I've never liked January. After the spirit, warmth & love of the holidays, January becomes a time for sobering up. While snow in December is magical, snow in January is just cold. Christmas lights are turned off. Decorations put away. Life slowly returns to normal.
This year, I find myself even more reflective & somber than usual. Maybe it's just specific events of the last few days that have affected me so much.
- Late last night, I stood in below freezing temperatures on the porch of a comfortable suburban home telling a mother that DCFS is trying to take custody of her troubled 11 year old daughter. Her screams and sobs are still echoing in my head.
- A Utah Deputy Sheriff was killed two nights ago, and while her killers were apprehended just a few minutes ago, no justice served on them will return a wife and mother to her husband and two children. She paid the ultimate price for the members of the community she served.
- Finally, I am thinking today of how two years ago today, in an act of supreme selfishness, a cousin shot and killed his wife in a church parking lot on her 30th birthday, making orphans of their two young boys & draping a dark cloud over his entire family for years to come. We didn't see Kristy every day, but we never went more than a couple of weeks without her and the boys dropping by to say hi & for the boys to play with my kids for a few minutes. Later today I'll take some flowers over to her grave, just like last year.
I guess that I am seeing the worst of things right now. My mood seems to match the grim smoggy sky and dirty piles of snow packed in to corners of parking lots.
I really can't wait for the sunshine of spring to arrive.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Max, the talking dog
At 1:30 this morning, my dog began talking to me.
Max hasn’t talked to me before, but as I trudged from the bedroom carrying my pillow into the living room, he looked at me in disgust and said “Really? You are the master of this house, but you get kicked out of bed by the smallest one in the house? I’ve lost all respect for you.”
Molly is only 5 months old, and is still nursing. When she wakes up at night, my sweetheart will often bring Molly to bed with her, so that she can still get some sleep too. But Molly likes to kick daddy when he is in ‘her spot’, so I go sleep on the couch.
This happens a couple of times a week, and it really isn’t a big deal, but apparently Max thinks it’s pathetic.
Max hasn’t talked to me before, but as I trudged from the bedroom carrying my pillow into the living room, he looked at me in disgust and said “Really? You are the master of this house, but you get kicked out of bed by the smallest one in the house? I’ve lost all respect for you.”
Molly is only 5 months old, and is still nursing. When she wakes up at night, my sweetheart will often bring Molly to bed with her, so that she can still get some sleep too. But Molly likes to kick daddy when he is in ‘her spot’, so I go sleep on the couch.
This happens a couple of times a week, and it really isn’t a big deal, but apparently Max thinks it’s pathetic.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Eleven Wonderful Years
I probably should have written this a year ago. After all, Ten seems to be a more significant number than eleven. Maybe it’s because I am a programmer, and as such I start all lists with zero instead of one. Maybe it’s because this marriage is so awesome that it “Goes all the way to eleven”. Whatever the reason, I find myself reflecting on the fact that as of tomorrow I have been married to my best friend for eleven years.
It all started almost twelve years ago, when she became a roommate of another of my best friends, DeNiece. I was terminally single, having three strikes against me: I was [1] a divorced father [2] living in Provo [3] trying to hide from who I had become inside bottles and empty cigarette boxes. I dated a lot, but most often to people who were more dysfunctional and carried more emotional baggage than myself (and that was saying a lot).
DeNiece was accustomed to me being interested romantically with her roommates over the years, even though I had not succeeded in getting a single one of them to date me. I think she even found it amusing at times. Then Amy moved in with DeNiece.
I found Amy to be very cute, & I loved talking to her. We began to hang out closer and closer in our group of mutual friends. DeNiece was not pleased with this. She was worried about Amy, worried that she would end up just one more name on my long list of romantic failures. More than a few times, she counseled me to be careful, and to not hurt Amy.
I can’t say what Amy saw in me at that time. I was definitely a project. We kept this up for a few weeks, until I was leaving on a long trip. At the time I was leaving, I was happy to think that I was for the first time in years coming back to… something. Maybe even a relationship.
While I was gone, a rival struck. Another guy who Amy had known for a long time took advantage of my absence, & by the time I returned, they were an item. I didn’t take it well, & returned to that prison of my own making. A couple of months later, Amy & the other guy ended their brief relationship, and she was again available. Some of the flirting started again, but she was hesitant. It wasn’t hard to understand why. Here she was, a BYU graduate working in an actual career and going places, while I was stuck in at a dead-end in my job, living in an apartment with roommates I hated, hiding from my problems behind a haze of chemical refreshments.
She deserved better. Much better.
I had mostly stopped drinking, and decided to remove the “mostly” and make that decision final. My last drink was in October of 1997. I also stopped smoking, with my last cigarette in November 1997. I started to go to church with friends. I needed to be a better man if I wanted a shot at her. In the meantime, the flirting with Amy continued, but there was another guy trying to make his move. I didn’t put up much resistance, especially after hearing Amy tell DeNiece around the start of December 1997 “I am SO done with guys! I don’t even want to think about dating someone for A LONG TIME!”
I still needed to be a better man.
In the week leading up to Christmas, Amy asked me out on a date. I was shocked! I told her “I thought you were done with guys for a long time!” She said “I was. Now I’m just tired of waiting for you to ask me out!”
As they say, “the rest is history”. We overcame a number of challenges & got married almost a year later, & sealed together a year and a half after that. Amy helped me try to be a good influence on my son, and we have added 4 wonderful kids to our family. We have a house, a dog, and what I consider to be a wonderful (if hectic) life. She has stuck with me through challenging career changes. She puts up with the stupid things I do, with the dorky jokes I make, with the endless projects I start and not finish. She puts up with my multiple time consuming jobs, church callings & coaching duties, which make her feel like a single parent at times.
I still think she deserves a better man, so each day I try just a little more to be the man she deserves.
It all started almost twelve years ago, when she became a roommate of another of my best friends, DeNiece. I was terminally single, having three strikes against me: I was [1] a divorced father [2] living in Provo [3] trying to hide from who I had become inside bottles and empty cigarette boxes. I dated a lot, but most often to people who were more dysfunctional and carried more emotional baggage than myself (and that was saying a lot).
DeNiece was accustomed to me being interested romantically with her roommates over the years, even though I had not succeeded in getting a single one of them to date me. I think she even found it amusing at times. Then Amy moved in with DeNiece.
I found Amy to be very cute, & I loved talking to her. We began to hang out closer and closer in our group of mutual friends. DeNiece was not pleased with this. She was worried about Amy, worried that she would end up just one more name on my long list of romantic failures. More than a few times, she counseled me to be careful, and to not hurt Amy.
I can’t say what Amy saw in me at that time. I was definitely a project. We kept this up for a few weeks, until I was leaving on a long trip. At the time I was leaving, I was happy to think that I was for the first time in years coming back to… something. Maybe even a relationship.
While I was gone, a rival struck. Another guy who Amy had known for a long time took advantage of my absence, & by the time I returned, they were an item. I didn’t take it well, & returned to that prison of my own making. A couple of months later, Amy & the other guy ended their brief relationship, and she was again available. Some of the flirting started again, but she was hesitant. It wasn’t hard to understand why. Here she was, a BYU graduate working in an actual career and going places, while I was stuck in at a dead-end in my job, living in an apartment with roommates I hated, hiding from my problems behind a haze of chemical refreshments.
She deserved better. Much better.
I had mostly stopped drinking, and decided to remove the “mostly” and make that decision final. My last drink was in October of 1997. I also stopped smoking, with my last cigarette in November 1997. I started to go to church with friends. I needed to be a better man if I wanted a shot at her. In the meantime, the flirting with Amy continued, but there was another guy trying to make his move. I didn’t put up much resistance, especially after hearing Amy tell DeNiece around the start of December 1997 “I am SO done with guys! I don’t even want to think about dating someone for A LONG TIME!”
I still needed to be a better man.
In the week leading up to Christmas, Amy asked me out on a date. I was shocked! I told her “I thought you were done with guys for a long time!” She said “I was. Now I’m just tired of waiting for you to ask me out!”
As they say, “the rest is history”. We overcame a number of challenges & got married almost a year later, & sealed together a year and a half after that. Amy helped me try to be a good influence on my son, and we have added 4 wonderful kids to our family. We have a house, a dog, and what I consider to be a wonderful (if hectic) life. She has stuck with me through challenging career changes. She puts up with the stupid things I do, with the dorky jokes I make, with the endless projects I start and not finish. She puts up with my multiple time consuming jobs, church callings & coaching duties, which make her feel like a single parent at times.
I still think she deserves a better man, so each day I try just a little more to be the man she deserves.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
I hate you Comcast!
As a very opinionated person, I dislike a lot of things. The key word there is dislike. I hate relatively few things. My one reader will note that I have already declared my public hatred of spiders in this very blog. Other things I hate include: people who drive slower than traffic in the left lane on the freeway, HSBC, telemarketers cold calling at dinnertime, men who don't lift the lid before peeing all over the seat, my neighbor's dogs, door-to-door salesmen who ignore my 'no soliciting' sign and mosquitoes.
Comcast was a long time resident on my hate list because of the horrible, rotten & abominable service we got from them while we were customers and because of "The Mountian" - the abortion of a sports network created by the Mountain West Conference and Comcast for the sole purpose of getting all BYU & Utah football & basketball fans to drop their satellite dishes and come running back to the cold, cold embrace of cable. Those of us who refused found our ability to watch the games we love held hostage to evil corporate overlords, and many of us just didn't watch football for two years.
Comcast came off the list last year more out of apathy than any rational decision. They came to an agreement with DirecTV, and I could once again watch my beloved Cougar Football.
Aaaaannnnd they're back.
Comcast also owns a channel called "Versus". Aside from broadcasting hockey, hunting shows & infomercials, they have contracts to broadcast some pretty major college football games. Including an upcoming game between BYU and Florida State.
Comcast has once again gotten into a disagreement with DirecTV over just how much end customers should be gouged for the privilege of watching shows about Archery Deer Hunting at 3 in the morning, with the predictable result being Versus is no longer available on DirecTV.
Just like that, I am again looking at not being able to see what will probably be the best game of the season, all because of the corporate greed mongers at Comcast. And it is almost worse that eventually Comcast will concede & charge a reasonable price, and Versus will be back, albeit far too late for me to enjoy my game.
I hate you, Comcast!
Comcast was a long time resident on my hate list because of the horrible, rotten & abominable service we got from them while we were customers and because of "The Mountian" - the abortion of a sports network created by the Mountain West Conference and Comcast for the sole purpose of getting all BYU & Utah football & basketball fans to drop their satellite dishes and come running back to the cold, cold embrace of cable. Those of us who refused found our ability to watch the games we love held hostage to evil corporate overlords, and many of us just didn't watch football for two years.
Comcast came off the list last year more out of apathy than any rational decision. They came to an agreement with DirecTV, and I could once again watch my beloved Cougar Football.
Aaaaannnnd they're back.
Comcast also owns a channel called "Versus". Aside from broadcasting hockey, hunting shows & infomercials, they have contracts to broadcast some pretty major college football games. Including an upcoming game between BYU and Florida State.
Comcast has once again gotten into a disagreement with DirecTV over just how much end customers should be gouged for the privilege of watching shows about Archery Deer Hunting at 3 in the morning, with the predictable result being Versus is no longer available on DirecTV.
Just like that, I am again looking at not being able to see what will probably be the best game of the season, all because of the corporate greed mongers at Comcast. And it is almost worse that eventually Comcast will concede & charge a reasonable price, and Versus will be back, albeit far too late for me to enjoy my game.
I hate you, Comcast!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Carp Golf & the Rubber Raft
The summer between my junior and senior years of high school was packed with adventure. Although we were all working, my friends & I spent countless days doing things that were on the far side of reckless. Among things for which the statute of limitations have run out are playing golf from a moving vehicle (shattering a car window in the process), sneaking into golf courses to collect golf balls we could then lose in the daytime, 4 wheeling on the beaches of Utah Lake whilst avoiding the park rangers, riding off road vehicles all over southwest Provo (mostly my unlicensed motorcycle), and many incidents involving my million candlepower spotlight and people in remote parking lots engaged in various activities while in states of undress. As you may have noticed, many of our activities involved golf. Josh had inherited a set of golf clubs from his dad, and we incorporated them into our adventures wherever possible.
One of those activities was a creation called "Carp Golf".*(See note below about animal rights)
While many of our peers went "gigging carp", we wanted something more challenging. So we would take golf irons out into the shallows of the lake & hunt the carp. It was very challenging, because you often had to run to catch the carp, then swing hard enough to hit them.
We also played golf around the neighborhood, substituting a tennis ball for the golf balls. Nothing like calling the "hole" to be a birdhouse directly over a car parked in the driveway.
These memories were brought back into focus for me because my Dad recently came across an old rubber raft we used extensively that summer. He had purchased it used from the raft rental place near Flaming Gorge, which rents rafts to float the Green River just below the dam. We put that raft in more bodies of water than I can count. Dad had offered to let us take it for our weekend getaway at Yuba Lake. Surprisingly, it is still in really good shape. We inflated it, and my sons spent hours rowing that thing around.
Hopefully my sons can have some similar memories, although maybe they should try something other than carp golf.
*Animal Rights Concerns: Now before I get a bunch of people upset about the profligate and senseless violence towards helpless creatures, I need to point out something about Carp. Carp are a non-native species of fish introduced illegally to Utah Lake many decades ago. These fish have crowded out the natural species of fish, threatening one in particular to near extinction. They also destroy the natural habitat for many wildlife and plant species by constantly churning the bottom of the lake, creating the murky conditions present today. The problem is so bad that the federal government has contracted with commercial fishermen to remove over 1 million pounds of carp each year for the next 7 years from the lake. Since there was no viable commercial use for these fish, they will be trucked off to the desert and buried. That being said, do I feel a little bad about the amount of violence involved in this 'sport'? Yes. Do I have any long standing regret about this past activity? No. At the time of these activities, "Carp Gigging" was an accepted sport which involved stabbing carp with a long spear.
One of those activities was a creation called "Carp Golf".*(See note below about animal rights)
While many of our peers went "gigging carp", we wanted something more challenging. So we would take golf irons out into the shallows of the lake & hunt the carp. It was very challenging, because you often had to run to catch the carp, then swing hard enough to hit them.
We also played golf around the neighborhood, substituting a tennis ball for the golf balls. Nothing like calling the "hole" to be a birdhouse directly over a car parked in the driveway.
These memories were brought back into focus for me because my Dad recently came across an old rubber raft we used extensively that summer. He had purchased it used from the raft rental place near Flaming Gorge, which rents rafts to float the Green River just below the dam. We put that raft in more bodies of water than I can count. Dad had offered to let us take it for our weekend getaway at Yuba Lake. Surprisingly, it is still in really good shape. We inflated it, and my sons spent hours rowing that thing around.
Hopefully my sons can have some similar memories, although maybe they should try something other than carp golf.
*Animal Rights Concerns: Now before I get a bunch of people upset about the profligate and senseless violence towards helpless creatures, I need to point out something about Carp. Carp are a non-native species of fish introduced illegally to Utah Lake many decades ago. These fish have crowded out the natural species of fish, threatening one in particular to near extinction. They also destroy the natural habitat for many wildlife and plant species by constantly churning the bottom of the lake, creating the murky conditions present today. The problem is so bad that the federal government has contracted with commercial fishermen to remove over 1 million pounds of carp each year for the next 7 years from the lake. Since there was no viable commercial use for these fish, they will be trucked off to the desert and buried. That being said, do I feel a little bad about the amount of violence involved in this 'sport'? Yes. Do I have any long standing regret about this past activity? No. At the time of these activities, "Carp Gigging" was an accepted sport which involved stabbing carp with a long spear.
Monday, July 20, 2009
How Source Control Drove Me Insane
I'll be right up front about it, this is a geek post. I'll try to explain in regular english as much as possible, but some things you just have to have a deep understanding of computers to appreciate.
For the last two and a half weeks, I have been in the middle of a conflict taking place on my work laptop between development tools and their corresponding features which allow access to the central repository for all of the code we develop. This central repository is called a 'source control' system and allows large projects to keep track of who is working on what, and allegedly ensures that what one developer writes does not get deleted or otherwise broken by another developer.
There are many source control tools out there, but prior to working for GE, I had only used CVS and Subversion. GE only uses one source control tool, and it is called ClearCase. ClearCase is a tool from a company named Rational, which was purchased by IBM not too long ago. The old saying goes "no one was ever fired for buying IBM", and so the thinking goes at GE.
My problem has its roots in my abilites to develop in multiple languages. I can comfortably write code in Java and C#. Java is the open-source darling which is very popular right now. Anyone can download freely available tools, write code in Java, and (also allegedly) run that code on any operating system which supports Java, which at this point includes the major operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux). C# is a 'Java-like' language from Microsoft, with excellent (albeit expensive) tools to develop with, and a deeper native relationship with Microsoft Windows.
There are many advantages and disadvantages to both languages, far too many to go into a debate in this post.
My employer, GE Healthcare, uses both in the project which I am working on. On the surface, this makes people such as myself who can write comfortably in either language even more valuable. (Although people can make the switch between them pretty easily - I compare it to learning local slang and accents. The underlying principals are very similar.) However, I have had to set up development environments for both on my work laptop. The real problem is when both of those environments attempt to utilize the source control system, ClearCase. There are some deep 'under-the-hood' conflicts between them which have made me completely unable to develop and compile Java code for the last couple of weeks. I have tried uninstalling & reinstalling everything, using different tools for Java, changing the way my account accesses ClearCase, nothing works. I have been absolutely useless for the last two and a half weeks.
Today I got to my wit's end. I am currenly waiting for my laptop to be returned after having it completely re-imaged. (That means that they erase everything and return it to a state as if it had just been delivered to me) This will cause me to be very busy reinstalling all of my necessary applications for the next couple of days, but it's better than the alternatives of going up to the roof and throwing my laptop as far as I can and/or looking for a new job.
For the last two and a half weeks, I have been in the middle of a conflict taking place on my work laptop between development tools and their corresponding features which allow access to the central repository for all of the code we develop. This central repository is called a 'source control' system and allows large projects to keep track of who is working on what, and allegedly ensures that what one developer writes does not get deleted or otherwise broken by another developer.
There are many source control tools out there, but prior to working for GE, I had only used CVS and Subversion. GE only uses one source control tool, and it is called ClearCase. ClearCase is a tool from a company named Rational, which was purchased by IBM not too long ago. The old saying goes "no one was ever fired for buying IBM", and so the thinking goes at GE.
My problem has its roots in my abilites to develop in multiple languages. I can comfortably write code in Java and C#. Java is the open-source darling which is very popular right now. Anyone can download freely available tools, write code in Java, and (also allegedly) run that code on any operating system which supports Java, which at this point includes the major operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux). C# is a 'Java-like' language from Microsoft, with excellent (albeit expensive) tools to develop with, and a deeper native relationship with Microsoft Windows.
There are many advantages and disadvantages to both languages, far too many to go into a debate in this post.
My employer, GE Healthcare, uses both in the project which I am working on. On the surface, this makes people such as myself who can write comfortably in either language even more valuable. (Although people can make the switch between them pretty easily - I compare it to learning local slang and accents. The underlying principals are very similar.) However, I have had to set up development environments for both on my work laptop. The real problem is when both of those environments attempt to utilize the source control system, ClearCase. There are some deep 'under-the-hood' conflicts between them which have made me completely unable to develop and compile Java code for the last couple of weeks. I have tried uninstalling & reinstalling everything, using different tools for Java, changing the way my account accesses ClearCase, nothing works. I have been absolutely useless for the last two and a half weeks.
Today I got to my wit's end. I am currenly waiting for my laptop to be returned after having it completely re-imaged. (That means that they erase everything and return it to a state as if it had just been delivered to me) This will cause me to be very busy reinstalling all of my necessary applications for the next couple of days, but it's better than the alternatives of going up to the roof and throwing my laptop as far as I can and/or looking for a new job.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Infrequent posting problem
I realized today that I haven't posted anything of consequence in quite a while. This isn't because I haven't been writing. On the contrary, I have been writing quite a bit. However, I had started writing stories about adventures I had with my best friends as teenagers. That path led me to the dilemma of whether or not to publish stories that may end up being seen as implicit permission for my own sons and the children of my friends to imitate, replicate, or impersonate the remarkable, often dangerous and just as often illegal adventures I had as a teen-age idiot.
As such, I sadly inform my one reader that I have decided not to post stories such as "Carp Golf", "4 Wheeling and Pop-Tarts", "Night-ops Golf", and "Spotlighting". Maybe when my kids have gotten past the 'immortal' stage of adolescence I can share those often humorous stories with a larger audience.
As such, I sadly inform my one reader that I have decided not to post stories such as "Carp Golf", "4 Wheeling and Pop-Tarts", "Night-ops Golf", and "Spotlighting". Maybe when my kids have gotten past the 'immortal' stage of adolescence I can share those often humorous stories with a larger audience.
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