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Showing posts from September 11, 2005
Sometimes it’s very daunting to know that the kids are using me as the archetype for what a man, and more specifically, what a father is like. Or should be like. I don't think I'm a bad guide or role model, but I'm certainly not as good as I'd like to be. I am determined to teach my kids over and above what the schools do without it being a chore or like a classroom. Looking back, I know that many of the best lessons I learned were far removed from the classroom. Museum, science centers, aquariums or even just being out and about taught me more than a great many classroom lessons. I hope I’m able to take the kids to those type of things where they can learn something and enjoy themselves. I used to be in favor of the “back to basics” school of sitting in front of a blackboard as I did. Now, you can’t do that anymore. Kids are growing up in a digital age. We have amazing tools to use to get these kids to learn things. Not using them is absurd. I'm not
Connor’s new favorite thing is spelling. How do you spell….is his favorite phrase of late. He asked my wife how to spell “rocket ship”. She suggested we start with “cat”. “We already did that one. C-a-t. Cat. How do you spell rocket ship.”? My first thought was to label everything in the house. If he wants to learn to spell and read, my house is going to be ISO9002 compliant.
If it’s Thursday, I must be trainblogging. Last night the wife went out with a friend for dinner. Chad (brother in law) came over to help me wrangle the kids. She left before he arrived. I was trying to get Colin off to bed because he was so upset. He has been very combative of late. The last few weeks his hitting has been bad. He hits everyone and every thing. All. The. Time. I understand when he’s hitting me because I don’t do something he wants but I don’t understand when he hits me and I’m doing what he wants. Last night he wanted a lot of stimulation. Tickling, wrestling and so on. I was doing all that and he was still hitting me. Hard. I tried to put him to bed when Chad arrived but he was having none of that. He was crying and kicking the wall. I usually don’t take him out of the room once we go in, I don’t want to reward his misbehavior. Last night, I threw in the towel and brought him down. He sat with Chad (and hit him) while I put Connor and Ian to be
The Globe and Mail: Proof of blonde cognition : " 'I totally agreed with it. I feel like we're really in trouble. I just had a baby and thought, 'I don't want to live there.' Bush's anti-environment, pro-war policies are a dis. . . .' " I'll help you pack you ingrate. You wonder why I hate celebrities.
So many come and go. So many friends that were going to be around forever are gone. Time and tide carry them away. I think of some of them sometimes. Especially the ones I miss. Where are they? What are they doing? How are they doing? Do they have kids? Are they happy? Sometimes its merely curiosity other times it's something more but what, I can't say. Life is something of a minefield. Everything looks perfectly safe ahead and wide open. No detours necessary. Trouble always lurks beneath the surface. Safer to turn this way or that. Those choices and inevitabilities (if you believe such a thing) block our path from certain things for good or ill. I think having an autistic child has put a gulf between me and most people I know. My life is filled with things that people with typical kids will never understand. I don't really expect them to, but I want them to recognize that they don't understand and not simply dismiss it. One of the phrases I use to
Rescue Me is a good show. I like it. I think it's well acted, well written and very realistic. My main gripe is that nearly everyone on the show is a total degenerate. I understand that people have flaws and some of them are big ones but isn't it enough to at least TRY to do the right thing? The only character that is not completely lacking in redeeming qualities is the female firefighter (name escapes me). She is stubborn and sometimes short sighted but she is good at heart. Tommy and his wife are both constantly trying to get the best of each other. Granted that is sometimes a part of divorce but its more than that here. Tommy is a drug addict, drunk, self-serving, violent, misogynistic asshole. He has a conscious but it only plagues him in the abstract. Jesus and Mary Magdalene visit him in visions. Mary toys with him and Jesus asks him for his trust and faith. Tommy wants to believe and I think he does, but he is troubled by the loss of his cousin and feels con
More on movies: A smart businessman would open a small artsy theater in Middletown that served quality food and drinks. Make it 21 and over only. You could show artsy movies and even some of the quality mainstream films. Sell tickets that are reserved seats. Make them those large, high backed, love seat type things with cocktail tables. If you really want to get fancy, have touch screen ordering for tableside service. Pay by swiping your credit or debit card. Have a small bistro style restaurant attached for creating the dinner & a movie crowd. Give discounted tickets and/or preferred seating to diners who also go to a movie. Use a provincial French bistro style for the café and a beaux-arts Bijou theater style for the theater itself. You’d make a mint. The demographics are shifting upwards very quickly. The number of yuppies staking claims south of the canal is staggering. The market exists; it just takes someone with money (not me) to find a guy with vision (me) to m