Long Time, No See

Hey everybody! Remember me? Yeah, I'm the guy who "runs" this site. It's pretty dusty and cob-webby right now, but I'm hoping to clean it off and get it back into shape. In my last post, I wrote about how I'd get back to you on Across the Universe, then you never heard from me again.

Until now.

Well a couple of events have transpired since then. You see, I wrote that post, then proceeded to enjoy the movie, or most of it, when the phone rang. I investigated the caller ID before answering and discovered it was my boss. Calling me from his home. When he should have been at work. Which = not good. He'd been canned, and I saw my plans for a little self-medicating "me" time spiraling straight down the drain.

I was called into work the next morning and immediately invited into my ex-boss's boss's office, along with the station manager and the corporate VP of engineering. I was calculating in my head how much I could possibly collect in unemployment when they turned the tables on me and offered me my ex-boss's job. Part of me was flattered while the other 99% wanted to throw up. The opportunity was a good one, but the responsibility of leading the department through a major transition was daunting. I told them I'd think about it.

Then I went on vacation to Mexico with the fam.

Here's our boat...



...and the dolphin we swam with in Cabo San Lucas (his name's Ricardo)...



...and the resort pool in Puerto Vallarta where I drank WAY too much tequila.



I returned from vacation and took the job, and life has been an adjustment ever since, mostly for the better. For the first time in what seems like forever, I'm working normal hours, Monday through Friday. I'm having dinner with my family, attending every softball practice, every softball game, and tucking the girls into bed every night. I'm catching up on what I feel has been lost time with my family, and that feels great.

But on the other hand, there's been a loss of personal time that allowed me to be able to engage in activities that I really enjoyed, like writing and updating this blog. That's OK, though, because I'm doing what I need to be doing right now. I hope not to go so long before my next post, but I'm not making any promises.

It's All About Me, Baby

I've made no secret that my work over the past few months has (high-pitched falsetto voice) sucked, but this week has taken the cake. I've been called in the past two nights (on my days off) to help put out raging fires, the equivalent of throwing a bucket of water on the towering inferno. Needless to say, I'm stressed. My heart feels like it's tied in a double knot, and I'm waking up every morning at 3 am and tossing and turning until 6. So in my free mornings, for the time being, I've decided it's "me" time. I'm going to do the things I "want" to do instead of the things I feel like I "need" to do. That is until I become totally swamped with those "need to do" items, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I'm watching movies. Yesterday's feature was the uplifting Into the Wild, the true story of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation in the Alaskan wilderness. Great movie. Bad timing.

This morning I'm shooting for something a little more lighthearted, something like, say, Julie Taymor's hallucinogenic rock musical, Across the Universe. I'll let you know how it goes.

The Eleventh Hour

I'm in hour eleven of an eighteen hour shift. Yes, you read me correctly, an eighteen hour shift. The reason I'm working an eighteen hour shift is that my station is in the eleventh hour of a major equipment upgrade/station switchover, the leaders of which, in their infinite wisdom, failed to realize that a little training might be required for the operation of said new equipment/new station. Since they pushed up the switchover deadline from the end of the month to Wednesday, they thought it might be prudent to train us on a roomful of new equipment four days before the switch! They notified us about the training, and the new deadline, two days ago. Nothing like a little bit of foresight and planning. So this morning I dragged my butt into work at the crack of dawn to engage in several hours of "training" before I started my "regular" shift. I'm tired. I'm cranky. And I'm not very happy.

I guess last minute training is better than NO training (my lame attempt to be a "glass half-full" kinda guy), but the lack of planning has been stressful and frustrating for the whole department. Fortunately, we have come up with a stress-relief solution we refer to as "Kappy's Therapy", Kappy's being a dive bar a short distance from the station. Every couple of weeks, when the stress level has built up sufficiently, we'll head to Kappy's after the 10 o'clock news, have a couple of drinks, unwind, gripe about the company, and laugh until it hurts. It's been quite therapeutic. Every night can't be a Kappy's night though. I don't want to turn into an alchie bum. Anyway, it's less about the alcohol and more about the camaraderie. It makes the B.S. more tolerable (marginally) knowing that we're all in the same boat and that we can at least get away for a good laugh at the insanity.

So I'm thinking that if Wednesday's switchover is the twelfth hour, hours 13-15, at least, will need to be spent in Kappy's Therapy.

Wassup?

So I've been keeping pretty busy with classes, family, and home projects...so busy that I've totally neglected this blog. I have a bunch of incomplete posts that I've just been too tired to finish, but I thought today I'd at least try to give you a little sample of what's been sucking up my time. These are a couple of the assignments from my digital video editing class...kind of fun.

In this assignment I was playing with different filter effects to manipulate the video. The result was a psychedelic trip. Adding the intro to Loser by Beck was the perfect finish.



This assignment dealt with layering video, creating multiple windows of video, and setting it all in motion.



I've learned a ton and am thoroughly enjoying the class. Now if I could just translate it into full time employment.

Please hire me.

One of Those Weeks

This past week has been a draining one, physically, mentally and emotionally. I've sat down at the keyboard countless number of times the past few days to write something, anything, but ended up staring open-mouthed, dumbfounded, at the blinking cursor, unable to think of a blasted thing to write. I think I even drooled a little bit. Either that or I have a leaky roof to fix. Great.

The main bane of my week has been work. We've been trying to install a new automation system to run most of our on-air hardware for more than a year now. This week the higher-ups decided that come hell or high water, we were going to put that system on the air. Lots of bad things happened and I spent a lot of extra time at work "training", time that I could have been Christmas shopping, hanging lights, or, oh yeah, spending time with my family. These "training" sessions consisted mostly of standing around with arms crossed, watching engineers and system techs scratch their heads in wonder as to why things weren't working combined with several choice expletives.

This was the second time I've been "trained" on this system. The first training session took place way back in February when they were working some of the bugs out of the system. That training went mostly like this: "Well if the system worked, this thingy would do this," or "Now if you encounter this problem, you would do this, if the system were up and running, that is." So basically I spent my days off in a retraining refresher course on a system that should have been up and running ten months ago. And this weekend I have been running solo on this system that was declared "functional" at approximately 5:00 pm on Friday, or quitting time for those 9 to 5er's.

At about 9:00 on Friday night, Diane called me to tell me that the van wouldn't start due to a dead battery. She was at her folk's house and her dad was able to jump start the van so she could make it home, but that meant that I was up early Saturday morning getting the battery replaced. I white knuckled it all the way to Sears Automotive Center as I watched the dashboard digital display blink on and off with every bump in the road. I made it there without incident and later discovered that my Die Hard Gold battery was still under prorated warranty (of course, I missed the full replacement warranty by two months), so I only paid $30 for the new battery. That's the best news I had all week.

And to cap it all off, this morning as I stepped out of the shower I counted no fewer than four grey hairs...on my chest. It's bad enough to have grey on my head, but my chest?

Oh, yes, there will be drinking tonight.

Registered

Well, I'm entering the final three weeks of my first college course in 16 years, and I'm happy to say it's gone well. I was concerned that I wouldn't have the umption in my gumption to maintain the discipline needed to keep up with the course work, but it really hasn't been a problem. It doesn't hurt that the class has been a total cakewalk, almost too easy. It's been a nice way to ease myself back into school in an attempt to more fully round out my job skills.

Yes, I fall into the category of roughly 90% of America's work force who are currently "unsatisfied" with their vocation. I don't have a bad job. It's just not something I want to do for the rest of my life. I work at a local television station where my job, in a nutshell, is to watch TV. And push a lot of buttons. What's so bad about that, right? Like I said, it's not a bad job, I'm just dealing with a "been there, done that" mentality. I need something different, more creatively challenging than pushing the button so that you can see a Geico commercial...that crazy gecko. When I originally took the job, I set a goal of two years in which to gain experience and then move up. I've now been here for over four years. So I decided to shake off the crust that's settled during those extra two years and go back to school.

The ease of my class this past semester has made me a little cocky. Perhaps too cocky because I registered for two classes next semester. I know that I wouldn't be able to handle a load more than that, but who knows, even one of these classes could be more than a hand full. All I know is that I want to build up my job skills fast, and taking one class per term could drag this process on forever. So I'm trying two, one that really excites me and one that scares the hell out of me. I'm excited about the Digital Video Editing class. Editing is what I think I'd ultimately like to to get into and I've wanted to take this class for a couple of years now. The problem is that it was never available when I was available. Until now. Bring it on, baby!

The class that has me practically peeing in my pants is Writing for Film and Television. It's one thing to write a blog for tens of eyes to see, but quite another to submit your attempt at creative writing for someone else to decorate with their red pen. I think I do a decent job of relating stories of my day to day experiences in a way that is hopefully humorous and entertaining, but to "make up" stories that people are going to want to watch for entertainment is a whole different ball of wax. Thankfully this is just a class where I can learn and test myself a bit to see if there might be more out there for me. You know, light the passion, open new doors of opportunity, blah, blah, blah, that sort of thing. I just hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew.

Bring on the Monsoon!

It's a meteorologist's wet dream: the monsoon. The rainy season finally hit Tucson with a fury last week, and as a result, we've been cutting in to your favorite TV programming to bring you "Breaking Severe Weather Updates" and covering up the bottom quarter of your TV screen with that annoying weather crawl telling you to stay indoors. Duh. Sorry about that. The truth of the matter is that during the monsoon, we can pretty much expect that severe weather is on its way, every day. Go drive in it at your own risk.

I have to laugh at the whole thing. I grew up in the Midwest, which, when I think about it, had the most eclectic mix of weather. In the summertime, we could have a calm shower followed by a raging thunderstorm accompanied by tornadoes. I spent many summer evenings in my basement as a kid, listening to the weather radio and praying to God for the expiration of the current tornado warning. Ah, those were GOOD times. Then winter could bring a gentle snowfall, or it could blind you with near blizzard conditions, sleet, and freezing rain (which IS different than sleet). In the Midwest, you never quite knew what you were going to get when the clouds began to build, therefore making it prudent to pay attention to the various weather cut-ins and crawls displayed on the TV or broadcast on the radio.

Here in the desert Southwest, everything is extreme and my motto since taking up residence here has become "Everything can kill you". From the piercing desert sun to that spiky plant to that seemingly cute and fluffy animal, everything can rip your face right off. Wildlife and vegetation struggle to adapt in the severe desert conditions from the brutality of the desert sun to the brutality of desert storms, and I'm not talking about the liberation of Kuwait. There is no such thing as a "gentle summer rain" here in the desert. Showers are nearly always accompanied by high winds, awesome lightning displays and knee-buckling crashes of thunder. So I laugh when the meteorologists at the station get all hopped up about severe weather because weather here is ALWAYS severe. If you look up in the sky and see cloud formations heading your way, seek shelter because you're in for a storm!

And what cracks me up is that whenever it starts to rain, everyone (me included) runs to the windows or doors to watch. We're so used to sunshine that it's a novelty to see it rain. And blow. And storm. I love the monsoon. It's new, different, exciting, and a little dangerous. So please excuse all the programming interruptions. Our meteorologists are just a little excited to get to report on something different than sunshine and intense heat, and rightfully so. In another month we'll return you to your regularly scheduled programming...without interruption.

The Doctor is "In"

I'm not sure how this responsibility fell into my lap, but I'm rapidly becoming my work's resident counselor for relationship trouble. Guys seem to be coming out of the woodwork to pour their guts out about their women problems. I'm definitely not an expert in the field and I'm just as perplexed by the female psyche as the next guy, and I've told them as much. I guess I'm just willing to lend a listening ear, which is apparently what they need. I've been told more than once that they weren't necessarily looking for answers, just for someone to talk to. That works out well for me since I certainly DON'T have any answers to their problems, and though I have my opinions, I try keep them to myself. I don't want to mess things up any more than they already are. I can just see the aftermath of my advice: "Dude, thanks a lot. My marriage is OVER. You NEVER tell a woman what's REALLY on your mind. What were you THINKING? Why did I ever listen to YOU?" I can then see myself getting slapped with a lawsuit for practicing psychology without a licence. Perhaps I should steer clear of my new found calling as a counselor. Sorry boys, from now on the doctor is "Out". Unless, of course, you're willing to sign a waiver.

The Master's Dealings with the General Public

One of the things I absolutely hate about my job is dealing with viewer calls. I should feel sorry for people who call television stations to complain about stupid crap, because they clearly don't have lives, but I don't. They are annoying and I would rather drink a bucket of monkey snot than deal with their stupidity. OK, maybe not, but you get my point.

People call in to see if their soaps are going to run in their entirety after the President gets done yapping, or to ask why their Favorite Show is a repeat today, or, the #1 phone call I get, why in the name of the Good Lord above are we broadcasting our programming in Spanish. Here in southern AZ, this is a major-league hot topic as the immigration debate sizzles on. Tucsonans are pissed enough to have to "Dial 1 for English". Can you imagine their ire when they tune in to their FAVORITE PRIME TIME PROGRAM and hear, "Oy Dios Mio! Mi lapiz es amarillo!" Let me just say they're not happy campers. 99.9% of the time, the issue is with the audio settings on their TV, and I walk them through it as best I can. I once spent fifteen minutes going 'round and 'round with a woman who was adamant it was NOT her audio settings. "Ma'am," I tried to explain, "I'm listening to the program on our Cox Cable feed and it's in English."

"Well, I'M hearing it in Spanish," she countered.

"If you would at least CHECK the audio settings on your TV..."

"It's NOT my TV," she interrupted. "I haven't TOUCHED my TV. Maybe I should call Cox Cable and see if THEY'RE having a problem."

"That's a great idea, Ma'am. Why don't you do that." Click. Problem from my end? Solved.

What annoys me the most about these calls is that I shouldn't receive half of them. These are the nut jobs who are transferred to me because no one else at the station has the balls to deal with them. Last week I was transferred a call from a viewer who "couldn't figure out our prime time schedule." He was confused because there was no continuity to it and he was missing shows because they weren't airing at the same time from week to week. My solution? Pick up a TV Guide!! They have them right there at the checkout counter of your local grocer, and, hell, they're even FREE in your local paper!

My all time favorite happened last Friday night. We were in the 5p newscast when the phone rang. I answered it and was immediately sorry that I had.

"Ummm, yeah..." Whenever the person on the other end of the line starts our little conversation with "Um, yeah", it's going to be bad. "You just aired a commercial for [such and such a place], and I noticed in the first few seconds of the commercial there's graffiti across the man's shirt, and since your station has been doing a series on graffiti, I was wondering what the significance of that was."

Silence.

Followed by uproarious laughter. I know it's not polite to laugh in someone's face, or in this case, ear, but I couldn't help it. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, I wanted to scream. Instead I laughed, "Sir, I haven't the slightest idea."

"Well then why did you air it?"

"Because the business, [such and such a place], PAID us to. That's how we make our money. Businesses pay us to air their commercials."

"Well, how am I going to figure out the significance of that graffiti?"

The significance, sir, is that you have deciphered the code from the Mother Ship, and they will be landing soon to claim you as their new leader.

"I guess you'll just have to call [such and such a place]." I figured I had done my part and that it was now my turn to start passing the buck.

"I don't think they're open until the weekend, are they?"

"I don't know, sir, you'll have to give them a call. Thank you." Click.

I then set out on a headhunting expedition for the spineless jerk who transferred that call to me.

I am SOOO asking for a raise.

Going for the Trifecta

It's been a crazy week already, and it's barely Monday. Over the course of the past week, I've covered the morning, evening, and now the overnight shift at work. Last week I covered a couple of shifts for one of my coworkers as he took some vacation time, and then another one of my coworkers experienced a death in the family. So here I am covering BOTH of their shifts, and I don't think I'm going to make it. At least I'm getting paid.

I have a newfound respect for people who work overnights. Yours is a special breed, nocturnal dwellers able to sleep the day away and go on the twilight prowl, or in my current case, push a bunch of buttons to air programming NOBODY WATCHES. At least not anybody who is sane.

Have you ever tried to force yourself to go to sleep? It doesn't work too well. I willed myself out of bed extra early yesterday morning because I knew I'd have to go to bed in the early evening to prepare for my shift. Actually, I had to go pick Kyra up from her first ever sleepover party, so it worked out pretty well. I then kept myself busy for the rest of the day in a vain attempt to wear myself out. I vacuumed the Rex hair from the family room. I mowed the lawn. I picked up heaping piles of Rex poop. I pulled weeds and moved river rock from our backyard. I played soccer and softball with the girls. I dropped Kailey off at a birthday party and Kyra and I went to run errands and get a bite to eat. We returned home and I got my things together for my twelve-hour overnight shift.

I should have been exhausted, and I was. I finally fell into bed a little after 6:00 pm, then laid there, awake, for at least the next two hours. My body was tired, but my mind, wide awake. I thought about the day, our finances and the bills that needed to be paid, and continually performed the math to figure out how much sleep I would get if I fell asleep precisely this minute. As my sleep sum dwindled, my anxiety level rose. Dude, you've got to go to sleep! Brain, knock it off! I eventually fell asleep, although I'm not sure exactly when. But I do know that I slept no more than four hours, most likely around three, for my twelve-hour shift. Should get interesting. So good citizens of Tucson, should you experience long periods of black during your morning programming, do not panic. I'm just taking a little nap.

Am I a Life-Talent or a Talented-Lifer?

I was scrolling through Blogger's "Next Blog" feature, when I came across a blog that contained the following Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz. I was bored, so I took the quiz. Normally, I wouldn't publish my results, but I thought they were interesting, and a little too telling of my current inner life-struggle, so here they are. You can read about the difference between a Talent, a Lifer, or a Mandarin here.

I'm a Talent!

You're a risk-taker, and you follow your passions. You're determined to take on the world and succeed on your own terms. Whether in the arts, science, engineering, business, or politics, you fearlessly express your own vision of the world. You're not afraid of a fight, and you're not afraid to bet your future on your own abilities. If you find a job boring or stifling, you're already preparing your resume. You believe in doing what you love, and you're not willing to settle for an ordinary life.

Talent: 56%
Lifer: 54%
Mandarin: 33%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.


Notice that there is only a 2% difference between being a Talent and a Lifer. So I went back to the quiz and changed one answer that really could have gone either way, and, voila, I became a Lifer.

I'm a Lifer!

To you, a job is what pays the bills. You put in your hours, follow the rules, and then go home. Occasionally, you consider quitting, but then you think of how bad the job market is and you reconsider. Whatever happiness you get, you get from your life outside the workplace. Relationships, family, hobbies, and outside creative pursuits are what really matter to you. You're probably taking this test at work because you don't have anything better to do.

Talent: 54%
Lifer: 56%
Mandarin: 36%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.


What is interesting to me is that, philosophically, I desire to be and to live my life as a Talent. But, practically, I'm living my life as a Lifer, working in a decent job that pays the bills and provides stability for me and my family. And I just recently came to grips with the realization that whatever happiness or contentedness I would experience in my life would come outside the workplace. Kind of freaky.

Bummed

Kailey's first softball game of the season was this afternoon and I missed it because I had to work. It's times like these that I hate my weird work schedule and the inflexible hours. As the girls get older, it will become increasingly difficult to attend all of their extracurricular activities. And this year has become a little crazier as the girls are now in different age divisions for softball. And so it begins: double the practices and double the games. And it will be this way until they're ready to fly the coop. I just don't want to become the "absent dad"; the dad who missed special events because of work. And I don't want the girls to think that my work is more important than them. It's not. My work is a paycheck, nothing more, nothing less.

Kailey called me after the game and told me all about it. Actually, I had to drag it out of her as I grilled her with a barrage of questions. "What position did you play? Did you catch any pop-ups? Were any grounders hit to you? Did you throw them out? Did you get any hits? Did you win? Did you have fun?" She played right-center field and second base over the course of the game, which warmed my heart because I played second through high school. She had no pop-ups and one grounder, and struck out in one at-bat...we'll work on that...and she didn't know if they won. I love that. Wins and losses will matter one day, but for now, I just want her to learn the game and have fun. She was bummed about the strike-out because, she said, "the girl pitched too fast." Kailey's a good hitter, and she'll make those pitchers pay as soon as she learns to lay off the high heat.

Before we hung up I told her that I loved her and that I was proud of her, and she seemed to be OK with that. Her next game is Monday night and I'll be there, cheering her on and shaking my head as she digs in the dirt and chases butterflies around the outfield. I can't wait.

Rodeo Daze

It's that time of year again when the rodeo comes to town. For people not born and reared in the Southwest, it's no big deal, but here in Tucson, the city practically shuts down. Schools close, people take time off work, and the snow bunnies take to the streets en masse. All for the rodeo. Yeeeee-ha. This week has left me in a bit of a funk and I am looking forward to the weekend and a few days off. I blame most of it, no, make that all of it, on the rodeo.

First of all I'm bitter. The girls get a four-day weekend out of the deal, but I get jack. Check that, I got a big headache. I came in to work on Thursday only to be greeted by mass chaos. Our station decided to celebrate the occasion with a cookout and potluck luncheon in the back parking lot. Fine, whatever. They also invited our radio division whose facilities are on the other side of town. This is where the headache begins. I'm trying to do my job, and I have tours of people coming through, interrupting me and distracting me from getting ready for my shift. This was accompanied by co-workers coming in every two minutes to inform me:

"Hey, did you know there's food out there?"

"There's food out in the back parking lot!"

"Did you get food? They're grilling hot dogs out in the back lot!"

"They've got Hebrew Nationals out back! Why don't you go out there and fix yourself a plate?"

While I do appreciate their concern for my hunger relief (ignoring their lack of concern for my intestinal well-being), it became pretty annoying. As you can tell, it seems everyone at the station gets a little giddy whenever free food is at stake. An announcement of free lunch will incite a riotous stampede to the source, as employees adhere to the unwritten rule concerning free station food: you snooze, you lose. I realize that television salaries aren't great, but please! You'd think the company was handing out bonuses or free stock options. Apparently, everyone has come to the realization that free food is as good as it's gonna get, so they celebrate it. I'm not there yet.

Then I heard the tragic news of the day: a five year-old girl had been killed at the Rodeo Days parade earlier in the day. For the second straight year, something spooked a team of horses pulling a wagon, sending them in a literal stampede through the parade route. Last year, the mayor of Tucson and his wife were injured in the incident. This year, the team of horses collided with a horse ridden by the little girl. She was thrown from her horse and trampled. I hate hearing news of children dying, even more so now that I myself am a Dad. I can't help but put myself in the shoes of the grieving parents, and my heart goes out to them.

So now I'm annoyed and depressed. And people kept coming in and saying, "Oh, did you hear about the little girl? That's so sad! Hey, there's still hot dogs outside! You should go get one!" Leave me alone...can't you see I'm grieving here?

Diane was in Los Angeles for meetings and the girls were with the in-laws, so I had the house to myself. Normally, I'd be ecstatic to have all of that alone time, but not this week. The house felt a little too empty. Add to that the frustration of my computer dying for real this time (the hard drive is fried on a computer that's not even two years old), and my life's beginning to resemble a Country/Western song:

My dog died and my wife ran to L.A.
My buddies hate me 'cause I won't eat the hot dog tray
And I'm cryin' 'cause the computer won't play
All during Rodeo Days

Sadly, those are probably the best lyrics I've written in the past six months, probably more. My funk has lasted for about three days now and I'm going to place the blame squarely on the rodeo, even for the fried hard drive. Why? Because I'm in a bad mood and I can. I think I need a vacation.

Feeling Like a Fool

I walked into the men's room at work to find the solitary urinal occupied by one of the account executives who works upstairs. We've seen each other on occasion and have exchanged pleasantries, but that's about the extent of our relationship. I gave him a "How goes?" (no pun intended) and made my way to one of the stalls, not expecting a reply.

"So, do you think I need to stop at the store to pick up something for dinner?" he asked, still facing the wall.

I stopped dead in my tracks and did a quick scan of the men's room. No one else was there. I looked back at him...one hand rested on his hip while the other, well, you know, WASN'T holding a cell phone, so I decided he must be talking to me. "Ummm, I don't know...I guess it depends on what you want," I offered, a little unnerved and still unsure of why in the world he would ask me such a question.

He wasn't talking to me. He turned his head toward me (his body was still engaged) to reveal a wireless Bluetooth receiver in his left ear. Darn you, modern technology! Dude was apparently making dinner plans with wifey-poo while taking a leak. Talk about multitasking. He shot me a quick grin then turned back to continue his conversation and finish the job. I felt like a big dork (pun again not intended), and walked swiftly into the nearest stall where I conducted my business while waiting patiently for him to exit the men's room.

Thank goodness I don't see him that often, but I'm not going to avoid him. Next time I see him I'm going to ask him what they had for dinner. He'll probably have no idea of what I'm talking about and I'll look like a dork again...what's new.

Daddy/Daughter Work Day

This morning I was in the den checking e-mail and paying some bills when I heard Diane call me from the family room, "Hey Hon?" We've been together for 20 years. I know this call. This is the "I-have-a-big-favor-to-ask-you" call.

"Yeah?" I moaned.

"I have a haircut appointment at six o'clock..."

"Yeah?"

"...and mom wasn't feeling very well last night..."

"Yeah?"

"He sounds kinda mean," Kyra chimed in.

"Yeah, he does," Diane agreed. "Could I drop one of the girls off with you at work while I get my hair cut? I can handle one, but I'm not so sure about two."

Hmmmm. Daddy/Daughter work day? That didn't sound too bad. "Sure."

I work at a television station where I'm responsible for airing local news as well as syndicated and network programming. There are a lot of buttons. Rows and rows of buttons. Buttons for switchers, and buttons for satellite dishes, and buttons for tape decks, and buttons for servers, and buttons for tuners, and buttons for cameras, and buttons for scopes, and buttons for routers. I am, in short, a "button-pusher". The girls have visited me at work several times in the past, and they know they are not allowed to touch ANYTHING. And they have shown me that they are able to behave while at the station. So I was excited about having one of them with me at work.

It turned out to be Kailey. My cell phone rang after the 5:00 PM newscast. I went to the back door and there she was, holding a duffle bag of stuff that seemed to weigh as much as she did. I opened the door and she shuffled in. She had a grin that ran the width of her face. So did I. I took the bag and we headed back to the control room.

We had a great time. I took her into the news studio and introduced her to the camera operators and the chief meteorologist. We returned to the control room and I showed her how to check the levels on the studio cameras, letting her adjust the picture and change it from dark to light. She thought that was pretty cool.

During the 6:00 newscast, she settled in with a comic book and had an interesting conversation with one of our engineers. I couldn't help but laugh as she explained to him in vivid detail the very specific procedures for tomorrow's spelling test. She seemed WAY too grown up.

After the newscast I put her to work and made her earn her keep. I had her roll a couple of commercial breaks, superimpose the time and temperature graphic over local programming, and roll the backup video for our primetime programming. I let her push A LOT of buttons, and she was loving it. So was I. Kailey and I don't get to have much one-on-one time, so I think this was a special time for both of us.

Once we got into primetime, I pulled out her spelling words and helped her study for her spelling test. She was working on "information" (is it me, or is that crazy for a 2nd grader?) when I noticed something. "Are you wearing makeup?"

She looked up at me and smiled. Her face looked a little darker than normal, but I thought it was just because we were in the darkened control room. Now that I had positioned her under a light, I clearly saw the makeup. She had foundation caked all over her face. "Did you do this, or did Mommy?"

"I did it," she said proudly. Apparently she wanted to look pretty for Daddy/Daughter work day. "Mommy wiped some of it off with a kleenex, though." Not enough. I laughed and grabbed a tissue to work off a little more of the makeup, and we went back to work on the spelling words. Kailey had a little trouble with "information" but eventually got it down. She's a good speller.

Diane arrived a few minutes later, and Daddy/Daughter Work Day came to an end. It was late, but I was sad to see them go. Times like this make me so proud as a dad that I can literally feel my heart swell. I am proud of how well Kailey behaved and composed herself at the station. I am proud of the way she interacted with my coworkers. And, most of all, I am proud of the way she beamed with pride each time she completed an assigned task. Every parent loves to see their children try new things and succeed. Scratch that...most of the time parents are (or should be) content just to see their kids try new things. The bonus is to see them succeed. Tonight was a bonus night.

As they were leaving, Kyra had the distinct feeling that she had gotten the short end of the stick, so she offered a suggestion, "Maybe next time Kailey can go with Mommy and I can stay with Daddy." That'd be OK by me.

The Drive Home

I drove home with my convertible top down last night as I often do after work. In Tucson, summer days are brutal, but by the time I get off work it's usually cool enough to put the top down. After a hard day of work, it's a nice release to drop the top, kill the radio, and submit to a wind massage that eases away the stress of the day. I take the long way home. It's mostly two lane roads with little light. The sky explodes with stars. Moonlight reveals dark silhouettes of the mountains in the distance. Wildlife emerges from its daytime slumber. It's not unusual for me to see coyotes on the prowl, jackrabbits standing at attention with ill-proportioned ears stretched to the sky, or javalina families doing whatever javalina do. I've even seen a bobcat bound across the road in front of me. The drive relaxes me and on these nights I'm able to let go of the day and go directly to bed.

Now that fall has arrived, the drive home last night was a little chilly. I had to turn the heat on high to keep the chill at a minimum. But I did not roll up my windows as many with convertibles do. I don't get people who do that. Pretty soon it will be too cold in the evenings to drive "topless". I will miss that. Midnight topless-driving will be one of the things I'll look forward to next summer.