I recently went to Seattle on a work trip.  It’s always great going back to the Emerald City.  I grew up a couple of hours north of Seattle and spent a year of my 20’s living in the city.  I had an apartment next to the Ballard Bridge and an underground parking spot.  I thought I was going to live there for a long time, but life can throw you a better curveball than Felix Hernandez and I ended up moving to Sacramento to pursue other interests.

I have some great friends and memories in Seattle; whether it was seeing the 1995 Mariners win a 1 game playoff against the Angels, getting engaged to my wonderful wife on the Bainbridge ferry, or sitting in one of my favorite places in the world at Gas Works Park with some Ivar’s fish and chips.  The city holds a special place in my heart.  Plus, you can’t beat the music.  No matter where you go, or what business you visit, there’s always a good chance you hear alternative music from the 1990’s.  It’s the city’s unofficial soundtrack.

I don’t usually write about my job, probably because I spend a third or more of my life doing it; but, since the purpose of Dad vs. Human is to document my life so I don’t forget details and events, I’ll write about my job…a little.

Like I said, my trip to Seattle was a work trip.  I was selected for a special program.  Out of roughly 2,000 people in my company with my title, 200 were selected to be a part of this program.  Out of those 200 people, six were selected to go to Seattle.  I was one of the six selected.  It was a huge honor.  We got to spend time with our Executive Vice President, tour headquarters, share and collaborate on what we worked on during our program, and we had some fun sightseeing and taking the underground tour in Seattle.  Did you know Seattle is about 2-3 stories higher than it originally was because of toilets and a fire?  Neither did I.

I work in sales for a wireless company, but not just any wireless company…the best wireless company in the country!  T-Mobile!  It’s a great job and I’ve been doing it the last 12 years.  My company takes great care of me and our customers.  I get to help people develop their own careers, I make a good living, have great benefits, and I have developed many great relationships.  During the last 5 years, my peers and I have helped change the wireless industry for good and it has been an amazing ride.  The best part, is we won’t stop!  We’re going to keep easing the pains of being a wireless customer!  It is a privilege to do what I do.

My job has allowed me to do so many things in the past decade; get out of debt, buy a house, provide for a family, and basically, achieve any goal I set out to do.  Most important, it gives me the work life balance to do the things I enjoy doing with the other 16 hours of my day and the means to do them.

My work trip was a good one.  We got some stuff done, I took in some familiar sights and sounds, I saw some friends I hadn’t seen in years, Seth and Elisabeth, and I missed my ladies back home.  Until next time, Seattle.

 

 

Dear Littles,

You turned 4 today.  I don’t even know how that happened.  Slow days, fast years.  When I think of other 4 year periods in my life, they were all slower.  High school seemed like it took an eternity.  College was quicker, but I got my 4 years worth.  My 4 years in TV was a slow grind.  The first 4 years of marriage seemed about right.  The first 4 years of your life?  It went by in the blink of an eye.  I’m sure I’ll say that every year though.

So here’s the deal.  You love Wonder Woman, absolutely love her.

You have dresses, sleep dresses, room decorations, stuffed animals, costumes, a lunch box, a back pack…all Wonder Woman.  It’s no surprise you love her because momma does too.   It also wouldn’t surprise me if you grew up to be a super hero; just like your mother.

You and your mom have so much in common.  You’re both incredibly smart.  I can’t believe the words that come out of your mouth sometimes.  You’ll use big words like “magnificent” and “incredible” and you’re always saying words and then telling us their definition.  You’ll say something like, “Mom, that dinner was delicious, that means good, right?”  Your brain is always working and absorbing.  Your mom and I joke that you’ll probably end up being an English professor.  I can’t wait to see how you use that talent.

You’re also very funny.  You tell two hilarious jokes.  The first one is, “Why are pirates always angry? Because they ARRRRRRRE!”  Mom taught you that one.  The second one is, “Want to hear a dirty word?  POLLUTION!”  Yeah, dad taught you that one.  You laugh and giggle after both of them.  You’ll tell them 5 times in a row and we’ll all laugh together.  It’s hilarious.  That means funny, right?

You do have a serious side.  You’ll go into your room and disappear for an hour.  You need that introvert time.  You’ll reappear with crafts you made, and pictures you have drawn, tucked into envelopes to give to your mom and me.  You’re handy with scissors, tape, and a glue stick.  You love to cut out pictures from magazines and make collages.  They’re very creative.  I think you get that from me.

You love to sing and dance.  It’s not uncommon to hear you playing with your stuffed animals or walking down the hall and you’ll be humming a tune, only you know.  You sing the Lord’s Prayer to us on most nights and use a different tune every night.  It always starts with, “Our Faaaaaaaaather, who art in heaaaaaaaaaven,” before you break off into a different tune, and it always ends with “Ah ah ah ah ah ah aaaaaaaa-men.”  I’ve recorded a number of them.  I can put on any vinyl on the record player and you’ll tell me you like the song.  You do give me requests from time to time like “Rocketman” and “the Hungry song” (that would be “Hungerstrike” by Temple of the Dog).  You love to dance and you love it when I twirl you.  We even have a little routine where you spin in, then out, then in, then out, and then you run and jump into my arms and I spin you around like a couple of fancy ballroom dancers.

Your favorite song is still “the Shrek song,” or as it’s really called, “All-Star” by Smash Mouth.

Whenever we’re in the car, you ask me to play it.  The funny thing is, I remember when I bought that CD.  I was on a road trip from Chicago to Orange City, IA.  I was 20 years old.  I’d like to go back in time and see the look on my 20-year-old self’s face when I told him that in 19 years he would have a daughter who would request this song, almost daily.  I don’t think I would have believed him.

You’re an awesome big sister, and you absolutely love your little sister.  She wants to do everything you’re doing and sometimes that annoys you.  Most of the time you play really well together and you do such a good job of sharing your stuff with her.  Your little sister’s favorite place is your room.  It’s going to be so much fun to watch you grow up together.  I’m sure you’ll have your fights, but I’m also sure you’ll be thick as thieves and plot against your mother and me.  One of the funny things you do is when your sister is whining about something, you’ll say, “Wah wah, JoJo.”  The other day she was in the living room and you were in your room.  She started whining about something and from all the way down the hall I hear this faint, “Wah wah, JoJo.”  I laughed so hard.  When the dust settles you love your sister and she wants to be just like you.

The most amazing thing about you is your compassionate and kind heart.  That makes you so beautiful.  Oh sure, you love to wear princess dresses, put on lip gloss, get manicures and pedicures with mom, and have your hair braided.  You’re beautiful on the outside, but what makes you beautiful is on the inside.  You care about people and their feelings.  You can tell when one of us is having a bad day and you ask us about it.  You go out of your way to share your stuff.  You’ll “earn” a treat by eating a good dinner, only to share your treat with us.  Tonight, on your birthday, a friend of ours gave you two amazing Elsa dresses, one for your size right now and one for when you get bigger.  We told you how fortunate you were to get two dresses and without any hesitation, you suggested we give one away.  We love reading Bible stories at dinner and at bedtime and we love hearing you talk about God and how he lives in your heart.   That’s so evident by the way you treat people.

Before you were born, I couldn’t imagine what life would be like with a little girl; now, I can’t imagine what life would be like without my little girl.  Your mom and I are so proud of you and so blessed God gave us you.  Please, don’t grow up too fast; but when you do, I just want you to know you’ll always be daddy’s little girl and we’ll always have a time to dance.

I love you, Pen.  Happy birthday.

Dadda

(Listening to “Learning to Fly” by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)

Tom Petty passed away today.  He was 66 years old.  When he was 48, he might have saved my life.  Keep in mind, I’ve never met the man and he had no idea of his service.

A quick tangent.  Celebrity deaths are kind of strange to me.  They happen all the time and some hit me harder than others.   For me, when a celebrity death happens, and it’s a celebrity I liked or felt I had a connection to whatever it was that made them a celebrity, there’s always sadness.  The sadness isn’t like losing a family member or a friend or anything like that.   I’ve rarely met any of the celebrities I like; I’ve seen some of them in person from going to their shows, but I have no attachment to them as people.  Because of that, I don’t really know them, so the sadness is different.  It’s like the world seems just a bit darker for a brief moment; like a talent was taken away, and the whole world’s collective ability just dropped by a fraction of a percent because that person is gone.

The strange part about celebrity deaths is it usually happens to people I haven’t thought about in a while.  Take Tom for example.  The last time I thought about him, I was texting a friend of mine who loves Tom and Prince.  Prince has just passed away and I was asking how she was handling it and during our brief texts I said something like, “Yeah, I knew you’d take this pretty hard.  I’m sure you’ll feel the same way about Tom Petty when he goes.”  We both admitted we were a little surprised Tom was still alive due to the rock and roll lifestyle.  I hadn’t thought about Tom since that conversation; I hadn’t “missed” him at all, but now that he’s gone, now I’ll miss him.  The talent bulb of the world is dimmer and that’s when I notice.  It’s like I took him for granted and assumed his talent would just be around forever and now it’s gone.

I don’t know if anything I wrote in the last two paragraphs makes any sense.  I could probably write both of those paragraphs a hundred times, and they would probably mean something different every time.  Like I said, celebrity deaths are strange to me.

Anyway, Tom Petty might have saved my life once, or a least saved me from a beating.  I don’t exactly remember what year it was, but it was during college.  I think it was 1999, between my junior and senior years.  I had driven home in my van, to Washington, to visit my family before heading back to school in Iowa to start my summer job working for my college.  On the way home, I got a ding in my windshield, it split, and a crack ran through my entire bottom portion of my windshield.  While I was home, I got it fixed and I didn’t think anything of it.

When I drove back to school, I was cruising through Montana, and just before a little town called De Borgia, a thunderstorm rolled through.  This wasn’t just a shower, this was a torrential downpour.  I turned my wipers on high and they went swoosh, swoosh, FLOP!  They hadn’t been tightened down correctly when the windshield was replaced, and had flipped off the side of the windshield when I turned them on.  They were just hanging there and I immediately lost all vision due to the rain.  I slowed way down,  found my way to an exit ramp, and pulled into a gas station.

Now, these were the days before cell phones and before GPS, so even if I could have called for help, I was at least 10 hours away from anyone I knew or anyone who would have cared.  I was left to my wits.  At the gas station I found out what town I was in and I went to the payphone and started looking through the thin phonebook to see if I could find a mechanic.  No luck.  There was a bulletin board next to the payphone and I struck gold.  There was an advertisement for a 24-hour mechanic.  It was hand written and looked suspicious, but I thought I’d give it a try, so I picked up the phone and called.  A man answered, I told him my situation, and he said he’d meet me at the bar on the frontage road.  I asked how he’d know who I was and he told me, “Don’t worry, I’ll find you.”

He was right.  De Borgia is a town of about 14 people, and I think every one of them was in the bar.  I walked in and felt like Tupac, all eyes were on me.  It was like I was an alien from another planet.  It was the grunge era and I was from the Pacific Northwest.  I had bleached blonde hair, I was wearing an old 70’s style baseball jersey from some bar in Nebraska that I had picked up at a second-hand store, I had my dad’s army pants on, rolled into shorts, I had long ringer socks on with my skate shoes,  I had small hoop earrings in both ears, and a hemp necklace on.  I looked something like this:

It’s safe to say I didn’t fit in there at all.  They knew it, I knew it.  So, I tried my best to fit in.  I took a seat at the bar, ordered a beer, and settled in.  The older lady next to me was playing video poker.  She had a cigarette in her hand that had an inch and a half of ash on it. It was bending down into an ash tray that had about 20 filters in it.  She looked like the lady in the anti-smoking ads, the one that has the throat ventilator and urges people to quit smoking, only this lady was about 3 years from being the lady in the ad.  Anyway, she started talking to me.  Her voice was a low growl and when she laughed it sounded like a cross between a wheeze and coughing up a lung.  She asked where I was from and what I was doing here.  Then she tried to set me up with her granddaughter who was sitting on the other side of me.  She replied, “Grandma!” and I laughed and as I walked over to the jukebox, I told her not to worry about it. 

I had officially killed about 35 awkward minutes of my hour-long wait, so when I strolled over to the jukebox, I put a dollar in and decided to pick a few songs.  I didn’t know many of them, but I did find one, “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam.  I picked the song and it started to play.  About 30 seconds into the song, as I was staring at the jukebox thinking of what to play next, I hear this loud, burly voice yell, “Who the hell played this sh**!”  I turned around, all eyes were on me, and this huge backwoods dude, complete with plaid shirt, suspenders, beard, and jeans is standing up and staring me down like I shot his dog or hit on his girl, or in this case, stole his best axe.  I didn’t answer, and he repeated himself, “Who the hell played this sh**!”  It was pretty clear he was talked to me, so I said, “Sorry, let me see if I can make it up to you.”  As I turned back toward the jukebox, I was praying there was something good to play…anything.  I wanted to feel like Indiana Jones when he picked the right cup and the guard said, “You have chosen wisely.”

I’m scouring through the different song selections and I’m thinking, “What would these people like?”  Then, I found it.  “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.  I punched in the numbers, and the song began to play.  I’m thinking, “Who doesn’t like Tom?  This has got to work.”  The opening guitars start playing that, “bum bum, ba duh da da da dum, bing bong, ba da da da dum,” and Tom starts singing, “She grew up in an Indiana town…”  The whole place starts nodding along, including my newfound music critic.  He looks at me and says, “That’s better,” and sits back down.  I give an inaudible sign of relief and take the last swig of my beer.  Just then, I hear the chime of the bell hanging from wooden door frame of the bar and the mechanic walks in.  He takes a glance around the room, points at me and says, “You must be the one with the windshield wiper problem.”  I walk to the door and say, “How’d you guess?”

Now, I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t picked “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” for the second song.  I don’t even know if the guy was really serious, but he sure seemed like it, and to this day I think Tom Petty saved me from something.

And, that’s what I thought about when I read Tom Petty had passed away.  I thought about that story, and I felt the sadness I described earlier.  Then the moment passed, and that was it.  I went back to my normal Monday life of hanging out with my kids.  We did listen to Tom Petty and had a dance party, then momma came home and we had dinner.

As for the windshield wipers…the mechanic and I go down to his shop which is about a quarter-mile from the bar.  He takes a look and says he’s going to have to take the dash apart to see what’s going on with them.  I had to get back on the road, and I was a bit skeptical, so I said I didn’t have that kind of time.  So, he said he had something that would do the trick.  He put some RainX on my windshield and rubbed it in.  He told me that should help get me to where I needed to go.  I thanked him and asked him how much I owed him.  He said, “Twenty bucks ought to do it.”  I agreed and went into my wallet.  Since I was traveling, I only had big bills.  I had two $100’s, a $50, and a $5.  This was probably all the money I had in the world at that moment, so I extended him a $50 and asked if he had change.  He gave me a smirk and said he didn’t.

Now, I was in a bit of a pickle.  I could give him the $50, but I might not have enough money to get to school, and this wasn’t the land of ATM’s, not that I would have had any money to draw out anyway.  I told him that if he didn’t have any change, then the $5 was the best that I could do.  He said, “Well, that hardly seems worth coming out.”  I told him again, “I’d be more than happy to give you $20, but if you don’t have change, the $5 is the best I can do.”  He took the $5 from my hand and growled, “I think you’ve spent enough time in our town.  I think it’s best you leave.”

Yep.  It was time to move on, time to get goin’ because there was definitely something in the air.  I thanked him for his time and got the heck out of dodge.  I didn’t run into any more rain on the last 1,000 miles of my trip.  When I got back to school, I took the road van to my mechanic and it took him all of 5 minutes to tighten the wipers free of charge (I wish I had though of that.)

That’s the kind of stuff that happened when I was learning to fly, and I’m glad that Tom was there to save me.  RIP.

 

 

For our daughter’s 4th birthday, the wife and I purchased tickets to Disney’s new Broadway-bound musical, Frozen.  It. Blew. Her. Mind.

Aside from Wonder Woman, Anna and Elsa rank pretty high on Little’s list of awesomeness.  She has Anna and Elsa dolls and other toys.  She can sing the songs.  She has an Anna and Elsa dress.  She loves Frozen.  We knew this was going to be a great gift, but I couldn’t have guessed just how great it was going to be.

A about a week out from the show, we told her we had a surprise for her birthday.  We didn’t tell her what it was, we didn’t tell her where it was, we just told her it was a surprise.  She tried to con it out of us by telling us it’s not good to keep a secret.  She is right, we do teach her not to keep secrets, so we had to explain the difference between a surprise and a secret.  A surprise is something fun that you’re eventually going to tell someone, but a secret is something you’re never going to tell, especially if it’s something bad or something someone asks her not to tell her parents.  Yeah, she didn’t care.  She wanted to know, but we kept our surprise.

The night of the show, the wife told our daughter to choose her fanciest dress because we were going to take her our for her birthday and it was just going to be the three of us…no little sister.  When we told her that, she knew it was going to be special, and lo and behold, she chose to wear her Anna and Elsa dress.  We all got dressed, said goodbye to Tiny and the sitter, loaded the car, and headed to the theater.  We still didn’t tell her where we were going.

We walked up to the theater, and Littles saw the sign.  She knew exactly what it was.  A look of surprise, followed by a huge smile came across her face,  “FROZEN!!!!” she said excitedly.  Now, she still didn’t fully know what was going on.  She recognized the logo on the sign, but as we later found out, she thought we were going to see a movie, since that’s what she’s used to seeing at our house.  We tried to explain to her we were seeing a musical with real actors and people, but it was clear that didn’t register to her.

The show was held at Denver’s Buell Theatre.  The place is beautiful, and huge.  Littles looked all around in amazement, while still not realizing exactly what she was going to see.  We could see her mind trying to process it all.  Everyone was dressed up, people had drinks and snacks, and there were tons of little Anna and Elsa’s running around.  We took tons of pictures and then found our seats.

 

Littles kept asking when the show was going to start and we kept telling her it was only going to be a few more minutes.  Finally, the lights went out, the music began to play, the actors and actresses came out on stage, and Littles looked like this for about 2 hours…

Her eyes were glued to the stage.  We could have lit off fire crackers next to her and she wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.  She was locked in and hanging on every word.  After a few minutes we asked her if she was liking it and she would just nod her head and say, “This is magnificent.”  Then, at intermission, we finally caught a glimpse of what was going on in her head.  The wife asked her if she was liking the show, and Littles asked, “Are they real?”  That’s when it dawned on us that Littles still couldn’t tell the difference between the movie at home and what she was seeing.  We tried to explain to her the people were real and they are actors and actresses on a stage, but we could tell she didn’t quite understand, but she would in a few minutes.

At the end of intermission, the lights went out and one of the actors started the second act in the aisle, close to the stage.  The spotlight on the actor might as well have been a light bulb above Littles’ head.  It finally clicked.  She looked at us and said, “THEY ARE REAL!!!  GOD MADE THOSE PEOPLE TOO!!!  ANNA AND ELSA ARE REAL!!!  THIS IS THE BESTEST DAY EVER!!!”  Littles finally understood.  This wasn’t a movie, those people were real.

Littles was right.  It was a magnificent show.  The music was amazing, the acting was incredible, and some of the special effects left us wondering how they did that.  The show stirred up my own emotions and made me think about my own experience in theater; wondering if I could have ever done something like that, or if I still could do something like that.  The best part about this show was watching my daughter’s reaction.  I was so excited for her.  I felt like I was watching it through her eyes, and I was amazed.

Littles did lose a little steam towards the end.  The show started at 7:30pm, which is her bedtime, but we figured she wouldn’t mind because she’d be so into it.  We were right, but she did get a little tired toward the end.  She finished the show snuggling on my lap, sucking her thumb and twirling her hair.  It was the perfect ending to the show.  My girl is getting older, but she’s still my little girl.

As we were leaving the theater, the wife said something interesting.  She said, “I wonder if she’ll remember this and want to be involved in theater when she’s older?”  I didn’t think much of it at the time, and I probably said, “Yeah, maybe.”  After thinking about it for a couple of days, I realized something.  When I was her age, I had a similar experience, and it is one of my earliest childhood memories.  When I was 4, my sister was in a production of Annie, put on by the Schenectady Light Opera Company.  I remember being drawn in by it.  Even though I was a rambunctious kid who never sat still, I remember going to rehearsals, seeing the show, and being amazed.  Looking back, that experience shaped a lot of my interests later in life as I was involved in music and theater.  I too, can’t help but wonder if Littles will remember this night and be affected by it like I was.  Maybe she will, maybe she won’t, but one thing I know for sure…I will never forget the look of amazement on her face.  Happy birthday, Littles!  Momma and Dadda love you so much!