The Last 4th of July

Picture from a great collection on flickr, please click link to view other fantastic shots of Cd'A

My parents have decided to move away from my hometown to be closer to my brother and sister. They've sold the house and are packing things up. This weekend, we're going home one last time to make sure that I haven’t forgotten some trinket of my youth that I might still want before they pack up and dispose of the contents of my childhood bedroom..

It's going to be a strange, melancholy 4th of July. I imagine there will be lots of long pauses in the random rooms as I try to simultaneously remember events that occurred there and freeze the room in my mind's eye so I won't forget tomorrow what my home looked like.

Beyond this, I wonder if I'll ever really make it back to Coeur d'Alene after this weekend in any meaningful way. Sure, I have in-laws in Spokane and a brother in Sandpoint that will bring me near to Coeur d'Alene, but will Coeur d'Alene merely become another town I pass thru on my way to Sandpoint, a place for a hamburger at Huddies or a coffee at Java before moving on? Will I merely look out the window at the lake and shrug and think, I used to live here; didn't I? Will my relationship to the town become be diluted to an occasional round of golf? When will I stop thinking that Coeur d'Alene is my home?

Already, I suppose. I’m fully integrated into Seattle now. I am accustomed to the traffic and the rain, whenever I leave Seattle and head back to Idaho I am cognizant of how dry and empty the state seems. Yet, there is still something about Idaho that still calls to me. Is it the geography, the people, or something else; a feeling of familiarity, perhaps? I suppose when this familiarity fades over time spent away from Cd'A, then will it become just another pretty town with a nice lake and gorgeous forests, a place that I once knew, I place that called home.

A Great Effort by the U of I:

This came in the Friday letter from the U of Idaho, this is a great idea.

A Name Change?

I'm thinking about changing the title of the blog, seems that WordForge, is pretty common and used by some established sites already. If I do set up a new blog under a different name I'll establish a link to it here so if you keep coming here you can still track me down.

Ideal Parenting?

We took a trip to Boise over the weekend for a wedding and to see some college friends. The question invariably comes up each time we are there, could we actually move here someday? We love the summer heat and sun in Boise, but are a bit shy about the winter wind and snow. Yet, we have so many friends there it is still creates a temptation to move. After all, couldn't the warmth of friendship keep us warm?

Wow, wasn't that a load of cheezy/hallmarkesque/crap? I'm sure if we moved we would end up the couch every Friday and Saturday night, just like we do now, so I'm not about to trade the beautiful Emerald city for Boise. Come on, we've got lakes, trees, ocean's, mountains, forest, orcas, dolphins, octopuses, shopping, great bars (okay, Boise has a few good bars too), better looking co-eds, professional sports team, opera/symphony/theater, traffic, and democrats. Frasier, Gray Anatomy – all hit shows were based in Seattle and not Boise, wonder why? Because nobody would watch a show about Boise!

Regardless, and back to the point of this post, down there I was able to observe the parenting skills of a friend of mine. I must confess that I have sort of a man jealousy thing with this guy. He kind-of looks like me, only more handsome, he's an engineer, has a beautiful-sweet wife, a great home, he’s eloquent, and has a beautiful daughter (approx 2-3 yrs old, I can’t remember). The two of them have they type of parenting skills that I hope to emulate someday (here is where I'm tying back to the title of the post, if you have gotten this far and been thinking, great insight about Boise but W.T.F. does this have to do with parenting, here you go…). I have witnessed a lot of parenting styles, some of which are: Type A: adore your children to no end and give them anything they ask for., Type B: Overreact to everything your child does as if every mistake they make is ruining themselves and/or the world, Type C: Ignore your children because your attention is focused on booze, pot, sex, shopping, soccer, or anything other thing besides your children, and so forth. I'm even seen parents who are mixed, for example, I have a friend whose best friend is a type A: ie adores his children without end and is at their beck and call. They demand he fetches. His wife is a type B who overreacts to everything. They spill milk she starts praying to Jesus while berating their cup holding skills. The trouble is, these kids don't know which way is up. Mom yells, dad cajoles, and the results are meretricious kids who I can't stand to be around (whiner who start to cry if you look at them and make direct eye contact, see unconfident losers in the future anyone?).

Anyway, back to my friend’s approach. It's called balance. He and his wife have made a conscious effort to maintain their personal identify and people, a couple, and then as parents; as they say, "We are more than our children". Too often I think people with kids loose their identity and can only think of themselves as parents. Everything become invested in how the children turn out, they never achieved anything significant so they put all their hopes/dream into their children. They give up friends, vacations, anything as an excuse to be with their children. My friends are more than happy to drop the kid off with its grandparent and take of for the weekend or get a babysitter for a night at the bar. Second, they do love their child and show affection, but they also make a concentrated effort to not try to make her happy all the time. They have a, god forbid, a parent-child relationship rather than a servant-master relationship that I often see (often evidenced by these parental questions to children: “Is there anything I can get you baby?”, “Can I get you that?”, “How much blood does mommy have to bleed before you stop crying?” Etc...)

In summary: love your children, tell them you love them, show them you love them, but don't: coddle, placate, berate

something to tide you over

Sorry for not posting for so long, I've been tied up with life. Although, I'm not sure who I'm apologizing to, I don't think anyone reads this thing except for me.

Anywho, I've been planning a longer post about my perceptions on the HR profession. I've had a lot of people ask me, now that I've told my employer I'm leaving for law school, why I am giving up my current career. I have some thoughts on the subject and should put them down somewhere before I forget them.

Until then, I saw this article in the times today. Seems that the S. Baptists might pull out of public school. Thank God, is all I have to say. I'm glad to see this bunch go, this group seems more of a distraction than anything else. The drawback I see is that there will be group of people only educated with what they beleive...won't they be fun to work with when they enter the laborforce.

One year older...

Today is my birthday so I thought I would recap the year's highlights..

1) Went to Australia
2) Sold my first house, bought a second.
3) Decided to go to law school, applied, and now admitted
4) My dad has a heartattack.
5) Started training for a marathon.

Doesn't look like much, but the decision to go to law school is about to completely change my life. On deck for this year.

1) Complete my first year of law school
2) Work on the remodel, fix the foundation, redo the bathroom/kitchen in our grand new home.
3) Quit my HR career

Again, doesn't seem like much, no big trips or super huge goals aside from chipping away at our remodel. I'm sure that school will consume most of my time.

The Danger of ambivalence

In a recent column in the SeattleTime's, Danny Westneat describes the homecoming for a soldier returning from Iraq. In short, there was none. He arrived without fanfare, without protest, to nothing.

The war, which now has lasted longer than the Korean conflict and soon (this fall) will have a duration longer than our military involvement in WWII, has drifted to the status of: "out of sight, out of mind." We've put ourselves into this mindset because we don’t have another choice. Most Americans believe the war is a mistake, so they can't bring themselves to celebrate everything military. But at the same time, they understand that we can't leave without sacrificing hundreds of innocent Iraqis and allowing terrorists to grow more powerful, so they aren't going to protest either.

While I don't fault the general populous for turning away from the war and the giant problem it presents, I do fault the President and the Congress for failing to debate or come up with a plan. This "stay the course until something better happens" doesn't even fit the definition of a plan.

Perhaps, however, I'm too critical. There have been some positive devlopments and it appears that the new gov't of Iraq is at least attempting to take some control. However, as someone who remembers what it was like to have his brother serve overseas in the first gulf war and see his mother pine for his return (and why do we say the first gulf war, are we expecting there to be several more?), to tell our troops that in 18 months Iraq might be capable of supporting itself and we'll just have to wait and see, doesn't seem like a very good answer to our troops.

This is Totally Cool

Ahh...it's always nice to see two worlds I love come together. Techno gadgets and running. The article says that it will compatible for the Nano but I'm hoping it will work on the video as well.

Apathy + Lack of Discipline = Wasting My Time

I have always prided myself as being disciplined. I'm not talking about the kind of discipline that allows you to forgo eating for thirty days and then light yourself on fire, but the "better than average" discipline that allows you to force yourself to exercise, work late, and still be happy. Whatever success I have achieved, be it in school or my professional life, has not been due to any intelligence advantage but instead to my ability to determine what I want, what needs to be done to achieve it, and stay focused until I get it.

That said, lately I have been a pile of unproductive mush. I guess it is related to the fact that I'm going to law school and have thus written off my career. I no longer have any desire to please my managers or show off how nifty my work or mind is. Normally, I could compensate for my lack on interest in my job by just staying disciplined and on-task and still turn out an great work product. But I'm not even doing that now, I generally turn out one or two things per week and what I do produce is getting pretty sloppy both intellectually and in content.

No one seem to notice though, my manager still praises me and I'm being recruited by other departments, and this is making my guilt slacker status grow.

Not sure what the point of this post was, other than to vent. Thanks for reading.

Under Contruction

Hi, I'm playing with some formatting stuff...please forgive the dust.

Odd

Does anyone else find it odd that the spellcheck on blogger does not recognize the words "blog", "blogging", or "blogger" as actual words and always give you other suggestions?

Why is it difficult for me to find the time, but time never has a problem finding me?

I've been busy lately with work and preparing for school...At least that's my excuses for not posting. I have lots of idea for posts while I'm at work, the gym, or sitting in my car but I never have the energy to sit down and regurgitate out the text for the blog. Often, I forget what my idea were so when I do get a chance to sit down and blog I spent most of the available time trying to force myself to remember what I had thought was so clever days before.

These were a few of the things I was planning on blogging about but, alas, the moment has passed.
1) Last week attendance of the Seattle U Graduation and the FP speech about reflection and quiet time, it resonated with me and I should try to write down my thought.
2) The spring visit day and my trepidation with law school.
3) I finally saw the Stephen Colbert piece and laughed my ass off.

We are at War People!

We shouldn't be surprised by this action, putting a current Military officer in charge of our intelligence community is in line with his previous actions of urspuring war powers that have never been used in the modern age and generally treating the press and congress like a kitty box. Clearly, this administration believes that the United States is in the war of it's life and needs to take drastic (albeit Draconian) measures that are seemingly in contradiction to the democratic core of our nation.

But why hasn't this urgency, this knowelege of how dire the war issues is, translated to the American people to justify his actions (Bush has tried scaring us enough, why hasn't it stuck). We continue to live our lives much the same, we continue to consume crap from Walmart, the economy continues to burn hot on expensive fuel, and we sleep peacefully in our beds hopped up on Ambien and Percoset. This war is not costing Middle America anything. It is consuming our military son and daughters, but that toll is carried mostly by the poor, not the middle classes. The pain of the military and the poor has yet to pierces the heart of Middle America.

Then again, althought the President says we are at war, and we see the images of the battles and our casualties strewn about on the sandy soil of Iraq, the war is still difficult to comprehend. Yes, we were attacked by a terroist group. But for a nation that understands that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line this war seems difficult to fathom. Instead of going from point A (a safe America) to point B (a safe America w/ defeated terroism), Bush has taken us to point J and promises that it will work in getting us to point B, albeit through Iraq and stirring up the whole mideast in the process.

I don't see his vision, I don't agree with these war powers, the degredation of the consitution's power of the executive branch, or the burden that poor have been asked to give with the blood of their youth, but I do hope he can and that it truly the best course for us all.

Pseudo Celeb

While picking up my manager from Boston's Logan International airport I had a minor celeb sighting. I was waiting in one of those generic airport chairs by the baggage claim watching videos on my IPOD when down the escalator came, Ann Coulter



She was in a long white coat and jeans, behind her was a man who was a few inches shorter than she and wearing a beard. I assume he was her handler or something like a mgr or assistant, not sure what type of job he had. I didn't watch them much as I wasn't certain that it was her until she stopped a few feet in front of my before heading back up the escalator (which had stopped for some reason). Later, a throng of people from a flight from DC came down to baggage claim, so I assuem she had been on the flight from DC and had been let off early.

That's pretty much it. Not very exciting...not like I saw the president or something, but still, it beats a blog entry about my cubicle! (Disclaimer: I may be way off base here, perhaps it was just some blonde in the airport. It's not like she was ranting about democrats or something!)

Boston

I had to go to Andover, MA for a work meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Given that I had never been to Boston before, I decided to leave a day early and spend Monday looking around one of our nation's oldest cities.

It was a pretty good day for sightseeing. The sky was clear and the sun was out. A strong breeze was blowing off the ocean, which made for cooler day. I woke up early, around six or so, and drove the rental car from Andover to Boston. I found a parking lot in the theater district a block from Boston Commons and started my tour from there.

I made my way to a Starbucks on campus of Emerson College (where Jay Leno went) for breakfast (as long as Starbucks in around I'm never far from home) and then onto the Boston Common, a city park that was orginally set aside for cattle grazing in the 1600's (it used to be part of the shoreline!). It was here where the British troops camped the night of April 18, in the morning they set sail across the river and onto Lexington where the shot that was heard around the world occurred.




After looking through the commons and the public garden I started out on the freedom trail, a red line of paint and sometimes bricks, that moves through downtown to key locations in our nation's history. The most profound stops on the tour are the cemeteries where many of the men and women that were instrumental in our nation's foundation are buried. It was a powerful feeling to be standing over the graves of men of honor and valor, who risked their lives to establish our government and ensure our say in how our lives would be governed...It made me feel sad for our current leadership and the caliber of men who lead us now.



I left the freedom trail and went back toward the commons and the area around the Prudential tower and into the BackBay neighborhood (formerly a marsh/bay but filled in with tons and tons of gravel to make most of the city (the first and largest public works project in the United states whose tradition continues in the big dig).

I made my way to Massachusetts Ave and crossed over the Harvard bridge counting the smoots along the way towards the campus of MIT. I was surprised by MIT, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I found. All the kids looked smart, I could not imagine their SAT scores, but the campus was only on par with our local Jr Colleges (albeit a super nice jr college with kids that are way smarter than yours...)




After MIT, I made my way up the Charles river to the Harvard Campus. Although I am somewhat successful, I have been a decent corporate drone who has managed to come up through the pay ranks and will soon be a lawyer, but within the hallowed walls of our nations oldest and most prestigious school I felt unworthy. Yet, the kids looked just as I had looked, fairly normal I suppose. What took my breath away was that there were so many kids who actually had thought they could go to Harvard, had applied, and were now studying there. I'm not faulting my parents, but they were not college educated and did little to promote higher education or encourage us to stretch ourselves beyond what the teachers asked for, therefore I had not inkling that I could have ever gone to place such as this. I guess there's always enough time to pressure my kids and live vicariously through them, sure they'll live in their own personal hell but one day they'll thank me!!!

On Hiatus

Whew-haven't posted for a long time due to a cold that still is lingering and a recent trip to Boston. I'm working on a post re: Boston that will involve pictures and recent updates on the house....

Living History

It's been a while since my last post, but I've been busy working on our house. For those of you who don't know, we bought a older home in Seattle several months ago and have been in the process of restoring it.

We decided to tackle the back hallway this weekend and in the process discovered a package that was underneath one of the drawers of the built in linen closet. Wrapped in dusty paper and tied up with a single piece of string was a paper neatly folded from March 10, 1946.

We have yet to open up the newpaper as it is very fragile and we don't want to ruin it. This weekend, when we have more time to be careful, we'll open it up and see exactly what was happening in Seattle 60 years ago. I've been trying to imagine what is in the paper, why would someone carefully wrap up the newsprint and hide it under the shelves of a built in? I've already googled the date to see if anything important happened that day and don't see much aside from a treason trial of a Yugoslavian dictator (hmmm...how things never change) and the British and French evacuation of Lebanon.

I'll keep you posted on the content of our find....

Ahhh...college

Another fraternity member at the U of Idaho fell out of their house to the ground below (opposed to the ground above - to do that you have to be really drunk!) and broke various parts of himself. The accident occured during Greek Week where fraternities and sororities launch various efforts to show how proud they are of themselves. (fill in irony here..)

Despite Republican Opposition, Gravity Works in Idaho too...

No Wonder Bill Gates is Concerned:

In the year 2006 a local college is thinking about cutting the computer program due to low enrollment - I knew this computer things would never catch on...

Apparently, Jesus doesn't like computers

File Under: Who didn't see this coming...

Hmm...this actually took longer than I thought it would, but come on...did anyone think this thing would stay airborne for long? (pardon my pun).

Hooters