San Francisco: A Different View (pictures I like)

 

Spring Broken

It's spring break here.
Saying that, though, I'm not sure if it has any meaning left.

Let's look at it like this:
You have some "typical" corporate job, and it's a drag, and you have vacation time so you decide to use it. You go to your boss and tell the management asshole that you want to use some of your vacation days to take a week off of work. Your boss gives you that "boss" look and says, "Sure, that's fine. You can skip coming into work next week but, while you're at home, I want you to work on a couple of special projects and bring them back to me complete after your vacation."

"But I wasn't going to stay home..."

"Well, you better just plan to take them with you, then. And make sure you do a good job. Your next raise will depend on it."

What do you do, right? All you want is some time off, a vacation, but you're given even more work to do and there's no real way to get out of it even if it's wrong and, if that kind of thing actually happened to someone, probably illegal.

I don't actually know if that kind of thing happens or not, but I do know that the United States has more unused vacation days than any other country in the world. Why? Fear.
People are scared to use their time off because they worry that taking the time off will reflect poorly on them... in some way or other.
Which is not the point of this post.

It's spring break here.
Spring break is like vacation for kids. Or that's the idea, right? They're kids, and they need a break from school every once in a while. A vacation.
I remember when it was like that. When I was a kid, it was like that. School was out, and there was nothing to worry about for a solid week. Unless you were one of those kids who had put off normal school work and had to use spring break to catch up on that work, but, then, that was on you.

I remember the first time I got a significant assignment over break. It was over summer break between middle school and high school, and I was assigned books to read over summer break. Three or four of them. One of the books assigned was a book I already loved, and I never minded reading assignments; still, I remember feeling like it wasn't okay for them to do that. BUT! I excused it because I was going to be going to a different kind of high school... It was one of the first magnet schools in the country, not that you can turn around anymore without bumping into some kind of magnet or charter school, but, at the time, it was still this kind of experiment, and we didn't know the kinds of changes it would bring... like homework during summer breaks.

And, damn, my daughter is on spring break, and she has a shit-ton of homework. Her English teacher assigned a major project which is due on Monday after break. No, this is not one of those things where my daughter put it off and, now, has to do it over spring break (she never does that); the teacher scheduled a test for the Friday before break, then took 20 minutes of their test-taking time to explain their 200 point spring break assignment. That's just bullshit.

And she has a buttload of chemistry homework. Her teacher assigned them, basically, a homework assignment for each day of break, including the two weekends, as if they were still going to be in school. My daughter already spends two to three hours a night doing chemistry homework, so she's going to be spending that same time on chemistry over her vacation, too.

Not mention that she got homework in history and Spanish, also. Including watching a movie for history class that most of the students will have to pay to rent, another thing I don't find to be okay.

Oh! And she has softball practice and a game during spring break, too.

Excuse me, but what the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck?

My daughter already spends basically all of her time being stressed about school and had been looking forward to a little time off from that; now, she gets to spend all of spring break being even more stressed about school. Why? Because we actually planned (months ago) a small trip during break, the first time we've done that in something like four years (and only the second time we've ever done it), and, now, my daughter has to balance the trip against all of the fucking schoolwork she has to do.

And that's just wrong.
Inherently wrong.

Not that I blame the teachers. Not exactly. They're just part of a system that no longer works, as has become abundantly clear in the news in the last couple of weeks (and, yes, it's all related), and doing the best they can, which includes burying their students in homework and waiting to see who can rise above it all.

Perform monkey! Perform!

No, I don't have any ideas on how to fix it.
Yeah, I'm lying, but what does it matter if I have ideas about what's wrong with the education system in our country? I'm sure you have ideas, too, and those ideas are probably not the same ideas.
Mine are just better. 😏
[Oh, look! My first post emoji!]
So, no, I don't have ideas on how to fix it; I'm just pointing out an issue. Bringing it up. Not that I expect anything to come of bringing it up; sometimes, you just want to put it out there.
Of course, this isn't the first time I've brought up the crushing amount of homework my kids get, and it probably won't be the last time, either.

How To Catch a Softball (please take the time to read this post)

Obviously, the first thing you need to catch a softball is the actual softball. It's difficult to catch something that isn't there. That's why there's an absence of things like unicorns, dragons, and dinosaurs in the bedrooms of little boys and girls all across the world.

So here's a thing:
Last year at one of my daughter's softball games, the coach told their best hitter to not hit a home run because they only had three softballs left, and they couldn't afford to lose the ball. Well, she could hit a home run as long as it was one of those that went to the fence and she was able to do it because of the outfielder chasing the ball. Just don't hit it over the fence.
But she did.

They made it through the game, but it's rough when you have to always be mindful of how many balls you have left in the bucket. It's like when you have to budget out how much gas you can afford to put in your tank rather than just filling it up.

To put it all another way, let's just say that girls' softball is not a priority for schools, especially on the non-affluent side of town (where we are), where there is no real support for sports for kids at all, at any age. That stuff is reserved for kids on the other side of town... Now I'm wondering if train tracks play a role in this at all, because we do have them; I just don't know if the tracks divide the city in the way that I'm speaking of.

Of course, then, the next you need is a glove.
But if you can't afford a bucket of balls, you can't very well afford gloves, can you?
And here's the thing:
At pretty much all of the other school in Santa Rosa, the girls playing softball on the high school teams grew up playing softball for the city league and have all of their own gear, like my daughter. But, see, my daughter is the only one of those girls on her team, because we drove her across town so that she could participate in softball when she was a kid. That's a luxury at least 50% of the girls on her team couldn't afford, either because of the significant monetary cost to join the league or because of the significant time cost of practice and games (not to mention the cost of hotels for away games or spending hours and hours driving back and forth because you couldn't afford to stay over night for the tournaments (which is what we did)). All of which means that many of the girls on my daughter's high school team do not have softball gloves or headgear or bats; they depend on the school to supply those for them. Just like a lot of kids depend on the school to supply musical instruments for the music program.

And, yeah, girls' softball just isn't a priority...

Which brings us to the  part where I'm asking you for money. Well, not me, my daughter is. They're holding a fundraiser, and it would be great if you could donate. It doesn't even have to be a lot. Are you drinking some Starbucks sugarbomb coffee right now...?
Are you?
I see you there moving it away from your monitor and/or your phone so that I can't see it, but it's too late! Those things are no good for you, anyway, you know? And that guy who used to be their CEO is a dick, so put that money to better use. At least once. That's all it would take, the cost of one of those overpriced cups of coffee would go a long way to helping these girls out.

So please follow the link and give them what you can. $5.00 would be great! More would be even better! They have a breakdown of how the money is used and what it will provide. My daughter would love to meet her goal!

The Burger Review (a food review post)

As I mentioned last weekend, my daughter has a thing for hamburgers. For her next older brother up, it's pizza but, for her, it's hamburgers. And let me just say, it's a lot easier to find decent burgers in the wild than it is to find decent pizza. Not that there's a lot of decent burgers, but there is much more upward variation. And because it's my daughter who plays softball, we've tried a lot of burger joints, most of which are unrememberable. Just to clarify, we basically never stop at chain joints for burgers. The last chain joint we went to was Burger King (for reasons I can't remember), and that was... that was... hmm... more than three years ago. Maybe more than four years ago. It reminded me why we don't go to there.

Having said that, let me further clarify by saying that I don't consider Five Guys a chain joint. Probably, it is, but in my head it's not. Still, it's been almost a year since we went to Five Guys, and that was because my wife was out of town and the kids wanted to go there. Anyway...

So Five Guys...
We like Five Guys. I mean, if you want a burger on the cheaper side that is still pretty good, Five Guys is the place to go. One thing about burgers is that no good burger is not messy, and Five Guys has nailed the messy part of burger making. You'll have "sandwich hands" for days after eating at Five Guys. Plus, their fries are good. Really good, actually, in comparison to other burger places. Unfortunately, you're getting fries or you're getting their other kind of fries and, for an onion ring guy, that's a downside no matter how good the fries actually are.

In-and-Out...
Don't believe the hype. Okay, well, actually, if your experience with burgers doesn't extend beyond the big three (McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's), you can probably believe the hype. From that standpoint, I can understand why non-Californians get so worked up over In-and-Out (even John Scalzi!). When I first moved here 20 years ago -- 20 years ago! -- and my experience with burgers mostly didn't extend past the burger chains, I thought In-and-Out was great. I was blown away by it the first time I had it, in fact. But that was 20 years ago, and they haven't changed any. They have the worst fries of any burger place I've ever been, and their menu, also, is pretty limited. So, sure, they're probably better (maybe) than BK or McDonald's, but they don't stand up to Five Guys. Oh, and I'd probably go to In-and-Out over ever going to Habit again, so there's that, too, I guess.

Barney's...
Barney's is probably the best burger I've had that was made outside of my own kitchen (other than that one I had in D.C. when I was 15, but I have no way to legitimately grade that against any other burger ever, because that one has achieved Legendary status in my brain (I have a post where I talk about that somewhere, but I'm not going to pull the link up right now (too busy)))). Barney's is a place we stopped on the way back from a softball tournament many years ago, and my daughter immediately fell in love with them. According to her, they are the pinnacle of burger making. I suppose mine come close, or maybe she's just being nice. Who knows? Unfortunately, we don't have one close enough to us to make it a place we can just decide to go to on short notice. Going to Barney's is an event or, actually, gets rolled into some other event.

Superburger...
As far as burger places go, burger places we can just decide to go to if we decide we want burgers (because making burgers at home is a multi-day process, so we have to plan to make burgers at home ahead of time, days ahead of time), Superburger is the best place around. Period. I actually think their burgers are comparable to Barney's, but you'll never get my daughter to agree with that. However, they don't have good fries. They do have onion rings which are pretty tolerable, and they also make yam fries. They don't have anything close to the menu offerings that Barney's has, though, so Barney's has the edge, overall, as a place to go eat. Superburger does make some awesome shakes and, if shakes were a thing I partook of, that would definitely be my choice of places to go. Look, these shakes are better than any shake I've ever had from any ice cream place, which is kind of like if the best burger you could get came from KFC or Taco Bell.

Superburger does have one pretty huge drawback at this point: the cost. [And I'm looking at their menu online, right now, and I'm pretty sure those prices are not accurate to the last time we went there.] When we first started going there, I would say their prices were pretty reasonable, but, now, taking the whole family to Superburger is much more expensive than a family night out at the movies. In other words, I think we went to Superburger, like, twice in all of 2018. Not that we get food out all that often, anyway, but Superburger is not a part of the normal conversation of places to go if we are going to get food out. It just costs too much. It's become a "special occasion" place, which is unfortunate.

There are some other burger places in the area that we've tried that aren't worth mentioning, so I'll go ahead and mention them as places to never ever go, the first of which I'm seeing has actually gone out of business:
Bibi's Burger Bar: Very expensive but with fast food level food. I'm not surprised they had to close their doors.
Phyllis' Giant Burgers: Frozen burger patties at their finest. Seriously, these are the kind of burgers you can make at home by buying frozen patties at the grocery store and picking up some tasteless white bread buns.
Ozzie's Grill: The only reason they stay open is that they are supported by the middle school and high school that they're halfway in between. Comparable to Phyllis' above.

It's possible that there are some restaurants that have better burgers than Superburger and Barney's, but I haven't had them and, when you think of getting a burger, you think of going to a burger place. Of course, when you think of getting a shake, you'd probably think of going to an ice cream shop, but I think of a burger joint.

So there's your burger rundown to go along with last week's review of Habit Burger.

Corpse (pictures I like)

For My Daughter

Did you ever have a teacher you loved? No, I don't mean like had a crush on; I mean one of those teachers who changed your life in some fundamental way. It's like...
It's like you're staring at a wall -- we'll call it the blackboard -- and all of the teachers you've had so far keep encouraging you to stare at that wall and nothing else. Just stare at the wall, don't question, don't cause problems, and, most of all, don't question. Then you have a teacher who comes along and opens the blinds on the windows and tells everyone to come look outside, and it's amazing! You didn't even know the world was out there.

For me, that teacher was Mike Abbiatti, my 6th grade science teacher. He introduced science to me. Science not as something you read about in a book (because I had been doing that since I was four) but science as something you do and as something you live. He taught me that life should be science: the search for new knowledge, testing that knowledge against the old knowledge, adapting your life to fit the outcome. Life is about always questioning. Always questing. He taught me principles I still use in my life more than 30 years later.

I loved him in a way that only a child can love and, when 6th grade was over, I was devastated. On the last day of school during our last-day-of-school party, I threw my arms around him and cried, cried deep, wracking sobs that have only ever been worse for me when my grandfather died.

I could write a lot more about Mr. A. and learning the difference between a hypothesis and a theory and doing actual experiments and using a computer for the first time, but this isn't about me. This is just to show the depth of connection we can come to have with people who open our eyes and our worlds.

These people aren't always teachers; sometimes, they're coaches.

My daughter fell in love with softball the first time she "played" it, just playing catch with the neighbor girls as they were practicing for the team they were on. She had to join, too. So we signed her up. All was good.

For a while

Kids' sports leagues are a mixed bag. You have to pay for your kid to be able to play, of course, but, for that money, you get someone who is volunteering to coach. In softball, this was inevitably the pitcher's dad, because, inevitably, the pitcher's dad was forcing his daughter to play and wanted to be the coach of the team so that he could make sure his daughter got to pitch. Even if there was someone better at it on the team. Mostly, these guys were not very good coaches.

In fact, most of the were pretty shitty coaches, at least as far as the team was concerned. The problem was that most of them were also pretty shitty people. You can be a bad coach (as in not being very good at coaching), but it takes a special person to be a shitty coach. The shitty coaches were all what we call "yellers," which means pretty much what it sounds like: Their method of coaching was to spend their time yelling at the girls when they made mistakes.

And this:
When the team would win a game, even if they played terribly, they got only praise. If they lost a game, even if they played fantastically, they got yelled at. A lot. There is so much wrong with that paradigm of coaching, but that's what we dealt with for years.

It got to where my daughter was not enjoying softball anymore, this thing that she loved.

One of the only things we were able to tell her through all of that was that it would be better when she got to high school because:
1. The coach would not be someone coaching because his daughter was on the team. It would be someone coaching because he was being paid to do a job. No more nepotism.
2. Being on the team and getting to play would be because of your skill rather than who your dad was. Again, no more nepotism.

And, hey! My daughter is in high school, now. A freshman. She did try out for softball, and she made the varsity team. The only freshman on the team. Not just did she make the team; she's a starter.

Of course, she could have still gotten bad coaches. Shitty coaches. We've come across a few of those in the games this year. Or, even, shitty people as coaches.
But she didn't.
She got a pair of great coaches who coach through encouragement. They let them know what they're doing well and what they need to work on. Neither of them has yelled at any of the girls during a game all season. The same cannot be said of coaches on other teams.

My daughter loves softball again. This year has been a world-changing experience for her. I have to think it's been for her like 6th grade science was for me. It's a whole new world. Softball with a genuinely positive environment, even when they lose.

And, due to circumstances, it so happens that both coaches are having to leave at the end of this year.

She's devastated.

And, well, so am I. For her. Because I know how that feels.

Worse, I know that there's nothing I can do to make any of it better.

Yeah, yeah, sure, it will get better. She'll get over it. I got over 6th grade ending. And I could tell her that, but it wouldn't help. And I know it wouldn't help, because people saying that kind of thing to me doesn't help. In fact, it's kind of anger-causing. It doesn't matter if it will get better. That doesn't help now.

So my hope is that she will hold onto this moment and take what she's learned from this experience and carry it forward with her as she goes on in life, whether that be in softball or not. I mean, I wouldn't trade my 6th grade science experience away for anything, even though it hurt when it was over. That pain was more than worth the experience of the whole, so I hope she will be able to cherish this freshman year of softball and look back on it as a fundamental moment of growing up. I suppose it's that whole better to have loved and lost thing.

I guess that's all any of us can hope for.

If you look to the right center in this picture; you can see the ball coming in.

This was a nice hit but, unfortunately, it was caught.

A Vain Hope

I've mentioned in passing somewhat recently that we've been having some issues with my daughter's softball situation. To say that there are "issues" is rather an understatement, in fact. It is so much an understatement that 1. My daughter is no longer on that team, and 2. Her leaving that team did not automatically make those issues go away, and we are still dealing with them. As such, I can't really go into said details although I would really like to.

All of this has me thinking, though, about my rather vain hope that at some point I would come across people who would just do the right thing. I mean, seriously, how hard is that?

I'm not talking about the asshole who is doing the wrong thing, either. When the asshole gets called out for being an asshole, you expect the asshole to double down on being an asshole. It's what assholes do. If assholes did the right thing, they wouldn't be assholes.

However, the people responsible for the asshole often don't appear to be assholes themselves, and there is always this hope that those people will do the right thing. A vain hope. Because the people in charge of the asshole tend to respond to the assholery by 1. trying to cover it up, or 2. saying the asshole didn't do anything wrong, i.e., the asshole wasn't being an asshole; you're just wrong/too sensitive/whatever. Oh, or my favorite (one of them, at least): The asshole was just doing his job; therefore, he is not really an asshole.

There are so many examples of this kind of thing in society which all turned into scandals and had movies made about them. heh I've even reviewed some of those movies. Take a look!
The Big Short -- At any point leading up to the financial crisis, there could have been people who said, "Wait, this is wrong. We're being assholes..." Oh,wait! They were all being assholes, so I guess that's why they all doubled down on their assholery and brought the whole country down with them.
Spotlight -- One of the absolute worst cases ever of protecting assholes. I mean, of all people, we expect priests to do the right thing, and, yet, by not being willing to put a stop to it, they perpetuated and made worse the... perhaps using the term assholery here is inappropriate. They made the situation worse. Much, much worse.
Philomena -- Again with the church but with nuns. And, again, the very people we expect most to do the right thing.

And I could go on with the examples, but, then, I could go on endlessly with them. Both very public examples like the ones above which were made into movies and smaller examples from my own life or from the lives of people I know. Oh, no, wait! There is one really good one that didn't even involve assholery, at least at the beginning. The whole thing with a mechanical problem with a rented U-haul trailer for which the manager wouldn't take responsibility. She wouldn't "do the right thing," which ended up costing U-haul way more than should have and costing her her job. (I talked about it back in this post.) It was definitely a situation where doing the right thing would have cost her absolutely nothing and, yet, she refused, and it ended up costing her a lot.

It's inexplicable to me, really, this way that people fight against doing what's right. Especially when that's actually the easy thing to do. I don't get it. I really don't.

And, so, now, I find myself in another conflict with people who have decided against doing the right thing. And I think it's because they believe I will just go away and let the thing drop and they will be able to get away with doing nothing to make things right. I'm sure they think that because that's what most people would do. That's what the other family that had the same thing happen has done. They let it drop. But, well, these people don't know me very well. I spent a month pursuing $80 from U-haul and, another time, most of a year pursuing a situation with Dell over a laptop they didn't want to fix. Those were relatively small things in comparison, and, honestly, it wasn't the money I was interested in either of those situations. If the woman at U-haul had just apologized for what had happened with their faulty trailer, even if she hadn't offered any reimbursement, I would have let the matter drop. Instead, she backed into that whole "It's not our fault" position and "we don't owe you anything." This, though, this is my daughter, and that's a whole new ballgame (yes, I'll claim the pun). heh Maybe, one day, there will be a movie made about it.

After the Game (pictures I like)

Tuck Watley: Freedom Fighter Fighter (a book review post)

My wife thought the title of this book was hilarious as soon as she saw me reading it. That says a lot right there, which you would know if you knew my wife.

But let me tell you a story:
My daughter plays softball. She's really good. Recently, there was a, let's call it a disagreement, between myself and her head coach over,  let's call it his mistreatment, of my daughter during a tournament. During the, let's call it a discussion, in an effort to insult me, he said, rather vehemently, "Why don't you just go read a book!" In fact, he shouted that at me twice, as if that somehow afforded him a victory in said "discussion." This amuses me because he intended this as some kind of insult. I, in fact, was holding a book at the time. I'm sure, though, that it was an "insult" because he has never read a book. Nor would he. I mean, you don't yell, "Why don't you just go read a book," at someone as a disparagement if you place any value in reading. He obviously does not.
Which explains a few things...

How does that relate? Well, there are a couple of jocks who get into a fight in Tuck Watley over the use of the word "nerd." You might think this is over the top, but, I assure you, it is not. I probably found that bit more funny than I should have, but it cracked me up. It's funny because it's true.

That said, this is not my favorite work by Pedas and Meyers, but it's very good. Funny enough for some actual laugh out loud moments. Just the premise, which I'm not going to say because it's kind of spoilery, thought it's right there in the title to some extent, is funny enough to warrant the book.

As always with Pedas and Meyers, the book is filled with kooky, stereotype characters. Of course, it is that they are stereotypes that make them so funny. I think in this one my favorite is the teenage girl who dresses and acts as if she's 50 years older. Although the group of scientists are pretty close. And the taco guy. Yeah, there's a lot of funny in the book.

If you're looking for serious, literary achievements, though, you should go somewhere else. This book is not that. However, Pedas and Meyers have a rather eclectic list of works, so you can probably find something you'd like from among their other offerings, either solo or duo projects. But, if you like comedy and if you think there are aspects of our secret government organizations that are ridiculous, this is a book you should pick up.

The Dating Change (Change: part 6)

Who here likes dating?
No, I don't mean going on dates; I mean that period in your life when you have no significant other and you are "dating."
No one?
Good, because that's not what I'm talking about.
You wouldn't want to listen to me talk about that anyway except to learn the ways not to do it. It was never my strong suit.

What I am talking about is dating your significant other. That can have it's own special set of challenges. Just by the way in case you haven't figured that out.

My wife and I figured out a long time ago that we needed to set aside time together on a daily basis to keep our relationship strong and stay connected. Probably, as you read this, you're thinking, "Well, of course! Everyone knows that." But, really, how many of you do it?

No, I don't mean that each of you are in the same room together while you both do your own things. No, I am not talking about watching the same TV show together from your separate places while you mindlessly stare. Or even sitting next to each other while you mindlessly stare.
No, I am not even talking about working together on some household DIY project where your attention is on the project and telling your partner how s/he is doing it wrong.
I'm not even talking about going to the movies, because that's usually about as engaging as watching TV together (seriously, guys, ask your women if they consider that a "good" date; I think you're going to be surprised when you get a bunch of "no"s).

What I am talking about is time together when you are actively engaged with your partner.

So, yeah, we do that.
But sometimes even that is not quite enough. Let me explain:

For years, my wife and I have made it a priority to spend time together each evening. Sometimes, that even includes watching a TV show on DVD, but we don't do it mindlessly or ignore each other while we're watching. However, as my daughter has gotten more involved in softball and we spend about eight months of the year with softball practice two to three days a week (mostly on weeknight evenings) plus games and tournaments, our evenings became rather... routine. Which means through 2014 and the first half of 2015, most of what we did was watch a DVD on the nights we were able to do anything because, on softball nights, I generally get in too late for us to have time to do anything significant, including watching a DVD. And, honestly, during softball, I spend a lot of the time just being tired (it's not all because of softball; there's also the part where I get up at 5am everyday).

As I said in the first post, I'm pretty good with routine. My wife? Not so much.

So it was that I realized sometime last spring that my wife was bored with what had become the softball routine. I don't actually think she realized it herself, to tell the truth. In her (paraphrased) words, everything was fine. And that was true. It was "fine." But she was bored with it just being fine. Maybe I was too, although I think it all really had more to do with the fact that everything in our lives had gotten to be where it all revolved around softball.

Those of you who have been reading for a while may have noticed some changes in the blog through the second half of last year in relation to things I was doing, like seeing new bands, or going to roller derby, or taking my wife away for the weekend, or going to the opera. Well, all of that was to shake up our lives a bit, our dating life specifically, and make things more interesting. It was all a big deal.

It was all a big deal, because I did a lot of the planning for this stuff, something my wife has traditionally been responsible for. It changed the dynamic and has allowed us to, together, expand our horizons and be more free to do and try new things.

There was a moment when we were away for that weekend when we were sitting at dinner and discussing, I believe, dessert, but not just dessert, because the conversation involved something about the kids... I suppose it doesn't really matter what. The point is that while we were discussing whether we should do whatever the thing was we were discussing, I looked at my wife and said something about how we were away with no kids and no other responsibilities for that one twenty-four period and finished the statement with, "We can do whatever we want." Whatever we want. It was a big moment. When our schedules are so often run by what our kids are doing and we are putting things that we want to do aside because there is a softball tournament or a choir rehearsal or whatever, it was very freeing to acknowledge, "We can do whatever we want."

I suggest you try it.
Really.
Even with being back in softball and everything else right now, that one statement has continued to change our lives.

Making the Catch (pictures I like)

This Was a Ship (pictures I like)

Softball Victims

Let me start out by saying that I don't carry cash. Almost ever. I only carry it when I know I'll need it. My kids got me out of the habit of ever having cash on me something like 10 years ago. If I carry it, they spend it.

I haven't talked about my daughter's softball stuff this year at all. I've meant to, but, really, I've had other things on my mind and just didn't get to it. The main thing you should know is that we let her do fall ball, this year, for the first time. Yes, it's difficult to keep up with the softball schedule during the school year. So difficult!

But, anyway, she had her first fall tournament this past weekend. Which they won, by the way. I'm just telling you now because this post isn't about that. Actually, this post isn't really about softball at all. So, see, when we got there, I had to pay to get in. I had to pay to get in!

There were some problems with this:
1. I have never had to pay to get into one of my daughter's softball tournaments before.
2. No one told me I was going to have to pay.
3. I don't carry cash.
Needless to say, I was a bit irate. Hmm... "a bit" might be an understatement.

As I was pulling out my cash... oh, wait! the cash. Well, see, after my daughter and I were already in the car and pulling out, I thought, "Wait, I better go in and grab some cash so that I can buy water if I need to." Because I didn't have any water to take with me. Yes, I didn't plan ahead very well for this particular tournament in those regards. So I hopped out of the car, much to the chagrin of my daughter who was worried about being late, and ran back in for some cash.

So I was pulling the cash out of my pocket as I was being upset about the whole thing, and I said to the girl who taking the money, "What if I didn't have any cash on me? No one told me I was going to have to pay to get in to my own daughter's softball tournament." The girl didn't answer, but a woman standing nearby did. She said something like, "Well, I guess that would just be too bad."

I was already irate, but that pissed me off. It pissed me off that some random bystander would make that comment to begin with, so I said, "Well, it's messed up. It's messed up to charge the parents, who have to drive their kids to the tournaments, to get in to see them play. No other tournaments charge." And that was the point that I found out that she wasn't a random bystander but someone who worked for the park the tournament was being held at. Needless to say, we got into it.

Let me digress for a moment. The night before, my wife and I had been looking at an article about the current victim-hood culture we have. It was an interesting article that I would link, but we were reading it on her computer, and I don't remember what site it was on. The thing that was most interesting was how "victims," in order to support their victim status, resort to proclaiming as publicly as possible about how they have been wronged. This draws sympathy and weird support form people they don't know and makes them feel validated in their victim-hood. Basically, rather than trying to work out an issue or taking some proactive approach, people tend to just, well, I'll call it "tattle."

I had gone on off to find my daughter. She didn't have to pay to get in (because that would have been even more messed up since they have to pay to play in the tournaments anyway), so I had sent her ahead to find her team while I was paying and getting my wristband on. Once I found her, I stopped to text my wife (who wasn't able to come to the tournament because, in her work, this is the busy time of the year, like tax time CPAs) that we were there. While I was doing that, my daughter's head coach came over and tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Look, I'm on your side, but..."

You can always tell by the "but." As it turns out, the woman I had words with was the director of the tournament, and she felt so victimized by me that she had to go tell the head coach of my daughter's team to have words with me about it. Because nothing says "I'm a victim" better than tattling. I felt like I was in kindergarten again.

Is this really what we've become in the United States? A nation of kindergartners who can't deal with their own problems? I mean, this was a grown-ass woman, older than me, and she felt the need to complain to my kid's coach about me saying it was messed up to charge the parents to get into the tournament. And let me tell you, it's one of the crappiest parks my daughter has played at. Maybe the worst. But the obviously expensive parks haven't charged anything. Which, at this point, is not the point.

So what is the point?

The point is that people need to grow up. When did we stop teaching kids not to tattle? I'm pretty sure that's not a thing anymore. I know it's not at my kid's school. We don't teach people to work things out anymore. We just teach them, culturally, to be a victims.
That's messed up!

[Edit: These tournaments are not related to any kind of school district league. These are organizations that hold the tournaments for the various softball leagues. None of this is related to schools. The teams have to pay to participate in the tournaments, and that's not cheap. Effectively, we've already paid for our daughter to be at any of these tournaments playing in the first place. This thing where I had to then pay to get in is kind of like when a store charges an entry fee so that you can go in and buy stuff.]

Trinity 2015: Part One -- The Lake

Life is hectic right now. Mostly, it's softball, which I haven't talked about at all this season. I meant to, but, well, other things came up which proved distracting. One thing came up which proved distracting and which lasted throughout, basically, the whole spring season. We're in the summer travel ball season, now, which is much busier and hectic than the spring rec season. So, yeah, as I write this, I just got in from softball practice with my daughter, and I will be gone all weekend at a tournament. Fortunately, I just got back from vacation, so I have a lot of new pictures!

The annual vacation is to the Trinity Alps where, ostensibly, the Trinity lake resides. However, this year, there was no lake. Thank you drought.

Those two pictures are where there should be lake.

My wife and I walked down there pretty close to dark the first night and couldn't see the water and just kept walking and walking and never found it. We went back, later, on our bikes and rode down to where the water is, but I forgot my camera, so this is all you get. [Also, there's a longer story to all of that, but I don't really have time for it, right now.]

The second night we were there, a thunderstorm actually blew through, which was pretty cool, though it didn't do anything noticeable to the water level. It was the first thunderstorm for my kids (because we really don't get that kind of thing where we live). The lady who works in the store at the campground said that sometimes it thunders so hard up there that it makes their automatic doors open. That I would have liked to have seen.

At any rate, I'm running short on time, so I'm going to leave you with rain in the mountains.

Revisiting the Abandoned

As some of you will know (maybe most of you?), back in April, I did Abandoned Places as my A-to-Z theme. Alex wanted to know more about what went into that whole thing: where the idea came from, how I found the places, what kind of research was involved; so he asked me a bunch of questions about it. Because I'm (mostly) a nice guy (depending upon what day of the week it is (or whether you're asking my kids)), I answered them. You can see the whole thing over at the Blogging from A to Z Challenge blog, so you should probably hop over there and read that.

* * *

A while back I announced that I have a new thing coming out... um... I want to say soon, but my kids and back-to-school have completely derailed my process these past few weeks and, although I have finished writing it, it is mostly still only written in pen. None of which is the important part. As I said back when I announced this, I'm looking for a backup short story to go along with it. While I've had a few people express interest, I've had no one give me a firm commitment, as in "Hey! I have something written, and I would love for it to appear with your story!" So... If you have something written and you'd like for it to appear at the back of my vague and undescribed story, let me know. [If you're interested, I will tell you what the project is, but, otherwise, it's a secret until it's ready to go.

* * *

Speaking of new things, the new issue, the August issue, of Indie Writers Monthly is out!

There's tons of good stuff in each issue. Unless you're actually trying to weigh it, in which case, you'll find it's a bit hard to grasp being virtual and all that. My article in this issue is all about editing and softball. You should definitely check it out!

* * *

Just a reminder: My two sons have started up their own blog. It's called Aim for the Cat! Yes, there is a reference involved; no, I'm not going to tell you what it is. I'm assuming one of them will get around to explaining it at some point, but, hey, they are teenagers, so who can tell? Also, who can tell what they're going to talk about? So far the posts have been movie reviews, reflections on the state of the universe (or something like that), and Spore. If you don't know what Spore is, I suppose you'll just have to go over and find out. Oh, and while you're there, leave them an encouraging word or three.

* * *

And the last thing...

Well, I don't even know where to begin with the last thing. Most of you, being the people of the Internet that you are, will have heard or seen that Robin Williams is dead. I'm not one to get gushy over celebrities, but a few of them have been part of things (usually movies) that have been significant in my life. If you click my "Of Significance..." tab at the top of the page, you'll see that Dead Poets Society 

is (and has been) listed as one of my pieces of significance. That movie had a profound impact on me, and I have a sense of loss with passing of Williams. It's also very saddening that he had no one around him that could reach out and help.

I'm going to leave it at that.

How Doesn't Your Garden Grow? (an IWSG post)

We were late planting our garden this year. There were issues with softball, softball that I've been mentioning on and off since March and which started in February, softball which still has two weeks to go.

That's a picture of my daughter hitting a double.
Basically, since March, we've had no weekends, so the garden didn't get planted when it should have. We had the last weekend of May and the first weekend of June, the interim between the spring season and the travel ball season, and that first weekend in June is when we finally got everything planted, a full two months late.

Some of you are probably wondering what would be the point, at that point?
It's a good question.
I mean, here we are in August, and our garden still really hasn't started producing. I didn't pull the first tomatoes from it until July 23.

Yeah, that was the first of our harvest, all five of them. There was one very early and overly ambitious pepper, back in June, right after I planted it, but there haven't been anymore since then, but they're working on it. This year, I'm also trying watermelons and pumpkins for the first time in my experimental garden area. I think I missed the watermelon window. That or the birds keeping eating my baby melons, because they keep disappearing. The pumpkin has become a monster.
Here it is a week after I planted it (that's it in the lower right):

And not long after that:

And now:

And you might think that looks great, and it does... except that everyone else already has orange pumpkins. And we haven't had our tomatoes, which are a big thing for us during the summer. Tomatoes everywhere. All of which brings me back to the question: Why bother with the garden at all when we started it so late?

Fortunately, the area of California where we live has a long growing season. I think I was still pulling tomatoes off the vines in October, last year, so, even though we planted late, we should still actually get a pretty decent harvest. Eventually. Not that that makes it easier to look at everyone else's gardens with all of their abundance of produce. I mean, I actually accepted tomatoes from someone else last week, something I've never done before because we've always been overflowing with tomatoes at this time of year.

All of this is how I sometimes feel about my writing career. That I planted it too late. My sales are like those few little tomatoes in the picture. I'm just hoping I prove to have a long growing season like the area where I live!

The Cat Stands (Stays) Alone

My wife and I had a disagreement. It wasn't a huge thing; there was no yelling or fighting or anything like that; it was a just a disagreement. It all started with the cat. Remember him?

Yes, he is walking on the back of a chair. No, I'm not sure what he's doing with his eye. Aiming his deathray? It's always hard to tell with him. But I digress...

Two years ago when we went camping, our cat didn't have us. [Yes, I could say "we didn't have the cat," but, clearly, the cat decided that we belong to him, not the other way around. He did move into our house like a little, furry squatter.] We took the dog with us and there was no problem. In anticipation of the camping trip last year that didn't actually happen, I bought a leash for the cat.

The leash was so that we could take the cat with us, but we didn't go, so the leash just sat around and I never bothered to train the cat with it. He acts like he's dying when you put it on him except when he's walking backwards, which is what he's doing in the below picture.

One time he walked backwards right up the wall and only stopped when he was looking straight down at the floor, then he just stayed like that, like he was lying on the wall.

So, when we started talking about camping this year,

I resumed my plans to take the cat... right up until my wife let me know that she didn't want the cat going with us. The conflict spread to the kids at that point, because they, also, wanted the cat to go. There was a lengthy debate. Well, sort of. It wasn't a debate that happened all at once. It was spread out over about two weeks with occasional comments that were always interrupted by one of the kids saying, "I want the cat to go." That always ended the discussion, because we didn't want the kids getting involved in the decision since they wouldn't be the ones to be taking care of the cat.

Long story short: The cat stayed (because, man, who wants to have to lug a litter box with your camping gear?) at home. Alone.

Now, before anyone says anything about the cruelty involved in leaving the cat locked in the house for a few days, I didn't just decide to do that. At some point, I had done some research about cats and what to do with them when you're going to be away from home, and I found that this is what a lot of people do, just leave the cat at home. They are, after all, pretty self-sufficient and, before Jack (the cat) came to live with us, he had lived alone outside for a long time.

Still, it was not without some trepidation (and anxiety) that I did it. Going off and leaving your pet, unless it's a fish, locked in your house is no small thing. [And before you start giving me options, I considered them. (Especially the one about having someone come in each day, but Jack is an expert at waiting just inside the door and hopping out as you come in -- sometimes without you even knowing he's done it -- and I didn't want to have to deal with a missing cat while I was not home and able to deal with it).] But I made sure he had plenty of (dry) food (there was still some left when we got back, so I did okay on that), what I thought was plenty of water (that was almost gone, but I think that's because he normally gets wet food, so he drank more water to make up for what he wasn't getting from his food), and a big pile of fresh litter.

When we got back, the first thing we noticed was that the house was still here. That was a positive, because I wasn't sure the cat wouldn't box it up and run off with it while we were gone. Heck, that could have been his plan all along (that cat definitely has some kind of plan). I went into the house, first, and the cat met me as I came in the door and was actually more interested in seeing me than in hopping out the door (he saved that until a few nights ago to do to my oldest son as he was coming home from rehearsal). So all is well, and the cat has been way more affectionate this past week than he has been in a while.

And, hey!, the house wasn't even booby trapped Home Alone style when we got back, so I guess the cat really does like living with us. Or something.

Still, I'm going to keep working with him with that leash. Either I have to get him to go forward, or I have to learn to walk him backwards. That could be interesting. I'll have to try get some video footage of that.

* * *

In other news, I have a new thing that I'm finishing up. The draft writing, that is. It's all in notebooks (because that's how I write when I'm off at softball practices or accordion lessons or whatever), so it still has to be typed up and all of that. Why am I telling you this? Well, as I have been doing, I'd like to add a bonus story by some other author to go with it, so I am officially taking submissions. Or requests. Or something. Look, if you have something that's, oh, say, around 5000 words and you'd like me to put it in with my new thing (which I'll tell you more about later), let me know. Or if you want to WIP something up. You still have time. Just leave me a message or email me or whatever to let me know you're interested.

The Last 10 Days

Where I've Been

And on either side of where I've been,
Here's what I've been doing

It's been a very busy 10 days, and the 5 softball games each weekend are pretty rough. But there has also been some writing happening, so all is not lost!

A to Z Flashback: 2013 -- How To Be...

All the background here is the same as it was in my last flashback post so, rather than go through all of that again, just click the link to check it out.

Which brings us to last year's theme: How To Be...
You can go back and read the intro post, or you can go off of this summation: With the Internet, we can be whatever we want to be. Or, at least, we can find out how to be whatever we want to be. Or, more specifically, as a writer, I can find out how any of my characters can be whatever I want them to be, and I never have to leave my house to find those things out. Pretty amazing, don't you think.
And, yeah, I'm pretty sure last year's theme was my wife's idea, too, although I didn't seem to mention that in the intro post. Oh, well, I'm sure it's there somewhere.

So here's the A to Z of "How To Be..."! Remember, you can still leave comments. The posts won't bite. Probably. Okay, well, one of them might smash you, but, other than that, you're probably safe.

How To Be...
an Archaeologist
a Brain Surgeon
a master Chef
a Demolition Expert
an Electrical Engineer
a Fighter Pilot
a Genetic Engineer
a Human Cannonball
an Incredible Hulk
a Juggler (this post contains a juggling lesson from our very own A-to-Z founder, Arlee Bird)
a Knight
a Lumberjack
a superModel
a Ninja (the favorite post of Alex Cavanaugh)
an Ornithologist
a Paleontologist
Q (you just have to read this one to understand)
a Race Car Driver
a Super Spy (this is the one that explains how the "How To Be" idea came about)
a Translator
an Umpire
a Ventriloquist
a Werewolf (my number one most viewed post of all time... by a lot)
an X-ray Technician
a Yodeler
a Zen Master

After the series was over, I summed it up with a post about what the series had really been about:
How To Be... a Writer

Based on the popularity of the werewolf piece, I followed it up about six months later with
How To Be... a Vampire
Surprisingly, that post has not really proven to be all that popular. The werewolf post continues to get dozens of views each week. Sometimes, the Internet is weird.

You're a Hitter, Now!

Softball season is well underway, here. At least, it is for me, since I count the beginning of the season from the point when my daughter starts practice. The actual season has also started. Games began last week. [And here is where I'm tempted to start talking about my daughter and how it looks like she's going to be an awesome catcher, but I'm not going to do that. That's not what this post is about. I'm sure that will come later, though.]

Hitting during a game is an especially difficult thing for this age range, due in no small part to the erratic-ness of the pitching. Many of the girls are so scared of being hit by the ball that they jump out of the box every time a pitch is thrown. And they all get hit at some point, so it's not an irrational fear. And, because so many of the pitches are balls, the girls have a difficult time discerning what to swing at. I don't envy them.

Amidst that, one of the girls on the other team got her first hit during the first game. It was a nice, solid fly ball. A foul, fly ball (right at me, actually, so I'm glad there was a fence there). Of course, a foul ball is a strike, so, on the one hand, it wasn't a successful hit, but, on the other hand, she hit the ball. In fact, her coach yelled at her after she'd returned to the plate, "You're a hitter, now!" and, maybe, something about doing it again. What came after wasn't important. The "you're a hitter, now," though, is very important.

There's a particular confidence that comes from knowing you can hit the ball. Actually make the bat connect with the ball. If you can do that, no matter where it goes the first time, you will eventually be able to get a base hit. You have to get on base to score.

Now, follow along with me here, and let me know when you get what I'm saying. [Note: I am not going back and sourcing this information, but this is all based on a few articles and reports I've read in the last few weeks.]

At the moment, indie books are being published at about the same rate as traditionally published books (despite claims by people supporting traditional publishing saying that indie authors are "flooding the market" (with crap) and making books indistinguishable for readers). That means for every 1000 indie books that are released there are 1000 traditionally published books released. But let's look at what that really means.
[There will be math involved, which will make Tina happy, but, despite anything she says, this is not "everyday" math.]

For every 1000 indie books published, that's like 1000 girls getting a piece of the softball with their bats. They won't all score or even get on base, but, hey, they hit the ball. They can say, "I'm a published author." If they keep at it, eventually, they will score. Now, here's the part you have to understand; that's a 100% success rate. Beyond that, two or three of them will do well enough to be able to go on and earn a living just playing softball.

But let's look at the traditionally published books. For every 1 of those 1000 girls at bat, there were anywhere between 500 and 1000 more girls told they couldn't play on the team. No particular reason, just "you can't play." So you have the same 1000 girls getting a piece of the ball, but the success rate is way less than 1%. In fact, it's as bad as 0.1%. Instead of 1000 out of 1000 being able to say "I'm a published author," you have 1000 out of 500,000 to 1,000,000 being able to say it. Those are bad odds. And you're no more likely to be able to go on to earn a living playing softball as a traditionally published author than you are as an indie author. In fact, instead of it being two or three out of the 1000, it's only one or two.

And the traditional publishing industry doesn't want you to know about the 1,000,000 kids, the 1,000,000 little girls, they turned away. Oh, wait, the 999,000.

And, yes, before anyone says anything, I know my analogy is not exact. For one thing, I'm assuming that every girl that gets up to bat will get a hit, but it worked for the analogy because that's what gave me the thought, "You're a hitter, now!" "You're a published author, now!" On that basis, it works.

The point is is that the traditional publishing industry survives by keeping kids off the field. By not letting them play. At all. Then they tell everyone that they picked the best players. That all falls apart, though, when you look over at the kids playing on the indie field, even some of those making a living wage at it, and you find out they were some of the same ones told by the gatekeepers of the traditional fields to get lost.

Look, we all want to score a run or two. At least bat someone else in, right? That can only happen if we can get out on the field and play. Personally, I believe in the system that lets people that want to play the game, play the game. Right now, I can say, "I'm a published author." I'm getting to play the game. Right now. I'm doing it. I'm not waiting in line over and over again to be repeatedly turned away hoping there will be an opening just when I happen to show up.

In the end, that's really what it comes down to for me: Are you going to let me play the game or not? As it happens, the indie field is open and has plenty of room for people to play the game. I'm not much fond of being told to take my ball and go home.