dad in the city

espresso by intelligentsia in venice, ca

2010-01-24T10:00:00.001-08:00

too busy to read through the r-e-a-l-l-y--l-o-n-g post I created a few months ago about making espresso? try watching this quick video instead. =) just for you, SK. ;) AND, here's a link to the design studio that made this extremely cool thing where you can tune in to a page promising additional videos coming soon. http://yummy.cjw1.me/E

2009-12-31T07:39:00.001-08:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

is making an important announcement.

2009-12-22T14:48:00.000-08:00

This important announcement is brought to you by the letters 'W,' 'T,' and 'F.' =) Yes. I have some very good news to share, news that is undoubtedly about to cause me a great deal of stress in an accelerated fashion. I'm betting you can guess...

In an earlier post from a few months ago, I announced my little family is planning to move from our home in Denver, Colorado to the part of the world I grew up and lived in for most of my life, Northern California. At the time we were planning to settle near my family in Sacramento, but this has changed -- we are now instead planning on moving to a fashionable area just minutes from Sacramento (largely owing to far better school systems in these parts), AND we are now planning to relocate at the end of February 2010. Yes, a full three months earlier than originally planned. =)

This all came about quite suddenly when the perfect opportunity for a house presented itself, a house in a trendy neighborhood I am already very familiar with as it is the same neighborhood I moved from when I relocated to Denver just over seven years ago. The house is just steps from an excellent middle-school that will be perfect for Jerrod to start at in the fall, and a few steps more from an equally excellent elementary school that will be a good landing place for him to finish out his final year in the lower grades. Although none of us wanted to move in the middle of the school-year, opportunity is definitely knocking loudly and Nathan and I feel we must answer.

Although Nathan and I are definitely far more urban than suburban, and are sorely going to miss our big-city lives, the city we are moving to has far more than the run-of-the-mill amenities of chain-restaurants and big-box stores to offer and if we just can't stand it another minute our home-away-from-home, San Francisco, will be a short car-ride away. In our recent trips back to Northern California over the last couple of years, we have both been very impressed with the steps this part of the world has taken to become more sophisticated and cultured as more and more ex-Bay-Area-ites move further inland to take advantage of a lower cost of living than they're used to, and our hopes are high we won't feel too much culture-shock. We'll see... =)

Jerrod is actually thrilled at the excitement of such a significant change to his environment taking place much earlier than he'd thought, and as he was already very pleased with the idea of moving we're taking this enthusiasm as a rare gift when he just as easily could've had a very different opinion. Those of you who know me in person know how the task of managing an inter-state move of this magnitude was already starting to leave a slightly crazed look in my eye, and that chaos is now in full swing as our home is already starting to look far less holiday-cozy and far more like a shipping / receiving center inside a very small warehouse. I have already started a bit of the initial packing of items we usually have stored deep in the recesses of our loft, and plan to start the real packing immediately after the holidays.

We're all going to be extremely busy in the coming months, most of all me, running around like mad trying to tie up all the loose ends and last-minute plans of our lives here in Denver, so more than likely this will be the last time you hear from me, dear reader, for awhile until after things stabilize. Send me your good wishes, your happy thoughts, and your positive feelings as the insanity of moving a household overtakes me and I slowly go a bit nuts ... well, nuttier than usual. At this point, my one big fear is that somehow I'll forget to pack one of the cats.

Happy Holidays from my family to yours ... see you in 2010! =)

GOOD LOOK: Gunshot Detection

2009-11-10T00:46:00.001-08:00

Here's a Good Look at the actual technology behind ShotSpotter, Inc.'s gunshot detection systems in case any of you were curious to know more about the company Nathan is a project manager for.

doing the java jive

2009-11-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

Before we get started, I think we ought to have a little mood music while you read this post. Please play the video above and then read on. :)

After a recent discussion on Facebook with a friend of mine, I realized many people seem to be a bit mystified by the art of preparing and drinking a good cup of coffee or shot of espresso at home. I decided to create this blog post as a guide for those who want to learn how to create espresso drinks very similar to the ones you pay several dollars for in your local coffee shop. Like anything worth doing well, this can require a bit of preparation and practice, but it isn't difficult at all. I value my little morning ritual of preparing myself a satisfying latte or espresso shot - it's relaxing, takes just minutes, and with practice can even be easily squeezed into any busy weekday routine.

I love coffee. I love it real good. Espresso shots like the one at right, hot cups of black drip coffee, coffee with a bit of cream or a bit more of whole milk, coffee-flavored ice cream and candy -- I'm thoroughly addicted. My addiction started when I was a good deal younger and still in middle-school - my Mother brewed the most delicious drip coffee using an individual filter like the one in this month's issue of Saveur, freshly ground quality beans, and boiling water from the kettle; the filter was stacked on top of a waiting coffee cup and allowed to slow-drip down, creating a fantastically rich and barely bitter brew I was allowed to enjoy a cup of on weekend mornings. Ever since, I have enjoyed a cup of coffee almost every single day of my life. I'm doubtful it's healthy, but it's certainly worth it! Everyone needs a good vice or two, don't they?

I won't discuss the entire history of coffee and the world's ardent love affair with it as it is quite extensive, but if you're interested it's well-worth reading about by clicking here. For centuries, people have been fascinated with and completely bewitched by the deep, dark, hot magical brew that has evolved and transformed to become the coffee we are familiar with today. 77% of adults in the United States drink coffee on a daily (52%) or occasional (25%) basis (source), and with such enthusiasm it's easy to understand why people like me have become such fanatics about coffee consumption.

Did you know coffee has 1,500 discernible components of flavor - three times more than wine (source)? Drinking coffee made from quality beans and produced with quality equipment has definitely elevated the humble deep-brown concoction to something far nobler and more enjoyable than its earliest forms, but if you squint you can still glimpse what coffee once was like centuries ago. Such a time-honored practice, in my opinion, should be respected and enjoyed in the best possible way and for me this means taking my coffee consumption more seriously than I once did.

And now, I'm going to lecture you for a bit. I couldn't possibly write this post without sharing my opinion on the mass-commercialism of coffee today (and as I warned you way back when I began this blog, I might from time to time rant about such strong opinions of mine). =) I'm not here to judge, but to educate. If you're not open to change, or to learning, or to self-improvement (and you haven't done this already), just move on. =) Go hit up Starbucks and get yourself a hot cup of their mess and suck it down quick. And be happy in that! I tip my cap to you!! But if you're interested in familiarizing yourself with the differences in the levels of quality in coffee available today, and understanding why I have changed the way I drink, order, and pay for coffee, read on.

Yes, I'm going to write about Starbucks. Starbucks has evolved into something so vastly different than what it was originally intended to be that it's almost unrecognizable. Starbucks is easily the most popular coffee chain in the world, and through clever marketing has become the gold standard (among those who don't know better) of coffee quality. I'm sure you've seen the phrase "We proudly serve Starbucks coffee," and that is definitely the attitude here - pride. The funny thing is Starbucks coffee isn't very good. It tastes bitter, almost burnt. If you have drunk a lot of Starbucks coffee, you may not notice this consciously. If you have ever drunk coffee from somewhere other than Starbucks, however, you almost certainly have noticed the new coffee doesn't taste anything like the Starbucks coffee you normally drink, and this is *completely* intentional. I'll let that sink in for a minute.

And for a minute or few more - all this writing about coffee has made me want some. =) I'll be back in a bit. ... That's better!! No, that wasn't a clever contrivance - I really did go make myself a delicious pumpkin-spice latte. And a double-espresso shot for Nathan. And I took some pictures for this post. =)

Anyhow, I drank a great deal of Starbucks when I was younger. It's not that Starbucks uses bad coffee beans or anything. The quality of the beans they use is actually quite good. But in the name of achieving consistency amongst all of their locations world-wide, and privately (according to several of my friends who were once Starbucks baristas) in the name of training palates to prefer the taste of Starbucks products, Starbucks over-roasts their coffee beans. They burn them. On purpose. This is why the coffee and espresso you purchase at Starbucks tastes bitter, requires so much sweetener, and leaves you feeling rattled and icky after you come down from the extra sugar/caffeine in your system.

When a coffee bean is over-roasted, it drastically changes many of the oils found in the bean from which coffee gets its distinctive flavor, and even actually *lowers* the caffeine content. Ever wonder why you have to drink such a large quantity of Starbucks coffee or have at the minimum a double-espresso or perhaps even more shots in your Starbucks espresso drinks to get that caffeine kick? This is why. When I discovered this, I began comparing coffee from local coffee shops to Starbucks coffee and realized there really was a startling difference in taste. That's when I began learning more about coffee, and also when I stopped drinking Starbucks. I encourage you to do some Googling about this practice of Starbucks' and read about it for yourself.

Another distinct difference between Starbucks and other less-commercialized coffee shops is the coffee drinks which are served. If you have ever tried to order a macchiato anyplace other than Starbucks, you have probably been disappointed when your drink arrives looking like this photo. This is actually what a macchiato looks like, not at all even remotely similar to the large container of syrups, flavorings, whipped cream, milk, and Starbucks espresso you may be used to. Starbucks altered several coffee beverages, while keeping their Italian names, to make them more attractive to consumers. The macchiato sold at Starbucks is loaded with calories, something many of us are trying to watch these days (as have generations of our fore bearers). It's worth considering, or at least it was for me, and once I began to learn about the many differences between Starbucks' commercialized sticky-sweet coffee drinks and their original counterparts, I became less and less enchanted -- the coffee I was drinking at Starbucks wasn't anything like the yummy drip coffee I remembered from my youth.

Starbucks' marketing campaign is quite clever, elevating the humble morning cup of coffee to a status symbol, a hallmark of quality and personal good taste. I'm sure if you think back to pre-Starbucks days, you'll remember it used to not matter what logo was displayed on your to-go cup of joe, but now it does. And depending on the company you keep, it matters a lot. By charging more for their product and thereby playing to the misconception of many that bigger and more expensive always equals better, Starbucks effectively priced many of its smaller competitors out of business while managing to turn astronomical profits.

They then proceeded to capitalize further by becoming ubiquitous and über-convenient. Starbucks' to-go coffee cups with their logo prominently displayed were marketed as more than eye-catching containers - they became veritable accessories which advertised to anyone who saw you with one that you were willing to burn through several dollars for the privilege of carrying it without a second thought. I'm not going to discuss today whether this is silly or not, and I am just as guilty of paying a premium price for my non-Starbucks gourmet coffee, but regardless of your opinion on social norms it is undeniable Starbucks has changed the face of coffee today, perhaps permanently.

But enough about all that. As I wrote, I am merely trying to educate you, dear reader, in case you weren't aware of the facts about Starbucks and why I no longer patronize their stores. I suppose in closing out this rant I would encourage you to give your local coffee shops a second chance -- find one whose' coffee you like the taste of, learn where their beans come from -- Are they locally roasted? If not, are they purchased from a reputable supplier or are they mass-produced? Are they grown in micro-batches like the beans of my favorite local coffee shop, Novo? Are they fair-trade? Re-educate your palate to appreciate the many subtleties of what is truly a delicious (and to many, like me, essential) beverage.

SO, we finally arrive at the lesson phase of this post. I have been asked by more than a few people how I can stand drinking the coffee I make at home and why their home-brewed cups of joe and espresso and lattes and such never taste as good as the coffee they purchase while out and about. My primary reason in writing this post was to discuss that in detail.

The number-one reason for this unpleasant inconsistency, boys and girls, is not all coffee-making equipment and ingredients are created equal, plain and simple. You will get infinitely better results using a quality (and usually expensive) espresso machine or coffee maker than you will if you're just using a Krups machine or the like. This shouldn't be much of a surprise, as it is generally the case with any small appliance, but the differences don't stop there. You must also consider the water you use, the beans you are buying, the way you prepare them, and the quality of any additional ingredients you add to your coffee or espresso. Although this isn't always true, in this case like with most home-cooking you really do get out of this what you pay for/put into it.

So why does the coffee and espresso I make at home almost certainly taste better than yours? Here's how I do it, from start to delicious finish. I'll be focusing on making a latte here; there are plenty of other resources available online if you want to make other drinks like a cappuccino, for example, or if you need tips on making drip or French Press coffee. Forgive me for stating the obvious or explaining things you undoubtedly already know, but as my English professor Mrs. Klyse taught me, "When writing for a broad audience, you should always assume they know nothing about your subject."

EQUIP YOURSELF -> I start with specific equipment. We have a FrancisFrancis! X5 espresso machine which we purchased a few years ago as we primarily drink espresso drinks. This by no means is the very best or most expensive espresso machine on the market, but it produces excellent espresso and we love the design. When we have regular coffee, we make ours French-Press style in a Bodum Young Press. I like my lattes with more milk than traditionally required, probably due to years of drinking Venti-sized lattes at Starbucks, and favor oversize coffee cups while Nathan frequently drinks espresso shots. Different cups are required for each. Espresso cups are traditionally very small (the photo at the top of this post is of a double-size espresso cup; single-shot cups are half the size), and oversize cups are of course huge. You can find these cups for sale pretty much everywhere; Crate&Barrel has a very nice selection.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BEAN -> I use whole coffee beans, and purchase a variety of different roasts and blends from my favorite coffee shop, Novo. As we don't drink much regular coffee, I primarily buy beans specifically roasted to be made into espresso. Whole beans are *essential* if you want to produce a quality espresso shot or cup of coffee. Yes, pre-ground and pod coffee is simpler to use, but the flavors aren't nearly as potent or fresh after sitting ground in the bag / pod for awhile, and almost gone by the time you finish a half-pound unless you use it all within the first day or two of purchase. Even then, it's just not as yummy - take my word for it. Remember, the flavor of your coffee primarily comes from the oils within the coffee bean, and just like with spices freshly ground *always* tastes better. By the way, you should *never* store your coffee beans, whole or otherwise, in the freezer -- freezing the bean freezes the oils, which will *significantly* affect the flavor of the espresso or coffee you produce.

GRIND IT DOWN -> Because I use whole coffee beans, a coffee grinder is required. I favor burr grinders over the far more popular blade grinders like this one because the grind of coffee produced is far more consistent and a finer grind is easily achievable. Controlling the consistency of your grind and using as fine a grind as possible is essential for the way in which espresso is made (which is by forcing heated water through the ground beans using a tremendous amount of pressure). Think of water flowing through a layer of sand as opposed to a stream bed. We use this Cuisinart burr grinder, and I am very happy with the results. Again, it's not the most expensive burr grinder on the market, but it suits us just fine.

SMALL WONDERS -> To prepare espresso, unless you favor a completely automatic machine that does everything for you like this one, you will need a tamper (I recommend an aluminum tamper such as this over the flimsy plastic one which might have come with your machine) and a brush to remove coffee grounds from your espresso grinder as well as clean the brew head of your espresso machine. The stainless steel brush I use (I think I bought it at Crate&Barrel but I'm not sure) is double-ended and has shorter stiffer bristles on one end specifically for cleaning and longer bristles on the other end specifically for brushing loose grounds out of your grinder's receptacle. To prepare any espresso drink to be paired with steamed milk, you will also need a stainless-steel milk frothing pitcher and thermometer. Finally, you will need some way of measuring and containing your espresso shots - I use these, but espresso shot glasses are easily found in stores such as Williams-Sonoma, Sur la table, Bed Bath & Beyond, Crate&Barrel, etc. After amassing all of this stuff, you're ready to start making espresso.

JUST ADD WATER -> Follow the directions of your machine specifically. All will require you have water in some sort of container stored within the machine; always make sure you have enough water in the container as running out in the middle of pulling an espresso shot or steaming process can damage the pump within the machine.

PURE AND SIMPLE -> I use *only* filtered water, *never* tap. We do this for all our cooking, food-preparation-rinsing, etc. The benefits of filtered water are widely known, and the quality of the water you use to prepare your coffee or espresso will *definitely* affect the taste of your coffee, tea, espresso, or really *any* food you prepare using water. In case you weren't aware of why filtered water is a good thing, read this.

CLEAN IT UP -> I *always* clean the brew head of my machine before I begin (and before I start heating the machine) because there is always ground coffee clinging to this area from the last time I used it. You might prefer to do this as part of your cleanup process after you finish brewing your espresso so that your machine is ready for next time, but I prefer to do this while the machine is not heated so I don't burn myself. ;) I use the short end of the brush for this process, and remove all of the previously used coffee grounds.

HEAT IT UP -> At this point, I turn on my machine and attach the portafilter (the assembled arm and filter attachment that come with your espresso machine and attach to the brew head) onto the brew head. I let these components heat up which helps ensure consistent temperature in my pulled espresso shots. Your machine will have directions on how long this process should take or even indicators (like mine) to watch for to tell you the machine is pre-heated and ready. I also heat my cup(s) - my machine has a cup-warmer along the top which I can store the cup on while I am pulling the shot; you can also heat your cup with heated water run through the steam wand, or heat your cup for a few seconds in a microwave. This step is all about controlling the temperature of the finished product and keeping your drink, which takes a bit to assemble, as hot as possible.

ONE LUMP OR TWO? -> At this point, I add any coffee syrup I am choosing to use to my empty coffee cup. *NOTE*: I never sweeten plain espresso shots. If you want these to be sweetened, it is traditional to serve them with a small lump of raw sugar alongside of the shot.

I don't always sweeten my espresso drinks, but I usually do depending on my mood. I could go on and on about coffee syrups, but I will briefly state it's best to use a quality (and yes, probably more expensive) coffee syrup whose' primary ingredient isn't corn-syrup and with no added chemicals, coloring, etc. I use Monin Coffee Syrups consistently; their quality ingredients make the best-tasting syrups out of the various brands I have tried. I add a very small amount of syrup to my heated cup before pulling my espresso shot because I am striving to lightly *accent* the taste of my espresso with whatever flavored syrup I am using.

I am of the opinion the taste of the syrup should not overpower the taste of the espresso at all, but be a delicate note in the finished coffee drink. This will of course come down to personal preference, but remember, most people over-sweeten their coffee / espresso to mask a bitter taste, and if you are properly brewing your coffee / espresso, it should not taste bitter at all. This is why over-sweetening is a very common practice for people who patronize that wildly popular mega-coffee shop I mentioned at the beginning of this post. =)

FINE AND DANDY -> *Always* grind your coffee just moments before you are ready to pull your espresso shot, ensuring the best results and taste possible. The ground espresso you use should be as finely ground as possible while still allowing water to be forced through it, and here we get into timing. Your goal, according to the National Coffee Association of U.S.A., Inc., is to have the coffee in contact with the water as briefly as possible (completely the opposite of brewing regular drip- or press-style coffee), usually within the range of 20 - 30 seconds. Your machine may have specific guidelines here, but the overall rule of thumb comes down to personal taste - if your pulled espresso shot tastes flat, you are probably under-extracting your espresso (allowing not enough time for the shot to brew), and if it is overpowering you are probably over-extracting it (allowing too much time for the shot to brew).

How much ground espresso (referred to as the DOSE) do you use? Your machine should certainly have instructions on this, but the general rule is 8 grams (approximately 0.3 oz or two tablespoons) per shot of espresso, and so a double-shot pulled all at once would be twice that amount as well as require a slightly coarser grind than what you would use for a single shot. You will undoubtedly have to play with this a few mornings to determine your espresso preference.

TAMP IT DOWN -> Once you have loaded your ground espresso into your portafilter, you need to tamp it down. I load my portafilter twice - once all the way to the marked maximum indicator before compressing the grounds quite firmly (using enough pressure so I am close to hurting my hand) with the tamper, then I gently tap the portafilter with my finger to settle any grounds clinging to the wall of the filter. I then load a second time with the rest of the coffee I have ground for the amount of shots I am brewing (usually a double) and repeat the tamping and tapping process. You are striving to create as firm and level a compaction as possible. If the grounds aren't firm or level, the forced hot water could blast a hole through the center of the dose which will result in over-extracted grounds immediately surrounding the flow of water and under-extracted grounds closer to the wall of the filter and leave you with an espresso shot that tastes, well, nasty.

THINK CREMA -> Any good espresso machine worth its salt will easily produce wonderful crema as long as your espresso is ground finely enough (but not too finely). Crema (named for the town in Italy and the delicate floating layer of tan-colored bubbles formed when espresso is extracted) is highly desired and essential to a well-pulled shot of espresso. To read more about crema, go here. As you are pulling your shot of espresso, you should see it separate into three distinct layers - a dark layer on the bottom, a dark tan layer in the middle-top, and a tan-colored layer of crema forming immediately on the very top of the shot. Just like in this picture. =)

*GASP* I WOULDN'T DO THAT IF I WERE YOU! -> If you are brewing more than one espresso drink at a time, *NEVER* reuse your ground espresso!! 0_0 That is a BIG no-no. The espresso you make from doing this just tastes bad. Don't do it!!

POUR OUT AT ONCE! -> Avoid letting your beautiful espresso shot sit for too long!! Immediately serve it in your heated espresso cup, or if you are making a drink with steamed milk and your machine requires you to pull a shot and steam milk separately (as mine does), pour it from your shot glass into your heated coffee cup.

ALL FROTHY AND SWIRLY -> Unless your machine allows you to steam your milk while simultaneously pulling an espresso shot (many do not), it's now time to do this. In either case, *always* start with a chilled stainless steel milk frothing pitcher. How much milk you use will be dictated by the size of your pitcher as well as the size of your cup. Avoid using too much milk or

your cup will runneth over!! Nyuk nyuk nyuk. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

What kind of milk you use will be according to your personal preference and dietary restrictions; I use whole milk as it produces the very best froth and taste. I'm not going to discuss the soy nonsense, but I'll tell you flat out I don't like it. It's your drink, however, so your mileage may vary. I tilt my pitcher (with thermometer attached) at an angle until the milk reaches 100 degrees, at which point I rest the pitcher flat and continue to steam the milk. You may have seen people froth milk by swirling the pitcher around, a practice largely unnecessary if you have a quality machine which will have a steam wand specifically designed to properly create froth, so I don't do this. Depending on your machine, again your mileage may vary - some experimentation here will be necessary in

determining what you will have to do to produce steamed milk velvety with smooth creamy froth. You should steam your milk to at least 150 but no more than 170 degrees Fahrenheit (more than this and your drink will taste scalded as well as your risking injury when sipping it). I steam my milk to 160 degrees because I like it hot like that. =)

MIX IT UP -> Pour the steamed milk into your waiting coffee cup, mixing it with the espresso shot you prepared earlier. If you want to, you can practice getting all fancy with coffee art, but I don't bother as I'd rather leave that to the pros.

Some people advocate holding back the froth from the still-liquid part of the milk in your pitcher with a special spoon, but I have never found this to be necessary when using properly frothed milk as the froth should be so dense and heavy that it will naturally separate itself from the rest of the milk as you pour.

SAVOR THE FRUITS OF YOUR LABOR! -> You should now have a perfectly concocted espresso drink made just to your liking with a layer of velvety-smooth, tightly-compacted frothed milk on top.

Take a moment to appreciate its beauty before you savor it, sip by sip, until it is allll gone. =)

Making a great cup of coffee or espresso or latte or whatever at home will require a bit of practice and tweaking, but I think it's completely worth it. I look forward to this ritual every morning and skip it in favor of take-out coffee only if I'm in a terrible rush or traveling. After some practice, you'll quickly be able to speed up your routine to under a few minutes which is the same amount of time you'd spend traveling to a coffee shop to grab take-out coffee anyhow. I hope I've encouraged you to try it out for yourself, or at least to appreciate the art of producing quality espresso.

a quiet moment

2009-09-25T03:44:00.000-07:00

I am wide awake, not really part of my plan today, but where that would normally piss me off, today I am not rattled. It's probably the sizeable amount of wine I drank throughout the evening yesterday that did the trick, kicking me out of sleep's oblivion-cocoon earlier than planned. But what an opportunity afforded to me!!

I'm sitting on the private terrace of the room of my penthouse suite in Manhattan just off Central Park in one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in during my life, watching the dawn. I figured that was a far better choice than lying in bed trying for sleep that I'm pretty sure will elude me for the rest of the 'night.' After all, how many sunrises will I get to see 17 floors up in one of the nicest parts of Manhattan? How many more sunrises will I get to see period, for that matter?

The hotel robe and my pajamas are lovely-warm in the cool of the early morning. Nathan lies slumbering inside. We are staying with my parents, and I wonder if my Mother is lying awake in their own suite on the other side of the building.

The dawn is beautiful. I am so incredibly luckiy to be having this experience. The day is full of the promise of all our fun plans over the rest of our vacation, not to mention the promise of coffee, and this quiet moment here amongst so many yet isolated in rare luxury and privacy is truly priceless. I will never forget this moment.

Good morning to you from New York, in the middle of the 36th year of my life and the second day of our long and lovely trip.

Sent from my iPhone. ;)

~ C

How We Spent Our Summer, or, oh god is that the time?

2009-09-01T04:38:00.000-07:00

It's funny how time is changing for me, speeding up when I so want it to slow down so I can catch my breath. I remember years ago listening to those older than myself discuss how quickly time was moving for them and thinking how bizarre it would be to have a sense of things moving faster than they used to. For better or worse, I too feel time speeding by these days. I know time hasn't actually sped up, but I still can't shake the feeling the year has just flown by.

I intended to write this entry a couple of months ago, but it seemed another busy Summer was contriving against me to prevent this from happening. Jerrod finished the fourth grade a few months ago and has now started his fifth and final year of elementary school.

The Summer was a blur of parties, friends, and fun, reading light-weight books pool-side, sipping cooling drinks to beat the heat on roof-top patios, weird rainstorms from a lingering spring, spontaneous plane rides for Jerrod and I, and before we knew what had happened it was over, time to start shopping for school and time to start thinking about the final four months of the year.

Jerrod finished up his fourth-grade year with good marks, another band concert, and an expressed desire to spend less time at Summer Camp and more time at home. =) An easy fix, that, and so we planned short camps instead and a round of tennis lessons. Jerrod spent a week at the Denver Art Museum studying the method behind the creation of art, working on his own projects, touring parts of the museum, and enjoying lectures of featured DAM artists discussing their latest pieces on display in the museum.

Jerrod really enjoyed this camp, as he did his tennis lessons.

He became better friends with a neighboring classmate whom we didn't realize lives just two blocks from our loft, had several sleepovers, and in general enjoyed himself silly with long days spent gaming, reading, swimming, skating, and creating art.

The highlight of Jerrod's Summer was a spur-of-the-moment trip to Manhattan to spend a few days over a weekend with Nathan, who chose to stay in the city instead of return

home for the weekend as usual. Jerrod was thrilled and amazed at being whisked away quite suddenly, and it was his first visit to the East Coast and Manhattan itself.

He took tons of pictures (we're still working on getting those on his Flickr account, and I'll update when he has gotten them uploaded), saw the city his father and I have been talking a blue streak about for months now, and fell in love with it as we have. He's already talking about not being able to wait to go back, and Nathan and I are so pleased we were able to give him a very special memory of his first plane ride alone to a magical place filled with excitement, delicious food, and so unlike the familiarity of the city he has called home since birth.

I had my own impromptu trip to Manhattan in at the beginning of June, my second visit and falling over another long weekend when Nathan decided to treat me to several days and nights on the town instead of flying home to Denver. Every bit as thrilling as my last visit, we spent much time doing several of the things we didn't get to the year before and I also took scads of photos (which you can check out here). I enjoyed my first pizza experience in the Bronx at Zero Otto Nove and it was pure bliss! We spent more time in Central Park, toured the Museum of Natural History, and I also got to see Nathan in action on the job when I wasn't enjoying some much-needed weekday down-time relaxing in our hotel. Every bit as stunning and thrilling as the last time, Manhattan is quickly becoming a favorite city of mine, right up there with Paris and San Francisco.

Although Jerrod wasn't thrilled to return to school two weeks ago (Colorado schools start so early!!), the break in Summer routine was somewhat welcome and his year is off to a good start. Unexpectedly, I was able to sit as a member of a panel of interviewers to hire replacement teachers for Jerrod's school as a few positions opened up toward the end of last school year, including the two fifth-grade positions, and I feel extremely confident about the two dynamic instructors I and the panel selected to teach Jerrod in this important and pivotal year of his education. I have had much experience in interviewing and hiring people over the years professionally, but have never utilized this skill in this setting and choosing people who will hold so much influence in the development of our son and his classmates was exciting and humbling. Jerrod loves his new teachers and everyone is very excited about what this school year will bring.

And what of Forrest, my regular readers might be asking? The year brought some big changes our way, and one of the most significant occurred in February of this year when Forrest let us know he was wanting to move in with his Mother, Tara, whom you might recall was in a very serious automobile accident last Spring. Out of the specialist clinic and on her own, Tara now faces the huge challenge of being significantly physically and unfortunately mentally handicapped and requiring daily living assistance, and Forrest felt strongly about wanting to help support her and be close to her. After some discussion, Nathan and I agreed Forrest, who turned fourteen this year, was at the right place to start making these kinds of decisions for himself and so we gave Forrest our blessing and helped him move in with Tara. He has started his final year of Junior High at a good school in the area they now live, and we are kept up to date with regular telephone calls, visits, and news from Tara about how things are going for him. I will write more about Forrest as I have more to report.

Nathan has successfully closed two large-scale projects in New York and New Jersey, and has begun work on an expansion project in New York as well as the preliminary work for a project in Chicago. Busy as ever, he is enjoying his work and trying mightily to balance it with cooking, fun, and family (like everyone else). =) Nathan started a food blog as an outlet for his culinary passion chronicling and sharing budget-friendly recipes and cooking techniques, and you can see the delicious Tomato Pie I tweeted about a few days ago there. You can also find him tweeting about cost-effective and delicious cookery on Twitter under the monniker BudgetCooking. =)

The coming weeks will see us traveling to the East Coast yet again!! I'm telling you, it's like Disneyland for grown-ups and if you haven't been you should seriously consider making the trip out that way! As Nathan has gotten to know my family better over the last couple of years, he has developed quite a friendship with my Mother and Stepfather in particular who share our passion for fine foods and delicious wines. Nathan decided a few months ago he wanted to treat them to a proper tour of the upper East Coast. Planning for the trip has consumed the last several months, and Nathan and my Mother have narrowed down the huge list of amazing culinary experiences to a bit above fifty and no I'm not kidding. =) We'll start the trip in Manhattan, and then continue on to Boston, Cape Cod, Salem, and parts of Maine. We leave in just three weeks, and none of us can hardly stand the anticipation! Jerrod will not be accompanying us this time, and will be firmly ensconced at school and staying at the home of my dear friend and chohort SK, whose son is a close friend and classmate of Jerrod's.

And now, it is time to take the wrappings off a long-pending announcement I have been hinting to a few about making over the last few months. No, we're not moving to Manhattan (I WISH!). =) But we are moving. This will be our last year in Denver, Colorado and next June after Jerrod has finished with school we are planning to relocate to Northern California. It has long been a goal Nathan and I have had to return (a returning for me, anyway) to California as I very much miss being close to my family, most of whom still live there, and Nathan has always wanted to live in California. We decided this year the time had finally come for this change to take place. One of the benefits of Nathan's current job as Project Manager for ShotSpotter, Inc. is he can work from anywhere in the world, and so all we will have to worry about is relocating our household. As Jerrod is finishing his last year at the elementary school he has been a student at since the second grade this year, we didn't want to deny him that experience and a last year of time with the wonderful friends he has made (they're all in the same class again this year), and the transitionary Summer next year as he prepares to start Junior High will be the perfect time to make this monumental and exciting change for our family.

It is also, sadly, an opportune time to move closer to my family as we discovered this year my Stepmother has been diagnosed with cancer. She is battling valiantly and managing very well, amazingly, and it will be good for us to be near by to help support her and my Father through this challenging and frustrating time. We are all of course very excited about this significant change for our family - Jerrod, who will continue to live with us, is in particular quite pleased at the prospect of living somewhere entirely new. We are also more than a bit saddened at moving away from all that we love about Denver - the wonderful friends we have made, the amazing restaurants and culture of this vibrant city I have grown quite fond of during my time here, the snow ... but the move will be a very good thing for us, and I can't wait to be closer to the ocean again as I miss it desperately. I will report further details as we navigate this transition, and I'm certain it will be requiring larger and more significant amounts of time, planning, and attention, as next Summer draws closer.

The alarms have gone off here (I woke far earlier than usual and decided to work on this entry instead of lie in bed thinking about it), and it is time for me to start another busy week-day. I hope all of you have enjoyed your own busy Summers and hope you will drop me a line about the interesting and exciting places this year has taken you!

2009-07-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

So I finally had time this week, while Nathan was out of town traveling on business, to watch Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, and directed by the incomparable Baz Luhrmann. It took me two evenings to finish it. Yes. Two. If you haven't seen the film or heard of it, you can find trailers for it here.

This was a very long film. That doesn't start my review off on very good footing, does it? Hmph. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film, and I have sat through films much longer (and some even all in one sitting), so it's not the length that is bothering me -- it's that the film felt long. Some of my musings here can be considered spoilers, so if you're planning to watch you might want to skim / skip with care.

Baz Luhrmann directed a wonderful film here, and you can see the quality of his direction and personalized mark all over the place. At its core, Australia is a love story, but there were a few interesting elements thrown into the mix: quite a bit of current political commentary couched into the portrayal of the plight of the 'Stolen Generations,' with a healthy dose of related racism thrown in appropriately; a battle of 'good' versus ... well, not evil, per se, but we'll go with morally corrupt here; a bit of the struggle to become a man plot element many 'feel-good' films feature... there really was a bit of almost every major film theme in the storyline, as one would probably expect from a film of this scope.

I don't want to sell the film short. It was gorgeous. The cinematography was excellent, the visual effects stunning (but without automatically being realized as such except to more keen eyed viewers) with deft (but heavy) reliance on CGI enhancements, the look, feel, set design, and color of the film were in keeping with Baz's other luminous undertakings, the acting exemplary and featuring a well-chosen cast - they really all gave remarkable and enjoyable performances.

But something didn't quite work for me with Australia.

The most obvious and universal complaint among viewers is the main plot was unsophisticated and unsurprising, but then, most romance films have exactly the same plot so in my opinion that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In other reviews I've read of the film, some even call the plot 'weak,' and I can definitely see what they are driving at -- Australia was a bit like Disney meets Gone With The Wind, with a few eerie similarities. There were definitely no surprises in its ending for me whatsoever, but again as I wasn't expecting any, that didn't necessarily bother me.

I can definitely see how many people would find the film slow and even a bit boring, however. A friend described Australia this way: "Long? or was it long? Long, maybe? I thought it was long, with 4-6 fake endings. And long." =) My friend BugFrog is marvelous, by the way - you can read more about BugFrog here.

I heartily warn away any and all (well, almost all) straight men from this film. Almost definitely, they either won't get it or won't want to tolerate it, will find it irritatingly tedious, and in general won't be better off for the experience of watching it. That's not a jab at straight men, mind you. Viewing this film will probably drive most straight men to drink. Heavily. And not in a necessarily good way. And no offense to my dear BugFrog, whose assessment of the film I have to agree with.

So that might lead you to believe this film is really more for guys with tastes more like mine? Wink, wink. =) You can laugh. That was funny. But the surprising (for some) answer is NOPE, not necessarily. Of course, Australia will appeal to some men who enjoy epic films largely for their aesthetic value. But that definitely doesn't mean if you're a gay man you'll go ape over it as I didn't feel that way myself and I can definitely say Nathan wouldn't sit through it unless I made him.

No, this film is definitely largely one for the ladies, and those of an artistic mind at that. Even so, not all ladies would enjoy it either -- another friend of mine who is a die-heard romance film junkie, gave it only three out of five stars on Netflix, and probably because, as BugFrog so aptly puts it, the film was "long." =)

To its credit (or detriment, depending on your taste) Australia is decidedly Luhrmanesque, and to the gills, as well as almost overwhelming in scope -- the film reaches to encompass many things, many elements, many epic shots, many beautifully lit stylized moments, and consequently almost thumps you over the head with its 'epic-ness.' Some might find this irritating. And confusing. And most will definitely find it long.

I couldn't finish it in one sitting. Although I had the time, after the fourth "fake ending" or so, I found I just didn't have the strength and shut it off, deciding on some 'The Sims 3' instead (Yup, I play. I admit it. It's fun. Too fun.). Anyhow, that should definitely tell you something; I love many different kinds of films, from thrillers to documentaries, from feel-good to horror, from drama and character study to silly comedy, and I really wanted to love this film, but I just couldn't. Instead, we'll go with 'I liked it.'

Slow doesn't bother me. Even long doesn't really scare me away. But as I said at the beginning of this casual collection of observations, the film felt long, and I don't think that's a good thing. Perhaps in its sincere and even aggressive attempts to try to be a truly great film it overreached and missed its mark a bit, leaving some viewers befuddled, overwhelmed, tired, heading for a serious sugar-crash from its saccharine-sweetness, and in need of a bathroom.

If you have some time to kill, and if you want to see a truly beautiful film that saturates you with color, dazzles you with scenery, intrigues you with presenting a side of Australian life you might not be familiar with (the film does an excellent job of this), and wows you with its epic stylized gorgeous saturated glowy long-shots, you should see this film. Australia isn't a bad film, not at all, but I don't think I can call it 'Great.'

Rendezvous in paris: A Film by Claude Lelouch

2009-05-28T16:01:00.001-07:00

I don't understand what all the fuss is about - this is exactly how my driver behaved when I visited Paris (and I'm not really kidding). It's not normal? =)
_____________________________________
On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris early in the morning . The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine , through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.
The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.
Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground.

cool it

2009-05-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

In a conversation on FaceBook this weekend, I offered to send a friend of mine some mojito recipes, and I had so many other requests for them I thought I'd post them here. =) The mojito is a perfect summertime drink, making it way too easy to have one too many without realizing how the rum is hitting you until it's too late, but then that's part of the fun and a great way to come to terms with the higher temperatures Summer always brings. Make sure to drink responsibly, and hydrate hydrate hydrate - a full glass or few of water as you imbibe throughout the weekend-afternoon/evening can almost completely cancel out unpleasant post-drinking effects if you're liberal with the H20.

I'm not sure of your level of comfort in the kitchen or with such recipes, dear reader, so I've tried to be as descriptive as possible. =) Forgive me if I'm outlining things you already know.

Here is the classic mojito recipe and then one with a twist for you plus an extra Summertime staple; there are tons more recipes floating around out there, and I encourage you to explore some of the more unusual ones and find your favorites, and experiment with golden / dark rum as well as it really changes the flavors! You will need a muddler which can be purchased anywhere that sells barware and accoutrement; I'm assuming you have basic barware such as a cocktail shaker, highball and double-old-fashioned glasses.

Classic Mojito (serves 1)
A cooling, effervescent cocktail born - thanks to Prohibition - amid Cuba's thriving international bar culture. Probably derived from the Mint Julep, it was popularized by the legendary bartenders of Cuba's El Floridita and Labdeguita del Medio bars during the 1930's and '40s. Read more about the Mojito here.

12 mint leaves / sprigs
1.5 fl oz simple syrup (increase to taste if you like sweeter drinks)**
1 lime, cut into wedges
crushed ice
2 fl oz white rum
soda water

Muddle the mint with the simple syrup and 4 of the lime wedges in a highball glass. Fill the glass with crushed ice, add the rum, and stir, then top up with soda water. Decorate with the remaining lime wedges.

**To make simple syrup, use a 4-4 ratio (4 Tbsp sugar and 4 Tbsp of water) into a small saucepan and stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to a boil, without stirring, for 1-2 minutes. Simple syrup can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two months. This will be a very small batch, so for a large pitcher of drinks that requires simple syrup, you will have to multiply the measurements by several. Keep in mind, however, that cooking large amounts of sugar over heat can be tricky, so if you need quite a bit of simple syrup, you might want to work with more than one saucepan etc. and perhaps make one pan at a time.
(from New Classic Cocktails by Allan Gage)

Apple-Soaked Mojito (serves 1)
8 mint leaves
1/2 lime, cut into wedges
2 teaspoons simple syrup (increase to taste if you like sweeter drinks)**
crushed ice
2 fl oz golden rum (use a top-shelf aged rum, or as close to the top as you can afford and at least 3 years old)
1 fl oz filtered apple juice (unfiltered will work fine but produce a cloudy drink)
mint sprig and red apple slices for garnish (if desired)

Muddle the mint, lime and simple syrup in a shaker. Fill a highball glass with crushed ice. Add the rum to the shaker and shake well. Do not add ice to the shaker! Strain the drink into the highball glass and top up with apple juice. Decorate with a mint sprig and apple slices.
(from New Classic Cocktails by Allan Gage)

One more you'll love; play with the ratios and beware - they go down easy. =)

The Caipirinha (serves 1)
The much-beloved Caipirinha is the national cocktail of Brazil and shares some of mojito's primary ingredients -- lime and sugar. It is made with Cachaca (pronounced ka-sha-sa), a Brazilian rum distilled from sugar cane juice. The caipirinha is typically served in a short, wide glass, since it contains less liquid than the mojito. Crushed ice works best because the smaller pieces melt faster, adding volume to the drink. Read more about the Caipirinha here.

1 lime
2 oz Cachaca rum
2 Tbsp sugar
crushed ice

Cut lime into 8 random pieces (not wedges); you're going for a really rough effect here. Muddle lime and sugar in the bottom of a glass or cocktail shaker. Add the rum. Add about 1 cup crushed ice. Cover whatever vessel you are using and shake vigorously. Garnish with a lime wedge and serve with a straw (if desired).

(from www.mojitocompany.com)

Twouble with Twitters: SuperNews!

2009-04-18T20:52:00.001-07:00

hysterically poking fun at our obsession with Twitter. I want to point out, as in my earlier post, I described how for some Twitter *can* be so much more than just banal updates (like the kind I type) about my day and meals, but this is still really funny. =)

finally someone explains what facebook is for

2009-03-17T13:04:00.001-07:00

=) at last, and in terms we can all understand.

is afraid of the social media neonazis

2009-03-15T17:51:00.000-07:00

You'd really have to be hiding under a rock these days to have not heard the term 'social media,' but on the off chance that's you (and I'm not judging), you might want to watch this video before you continue reading this post. You ought to watch it anyway because it's really nifty. =)

I spent a great deal of time today catching up on several articles I've been meaning to digest, following links to sites I'd always meant to visit, and analyzing many of the emerging aspects of the social media craze which is rapidly morphing and growing at speeds faster than I can properly explain - things have already changed in some way, maybe major or maybe minor, even before I can end this sentence.

One very interesting and perhaps disturbing change is the emergence of a growing dissatisfaction with some of the more inane aspects of current social media practices, particularly focusing on the kind of content people are sharing online about themselves. 'Rules' are emerging. Boundaries are being set. Lines in the sand are being drawn. Alliances are being formed. Within a very short time, factions have already arisen within the social media universe with the sole purpose of insisting any thought launched into the social media stream follow certain criteria or face the dire consequences of cyber-ire. I first became aware (probably late to the party) of these factions of self-appointed cyber-regulators when someone I'm connected to on Facebook joined a Facebook Group demanding status updates must be kept interesting. This caused me to raise my eyebrows a bit. 'There are rules now?' I pondered. 'Who says?' I wondered. 'How come?' I queried.

I quickly realized the members of this Facebook group, though small in number in this instance, aren't alone in the least. In my reading today, I came across dozens of articles proclaiming sets of rules to be followed for how one ought to use Twitter (if you don't know about it, ummm ... well, maybe you somehow missed what a large part of global society is abuzz over these days and should try watching this helpful video), even to the point of theorizing most Tweeters fall into eight very specific categories that define how they will (and should) use Twitter based on their personality types according to the popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (an article by John Martellaro I found quite fascinating; to read it, click here.)

It would seem humans can't leave anything alone without classifying it, labeling it, putting a box around it, categorizing it, forming dissenting factions over it, and otherwise ruining it in general - not even the humble status update posted via Facebook or Twitter, which you might remember from the very beginning sprung from one simple question: "What are you doing?"

I'm confused. Wasn't all of this supposed to be fun? Isn't there a reason we call this bizarre phenomenon of sharing and blogging and microblogging and status updates social media, instead of 'productive media' or 'networking media' or 'interesting media' or whatever? In reflecting on this social trend I found it helpful to read the Merriam-Webster dictionary of the word 'social,' primarily defined as "marked by or passed in pleasant companionship with one's friends or associates." It doesn't say anything about the rules of whether or not something ought to be considered social in nature, nor does this definition define guidelines, specifics, or other end-all be-all commandments which must be followed when engaging in social behavior. I think we're all starting to take ourselves a bit too seriously when we decide we have the right to determine how one ought to be able to tweet, for crying out loud!

One of the things I enjoy most about social media, watching it grow and change so rapidly, is the vast diversity of this amazing concept. Everyone and anyone can have a completely unique and valid experience interacting with it and through it. Many people have compared Twitter (and arguably Facebook) to a massive cocktail party where a myriad of people you know and don't know can connect and chatter on about anything and everything. Some of the chatter is useful to you, some of it is not. When we are interacting socially with anyone, don't we all use various filters to automatically zero in on or zone out of anything we find of interest or don't find interesting in the least? So should social media be used!!

Use social media in the way you want, as often as you want, to get the things you want out of it! People use it for all sorts of things!

The potential social media has is completely infinite, and in my opinion should always remain so!

One site I use, Momentile, allows users to post one image per day defining a moment from their life during that 24-hour period. You can post as often as you like within that period, but only the most recent image you share will be retained in the stream of images that, over time, makes up your own personal photo journal. The way in which I use Momentile is completely different than that of the next guy. One user I stumbled across always shares an image of himself with his surroundings of the moment in the background. I, on the other hand, post bizarrely unrelated images describing whatever moment I choose to fixate on, from piles of dirty laundry to what I've had for breakfast (here's a link to my photo stream on momentile if you're curious). Yet both of us are completely correct in our interpretation of Momentile's functionality and how we have chosen to apply it to our self-expression on the internet. Each of us have the absolute right to use Momentile in completely different ways, and as there are no rules (other than the 24-hour limitation), we should not be criticized by others on how we choose to express ourselves in this fashion.

My thinking is this central golden rule really ought to extend to every social media site, not just Momentile - people should have the right to use such vehicles of creative expression in whatever way they want to without risking irritating someone who only wants to read interesting updates or who thinks Twitter should only be used for professional networking or creating global change. Indeed, social media is immensely powerful and capable of creating change in huge and measurable and even in many cases instant ways. But that's not the only thing it 'ought' to be used for. I imagine (and could probably prove if I felt like taking the time to research) people once had similar discussions and debates about the purpose of film and television when they exploded onto the fabric of our existence.

Yes, social media can teach you things. Yes, social media can change lives. Yes, social media can massively and positively impact your professional life. Yes, social media can allow you to quickly answer almost any question or get help from a pool of knowledge in solving a variety of problems. Yes, I truly think those ways of using these vehicles for expression are AMAZING and AWESOME and of MONUMENTAL IMPORTANCE. Seriously, I really do - social media is currently completely fascinating to me!! But it can ALSO be used for creative expression. It can ALSO be used as a means to stay connected to distant friends and family (which is the primary reason I started using aspects of it in the first place). It can ALSO be used to develop and maintain groups where people of a variety of backgrounds and locations and positions can interact to discuss a variety of topics. As I wrote above, the possible applications for social media are and should remain limitless.

If I want to tell everyone who follows me on Twitter and all my Facebook friends about the amazing breakfast Nathan whipped up for me in the kitchen earlier, complete with a photograph, I have the right to do that! If someone wants to talk about how tired they are, or how bored they are, or that they're battling a cold or what the weather is doing outside their window or how they plan to spend their evening or share a picture of the sunset with everyone, guess what?? It's OK! If the 'Guest Poster' (hah) who wrote this list of Twitter Tips doesn't want to read about that, or if you don't want to read about that, then quite simply don't. Stop following me on Twitter, un-friend me on Facebook if you find my status updates so inane and unimportant. That's fine with me - I'm not one to count the number of followers/friends I have anyway (some people seem completely obsessed with this)!

I'll continue to use social media in the way that works best for me! Because that's what it should really be all about - applying social media's plethora of tools in whatever arrangement suits me best and in whatever way I best identify with. That's what makes the observation of and participation in social media today so fascinating, being able to dip your itty bitty toe or plunge completely headfirst into this amazingly infinite pool of interaction, connectivity, and expression. Want to use Twitter to change the world? Go for it! Want to use Facebook as a way to promote your blog? Yes you can! Want to Tweet endlessly about every single meal you consume and how it made you feel? By Golly, you have that right! =) Just because I or the next person might not use social media tools in these ways doesn't mean someone else can't. Let's allow social media to remain interesting to us in whatever way we fixate on, to remain creative and fluid and limitless and messy and just plain cool. There you have it - my $0.02. And on that note, enjoy this video of someone expressing herself through social media without trumpeting a cause, changing the world, or instigating any deep thinking - it's OK to not be so serious all the time. =)

more spotting of the shots

2009-02-18T10:56:00.001-08:00

Here's another video giving the average homebody a better understanding of what Nathan does for a living (in case you missed it, I posted a more detailed description of his role as project manager for ShotSpotter, Inc., here). Click below for the video. =)

ShotSpotter | Mission-Essential Surveillance

Posted using ShareThis

the blue box and the black 'mirror'

2009-02-17T17:34:00.000-08:00

I promised a few of you I'd post about some of this year's Valentine's Day gifts, and decided rather than tweet about it I'd share a few photos and write a blog post; since this year's celebration was a fairly major life-event and blogging is really more journaling for me, I think this is the right forum. I'm a bit hesitant at posting all of this because I'd hate for anyone to think I was bragging - instead, I'm simply sharing things with you which I'm insanely happy about and extremely grateful for. My nose isn't up in the air, I promise. =)

Nathan surprised me with my very first blue box. Yes, THE blue box. I've had my eye on this beauty, a sterling silver and titanium ID bracelet in 'midnight' (part of the 1837 collection) for awhile now, ever since I gave Nathan the matching ring for Christmas a couple of years ago. I absolutely love it, even more than I imagined I would. Coincidentally, 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' is a favorite film of ours (visiting the flagship store during our visit to Manhattan last summer was a highlight of the trip), and arguably went a long way toward making Tiffany & Co. the gold standard it is today, so untying that white satin bow was quite a moment for me! =)

In return, Nathan decided we choose a joint-gift instead of something just for him, and we happened to be at Costco at the exact moment when they'd just run out of stock on this gem and were selling the floor model at a heavy discount; they'd only been carrying the model a couple of months. We've been price-watching sets for awhile now as they've been plummeting, and the discount was so attractive we couldn't pass it up. And so we're bidding our old 51" Sony Rear-Projection Flat Panel set a fond farewell; it held up nicely over the last six-and-a-half years, but it's time to move onward and upward. Above is our new Sharp Aquos 52" LCD panel. The picture and clarity is completely amazing; our old set was also HD, but the new set seems even crisper, more vivid, and more 'WOW!'. I can't wait to watch 'Planet Earth' on the new one!

We had a lovely Valentine's Day celebration, and it was definitely one of the nicest I can remember. =)

happy hallow-thanks-christmas-new-valentine's day

2009-02-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time. Too long, and I'm sorry. But I warned you I might go through long periods of silence from time to time. =) I tried many times to sit down and journal about the many directions life took my family and I over the last few months, but once the Holiday season began there was really no hope at all. Better late than never... right?

So at long last, I'm attempting to bring you up to date with what's happened since my family-update last fall, and the best way to do that is share some highlights and photos. I'll attempt to not drone on and on and hope you'll enjoy reading this entry.

Walk with me back a few months to All Hallows Eve 2008. Can you smell the tang of decayed leaves? Can you feel the pre-winter chill as the dry bitter air wraps you in its sleepy and dreadful embrace? Can you ... ok, well, probably not, but that's where our journey begins.

Halloween saw us continuing a tradition we began last year, Trick-or-Treat-ing with Jerrod's classmates and their parents. We stuck to the historic neighborhood of Congress Park, not far from our own but much less urban, and the guys had a fantastic time.

Forrest (then approaching 14) decided he was far too old for such nonsense and declined to participate in the traditional

friviolity, but good-naturedly accompanied us on our candy-crawl.

Jerrod dressed as the character 'V' from the film 'V for Vendetta' (a fantasticly amazing film rife with social commentary if you're into that sort of thing), a favorite film of his. The costume orignally was worn by Nathan a few years back, and Jerrod was thrilled to be allowed to borrow it for the evening from our costume trunk. Much candy was gathered, though not consumed as quickly as one might imagine as neither of the chickens (unlike Nathan and I) have much of a sweet tooth. In fact, I'm pretty sure there are still a few lingering pieces downstairs in our pantry. Oh, well. =) And this peaceful relaxed event really was the calm before the storm.

November, as it usually does, heralded the beginning of the pre-Christmas season and found us putting the finishing touches on a spontaneous plan to journey to my home state of California and spend the Thanksgiving holiday with my family (the table setting at right is from my Mother's flawless and delectable 18-person feast)! The majority of my time was spent working on putting this trip together complete with all the trimmings (plane tickets, a car rental, packing lists, a detailed itinerary, etc.) and coordinating face time with as many immediate family members as possible without leaving anyone feeling left out, and this was pretty much damn near impossible (custimarily so where large families are concerned, no?), but I did my very best.

We had a fantastic time! Clustered around the holiday, spent at the home of my Mother and Stepfather, were a day-trip to San Francisco, a tour of the Northern California wine country, a stop at a favorite local cheese artisan and coincidentally the oldest cheese manufacturer in the country (Rouge et Noir creamery), a day-trip to Point Reyes including a stop at the Hog Island Oyster Co.'s farm and a fantastic meal at a favorite restaurant of my Mother's, Kru. This was an important visit home as it was the first time Nathan and the chickens had met in person several members of my family (besides my Mother and Stepfather and Sister), and it was the first holiday we've spent with my family since I moved to Colorado.

We were also able to have a lovely post-Thanksgiving feast with my Father and Stepmother as well as my Sister and her Husband. The trip was long and lovely, and we were all pleasantly exhausted upon returning home to Denver. Numerous photos were taken, but here are links to Nathan's Picasa Album, some TwitPics (1, 2, 3, & 4) and my Momentile Page which include the best of the bunch (my TwitPics & Momentiles were all taken with my iPhone) Unfamiliar with Momentile? Hover over the thumbnail you want to view; the ones from the trip were all submitted in the latter part of November. It's quite nifty, and if you're interested in joining please message me privately and I'll be happy to send you an invite code.

We flew home into a snow storm, and most unfortuantely Nathan was only home long enough to drive us safely back from the airport before

catching a taxi right back and jumping onto a late-night flight out to the East Coast, where as most of you will know he has been managing a few projects for his employer, Shotspotter Inc., for the last several months.

The next few days were spent struggling to get the house flipped over from all the autumn stuff to Christmas, and roughly seven days

later (and much later than I would've liked if we hadn't been traveling) the transformation was complete. Christmas was the the usual blur of hectic and happy, music and madness, home-baked treats and half-baked gift ideas that didn't really pan out as intended. =) Here's a snap of this year's tree; there are more via my Facebook page if you're feeling nostalgic. ;)

Nathan and I rang in the New Year rather quietly this time as my parting-gift from 2008 was a rather nasty cold / flu sort of thing. =( Weirdly, as I write this entry I'm recovering from an equally nasty one, and this is in fact the first day I've felt well enough to do anything other than lie around! I really hate illnesses like this one, and do everything I can to avoid them but it seems it just wasn't enough these two times around. I hope I'm done with viral stuff for awhile... We spent New Year's Day feasting on a delicious Paella (1, 2) Nathan whipped up and doing nothing in particular. After all the hustle of the last three months, it was pure heaven to unwind and enjoy each other's company.

And here we are now in February! Jerrod made the Varsity Basketball team in December, and has been winning and losing in the midst of a twice-a-week game schedule building up to a tournament the first week in March, and is enjoying the experience. Forrest celebrated his fourteenth birthday on the second of January, and is currently all about the usual

teen-angst-focused moodiness, rock music, and anti-socialism (though we do see him smile frequently and he continues to enjoy family movie nights with us). ;) His braces are doing their magic, though of course it will be a slow process.

Nathan has been travelling quite a bit less so far this year compared to last year which is just wonderful, and as the chickens are spending the weekend with their Mother (released finally from the hospital last October) we're currently whiling away the weekend doing absolutely nothing in particular other than work on projects like this one, watch movies, drink wine and laugh ourselves silly at our clumsy two-player gaming sessions (LittleBig Planet for the PS3). As most of our weekends are infinitely more hectic than this one, the rare free time is pure bliss.

I hope the year is treating you right so far... wave me a 'Hello!' here or on Facebook and let me know how you are doing.

a limerick

2009-01-24T14:49:00.000-08:00

I'm posting this as a response to my cyber-pal Greeblemonkey, who caused me to ROTFLMAO today by Tweeting about her young son and a story he told her. Here's her Tweet from earlier:

"Dex made for a day of insane behavior by just starting a story with 'There once was a ducky named Fucky...'"

I found it so amusing I decided to finish the story and turn it into a limerick in D's honor. :)

The Ducky Fucky

by Xtian and Lil' Froggy

There once was a ducky named Fucky

Whose fate was decidedly unlucky

For 'tween this and that,

He'd gotten quite fat!

Ended up as a feast in Kentucky.

Now keep in mind, I wrote that one for D's ears. I'm sure us grownups could take it into far more amusing territory once he's out of earshot. :) Check out Greeblemonkey's tres cool blog; she's an amazing shutterbug. http://www.greeblemonkey.com/

MSNBC Keith Olbermann weighs in on Proposition 8

2008-11-11T09:45:00.001-08:00

I have to do this. I can't keep silent about what happened. If this offends you, you should really take a good, long look in the mirror and realize by polarizing and dividing people, you are standing for hate, for bigotry, and for discrimination.

school daze, rolling the die, and the misadventures of metalmouth & gameboy

2008-09-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

I intended this entry to take place a lot closer to the beginning of
the chickens' schoolyear, but because it has been a busy one so far,
I blinked and now almost a month has gone by since they started. Better late than never, however. =)

School for Forrest has gotten off to a great start so far! He has entered the 8th grade, and I can't help but remember the hell and confusion I was going through back when I was his age (which seems like such an eternity ago). He seems to have finally found his rhythm at the close of his junior high years, having weathered a rather bumpy transition from elementary school two years ago (the school system here starts Junior High with the 6th grade, like many others across the country), and his grades are better than they've historically been. I'm hoping this change will stick just in time for his move to East High School, where Nathan graduated from, in the fall next year.

Forrest is not really doing anything extra-curricular this year, instead expressing the desire to stay focused on his school work, and I suppose given the tough time he's had managing his school workload in the past that this is a good thing. I'm also quite pleased he hasn't started dating anyone yet as he's quite blunt about not wanting to explore any of that just now either, so Nathan and I are breathing sighs of relief we get to put all that mess off for another year at least. ;)

The big change for Forrest was he had bracesapplied to his top row of teeth right at the end of the summer. We were all a bit nervous about it, but he actually looks great in them! He'll get the bottom row done in November after those teeth have spaced out a bit more. In his spare time, he still loves skateboarding (though these days he favors his Razor scooter; picture above - isn't he something???), messing about on the new computer we bought the boys for their room as a back-to-school surprise, watching programs on the Science and the Discovery channels, and sometimes reading if he's found a book he particularly enjoys. It's really exciting to see him becoming so enthusiastic about science and nature and learning in general! I'm very proud of how well he's doing in school this term so far.

Jerrod is starting the fourth grade this year, and trying once again to have it all -- he's in intermediate band and still playing the trumpet two mornings a week before school, taking a digital photography class once a week, and a computer class twice a week, both after school. He also has real homework this year, where in years past he was given a couple of assignments and a week to do it. Now, he's required to turn in something every day except Friday. Guess he'd better get used to that now so it won't be such a rough adjustment later!

Jerrod isn't getting braces - yet. His dentist says he'll need them soon, though. Lucky us! =) In this picture, Jerrod is wearing one of his favorite school outfits, new this year. We'll transition to colder-weather clothes once it's officially winter, but for now he loves to wear skinny pants that are popular with the skater crowd whenever it isn't too hot out. I snapped this one in the gated parking area for our loft community; Jerrod wanted something 'industrial.' =) Like the view of our city alley? ;)

When Jerrod isn't studying, reading, playing the trumpet, or playing with Tech Decks, he's zapping space creatures or smashing LEGO characters on the Play Station 3 gaming system we bought last Fall; Jerrod's current favorite games are 'Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty' (pirate's booty, but I fear the double entendre is intentional although the game has a rating of E for Everyone), and 'LEGO Batman: The Videogame.' He also enjoys the other two LEGO games, 'Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures' and 'Star Wars: The Complete Saga,' as well as 'Uncharted: Drake's Fortune' and 'The Orange Box' games. They have several others, but those are the top six. Here's a photo of Jerrod catching some pretty decent air as he skates with his in-lines. :) Both the boys are quite athletic; I wish I had been at their age -- it would've saved me so much heartache in school. ;) Oh, well...

Jerrod just celebrated his tenth birthday last weekend, and we threw him a big birthday bash with several of his classmates followed by a sleepover with a few of his best buds. We hosted the party at Steve's Snappin' Dogs, a gourmet hot dog stand we're lucky enough to have here in Denver. The theme of Jerrod's party was 'Rockstar,' and so guests were encouraged to come dressed as their favorite icon. Thank goodness Spirit Halloween Store was open this time of year!! We even made CDs containing 10 (+ 1 bonus track to grow on) of Jerrod's favorite rock songs as a party favor for guests.

Adding to the glamor, Jerrod was lucky enough to have his birthday party booked the same day Steve planned to have a commercial filmed about his restaurant, and so they filmed the commercial around Jerrod's party and we'll all be airing (locally, of course) on The Cartoon Network and ESPN (funny but appropriate mix of target audiences). =) If I somehow manage to come by a copy, I'll post it here, but in the mean time enjoy the slide show of some snaps from the party by clicking on THIS (for some dumb reason, I couldn't get the vid to upload to this blog even though it meets all the requirements; whateva)! :) That one was for you, Mother. Yeah, that's right, even my Mother laid a 'what-ev-a' on me on the telephone the other day! Blew my mind! And, she did it perfectly! Anyhow, I think the boys look very intimidating in their costumes, but they loved it! I'm glad they don't look like that all the time. ;) Nathan and I luckily stayed mostly out of the photos although we did dress up, but I think I snuck into a shot. See if you can spot me! The party was a blast, and hopefully it did something to help Jerrod edge toward the limelight of his elementary school's highly competitive social scene. ;)

Switching topics, we've made some changes in how we handle discipline at home this year. Previously, the chickens were randomly 'punished' with a variety of restrictions, groundings, time-outs, and loss of privileges, and these 'punishments' would snowball depending on how much the offending chicken had messed up, how often they had been messing up as of late, and whether or not we felt there was a chance they would mess up in the future. OK, I'm kidding about that last bit. Anyhow, this process wasn't really working for our family, leaving the chickens frustrated because they never knew whether we would let them eat cake or death instead, and us frustrated at having to come up with more imaginative and bizarre punishments such as the time last summer we hung Forrest upside down by his toenails and forced him to smoke a carrot. Yeah, kidding about that one too. My point is discipline was very slap-dash for us, and this year we finally got organized. I developed a performance chart that was tied to what the chickens love best - no, not money -- MEDIA TIME! Yes, now their beloved enjoyment of all media ranging from recreational television programs like 'The Suite Life of Zack & Cody' to playing 'Oblivion' on the PS3 or 'The Sims 2' on their new computer is tied to
whether or not they have earned enough behavioral points the previous week to qualify.

They earn points based on a variety of categories such as school behavior, home behavior, chore effort and completion, etc. They have up to a total of seven earnable points on weekdays and six on weekends, and must achieve a total of 41 points or more each week to qualify for media time the following week. This chart has really worked well, putting the power of choice in the chickens' hands, and consequently leaving them no one but themselves to blame if they don't qualify. They have access to the performance chart, built with Microsoft Excel, via their computer (it's stored on our wireless network drive along with all our music and photographs; we went with the Apple Timecapsule) so they can see throughout the week how they're doing and any areas they need to improve in as scoring time draws nigh. One on one in a private conference, I tally the points for each of them every day before bedtime, and on Sunday evenings we count up the total points for the week. Nathan and I are thrilled this method of tracking their behavior rewards them, inspires them to achieve performance goals, and keeps them informed of not only what is expected of them but also how they are progressing in 24-hour segments. They are also able to view their overall performance to date on a bar graph, as well as see which weeks they qualified and what their total points for any given week were.

In addition to the performance chart, we have a system of doling out consequence for more serious rule infractions like dishonesty. I learned about this system last fall at a parenting seminar put on by Forrest's middle school PTA. Nathan and I put our heads together and came up with a set of six consequences we both agreed were fair as a result of such infractions. We purchased a colorful large six-sided die, and when one of the boys breaks a more serious rule, they have to 'Roll for a Consequence.' The number they roll corresponds with one of the six consequences Nathan and I cooked up. You'll notice I'm avoiding labeling them as 'punishments' because we're trying to drive home the lesson that there is no action without consequence, advice I learned in this seminar I mentioned.

The consequences equate to things like loss of media time for 24 hours, loss of just telephone privileges for 24 hours, having their next social engagement cancelled, and my favorite, the sneak. We actually have funny names for all the consequences, and I'm including a snap of the sign I made to remind them of what potential consequences for infractions are. As you can see, the sneak equals having to sit through a Disney movie or few of my choosing (this was especially effective during the summer break), and while this might sound like a treat for some of you, the boys particularly loathe some of the older Disney films which are my favorites, like 'Alice In Wonderland,' 'Cinderella' the original animated '101 Dalmatians,' and the like. I'm not really sure why they don't like these films, but suspect they secretly do deep down and are refusing to admit it, or else that these films are so quaint to them and completely out of touch with the more modern Disney films like 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' At any rate, groans always ensue when they roll a consequence and hit a sneak, which means they know they'll soon be suffering through scenes like this one. =) Well, we couldn't come up with a sixth consequence and were trying to be creative! What else can I say?

As we prepare to move towards the holiday season, which means we'll all be busier, hopefully happier, and probably a tad heavier owing to the yummy comfort food this season of hearth and home always brings, I wanted to take a moment and give you a snippet of a few of the details that make up the lives of our favorite chickens, and consequently of my life as well. I hope you enjoyed it. =)

start spreading the news (but not the cream-cheesey kind)

2008-09-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

As promised and better late than never, here are some photos from my trip to Manhattan with Nathan this summer. I've discovered the mosaic tool on Picasa, and I think it's a better way to view these; though numerous, one by one they're photos more for me and less for sharing as they're kind of boring by themselves. =) If you don't get the cream cheese reference, consider yourself lucky. I think the coolest thing about viewing the photos in this way is it gives the viewer a taste of the feeling that was mine during my five wonderful days there - a rush of images rapidly sliding in and out of view as one amazing experience replaced another and all of them combine to form one big messy magical memory. Visiting Manhattan was the closest thing I've found in the states to what I experienced when I visited Paris several years ago - it is truly an amazing and marvelous city.

learning to be the memory-keeper

2008-09-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

So I've been studying under the tutelage of my sister-in-law who is a master craftswoman when it comes to archiving and creating keepsakes for the important moments in her life and the lives of those she loves, and I've learned a thing or two about how to start doing that myself. Yes, I'm talking about SCRAPBOOKING! Yes, yes, I know -- you've been to the parties, you've suffered through sorting ribbons and buttons and bits of paper into numerous stacks, bins, and envelopes. You may have even held a pair of scissors like these for long enough to cramp your hand as you slaved away for hours over a page for your album only to have to start all over again because of a snip too much, a cut too far in the wrong direction. So before you laugh at your monitor and run away screaming or turn away in disgust, wait until you read how this highly respectable though arguably time consuming art of memory archival has evolved.

It has been for some time now one can produce high-quality pages (called layouts and commonly abbreviated as LO) for one's keepsake album entirely on one's computer. This process, referred to as Digital Scrapbooking, completely eliminates the waste of paper involved in traditional scrapbooking as well as dramatically shrinks the carbon footprint such a hobby might usually occupy in physical form. I realize that might not be a motivating factoid for some of you, but I found it very pleasing.

Further, I was thrilled to learn large crafting tables, a dedicated craft-space, numerous scissors and glues, or massive filing systems for all one's bits and pieces of decoration and photographs aren't necessary either in this new form of modern scrapbooking. All it takes is a way to take or create digital photographs (which is fairly simple for most as digital cameras are far more common now as are scanners if you can't come by a camera), a fairly decent computer (though even those with spec-challenged machines can play along quite well, albeit a bit slower), a sizable amount of free space on your hard drive or network drive or even a virtual drive online (especially if you plan to be more than casual about this hobby), and a good working knowledge of basic computer software operation. You don't really even need much cash as much of the embellishment used in creating a digital layout can be found for free on the Internet if you know where to look, and the programs used to create your layouts have fairly lengthy trial periods for you to enjoy gratis while you get your feet wet.

Eventually, though, you'll have to pony up a bit, and costs to continue are in my case $80 to purchase a full version of the most commonly used and in my n00b opinion best image editing software out there, Adobe Photoshop Elements version 6, plus a bit more if you go for a proper image file management system like ACDSee Photo Manager which is what my sister-in-law uses and sings the praises of. Although you might not need the image management system right off, if you are at all interested in scrapbooking digitally you will be amazed at how quickly you amass a collection of photographs, pictures of various paper treatments and decorative accents, and other accoutrement and an easy efficient and speedy way to locate these items without sifting through numerous lists of files is paramount.

If you have any love at all for creative projects or graphic design, digital scrapbooking will definitely appeal to you, especially when you've gotten your feel for the various ways to enhance and manipulate your images to create your layout - with the numerous tips, tricks, shortcuts, and even layout templates out there, having a professional-looking page for your digital photobook (or for taking to a printer for professional production) takes mere minutes, and I'm not kidding. Compare this to the extremely lengthy time involved in creating a physical layout from scratch, and you'll understand why I'm so excited about this. If you've been reading, you know the main theme of this blog is Busy Parent, and things that save me time yet allow me to produce wonderful and immensely satisfying results are extremely attractive to me.

So as I wrote, I've been studying under the direction of my sister-in-law, a traditional-style and digital scrapbooking Queen, for the last couple weeks as part of a test-run for her desire to start teaching this craft and her extensive knowledge of it to other n00bs like me. I'm participating in a six-lesson beta course which will one day soon be a public offering for a nominal fee, at which point you too can have this colour. =) Along with the instruction, my sis-in-law even provides lesson notes and all class materials - you supply your trial-version of Elements and some ready-to-edit digital photographs. I learn, along with my Aunt, via GoToMeeting (a license of your own is not necessary to learn from my sis) and at the end of each week's lesson I've produced a (to me) impressive-looking layout I'm proud of, and all this with no prior experience with Photoshop whatsoever (although I do again want to hit upon the importance of a fairly solid computer software operation skill set; you'll play faster and happier if you've got that one down).

I'm really very pleased at what I've been able to do using my to-date very basic knowledge of these tools and tricks, and am realizing the possibilities are vast as I progress in skill. If you've got a collection of digital or even actual photographs languishing in a folder or drawer somewhere and you don't know what to do with them, or if you've become familiar with traditional scrapbooking but were scared away by the time/cost/space requirements/soccer-mom-esque aspects of it, then this might well very be a delicious alternative for you! I'll post an announcement when my sis-in-law is ready to start teaching, and if you contact me privately I'll put you in touch with her.

Learn more about the history (all the way back to Ancient Greece in rudimentary form) and evolution of modern scrapbooking here!

Check out what I've been able to create in just the two weeks I've been learning!

Week 1

Week 2

sesame street flashback | an orange sings 'Carmen.'

2008-09-04T17:47:00.001-07:00

This probably has something to do with why I enjoy opera to this day. But you gotta admit - Sesame Street was really weird! All that post-sixties stuff floating around in an exhaled haze... ahem... well, it's no wonder my generation, forced to watch hours of this stuff, is a little ... odd. =) Update: upon reading this post, my mother emailed and reminded me she never had to force me to watch Sesame Street because I loved it so much. I suppose others from my generation loved to watch as well. Were you one of the forced? Leave a comment!

my token DNC post

2008-08-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

Here in it's entirety is what I just wrote in an email to my dear friend Cheryl when asked if I and the kids were planning to attend Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field later this evening.

"Yes, it’s all a very big deal. =) My friend Katie that I’ve mentioned on Twitter and her fiancée Jon sublet their loft which is just three blocks from the convention center for the week (ours is more like ten), and are staying at her parents’ home in a nearby suburb, still having to commute into the city every day for work as they chose not to go on vacation during this week (Jon luckily telecommutes much of the time), so she’s having to fight her way into the city each day through all the mess and crowds and traffic. Katie says she saw Hillary and Chelsea exiting one of Denver’s most famous hotels, The Brown Palace, the other day. But as you know, I’m not really one to get star struck. These are just people, after all, and yes they’re very important people, but I don’t see the need to treat them like aliens or Jeebus or something. =) I’m not saying that’s what you are doing. I’m just always the first to kind of stay away from these big brouhahas and far prefer to observe safely out of the limelight. I made sure I got all my errands that would take me anywhere near where all this is happening done last week and over the weekend so I could happily avoid all the mess, and I must say it has been quite nice. One happy effect of the convention is that many people did leave town this week or are starting their commutes hours earlier than normal, so overall traffic has been very light unless you’re closer to the epicenter of everything.

I think people who have had a taste of what public scrutiny can be like tend to feel this way, only bathing in the limelight if they must, and although I was never anything like a superstar, in my own tiny microcosm at CCC I got very weary of all the constant attention, everyone wanting to be around me all the time, everyone hanging on my every word or action just to be close to the small level of fame I was experiencing because of my voice. It just always tended to wear me out, and so I never want to be the one to inflict that on others who really are famous. =) So, although I’ve been watching the coverage all week on our big screen in HD, I’ve completely avoided downtown entirely and as the routes I take to the boys’ school cut across the top of the city, I’ve been very successful in staying out of the masses. I thought Hillary gave a wonderful speech. I’m sure she’s really unhappy about not winning, but she was believable and that’s what mattered; I found her words inspiring. I also enjoyed Bill’s speech and still have Biden’s to watch which I plan to do later this afternoon (I recorded it).

Yeah, so the Kennedys are in town and Susan Sarandon has been spotted several times as have so many other important Democrat celebs and noteworthys; Rudy Giuliani is here too even though he’s a Republican, and so is Mitt Romney and pretty much anyone who is anyone, all stumping about all over the city I call home. But so what? =) I think it’s really cool and all and great exposure and a financial boon for our fair city, but I just don’t want to sit in traffic. They did move the speech event to a larger forum tonight – it’s being held at our football stadium, Invesco Field (we have that plus a baseball stadium, Coors Field, for the Rockies games), which I’ve been to several times. They’re also closing down entirely all the parking lots that surround Invesco Field to handle the overflow crowds and non-ticketed folks that want to be near the action; people will have to park elsewhere and shuttle or walk in.

Friends of ours are having parties; other people we know were actually able to get tickets to be inside the stadium. But N and I didn’t really want to bother with it, frankly. He’s out of town; it’s a school night, and our lives aren’t really stopping just because of what’s happening this week. Maybe they should; maybe this makes me lame; but both Nathan and I are pretty much “Well, BFD” about the whole thing. It’s cool; it’s exciting; it’s on prime time; the whole world is watching; it’s clogging the streets not even an eighth of a mile from my home with traffic and reporters and delegates and celebrities and demonstrators (we actually did get caught in traffic trying to get back from the boys’ beloved skate park in LoDo on Sunday because of a demonstration), and in general the whole thing is something of a hassle that I can’t really say I’ll be sorry to see end. The kids got a taste of what it was like when we got stuck on Sunday, and I’ve been having them watch bits of the televised coverage so when they grow up they can say they saw it. Overall, I think that’s enough.

After all, even if I did try to get close to the stadium, the security checkpoints cordoning much of the city creates long lines and there are already thousands of people ahead of me trying to get to the stadium even now as I write this, so I’d basically have to drop everything NOW and zoom off to pull the kids out of school and hurry down there … for what? To get stuck in traffic, probably, and even with the windows down I doubt I’d be able to hear much. I know it's an historic moment, but I’d rather just skip the crowds entirely, help the kids with their homework, have a quick dinner, and watch the whole thing from the comfort of my living room. =) At least that way I can guarantee myself the best view and the best seats in the house.

Does my attitude surprises you? Maybe this is just me being misanthropic, but that’s always been a pretty strong bent in my personality. ;) Or, perhaps I’m on overload – I mean, it’s really all anyone’s been talking about all year and even before that since when Denver was awarded the honor of hosting this auspicious event, so maybe some of us locals are just a bit sick of the whole thing. ;)"

So that should sum up my thoughts and feelings about all the excitement going on in my city all week quite nicely.

a shot in the dark...

2008-08-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

So many of you have been asking to learn more about Nathan's company, ShotSpotter, so I've decided to briefly explain a bit more about it and include some links to various articles, press releases, and videos demonstrating the technology.

Nathan is a Project Manager for ShotSpotter, a position he was recruited for only a few months after passing his PMP Certification exams with top scores. I'm very proud of him; Nathan consistently excels in all his professional endeavors (and domestic, for that matter). Because he has such high standards, he is consistently impressing his superiors and peers everywhere he works simply by doing what comes naturally to him but at a level that is so far above the lackadaisical norm that he is always referred to as a hot shot, a top dog, and someone who just blows everyone away with his attention to detail and solid work ethics. He is enjoying his time with ShotSpotter very much, although feels he has been travelling a good bit more than we originally expected. However, steps are being taken to scale back some of that in the coming months, though probably not until after the first of next year. Our hope is for Nathan to progress within the company within a relatively short time and eventually be invited to work in the company's corporate offices in Silicon Valley (which would result in our relocating to that general area).

ShotSpotter is a company which manages the installation of a suite of gunshot location systems covering a predetermined set of square miles within a specifc area of a city, and is primarily attracting the dollars of larger city governments with higher crime rates, including cities overseas in addition to within the United States (and has also caught the interest of the military). Nathan's responsibilities are to manage the installation for specific cities, interfacing with local law enforcement and government, attending press conferences, overseeing the assignment of specific sites for installation of the gunshot location equipment, and managing the installation project in general. The installations are very high profile, being somewhat controversial, and have very impressive results in lowering crime rates.

Here are some links to press, pics and videos for ShotSpotter, some of them focusing on the projects Nathan has been slaving away over for the last few weeks.

St. Louis, MO - click here

Various vids: click here and here

Additional Press via Google:

"Gunshot sensors being installed in Nassau Newsday - Long Island, NY, USA Technicians from ShotSpotter are now considering precisely where in Uniondale and Roosevelt to post the sensors for the $833000 system. ..."

"One of the Safest Counties in the Nation Selects ShotSpotter MarketWatch - USA The Nassau County Police Department will be implementing the ShotSpotter Gunshot Location System in the communities of Uniondale and Roosevelt (New York) ..."

"Gunshot sensors will alert Nassau cops to trouble Newsday - Long Island, NY, USA Technicians from ShotSpotter, the company that makes the detector, are now considering precisely where in Uniondale and Roosevelt to post the sensors for ..."

And finally, pics posted from a recent press conference: click here

sometimes monkeys fly around our loft

2008-08-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

A quickie about the sign I made for the refrigerator over the weekend. =) My Mother gave me the idea -- she said she saw a similar slogan on a sign in her bank the other day, and I imagine it looked something like this one I found (which used to be in production) on the net. I made my own version; the kids (and Nathan) love it. Thanks for the idea, Mom! OH, and you might be wondering who Père is -- it's ME! =) The children decided long ago to call me 'Père' because two guys called 'Dad' in one household could potentially be really confusing. Père is the word 'Father' in French.

sad little mice

2008-08-05T12:59:00.001-07:00

My poor sad little mice! Oh how frustrating to be trapped in the house on such a sweltering hot Summer day! (Until just recently, we had a ten-day right ole' fashioned heat wave - BOO - and it was too hot even to go outside.) For this photo, which I admittedly staged, I told the boys to lie on their beds and look 'bored.' I think the end result is they look a little closer to dead or catatonic, but you take what you can get. The reality is frequently (during the summers especially) I will walk past their room on my way to the kitchen and find them in very similar positions and with very similar expressions on their faces, and upon asking what's wrong, one of them (usually Forrest) will say, "I'm bored." Oh, to be bored! Think about it--it actually sounds vaguely pleasant! To have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do, nowhere to be, no one calling out to you asking you for help, advice, involvement, supervision ... and to just sit there, letting your mind drift through the endless possibilities of what could possibly fill your time, contemplating each opportunity and holding it up to the sun where it catches the light and sparkles like a precious jewel... I wish I was bored more often. But I digress. I'm supposed to be telling you about The Chickens.

Chickens? Well, perhaps I should digress further and explain one of the silliest nicknames in our family. It's actually a reference to one of my favorite films, the legendary 'Gone With The Wind,' specifically the scene in which Scarlett has just bravely shot the Yankee intruder in the grand stairwell of her family's Plantation home, called Tara. Discovered by her sister-in-law Melanie (who slyly had plans of her own for the intruder involving her deceased brother Charles's sword), Scarlett shows little remorse over what she felt she had to do to protect herself and those she was responsible for and instead seems only shocked and disgusted. Scarlett's sisters and father, outside and overhearing the shot, call out in alarm and Melanie rushes to a large window and throws it open to quickly explain away the damning noise of the gunshot. "Don't be scared, chickens!" she calls out coolly, sounding glib and in a high state of humor to calm them. "Your big sister was trying to clean the revolver and it went off and nearly scared her to death!" And now, through the magic of YouTube, you can watch the entire scene by clicking here if you have four minutes and thirty-nine seconds to spare. =) Thank you, lagirl8. SO, somehow that scene just stuck in the flotsam and jetsam of my mind over the years and when I became an impromptu father it just made sense to call the boys 'The Chickens.' I've even got Nathan doing it and now anyone casually overhearing us discuss the children might think we have a coop somewhere out back and be slightly confused. I'm sure it's something the boys will laugh at when they're older, and yeah, I know how gay all of this about the movie and all make me sound but ... well ... =) There you have it. Anyhow, now that I've introduced The Chickens to you properly, I'll continue writing about what sad little mice they are these days. (Mice, chickens ... perhaps I really do belong on a farm somewhere!)

So they're bored much of the time. It's frankly supremely challenging to keep them entertained, and it doesn't matter what recent toy or game they've just received (usually after placing it at the top of a wish-list or pestering us incessantly for it) -- not more than a paltry few hours later they'll announce they have once again become afflicted with acute boredom. During the school-year week-days, there's usually plenty of activity to occupy them much of the time so we don't hear the 'I'm bored' routine too often, but summers and weekends it becomes a regular refrain. Nathan and I are largely puzzled. Their room is filled to the brim with fantastic books, various toys, board games, art supplies, and the like (much of it rather expensive stuff). They've got RC cars, an ant farm (more on that later), a microscope and slides, bug catchers, iPods, a video camera, a rock tumbler, numerous TechDecks and ramps to finger-skate them on, and the list could go on and on and on. They've access to numerous DVDs and of course the coup de grace, the PS3 system with almost a dozen games (we've only had it a few months so our collection is a bit young; note the tongue-in-cheek here). They have expensive skate boards, razor scooters, and competition-grade in-line skates (I fought Nathan tooth-and-nail against that purchase, but he won out and so Jerrod received those for Christmas one year). We've even tried summer-long passes to the local theme-and-water-park, all to no avail. I'm sure many of you might be thinking they're spoiled rotten, and although we really fight the 'spoil' part of it, you'd be right in thinking they have more than many children in the world at their disposal. And yet, inevitably, they tire of it all and that's when I'll find them moping in their room, near-comatose, and sighing "I'm bored." But I have a theory: They're not really bored - they're just over-stimulated.

Now, I admittedly laugh at myself and realize fully the paradox of my current perspective, but such is the great irony of our culture: when we're young, the adults who rule us are idiots, but when we're older, suddenly we realize how smart they were. So, forgive me as I done my 'When I Was A Child' cap and continue. When I Was A Child, for much of the time there weren't any video gaming consoles or computers or Cable-TV or iPods or Blu-ray DVD players. There was only Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, several toys, tons of books to read, a swimming pool, a swing-set, a sand-box (that I wasn't really even allowed inside much because the neighborhood cats liked it all too well), and Outside. I'm sure I bugged my Mother with the occasional 'I'm bored;' most children do, after all, but I also remember having a very active imagination and spending hours making up games to play by myself or with my brother involving whatever I could find lying about outside or my marbles or walls to walk along or the ivy in our front yard or whatever. And when I wasn't doing that, I would explore the neighborhood on my bicycle or read books or listen to records (remember those?) or, when allowed, watch a bit of television. I had a couple of neighborhood friends I would play with from time to time, but for the most part I spent a great deal of time by myself, especially when I was younger, and I don't remember feeling unhappy with that - I wasn't an overly lonely child that way (though others might have thought me to be so). I simply liked playing by myself and got very good at providing my own entertainment whenever necessary. As I aged, I became an avid reader and would while away whole afternoons and summer vacations reading book after book, begging my Mother to take me to the library to pick out something new.

Today's kids, though, are a different breed altogether. When measured up against the latest blockbuster film like 'The Dark Knight' complete with all the explosions and effects of a madman's technicolor dream, or pitted against the latest computer or PS3 game in all its cyber-glory and hyper-realism, or even compared to things like the Disney Chanel in high definition, it's no wonder modern children have little use for books or imagination. After all, how can the images in their heads compete with the indescribable beauty of what they see on the numerous projection-screens and LCD-panels that surround them almost constantly?

And yet, this frustrates Nathan and I greatly. We firmly believe what lead to much of the technological wonders our generation has invented was imagination itself, so we're just not ready to stop trying to assist the children in developing theirs. Unfortunately, our generation's very vision seems to be bringing about the destruction of the seeds it grew from as commercialism and consumerism become larger and larger forces in the lives of America's children--movies and shows and video games become bigger, better and ever more enticing all in the name of selling the next expensive gadget or experience to our kids via our wallets. To combat this, Nathan and I do everything we can to strictly limit the amount of time The Chickens spend plugged into the box, or the computer, or the PS3, and yet even with strictly controlled exposure it still seems their imaginations are stunted somehow. We try to augment television with instruction, limiting them to selections like The Discovery Channel and The Science Channel and shows like 'Mythbusters' or 'Dirty Jobs' with only occasional forays into 'Disney Channel' land (I just hate that Miley Cyrus, don't you??). Yet our efforts to try and broaden their minds seem to flop much of the time, and more often than not the boys will beg to watch that insipid 'Life of Ryan' instead. =(

They loathe being made to go play 'outside.' I make them - I'm a firm believer in fresh air and exercise for children (and, admittedly, the blessed peace it brings the adults who remain 'inside'). But it's never easy. "We don't want to play outside," they protest. "There's nothing to do." As they've aged, I've even extended their boundaries outside beyond the walls of the large courtyard our loft and the others in our loft community share to include two blocks in almost every direction, but after a few trips around that perimeter on skateboards and skates, they come inside after being gone only a half-hour or so and the 'Boredom' song begins anew. The only way I can easily get them to spend longer amounts of time out of doors is to take them to the skate park in LoDo (lower downtown), and even that has been difficult lately as Forrest doesn't want to go unless the temperature is somewhere in the 70's (Jerrod is too young to go all by himself). By the way, the photo on the website is really old - I don't even know what that white building to the left is; it's not there anymore and I've never seen it before. Here is a video of them skating that Nathan took over the weekend. =)

They both have telephone numbers and email addresses for any number of friends they could call to try and set up social functions with or even just to pass the time, but that doesn't seem to overly tempt them either. It seems all they really want to do is play video games (Jerrod) or watch hours of television (Forrest) and sometimes I wonder if what they're craving isn't really more stimulation at all but instead a sort of refuge from having to exercise their brains - mindless entertainment. BOO to that, I say! I'm not about to give up and raise little couch potatoes like so many other American families are these days. Now, in their defense, The Chickens do play together, and fairly well, from time to time but these sessions seem far too few and the boredom zombies never seem to rest too easily. During the summers when free-time is more plentiful for them we transition from a daily-media-time schedule of an hour per day each to media days (two hours apiece) three days per week plus loosely monitored extra time on weekends. When The Chickens are suffering through a long off-media day, they might play together for awhile but then all of a sudden I'll notice they've gone quiet and this is when I'll catch them lolling about listlessly in their room like sad little mice and I'll hear the dreaded words, "I'm bored. Can't we please play games or watch television?" It drives me nuts, and I just don't know how to combat it effectively. Do you have any ideas? Post a comment. It takes a village, after all. =)

A Note About The Ant Farm: While they were visiting, my Mother and Stepfather (a.k.a. Mammy and Grumps; I guess my family really is big on nick names) bought the boys an ant farm from a hobby store in Boulder we visited together one afternoon. This new toy seems to be captivating the children's interest a bit more than some of their others; they both seem to really enjoy nature and science (in small doses, however, as I've said), and today's ant farm is far cooler than the ones I remember seeing around when I was growing up. In this photo of Forrest and The Ants, we had just received the ants via mail order after several days of waiting and I had just gingerly and quickly deposited the tube they shipped in into the securely-fastened chamber filled with blue nutrient-enriched gel. Nobody told me they were RED HARVESTER ANTS!!! Yes, the BITING STINGING KIND! YIKES!! Don't worry, I wore gloves, and the lid is VERY secure or this little window to ant world wouldn't be in our home. The ant farm even lights up! Pretty cool, eh? Thank you, Mammy & Grumps!

my secret weapons

2008-08-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

So how do I keep on top of things (for the most part)? How do I remember where everyone is supposed to be, what everyone needs to do when they get there, and where we're supposed to all leap to next? How do I manage to keep the floors mostly clean with two kids, two cats, and constant foot traffic everywhere? Well, it's very simple, really - I have an arsenal of secret weapons I'd like to share with you (because yes, these days, I'm domestic that way). ;) I rely heavily on each of these items in my arsenal, and without them I'd truly be lost (or at least quite puzzled and living in a really dirty environment). Here they are, in no particular order.

My iPhone. I waited to buy as long as I could possibly stand it, and then broke down and jumped on earlier this March; it was actually my big birthday present from Nathan this year (back when these babies were a bit more expensive than the current model is today). Yes, I know my old model is yesterday's gadget because the new one (which I knew was scheduled for release this summer when I bought; I just didn't want to wait) is so shiny and pretty and a bit faster at loading web pages, but other than that there really isn't much difference. My model runs the much-touted 2.0 OS software just like the brand new machines, and works in exactly the same ways as the 3G model. So it's not quite as speedy when I'm away from a WiFi hotspot - and I admit, yes, the Edge network I'm stuck with in those moments can be painfully s-l-o-w at times - but does that mean I should just dump the investment Nathan generously made for me to have an iPhone and buy up? I don't think so, at least not yet. I'm thinking I'll keep using my no-longer-quite-cutting-edge model for another year or two at least. With my iPhone, I can truly do everything and anything, from the obvious making phone calls, browsing the internet, and checking email to using it as a remote control to operate my iTunes from anywhere in the house (handy as my office area is on the second floor of our loft and I'm usually somewhere else) to using Twitter on the go to managing the countless bits of information that fly my way constantly (more about Evernote in a bit) to listening to my favorite tunes at the gym or in the car. I would be truly powerless without it. Just in case you've always wanted to take a peak at one but have been two embarrassed to ask the person using it, here's an older vid that covers just the basics. The new OS update (2.0) has really kicked the device into high gear and now I love it even more - with the hugely improved GoogleMaps application I'm now never lost and can easily drive anywhere without having to suction-cup a navigation device to my windshield or buy DVD-updates for an in-car model, and I can operate any of the hundreds of Applications available at the iTunes App Store (which can do anything from locate nearby restaurants and shops complete with customer reviews to maintain virtual 'pets' to let you network with friends and acquaintances via the GPS technology built into the iPhone to ... the possibilities are truly infinite). My iPhone is my life and fits neatly into my pocket.

My Mercedes-Benz E-320. This weapon-blurb is really for people that aren't local to me or haven't visited me here in Denver yet. I'm not trying to show off, honest -- these days our vehicles are so very important to us, extensions of our very personas in some cases, and almost members of our families. We rely on them for so much more than just transportation from point A to point B. So please forgive me for sounding trite; I simply want to share with you what I'm privileged enough to be driving these days (and believe me, I never for one single second forget just how very lucky I am). As all of you know, I've always enjoyed sports cars and like to name them (many of you will remember my beloved silver VW Beetle Sport Turbo, 'Lola' from when I was in my twenties). So this is Charles, and we have an absolutely wonderful symbiosis. OK, not really, but it sure seems that way. I can't lie to you - The car is nothing short of amazing to drive, anticipating my every move, literally learning my driving style and storing that information in my key so the engine is always ready to handle what I'm going to do next, and keeping us all safe. Without it, how else could I zoom around that oh-so-painfully-slow Subaru driver in front of me because I'm dashing from one end of town to the other with only minutes to spare? =) Thank you, Nathan, for Charles - he means the world to me.

The LitterMaid Elite 900. Yes, I still love kitties. And unfortunately for the two asthmatics in our family (Nathan and Jerrod), so does Nathan (don't worry; these days Nathan and Jerrod are both heavily medicated so their asthmatic condition stays pretty-much non-existent much of the time). So, we have two beauties: Khensu [KEN.soo, an Egyptian name meaning bringer of light and joy], the loveably goofy black Persian I brought with me from California, and Roarke (after Howard Roarke from The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand), an absolute sweetheart of a mixed-bag Nathan and I adopted from a local shelter about a year after I'd moved here. With that much fur flying around, we've all found it a bit tough to keep up with the litterbox, especially given what a busy (and typical) family we are. So, we jumped and bought the Littermaid Elite 900, an absolute dream come true for cat owners. Now, all Forrest has to do is empty the charcoal-filtered catch-all once a week or so instead of constantly scooping out the cat box. Robotic appliances are COOL! Say 'Thank You,' boys. =)

The iRobot 560 Roomba Vacuuming Robot. Like many lofts, we have sealed and stained concrete floors, and these make up the first floor of our loft everywhere but the boys' room and their bathroom (everywhere else is tile or Berber carpeting). What with the dust we carry in from outdoors and the little cat tufts which tend to somehow spring up overnight (mostly from Khensu), I found myself needing to vacuum almost constantly. Thankfully, I was able to add another robot to my mini-army here at home and so the Roomba came to be an important part of our family life here in loft-land. Yes, it takes longer for the Roomba to vacuum an area than if I did it myself, but as iRobot points out, Roomba vacuums so I don't have to. =) Running the Roomba almost daily keeps our high-traffic areas (and the not-so-highly-trafficked ones) looking their best without me chasing dust all over the place; I simply prep the area I want cleaned by positioning the portable electronic eyes that came with the unit to keep Roomba out of anywhere I don't want it going just then, and move any furniture I easily can out of its way such as dining room chairs and barstools, and then turn it on and walk away. Roomba takes care of the rest, and even finds its way home to its docking/charging station when its done. I love you, Roomba!

The Dyson Animal DC17 Vacuum. I love this thing! It really is a better vacuum! We really avoided buying one for a long time because they're so expensive, but Bed Bath & Beyond hasn't figured out the wisdom of excluding these on those '20% off' coupons they send out constantly so when we finally realized that, it didn't seem quite so bad after all. I tell you honestly, our carpets have never been cleaner unless we've had them professionally cleaned. The first time I used it, I was absolutely appalled at what the dirt chamber was collecting and what we'd been living with all that time, thinking we were keeping things clean enough with our old vacuum (which we dropped off at the Salvation Army immediately afterwards). I use the Dyson on all our carpets and for quick mess-clean-ups in the kitchen.

Novo Coffee - Get Closer. A note about my drug of choice. I couldn't make it at all without my daily double-espresso, either drunk as a hot or iced latte(depending on the weather) or else all by itself. Everyone has their vices, and I'm no different. Being as into food as I am, it shouldn't be any surprise to you that I take my caffeine addiction very seriously, and see no reason why I shouldn't give my coffee the same attention as I give the other foods I consume. All of Novo's beans are single-origin, organic, and completely fair trade. All of their blends are roasted right here in Denver. Novo has some of the precious few Rancilio multi-group lever presses this side of the US (normally not seen outside of Italy), one in each of their three locations throughout Colorado (these machines retail for above $8K US and pull arguably some of the best espresso shots in the world). Novo also uses the touted Clover machines (another rare multi-thousand-dollar iPod-esque miracle) to brew their 'drip' coffees. Novo definitely gives all of their offerings supreme attention to detail and quality. Weaning myself off of Starbucks after I moved to Denver, I've since learned a great deal about coffee and have been down the road of the Illy bean and other local beans, each experience getting better until I discovered Novo and finally reached what I firmly believe is espresso Nirvana. What's good enough for Denver apparently is good enough for New York City, as Novo single-origin beans are sold in NY's famed Cafe Grumpy locations, including a special blend roasted just for them called 'Heartbreaker.' Novo strives to elevate espresso and coffee consumption to the level of wine tasting, a just comparison as Coffee has 1,500 discernable components of flavor - three times more than wine. Upper-left is my favorite Novo barista, Johanna. Local Press for Novo.

The Magic of Evernote. I'm a huge scatterbrain, a condition not really very conducive to a busy and fast-paced lifestyle, so I've had to cheat as much as possible, using electronic ways of remembering and reminding myself of everything I need to be able to recall at a moment's notice. My Mother says if I rely too much on these methods, I'll degrade what little memory I have, but I'd rather do that then not be able to successfully recall much of anything which would otherwise be (and has been) the norm for me. I finally stumbled upon Evernote just the other week and am completely in love. They not only have multiple ways to notate information (handwriting, audio, and photographic notes in addition to standard typing), but also have released a brilliant mobile app for the iPhone which syncs fluidly with the desktop application so I can take all of the information I need with me whereever I go. Now I no longer see things in a shop to consider purchasing at some point in the future and have to remember what it was hours later when I return home (which I usually wasn't very successful at) or memorize the titles of trailers I see at the movie theatre for later research. Without Evernote, I wouldn't be able to so effortlessly access and manage all the stuff I need to know and process to be an effective busy parent. =) If you're like me, consider checking it out -- it'll change your life.

The Pottery Barn Daily System. Now, I'm certainly no lover of Pottery Barn. Their style no longer suits me (and hasn't since I moved to Denver), their prices are frankly somewhat ridiculous, and the brand is worshipped by most Suburbanites (which makes me want to run away to begin with). It's OK for me to talk smack about Suburbanites as I used to be one. =) I generally gravitate more towards Crate&Barrel for my home accessories (yes, a corporation as well, I know, but far more in touch with effective corporate responsibility than the whole Williams-Sonoma conglomorate). However, PB sells something I absoloutely love and would be loathe to live without - a daily organization system made to hang anywhere you like and comprised of several components all unified by a polished wood frame and brushed metal hardware. One of the keys to staying organized and efficient is having a central repository for various things needed to be at the ready at all times, and this system definitely meets that need. I have a relatively modest set including a coarkboard, some filing bins for incoming mail and catalogues, a white-board calendar, a chalkboard, and a supply bin / key caddy. Conveniently located inside our back door as seen in the photo, this is where we throw our sunglasses, hang our keys, pin up postcards and invitations, make lists for the family to see, track the children's chores, and maintain our household calendar so everyone can keep track of everything we've got going on. It's definitely not cheap, but well worth it. PB even offers a module which can plug into a standard wall socket and serve as a charging station for your household's various electronic devices. Now, if I could just figure out a way to get it to sync with my iPhone... =)

The Big Book O' Martha. Do you know the best way to get candelwax out of the carpet or how to properly care for your granite countertops? How about how often through the year you should perform the numerous chores required to effectively keep and maintain your home? I don't either, but with Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook, I don't have to remember how -- I just look it all up as I need to know. Far more than just a fussy book of lists and silly trivia, this book effectively catalogues virtually everything you would ever want to know about caring for and maintaining your home, from what a surfactant is and why it makes your cleaning products so effective to what time of year you should clean out your gutters. Once it was decided domesticity would become my primary role in our household, I decided to get serious about it and this book has really helped me get organized, stay on track, and properly clean and maintain our home. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Read the reviews and see for yourself.

so far ...

2008-08-03T18:35:00.000-07:00

Wow. It seems like forever since I've had time to sit and think and write. I've definitely not been the best at making time for myself to do these kinds of things, but I have vowed to start fresh and put a bit of effort into what I hope will be a wonderful and therapeutic outlet for me as well as an easier way to keep in touch with my many friends and family members. I am not about to make any promises as to how often I might update here, but I do intend to maintain a relatively regular schedule. *crosses fingers* Hopefully I can be disciplined about it. I figure if my sister-in-law with four growing children of her own can maintain a blog amongst all the other amazing things she's able to do, then so can I. Props, Tez. =)

I intend this blog to be a snapshot of my life here in Denver, sharing details about myself, my family, things that I'm contemplating, and even an occasional rant. I promise not to go out of my way to offend any of you, dear readers, but I'm not going to mince words either. This is my blog, and I'm going to be myself here in these pages, uncensored and undiluted. That doesn't mean I'm going to curse all over the place, mind you. ;) If you don't like something you're reading, either skim over it or better yet leave a comment and express yourself. But I'm not about to start editing what I say here to make people feel more comfortable simply because they might not agree with certain parts of my life or my personality. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, after all. Therefore, consider yourself warned. =)

Also, as you can see, this initial post is rather lengthy, and I don't intend for that to be the norm at all as I really don't have the bandwidth for that kind of chattiness. However, some of you may have been out of touch with me for quite some time, and so I have a lot to say in my efforts to bridge that gap. Please excuse my verbosity.

So, HELLO to all of you! *Xtian waves ecstatically* I miss those of you I don't get to see often enough, and look forward to seeing those of you whom are just a stone's throw away. Here's what's been going on over the last few years or so (in brief) of my life, and if you're local to me you can pretty much just skip this part as you've heard about it already.

What I have I been up to lately? Nathan, the wonderful and amazing guy I moved to Denver for, and I are still committed and happy together and will be celebrating our sixth year as a couple next month. Although moving to another state to live in a city I'd only passed briefly through before has been a huge and monumental transition for me, it was a good one, and I've never been healthier or happier in all my days.

These days I’m spending my time as a stay-at-home Dad while Nathan climbs the corporate ladder – I stopped working about three years ago. Nathan’s two sons, Forrest (age 13) and Jerrod (almost 10) live with us full-time, and they keep me super-busy! I spend a typical day (when they’re in school) shuttling them to their classes for the day, then hitting the gym, doing what it takes to manage our household (bills, planning, etc.), and then trying to catch a few precious moments to myself doing something fun (this ranges from visiting the local botanic gardens to read a book to having coffee with a friend to doing a bit of gaming)—you know, just living the daily grind.

This year, we did the usual for PrideFest in June; Denver has a really big festival, and we spent a bit of time (sans kids) catching up with friends and drinking a bit of course and booth shopping etc. =) What is PrideFest? It is an annual festival held in cities around the globe celebrating the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, as well as "the philosophy asserting that LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) individuals should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity. The word pride is in this case an antonym for shame, which has been used to control and oppress LGBT persons throughout history. LGBT pride advocates work for equal "rights and benefits" for LGBT people.[1][2][3] The movement has three main premises: that people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity, that diversity is a gift, and that sexual orientation and gender identity are inherent and cannot be intentionally altered.[4]"(from wikipedia.org)

Last spring, the four of us spent a week at the Disneyland Hotel in California; it was Nathan’s and the kids’ first trip so I was anxious to show them everything I’ve been bragging about compared to Denver’s sadly pathetic amusement parks for so long. We all had a blast, and were able to spend time with my sister Julie, who lives in L.A. and spent several days at the park with us, and also with my mother and stepfather who flew down from Sacramento to meet Nathan and the boys for the first time and spend a couple of days getting to know them.

Summer just FLEW by – I’m always tons busier during those months than any other time of the year as the kids are home. We would've liked to send them to a camp as in years past, but frankly their grades weren't up to snuff at the end of the year and so as a consequence we enrolled them in Sylvan Learning Institute instead. Now that the boys will be heading back to school in just a couple of weeks or so, things will quiet down a bit as I settle into my ‘Taxidriver’ routine. I’m still trying to get the kids to tip me when they exit the vehicle, but they won’t do it. ;)

At least I’m more than comfortable taxiing in the Mercedes-Benz E class Nathan bought me a couple years ago for my birthday. See, even though I’ve changed quite a bit since coming out and moving away, I still kept a bit of my attitude from before. =) Forrest, our oldest, will be starting eighth grade, and spends much of his free time skateboarding and reading (we've finally found the right books). Jerrod will celebrate his tenth birthday in September, will be starting fourth grade and loves in-line skating as a counterpoint to Forrest’s skateboarding obsession. Both the boys are huge film buffs and are very attached to their beloved PS3 (the use of which is rationed strictly; I'm a real Nazi). Jerrod will also play the trumpet again in the school band this year, although he has expressed interest in the saxophone and might switch. Having them in more after-hours activities keeps me on the road more, but also affords me a bit of extra time to myself. Thankfully we offset all the driving I do by being green and organic in most other areas of our lives. I love Whole Foods so much! =)

So yes, I’m a stay-at-home Dad, and still loving that. Surprisingly, I’ve managed not spend too much time Martha-ing out by cleaning too much; I’ve spent much time at the botanic gardens and art museums this year, and have a series of lectures I want to attend lined up for the fall. I also tend to read quite a bit, although I’ve never let go of my passion for PC gaming and am currently still playing ‘The Sims 2’ and replaying ‘Bioshock.’

Nathan changed careers last year, having spent many months earlier studying for his PM (project management) certification exam, which he passed with flying colors last Summer. He promptly made plans to leave the bank he was working at, and successfully transitioned to another position as a project manager last August for 9squared, a ring-tone manufacturer with their U.S. headquarters just three blocks from our loft downtown (you might have used realtonejukebox.com? that’s them). After just a few months working there, he was hunted down by a recruiter for and accepted a position with ShotSpotter, a gunshot location systems company. There was a flurry of the two companies bidding to keep Nathan, but ultimately ShotSpotter made him the better offer and off he went to work for them. He won a huge bump in salary, stock options, and vast career advancement potential and now spends much of his time traveling to various parts of the east and west coasts and in between managing system installation projects for various metropolis's throughout the country. ShotSpotter is already expanding its scope to handle installations overseas, and if you haven't yet heard of them you almost certainly will at some point in the future.

Nathan is really enjoying Project Management far more than the systems analyst (read: I.T.)work he used to do. He’s been wanting to make that transition for a while, and is thrilled he was able to manage the change successfully. ShotSpotter flies him home to Denver every single weekend (and back out again) when he’s travelling, so we get to see him some of the time, but the rest of the time when he's off the road he gets to spend working from home which is nice. He’s racking up the auto, hotel and flight bonus miles, and has achieved super-duper platinum elite status or whatever it’s called with Hertz, Marriott and United so he’s always getting upgraded to first or business class and we’re able to rent autos and stay in hotel rooms periodically free of charge, always a nice perk.

However, having Nathan gone all week means I'm far busier than usual. Until recently, Nathan was our household executive chef, handling all things food-related (his beloved hobby) such as cooking, meal-planning, and grocery shopping. Obviously, this role for him had to be passed over to me in addition to all the other things I do to manage our household and take care of the children, and I am now something of a single parent Monday through Friday when he's not in town. I don't mind at all and am happy to take over this important part of our hearth and home, but the consequence is my time is now even more thinly spread, so after months of inner debate and trying to keep doing it all myself, I hired Nora to keep house for me on a monthly basis. She comes highly recommended from several friends and acquaintances of ours who have been thrilled with her services, and I was quite pleased and impressed with the work she did in her initial visit last month. She'll even cater and act as wait staff at parties should I require. Please don't think me a snob, however - it was through much inner turmoil that I finally broke down and allowed myself this luxury; I kind of have a teensey problem with paying someone to do things I really could do just fine by myself; it's just I can no longer effectively and efficiently manage it all. To that effect, to any of you that are/have ever been single parents, I take my hat off to you and will buy you a drink / coffee the next time I see you as a way of showing my respect and admiration. It's exhausting, and I don't see how any of you did this full-time without any reprieve (at least I get to have Nathan home to help on the weekends!).

A Note About Poor Tara: Unfortunately for my little family, tragedy struck early in the year, coinciding with Nathan's transition to his new position with ShotSpotter. On March 13th at roughly 8 PM, I received a telephone call alerting me Tara, our boys' mother and Nathan's ex-wife, had been in an extremely serious automobile accident. Nathan had just left that morning to begin his first day of work at ShotSpotter at their corporate office in Mountainview, California and planned to spend the next couple of days there for orientation and such. Initially, Tara was not expected to live through the night and reportedly had suffered extensive brain damage, spinal cord damage, etc., etc., etc. Our family was thrown into turmoil as we had to deal with the aftermath of this horrifying event, and we prepared for the worst. Desperately torn between being home to comfort the children and afraid to do a disappearing act so soon into his new position, Nathan was faced with an awful decision. We decided to wait and see what was going to happen rather than have Nathan hop on a plan right back to Denver. To make a very long story short as this tragedy is something that has literally consumed much of our time, emotional energy, and lives over the past several months, Tara beat the odds and lived on. We dealt with Forrest not wanting to see Tara right away because she was so badly hurt in the accident and did not look like herself. We've dealt with going from having the boys spend most weekends with Tara at her home to having them now live with us completely full-time. We've dealt with Nathan needing to take over coordinating Tara's extensive medical bills and forwarding them on to the correct insurance carriers and the like, fielding countless telephone calls and emails, all because there was simply no one else to handle these things for her. We've dealt with Tara moving through various levels of critical condition as she fought to survive and to recover. I'm sure you can appreciate what a horrible and completely exhausting thing this has been for all of us, especially for Tara. Early on, we put both the boys into therapy, and they've been seeing their psychiatrist separately on a weekly basis (though just recently Jerrod completed his treatment and Forrest has scaled back to twice a month). And so this is how things have been, and to date Tara is a patient at Craig Hospital, one of the best spinal injury rehabilitative centers in the country. She has very little movement in any of her limbs and significant gaps in her mental faculties, but her movement is getting better bit by bit although the doctors are extremely cautious about offering any possibility of full recovery and in fact it is believed Tara will probably be more like a quadriplegic than anything else. Her mental gaps have left her largely emotionally unstable, prone to fits of irrational behavior and bouts of crying. And yet, through it all, at times she is quite lucid; it simply depends on the moment and we never really know what to expect. Perhaps she'll be able to live something of a normal life, perhaps not. Perhaps she will remain in the hospital indefinitely, perhaps not. Perhaps she will require an assisted-living facility to take her on, perhaps not. We simply don't know, and for now must accept the not knowing. Send us your good wishes, your hopes, your prayers. We need them.

Most recently, at the start of the spring this year my sister and her husband spent a week visiting with us; we went camping and had a lovely time showing them the prettier parts of the state. We camped inside Estes Park, went white-water rafting, and visited The Stanley Hotel (she's a HUGE Stephen King buff, as am I) among other things.

Then, a couple weeks ago Nathan was working on Long Island where he’s been managing a project for a few weeks now, and so rather than have his company fly him home to Denver as usual, we had them fly me out and we spent four days in Manhattan (the boys stayed over with a good friend of our family here in town)! I hadn’t yet been to NYC and I had an absolute blast! We did all the touristy things and ate in some really amazing restaurants like Les Halles and Haru for Sushi. We visited the very first licensed pie palace in the country, Lombardi's Pizzeria. We took a mini-cruise around Lower Manhattan as the sun was setting, and I got to see much of the city as well as some amazing water sculptures along the Hudson, temporarily installed for the summer and which I had only just read about by chance earlier that afternoon in Dwell Magazine (love that one) on the plane. Our hotel was just a couple of blocks away from Grand Central Station, so the subways were our green-friendly mode of transpo the entire time we were there; we hit all the museums, Rockefeller plaza, Park Avenue, and all the other boroughs and places I’d only read about prior. I snapped TONS of pictures, and will be spending some time organizing them in the coming weeks; I’ll try to post a few when I can.

The weekend immediately after my return from New York, my Mother and Stepfather came to visit for five days; we put them up in a hotel right Downtown not far from our loft, and spent the visit showing them some of the fantastic restaurants Denver is so famous for (they’re very into food and fine dining like we are). We toured the Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy Farm and sampled cheeses, lunched at the Wynkoop Brewery and The Market, dined at Marco's Coal-Fired Oven Pizzeria, Vesta Dipping Grill and Sushi Sasa, and sampled wonderful wines at Trios Enoteca. It was an absolutely wonderful visit! Nathan and the boys are really enjoying getting to know my family, and vice a verse.

Other than that, there really isn’t too much to report – we aren’t planning on travelling anywhere too far from home over the winter (although that could change – you never know!), but will probably go snowmobiling or skiing or something as usual. I hope you and yours are doing wonderfully, and I hope you'll be coming back to visit me here in cyberspace from time to time. And if you made it this far, thanks for reading.