February News

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YES, I am still around, just haven’t felt as talkative lately. Here are some updates.

The Boys

Brenden has become conscious of the fact that school, home, and other venues have a power structure and that he is generally at the bottom. Like his father, he doesn’t really like this arrangement. So for a while he kept butting heads with his teacher (refusing to work, playing around and acting silly) and with us (refusing to follow directions, threatening to move out, etc). Our initial hard-line approach didn’t work and seemed to make things worse. I became overly harsh and critical. I didn’t really like who I became when he decided to act up. Something had to change.

We switched back to more of a Love and Logic approach, which takes more thought but works better for him. We’re trying to give him more choices so he feels like he has some control over his life. We’re trying to be more loving and positive, which really seems to make a difference in whether he wants to cooperate with us. We’re rewarding him and Jonathan for good behavior at school. Good news from their teachers earns them marbles, and we take them to do something fun each time they fill their marble jar. So far, these changes have made a big difference in his behavior and his attitude.

Work

Life in Dispatch is going well. We are scheduled to move into our beautiful new office across the street in May, giving us a tornado-resistant facility with lots more space, better equipment and support, and a slightly shorter commute for me. During a long stretch of time off, I set a personal record with eight overtime shifts in a row this month in between all my Olympics watching and facility activities. I also passed my ninth anniversary in the Dispatch office.

Jenny

Jenny is now in her second semester of UTA nursing school and continues to do well thanks to her intelligence and hard work. She has two clinicals this semester, psych in Bedford and med-surg in Mansfield. Like last semester, she is really busy but keeps pushing through. Two weeks until Spring Break!

House

We replaced our bathroom countertops and sinks in November with solid surface, sand-colored counters and white sinks from Lowe’s. I am very pleased with the results. Our next project is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of next week: refinishing the boys’ tub and surround. The tub is chipped, the tile is white with weird brown speckles, and the caulk is terrible. Miracle Method, the company that refinished our kitchen countertops, will redo the tub and tile in solid white. Except for replacing the carpet after we move out next summer, this should be our last major project for the interior. We are thinking about having a few trees removed or trimmed in the front yard, and we’ll replace the side fences at some point as well. I feel good about leaving the house better than we found it.

Help

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My mom always worried I would end up “dead in a ditch.” I’m still alive, but I did take care of the ditch part last weekend.

Let me back up. As most of you know, the Dallas area experienced a bit of an ice storm last week. It started Thursday evening and dumped a few inches of sleet and freezing rain over the area. I had to work every night during the storm. By Friday morning when my shift ended, the streets in Dallas were slushy but still drivable. I slept a few hours in a Company-provided hotel room. It was a nice gesture, but due to a noisy heater and my constant expectation that the housekeeper was about to knock on my door, I didn’t sleep well and finally gave up around lunchtime.

By then the Dallas streets still looked the same – dirty slush and drivable. However, since the temperature was forecast to stay below freezing all day, I didn’t want to drive all the way home and then all the way back that night for my next shift. So I hung out in northwest Dallas all day. I ate unhealthy and delicious food (try the Cinnabon things at Taco Bell – oh my). I slogged up to the Cinemark and watched the new Christian Bale movie (great acting, OK story). I felt a little proud of myself for not being one of Those Texans who cower in their homes the minute a snowflake appears.

Trying to kill some time, I looked for a Starbucks where I could enjoy warm coffee and play on my iPad. However, the neighborhood I was in didn’t seem to be a Starbucks kind of place. So I parked at McDonald’s near a big shopping center that was surrounded by low-income apartments. Lots of people were wandering around in the parking lot, some walking to the grocery store or a restaurant, others chipping ice off their cars or trying to tweak something under the hood to get the engine running. My Sheltered White Boy senses started to tingle. I decided not to carry my iPad into this tiny McDonald’s and sip warm McCafe. Instead I hurriedly chipped ice from my wheel wells and hoped no one would ask me for Help.

Confession time: I try to be a generous person. I want to help people and like the idea of helping people. I give money to build wells in South Sudan and feed/clothe/educate needy children in Ethiopia and repair damage from tsunamis and chemical explosions and Storms of the Century. But there’s a catch – I always prefer to keep my distance.

By giving money through a computer rather than time, I can keep control of the situation. Actually getting involved with people’s problems directly and having conversations face to face and looking them in the eyes is way, way out of the comfort zone for a shy, introverted guy like me. Sometimes real people need something tangible like money, or a ride somewhere, or help with their cars, or gas, or a job. Situations like that involve talking to strangers and starting relationships. Relationships can be messy, inconvenient, and awkward. It’s easier not to get involved, especially with people you’ll never see again.

“You know where the nearest Wal-Mart is?” a voice from behind me asked. I turned and saw three young men. They seemed nice enough, but The Voice inside kept asking whether they were sincere and what else they might want. I have helped a few sincere strangers who approached me in the past. I have also gotten scammed. I once heard the same sob story from two different guys in the same parking lot a few weeks apart. For situations when someone might approach me needing Help, my default answer is no.

“Sorry, I’m not sure. I’m not from here,” I replied truthfully. They moved on.

I finished cleaning my car and found a Starbucks, a place where people who can afford to drop six bucks on a coffee and a cookie can hide and not get asked for Help. There, I felt safer, but also a bit ashamed. Those thoughts got stuffed into a dark corner of my soul as I warmed up with my venti cappuccino.

That evening I slogged my way to the office and worked my shift, finishing around 7:00am Saturday morning. The incoming morning shift people reported fairly good roads. Tired of hiding in Dallas and missing my family, I chose to brave the ice and drive home. Playing with my sons in a winter wonderland is a rare treat, and my wife was a bit stir crazy from being cooped up at home with all their energy.

As expected, most section of the roads and highway provided decent traction. However, the bridges, overpasses, and a few other areas were coated in ice. The slushy mess that covered the roads on Friday had frozen solid overnight as the temps dropped into the upper teens. I discovered my first so-called cobblestone ice, the tooth-rattling washboard of bumpy ice that tested both my shocks and my nerve. Along the way I passed a few cars that had gotten stuck and been ominously abandoned. Finally I turned north to highway 360, the final leg of my journey home. Just a couple of miles lay between me and my family.

I would be exiting to the right, so I stayed in the icy right lane instead of moving over briefly to the smoother, drier left lane. Suddenly, I felt the back of my car start to slide. I’d driven on ice a few times over the last several years and recognized the feeling, but I had always managed to keep the wheels straight and pull out. This time, though, my back end kept sliding left. It happened so fast that I can’t remember exactly how I tried to recover. Soon I was spinning sideways into the left lane with my front end pointing toward the right shoulder. I kept spinning and started moving forward toward the shoulder.

“Hmm. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

I kept sliding. A shallow ditch appear on the other side of a wide, icy shoulder. Finally, I came to rest with my left wheel in the ditch on a patch of icy grass and mud and my right wheel on ice.

Beyond feeling out of control, the experience wasn’t particularly scary. No other cars were nearby at that moment. My car was mostly on the road. The ditch was shallow. All I needed to do was back out and turn around. This was an embarrassing but minor inconvenience, I thought.

The ice and my front-wheel-drive, 100-hp Honda Fit had other plans.

Using reverse only spun my wheels. I tried rocking forward and back, turning right and left, and got absolutely nowhere. I got out and tried pushing but couldn’t get any traction on the ice. I wasn’t going anywhere. I had stumbled onto a problem I couldn’t solve on my own.

I needed Help.

After I flailed about for five to ten minutes, the first car stopped and backed up. A man climbed out and walked toward me. I initially waved him off, embarrassed and determined to fix this mess myself somehow, but he kept walking toward me. His message was simple: you’re screwed, so call a wrecker. I had already suspected that, but he helped me accept it. So I guess that was helpful.

I called my insurance company to get some use from my roadside assistance coverage. Due to all the other people who had crashed or gotten stuck on the ice, the wait was at least four hours. That was an awfully long time to wait in the car. On the other hand, my house was far enough away that if I walked there in those conditions, I would need to come back soon after I arrived. I didn’t want Jenny to pack up the kids and come rescue me, nor did I want to ask my dad or a friend to go out in these conditions. There was no good option.

As I debated, another car spun out directly behind me in the same icy lane. That’s when the gravity of my situation became a bit clearer. If I waited in or beside the car, I might get hurt or even killed. If I walked home, I might return to find my car smashed. I sat in the car trying to decide which bad option I would choose.

That’s when Help arrived.

The next car to stop contained two guys about my age or a bit younger, both wearing service technician uniforms from a Grapevine car dealership. For all I knew, they could have lived near the McDonald’s from the previous day that made me nervous. They said they couldn’t just leave me alone beside the road. They drove a Civic Hybrid and offered to try to pull me out with a tow chain. As we were discussing that plan, two other cars stopped and three more guys got out, probably on their way to work. First we tried it with the Civic Hybrid. One guy drove while the other four guys tried to push me out of the ditch. The Civic didn’t have enough power to get me out, so another guy hooked up his pickup to me while the other four pushed. After a few cautious attempts, Plan B worked. I was free.

And it was only because five strangers interrupted their commutes, took pity on a guy they’d never met, and helped him out of a bind he couldn’t undo himself.

I thanked them profusely. It might have been appropriate to pay them something for their trouble, but my car was blocking traffic and they needed to get going, so it didn’t work out. The guy who drove the pickup left me with a big smile and a simple, “Be safe!”

I tried not to cry.

At the very least, those strangers got me out of a major jam. In light of the other cars that could have spun out in the same spot and potentially crashed into me, it’s possible they even saved my life.

I’ll probably never see any of those guys again, nor can I ever repay them for their kindness. What I can do is remember this experience the next time I see someone who needs Help. Few things can humble a man like needing a hand from a complete stranger who has zero obligation to do anything for him. Perhaps one day I’ll have a chance to pay this forward. Until then, all I can do is be grateful and tell their story.

Random Stuff I’m Thankful For – 2013 Edition

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As I did last year, I made of list of random stuff I’m thankful for beyond the obvious (family, friends, health, warm house, etc.). If you don’t know about these things, go find them and become happier.

  1. Shiner Holiday Cheer, probably available at your local Tom Thumb or favorite purveyor of adult beverages
  2. Yoga pants (for the ladies, not for me)
  3. The elusive no-hitter at work, which entails going an entire shift without a single phone call
  4. Not having a car payment. My vehicles aren’t new or sexy, but they’re paid for.
  5. Pandora internet radio. My current favorite station is Indie Christmas.
  6. Pulp Fiction, partly because it inspires insane awesomeness like this (language warning)
  7. Living five minutes from Lowe’s while we spruce up our house (and having a handy father-in-law who works for Lowe’s at another location)
  8. iMessage, which lets me text for free with most iPhone users and even see if they’re currently typing back
  9. DVRs, which are especially helpful when you have kids
  10. Getting free Southwest points through my credit card so we can get REAL TICKETS on flights instead of listing ourselves and hoping there are open seats
  11. Bath soap that smells good. Bath and Body Works sells several scents for men that are great.
  12. Getting birthday wishes on Facebook. I know it’s kinda cheesy, but it’s still nice to get bombarded with HAPPY BIRTHDAY throughout the day from so many different people from so many different parts of my life.
  13. My sons’ ever-patient teachers who are helping to teach and shape them into amazing young men
  14. Whipping cream for my coffee
  15. Roller coasters
  16. John Hughes’ wonderfully humanizing Thanksgiving classic Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

What random stuff are you thankful for this year?

Blog Soup 11/21/3013

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Happy November and Happy Early Thanksgiving, everyone! I have a few moments and thought I would share a few thoughts and bits of news before I go tackle the huge pile of leaves in my front yard.

House

Since Facebook prematurely outed me (darn you, Facebook! ::shakes fist::), I’ll go ahead and share some house news. Once Jenny finishes school in May 2015, we are tentatively planning to move to Grand Prairie near Joe Pool Lake. There are two main reasons for the move:

  1. Family – We’ll live near my sister (currently 30+ minutes away) so our kids can go to school together. Instead of being 45 minutes from Jenny’s family, too far to see them very often, we’ll be 15 minutes away. It won’t put us too much farther from my parents and maternal grandparents, either.
  2. More Space – When we moved into our current house, we had nine-month-old Brenden and no Jonathan. Now that our family is complete and we have two very active boys, we’d like to have a bit more space, including a big game room upstairs where they can play, a study downstairs, and a media room where I can watch movies or play games late at night without worrying about waking anyone up. We can get a lot more house for the money in south Grand Prairie/Mansfield compared to the Mid-Cities.

With that plan in mind, we have been updating our current house to get it ready. I might share some more details in another post if that would interest you.

Things That Make Me Go Hmm

A few interesting observations:

  • I recently sent my ex-fiancee a babysitter recommendation. We are friends on Facebook, and when she posted a request for a good babysitter, I had one to offer. It was a bit odd, but it’s nice that we don’t hate each other despite the breakup.
  • A friend of mine got a bachelor’s from a private school, worked a bit, got a master’s in a really specialized field from another private school, and probably financed everything through student loans. Now she is married and staying home with her kids, but they are so strapped for cash that they’re selling every spare possession they can on Facebook to reduce their debt. I’m all for staying home with the kids if that’s what’s right for your family, but I don’t understand taking out massive loans for private colleges if you don’t plan to work.
  • Some people say you should rake and bag your leaves because they choke off your grass, blocking air, water, and nutrients from reaching your lawn. Others say you should mulch the leaves back into the soil. For years I’ve been mulching them, but I’ve had problems with thatch development. This year I’m going to compost the leaves instead of mulching them. Wish me luck. I need it!

Baylor

As you probably figured, I am greatly enjoying the Bears’ football season. Jenny and I went to the Baylor-Oklahoma game in Waco earlier this month and had a blast. I’ve thought all along that our toughest test would come this Saturday in Stillwater, OK, against a tough Oklahoma State team. If we can win this, and Bama loses to Auburn or Mizzou, we have a chance at the national title game. That. Is. Crazy.

Obamacare

I held out high hopes for Obamacare despite my eventual decision to support Medicare for All instead. I defended it. I explained it to people. But now that the exchange website has experienced so many problems, and so many people are getting their policies canceled despite Obama’s foolish promises that “if you like your policy, you can keep your policy,” I have little appetite left for defending Obamacare. I love the new requirements – expanding coverage to the uninsured, no ban for preexisting conditions, keeping your children on your plan longer, coverage for contraception, etc. – but the overall scheme is too complicated to work well and isn’t going to draw in enough healthy young people to make it financially feasible. So in a sense, maybe the Republicans were right on many points. However, the answer isn’t going back to the old crappy system. The answer is expanding Medicare, a system that already works well for tens of millions of older Americans, to cover every single American, much like most other civilized countries do. But I fear that after the disaster of Obamacare, the country will have little appetite for further health care reform.

Haiku Tuesday – The Woes of Plumbing

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In our ongoing quest to purge our home of the 1980s, we replaced the final two sink faucets and all the bathroom countertops. I know just enough about plumbing to be dangerous. Yes, I can swap out a faucet to save some money, but I can also tear a stuck PVC pipe in half with a pipe wrench and force a plumber visit anyway. After the countertop guys did their part, I spent much of this weekend installing our new sinks and reconnect all the faucets and drain assemblies. There are about 250,000 things that would have been more fun, but I finally got it done, and we are quite pleased.

With that in mind, here are some plumbing haiku.

Woe! Woe! Woe is me!
Every nut is tightened down
Why do you still drip?

Man beneath the sink?
He must be a plumber and
A contortionist.

Thirty years of gunk
Black and oozy in the pipes
I need some fresh air

What does that pipe do?
Hmm. Oh well, just add some torque…
Dang! Let’s call a pro

Doing it yourself
Doesn’t save much cash when they
Need to fix your mess

Have you experienced any plumbing woes, either through your own home “improvement” or other problems? Post your plumbing haiku in the comments.

Turning 35. What Have I Learned?

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I will turn 35 tomorrow. That makes me older than most professional athletes and many of my children’s teachers. But it also means I’m finally old enough to run for president. Sure, I’d never actually do it because I want to stay married to Jenny, but it’s nice to have the option, you know?

We aren’t planning anything crazy (not my style), just a nice dinner with my immediate family and an extended family party on Sunday for a few October birthdays. But I thought it might be a good time to reflect on some of the lessons I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way.

You Define Your Own Success

I think each person has to define success for him- or herself. You can’t let someone else define it for you. As Bill Cosby said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

For me, success is a matter of achieving the goals you set for yourself. My main goals are to love my family and take good care of them, enjoy the precious time I have on this earth, and leave it better off than it would’ve been without me. No doubt I could do better on all counts, but overall I think I’m doing okay.

Some Battles Are Worth Fighting…

…but most are not. Standing up for those who need help is a good thing. Teaching my sons to be responsible young men, though often difficult, is good thing. Getting riled up with people who cut me off, diss my favorite sports team, or are firmly entrenched on the other side of the political spectrum is a waste of time and energy. The Serenity Prayer is one of the wisest things I’ve ever heard: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Money Isn’t Everything

I’ve worked for roughly minimum wage and far above it, and I am still convinced that money doesn’t buy happiness. Yes, it can help solve certain problems and make life easier in some ways. However, no matter how much money or stuff you get, you will always want more.

That being said, I am very grateful for what we have. Just as importantly, I am grateful that I worked hard to get it rather than inheriting a huge trust fund. It’s satisfying to have a job and provide for my family and share the fruit of my labor with others.

Attitude is Contagious

In interacting with probably thousands of people over my lifetime, one thing stands out: the people I’m around have a large influence over me, more than I want to admit. Attitude is contagious. The world is full of cynics who love to complain and criticize, and some of them don’t even realize it. The more time I spend around those people, the more I become cynical like them, which depresses me. On the other hand, the world is also full of people who look for the good in things. Whether you look for the good side or the bad side of life, you can always find it. Always.

Life is too short to waste time getting dragged down by negative people. I’m trying, with varying degrees of success, to be more positive and spend more time with positive people. That’s why I no longer waste much time posting political stuff or angry rants on here or on Facebook. I would rather stay positive and post things that will make you laugh, think, or appreciate the good things in life.

Balance is Key

I’ve been a religious wacko. I’ve been an academic workaholic egghead. I’ve been overly preoccupied with grades, girls, money, politics, exercise, the future, other people’s opinions of me, righteous indignation, unions, and my job. None of these things made a good foundation for life.

It’s not healthy to obsess over any one thing. Balance is one of the most important parts of my life. A good day for me includes some time with my family, some time working on something productive, some tasty food and drink, a full night’s rest, some time to think and learn, and some time just for me to relax with a movie or game. Except for the uncommon good night’s sleep, many of my days look like this, which is one of the main reasons I’m quite happy.

Thank You

Readers, thank you for sticking with me through the changes on my blog. Friends and family, thank you for loving me warts and all. I am grateful for you and grateful for 35 years on this remarkable journey.