Happy Blog-iversary!

One year. Who'd a-thunk it?

My children are now all one year older. Two in school, two at home still. Readers now outnumber non-readers in our family, 4 to 2. Timothy reads books on his own; Stephen calls out road signs and words on cards (this is distracting during Uno games).

I now have a much better picture of my own potential and limitations, that I can write some things I appreciate, some things my wife appreciates, and some things that are within a small union of the two.

I know that I cannot, should not, and will not write about serious topics, such as politics or religion. I know that I can't write something every day (at least not something good). I know that I am not a writer. Someone once defined a writer as a person for whom the only thing harder than writing is not writing. That is not me. Not writing is very, very easy for me, and I lose no sleep over it.

But I'm still here, and probably will continue to be here for some time to come.

Two questions:
1. Where did the title of the first post come from (were you aware that it was a quote)?
Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson. They were the first words on Mars, an ironic anti-"one small step . . ." I need to re-read that book soon.

2. What's the drink situation?
Well, this morning I didn't make anything. Sam is with my Mom, and I'll assume she gave him chocolate milk, which is his favorite. That is, if she didn't give him Coke. This is the south, after all.

When I came downstairs this morning, there was an "old" Moe's cup, including lid and straw, with chocolate milk for Jonah and a "new" Moe's cup of apple juice for Stephen. Timothy had already made and consumed apple juice on his own, I assume.

I had (am having, actually) a Coke. Thanks for stopping by.

A Long Musing: including a little bit about Serenity (not really a review)

On the bulletin board in my office, where I keep (like Homer Simpson) the little reminders of why I do what I do, there are several cards from my wife and children. My wife is a master of many things, and cards is one of them. Birthdays, anniversaries, etc., are always a pleasant surprise (she's even handmade some really fantastic ones).

Her Father's Day cards are the best. On my bulletin board, that memory space of memory spaces, the card of cards is from Father's Day a few years ago. It says, simply, "Do what's right, not what's easy."

This is, to me at least, a summation of what a good father does. I would argue that it is what any good person does. I'd like to believe that she gave me this card because, in her eyes, this is what I do. However, being a mere mortal, I don't always do what's right.

(I wish I did, and perhaps that's why one of my favorite song lyrics is from the John Mayer song, Split Screen Sadness:

'Cause I can't wait to figure out what's wrong with me
So I can say 'This is the way that I used to be'

Being a Christian, I do know what's wrong with me. I also know that merely knowing what's wrong will not suddenly fix it, and that saying, "this is the way that I used to be" will not come anytime soon ("this side" etc.). But I still look forward to that day when I can say it.)

Nonetheless, doing what's right, instead of what's easy, is a great way to sum up the aspirations that I have, both for myself and for my boys.

Sigh.

My first car was a 1980-something Fiat Brava. Ugly car. Abnormally ugly, to be honest. It looked a bit like an amphibious landing craft. The ladies were not fond of this car. You know that car that Cameron drives in Ferris Bueller's Day Off? The ugly one? Bingo.

This was not the kind of car you would think could avoid notice, but the day before we bought this car (for $500), I had never seen one in my life. Then, the very next day I spotted one driving down the road in my hometown. The next week, another one on the way to school (plus that same first one a couple of more times). Now, all of a sudden, they were everywhere.

This was my first experience with that curious phenomenon where, having really paid attention to something one time, you begin to recognize it all over the place.

So I'm having a hard time telling if it's just me, or if there is a real cultural trend going on. But more and more in popular culture (books, movies, TV), I'm starting to see presented as heroes people who seem to live by that motto, "Do what's right, not what's easy."

Growing up in the 70's and 80's, (at least in my memory) the heroes were singularly selfish. Snake Plisskin writ large, like a Greek Tragic Hero whose downfall we never got to witness, they were all highly flawed characters. But the flaws were most prominent; it seemed that the writers, director, and actors wanted only to showcase the warts and defects. The hero was their throwaway canvas. Man pleases man, man conquers all, roll credits, no consequences.

But recently . . .

Maybe it's just what I choose to watch. Lots of Joss Whedon, I must admit, and doing what's right (not what's easy) seems to be a mantra of his. All of his main characters, Buffy, Angel, and Mal, constantly try to do what's right, eschewing the easy path available to them. One of the most interesting things about each of these shows is that one of the main enemies being fought by each main character is the temptation to just walk away and let other, weaker, unaware and often ungrateful folks fend for themselves. These new heroes never do.

But it's not just them. In Garden State, Zach Braff's character stays in New Jersey with his new girlfriend, in a sort of anti-Graduate. In In Good Company, Dennis Quaid's character stays with his suddenly crappy job, working for a weasel that is literally half his age, in order to provide for his family (including an ungrateful daughter who wants to go to a better college). The dad in Cheaper By The Dozen does something similar, quitting his dream job to spend more time with his family.

Staying, it would seem, is newly important.

These are movies by different people, in different genres. There should be no connection, no evidence of a Rovian plot. But they all have in common an idea foreign to popular culture of the past 30 years: sacrifice. Not just sacrifice of life, which we have all seen and can admire. We're all used to "I'm going to chose to do the right thing and will die in the process." What we're not used to is "I'm going to choose to do the right thing, and then I'll live with the (probably painful) consequences." This is something new: a sacrifice of comfort, of ambition, of self gratification. A "living sacrifice" as it were.

Anyway, there have been, and will continue to be, lots of movies with spaceships and explosions and weird-looking locales in them. But the presence of this type of hero, along with the honest showcase of the struggles involved in being this kind of stand-up guy, is what makes Serenity more than a little different, more than just another space flick.

Will you enjoy it if you haven't seen the show? Probably so. There's a lot there, including a fun movie. But I'll be seeing it again in order to have a harder look at the other layers. I also hope that enough folks go see this movie, so that its creator, who shows such a knack for creating characters and telling stories that illustrate "do what's right, not what's easy", will be able to do so again and again.

Serenity Pre-Blog

We went to the pre-screening for the movie Serenity tonight. It was, in my opinion, fantastic.

If you've ever watched and enjoyed anything else by Joss Whedon, then you need to see this movie. If you felt let down by the Star Wars prequels (i.e. you thought that the story, characters, pacing, dialogue, etc., weren't what they should have been), then you need to see this movie. If you like movies that don't rely on cheap gimmicks to tell a great story (but that still have cool special effects anyway), then this is for you.

The big question is, will you be able to enjoy Serenity without having watched Firefly, its TV show precursor? The answer is, I don't know. I watched the TV show, and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. You may be different.

How about this: go see Serenity this weekend, then come over to my house to watch some episodes of Firefly? There's only 14 or so, and they're really some of the best TV you'll watch this year. I can probably get you hooked in 3 episodes, easy.

Or, plan B, rent Firefly on DVD (no, you can't borrow mine), do a mini-marathon over the next few days, and then go see the movie.

Anyway, I've got more that I want to say about this movie, and about movie heroes in general, but it's late. Perhaps tomorrow. "I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."

The Ascent

I was in my office; my wife was across the hall in our room, reading. I became aware that someone was walking up the stairs, slowly, saying something. It sounded like they're saying . . . no, it couldn't be. I must be going insane.

Thump. "Coke?" Thump. "Coke?" Thump. "Coke?"

I stepped outside my office and there, on the stairs, was Sam. Half-carrying, half-dragging a bottle of Diet Coke that was easily half his size, he smiled up at me and said, "Coke?" Before he could topple backwards down the stairs, I grabbed him and the Coke and took him to his mother.

That was two weeks ago. This morning he did the same thing, but with a huge box of Lucky Charms, crying "See-oh, see-oh?"

Update: I thought I should note that he did not receive any Diet Coke, despite his efforts, but that he did get some Lucky Charms.

Brief update

We went camping this past weekend, and I may post about that.

We're going to see a Serenity early screening this upcoming Tuesday, and I'll almost certainly post about that. I got the tickets as part of a blogger "press pass". They give me tickets, I blog about the movie. Yes, I'm a word-whore, but I'm a word-whore who's getting to see Serenity before any of you, so there.

What warrants a quick update are several things:

1. I've turned off comments to this blog because of a new phenomenon, one which I'll call "Blog Comment Spam." For my last two posts, within a few minutes of publishing the post, I've received a totally unrelated comment. They're very clever, and appeal to the vanity that might be present in any other blogger: "Hey, love your post. I've got a blog about Canadian Geese Feather Art, and it can be found here," etc.

And really, once ads for Canadian Geese Feather Art appear, how long until male enhancement drugs start showing up?

That "Hey, love your blog" thing at the beginning is the kicker. I'd reckon that 50% of people getting these in their comments now are leaving them up because of that line. Luckily for me, I have no vanity left. 3 years of teaching, 3 years of doing Technical Support, 7 years of parenting, and 34 years of being me have left me with zero vanity and an iron-clad resistance to flattery.

However, I don't want that stuff there cluttering up the place, so I've disabled comments for now. If you know of another way to fix it, you probably have my email address, so send it on.

Other than that, talk amongst yourselves.

2. I'm done playing World of Warcraft. That, combined with the fact that the upcoming TV season offers absolutely nothing to interest me (it is 100% Joss-free, after all), means I'll be here more often. Not regularly, but more often.

3. And most importantly, Sam has begun using ending consonants, most notably "t" and "s". Two things make this adorable beyond bearing. First, his ending "s" is really more of a "th". And he really drags it out, so "this" becomes "dithhhhhhh". Second, he adds this ending s-which-is-actually-a-th to just about every third word, even when it is not appropriate.

I'll be on the lookout for examples.

P.S. Welcome Opus Dei. Check the archives to get up to speed.

P.P.S. The Blogger spell checker did not recognize, and tried to correct, the following words in the above post: Blogger, blog. It's not a particularly good spell checker, is it?

College

This past weekend my wife participated in her first 5K run. The boys referred to it as The Race, and wanted to know which car she would be driving. They were a little disappointed when they found out she was running, but I distracted them by pointing at a fire truck, so they weren't completely crushed by the news.

A good time was had by all, aside from a crippling injury to one of my wife's running buddies and the complete and total panic that occurred when the oldest two boys ran off to watch a helicopter land.

The run was part of a festival of sorts at Mercer University's Atlanta campus. There were helicopters, fire trucks, face painting, and moon walks for the kids, a 5K run for the moms, and Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the dads.

The boys had never been to a college campus before (that I could recall), so I took the opportunity to get a good, early word in for Higher Education. I chose my moment well, beginning a casual discussion as we were leaving, "This is a college. It's a very special kind of school."

Timothy took the bait. "What kind of school is it, dad?"

"Well, you know how you sometimes work on math, and sometimes read books, and sometimes work on science at your school?" Nods all around, except for Jonah, who was stomping on ants. "In college, you do these things in different classes, with different teachers."

Blank stares. Had I quit then, I would have failed.

"And . . . and you can study anything you want."

Ding. "Like science, in its own class?" asked Timothy, scarcely believing what he was hearing.

"That's right." Like a traveling preacher, I was warming up to my crowd. "And you can take a whole class on spiders" (he had commented on the dew-covered spider webs all over the bushes on campus as we had walked in that morning).

At this, I thought his eyes would nearly pop out of his head. Then he really got going. "So I could spend a whole year on spiders, then another year on mammals, then another year on birds, and then . . ."

At this point, words failed him, and he just stared ahead as we kept on walking. One down.

With Timothy out of commission, Stephen chimed in, "I want to take the classes Timothy is taking."

Hmmm. Second child bullet coming, can you dodge it? Yes, I can. "So you want to be a scientist too? I thought you wanted to be a doctor."

"Do doctors take science classes?" Big, hopeful eyes.

"Yes, lots of science classes, just like Timothy."

"Coooool," came the reply. That's two.

By now, Jonah was alternating jumping with two feet onto suspected insects of any sort and trying to get into a fountain. I decided to try with him later.

It turns out I needn't have bothered. I now have minions to do my bidding.

That night, in bed, I heard Stephen start in. "Jonah, that place where Mommy was racing today, it was a college," the awe palpable in his voice. "It's where you go when you want to be a scientist, a doctor, or anything."

Jonah, amazed, asked, "a Power Ranger?"

"I don't think so."

We'll work on it.

Shaving

Note: This is a post that I wrote on August 11 and then, for some reason, didn't publish. I don't know why. Here it is:

I had to shave today. It's Thursday, and I hadn't had to shave since Sunday, so I had a good Grizzly Adams Jr. vibe going. Some friends came by last night to pick up one of their kids who had spent the afternoon with us, and, honestly, they looked a little intimidated.

"Has he lost his job? Did someone die? Has he *gasp* started working with UNIX?"

"No honey, he's just a little strange."

"His poor wife."

Normally, I shave every Sunday for church, and then something else will pop up during the week to cause additional shavage. But this week was barren of social activities for me. So I made it 4 days. Nice.

Today is our company picnic, so we have to drive to Birmingham. And, although these are the folks who best know what it's like to work at home, we still all pretend and dress up nice when we get together. By "dress up nice" I mean shorts with no holes, wear shoes, etc.

I hate to shave. Hate, hate, hate. It's a waste of time, money, effort, and overwhelming manliness. But my wife doesn't like facial hair, even on me, so off it comes on a regular basis.

Also, someone once remarked that I looked like Peter Jackson whenever I attempt to grow a beard. You know who you are, and you know that forgiveness will come very, very slowly.

One of the commentors from a previous posting to this site was a fellow who used to work at home, but now works in a "real" office. He said the hardest thing to get used to again was shoes. I disagree. You'd probably have to double my salary and give me keys to the company Porche to get me to shave daily.

"It's Genius!"

I am watching a true craftsman at work, making another masterpiece. He's actually done this piece once before today, but he's re-creating it again, this time for my benefit.

"I'm doing this again so that you can see how to make it." Like a seasoned jeweler or sculptor, all of his materials are laid out before him, in clear view, none touching another.

As any experienced teacher would, he gives his student a role, a simpler part to play that is hard to perform incorrectly.

"You can put the mask on," he says to me. I do my best, and hand my work back to the master. My 4-year old son is pleased. "Good job, Dad."

For the past few months, Jonah has been spending large portions of his day in his room, crafting increasingly complex and beautiful works out of a myriad of LEGO sets. Today's creation is a Bionicle man, made from about a dozen different sets. Arms, legs, head, all are proportioned perfectly, which is not easy to do with the comic-book stylized Bionicle sets.

He's simply amazing.

About 2 months ago, Jonah brought something into my office during lunchtime. It was instantly recognizable as a horse, except it had a ball instead of a head. "That's his eye. He's a cyclops."

"Who made this?" I asked him. I was ready to be impressed by Timothy's work.

"I did," replied Jonah, without even looking up. He wasn't pleased with one of the parts, and quickly took it back to replace it.

I kept the horse and showed it to my wife the next day. She already knew. "Have you seen the dragon he made today?" I hadn't, but she had saved it, too. In ways many adults could not, Jonah made disparate parts line up to make a long, tapering, perfect dragon frame. Arms, legs, a head all worked fine. Even more impressive, this dragon had long spikes out its back. Nothing looked wonky, or out of place.

I tried to save them for pictures, but was too slow. Sorry.

For his birthday last week, Stephen got several LEGO kits, including two little cars. Jonah watched intently as his brothers built them. Then, after the bigger boys had moved on to other toys, Jonah took each car, disasembled it, and put it back together again.

Are we proud parents? Sure. Are we over-hyping this? Maybe. I thought so too, until the other day.

My wife and the boys were over at a friend's house, playing. They have Bionicles too. After a few hours, their older son, 8 years old, comes downstairs with something new Jonah had made.

Clearly excited, he showed it to the moms. "Look what Jonah made!"

"That's nice dear. Is it good?"

"Good? Mom, it's genius!"