Author: SilentBen

Not often silent, but undoubtedly always Ben.

The Blues

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I shouldn’t find this all that new and surprising – these phases are normal.  But I don’t remember it being so over-powerfing when it happened a few years ago when I daughter was about 2.  With young kids running circles around you, it is hard to fight these things and there is little point in trying to hide it – I have the blues.  By this I mean the Blue’s Clues blues.

My daughter went through a phase where it was her favorite show.  It is a pretty clever show, and unlike some others geared towards that age bracket, it is easy to watch with the kids.  So I often would watch it with her.  Now that my son is 2 1/2 and developing his own preferences, he has discovered a love for Blue and her pals.  And in the process my wife, my daughter and I are getting reacquainted.

My son delights in the show.  He sings along with every song.  He imitates everything that Steve or Joe do.  And even when he isn’t watching it, he references it in most things he does from skidoo-ing out of the car to the sidewalk to pretending an old greeting card is ‘a letter from our friends’.  And I think that to some extent it has been encouraging him to be more polite in the things he does.

My daughter and I have used it as a point of conversation.  We’ve discussed the relationship and pseudo-drama of the Steve-Joe switch (she has decided that she likes Joe better – I had felt that way before, but I’ve been gaining new-found respect for Steve).  We’ve reveled in noticing the artistic minutia that is peppered in there for the non-target audience (such as the ever-changing artwork in the living room).  And I’ve also used it as a platform to help her understand animation and entertainment in general (separating the characters from the reality).

My wife and I try not to over-expose the kids to these things – we know that they should have limits to the amount of TV they watch.  But when they wake at 7AM every morning and can’t keep from being under-toe at every meal preparation, it is a crutch that is easy to lean on to give us the space or rest that we need to be sane enough to keep up with them the rest of the time.

What is funny about the show is how well it works and how well it will likely continue to work for years to come.  The show is now over ten years old and has not aired a new episode in several years.  And yet it still remains in Noggin’s heavy program rotation.  I also recently saw a 10-year behind the clues special that revealed some interesting factoids about the show and its origins (e.g., the show’s original design was to be a game-show for toddlers, Blue was initially a cat, Mr. Salt was supposed to have a Brooklyn accent but it somehow got shifted to French).

So at 33, I’m still learning a few new tricks from a not-so-young puppy – and bonding with my kids at the same time (you can bond over a show – it counts, I looked it up).  Without a doubt, I once again have the Blue’s Clues blues … and it makes me smile.

At a Loss

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I’ve lost it.  All of it.  Well … most of it … and hopefully only temporarily.  Specifically what I lost was data – lots of it:  hundreds of digital photos, thousands of MP3s, countless documents, spreadsheets, graphic design projects, videos, etc.  All gone without so much as a hiccup of noise to announce their departure.  You see, they were all saved on an external USB hard drive – a 1Tb drive that I treated myself to last fall – that suddenly decided to cease to function.

The loss is inexplicable and immeasurable.  The drive had been working fine no more than a couple days ago.  But when my wife attempted to fire it up today to access it, it seemed disinclined to come to life.  The power light would come one and blink a bit.  Her laptop would attempt to connect to it.  But in the end, the drive didn’t seem to want to perform.  I, being the manly man of technology that I am, attempted to use my own laptop and a number of different USB cables to troubleshoot the issue, but to no avail.  It is kaput.

The good news:  (a) it seems the device is still under warranty and (b) there are services available who may be able to recover the lost data.  So hopefully at some point in the near future I will have a shiny new external hard drive that works and all of my files conveniently found and restored (unfortunately not without incurring some costs, but little in life comes for free).  And beyond that I hope that I can manage to get to a point where such a loss is less likely (e.g., having my files in more than one place to avoid such catastrophic results).  But in the meantime, I’m floating in the limbo of not knowing if, when, or at what cost I will have my data recovered (or whether one of the costs of recovery is a void to the warranty).  And such a lack of knowledge leaves me at a loss for comfort, security, or resolve.

Friday 5: From the Mouths of Babes

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Kids can say surprising things – from hilarious to awe-inspiring.  Here are a few recent gems from my clan:

  1. From 5yo daughter – “Wouldn’t it be cool if dogs could talk – not just communicate, but talk like people do?”
  2. From 2yo son regarding a nearby pet store with a paw print logo – “Let’s go to Blue’s Clues store.”
  3. From 5yo while walking in a stream and talking about the animals that live in the stream under the rocks – “So am I squishing all their houses right now?”
  4. My wife recently had another MRSA-infected cut so we had to go through decontamination.  While swabbing my daughter’s nostrils with an antibiotic salve, my son pipes up “I want white boogers, too!”
  5. From daughter – “Mommy, I love you ten.  But Daddy, I love you eleven.”  (she has always been a daddy’s girl)

Blurbsday: Religion

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This is a topic that I could easily write a lot about.  But I’m attempting to keep myself in check.  People seek answers in religion.  But all I’ve found were more questions.  Here are a few:

Christianity:  If the path to heaven is through faith alone and our actions play no part, then why do our lifestyle choices make any difference?  And if the path to salvation is only through Jesus Christ, then what chance did the dozens of generations before him have?

Judaism:  Does it make sense that God would create a world where only people born into certain families or who worship him a certain way deserve his love and redemption?

Islam:  Ditto.

Mormonism & Scientology:  Ditto, but with hints at a lot of other questions.

Buddhism:  You’re cool.

Atheism:  I kind of agree your stance, but do you have to be so dickish about it?

I’m sure that some of this will piss people off, and I’m sorry for that – to an extent, I’m being glib.  But also not.  Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but I have trouble personally putting stock in any set of beliefs that minimizes any other group as less worthy of blessing, whether it be women, homosexuals, gentiles, non-believers, prostitutes, politicians, etc.  I also have trouble with a belief system that cannot embrace reason and science as integral rather than contrary.  We are all people, all born naked and alone in this world, all prone to falter, to fail, to fall.  If there IS a God at all, and if he cares whether we succeed, then wouldn’t he want us to succeed together?  But I guess that kind of questioning sets me apart from the crowd.

Sorry – this was more than a blurb.  I tried.

Proven Guilty

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In case you haven’t been keeping up, Harry Dresden – the same that has been on watch by the White Council for years – is now a Warden.  It seems the war with the Red Court (a particularly powerful brand of vampires) has hit the wizard justice league pretty hard and run their numbers thin.  So now Harry is charged with protecting the citizenry of Chicago and the surrounding region from supernatural threats … officially (he has been doing so the whole time anyway, now he just has jurisdiction).  But wearing that grey cloak is not a simple charge and as usual there are those who would see him fail.

In Jim Butcher’s eighth volume of The Dresden Files – Proven Guilty – Harry finds himself helping out a friend in need.  But what starts as simply bailing a friend’s daughter’s boyfriend out of jail evolves into a struggle with a number of fairy creatures who look like horror villains and feed on fear and ultimately into a battle in the heart of the Winter Court in the Nevernever.  And all the while, Harry still is struggling with his own inner demons (or more specifically an inner fallen angel) as well as some conniving behavior by some White Court vamps who seem to leech onto the fear-feeding action.  And in the end Harry finds himself facing some tough decisions that may change the rest of his life.

Once again, Butcher places Harry in some thrilling and precarious positions and as usual Harry always seems to have another card up his sleeve.  Harry continues to grow and surprise all the while continuing to be himself without apology.  There is little else I can say besides queue up the next book.