Milestones

My eldest child turns 20 tomorrow.  Wow. There's not much point dwelling on the past, except to see how far we've all come. Getting to know all my children as they bloom into adulthood had been an honor and a privilege. They are going to be a fantastic adult, striking equal parts respect and awe in those they meet. They're not afraid of the small, petty minded stuff. In fact, they are going to make a dent in the world. I'm sure of that. Deep down I feel they were meant for more, that their sense of worth is higher than mine.
Back when my child was born, the first hands to touch their skin was mine. At that moment I stopped living for myself and began living for my children. My entire existence now revolved around them, as it should be.
My eldest child is finding themselves and creating a new world out of whole cloth.  You might have noticed I'm only using one pronoun to describe my child and that's because they are trying to figure out who and what they are. That's okay. The only thing I want them to be is happy.

A wise man can change his mind. He can listen to facts and opinions and come to a decision. He may have to reevaluate some previously held beliefs and conceptions. It took awhile for me to understand what they are going through; after all I have nothing in my personal life experience to base this on. But here's what I do know:
Casting blame, making them feel bad or criticizing them for being outside the 'norm', is a sure way to drive your own flesh and blood away from you. We've seen it all happen that way and I'm sure you know a friend who was cast out of their family for being gay or feeling uncomfortable in their own body.

I choose to not be like that. Not to give into hate or fear. Being compassionate and caring about my child's well being. After all, family is my top priority. One of my rules is I don't do fear. I don't fear someone who has different skin or religious preference. Certainly I'm not afraid of my child. That would be counter-productive. When my child came to us, the parents, the first emotion I felt was relief. Not shock, nor anger. The fact that they felt brave enough to come to the parental units spoke volumes.
I love my child and would do anything for them.
The first words I said were along the lines of; 'You're not getting out of the family that easily.'

I am proud of my child. Neither male or female. Rejecting society's norm and finding their own niche. The only thing I can do is be patient and be there for them.

Patterns

Back when I was in sixth grade, I noticed the similarities in a model of the solar system and an atom. The sun being the nucleus and the planets corresponding to electrons.
Nature has a way of repeating itself.
I just read this article and there has never been a greater temptation to simply cut and paste it here. The people who wrote the piece, Sagar Parikah and Fredrico Cruz, did a pretty good job and if you're reading this, go ahead and check it out.
Humans seek patterns for everything we see and experience. Nature it seems likes to smile back and say, 'that's cute'.
Despite what my low grades in high school seemed to indicate, I've always been fascinated with math and science and how they interact with real life. 
Fibonacci sequences and fractals explained as stand alone concepts bore most people to sleep. I know that's what happened to me my senior year. But introduce some real world application? 
Streams and brooks combine to become creeks, which in turn grow into rivers, eventually merging into oceans.
Lightning follows the same bifurcating pattern as the tree limbs they strike.
Makes you wonder doesn't it?

Three shapes are inherently the most stable: Triangles, squares and hexagons. If you were to stack a bunch of dice together, they could be arranged in such a way as to leave no space between them. Makes sense, right?

Think about that for a second

Take all the time you need

Sir Walter Raleigh posed a question to his assistant, Thomas Harriot. 'How many cannonballs would fit in a given area and what was the best way to stack them?'.

Makes you wonder how they'd stack if cannonballs were shaped like dodecahedrons.

That would solve a few problems

Being patient

Situations in my life are trying to teach me lessons. Either that or I'm drawing some strange conclusions from what's going on around me.
So my daily routine is hectic and complicated. Therefore I must strive to be more patient, focusing on what's important. When people are being pricks, I have to show patience and rise above the petty bullshit. That pretty much describes my day job in one sentence.
Another kind of patience came about this week. The Kepler spacecraft put itself in emergency mode, threatening it's ongoing mission.
What is unknown is what made it go into a little blue screen of death. Scientists and the mission engineers have to be patient, after all Kepler is 75 million miles from Earth. Signals take seven and a half minutes to get there. Just saying, 'Hi, how are you?' and 'I'm fine,' takes 13 minutes! Ah, the reality of space exploration.
So far Kepler had been pointed at the constellation Cygnus and the results are spectacular. 4,000 planets! Now of course these sightings must be confirmed. We've got 1,000 confirmed planets. Scientists have to pour over the data and sift all the facts out before coming to a conclusion. This isn't CNN, we have to verify the findings before making an official statement.
The planet hunter that could is moving on to it's next mission: Pointing itself toward the center of the Milky Way to look for more planets.
The question I get from time to time goes sort of like this: 'How come we haven't met aliens yet?'
Yeah, I wonder about that too.
Many people don't understand the size and scope of our galaxy. We are literally looking into the past when we gaze up with our telescopes. It is entirely possible that a civilization has sprung up on a planet we've observed in our neighborhood, but the light and tell tale signs haven't reached our radios yet.
Say you were 100 million light years away from Earth and you built a large telescope. Pointing your very large radio antennae at Earth, you hope to get a picture of your home planet. Guess what? You would see dinosaurs.
Size and scope.

Enrico Fermi was an Italian Physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project. In the 1950's Fermi came up with what is now known as Fermi's paradox. Bear with me here, I don't have a date for when he first proposed this idea. Here's the condensed version.

• With billions of stars in the galaxy similar to our Sun, many older than our star.
• There is a high probability that these stars have habitable planets orbiting them.
• In that number of habitable planets, there is a high probability of civilizations on even a percentage of them. We're still talking hundreds of millions of alien life forms.
• A conservative estimate of these civilizations would develop space travel like we are now.
• So where are they?

The odds are still heavily in our favor of being visited by E.T. and there have been many theories surrounding Fermi's paradox.
Perhaps at this very moment there is a message streaking it's way across the stars, but it won't get here right away.
Size and scope. There is a picture I saw on the web. Let me try my Google-fu.
This came from a blog post by Emily Lakdawalla. She in turn got it from Adam Grossman and his blog.
Hey, cite the source when possible.
That tiny blue dot is how far our signals have gotten in the galaxy. In the center of that pixel is us, not visible to the naked eye. Puts things in perspective doesn't it?
Be patient my friends. The odds are heavily in favor of there being life out there. We'll find it eventually.

An unwelcome decline

If you are trying to change your life direction and experience resistance, then you are doing it right. If this is true, then the world does not want me to be happy.

  

I'm gonna unload here, so if you work with me, skip this post.

Lowe's has been keeping me so busy that energy for outside projects is down to zero. Delivery trucks often form a line trying to get in. They come weather they are scheduled or not. Taking notes and filing paperwork has reached a new plateau of difficult. Often times I feel like I'm cramming for finals back in college, with furious note taking speed.

Last week, my supervisor skipped towards me while I was untangling several orders. Three bays? Three trucks delivering at once. Sure I can multitask, but this is pushing it.

She wanted a high five while I was holding paperwork and a scan gun. All my control went into keeping my arms by my side.

'Aw, c'mon Will, don't leave me hanging!' she said.

One of our drivers behind her tried to be helpful. 'Dude, she wants to give you a high five.'

'I know.' was the only thing I trusted myself to say.

If my arm started to move, I would have belted her. She had just fired the other receiver the week before and I was doing more than twice the job load. Leaving the back end short staffed during a critical time is (I'm looking for a word... Insane? Asinine? Unforgivable?)

For future reference, an apology goes further with me then a high five.

She left us hung out to dry while we got our heads handed to us. Lowe's does all of it's purchases at once for the summer for the big spring push. All of March has been a big blur as I race from one end of the store to the other in order to count and scan incoming merchandise.

They started to hire replacements, but they are taking their sweet ass time getting there.

Friday can be counted on for several things. Local deliveries only. It's primarily a catch up day for whatever went on during the week. It also allows you to get set up for the weekend.

When the regional distribution truck pulled up I thought it was an April Fools joke. Nope.

We had to pull other people from across the store to unload the truck. Of course paperwork was involved. Shortly after we started, we ran into a problem. There was no place to put stuff.

'You can't bring those pallets onto the selling floor.' One manager cried.

Sorry, you can't have it both ways folks.

Did I mention the twice weekly appliance trucks? Yes, I have help unloading them, for which I am extremely grateful. The short of it is my body can't continue the abuse. My arms and fingers fall asleep within three minutes after I start driving.  That last sentence took several minutes to type. I had to shake my hands out several times. This is why I haven't been posting lately. My job is literally harmful to my health. The cheapass safety belts they give mitigate some of the muscle and back strain. I go through gloves every three weeks because they are made with the cheapest quality material allowed by law. I broke down and bought a pair of gloves so they would last longer.

What does Lowe's do right? It allows me to pay off my outstanding debts. Taking a look at my paycheck on April 1st, (the irony is not lost on me.) 250.00 goes to $ocial $ecurity and $tudent loans. That's not per month, that's every two weeks. So roughly 500.00 a month goes to paying off my debts. I'm not expecting a tax refund this year, nor did I get one last year. You can't escape the government. I've been paying them off for several years and each year I get a statement that says how much I've chipped off. I should be debt free in another 12 years. Almost in time for my retirement. 

Friends and co-workers have already had heart attacks and died either on the job or directly related to our jobs. Hello, didn't I have a concussion not too long ago? 

No wonder I regard my current job as indentured servitude.

Oh, and don't forget my wife's student loan, which we have not even begun to pay back. The vultures are circling...

Life in the Deaf lane

Those free movie passes were collecting dust on the shelf. Every time the captioning services at the Live Oak Regal Cinemas went belly up, I got free passes. Eventually there were about ten tickets. Yep, the craptioning sucked and no amount of free stuff was going to make them invest in better equipment. I had resigned myself to writing bad yelp reviews and encouraging my friends to avoid going to that theater.
Daughter wants to go on a date? Here are two tickets, kids. Enjoy yourself.
Superman vs. Batman came out this week and my daughters wanted to go, but I remained firm. I was done with the Live Oak cinemas. 'Other theaters would honor those passes,' my daughter said. So we went a little farther to the Northwoods Regal and I did enjoy myself... sort of.
The glasses worked. There were one or two spots that it sort of blanked out, but it corrected itself right away, so no complaints there. Usually I walk out of the movies in throbbing pain. The glasses pinch my nose and no amount of adjusting helps. They also dig into the side of my head, right above my ears. A headache is a small price to pay for being with my family for an afternoon's entertainment if the movie is good.
The movie was merely okay. Not great. If this had come out six or eight months after Man of Steel, it might have been better. This movie appealed to fans and not much else. It barely cleared my threshold of disappointment. It needed more one liners. The plot needed to move quicker. The second act went on far longer than it should have.
The best part of the movie? We got sneak peaks of the other heroes that are not Batman or Superman. I am so stoked about Wonder Woman finally coming to the screen. Why is DC dragging it's heels? These characters are unique and they have a story to tell.

Many nerds consider Aquaman to be the lamest superhero in the DC universe. When I saw the promotional pics of Jason Mamoa my hopes did rise a bit, but wait, it won't be out until 2018? The first Justice League and the Flash in 2018 as well? Cyborg and Green Lantern Corps won't be out till 2020? I hope the execs at DC will realize the actors starring in their films may die of old age before shooting starts. Worse, the audience may die of boredom before the lights dim.

Ow

They say no good deed goes unpunished. Last week I was putting together a basketball hoop for my daughter. The wife and I were feeling pretty confident we'd put this contraption together correctly. I stood it up, checking to see if it would stay upright until I got behind it. There was no movement and it was sort of being held back by an overhanging branch. Turning around, I meant to grab a bag of sand in order to fill it when, WHAM! The board and pole whacked me on the back of the head.
Blood streamed down my face as I struggled not to pass out. The board knocked my implant off and I wasn't sure where everyone was.
My youngest scrambled on the ground searching for my very expensive, easily broken device. Paper towels appeared thanks to my other daughter. My wife had the incredible task of keeping it all together, issue commands, and get that @#$% basket off of me.

Here's what it looked like at the clinic as I was cleaned up and awaiting my CT scan.

Yeah, I know. That bald spot is taking over my head. It's almost time to get rid of the hair completely.
In hindsight I should have called in for the week. Pride and ego got in the way though.
I fell down at the slightest difficulty. Then I noticed I was slurring my words.
That did it. I called in the next day. 
For the past few days I mostly slept. Occasionally the wife would come in and shake me to see if I hadn't slipped into a coma.
Been there, done that. No rush to repeat the experience. The swelling went down and I felt some improvement.
Today nearly wiped me out. I was nowhere near peak form and it took a bit out of me. I think I'm going to lie down. 

More than one use

Most of us like to get the most for their money. What's one of the major considerations when buying a car? 'What does the gas mileage look like? Really, it's often printed up in large numbers on the window sticker.

We make the most of our groceries. The wife and I can cut up a chicken or pork loin and have it go for three or four meals. I've actually passed up tools that I know will only be used once. That's not to say I don't have things gathering dust in my garage. Sad to say I've not had an opportunity to use my router on a project lately.

That may change. 

This morning I corked 14 more bottles of mead. Tomorrow if all goes well, I might be corking another 20 of a different flavor. Why am I mentioning meads when my kids asked me not to?

We're gonna need a bigger rack

I have a plethora of bottles. (I don't get to use that word very often.)

My house is modest in many ways. We have to use every square foot wisely to get the most out of living here. Also we have to do it on a budget. 

Some scrap wood. A few judicious cuts. Screws to hold it all together. The wife doesn't think much of my carpentry skills. Then again her grandfather was a master carpenter, so there's no way I could come close to her expectations. Still, I give it my best shot. Let's me blunt here. I need to store over 125 bottles in a corner space four feet square. Right now I'm over halfway to that number and I have 15 gallons by the desk ready (or nearly ready) to go.

I also don't have enough bottles to do the job. <Sigh> It's a good thing I like a challenge!