Elmo’s Moments

I have these moments every so often where I drive to work and realize half way there that I have been subconsciously listening to my son’s Elmo song video (I have an in car DVD player). What my mind has been doing for that 15 minutes or so I do not know. But at some level it’s been singing along like a small arm waving kid ([Yay] ‘On top of speghetti, all covered with cheese.’).

I can’t help but think that this makes me happier in some ways but in others I wonder if it makes me pine for the old days where I did not have a worry and my biggest joy was running through the soft grass in front of my parents house. Yeah. Responsibilities have a way of aging you.

I age most on those days where the toddler is especially inventive at trying new dangerous daring-do’s. He is pushing the boundaries of the world to learn about it and I am pushing those boundaries back so I don’t have to fix a broken finger or take him to the emergency room. I feel his every hurt like they are mine and that takes more energy than it probably should (I just saw him shove a full uncooked waffle into his mouth).

I do have to state that I am aging less now that I did when he was a baby. Those first eight months were a long slog through sleepless nights punctuated by hours of gas pain induced ear-piercing screams. So these times are good compared to those. At least now, I don’t have that sinking feeling in the back of my mind that we were going to die from lack of sleep (and I am convinced that it can happen, there were several times where I felt like I was heading toward some sort of light).

So times are good and the discoveries go on.

Wow. What a weekend

I am watching the toddler pull apart the analog wires on his Thomas the Tank Engine TV game controller. It is a quiet night and he is begging for attention because all of the the in-laws have left after the big weekend.

At one point we had some twenty plus people in the house. It was a bit crowded with all the wife’s family and friends enjoying themselves. The big hit was of course the big screen HDTV. This was set to a basketball game which attracted all the guys like a month to a light bulb. Which was a good separation since the women crowded into the dining room to laugh about things that I normally don’t find funny.

I have learned to stay out of that room. The moment I go in the “Oh. Here’s one of those dumb guys” ridicule starts in. So I just wander back to the living room to see if any of the guys need a beer or if the chip bowl needs to be refreshed.

I only know enough about sports to carry on simple conversations. Anything beyond the simple identification of teams and cities starts to get me lost. I don’t watch enough sports (outside of my insane interest in auto racing) to really carry on a conversation. But I make do by including tiny tidbits of my sporting past as quickly as possible.

For now I am glad the weekend is over. It takes quite a bit of energy to keep both grownups and a toddler entertained. Going back to work was restful. Of course that feeling will go away once I apply myself.

Finally got the munchkin down

Night Owl

Finally got the munch kin down. It is not a surprise that he is as much of a night owl as his father and mother. Both of us have a tendency to whittle away the late night hours on odd projects only to be begrudgingly awoken in the morning. What a rude awakening.

When I was an independent consultant one of the freedoms was being able to work at odd hours of the night. That was a good thing when I had the ability to get sleep every so often. I thought it would also be a good trait to have when I had a kid. “Well” I thought to myself, “at least I am used to being awake at night.”

It turns out that my late night tendencies did nothing soften the blow of only getting three or four hours a night. I would just lay down and as I was getting into a deep sleep would hear that small squeaky cry which quickly turned into a shrill scream (for milk).

Told you so!

A few years back I broke out of a partnership I had with three other people in Helena Montana. I broke away because of some disagreements I had over the direction of the company. Primarily, I felt like they were taking advantage of their one client and were doing nothing to improve the relationship (they, actually took the relationship for granted like it would always be available to them). There was one member of that “Partnership” who felt like he needed to control the whole company (i.e. a control freak). Which would have been fine had he any practical business knowledge and/or any kind of usable leadership skills (both, for this weak soul, are in short supply).

I left that partnership and was immediately hired away by the (previous) consulting firms one client. From there, the relationship to the one client deteriorated badly as the client now had the ability to resolve issues without being forced to use the consulting firm. That was before the IT leadership of the client changed due to a large merger.

The new IT leader showed up and interviewed my old consulting firm. Instead of jumping at the chance to resolve any upcoming issues and work with the new guy, they followed the path of self-indulgence and decided they could play coy thinking that he would go away. Unfortunate for them, the new guy stayed and needless to say the relationship with the client worsened.

Helena is a small town. On a good day there might be some 30,000 plus people in the area. So there are very few employers in town and no big company presence. The client was part of a big company (the one billion dollar propane division of a 10 billion dollar natural gas company). So, this was about the best gig in town to have when it came to IT consulting. Any IT consulting firm (slash “partnership”) of sound mind and sound business practices would have done anything to ensure that the relationship with such a lucrative client stayed solid. But not this one.

I mention all of these because today it I found out that the company is liquidating the equipment within its office. Out goes the servers, the monitors, and the fancy white-boards that they put together by hand. All of this wonderful stuff is being sold and all of the people once employed are all now gone looking for new work.

It is pathetic, really. That one man could bring down an entire company simply because he could not grow the company away from his own personality. What really happened is he felt threatened and would not consider ideas outside of his own. As time went on his attitude got worse and it started to pull apart the relationship with the client (and blinded him from being able to improve the relationship).

I feel somewhat sorry for the people that stayed with the company. But what a bunch of suckers, really. They could have seen this failure coming and either gone out on their own or been emboldened enough to stand up to this guy. But I guess blindly following somebody is easier than trying to think through finding new business and making the most of current opportunities. Which is what I did and I am now more successful than ever.

I know one thing. I have a job and they don’t. When I come home and feed my young son and sit down to read a book, I know that having that job is one of the most important things in the world. My dedication to myself is how I partly give a better world to my son.

Warm Saturday – Finally

Finally, we have a warm weekend to get out and enjoy the outdoors. Here in Denver, it has felt like Winter was never going to end (it snowed just two days back). But now it is about eighty degrees Fahrenheit and it feels good to get out and breath warm air.

I just finished mowing the lawn and once again I am wondering why we try to grow grass up here in the high country (we are over 5,300 feet above sea level). If there was some big calamity and all the people left the area, the first thing that would die is the grass. It would turn hard like straw and would blow away into nearby Nebraska (where sales of claritin would probably skyrocket).

Why do we spend all this money to grow something flat and green? Since all the fancy irrigation systems are already setup, why don’t we just grow something we can eat or at least feed somebody (or turn into bio-diesel like all the farmers tried to do with corn and sugar beets)? I’ll just save these ideas as food for thought and maybe some food for those hungry Australians (who at some point with this new drought are going to start eating kangaroos).

Quiet Night

Learning

I just put the kid to bed. We still have to lay down with him for a half hour or so before he just conks out and goes to sleep. Until that point he wiggles and turns and pokes at me and generally keeps himself from going to sleep. To slow the wiggle down process I lay my arm on top of him and start pretending that I am asleep. Some nights this works pretty quick but tonight it took almost an hour for him to settle down.

Sometimes I feel like my life is not that much different from his. I get frustrated easily. I try to complete simple tasks and get caught up in the emotion of simple failures. Come to think of it, all of us are not that different from when we were toddlers. Some people explode in anger, others just start crying when they reach a tough situation. Maybe we just learn to soften our reaction to things as we get older.

Unfortunately, as we get older we lose that zest to learn new things. I look at my son and see someone whose enthusiasm for learning out paces mine. Alex reads books, he absorbs shows that teach the alphabet, he watches us and learns how to interact with others. I find this refreshing and renewing. This makes me realize that I need to re-learn how to discover parts of the world. I need to get off the couch and wander around armed with that ‘teach me’ spirit. Yeah. I need to re-up my zest for learning. Time for more books and for using the opportunity to teach my son as an opportunity to teach myself.

Potty Training

We, like most parents with toddlers are now going through the steps of training our child to use the potty. For months this has been a futile effort of showing my son books and videos that try to describe the benefits. None of these had any effect. Alex just didn’t care that bigger kids do it nor care that he was wearing a soiled diaper that felt icky (this it seems, interfered with his agenda of learning mentioned above).

A few weeks ago I noticed one of his friends at day care was using the potty. So I started mentioning it to Alex. A few days later we got an update from daycare that he had ‘asked’ to sit on the toilet. Wow. Where did that come from? Was it peer pressure from his two older friends in the class? Geez. I hope so. That is about the only leverage we have had so far in this extended prodding exercise.

So for now Alex is only using the potty once or twice a day. So we are actively talking about the potty more than ever. We talked about pull-ups and the need to take them down when he needed to go. And we setup the bathroom downstairs so he can just walk in and sit down. So far, his habits have not changed so we might have prod him a bit more often. But we shall see since he seems to be as steadfast in not using it as his parents are in trying to get him to using it.

Social Networking – Not much happening on a personal level

[Fat solipsisms that would not fit in the Twitter box]

Social Networking

Okay. I have sent out a bunch of requests for old friends and family to join me on a series of social networking sites. And so far I have managed to collect a grand total of one person. So, what gives? Are normal users not attracted to all the wonderful relationship building qualities of social networking sites? I can’t imaging they are too busy. Do they not understand the power of these sites?

Magic Moments in SAP Usage

There is always that moment in SAP where something breaks and gives off that weak ‘bleap.’ Then some small text appears at the bottom mentioning giving me the false hope that the issue can immediately be resolved from that same egg-faced screen. And, with all the hope in the world I sheepishly click that text hoping that sometime, somewhere (probably in a parallel universe) there will be some useful bit of information to help solve the issue. *Click* Drat! Wrong again. It just another screen that repeats that patronizing bit of text. Foiled again like Charlie Brown trying to kick that ball from under Lucy’s zip fast grasp. When will I ever learn?

Mentoring

I overheard a phone conversation where it was mentioned that I would help mentor another junior Basis Admin to take over a consulting role at a local company. Which is fine, actually. I have done this about four times and it gets a bit easier each time. I just pull out the standard lists of tasks and describe what to do and what to look for until their eyes glaze over. If they have not used SAP before then this takes about ten minutes. If they have logged in and are familiar with databases, then this takes about 20 minutes.

I have stopped requiring people to write down what I say. Instead, I just hand them my notes and hope that they will review them at least once before using it as a reference during an emergency panic. Which is wishful thinking on my part since they are likely to loose the paper and just call me when things get bad. Oh well. At least I tried and at least the hours were billable.

Rainy Day in Denver

It’s may and you’d think that Summer would start at some point but no, it hasn’t. It is the middle of May and outside it is raining and snowing. Which leads me to believe that Summer is coming and it is going to be hot, long and super dry. In other words we can look forward to some seriously big wildfires in the area.

Wildfires in the western United States are amazing. Last Summer, I watched a 200 foot high wall of flames shoot up into the air in Central Montana. To see this I was watching from a windows from my house in Helena to a location 30 miles to the North.

Every time I see fires that large I get a twinge in my stomach. I just think, “God, I hope nobody gets in the way or gets trapped. And, that was the third storm I have witnessed where the storm cloud was so large that it created a thunderstorm. In broad daylight, I could see lightening streaming through the cloud (I was too far away to hear the thunder).

Fighting fires feels like war. Helicopters swoop around beating the air with their fat blades while carrying buckets of water and large bombers rumble through the sky shaking the whole town as they fly slowly off into the distance to drop more retardant. In the distance you see these machines as tiny specs highlighted against a huge black cloud. You can realize in one moment how insignificant we and our fancy machines are when compared to nature.

Weekend of Movies

I bit the bullet and picked up a large screen TV for the living room. I have always wanted a set to watch old movies on and this one really show up well in this bright room.

I have to say that I am a sucker for old movies. I started watching a few films on TCM and was amazed at the quality. Old films really turn out well on the bigger set. Even worse, I started watching a Tom Hanks marathon this weekend. This included “Saving Private Ryan” as well as “Forrest Gump.” Wow did I get sucked in. I have a hard time turning away from each of these films because the story and photography are outstanding.

I did not think HD would make that much of a difference. But watching the Lakers game in HD was amazing. Outside of the emotional aspect, this was a better way to view the game than actually being at the game. Which is pretty funny because I really don’t get into basketball (at least not pro basketball). Seeing the higher quality demonstrated how intense basketball can be (I am from Indiana after all so I do have a genetic tie-in to the sport).

Needless to day, we are now looking at upgrading out cable service to pull in more HD channels. The four or five that come with basic cable just isn’t doing it for us.

We’ll also be view more movies (and re-watching some others). Which, after seeing how much it costs (gas plus tickets plus food is now over $30) to take three of us to the local theater, is starting to feel like a great way to spend our weekends.

Wow. I should actually post here

It is a beautiful day here in Denver. The clouds are racing by, the sun is coming out, and the grass is starting to dry out.

I spent part of the morning reading through some new atheist blogs that are popping up all over the place. I have to agree with most of them. What I find surprising is how many of these there are. I think there is now quite a large groundswell of atheism in America which, is a relief after watching one religion fly planes into some buildings in New York and another one spending trillions of dollars on a poorly orchestrated war in Iraq. So, it short it is time for Americans to start considering atheism.

Our son has grown up quite a bit since I created this blog (it was supposed to record my thoughts as he grew up from a tiny baby but I never found the time to write). Right now he is in our living room watching a Leap Frog video. I feel lucky that he seems to have picked up my love for learning. He eagerly absorbs educational videos and books. And by absorb I mean he nearly memorizes these. A few months back I was surprised to see that he nearly memorized every page of a small book called “No Peeking.” I hope that he has at least some ability to memorize well. I never had that ability and it lead to a struggle in school.

Our son also has a keen interest in airplanes and helicopters. I don’t know if he picked that directly up from my interests (I didn’t really push it) but I am glad since it makes it easy to pick out toys come birthday time.

The plan for today (Saturday) is to go to the library, hit a playground, catch a quick nap, and search for a new tv to complete our home theatre. We don’t have any big plans for the weekend but really just to rest and catch up on a very busy weekend.

Oh. If you actually know me, shoot me a line.