Life with Luny

Found my past

2010-04-02T19:03:00.009-05:00

I found my past today, actually my wife found it for me. I once wrote poems to cope with things that I otherwise didn't have the ability or knowledge to deal with on a daily basis. These are 2 of my poems I like (i.e. don't want to throw into a fire to erase the emotions and the memories of)

Lone Wolf

I hear him howling in the night

and I see with my second sight

the images and the pain

never to feel his life again

He once was a pup so full of joy

and any old stick could be his toy

then one day his father left

he couldn't understand this thing called death

That night his mother she came

and she taught him the truth of his name

this was a talk between father and son

she had to tell him for father he had none

He wandered alone for days

as his mind was swimming in a haze

still confused he laid down to rest

with his heart still deep in his breast

Late that night he heard a sound

of his mother crying and evil abound

was it his mind that caused the fear

or was it really his mothers tear

He ran as fast as any wind

for his mothers life he had to defend

when he reached his home he knew

there was nothing left for him to do

That night he made a solemn vow

and it didn't matter when or how

one day he would catch that evil thing

and show him why the wold is king

He tracked and tried for years alone

but to him the beast was never shown

then one day a family was his

so he quit and settled with the Ms.

Time passed quickly on by

till one night he heard his mates cry

he ran as fast as he possibly could

jumping and leaping over the rotting wood

He ran so fast with his body so lean

until he reached that horrible scene

with his heart pounding he saw a sight

three of his pups were dead this night

The with a growl he turned his head

but all he could see were his pups so dead

then the beast turned to kill again

but this time he would have to defend

he heard a shit, like thunder it hit

then he knocked the beast down to sit

he attacked the head and then the throat

until it's blood covered his coat

He checked his mate and remaining pup

and with a howl rears his head up

he guides his mate back to their home

then alone he goes to roam

As the blood of his kill mingles with his own

he remembers the deeds he has sown

and as he lays down to die

He fills the air with his mournful cry

written 08/15/1992

A Good Friend

With love in my eye's

I give you a vow

though I don't know

quite when or how

That if you ever need

to feel secure

no matter what pains

I must endure

If ever you feel

that your will is not there

I'll give you my strength

and show that I care

If you ever want

to feel my heart beat

just to prove

that we are concrete

If you ever wish

just for a friend

that is how we started

and for forever to end

If you ever look

for somewhere to cry

put your head to my chest

until your tears are dry

And if you desire

someone to love

that is the day

I'll thank heaven above.

written 11/19/1994

Ok I think that is enough putting myself out there now. I have never shared these except with close friends or family. So anyway there they are. Hope you like them, if not that is ok too.

I want to thank @churchpunkmom and @tastelikecrazy on twitter for inspiring me to publish these for the world by sharing their amazing writings with all of us.

Yes I was the EVIL child

2010-03-16T21:02:00.003-05:00

I never claimed to be perfect, ok so that is a lie. When I was younger I was perfect. There is a magical sense of being when you are never wrong and you can reason your way out of anything. While being great for dating, it didn't work so well for my brother.

When we were young we were always sweet and kind to each other. At the young age of 4 I knew he was taking way to long to get down the stairs, I mean he was already 2 and really needed my help. I politely asked him to move with a small tap of my hand in a loving gesture of brotherly love. Once he stopped bouncing I realized that life wasn't going to be easy unless I knew how to make sure everyone saw things the way I did. It was a very simple solution.

There were some other "learning" methods I employed in my desire to help him out with life's challenges. OK so the BB gun method of training didn't quite work the way I thought it would. I am pretty sure that he way overstated the pain, but I do not now nor have I ever studied the fine art of acting. I am sure though that the salt water coating I treated the pellets with couldn't cause that much writhing. It was just a special way for me to remind him that he had failed in dodging me.

The time that I will remember the best was actually the time we both were in trouble. I was the ripe old age of 16 while he was the insignificant age of 14. While walking with my friend down the street, my wonderfully sweet brother decided to show us just how special we were with a single non-verbal exclamation. I of course had already planned the perfect course of action to meet his challenge and to attempt to make him pee his pants. After the rock soared passed where his head had been, and the deafening crash of the window.

We were both brought back to attention by the ill tempered home owner that we called Mom.

*note at this specific moment she was ill tempered, though as a father now I realize she was a saint and should be canonized immediately. Please call the pope and let him know!

This is my real explanation of the events to my mother as to whose fault the broken window was.

Mom:"Who threw the rock?"

Me:"It's Sean's fault!"

Mom:"Why is it Seans fault?"

Me:"He ducked"

Mom:"Excuse me?!?"

Me:"He asked for it, but then he ducked like a little girl, the window wouldn't have broken if he would have stood there and taken it like a man!"

Notice point number one in this exchange, my brother didn't say much but I remember him turning very red obviously as a sign of agreement. Point number two, I have already given away the ending wherein we both were in trouble.

I am still unsure of what part of my flawless logic my mom didn't agree with because even now I am sure that this was the correct assertion of the situation and the assignment of fault.

I am now going to use this to warn all future babysitters, estranged relatives, and random passersby of the incredible logic they will be dealing with when asking my children to explain a situation to them. I really feel that they should be given rewards for such an amazing ability to logically ferret out the truth of a situation.

People just don't think

2010-01-27T20:39:00.002-06:00

Listening to President Obama's Speech tonight something came to me and I thought I should share it. I live in Tennessee, if I remember correctly, which I don't usually do, it is the home of chewing tobacco. Well at least I think we are in the top ten states with chewing tobacco stains on the sidewalk. But I digress, the people I have been fortunate enough to enjoy as friends disparaging the green economy. These same people are excited about the new jobs for their children and family that are being created locally.

They seem to be ill informed about what is creating these jobs. The company that is coming to our town, I wonder what they create, oh wait I read it somewhere.... oh yeah it was solar panel materials. but solar panels those are for communist/leftist/socialist sickos.

We need to see that progress is where we need to put our money, not individual personal issues. If we build new tech and release it to the world it will live or die by its own merits. If we don't, we will be owned by the rest of the world.

Please, Regardless of your political leanings lets put some support, Democrat/Republican/RonPaulian in our future. We didn't get where we are by deciding that the guy inventing wireless radio transmission should get funding. We got where we are by putting a man on the moon, by paying for the Manhatten Project, by developing the Super-Colliding Super conductor in Texas, oh wait they built 97 percent of that and killed it because .001% of the total cost wasn't worth getting it up and running and CERN in Switzerland kicked our ass there....

If we put our funding into the science, will we have failures? Absolutely! Will we have success? Yes we will! The one thing we will have with it is a nation moving ahead.

A new year

2010-01-20T10:17:00.003-06:00

So this is my first post of 2010 (and yes that is 20 - 10) and what could possibly make me take the time to put a halt to my busy life to blog? Bitching about how much time I don't have that is what. Many of you know that I have recently started back to college to get the degree I started on in another lifetime. I am nervous and excited still but leaning more towards the excited part. Being 20 years older than the other students is interesting. I am officially from another generation now, no longer just a "little" older than the rest of the students. Does it mean I am more disciplined? Maybe I am more mature and ready for the demands of school. I don't know yet, but here is what I do know.

I really need to find a better way of balancing school and home life. I have assignments due in my worst class, Spanish 1020, and yet I can't find the time to study. during the day when I am not in class, I spend the entire time chasing a very energetic 4 year old around the house. He is an amazingly smart child but also very ummmm, what's the word I am looking for here, ummmm, precocious. Yeah that is it, he is precocious. I am finding it hard to concentrate on how to conjugate comprar, when I am also having to yell things like "No do NOT put that screwdriver in the wall socket!"

Night time is equally bad. I love and adore my wife, she is and always will be my best friend as well as the only person I want to spend the rest of my life with. when she gets off from work and the kids are finally in bed, it is us time. Time to talk about the day's events, to laugh about how silly our children are, to cry and go crazy about the bills we didn't make but have to pay, you get the idea. Then it is time for bed and I am just a little further behind than I was before.

I still fix peoples computers for them, this can take much of my time as well, but I really must do this to keep up with all of the newest spyware tricks and schemes. (my degree will just let me do it professionally again) Fixing computers can be very time consuming even when you know exactly what you are doing. There is still no super cloud with the processing power of the entire human collective so most problems take a while to "run" on the aging hardware people use.

I know I have to make sacrifices in order to get where I want to be. Trust me I have already made many. I don't however believe that one of those should be at the loss of my family. I am searching for a solution but daycare costs more than we make in a week, and my mom only has so much time in her day to help with childcare. She has been amazing with helping me with the monkey. I still don't seem to have the time to really study that I need.

I will get there, but for now I think I will drink another cup of coffee, oh and tell the monkey to stop putting his sisters toys in the food processor.

If you guys and girls have any time management ideas for the easily distracted knife juggler, feel free to leave it in a comment.

The problem with network security

2009-12-22T09:22:00.005-06:00

I know I don't usually post professional based issues on this blog. Having said that I think I can relate the importance of security specialists to anyone. We will have a new Cyber-Security Czar Howard A. Schmidt. I have no problems with this appointment and hope that he does a great job. My issue is with the structure of reporting that he will have to maintain.

My first issue is with this piece of information from the Washington Post "White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers insisted that the new coordinator report to him as well, arguing that cybersecurity is also a matter of national economic security, sources said." The issue I have with this, if I am reading it correctly, is the reason for this issue. Our businesses have become lazy when it comes to IT hiring. Many of the businesses we rely on do not hire security specialists to protect their systems. They hire IT supermen, who must maintain not only the security of their web and non web presence, but also maintain their routers, switches, servers, databases, individual pc's, and anything else related to a computer. I was once asked to fix a computer chair for an employee. While it is true I could fix it, the issue was one more related to perception. Why would this head boss believe that the IT department was there to fix anything that breaks. What thought processes lead to relating a chair problem to the people you rely on for maintaining the database.

We have specialists who are accepted in our society for their single minded jobs. We have heart surgeons, who only work on heart related problems. We have actuaries who only work to keep our companies from making money losing deals. We have residential mortgage specialists who do not deal with business mortgages because there is just too much to know, to do both really well. Why do we expect our IT people to do everything computer related. When you can't figure out an issue with the damned pivot table in excel, the patent answer is to call IT and ask your Security/database/network administrator guy (or girl) to solve it for you. If that person has no answer, then clearly they are overpaid and not good at their job.

We need more specialists in the IT world in big and small businesses and the perception needs to change if we want better security and smoother running networks. If your Network Administrator is building and scheduling website advertising, then you are not getting what you are paying for. Information Security takes a very exhaustive amount of time pouring over long-winded and very technical white papers on a daily bases, researching the newest exploits that may befall your network and how to stop them, and running internal and external penetration tests. Asking for the government to be responsible for our financial sectors lack of security, or security direction, is akin to asking the government to make sure we are making as much money as we can. It is irresponsible for our businesses to place this kind of individualized problem on any organization that must account for every OS, platform, program cluster that any company could be running.

Do we need a Cyber-Security Czar? Yes, more than ever but, we need individualized security that is focused on each business and it's particular needs and unique structure. Howard A. Schmidt, good luck with your job, I know you will do your best and promote many great ways for our businesses to be more secure, I just wish that you were being put in the position you deserve, that of an equal in the goal of helping our country prosper and stay safe from malicious and deviant criminals. Answering to a finance director who will never truly understand the why's and why not's of the practices you see necessary.

If you need to ask if your companies still need a dedicated security professional, then you already have your answer. Each company needs to be responsible for their own platform, their own security, and their own problems. Our strength in security will not be from one answer, but many answers.

How much of a man are you????

2009-09-04T14:59:00.005-05:00

Sometimes you need a good shakeup in your life to see how much in this world is still messed up. Let me preface this with the fact that I at one time had one of the manliest jobs in the world. I was a bouncer and DJ for a local bar and had a very good track record. Even the true badasses treated me with respect, though they could probably tear me apart as easily as they did that barstool that said something about their mother.

Becoming a stay at home dad, so far, is the coolest thing I have ever done with my time. I get to cook (which I love to do), clean up, watch my monkey grow up a little each day instead of realizing he isn't a baby when he asks for the keys to my car. I am very happy with my daily life, though I do wish I could help financially get us out of debt, I still value what I am getting a chance to do.

Recently I have noticed a dramatic change in the way my "working" friends, both male and female think and act around me. They have seemingly decided that I have all the time in the world and they no longer need to worry about my schedule to plan for phone calls, computer help, or party time. When I tell them no they act as though I just don't like them anymore, because surely, I have all the time in the world now that I am not doing anything.

I am so amazed by these otherwise very cool, nice, thoughtful peoples ideas of what someone at home does all day, that I find myself defending all stay at home anythings. While I am sure my bon-bon consumption has increased 100%, and sure I know everything about who blair is sleeping with and that he is really a vampire, and I spend much of my day in my fuzzy bunny slippers, this does not mean I am not working as hard as they are. I still maintain a small computer network with multiple operating systems, and very crazy help tickets in my help desk. Though now they are filled out in crayon, the problems are still as frequent, and as weird, as they were when I "worked". The peanut and butter and fluff cd-rom just doesn't seem to be working, and the mouse that was dropped in the toilet doesn't work as well now.

So I don't see where changing jobs has womanized me, nor has it caused me to grow breasts, lose chest hair, or raise my voice and octave. I still like Soccer, F-1 racing, and a good FPS game. I still drink beer occasionally, scratch my ass, and blame all gas issues on the monkey.

I guess it is hard to see someone not making a paycheck and placing any value on what they do, because obviously if it were important, somone would pay you for it. That is how we assign importance and value to ourselves. The real difference between Tier III help desk and Network Administrator in most companies is $50,000 a year. That is how we measure their importance. It rarely has much to do with how much they know and more about how much they have convinced the upper management they are worth.

I may not make any money right now, but I am making a difference and working very hard. I am just as much a man as I was before becoming a SAHD. If my friends can't see that, I guess it is time for new friends who realize this strips none of my masculinity away, it just gives me a gift most don't get.

Has anyone else had to deal with this since becoming a SAHD?

And before you ask, that is not Sarah McLachlan playing in the background, ummm my wife must have left that on... yeah that's it can't you hear the Slipknot on my headphones???

Depression can suck it!!!!!

2009-09-03T09:31:00.004-05:00

I seem to be really good at seeing the bright side of anything and keeping a positive outlook in life. This is a skill I have cultivated over many years of dealing with the bad and the unimaginable happenning throughout my life. My wife relies on it, my mom and dad expect it, and my kids wouldn't know what to do if I didn't encourage them through bullies, difficult teachers, and the pains of puberty while smiling. So why am I so depressed lately?

I lost a job I loved in July, though the newspaper industry is dying quickly and we all saw it coming, it still sucks. I loved going to work each day to find 10 new and unusual problems to fix. I loved when a new program had to go live and it wasn't playing nice. Everyone knew if the program or device was new and there were issues to call me and I would happily fix it. Solving virus, malware, and trojan problems was my favorite passtime because instead of just formatting the machine I liked to just fix it instead. Of course if time was an issue I would do a clean backup and then restore the original image to the computer, but still fun. I got to fix network issues and all kinds of custom software problems almost weekly. So all in all a really good job with really good people.

What am I doing now? Housework, spending awesome time getting to know my kids even better, spending much more time with my rockin wife, and studying to improve my IT superman skills. But for some reason keeping up my own servers, network, and multiple OS's just doesn't seem the same. I am in a funk and want so badly to get back to fixing stuff for people without losing my family time again. I guess this is horribly selfish of me to want both a job in IT and family time as the 2 seem mutually exclusive.

So now I am sitting here feeling like I am as marketable as a Heroin man action figure with real working needles and arm belt. It seems impossible that I was a real solutions person at some point and seem to have skills that just don't translate well to my resume. That makes me sad, but not as sad as knowing I have to give up my 4 hours with my two oldest kids just to get back what I had worked so hard to achieve before. So mr. happy is saying it, this sucks!!! But, I will be better after my coffee and the laundry is caught up. Who knows I may even fix a computer or two today just for fun.

Where have my feet gone

2009-08-26T10:27:00.003-05:00

I seem to have misplaced my feet. I know they were there a few months ago when I bought them some really nice running shoes. I have given them many gifts but they still seem to have left me. ok so maybe the problem isn't with my feet but what is inbetween.

After being layed off 6 weeks ago I have noticed a considerable amount of blubber has gotten in the way of my downward view. I know I need to lose weight and get back in shape, but with housework and the Rahal Straight from Laguna Seca in my front yard, it has been harder than I was hoping to get some in shape time.

I hit the road for a walk while pushing monkey in the running stroller the other day. I learned 2 things, that there are alot of hills over here, and that I am not in as good shape as I thought I was. It took an entire day for my legs to stop imitating hydrogen atoms in the core of a star and even then they still think it is a better idea to sit around and just clean house or so they tell me.

Weight gain is something new to me. 4 years ago I had to eat all day everyday and drink those nasty weight gain shakes to gain even a pound or two in a month. So I am wondering what changed, I got older....check, I had a Vasectomy....check, I became less active and spent more time in a chair at work...check. So I know all of the reasons why I have gained weight but it doesn't make it easier to deal with even if two of them are out of my control and needed to happen. Growing older is awesome to me so no complaints with that one, and the Vasectomy, well lets just say that I seem to have the ability to impregnate my wife no matter what we use for protection. I guess the last one is the only one I can affect. So today I will venture out with the 3 yo in the stroller, brave the speedway that is our small backroad, and walk somewhere fun. Maybe I can beat this and maybe I am doomed to resemble the great pumpkin and be taller laying down than standing up. But when I am on my death bed I will know I tried. Now to find my feet so I can put shoes on them.

The Leading Lady

2009-08-21T13:30:00.004-05:00

Ask a married man if his wife is a great spouse and I am sure most will say yes. (many of them will be lying and I feel bad for them) Then ask them what makes their wife great and you may get a lot of abstract answers. i.e. she loves me, she does *blank* for me, she's just great...etc. Where I may be able to understand how easy it is to forget that a wife isn't just part of who you are but is also a person in her own right. So what makes this particular person great, why does she do those things for me, what does she love about me.

Last month I was laid off from my job of 6 years, I went from stay at work dad, to stay at home dad. This was such a disastrous blow to my family, my wife Twingly and myself that I didn't realize how much it would help me remember not only who my wife was, but what I really loved about her and why she loved me.

The first thing we dealt with was the shock of being laid off for real. The fear of it had been there for a while due to the business I was in. Newspapers just aren't a good place to hang your hat these days. Even an IT help desk and network administrator isn't safe in that kind of environment. I took the news well and was thanked for being gracious on my way out and drove straight home. When I got home Twingly was waiting for me, she didn't say anything, she just hugged me and help on like I was going to float away without her acting as my ballast.

Once we were able to talk again, after the kids were in bed, we discussed finances. This was a fun conversation filled with butterflies and unicorns. During the discussion my car came up (ok so I brought it up) I decided that we should sell it since she didn't run and we didn't have the money to fix her right now. I am pretty sure her response involved my manhood and a hammer but I am fuzzy on the details.

The MKIII Supra is my dream car, I have wanted one since I was in high school and I finally got one that served us very well for several years.

She (the car) needs a transmission and is home to a new deadly form of wasp I am calling *uberwasp from hell* and it seems they are all 5 foot long with hypodermic needles for stingers. I still love her and she is the best car in the world. At this point Twingly has decided we can find other things to sell to make up the difference until I find a new job.

My next great idea had already been discussed anytime we were in financial trouble, with the same outcome everytime.

My Pool sticks are both one of a kind custom cues that I purchased before I met my wife. The one on the right was a good deal at $2500, and the one on the left was a steal at $1000. Prather cues are like gold to me and I used these cues to help put my wife through college and to pay bills when we were really hurting. They have paid for themselves many, many, many times over. Once again Twingly chimes in to remind me of her threat... "if you sell your pool sticks we will get a divorce, because if you will sell them you will sell anything!" I can't argue with this but I try everytime.

So to get back to why my wife is the greatest woman in the world to me, she GETS me. She knows I will sacrifice anything of mine for her and the kids even the things I would otherwise never part with. I have very few inanimate objects that mean anything to me but the ones I do, she treats with the same revelry. she doesn't try to change me and accepts me for who I am and loves me anyways. This post is for her and I hope that other husbands can take this and the take a step back and realize why they love their wife and enjoy it instead of being caught up in the crazy world and getting ahead. I also hope that other wives can see this and remember that just because something doesn't matter to you it doesn't mean it isn't important. I owe everything to my wife and she is the one I couldn't live without.

Home (almost) alone

2009-08-17T11:39:00.001-05:00

I have finally joined the ranks of blogging stay at home dads, to most hard working adults this would seem like a dream situation. It is easy sheeesh, what isn't to love about it? You get to sit at home and play with your kids, do a little laundry, clean some dishes and make some meals. Oh yeah and did I say play with the kids? Well I was scared to death, Visions of my rambunctious 3 year old running with my Henkel knife collection, discovering how fun fire can be, or build a thermo-nuclear device. You know all the fun things 3 year olds do. Never mind that the knives are on top of the refrigerator, or that the only lighter in the house is in my pocket, or that my subscription to fissionable materials monthly has run out.

Why such fear of my kids and being alone with them? I remember how inquisitive I was at their ages, and how much trouble I should have been in. There was the time that I built ***************(redacted so you will not be prosecuted as an accomplice)***************, but you get the idea.

So, how has it gone today? Well I am glad to say that we have broken no international treaties, nor is there the smell of gas, and the monkey is free of any holes or puncture wounds. He has so far helped me load the dishwasher, clean the yard, and put the clothes in the washer. I can't believe I got worked up so badly but I will be better tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong, I am not, nor will I ever say being a stay at home anything is easy. I have known it is one of the most difficult and thankless jobs in the world. Oh and the pay really sucks, but I think my fear of what might happen was really getting to me. I know there will be really bad days but for now, I want to get it down that, there are good days too.

Hmmmm now I wonder if he is luring me in with good behaviour so he can pounce tomorrow. Well I guess I will be as bad tomorrow. I know he can be a handful, and then some...but I am hoping he has forgotten it. Yeah thats it, he just forgot....

Stress, Money, and Sleep

2007-04-05T08:37:00.000-05:00

Getting enough sleep seems simple enough, go to bed when you are tired and wake up when you aren't. Most adults though don't have this as an option, we have kids, Spouses, bills, work, problems outside of work and home that effect both, and yet somehow we get up each morning and keep going. If you do feel like you got enough sleep then you shortly realize you forgot something you needed to do or you overslept for a meeting. The question then is do we go to bed earlier? This would work if there were no other responsibilities in a persons life. If you have no need to speak in an adult voice to someone for more than ten minutes about something other than who's bodily function is smelling up the garbage can, who decided the tv would be a great place to practice crayon mustaches on the characters portrayed there, or why we spent more on diapers and formula last month than on groceries this week, then this would be easy enough as well. I haven't met many people like this. I married my wife because I enjoyed talking to her and spending time with her and loved her opinions on many varied topics with which I may or may not agree with. Money always ends up in this conversation whether I want it to or not and it seems as though no matter how little you really need or want you still never have enough, At some point I was told that a single income could afford a home, car, and a few nice gifts each year for Christmas. I have not seen any evidence of this today but if I do you will be the first people I tell. So now we have stayed up until 1 am and have to get up at 6 am for work again, and just remembered that both cars have broken down and it is time to walk to work instead because taxi's are too much money and the bus stops are so far away you are nearly halfway to work by the time you get to the first one. The first emails pour in after you get to work and you tell yourself, I am going to get to bed early tonight. (wait isn't that what I said 24 hours ago?)