Gunning for some Gunnars

I've been trying to get computer glasses for a while now, first starting with cheap knockoffs from Amazon that didn't fit my giant head, then trying for Gunnars. Now I have two pairs downstairs that I'll have to send back to this AV House place. Because they're not Amazon, the shipping back isn't free, and there's a bloody restocking fee on top of that. Fuckers. I'll be out about 30 bucks or so and still not have any goddamn computer glasses. Why is this so hard? I definitely would not be able to get any prescription glasses over the mail. Not with my giant noggin anyway.

As glad as I am to have this new laptop, I'm still pretty peeved that a bunch of stuff doesn't really work on it. I can't get the ODBC connections to work on it, so I can't do queries on it for work. The wireless adapters like to turn off when I close the lid or put it to sleep, so I pretty much have to reboot when I want to use it again, which is also quite silly. But I am still enjoying the laptop. The full keyboard that lights up, the brilliant display that's a nice 16:9... I guess I have to stay at the job so that I can keep my paws on this laptop. Part of me want to make the kids happy by installing Minecraft on this thing for them. But no, it's my work laptop. Installing Minecraft is a little too obnoxious.

It's been an interesting week. Started off Monday when I went to Mom's to drop off some corned beef that I had made up on Sunday evening, and after a slight delay, she opens the door and she's been crying. She tells me that my aunt, her younger sister, had passed. The details that came out were a little sad, that my other aunt had come home late from work and found her on the floor, dead. They wouldn't be doing an autopsy because either it's a cultural thing or maybe in their minds, it wouldn't matter anyway because she'd still be gone, and it wouldn't make that big a difference. Kinda a bummer though. I've been feeling rather bad for my mom, because that's her youngest sister.

The homework thing continues to be a struggle with Zoe, but I'm going to try to not let that dictate our whole relationship. I've been a little cruel when it comes to that, not enforcing it unfairly or anything like that, but letting that become the focal point of our interaction. Everytime I talk to her, it's always about remembering to hand shit in or how much screen time she won't have. It's really not making her my friend and I'm honestly pretty sick of hearing my own voice bumming everyone out. At least the weekend's here and I get some respite and Alex gets his video game time.

I've been thinking about writing, and filmmaking, and I think it's finally dawning on me that if I really had wanted to do something about it, I probably would have done it by now. It feels so terminal, that this will probably be the job that I'll do for a really long time, and that filmmaking is now so out of reach that it exists in my mind only to torture myself for the time that I squandered away. But like I said, if I was ever going to do anything with it, nothing would have stopped me from doing so. In a way, when I had kids, I grew more vulnerable and afraid to fail. I miss the old me. Having only been in a couple plays and I go out and write and put on a whole play. Something so fearless and foolish about that. Now I just do the bare minimum because I refused to accept this reality as mine. I keep waiting for something that will never come.

Yeah, I should probably move on to something else.

Take Your Kid to Work Day

So today was take your kid to work day, and Alex tagged along with me to work because we finally organized an event for this annual thing that has been going on for 23 years. Zoe had overdue assignments and since she needed to recognize that good grades equals rewards, she didn't go. Overall, it was a pretty good day because he got to do some CPR, play with some AEDs, and got to spend some time with me as well. It was actually a pretty sweet day because I got to spend some time with him, and he was having fun laughing at the various spillings of liquids on my black polo shirt that he had borrowed. The downside of today was the complete lack of productivity on my part. Between ducking in and out of those sessions, having a brand new laptop from work that isn't set up properly to do much of any work, and Mom needing me to fix the phone and scan some documents, I've barely gotten anything accomplished. I was under the false assumption that I would be able to do a little work from home before I realized that I had never really used this laptop to remote into work before. Even a little tweaking from the co-worker didn't help matters. There's so much to do and I'm crippled by my shiny new laptop which has no ODBC connections or remote functionality. I still haven't figured out what the hell is wrong with my old Nexus, but at least Mom has a working phone now. That's most of it right there, her having the means to communication. If the phone doesn't come back to life I'll just install the apps back on her old phone. Meanwhile I'm thinking if it does come back to life, I'd like to use one of the phones for Google Play Music again. Listening to the old songs on my iPod is ok, even though I end up skipping most of the oldies and weird music selections that I usually don't accommodate. Well, would like to type more but I'm pretty wound up right now. But damn, this is a good looking laptop with a crisp display. Just wished I could do some work on it.

Vegas 2012 (posting the draft)

We've been back for about a week now, and I still get back on routine. It feels as if as suddenly as I was placed in Vegas, I'm back in my old routine which feels foreign and not very exciting. But some very great memories came from this vacation. Here's are my highlights. I was going to do a top ten but felt like I would either have to inflate my list or reduce my list to fit the format, so here's to arbitrary lists in no particular order! The Beatles "Love" show. I didn't really know what to expect, but my expectations were certainly heightened. Elaine didn't even know that it was a Cirque du Soliel production until we were seated - she was under the impression that it was just four guys in wigs all along. Stepping into the theater, I was a little concerned about the nosebleed I would getting from the distance of the seats. The view seemed a little strange, obstructed and partitioned. Then the show started. There's a burst at the end of "Get Back" I think, when the stage literally explodes with action, light, and my heart just exploded right along with it. Tears just streamed out of my eyes because I was just overcome with emotion. Here was the music that I love and here were people who loved the music much more and had reimagined the song with a show. It was almost like seeing some odd alternative footage of the Beatles that I've never seen. I was listening to the album at work and it occurred to me that there were portions of songs whereby I don't even remember what happened on stage. I was just so entranced and elated that it was just a life event that took all the analysis out of me. AdventureDome We pretty much hit the midway and the AdventureDome throughout the week, but one of the days we got the kids wristbands because it would just end up costing entirely too much money to pay for each ride. The adults cheaped out since we weren't going on too many rides anyway, and half the rides would just be too small for the adults. The kids did their usual kiddy rides but Alex and Zoe actually braved the little roller coaster with smiles on their faces. It was by no stretch of the imagination a scary ride, but it was unexpectedly and uncharacteristically brave of them to pick the little coaster ride. In our eyes, they grew a little older that that. The lines were shorter as well, so they basically got off, and went back on again. Along with all the other stuffed animals they had won earlier, Circus Circus was truly a great choice for our family.

A Good A Time to Restart This Thing.

I think thinking about Tumblr to get more of an audience but really, the only person that I need to be writing is still myself. It's a therapeutic practice that allows me to express myself without feeling like a drone. But the trick of it really is to dive right back into the details that don't seem interesting - at least not for the time being. Years from now I'm sure that it'll be interesting. So here's the uninteresting bit of my life. The financial honeymoon has finally leveled out, and it's rather harsh. We are house poor, having sunk a lot of the savings into the house (ultimately a good thing, don't get me wrong) and having almost half my paycheck go toward mortgage every month. It's not like I can avoid it, if I wanted to stay in this area. It's just expensive having a 3 bedroom house with 2 dogs in the state of Washington. I bet the neighborhood has a lot to do with it. I am living in a fancier neighborhood than I deserve, but it's a good thing. I just have to worry about rich kids bumming my kids out with their privileges and iPhones. That isn't too bad of a thing. But back to the point. So when we moved in with my mom, we didn't pay rent - just the utilities, our food, and helped out whenever we could. The rent was covered, so we were doing ok. My mom started to push us out so that she could sell the house, and incidentally around the same time I got a much better paying position, so that was grand. Then my wife's stepmom passed and the inheritance came in, which helped with the repairs to my mom's house, and to get set up on our new house. But once we got a new car, paid toward the house, and took all the family to Disneyland, we're now back to level. There is no extra money floating around anymore. It's just what I earn, and what the wife earns. It's been harsh. Having to drastically alter our spending habits to be frugal again has been a tough lesson. We're recovering, but it's slow. The kids have changed in the few years I've stopped blogging as well. Currently the crisis is regarding the boy's attitude and the girl's motivation. Alex has been pretty good, keeping up with the homework to earn that screen time that he so desperately covets. He has to bear the injustice that his friends are able to play M rated games while good old Dad insists that he keeps to the Teen rating, unless he's playing with me. It's really not a real issue - I keep plenty of good games to keep him interested, but he wants what he can't have. The attitude comes about when we stand in the way of his video games - when he butts up against the rules because he's got a late assignment, or a grade below B. Then it's like a low grade conflict whereby he's passively upset that he doesn't get video games. He lashes out at my wife more than me, probably because he knows that beneath my mild irritation can be a furious hothead. It's not like I resort to hitting or demeaning him, but I do lay into him if I think he's having an attitude problem. But overall, he's doing well in school. He's trying hard to get my attention and I'm not trying hard enough to give it to him. I call it just clashing personalities. I don't know how girls are supposed to act, but I have an impression of how boys are supposed to act. And I have these incorrect expectations on him. It's not fair. I'm working on it. The girl has an interesting predicament in that she's not really indifferent when we're talking to her about late assignments - but her actions say exactly that. She had 11 late assignments over Spring Break, which she spend a good chunk of her time during Spring Break making up, and then proceeded to not hand in any of those assignments in the week she was back at school. It was just baffling. Like making a meal and then hiding it from others. It's elevated to my wife making Zoe write lines over and over again, how she should not hand in late assignments or something to that effect. I feel more distant with Zoe than I'd like, but she's just growing up. Needing me less. Getting interested in boys, as far as I can tell because she's chatting about them with Erica. The thing they never tell you about parenting is that keeping them alive is relatively easy, but making sure that they grow up to be responsible, humble, empathetic human beings is the hard part. And it's not even like they'll get rewarded for having non-selfish behavior. It just makes them better people overall. At least in my eyes.