Stephen's Life Blog

Planners Must Speak for the Disadvantaged

2011-11-28T13:00:00.001-06:00

Quotation from Dwight H. Merriam, FAICP - former president of APA.

The planner's clients, Merriam said, "are the poor, they are the disenfranchised, they are people who live far away but wish to be our neighbors, they are the old, they are the young, they are the people working two and three jobs who have no time to go to public hearings or run a blog, they are the people who need our help in processing and applying complex information, they are the generations not yet born, they are the people who will live on this earth 50 years and 100 years and 200 years and 500 years from now."

Just Give It a Rest

2011-11-21T12:46:00.001-06:00

A city I used to work for announced this week that they need an overhaul of their tree preservation ordinance after studying the issue for over eighteen months. I think that's great. The previous three that I had worked on there had been diluted and not implemented to such a degree that they weren't going to get the goals of the program accomplished.

The goals were simple: Save big, healthy trees. Preserve wetland areas. Focus on original Cross Timbers Old Growth Forests. Design new development in such a way so as to save trees rather than plant new ones.

But, you could pay your way out of doing this. Paying a fee cost less than paying for a designer, an arborist and an engineer to look at best way to design around trees.

So the committee has new goals - which sound similar to the old goals, but with a new mission to implement them with a new ordinance.

The problem comes from the "don't touch my property" nutjobs out there.

Really?

For once and for all give it a rest. The invisible hand of economics saying that if you let the market dictate - then the altruism of the market will save us from ourselves has been thoroughly slapping us in the face for the past three years and was digging out our wallets prior to that.

Regulations on design and preservation must be part of the development process. Otherwise we will grade our land to look like the endless wastes of the inner city interstate system. There will be no places. Only commerce. There will be no shade or habitat. Only vast stretches of turf and concrete. One generating more heat, the other sucking down water we can't afford to raise a crop we harvest once a week and throw away.

Arguments against regulations are like asking for the government to leave only you alone and bother everyone else. You are not special. Your property - for how much it is worth - is not unique and special. We all have to live with rules. You live with the regulations of a City and pay the City taxes because you enjoy the amenities that a City brings. Paved roads. Sidewalks. Street lights governing traffic. Police protection. Fire protection. Ordered and managed water and wastewater systems so we don't drown in a cesspool of our own making. Your trash is taken away somewhere you don't have to look at it. You play on the recreation fields and shop in the stores that are close by because the City worked hard to make sure they are there instead of going down the road by thirty miles.

We live in a managed and ordered society by our own tacit agreement. Your freedoms are not being taken away. Your freedom is to leave at anytime. Our freedom is to make sure that there are such things as Cross Timbers Old Growth Forest to be preserved for the future. That is what marks a great society instead of a selfish one.

Time-Space Synaesthesia

2011-08-04T11:17:00.000-06:00

Remember this post: Time That was written in 2006. In it, I described my ability to visualize time. Recently however, I've been able to place that ability into some perspective. In 2009, some researchers in Scotland have been able to test for this ability and label it as a form of Synaesthesia. Roughly defined, its is a neurological condition in which regions of the brain may have a hyper connectivity resulting in multiple senses intertwined and mixed. Almost 54 types of these conditions have been noted and researched.

But we're here to talk about time. This article: The Cognitive Benefits of Time-Space Synaesthesia summarizes the research and also makes some connections to other visualization abilities which I have including internal mapping and the ability to visualize two dimensional drawings in three dimensional space.

Like the subject of the article, I visualize my location within a frame of reference. If I'm thinking of Sunday then across the divide is Wednesday/Thursday. I do have a heightened ability to remember events in my life and have significant recall of very specific items within that event, however I am not hyperthymestic. I cannot have total recall of everything which occured on a particular day. I remember enough as it is. Further information clogging up the bandwidth would be too much.

Nothing is Quite What is Seems - In the City of Dreams

2011-08-04T10:58:00.000-06:00

It is not easy explaining the impressive heat to a four year old who wants to go outside and play in the park. We have to change our language to fit the situation as it is presented to us. Our vocabulary must, by necessity change in order for us to be first, understood - and then to impart some comprehension to the four year old. This ability we as a communicative species to change our language must be able to be scaled to any other situation. Professional jargon, sports, spontaneous discussions of minutia. How do we filter it all and present it cognitively to others?

Longest Period Off in Five Years

2011-07-14T14:54:00.000-06:00

Hello there blogsphere (or at least anyone at all interested in what I write). It's been seven months since my last post on here and it seems like a lifetime has passed. Since January, I've been to Boston and Maine; I've worked many, many hours in both my primary job and my consulting work; and we're now only weeks away from having a third son. All of this is exciting in its own way I suppose, but it can be rather overwhelming.

My best accomplishment in the past several months was last Saturday cleaning the entire house and having it ready for friends to come over. I'm not as completely OCD as many people - I've mellowed out quite a bit from college where I would freak out over classwork and clean my apartment until 2am because it was something I could control.

I don't require complete order in the house - but there comes a time when I need some amount of order or I start to go a little anxious. The best way I can describe the feeling is claustrophobia. I also get anxious when there are too many things stacked on top of other things - and when I reach for something - the whole lot comes tumbling down.

But the house is clean now.

at least relatively so.

Baby report is that he's head down now after several weeks breech loaded. We talked with the midwife and I was not comfortable with having a home birth with a breech baby. I've been pretty in line with the homebirth experience - but if there is risk of cutting off of oxygen to the baby during delivery (pinched cord, cord wrapped around neck) I'm not willing to risk it.

We went to Austin, just Meredith and I a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time the two of us had left the guys with someone else overnight since Alexander was born seven and a half years ago. We went to Bookpeople, Austin Books and Comics, Whole Foods, swimming at Barton Springs; ate at Kerbey Lane, Opal Devine's Freehouse and had a fantastic brunch at Moonshine Bar and Grill on Sunday. We went driving Sunday afternoon and toured around the west side of Austin, along Scenic Drive, FM 2222, Spicewood Springs and Anderson Mill. We would love to move to Austin in the future. We'll get there sometime.

The Worry Switch

2011-01-28T15:31:00.000-06:00

If I could have a super power it wouldn't be anything like heat vision or flying or superstrength. It would be the ability to turn off my inner brain which obsesses over worrying.

Developing Purpose and Vision

2010-12-23T13:27:00.000-06:00

Approximately six years ago I took a training course for Planning Directors which was led by Paul Zucker, a planning consultant out of California. One of his visioning processes asks several questions which I don't think I've fully fleshed out. I thought that today I would finally write out some of my honest answers to these and see where it leads me.

What mission in life absolutely obsesses you?

The constant struggle to provide order out of chaos. Classification, cataloging and bringing defined space to an entropic world.

What is your dream about your work?

I dream about working with a team of uniquely innovative designers, planners and policy makers which would teach me techniques, technology and provide me with challenges to provide housing, recreation and public space that people would recognize and enjoy for generations.

About what do you have a burning passion?

I have a burning passion to learn more about architecture and design and the integration of the white space between buildings. Ever since Environmental Design classes at Texas A&M University where we attempted to examine why people behave in certain built environments, it's been a passion of mine to seek out those places which allow people to natrually inhabit without feeling claustrophobic or false. I would love produce a social demographic study of these spaces and produce a metric indicator showing why its economically, socially and environmentally sustainable to create these places.

What work do you find absorbing, involving, enthralling?

I enjoy teaching others about planning and why having a holistic interdisiplinary viewpoint to the built environment can lead to exciting and nuanced experiences for people.

What is your personal agenda? What do you want to prove?

Diversity is not an enemy. Caring about the welfare of people, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties is important (via JFK) and that everyone has a right to inhabit places which are safe, comfortable and sustainable.

How would you describe the ultimate objective for your organization?

To provide service equitably among the population of the City.

If you overhear a conversation about your team one year/two years/three years down the road, what do you want people to be saying about us?

They have moved the community from a reactive suburb to a proactive redevelopment community. They have engaged the local population, involved challenging ideas and produced high, but achievable expectations. They work compassionately, throroughly, and with great humor and aplomb.

What would it be like around here if you were really excited about coming to work every day?

I would have the technology and the training for me to use it. I wouldn't have to be always making the "workaround" acheive my goals. Projects would be assigned with enough resources and support to involve dedicated individuals from multiple departments.

If you could create the ultimate work environment, how would you describe it?

It would look something like this:

What would we be doing that would have you excited about being a part of it?

We would be conducting the initial data gathering for a comprehensive city plan. Not a new land use plan, but a managed growth and redevelopment plan. The new economic paradigm doesn't foresee growth in unplanned sprawl events anymore. Infill and redevelopment which are tied to the market demand on an area are the driving forces. The plan would identify (through public involvement and city stakeholder involvement) a set of indicators which could be used to measure whether or not the plan and the subsequent implementation policies derived from the plan are working. Therefore, very specific points can be shown that the policies implemented are achieving the success desired.

What does your ideal organization look like?

Multi-talented, diverse and team oriented, rather than top-down management. Director - first of equals and maintains vision, direction and final veto. City Council, Planning and Zoning Commission are involved specifically as facilitators of the process in order to promote buy-in and to help demonstrate the necessity of unified vision, values and policies needed to provide implementation direction.

The Beginning of the Journey

2010-08-24T22:38:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow night, Alexander and I will begin reading The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. We read The Hobbit almost a year and a half ago. I remember reading the series for the first time when my friend Rusty Thrower gave them to me when I was in Elementary School. I read them again in High School when I was working at Six Flags and once again during the summer working for Delta Air Lines during college. I always would take an evening shift and come home around midnight or so. Since it was difficult to get to sleep, I'd make a sandwich, listen to some Patrick O'Hearn music and read the books. The music is so ingrained with reading the stories for me that I will most likely put some tapes in the deck upstairs and listen to the music as I read them aloud to Alex. We just finished The Princess Bride last night.

Getting a Ticket

2010-08-12T12:08:00.000-06:00

Insert "RANT MODE" here.

Yesterday afternoon I received a speeding ticket going to an appointment. It was for going 44 MPH in a 30 MPH zone. The officer was friendly and to be honest, quick in his citation writing. I have no complaints about him at all. I have three complaints however with the City I received the ticket in however.

Arterial roads with 30 MPH speed limits. The Texas Department of Transportation sets speed limits on roads by measuring the speed of vehicles travelling down the road. It takes the 85th percentile of those speeds and then sets the limit. The limit may be modified up to 5 MPH above or below the 85th percentile. This way the road is driven according to its function. The road I was on in is a functional class minor arterial. There are numerous collector roads from the surrounding subdivisions that feed into the road. It is a link in the frankly dysfunctional east/west arterial system of the City. Only three roads within the City Limits travel completely through the City without a disconnection. Two other disconnected roads fill a 2.5 mile gap between two of the major arterials. There is a significant amount of population living within that 2.5 mile gap. This situation shows a lack of ability and will to adequately finance and construct arterial roads through the City. Only now is one of the primary arterials being widened through - there are two major sections which have not been widened at this point - (both in the City which I received my ticket). My point being - more functional arterials = greater mobility = faster (but not unsafe) speeds through the community.
The police vehicle which pulled me over was a Ford Expedition with no discernible markings whatsoever. While, I'm not debating the fact that a police force should be able to have unmarked vehicles - using them for the sole purpose of traffic control is primarily a revenue generator and not speed enforcement. A marked police car sitting at the same point on the road would "show force" that the City means business about the 30 MPH speed limit on that street. I would have double checked my speed instead of driving quickly to my appointment. I would have complied. No problem. I make a mistake in front of an unmarked car and immediately I owe $175 to the City. There is a difference between enforcement and revenue. It works in Code Enforcement - my department will issue a notice of violation - a "hey watch what you're doing" and provide you an opportunity to comply prior to issuance of a citation. A marked police car does the same thing. I honestly didn't know I was going over the speed limit. I fully realize that - but I'm not given the opportunity to correct my actions prior to punishment for infraction because the City is in a revenue mode.
The final issue I have is the Municipal Court. I got up this morning, read the information on the back of my citation and headed to the Municipal Court to receive my paperwork to begin the process of defensive driving. The citation clearly states that I would lose all privileges of defensive driving if I don't contact the Court prior to the deadline written on the citation. There is not anywhere listed on the citation that I have to wait four to five days prior to contacting the Court to allow the citation to be entered into the computer. So I arrive at 8:00am (by the way, the citation states the office hours are M-F 8:00am to 4:30pm - the sign on the door says 7:00am - ugh, I'm late to work for this?) and I arrive to find out that my citation written a day earlier is not in the system and they can't get my paperwork together to allow me to pay my administrative costs and begin to get the ticket dismissed. I'll have to come back next week. I'm attempting to be a model citizen by doing my diligence in getting things accomplished and this is how I'm treated. Again, my community has automated ticket writing instruments which allow officers to write tickets, print a citation to the defendant and the information is transmitted wirelessly to the primary computer server and entered into the system. The City in which I received the citation has a contract for police enforcement with an adjacent smaller city - does the smaller city know they have a substandard system?

Again this is not a rant against the Police Officer who issued me a ticket (other than his bad handwriting which is almost impossible to read on the triplicate form he gave me) but against the system of management set up in the City which allows these things to occur. Better roads designed for higher (but safe speeds); marked police cars for traffic enforcement to ensure safety and compliance instead of punishment; and the utilization of technology to allow the necessary bureaucracy to function on a more efficient basis. These things make a better community - instead of one where form over function seems to be the course of order.

Oklahoma Trip

2010-08-06T11:00:00.002-06:00

We had a lovely time in Oklahoma. We stayed at the Sheraton Downtown - which was much nicer than many people posted on review websites. It was especially nice since we paid Priceline.com prices for it.

We arrived in town on Friday July 23rd in the early afternoon - I was surprised by the shortness of the trip. I had thought it would take longer. Driving to Austin is much more harrowing. We checked into the hotel and went for a (hot) walk around the Bricktown area just adjacent to the downtown.

Bricktown was originally a storage warehousing district located adjacent to the conjunction of railroad lines at the southeast corner of downtown. It was named Bricktown because of the proliferation of red brick structures. In 1993 a public referendum allowed economic development funding through taxes and bond sales for the redevelopment of the district. The plan was to create a multi-use entertainment district centered around a minor league baseball park. Additional effort was placed to create a link throughout the district by way of a canal. The canal, constructed below street grade allows for pedestrianism separated from the streets and a brief respite from the driving heat of the day. Water taxi boats ride up and down the canal.

Primarily composed of restaurants - there is little retail - the area felt a little abandoned on an early Friday night. Most of the restaurants are not especially geared towards families and more to adults - which is fine. I did overhear conversations that the place gets really crowded on baseball game nights and post 8:00pm weekends. Sonic corporate headquarters is located there as well as a large movie theater. Very little housing is located in the district - which to my jaundiced eye makes me wonder about it's long-term sustainability.

We ate at a restaurant overlooking the baseball field and then went back to the hotel for swimming in the small, but adequate pool. Alexander found a friend to play with and Ford was fascinated that he could touch the bottom of the pool. There was a lot of wind that evening which was nice. We sat and watched the cranes building the new Devon Energy building - which from what I understand will be in the top 30 tallest buildings in the United States.

Saturday morning we met our friends Connie, Heather, Ali and Drew and their son Gibson at the Oklahoma Zoo. The zoo is rather large in acreage. I think it is larger than the Fort Worth Zoo. We had a terrific time. My favorite part was feeding the parakeets nectar in the bird enclosure. I had at one time five sitting on my arms and shoulders. The birds freaked Alexander and Ford slightly - so we went to the petting area where they were able to pet sheep and goats.

The guys thoroughly enjoyed the bats and nocturnal creatures area, Grizzly Bears and the gorillas.

After lunch we parted with Connie and her family and went to the Science Museum right next door to the Zoo. All of us (including Ford) were able to ride Segways. Alexander and Ford climbed up a two story treehouse; Alex enjoyed working a robotic arm and lying on a bed of nails.

That evening, we went to the Thomas' home in Yukon and had a great dinner and friendship conversation. The guys played Wii and we enjoyed the company.

Sunday we checked out of the hotel and went to the Oklahoma National Monument - the park setting at the location of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The area affected Meredith quite considerably. She was moved by the chairs and the reflecting pond. I was interested in the design and decisions made to incorporate the reality of the terroristic act into the space and the reclamation of the space integrating into the downtown. There is a open plaza in front of the museum in which sidewalk chalk is provided for children to draw on specially provided sidewalk areas. It was haunting in the warm morning air with church bells ringing and echoing through the downtown.

Later we went back to Bricktown to ride the water taxi through the canal system and then ate some terrific barbecue. Alexander and Ford shared a smoked bologna sandwich which was testing their boundaries a bit.

We drove south and made a quick tour of the University of Oklahoma in Norman. I quite liked the way the campus was part of the southern area of town. I didn't see the level of private development surrounding the campus that I've seen around Texas A and M and the University of Texas, however.

That afternoon we arrived in Davis and checked into our hotel/cabin area near Turner Falls. We drove up to the lookout over the falls and finalized our decision that we didn't want to go there - it looked extremely crowded and a little dirty. We did drive over to the Chickasaw National Park in Sulphur, OK and drove through several of the park areas. Free to access, there were several areas on the creek areas which were small waterfall areas and lots of families swimming. We checked out the Junior Ranger Station were Alex and Ford made paper lizards and received their workbooks that once finished, would allow them to receive badges and patches declaring them "official" junior park rangers.

We went to the nature center to begin filling the workbooks; watched a short film about the park, and then walked up a 3/4 mile trail to one of the original natural springs which fed the creeks in the area. Sulphur gets its name from the more sulphur/bromide springs which come from the lower rock formations and aquifers in the area. Each of the remaining five springs in the area has a different mixture of minerals in the water coming from the different geologic strata. Each week, the park service tests the waters for ecoli and other biologics to assure the quality of water for swimming and for drinking - as many people come to the area to fill water bottles of the stuff. The water coming out of the ground is approximately 68 degrees so it was gloriously cold in the heat of the afternoon.

We went back to the cabin and had a light dinner and watched movies anticipating our big day of swimming.

Monday at 9:00 am we arrived back at the national park. We had a waterfall called "Little Niagra" all to ourselves for over an hour. We stayed there walking over the waterfalls climbing up the side of the boulders placed there 70 years previously. The water was cold, but it was fantastic. I took to occasionally jumping off of the waterfall into the 7'+ deep pool underneath. It was fun watching others arriving at the creek and taking their first steps into the cool water and then making the plunge.

We eventually convinced Alex to jump into the water with me from the waterfall. He said afterwards that the best part was jumping - the worst part was landing in the cold water.

Later we loaded back into the car and drove south to look at the rest of the national park area and went to a swimming /picnic area on a point in the Lake of the Arbuckles. All of us got into the lake which was much warmer in comparison to the creeks. The lakebed was very stony and we all had fun dredging up rocks from underneath our feet and tossing them across the surface of the water. There was much teaching of the proper size and shape of skipping stones and the correct angle they should be thrown in.

That evening we showered and went to Ardmore for dinner. Looking around, we settled on Two Frogs near the interstate and had a terrific cajun dinner. Ford ate a child's plate of fettucini alfredo which was almost the size of his head.

Afterwards we drove through a thunderstorm back to the cabin and saw a full double rainbow. We ate fried pies and went to bed.

Tuesday we packed up and drove completely around Lake Murray. I was disappointed with the lodge, as my memory had it as a much nicer place. It was fairly run-down and had a musty smell. The privately-owned play area was very expensive for the time and activities they had. We climbed to the top of the tower on the lake and took pictures.

We arrived back home a little afternoon and had lunch at our favorite steak place in Roanoke. For a small vacation, we were able to do a lot of stuff and were happy with going to Oklahoma City that we want to make a return trip to see some of the other museums and activities. Chickasaw National Park will be a definite return trip as well.

Going to Oklahoma

2010-07-21T18:45:00.000-06:00

We will be going to Oklahoma City on Friday. This will be an adventure in of itself. It will be somewhere none of us have been (for me, many years) and we're not going to be visiting any immediate family members. We're going to see some long-time family friends. Their oldest daughter is exactly my age minus one hour. I've always thought that was a cool thing - to know someone almost your exact age. Growing up - I used to think of her as a twin sister that I knew about but didn't get to grow up with. I haven't seen her since we were quite young. So, its an adventure unto itself.

We're planning on going to the Zoo, the Science Museum, the Memorial downtown and Bricktown during our two days there. We're also going to stay a couple of evenings in Davis, OK and go to the Chickasaw Nation National Park and go swimming in the waterfalls they have there.

On the way back we might stop at Lake Murray and check out the lake and cabins for a possible future camping trip.

"The purity of our surrender will fascinate them. They will conclude that we looked into the abyss... and decided that we liked what we saw in there."

2010-07-12T12:44:00.000-06:00

James Kunstler's usual hyperbole is watered down today. I can see the image he visualizes more clearly now.

The Cycle of Self-Destruction

2010-07-06T08:05:00.000-06:00

It's come to this. I can't ignore the facts that are staring me in the face. I've attempted to write in this space about my thoughts about things in particular, planning and life and not dwell on my own failings and insecurities but I have got to kick myself in the butt to do something.

I awoke at 3am last night with both of my arms sore from laying on them, my feet sore from standing during the day supporting a weight I'm uncomfortable walking around with. I have blood glucose issues that are controlled well with diet and meds but those cause me to have miserable digestive distress that I quickly "take a break" which extends through a weekend filled with indulgences, excuses and regrets.

266. Eight pounds heavier than when I restarted last week. All from one weekend. I'm killing myself slowly. I fear what I'm doing to myself - which leads to anger and hatred of myself - which leads to paranoia and anxiety of what others probably think of me - which then leads to additional self-loathing because I feel that comes across as arrogance to think that anyone cares that much - which then leads to additional anger at myself for the self-pitying useless wretch that I've become at this point.

I'm hampered by indecision and bound by guilt. Guilt of spending too much money, guilt of not spending enough, of wasting time and working too hard. Of overthinking too many things and not thinking enough. Of focusing on the details and missing the view and of wiping it down and thinking it done. Of depending too much on others and not delegating enough.

I'm ready to rend myself into two. Need a Me(2) to accomplish the projects and allow the time to relax. I'm not claiming that what I'm feeling is anything special or unique or even worthwile mentioning. It is important to me because this is what is happening to me right now and failing to do anything about it is my own damn fault.

For the last time...

2010-06-16T14:58:00.000-06:00

Ok, here's the real deal.

I am tired of seeing people use the following terms incorrectly. There are always comments about our government that we're living in socialism etc. I was once called a communist and a fascist in the same meeting. How could that be possible? Here's my distilled primer:

Communism = bad; dictorial; oppressive; murdered millions of people; far left

Socialism = not necessarily bad but can be misused; on the left; higher involvement of government in society to ensure equal access to services outside of the market's ability.

Liberalism = not bad; on the left; progressive; higher defense of civil rights and civil liberties; cares about the welfare of people and ideas.

Conservativism = not bad; on the right; traditional; higher defense of individual over the collective; higher defense of capitalism and free market.

Libertarianism = not necessarily bad, but difficult to implement; reduction or removal of government from most activities; prides the individual over the collective; swings both left and right based on other philosophies; may be mixing with anarchists.

Tea party = not necessarily bad, but incredibly misinformed; possibly insane; on the right and leaning further. Not enough cohesion to address or solve anything.

Fascist = bad; may include references to Nazi's; National socialism (which is different from actual socialism); reactionary; dictorial; murdered millions of people; far right.

Action and Reaction

2010-05-28T08:48:00.001-06:00

Never before in my life have I felt more incapable of making changes for the betterment of others. Its amazing how bad the economy really is for most people. I've got a friend who was not joking when he told me that he's worried about food purchases. Fort Worth is $77M in the red, Dallas is $130M in the red. My City, while not that extreme is looking at further cuts in budget, examining tax increases and possibly the reduction in services. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that I'm employed and have something useful to contribute to the community - but reading on a daily basis our societal inability to course correct enough to help more people really gets me down.

Our current administration was built on the Hope for a Change. Processes continue to be slow - accountability for those who are at fault remains ineffective especially for the clean up efforts in the Gulf.
Courtesy and basic human politeness had deteriorated to such a degree in personal interaction as to be non-existant.
News media have de-evolved from bringing concise, important information to tabolid trivia and sensationalistic gossip and conjecture.
We react to problems rather than act toward solutions.

That has been my struggle with being on the left of many policy and social aspects of life. The progressive norm has been to point out the evils of injustice and inequality. Solutions have been few and far between. Many of the solutions proposed and implemented are variants of the compromise with the status quo - rather than making wholesale change. I have attempted in my job to point out the problems - but have brought forward a variety of solutions. Unfortunately, many solutions depend on the efforts of others either disinterested, frightened, or unwilling to make the change.

As a pronouced futurist, one who was always looking as to what will happen in the next week, month and decade - it has become harder for me to envision a holistic atmosphere of improvement. Even the small increments of positive change have become slogs through mire - unfunded directions to do more with less resources, less time, and ultimately less results.

I've been known to be risk-adverse. I like to plan and come up with alternatives and solutions prior to problems occuring - but as the past year and a half has shown in my own life decisions, if pressed I can make a sea change - stick with my principles and live with the results. Subsequent actions by others in my previous job have shown that this was the best move forward for me.

On the other hand however - QuikTrip is offering $0.49 32oz soft drinks again. So that's a happy.

"Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline." - R.E.M.

Pardon the Interruption

2010-05-11T09:15:00.000-06:00

It's been almost four months since I've posted to this blog. In that time I've started and stopped diets three times. I've restarted again this time using Livestrong.com as my calorie counter, exercise log and it will even track my glucose levels - that is if I keep up entering them.

In the past several months we've gone to my sister's wedding, had a really nice time at a high school friend's housewarming party and had Meredith's parents stay with us for a week. Alexander and Ford had a program at their school for Fathers in which they had myself and both grandfathers attend - which was special.

This summer is getting booked up with Vacation Bible Schools (three at last count); swimming lessons; and other things. Goals I want from the summer:

Go on vacation. We're thinking about going to Oklahoma for vacation. Turner Falls for two nights and two nights in Oklahoma City. Later in the late summer (September timeframe) we might go to Galveston for a long weekend.
Do some outdoor movies in the backyard.
Have a party (just because)
Get an estimate on redoing the kitchen (wallpaper, countertops, refinish cabinets and doors.
Get new tires for the Accord.

I Wish I Could Rant Like This:

2010-01-20T13:53:00.000-06:00

From a conversation on The Huffington Post with Andres Duany:

"Duany began by identifying three concurrent crises that he traced directly to the American lifestyle: Peak oil (the likelihood that we've already consumed more than half the planet's petroleum in barely 100 years), the housing bubble, and global climate change. "It's where we live, the size of our houses, the distances we drive for work, commerce, play--everything."

And it's all a vicious circle. The reason our houses are so big (and inefficient), he says, is because we have eliminated a healthy civic life. We build homes with giant foyers because we have no public squares. We need media rooms because it's not easy or pleasant to drive to a multiplex theater, cross a parking lot through an ocean of cars, and pay a fortune for popcorn. We build bars in our basements because there are no neighborhood pubs. We have giant refrigerators and ever-growing storage needs because shopping is both far away and unpleasant (hello, Costco). The result? We heat and air-condition unused rooms in oversized unpleasant houses. And because our home bars and foyers are empty and our media experiences private, we're lonely, to boot."

Here's the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-bauer/american-suburbia-vs-the_b_426989.html

Wish I Could

2009-12-31T17:10:00.000-06:00

Wish I could:

say the truth in all things.
end the negative and retain the positive.
relax.
stop the internal struggle against entropy.
lose the weight.
finish this senten....

South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee 2009 Day Seven

2009-11-28T14:17:00.002-06:00

Friday was awash in sunshine. A bit cold perhaps, but not the threatening weather we had thought. Driving north through Spartanburg and approaching the Mountains was a treat for us an the guys, who had never seen real mountains before. Ford kept asking where the mountains were for the first couple of hours.

Because of the rock fall on top of Interstate 40 at the Tennessee / North Carolina border, we had planned an alternate route north of the Interstate through the French Broad River valley. Meredith of course loved the term and thought of every opportunity for me to keep seeking out my French Broad.

We stopped for an hour or so in Asheville, NC. This is the Austin of Appalachians. Lots of trendy restaurants, bars, hipster places - so hipster that by accident, we wandered into a head shop called "Wonderland". One would think that a statue of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland would have been a big hint...so we enjoyed looking at the tie-dyed t-shirts.

We walked along Church Ave and came about back to the main city center right along a 1967 London double-decker bus. The bus had been put into a parcel of land (permitted as a mobile food vendor) for a coffee shop. You buy your coffee on the first level and can sit outside or on the second deck. They had to use a crane to place the bus in its current location. Meredith enjoyed their coffee.

I thoroughly enjoyed the landscape architecture of the public park surrounding the civic structures of the City and County buildings. We will be coming back to Asheville. Next time - to see the Biltmore Estate.

Taking the Dixie Hwy northeast to Tennessee turned out to be our best decision yet this trip. There was lots of mountains and valleys to look at, nice roads that wound through the trees. Small towns including Hot Springs, NC on the Appalachian Trail (we're coming back there also) and opportunities to ride white water rafting along the French Broad River.

Reaching Tennessee, we headed to the southeast towards Gatlinburg, TN. There were lots of RV camping and cabin rentals along the way. Reaching Gatlinburg, we found a public parking space and began walking through the main drag of the City. Gatlinburg can only be described as a cross between a Carnival Midway and Bourbon Street in New Orleans. T-shirt shops, candy stores, mini-golf, barkers, street performers, people smoking and lo, the literally tens of pancake houses as far as the eye can see. Meredith especially wanted to come to Gatlinburg as it was were her parents had honeymooned almost 50 years previously. They had ridden on a ski lift up the mountain where they had their picture taken. So we rode up the mountain. It wasn't until I was sitting down on the chair with Alexander when I noticed that this was a real ski lift with only a metal bar and a rather slick-worn seat between you and the 15 to 30 foot drop to the road/mountain below. I ended up with a death grip on Alex and couldn't turn around to check on Meredith and Mr. Bouncy Ford. I had visions of having to fish him off of the side of the mountain.

Luckily, we moved slowly and obviously we all survived.

Later, we took in a streetside magic/comedy show. Alexander wanted to purchase the floating dollar trick and the "peeing raccoon" trick.

We ended up driving through Pigeon Forge and seeing yet more Pancake Houses and "As Seen on TV" stores. We stayed that night in Knoxville, ate at a nice local restaurant and looked forward to the next day.

South Carolina 2009 Days Four, Five and Six

2009-11-25T11:54:00.003-06:00

Ford has caught a slight cold. It's frustrating because he's normally very healthy. The other night he was coughing once every 15 seconds which made it difficult for him to go to sleep and me to stay asleep. It's also annoying that there is literally nothing we can purchase to help him with the cough. Everything over the counter now reads "not for children under 4 years of age". We did get him some nasal medicine and some vapor rub for his chest. Luckily we hit it rather hard and fast and it didn't bother him too much.

We ended up going to the Edventure museum in Colombia and climbed around Ed the three story kid. You can climb into his head, chest cavity and eventually slide out his bowels. All in the name of science!

Other areas of the museum the guys really enjoyed, including climbing on a fire truck, playing indoor hockey and looking at different forms of communication. I think the museum needs a little money to update and rework some of their exhibits which have had a little too much play.

That afternoon we went to Saluda and went to a farm and food festival. Local businesses, organizations and restaurants had booths. Our favorite of course, was Shealy's BBQ. We told them that we had driven 1000 miles just for their BBQ. They gave us six bottles of their sauce as samples.

Wednesday we spent mostly around the house. I prepped my brine for the Turkey. The guys and I walked about a mile and a half to the boat launch in the neighborhood. That afternoon, Meredith, Ford and I went shopping in Lexington. Alexander stayed home with his grandparents. Almost on our way home, we received a phone call from her father which began with the words: "There's been an accident." Your heart is racing because you're thinking about ambulances, surgery and other disasters. The accident was Grandmama opening the refrigerator and spilling out an entire bowl of cranberry sauce onto the kitchen floor. It basically exploded from there with sauce appearing under the cabinets, in the fridge, under the fridge... Our job was to buy more cranberries on the way home. Our thoughts were even more relaxed when we knew that our son wasn't involved in creating the accident at all.

Thursday being Thanksgiving, I awoke early enough to roast the turkey with enough time for other things to be cooked in the oven. The turkey was a rousing success. Grandmama's sister's family The Mewbournes came over and we enjoyed taking photos, Alex showing them the video games and playing with Helena who is almost one year old. That evening, I began to stress about the weather in North Carolina and Tennessee for our next leg of our trip and tempered that stress with watching a rather good Texas A&M/Texas football game. A&M at least showed up.

South Carolina 2009 Day Two and Three

2009-11-22T14:01:00.002-06:00

Yesterday we had a slow day recovering from the drive. We went out on the Rentzes' boat and saw the bald eagle on his roost around the corner on the river. We also saw lots of the new houses (and ones for sale) along the shoreline. It was a bit chilly, but lots of fun. Ford fell asleep on the boat ride. Yesterday evening we went to Shealy's BBQ in Batesburg-Leesville. For the past several years, Shealy's has been the prime restaurant destination for our trips to South Carolina. The BBQ comes in three forms: Mustard based (which is the traditional midlands of South Carolina version) Vinegar which hales from the north and east portions of the State; and then there is hash which is a shredded pork with a little more of a thick gumbo consistency and is served on rice. I go for the mustard based - which ranks right up there with Texas BBQ Brisket as my favorite two.

We went to Church this morning and had a nice discussion in the couple's bible study class about teachers and their responsibilities and roles in Christianity. Ford and Alexander had a nice time talking about being thankful in their Sunday school classes.

We're going to do a little shopping tomorrow and then on Tuesday we're off to Columbia to check out the Children's Museum. We are still looking at going through Tennessee next weekend for our drive back.

South Carolina 2009 Day One

2009-11-21T11:27:00.002-06:00

We left Keller at 5:03am on Friday morning. Exactly eighteen hours (12:00am EST) we arrived in South Carolina. We stopped several times for coffee, potty breaks and running around time. The weather started out sort of rough leaving Texas right up to Tyler we were in a downpour with thunderstorms in the area. Once we got to Mississippi and stopped at the traveler's station on the eastern bank of the river, the sun was shining.

We sort of "teched up" for the trip. We had Alexander's new DSi, Ford had his Leapster 2, and we had our portable DVD player for the trip. All of these helped out in the long trip during the day. Meredith had also packed snacks for us which made the travelling much easier.

The hardest part of the trip was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. There was a five mile back up of traffic on the east side of town. A large dump truck had lost a wheel, swerved across three lanes of traffic and slammed front end first into the center concrete divider. It also lost much of its load. Many people were very impatient and were driving on the rumble strips and down the median attempting to avoid the long traffic lines.

Once we were through that, Birmingham and Atlanta traffic wasn't too bad. Only about 10:00pm CST did Ford really start getting annoyed with the trip. A brownie from Quiktrip helped out that situation quite well.

We arrived right at the stroke of midnight and fell into bed as soon as we all brushed teeth. I probably wouldn't attempt to make the trip in one day again as it was a bit exhausting, but we now have had all of Saturday to rest and enjoy Papa and Grandmama's company. This afternoon we're looking forward to a boat ride and Shealey's BBQ in Batesburg-Leesville.

Alexander's First Day of School

2009-08-17T19:55:00.003-06:00

Hi, my name is Alex. I'm 5 and a half and today was my first day of school in kindergarten. I got up and had breakfast. I had shredded wheat and Fruity Cheerios mixed together with Almond Milk. I put my clothes on and then we got in the car. After my Mommy got her coffee for the day, we went to my school.

After I got to school, I went into my classroom. I have nine kids in my class. I colored my Franklin picture. We then did our calendar for the day. We read books and had goldfish crackers for a snack. We then had recess outside and then had lunch. My Mommy made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I also had some applesauce with cranberry in it.

After lunch we had our Centers part of the class where we read books. After Centers it was time to leave. I met some new friends and I saw an old friend. His name is Luke.

I felt good about my first day of class. I got a lucky star for "free star day" today. If I get ten stars I get a prize from the prize box. The prize box has candy and toys in it.

I am looking forward to going back tomorrow to see Luke and my other new friends.

The Power of Public Performance

2009-08-10T08:21:00.002-06:00

There comes a time when most people have to stand up in front of a large group of others and speak. Sometimes it's a hastily written toast to your friends at a wedding; some other time it might be a presentation to a client or the like. It is a skill that is rife with anticipation, paranoia and at times exhilaration. I started out in theater in high school wanting to be in the "big play." There were moments that were embarrassing - leading off my first line with a terrible accent - other times were fantastic. One of my two favorite moments in theater happened when I was asked by a friend of mine to appear in a talent show when she sang a song from Phantom of the Opera. I would come out of the darkened wings dressed as the Phantom about 2/3rds of the way through her song and then at her crescendo, envelope her in a cape. I didn't want to distract the audience from her performance so this is how we wanted to play it.

The best moment came for me when I appeared in mostly black (with the correct white mask) from the dark. Because of the mask I didn't have my glasses on so I couldn't see the audience. But when I stepped onto the stage...there was a loudly audible gasp from the audience. They were surprised, shocked and thrilled. I think I might have had the white flash of absolute "in the moment" at that point. I had power over the audience and I hadn't said a word.

My second favorite experience came from a point of disaster within an improv act. We were playing a coffee house and the game was a story with five different genre books. I was gothic literature. I committed the ultimate sin in this game for when it was my turn I said:

"And then I died."

That pretty much ends the story no? My friend John Flores who was running the game looked at me with this expression of disbelief that I would submarine the whole thing like that...but then I followed with:

"but only figuratively..."

and the room roared. It was the biggest laugh of the night and the timing was great.

I use those skills in my everyday job when I talk about planning to neighborhoods, when I speak with potential developers, homeowners and business owners. It's something to have the ability to speak, to listen, and to provide enough timing that your audience is captivated and not bored with what you're saying. I miss being in the theater. I don't have the time to devote to art as much as I would like. I praise my good friends John and his wife Christie and all those who I was in theater with in both high school and college who've been able to make it their vocation as well as their avocation. I've found where my talents lie and how I can still command the stage.

Wired Article

2009-07-22T07:20:00.004-06:00

I received my new issue of Wired yesterday. Going with the ultra-cool meme that everything must have lately, it has Brad Pitt on the cover. There is a funny joke on the cover with Pitt wearing a bluetooth headset: the caption: "Ditch the headset. He can barely pull it offf - and you are not him."

I enjoyed that. The article inside was about good/bad advice on changing behaviors in a digital age. One that particularly struck me was a small column:

Don't Work All the Time — You'll Live to Regret It

which I won't quote here but let you pop on over to read.

There are times where I know I've lived a life more frugally than most, which has done us well. But I still think of the prime learning part of my marriage (those first five years) when I worked 60 hour weeks getting a comprehensive plan and a development code completed - that we could have taken more (read: any) vacations. Perhaps it would have made a larger difference in how I view and take on stress? Perhaps it would have made our strong marriage that more stronger having had more powerful travel experiences together.

Perhaps this is fodder for new resolutions.

Lastly, the image associated with the article got to me as well.

Illustration by Jason Lee from Wired.com

Never Growing Up

2009-06-11T11:53:00.000-06:00

Just read an article about Kevin Smith http://www.newsweek.com/id/201655 on Newsweek. He is quoted in the article about never thinking that he couldn’t extend the childhood state that he’s been in while making movies. I really identified with that sentiment. I actively accept that I’m an adult and that I have adult responsibilities, but it is amazing and more than a little frightening to realize how much adult life is made up of attempting to “get by” and bluffing your way through to a semblance of competence. Maturity is the knowledge that there is much more to know than you will ever know. Then the real test is being able to personally handle it when someone points out that you don’t know it all.

I used to want to know it all. Now all I want is time to play, read, and drive to interesting small towns.

Grad School and Lego Store

2009-05-19T13:52:00.004-06:00

Saturday, Meredith, the kids and I went to College Station for the day to see our friends from grad school. Bruce, who lives in Cambridge, MA was in Houston for a conference he was speaking at. Bruce drove up to College Station to see everyone. Since it was graduation weekend, we assumed that the entirety of restaurants in the BCS area were going to be booked up, a fact confirmed as we drove in and saw people waiting to get into Cheddars lined up out the door. We ended up having a picnic in Hensel Park. The rain held off for two hours. We had the whole park to ourselves. The kids had access to a playground and had a great time playing together. We cooked hot dogs and sausages and roasted marshmallows.

After the rain came, we all packed up and drove to the mall to allow the kids to play on the play structure inside while we all sat around and talked. It was a great day. The kids slept on the drive home. We were able to get back around 8:30pm so it wasn't a late night.

Then on Sunday, after washing the cars, Alexander and I went to Dallas, then to Frisco to the newly opened Lego Store. We went to North Park Mall, because Daddy was mistaken about which store was open. You've never seen the disappointment in the face of a five year old after driving all the way to North Dallas and then finding a parking space in the garage and finally getting to the store to see it all boarded up with a big Lego logo plastered on it saying "Opening Summer 2009."

After calling Meredith and determining that the open store was in Frisco (about 20 miles away), Alex and I had an hour and 15 minutes to get there before it was closed. As we rushed through the traffic on US 75 heading north, Alex could tell my frustration and aggravation with myself. He told me:

"Daddy, its ok if we don't get there in time. I have enough Legos to play with."

Waiting for my internalized sobs to cease, I then told him thanks for saying such a nice thing.

We did get there in time. We say the 8' tall R2-D2 and the life-size Indiana Jones made out of Legos. We looked at all of the different models they had there including specialty models of the Eiffel Tower, a 1960s Volkswagen Beetle and a $400 Death Star with 16 characters.

We bought an Anakin Skywalker Jedi starfighter to match Daddy's Obi-Wan Jedi starfighter. We came home and made chili and had a great evening.

42 MPG - Good, but not the emphasis we need.

2009-05-19T13:36:00.002-06:00

Today President Obama announced a new plan to force automakers to increase miles per gallon on new vehicles to levels of 42 MPG for passenger cars and 27 MPG for trucks by 2016. This is a good thing. Those who can afford the supercars won't be happy, but I think that they will make a new category for those rather than calling them "production" vehicles.

My concern is that the administration is still not concerned enough with finding alternatives for people to get out of the cars in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I love my new Honda Accord with its 27-31MPG and a peppy 4-cyl engine. I even like watching the adrenaline pumped, testosterone laced Top Gear.

But I also wish I lived within walking distance of a grocery store, and a bookstore. The closest grocery store is over 2.5 miles away. A bit far of a round trip carrying much more than one bag, plus the major highway separating me from it is deterrent enough not to do the walk.

We need to build more communities where public transportation is available. We need to build more communities where the choice of public transportation or bicycling or walking is an easier choice than the personal vehicle. I'm not for eliminating the personal car - far from it - what I'd like to have is the option on a more regular basis.

There are those who would then argue, why do you live in a State and community where lower suburbia causes these problems? Why don't you move? Truth is, that considering the housing market for those areas of appropriately designed density where I'd like to move my family, I either wouldn't be able to find an applicable job within commuting distance that would pay me enough to afford to live there. That's the frustrating thing. Well designed higher density just isn't affordable to government employees.

The fantastic Obama administration needs to look at how we are funding public transportation at a federal level and place more money emphasis on revitalizing infrastructure and housing to achieve a greater modal split, rather than focusing money on just expansion of the highway capacity.

That will achieve better savings of fuel over the long run.

New Car

2009-05-05T11:29:00.002-06:00

After 10 years and 147,000 miles I have retired the 1999 Mustang. I did feel bad about letting it go. It was my first brand new car and I really kept it nice. It had a few scrapes and bumps along the way - all of which I had repaired by my Dad. I only replaced one major component - the alternator. It once let loose the exhaust system from the manifold and sounded like a Harley for a little while until I could get it welded back on.

But, it had replaced a 1993 Taurus which became more miserable to drive with each succeeding month. I remember the final straw with the Taurus was when I had loaded it up with all of the meeting materials for a Comprehensive Plan meeting and it died in the parking lot adjacent to the mall. I had to call my boss to come get the stuff while I waited for the tow truck to pick up the car and take it to the shop.

The Mustang was an object of desire for several years previous and when I bought it, my sister was really impressed with it - she was only 16 at the time.

But in the later years, it had its electrical problems - the windshield wipers would come on by themselves occaisionally, the clutch started making noises which could lead to a $600 bill - almost half of the value of the car itself by that point. Plus, my wife wouldn't drive it as she didn't like the rear-wheel drive coupled with its habit of breaking loose every once in a while. I couldn't easily take the family anywhere in it. It was just too small.

So, last Saturday I took Meredith to Huggins Honda in North Richland Hills and we test drove a 2008 Accord EX-L (the "L" stands for leather). We liked the sales guy and the car. He quoted a price that was quite reasonable. We went back to the house and I looked up the car on the dealership's website which was quoted for $2,000 less than they had quoted me at the dealership. I also compared that price with the average sales prices of other used Accord EX-L.

After much agonizing (hey, its me!) I went back to the dealership by myself and asked for my sales guy. His name is Jeff Fisher (look for him in the new cars sales area). He had left the dealership to go get a burger, but they called him back since I was waiting there for him. That kind of made me feel for the guy a bit. We then started talking back and forth with the used car manager. It turns out that the online posting price had been intended for an Accord LX-P and not an EX-L. The LX-P has the lesser 4 cylinder engine (177HP as opposed to 190HP), no leather or any of the other electronic extras. They told me they would let me have the car for that advertised price - which was a full $4,000 less than the Edmunds.com dealership price. I only found one other 2008 Accord EX-L with less mileage and a better price in the Metroplex.

So I came home with the new car. My parents-in-law, visiting at the time, were very impressed with the car. It's sporty - without feeling loose, and I can get the whole family in it without feeling cramped inside.

I'll post photos when I get a sunny day to take them.

It could be...

2009-04-25T01:59:00.003-06:00

It could be that everything you know is wrong.

It could be that the shadows on the wall isn't reality.

It could be that they are not telling the truth.

It could be that the particles exist in all locations at once.

It could be that there is value to attempting to change it piece by piece.

It could be that the system is attempting to restart.

It could be that time is relative.

It could be that space is curved.

It could be that power and force are losing ground to thought and reason.

It could be that writing like this may be pretentious.

Or it may not.

Well, that was a bit crap.

2009-04-25T01:21:00.002-06:00

So I've got the worst case of insomnia in a long time. I have got to stop drinking the Coke Zeroes during the day. They obviously have way too much caffeine. I was reading a rather tame book about how to be happy. It was a bit obvious and really insulting. Not an auspisious start to a book that's trying to help you feel better and make decisions for happiness. The main theme of the initial chapters I read was this.

The more intelligent you are, the higher probability of not being happy. Happier people tend to not be deep thinkers, tend to not dwell on the future or the past. They live in the moment experiencing joy of the present.

I suppose those lucky non-ambitious and rather frankly either lobotomized or only seeming so people may be happy. But even those people living traditional tribal lives who may seem happy from their subsistence farming have their own ambitions, worries and concerns for their lives and those of others. The book was alarmingly fatuious.

I don't believe in destiny. I believe in patterns and free will. We have the individual choice either given by grace of a higher being or by environmental nature (what you will) to either recognize the patterns of life or to boldly ignore them as creatively as possible. What I don't accept is the notion that failure is a viable option, that ignorance is acceptable as an alternative to thorough thought, and that the current time is 2:30am...wait, back up - scratch the last one.

I suppose that with everything, it is a moderation of these feelings - frustration, anticipation, fear, perfectionism some semblance of joy can be found. I love my family and my friends, however I truly believe that I am somehow, without realising it, distancing myself from them.

Andrews, Texas

2009-04-13T12:51:00.002-06:00

I need to go to Andrews, Texas relatively soon. My father lived there during his pre-teen days through high school. His father was the foreman for the Auto Body Shop at the Ford dealership. He lived in a modest, but nice home near the elementary school on the west side of town.

It also turns out that my Assistant Director's father-in-law was a good friend and former roomate of my Dad's. Interesting connections. Smaller and smaller world.

Bored With Facebook

2009-04-13T12:40:00.002-06:00

I like Facebook. However I also find it rather tedious. It interesting to read about many others daily lives, several of them are witty and catch your attention. However, I primarily find myself wondering: what interesting or witty thing could I write in my status update that would garner comments. The online equivalent of "Pay attention to me! I'm relevant!" I even posted as a status update some time ago that I was feeling rather irrelevant with an ellipse inserted within the syllables of the word irrelevant to symbolize a trailing off of relevancy.

I'm paraphrasing now, but I once saw written a comment about Facebook as the place where you go and confirm that your friends from high school and college are leading as uninteresting lives as you do. A bit cynical, but dangerously close to the truth, I'd say.

I don't think of it as an indictment of Facebook as a Web 2.0 application or as a networking device, or of the people who frequently read, write and contribute to their page on a daily, hourly or minute by minute accounting of their thoughts. I feel that as many of us journal our typically American and suburban lives, working, playing, eating, going to movies, raising children, going to church... that we're somehow dilluting the importance that our own existence brings to other people by distilling it into what is essentially powerpoint presentations of our lives.

Be relevant! Tell those people on your Facebook friend list what it truly means to you that they are your friend.

Hobbies, Conversations and Nostalgia

2009-04-13T12:35:00.003-06:00

“Let’s move one place on.” – Mad Hatter, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

I need a new topic of conversation. I need a discourse that doesn’t involve city planning, work related activities…”Stephen, how is everything at the city you work at?” or the predominant topic of conversation…”Stephen, how are the kids?” Work is fine, if a little repetitive and stale, but that’s why it’s work and the kids are fine. One talks a bit too much and the other likes teasing the first. I am on a search for a different conversation though. Not one to replace the previous two as they are inherent to the life that I have, but one that may be interesting to share, learn from and advance different ideas with other people.

What I need is an active hobby.

I’ve collected many things over the years, Videos, DVDs Comic Books, Star Wars Stuff, Books, CDs – now digital files, but many of these things have been transitory for the most part and not very interactive. I’ve gone to conventions and the like, but while I’ve been a collector and enjoy reading, listening and watching the media I’ve collected, I’ve never been at such a level that I’ve made that to the exclusion of everything else – or been able to make a larger connection to a collecting community other than a few friends. Many times I find other collectors either extremely too involved and narrowly focused or they have a tendency to not be able to communicate about anything else at all. Again, with some very specific exceptions.

The long and short of it is that I’d like to find a hobby that gets me out and involved with other people on a regular basis that discusses other things ancillary to the prime focus in addition to the hobby itself. I’d like it to be creative and active rather than passive (like most of my collecting hobbies are now).

I used to build and paint model aircraft. I soon figured out that particular hobby is not very compatible with small kids. My anachronistic B-17G (one I painted with Normandy Invasion Stripes – no B-17s were used in the invasion) was an early casualty in the child rearing aspect of our lives. One of my sadder childhood regrets was the accidental damage and then subsequent destroying of a balsa-wood Piper Cub that my father built. Only years later did I find out that my Grandad had flown real planes like that and my father had built it as memory for himself. I suppose I really hate that aspect of exuberance of youth without the emotional maturity to foresee the consequences of value or history. I disliked it in myself and my peers and now I have to hold myself differently for my own kids.

Speaking of nostalgia, my wife and I have very different opinions about it. I have a higher concentration of nostalgia for places and specific things. Meredith has nostalgia for people and experiences. I make emotive connections with a place – walking up the many stairs to the top of Mont St. Michel in France – woe to that blundering idiot of a fellow A&M student I was walking with who could not place himself in 13th Century France – while Meredith needs the interaction with people to hold onto those emotive memories.

Bon Soir Ma Petite Chou

2009-02-23T23:25:00.003-06:00

La Danse de Mardi Gras

Les Mardi Gras ça vient de tout partout
Tout l'autour au tour du moyen
Ça passe un fois par ans
Demander la charité
Quand même si c'est une patate
Une patate et des gratins

Les Mardi Gras sont su' un grand voyage
Tout l'tour autour du moyen
Ça passe un fois par ans
Demander la charité
Quand même si c'est une poule maigre
Et trois, quatre coton d'maïs

Capitain, capitain voyage ton flag
Allons su' l'autr' voisin
Demander la charité
Pour eux autr' venir nous r'joindre
Eux autr' venir nous r'joindre
Ouais au bal pour ce soir

A Long Walk Off a Short Pier

2009-02-23T22:54:00.002-06:00

I have had a series of interesting and yet, disturbing dreams lately. The most interesting one came the other night where I was attempting to become a public speaker about relationships. The unique "hook" I had come up with was a basic analogy.

Our relationships are like bags of potato chips.

Are you done laughing? Don't worry... I'll wait.

Ok.

So the point of the excercise was that I would begin speaking about relationships, the stages of beginning - the fluidity of maturing the connection - and either the contentment or obversly, the ending of a relationship. Now, you're still asking why potato chip bags.

Once you find the right potato chip bag you have to open it - like beginning a relationship. Sometimes the bag is difficult to open and you mess it up spilling chips all over, sometimes it opens easily and you start with fresh, chips.

But sometimes you eat too many - too quickly and you're left with the crumbs. Other times you forget about the chips and they become stale. Many times you're looking for the right dip.

Then the dream became rather too capitalistic for me. It was surprising. I had negotiated a deal with Frito-Lay that I would be sponsored by Ruffles chips as long as they had exclusive rights to market and I would only use Ruffles brand in my lectures. I even went the Oprah route and everyone leaving the speaking engagement would get a bag of chips.

Of course, telling this all to my true friend and main relationship, brought guffaws of laughter. She even came up with all sorts of tie-ins to the catchphrases of chips. Relationships have Ridges - You Can't Eat Just One. Leave it to my wife to give it that extra amount of innuendo.

I won't EVEN go into the greasy fingers.

Perhaps I should go to bed earlier and get better sleep.

All Hail.

2009-02-10T11:01:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I amuse myself. A friend of mine wrote a "how are ya doing?" email this morning and I replied back with the following. He and I both are political science/history/urban planning nerds and make jokes about the future propensity of our progeny going on to win major Nobel awards or the like. Below is my rather pedestrian email updating our current life...until I was inspired by what to write about Ford. I giggled at myself for a good five minutes. I hope you like it as well.

Working at my new city is going great. Not much going on in the development review side of things…financing being what it is. But I’m keeping busy with working on a sign ordinance revision, gas well ordinance revision and attempting to figure out the Council’s direction in a masonry ordinance or to go all the way to architectural design standards.

In addition I’ve been working a bit on the consulting side, helping out a friend rewriting a Unified Development code and possibly will be working on a small town comprehensive plan for a suburb of Denton.

Meredith is doing well. She has three classes this semester including two sections of Business Law. I’m trying to get her interested in applying at the Junior College a bit closer to the house so she isn’t having to drive so much.

We’re working on getting Alexander into a private Kindergarten for next year as the local public school doesn’t offer full day Kindergarten yet, and the timing wouldn’t allow Meredith to teach during the day at all. There is an Episcopalian church school right behind the house…it may be our best option.

Alex is starting to really become interested in reading for himself. We work on letters and sounds during the day, but our reading at night is much more focused on story and comprehension. Currently, we’re finishing The Hobbit and have read A Wrinkle in Time and other fun fantasy works.

Ford has decided to screw the proletariat and set himself as dictator for life although he prefers the term “Great Leader.” With a support staff of Mickey as his Minister of Communication (propaganda) and Elmo as his Minister of Harmony (enforcer) he believes that in five short, but glorious, years the workers will enjoy nothing but bananas and freshly ground peanut butter in union with their brethren. Or else.

I didn’t get out to El Paso as my city is in austerity times with the travel budget. Although, Meredith and I are planning on going to Denver for the CNU conference in June and making it a working holiday.

Best Regards,

Stephen

I have nothing to say...

2009-02-02T22:17:00.002-06:00

Quick note. Still here. Lots going on. Meredith has been appointed to the Texas State Board on Midwifery. She just got back from a flying trip to Austin and back (crazily enough she took the guys) and had a great, if tiring time. I got myself appointed to be a parish delegate to the Diocese of Dallas convention in October and I'm still working on a gas well ordinance.

I had a great time over at Justin's parent's house for his birthday and the Super Bowl. Fantastic broccoli and cheese soup.

And been watching old British Sci-fi shows on my new half terabyte hard drive. Amazing. To think I was awed by having portable 1GB drives.

South Carolina Days Four, Five, Six and Seven

2009-01-02T17:24:00.002-06:00

On Tuesday we left Saluda County and drove south to Beaufort South Carolina, my Father-in-Law's hometown. His sister hosts an annual oyster roast for the New Years celebrations. Much of his extended family come to the celebration. We came down a day early so that he could help in the setting up during the day.

We stayed "aboard" the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort. They have an on-base hotel with very nice rooms that had kitchenettes (so we could have toasted eggo french toast sticks for the kid's breakfast). We had adjoining rooms to Meredith's parents. The entrance to the air station has a motto: "The noise you hear is the sound of freedom." It also has several aircraft including a F15, and a F4 Phantom. Wednesday morning, we took the van to Hunting Island and toured the state park there. Alexander, Meredith and I went up the 167 steps up the Hunting Island Lighthouse and looked over the Atlantic Ocean. Afterwards we toured the other buildings on the site. Alexander was startled when a motion sensor on one of the buildings activated an automatic voice to a manniquin that started speaking about the lighthouse.

We then all went on the beach and beachcombed for a while finding all sorts of treasures to bring home.

We had lunch at the Shrimp Shack - Meredith and I both choosing a shrimp burger. Lovely.

We had a nice evening for new years, the kids played football in the yard, the adults huddled around a campfire in the back or in the garage with propane heaters. There are lots of stars in the skies above the Low Country with so much of the local area either rural or marsh delta.

Thursday we spent at Meredith's Aunt's house watching the South Carolina Gamecocks get beat in the Outback Bowl - then drove back to Saluda in the evening.

Today we went out shopping and tomorrow we'll go visit some cousins and Granddaddy Rentz as well. Since we'll be travelling on our wedding anniversary, Meredith and I might go out to an early dinner and a frosty beverage with her cousin Laura tomorrow evening.

South Carolina Days Two and Three

2008-12-29T15:14:00.003-06:00

Sunday morning we woke up and got ready to go to church. The Rentzes church is Saluda Baptist Church. Alexander went to Sunday School, Ford to the Nursery and Meredith and I to their parent's respective classes. The topic of the day was being called to mission and was backed by the story of Saul/Paul and his trips to Damascus and Antioch along with Barnabas.

Saluda Baptist Church is in the middle of a change in pastor. They had a guest preacher in who I really enjoyed listening to. He will be soon planting new churches in Calgary, Alberta. His most recent trip to Canada he witnessed -20°F. A bit cold no doubt.

After church we drove on to Greenwood SC, Meredith's mother's hometown and where her grandparents and great-grandparents lived. We had a quick lunch at a local buffet and then went to go see Meredith's Granddaddy, and our kid's only remaining great-grandparent who resides in a nursing home there. John Christopher Young (whose photos from the late 1940s you can see in my flickr.com account) was doing better than he has been doing in the previous several months. He is a bit hard of hearing, but he is still really with it and if you can get over the communication issues - you can have a good conversation with him. He and I talked about baseball and the kids. We gave him a digital photo frame with about 200 photos from us, the Holders, Brooksie's sister's family and some older Young family photos. He sat through the slide show of all the photos and commented on many of them. He didn't want us leaving the photo frame with him because of his concern that it may be stolen. So our compromise was to leave it with Meredith's mother who will take it with her on occasion to him and update the photos as well.

Afterwards we travelled to Columbia to see the Mewbourns including the new grandbaby Helena. We had a fantastic dinner, Meredith got lots of time playing with baby, and the guys roughhoused with Uncle Jerry.

Today has been a rest day. Tomorrow we're off to Beaufort and several days with Charles' family and the annual new year's oyster roast.

South Carolina Day One

2008-12-27T20:41:00.002-06:00

I started this blog writing about our trip to South Carolina over Thanksgiving in 2006. We haven't been back to the state to see Meredith's family since then for the simple reason that Ford was a little too small to travel last year. This year's trip almost didn't look like it was going to happen because of the job changeover. However, due to the way more relaxed attitude and employee-focused atmosphere of my new job, I'm able to take the week off and be here for the New Year.

I was stressing a little the past couple of days because I was worried about the crowds at the airport, the amount of time it would take for us to check-in, getting on the plane, and handling the boredom level of the two guys for a two and a half hour plane ride.

We left the house at 6:30am this morning, picked up by my gracious father, and arrived at DFW. We had a long line that went fairly quickly - and only had to pay $15 for one checked bag, the carseat bag got a free ride! We were able to go through security easily enough and then found plenty of seating at the gate.

Our seats were towards the rear of the plane and we had a precocious seven year old named Michael sitting in the row behind us who was instantly enthralled with Alexander's Leapster. Alex offered Michael a chance to play the Star Wars game for a while without even being asked.

The real bummer of the morning was after we had pushed back from the gate, taxiied to the end of the eastern runway...and then waited for the thunderstorm squall line to pass through the the northern and eastern edges of the airport. This took two and a half hours. We were stuck on the ground with two bored kiddos for that amount of time. Fortunately, Meredith and I had enough snacks and entertainment, (books, DVD player, Leapster) for the guys to remain fairly calm during the wait.

After the flight we had another lengthy wait getting off of the plane after arrivial to Charlotte NC.

Alexander and Ford were really happy to see Grandmama and Papa and were really good on the drive to their home in South Carolina. The only further bummer was that SC is completely covered in dense fog this evening making the trip in the van nerve-wracking for Papa.

We had a lovely Christmas leftover dinner and I have spent the past hour or two fixing their computer and getting photos put onto a digital photo frame that we have bought Meredith's Grandfather for his room. Church, Granddaddy Young and dinner at the Mewbornes tomorrow.

Christmas Photos

2008-12-25T12:15:00.003-06:00

Christmas pageant at St. Barnabas. Alexander obviously was a shepherd and Ford a sheep. We have had a good Christmas. We will be travelling to South Carolina for the new year.

We won a Leapster2 from Megan's Blog. Thanks Megan!

Arpeggios of chaos.

2008-12-22T00:21:00.004-06:00

An arpeggio is a chord of notes played singularly. They act as individuals alone with the corresponding note close, but still separate. Never in an arpeggio will they coincide. Without strong leadership that brings the harmonies into close ties, the running of individual notes will be come more strained, less in tune and finally dischordant into true bedlam.

I see the strain. The looks on the faces of those in the grocery store. The running of the cars in the parking lot with tape holding the windows shut from the cold. There's always the slightly mistrustful and paranoid glance, the look of guilt, of defense, of defeat. Where does one turn to? Our success is now our shame - our isolation, once prized is now our burden as those willing to help have left to save themselves.

Are we a lost society? Are we doomed to be trapped within sticks and brick facades and homeowner's associations? Is the life only a lie? You can see it from here. The past, no longer envisoned in sepia - now the polaroid of fading colors into red hues. The softness in tone, the bent corner, and the faded pen markings on the back. Our past in faux wood grain and car hoods reaching for the horizon beyond the tempered glass. We've been here before. We've stayed in line, flown our flag and burned the fuel.

It is time to change. To look into the face of chaos and say no. I will stand. I will walk. I will be different. We cannot afford any less of ourselves and of our children or of each other.

"Art in the universe? None. Because art is the holding up of a mirror to the universe and there just isn't one big enough." - Paraphrased from Douglas Adams

2008-12-11T23:51:00.002-06:00

POW. ZAP. SHOOOOSH. BANG.

My parents were always the ones who got technology last. I remember going to Sears with my best friend Chris and his Dad to purchase Space Invaders for the Atari 2600. He bought it for the astronomical amount of $50 in the late 1970s. We eventually got an Atari, but it took a while (at least in my prepubescent memory) to get cable and then FINALLY a VCR. These slow steps in technology were made by my parents in order for us to know the value of patience - of not purchasing things until you can really afford them - It was hard to take at the time, but was beneficial to my ability to evaulate needs vs wants.

My first computer at home was a Commodore 64 with a 300 baud modem that I saved up and bought myself. I used it to play games, write some work for school, but mostly I went online - tying up the one phone line in the house talking to people on some guy's personal BBS (Bulletin Board System) about time travel and Doctor Who.

I became somewhat of a luddite during my collegiate years as I did my undergraduate work on a Smith Corona typewriter/word processor. It worked. It wasn't until grad school that I went back to Macintosh, learned what Windows was, and started my first forays into the web through usenet groups and email.

Now, of course as I sit here on my Dell XPS with an (albeit Gen 3) ipod, palm zire 72, and numerous video game systems, dvd players and HDTV in the house...I wonder: Does my use of technology help my family or harm them eventually? I personally strive to research not the most expensive, or highest standard or most bells and whistle type of technology to purchase. I do my research and try to find the best value for the money I'm investing in. I keep technology around (well organized of course) and keep it working for multiple years and purposes. My 20G ipod is still very much in use. I just bought a new battery for it and installed it myself to keep it going for much longer. My desktop computer bought in 2001 is still the home computer and is working rather smoothly, even though the fan is a bit loud. And video games? I've got several copies of that Space Invaders game...although I purchased them for about a quarter a piece.

Technology to me is the social campfire in which we now gather as a society. Communal experiences occuring over wireless networks and down fiberoptic cable.

"Did you see that final drive for the touchdown?"

Yeah I did. I'm part of the group. I'm able to experience things that others experience and be able to be part of the conversation - of the greater tribe.

But, my life isn't exclusively about technology, nor do I wish my kids to participate solely within its confines. We go and play outside. Meredith is terrific at taking them to the park. Alexander has expressed an interest in doing sports next spring and summer. Meredith has him taking nature classes and art classes. His classroom doesn't have a computer.

The right balance for me is to let he and his brother know the fun of watching science fiction - to zap the alien invaders - to talk to their uncle living halfway across the continent, live and personal with video and everything but to also let them know that it's ok to turn off the tv and read A Wrinkle in Time or to play with Legos. It is technology that has increased our ability to live together through a wider communication. It is definitely with its dangers and pitfalls, but it can bring joy, creativity, escape from the responsibilities you know that you have to do when you turn off the machine.

One of the most important things I've tried to tell my son about technology, is that it is only as smart as what humans tell them to do. Otherwise, they're just metal and plastic. If we take care of them and repair them occaisionally, you can get the best value out of the technology you purchase.

Oh, by the way, I have that first VCR my parents bought.

It still works like a champ.

If you would like to read more about other parents and their view on technology and their kids, please check out Largerfamilies.com and their blogging contest about this subject.

Deadlines

2008-11-20T18:31:00.001-06:00

Many times I have begun to write a blog entry attempting to get out some sort of feeling, emotion or other thought process that’s been rattling around in my head. I’m particularly proud of writing about the perception of time and my particular relationship with time-travel fiction. Too many times I’ve written something in my word processor fully intending to transfer the file to my blog setting up a rant about why I can’t seem to argue with other people correctly, fighting the dreaded procrastination monster, or some sort of other self-involved writing. Many people post blog entries with a few words and a link to an article, video, or some other information usually generated by someone else. Thus, showing that they read through the blogsphere / news-articles and can fins something interesting that other people might find diverting for a few minutes. Others, being more jaded and attempting to increase their income from blogs, I suspect, will deliberately find items to post that will trigger a better class of Google advertisements that will generate the ever-so important click-thrus for a higher return on their kickback checks. I attempt to either post photos that we’ve taken and post writings that I’ve made or thoughts that I’ve had. Not particularly mind-blowing, but cathartic in its own way.

My personal touchstone between true philosophy and pop philosophy (to anyone who’s been paying attention) is Douglas Adams. He died on a treadmill in Hollywood in May 2001. He had a saying that has been often quoted, but mostly joked about that he loved deadlines. He especially “enjoyed the whooshing noise they made as they went by.” Many of the things I agree with Adams as written in his books, the over-glorification of money in our society rather than the steady work/accomplishment/reward cycle that I now find myself in. Other things I don’t agree with. He was a renowned atheist. Not particularly militant like Christopher Hitchens, but his take was more of the satirical view such as the quote from Dennis Miller: “Hare Karishnas can’t be a real religion, because God made us in His own image, and I know He wouldn’t wear His hair that way.” The other item that I disagree with is the lack of holding to a deadline.

I love having deadlines for generating content. I will do the research; provide a report; generate an image – just tell me your basic parameters and the drop-dead time you’d like for it to be done. Make sure that the deadline has a built-in review period to it so I can make corrections that you have. I can meet or exceed those expectations. Tasking me and then leaving it open-ended causes me to have to create my own deadlines and then lower my own expectations because I have to have a perfect product within a self-imposed ticking of the clock. Not so good for the stress. It is a form of planning, control, even. Without a specific deadline (even if it is an arbitrary one) I personally feel a lack of control. I will focus on smaller goals like washing the car or mowing the grass rather than tackling the big item because it isn’t as pressing or as tactile as a deadline imposes upon it.

I’ve gained back much of the weight that I had lost over the summer from my stress episode. The blood pressure and sugar haven’t been so much of a problem lately, but I’m back to eating out much more at lunch and/or getting sandwich stuff from the grocery store and storing it in the fridge until needed. I need to find more time to move, to use the tools that I have including a walkable neighborhood, a Wii Fit, a tennis racket (do wish there was a close court nearby) and to just quit eating quite so much. I’ve been using food again for a sedative. Mainly in the late evenings when at midnight, and I’m still not tired, and boredom has brought me to deciding between watching reruns of earlier news programs or surfing around the ever-decreasing library of DVDs on the Netflix account. I haven’t been sleeping well since the stress events in July. Some nights I’ll wake up two or three times. The other night both boys woke up at 3:44am. Ford wouldn’t go back to sleep and Alexander wanted to argue whether it was close enough to morning time that he could stay snuggled in our bed or have to go back to his room. Ford, being rather crabby that morning, benefited from a nice warm shower to calm his mood. We then went to IHOP at 5:00 in the morning to transition from a crabby morning to something that was more family oriented and a treat.

Now that I have a job, I need a goal. The long-range goal had been to replace my 144K mile Mustang with a Honda CR-V, but in the shrinking economy, it doesn’t seem appropriate or wise to expend that amount of money (for the small return I’ll get for selling the Mustang) for a new car. Although, the clutch is starting to make a slight noise that I’m having worries over. I should set the goal of losing weight, but the hardest part I’ve found is the exerting control over the amount I’m eating. I wish I could just stop eating for a couple of months. Not feel hungry or deprived either. Just drink mineral water. So much of our social interaction with other people is set around food. The hardest decisions that many in our society have are not those about whether we should drill in the Alaskan north, whether we should have a stronger renewable energy policy, but most often: where are we going to lunch?

Photo Update

2008-11-15T09:42:00.002-06:00

Things have been busy enough for me that I haven't had time to write much, but I've got some new photos of the past month. Included in the slideshow are photos from our trip to the pumpkin patch in Flower Mound, Alexander's 5th Birthday and the guys hanging around the house. The job is doing well. We're planning on going to South Carolina in December after Christmas.

Photo Update

2008-10-04T22:58:00.001-06:00

Here's some new photos from the past several weeks of being with the family. We've got Ford eating chocolate, going to Six Flags and going to the State Fair. We've had a great time.

New Beginnings

2008-10-04T06:02:00.002-06:00

So after several weeks of being just "Daddy"; attempting to enjoy my time off; and doing some assistance to some of my friends who are consultants, I'm going back to work. I've procured a Senior Planner position with a new nearby city and will start on Monday October 13th.

The best thing about the job was that I didn't even go looking for it. It found me. The Director talked to a friend of mine (who I now owe dinner to) and called me up. We talked on the phone, in person several times and I was offered the job prior to the job being actively advertised.

I'm extremely excited to go work there for several reasons. First, it's relatively close to the house, the meetings aren't long affairs like the previous two jobs, and I'll be working with some really great people with a new set of talents that I can learn from.

Without the support of Meredith, my family and the multitude of friends I've recently found more time to enjoy, I couldn't have made such a transition. I've found much more connection to my kids and a deeper appreciation for Meredith's responsibilities for them. I also hope she has found out that I can be a better Daddy and keep the housekeeping to the bare essentials.

We've had a great couple of weeks even though all of us have had the bout with the sniffles. Two weeks ago we had Meredith's niece stay with us for several days as her flight back to Houston was cancelled due to Hurricane Ike. Her parents were without power for several days. She was able to go back the following Thursday in a newer Honda that her Dad bought from my father.

Then last weekend, they're family came up for the weekend to go to Six Flags. We enjoyed all of the rides and had a great time, with the exception of a half an hour looking for a lost cousin who was safely found.

This past week I reformatted a 200+ page Unified Development Code for the City of Schertz for a friend of mine who needed the original document to flow better. It was a nice tranistion work to get me back into the mindset of planning and it helped retrain me in working with some of the more subtle aspects of MS Word.

Yesterday we went to the State Fair and Alexander had his first encouter with cotton candy which he ate with gusto, but didn't fall into the trap of getting it all over himself. We sat in our usual spot watching the Vita-Mix guys for about half an hour and received inspiration to restart our smoothie regimen.

Today we're going with our friends to pick apples (a particularly fall event) and perhaps to the Southlake Oktoberfest where Me and My Monkey will be playing this evening. Tomorrow we're going to go to church and then possibly decorate the house for Halloween.

Hey, I told you it was going to work out didn't I?

Weeks Four and Five - Update

2008-09-23T10:08:00.003-06:00

Had my first interview yesterday afternoon. It went really well. The Director of Planning talked with me for three hours. I felt that was a good sign. I'm going back on Wednesday to talk with the Asst. Director. Hopefully I'll have something in the bag by Friday and I'd like to start October 6th.

I've been working on more projects around the house, including repairing and cleaning up my sailboat which has had some neglect the past couple of years. I've also repaired the kitchen faucet.

Things are going well. On to the end of the week and hopefully some good news.

BTW, today's my birthday. Yeah me.

Week Three - Wrap Up

2008-09-09T11:58:00.004-06:00

I had a great conversation with a consultant friend of mine who was very encouraging and thought they'd might like me to move to perhaps move to Austin if I was interested. We're still holding out to finding a job without moving which would be the ideal candidate.

I went to my friend Greg's house on Tuesday and we had a terrific conversation about Doctor Who and kids and just hanging out with a buddy.

Wednesday was my self torture day in which I wen to the dentist at 7 am and had the most painful cleaning of my life. The most awful part of it was I get to do it again tomorrow as the hygienist only had enough time to get the lower half done. I'm on a more regular regimen of flossing and rinsing with a new hydrogen peroxide cleaner to keep my mouth healthier.

I volunteered at Alexander's school on Thursday.

Saturday evening I played outside with the guys (chase) as Meredith was baking oatmeal raisin cookies. After chase, the three of us laid down on the hammock watching the stars, Venus and the Moon come out. Ford was pointing very enthusiastically at the Moon. As we sat and the stars one by one starting blinking into view, Meredith came out with three warm cookies for us to eat. We had an enjoyable time and memory.

Monday saw us going to the zoo. Beforehand, I had to drop off some paperwork at the former employment and saw a couple of people there who were very encouraging. One kept telling me "good for you!" That helped reduce the stress of going there. I didn't make the effort to go into the department, it still is a little soon. The zoo wasn't crowded and was very pleasant to go to. Alexander and Meredith had a close encounter with a silverback gorilla making faces through the viewing glass. Ford has decided that he is an orangutan.

This week, I have the dentist again and will be trying to set up some get-togethers with some friends.

I've had more people tell me that I should be enjoying the time that I have here. I'm trying to achieve that goal.

Week Two - Wrap Up

2008-09-01T22:25:00.002-06:00

I've gotten some more stuff done this week. The yard is looking much better. I've killed off numerous ant piles and have fully decimated the number of clover plants in the front yard. The boys have played extensively with the water slide this week. No less than three times have I drug out the thing, set it up, deflated it and laid it out to dry and rolled it back up.

I've made several phone calls to colleagues and have made several connections. Things are still a bit positive. I'm a little put out that the previous job put all of my last checks into one which bumped me into a higher tax bracket on withholding.

On Saturday, the boys went over to my parent's house and Meredith and I had a lovely dinner at Anamia's Restaurant in Southlake. We then went to Central Market and had some Italian Gelato. Meredith tried the Hatch Chili one...I went with mint. Luckily for us we ran into some old friends from my church in Bedford and we sat down with them and had lots of good laughs. It was an uplifting experience.

We had some of Alexander and Meredith's friends over this evening for Labor Day (getting out the water slide again). Meredith made white bean chili with Hatch roasted chilis and they brought ice cream.

Their son (who is only turned four this summer) is reading like a pro. I'm not sure how they've done it. It is really impressive. I wish I could get Alexander to pay attention enough to recognize the letters correctly. He'll get it. He has one of the best vocabularies of any child his age I've met. We read longer, more involved stories at night time. We've read to date:

The Wizard of Oz; The Adventures of Robin Hood; The Phantom Tollbooth; Alice in Wonderland; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

This week Alexander and Ford go back to school. I'm going to volunteer in Alexander's class on Thursday. I'll hang out with my friend Greg, and hopefully get a call on one of my applications I've got sitting out there.

I'm learning about expectations and anticipations. I'm also attempting to do some professional reading as well. I need to brush up on some case law and fix my boat.

Things to do while you're still working at getting work.

Week One Wrap-up

2008-08-25T07:59:00.005-06:00

It hasn't been a bad week. I've been able to count some successes this week. On my first day off, the washing machine broke and the oven wasn't working correctly. So with a little help from the internet and some time self-diagnosing, I was able to correctly figure out that the washing machine had a power-transfer coupler broken ($15 at Sears Parts Supply) and the oven's baking element had broken ($43 at Appliance Parts Depot). So those were happy things.

I've had a good week talking to other people in my profession, all of whom were really supportive. I've made two applications and one possible job inquiry. There are two good possibilities for consulting work coming up this week.

My doctor was really impressed with my improvement from a week ago.

The best part of the week was being able to hang out with Alexander, Ford and Meredith more without the overhanging thoughts that the time will have to end and I'll have to recover from being miserable before I'm with them again.

That's the problem in a nutshell. I know a new job will make me stressed. I know a new job will require me to be at late meetings. But I don't want to have a new job that takes me to such depths that it takes me a whole weekend to recover before I have happy time with my family. The drive home in the evenings was not enough time for recovery from the day.

Saturday saw a long day for Meredith with running two Weight Watcher's meetings, helping out a college class in the afternoon and hosting a party in the evenings. The kids and I had a good day. We ran some errands, had McDonald's for lunch and then went to our friend Greg's house for a Doctor Who birthday party. Alexander dressed up as the David Tennant doctor, I as The Master, and Ford as a little creature called the Adipose. We ended being the only ones dressed up, but everyone was especially impressed with Alexander's costume. He even got to wear it to church the next day.

On to week two and more successes.

Water Slide!

2008-08-17T23:36:00.002-06:00

We played with a new water slide someone at our church gave us. The thing is an inflatable. The tallest point is 8' off of the ground. It's huge. The guys had a great time.

This evening, we went to Meredith's uncle's house n Richardson. We enjoyed Meredith's extended family tremendously. I'm relaxed this evening. I have to be careful not to eat to help relieve any of my job situation stress.

You did what?

2008-08-17T23:30:00.002-06:00

Ok, here's the storyline. I interviewed for the Director of Planning in April. I had lots of good indications from the Mayor, the City Manager and the Deputy City Manager that I would be a great candidate for the position. They ended up hiring someone else.

The new person had a completely different philosophy of urban planning than me. I started feeling terrible every day. I've had panic attacks, shakes and tremors and finally feeling like my adreniline wouldn't stop running - burning pain in my back and all down my left arm.

Last Monday I went back to the doctor with tremors and determined that the stress was really messing me up.

Thursday, since my expectations for the job had drastically changed since beginning thee years ago I quit.

I received a severance package that I think was well planned and fair.

The plan is that I'm going to be working for my friend Larry doing some consulting work for a little while - all the time looking for a new job with a city. So things are good. The best thing is: 1. I'm still officially employed by the consultant...2. I'm pretty sure there's going to be some job openings in the next couple of months as the new fiscal year begins October 1st.

We've planned for this eventuallity for a couple of months now.

But I'm feeling ever so much better. It was either the job or my health and family, and I chose the right one.

So, with the support of family, friends and church, I'll move on and there will be great things going on for me.

Ford Sleeping

2008-07-27T19:57:00.001-06:00

New Photos, Discovery Green - Alex's Nature Class

2008-06-27T09:06:00.005-06:00

Here's the photos:

While I was in Florida, Meredith and the guys went to Houston to visit the Holders. Alexander appreciated playing with Gareth and Ford and Bethany really enjoyed each other. One of the day trips that they took was going to Discovery Green, a Downtown Houston park that was preserved through the efforts of many of the city leaders. Featuring public art, performance venues and water features, it's a gathering spot in the middle of the urban landscape.

Last week, Alexander took a class at Arlington's River Legacy Park. He learned about animals using camoflage and building bird nests and how animals show that they are scared. He's even demonstrated how a skunk tells you before it squirts you.

We went out on Saturday to walk the trails. We saw turtles, squirrels, lizards and Alexander saw a two foot green snake before anyone else did. We enjoyed our walk.

This week has been Vacation Bible School for Alexander. He's been going to one (Outrigger Island) in the morning in Grapevine and to Power Lab at our church in Denton in the evenings.

A quick funny story about Ford. He and I hung out at the church on Tuesday evening as Alex was at the VBS. As part of the decorations for the Power Lab they had areas with black lights. I smiled real big for Ford and my teeth glowed. He tried to grab them. Then as I was looking closer at his face, I noticed that because his hair was so light and blonde that it was glowing yellow in the uv light. I was greatly amused by that.

Enjoy the photos.

How to Neglect your Friends in 3 Easy Steps

2008-06-16T21:57:00.002-06:00

1. Say you're going to call and then don't. Really, I've been meaning to call, email, send flares whatever...but I'm only doing well enough to make sure that I take a shower once a day.

2. Go months and months without contacting them and booking yourself up with stuff on the weekends that you couldn't possibly be available to go see anybody or do anything.

3. Gripe about it in your blog, like THAT's going to help anything. Oh...crap.

Anyway, to anyone who still reads this silly thing. I'm sorry I haven't been in touch with you personally. As you might have guessed, I'm a little busy at the moment and will be attempting to actually have some time off soon. Alexander and I may even get to go see Kung-Fu Panda on Wednesday. But I'm going to make some time to get in touch with you and see how you're doing and hopefully make some plans to have dinner, let kids play and generally be human instead of driving to work - working - driving home routine.

Love to you all.

Gone to see a 6 foot mouse

2008-06-06T11:17:00.003-06:00

I left Sunday afternoon to go to Orlando for a conference on our new computer system. The conference is being held at the Disney Coronado Resort in Orlando, Fl. I'll say up front here and now that I've never been to Orlando and never been to a Disney-anything...resort, development, theme park - well except the Disney stores once in a while, but they're closed now.

I do not like Disney. I enjoy many of the movies (Peter Pan, Finding Nemo, Pirates of the Caribbean) but I've never bought into the whole "Disney" image. I've always enjoyed the more tongue-in-cheek humor of Warner Bros much more. But, even Six Flags became overly aggressive in the "cute" factor.

The long and short of it is - I'm here for 4 days, no family, with a few work friends - but really no one to hang out with.

Meredith, home with the kiddos left on Monday morning to go visit Angela, Anthony and the cousins for the week.

I arrived at Orlando airport about 9:30pm on Sunday evening. I rode the Disney bus from the airport to my hotel, the Disney Coronado Springs Resort. I have a casita hotel room. About the same size as most Holiday Inn hotel rooms, but at least I overlook the large lagoon in the center of the resort. The walk from the main building to the room is a little over a quarter of a mile. I bought a $11.99 plastic mug for sodas as it can be refilled (only at this resort) for free and not pay the $2.18 per soda price tag.

The conference this morning was much more applicable than I thought it was going to be. Rather than just the basics of the system, they did discuss much of the theory behind their convoluted programming. The owners of the software are aware of much of the issues with the system as we are. That is not only encouraging but also a bit worrying.

I particularly enjoyed a presentation of a plan review software that allows the applicant to upload their plans and staff can overlay one set o plans with a revision set and it will show the modifications of the plan. Even if the changes weren't specifically requested by staff. That type of information would be invaluable for the quality control of plan review.

After the sessions were over, I went on the bus to "Downtown Disney". A boardwalk environment dead center of the WDW area. Restaurants from Wolfgang Puck to McDonald's and even a movie theater. Being me, and alone, I ended up going and seeing Iron Man. Most likely the best superhero movie I've seen. Much better acted than the last Spider-Man movie. I think the Marvel Studio concept may work well.

I wandered around the area for a while. The most impressive of the stores was the Disney store with all of the Pirates of the Caribbean stuff and, if I had a little girl instead of two guys, a complete princess makeover studio. But by far and large, the most involved store was the Legoland store. They had Lego models of robots, dinosaurs, dragons and fish out front. Inside every Lego set you could imagine was out for display.

I ended up having dinner at the Wolfgang Puck bistro with a small wood-fired pizza and a tea. There is plenty of bars, saloons and other adult entertainment. As I type this, there is loud music down the hallway from me from the lounge here at the resort. I just can't bring myself to be the sad person drinking alone in a bar in Florida. Much more creative men than me have done that...one sells massive concerts full of people wearing parrots, and the other I'm thinking of ended up in Idaho with a shotgun for a friend.

I a having more fun here than I thought I would. The massive regret I have is that Meredith and the guys (especially Alexander) aren't here to enjoy this with me. Maybe next year or the year after when Alex is 6 and Ford is 3 would be a good time to go. The transportation is rather easy to get around and well laid out. I'm not going to any of the parks this trip (really, how sad would that be?) but whereas before this trip I was an absolutely not...now, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. If we went slightly off-season or as a road-trip combination with going to see the grandparents in South Carolina it could work.

My next thought is to what to bring the boys and Meredith back as souvenirs. I think something pirate-related for Alex and maybe small pendant for Meredith that wouldn't be too-grab orienting for Ford. Ford maybe happy with a small figurine of Mickey Mouse dressed as a jedi knight.

From a planning perspective - Disney is massive sprawl. Consisting of over 46 square miles of (lets face it, reclaimed swampland in many cases) the place is extremely well planned...IF you use your own vehicle or the Disney Transit system. Otherwise you can't walk anywhere (no sidewalks to any of the boulevards connecting the parks/resorts) Everything is a controlled environment. There is hardly a bulb out or a weed present in any landscaping. Each entrance to the resorts, parks is designed for the "wow" view as one enters the park. Look at the anticipation of the sign, the lighting, the berms hiding what is a forty story tall building with fish on the top...as you turn the next corner. Pre-destined and well-thought out.

However the "Disneyification" can only be described as a real occurrence. Because there isn't anything out of place, there is a feeling that the experience isn't totally real. The "cast members" are nice, but there is a forcefulness behind it. Rehearsed lines and faces from part-time actors who put their time in and are ready to go home and their own "real" lives.

Obviously it is something that works, and has for over fifty years. It is a vision of American corporate power oriented to making people forget about their own lives and live a fantasy for a few days or even hours. Who am I to really question that?

As wireless internet access is $5 an hour here, I'm going to log off and check out my email. Most likely I won't be posting further from the Disney area. I'll use that money to buy something nice for the guys and remind myself that fun is in they eye of the person having it. I'll go back to Europe and Northern California someday when I can slowdown and really enjoy them.

You Know What? Just Tell Me Ok?

2008-06-05T07:18:00.002-06:00

If anybody as a problem with me...tell me straight out. Tell me I'm talking too much. Tell me that my ideas have no merit. Tell me I'm wrong. I may or may not agree with you, but in the very least I know where you stand and I can get on with my day. Well, except when I sometimes use a malapropism - wait until I'm done...then let me know.

I don't need to be stepped around lightly. I don't have the ego or arrogance to think I'm right all of the time. Most of the time I think I'm wrong or making it up as I go along anyway.

But you don't have to humiliate me by letting me hang myself with my own words. You don't have to punish me by belittling me.

I'm my own worst critic and that's punishment enough.

Jim Kunstler Says it Best

2008-05-28T13:36:00.003-06:00

If you haven't already, check out Jim Kunstler's website. If you can get past the slightly offensive title, he has some really interesting things to comment on our society especially as we reach issues of the end of the petroleum era. Of particular note was this quote:

"Of course, one of the reasons that Americans are so anxious to get away on a holiday weekend from the places where they live is because we did such a perfect job the past fifty years turning our home-places into utterly unrewarding, graceless nowheres, where the private realm of the beige houses is saturated in monotony, and the public realm has been reduced to the berm between the WalMart and the strip mall. Now, we barely have the gasoline to run all this stuff, let alone escape from it for a weekend."

Have you seen the ebay and craigslist ads for all of the gasoline powered toys? Boats, RVs, personal watercraft, ATVs, off-road motorcycles. All for sale because we can't afford to keep them running. Where do we go from here?

BTW, I'm not immune to the hypocrisy of this issue. I drive a relatively fuel friendly car (25 to 27 mpg) but I am spending $8.25 a day on gas getting to work and back. There's a guy at my office who is driving 120 milesround trip to work and back. That's $22.00 a day in his truck. He's got 200K miles on it. I'm at 138K. Eventually I might be able to ride the train from a station by my home to the city I work at, then a circular route bus from the train station to within a couple of blocks to work... but the first leg of that isn't going to be available until 2012 and the second train trip and bus...probably not until 2020. By then I'll have been working for the city for fifteen years and a total of 24 years. Somehow, I might be working somewhere else.

The View from a Four-Year Old

2008-05-28T10:27:00.006-06:00

This past weekend I spent some time figuring out all my tech. I uploaded a bunch of photos from our camera and organized them on the main computer. I went through and found that we had extra USB2 cables and that for some reason we had for power AC power supplies for cell phones we haven't had in a year.

I also found our old Olympus Camedia camera. The viewscreen broke several years ago when I dropped it getting into the car after the graduation of Meredith's niece. So I've had it around. It still takes pictures, but you can't see them unless you upload them to a computer. Several months ago, Meredith gave Alexander the camera to take pictures around the house. Here is some examples of his unique viewpoint.

Car Photos

2008-05-03T18:38:00.004-06:00

Here are some photos of the 2003 Element we recently purchased. I spent most of yesterday evening and this morning detailing the paint, interior and engine compartment. It only has a few dings and for the most part is a really nice car. Mom and Dad came over this morning for a quick look. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

With a few minutes of Dad's buffer sometime in the next couple of weeks, the last of the scratches will be buffed out as well

I tried something new - claying the car. Using a detailing lubricant, you use a clay bar (about the consistency of silly putty) and gently rub the surface of the paint, shining, polishing and removing contaminants from the surface. Then a good wax - and the black paint pops.

Cars

2008-05-01T12:06:00.002-06:00

We're going to pick up the new vehicle this evening. Its a 2003 Honda Element - or as Meredith lovingly calls it the Talkie Toaster. She's actually rather pumped up about it.

It's from a private seller - a friend of Meredith's who she has been helping out the past week or so when they had a medical emergency in the family. It needs two new front tires and a fine detail cleaning, polishing and waxing. But, I need some zen time tomorrow to work on it. That will be ok.

Before I purchase it, I'm going to take it by my friend Brian's house. Brian is an excellent mechanic and has a ton of experience with looking over Hondas.

Meredith is excited about the poly-urethane flooring in the car - something that will make spills and crumbs easier to clean out. While it does look like a toaster, it has great visibility (much better than the 2008 Chevy HHR we've been driving around for the past three weeks). The Element's back seats fold up and clip to the sides to increase room, or they may be removed totally from the car.

It only has 64,000 miles - which for a 2003 is fairly low. I'll be happier when all of the work associated with it is done...and when we have a settlement from the insurance company representing the guy who's fault it is that we're having to purchase a car in the first place.

Ford is happy to sit in the front seat in Daddy's lap and go: "Vroom, vroom."

Jobs

2008-04-30T09:38:00.002-06:00

At least I thought the interview went well...

So I didn't get the job. They decided to hire someone with a bit more experience in economic development. I would have had a larger learning curve. Perhaps I'll be able to take some of the heat off of me to attend all of the City Council meetings.

It's funny. This is the first job in some time that I really wanted. I had interviewed with some cities in the past couple of years that offered me jobs but there was a certain aspect or two that I didn't want to add to the stress levels. I've always risen to the occasion in many ways. Not sure that I want to anymore.

I was told that I surprised the interview panel with how well I interviewed. I had correctly anticipated the questions they were going to ask and was clear and articulate in my answers.

Not that it really matters...

Time Has No Mercy

2008-04-21T09:56:00.000-06:00

Just thought I'd share.

Went to Austin Again

2008-04-16T11:43:00.003-06:00

Attended the Congress of the New Urbanism Conference in Austin April 3-6. It was a meeting of architects, planners, designers and some engineers were able to sneak in through the back door. The point of the Congress is to discuss and implement human scaled, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable land use and building design to all communities.

I attended sessions on fitting street design to new fire trucks, financing new urbanist developments, marrying the comprehensive plan to form-based codes and all of the plenary sessions. The most interesting of which was when the Congress awarded thier major "Athena" award to HRH Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. The Prince, who created the Prince's Foundation spoke via pre-recorded message to the meeting. Having never heard a formal - non-diplomatic speech from the man, I found him to be engaging, rather disarmingly funny and incredibly articulate about urban design, function and wanting to build communities that relate to the people. He personally felt that modern design, in particular the industrial nature and bauhaus style of construction separated people from their community; created a disenfranchisement of class and, designed public spaces which weren't public at all. He called for the reduction of the "uglification" of the UK and of the United States through better urban design. He didn't attend the event personally as he has made a committment to not fly from the UK unless it was for diplomatic reasons in order to reduce his personal carbon footprint.

In addition to attending sessions, I toured the Mueller Development - a mixed use, commecial and medical office complex being built on the former site of the Robert Mueller Airport - no more jets flying very low over your car on I-35. We also went to a Peter Calthorpe design - Triangle Development at the intersection of Guadalupe and Lamar Streets; and finally The Domain. The Domain was a little overdone in my opinion - it's basically an outdoor mall right now, we'll have to see if it truly will interact as a neighborhood in the future.

The biggest news of the trip was that Meredith and the boys went with me. We stayed in the Holiday Inn on Town Lake (Lady Bird Johnson Lake) and I was able to walk the mile or so from the hotel to the Austin Conference Center in the mornings by taking the town lake trail. Meredith and the guys went to the Austin Children's Museum, the Capitol Building, Zilker Park and swam in the heated hotel pool. We would meet up in the evenings and go to the Whole Foods national headquarters for dinner and sit on the veranda on the second floor and watch the sun go down.

On Saturday we met up with our Austin friends, Keith and Carrie Reeves and went with them to Bookpeople next door for a reading and book signing by Mo Willems, a children's author who wote Don't Let the Pidgeon Drive the Bus. Alexander had a great time.

On other notes. Meredith was in a car accident last Thursday. It wasn't her fault, the other guy pulled out in front of her. We're waiting to see if is insurance will total the car. Meredith thinks she wants a Honda Element.

We also had half of one of our Bradford Pear trees blow over in a thunderstorm last week. It wasn't as bad as some of my friends who were without power for several days, several trees blew over and their chimney fell over into their hottub.

I've been tapped to interview for the Community Development Director for the city I work for. My interview is next Friday. I hope it goes well.

This Friday however I have to moderate a discussion about urban gas well drilling for the Midwest Section of Texas APA. We're getting continuing education credit for it...so far they have 67 signed up to attend. Its a little daunting.

Ford Video

2008-03-12T21:41:00.002-06:00

Wild Weather Week

2008-03-12T20:48:00.002-06:00

Last week it was snow - That's a picture of a Snow Transformer that Alexander and I made. We made a regular snowman and then used a straight edged toy of his to carve out blocky body parts and head for just the right Transformer look.

We've had the snow, sleet, ice, thunderstorms, rain, fog and nice sunny days. All this week. Typical weather discussions for North Texas.

Modifications to the Blog

2008-03-06T15:06:00.002-06:00

Quick note before the main post: If you're still looking at this blog from the www.yourminis.com website, please redirect to the blog main website at: www.sacwho.blogspot.com website. I'm no longer going to maintain the minis as they're too time consuming and the only ones I use tend to be buggy.

As always, I'll make comments here from time to time and will post new photos of the family and life to the flickr account.

Illness

2008-02-12T20:40:00.002-06:00

So we all caught the cold/flu/thing that is running around the North Texas Region this week. Ford and Alexander have been sniffling and coughing for a while, but it was last Tuesday that hit me hard. I was at work and around noon I started shaking uncontrollably. I was freezing and had to go sit in my car at lunchtime to warm up. I didn't want to go home, because I had the responsibility of running the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting that night. But eventually around 2pm I went home. After collapsing onto the bed I didn't move again for another four hours.

Chest burning, head burning, fever and body aches - I couldn't really tell if it was the flu or not. I didn't feel nausous or anything. But I stayed home Wednesday through Friday. I have never taken three days for personal sick leave before. Then Meredith came down with the same thing on Friday. At least I was able to be here for the weekend and help her through it as well. I don't think she got is as bad as I did.

I was able to do a little (very little) work from the new laptop at home. I mostly watched episodes of The Office and some really trashy movies by Quentin Tarantio and Robert Rodriguez.

Yuck.

Ford at the Park

2008-02-04T21:55:00.001-06:00

Living in Freedom and Peace

2008-01-28T20:58:00.000-06:00

The current President of the United States is talking. But is he actually saying anything? The problem with a lame duck President in his last year and especially with the last State of the Union addressd is that they're looking for the last amount of legacy that they can bring out. It was the same with Clinton as well. (Of course all he really had to overcome is lying that had some dalliances, Mr. Bush has a LOT more to answer for.)

Bush is not going to have a good year. The election this year is looking at becoming one of the best attended and most useful at resetting how policy is shaped in America. The President will become irrelevant this year. We're going to have shrinkage in the economy, continued challenges to the role of the United States in the rest of the world. The least of which this year is the world's focus on China in an olympic year. There will be examination on the politics, lifestyles and massive market that the Chinese represent. Much of it will be the vision of a newly industrialized country, bringing a totalitarian one-party state to a full market economy. The tale of Hong Kong wagging the dog.

China will be on the main stage, as will other Asian centers of influence. Countries willing to subjigate their human resources for greater global share and market. The American socierty that this President sees is a shielded State. Protectionism and isolationism will not balance out the power growing in human will on the other side of the globe. If it were left to a strict non-diplomatic invisible hand economy...I'm not sure that ours will be left standing on top. We must be proactive in bringing about positive change in our cities, our students and universities. Making our lives more productive by providing better places to live rather that instilling fear and a false sense of security without hope.

This is what this President has brought us to. This is where we will need to change.

Brain Dump

2008-01-28T00:04:00.000-06:00

Hiya out there. It's been a month since my last post, which wasn't much - just some photos from Christmas time. We've been a bit busy. We've had a car accident a couple of weeks ago. We were driving in the Honda to Church and going slowly on Main Street in Roanoke when this guy backs up into our car from a parking space on the side of the road. It turns out that he is an unlicensed Mexican national. The police weren't much help. They got the information wrong on the police report. The insurance that the guy had in the truck, while looking legal, has a phone number that goes to some lady in Fort Worth. He caused 3,000 dollars in damage to our car, and our insurance is going to have to pay for it.

I knew when he had hit us that it was going to be difficult. That's why I called the police. I was really disappointed when I got the report and there were glaring errors in it. For instance, my driver's license number appeared on the report as the number of the insurance policy. Luckily, I had written down the number independently or they wouldn't have got it.

So, we're going to have my Dad fix the car in the next couple of weeks.

We had my Mom's 60th birthday party on Saturday. Her actual birthday is Jan 28th, but my sister and I planned to have a party that included several of her friends. We had a Mardi Gras theme. I cooked Cajun food including boiled shrimp, potatoes, and corn. We bought some crawfish etoufee and dirty rice and Meredith made a nice bread pudding with whiskey sauce and a lemon sauce.

Mom was really touched by the party. Laura had made her a scrapbook of photos, I made a DVD with a video from photos and Michael showed up. He surprised everyone by flying in unannounced for the weekend from Maine. That was really special. I think the event was a great experience for Mom.

On another point, we're going to be starting a comprehensive plan update at work. I've gotten a consultant on board to help look at some of the larger issues with the city and hope to set a goal list of items to update ordinances with.

I purchased a new computer. After debating for almost two years about which laptop to get, I finally broke down and purchased another Dell product. I had been looking at MacBooks for some time, but I couldn't see paying a extra 1000 dollars and not getting the compatibility with some of the work software that I have. Plus, several of my online things that I like (streaming video from my Netflix account) wouldn't work with a Mac. Dell had a 10 days of deals promotion going on, and I got a 15" Dell XPS laptop in red. It's snazzy. In fact, I'm writing this first post of the year from it. More than a toy, I'll be able to use it not only for work, but also for some consulting on the side as well.

Ford has been getting more restless lately. He has had some fairly significant separation anxiety from Meredith. He cries regularly when she leaves his immediate eyesight. He is now going twice a week to Cornerstone school with Alexander while Meredith is teaching her classes. He'll grow out of it, but it is a little disheartening for me to pick him up to play with him and all he wants to do is cry.

Lost on ABC starts back up this week. I got hooked over the past six months from watching it on DVD. I'm ready to see what's become of the rest of the Others, who gets off the island, and is the future Jack and Kate, real, imagined, or one of possible futures.

Hope you've been able to keep up...

2007-12-31T13:20:00.001-06:00

TV Shows I'm enjoying...

2007-12-05T22:02:00.000-06:00

Doctor Who
Torchwood
Robin Hood
Lost
The Office
The Simpsons
Battlestar Galactica
Deadwood (dvd)

Middle Class Angst

2007-11-27T08:06:00.000-06:00

The last thing I want to be is a whiner.

I want to be a problem solver. A solution finder. The hero in the storm of chaos. Entropy and time are my enemies. Lack of vast quantities of liquid assets is also an issue. We're doing fine, but you got to believe that if I didn't have to travel 25 miles away every day to get yelled at by people wanting to put up a 1,200 sqft metal building behind their trailer house - I certainly wouldn't.

I had a great time with Alexander yesterday evening. We went out about 7pm to go to Wal-Mart to find the little plastic stakes to put our Christmas lights outlining our front yard. I spent a little too much time driving around and he went to bed about 30 minutes later than he should. My time with him is so limited - the other half of the problem is that on weekends when I should have more time with him, I'm usually spending it attempting to get all of the things that I didn't accomplish during the week done. Most of my time is spent cleaning the house or trying to work on a project for the house.

Why is it that I've achieved what I wanted as a kid - pretty, funny and intelligent partner; heathly, intelligent and good looking kids; a house that I am exceedingly pround of - and I feel like I've lost my way.

I've been praying a lot about why I have such self-doubt in the face of relatively good success. I'm not as creative as I want to be. But I'm not sure that I'm achieving the level of success that people expect of me.
But then, there's the part of me that is ready to divest all and move to New Zealand. So, what ya gonna do? Move on and love my kids and work harder at being happy.

Happy Halloween - and Happy Birthday Alexander

2007-11-02T15:33:00.000-06:00

We had a great Halloween. I got home early from work. Meredith cooked a nice dinner and we dressed the guys as Batman and Robin. (photos to follow). My parents came over about 6pm and Aunt LaLa over shortly after that. 6:30 rolled around and many kids were starting out into the street.

Our neighborhood has lots of kids, so many of the houses are either decorated for Halloween or have their front porches lit up for the occasion. Even further, many of the neighbors find it an enjoyable experience (even those without children of trick-or-treat age to get out their portable chairs, get a glass or bottle of frosty adult beverages and a bowl of candy and wave at the passing throng.

Meredith and my father spent much of the evening out front of the house, while Laura, Alexander, Ford and I went out for treats. My mother had a class she had to get to. Ford really enjoyed the trick-or-treating process from upon his perch in the frame backpack on the back of Daddy. He paid special attention to his fellow caped-crusader as he bounded up each walk to the front door only to be rewarded with candy.

Alexander was very pleasant as he had his line down:

"Trick or treat!"

and after his reward, came a gracious "Thank you" with only a little prompting from Daddy. At one house in particular, the lady stated that Alexander had terrific manners and told him to have a great time. Alexander responded with:

"All right, I WILL. IT'S HALLOWEEN!"

We met all sorts of costumed characters along the way. The most memorable for me was three middle-school aged boys dressed up as middle-school aged cheerleaders. That was gutsy and impressive.

The best trick-or-treater of the evening was a little boy younger that Alex who was so impressed with Alex's Batman costume that he had to comment about it all the way up and back the walkway. Alexander made his evening by calling to him as he left...

"See you later, Buzz Lightyear!"

The weather cooperated in that it wasn't excessively hot or cold with just a little wind. The fire department showed up in the neighorohood with two firefighters handing out glowsticks to all the kids.

After the treats were finished. Alexander helped sort out the candy that wasn't good for his "Superman" teeth (those which were excessively sticky) and kept mostly the chocolate ones.

It was a truly a happy halloween.

Then following the 31st is Alexander's 4th birthday. He arrived from school wearing a red construction paper crown exclaiming the fact. We ended up going to Double Dave's pizza for dinner as Alexander's special treat.

His birthday party will be on Saturday. The theme: Transformers.

Alexander. More than meets the eye.

Somewhere There's Happy News - We Just Don't Get To See It

2007-10-08T12:38:00.000-06:00

Following up on my rant about how bad the news media is getting, here's an opinion from a clearly conservative capitalistic point of view, but with which I agree with. Here's the opinion. I've read The Population Bomb and I believe that one of the reasons for the lessening of human suffering by ever enlarging populations is the increase in efficiency in agriculture since the 1960s. There is an abundance of food and a more efficient way of getting that food to locations where it is needed.

The technology has reached the point where we can help out the planet. It's just the politics that get in the way. If you've seen me the past six months you've seen a white wrist band around my left wrist. All it says is "ONE". It represents my support of the one movement to end world poverty. It isn't a call for money - just discussion and action wherever and with whomever you can to bring policies in line to help the indigent and poor in improving their lives. I attempt to work solutions with developers to provide jobs and affordable housing within communities and to increase the quality of life for the residents of those communities. There is a link to the right hand portion of the screen if you're interested.

Insane Nutjob Phone Call

2007-09-28T15:54:00.000-06:00

I recieved my first real nutjob phone call today about the annexations. She called to complain (not about the annexation notice) but the fact that the label on her letter had accidentally placed the word "David" on her letter. This was a minor computing error that glitched when the mail merge from the database to the label list occurred. Her correct name was on the list. She received the notice. It just had the extra "David" attached.

I received an earful that there was on no certain terms a "David" at that address and that we shouldn't be mailing incorrect information. I told her that sometimes computers make errors and that I'd be happy to check the database and make sure it doesn't happen again. I'm sure there were some errors when I was mailing out over 250 letters.

She hung up on me.

When can I have a job where I make people happy? That's kinda why I wanted to get into this planning gig. I wanted to help make great places for people to enjoy themselves. But I have little influence on the developer's side - they don't want to spend the money; little influence on the implementation side - I write ordinances which get watered down and disused.

Unbelieveable. I literally can't believe someone was that upset about something like that.

Morons.

Tabloid 10 o'clock and the Harm of Children

2007-09-28T09:47:00.000-06:00

What are we to learn about the constant information pouring into our lives of the harm of children by their parents, caregivers, relatives and other children? Are we to click our tounges disapprovingly and thank our God that our family doesn't have these issues? What is it that our media (in particular the local televison news agencies and local newspapers) is trying to tell us about these incidents? Again, I have to ask:

What are we to learn?

Every night we are barraged with images of some "intrepid" news reporter with a HD camera sitting outside of some non-descript home with a few neighbors in the background discussing how the family was either well-liked or no one really knew them. There isn't any substance. No one talks about trends in the country, or how we can help people through parental education or how through funding better family intervention programming. This is where an unleashed invisible hand hits at the most vulnerable and our media happily (but with a stern look and a quick read of the teleprompter) reports it. Harm or death of children in 30 second sound bites only an inch deep and a mile wide.

News like this MUST have context of our greater society, otherwise what does reporting the body count of our locality actually mean. "Look: a child was run over by a car. It's a terrible accident. Their family and friends are sad. Next, we'll talk to you about the new fried foods at the State Fair."

My children have hopes and dreams and laugh and cry and nurse and love. These children did also. They deserve more. Our society deserves more.

Small Ford and Alexander Slide Show

2007-09-22T15:45:00.000-06:00

Annexation and Retaliation

2007-09-21T15:34:00.000-06:00

My job has just become much more visible and active. The city will begin annexation processes on October 11th. We're annexing significant portions of the I-35 Corridor and some areas that were originally left out of the city as "doughnut holes" areas completely surrounded by city.

There is going to be a ton of angry people.

They all have my phone number.

Welcome Michael, Krista and Charlie to Keller

2007-09-21T15:32:00.000-06:00

Michael, Krista and Charlie Andress are now the proud residents of Keller. We're glad to have such good friends close by. Now that the center-of-gravity has shifted to northeast Tarrant County, we need the Uggens to realize that soon, they too may feel the call...

Austin Trip

2007-09-21T14:30:00.000-06:00

It's been almost a month since the last blog entry. I apologize to those who have read this before and are interested in reading it again. I'll try and keep things up to date a little more often.

The first part of August saw us take a real four-day vacation to the City of Austin. Our good friends the Reeves recently moved to Austin last year so that Keith could take a job as the head producer for the City of Austin's cable channel.

The Reeves let us stay in their house just south of 290 on the southwest corner of the city. Quick access to the Hill Country, quick access to downtown...its a nice location. They have a Central Market just up the street.

We drove into Austin on the west side of town skipping past the traffic along I-35 that would be taking place on a Friday afternoon, and stopped shortly in the town of Leander, where HEB Grocery stores recently built a large HEB Plus store. The company is planning on building a similar style store and retail center in Burleson, so it was an opportunity for me to take pictrues and walk around the project enough to be conversant in the planning of the future project for my job.

We had make your own pizza night with the Reeves and Keith's parents who were in town that evening.

Saturday saw Meredith, the boys, and I driving into downtown and visting the Bob Bullock State History Museum. We toured the various exhibits including a history of the space program from the perspective of Texas. Many artifacts of the raising of LaSalle's ship from the Gulf of Mexico (thanks to the Texas A&M Department of Nautical Archeology) and a great interactive exhibit on the Texas Centennial of 1936 held at Fair Park in Dallas.

Alexander's favorite part was the Texas Spirit Theater which had interactive thunderstorms, loud noises, and many moving images of stories of the history of Texas.

Afterwards, we went to the original Kerbey Lane restaurant for mid-afternoon pancakes. We went to Austin Comics and I bought a Superman T-shirt to match Alexander's. We drove around the west side of the city for a while and met up with the Reeves at thier house for a trip into downtown to the Whole Foods national headquarters at 5th and 6th Streets and Lamar. We had dinner and watched the sun go down on the second floor veranda while the kids played on the playground. We then went to the Congress Ave bridge over Town Lake (now Lady Bird Johnson Lake) to watch the bats come out. We thought it was a little too warm for the bats, as many were swooping out, but they didn't come out en masse.

Sunday we had breakfast (yet again at a Kerbey Lane) and went to Bookpeople, the largest independently owned bookstore in Texas. That afternoon Meredith and the guys and I went driving around the hill country on the west side, saw her former home in Austin, and drove out to Lake Travis. We ended up driving back through all of the new housing growth in towns like Bee Cave and had a nice dinner back at the house.

Monday was a spectacular day in the history of the Stephen and Meredith Cook family. We set out in the morning to drive to the true Hill Country by way of Marble Falls and Burnet and taking a detour at a state park: Longhorn Caverns.

I've been to Natural Bridge Caverns and Carlsbad Caverns (at least three times) ... Longhorn Cavern was the most real experience I've had in a cave. We arrived only minutes prior to the 1pm tour beginning (no wait time) and we enter into a 64° cave in 100°+ weather. Our tour guide was a local geologist and historian. The cave is an active river cave. Rather than live stalagtites and stalagmites, the cave is full of sweeping curves etched into the stone from the flow of water. Whole circular rooms with sprial ceilings exist where whirlpools eddy through the cavern when filled. The most recent flooding in Central Texas this past May closed the cave system for several days.

The cave has been the host of Comanche tribal meetings, a 1920s speakeasy, possibly a hideout, and the site of much blasting and excavation in the 1930s by the civilian work program. The trip in and out is about 1½ miles. Alexander, Ford and Meredith were troopers.

At one point they turned out all of the lights for the experience of complete darkness. Alexander, who was holding my hand at the time gripped harder, but as his contemporaries in the tour group began to cry, he held on and was ultimately fascinated by the experience.

At several points through the tour we got muddy as there were still slick areas of the cave. There were several points were Meredith and I had to duck low to get through to the next cave room, while Alexander happily pointed out that he was just the right size.

Emerging into the heat and sunlight after an hour and a half, we washed off the mud and loaded back up into the car. Alexander and Ford promptly fell asleep for most of the remainder of the trip home.

I had never before felt this unified as a family. We had a terrific family memory, in which we were active participants in our lives and not sitting by watching it pass on television.

It was a great trip.

Star Wars Exhibit

2007-07-31T18:44:00.000-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I took some time off to stay at home and to take Alexander to the Star Wars Exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Science. It is a travelling show staying in town from June to the first week of September. I received tickets to the event as a Father's Day gift from my parents. Alexander and I arrived at 9:00am to the museum and we were able to walk right up to the ticket window without waiting in the queue. This will have great significance later.

We got our package tickets to the event and to the IMAX movie "Special Effects". The tickets were set for a particular time to enter the exhibit. They had movie props including Luke's Landspeeder and many costumes.

The most interesting portions of the exhibit were the interactive "real science" experiments that showed off how the technology of Star Wars was applicable to real life. Alexander and I enjoyed building a landspeeder out of Legos with magnets on the bottom that would repel from some magnetic tracks. Then by placing another magnet on the back of the speeder and sending it through a series of electromagnets, they would propel the speeder along in a similar fashion to a mag-lev train.

Most of the other experiments had to do with the creation and programming of robots. Alexander enjoyed programming a R2 unit to work itself through a maze, and I enjoyed a robot that you could control to make it walk.

The exhibit ended with an animatronic C-3PO talking to the audience about different types of "real world" robots.

Alex and I had a great time.

Brave Combo Philosophy

2007-07-20T08:32:00.000-06:00

Carl Finch of Brave Combo had some interesting things to say about isolation of society and listening to music. People just don't interact with each other much anymore. Here's the article.

Concentration

2007-07-18T13:53:00.000-06:00

Having a difficult time CON-CEN-TRA-TING today. I have had what feels like a sinus headache for over a week now with no change. It's like a low-grade evil pulsing through and clouding all that I perceive and...I'm rambling.

Again, it's that concentrating thing.

There is a line from a favorite brit-com that applies:

"My short term memory has been erased. This I ascribe to the proximity of the magnetic coils from Starbug's rear engine. Secondly, due to the proximity of the magnetic coils, my short-term memory appears to have been erased. This, combined with the erasure of my short-term memory, has has left me a little disoriented, disoriented, disoriented." - Kryten, Red Dwarf

If I never hear about drilling gas wells in the Barnett Shale again I would be a happy camper. I don't care how much money you're pulling out of your 7,000 square foot hovel built in 1964...I don't want to deal with gas well drilling operator companies anymore.

I miss feeling relaxed.
I miss not having responsibility.
I hate having frustrating dreams about not getting work done.
I miss art and being creative.

I still haven't had that original thought - I'm looking for it everywhere.

Add 3 Sizes to your Email

2007-06-24T20:30:00.000-06:00

I'm tired of spam. I go all weekend without checking my email. Mainly because I'm really busy doing other things... and I tend to not want to sit in front of the computer when I'm not getting paid for it, or working on a real hobby - or doing something nice for someone. But I'm bored this evening so I thought I'd try and see if anyone has connected to me. An lo and behold two women have contacted me that they would love to see me with a larger piece of my anatomy. And here I am trying to make my stomach smaller. (16lbs so far for anyone watching).

I'm mad at my email client for not filtering these emails. I'm disappointed because most of the email I recieve at home lately has been from bookstores that I've purchased books from or forwarded messages of chain letters...I would love to be able to sit down with one of my friends, or a new friend and just write letters back and forth, describing my day, the frustrations of life and the humor of which I seem to have to hold up to it.

I'm going to have to see the doctor again. The blood pressure meds aren't seeming to help. I've been religiously taking the BP meds, the blood sugar, 1g of cinnamon and a multi-vitamin everyday. The last couple of nights where I've been really tired, I've laid down and could hear my pulse in my ears. I've always been able to do that at night especially - even as a child. But it is combined with fatigue -I know it's got to be elevated pressure.

The weight loss, like anything, has had its ups and downs. I've started having complements that people have noticed that the weight has reduced in my face. I'm still having a difficult time seeing it.

I was asked a difficult question at church today. I was asked where I was going for vacation this year. I had to really think about it. I haven't been on a vacation that hadn't involved seeing family in over ten years. Since my honeymoon actually. Now we've gone to some really nice places - Ruidoso, NM - Burnet, TX - San Francisco, CA - Galveston, TX - and all over South Carolina, but since we've been married, we've never just taken a week off to go somewhere just us.

The first 7 years of marriage have been mostly taken up with working for the City of Denton. Going on vacation was really difficult while I was working there. We were constantly berated with yet another set of public meetings in writing the Comprehensive Plan and the Development Code. All in all we held approximately 250 individual meetings getting those projects done. Any time away from Denton had to (rightly) be spent visiting family for the holidays. We saved a lot of money that way and when I finally left Denton, I had 300+ hours of vacation built up.

I haven't been back to Europe since 1994. I haven't gone to Boston to watch the Red Sox with my friend Bruce. I haven't driven up the Mississippi River from St. Louis to Minneapolis like I wanted. I haven't gone sailing in Auckland Bay on the North Island of New Zealand. I'm always committed to meetings and schedules months in advance.

I'm not about to say "poor me" who doesn't get a holiday. The reason mainly is that it would be crass and wrong to say that it is anything other than my own fault. But to stretch a metaphor a bit, my sail has been full with job, volunteerism, babies, moving, caring about politics, the environment, for so long now that the rudder has been tied off. The heading is set and the halyard has been locked in.

I need an anchor

or the keel is going to wear away...

Nice Kids

2007-06-10T17:22:00.000-06:00

Don't you wish that you could live your life as simply as children do? Things are good and bad. We pick up our toys when we're done. Nobody bothers us if we need to take a nap. Snacks are ok...and sometimes, just holding hands and being friendly is a great thing. Alexander and his friend Kendall are watching other kids hit a pinata at Alexander's friend Eddie's 3rd birthday party this weekend. They just waited patiently for their turn. Holding hands.

Hey Man, Like Wow... (Edited)

2007-06-10T17:10:00.002-06:00

This post has been removed because the other Stephen Cook was insecure enough in his own business that he had his sibling post to the blog to remove a photo (taken from a public street). I didn't make any judgements or comments other than the fact we had the same name which I thought was funny.

Some people have much more problems than I do...

Update: It also turns out that if you type in Stephen Cook - and his title on the outside of his store...which I won't write here to avoid any further yopping...it turns up that this post had made it to the second in Google searches. I'm still laughing about that. No wonder he was mad. More people must have clicked on my link.

Ford's Baptism

2007-06-06T07:49:00.000-06:00

We had a lovely weekend with Meredith's parents, sister's family, two cousin's families, my parents, sister, godparents to Alex and Ford and friends celebrating Ford's baptism. The outfit he is wearing was originally bought in Vietnam by my mother's parents for the baptism of my mother's younger sister Louisa. I and my siblings wore it at our baptism as well as Alexander to his.

It was special having so many people there. We are truly blessed with friends and family. Our love goes to Kathy and Gary Griffin, Ford's Godparents. They gave Ford a child's book of prayers and one of bible stories. It was a successful weekend.

Sugar...Buh..buh...bah..bah..Ahh, Honey, Honey.

2007-05-23T21:07:00.001-06:00

I've got high blood sugar. Officially (cause the letter says so) I've got diabetes. So, I'm on a blood sugar medication to reduce the tolerance level in addition to the other one to reduce the blood pressure. If I don't make the changes, then parts of my anatomy which I'm particularly fond of - feet...may wither and fall off. Or the kidneys will clog up and shut down...or the heart goes phfttt. Or inumerable other things may happen to me. Including getting hit by a truck.

Nothing else new however...I need to continue on the weight loss and excercise. I'm walking about a mile a day and would like to increase that amount. Yesterday, I cajoled Alexander into walking around the subdivision with me by telling him we're going out to fight bad jedi with out lightsabers. That worked up until the point halfway around when he started asking where the "real jedi" were.

Yesterday was also a banner day for Alex when he piped up in a restaurant with Meredith that he saw a man with only one leg. He then proceeded to laugh uproarously. Meredith had to calm him down and explain that sometimes people have bad accidents or have gotten hurt somehow to only have one leg.

If you were three and you first saw someone hopping around with one leg and a walker wouldn't you think they looked funny? Anyway, Meredith handled it fantastic. Alexander really does have a sympathetic ear for people when he understands what's going on.

Weight Loss and Life

2007-05-17T21:32:00.000-06:00

I'm on the Weight Watchers Flex Plan diet with Meredith helping me out. Its a lot easier tracking points during the day and evening when I can just do it over the computer. I don't even have to think about the calculations and I can manipulate the serving amounts with ease.

This is all precipitated by going to the doctor last Tuesday. I've been feeling rather run down - problems with occasional dizziness and blood sugar issues. At my height of weighing I was 276 lbs 2 years ago. Since then, I'm down to 260 and I need to lose the 60 extra pounds. By the charts I'm supposed to weigh something like 170 or something...but I'm not sure I could do that. If I can make it to 200 I'll be happier.

In addition to the doctor's office, I had to go get a battery of blood/sugar/fluids tested. That was last Saturday and took up my entire morning. I had to drink the orange drink and wait around for two hours then get blood drawn on a regular basis. Hopefully, I'll come in under the "Diabetes" range of the glucose test and just need to work on the lifestyle changes.

The first week hasn't been that hard. The more difficult time will be on Sunday after church with all of the snacks out...and then the following weeks as I start having cravings for Whataburgers and Mexican Food.

So far, Subway has been a friend. I can have a 6" Roast Beef sandwich with lots of veggies, no cheese and spicy mustard and a bag of Lays Baked Sour Cream and Onion Chips and a Diet Coke for $6 and only 400 calories.

Lastly, I've been scared straight with the news that one of my good friends suffered a heart attack this past weekend. He's going to recover, but it scared him and his family something awful. I can't imagine what they went through as it was happening. He's a bit older than I am, and smokes, but he has a much more relaxed viewpoint on life than I do. I have to make the changes now...or I'm putting my whole family at risk.

So, if you and I go out to lunch or dinner...encourage me to get the healthy choice. I've always needed friends to kick me in the butt on occasion to keep me moving forward.

Ford Sitting Around and Grinning

2007-05-14T19:19:00.001-06:00

Catch Up!

2007-04-29T21:06:00.000-06:00

This weekend was a good family weekend. It started off with Friday evening that I was able to get much of my workload done for the week so I felt like I've actually accomplished something. Second, Meredith and the boys came down to my work for lunch.

On Saturday we went to the Fort Worth Zoo, where we have memberships, and participated in a Baylor Alumni Diadeloso Event (Day of the Bear). There were door prizes and we met some very nice Baylor Alumns. We were even singled out as a "mixed marriage" of Aggie to Baylor Bear as well. Hey...I wore green and yellow for the day. The zoo was packed. There were more people visiting the zoo than I have seen in a long time. Afterwards, we went home and all of us slept for the afternoon. Alex and I are slowly watching through "The Lord of the Rings" making sure that we skip over the really scary parts.

Today we went to church and then went to the Denton Arts and Jazz Festival. It was really nice seeing several Denton friends from my time working at the city. I was even told by one of the police officers that I should apply for the Director of Planning position. He said that he felt I could do a really good job at it. I'm not so sure. I'm having a little heartburn over presenting my first divisional budget tomorrow morning as well as attempting to hire my first person solo in the coming week. Lots of little stressers that depending on how well I do, will be reflected in my performance review as a manager.

The past week has been a time of working on the house. I've repaired the hole in my ceiling that I placed (2'x3') by falling through from the attic while looking for a wayward Easter basket. Dad came over last Saturday and we repaired the hole rather well. I've also installed new florescant lighting in my garage and have planted herbs, tomatoes and okra in the garden. It seems like I'm always working at accomplishing something.

I'm thinking I may take Friday off.

2007-04-14T17:09:00.001-06:00

Whew!

2007-04-14T16:56:00.000-06:00

After some time off from blogging...mainly because of the vast amount of time that has been spent on Life 2.0 upgrade I've been having lately...I can sit down and write some stuff out.

Its been a little hectic with the two boys. Alexander has started showing a little of the small regressions including some bathroom problems, wanting to sleep in our bed a little more and being overly loud at times attempting to get our attention. Ford has decided that 8pm is his bedtime - thank you very much - and lets us know under no uncertain terms that he is mad if we don't hit that time. Also, car trips are not his favorite pasttime, particularly when the car is stopped.

We've had some lovely outings though. A couple of weeks ago we found out that Thomas the Tank Engine was in Grapevine pulling the passenger cars along the Cotton Belt Line. We only found out about it late in the day from the news. So we packed up and went out to see if we could find Thomas. Luckily we arrived just as they were disconnecting Thomas from the cars. We got to see them put Thomas on the turntable and park him. Later in the afternoon we went to Grapevine's Botanical Garden and playground.

Adding to the stress that Life 2.0 has created - I have been promoted at work. I'm now the Planning Official and I report to the Director of Planning and Engineering. Its a lovely raise and a ton more work, but since Meredith isn't teaching this semester...its a good upgrade.

One of my first things as the new Planning Official was to go to Texas A&M to a Sustainable Urbanism conference. We heard from James Howard Kunstler - a bit of a rabble rouser of a speaker - on the end of the oil boom in the country and the beginning of a period in gloabl history in which we need to focus more on the local habitation of our communities rather than how we will be able to focus globally.

This next week I will be setting up interviews for a new planner position and hopefully I can get someone on board that will help me with the development review items.

Life is good. Its just a little stressful.

Changes in Attitude - Changes in Lattitude

2007-03-24T15:49:00.000-06:00

I'm not moving again. My boss and friend is letting go of the job situation because of personality conflicts. He's going on to a better prospect with knowledgeable people about the process of planning. I'm going to attempt to fill his shoes at my job as best as I can. With the knowledge that the same type of conflicts may arise again. So I've got to be prepared. I'm a team player, but as I learned in Denton, even good teams are split up if the coaching isn't there.

Meredith took some photos of Alexander and Ford to record Ford's progress through his first month. He's filled out and gained at least a pound and a half and has cleared up his slightly yellow tinge from a small touch of jaundice. We're still having to deal with a bit of the snuffle nose during the night, but hopefully when everything isn't blooming quite so much, that will clear up as well.

The weather has been really dry this month. We haven't had the rainfall we're used to in March. It keeps threatening to rain the past week, but a large high pressure system in the Gulf has been keeping the instability to the west. My yard needs the rain, and I don't want to be greatly increasing my water bill quite yet.

One Week of New Baby

2007-03-09T22:15:00.000-06:00

What a week. Meredith is doing well at recovery. She stayed her required three days in bed and only today did she venture out of the house with all of us in the Rentzes' Cadallac to Central Market. We enjoyed their snacks and bought a modest amount of items. Ford had his first car ride and big brother Alexander was able to go play on the playground.

Alexander and I had a "Alex and Daddy" afternoon. We went to the library and checked out some books on Dinosaurs, and a book on history. We then went to go have the Honda's oil changed. Then we made a quick detour to CompUSA where they're closing the Hurst store. It took all of Daddy's willpower to not buy the MacPowerBook Pro right then and there. It runs SO fast.

Afterwards we hit Toys-R-Us where Alex scored a Lightning McQueen Racecar and some Star Wars Galactic Heroes (Bespin Luke and Lando Calrissian). We then went to Best Buy where Daddy upgraded his headphones for his ipod.

We had a nice day. Tomorrow I'm going to be spending it with my friends over at Hot Chocolates and will be attending the Grapevine Chocolate Festival where I will be a representative of the company. Yeah! It should be a ton of fun.

Alexander's Baby Brother

2007-03-06T13:56:00.000-06:00

Alexander through the whole new baby experience has really been a trooper. He was with his Nonna and Papa during the actual birth and only asked to be taken out once (during one of Meredith's more vocal moments). Most of the day he had spent playing with Nonna and Papa either upstairs or out walking. He even ran an errand with Nonna.

Lots of people have talked about Alexander having regression into being a younger child. Perhaps we're still way early in the process (Ford only being 3 days old) but I seem to have seen a greater maturity in Alexander that wasn't there before. He's going to the bathroom by himself without help - he's learning to accept me telling him to go to sleep with out having to use Meredith as a crutch...he's only been absolutely gentle and loving towards his grandparents and to Ford as a tiny baby.

I just want to make sure that they don't have the sometimes great explosions of anger that my brother and I had while growing up. I was too controlling - he was a little lax. We didn't have much in common for much of our under 20s. We have become much closer in the last several years, both when he lived in Aubrey and having now moved to Maine. I love my brother, and of course my sister (who I get to see very often)...but because of Alexander and Ford's relationship in ages is going to mirror my brother's and my own so similarly, I want to help them along as much as possible.

They will be enemies, comrades, co-conspirators and accomplices, but as they will forever be brothers, the most I want for them is to be friends.