What advice would you give to bloggers who are inclined to return to their published blogs to edit them for grammatical errors or remove embarrassing info?

I would council against both impulses.

Regarding the most important part of the question--the second part--you initially wrote that "embarrassing" info for a reason. And even though the Internet is not permanent in any sense, you should honor the original impulse behind why the statement in question was created. To go back and edit yourself later calls into question the reason for the writing in the first place.

(I also don't think you should go back and rip pages out of diaries or journals or notebooks. I have written embarrassing things in the past and they are still in existence in pages. I just do my best to keep them out of the reach of my children, who aren't at an age to understand it--or even need to understand it. And it is instructive to me to go back now and then and say hello to that former self, to read what he was thinking and gain some perspective on what has been going on in my life since then.)

Now, as to the question of correcting grammatical errors . . . that's probably not a big deal. Certainly, I am guilty of many, many such mistakes. And in my daily work, it is something of my job to avoid letting such things become part of the final product. But that is in a final product that is being sold for profit and (therefore) demands a higher standard of quality than a personal blog that I write, that no one has to read, and is being thrown out there for free.

Of course, when I describe my electronic writings in such a way, it's no wonder I've been writing for over five years with no noticeable increase in viewership. But I guess I'm a bit too honest about the quality of what I'm doing. I'm NOT producing something for sale or for any REAL permanence. It is a collection of momentary thoughts that are thrown together in between kids baths, meals, TV shows, and any other time that I have fifteen minutes to spare and feel an urge to be creative.

Such are the quotidian impulses of my blogging lifestyle. But it IS the honest truth.

If you aspire to make something out of your blog; to make it something that has lasting, permanent value. If you want it to be useful, then maybe you can go back and edit your past.

But, if you do that . . . then you're no better than George Lucas.

Anyway, there is my answer.

Thanks for asking.

Ask me anything

Is it better to love and lost, than to never have loved at all?

I say yes.

Experiencing love is a difficult thing. It opens us up to enormous vulnerabilities. But at the same time, it opens us up to new sides of themselves that might never be realized without the challenge of love to push us in new directions and new perspectives.

If we never have the chance to love, we live in a world that is more selfish and more limited. While it is potentially hurtful and heartbreaking to experience love and either have it unreturned or to have it fade away, a person who has loved is no longer the same as they were before.

So, I say, push yourself. Acknowledge the possibility of more for yourself and the one you love. And don't be let fear of what might happen become so overwhelming that it precludes the chance to risk.

(Admittedly, this sounds super-great coming from secure, mature, 38-year-old me. Teenage me, college me would never, never, NEVER be so confident as to throw this down.)

But, really, that is part of what I'm talking about here. Those earlier, more scared, less mature, less loved versions of me are NOT who I am today. And it is age and love and relationship that have put me here.

I also realize that I am extremely lucky to have found someone to love that loves me back and that we don't disagree on important things--or at least when we disagree, we adjust what we think is important in service of that love. I haven't had my love go wrong. So, I guess I don't truly know what it means to have loved and lost.

But I do know that having loved successfully and seeing how it has changed me, I don't think I would want to miss out on that experience.

Anyway, that's my answer.

Thanks for asking.

Ask me anything

Has there ever been a technological wonder that you thought would just be a passing craze and then it ended up being something big?

I have been struggling to answer this question for a good while. And I guess the best answer that I can come up with is the Nintendo game system.

I grew up when Atari was brand new. We even had the first model and I promptly played Space Invaders and Breakout and Combat so much that I broke the first set of joysticks. And then, when Pitfall came around, I played that a lot as well. So, I was around when video games in the home became a "thing."

I tell you this to help establish my credentials. And perhaps that helps further establish the fact that when I didn't later embrace the Nintendo system it helps answer the question that this was a technological wonder that I didn't jump on quickly. You see?

But the truth is that we didn't (nor have I a history of) have tons of video games when I was a kid. My family didn't upgrade and/or replace the Atari over time. Other friends has the Intellivision and any of the other systems to come after, including the original Nintendo, PlayStation, Sega, and whatever else. When Ninetendo and the original Mario Brothers game came out, I was alrady out of the gaming scene. And when I did try to play, I was easily frustrated and definitely beaten by young punks half my (then) age of 14 or so. And it was this missed connection with the Nintendo (and a sort of frugalness that comes with being a high schooler/college student with little money) that kept me out of the burgeoning video game system phenomenon in the late 1980s and 1990s that stil continues today.

Now, we do have a Wii and I and the kids play it. But it is a different thing now. I'll always feel that the most important period of videogaming history--other than the orignal period--passed me by.

So, there is my answer.

Thanks for asking.

Ask me anything

Goodbye Party Month 2010

This year's version of Party Month seemed stretched out and at the same time, it felt less substantial than in year's past. All of the party's went well, though one still remains to be pulled off next weekend. Grace's birthday party seems like such a distant memory . . . the buildup to The Last Airbender that was such a disappointment to Lynda and I. But luckily, Grace didn't seem to mind that much. She got to have good fun with some of her friends and there was indoor and outdoor activity and food and drink and cake and presents and . . . well, what more can you ask for when you turn seven?

Lynda's birthday went by anticlimactically. I got her useful gifts (a quality citrus reamer and a good zester) that she wanted and that are functional and practical and  . . . well, what more do you want when you are an adult and have three kids, a mortgage, car repairs, and whatever else life decided to throw at you? I think she appreciated the things I got and we will continue to use them in our food cooking for a long while.

Our anniversary (15th!) was a bit more special. We managed to secure a baby sitter and splurged on a very nice dinner at the Ocean Club. And then we say Toy Story 3. Though we didn't plan it as such, the first Toy Story came out in theaters the same year that we got married back in 1995. So, it was sort of full circle, I guess.

Sarah's actual tenth birthday came and went without tons of specific fanfare. (Her party is the one that is still lagging . . . to be completed this upcoming weekend.) We partied a lot this past week in our church's Vacation Bible School and didn't miss the opportunity to present Sarah with a cake and a room full of people to sing Happy Birthday to her. I think she liked that.

And she bought herself the present she wanted, her very own iPod Nano. She has saved money for months to get it and has done extra chores to earn more money. She even bought some songs this afternoon to start filling it up with stuff she likes. (I'd list the relevant songs, but I think she is writing a blog post about it now. So, instead, I'll just leave the descriptions to her, in her own words.)

So, I'm in a more peaceful place than the last time I blogged.

I've still got LOTS of work to do and didn't force myself to spend time working on it. I'm quite sure that tomorrow will result in some pulled hair as a result of that decision. But life is for the living, so I'm not going to regret spending time relaxing and enjoying pool parties with friends of our kids. (Which is what we did last night . . . and that was lots of fun.)

So, good bye Party Month. You were fun, you were frustrating, you made me anxious, you made me hectic. You remind me of all the good things and good decisions in my life and you remind me why I bother to go to work in the first place.

You've done your duty for another year.

In space, no one can hear you complain

. . . and that's probably a good thing, since no one likes to hear other people complain about their problems. But I'm going to spend some time looking back over the very difficult, turbulent week and I might slip into some complaints before it is all over.

The week has mostly been dominated by three very different, yet interconnected things.

First, Sarah has been sick all week. Yes, ALL week. She has been running a fever every day since Tuesday. And yes, we did call the pediatrician. And, yes, as always, they said that they wouldn't do anything until she had maintained the fever for a week. Which we finally got close to this weekend, when we finally gave up and took her to the urgent care and they told us that they suspect she's got an ear infection and might be developing a slight infection in her lungs. (I think I got that right, as Lynda was the one that took her to the U.C. and when she told me this, the blood was pounding in my ears and I might have missed some of the details.)

So, not only was Sarah at home all week, completely missing each and every day of Girl Scout Camp, but she was probably feeling worse and worse. But not that we'd know it because our doctor wouldn't bother to see her until she was . . . oh, I don't even know.

Now, because Sarah was home all week, missing Girls Scout Camp, that meant Lynda and I were scrambling every day to figure out who was going to stay home with her and manage to try and do our 9 to 5 job that simply won't make the courtesy of going away and making our lives easier. Nope, instead, our jobs have decided to get progressively harder each and every week, dumping more and more work on us while we juggle sick kids and all of the other responsibilities that we are foolish to take on.

Which leads me to item 3--Vacation Bible School. It starts tomorrow night and I am (foolish enough to say I'd be) the organizer this year. I might have done a better job at it if I hadn't been faced with items 1 and 2 this past week and if I'd been smart enough and organized enough to start thinking of all of the details and problems sooner. But I hope in the end that the kids find enjoyment and learning in it and that is more important in the end than the decorations or the food or whatever else. (Though I would be entirely sunk if I had not had the help of several people in our very nice church that were willing to take on leadership roles early on and have been working on their own to handle their part of the event.)

In combination, these things have really screwed me up this week. And while I could have handled my VBS duties more effectively and probably I could work EVEN harder to attempt to catch up at work, I don't know that I could have done much about Sarah's predicament.

It's just be so confusing and trying and frustrating all week long.

(And I didn't even tell you what a disaster occurred yesterday thanks to the worst FedEx driver this side of Memphis.)

I have been very down on myself and certainly I haven't been any fun to be around or to live with, either at home or at work--the few days I managed to get into the office. I hope that as VBS kicks off each night this week, I can see that things will go fine and that the kids will find the importance behind the decorations and food and whatever else is there. And I hope that accomplishing that task, I can try to focus a bit more on work and try to make some sense out of the mountain of a project that looms over me every day. And I hope that Sarah gets better and can get her summer back. It's her 10th birthday coming up this Thursday, after all. She certainly deserves better than she's gotten this week, either from a health perspective or from the companionship she's gotten out of me.

So, I hope to put some of this worry and frustration down into this post and walk away from it after I hit PUBLISH. I need to move on mentally and emotionally.