Infestation

12-24-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

12-26-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

12-28-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

Death toll for the season: 10

Don't know the reason for the sudden string of killings - I guess a family of the little buggers must have moved in.

Unfortunately one of my Better Mousetrap brand mousetraps broke so I can only kill one at a time. Guess I better get to the hardware store.

Giving Blood Part 2 - Natalya Returns

First, read this post from 2006. It describes a less than fulfilling attempted blood donation.

Guess who was there to take my blood today?

After filling out the forms and answering the not-so-discrete questions about my travel and sexual history, a lab-coated Memorial Blood Center technician led me to a table with a left-armed drawing position (I prefer the left arm, thank you very much). The technician manning this and an adjacent, right-arm drawing table, was Natalya - she of the "oops" incident from a year ago.

Yikes! Was I actually going to have to ask for a different phlebology technician? I debated mentally.

"Look," I'd say, "it's nothing professional, but I just can't have you 'oops-ing' me again."

Then I thought - if she was that bad, would she still be working for them? After all, she appeared to have properly handled the woman next to me. No oops-ing today. No blood on the floor and alarmed stares from other blood donors. So far.

Before I really had much more of a chance to think, a different, much more experienced looking phlebologist approached and took care of me.

A one word response to all of this - "Whew!"

All went well, and I'm currently running a pint low. And I'm happy that 3 people will receive parts of my blood and help them (hopefully) return to good health.

Death Toll update

12-16-07 - 1 dead squirrel found in bottom of empty garbage can outside garage. No obvious external injuries. Cause of death: suicide.

12-19-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

Death toll for the season: 7

2007 Non-Demominational, Non-Personalized, Holiday-Type Newsletter

Presenting the 2007 Non-denominational, Non-Personalized, Holiday-type Newsletter of the Gonzalez Family

I Spoke Too Soon

12-13-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

Death toll for the season: 5

Wouldn't you know that as soon as I said "seems like it's going to be a pretty light year for dead mice" that I get another one.

Christmas Letter Update - I Got Nothin'

Every year I seem to hit this roadblock, but I'm more stuck than I've ever been. I'm gonna go ahead and blame my job. It's 9:53pm and I'm ready to drop. The thing I need most for creativity is extra brain cycles. Spare mindshare. And I don't have any. I leave for work by 7am and arrive home after 6pm. I'm in meetings 7 hours a day, and now I've taken over responsibility for a project because someone else is out on medical leave. I literally eat my lunch in meetings and go to the bathroom walking from one meeting room to another.

So don't be shocked if the Annual Non-Denominational, Holiday-Type Newsletter is a bit late this year.

Dead Mouse Update

11-30-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement under ping pong table. Cause of death: toyed with to death by natural predators.

12-8-07 - 1 dead mouse found in basement, head crushed and stuck in Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap. Cause of death: sudden blunt trauma to head.

Death toll for the season: 4

It's been a light year for rodents and I'm not sure why. Don't really care, either. I'm just happy I haven't had to find one by smell. God, I hate that smell - the smell of rotting rodent. It's indescribable.

Complete This Sentence

Here's a fun exercise that I'd really like a bunch of my friends/family to try. But first a little background.

I'm reading a book called Happier, which can be found at any book store with a self-help section. In the book there are a series of exercises intended to help you decide for yourself how to be happier. One exercise is to finish a series of sentences, like:

*Things that make me happy are ...
*To bring 5 percent more happiness to my life ...

I think you get the idea.

So, today, for the first day in a year of riding the bus to work, I had to run twice to make it to the bus; once in the morning and once at night. It occurred to me, while making my mild sprint this afternoon, that I believe every time I have to run/jog/increase-my-gait-even-a-smidgen to catch the bus that I lose a little bit of my soul.

You probably think I'm nuts. That's okay, I can live with that. But then I thought - I wonder how others would finish that sentence.

I'm asking that you all please complete the following sentence in the comments:

I lose a little bit of my soul every time ...

One Less Pristine Tooth

A quick note - I had a cavity filled today. I'm not a huge fan of Novocain, that's for sure. I gave blood last Saturday. It took 8 minutes and 5 seconds (they time you now, for some reason). I swear that the Novocain needle was in my gum longer than than the bloodletting needle. [Insert bone rattling shiver here.]

You know what else I hate? My plaque-infested tooth didn't hurt when I woke up this morning. However, now that it contains a white, plastic filling, it's actually kind of sore. Pretty hard to explain to the kids why they should have their cavities filled if it only creates pain for them in a place there wasn't pain before.

Notes on a Youth

Here I am - but I don't know the date. It's a school photo, but not from kindergarten, of that I am sure. So it's sometime after that.



I thought it might be fun to make fun of me, as if I was looking at the photo for the first time and I didn't know who it was. Here goes:

"What a cute little girl!"

"Note the narrow shoulders and vastly over-sized head."

"Looks like the nose is already full grown."

"Is that hair or is he wearing a helmet?"

"What pretty brown eyes! What's her name?"

Feel free to chime in.

The Killing Season

It's not even cold yet for October and I've killed 2 mice so far this season. I'll keep track on this blog again this year.

Season count:2 - 1 by Better Mousetrap brand mousetrap, 1 by cats.

The Last Whimsy

I am still alive, and working on several new pieces - including stories about public transportation and more tales of interest from CCRB (concentric-circled retail behemoth) like how to write "brand". (Oh. My. God! Our internal communications organization has actually published a memo on the proper way to exhibit CCRB "brand" while writing! Holy F**king S**t! Is this necessary? In this memo I learned, among many golden nuggets of great information, that it is "brand" to end an email with "Thanks!" and not "brand" to end with "Thank you." Like, you know, whatever. We're The Gap, not Brooks Brothers.)

For giggles I re-read several old posts and now am wondering where my whimsy has gone. For example, I went to the dentist Monday morning and learned that I've grown another cavity in one of my pristine teeth (that is, one of the few teeth in my mouth that doesn't already have a filling). In the past I could have written an entire post about the experience - expecting that my terrific storytelling could make something so mundane seem interesting - even funny.

Not anymore. Just a dull trip to the dentist. I need to find my whimsy. Need to do more solitary chores - more biking to work and clearing brush. That's it - my whimsy's out in the back yard.

Help me find my whimsy. Please.

Take care.

The Joy (and Horror) of Randomness

In my estimation, people who listen to music (most everyone) tend to fall into one of two groups:

1. People who like to hear certain songs in a certain order. These people fill their iPods with playlists (they don't buy the Shuffle because it only takes 1 playlist) and seldom, if ever, use the "shuffle songs" function.
2. People who nearly always put their music on shuffle. These people revel in the surprise of their favorite songs mixed together in a different order. "Ooh!" they gasp at the start of each song, "I like this song, and I like it even better after ..."

I tend toward Group 1. The main reason for this is that I listen to fairly wide variety of rock and roll artists. I have a playlist, for example, consisting completely of The Fray and Coldplay because they have a similar sound. I've also found that The Beatles don't mix well with any other groups. Neither do They Might Be Giants. So it would be discombobulating to me if When I'm 64 by The Beatles was followed by Rock You Like a Hurricane by The Scorpions, which was then followed by Don't Panic by Coldplay. That's just an odd mix. Discombobulating.

That said, I go through phases where I tire of all my playlists and use the shuffle function just for giggles. For a few days I revel in the joy (or disappointment) of the randomness of the order of the songs. I do occasionally stumble across artist/song mixes that, had I not heard them randomly assembled, I would never have put together myself. Then I put a few new playlists together and move back to Group 1.

I began enjoying the randomness on Monday, July 30th. It was refreshing, revitalizing music that had become stale to me. I had extra bounce in my step as I strode down Nicollet Mall heading to work that Monday. I don't remember hitting skip (a practice I use to move on to the next song when the randomness gods don't offer me a nicely flowing music mix) for all of Monday, nor even Tuesday or Wednesday.

Wednesday, of course, is the day the randomness gods played with our great city, dropping a random collection of vehicles, commuters, construction workers, et al, 64 feet into the Mississippi River during the busiest moment of the day.

Just think of the crazy randomness of it all. The driver of the UPS truck, interviewed in his hospital bed, described honking at a school bus full of kids, waving, then looking over to his left and seeing a Tastee truck, and having been a former Tastee employee, actually recognizing the Tastee truck driver. "Hey, I know that guy," he said to himself.

Then the bridge collapsed. The UPS driver lived - obviously. As of this writing the bus driver remains in serious condition. That all the kids made it out of the school bus essentially unhurt is, well (I'm tearing up), proof that even the randomness gods follow Alfred Hitchcock's first rule of moviemaking: never kill the kid. The Tastee driver did not make it, his truck one of the vehicles engulfed in flame immediately after the collapse.

All that in about 2 seconds.

I've already heard stories from people who took a different route home that night - thus avoiding calamity. I don't know if we'll ever hear the stories of the ones who took the different route that night and didn't make it home.

But what to make of it all? God's will? Karma?

Life happens. Death happens. It's better to be lucky than good. There are many things in life over which we have no control. For these things we accept the results of our natural lottery ticket and help those who scored a worse fate than us. No regrets. No gloating. We just shake our collective heads, clean up, rebuild, and move on.

By the way, I'm still shuffling my songs and kind of digging it. Good and bad.

Back from the Edge

Ah, the new job. I've noted in the past that I've taken a new job, and if I understand the company policy, I'm not allowed to say who I work for on this blog because I haven't run it by corporate communications and I might tarnish our "brand" - it's all about being "brand" where I work. I'll refer to my employer by the letters CCRB - an acronym for "concentric circled retail behemoth" - for short. Not to be confused with RBTSWW - "retail behemoth that starts with 'W'". We're definitely not RBTSWW. They're evil. We're good. Anyway...

I think there is no worse feeling for me than to have a feeling and not know why I have that feeling. So, right now, at this moment, I'm experiencing dissatisfaction with my new job. I'm finally writing about this because sometimes writing about it helps. Or at least it helps me figure out what's wrong.

So what's wrong? Oh my, I don't even know where to start...

1. This IT organization boasts more than 3,000 employees. Change is constant. This creates several problems for me, the foremost being that I don't relish meeting 3,000 people. Meeting people is awkward. There's not much I dislike more than awkward social situations. I find myself walking down 15 floors of stairs rather than take a long elevator ride with one of these new acquaintances.

Even worse, social networking is highly encouraged. It is even one of the tenets of the 4 pillars of employee development - the E's of excellence - namely "maximizing relationships". From what I've been able to figure out, "maximizing relationships" means getting people to do your work for you. That may be my cynicism breaking through. I would be more in line with something like "nurturing relationships" because the word maximizing implies use - as in, I'm going to use you for something I need, whereas nurturing implies some level of work on my part to make the whole grow. Which brings me to the next ... opportunity.

2. Language. CCRB has its own language. Most corporations do these days. It's the Stepfordian adherence that frightens me. The people who've been around for a long time, I believe, have actually eliminated the word "weakness" from their vocabularies, replacing it with the much friendlier "opportunity". In fact, "opportunity" means anything negative. The only thing it doesn't mean is ... well ... opportunity. Also, we don't "team up" with people, we "partner". What is this desire to turn nouns into verbs? We also "status" with people.

3. Feedback. What would happen if every time you opened your mouth everyone within earshot felt the need to provide feedback on your utterances? It would get really f**king annoying, wouldn't it? Welcome to CCRB - aka Feedback Central. Giving feedback is encouraged. Unfortunately, giving useful, insightful, constructive feedback isn't taught. Some people are good at it, but many aren't. Seeking feedback is also encouraged. As far as I can tell, I'll not be seeking much feedback. I'll be teaching people how to give constructive feedback.

4. My specific job - aka The Meeting. Before I jump into the aspects of my job that I dislike, please let me start by saying that I understand this will probably sound like so much whining. Ooh, my job is so tough, yada yada yada. About a billion people on this planet would give up one or both gonads to be in my position - happily! So that said, I embark...

As in any corporation, there are layers of management between any worker and the people who run the company - the Chief Something Officers. I report through the Chief Information Officer. Between me and the CIO, there is my boss, her boss, his boss, her boss, and then a Vice President, and then the CIO. How many is that? 5? 6? Depends how you count it. Anyway, in ascending order the titles go - expendable worker drone (me), manager, group manager, senior group manager, director, VP, CIO.

The 800 pound gorilla effect - defined as the point in which expendable worker drones become intimidated by management so much so that their speech becomes unsteady and their movements rigid - generally starts at the senior group manager level. So you can have a meeting with managers and group managers and the workers tend to behave as normal, but once the SGM enters the room, people sit straighter, strictly adhere to the language rules of #2, etc.

Okay, so that's the background you need to understand my job. I work in Problem Management. A somewhat meaningless term outside the inner circle of large Information Technology organizations. Our job, as a group, is to work with the rest of the organization to minimize the impact OR prevent problems. At CCRB, Problems are defined as, in simple terms, unplanned global outages.

Here's an example: for several hours 2 days before Christmas none of our cash registers were accepting debit cards. That's bad. Something obviously went wrong. My job (and there are 4 others in my group who do the same thing) is to work with the teams that support all the software that has to do with debit transactions and figure out why it happened and how to make it so it doesn't happen again.

By the time I get involved, the problem is already recovered - that is, the cash registers were again accepting debit cards as a valid form of payment before I even get involved. There are several other organizations whose purpose it is to get the problem recovered. I just work on resolution - ie, the stuff to make it never happen again.

(Small digression - is that a niche within a niche, tucked into a pigeon-hole, or what?)

This isn't the bad part of the job, by the way. This is the good part. You'll know when I get to the bad part. Trust me.

On average, we have about 15 of these "incidents" per week. You don't read about them in the newspaper (hopefully), but they happen. If that seems like a lot, consider this: we've had a 10% year-over-year drop for 3 consecutive years. So it used to be worse. (If you want to see an incident for yourself sometime, I suggest trying one of our store kiosks or shopping on our website. But you didn't hear that from me.)

Once my group has completed analysis, we assign actions that will prevent recurrence of this problem. And then we find a speaker for the incident. To speak at The Meeting.

Each Friday, all of the SGMs and above (including the CIO and all of her direct reports) meet for 45 minutes to review the previous week's problems. Each "owner" of the most egregious of these incidents - there are usually about 5 - is asked by my group to speak at this meeting, ostensibly to share "learnings" about the incident so that no one else suffers the same fate.

Let me put the meeting in my somewhat more pragmatic terms - each Friday, the 75 most powerful people in the organization meet and listen to the managers of the people whose groups caused the previous week's most egregious and impactful problems.

Needless to say, these managers do not relish this "opportunity". Why? Let me count the ways:

1. Public speaking - in front of the very people who will determine your future at CCRB. No pressure there.
2. Implied blame - "owning" an incident means, for all practical purposes, that it was your group's fault. And from experience I can tell you that about 60% of all problems could have been prevented with better planning and testing. So the message is typically about how their group f**ked up. Sweet!
3. Most managers aren't involved in the day to day operations of the group, so they end up spending a considerable amount of time trying to draw from their subordinates the information they need to convey at this meeting. These IT geeks don't communicate well to begin with, especially with the intricate technical details surrounding these complex applications or hardware. Sometimes it's like waiting for the proverbial room of monkeys with typewriters to accidentally type the complete works of Shakespeare.

Because of all this, many managers try to wriggle out of these speaking opportunities. Frankly, I'd be concerned about them if they didn't.

Here's my job - this meeting. Yep. Okay, it's half my job. I prepare the presentation, convince the speakers of the importance of having them speak, then prepare the executive that actually runs the meeting. He's a VP. Like all sycophants, I hang on his every word, jump with great vigor when he says jump, and never tell him how much work goes into this meeting. Bad news rarely makes it to him.

With any job there are rules. These are mine:

1. When "convincing" a manager of the importance of their speaking engagement, I am not allowed to invoke the name of the VP. He doesn't want you to speak. He with the power, who inspires fear. Nope. Me - I want them to speak. I envision most of these managers thinking, "And you are? Nobody? An expendable worker drone? Ri-ight." I am allowed to invoke the name of my group, but that really sounds like a copout. But it's all I have. These managers (frequently group managers and even some SGMs) outrank me and will likely determine my future with CCRB. No pressure there.
2. This particular VP is even a more finicky writer than I am. I am responsible for the content of a 20+ page presentation, that is really a compilation from about 5-10 sources. So I play editor to all the contributors. I am the nitpicker. "Could you change that word, please? It is the wrong 'too' - it should be two O's, not t-w-o." I can't believe I actually have to tell people this, but I do.
3. I'm copy machine guy. We hand out paper copies of the presentation, so on Thursday nights (or Friday mornings) you'll find me hogging the department printer. Making copies. That Electrical Engineering degree is really paying off!
4. I have butterflies every Friday because, if a speaker doesn't show up, it's my fault. It's not really my fault - it's a CLM (career limiting move) for the person who didn't show up - but everyone looks at me and mouths "did you talk to so-and-so?" while I file through my week's conversations to try to remember specifically that I had.
5. Hanging around for feedback. I find an excuse to hang out in the meeting room until the VP leaves to see if he has any feedback to take into next week's meeting. I always pre-arrange for someone to fake a conversation with me until he leaves. How's that for planning?

So that's it. That's my whining. It doesn't seem so bad now that I've written about it.

Because this post is so long, I've skipped some less important details. In fact, I've made some improvements to this whole process that has made The Meeting almost bearable. I'll write about that next time.

I hope you've enjoyed this ride, because it has been therapeutic for me. Thanks for your patience.

Didn't want to go to work today

It's July 5th, I was up late watching fireworks. I'm tired and looking forward to a pressure filled day. Yippee-kie-yay!

Why didn't I take today off?

Career Crisis: Day 255

More later...

Coming up for air

It's been a month and I can honestly say that I haven't had a single night with enough energy to post anything. The new job is terribly time and energy consuming and when blogging time rolls around, I got nothing.

Just let me leave you with this thought - life is all about minimizing and maximizing. Maximize things that bring you joy; minimize things that bring you suffering. Minimize the commute; maximize laughing out loud time. Minimize face time with people who cause you stress; maximize face time with people who bring you contentment and joy.

Pretty lame, huh?

Even a Ten Year Old

[Dinner conversation from about a week ago.]

Jackson (my 10 year old): Why is there so much fighting in Iraq?
Me: Do you mean why is the US there or why is there fighting at all?
Jackson: Both, I guess.
Wife: [Rolls her eyes.]
Me: It's like this - imagine hundreds of years ago someone from Minnesota killed someone from Iowa. People in Iowa got mad and killed a Minnesotan. So the Minnesotans got mad and killed more Iowans. Then the Iowans killed some more Minnesotans. Do you follow?
Jackson: [nods]
Me: After a while all they remembered were that Minnesotans killed Iowans and Iowans killed Minnesotans. Then one day a very powerful and bad man killed a whole bunch of Iowans and Minnesotans - more Iowans than Minnesotans, but he killed both sides just the same. Then everyone was afraid of the man.
Jackson: [nods again]
Me: They were so afraid they stopped killing each other.
Jackson: Then what?
Me: Then someone else came in and got rid of the powerful and bad man. Do you know what happened then?
Jackson: The Minnesotans started killing Iowans again?
Me: Yep.
Wife: Why is it that our 10 year old can comprehend something our president couldn't?

Good and Evil

I've written some unkind things about my father, most recently about how I think my father has always drawn power from, in Star Wars terminology, the Dark Side. Today, however, I'll share one of my few stories that just reminds me that people aren't all bad.

I've always known my father was a boxer when he was in the army in World War II - he told me as much on many, many occasions. One must know that he was 48 years old when I was born. My memories of him start when he was well into his fifties, his potbelly well evolved, so these stories of his glory days really didn't hold much weight with the boy who was hearing them.

One day a couple of years ago, my daughter returned from a friends' house and said, "I think Molly's grandfather knew your dad." This wasn't a shock to me - this has happened to me my whole life. My father worked at the only open window in the Albert Lea post office for over 30 years. Anyone who used the post office for 3 decades in Albert Lea, or all of Freeborn county, knew my father.

A few weeks later I was sitting at a school event when Molly's father sidled up next to me. "Megan told me you're from Albert Lea. Are you related to Eli?" And he said it with reverence - almost as if he was going to ask for an autograph. I confirmed that I was and that he was my father. "Man, he was like a god in our house."

Whaaaa? My father? Revered in someone else's house? Huh?

"My father watched your dad box. He was a huge fan. We heard about him all the time." It seems there was some regional champion in my father's weight division who had nearly a perfect record - except against my father. He could not beat my father.

The story does not end here.

The next week I was delivering Girl Scout cookies to my aunt (my father's younger sister) and conveyed this story. She knew who Molly's grandfather was - he was one of a few doctors in Albert Lea. Then she added, "Your father was considered a defender to a lot of people. He was admired by a lot of people in Albert Lea."

I guess I had always thought that people knew him from the Post Office and liked him and that was the basis for the admiration. I never thought much past that. My aunt then shared the following, which I will paraphrase:

This was shortly after the end of WWII, in small town rural America. My father's family was a "first generation assimilation" family. That is, they moved to Minnesota from Mexico and were determined to shed old Mexican traditions and "blend" into the American lifestyle. They modified their names - Salvador became Sam, Pedro became Peter, etc. Despite all these efforts, they were still known as immigrants.

My aunt was sexually assaulted by one of the locals. Given their position in the community she didn't feel that she could do anything about it. However, the guy who did it was known throughout the town as a real SOB. So my father tracked him down and beat the hell out of him. To this day she still feels gratitude for that.

I later asked my father about the incident. Apparently, the guy he beat up was huge. My father is 5'4" and weighed, at the time, maybe 125 pounds. (We are not big people in my family.) There was a crowd surrounding them when they fought. No one stopped the fight. My dad commented - "I beat him for quite a while. He just kept taking it. I beat him until my hands hurt." And then the police showed up. According to my father, even the police knew how much of an SOB this guy was, so they watched until it looked like my dad was punched out, then said, "Eli - are you about done?" My dad said, "Yeah," and sighed. The police sent everyone home.

The police didn't do anything!? I asked my dad. "Nope. Just sent us all home. I think they gave the big guy a ride."

My dad later went on to say that this wasn't the only time he'd "had to set someone straight". In fact, when he said that it triggered a whole bunch of memories of stories where he'd had to "set someone straight" and I finally understood what that really meant.

My father has done some things in his life that are unforgivable. But these stories show me that no one, my father included, is all bad. There is good in us all. And that makes me feel better.

A Poorly Written Note on One Key to Effective Business Writing - Sounding British

And I don't mean using "lorry" for truck, "lift" for elevator, and "wireless" for radio.

While I'm probably not the most authoritative figure in effective business writing, I have unwittingly adopted certain writing elements in my work environment. Only recently (a few days ago) did I realize that I've been aspiring to "sound British" when I write.

For example, let's examine the following sentence as it occurred to me a few days ago.

"I enjoy watching women with big breasts in tight shirts walk in the skyway in the morning."

This is the American version of this sentence. It's pretty clear where my mind is. But still, it has an ugly American feel to it.

How would a British person say this? I'll suggest the following:

"I fancy a woman with sizable bosoms straining a tight blouse during a morning skyway stroll."

This may not be exactly what a British person would say, but I think it's a good approximation. Let's examine the differences.

1. Use of the word "fancy" instead of the phrase "enjoy watching". It's more concise - a 1-for-2 tradeoff. Though one wouldn't normally use "fancy" as a verb in the United States.

2. Use of "tight blouse" instead of "tight shirt". "Blouse" is a more precise word than shirt.

3. Use of "bosom" instead of "breast". "Bosom" is a more maternal word for breasts. It sounds classier.

4. Use of "stroll" instead of "walk". Again, a more precise word.

5. The use of the word "straining". In fact, the phrase "women with big breasts in tight shirts" conjures a slightly different image than "woman with sizable bosoms straining a tight blouse". In the former, the breasts are merely laying there. In the latter, it's as if the bosoms are fighting for release from the shirt. The British version gives the bosoms life, while in the American version the breasts exist only to be observed.

[Author's note: I have long since forgotten how to diagram sentences. Perhaps I'll have my 8th grade daughter do this same analysis, since she's actually diagramming sentences in school this semester.]

What are my keys to effective business writing then? Adopt some of the principles that the Brits have been using for centuries.

1. Be concise. Blouse is a better word than shirt. Stroll is a better word than walk. There's almost always a better word than you first used.
2. Sound classy without tapping the boundaries of the thesaurus. Remember, Americans typically have small vocabularies, so while a very precise word may be great, if no one understands you then its the wrong word.
3. Minimize prepositional phrases. They only serve to redirect the reader from the actual subject. Instead, use adjectives. Notice how "walk in the skyway in the morning" turns into "a morning skyway stroll".
4. Think to yourself, "How would they have said that on Masterpiece Theatre?

Jackson Got a Haircut

So what's the deal with Jackson's hair? I know other parents think this very thought when meeting us. Why do you let him have long hair?

Ah, welcome to the world of tradeoffs. Jackson has Asberger's syndrome, and has sensitivity issues. Katie and I learned long ago to pick our battles. At some point in the past - I'm not even sure when it happened, we stopped fighting the hair battle. We said, "If you keep it washed, combed and out of your eyes, you can have it whatever length you want. And if it's ever a safety issue in sports, it either goes in a pony tail or we cut it." And since then it's never been an issue.

It's been well more than a year since his last trim - I think we took off about 1-2 inches - and over 2 years that he's been able to sport a pony tail. Alas, it is finally "normal". Check it out.







How? Why? Don't really know for sure. Out of nowhere earlier this week Jackson said, "I think I should get a haircut." I checked again with him on Thursday and he was still ready for a haircut. He did mention that he was sick of kids staring at him. That sounded especially troubling to him. He also mentioned that he would no longer be mistaken for a girl. Anyway, when I got home from work last night I asked again, and when he agreed, I suggested we get it done tonight. We went to Perkins for dinner as a family, then went straight to the haircut place.

For the record, the pony tail was about 9 inches long, which qualifies for a Locks of Love donation. He's happy to be giving hair to a kid with cancer. So that's just another reaffirmation for me.

I have great kids.

Am I Wearing Pants?

I started a new job about 3 months ago. Though the employer emphasizes flexible scheduling for their employees, the rule of thumb is more 8-4:30, with an emphasis on the 8am. This has been quite an adjustment for me for 2 reasons: 1) though I arise early every morning, I enjoy a morning workout before beginning my commute, which I've had to truncate each morning because 2) it takes longer for me to get to work now because I "park and ride".

When I get on the bus I am frequently not quite awake, even though I've driven about 3 miles to the park and ride site. One particularly bleary-eyed day, I was sitting in my usual spot (I suspect there will be a posting someday about the unwritten etiquette of public transportation) on a morning which I felt particularly chilly. A rather fetching young woman got on and, since the bus was full and chivalry is dead, she stood holding on to one of the handrails. I noticed that she was wearing a skirt - a knee-length straight skirt probably matching a blazer hidden underneath her winter coat. My thoughts, in the order they occurred:

1. Ooh, a skirt. It's pretty cold for that.
2. Oh my god, her legs are bare. No pantyhose? In this weather? That's got to be cold!
3. I wonder what this cold air (about 20 degrees that day) feels like on bare skin?
4. Does cold air go up the skirt? Of course not, you idiot! Cold air sinks. Warm air rises.
5. I don't feel my pants touching my legs.
6. Am I wearing pants?
7. [I rub my hand on my thigh to verify that I did, indeed, don pants this morning.]
8. These pants are too thin for this weather. I'm cold.
9. I should sort my pants in the closet so that all the thin ones are together, so I can remember not to wear them when it's cold.
10. I'm not wearing these pants again under 30 degrees!

Scary, eh? Later, as I was walking the 2 outdoor blocks from the bus stop to the door where I enter the skyway system, it occurred to me that, for the briefest moment, I found it plausible that I had gotten all the way to the bus without wearing pants. "How silly of me!" I thought.

I've had this story on my mind for a couple of months, only now am I writing it down. As I write I ponder why this story is sticking in my mind. What's the point? I need to sleep more? I'm exhausted? Is it the reason why I detest public transportation - for this never occurred while I was driving to work?

Why?!?

[An afterthought - this might be a fun party game. It's called "My thoughts, in the order that they happened". Probably best after a couple of mixed drinks. Everyone gets a turn.]

You Mean They Want to Get Rid of Autism!?

A conversation with my boys driving home from a school event one evening:

Me: Now remember that we have the Steps of Hope walk on Sunday morning.
Jackson: [whining voice] Aaarrrgghh!
Owen: What's that?
Me: Jack, I just wanted you to know that we'd be going out again this weekend. [Side note #1: we have to give the boys plenty of warning with changes to their regular schedules. Jackson, if at all possible, will not even change out of his pajamas on Sundays.] Owen - Steps of Hope is a charity walk for Autism Research. Remember? It's the one where we walk around Ridgedale mall.
Jackson: Research for what?
Me: Autism. You know, Asperger's syndrome is a form of Autism. [Side note #2: Katie just purchased a picture book about how cats have Asperger's syndrome, just like the boys. They've each read it and are aware they are Aspy's and are proud of it.] They are doing research to try and stop people from getting it.
Owen: You mean they want to get rid of Autism!? [There is anger and fear in his voice.]
Me: That's not what I ... [Lost in the din.]
Jackson: Why would they do that? There's nothing wrong with us.
Owen: Yeah, my brain is just wired differently.
Jackson: Yeah, our brains just work differently.
Me: Okay, guys, hold up a second.
Owen: You mean they want to get rid of us?
Jackson: Is that why we're all going to the same place on Sunday?
Me: No - dear God no. That's not it at all. Look - you guys are just fine. There are other kids with Autism. [I pause for a few seconds, trying to think of an example they won't twist for their own purposes.] Jack - think of your worst day ever.
Jackson: Okay. I'm thinking of one.
Me: Now imagine that every day is like that. Because that's what it's like for a lot of kids with Autism. Every day.
Owen: Whoa! Every day?
Jackson: Really?
Me: Yes, every day. The research will teach us how to teach them to make every day better.
Owen: You mean we're doing the walk for them?
Me: Yes, Owen, we're doing the walk for them.
Jackson: I suppose that's okay then. Can I bring my Gameboy?