+ Of Cellphones, blogs and Facebook

This is an experiment to show the effectiveness of discussions via blogs vs. lots of emails and threads: My brother Charles has wanted to start a blog for what seems years now. He sent several family members an email regarding an article about driving 'hands free'. He also asks about Facebook and why that is so important. But first, the cell phone driving. I choose to answer using my blog so everyone (if they choose) can chime in here, rather than an email string.

I think the topic is compelling enough to discuss. I will be very honest and frank in my response and hope others will be as well.

First of all, thanks for the article. I, for one, will admit that although I never drive without my Bluetooth in my ear so I can be hands free, my mind does drift in the conversation: meaning, I actually visualize the face of the person I’m talking to, if they are at work, home, whatever their environment, and so on. It is not ideal, though I’ve not had any close calls. That said, the same kind of thing can happen simply listening to a radio or CD. A song reminds you of a time with friends or a concert or other event, and your mind is there, not on the road.

Despite all the buttons located on the steering wheel, looking at the radio dial or heater or AC or radar detector or GPS or rear view mirrors at traffic or kids, ALL take your mind off the road and put your brain processing at those other distractions. If you think about it, one can probably do all of the above simultaneously. Even talk radio shows get you riled up or thinking about how you would respond and engage you in the conversation.

I always thought Bluetooth was best so you can keep both hands on the wheel. Which is great, of course, but the conversation does make you drift, everyone here must admit that. If it doesn’t, you are lying to yourself. But, (and here’s my denial/justification/rationalization) I’ve never had a close call. I see the cars, the brake lights, intersections, etc. But I’m only kidding myself, I know. I’ve always said I trust me, my wife, my mom, etc., with our ‘smart’ driving, and that my biggest fear is OTHER people. I’m not so sure about that 100% of the time now.

Cell phones allow us to accomplish more in more places (hence, AT&T's campaign of More Bars in More Places): we can call people back while we are grocery shopping, working out, and yes, while driving.

As for Facebook, I always ignored it because I thought it was like MySpace (which it is on a certain level) and I didn't like MySpace. I had signed up a year ago but never went back. But a coworker talked about it and I decided to check it out and see how my friends used it. It wasn't at all what I thought it was, and as you begin to find friends and family on it, it became addictive at first, then a great way to see what your Friends are up to all at once. Like scanning headlines in a newspaper. You respond to those you want to. I have to give credit to my niece Britta for inviting me to be a part of Facebook in the first place.

I stay in touch with nephews and nieces easier than I would otherwise. It is practical.

It has been great to get in touch with good friends from college I was not in touch with up til now. I avoid the silly games and quizzes (sneaky market research for their advertising) but care about what people are up to, and let them know what I'm up to.

Linked In is similar but almost strictly a professional site. I see a great value in it during these economic times because it's a nice networking area.

So that's my response. Hopefully others will respond here and let the dialogue begin!

- Screetch

Just as the last post talked about the new dynamic of our family changing by adding just one tiny child, with perpetual attention to the newborn baby, with equal parts attention to the older child, oh, then time to change Ross's diaper, conversations with Kari, playing Fish with Weston, watching CNN, making meals, phone ringing, friends over, talk about my work, Kari's day with Ross, Weston's day at preschool.... and this week...screetch!

This week, my wife, and both boys flew off to Scottsdale to be with their parents/ grandparents and the contrast in quiet is deafening. The TV has been off. No radio. Getting some reading done. Checking some Facebook. Working late. No activity. Kind of nice to sleep through the night without a diaper to change, but I really miss that. Waking up to see my baby every 3-4 hours has become a joyful habit. Playing cards with Weston has been enjoyable, seeing him get better and better, and wondering what other games he's ready for. Reading is what he's ready for!

But the days are flying by and I will be seeing them again in just a few more days. Kari sent me some pictures of Ross in a great smile, rare that it happened long enough for someone to grab a camera, ready it, steady it, and take the picture (2 actually) and still see the smile. Awesome. Those pictures just made my day and I'm still staring at them.

All in all, it's quiet and all that, but all things being equal, I'd rather have the noise and chaos of a bustling, active family around. Soon enough, and looking forward to it. I miss my family.

+ Dynamics

It's amazing how adding a new child to our growing family changes the dynamics so much. For five years, both Kari and I had one child and for five years we both adjusted our jobs and time together at home accordingly. Now, I realize this is worthy of a chuckle for all of you with several children, but this is what I'm experiencing. :)

Layered in with our new baby is our five year-old who, this Fall, will be going to Kindergarten at some prestigious, and hopefully, nearby, elementary school. Which is a different dynamic all its own than a simple daycare/preschool. While Weston is off going to school, we will need to revisit daycares again. We probably won't use the same one(s) we did with Weston for various reasons, and we really won't put our baby Ross in a daycare until he's a year. But where daycares are full-day, until us parents can get home from our respective jobs, but elementary schools start later and close at 3:30! We are a two-income family (mostly out of necessity, partly because we enjoy 'adult' time and careers, etc.) so this causes a time gap issue.

Some schools offer an after-care program (more money) and still others provide a bus-service to and from the nearby Y that Weston currently attends, for after-care. Then, other schools don't offer either.

We are new to having a 'school-age' child. We figured starting in January would be plenty of time to find a school by August. However, sadly, we want to enroll Weston in a school system we do not live in, so we are considered out-of-district. Strike one. (Denver public schools in our neighborhood are rated very, very low and we just don't want to dump him in just any school — we have these resources, we are using them). But, apparently, January isn't early enough, we should have been getting out and about and on wait lists the previous August. Now we know.

We've also decided to not put our home back on the market, but rather refinance, so at least that decision has been made. At least for the next five years, and our next child is looking for a school!

Stay tuned for school updates and where we land Weston.

+ Welcome

Our newborn son is 2 weeks old today. He is so perfect in so many ways. I try not to constantly compare this newest addition to our family to Weston, almost exactly five years older, but 5 years between babies is long enough to forget everything about the first one. The new arrival has since allowed all these memories to come rushing back, and though they are very different, and unique individuals, it never ceases to amaze me how these two still do very similar things.

As for the comparisons, since we only had one child for five years, our house is full of picture frames of just Weston and us. Simple shots of Kari holding a newborn Weston in our kitchen the day we brought him home... I wanted to duplicate that shot with Ross, and I had to say no. I can't do that. Those are Weston's moments and Ross will have his own moments. Trying to duplicate everything we did with Weston is not fair to either one of them. It cheats Weston of his 'original' moments, and makes Ross's moments fabricated.

Everything has been so cool. Weston quickly recognized that his new baby brother can't be the playmate he wants for at least many more months, and he is kind and caring and concerned about his every cry. It is very cute. I took a week off of work for paternity leave, and it was hard going back to work. Kari is taking 2 months off but as a busy-body, she's going a bit stir crazy during the times he's sleeping.

During the 9-months of pregnancy and now seeing him, so complex and perfect, how he can live, breathe, survive, thrive in nothing but fluids all that time, then the instant he breaks free, and uses his lungs for the very first time...the power and design of God is so evident. I just don't see how Darwinists believe all this complexity evolved from sludge by chance. And if so, once maybe, but again and again and again? And in a way that you could end up having one 'male' and one 'female' occur by chance so as to facilitate breeding and expansion of the species? No way.

Anyway, that is a topic for later. We are all blessed and healthy.

- Insensitive

Yesterday, the New York Yankees signed a free-agent pitcher to an all-time record, 7-year, $161 million deal. This, after they had a soft agreement to sign him for only $14o million. The next closest bidder was offering just a mere $100 million, still a staggering amount for someone to play a sport. If you do the simple math, the Yankees had a F-O-R-T-Y M-I-L-L-I-O-N D-O-L-L-A-R lead to sign the player. The general manager then flew out to San Francisco to meet with him and his family personally, and then upped the offer by $21 million.

This is December. December job layoffs reached a tally of 115,000 and that was after November was pretty bad too.

I'm a Yankees fan. I'm fan because of fond childhood memories of watching the Yankees in the 1970s beat the 'small-market' Kansas City Royals to advance to the World Series. Reggie Jackson. Chris Chambliss. A crying Freddy Patek sitting in the Royals dugout after Chambliss hit a walk-off home run. I'm a fan of the history of the Yankees, the year-after-year battles against the Boston Red Sox for American League supremacy.

I'm really rethinking my allegiance now. How can the Yankees pay such a ridiculous amount of money at a time when they will open a brand-new stadium in 2009, and will need to pay for it by the purchases of tickets by fans. These fans are not immune to the recession and these fans need to tighten their belts and cut back and maybe hundreds, if not thousands of loyal Yankee fans recently lost their jobs because of the economy. The Yankees (and Mets, who are also opening a new stadium in 2009) even went back to the city of New York to ask for $450 million more in bonds to help pay for their new stadiums.

They have the audacity to go back to the city for more money on one hand, while paying an outrageous amount of money for a player who only plays every fifth game? This is very disappointing to me. I am rethinking my fandom to a team that wants to buy a championship (the Florida Marlins have done just that twice) and ignore using their minor league system to groom good, future players or even make a trade or two like most teams do to improve their roster.

I'm thinking hard about not being a Yankees fan. I mean, really, it wouldn't be that hard, NOT living in NYC, and I have my own (frustrating) Rockies to pull for, but it seems the Yanks almost always make the post-season, and I thoroughly enjoy MLB playoffs. But, I do have a strange feeling rooting for a team that did what it just did this week.

+ Countdown

We are patiently counting down the precious days of the arrival of our son. It's been a quick nine months, but boy, these last few weeks are so full of anticipation...snow is falling, our oldest son's fifth birthday is two weeks away, Christmas is fast approaching, in-laws coming to visit us for the holidays, hopefully in time for the birth (we'll need someone to babysit the 5-year old!)

- Clueless

The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to Washington DC in luxurious private jets to beg Congress for $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy. I really don't know what else to say. It was so refreshing to hear a subcommittee member confront them directly about this, and ask "Couldn't you at least have jet-pooled?" ABCNews online reported that the round trip for one of the CEOs cost about $20,000, while seats on a 'normal' flight ranged from $288 to $800 from Detroit to DC.

I hope they don't get their bailout money. I hope they are embarrassed about being called out about their expensive trip to ask for money. They were asked to go home, come up with an actual plan explaining in detail about how it is they need money to save their companies. The next time they return to DC in early December, it will be interesting if they take the hint and leave their private jets at home and fly commercially.

This should be a wakeup call of the Acme-anvil-on-the-head variety. They are losing money because they didn't take the energy crisis of the 1970s to heart and make better cars back then. No, gas prices eventually went back down, the Gordon Gecko greedy 80s arrived, and they forgot all about the gas shortage.

Well, here we are, 30 years later, another gas crisis, but gasoline prices are waaaay down again, and what kinds of cars will be seriously considered now? I've been hearing and reading a lot about T. Boone Pickens and his plan to get America off foreign oil addiction. The US is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. Natural gas is already being used to fuel public transit in some big cities, and it can't be that farfetched to have cars use this or be converted.

We really need to wake up this time. Somebody famous said that if we don't pay attention to the past, we are doomed to repeat it. Well, the 1970s happened, and we need to pay attention. Our new president has a chance right now, to challenge our auto industry to make natural gas cars a reality, like John F Kennedy challenged our space industry to put a man on the moon in ten years. When JFK issued that challenge, we had no idea how to do that, and basically started from scratch. At least we already have a working knowledge of how to get, use and implement natural gas, so this challenge wouldn't be that difficult.

It's time. That the oil-producing nations that have our country by the you-know-whats is getting old. We need to get back to our old-fashioned ingenuity and say no to everyone's oil and use what we have plenty of.

It's time.

+ SoHo Paparazzi

Humorous picture of the paparazzi gathered outside our hotel in SoHo in September.

I was on a business trip and my coworkers and me were coming back from our meeting. We get out of the cab and see this large group of photogs gathered just outside the front door of the SoHo Grand. We asked who they were waiting for and none of them knew. Turns out, Charlize Theron was staying there.

+ Jumpshot

My son had basketball practice tonight. The coach got all over him for not doing a very good job of playing defense. He seemed lost, not keeping up with his offensive counterpart, getting tired, maybe a little lazy. And it's killing me because of all the organized sports he's played (baseball, soccer, basketball), basketball is the sport I know best, played the most and actually cares if he succeeds with, not just have fun.

He's almost five. He's cute. He loves to play. He loves to try anything. Very curious about stuff, and really not very shy. He gets that from his mom. But he even sniffs a Hot Wheels, or a Matchbox is inside the same building he's in, he'll drop whatever he's doing and go play with those cars.

He's getting to the age where sports are fun. Better to play than to watch, of course. I grew up with sports, mostly from my dad and oldest brother (maybe that will be another post down the road—my earliest sports memories) and it's really nice to see my boy genuinely like to play sports. He loves to wear the uniform (he begged me to wear his basketball gear to school all day) and looks forward to playing and learning.

But basketball comes so easily for me and it's painful to see him struggle with differentiating such simple concepts as offense and defense: on defense, you are assigned to another boy, you lock onto him, you don't let him out of your site, keep yourself between him and the basket and you chase him around nonstop and do not let him have the ball. Oh, and keep your hands UP! On offense, you forget about the boy you are told not to let out of your site, you stop chasing him around, he's supposed to chase you now, and you run away from him, and try to get the ball.

I guess, separately, he kinda gets it. But the problem is, (and, really, for all the boys and girls) this offense thing can change into this defense thing about every 2.5 seconds because there is absolutely no coordination, and both teams turn the ball over endlessly. So, this leaves the kids perpetually confused because coaches and moms and dads and brothers and sisters all are yelling "go get the ball, you're on offense!" then 2.5 seconds later, "go get your man, you're on defense!" and this goes on for an hour.

I have to say, though, my proudest moment, this early in his career, the sight of him, in his oversized reversible YMCA jersey, came during a real-live-it-counts game when he happened to be in the right spot at the right time, and the ball, among ten scrambling kids, impossibly bounced its way into his hands, and he had the presence of mind to do what most kids, most professional athletes, want to do first and foremost: score. He had the ball, he turned, and his little body heaved it up towards the 8-foot high basket and it went in. I jumped off my duff and boomed my appreciation across the elementary school gym.

But, even better than that, was the fact that he searched me out of the crowd, found me with mutual, Joker-sized grin, and we gave each other our customary long-distance sign language of everything-is-okay thumbs up.

Then, 2.5 seconds later, it's all over and I'm yelling "go get your man, you're on defense!"

+ Prodigal Blogger Returns

It's been a long time. Again. However, I want to make more of a concerted effort to maintain this blog this time. Our family is about to grow by one more in December and I want to write about our new family dynamics. We're older, have exciting things going on and, really, some catching up to do.

This space will be for life thoughts, a few choice pictures and commentary. We've elected a new president, who is already behind the 8-ball. My wife has had an amazing 2008: new job, became a citizen, became pregnant, voted for the first time in the general election, and will give birth to our second son. Oh, and during all this, we've had our home on the market and recently removed the listing so we can concentrate on the new baby.

Check back often, I'm going to try and keep this up.