Amped!

It's weird but all my life I've had these moments that I get this excited, manic feeling of anticipation. Like there is something really good impending, even when there's not. It's a jazzy feeling in the brain and butterflies in the stomach and kind of a tinglely feeling in your hands. But all in a good way. It's like the feeling you get when you find out your crush likes you back, or when you are picking up a good friend you haven't seen in forever at the airport---or the night before Christmas or a trip you've been looking forward to for a long time. I've felt like this right before I go on stage too.

I having this feeling now. I don't mind it so much, but it's weird knowing that there is no pay off, and so no reason for it. I don't know what causes me to feel like this. I'm not a coffe drinker but today that may have something to do with it. I picked up a "diesel fuel" on the way to work this morning that I've been nursing through the day. That's a concotion a little local coffee shop in town makes---three shots of expresso poured into a 16 oz coffee. Dude, that's like A.D.D. in a styrofoam cup. And I had a 20 Pepsi with lunch (but it did have a winning song cap!). Yeah, I'm doing some serious multi-tasking right about now.

But that's not always the case when I get to feeling like this---so I can't just dismiss it as a simple caffine buzz. It's kind of like the complete opposite to an axiety attack. My wife gets those. I wish I could put what I'm feeling right now into a pill she could take when the dark clouds move in. I hate it when she get's beat down like that.

I'm know I'm scheduled for a crash at some point---I just hope it's gentle with me.

Bottlecaps, Bottlecaps, Everywhere!

Ok, so we’re half way(ish) through the Pepsi/iTunes bottle cap promotion. You know, the one where the yellow bottle caps give you a code that gets you a free song download on iTunes.

As I mentioned before, I go nuts on this stuff. This year I hooked up with a guy here at work that goes around the building retrieving empty pop bottles for the recycling deposit return that he can get for them. Makes a little extra money. I hooked up with him to get the caps, and it’s been working great. He was bringing me about 40 a week or so. It was a brilliant set up.

But then he came to me last week and gave me the sad news (sad for me, that is). His kids had caught him with all the bottle caps. They had a bit of a hard time understanding how he was not passing the caps on to them, but instead passing them to some guy at work. So he apologized and said that he wouldn’t be able to bring me anymore because he’d be giving them to his kids. Disappointing, but understandable. I’d do the same thing in his position. He’s a good guy and a good dad.

(Actually, I kind of am in his position---I have lots of caps but I’m still not giving them to my kids. I’m keeping them for myself! But I do burn a copy of everything I download for the kids---so it’s kind of the same as giving them the caps, I just do all the legwork. It’s nice that we all like the same music).

So anyway, for me that meant going back to digging in the trash myself. Hey, I’m not proud. This is tunes were talking about here.

But not to worry, the Lord does provide. It’s funny, after that one supply disappeared, I started getting winning caps at lunch on my own bottles a little more frequently. Also, people started bringing them to me. Maybe it was my desperation there. I started walking up to people and in conversation I’d throw in a, “So, couldn’t help noticing that your drinking a yellow cap Pepsi there. . .If you don’t mind me asking, what ‘cha got under the cap on that one.”

But before you shake your head in sadness at my pathetic myopic obsessions, just consider how much more normal you feel by comparison. See, I serve a purpose in the universe. I am the cosmic contrast by which you can now see your own silver lining---kind of like daytime talks shows (only with less production value).

Anyway, yesterday Kitten, my 14 yr old daughter, had an out of town music competition with her Middle School Swing Choir. I came home from work at bedtime and she told me she had a present for me. When I went to tuck her in and kiss her goodnight, she pointed to her nightstand. There proudly stood 4 little yellow tune caps, all in a row. She’d scrounged them from the choir people at lunch, just for her dear ol’ dad.

Isn’t she just the sweetest? I am very blessed.

Monday's reader's Poll. . .

. . .from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Feel free to leave your own answers!

1. Did you gorge yourself on sugar yesterday? Nope, left that up to the kids. I think I got diabetes just watching them.

2. How often do you change your sheets? The wife handles that aspect of our life, so as often as she sees fit.

3. Do you usually drive within the speed limit? I try to after my sister-in-law got a ticket in a construction zone---my budget can’t handle that kind of a ding.

4. Which is more vomit-inducing, The Ashlee Simpson Show or The Simple Life? For me it must be the Simple Life, although I’ve never actually seen an episode. I actually don’t mind Ashlee Simpson. She dosent’ annoy me as much as see seems to get to some people---I just think she was born in the wrong decade. She would have made a good 80’s rocker---given Joan Jett a run for her money.

5. Have you ever eaten a booger? I may have, although I don’t remember it now. My main current relationship to that act is reeling in disgust every time I see it perpetrated in my house.

6. If you could become a member of the opposite sex for a week, would you? Totally. In a second. I’d love to see things from that perspective. And being able to wear eyeliner for a whole week with nary a raised eyebrow! (Oh, um, this is just between us, right? Dude, I’ve been off the stage for too long.)

7. Have you ever gone camping (in a tent, RVs don't count)? Just a bit---8 years of Boy Scouting and now my son is joining. Oy. I’ll be at the Ramada if you need me.

8. If you could take a class at no cost to you (at a school, at the gym, any type of class), what would you take? I’d love to learn either After Effects or Flash. (The software for homework would have to be free though too.)

9. Have you ever won a radio contest? I haven’t, but my daughter did. Here I was telling her that it’s a long shot to win one of those things, and there she was calling Radio Disney every morning. The next thing I knew, we were getting a fish lamp in the mail. As she grew older, she abandoned it----but it’s in my office now. That was a red letter moment in her little life---I’m not about to let that go to the landfill.

10. What kind of milk do you drink? Cow---only cow. Skim.

I'm an iPodder!

Took my iPod experience to the next level last night. I downloaded iPodder so I can bring in Podcasts. Very cool.

So far I've found the Podcasts for Inside Mac, Engadget, and Future Tense. I get them onto my iPod and do the FM transmitter in the car and I've got my own all-geek radio station!

How cool is that! (Well, ok, maybe not real cool for a lot of people but it's rockin' my world.)

Let the juices flow

Up a tree

Marilyn blogged on Friday about looking back at a childhood picture of herself and seeing what that little girl was like---and trying to get back to a little bit of that. This spun, in her comments section, into a discussion on how sometimes parents can be the driving force behind squelching creative drive in kids as they grow up.

I must say that as a parent I'm a little bit in the opposite direction. I'm a little too nurturing---and I guess I can be a little overwhelming at times. So my job is to work on settling down and gently encouraging. In the comments the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" is mentioned as an example of seeing potential in a child very young. Interestingly enough, that's one of my favorite movies---and it's also the metaphor that my wife always brings up when I start getting a little hyper about getting the kids into lessons or training or something over a talent I think I see showing itself. You see, in the movie the father, after recognizing that his son is a chess genius, goes nuts getting him tons of instruction and pushing him to tournaments all over. Until, in the end, he needs to help his son find that place where chess was fun again so the son can play to the best of his abilities.

Wisely, my wife keeps coaxing me back to a place where we can be supportive without taking the fun out of it.

An example is my 3rd child---my 6 year old who we call the little Lemur. And that name is very appropriate---he makes weird noises ALL the time and constantly leaping around and flipping off the walls and making people laugh. Sometimes I think he's never happier than when he's flying through the air in some kind of weird pose. And of course, he's constantly giving us heart-attacks as we witness a calm moment instantly transform into a potential trip to the emergency room right before our very eyes ---all the time.

A while back, he saw Bill Irwin (best know in our house as Mr. Noodle from Sesame Street) on Great Performance on PBS. Bill Irwin was performing a one man Broadway show where he brings his signature style of vaudevillian "Chaplinesque" performance to the stage. And my wife relats how she saw right then, as he watched, that he knew what he wanted to be.

Of course I would have sent him to clown college immediately, but I controlled myself. Plenty of time for that. In the meantime I have been trying to probe him to see if there would be something that he would be interested in that would keep him flexible and aware of his body and how to use it----like dance or gymnastics. But strangely enough, he doesn't want to have any of that. At least not now. Maybe someday. And then I'll be so happy to cheer him on.

You won't see a prouder father than me when someday I'm standing in a group of parents with grown children, and we're all talking about their lives as lawyers and doctors, and I get to say "Yeah, well my son falls down for a living! But not only that, he makes funny noises when he does it!" I look forward to that with relish.

For right now, I just have to keep him from killing himself so he can get to that point.

Couch Cave

Cult of Mac ---where art thou?

Just for the record, that websites title "Cult of Mac" is tongue in cheek. I do not have a religious relationship to my Mac, just a hobbyist and fanboy. For the record.

That out of the way, I was wondering if anyone know what is happening at the blog Cult of Mac? It's a site that does more human interest Mac stories that are from the underground userbase, rather than headline news kinds of stories.

Leander Kahney usually updates that thing at least once a week or tells us he's going to be away so won't be updating. He's gone kind of AWOL since March 14. Didn't know if anyone knew what was up with him?

The Iron Fist

This morning my wife came to me and said,

“Hon, today is the first day of Easter break and the Peterson boys [my son’s good friends he doesn’t get to see too often] are wanting him to spend the night. What do you think? He’s grounded remember.”

It was true. His mother had grounded him for a week, and then he got into trouble again so I had to add a week. But I gave it some thought and said,

“Well, he’s been really good during his ground, I think we can let him off a couple days early.”

To which my wife responded,

“Ok, but I want you to talk to him. He doesn’t remember why he was grounded and he needs to learn or what’s the point.”

“He doesn’t remember?”

“No.”

Sigh.

“Ok, you’re right. I’ll talk to him. He’s got to remember or he won’t learn.”

I put on my stern father face preparing to make my point and stress the importance of improving behavior when I stopped and turned back to my wife, whispering,

“What was he grounded for again?”

Oy. I’ve got to start writing these things down.

Hello, I'm Will, and I'm a blogger.

Ok, so I've done some soul searching about this whole blogging thing---and read some blogs that were doing some soul searching too. And what I've been thinking is that I want to make my blog more like what I like to read in the blogs I enjoy.

In the blog world it seems like my social expectations are a little upside down from what they are in the physical world. If a person printed up a publication that featured nothing but details about themselves, pictures of themselves, and their deepest thoughts and feelings, my response would most likely be, “where do you get off?”. But I beg for those things from people who write weblogs. Talk about your self. Tell me your history. Show me pictures of you---you can show me pics of the world around you, but I really love to see pics of the person involved. I’ve never realized how ingrained it is to see a face (no matter how photogenic –or unphotogenic a person feels they are. I really feel a need to see their face).

Another thing that I really appreciate is some sort of bio/profile that brings people up to speed and puts any entry that may be up into context of a larger picture. So, In that same vein I’m posting today what I’ll be copying into the permanent profile of this weblog. This is something I’ve seen a lot around the blog world that I love reading---the “100 things about me” meme. So here it is:

1. I was born in the hills of West Virginia in the October following the official “summer of love”.
2. My parents are neither hillbillies or hippies.
3. I, also, am not a hillbilly ---although I have been accused of being a hippie.
4. My parents moved to Nebraska when I was three to the town where my mother grew up. I really don’t remember any home except here as a kid.
5. My first life changing event that I remember was when I first saw the movie Star Wars.
6. I was also in band and orchestra, played Dungeons and Dragons and read comic books, but it wasn’t as dorky as it sounds.
7. I was born with only 4 toes on my right foot.
8. It’s not something that effects me much. It's actually kind of entertaining when my kids are little the first time each them have found me barefoot and wanted to count my toes. They always end with that “now wait a minute” look on their face when the come up one short.
9. My right leg was also shorter than my left by about 3 inches growing up.
10. I had to have a raised sole on the bottom of my right shoes through grade school.
11. I had an operation in 6th grade that slowed the growth in the left leg enough for the right to catch up.
12. My right foot is still two sizes smaller than my left though, so I keep from having to buy two pairs of shoes by getting construction boots that lace up around my ankle.
13. I played trumpet in the band, and viola in the orchestra all through High School. I haven’t touched either since I started college.
14. I was best friends in High School with the girl I would make my wife.
15. I met her in a play that I was in with her in my Junior Year, her Senior Year.
16. It was a play by Arthur Miller called “The Crucible”. I played Rev. Hale and she played Mary.
17. When she came into the first rehearsal she sat right next to me. I was astounded. I couldn’t believe a girl would sit right next me, by choice, on purpose and not move as soon as an opportunity presented itself. She stayed there they whole rehearsal. I tried not to make eye contact and scare her off. But I enjoyed her fragrance the whole time. She smelled wonderful.
18. We later determined that it was her laundry detergent, not her perfume, that I found so intoxicating.
19. We hung out every spare moment in high school with her and her friend that had the identical first and last name, except my wife’s last name ended with an “s”.
20. My wife has dark brown hair, and the other girl was a blond so we referred to them as the dark one and the light one.
21. I never dated my wife-to-be in high school, but I did end up dating her friend. We all still continued to hang out together.
22. In January of my Senior year I went to Brisbane, Australia as a foreign exchange student.
23. Right before I left I earned my Eagle Scout badge from the Boy Scouts. That’s also not as dorky as it may sound.
24. My wife’s friend, the light one, talked my wife into joining the Army Reserves with her. The two of them went into basic training together where the light one found another guy, whom she eventually married (even though I still thought we were kind of dating still).
25. After I found out that she had another guy, I started getting romantic with a girl in Australia that I had been hanging around with.
26. When I got back in Jan 1987 I worked for a screen printing business and hung out with my wife-to-be a lot. She was back in town from training and all of our other friends were either in school still or out of town.
27. We ended up finding a college together and attending the same school that fall. We also ended up both being Theater Majors together.
28. We kind of started to get romantic, but unofficially because I was still kind of a thing with the girl in Australia.
29. The girl from Australia came to the U.S. in my freshman year at school to see how we still felt about each other, and to possiblly get engaged.
30. My wife to be knew all about this the whole time and I had asked her to be my best man (best person? Whatever).
31. She later told me that even though she said yes, that she doesn’t know if she could have gone through with it. She thinks she would have been in the bathroom the whole time throwing up.
32. However, when the Australian girl arrived for her visit, she told me that she had been seeing another guy back in Australia.
33. We agreed to enjoy the visit together and then just be friends when she departed again for Australia.
34. My wife-to-be and I started dating officially shortly after that.
35. The following year she went to her annual 2 week Army Reserve Training in the desert area of Colorado and there was a tornado that nearly killed people. I was at home in a panic watching reports on the news about the Reserve locals that were effected.
36. My wife was fine as it turned out, but I decided that night that I would ask that girl to marry me as soon as she got home.
37. I was worried that her father wouldn’t approve because we were so young (22 and 23), so I had the prepared elaborate explanations and justifications as to why this was reasonable. When I was finally able to get a moment with him and ask him if I could marry his daughter, he just looked at me and put a bear hug around my neck. I took that as a yes.
38. I proposed to her, ring in hand, in the parking lot on the base as I was picking her up from summer training that following week.
39. That was July and we were married on October 28th.
40. The following Feburary we found out that we were going to be parents as well.
41. We continued college classes and participation in college Theater Productions all through the pregnancy.
42. In October 1990, we were at the movies to see the 25th Anniversary release of Disney’s “Fantasia” when my wife’s water broke.
43. I later talked the movie theater into giving us the movie poster that was hanging for that showing and hung it in our daughter’s nursery.
44. We graduated from college that following spring, both with a BFA in Theater.
45. When I was in 7th grade I attended a movie that caused me to put Christ at the center point of my life.
46. Ever since I have been extremely spiritual but never particularly denominationally affiliated. A bit of a mutt in that respect.
47. After graduation I felt called to attend a college in Va. Beach that I had never previously know of till a college professor happened on information and passed it on to me.
48. We moved to Va. Beach, Virginia that summer where I attended Regent University.
49. I majored in Theater with an emphasis in directing, scriptwriting (mainly for children) and unconventional theater styles.
50. I have a belief that I took a right turn when I should have gone left with my choice in majors ---I believe I should have changed to the film program but stayed with what I thought was a safer path in Theater.
51. Although I have had amazing experiences in the theater that I treasure, I no longer do theater anymore.
52. During my degree program I did an internship with a professional marionette puppetry company.
53. For my final project I directed an adaptation of the story “The Clown of God” in which Tony Hale (now co-star of the T.V. series “Arrested Development”) played opposite my wife.
54. I graduated in 1991 and moved back to Nebraska with hopes of starting a theater company.
55. We directed several projects out of pocket while I was working another job until we decided that this wasn’t going to pan out.
56. I have worked since then in road construction, managed a Blockbuster Video, sold computers retail, worked customer service for our area’s Baby Bell, and taught speech courses at an area community college. I now do bank transfer processing for an internet company.
57. In that time I also became a father another 3 times (all boys 3, 6 and 9).
58. None of them were planned. I cried each time I found out because I knew I was going to love them so much that I would hate how much I wasn’t able to give them because I didn’t think I could provide.
59. All of my kids are happy and healthy and have never lacked. God has always provided. We have a very wonderful family all together.
60. I would never go back to any place in my life although I have enjoyed every part. I just wouldn’t want to give up anything I have now to go back to any point in my life.
61. I grew a beard while I was in Australia and have only shaved it twice since then.
62. I started growing it right back after each time that I shaved it.
63. Both times were for acting roles.
64. The first time was for a role where I played an extra in a scene in an ABC after school special.
65. I wound up on the cutting room floor.
66. I have several hobbies that rotate between movies, books, chess, DV film making, and Macintosh computers.
67. My most passionate hobby is with the Mac (as if you didn’t know that).
68. For a while I was able to make wedding video’s for money using digital video---but then it was taking too much time away from my family to edit so I stopped.
69. I still do wedding videos for relatives as wedding presents.
70. Thanks to Apple, now I can do all my hobbies at once. I play chess, watch movies, surf book stores and buy music, and edit video and photos all on my powerbook. (I love convergence.)
71. I attend a small church locally that I chose because of the warmth of the people rather than by denomination.
72. We’re known around town as the “Biker church”. That’s because we have a strong Christian biker population in our group. There’s more leather and denim there on a Sunday morning than you’ll find in many churches. More tattoos, too.
73. I have never really felt I quite fit into the conventional church culture because of my appearance and the way I integrate with culture.
74. I finally found a voice that most closely resembles my spiritual outlook in Relevant Magazine (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/).
75. In college I grew my hair out down to the middle of my back.
76. I cut it to get the job managing at Blockbuster.
77. After a few years short, I’m growing it back again.
78. I have my ears pierced 6 times.
79. I got four in my left ear when I was in Australia, the other two I got to celebrate my 35th birthday.
80. I still wear them daily.
81. I wear jeans and grey sweatshirts (or t-shirts depending on the weather) almost every day.
82. I still have my class ring from high school.
83. I listen to the same music that my kids do---and I like to listen to it loud (but only when the mom is gone).
84. We listen to everything from hard rock, to techno, to pop and hip-hop, to classical and musicals.
85. My daughter thinks I’m cool.
86. We talk about everything together.
87. My oldest boy likes to play sports and still wants to play catch with me in the side yard even though I suck.
88. My 6 year old thinks I’m a tree to climb and swing from.
89. My youngest finally figured out that this man that shows up at bedtime during the week is called Daddy. I think he’s starting to like me.
90. Every Tuesday I’m at the iTunes music store looking for my free downloads.
91. I drive a Kia Rio. It was the first car I ever bought from a lot and it was brand new off the showroom floor.
92. My dream car is a Mini Cooper S.
93. My office is painted purple.
94. We live in a house that I rent from my parents.
95. I’ve never owned real estate.
96. I have one brother that lives 3 hours away and is a High School band instructor.
97. I still have a teddy bear that I received as a gift years ago---it’s dressed in Harley leathers.
98. I have always had women as good friends---more women than men.
99. I have a great deal of black in my life, because I like the color. Given the choice, I’ll choose the black one. My mother considered counseling for me when I was very young because the black was my favorite crayon. She thought I may depressed.
100. I won an iPod ----it hasn’t arrived yet.

Monday reader's poll, one day late

Sherri posts a Monday readers poll that I never seem to drop in on when it's still Monday. Here are my answers anyway:

1. What's your favorite dessert? Fresh strawberry pie.

2. Have you ever had a professional massage? My wife got me two message certificates for a birthday once. It was so brutal that I felt like I was sunburned for a week from the friction. I never redeemed the second certificate.

3. Turtlenecks: love 'em or help, I'm being strangled? I wear out my supply every winter.

4. How many pillows are on your bed? Five—but only one of them is mine.

5. What word best describes your smile? Ever-present (maybe I’m exaggerating there a bit---but I want it to be thought of like that)

6. Do you see yourself moving to another city or state within the next 5 years? Possibly—depending on the circumstances.

7. What kind of calendar do you use most? I have one on my cubicle ---it’s the standard picture on the top, dates on the bottom. The pictures are black and white photoshop photos by Jerry Uelsmann---it’s called Photosynthesis.

8. Do you look at the keyboard when you type? Never—ok, only when I’m holding the phone and trying to type with one hand.

9. What's your favorite joke? What’s the difference between a duck?

10. What would be your ideal 2-week vacation? ----Totally selfish? I would start with as much uninterrupted wireless coffee shop/book store internet activity as I could stand. And then I would depart for a bit city that would be hosting a independent film festival and conference that I would attend. But then I would stay for a couple days after it was over to take in the theater and art events in that city, as well as looking into all the little hole-in-the-wall shops and bookstores. And that my wife would go with me and enjoy it more than I would. Maybe throw some chess in there somewhere too.8. Do you look at the keyboard when you type?9. What's your favorite joke?10. What would be your ideal 2-week vacation?

iMix, the sequel

I know sequels never seem to be as good as the original, but here is another iMix (I'm getting into this)----this time, it's a

iMixin' it

I've been wanting to do this for a while (like every since the AFI top 100 Best Songs special aired last year), and now I've finally got it done. I discribe it this way:

"The American Film Institute’s (http://www.afi.com/) came out with a list of the 100 Best Film Songs of the last century. But on their website they also published a larger list of all the songs considered as finalists for this resulting list----and there were some pretty cool tunes on that list that never got the attention some may feel they deserve.

Well here is a list that seeks to set that right. I’ve included some of the “also rans” below which the Hollywood Dream Machine has seared into our collective 20th century consciousness. If you can’t hum along with any of these tunes below, you should seriously consider downloading them to fill the gap in your cultural literacy.

This list contains the versions available on iTMS closest to the original, and some that I just thought were cool. In some cases I went for the better recording value or some that just amused me."

That description was a little long so I had to chop it a bit, but that's what I wanted to say.

Check it out here.

It's official

I usually hate quizzes. But this one looked interesting so I took it. Here are the results:




Good to know. He also took up the classic semantic struggle ---is it nerd or geek? He found Webster makes this distinction:

Nerd: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits

Geek: a person often of an intellectual bent who is disapproved of

Both have the intellectual thing in common, but there is an obvious difference in the social aspect. Geeks are probably capable of mingling unnoticed, but can have a hidden secret. And that Geek monicker is quickly becoming a badge of honor for some. However, nerd seems like it will always point to the people with the social issues. And unlike the Hollywood fairy tales, they won't be turning that nerdishness into decent form of status unless they can convert it into cash (think Bill Gates).

I like to think of myself more in the Geek camp. But then again, sometimes geek doesn't even begin to cover the kind of weirdness that you can find at our house.

A boy wrote my daughter POETRY!

I'm not surprised, my daughter is wonderful and beautiful. But, I don't know, it strikes a cord that awakens parental fatherly instincts in me. (I've put the poem at the bottom of this post if you're curious)

Now, when I say my daughter is beautiful, I don't mean she's the trendy clothes and make-up, flirty kind of pretty. She's the jeans and t-shirt, can tear it up on the playstation, A-student, goofy, funny kind of pretty. This is appreciated by me as a dad, as it tends to mean that the Dogs (those predatory, impulse driven boys) will tend to overlook her---which she is cool with because I've given her a heads up on how they operate. But she doesn't go totally unnoticed by the opposite gender, which means I still have to stay on my toes.

I have to say that I think my job is a lot easier than I think it is for the fathers of a lot of girls I see. My daughter and I have a great relationship, and we have lots of discussions. I make rules, but I also take the time to explain how I arrived at those decisions. And it seems that when we can find logic and agreement on these rules, I really don't get a lot of kickback.

For example, middrif shirts. Her mother and I have made the rule that middrif exposing shirts are not allowed (as they tend to awaken the Dogs). And with today's fashions that's a hard thing to get around. But she hangs in there and we've taken the extra steps to get her clothes that we can a) afford, b) that she likes, and c) that we approve of. And we've been very successful. She loves her clothes and she has a look that tends to be very original.

Another item is dating. We are on common ground here. No dating (in the classic sense). It's just a complication in her life that doesn't need to be there right now and for a few years to come. She can hang out with boys, she can have male friends, they can come by the house and visit, whatever---but no romantic stuff. We talk about everything, too. So I don't prohibit her from having crushes on boys or feelings for boys, I don't try to mold her and squash her emotionally, but we talk about her feelings and it helps to put them into perspective. And she's taken all this to heart, to the point that it's become her own personal crusade. She's given speeches in her clubs on it, and makes it very clear with her friends that she likes boys, but dating is out----and then she gets on with the friendship.

And it's really working for her. I had prepared, even when she was just a baby, to someday hold my sobbing daughter with a broken heart and comfort her. But so far, that's never happened. The only talk about boys we've had that was filled with emotion was one that began, "Dad, why do all the boys I like. . .like me back!" I must admit that I wasn't prepared for that. This was at a point that she was standing firm, but the fact that she had feelings that were reciprocated was making things more confusing and difficult. But she's stuck to her guns and it's had the effect of not only keeping her life from unnecessary turmoil (which she is now seeing manifest in the lives of her friends who choose different paths), but it also keeps the boys very interested, it would seem. It makes them crazy, as can be evidenced by the poem below that the boy wrote for class, and later showed to my daughter, telling her it was about her.

I got his permission to put it here, and he was very interested in being credited for it. So here it is, "Angel for a Friend" by William Wilkins.

The memory of her still haunts my thoughts,

The days have grown more painful,

Nights have grown longer and darker,

And yet, through all these feelings and emotions,

I plead to heaven to keep this image from fading.

She carries a sense of presence,

An aura of kindness engulfs her,

A warm feeling strikes the heart,

Just as one sees her walking so elegantly,

Like a swan's feather gently drifting on the ocean's current.

Her cool patient eyes relax all whom she gazes upon,

They would impale me like a knife,

Forcing me to realize the regrets of my sins,

The depths so great it was fear beyond thought.

Her beauty is so remarkable,

It dazzles like a full moon's light,

She shines like the stars that button up the sky,

The one candle burning through all of this darkness,

Yet many unworthy eyes look her way with desire.

To her, in her group of friends,

I must look an ordinary passerby.

When our eyes met, she left her posse and changed my life forever,

With one word, she brightened my life,

with one simile I was overpowered with love,

She just took my hand and simply said, "Hi".

See? Dog-gone it, now I have to sit on my porch with the shotgun again.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Wow. That's all I can think to say

Well, it's not every day that you get an email like this:

Congratulations [Will] You have just won an iPod mini from the Pepsi iTunes iPod Mini Sweepstakes! You can expect to receive your prize in the next 6-8 weeks. We are sending it to the address you've provided in your iTunes account. Thank you for participating in the sweepstakes!


The Pepsi-Cola Company

After letting out a little unconscious yelp that attracted the attention of everyone around me, I explained to them that I had been doing the iTunes promotion with the free songs on the Pepsi bottle caps. And that each entry put me in a sweepstakes for the possibility of winning a free iPod Mini. Now I never really pay much attention to contests and drawings and things so I didn't put much serious hope in it. I'd joke around about it but didn't really feel like much would come of it.

Needless to say,I'm a bit thrilled. My kids thought it was majorly cool. Nothing their friends would be much impressed with because they all own full iPods, but our little humble house is excited.

Now, we just have to wait for the processing. Six to Eight weeks. Oy. But I can do it.

Honest.

It's 5 on the 5th in '05

Here were are again with the meme from Technicolor Day---5 pics from the 5th of every month in '05.

Last month I took my wife out for her birthday to Lincoln, NE (a bigger city we never get to enjoy because life just gets so busy). I took her to see the touring production of Mama Mia. We enjoyed the day very much, but I forgot my camera which sort of bummed me out.

But this month on the 5th, I did remember to bring my camera on our adventure.

I have an annual Boys Basketball tournament that I shoot video for every year. And it's that time of year again. I shoot a couple weekends of the play and then the tournament sponsors cut together a highlights video that they show at a banquet they hold to award the trophies.

I first got hooked up with me because they use a Mac with Final Cut Pro and needed someone to work with them as an advisor and guru.

I've never been a guru before, so it was a cool gig to pick up.

St. Margret Mary's

This is the bell tower by the Catholic school where the tournament was held.

Getting the job done

I took my daughter a couple of years ago, and this year it was Robo's turn. We dropped my parents off at the airport before going to the tournament. We had a couple hours before we had to report in at the court so we hung out together. It was a nice Dad and the boy day. We had breakfast in a sit down with a waitress and actual plates restaurant. Then in our free time we did what men do and visited a home improvement store AND and electronics mega store. It doesn't get much more testosterone than that!

He was a trooper. The days are long for this thing--eight hours of 8th grade boys playing basketball all day back to back. But he stuck it out very well, and even got to shoot some hoops between games to run off some of that built up energy from sitting so long.

At the helm

Here's a pic I let the Robo Boy take. Not a bad shot for a 9 year old. He did, however, catch the part in my hair just right so that a small echo of the future hit me again. The one where I hear myself described as "that bald guy".

Another Robo photo

I let the boy try his hand at our little digital still camera. I don't mind so much doing that when I know I won't have to pay for developing and all that.

As you can see, we had some shutter speed issues--but sometimes even mistakes can have interesting results.

Questions, questions, questions. . .

A little questionaire from Lasadh over at "The good, the bad and the ugly".

1. What's one thing you really, really love about yourself? My hair---it's faithfully given me something to hide behind for years. Sadly, it is now choosing to depart.

2. What's one thing you really, really love about one of your friends? That I can talk movies, Macintosh, music, theater and the internet with him like no one else. I also like that if we disagree we can do that and he doesn't feel like he has to 'win' for us to discuss our perspectives. I hope he can say the same about me.

3. If forced to choose, would you rather have a constant feeling of having to sneeze or a constant feeling of having to fart? Dude, I'm getting uncomfortable just trying to think of an answer for this one. Moving on ---next question.

4. OJ: pulp or no pulp? Either---just as long as I have some first thing in the morning. It is something I require.

5. Have you ever been in a physical fight? In grade school I wasn't one who did a lot of fighting. I was smaller so I learned early how to talk my way out of things. But it also meant I had great empathy for the littler kids and wouldn't pick on anyone smaller than me.

But one time I did have a kids loose his temper at me on the playground. I assessed the situation and it looked pretty fair---we were both about the same size so there wasn't going to be any unfair whoopin' going on. I also thought it might be fun to do something that I haven't experienced (I had been watching a little to much T.V. I guess).

But when I started hitting him in the face it was a totally unsatisfying feeling. No solid "Pow!" feeling in my arm, no cool sound like in the movies. Total rip-off, I felt so deceived by popular entertainment. So I decided I didn't want to do it any more and ran into the school building.

We made friends later in the day.

6. Have you ever cut your own hair? I trim regularly myself around the ears and stuff. With 4 kids and a wife, I can't afford a proper hair cut much more than once a quarter (if that). So it helps that I like to wear it long.

7. Would you rather be too hot or too cold? Hot without a doubt. I hate cold. Whine and complain all winter. Will never take a skiing vacation voluntarily. In my imagination, hell is not full of flames but is a giant ice cave.

I've had people have given me the "put on more clothes/take off only so much" argument before and my take on it is, yeah, but I've never heard a story where someone had to have something amputated because the weather was just too darn hot.

Bring on the sun, baby.

8. What did you study in college (or, if you didn't go, what would you have studied)? Theater, theater and theater. And here I am not doing theater for a living---or at all for that matter.

9. What do you typically wear to bed? Boxers and a T-shirt.

10. What's your lucky number? I only have a lucky number in the moments after eating a fortune cookie. It's gone when the fortune hits the trash.

Look at Me!

There is this new site I found, only a couple weeks old, called "Self Portrait Day". I first heard about it before it's launch through a photo that appeared on Dooce.com . She took a self portrait in a mirror and put a tag line of "where is your self portrait". Down in the comments to that photo, I found an entry that referred to this project. On the main Portrait Day site it tells about it's inception:

"Self-Portrait Day was born on Friday, February 11th, 2005. The idea was created after Michele happened upon a site called VeryZen. The author had posted an image she took of herself while driving to work. Michele suggested that a bunch of folks post a self-portrait to their sites on a given day. People took to the concept and the idea for a centralized site seemed worth fleshing out. After putting up an email as a way to organize the effort, the response was overwhelming. On February 16th, 2005, the first launch took place on www.mihow.com. Twenty people were featured that day. On February 24th, just one week later, the first real version of Self-Portrait Day was pushed live."

This was my week. If you like you can see the pic they used at www.selfportraitday.com. They also send five questions to answer. I thought I was brief, but seeing my post over there, it seems I was still a bit windy. But it was fun to participate.

My wife was laughing at me as I went from mirror to mirror all around the house taking pictures of myself to find one that I liked. The pic I finally decided to send in was taken in the same mirror that I used in the picture above. It's prop from a show I directed in grad school. It was a children's show based on the Hans Christen Anderson story "The Snow Queen". I liked the mirror so much that I saved it and have it hanging in my office (same one from my earlier computer photos---notice the purple walls).

Here's a picture of the whole mirror.

I'd like to get a page set-up off blog to show all my failed attempts around the house. It's kind of amusing. My new little photo by the profile link up left is a by-product of this little experiment. It's not strictly a "self" portrait because my daughter took it. But I thought it would make a good little avatar.

I like when people put pics of themselves on their blog. It's just kind of an impulse from a whole life of cultural programming that we want to see the face of the person we are interacting with. I'm trying to make this blog live up to what I enjoy seeing on other peoples weblogs. Next project: the profile.