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.
regarding yesterday's pro-peril story, for any wondering, my part of the peril was installing the rope on the tree. i'm not a fan of heights and for sure know bad things can happen. but if i want my kids to leave their comfort zone and travel to new places, i reckon i should as well every now and again.
granted, being taunted by anthony while going through my trial with chants of "do you want me to climb up there and do it dad?" does not enrich the experience in any meaningful way other than, maybe, egging me on to finish the job.
and i'd never been more thankful for my failing vision because once i was at the peak of the climb and trying to manipulate the thick-as-my-wrist rope into the slip knot my super-neighbor taught me minutes earlier, i was able to slide my glasses down my nose a bit and given my severe near-sightedness, the distant world below blurred out, looking much less ominous.
i don't think folks talk nearly enough about the awesome parts of getting old.
i don't know if this leaves me motivated or dispirited. whatever the feeling is, i couldn't help but force myself to experience it multiple times. sheesh.
and in case you thought it was a fluke, there's more.
speaking of food (yesterday), the fiancé of a good friend of mine just started documenting her nurturing her newfound love of food and food-making. and, it doesn't take long to see that her style of 'documentation' is a bit richer and deeper than most folks form of documentation.
I think the relationship between food and our bodies is magical. One moment you can be looking at the apple in your hand, and the very next it is inside of you, becoming part of you - your cells, your bones, your heart, your brain.
and her instagram page should come with a full-on warning as i first looked in on it before bed and can tell you that that is a wicked kind of mistake.
https://instagram.com/diana.zeng
and a few days after seeing this alex caught her fiance, and my friend, super-sam, slipping something into our mail slot. upon opening the door and surprising him he confessed that he was dropping off a chocolate bar he just made for us to try out. later, when opening it up for the family to try, i found a personalized note on the wrapper's backside (you're not going to get that with hershey!!!) part of which said:
I recently began making chocolate from scratch. It's a 3 ingredient recipe. This has a tiny bit of cayenne pepper and is a bit melty to the touch. I'm working on the latter issue.
There's also a mustache emblazoned on the back. Because why not!?
in the opening weekend of 2015 the first of our nephews and nieces got married. since there are lots of nephews and nieces in marty's clan this begins a new chapter for our family--which translates to a host of mass walter-fests in the decades ahead. some might groan at all these familial commitments but marty comes from a wildly spectacular and interesting family that enjoys one another. this aff...
as i unpacked my bag after arriving at work, i found a card tucked between my book and my lunch. it was from bella and was a remarkably thoughtful card. that night when i saw bella, i mentioned my discovery to her.
oh yeah. that. i got it for you for father's day but then thought how you and mom don't celebrate anniversaries and stuff like that and thought it might surprise you if i gave it to you some other time when you weren't expecting it.
well it worked. it worked quite nicely. aside from the part of it almost making me cry in my office.
some of my fondest memories revolve around the most pedestrian acts. after juicing a bag of oranges it's hard to pick which is better between their basic excitement of the process or their wonder at seeing where something as simple as orange juice comes from (and seeing that they could make it themselves). ...
for school, bella (13) was asked to write an essay about a family member. this was her response.
Family Member Essay:
He grew up an only child in the snowy mountains of Colorado. She grew up the sixth child of seven in Missouri. He grew up in a public school pining for a different girl every week. She grew up in a prestigious catholic school and valued a strong and healthy relationship. Neither knew the other existed until fate intertwined and they met. He knew the moment they met it was true love. She was wary and doubtful about where the relationship would end up, but she took a chance and took his hand. That was how it all started. Twenty-four years later and they're still holding on.
My mother and father were practically made for each other. They've helped each other become the people that they are today. With each others support and adoration they are able to flourish as they mature. If they hadn't met, my father wouldn't be the man that he is today. They've helped each other through so much and they are each other's inspirations, hopes, and dreams. I love them very much and I know that I wouldn't have become the woman that I am now if I didn't have them.
it's crazy how much she knows about my/our past. at her age, i was never that plugged into my parents, or anyone who wasn't me for that matter. i find her curiosity and empathy both impressive and humbling. if i'm ever in need of a biographer, i for sure know who i'm tapping.
what follows is a talk my friend sam gave at a gave developer microtalk event. the talks of the night, expectedly, dealt with coding and development and the act of creating. mercifully batting cleanup, sam's talk, generically lableled PROCESS, blew the lid off the tenth floor of a twenty-five story building.
I still have a viola, purchased in a sprint of optimism two year...
for one of our twenty-hour (one-way!) st. louis to salt lake road trips, i made each kid their own writing/drawing center. these included a clipboard, pad of graph paper, mechanical pencil, and architecture/lettering stencils. since that trip these work stations have been disassembled and cast to the various parts of the house, with one exception. anthony tracks his mechanical pencil with great care keeping it at his desk spot and sometimes taking it to school with him (against my counsel fwiw). while i appreciate how much he likes this object my favorite part of it his interest in this is that he calls it not his mechanical pencil but instead his "electric pencil".
a few of the hand-crafted flyers bella made last night which she plans to hang up on poles and in bathrooms around our community on her day off school today. my memory might not be what it once was but i'm pretty sure i never spent a day off school making and posting signs in hopes of raising people's self-esteem.
today is marty's birthday. several months back she dropped the hint, and by hint i mean she just came out and said, "all i want for my birthday is a working dishwasher". well i, wanting to add master gift-giver to the list of things i am known for, made an indelible note on my mind's whiteboard.
in getting an impressively mature/early start on the endeavor i recalled that getting a new washer involved new and expensive plumbing work to meet code. i then iterated through the notes made by the repairman about the machine as well as the litany of work i had done to date. with about six weeks till today i started studying the problem in hopes that i could figure out why the machine was not doing what it was built, solely, to do. i crossed the finish line on saturday, with three days to spare, by having our dishwasher clean its first set of dirty dishes in better than two years. marty was over the moon and i beamed with a genuine pride reserved for young men who solve seemingly unsolvable problems, given their meager abilities at least.
and now, in addition to providing marty with the one birthday present she wanted most, i have a professional fall-back plan if my I.T. gig doesn't pan out as a dishwasher repairman because i know way more about these animals than any one man who isn't a repairmen should.
i'm sure by now you've all seen this video, but still...
this strikes me beyond the well done sentimentality as it points to a gaping hole in my screen policing philosophy, a hole my children are just beginning to discern. the loophole is this: i will allow my children immense access to technology in the name of active creation. and i will restrict, with equal vigor, the time they use technology for numb consumption.
as for my criteria of what is creation, they are broad. i'm indifferent if you're plotting out a website, writing a short story, shooting a video or even trying to make a wonky maze in minecraft—if that's the plan, plug in and hack away. conversely, if the agenda is to troll other people's websites, read the stories they crafted, watch their video-making achievements, or play a wonky maze someone else made, time is up, log off, go outside and get dirty.
bella is the first to begin to glean this paradox in her father because even while on restriction from screens, she's noticed any kid with a plan in hand gets greenlit to the machine of their choosing. before you start picking at my methonds, please know one needs more than a fanciful vision to get past the logon screen. outlines, sketches, mockups are the sorts of keys that can make the doors swing wide. lacking that level of planning, a child will be sent off to better collect their thoughts. if they can't get the plan on paper they either weren't serious or they weren't ready.
and if you gave me ten years, i don't think i could have transformed this belief with anywhere near the payload this apple ad achieves in a mere ninety seconds. fully ridiculous. holy smokes are their people good (ahem, creators).
as for me i think i've done about all the creating i've got in me for 2013 so i'll be stepping away to relax by the fire, smile at the dinner table, and tell animated stories with friends and family while lazing on comfy furniture next to lit trees. may your next weeks be rich with laughter, contentment and liesure while we all get a societal kitchen pass to spend time with our friends and families.
see you on january 6th.
p.s. speaking of creating, after entering this post into the database, i noticed that it is the 2,001st entry in the monorail blog. things, good and bad, do have a reliable way of accumalating on us. it's the quiet beauty of the slow drip.
i heard of the greatest christmas tradition this week. the husband of a woman i work with, since the year they got married, has saved a section of the stump from their family christmas tree. he dates the wooden discs, adding significant detail(s) from the year in his custom scrawl. the end result is a rich and personal presentation on their family mantle. this discovery snuck in just before year's end as the idea i most wish was my own. the man to credit for this excellent bit of creativity and foresight is one joe erker. in case it is not apparent, i couldn't be more envious of the thoughtful gift he has made for his family and the future generations it will surely touch.
and, if that large centerpiece stump with the single word POP on it doesn't elicit emotion from you, wether you personally know who pop was or not, you are not properly wired (or you haven't yet lost one of the most important people in your life). powerful stuff. as the movie says, life is beautiful.
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, casesinpoint, 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.
anthony and i were walking home from picking up take-out dinner. anthony always walks on any walls or ledges along any route he travels. this particular walk host a variety of such obstacles. on one of the less perilous balancing acts, he came upon this unusual show of artistry. he stopped, taking it in. he commented on how good the 'drawer' did and the beauty of the woman. i agreed. he asked if i ...
last week, bella became the president of her school's national junior honor society. i could spend this time going on about how proud we are of her or how anyone who knew me in junior high, if told i would go on to to have such a child, would have called the notion daft, ridiculous, and silly—students and teachers alike—but instead i'll just share the speech i saw days after the event, an event i didn't even know was happening.
when i asked her about what the role involved she described the meetings, what they talk about and her place in it all. when done and after a brief pause she added that parents weren't allowed to attend. she is smart!
before the school year began marty went to school to work on her room. alex tagged along. once in the room alex asked if he could play on the smart board. marty said he could but it wasn't working. she explained it stopped working towards the end of last year and she had to have someone come look at it. alex asked what was wrong and marty gave the number one answer by non-technical minded folks to technical-minded folks saying "it was broke in the kinda way that when i tell it to come on, it doesn't come on".
alex began his silent rumination on the problem. in this studious state he is perfectly still. if you watch him really close you will see his eyes dart over the landscape in question. in this case his eyes travelled from the screen to the ceiling mounted projector to the computer on the desk. after a bit of time he went to the desk and started lifting and separating cords studying where they went. marty continued her organizing hardly noticing the quietest of her children. in time alex said, "you should try it now mom". patient and open as always, marty fired the machine up and began going through the steps. as it came to the point where the routine failed she proactively announced that "and this is where the projector should come on but just stopped working one day" but in the midst of that sentence the wall behind her lab table lit up and displayed the screen from her desktop. marty lit up brighter than the wall, turned to her ten year old son who was wearing a barely perceptible grin and gave him a giant appreciative hug, the deep kind one pulls out just for special occassions.
no child left behind, except those that can't read.
below find the slips the family filled out for the test mentioned in tuesday's story. and the original sticker in question.
and anthony's contribution was verbal and exposed what an ass i was for giving a reading comprehension and writing test to his child who can not yet do either of those things. had you heard his angst you would know he would have used the d-word instead of the a-word but thankfully that is another thing he is not yet up to practical speed on.
and i love that bella added her answer, "pop them", to the life-riddle.
one thing i haven't mentioned through all of this is why bella is so ravenous to read stephen king. the reason is bella fancies herself a bit of a horror writer. she has written a number of scary short stories. they definitely are not what you'd expect to come out of a twelve year old girl, who otherwise seems as normal as bella seems at least.
she mostly has done this in her free time and just shared it with family and friends but one day she asked me to proof-read a school assignment for her. when i did it was one of her horror stories.
TROY
what is this for?
BELLA
english class.
TROY
you can't turn this in at school.
BELLA
why not?
TROY
because the department of family services would come here and take you away from us.
BELLA
why?
TROY
because this is twisted and deranged. i mean don't get me wrong, it's very good. the problem is its almost too good and thus twisted and deranged.
it turns out she was very excited to turn it in and had already talked it up to her friends and teachers. our compromise was she had to include an author's statement with the assignment. what she quickly penned to appease her stickler-father follows:
Dear Reader,
I'd like to start off my little Author's Note by saying that I'm not a psycho, if your son or daughter knows me they'll be able to explain my love for horror and gore, but for those of you who don't I'll explain.
My name is Bella DeArmitt (Isabella Walter DeArmitt), I LOVE to write horror. I first discovered that I loved horror when every year my horror stories at the camp-fire became legendary. I like to write horror (I think) because when I write I'm in control of what happens, I have the ability to make my reader's stomach twist and churn, I have the ability to be myself.
Those are some of the reasons that I like to write,
