the problem point here is that it would add a fair bit of cost to the project so i wanted to make sure i could pull the benches off without any issues.

while getting things organized, i stepped out to the porch to take measurements on my existing bench. while crouched down and measuring the various parts and pieces, i noticed how the top slabs of wood, where you sit, had deep divots and mars in them from the kids various projects. the most damning of the marks came from our meat tenderizer hammer where, i recalled this day specifically, the kids went through a multi-day period of busting open acorns for sport using the medieval looking meat hammer as the pounder and my hand-made bench as the worktop. i imagined my reaction to them doing this, or any other number of their child-divined games, on high-dollar pieces of lumber versus the simple treated wood i've historically used.

then, from my crouched position, i recalled one of the first and most meaningful parental lessons i ever learned: you can love your things or you can love your children, but you can't love both.

after completing my notes, i, with nary a reservation, went and bought my low-grade planks of wood.

we were gifted a trampoline a year ago. for the record, most cool things our kids have can be connected to the generosity of someone who is not their parents. the tramp is a modern-day issue with the high netting all around. for reasons i'll explain in a moment, we recently removed the saftey netting. seeing a tramp without this encasement these days is kinda like spotting a black bear in yellowst...

when we pulled into the lot for the walter family easter event, before i killed the engine, anthony (8) announced that he wouldn't be hunting easter eggs. later, when an uncle pressed him on the matter he said, "what's the point. all you do is run around finding eggs. you eat the candy in them. you get fat. and then you spend the next year trying to get de-fat. just so you can do it all over again ...

for the last few years marty has organized a large regional girl scout retreat. she first took it on during bella's short-lived stint in a troop. but even after bella stopped going, marty had formed a fondness for the mission so stayed involved. if i'm remembering correctly, alex attended more of these weekend adventures than bella has—it surely never hurt that all the girls found him wildly...

i try to make my children think creatively or logically as much as possible. one of my tactics for this was to answer their questions with illogical responses. for example, whenever they asked me a yes/no question, i'd answer "sure". i liked watching their faces process the response before saying, "no dad. that's not right." to which i'd say "oh. no thank you." i know, i know, i'm a real party. or at least it's a party until your eight year old takes to responding to all questions directed to them with nonsensical answers, and even to people outside of the family, and even when responding to our host and hostess, and even when this host and hostess are the people kind enough to let our family of five descend upon their home for an entire week—for a third year in a row—wildly disrupting their home's routines and sleeping situations for several straight days. even then, whenever one of these kind people would ask anthony something, he would respond with gibberish. if you're wondering what that looks like, it looks something like this:

how was skiing today anthony?
uhh, oatmeal.

anthony would you like another piece of bread?
pink giraffe (with a nod of his head)

anthony, did you like the show?
doorknob. no, i mean, uhhh, blond hair.

if you're wondering how long this is cute for, it is, as you probably guessed, it is cute about zero times which means that thirty seven times in it is bordering on obnoxious. on the good side, he's having to think a little more than he would by answering 'epic' to everything.

yesterday we returned from our spring break holiday—a week in utah rife with friends and skiing. this is the third year we have made this pilgrimage which gives it some tradition-caliber stock. in perusing the rich week of leisure, laughter and recreation, the moment that most jumps out at me happened on the drive home somewhere in wyoming when alex yelled from the third row seat of our speeding minivan, "i have to go pee and REFUSE to go in a bottle!"

sadly, in my telling of this i am unable to convey the gallons of vinegar and vitriol his words included as they were hurled the full length of our honda odyssey. good to his word, alex held fast on his pee-boycott until we delivered him to a proper urinal. anthony on the other hand gladly peed in his bottle although he did confess it was hard to perform without any privacy (as the whole family was drawn to watching him see to this need). anthony also offered his neighboring passengers a taste of his lemonade at least half a dozen times. he seemed fully undaunted that no one ever took part in his generosity.

anthony is a rabid monopoly player. how much does anthony like monopoly you ask? well, every day my kids get a dad hour with me (technically, it's more like 45 minutes on the weekdays because there just isn't enough hours in the evening given the number of family members i have). in your dad hour you get to say what you and your dad (me) will do to spend the time.

here are what people us...

i feel like marty and i missed a ripe business opportunity when we failed to hire our kids out to test parks and homes for safety. because when you combine marty's free-range parenting style and the natural athletic abilities of most children, boundaries will be tested. there were many a time i look at one of my children atop or inside something and wonder at length how they ever managed the man ...