Shoot For The Moon

Worth getting up early for? Not for this shot alone... but i did this with my daughter, virtually, exchanging pics over text since she’s at her moms.... so hell yes it was worth it and then some.
(Nothing fantastic, but a decent enough image, considering I’m using an iPhone and a flaky “clamp-on” zoom attachment.)

On The Grab ‘n Run

I’m feeling a bit stupid about grabbing my photos today. Maybe not stupid but bad. Maybe both. When I dropped the kids off, I used the opportunity to enter the house and see their dog and fish to also bolt to back bedroom, grab the key to my file box in the garage, and grab it. It’s become a real need for me to get it. It has a letter and post card from my dad, as well as a slew of photos, negatives and so many other things I want back for personal reasons.

Showing Support

I went to Stanford today, to meet with his doctor, discuss his circumstances, and give my own input and experience with him and with his home environment. I stopped and grabbed him a burrito en route, too, which he was quite pleased to get. His doctor was very good, subjective, and positive. But along with having an opportunity to provide my own unique insight and first hand experience to her, I think the fact that I've asked about doing this, and followed through, and showed nothing but support, went a long way to further impressing upon him that he really means the world to me. It's good that he knows that now, at this age, and believes it. Actions are backing up the words.

Closing The Book

I have long expected that tablets would gradually take the place of laptops. I consciously, specifically recall the day the iPad was announced, and on the southbound train from San Francisco that evening, thinking that this would be a turning point in technology. That desktops were already becoming niche market needs, that laptops had reached a limit of their own, and that tablets were poised to replace them over time. I also specifically stated to colleagues and friends that in time, the predominant use of laptops and desktops would reduce to a subset of tasks, the dominant of which would likely be the creation of apps for tablets.



From where I sit today, I think that time has come.





It’s taken awhile for things to flesh out, and earlier versions of iPads did not quite provide the fluid and necessary functionality to replace a laptop. But with changes to the operating systems, enhancements to user experience continuity, and the incorporation of keyboards within cases, it’s pretty much done.



I’ve been spending the past week doing a trial run us using an iPad over a MacBook for all of my computing needs. I’d purchased a 12” iPad Pro awhile back, for my mom’s use, but found quickly that the transition was not one she’d easily make. It’s not one anybody who’s really entrenched in and accustomed to the use of Mac OSX can expect to be immediate. It requires patience, diligence, and even a bit of perspective and insight into the transitional point the two experiences are at. One is, as I’d anticipated, gradually replacing the other, and with that in mind, adoption and transitioning to the iPad’s proven to be possible.

THE GOOD:







1. Portability: it’s thin, light, and even with the Apple Keyboard cover, it’s a fraction of the bulk of a laptop. And if you opt for a 10” iPad Pro you’re getting even less bulk, with the modest trade-off of a slightly compressed but still functional keyboard. (The 12” case/keyboard is ‘full size’).




2. Cost: a new laptop can easily run over $2k. An iPad Pro with a keyboard comes in just over $1k. Half the price.




3. UE Continuity: it’s an adjustment to not have multiple windows visible when jumping between applications. But they’re all there and available via command-tab just like a Mac, via the iOS dock, just like a Mac, and the addition of the split screen functionality allows users to set up views that coordinate like-need apps on a single screen. (Example: Having Slack and email both open on one screen, or having work and personal calendars side-by-side).

THE BAD:

1. It’s not an ideal ‘laptop’ as far as setting it on your thighs while typing. It’s manageable but a bit awkward since you can’t angle the screen, it’s in a fixed orientation.




2. There’s far less support for OS add-ons, so some of the ease-of-use enabled by 3rd parties slips through the cracks.




3. There’s no backlit keyboard for dark environments.





THE UGLY:

Moving between the two devices has resulted in my attempt to use a phantom trackpad on the iPad, and tapping unsuccessfully on the screen of my MacBook. It’s a bit confusing.



1. I prefer the 10” iPad Pro over the larger one because in it’s larger size, there’s less of a benefit over the laptop option, size-wise.

I’m really excited to be taking the initiative to test this, continue doing so, and to roll this out to a trial group within our company. I want to move this concept forward because it makes sense. 50% the cost, increased employee satisfaction with the smaller lighter option. Win-win. It's time.

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things.

I have waited patiently, for over a year, for the perfect opportunity to watch “The Shawshank Redemption” with my son. And that opportunity came about tonight.



He’s 14, and his focus up until now has been more on WWII movies, World War Z, and Dumb and Dumber, all of which I have also enjoyed, but none of which have been as much about character-based dramatic storytelling that evolves as a slower and more detailed pace.





I tried, without success, to get him to watch Mr. Holland’s Opus with me about 6 months ago. It’s another I’d hope to introduce him to. But he bailed just before the point where the impact of John Lennon’s death on Mr. Holland played out, a particular moment in the film and in my own life that resonates deeply, and one I’d hope to share with him through this portrayal. But that did not happen, and I let it go, knowing the timing wasn’t right to force it.



He got back from a camping trip this afternoon and said he was really missing me and wanting to spend some time with me. I arranged for him to be dropped off, for several hours, and It turned out that the time he wanted to spend was really about running errands to do things that he wanted to do, related to his interest in building out his saltwater coral aquarium. t I made it clear that I was in for the night and that I didn't want to be spending my evening running errands. I’d been out and about all day. I was done, settled in, ready for a dinner already underway, and welcomed him being with me during the evening ahead. Although disappointed, he conceded, and we sat back, enjoyed a delicious steak with blue cheese, mushrooms and whipped cauliflower on the side (the latter two he’d passed on), and he then asked: “can we watch a movie together?”.



I knew we had about 3 hours, and that Shawshank ran a little over 2. So I said yes we could, but it had to be my pick. And that he would like it.



So, we watched it. There were a few points during the movie where he indicated that he thought it was too downbeat and depressing, and he wasn't sure where it was going or if he was sure he liked it. The pace required patience on his part but (spoiler alert) the narrative and the timing of the more dramatic and engaging moments, such as the tarring of the roof, Bogs being beaten, the playing of the Aria from "The Marriage of Figaro", and the introduction of the young man who’d come to the prison with insight into Andy’s case, were all spread out just enough to keep him intrigued throughout. By the time they got to the scene where Andy was missing from his cell, he was riveted, and he loved it. He had a huge smile on his face and comment on what a great movie it was as the final scene came to a close.



My patience paid off, and the timing was right. I’m hoping that this is the first of many opportunities for me to slowly introduce him to some of my favorite movies in the coming years. Hope is a good thing...

I’m on my way to pick up the kids. They are going to be with me tonight and tomorrow morning my son goes camping at the Pinnacles National Park.

Brother, Where You Bound?

This weekend, my brother came down from Utah to stay with us, while visiting our mom, and a significant moment came with his visit. We’ve been coordinating more these past months as we’ve come to meet our half-sister, I her mom, and as we have, we’ve regained a desire to sort through the history of our father given new information. It’s been wonderful, and my mom’s recent surgery become a catalyst for his coming to the Bay Area once again. His wife and he drove down, with a few other short stops along the way, and I wanted to facilitate his meeting our dad’s first wife, while she was in Half Moon Bay with Lisa.

He missed her by one day.

As we coordinated our schedules it occurred to me, out of the blue, that I should have him stay with us. I knew he was coming down, I knew they’d not want to stay with my mom, and I knew I did not not want him spending money on a hotel when I have room at home. The timing was such that the kids would be with me overnight, too, and I expected that would be something they’d really enjoy.

After a short exchange trying to coordinate when/where to meet for how long, another realization surfaced and I said we should all just converge our our place in San Jose where we could linger in comfort for as long as we like and get some take-out.

Lisa, her husband, my brother, his wife, my kids, and I, came together for several hours, telling stories, laughing, looking at photos and just connecting. All with “Herb Albert” playing in the background. Later, when it was just us and he and his wife, while the kids were off doing their own respective things, we had a chance to talk about all sorts of things in vast depths.

It touched me that David wanted to come stay with me including hanging out for the bulk of the day and evening instead of going to see our mom both Sunday and Monday. He opt’d for Sunday w/me and Monday with her. Which seemed odd to me at first

Typically, he/I don’t get much time ‘off stage’ in the realm of our mom’s home, with a broader audience, and with a very different energy. This was an opportunity for us to just ‘be’ without the demands and the drama.

We had a great chance to talk about personal things including our mom, or dad, the past months, and growing up. We’re in our late 50’s now but we still don’t feel like adults, especially with our mom, who at times we want to confront and/or raise issues that might challenge her with other than agreement or compliance. That’s never been easy for me, but the changes I’m experiencing and the focus of this year for me includes “recovery” and part of recovery is taking control of and addressing the things that cause me to experience anything negative. So having some frank discussions and setting limits and boundaries may be on the near horizon for me.

When my brother and his wife left, it was on the most ‘adult’ terms I’ve experienced with him in some time. Maybe I’ve changed, or we’ve both changed, but it’s a good change. We might not be ready to discuss politics or religion or gun legislation, but we can still find things that feel familial. Including our recollections of our childhood, the specific reel-to-reel, 8-track and LPs that we recall having been influenced significantly by. A few of which I shared with him and have captured in the photo above. He left with an LP of “Whipped Cream and other Delights” which I’d bought for him, when it appeared before me at the front of a thrift store bin of records the day after having sent him a photo of my own copy while discussing these specific items which we both hold fond memories of. Karma, fate coincidence.... whatever it is, it’s staying alive.

Maintaining A Healthy Grattitude

In mid-December, just last month, I received a Christmas gift. It was given to me early because it was needed sooner than 12/25. I had exceeded 200lbs, my clothes were no longer fitting, and I was experiencing heartburn and discomfort throughout my day. It was becoming debilitating, and after more than two or three years of gradual weight gain and my failure to get control over it again, I was struggling and feeling defeated.

This early gift was enrollment in a “28-day challenge” ketogenic program with Jen, from Jen. She signed us up to participate together, and the biggest gift was that she signed her self up to do all of the necessary prep and cooking for us both, for the full 28 days! All I needed to do was eat what I was given. That’s it. It’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. It’s an experience, much-needed help, and a service gesture that would have otherwise been a barrier to my success. The perfect gift.

The View From The Fifth And Final Stage

I am beginning to consciously face and work through many regrets and realizations about my separation and divorce. I'm not saying that it's wrong that we separated and are divorcing. I think we both know whole-heartedly that the relationship had never been a two-way, solid, stable situation for either of us. What I am coming to recognize and trying to fully accept right now is that the baby really DID get thrown out with the bathwater.

Poetic Justice In The Nick of Time

It’s here again. January 5. My father would have been 84 today.

Yes, I know this happens every year, and I’ve mentioned it before. But the difference between this year and last year is that in the last 6 months, I have had the unexpected chance to connect with my fathers’ daughter from his first marriage, Lisa, and eventually meet and discuss him with her mother, his ex-wife, Vicky.

I made a reference in a prior post that ‘pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall into place’. This opportunity, to have met Vicky  to learn more about my dad back to their mutual age of 14, into and thru their marriage and their many experiences, has been like finding a lost collection of puzzle pieces that would fill a gaping hole in a treasured puzzle you had come to accept as incomplete, writing off that segment, never imagining a scenario in which they might suddenly be within your reach years down the line.

Vicky was warm and kind. She was sincere, reflective, she has a very strong memory, and I quickly felt a strong respect and even an affection for her. She’ s a sweet kind person, just like Lisa said she was.

After meeting her and getting to sit with her for some 90+ minutes as we went through her photo albums and discussed a literal lifetime of topics, I called my brother in Utah on my way home. I conveyed the many things I had learned about them knowing each other in high school, being young and starting a family, their friends, his navy stints and more. Vicky shared with me what a good man he was, how smart he was, about the accolades he’d receive from his coworkers as to his character, and that her family and their friends loved him.

What Vicky had to say about my father was wonderful. I had given her full license, up front, to be honest and direct, and to please share with me the good, the bad and the ugly. I wanted truths and honestly.

Vicky said, verbatim, that she had absolutely nothing bad to say about my father.

She spoke of how my father would always jump at the chance to talk to anybody. How he would always be a positive, happy and authentic person. How kind he was to her family, and in particular to her grandparents, and to all of her extended family, with an emphasis on “all”. She told me about the small home they 1st lived in, the different homes and experiences they shared, how he would be away for six months at a time on duty as a radio operator in the Navy, while she was home raising their kids and awaiting his return.

She also said, more than once, that they “married too young”. Vicky was just weeks away from turning 19 when their first child was born. But they had been close friends since the age of 14. They were neighbors. They went to school together. They grew up together, experiencing their youth and developing their character at the same time. Although she did not make any direct reference to having been pregnant when they married and I certainly did not ask about it either, I can’t imagine it was uncommon.

Vicky also shared the sobering story of my grandmothers’ removal from my fathers’ childhood home to be institutionalized due to her having syphilis, and her resisting on the way to the car, crying out in tears “who will take care of Alan? Who will take care of my son?”

As we talked, Vicky made more than one reference to having “blown it“. Direct references, not veiled or couched. It became very clear to me that her perspective is and has always been that she made a mistake. That she lost out on her husband and family because of something that broke their marriage apart.

Vicky loved her husband, my father, and has carried a guilt about their break up for close to 60 years of her lifetime. It resonates from within her to this day, I heard it, and I felt it too.

THIS… this is a beautiful and heartbreaking love story. A 1950's story of wartime era suburban love lost, reflections over time, and redemption of sorts in the final act. I love having learned this, and knowing that it is a story I have a connection to. It is certainly tragic in a broad sense, yet beautifully human, and it's invaluable to me.

But It’s also hard to reconcile.

My own mother’s recollections of my father are dramatically different. I can’t argue about or comment on anything she experienced before I was born, or in my childhood years, but I can say that in my later years as a young adult, I don’t recall any indications of the magnitude of issues she relays. In fact, for most of those later years, I actually used to feel a great amount of empathy for the position my dad would wind up in. We had a weekly family meeting, held every Sunday morning, which would routinely digress into a discussion of his faults & failures and such, while we two kids sat haplessly to the side as they would argue and bicker until we felt comfortable enough to ask permission to leave. I later referred to these incidents as “verbal castration”. It was that painful to witness. And it seems it was painful enough that I had forgotten about until writing this (or, should I say, I’ve blocked it out, but not subconsciously and that has likely played a role in my own relationship issues).

As I talked with my older brother on that drive home, we discussed my conversation with her and how many positive things Vicky had had to say about our father, David expressed the idea that there was a certain “redemption” taking place throughout this. How fortunate we are to have received such substantial missing puzzle pieces, here in our later years, while Vicky is still with us, sharp, and so open to sharing. David felt that maybe these validations of and for our father, who we both have fond memories of, would give his spirit peace if he able to see it playing out. Poetic justice.

There certainly is a significant degree of poetic nature in this, as both justice and redemption. And it occurred to me later that Vicky giving us these puzzle pieces is as much if not more of a gift to him than they are to my brother and I.

The loss I feel has never lightened in its intensity, only in its frequency. One might think this would heal over time if it were not being routinely reopened. That I lost the chance to share with him my understanding, that I inherited his character, of my gratitude for the things he did (or tried to do) in so many ways…., will never go away. But I don't actually think I would want it to either. I would feel wholly disconnected from the heart of the human experience were I unable to have this for perspective. And as far as re-opening wounds go, this one had been badly infected for some time. Vickys’ detailed stories, experiences, the photos, Lisa… they are all a wonder-drug and are proving to be a powerful healing agent.

I’ve been told on occasion that I’m a good dad. I want to be a great parent to my kids, and although I’m not always sure I am, these comments have given me enough confidence to believe that at least my intentions are recognized. I may not be perfect. And neither was my father. But he was still, to me, a good father. And his having died at 54 cheated him out of the opportunity to see his efforts and intentions be acknowledged and appreciated.

Perhaps this wound I’ve borne so long has more to do with that loss, his loss, than it does my own.

Perhaps I’ll write about that more, same time next year.

I got to spend a fun day with the kids today. Last year on Jan 1st we went to the Pinnacles, this year we visited my mom at the Rehab facility, got a brief stint of some time at home, and then we went to Fitzgerald Wildlife Preserve. He got to work with his new underwater camera and I got to linger and enjoy the outdoors with my daughter. On the way back, shuffling through my 'life soundtrack', "Puff the Magic Dragon came on. She and I sang out loud. It was a genuine moment of reflection and happiness for me, having shared the same experiences with my Father who introduced the song into our family dynamics.

I'm working to focus on positive moments and to recognize and really experience and embrace them. It's a discipline that was part of a meditation podcast about Joy. I felt it with her singing, and I felt it watching my son focused on photography. I feel it being home with them and knowing that they'll be continuing to acclimate to being there more routinely. The holidays threw schedules around a bit so it's just tonight with me, then back to the 2/2/3 routine. I'll have them Thur/Fri/Sat. AND the rooms are both setup for them now. As of 1/1/2018 they each have 'their space', only each has my or Jen's clothing in them. But that's where they'll sleep from now on when with me.