father

Bang Your Head

Went to a show last Saturday night.  The band was doing its thing.  The mosh pit started and then the crowd parted and there was Kiki Dee.   Weezer

I did go to a show last Saturday night.  I took four teenagers and a nine year old to the Weezer concert at the Del Mar Race Track.  I think the evening left as much an impression on me as it did the kids.  It all started when we arrived after race five and I was delighted to find out all the kids got in free.  Money for the ponies!  We didn’t win anything on that account, but oh well.

After the ninth race, we headed on over to the venue which was in the infield.  If you haven’t been to the track, the infield is the center of the racetrack.  We set up our blankets and lawn chairs and cooler.  My sixteen year old son and his buddy wanted to get as close as possible, so they meandered their way up with my friend’s 11 year old son and friend.  My fourteen year old daughter and her friend weaved their way up front also.  I figured they’re fourteen and I need to let them roam around a little.  Jacqueline and I hung out in the back.

The whole concert was enjoyable.  Jacqueline sat on my shoulders most of the time and sang out loud to the songs she knew.  I told my wife later on that she was a babe magnet.  All the women wanted to come up and meet her and give her a high five because she is so cute.

When the teens returned I was regaled by their stories of being up front and close to the band.  My son, his buddy and the 11 year olds entered the mosh pit and got punched in the face, kneed in the head and tossed all over.  They helped crowd surf a guy into the hands of security.  They watched a guy throw a turkey leg at Weezer and he dodged and then picked it up and took a bite out of it.  The two teen girls had popcorn dumped on them.  They were offered a joint repetitively and declined.  Thank the Lord.  They watched two chicks get into a cat fight and got to bop the giant beach balls that were bouncing around the crowd a couple of times.  Quite an earful for a dad standing just a couple hundred feet away but separated by a throng of thousands.

If that wasn’t enough, getting out of that place was skechy.  The only way out is an unlit underground tunnel about twenty feet wide for 10,000 people.  I told the kids to just relax for awhile and wait for the crowd to die down.  The crowd never seemed to die down.  I asked a security guard about another exit and he said they had just opened a gate where we could walk across the racetrack.  We headed that way but there was no open gate and hundreds of people just started jumping the fence and so did we.  I lifted Jacqueline over and then the cooler.  Jennifer hopped over and then came security yelling  at us to back away from the fence.  I wasn’t about to be separated from my daughters so I jumped the fence anyway and the rest of the kids followed.  We ran across the turf and we ran across the track.  It was during this that I noticed the rail the horses follow around the track was already toppled over in many sections and the bushes destroyed.  I yelled to the kids, “Run fast because the cops are going to be coming!”  The guy next to me said that was the funniest bit of parenting he had ever witnessed.  As soon as we got into the parking lot the squad cars were pulling in.

I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun with my kids and I don’t think they’ll ever forget the night we went to see Weezer.

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It Actually Works!

I liken parenting to running a marathon.  There is  nothing short, fast speedy, quick about being a mom or a dad.  Parenting is a long journey.  In a marathon, you may feel great at mile three, crappy at mile nine and great again at mile thirteen.  In a marathon, you may feel dehydrated, tired, pull a muscle and maybe collapse.

As a parent, all the business distracts you from the passage of time.  You live in a world of carpools, homework, science projects, essays, church activities, sports, piano lessons, tap dancing or whatever it maybe.  Time takes on the dimensions of do this and don’t do that.  Did you say please?  Did you say thank you?  Look the person in eye and say hello.  Sit up straight.  Eat your vegetables.  Stop crying.  No biting.  Time is moving at a much faster rate than you realize when you’re parenting.  All the business of parenting makes the years go by fast and pretty soon you look in the mirror and say what the hell happened to me?  You just hope and pray that everything you have tried to teach them will sink in and they will grow up to be good people.

Every Sunday morning, Karen and I go swim for an hour and a half.  We then race home, change clothes, eat something real quick and then race to church with the kids.  On Mother’s Day, before Karen and I left for the pool, I told the kids if they didn’t have anything for their mother, they had a good hour or so to make a card, eat some cereal and be ready for church.  We had a dinner party the night before and still had the banquet tables out and the kitchen was full  of dishes.

Lo and behold, when we got home, there was a present and cards on the table.  The banquet tables were packed  up and put away.  Decorations were put up on the walls.  The dishes were all cleaned.  Our bed was made and my son had bacon, eggs and toast all ready for everyone.  All three of them worked together in harmony to honor their mom who does so much for them.  We were surprised and tickled pink.  This was the best mother’s day they could have given their mom.  I am so impressed that I don’t expect anything for father’s day.

Feeling pretty good around mile fifteen right about now.

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My Oldest Daughter

The nature versus nurture argument is a great topic for conversation especially when it comes to family members.  It’s relatively easy to understand why your hair is black and your eyes are blue.  Developments in personality and mannerisms are a different story.  Am I that way because of the way I was brought up?

Karen and I have always agreed that our oldest and youngest seem to have my personality and our middle one Jennifer, the oldest daughter, has her personality.  I’m more of the goofball and liking to joke around.  My wife is more of the serious and determined nature.  Due to her shyness and guardedness, she comes off as aloof at times.  This is also how I would describe my daughter.  It’s hard to get them to laugh.  They can be a tough crowd, but when they do laugh, you know you were truly funny and it’s the most wonderful sound to my ears.

It hasn’t been that I’m disconnected from my oldest daughter.  At times, I haven’t felt as connected to her as the other kids.  Her interests and mine are at other ends of the spectrum, similar to her mom and I.  For husband and wife it is opposites attract.  For father and daughter, it can be challenging.  Jennifer is very feminine.  There is not an ounce of tom boy in her.  I really can’t have a conversation on scrapbooking, shopping or fashion and she can’t watch a minute of football or listen to a minute of Dane Cook.

However, I am pleased to say that right now I feel more connected to her than ever.  She recently turned fourteen years old and seemed to transform overnight.  That’s the way it seemed to me, but she’s probably just been changing incrementally and I’ve just noticed.  Maybe it’s the other way around and I’m the one that’s changing?  I don’t think so.  There’s a refreshing spunkiness about her right now.  She has a lot to say about a lot of things.  She’s funny and witty and has a lot of good comebacks.  I have really enjoyed our exchanges.  I enjoy watching her grow up.  I’m lucky to have her.

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How Irish Are You?

There is definitely Irish blood on my mother’s side.  My mother’s maiden name is Reidy and my grandma’s maiden name was Flanagan.  My mom has it all traced back to the 1600’s.  My wife Karen received some great genealogy information from her aunt and uncle tracing her family back to Scotland to the 1400’s.  I think it’s all a great hobby if you have the time, but I don’t have the time.  I’ll let all the relatives do the dirty work and probably latch on sometime in my fifties or sixties to help the process along.

My grandmother on my father’s side always like to talk about our Irish blood.  She had all kinds of limericks and would even do an Irish jig every now and then.  My father always bristled at her so called Irish ancestry because her mother was from France and her father was Canadian making him English or French.  I don’t think my grandfather had any Irish blood in him even though he was born in New York.  My father always contested his mother’s claim to Irish heritage because he insisted there just wasn’t any evidence to the fact.  She was somehow orphaned as a child and was adopted by the McClain family of Chicago.  Who knows, maybe grandma did her research and it just never got to my dad.  I think she just liked to tease him.

The Irish are a proud bunch for all the negative stereotypes.  A lot of people don’t like catholics and most of them are catholic.  The Irish have been painted illiterate, bad tempered, heavy drinkers who like to fight a lot.  Wow.  Blacks and Jews thought they had it bad.  I’m sure there’s a lot of good that comes from being Irish also, but I don’t know what that is either.  I do know that St. Patrick’s Day could use a good makeover.  Corned beef, cabbage and green beer is just going to give you a lot of gas and it doesn’t taste any good either.  Leprechauns are like clowns.  They’re kinda scary.

May the wind be always at your back and a pot of gold at the end of your rainbow.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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Sweet 16!

First of all, I am amazed that I have helped create a human being and have gone through sixteen years with him.  His mom and I are excited for him and we truly hope he is enjoying his high school years since we don’t have much time left with him.  Before the blink of an eye he will be a man and off living his life.

It seems like a lot of parents and the government are completely paranoid about their teens getting a driver’s license.  Karen and I can’t wait.  I wish he could have gotten his license on his birthday, but with his broken leg and all, he’s a little behind schedule.  However, in a couple of weeks, we should have a new driver in the house.

I am looking forward to this for mainly selfish reasons.  When you have three children, a lot of your life is spent in the car.  Almost every night of the week, either Karen or I are driving around for dance, soccer, swim, surfing and whatever else you can think of.  We believe the kids need to work hard in school, but we also believe they should have an athletic endeavor to keep fit, so it is all brought upon ourselves.

About three years ago, I had a melt down in the car.  It was Labor Day weekend and there was a soccer tournament.  Why do these morons schedule games at seven in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays?  After a long week at work and spending the entire weekend at a soccer tournament in one hundred degree heat, I lost my temper in the car on the way home.  All this driving around was getting to me.  Something had to give.  We had to change our priorities and we had to actively look to carpool with other families. 

I got over my tizzy and life continued, but when you’re child is fifteen there is a constant tug of war going on.  They want to do more and go more places, but they are entirely dependent on you for transportation.  I don’t know about you, but getting up at 5:30 in the morning, working all day and then picking your son up at  11:30pm on Friday night at a party that is eight miles from your house just isn’t appealling.  I’m becoming a fuddy duddy.

Here we are on the brink of a new driver in the house and I can’t wait.  He can take himself to and from school.  He can help drive his sisters around.  He can drive himself to and from swim practice.  He can drive himself to and from the beach.  We cand send him to the grocery store.  We can make him go gas up the car.  It seems the possibilities are endless.

You’d think it’s my birthday as excited as I am.

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Fundraising From Hell

I want you to think back to when you were a kid.  Do you remember “No Soliciting” signs on the front doors of businesses and houses?  It was a different time before email and websites and eight hundred television stations.  There were actually door to door salesman that would walk around trying to sell you stuff because it was one of the ways available to get their product in front of you.  It actually was so prevalent that people would get pissed from having their front door bell rang all the time, they put these signs up giving you fair warning not to knock on their door.  I can still remember my father slamming the door in the face of some guy from Greenpeace way back when.

When we signed our son up for little league, you had to assist the league in fundraising.  This was done by having each family sell a box of about twenty candy bars.  You either take the time to sell the candy bars or you pay an additional forty dollars cash up front for the registration fee if you want your kid to play baseball.  We take the chocolate bars and walk around the neighborhood once and sell maybe one or two candy bars.  What are we gonna do with the rest of them?  You give it three or four weeks and they magically disappear into my mouth, my wife’s mouth and my kids’ mouths.  Now, we’ve eaten all the candy and have to pay for it.  Good grief! 

The door to door salesman still exists but in a different form and for a different purpose.  They are all cute little boys and girls walking around the neighborhoods in some kind  of uniform or another with freckles and ballcaps or ribbons in their hair.  The typical for sale items are magazines, wrapping paper, popcorn, candy and cookies.  It’s the perfect scam getting the children to do the dirty work for all of these organizations that supposedly need money and it’s high time it stopped.  It’s the same old sob story with the teacher’s, the schools, the pta, the girl scouts, the cub scouts and so on.  If we don’t fundraise, then programs and activities are going to be cut.  I’ve been hearing this same old tune for a long time and it never seems to change and the programs and activities always seem to grow and never diminish.

The ultimate question is where does all the money go?  Do you remember the director of the Red Cross here in San Diego whose salary was $400,000.00 per year?  You ever notice there is never an accounting made available of what the funds are for?  What’s the cost of the actual goods being sold?  Whose really benefiting from the proceeds?  How much of the proceeds actually ends up at the local level?  When did this become the children’s responsibility to do this?  How much free labor did these organizations just receive from us and our kids? 

I know a lot of you think I sound like a curmudgeon.  What put me over the top?  The schools sure do seem to send a lot of papers home with the children.  Usually, my wife reads all of these papers and I never looked at them until recently.  My eight year old daughter brings me a piece of paper saying I have to fill it out because she has to return it in the morning.  It’s an order form to buy books.  The schools’ and the teachers’ are now peddling books to the children through the classroom and I have to fill out a form saying yes or no.  Why can’t they read the books at the school?  Isn’t the library good enough?  Shouldn’t our taxes cover this?  Please don’t tell me some kid isn’t going to learn how to read if I don’t help out.

Do people question things anymore?  Are we all so busy in our own lives that we don’t notice the slow transformations that have taken place incrementally over time?  Are we all ever going to stand up and say no to some of this stuff or are we too afraid of conforming and keeping our mouths shut?  I sure have a lot more questions than answers.

I won’t slam the door in your face, but the answer will be a polite, “No.”

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Home Sweet Home

Being a business owner has a lot of challenges that employees don’t have, but one of the perks is being able to make key life choices without a boss or management looking over your shoulder all of the time.  One of my life choices has been not to travel being a father and a husband.  I know many men that have had to travel for business and it takes its toll over time.  There is the allure of seeing new cities and places and people.  However, after a few weeks living out of a suit case either alone or with people you don’t know that well, the toll is taken.  You miss your wife and kids and home.

With the state of the economy and lack of any business activity going on out there, I have had to rethink things and take whatever opportunities that may arise.  I have been fortunate to be doing business with Home Depot for many years and was given the opportunity to do a lot of work in a very short period of time.  The opportunity is to replace all of the air conditioning equipment on the roof of five Home Depots throughout southern California in six weeks.  We will have removed and replaced 150 pieces of equipment in that time.  Our record day, and company best ever, was in Hemet when we craned down 37 old units and 29 new units in one day.  We’ve been on a fast track schedule with cranes, semi’s, forklifts, recyclers, manufacturer’s, plumbers, electricians, sheet metal workers and more for the past month.  The schedule is so fast and so much is going on that I am running all of the projects myself with a crew of ten men.  We have been gone for a month.

It was a close call between staying in a hotel or just commuting.  All of my employees really wanted to start work at 6am, to beat the sun and the heat.  It has been really hot in SoCal the last month.  This put me in the decision of getting up at 3:30 to 4:00am on a daily basis to drive the freeways and then make the drive back in the evenings or just staying in a hotel.  It was a no brainer for me.  If I had to get up at 4am everyday, I could just not function well.  I packed my bags and off I went. 

Here I am, my last night in a hotel for awhile and I’m blogging:)  I am usually on the roof of a Home Depot at 6:00am and usually am not done until three or four in the afternoon.  By that time, the sun has taken the life force out of you and it’s off to the hotel room to sit in front of the air conditioner in your underwear until you cool down enough to take a shower.  I must commend the crew because there has been little to no drama the entire time.  Yes, men can be dramatic.  We finally had some stuff go down on our last job.  We had one guy  arrested and I haven’t heard from him.  I had another guy have a tizzy on the roof today and quit on the spot.  I’ve been doing this so long, these type of things don’t surprise me or bother me anymore.

I can’t wait to get back to San Diego County.  I will never complain again about how crowded San Diego is getting.  You spend a few days in the realm of Los Angeles and there is a density of people that you really can’t notice or comprehend on a day trip or weekend sojourn.  Once you’ve spent a week up here, the crush of humanity is noticeable.  The other thing you notice is the police presence.  I have never seen so many squad cars in my life.  We were hearing sirens going off every half hour up here.

Here I come, home sweet home.

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Hey Teacher! Leave Them Kids Alone!

Things used to be so simple back in the day.  You either took a regular class or you took an honors class.  The highest your gpa could be was 4.0.  The SAT was a maximum of 1600 points.  Sports had a season and they weren’t played year round.  You got Thanksgiving and the day after off.  You got two weeks at Christmas and one week at Easter.  Pardon me, I’m not being politically correct.  I should have said winter and spring break.  Back in the day, summer was very long.  You got out of school around the middle of June and always went back the day after labor day.

Things have gotten so complicated.  There are regular classes, honors classes, AP classes and international baccalaureate classes.  They even have honors classes in Spanish in case you can’t speak English.  What’s the point?  Why so many classifications?  It turns out the colleges don’t give a rip whether you were in regular or honors.  The colleges only care about your gpa.

I personally am not sure the regular classes are rigorous enough, so I have suggested, encouraged, pushed and demanded my son be in the honors classes.  I don’t expect the international baccalaureat because that’s just too much work if you’re in sports and not inclined to that much academics.  My son is with the program.  He hasn’t balked at the challenges and did well last year. 

Getting to the point of all this, I really want to know who the moron is that starting assigning homework over the summer.  This is what happens to honors students these days.  They get homework assigned over the summer.  This is really irksome to me.  Do these teachers have any idea how hard it is to get a fifteen year old motivated to do homework over the summer?  Talk about government intrusion into my life, I just can’t take it anymore.

You’re probably not much that different than my wife and I.  We divvy up our parental responsibilities.  It just so happens that it has been my responsibility to make sure my son does his summer homework.  This has been like pulling teeth.  At the beginning of summer, we decided he could have until August 1st without having to worry about any school work.  So on August 1st we sat down and made a schedule of how much he should do per day, so it could all be done with a week to spare.  In this way, the last week of summer could be totally carefree.  I don’t think it’s going to turn out that way.  The educators have turned this into my angst and I’m not happy about it.

I can honestly tell you that growing up I never had as much homework as my kids do.  I never did homework over any summer.  I don’t even remember doing much homework during the week during the school year when I was growing up.  I feel sorry for this generation.  Why is everything a race and a pressure cooker?

I’ll never forget what my dad told me on my graduating from UC-San Diego with my bachelor’s degree.  He shook my hand and said, “Congratulations, nobody cares.”

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Stuff in the Garage

Hi Everyone!  I’m beach camping and I’d like to introduce guest blogger, Jerry Huber.  Enjoy.

2 or 3 times a year, I make an obligatory, yet totally futile attempt to clean out my garage.  I always start out determined to get the place organized but the job seems to overwhelm me and I just end up moving stuff from one place to another.  It’s not that the garage is too small.  It’s a 3 car garage and it’s never actually had a car parked in it.  The place is bigger then a condo we use to lived in.  No… the problem is that I have a lot of stuff.

The logical, right side of my brain knows that I don’t really need half the things stored in the garage.  But when it comes time to throw something away or drop off a couple of boxes at the Goodwill, I seem to find a reason not to.

My wife is a fanatic when it comes to the holidays.  She has boxes of decorations for every holiday celebrated in North America.  These seasonal knick- knacks usually spend 2 weeks on display in the house and the other 50 weeks stored in the garage.  We have 8 boxes of Christmas decorations… 9 if you include the artificial tree we bought at Costco last year.  The box for that thing is the size of a refrigerator.  Any time I’ve even suggested that we get rid of some Christmas decorations my family acts like I am the Grinch and I am committing a personal affront to the baby Jesus.

Halloween is another big holiday at my house.  In addition to several boxes of Halloween decoration, I have 6 boxes of costumes.  Six boxes of Halloween costumes may seem unnecessary, but you’d be amazed how often my family and friends will call me when they need to dress up as a dinosaur, a butterfly or a prostitute.

Scattered throughout my garage, I have a set of tiki torches, 2 grass skirts, a grocery bag full of plastic leis, 3 strings of lights shaped like palm trees, an inflatable Polynesian totem pole and a set of limbo poles.  There’s a certain sense of pride that comes from knowing that at a moments notice I can throw together a very respectable backyard luau.

There seems to be a lot of sports equipment in my garage.  Baseball, softball, soccer, basketball, volleyball, horseshoes, tennis, bowling, skateboarding… if it’s shown on ESPN, I’ve probably got the equipment for it.  I’m not sure yet which sports my kids are going to excel at, but I would hate for them to miss the opportunity to be a pro athlete and sign a lucrative endorsement deal with Nike or Gatorade just because I threw away an old baseball mitt.

We live in Southern California and we spend a fair amount of time at the beach.  So naturally, in the garage I have 3 boogie boards, 10 folding chairs, 2 umbrellas, 5 cooler chests, 3 beach blankets and a vast assortment of beach toys.  Before I got married, packing for the beach meant grabbing a dirty towel and picking up a six- pack at 7- Eleven.  Not any more.  I also have 2 surfboards, which is kind of odd since nobody in the family has surfed since my oldest daughter outgrew her “surfer- girl” phase 6 years ago.

There’s 26 cans of paint sitting on a shelf in my garage… 9 of them are subtly different shades of white.  I’m pretty sure 4 or 5 of them were left behind by the previous owner of my house.  I’ll probably never use any of it… but at $30 a gallon, throwing it out would be like pouring French Champagne down the toilet.

I have 2 space heaters just in case it ever drops below 40 degrees here in San Diego.  It could happen, you never know.

Each of my kids has a large box cram- packed with homework, tests, book reports and art projects dating back to preschool.  My wife is firmly convinced that not saving the kids school work would somehow make us horrible parents and that our lack of support will be a reoccurring topic when our kids end up in therapy.

I have a lot of tools… or at least that’s what my wife says.  She may be right.  For me, walking through the tool department of Home Depot is only slightly less arousing then browsing at the F-Street Bookstore.  At last count, I had 27 screwdrivers, 11 pairs of pliers, 9 saws, 6 hammers, 8 measuring tapes, 3 crow bars, 4 levels and 5 crescent wrenches.  There’s a wrench in my toolbox that I’ve never used.  I’m not entirely sure what it’s for but I’m sure I’ll need it someday.  I won’t even get into power tools.  I could probably justify this assortment of tools if I worked in construction but I spend most of my time sitting in front of a computer monitor.  If I’m ever invited to an Amish barn- raising, I’ll be ready.

I have 5 ladders and a fear of heights.  I think surrounding myself with ladders is my way of confronting my acrophobia.

That’s just a small sampling of the things in the garage, but you get the general idea.  Maybe someday I’ll be able to shed my need to hang onto stuff… maybe not.  But right now I wish I had invested my money in Rubbermaid plastic storage boxes rather then General Motor stocks.

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I’M NOT READY FOR THIS!

Do you remember when you first got married?  Or should I say do you remember the first time you cohabitated with the opposite sex?  It’s one of those things you thought you were ready for, but in reality could never be ready for.  The way he brushes his teeth bugs me.  Why does she have so much trouble cooking a chicken?  Why does he have to fart in the bed?  The list goes on.

How about when your first child is born?  You’ve watched your mom and dad.  You’ve had brothers and sisters.   You’re mentally prepared and ready for your first child.  It’s another thing you just can’t be ready for no matter how much you think you’re ready.  I always remember the first night at home with Stewart.  He was up all night wailing away because he had gas.  I remember him laying between Karen and I at 3:30am and  we were both looking at eachother like we didn’t know what to do for him.

Last night was supposed to be a typical Friday night around here.  There’s dance class and then there’s dinner.  Stewart asked to have a friend over to spend the night and if I could take them surfing early in the morning.  It’s been a long week, so I make a cocktail and sit down to relax, when Karen informs me that three teenage girls are coming over to “hang out.”  I didn’t take it seriously because one thing I’ve learned with young teenagers is that most of their plans seem to fall apart at the last minute because they never inform their parents until the last minute.

Sure enough, three teenage girls are sitting in the backyard around the firepit thirty minutes later.  I’ve known this was coming for a long time now, but I’m just not ready for this!  I can’t lay around in my underwear anymore.  Karen and I want this to be a positive experience for the kids and for us.  After we got over our shock, we went out and introduced ourselves and offered them lemonade and to turn some music on.

After a couple of hours, the boys come in and tell us they are going to walk the girls home.  Before too long, I’ve watched a little television in bed and now am soundly asleep.  It’s ten minutes to midnight and Karen wakes me up saying the boys aren’t home.  Here we go.  It turns out all the teens got a little sidetracked and decided to go toilet paper a friend’s house(who Karen and I happen to be friends with the parents).  The teens broke the two golden rules of toilet papering.  Never toilet paper someone’s house while they’re home and never toilet paper someone’s house at 10pm on a Friday night.  They got caught and had to clean the whole mess up which is the excuse for getting home so late.

I’m not ready for this, but somehow it will all work out.

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