Tag: blogging

A Curious Point of Perspective

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Cricket was recently using her laptop (a cheap netbook that I salvaged from being tossed at work that she and her brother share) – mostly to do her usual activities:  play games on NickJr.com, watch episodes of the Pink Panther on Netflix, or practice typing in Word.  But it seems she decided to be exploratory today.  Now we have already had talks about how exploratory she is allowed to get (she has been burned on her own before watching YouTube videos – just because it has Elmo in it doesn’t make it kid-friendly), so I generally don’t worry that she will find anything she isn’t supposed to see (and filters are set as explicit as I can manage short of setting up site-filtering).  But today she ventured in an unexpected direction – she Google’d herself.

Specifically she Google’d her name and the word family (I presume expecting to find information about her family or maybe our blogs or something – frankly I’m not entirely sure what she expected to find).  What was really interesting is what she found – she found an old online journal page that I used to sporadically write on up until shortly after she was born.  The last post I wrote on it actually was talking about her and her development so far (at that point being 8 months old), and then going on about how life-changing becoming a parent is.

I found myself reading through the old posts up there – I read the one about her to her before putting her to bed for the night, but then I came back and read the rest.  And frankly I was pretty boring and kind of dumb back that (aside from my parenting revelations).  The rest of my posts were indicative of how little I really had to say and how little I really had learned so far in life – mostly shallow introspection and occasionally misdirected frustration at things for which I had more control or responsibility than I took – that and some lame mixtape playlists and a weird attempt at poetry.

Anyway, I’ve strayed from my point (another thing I tended to do a lot … and probably still do now).  After reading my post to my daughter, she asked if she could have her own website.  At age 7 and a half she wants to start sharing her musings with the world.  Considering the behavior model, I’m not surprised (I’ve been blogging amateurishly for a few years and my wife more successfully for a little longer).  But alas I told her no, I’m not buying her her own website – which was a shock to her in itself, not that I said no but that there were costs involved.  What I did agree to, however (assuming she remembers having the conversation) is that if she felt compelled to write somethings, she could post them on my blog.  So don’t be surprised if you start seeing “Cricket’s Corner” posts in the near future … or not depending on whether it goes anywhere.

You and Me and Your Brother Makes Three

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It seems that it will be a mom-free weekend.  Starting tomorrow morning through Sunday it will be just me, Cricket, and Grasshopper fending for ourselves.  I’m not actually particularly concerned.  I’m not one of those passive working dad’s who defers the majority of parenting to the matron of the house.  I even cook sometimes (mostly on the grill, but not exclusively).  So I’m sure we will survive …. hopefully.

My wife will be departing early tomorrow morning on a trek to NYC for a blogging conference (in case you weren’t aware, she has not one, but two blogs that she likely updates more often than I do: Down to Earth Mama and She Acts).  She will be whooping it up in the Big Apple for the weekend with blog-related discussions and parties.  Not that I would worry for the sanctity of our marriage regardless of the nature of the conference, but being that she will be surrounded mostly by female bloggers, the most that will likely happen is some all-girl drunken music videography (it’s happened).  I guess there is a sliver of the possibility she might get swept into an overzealous celebration of the repeal of Prop. 8, but I’m not overly concerned.  What hyjinx will ensue are likely to be of a much more tame and innocent variety of which she greatly deserves.

Anyway, besides regularly scheduled events of the weekend (of which there are surprisingly many) I have very little in mind for our sans matronus weekend.  As it stands, I have to take them to swimming lessons, the farmer’s market, a family reunion, and potentially a free movie screening (and probably some other events that my wife will point out that I forgot to mention and therefore will not remember to do).  So outside of meals there is limited bandwidth for other events.  But I may try to fit in some shopping and some other entertainment where I can – perhaps even some fruit picking if time and weather permit.

My biggest concern is that I’m going to be plagued with work issues that try to follow me home.  I’m slowly working to have more redundancy and less direct dependency for certain things, but the curse of being good at certain things is that you are the only one who can handle them – I’m not playing arrogant here, it is simple fact.  But I’m training a new guy to be the next me, and trying to leave no issues up in the air so that I can make the most of a wife-free and hopefully work-free weekend.

Counter-Measures

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I want to apologize to the small band of followers that I have about making posting and signing up for my blog a tad more complex.  I’ve added a plugin for a captcha box.  While this adds a level of inconvenience to these processes, I hope it is a small and acceptable one.  I’ve added it to mitigate the flood of spam comments and user registrations that I seem to get on a daily basis.  We shall see how effective it is in deterring such things.  As it stood, I was receiving dozens of spam comments as well as dozens of fake site registrations daily.  And it is fully possible that I’ve accidentally deleted valid comments that were marked as spam by just hitting the Empty Spam button (I try to scan through them first).  So I’m sorry for the inconvenience … though only a little bit.

Temporarily Single Dad

SilentBen2 Comments

For the past 5 days, I’ve been Mr. Mom.  My wife went away to a blogging conference in Asheville, NC and left me in charge of managing our 2 kids.  Being actively involved with my kids on a regular basis, this was not a daunting task, per se.  The hard part was not paying attention to work for that period of time – especially since my shine, new iPhone would chirp every few minutes telling me I have some new email to read.  But eventually I turned off that notification and got to the serious business of responsibly entertaining my posse.

First priority – getting them to school on time.  Grasshopper only just started going to daycare (2 days a week) and already being without his Mommy, he was very reluctant to go (though apparently his tears ended within minutes of Cricket and I leaving him there).  Cricket just started Kindergarten this year and has been loving every minute of it, but with the possibility of being able to stay home and play Lego Star Wars with Daddy she suddenly was on the fence about going as well.  But I got them there, they did there time, and got them safely home (all perfectly according to schedule).  But outside of that, it was play time – we went to the park almost every day, we went to a play place for the better part of one cloudy afternoon, and we spent a fair share of time watching a couple of movies and playing Lego Star Wars.

By the end of the long weekend, I was ready for reinforcements.  I love my kids, but I can only be jumped on so many times before needing to tag out.  I only took advantage of the in-laws once for a break (which I spent cleaning).  And I actually made semi-nutritious meals for them for all but 2 meals (pancakes are good for you, right?).  So all in all I think I did okay.  And today it was back to work … to deal with my other batch of kids.  Maybe I should go to a conference.

P.S. – Mywife (who now has 2 blogs) went to a blogging conference, but didn’t post anything the entire time.  Ironic.

Return to Form

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Obviously I’ve been a bit lax in posting lately – partially due to being on vacation last week, but also due to being busy and falling behind on such things. I am going to try to be more disciplined going forward. In truth, I owe it mostly to myself to do so (not to discredit my readership, but frankly I know that it is small and not very regular – if I’m mistaken, please let me know).

As I believe I’ve stated before, the main purpose of this blog is to act as a sort of digital journal. I post my thoughts and experiences as much for my own catharsis as for anyone else’s enjoyment. With less posts comes less release. And all work and no play … well you get the picture.

So I will try to be more vigilant and consistent in my postings. I will try to stick to my regular memes as best as I can. And I hope that you continue to enjoy my musings as much as I enjoy sharing them.

By the way, for those interested, my vacation entailed a trip to visit family in North Carolina. We spent as much time as we could relaxing in the pool. I finally caught Star Trek on the big screen with my dad (awesome reboot – looking forward to more from this cast). And the wife and I got to have a dinner without kids via a double-date with my sister – Brazilian steakhouse and nice strong drinks (good times). Thanks again to everyone for the hospitality.