My life has gotten so busy in the past several months. I mean, just crazy. I often go two or three days where I don’t even get to sit at my computer at all, much less get the time to write a blog post. There’s no one thing that has changed to make our life so busy, it’s just all of everything. For instance, I’m squeezing time in right now between reloading the laundry machines and putting Calfgrit10 to bed and hustling Calfgrit14 into the shower. I’m skipping my usual workout tonight because I’m just exhausted from the weekend. Weekends are supposed to be a time to rest and recuperate from the work week! But mine seem to be when I have to try to catch up with everything that I couldn’t get to during the work week.

Every evening when I get home from work, there’s dinner to make, homework* to help with, cleaning or neatening to be done, a new dog** to train and walk, errands to be run, and a dozen little issues*** to deal with. It takes both me and Wifegrit both to keep this house and family running.

Every day I think of something I want to blog about, because I enjoy writing, and I enjoy relating my life experiences from being a dad, a geek, and a Southern good ol’ boy. But before I know it, a week has passed and I didn’t get a chance to sit down and write anything. So many interesting things to tell, so little time to tell it. And it bothers me to let this blog sit idle and stagnate for a week or two at a time.

Where this blog used to be a creative outlet, a pleasurable pastime, it’s now become a stress because I feel I’m failing to accomplish something. Every day that passes without me writing another post irks me. Really, it deep down bothers me.

So I’m going to just stop for a while. For how long a while, I don’t know. But I have too many plates spinning in the air right now, and I have to give up on at least one. This web site is more a luxury, or a hobby, than a needed thing.

Right now, as I’m writing this, I find myself wanting so much to go into detail on even just one or two things, but not having the time to do that is the whole reason I’m writing even this much.

There is no emergency or tragedy in our lives right now that is taking my time. It’s just normal life. Just normal, chaotic, crazy, whirlwind life. I’d say I need a vacation, but that would just put me behind catching up on what needs to be done.

* Homework: I have to relearn math that I haven’t work with in 20+ years. Then I have to teach the math to CG14, (because he doesn’t learn it while actually in class for some reason), and then I have to check his homework to see that he’s done it correctly.

** Dog: Yep, we have a new dog. A wonderful, happy, fun dog that we all love very much. But she needs training and exercise regularly.

*** Little issues: A drawer isn’t closing properly, the wi-fi is down, a toilet is clogged, a phone charger is missing, the washer is making a banging noise, etc., etc., etc.****

**** For example: My FTP software is not working, so I can’t upload images for this site right now. This has been a problem for weeks, but I can’t sit for more than a few minutes at a time to figure out the problem and resolve it.

Bullgrit

P.S. If you want to read something, check out my Best of the Blog posts:

• The Dad Stereotype
• Defending the Southern Accent
• Teaching My Son to Shoot
• Dirty Joking With My Mom
• Comic Book Shop
• Playing Hide and Seek
• The Real, Modern South

I don’t believe human life begins at conception. The idea that a few microscopic cells can be considered human life just doesn’t make sense to me. Depending on what statistic you read, 1/4 to 1/3 of known pregnancies end in a miscarriage. That’s known pregnancies. Add in the miscarriages that happen before a woman even knows she’s had an egg fertilized, that would be a lot of “human life” lost if it started at conception.

But I do believe human life begins at some point in utero. Where exactly during the gestation period, I couldn’t pinpoint, but I can accept the legal ruling of somewhere in the second or third trimester – at around 24 weeks, a fetus is capable of surviving outside the womb, as a living baby. If a person, (a woman, of course), can’t decide if she wants to terminate her pregnancy within a few months, I can accept the state erring on the side of “it’s human life at this point,” and requiring that she just finish the pregnancy. I think this is reasonable for a civilized society.

I don’t support shaming or trying to talk a woman out of getting an abortion by forcing ultrasound or therapy or religion on her before the decision. I doubt many women make the decision, either way, flippantly. The decision should be between the woman and her doctor. But I do support notifying parents if the girl is under age. If a parent is expected to be, and is legally responsible for their underage child, then they can’t be kept in the dark about something like this medical procedure.

I also don’t think the man whose sperm fertilized the egg necessarily must be notified and give consent. Before it is actually a baby/human life, (at the second or third trimester, or at 24 weeks gestation), he was just the sperm donor to, (probably unintentionally), fertilize an egg. After that time, he is the father, then with the legal and moral responsibilities that comes with fatherhood. Now, within a relationship, (like a marriage), I think a woman should let the “sperm donor” know. I mean, if the relationship is healthy, I would think one would talk to their spouse before getting even a tattoo. So talking before an abortion should be a basic consideration. If a woman doesn’t want to tell their boyfriend/husband before terminating a pregnancy, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the relationship outside of that issue.

Those who insist that a woman should have the right to abort right up till the natural birth, I feel are gruesome. And those who insist that a woman should never end a pregnancy even with a morning after pill, I feel are controlling zealots.

Bullgrit

I’ve mentioned how I’m playing Clash of Clans with my sons. Since that post, we’ve quit that clan and created our own. I’m the clan leader, and both my boys are co-leaders. They have personally invited all their friends to join us, so we have almost 20 clan members. Running this clan with my sons is giving me an example for lessons in diplomacy.

There are four levels of membership in a CoC clan: Leader, Co-leader, Elder, Member.

The Leader can change some clan technical settings, and has authority to accept new members and kick anyone from co-leader on down.

Co-leaders can also change some technical settings, and can accept new members and kick Elders and Members.

Elders can accept new members and kick Members.

Members cannot accept or kick anyone.

I’ve given all the friends Elder rank in the clan so they can accept other friends. But some keep asking to be made co-leaders. I ask them why they want to be a co-leader and they don’t answer. Then they ask my sons to make them co-leader. My sons then ask me if they can make that friend a co-leader, and I ask why, they pass along the question, and again, the friend gives no answer.

There really isn’t a reason for anyone to be co-leader other than to be able to kick out an Elder, (as all the friends are). My sons, as co-leaders, have this ability, but they know not to do it without checking with me first. My boys live with me, so if there’s any problem, they can bring it to my attention immediately. Their friends, if made co-leaders, could kick other friends without checking with me. I’ve seen how sometimes the least little thing can make boys mad with each other. (Apparently it’s not just girls who create drama.) So I’m hesitant to give anyone else the ability to kick a friend.

Then someone accepted a join request from someone no one knows in the real world. I specifically wanted to restrict clan membership to only real world friends, and friends of friends. There’s a lot of chatting within the clan when the kids are playing, so I want to make sure everyone is safe from trolls and predators. Well, this guy got in somehow, and it was a couple of days before I found out that no one actually knew him, and no one remembers letting him in.

I’ve chatted with him a couple of times within the game, and I’ve learned that he’s a new player, and he’s an adult. I can see all the chat logs, and I regularly monitor what goes on. He has not been at all inappropriate with anyone. In fact, he doesn’t chat much at all. There have been a couple of chat mentions to kick him from the clan because no one knows him, and he has said that he’d accept being kicked if that is what everyone decides.

I discussed the decision with my sons. On one hand, he isn’t a real world friend, or a friend of a friend, and shouldn’t have been accepted to the clan in the first place. But he’s not done anything wrong, and has actually been helpful by donating troops to other people — in fact, he has donated more troops than anyone else in the clan, including me. (Donating troops to others costs in-game resources, and is generally considered a very nice thing to do for others.)

So to kick him would seem pretty rude, but to keep him is a weak spot in the ring of safety I’ve created for the boys in this online game world. During the discussion with my boys, I was torn between teaching them to not fully trust people you don’t know online, and teaching them to not wield power over others without reason. We talked about trusting and about being a bully, and we decided to let the unknown guy stay so long as he hadn’t done anything wrong. But we’d keep an eye on him. Mostly it would be me keeping an eye out, because I’m the one who monitors all the chat logs.

An ironic twist to all this is that all the friends often quit and rejoin the clan. Someone will quit the clan, go join either some other friend’s clan or some random clan, and then a day later, (or sometimes an hour later), they’ll come back to rejoin ours. It doesn’t actually hurt us in any way, but it is a bit annoying to me. If the unknown guy were to quit our clan, we could simply ignore his rejoin request and not have to kick him and I wouldn’t worry about having a stranger among us online. But he’s been one of the most reliable people in our group.

Bullgrit

Gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender folks — I’m fine with them all. I don’t really give any thought or care about a person’s sexual preference, orientation, or identity. I’ve known only a few openly gay folks in my life, and although one was kind of creepy, (like a sleazy lounge lizard kind of guy), the others were just normal people, normal acquaintances or friends. There may be others in my immediate world that are gay and I just don’t know it. And really, that’s the way it should be; that’s the way normal people are. No normal person, heterosexual, homosexual, or asexual, lives their life with their sexuality printed on their shirt, as if the world just has to know it and accept it in their face. I’ve never personally met the stereotypical, flamboyant gay or butch lesbian, even when I spent a whole evening at a gay/lesbian night club.

I’ve never harassed anyone I thought was gay, at least definitely not to their face. When I was a young and dumb teenager, yes, there was name calling among friends. But that wasn’t really accusations or attacks on their real sexuality any more than using other words meant we thought each other were female dogs or had unmarried parents. Young guys are just assholes to each other. It’s dumb, but it’s the nature of male puberty.

I would not stand by and watch someone be harassed by a bully, whether for their sexuality or skin color or any other reason. And I’d think very low of anyone who did allow harassment in front of them, not to mention I consider those who do harass are total scum.

I have no problem with gay men marrying each other, or lesbian women marrying each other. I don’t see how their marital status affects me at all. But the argument over “gay rights” does confuse me a bit. When I hear how gays are denied rights in the U.S., I wonder what rights do I have that a gay man does not? From all the arguments I’ve heard, it seems that “gay rights” is just a synonym for “gay marriage,” but saying “rights” makes it sound like a much broader and deeper situation. All the rights that the LGBT pundits claim are restricted from gays are those rights that come with marriage. So it seems that the one item, gay marriage, would bring all those other rights. Right?

Bullgrit