A letter to my son.
Posted on Saturday, May 30, 2009 at 12:38 am
In the “baby book” we received as a gift at Jhonen’s baby shower, there was a section where we (each parent) were supposed to write a letter to the baby. Here is a copy of what I wrote to my son.
===
Jhonen,
Welcome to the world, my son. Now, at the beginning of it, I want to wish you the best in your coming life. By the grace of God, your mother and I have been given the opportunity to play some small part in that life, and I truly hope that our contributions will be looked upon favorably, once they have been summed up at the end.
From the first moment you arrived into the world, I have felt the enormous burden of being almost solely responsible for the life of another human being. Every part of my life, every daily decision, has been subjected to the scrutiny of whether it is best for my son. Your mother and I are, at this point in our lives, lucky enough to have been blessed with the means and ability to treat you to everything we believe to be contributory to that goal: to provide you with nothing but the best. And if the result of our contribution to your life is that you can do the same for your own children, then we will have been successful.
In the hospital room after you were born, I stood next to you while the nurse cleaned you, measured you, checked you, and tested you. And when I put my hand near you, you grasped my finger in your tiny little hand. Since that moment, I have loved you with all my heart, with everything that is in me. If, at the end of all things, the final tally of my life results in nothing more than having created you, I will consider it complete.
Ever since the first moments after you were born, you have been so very interested in the world around you, and I pray with all my heart that you never lose that ability. You live in a very big world, with a great many interesting things, and it is my belief that someone who fails to appreciate the sheer greatness and wonder of everything around them does not live life to its fullest. Never limit yourself to the house, the town, the state, the country, or even the planet that you were born a part of. Your potential is and always will be unbounded by any artificial limitations. If you fear the unknown, if you tell yourself that something cannot or should not be known, cannot or should not be done, you fall short of the universe’s plan for your life. I know in my heart that you are destined for great things.
As I write these words, you have been a part of my life for about four months. You cry, you fuss, and you fight so hard when we try to put you to sleep. But you also smile, you laugh, and you squeal with delight when we find new ways to entertain you. All the crying, all the fussiness, all the sleepless nights begging you to calm down and go to sleep so Daddy can be coherent at work tomorrow… one single smile pays for all of it. I simply cannot imagine my life without you, and I would not trade one laugh for all the riches in the world.
Please know that your mother and I will always be here for you. Even after one or both of us have been taken from this realm and into whatever comes next, we will remain in your heart and in your mind. Ask us any question, and we will give you whatever answer we are capable of giving. Ask for any assistance, and we will provide whatever help we can. You are the sum of our parts; you are the completion of our lives. If all of it were to end tomorrow, your mother and I would look back on a job well done, because we were given the opportunity to create you.
I love you.
Please never stop being yourself.
Love forever,
Dad.
1 Comment
Throwback Mountain Dew is awesome.
Posted on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 11:13 pm
If you haven’t had the chance to have it yet, Pepsi has introduced two new flavors to its pop line-up: Pepsi-Cola Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback. The long and short of it is that these both use real sugar as the sweetener, instead of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is the norm nowadays. If you’ve ever heard of “Dublin Dr. Pepper,” this is a similar idea: use sugar instead of HFCS and it will be better.
And let me tell you: it is better. Oh, how awesome it is. There are currently Throwback versions of both Pepsi and Mt. Dew, and they are both simply stunning compared to their normal counterparts. If you are a fan of either, you should go to great lengths to find the Throwback versions. Seriously. They’re that good.
I was born in 1982, and was able to make informed opinions on the taste of pop significantly later – significantly after the switch to HFCS. So I’ve never really even been exposed to the “before” recipe. And I can still tell a difference. I can still say that it’s better.
Unfortunately, from what I’ve read, the Throwback versions are going away sometime in mid-June. So it would be wise to get what you can – try it if you haven’t yet, and stock up on it if you have – as soon as possible.
My own personal opinion is that since corn (obviously the primary component of HFCS) is rapidly becoming expensive due to the green movement, there will come a time when sugar is actually cheaper than corn. And when that happens, Pepsi and pretty much everyone else will do well to consider switching back to using real sugar as their standard sweetener. So maybe this whole “throwback” limited edition thing is a precursor to rolling sugar out across their entire product line in order to save money.
In the meantime… keep stocking up on it. According to everything I’ve read, it’s going away in a couple weeks. And then I’m going to have to face the unfortunate reality of going back to “regular” Mountain Dew. And that’s just not something I want to think about at the moment.
2 Comments
Convergence.
Posted on Friday, May 8, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Noun.
1. an act or instance of converging.
2. a convergent state or quality.
3. the degree or point at which lines, objects, etc., converge.
4. using PHP to download mail from an IMAP server, extract a .ics (vCalendar) file from a message, send the .ics file to a Perl script for translation into XML, return the XML back to PHP and convert it to an array for processing and storage in MySQL.
1 Comment
First(ish) impressions of a Nissan Rogue.
Posted on Sunday, May 3, 2009 at 1:55 pm
We’ve been working on getting a new car for a couple years now, but various things have been coming up that have stopped us. But we finally bit the bullet and did it. A couple weeks ago we bought a brand new Nissan Rogue SUV/crossover. One of the guys at my company is simply stellar at screwing car dealerships out of money (and pretty much anyone else – thanks to him, we [my company] once got a $900 color laser printer from Dell for free simply because they didn’t ship out a new computer on time!). So I took him, and we got about the best deal on the planet on it, so we’re really happy about that.
I realize that “crossover” is simply our generation’s word to replace “station wagon,” but hey, it’s better than a minivan, right? So here’s what I think, after having driven it a several times over the last couple weeks.
1. The rear window is effing tiny. The cars I’m used to driving, the rear window is a big square thing that takes up pretty much all of the space it’s provided. Here, it’s fairly small to begin with, and it is very rounded for aesthetic purposes, so there’s a lot of wasted space in what would have otherwise been the corners of the window. The rear pillars are pretty big, too, so it’s got a bit of a blind spot that’s marginally annoying.
2. I could stand some more cupholders and power jacks. Up front, there’s a big cupholder and a small cupholder. Not wanting to ruin the new car smell any faster than absolutely necessary, I haven’t actually gone anywhere that would require me to use the cupholders… but there’s enough room that they could have made both cupholders the same size so that we don’t have to choose who gets a large drink. Also, unless there’s one in the back seat that I haven’t found yet, this car has exactly one cigarette lighter power jack. Which pretty much forces us to buy a power splitter if we need to charge our GPS and iPod at the same time (which we definitely will need to do, in a month or so when we drive up to KC).
3. The CVT (continuously variable transmission) is bleeding awesome. It’s smooth as butter. Speeding up, slowing down, whatever, there’s never a kick when the transmission shifts gears (because, as I understand it, a CVT doesn’t actually have gears, it just adjusts the power as necessary at any given moment). And even though it’s just an inline 4-cylinder (and ~700 pounds heaver than the Sentra it shares the platform with), it actually feels like it’s got a bit of spunk in city driving. Going from 30 to 70 on an on-ramp isn’t quite as peppy, but going from 0 to 40 after a stoplight feels like there’s quite a bit of power behind you.
4. The base model is actually fairly well-equipped. Power locks, windows, and mirrors, and an AUX jack in the stereo so I don’t have to fuck with the stupid FM transmitter for my iPod. The CVT (which replaces an Automatic transmission) is standard, so you don’t have to pay the extra grand to upgrade from manual. It doesn’t have a sunroof, in-dash satnav, or anything super fancy, but it’s got all the basics – a lot more than normally came standard the last time I went car shopping (six years ago).
What happened to my life plan? I’m in an HOA neighborhood in the suburbs and driving an SUV. I even wear effing Ralph Lauren now. I definitely did not see this coming, like, 5 years ago.
