Archive for the 'Rants' Category

Having a young child and trying not to screw them up is a daunting task. You have to make sure that they eat, drink, brush, poop, pee, wake up, go to sleep, get into college, and most importantly not say naughty words.

Of the entire lexicon of naughty words out there, you find yourself finding every conceivable way to make sure that if a word is heard by your child that is does not stick, imprint, linger, or otherwise become part of their vocabulary. There is nothing more embarrassing than a two year old dropping the F-Bomb, the S-Bomb, the B-Bomb, the C-Bomb, or the A-Bomb at an inopportune moment, which is any moment.

So, if you are like me you focus all of that swearing energy, normally distribute amongst all bad words, into one more benign word. For me this is “JESUS CHRIST”, my Achilles heal of explicatives. It is rooted from my childhood, passed down to me by my father, and maybe to him from his father, as our catch-all swear. Used in times of joy, panic, stress, anger, and sleepiness as the master descriptor. It is the swiss army knife of profanity, allowing you to express it in so many ways.

There is the “what the hell is this” version where you slow roll it – “jjjjjjeeeesus ccchrrrist” or the substituted variation – “jjjeeesus h. christ”

There is the “just got the crap scared out of me” version gasped out like a gun shot – “JESUS CHRIST!” and the “I can’t believe I have to go to work” version exhaled through clenched teeth from a groggy I just stayed out drinking until 4 a.m. brain – “shhejusss chrissst”.

We cannot forget the pièce de résistance, my favorite, the thunder booming “I shall smote thee with great vengeance” version – the straight up “JESUS CHRIST”.

Our three your old appears to be an expert with all of them. Sometimes you can hear her practicing. “JESUS CHRIST”. “Jeeeesus Christ”. “Sheejus Christ”. She has great enunciation and is able to provide the right JC for the right situation, for example dropping a toy or being asked to get out of the bath.

In trying to compensate for all the other bad words I ended up searing just one swear into her head, and to reverse the situation have been trying to change the words up, hoping that she will think that she is saying it wrong.

She says “jesus christ” and I respond with “cheesy rice?”, in which she giggles back “cheesy rice”. I am not sure if it is working or if she thinks she has me trained to play this word game with her. Time will tell.

“Duck it, what the shells can I do. Cheesy rice save me.”

Imagine if you can the effect nine crayons might have stuffed into an electric heater being turned on for the first time. Something not unlike walking through the cheap candle isle at Wal-mart following someone whose hair is unfire.

The joy of pulling the molten hot bastards out of the heater you have just taken it apart, only to realize that you have to let the leftover crayon burn off. All the while your little pre-toddler is in the room next door playing innocent.

It has been a month and a day since we arrived in the Czech Republic – into the warm inviting arms of my wife’s family. One month and a day since I have left the geopolitcal womb of the United States behind, weened myself from the gut churning headlines of broadcast television, and said goodbye to a large number of friends and family. I have had to let go of control of things that I would normally handle and let my wife and her father take care of most everything from rental negotiations, furniture delivery, to legal matters. My Czech language deficit has certainly reminded my ego where I am.

Intelligence, to some degree, is relative to your ability to communicate what you know to those around you. Survival, to some degree, is relative to your ability to creatively communication with those around you. Thankfully, basic english is taught to most people 30 or younger, and that combined with my pigeon Czech and vaudeville style hand signaling I have been getting by OK. “Humble” is the word that comes to mind right now as I relearn how to do a lot of the things I used to take for granted.

I have always told people that I was bilingual – I speak English and Geek. Most of the time I was really just making a joke of it, but when having to deal with Czech speaking technophiles it has been a fairly universal. Thankfully, my job really balances things out. I work with Americans and Brits, and for the most part sell to Americans and english speaking natives. This has made things much easier.

“Slepic Pirka” by Mig21

I have never really been a person that makes small life changes. Some people decide to go the gym a couple times a week, change the color of their hair, or to eat more yellow vegetables, but not I (though the gym wouldn’t hurt)

Ten years ago I decided to to move from on the Northeast to the Northwest armed with nothing but a credit card and my best friend. With cars donned with signs boasting “Oregon OR Bust” we headed West. Ambitiously, we made a pact to hacky sack in every state that we drove through. We hacked our last sack in Ohio before we realized how daunting a 3200 mile drive through 12 states was going to be. We survived one the worst heat waves that Chicago had seen in a long time, drove the worlds longest straight line through Nebraska, and pushed through car stopping updraft driving over the Rockies.

There is freedom in dropping everything and starting over. I can’t explain why I feel this way, maybe it has something to do with the day-to-day becoming mundane. Every five years, almost like clockwork, I get the itch. Five years ago, I gave up everything (except for a box of stuff most of which I didn’t even need) and moved from Oregon to Connecticut.

It also seems like the five year mark is also a pivotal moment in my own personal development. I left Vermont to go to Oregon to find myself. Having found myself, I had to leave Oregon before I lost myself. In Connecticut, or at least the act of moving there, put into a effect a chain reaction of events that catapulted me into my next stage of life: career, marriage, fatherhood, home ownership.

Yet the itch surfaced again, and fortunately my wife shares it. So, we scratched it.

In short we are selling the house, I changed jobs, and we are moving to the Czech Republic (where my wife Katerina is from). The reasons are three fold:

1) We want to give our daughter and Czech family a chance to bond (which means that my wife and I can go on dates again)

2) Give me a chance to really experience the culture, get photographically inspired again, and turn my career up a notch.

3) Shit, it is the heart of freakin’ Europe! – who the hell wouldn’t want to go.July 12th the next journey begins. !

So, keep any eye on this space as I am going to try and document the move and life after the USA!

Sometimes it just slips. We have all had a little squeaker at in opportune time. Maybe, purposely ripped one in your colleagues office and shut the door on your way out. But what would ever possess a person to knowingly blast off next to me in an airport terminal? Why?

We aren’t talking about an 80 year old lady accidentally making balloons out of the ankles in her panty hose or the giggle toots after a good belly laugh. We are talking about a lifting a cheek off the chair and straining stomach muscles kind of premeditated ass launch designed only to shock and awe. He looked like an average middle-aged joe sitting only a chair length away from me. After he expelled his flagitious flatulence he simply glanced over his shoulder in response to my sudden outburst of “What the fuck!”, turned away saying nothing. No “excuse me”, no “sorry”, no “I have cronic intestinal problems and things like this can’t be avoided”. Nada.

This is why flying is no longer enjoyable to me. I hope he gets hemorrhoids!

Other than the half dozen books currently bookmarked and dog eared on my nightstand, there are really only three other sources of writing that even bother with. Esquire is my bathroom reader, The Morning News is my online reader, and having the close captions on while watching CNN is my morning coffee reader. The Morning News usually gives me what I need to get through my day, which is usually an article about “not much”, but it is well written and usually goddamn funny, sometimes even educational.

One of the The Morning News contributers, John Warner, is also the author of one my nightstand volumes. Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice from a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant. was a christmas present from my wife to reinforce her position that I should write more. I was under the impression that this was an inspiratonal book with a little pinch of sarcasm. No sooner had I read the dedication and I realized that that the pinch was going to be a punch, and that the inspiration I was looking for was really a parody on the publishing world in general. It turned out to be a real hoot, so I decided to drop John Warner an e-mail.

Hey John -

Just wanted to drop you a note, and let you know that I appreciate your work on TMN. Ironically, my wife would like to see me write more, and decided to buy an inspirational book from my amazon.com wish list. She had to choose from Fondle Your Muse and Grammatically Correct. She chose yours. Needless to say, I bought the grammar book two days later, but yours makes me laugh-my-ass-off to sleep every night.

Mahalo

-Garth

His Reply:

Very nice of you to take the time to write. I�d say that it made my day, but the day is still early and something bigger could happen yet. Still, once again, very nice.Good luck with the writing. As long as you do the opposite of what I say in FYM, you�ll be fine.

Best,

John

Pretty funny – I think I am going to use that one. Well at least on anyone that doesn’t read this, so with the exception of three or four people I should be all set.

T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse. The stocking were hung by the chimney with care with hopes that mini bottles of Grand Marnier, lotto tickets, and deodorant soon would be there.

The ladies were nestled all snug in their beds,while visions of Amazon.com wishlists danced in their heads. The tree was packed with paychecks well spent, on things to keep us warm, like fleece jackets with armpit vents.

I should probably stop this rhyme while I am ahead, but I think I will just keep typing instead. I am no Slim Shady, I am no Dr. Suess and it is doubtful if I can even find my muse, who is still somewhere out there on the loose.

Watches, knifes, jackets, and more – all the things we wished for from the store. Even a toilet training book that went flush – so many presents, Christmas is such a rush! Zoe took not one nap but two – so many toys and gifts what is a one year old girl to do!

We watched Ralphie do his best, with 24 hours of the Christmas Story, on TBS. We ate, drank and were merry – Mom even taught me the proper technique for eating a chocolate covered cherry.

Well, Christmas Day is done and we had way to much fun. Zoe’s in her crib, Mom’s in her bed, Kaca snoozing and me awake with all these words in my head. As I turn off the tree and the lights, I’ll wish you a very Merry Christmas and a dream filled good night.

–

P E A C E

I don’t believe that anyone truly appreciates parenthood until their child projectile vomits due to a combination of teething, influenza, and lasagna. Zoe has been fortunate enough of not having a cold or anything for the first year of her life. It is hard to watch your daughter first start to realize that there is a darker side to life, that it is not all cookies and cartoons. This coughing-aching-never-gonna-let-my-parents-sleep position that she is in, is not because she was bad, but just because. The sad look on her face that says “What the HELL is going on, make it stop!”, just breaks your heart. I felt the same way the first time she face planted while speed crawling. She doesn’t let this kind of shit phase her though, and I respect that.

Kaca and I just went to the mall to get a present for a friend. We got caught in the “buy four get the fifth for free” scam at Walden Books. Originally, we had only four books-one of which was only $1.99. Because we were entitled to a free book we had to pick another. Then we realized that our “free” book was going to be the $1.99. That wasn’t worth a “free” book. We had to pick a more expensive book than the $1.99 book so that we could get our $10.00 book for free. So I picked a book for $14.99 and she picked one for $14.99. After it was all said and done we still ended up getting the book for $1.99, but it didn’t have to be our free one (wink, wink). So our “free” $1.99 book ended up costing us $16.98. Huh? After driving away from the bookstore we had to go back because the cashier forgot to give us our $10.00 book for free.

Just remember that nothing is free unless you are willing to pay for it

I don’t know if it is the weather or because I have the flu, but the the imposition of winter is getting me down. I shot a lot of photos this year but I feel like I didn’t get to shoot everything that I wanted. With the gloom of winter, dark coming so early and damn near freezing tempertures, the thought of going outside in the attempts of finding subject matter sounds daunting. Some of my fellow photobloggers are die hard and will do some winter night shooting, but I don’t think creatively when I am that cold. I think about hot toddies and fireplaces when I am that cold.

I guess this is a challenge I face every year at this time, and suppose so do other photographers that live in the more artic regions of the world. What are you gonna do? The Daily Shooter is going to keep me busy, and I have some other writing projects looming. I don’t know how I am going to keep the photo skills sharp. Hmmmpfff.