On Monday, May 11, Fletcher turns five. For those in the dark - readers who trip over this in search of sanity, guidance and council, Fletch is my son. For the record, I don't know how he has lived this long - He is as clumsy as his father, and seems to seek adrenaline in every feasible way. Today was his party, where friends from school, from the neighborhood and just friend in general converged on my home, took over for a few hours and left us in post-party euphoria.
During the party, Mom and Dad played referee, nurse, and babysitter to about 15 kids and some of their parents. We were unusual as we were only the second of about 15 parties to host at our own home. It seems that an entire industry has emerged here in North Carolina where family after family is coaxed, cajoled, and peer pressured into the next big event - all for the reasonable cost of 299.99. Kidding. It is unreasonable. In the past year we have attended parties of all shapes and sizes, ranging from a childrens museum (which is the most reasonable of all), to bowling, to the bouncing festival, some of which exceed $400. We looked at this, and discovered nothing we could do which hadn't been done, especially in the southern end of the price range. Oh and by the way, while taking them all to Transformers 2 was my suggestion, it was shot down for two reasons. 1 - Megan Fox. and 2 - The kids are only 5. Waaah.
So we hosted at home. the opening salvo from my son was that he wanted a reverse party. People arrive, we open presents, we eat cake, then dogs, then we run around. A little Jason, obviously - driving to the point, and relegating all the other crap to just fluff.
We decorated the house with Star Wars paraphenalia. We boiled about a million hot dogs (a little too long) and we opened the doors to throngs of fans of Fletcher. Despite some of my son's five year old drama (I don't wanna play red light green light I wanna knock opened the Vader pinata so rebuild it daddy everyone can leave now so I can open presents) the party was a success overall - no fatalities and lots of presents.
And then I get to turn 5 again. As people left, Fletch and I got to opening the boxes containing those sweet little, logical, uniform, modular blocks. Heaven in heat sealed bags. And as we tore into each bag of Legos, we raced through the instructions, building starship and droid one after another. And when my son would get distracted, his brother, I mean his father would carry on, building, so that we could destroy the evil Empire promptly and with great mayhew and discontent.
I was fortunate tonight, as while I am unsure that these memories will carry forward for my son, and while someday when he is nearing forty, his memory of these times may have faded, I know that when I am eighty, these images will be etched into my brain and be pulled back to remind me of those great times with my son. Today, I was able to transport back to a time of innocense where good and evil were defined by terms of Jedi and Sith.
I also hope that as he gets older, and I still live vicariously through him, he and I will do other things together - like cruising for girls in college bars - hopefully we can do that for his 6th birthday.
Showing posts with label "jason port". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "jason port". Show all posts
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Breaking – I mean, Broken - News – Nancy Grace is the wife of Satan
So, during my copious time off last week, I had the opportunity to drive my television’s remote control. As I was taking it through its paces – powering through the turns and burning up the straights - I found myself running through the several news channels. While each seems uniquely biased, and this bias level is adjusted based on who is sitting behind the desks, I came to the realization – There is no more reporting. There is only delivery of opinion.
While I have never been a fan of censorship, I found myself watching Nancy Grace, mesmerized with the fantasy of finding use for a ball gag. She rambled on, spewing pseudo-legal opinions on how to handle the trial of the Kaylee Anthony defendant (seriously, I cannot escape the story of this wretch). Beneath the talking read scrolled repeated facts about the case, and subtitles of the images of the defendant on her jailhouse intercom phone. While nothing new came from the story, the blonde head drooled over the digital corpse of a story, enlightening those who lived in a cave that the mother was talking to a visitor and mentioned anything about the case. (I suspect that if I were in jail for murdering a child, there might not be much else to talk about with any visitors).
Finally, when the wave of nausea was reaching its peak, my thumb slammed a series of keys taking from the channel to SpongeBob – A far more credible and newsworthy story (He and Patrick found the lost city of Atlantis – I am sure this will be covered by Geraldo Rivera, but he will naturally take credit until he realizes that this is one more hoax in his pathetic career as a journalist.) And then I returned to surfing the stations.
Wave after wave passed your surfer by, waiting patiently for something. And then it happened. I stopped surfing and I was swept into a killer wave. I stopped flipping to answer the phone, and there he was. Bill O’Reilly. Satan himself. (And he must be married to Nancy on some plane of hell) I watched opinions roll out of his mouth, wondering whether he has Helen Keller checking his facts. (My apologies to Ms. Keller – She was a remarkable woman, but not the best fact-checker to be sure). As his guests appeared in front of O’Reilly’s oral firing squad, the more liberal guest being shot first and most often, they quickly fell to his salvos of “loudest speaker wins”, and they slowly crept from their remote camera shots, to be replaced by another in search of their 15 minutes.
Again, I felt the sickness growing, and I ran screaming. I went back to Patrick and his spongy friend in the search for the streets of gold. However, I quickly recalled another of these pundits who suffered from a disease of the poor (and typically liberal) – drug addiction. The mentally and physically bloated Mr. Limbaugh, whose addiction to Hydrocodone was made somehow less serious than a heroin addiction, and which was quickly swept under the rug. This is a guy who I am sure thrashed Marion Berry for his snowy habits, and who has certainly basted the bleeding hearts for their positions on these social issues. Hypocrisy. Horse’s ass hypocrisy, of a level heretofore unseen.
The reality is that these heads can say whatever drives the ratings higher and punished for these crimes against our social fabric go undelivered. They drive fear and panic when they make statements about our “crashing” economy. They drive division when they pit artificially inflated groups against one another (the entire right against all of those die-hard liberals), and in doing so eliminate the middle two-thirds of us who are really neither. They make us numb to the death of a little girl, because they play it so often, it becomes the background soundtrack to our lives – and desensitizes us to the violence and tragedy in the American fabric. Unfortunately, there seems no respite from these jesters, except to shoot our TV which Americans cannot seem to do (I know I can’t).
However, I hope that as my family gets older, we as a nation become tired of the sludge and move past it, back to real news. In the meantime, I intend to teach my son (and soon a second child) how to think critically, and act responsibly in viewing television, and the media in general. In the meantime, I have to find something else to discuss, as by keeping them as part of the conversation, they find their power growing and our resistance waning.
While I have never been a fan of censorship, I found myself watching Nancy Grace, mesmerized with the fantasy of finding use for a ball gag. She rambled on, spewing pseudo-legal opinions on how to handle the trial of the Kaylee Anthony defendant (seriously, I cannot escape the story of this wretch). Beneath the talking read scrolled repeated facts about the case, and subtitles of the images of the defendant on her jailhouse intercom phone. While nothing new came from the story, the blonde head drooled over the digital corpse of a story, enlightening those who lived in a cave that the mother was talking to a visitor and mentioned anything about the case. (I suspect that if I were in jail for murdering a child, there might not be much else to talk about with any visitors).
Finally, when the wave of nausea was reaching its peak, my thumb slammed a series of keys taking from the channel to SpongeBob – A far more credible and newsworthy story (He and Patrick found the lost city of Atlantis – I am sure this will be covered by Geraldo Rivera, but he will naturally take credit until he realizes that this is one more hoax in his pathetic career as a journalist.) And then I returned to surfing the stations.
Wave after wave passed your surfer by, waiting patiently for something. And then it happened. I stopped surfing and I was swept into a killer wave. I stopped flipping to answer the phone, and there he was. Bill O’Reilly. Satan himself. (And he must be married to Nancy on some plane of hell) I watched opinions roll out of his mouth, wondering whether he has Helen Keller checking his facts. (My apologies to Ms. Keller – She was a remarkable woman, but not the best fact-checker to be sure). As his guests appeared in front of O’Reilly’s oral firing squad, the more liberal guest being shot first and most often, they quickly fell to his salvos of “loudest speaker wins”, and they slowly crept from their remote camera shots, to be replaced by another in search of their 15 minutes.
Again, I felt the sickness growing, and I ran screaming. I went back to Patrick and his spongy friend in the search for the streets of gold. However, I quickly recalled another of these pundits who suffered from a disease of the poor (and typically liberal) – drug addiction. The mentally and physically bloated Mr. Limbaugh, whose addiction to Hydrocodone was made somehow less serious than a heroin addiction, and which was quickly swept under the rug. This is a guy who I am sure thrashed Marion Berry for his snowy habits, and who has certainly basted the bleeding hearts for their positions on these social issues. Hypocrisy. Horse’s ass hypocrisy, of a level heretofore unseen.
The reality is that these heads can say whatever drives the ratings higher and punished for these crimes against our social fabric go undelivered. They drive fear and panic when they make statements about our “crashing” economy. They drive division when they pit artificially inflated groups against one another (the entire right against all of those die-hard liberals), and in doing so eliminate the middle two-thirds of us who are really neither. They make us numb to the death of a little girl, because they play it so often, it becomes the background soundtrack to our lives – and desensitizes us to the violence and tragedy in the American fabric. Unfortunately, there seems no respite from these jesters, except to shoot our TV which Americans cannot seem to do (I know I can’t).
However, I hope that as my family gets older, we as a nation become tired of the sludge and move past it, back to real news. In the meantime, I intend to teach my son (and soon a second child) how to think critically, and act responsibly in viewing television, and the media in general. In the meantime, I have to find something else to discuss, as by keeping them as part of the conversation, they find their power growing and our resistance waning.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Resolutions for 2009
The other night, my wife asked me if I had any resolutions yet for 2009. At the time, I winced, thinking that resolutions were typically made and surrendered by those who were willing to save all of their commitment to the end of the year and expend it on those few things which would be really life altering, rather than make slow course corrections during the year. And then I thought about it more, and realized that maybe I should make a few in order to publicly commit, thereby doubling my resolve and improving my odds of success at a few things which I have struggled with accomplishing in the past.
1. Lose that damn 30 pounds of fat. Yes, a weight loss commitment. How trite. Rest assured that this will be the only one you see here which you will find on many other’s lists. However, I need to get off my ass and lose this damn tire.
2. Treat work more like a game and less like work. I realized the other night that my competitive spirit on the playing field, in those few sports I enjoyed, brought me great pride and success, and if I treat my work more like that, I should be able to enjoy similar benefits. Unfortunately for my co-workers, they will have to hear me yell a little more and hug a little less. The reality is that a great team is regularly pushed, not constantly coddled.
3. Walk five hundred miles. So I turn 39 in a few days. I will be one year from 40, and one year from the beginning of my journey along the Appalachian Trail (A subject for another day, but I committed this past year to walk the AT in pieces once I turn 40.) To do this, I need to get out and walk. And walk. In the spirit of training for this vision quest in 12 months, I need to get physically and mentally ready. The journey begins with the first step, but I would rather it didn't end with a herniated disk.
4. Buy two houses. So, despite many times trying to buy stocks and make money, or trying to start a small business, I have never found much success in those endeavors. However, two out of three properties I have invested in property, I turned a significant profit in short terms. Therefore, this year, I endeavor to test this again. Look out slums, here I comes.
5. Change the world, build some karma – So I haven’t figured this out, but we need some change. I am thinking volunteer work, but who knows. The reality is that the opportunities abound, but my attention span is often lacking. Perhaps I will spread my beneficence across a variety of needy groups. And no, I am not thinking free breast exams. I am thinking mentoring a struggling kid, or building homes for the needy. (By the way, I re-wrote this sentence three times trying to find the politically correct terms)
6. Be a better dad and better husband in 2009 – While I don’t think that I was a bad dad, and usually not a bad husband – usually - I think there is room for improvement. This parenting thing isn’t always easy, and while we seem to be figuring it out, I look back on 2008 and can see a few areas where I could have done better. While he will likely be in therapy some day, he won’t be sitting on the couch at 30 living in my house wondering what life has in store for him, but rather out there grabbing it by the horns while his peers sit on their parent couches wondering what’s next.
I have others which I need to commit to, but which should require less effort -
- Stop listening to JLo,
- Stop shopping at WalMart, a blight on the visual and economic landscape of society
- Visit my mother and sister more. I know they miss me, but they should move closer
- Watch fewer crappy movies, but I wish the movie companies could produce anything else
- Remember to breath
So those are my seven core resolutions along with a few others for 2009. I will be starting many of them shortly, so watch out for attitude changes and mood swings. (I mean more than are there today.) Otherwise I look forward to reporting back in 12 months how I made out. I am sure that no one will care, except for me, but I plan to treat each of these like the game from number two above, and if I lose at any of them I will have no one to blame by myself.
1. Lose that damn 30 pounds of fat. Yes, a weight loss commitment. How trite. Rest assured that this will be the only one you see here which you will find on many other’s lists. However, I need to get off my ass and lose this damn tire.
2. Treat work more like a game and less like work. I realized the other night that my competitive spirit on the playing field, in those few sports I enjoyed, brought me great pride and success, and if I treat my work more like that, I should be able to enjoy similar benefits. Unfortunately for my co-workers, they will have to hear me yell a little more and hug a little less. The reality is that a great team is regularly pushed, not constantly coddled.
3. Walk five hundred miles. So I turn 39 in a few days. I will be one year from 40, and one year from the beginning of my journey along the Appalachian Trail (A subject for another day, but I committed this past year to walk the AT in pieces once I turn 40.) To do this, I need to get out and walk. And walk. In the spirit of training for this vision quest in 12 months, I need to get physically and mentally ready. The journey begins with the first step, but I would rather it didn't end with a herniated disk.
4. Buy two houses. So, despite many times trying to buy stocks and make money, or trying to start a small business, I have never found much success in those endeavors. However, two out of three properties I have invested in property, I turned a significant profit in short terms. Therefore, this year, I endeavor to test this again. Look out slums, here I comes.
5. Change the world, build some karma – So I haven’t figured this out, but we need some change. I am thinking volunteer work, but who knows. The reality is that the opportunities abound, but my attention span is often lacking. Perhaps I will spread my beneficence across a variety of needy groups. And no, I am not thinking free breast exams. I am thinking mentoring a struggling kid, or building homes for the needy. (By the way, I re-wrote this sentence three times trying to find the politically correct terms)
6. Be a better dad and better husband in 2009 – While I don’t think that I was a bad dad, and usually not a bad husband – usually - I think there is room for improvement. This parenting thing isn’t always easy, and while we seem to be figuring it out, I look back on 2008 and can see a few areas where I could have done better. While he will likely be in therapy some day, he won’t be sitting on the couch at 30 living in my house wondering what life has in store for him, but rather out there grabbing it by the horns while his peers sit on their parent couches wondering what’s next.
I have others which I need to commit to, but which should require less effort -
- Stop listening to JLo,
- Stop shopping at WalMart, a blight on the visual and economic landscape of society
- Visit my mother and sister more. I know they miss me, but they should move closer
- Watch fewer crappy movies, but I wish the movie companies could produce anything else
- Remember to breath
So those are my seven core resolutions along with a few others for 2009. I will be starting many of them shortly, so watch out for attitude changes and mood swings. (I mean more than are there today.) Otherwise I look forward to reporting back in 12 months how I made out. I am sure that no one will care, except for me, but I plan to treat each of these like the game from number two above, and if I lose at any of them I will have no one to blame by myself.
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