Sophia's Birthday

I am not a perfect father.  I could do more of this or more of that.  However, I think I do a good job.  My wife does a lot with her and spends most of the day with her since we've been blessed that she can keep her at work.  With that being said, I can't take a lot of credit but I can tell I do a good job just by the way she smiles and laughs.  She is one of the happier toddlers I've ever seen and enjoys her life.  I look forward to every day with her.

Her birthday is coming up and I've gotten her a bunch of things that I know she will like.  Our system works out well, I pick out and buy the presents and Julie wraps them - what a team!  She had a big birthday party last year but I think this year it will be a bit low key.  She enjoyed herself last time but her birthday falls on a weekday this year and I think she will still enjoy herself all the same, without having a cramped apartment filled with people.

I think this year she'll be much more inclined to do damage to her cake.  Previously we got a big red velvet cake and got her an identical cup cake that she could do whatever with.  She munched and played with it.  Dropped it and laughed.  Picked it up and got it all over her face.  But that was at 1 and now she'll be two - DOUBLE the experience.  I imagine she'll have more fun this time around.

Como o senhor está?

Kids Things

Sometimes I look at my daughter and see parts of me there in her face and profile.  Sometimes in what she does, there's that bit of me standing out as if saying:  Hey Pops!  Other days I can see she has more of her mother going on with her.  It's sometimes strange to think of how she came about, that one day she'll be an adult and think the same thoughts as I do when she looks at her children.

 She's quite fascinated by technology, just as myself and my dad are.  If it lights up, has a button, switch or something similar, she's fiddling with it, sometimes for hours.

My hardheaded genes are something she didn't miss out on.  She has plenty of those and sometimes it's rough.  Mommy and Daddy think it can be a challenge but we love her all the same.

One day, she'll want to have a long conversation with me and I'll understand what she says.  She already has these with me but more often than not I can only catch one or two words out of what she is saying.  In my mind I bet she is thinking, I sure do wish he could understand me; as I do of her.

She is entirely fascinating to me.

schadenfreude

Schadenfreude.  I've seen plenty of this going around recently to be sick of it.  So when I found out some things that, several years ago, would have made me dance a jig - Michael Flatley style - it didn't really do much for me.  In fact, I'm a bit sad about it.

No one really deserves pain and suffering.  Even the blackest heart is deserving of some kindness and mercy.  I guess it's a sign of getting older, being more retrospective about life and things.  Having children will change a man.  Being married will too.  But together, I feel like I'm morphing into something far more than the boy I once was.  I'm starting to feel my age.  It's a scary thing for Peter Pan to realize. 

Life is a precious thing - enjoy it in every breath of air, every morsel of food, every kiss and hug and every view you take in.

Freedom is Bleeding

Consider the state of freedom for a moment and you may be surprised at what has happened in the past 20 years.  Being gay is accepted.  Being multi-racial is okay too.  Athesist?  No problem.  Most of the big taboo things that should have been a part of freedom but for centuries were not, have come to acceptance at last.  Pull back that shiny veil of freedom that so many enjoy and you'll see the inner decay that has come to pass with freedom, mostly freedom of speech.

Nowadays, rap stars, pop artists and heavy metal maven's can screech, purr or whine about anything from drugs, sex and murder in the most explicit of fashion.  Most people won't even blink at eye to this, a far cry from 20 years ago.  It seems like a glorious age of self expression.  Twitter, Facebook and blogs permeate our everyday lives; social media is here to stay.  But when you are in the public eye and say something somewhat off color, the masses swarm to the news agencies and brand you a heretic for [insert fashionable objection here].  These are the same news agencies and people that blast "Fuck You" by Cee Lo Green and rattle on about how which ever political faction is doing this or that to curb your freedoms.

A high school girl in Kansas, Emma Sullivan, just recently posted on Twitter about how much Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (of Kansas) sucked. It was shortly thereafter that she was reprimanded by her high school principle for over and hour and was told she had to pen an official apology.  Does this sound like the land of the free and the home of the brave?  Nay I say.  Freedom is bleeding from a thousand wounds caused by the people who were sworn to protect it.  It seems that the very thing that was a right and worth dying for is now a liability. 

And just for the record, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and his staff, do suck. 

Cleaning out the Mansion

I went to lunch today and something changed, in my head at least.  It wasn't a brilliant as a light coming on, wouldn't that be hysterical, but something as sudden nevertheless.  I've always had an interest in far too many things for me to handle.  It's something akin to OCD, "Wow, I really like that," or "Nice - let's go do this."  My dad has always mentioned the Jack of Many Trades but Master of None paradigm to me many times.  I've felt like the Jack of Clubs and it hasn't really been the best thing out there for me.  In actuality, it's fucked up a lot of things for me.  I talk about it like it's some entity with it's own thoughts and ideas.  I can't really say that's the case but I'm starting to see what it's like and I'm not liking it.

So with the above being commited to paper, that's what happened today.  Now what?  Now, I remove myself from the schedule of having these things in my life.  So I've really narrowed it down to a couple of things:

1) Family
2) Writing
3) Music

Technically, that's not a couple but I've always though of "a couple" as a handful, which seems to be the prevaling attitude in the south - I do know better.

As for the rest, I'm not even going to try to keep up with them like I have.  My mind is like a mansion with many rooms and it's got too much clutter in it.  Far too many rooms I don't visit that often or not at all but I still have to do the upkeep on the whole things.  Seems better to have a smaller place than a rather large one.

Peter Pan Forever?

At 36, I finally am feeling more like an adult; far more than I did when I became an "adult" at 21.  21 was a strange age, full of confidence and not much else.  Money was almost non-existent before that age and even then it wasn't that abundant so as with anything new, let's try it out and see what it can do.  Credit cards companies know this is the rite de jour for almost every newly liberated teenager, and market to college kids with a fervor.  More often than not, they get sucked into having a high interest credit card and the rest, ladies and gentlemen, is as they say: history.

Being the child of mostly absent parents; movies, books and fantasy became the more listened to voice of "reason".  In retrospect, I did alright.  I didn't end up like most people in my class in high school, which is to say a less than stellar existence.  Is that an elitist thing to say?  It sure is.  I wanted more out of life than to stay in a one traffic light town.  For some that maybe the best thing on earth but it's not striving for something better and it sure isn't expanding your horizons.  Regardless, I think I've done well with the cards I've been handed.


At 25, I got married and started off what I thought was the right thing at the right time.  Wrong.  At 30, I was paying for that mistake while continuing to excel at making new ones:  Hooray for me!  I was only just starting to really comprehend what being an adult was, funny how surviving most of the bad things life has to offer will do that to you.  All of those mistakes and choices, because no one really forced them on to me (well, maybe one or two actually were), made me who I am today.  If I had the impossible choice of being able to go back and do it all over again, I think I'm a moral enough person to want to choose my family over any kind of personal gain I might have been able to acquire by changing something.

So good morning 36: here I am.  37 is right around the corner and I am starting to feel that number - at least in some ways.  Being Peter Pan forever sounds good to everyone who wants to live in Neverland but sooner or later it loses it's luster and you yearn to be an adult.  At least that's the view from the mountain I'm standing on.  I've seen generations stand where I am standing and they've all had their periods of bliss, decades of excess, years of regret and garbage heaps of credit card debt.  I should fucking know fucking better.  But I'm a typical white American man/boy, battling against my own stereotypes who sometimes takes himself too seriously and other times not seriously enough.

Fuck yeah.

Tee Vee

So it's been a couple of weeks without cable and so far so good. The TV is still there and we watch somethings on it but it's not always on. TV has such a stigma but you can learn a lot from it and rapidly but books remain a passion of mine even though an interactive device is technically better than a physical book. It's a romantic notion that a solid book is the best way to read. It's enjoyable to me but slowly I find myself wanting get away from technology even though everyday I embrace it.

We were in Target the other day and Julie was sitting on a nice recliner like chair (minus the reclining). It made me think how much I miss having a chair like that to sit down and read in.

I picked up a copy of Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton. I've wanted to read it since it came out but declined since it seemed a bit short. Fred Meyer had it on sale so I picked it up. It seems a bit more into describing things rather than propelling the story forward but I'll finish it.

AM Writing

There's no doubt that the early AM, creatively speaking, is the best time to write. Unfortunately, the whole groggy, didn't get enough sleep thing is an issue. Sounds like someone needs to get to sleep earlier than normal. Early needs to be the new norm.

I always hated that saying The Early Bird Gets the Worm, but you know something, it's true.

Kids

Kids, you have to make sacrifices for them. No, not in offerings and setting things on fire. Rather, giving up things for their well-being or for something they need. It has to be done or else you risk putting them at a disadvantage or you end up being a bad father. To me the goal is for my kids to have things better than I did, to improve the family's station in life, even if it's by a small percentage.

I've decided to get rid of my cable and home phone (I wasn't using the latter) in order that I can pay for better things for my little girl. It's a two edged sword. One side cuts out the thing that keeps us sitting on the couch for hours during the week. The other side cuts through another bill and puts money in my pocket. But like all women, my daughter is going to need MY money. And like most guys, I have no problem giving it all up for her.

So this weekend, I killed the cable TV and upped the internet. As this point, anything we watch is mostly Netflix, which if it's in HD is a bandwidth limit killer. As with most ISP's out there, monthly limits are becoming the norm so we upped our package to 150 Gb's a month. Personally, I'd prefer not to watch much TV at all, but that sounds odd coming from my keyboard. For a long time I didn't have TV, around five years or so in college and afterwards and then in the 2000's as well. I didn't really miss it all that much but found that I liked it all too much when I did.

No matter really; I need to catch up on my writing schedule and forget the TV for the next couple of years.

Heat Wave

Most of the country is in a record breaking heat wave so one might wonder if this Al Gore inspired meteorological change has affected the Great White North? Indeed it has. But not to record breaking ends. It's been around 73 degrees which may seem like heaven to most but considering the average high temperature is around 50-60's here in Anchorage (pulled that number out of my ass, you're welcome), it's pretty damn hot.

Tonight I'm baking lumpia, which if you've never had it is amazing. To the average redneck on the street, he might say,"Damn son. That ain't nothing but one them ol' egg roll from the Chinese place." Like most statements born out of ignorance, this is wrong. Lumpia is far better, in my palette, than an egg roll. There are similarities but the major difference is the wrapper. The lumpia wrapper is more akin to a spring roll but not the same. The majority is filled with seasoned meat, usually pork. Since pork is swine and swine ain't fine in my household, we use beef. The rest of it is filled with cabbage, carrots and other things like garlic or onions. Most of these vary from recipe to recipe. For the most part, I got my recipe from my Dad but like most things I pick up them tend to evolve quite a bit.

So here is my Looks Like Gourmet but is Hastily Thrown Together Lumpia:

Fresh ground beef (or chicken)
Bagged Cole Slaw kit
Minced Garlic
Chopped Onion
Chinese Five Spice
Liquid Smoke
Salt
Soy Sauce
White Pepper (or Black)
Premium Fish Sauce (get the good stuff)
Lumpia Wrappers, thawed (or spring roll wrappers)
Corn Starch

The key to this is getting your meat just right. Ideally it should be a 80/20 ground beef, fresh. Throw this in a frying pan over low heat. You want to brown it but you don't want to get it there in a hurry. Add a some soy sauce, white pepper, salt, a bit of liquid smoke and a small splash of the fish sauce. The fish sauce will stink up your kitchen in a hurry so make sure it's well ventilated and the exhaust fan is on. While this is cooking, use your spatula to chop up the ground beef really fine so it's an even consistency - almost like the beef you'd find in hot dog chilli. You'll want to taste ever so often to make sure it has a good flavor, maybe slightly overpowering.

When the meat is brown but still juicy, drain off most of the grease (but not all) and move to a large mixing bowl to cool for about 15 minutes in the refrigerator. Once cool, add the veggies out of the cole slaw mix (sans any of the mix - we're looking for vegetables only!). Mix this till its an even consistency with your spatula or a spoon. Chop down any pieces of cabbage that are obviously too large. Add the chopped onion and garlic, give it a nice couple dashes of the chinese five spice and a tad bit more of the fish sauce and mix it up well.

Once the above is done, roll up this mixture in the lupia wrappers (same as a burrito). On the very end, take a basting brush and wipe a bit of corn starch and water over the end to help seal it up.

Lay on a baking sheet with a light cover of olive oil. Brush some olive oil over the top of the lumpia. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes or until the tops are slightly brown.

Serve with a dipping sauce or enjoy plain. For a quick, easy dipping sauce, use plain soy sauce with a couple of drops of Sriracha.

TODDLER Team Six

One of my co-worker's spouse works for a major bank here in Alaska. Apparently, a memo was circulated around about a high security issue that they needed to fix. I was listening in very attentively to this since Anchorage is a rather small place considering and it's always good to know what could be affecting you or your family. I've heard other things about robberies and other criminal type things so I thought this would be equally nefarious.

The high security issue was at one of their branches where three toddlers snuck in and took a shit on the floor.

The whole absurdity of the above statement makes it seem that it was anything but the truth. Without first hand knowledge, I can't confirm this really happened but apparently it did and the email was real.

I can't begin to think how three toddlers adverted security, found a good spot and performed a synchronized defecation without being apprehended. Define a toddler as a one to three year old and the shit, er, plot thickens.

My daughter is smart. There's no doubt about it and it's not parental pride that leads me to this. She can work an iPad, iPhone and an Android O/S (basically anything with a touchscreen). She's not just randomly pressing keys either; she has her apps and games that she likes and she find them and uses them. She is accelerating in signing and speaking and knows how to circumvent mommy and daddy when she wants to do something. However, she is still a toddler and still in diapers. Control of her bodily functions isn't something she's mastered at 1.5 years old. The hoodlums above can only be 1.5 years older than her to fit the APB. Somehow they've been able to coordinate their efforts and their bowl movements while simultaneously moving in and out of a secure area.

They say kids are our future and I agree they will be. But these kids, they don't take shit from anyone. They will rock n' roll at the drop of a diaper. Perhaps SEAL Team Six needs to expand out their operations to surveil the terrorist youth. You've been warned.

Vacation

My vacation was nice. It wasn't a vacation to anywhere in particular, as is per the norm in my life. Very seldom has that actually happened. Most of my vacations are time off of work spent doing this or that, usually what I call "sanity maintenance". You can't always go off on some whirlwind trip to here or there but you can take some time off and cleanup your mind's desk and sit back and enjoy life for a bit. Take some time to stop and watch life.

I got to spend some time with Sophia, went and saw a glacier, saw a movie (Horrible Bosses), went to the Zoo, grilled out, drank beer, bummed around, wrote some and more. While I didn't get the writing in that I would have liked, it was all a much needed escape from the typical day to day things that contribute in a small way to the stress that piles up.

So now that it's over, I return, somewhat invigorated, to work and the rest of the world. A slave to the grind. Back to the struggle.

Early AM

I've been moving towards an earlier schedule in the mornings. It's hard to do, of course, since like most people I like to sleep in. But as the years has spun by, I've found a growing tendency to be up earlier instead of staying up later. For most of my life, staying up late was in the vogue thing. The first time I stayed up all night wasn't a good episode in my life. But that didn't stop me. Oh no. Thousands of nights have given way to dawn with me still awake. Now, they don't hold that much of a fascination for me.

I guess you could say that my living in Alaska has changed that some. Especially since you don't really get to experience nighttime during the summer. It's all daylight for the most part. And winter? It's mostly nighttime all the time, except with a couple of inches of ice and snow, which makes things terribly exciting and accident prone.

So yeah, I'm warming up the idea of getting up early and having a head start on the day while so many others are still snoozing. Like right now - it's early and the house is still quiet and I can clack away at the keys with impunity. The clock is still ticking to go to work but I've got my eye on it. But wait, what do I hear? The sounds of moaning and groaning, the sleepers are awakening, which means it's time for me to switch gears and get moving.

I kind of like this. I've read that writing is better in the morning provided that you are awake enough. I guess I'll fall prey to the dangerous world of adult life: early rising, coffee and recliners.

Dangerous.

Ride On

So today is the second writing session I've tried at home. The first time out was a complete failure, my creativity switch was fused to off and I managed to squeak out about 100 words which for me is like falling at the long jump event - at the very least I can manage that much just showing up. Today was a bit better, around 500. It felt like a let down but the dialogue that I was working on felt forced and contrived and that's just shitty writing.

So lesson learned: go to the library. Maybe I can figure something out here but I'm not going to dedicate much time and energy to it. This is my focus, or at least it's my goal for it to be my focus.

Somedays I feel like I'm an alcoholic when it comes to writing. Being sober is writing and being plastered is me not writing. I feel better letting my fingers skitter across the keys, bringing whatever it is out of me. Even though today it mostly me rambling on in my blog. It's not much for someone to critique but it makes me feel good and feeling good is good enough.

I'm tripping on a transition in my story. It's really not an interesting part of the story and I would leave it all out unless I felt like it needed to be there. But even now as I type this, I feel like I might just chop this whole transition. If it doesn't flow, it's got to go. I'll think more about it. I think this is the only real stumbling block in the story. Everything else is pretty much there - since it came from a dream and all. I'm lucky that my dreams are so intense and long. As long as I can go to sleep, dream and remember, I'll have story fodder for lifetimes.

As far as today goes, I've been groggy and off my game in general both at work and at home. I didn't sleep well last night, waking up at the slightest this or that. I think it was because the weather has gotten warmer and we don't have AC. I don't sleep well when it's hot so I guess that could be it. I feel dehydrated too which has become a more common occurrence. I don't really feel all that thirsty but I have to force myself to drink most times unless I'm having a meal or a snack. Sometimes I'll eat something really dry so I'll be tempted to drink more. Right now I've got a big glass of water sitting here on my desk eyeballing me waiting for me to drink it. More often than not they go to waste. But I like store bought ice so I decided to pick up a bag of the stuff in the hope that I would drink more. Well sort of. Enough of my hydrophobic ramblings - let's get wet.

Ahhh, refreshing.

Well my appointed time for writing tonight is over. Need to figure out what is for dinner - I'm thinking chilli cheese burritos - just like the ones that Taco Bell used to sell but then became assholes and stopped selling them. Rat bastards. That's alright, mine taste better anyway, especially since I found a company here in Anchorage that makes them fresh. The Sophia monster is messing my keyboard so it's time to close up the keyboard.