It’s been over a month since I last posted anything here. One reason for my blog absence is we’ve just been extremely busy around here. Another reason is that I allowed myself to get lax about posting. It’s amazing how easy something can fall away completely when you let your grip ease up on it.

Just about every day, something happens or I think of something that I’d like to write and post about, but then, I get tied up with everything going on, and the next thing I know it’s 10 or 11pm. I’ve actually gone 3-4 days in a row, a few times, without so much as sitting down at my desk. Right now, as I am writing this post, it’s coming up on 10pm, and I’m still sweaty from my workout of 8-9:00. Usually I take a shower right after my exercise, but tonight I decided I really needed to post something, if just to let the Web know I’m not dead. (I’m sure everyone has been worried :-) If I went right to the shower, I’d end up in bed immediately after, passing another evening without putting my fingers to my keyboard in any way.

I can’t even point to any one thing and say, “That is what’s taking up all my time.” It’s just so much. I’ve done our taxes. I’ve helped the wife with a yard sale for her mother. I’ve had to work late at my job because of the software release date. I make dinner at least half the nights of the week. This, that, and another thing just keeps popping up and taking my time and attention. It’s taken me almost two weeks just to answer some emails.

Actually, if I’m completely honest, there have been a couple or three times that I’ve sat at my computer over the past month, with the intention to write a post. But writer’s block kills my mood and I end up spending half an hour surfing stupid junk around the Web. Then I get called away for something, and I missed the only opportunity I’d have for another week.

So, I apologize to all my regular readers who have bothered to come back here occasionally during the past month or so and found nothing new. And I want to say, “Hey, this isn’t a dead place,” to any new folks who have come around. This isn’t dead, it’s just been mostly dead. Which, as Miracle Max explains, is still slightly alive.

Slightly.

Bullgrit

I was at work yesterday when the snow started coming down around noon. All my coworkers started getting ready to leave for home, but I decided to wait. I looked out the windows to the main road outside and saw the heavy traffic cluttering up quickly whitening streets. I didn’t want to have to deal with the traffic in addition to the snow and ice coming down.

Everyone told me to get out. They warned me not to wait because the roads were only going to get worse as the day and storm progressed. Within an hour, my building was almost empty. I walked around and found three other people still at their desks. Outside, the road was still congested, and the snow was still coming down heavily. I continued to wait. I just continued to do my work.

At my office, I had warmth and plenty of food. If I did end up having to stay through the night, I’d be fine. My family was all safe and sound at home. They also had warmth and food, and the boys were outside playing and sledding.

At 3:00 there was only one other person in my building, and the road outside was starting to clear of traffic. But the snow was starting to fill in the paths the previous traffic had left on the pavement.

At 4:00 I decided it was time to leave for home. There was barely any traffic on the road outside. I’m perfectly fine with driving very slow through the snow so long as I don’t have to worry about so many idiots refusing to slow down. It’s the other idiots on the road that worry me during snow and ice storms. I’ve driven through these conditions several times through my 30 years of driving — I’m no expert, but I am cautious, attentive, and patient. Plus, at home I have a garage, and at work I have a parking deck, so my truck doesn’t get covered with snow to block my view of the road.

So I left work and got on the roads. The streets were icy, very slick. But I drove slow and steady, with slow easy stops, starts, and turns. With very few other cars on the roads, I didn’t have to worry much about possible collisions. I could concentrate on the road.

I made it to the highway. Going my direction, the traffic was still very light. But over on the other side, coming back the other way, the traffic was stopped and thick for as far as I could see. Those poor people weren’t going anywhere fast. I drove about 20 mph along the normally 70 mph beltline. Here and there along the way were abandoned vehicles.

The abandoned vehicles turned out to be a good thing for me. The hardest part of the drive was staying on the pavement and avoiding the highway edge. The abandoned cars were all stuck in the mud of the shoulder. Driving or sliding off the edge of the road into the dirt meant a complete end to driving. There’d be no getting unstuck from that.

Although most people going my direction stayed slow and steady, there was an occasional idiot driving twice our speed. Everything from small coupes covered in view-obscuring snow to big delivery vans dropping chunks of ice passed. I just held slow, straight, and steady while they flew by.

At last I reached home at 5:15. The commute had taken 75 minutes compared to the normal 35 minutes. Not too bad. I had several worrisome moments of short slips and skids, but I only lost traction once. The roads were very bad, and I definitely wouldn’t have tried that drive in the traffic I saw earlier in the day. But taking my time with very little traffic around was not overly dangerous.

I brought my work computer home with me so I’m staying in and working from home today. Although the plows worked over night and cleared the roads enough that I feel I could easily get back to the office today, there’s no need for the trip. My only problem today is keeping my boys out of my home office enough that I can get my work done. One boy wants to play Warcraft on his mother’s computer at the desk beside me, and the other boy wants to play Minecraft on the laptop at the table in front of me. (And I want to play either game with either boy.)

Bullgrit

Wifegrit has two bachelor degrees relevant for motherhood: Nursing and Elementary Education. For the past almost 12 years, she’s worked part-time, (every other weekend — four days a month), as a nurse in the mother/baby unit of the local hospital. During the week, she’s a stay-at-home mom.

In the last couple of years, she’s also picked up a few days substitute teaching at our boys’ elementary school. She hasn’t done this much. Maybe a dozen days over the past two years. It’s really convenient with the school literally just two minutes walking distance from our home. She already walks there every morning and afternoon to take both, or now one boy to or from there each day, anyway. And she’s always been an available volunteer at the school, as well — she loves working with the kids. So really, it’s a pretty good fit with her normal day’s routine, as well as her personality.

Just this week, she subbed in for the “literacy intervention” teacher from Wednesday to Friday. Usually, she’s only subbed one day at a time; maybe two days a couple of times. So this instance of subbing was almost like a regular work-a-week job for her.

She drove Calfgrit13 to middle school in the morning, as usual. Later she walked Calfgrit9 over to the elementary school, as usual, but then she stayed and did her teaching thing. In the afternoon, she helped with the carpool duties, then walked CG9 back home. She texted me during the day, during breaks between classes/kids, to tell how her day was going. She was having fun.

It’s odd, but even though she’s been a nurse for over 18 years, and she only briefly taught school class during her college career, I still can picture her more naturally as a teacher than as a nurse. I see her in her nursing scrubs, with her stethoscope around her neck, every other weekend. I’ve seen her in a hospital or doctor’s office setting dozens of times over the years. I’ve only ever seen her in a school setting as a parent, but still, in my mind, she looks more like a teacher than a nurse. That really makes no sense to me. I bet most people couldn’t tell a nurse from a teacher if they were in a line up without an obvious uniform on.

But I like thinking of her as a teacher. There’s just something . . .

I’m glad she’s subbing only for elementary school kids.

Bullgrit

Today, I become the father of a teenager. My oldest son turns 13. Oh boy.

Last night he had a sleepover party with 6 of his friends. Seven 12-13 year old boys can just fill a room.

The den floor was covered in sleeping bags and pillows, and the whole house was filled with loud talking and raucous laughter from 5:30 to well past midnight. After everyone arrived, we fed them pizza, then Calfgrit13 wanted to watch Ghostbusters. After the movie, it was time for cookie cake and ice cream. CG13 no longer wants to do the candles and singing part of a birthday party, but cookies and ice cream, that, no boy outgrows.

One friend went home at 9:00, then the rest of them spent the evening playing Halo 3. (CG13 got an Xbox 360 for Christmas, and his friends brought their own extra controllers.)

Although I watched the movie with the boys, I left them alone to play their games. (Wifegrit went to bed, exhausted.) I sat upstairs in my office, with my door open, surfing the Web and listening to their voices carry up the stairs. Everyone was talking over everyone else such that I couldn’t make out a word anyone said at any time. It was all just a constant cacophony.

I went back down to check on them a couple of times, and found them watching Airplane!. Think about that a moment — 13 year old boys, left to their own choices, turned off a shooting game from 2007 and put in a comedy classic film from 1980. This supports my belief that boys would rather laugh with their friends than kill each other. It’s a good thing.

At midnight I went down to call for lights out. Surprisingly, the lights were all already out, and only the TV was on. They were just about to start another Xbox game, but they grudgingly turned it off.  Everyone got to their sleep places and continued talking quietly. I went back up to my office. I held no illusion that they’d go right to sleep.

At 12:30 I heard loud music downstairs. I tip toed down the stairs to see what the boys were doing. The TV was on again, and three boys were playing/watching Portal 2. The other three boys were playing on their smart phones. The phones were the loudest things in the room. Really loud. I stood behind them all, at the dark edge of the room. After a minute, CG13 spotted me. “Hi Dad,” he said.

“Hi son. Whoever, turn down the volume, OK?”

The boys with the cell phones turned down the music, but no one quit any game.

I said, “For the record, I told you to turn everything off at midnight. Right?”

“Yes,” they all said.

I went back up to my office. The talking downstairs continued, loud enough I could hear them upstairs. But after 15 minutes, it quietened enough. I could tell they were still up and probably playing games, but at least they wouldn’t wake mother or little brother.

I was tempted to go back down and shut things off, firmly, for the night, but a boy doesn’t turn into a teenager every birthday. I thought I’d let Calfgrit13 live it up a bit. So long as they didn’t wake Wifegrit or Calfgrit8, or me once I went to bed, (at 1:30am), I was fine with them “partying” all night :-)

Bullgrit