The Rubber Mallet Treatment

She was decidedly bummed. One of her friends had dropped her camera and now the lens pointed off at an angle and the display would only report something about "lens error 11". It had been a Christmas present a year earlier, but it was out of warranty.

And even if it were in warranty, I was pretty sure that the warranty did not cover lenses getting jammed when someone dropped it from a height of four feet.

I looked online. It would likely cost $100 more than the camera was worth to get it repaired. She didn't have money for a new camera. And all of her Christmas presents had been purchased.

So, I presented her with the options. Option 1 -- ask for a camera for her birthday in a few months. Option 2 -- see if Canon would repair it under warranty. Option 3 -- Let me whack at it, even though that would certainly void whatever warranty might still be in effect.

We went with option 3, hanging onto option 2 as a backup.

I am known for my kludgy folksy repairs. We use a lot of duct tape around these parts. But I was really nervous about this one. Sure, the camera was unusable as it was, but I felt I was running the risk of making it decidedly unusable.



I set the camera on the floor, rummaged out my rubber mallet, and gently, so gently, wacked away at the stuck-in-the-wrong-position lens, trying to convince it to ease its way back into the right place.

tappa tappa tappa

test it

nope

tappa tappa tappa

test it

nope

tappa tappa tappa

test it

...

did it just budge?

A couple more taps, and a subtle twisting by hand. And "zhwiip" -- the lens pulled right back in.

So there you have it. Need your camera fixed? Bring it here. I got me a magic rubber mallet!

Ambivalent

The school therapist/counselor met with him to talk to him about his anxiety attacks, about what he's worried about. He mentioned many things that are causing him to fret -- big questions that he doesn't know the answer to.

Big questions that I don't know the answer to.

Questions normal kids his age don't think about, let alone worry about.

The school therapist / counselor met with Mrs. P to offer suggestions of what we can do as parents to help.

"Of course, your family's ambivalence to religion doesn't help..." she said at one point.

And that's where I stopped Mrs. P, who was relating this to me.

"It's a good thing she didn't talk to me about my 'ambivalence' to religion, as she would have gotten an earful."

You can use a lot of terms for my feelings about religion, or God or whatever. But 'ambivalence' is a horrible word for any of them.

Believers like to think that they know what an agnostic is all about. I have been told by believers that my agnosticism is an incredibly lazy philosophy. Or that it's chicken because it doesn't have the guts to take a stand one way or another.

It used to infuriate me, but now I chalk it up to other agnostics who were lazy or chicken ruining it for me.

But the fact is, I am an agnostic because all of the evidence before me proffers up a multitude of equally valid options. And the validity all comes down to someone telling you about their personal experience and the expectation that their personal experience will somehow resonate with you as well.

And, so far, it hasn't.

I am not ambivalent. I am at times angry. At times perplexed. At times skeptical. At times baffled. At times I am even borderline believing again.

I have read, and read, and read some more. Trying to find answers. Trying to uncover that bit of truth or something that I read and say "Holy cow. That's the missing piece."

But usually what I find instead are combative inconsistencies handed over to me from someone else's opinion shrouded as fact.

The closest I have come to a truth that resonates with me and my understanding of the big picture was in a recent seminar, where a man of the cloth stated that there are seven levels of understanding (I think the exact number may have been metaphorical in some way). As humans, we are generally on the lowest level. Maybe the most "enlightened" are at the sixth level, but never any higher. (No explanation of what "enlightenment" entailed, or even indeed what they were being enlightened with and by.)

This resonated with me because I am swiftly concluding that, if the theologians are correct, we cannot 'know' using our five senses, as all evidence exists outside of those five senses.

Which frustrates me. And at times makes me angry. And at times motivates me to dig deeper. And at times makes me just go with the flow in a zen sort of way.

But never leaves me 'ambivalent'.

Our Holiday Newsletter - 2009 Edition

2009 – Another Season, Another Greeting

Our dog, Max, offered to help out with the writing of this newsletter, and what with all of the decorating and eggnoging and wassailing and such, I was only too happy to have the help. So I turned it over to him.

I just got the first draft, and I think that it is safe to say that I can’t outsource the writing of this newsletter. At least, not to him. Not only did he insist on writing in an old dialect of Wolfish (when I asked him to translate it, he started to get rather militant, insisting that it is OUR problem that we have never bothered to learn Wolfish), but the content was nothing but a lengthy diatribe about Canine-Hominid Geopolitical relations. It’s really unlike him, but lately, he’s been watching a lot of Animal Planet, and has been getting a bit … sulky. And that red front-leg-band? I’m sorry, it’s just a bit affected.

As a service to those of you who are Hominids, especially those of you who may happen to employ Canines in your home, I thought it best that his little rant NOT get distributed. Ergo, once again, you are subjected to this little waste of ones and zeros from me.

Don’t feel obligated to read it.

Child #1

Child #1 was a pretty easy baby to raise. And people kept telling us "Just wait till she’s a toddler." And she was a pretty easy toddler, and people kept telling us "Just wait till she’s in school." And as a school-aged kid, she was still pretty easy, and people kept telling us "Just wait till she’s a pre-teen." And she was a pretty easy pre-teen, and people kept telling us "Just wait till she’s driving."

And now she’s driving.

She doesn’t have her license yet, but she does have her learner’s permit. And I am forced to admit … once again, she’s pretty easy to work with. Sure there are times when she gets impatient to take her license test, or insists that the junker we bought this summer is "her car." But in general, when we have something reasonable to ask of her, she responds in a reasonable manner.

Which is a great sign – because she’s starting to look at colleges and universities.
And all I can say is that she inherited both of her parents' champagne tastes when it comes to education. I keep telling her that Harvard and Stanford and Princeton are all great schools, but that Montgomery County Community College has a lot to offer too. And when we get past that withering "What do you think, that you’re funny, old man?" look she gives me, we're able to have a realistic conversation about cost-benefit analyses.

The thing is, I don’t want to limit her. She has a lot to offer this world, and quite frankly, the world deserves her in all her glory. Over the spring and summer, she had an opportunity to learn how aspects of the world work. She was nominated to attend the National Youth Leadership Conference in Washington DC, where she experienced how the government works. But in order to get there, she had to do a lot of fundraising on her own. Yes, she had a lot of help from lots of people, but in the end, she raised the money she needed, helped some of her peers raise the money they needed, and in the end, had a wonderful life-expanding experience.

The way I look at it, it won’t be too much longer before she moves out and I can finally turn her room into that private office I’ve always wanted.

Child #2

Child #2 is a 13-year-old boy. With all that that entails. Ice hockey, roller hockey, soccer, football passes, XBOX 360, tubing, etc.

In almost every way, he is still that same kid we’ve always had, but in certain key ways, he is different.

For example, in the past, when it was time for him to get a haircut, it became a negotiation. I had to give a little to get a little. Now, he tells me like clockwork every three weeks or so "Dad, it’s time for me to get a haircut." This is BEFORE he gets a warning at school.

Also, he and I use the same bathroom for our showers, and in the past, it was my bar of soap and my shampoo, and nothing else. Now there’s two kinds of shampoo, body washes, and a number of other bottles that I have no idea what they’re for. I feel like I’ve stepped into a Scandinavian spa or something.

Scholastically, he has informed us that he is getting really tired of people telling him all the time about "his potential." But it’s never "I wish he would realize his potential" as it is "Wow, this kid has so much potential." So we’ve decided to just let him do his thing and encourage him to excel whenever he can.

I think we have done pretty well with that. After he spent $10 of his own money to go out with friends to see the newest Twilight movie, he texted me afterward, saying "I want those two hours of my life back." I think he is living up to his potential just fine.

As a final sign as to how grown-up this kid has gotten, when I asked him what he wanted me to write about for this newsletter, and if there were any off-limit topics, he told me "No. I trust that you’ll know what to say and what not to say."

Child #3

Last year at this time, Child #3 was thoroughly engulfed in a very unhealthy relationship with Lego blocks. There were certain rooms of the house we couldn’t enter without industrial boots on, for fear of cutting our feet on Legos.

This year, not so much. This year his obsessive compulsive steel trap of a mind is fixated on military weaponry. His Christmas list this year contains requests for obscure sniper rifle replicas, Kevlar, and models of World War II era tanks. For a fun outing, he begged me to take him to the Aberdeen Proving Ground and the Battleship New Jersey. He has watched, recorded and memorized nearly every show broadcast on the military channel. Recently, one of his friends took him to a gun show, and he seemed to know what every single weapon there was. A couple of weeks ago, I took him to check out I Goldberg Army Navy Surplus in Philadelphia, and he spent his own money on dud hand grenades, a steel helmet, and a gas mask.

Luckily, this is not all that he is interested in. If it were, I might be worried, but he also is doing sports (baseball, hockey), and this summer for his birthday we took him and several of his friends to Six Flags and went on some of the really big, scary roller coasters. (Sadly, Kingda Ka, the 500 foot tall monster was closed that day.) And earlier in the year, he took it upon himself to write, film, and edit two short films, targeted firmly at the 10 year old boy market.

He’s also become somewhat of a wiz at XBOX 360, and although his taste in movies hasn’t quite matured to the point that Child #2’s has, he and I still enjoy sitting around and watching us a decent action/comedy movie together.

Max

Max asked me to not mention him. He’s still a little mad that I’m censoring him.

Pos and Mrs. P

Work. Field hockey. Biking. Reading. Writing. Very lucky to have the friends and family that we have. Still just kind of figuring it all out as we go along. So far, seems like we haven’t screwed it up too bad.

See you next year

Well, once again, I am out of pithy comments, and it is time to go.
Merry Christmas, Peaceful New Year – Be good, and if you can’t be good, be well.

With peace, love, and joy,

- The Entire Posol'stvo Clan

The Strange World of Anonymous Cyberstalking

So, lately I have been using Twitter as a sort of mini-blog. When one of my weird thoughts pops into my head, I jot it down in 140 characters or less, and bang it out to the universe that way.

I have it tied to my Facebook status, so I really think of it as a way to update my Facebook status, rather than Twitter updates, but it really is both.

So yesterday, as I was watching TV, a commercial came on for a jewelry store chain. I'm not sure if they are national or regional, so you may or may not have seen these commercials, but the store is called Jared, and the commercials almost always feature someone receiving a gift bought at the Jared store, and other people around commenting to each other, most impressed like, "He went to Jared!"

The way they say it, it's this huge amazing thing. Said in the same way one might say "He actually cured cancer!" or "He personally saved an entire platoon of soldiers by taking out an enemy machine gun nest."

Quite frankly, the whole concept offends me. It makes all of us out to be incredible shallow people lacking any real values. The abject transparency of the commercial message is insulting -- and I think a bit cynical. "You stupid people are motivated by what people around you are thinking. And you love your shiny baubles." They seem to be saying to us.

In response, I posted the following to Twitter/Facebook: "I was gonna go to Jared, but in the same shopping center I saw an Omaha Steaks and sorta lost my focus. Sorry, babe."

A complete lie, but a (hopefully) funny one.

This morning I discovered that "OmahaSteaks" is now following me on Twitter. I had forgotten that there is this whole weird culture of corporate marketing people who are still trying to figure out how to manipulate Twitter to their advantage. When I commented a while back that I thought that Consumer Reports was a step or two behind on their computer hardware reviews, I received a direct message from someone at CR asking me to clarify why I thought that.

So apparently, there are programs or people or something who's sole purpose for existing is to scan what people are saying about them on Twitter and then responding in some way.

The two different entities, CR and Omaha, took two totally different approaches. The CR approach seems more genuine than the Omaha, but to tell the truth, I didn't get this direct message until several weeks after the fact, because there is no PUSH mechanism of these messages to email. I discovered it by accident one day while clicking through Twitter things while bored in a meeting. The Omaha feels more manipulative and invasive. The implication is that, I guess, Omaha is interested in what I have to say. And that I should return the favor by following them.

I picked Omaha Steaks out of the air, as an example of something that would be almost the complete polar opposite of Jared jewelers. But I've never shopped there. I doubt I ever would. Especially not after seeing the recent documentary Food, Inc.

Oh well. Now I get to go block Omaha Steaks from my twitter feed, as I don't want to disappoint them by never, ever mentioning them again. I doubt that was their goal.

The Relative Merits of Real vs Fake

When real ones are fresh, they are just so much more aesthetically pleasing. Their fullness is so obviously natural. Honestly, they even smell better.

But they show signs of age quickly if not properly cared for. And before you know it, things are drooping when you don’t want them to. And you kind of have to adjust associated ornamentation accordingly.

Of course, by now, you have figured out I am talking about Christmas trees here.

At least, I hope you have.

As a kid, our family used to make fun of families with fake trees. They obviously did not get the concept of the Christmas season. For them it was clearly about commercialism and not about what Christmas was really all about. We derived all of our knowledge about Christmas trees from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

But then, when my youngest sister was around 5, we discovered something horrifying and terrible. She was allergic to conifer trees. They exacerbated her already troublesome asthma to a point that it was unhealthy to have a real tree in our house. The compromise was that my mother spent the equivalent of the gross domestic product of a third world nation on a particularly luxurious fake tree, one that was guaranteed to be mistaken for real on a regular basis.

Onward and upward. Mrs. P and I spent our first Christmases together in Hawaii. In Hawaii, you could buy real trees, if you wanted. But they had to be shipped in from the mainland at great expense, and so a real tree was not in the cards for us. We dropped $60 or so on a fake tree from the Base Exchange, and used that until 1994, when we returned to the northeast, where real trees were plentiful. And for the next ten years or so, we had real trees.

Sometimes we would go to a farm and chop our own down. Sometimes we would go to a tree lot. The last real tree we got was from a nursery.

But then there was that year, a few years ago. Work was hectic and chaotic, and I was putting in ridiculous long hours. Every night was filled with some obligation or another. Weekends were worse. And it was December 15th. And I did not see when we would find time to go out as a family and find a tree. Nor did I know how we would pay for one, as money that year was very tight. With everything else going on, it was quite frankly stressing the hell out of me. And I was starting to get down about it.

I came home, late as usual, from work one Wednesday night. We needed to get dressed and dash out right away, as we had been invited to a fancy dress Christmas party at the Philadelphia Union League. I walked in the door, and in the middle of the floor stood a tree. Already lit. Already decorated. I asked Mrs. P where she managed to get a tree, and she told me that she went shopping

... in the attic.

It was the artificial tree we had bought in Hawaii and dragged with us everywhere ever since. Although I had disliked it when we were in Hawaii for its reedy pipe cleaner appearance, on that night, I could not tell it was fake, I could only see the lights and decorations.

The relief and joy I felt at that moment was incredible. At a time when I was feeling woefully inadequate to carry the world on my shoulders, I discovered that there are others around me carrying the world with me. That I am not alone.

It may sound cheesy and corny, but whenever I watch It’s a Wonderful Life, and I see all those people rushing in with money to save the Building and Loan and to save George Bailey, I remember that evening. I don’t cry at movies. Never have. But if I ever were to, that would be the one.

The Death of Sir Walter Raleigh, Ten Year Old Style

Do you know that comic strip Calvin and Hobbes? Of course you do. I think that like all people, I feel a certain affinity to the character of Calvin. Maybe not so much anymore, but in one of my past lives, I do believe that I was a Calvin. Poor at sports. Absorbed in my own imagination. Occasionally too smart for my own good.

I feel especially connected to him in those strips where he shows up to the bus stop, sees Susie Derkins holding the project that was due that day, and realizing that he hadn't even begun thinking about it.

Yes, I have done my share of 11th hour and 59th minute scrambling. And at times, it did not come off as brilliantly inspired.

In 4th or 5th grade, we were supposed to read a historical biography and then act out a scene from that book. For the life of me, present day Pos has no idea what the hell ten year old Pos was thinking, but other than the title of the book, and the back cover, I can honestly attest that I did not read a single word of the book I was supposed to report on. Ever.

The day of the presentations, having realized the enormity of my oversight, I quickly skimmed the pages, looking at the pictures. I then grabbed my friend Scott and recruited him to help me with the death of Sir Walter Raleigh. And the brilliant thing was, I was not burdened by any actual history -- I was in fact enabled by my complete and total lack of any preparation to stage the death scene that I had thought Raleigh should have had.

So, I pantomimed riding a horse into a great courtyard, where I announced myself as Sir Walter Raleigh. My friend Scott was then instructed to shoot me off my horse with a finger pistol (who had time for props, really?), whereupon, I callumphed to the ground in a spectacular death.

I had them weeping.

Especially my teacher.

See, Walter Raleigh was not killed by a pistol shot. As far as I know, Walter Raleigh may never have been within shooting range of any ballistic weaponry. If I had read the biography, as I was meant to, I expect I would be able to tell you that with some assurance. No, Raleigh was not killed by gunfire, but was instead rather famously executed publicly with an axe to the neck. Quite the noble gentleman the whole way. Quipping to the crowd about the axe that would fell him.

Most biographies devote a fair amount of print to that specific chapter of his life.

I have always been quick on my feet, able to present with little or no preparation, able to bullshit my way out of tough spots. In general though, at this stage of my life, it is not what I prefer given an option, which I almost always am. And in general, it is fair to say that the results are universally better when I have bothered to prepare in advance.

The saddest part of the story I recounted above? I did not get a particularly good grade, as my complete lack of preparation was apparent to all, but I did not fail. My teacher did not know that my scene was factually inaccurate. Her comment to me when I was done? "I'm surprised you picked that scene. I would think that the most famous thing Walter Raleigh was known for was throwing his cloak over a mud puddle so that Queen Elizabeth wouldn't get her feet dirty."

So I got a poor grade, not because I was lying, or because I completely failed to satisfy the requirements of the assignment, but because I did not act out Mrs. Nye's favorite Walter Raleigh scene.

Gunner Shaped Hole

For what it's worth. As of about 30 minutes ago, Gunner slipped peacefully away, surrounded by family and friends.

His last words, that I know of, "I love you all."