A little glimpse of me.
Today's funny comes from my older son. His school is having a big concert this week and he had to go to school early this morning for a rehearsal. As we pulled up to the school, there were lots of parents dropping their kids off. My son commented about all of the "Orch dorks, choir freaks, and band geeks" that were still showing up.
"Orch dorks, choir freaks, and band geeks," or, as a friend commented when I told him about this, "my people!"
This very difficult week is finally over.
I've been under quite a bit of pressure at work. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that my product had gone Beta. Little did I know that there would be two more "refreshes" of this beta before it became official. So I was rushing to get a couple of features added during the last month. It went right down to the wire, but I actually got it done. This afternoon before I left work, I published all of the "beta" stuff and finally finished something that seems to have been hanging over my head for quite some time now. It's a good feeling.
Add to that the fact that tonight was opening night for the play that I'm in. That meant that this past week was "tech"week. We were in rehearsal every night from 6:30 until after 10:00. That left precious little time for anything other than sleep.
Most days this week consisted of:
Add to all of this the fact that my younger son was sick and my older son had parent-teacher conferences. It was NOT a fun week.
But the release is out and the opening went very well. The audience was responsive, and I'm VERY proud of how well my son did for his first time on stage. Incredibly proud. We went out for ice cream with the cast after the show.
I'm glad it's over though. It's time to sleep now.
Last night, I finally had some time to help my younger son with his iPod. He wanted to put some more movies on it. I didn't think that would be such a big deal.
When we connected his iPod to iTunes, it told us that there was a software update available. We decided to update his iPod software from 1.0.3 to 1.1. No big deal.
My son watched patiently as the update downloaded (we have a pretty darned slow DSL connection here) and it said that it was installing.
That's when his iPod died.
DEAD. Bricked. No response to anything. We tried the 5 r's on Apple's support site. It didn't respond AT ALL. Nothing.
The poor boy was in tears. I could only hug him and wipe away the tears and tell him that he did NOTHING wrong.
After he went to bed, I Googled and searched around on Apple's support site and put in a trouble ticket and almost made an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Gatweay. I fiddled and tried to reset it over and over and over. I got nothing but a small flash of something on the screen, then more blackness. I played with it until almost 1:00 in the morning. I woke up the next morning fretting about it and feeling terrible for him.
This afternoon, I looked a little closer at some discussion threads on Apple's support forums. It turns out that others were having the same problem directly after updating to version 1.1. Some of these "bricked" iPods actually seemed to "reset" themselves when left alone and unplugged. They finally ran completely out of battery and went through a cold boot process which woke them up again.
I put the "dead" iPod to my ear and heard a high-pitched sound coming from it. It was apparently still "on," just completely unresponsive. I told my son what I had read and we decided to just let it sit for 24 hours and see if it would come back.
A few minutes after he went to bed, he came running downstairs to tell me that his iPod had suddenly lit up in the blackness of his bedroom! We went up and got it and it was telling us to connect it to a power supply. After we connected it, the much-hoped-for Apple logo appeared, the update status bar came up, we watched the update happen, and his iPod came back from the brink. It's working perfectly again. My son is, understandably, having a hard time getting back to sleep because he's so excited and happy.
Lessons learned:
Last night was the end of an era in our household: We went to our last Pack Meeting.
My younger son received his "Arrow of Light" last night. He received it from a "Chief" that also presented him with an arrow made by a Native American.
This ends almost 6 years of Cub Scouts in our house. Next month, the younger son will be an 11-year-old Boy Scout. There's a saga that will continue for quite some time.
I'm not going to miss it... But it's yet another sign that my days as a parent with children at home are numbered. THAT makes me sad.
Friday night, we set up a tent in my sister-in-law's back yard to spend the night. They live in Wellsville, Utah, and it's rural-ish there, so we didn't fear for our lives, sleeping in a tent without a large buffer of untamed wilderness surrounding us.
Boy were WE wrong. We SHOULD have been fearing for our lives.
About bedtime, a little thunderstorm rolled through. No big deal. We fell asleep to the pitter-patter of rain on the tent, but it was a warm night and we weren't expecting a major storm to come through.
Around 1:30 in the morning, I was awoken by a (as far as I could tell) simultaneous flash and bang. The thunder had that strange, hollow-sounding echo of a nearby strike. This was the closest strike I can remember. Holy...
Apparently, kids sleep more soundly than adults. There were 5 adults and 8 children (ranging in age from less than a year old to 13 years old) camping out in 3 tents. All of the adults were instantly awake, hearts beating wildly, wondering when the next strike would happen. None of the kids remember the lightning or thunder. Many remember their anxious parents' reactions, but not the actual strike.
It was the one close strike of the night. If there would have been a second, I'm sure there would have been 5 adults and 8 children suddenly camping out in my sister-in-law's living room.
I just spent the weekend with 63 of my closest friends.
I hear mixed reviews of different family reunions. There's always the strange uncle that freaks people out or the tension between estranged family members. There's even a full-blown feud in some families.
Not in my family.
We spent the weekend together at the Red Moose Lodge in Eden, Utah. We were the only guests, so we basically had the place to ourselves. We stayed three nights and played and laughed and talked and cried together. It was a WONDERFUL weekend.
I'm so grateful to those who spent time planning and carrying out the different events. I'm grateful to those that managed and organized the finances to make the reunion possible. I'm mostly grateful to my family for being the people that they are because I truly feel blessed to be able to associate with such awesome people.
I'm grateful to my Dad for giving me life and for loving my mom. It's a great example for me to follow. I'm grateful to Uncle Tom for his teachings and wisdom, and to his family for the love that I always feel from them. I'm grateful to Bard for taking time to teach my sons to fence (swords, people, not stolen property) and to his family for being so boisterous and fun. I'm grateful to Margo for her stories and the huge smile on her face when she tells them, and to her family for their obvious love of life. I'm grateful to Lasca, who often feels like the big sister I never had, and to her family for their laughter and for being good examples to my sons.
It's been six years since we all got together, and there have been a lot of changes in the last six years, but we seemed to pick right back up where we left off when we left each other last time. We've done fun things at past reunions: Disneyland, San Diego Wild Animal Park, Broadway shows, Tournament of Roses parades, Sea World, Trolley Tours of San Diego... But this reunion was my favorite so far, because we had each other, a room to meet in, a pool, and lots of time to visit. There were several activities planned, but for the most part, the activities brought us all together instead of splitting us up into groups and families. Instead of running ourselves ragged at theme parks or on tours, we spent the time visiting and getting to know each other so much better. We laughed a ton. We ate a ton. We grew closer together.
I thought that this reunion might not be as good as ones in the past with larger activities planned, but strangely enough, this one was better because I think we spent more time connecting to each other, forging and strengthening family bonds. In the end, that's the most important thing that we could be doing anyway. Don't get me wrong... the other stuff was fun and exciting, and I wouldn't give up those experiences either, but this reunion was my favorite because I got to know my family a little better.
Highlights of the weekend for me:
I'm sad it's over. But I've renewed my desire to keep in touch with family and to try to get together with many of them before the next reunion in three years. I truly count my family members as friends. I really DID spend the weekend with 63 of my closest friends.
I just might be the strange cousin, though, so if you're reading someone else's review of this family reunion, maybe you're getting a different version of events.
It's strange to me to think that I have a teenager.
A TEENAGER!!
My oldest son turned thirteen years old on Saturday. I remember being thirteen years old. I remember becoming a teenager. I remember how old and grown-up I felt at the time, yet how young and vulnerable I felt at the same time.
My early teenage years sucked. My family moved on my 12th birthday. It was a much nicer home in a MUCH nicer neighborhood. It meant going to a new grade school for sixth grade. On my first day at the new school, one of the sixth grade teachers at the new school made fun of my name in front of his class. That set the tone of sixth grade. I hated going to school. I hated interacting with people. I hated life.
The teasing and taunting that I had to endure in sixth grade intensified during seventh grade. One fellow student made up a song, Toughskin Fever, (to the tune of Pac Man Fever) that made fun of my fashion sense, or lack thereof. I couldn't help it if we didn't have the money for designer clothing. There was really nothing I could do about that.
Life got worse as a bully found that I was an easy target and that I would not defend myself. He sat directly behind me in English class and made me lean far enough to the side during tests so he could copy my answers. During one test, I deliberately answered every question wrong, but put a key on the bottom corner of the test: a=b, b=c, c=d, and d=a. I got a 98% on the test. He got a 2%. I got pounded for that one.
I had very few friends and I didn't know how to find or make friends. I withdrew from pretty much every personal relationship in my life, because most of them caused emotional pain. I didn't like people. I didn't want to get to know them. It wasn't worth the pain.
Somehow, between Junior High School and High School, things changed. I grew 11 inches, got a job, bought nicer clothes and contact lenses, and left behind any people I knew from Junior High. I started making new friends (mostly through band). I FINALLY began to figure things out socially. Somehow, I became a people person and have been one ever since.
Things could not be more different for my teenage son. He started out his Junior High experience knowing VERY few people, and because he was in the advanced orchestra, he had lunch with almost all eighth and ninth graders. But a couple of weeks into his Junior High experience, a group of girls came and sat with him at his lunch table and included him in their group. That experience did as much for him in a positive way as the sixth grade teacher did for me in a negative way. He began to look forward to going to school and he began to develop socially.
He's a really good son. He's smart and is nearly getting straight A's. He is thriving socially. This morning, I had to track him down in his school cafeteria and he was sitting with a group of boys, completely included in their conversation. I stood and watched him for a minute or two, talking and laughing. My heart leapt with joy as I saw him in a situation I wouldn't have imagined being in when I was his age--talking and joking with friends. He is extremely talented, playing the violin VERY well. He has a gift that I sometimes envy: perfect pitch. He's very witty. He makes me laugh and he gets my jokes, even if they sometimes are too geeky or too punny for his taste. He's growing spiritually as well as he searches for and recognizes the influence of the Holy Ghost in his life.
Yet I know that there are some difficult times ahead. Even though I was the child that a friend of our family said my dad "couldn't mess up if he tried," few knew of the inner struggles I had as I tried to find myself. He's headed into those kinds of struggles too quickly. He's probably more ready for the roller coaster ride of teenager-hood than I am for him to go through it. But comforting to me is the fact that we usually get along with each other. We have a good relationship. I'm always hoping and praying that this relationship continues to be good and that I can help him through the rough road ahead and that I can rejoice with him in his triumphs and achievements.
Most of all, I love him. I always will, no matter what.
A couple of months ago, my younger son took a test. It was a BIG, MEAN test, especially for a fourth grader. It was a three-hour-long test. He was testing to see if he could be accepted into the school district's Accelerated Learning Lab program.
He knew then that if he was accepted and decided to do it, he would have to change schools for fifth and sixth grades. He didn't know if he really wanted to do that. So we told him that he should do the best he could on the test. If they offered him placement in the program, he didn't necessarily have to accept the placement. There were HUNDREDS of kids there testing. Literally.
Yesterday, he received a letter in the mail informing him that he's being offered placement!
As his dad, it's nothing but exciting for me. I'm extremely poud of him. I'm excited that he, among hundreds of applicants, did well enough to be placed in the program. I'm excited about the idea that he'll be more challenged and less bored in school.
But this is a big deal to a fourth grader. It's a HUGE big deal. The poor guy could hardly sleep last night.
Today, we drove over to what would become his new school and walked around it. We've been talking with him about all of the ramifications of going into this program. But we've told him that in the end, it's HIS decision. We're going to encourage him to take the placement, and he's even told us that he's pretty sure he's going to do it. But even if he decides not to do it, I'll be proud of him.
On Saturday, I rode 25 miles with some boy scouts. Well, TWO boy scouts: my son and one other.
About 7 miles into the ride we had a close call. A man driving a van didn't see my son. He pulled out of a parking lot and clipped my son's back tire. Fortunately, my son was watching what was going on and did everything he could to avoid getting run over. The back of his bike got knocked about a foot sideways, but there was no damage to either bike or to son.
The van just kept on going. I don't think he even realized what he had done.
If I had been closer, I would have chased him down and given him a piece of my mind.
I ended up having to hug my son and hold him close to me while the tears came spilling out of his eyes. I'm sure he didn't want to cry in front of the other boy scout, but the experience freaked him out and the tears helped him relieve the stress of the experience.
It was just the beginning of a ride that didn't go well at all for him, but I'm very proud of him. Despite the problems, he finished the ride.
My older son got the full treatment today at the orthodontist.
The picture isn't great... I think I caught him mid-blink and it's with a little cellular telephone camera, but it gives you a good idea.
He'll be a lot less happy later today when his mouth starts to ache. They say that he'll be tender for a week or so. He'll probably have me wrapped around his little finger for a little while.
To top it all off, he's going through this big change right after the big change of starting Junior High. That's already caused some worries and some tears, but in all honesty, I think he's already doing a lot better than I did when I started Junior High.
When I think of him, I can't help but feel loved. He's a wonderful son.
