The life and times of an irrational father. One man, multiple personalities.
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Played Us Like a Fiddle

February 3rd, 2009 | Posted by Joe in babysitting | cameras | friends | teething - (7 Comments)
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Yesterday was Adam’s 30th birthday. Three days ago, on Saturday, was the super secret awards-show style surprise birthday party that his wife had been planning for the previous 4 or 5 months. She rented a conference room at the local Radisson hotel, which we decorated around a red carpet awards show. I won’t delve into her devious planning, and how she was able to arrange for him to be there in a suit, with him none the wiser, but it’s a good story.

I’ve spent the last 2 months (maybe three, I can’t really remember), making a PowerPoint for the event, which became known as “The Non-Annual Quoties Awards”. Adam has the innate ability to watch a movie one time and quote almost the entire thing afterward. As a result, he somehow manages to work movie quotes into everyday conversation, well, everyday. Some are easily worked into a discussion, like “You’re killing me, Smalls”, from “The Sandlot”. Others aren’t nearly as easy, but he pulls it off. It’s a gift, for sure. The meat and potatoes of the PowerPoint went like this. A quote would appear on screen for about 4 seconds. All quotes were lines that Adam has been known to say, many times. Guests would then shout out their guesses for the movie the quote belongs to. Then the movie clip would play. It took two (or more) months, because I had to get the movie from Netflix, if I didn’t already have it, rip it to the computer with one program, compress it to a windows movie file with another, find the quote and mark its start and end frame with yet another program, and extract the segment of movie with a final program. After all the quotes and slides were loaded, I had to rearrange them all into a random order, and set the timing up for the clips. Sound effects, animations, blah blah blah.

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The general format of the Quoties slideshow

On Friday, I watched the slideshow about 10 times, and tweaked a few things. Sarah took Tyler to visit a friend that just had a baby, which allowed me to concentrate my time into making these final adjustments. The party was about two hours from us (ah, the joys of moving away from all of one’s friends), so we spent Saturday morning getting everything around and packed up. The difficulty in this was that Tyler was being an absolute nightmare; easily the worst he’s been since he was born. A peek into his mouth during these endless screams revealed the very beginnings of Tyler’s third tooth. His first two teeth were the bottom front teeth. I don’t recall which one is normally the next one to come through – and it’s not worth my time to google it again – but this one wasn’t it. Tyler appears to be copying Maddie, by bringing in his left, upper eye-tooth next (also known as the canine, or the fang tooth).

It really hurts us to see our son in pain. The bigger problem is that we had a party to get to that night. If we were just regular guests (and I’m not being demeaning in saying this), we would have called and canceled. But, the PowerPoint was a very key element to the party. No matter what, the laptop had to get up there and hooked up to the speakers and projector! Sarah’s last nerve was in danger of snapping and she needed a baby-break. So, she went to the store to look at shoes while I tended to the tester-of-sanity.

“Tyler, I don’t know what to do, buddy.”

He continued screaming as the lightbulb clicked on above my head. You know the lightbulb. It’s the one that has the word “idea” curved around the top of the bulb. Sometimes, little lines will come off the word, to show emphasis on the fact that despair has been replaced with a brilliant thought. I searched through the luggage bag that Sarah packed, for the magical tube of Baby Teethers Orajel. I squirted about a half pea sized amount onto my finger and rubbed it onto his gums. For good measure, I handed the tube to him, so he could suck what he wanted to out of it, like an on-demand morphine drip. I’m making that last part up, but it did cross my mind. On a scale of one to a hundred, with one hundred being the best, the effect of the Orajel on Tyler’s pain (as judged by the longevity and pitch of his screams) was about 0.00000001. And that was being generous.

Have you ever watched a movie where the hero was hanging off a cliff by a rope, and the individual threads of the rope started to break and unravel, spelling certain doom for our hero? That’s how I visualized my nerves and patience. Then I heard keys.

“MOMMY’S HOME!”

An angel, surrounded by bright, pure, white light appeared in the doorway, and she was holding a package of Baby Motrin. Berry flavored, no less. I couldn’t read the dosage table, indications and fine print fast enough. Tyler definitely liked the taste of it too, because he looked at me as if asking where the rest of it was.

Further complicating everything else, this was to be the first time that Tyler would be left with a babysitter. Let me clarify, because he’s previously been left in the care of his aunts while Sarah and I went out. This time he was going to be cared for by a complete stranger. We weren’t terribly worried, because this is the same person that watches Adam and Mel’s son, Ben, and they love her. But he was wearing on our patience, and we’re his parents. I had a real fear that she could just lose her temper with Tyler.

We drove up to Kalamazoo and parked at a “For Sale” house just around the corner from Adam’s and Mel’s. At 6:09p, they pulled out and turned the other way. I said “It’s go time” and quickly drove to their house, unloaded the supplies and hopped into Mel’s SUV to go to the Radisson. Before I left, I told the babysitter to please be patient with our grumpy baby and call us for anything. Sarah was sticking around for another 20 minutes to go over all the details with her.

Fast forward about 90 minutes. We were all setup and waiting for Adam and Mel to arrive from their dinner date to the surprise party. All the guests were lined up on the “red carpet” with their cameras. They were instructed to act as paparazzi for the guest of honor. Problem is, the guest of honor and his wife were running late, so every time I walked back into the room to update them (Melanie was sending Sarah text messages while Sarah spied from the halls of the hotel, looking for them) the guests all looked up, ready to yell and start taking pictures. All I saw were the looks of disappointment when they saw that it was just me. Truthfully, during one of my entrances, they expressed a collective sigh of disappointment, which was a mixture of “uhhh”, deep exhalations, and “come on”. It’s great for ones pride and ego.

Finally we got the message. “We’re in the hotel. Adam’s going to the bathroom.” Sarah and I ran into the room and told them to take their places. When they walked in, flashes were going off everywhere as I faded in AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”.

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“What are you wearing?”, “Who did your eyebrows?”, and “Where the hell have you been?” were just a few of the comments I could hear over the music, as I was crouched right next to the speakers. The speech, the PowerPoint, and the surprise couldn’t have gone any better. After the “awards” portion, we all started to mingle and talk and drink. There was a table setup with theatre sized boxes of candy, and a popcorn machine next to the beverage table. Sarah sent me into the hall to check her voicemail since there was no reception in the room that the party was in.

“You have 1 new message, and 2 old messages”, piped the recorded, emotionless female voice.

“Hi Sarah, this is Jaime…”

My heart jumped. Could Tyler really have been so bad that she had to call us? Why didn’t I pay attention to when the message was received? How long ago was this?

“… I just wanted to let you know that Tyler…”

Seriously? Talk faster, woman! Get to the point!

“… is sound asleep. He’s been great tonight. He did start to get a little fussy, so I read him a book and put him to bed, and he went right to sleep…”

I stood there, with Sarah’s pink phone to my ear in stunned silence as she continued her message about Tyler’s angelic behavior. The boy that seemed to be possessed by the darkest demons just 12 hours ago? I could feel the walls start to close in on me as I realized that my son is a two faced liar, and he played us like a fiddle. How could I ever have sympathy for Tyler and his Crocodile tears again? Little faker.

“… press 7. To save this message, press 9.”

Snapping back to reality, I pressed 9 and folded the phone closed. Sarah’s mouth made an audible thud as it hit the floor when I relayed the message. I told her that I saved the message because I knew she wouldn’t believe me.

Normalcy

January 20th, 2009 | Posted by Joe in cameras | family - (3 Comments)
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I’m not going to detail all of the events that have taken place over the last few weeks. Suffice it to say, we’ve been busy since around December 23rd.

Last Sunday through Wednesday, I was in Phoenix, Arizona. Due to the nature of my work, I only see my co-workers about 3 or 4 times a year, so these meetings are a great time to catch up, and re-energize for another year of lonesome work. Sadly, Tyler was already in bed when I got home. Allison (Sarah’s sister) came to visit on Thursday. Later that evening, we were joined by Jillian (another of Sarah’s sisters) and her almost-2-year-old daughter, Lexi.

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Friday was a very long, and very unlucky day for me. My workday ended up being about 3 hours longer than I had planned for. When I finished up, I walked my tools to my workvan. I drive a minivan, and the rear door opens “up” like a hatchback. Due to the ice that was all over the van, the door didn’t raise all the way up. So, when I leaned in, I cracked my forehead on the door. After mumbling a few words, I lifted the door up and leaned in again. The door had, lucky me, drifted down, causing me to crack my forehead again. In the exact same spot. I was furious at this point. I shoved the door, grabbed my tool box, and swung it up to load it into my van. It turns out that I didn’t fully latch the tool box closed. Wrenches and screwdrivers went flying all over the parking garage, mostly under other cars. Have I mentioned, yet, that it was -17º Fahrenheit outside?

Not having any co-workers nearby to vent to, I called Sarah. She told me that UPS dropped a box off on the porch. Now, I get deliveries 3 or 4 days a week for work, but those come via FedEx. I’ve only been expecting one package from UPS. The flood waters of bad luck must be receeding, because that package contains my shiny new camera and lens. The drive home that evening suddenly became much brighter.

While the battery charged, I read the entire user’s guide on how to attach the lens, set the aperture, and change the shutter speed. I fell in love the moment I pressed the shutter for the first time.

Then I dropped the camera! I was sitting in the kitchen with Sarah and her sisters and… Well, I don’t know. I just dropped it. Knowing I wouldn’t be quick enough to catch it, I stuck my foot out, hoping to break its fall. It worked, thankfully. The camera hit my foot, and rolled to the floor. On Sarah’s advice, I promptly added the neck strap, and watched as they all played Clue.

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Then I dropped the camera again! I was gesturing with my hands while telling a story, and slapped the camera right off the table. There were no fall-breaking interventions this time. The camera crashed to the floor. I wasn’t worried though, because I’ve read countless reviews about this particular model. Many people have told stories of dropping their cameras on concrete and having them suffer little more than a scratch. What level of damage could a peel-and-stick linoleum floor do? I’ve got the answer to that question, and it’s “a LOT”. Linoleum must be some sort of camera kryptonite, because the LCD screen was shattered. *sigh*

Side note: I mean, come on. If you watch football, you’ve seen some of the hits that photographers, and their cameras, take when a wide receiver crashes into them after being forced out of bounds. How could I have thought that my camera would be destroyed from a tumble off a table, when I watch them collide with 300-pound monsters, with no apparent ill-effects? It’s just not fair.

I’m not going to tell the story of how I now have a replacement, because I feel guilty for my deceptions. All I’ll admit to is that the phrase “shipping damage” may have been mentioned. Don’t look at me like that!! Let he who has not sinned blah blah blah.

Friday was a very unlucky day indeed.

I have not dropped my “new” new camera yet – knock on wood- and am absolutely in love with it.

The rest of the weekend was about as crazy as you could imagine it to be with a 2 year old who doesn’t like taking naps and doesn’t like not getting what she wants.

Sarah made the comment that, much like yawning, crying appears to be contagious between kids.

My only hope for the next 3 to 7 days is a return to normalcy. Well, I guess I’m also hoping that I can fight away the cold that my body is trying to catch. I think I may actually be winning this battle.

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Don’t let this face deceive you. Evil lurks beneath

Point and shoot?

September 11th, 2008 | Posted by Joe in cameras | frustration | photos - (4 Comments)
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I have a Samsung digital camera. It’s a good camera. 99% of the photos that I’ve been taking are with that camera. This camera is a 6 megapixel camera.

I also have a Canon Powershot digital camera. This is also a good camera. It is a 5 megapixel camera. I don’t use it very much, because we’ve got the Samsung.

I wouldn’t care if they were 1,000,024 megapixel cameras, they are junk. Both of the cameras have been rendered useless with the arrival of little Tyler.

I’ve always believed that I would grow up and be rich. I’m not talking about the high on life, “what more could a man want”, “I’m rich in the figurative sense” crap. I’m talking about wiping my butt with hundred dollar bills rich. I’m 30 years old and have not yet begun wiping my butt with hundred dollar bills, but I am here to tell you now that I have found my calling. I now know how I am going to get rich, and I’ve got Tyler to thank for it.

I am going to develop an affordable digital camera that takes a picture – wait for it – when you press the friggin button! None of this crap where you have to half-press the button, wait 3 seconds while it finds the faces, determines if flash is needed, and auto-focuses. Then you press the button the rest of the way to take the picture. Sure, I could just press the button all the way without doing the half-press, right? No, because it still takes 3 seconds to make those same adjustments, and does a poor job at it if you don’t do the half-press. It’s not a point and shoot camera. That is a point, click, wait, shoot camera.

It never bothered me before. I said “hold that pose” more times than I care to count. A critical difference between Tyler and most of the rest of the world is that Tyler does not, ever, hold his pose. With each out of focus picture that I take, I curse the digital camera engineers that dropped the ball on this one. When I go through my routine of downloading from camera to pc, tagging, captioning, color correcting, and uploading to SmugMug, I now have to delete hordes of pictures that were about half a second from being the best pictures ever taken, in all the history of the world. And I have a very difficult time deleting photos, blurry or not.

I said to myself, “Self, you just have to be smarter than the camera”. I have to think through the problem and find a way to adapt the situation to work for me.

Let’s say I want to take a picture of Tyler smiling, a feat in and of iteself. I would hold the camera in position, half-press the button to “prime the engine” and start making goofy sounds. When Tyler smiles, CLICK! Does it work? Not really. See, the camera has a setting on it, if you haven’t done anything in 5 or 10 seconds, it assumes you mistakenly pressed the button and goes back to default. So if you get that awesome smile you’re looking for and press the button, it takes an additional 3 seconds. The entire time, you’re praying to the gods of picture taking that Tyler can hold that smile for just one more freakin’ second.

That didn’t turn out so well, so I went back to my drawings and flowcharts and schematics to figure out another way. I call this next one “anticipatory picture taking”, APT for short. I thought of calling it “Anticipatory Shooting of Subject”, but I didn’t think the anagram would catch on. What you do is, you make your silly face or goofy sound, and take a picture, in anticipation of his smiling response. Does it work? Well, I did manage to get a couple pictures of Ty smiling, and about 50 of him making no face at all. Then about another 50 where half his face is cut off because I wasn’t able to pay attention to the aim of the camera.

My last attempts had me snapping picture after picture and crossing my fingers that I’d get a good one. I think that all I’ve succeeded in doing is damaging my son’s eyesight. No way should it be safe to look at a camera flash as much as he has.

These cameras have a dial at the top of them where I can select if I want to take a photo, a movie, a scenic shot, and about 5 other settings that nobody ever uses. How hard would it be to add another setting where it is in constant auto-focus mode? Sure, it’ll eat the batteries faster, but I’ll be able to snap a pic the very moment I need to. I don’t mind charging my batteries more often, if it means that I get more of the pictures that I want.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to run to the patent office to tell them my idea of a camera that takes a picture when you press the button.