Those drums sure sound funny.

So, I have this electronic drum kit I play at night, when the kids go to sleep. It's full-size, and you can hit it full force. Nothing I would ever play on stage, but it's a way to keep myself playing, even in parenthood.

I just tried to record a little, but I hit the wrong switch. So instead of hearing the actual DRUMS, all you hear is the clickety-clack of the triggers.

Strangely, it doesn't sound half bad.

Shimmer.

7am.

My daughter is next to me, gently radiating a soft and wonderful light. She's lying on her side, favorite blanket on top of her, and she's positioned her feet so they are flush against my leg.

At this moment, my life is perfect.

Sleep.

Sometimes, all I want is 7-9 consecutive hours of uninterrupted sleep. Is that so bad?

It pays to be straightforward.

"Just fire her," I was advised by several. "Just ASK her," I was advised by two.

So I just asked her.

She's covering her bases, in case of a slowdown. She knows that sales are off a bit, and that we her job would be the first to go. So she checked out what her teaching options were. She says this was the first ad of this kind to which she responded. And you know what, I believe her. And if that screws me down the road, so be it.

What did come of this what that she might not want the job that's available for her. We're going to discuss further. But that's a whole different, and wholly more adult way of doing things.

Third time firing someone in 12 years.

I consider myself to be a really good boss. If folks are trying to do right by my company, I try to do right by them. Loyalty matters to me greatly, and loyalty is a two-way street.

So my most long-term employee is getting married in June. She's asked for a lot of days off. I've given her all of them. Last week she told me she had a chance to go on her honeymoon for two weeks instead of one. I asked: do you have any plans on leaving the company anytime soon? She said "Not at all." I said "In that case, we'll pay you an extra week's vacation. You only get married once."

Now, I've had some problems with her. Not personally, but in that she hasn't been able to do the job I originally hired her to do. She just didn't have the skills, by her own admission. Nor did she have much of an interest in acquiring them (some of the deficiency was a lack of industry knowledge). Thus, her position has been morphing into more of an office manager/account exec role, and the goal was to get her more towards pure account exec over time..

Now, because she couldn't do the original job, I just hired a third person. (Our company has many people outside, very few inside). I moved our office to a moderately bigger space. Bought new computers. Monitors. All kinds of financial commitments based on the first employee's commitment to staying with me. I've had no complaints from her about her job whatsoever.

Last night, we had a technical problem. Emails got caught in a loopback, and were being delivered over and over and over and over. In checking mail accounts to see which were being affected, I found that my employee had forwarded herself (dozens of times) an email wherein she stated that she had nearly finished her certification training, and was hoping to leave the "Creative Agency" where she was now, and become a teacher in the fall.

Which would have been fine, had she told me before I committed thousands of dollars to an office move, new equipment for her, etc.

So, this morning, I'm firing her. I HATE doing this. I HATE it. But my company is NOT a charity.

Parenting: Ego and the selfish bastard.

The thing I have to practice every day is replacing the words "In one minute" with "Sure!" I tend to put off my kids a little bit, while I should be responding to them immediately. At least some of the time. I need to remember that they won't always be asking me to do stuff, and I'm going to miss it.

Love to all.

Database goggles.

When I work on the database at work, I use the folowing tools:

1) iTunes, playing the same song over and over again.
2) FileMaker Pro
3) Database Goggles

My database goggles are yellow. And they're the final component in battling whatever ADD / hypomanic focusing deficits I have. They are very helpful.

Reclamation.

It's nighttime.

So many things have been semi-restored today. Carter isn't dying yet. "This isn't a dying dog I'm looking at," said the vet. He's got something wrong with his tummy (aside from the liver cancer), but he's alert, and pretty darn happy.

A lady who said something inaccurate to my insurance company (after that little fender bender) actually called and changed her story to the truth, after I left a friendly (really!) message on her machine about how there was a misunderstanding, and how nice it was that we went to the same church (at my priest's suggestion).

I had some chances to speak in anger, and didn't take them.

I got a lot done at work today..

I'm going to have some ice cream, and go to bed. I have to wake up in six hours.

Oh, shit.

Carter just threw up blood. Twice.

He seems okay, now. We're bringing him to the vet tomorrow. If he starts decompensating, we're going to put him down. He doesn't SEEM that bad. But do we want to wait until it IS that bad?

Do clones have souls?

I'd appreciate some comments on this. If this is to heady or religious or whatever, feel free to read the poop report below.

Thank you.

The worst poop of all time.

1 second: preparation.
10 seconds: poop in progress.
20 seconds: kids start screaming from downstairs (they're in the bath).
25 seconds: I run down stairs superfast. (There's nothing wrong.)
35 seconds: I'm back up stairs.
38 seconds: poop in progress.
38 seconds: the phone rings. I get up to get it because Maggie is out with one of the kids.
46 seconds: someone calling about an old babysitter ad. I try to say it's filled.
56 seconds: sit down. poop in progress.
1 minute, 10 seconds: phone rings. I get up to get it because Maggie is out with one of the kids.
1, minute 25 seconds: it's the same person, calling me back to ask for babysitting recommendations.
1 minute, 35 seconds: I grab my computer on the way back to the bathroom.
1 minute, 45 seconds: poop in progress.
2 minutes: this update in progress, while pooping.
2 minutes, 10 seconds: my daughter comes out of the bath and starts coming up the stairs, I yell "Privacy! Privacy!" She yells "BUT DAD!" I respond "NO! PRIVACY!"
3 minutes, 10 seconds: this update is finished.
3 minutes, 15 seconds: FLUSH.

Not the most polite thing to wish upon someone.

Either my brother-in-law has Asperger Syndrome, or he's an asshole.

Thus, I'm really hoping he has Asberger. It's such a strange and nearly mean thing to say, but read the description and you'll understand why I'm saying this.

I might write more about this tomorrow. But I wanted to say this right now. I think he's ill. And if he's not, he's a selfish, cheap, disrespectful, clueless, self-entitled... oh, Lord. I need to pray more.

Either way, it makes him someone diffcult to be around.

AssJack.

That's me.

You know, if you (being me) act the same way for, oh, 36 years, and then don't ALWAYS act that way for like 6 months, it's probably not rational to expect your wife to instantly have faith in your actions.

Ah, Maggie. Why do you put up with me?

Bickersville, NY

Welcome to Bickersville!

It's a special place where YOU will think you're wife is jumping to conclusions, reacting to attitudes you don't have, and pre-emptively telling you to "calm down," while SHE will think you're on edge, spoiling for conflict, and worried about things before they might even happen!

Come set a spell!

Master of my domain. (Thanks, Jerry!)

I’m giving up any sort of auto-erotica for the next month. 90 days, if it seems to be helpful. I decided to do this because I want to spend all of my non-spousal sexual energy on righting my attitudes and sharpening my focus. My mentor-dude suggested it to me, too. No worries friends, I won’t update on this daily, but probably weekly.

I think the last time I did this would be, um, before I hit puberty.

As an aside: This week, my blog attracted visitors who searched for “Gay Gorilla, Catholics and Birth Control, isight baby monitor, hypomania, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, 24 and season one and finale and spoiler, prolific pl 3507, catholics pro birth control, isight as baby monitor, discpline for kids, and are trolls real?"

Man. That's just weird. Okay: off to the world of the non-masturbatory.

LIES!!! Lies?

There are two Why’s here.

1) Why do people lie?
2) Why am I surprised that people lie?

I mentioned that I got into a minor fender-bender the morning Maggie was leaving for the airport. Here’s how it went down: I pulled out of a parallel parking space at approximately the same time that someone made a left turn (from a side street) onto the same place I was pulling out. We hit.

I didn’t know who’s fault it was. At first I thought she was coming down the main road, and I just missed her. (That would be pretty unusual for me, honestly. I’m fairly alert.) But then it turned out she had made a left turn.

To make a long story medium, she lied to her insurance company. She told them she was traveling down the MAIN road for two or three MINUTES. And that I pulled out and hit her. This contradicts the police report, and the actual EVENTS. WTF?

To top it off, it turns out this lady gives Communion at my church, and I know her husband from the train station.

Why did she lie? Why am I surprised that she lied?

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

See, I'm not afraid to curse on my blog.

Shit.

WTF? Mild to moderate discontent.

I'm irritable. Not quite cranky. But discontent and nervous.

I'm worried about work. Sales at my office have dropped from $17k/week down to so about 11. We've got 12 new possible positions ready to roll, so that could change things in a hurry.

I feel like I'm not doing enough at work, although I'm doing a LOT at work. I feel like I can't accomplish enough, do enough, be enough. Ugh.

Hour 84: Maggie returns.

Maggie's home. The kids and I were very excited to see her.

Weirdly, we just got into an argument. My oldest and I were watching survivor, and Maggie came in when we were chattering about this insanely long immunity challenge. At the commercal, Maggie picked up the control and started turning off the sound. I got pissed. I know why, too. This was a flashback to something we used to argue about all the time. Whenever we watched TV together, for like, years, Maggie would turn down the volume every time a commercial came on, regardless of whether I was watching it or not. It just drove me crazy that she never asked.

Hm. Instead of the happy little reunion, we had a flashback to Silly Arguments Circa 1997.

Ugh. I'm going to go apologize.

Hour 82: A dented plane.

Maggie should have been home by now, but her plane was dented. That's correct. "Dented." Northwest had to replace her plane with another one. It landed at 6:15-ish, so she should be back soon.

I've had a real blast with these kids. I think that, in just a few days, I learned a bit about intercepting my own responses, to take kinder action instead of being so damn snippy.

Time to get them out of the bath.