Aimless

(This photo chosen specifically for my friend & colleague, Christine.) Credit: www.manateepower.com

I'm feeling . . . you guessed it . . . a bit aimless tonight.
I'm physically tired, we didn't have an appointment, softball practice, family activity, or other commitment to meet tonight, so we all just sort of got home and have stayed there.
I made an executive decision to not try and do any work tonight either . . . which is not always a problem, but it has been recently and guarantees to become a problem as the months of this year go on. But, for tonight, I just don't have the interest in it.

So, I'm just sort of wandering around the house while everyone is either getting ready for bed, resting, reading (which I forced the older girls to do for a while tonight, as I thought they were spending too much time in front of a screen), or whatever. We're all sort of . . . separate . . . which is not always a bad thing. With five of us in the house, it is sometimes valuable to have your own space, even if only for a little while.

But soon the girls will all be in bed and Lynda will probably settle down for a few hours of work. And I'll continue to ignore my laptop, ignore my half-read books, ignore random things, and just continue to be . . . aimless.

Work has been a combination of impending stress (for what is upcoming) and mind-numbingly tedious (for what is happening now). I so badly want to finish my current task but I am not looking forward to the 3 other things that await me in the immediate aftermath. But such is life in the downsized corporate world of today where those who choose to put up with it are asked to put up with much more of it. Maybe I'll prove to not be good at continuing to do it satisfactorily (assuming I did it that way before now)? Who knows. I just feel like one of we few, we (un?) happy few.

The World's Oldest Teenager No More

When I first heard the news yesterday, I was a bit sad, sure. But he didn't mean as much to me as he did to my parent's generation (or to Ryan Seacrest). But, he was an important cultural figure that helped define and promote the postwar Youth Generation that has come to shape a lot of what modern America is about.

So, he had that going for him.

But what I really though about, of course, was why did Tom do it this time?

Credit: www.hollywood.com

You might have thought that Tom was done. I haven't reported (some say speculated) on his actions in a very long time. Did we both take each other for granted? Maybe . . . but when a high profile target like this one goes, people are going to talk and wonder and . . . well, yes . . . let's just say they are going to speculate.

So maybe Tom is getting ready to flip the DVD sales of Mission Impossible IV: Ghost Protocol into his next project. And maybe he thinks that he wants to do a biopic. And well, why NOT the World's Oldest Teenager. Maybe Tom has acquired some interesting back stories of the real Mr. Clark that no one but Seacrest was privy to. (I'm thinking something along the lines of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, you know?) Maybe Tom knows things, man! And maybe, just maybe, Dick didn't want those things known.

And, well, Dick was already sick you know . . . and Tom's movie idea was just too good. (Maybe it's even good enough for an Oscar consideration, right? And we all know that Tom is still waiting for that Oscar. It should have worked for Jamie Fox as Ray, Tom thinks. But I'm better than Jamie. I'll do it better. I'll get my production company to team up with the old Miramax guys and we'll do it up big time. There's no way they will deny me this time . . . as long as Dick is out of the picture.)

And then . . . well . . .

Express Lane

Tonight, Lynda and Hannah went to the grocery story after dinner to . . . um . . . pick up some groceries. And, as you do, she crossed paths with a father and child as they wandered up and down the aisles. Hannah and the daughter said hello to each other as they saw each other again and again on each successive aisle. And that might have been the end of it, just a few moments of courtesy and child-like innocence during the mundane tasks of every day.

But, they met again at the check out lanes, and the man was in line first. His cart was unloaded, the clerk was scanning the items, things were proceeding to a close. At this moment, the father discovered that he has forgotten his wallet. Suddenly the last 45 minutes was wasted; all of the items would be moved and restocked; what could be done?

Lynda immediately offered to pay for his groceries, to help him out and prevent the crisis. The man reacted with a bit of shock, as did the store clerk. They asked again . . . are you sure you want to do this? Again, Lynda agreed to pay for his groceries. So, in gratitude, the man and Lynda exchanged contact information. He promised to send a check for the amount. Lynda paid, and the man and his daughter went on their way, unburdened from their problem with a brief act of kindness and charity.

These are the sort of things that don't happen enough. These are the sort of things that we should all try to do for each other. To make the world a nicer place with happier people, look for opportunities to do good things. Small things are sometimes the most meaningful of all.

Tired + Tense

Credit: zazzle.com

The pork roast is cooking in the oven. The kids are in the house and ignoring the beautiful outside. Lynda is still at work. And I'm taking a few minutes to vent some long-form frustrations here on the ole blog.

This week hasn't been the best one that I've ever had for a couple of reasons. First, I'm back to working at night to try and keep to a work deadline. I've got lots of tedious, repetitive things to do and a short amount of time to do it in. So, to keep up the pace, I'm working during the day, taking a slight evening break for dinner and family, then trying to stay focused and energetic enough to squeeze in a few more hours of effort before I give up out of sheer spite. And this is only the first week that I'm back to this sort of grind, with (most likely) a good handful of weeks to go. So, I've got to find ways to keep up a good attitude about it all until this task is done and I can shift my attention to the next project on deck.

Outside of work, things at home are sort of tense as well. One of the kids has not been performing well enough at school--mostly due to organizational deficiencies and lack of follow through. This has resulted in repeating patterns of assignments being turned in late, lost equipment, and (when discovered and confronted) an inability to demonstrate enough acknowledgement that a problem exists that needs to be taken seriously. As a result, Lynda and I decided to punish her by preventing attendance at an upcoming birthday party. This has resulted in some disengaged attitudes at home and a certain level of distance that wasn't there before. And I guess that is just the way it is going to be until things improve and feelings heal. I'm not in love with being a bad guy, but that is the role of the parent. So, I'm going to heel it up to get the point across.

But I'm not really liking it.

And in my tired, tense state, everything has the potential to become more of a problem that maybe it should be. Like right now, I would really love for the girls to get outside and feel some sun on their skin. But I'm not forcing them to drop everything and go outside. And what would they do? Hannah can't be unsupervised, so they'd have to stay in the backyard. So they can't really engage with other kids. (And so I feel badly about that . . . even though I know they've been with their friends at school all day long.) And I can't go out there with them because I'm trying to get dinner ready. (After I finish writing this, of course.) Because I have some notion that I need to have dinner ready when Lynda get home. (See ladies . . . it CAN cut both ways!) So we can eat, and maybe get outside AFTER dinner before the sun goes down. But I've got work to do. And I'm tired.

Nothing is making me happy and everything is a problem.

Thanks for reading!

Nerd Out Saturday

So, as I teased on Tumblr this morning, today was a nerd-filled day.

After lunch, Sarah (one of her friends) and I went to see the Hunger Games movie. It was an excellent adaptation of the books (which I enjoyed very much). It strayed very little from the story clearly presented in the novel . . . which is why I find it odd that I liked it so much, considering I find the movie version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone at fault for doing the same thing.

Still, the movie was well acted, well-shot, and didn't stray away from the grim reality of what the story is really all about. I've not seen Jennifer Lawrence in anything else, but I found her to be a very convincing Katniss. If I had to pick nits, I'd say Lawrence was too emotionally vulnerable in a few spots that Katniss would never have been while being viewed on screen (her character said as much in the book). But I know that, without the benefit of internal monologue, Lawrence went for a human moment.

Another change that was a bit surprising, but--again--understandable, was the portrayal of Woody Harrelson's Haymitch. This movie version of the former District 12 victor was not taken directly from the pages of Collin's first novel. Harrelson's Haymitch was more forthright, more willing to help, and far less of a besotted stumblebum.

I won't go into details on other stuff that were all smart cinematic adjustments to make a movie more approachable. It was well done and definitely tense when it needed to be tense. I feel certain that a sequel (based on Catching Fire) will be green-lit. But I am, at least for now, less excited about them. The Hunger Games has always been my favorite of the three books.

After we got back from seeing the movie, I knew I had to set some time aside to be with Grace. She had been disappointed that I would not let her go see the movie. (She hasn't read the books yet and is a bit young still to be dealing with the violence of the movie imagery.)

As luck would have it though, we had another nerd-tastic option available to us. So, we sat down and watched the online premiere of Nickelodeon's new Avatar: The Last Airbender sequel--The Legend of Korra. Even though the TV show doesn't premiere until mid April, I knew that the first two episodes were being unlocked this weekend. So I held that in reserve to ensure a special time for Grace and myself.

I've found that I need to balance my time with the girls and make sure they are both given special attention from time to time. And especially I should not single one out above the other. So, it was good for me to have these two distinct options that I could turn to for them . . . and for me.

As I've said before, they are only going to grow older and progressively away from me--as they rightly should. But . . . for now, the odds are ever in my favor.