That’s really what I should do. What has me worried/somewhat distressed? My son’s interest in schoolwork, in particular reading and writing. Some of you know I have a largely useless degree in English, both in relation to my job (computer geek), and my writing (largely atrocious and riddled with errors). But I do love to read, and do so whenever I can.

This struggle mind you is in my head; on the outside I am nothing but supportive, calm and reassuring; on the inside I fight battles with myself over how I can best help him to learn. Over what things I can do to help him, and ways I can spark his interest in learning.

And what I realize is that its my own passion for reading that is fueling my desire for him to learn to read. I guess on some level I can’t wait for him to read. I loved to read as a child, and its something that I want to share with him.

Which is a great thing… but why is it driving me nuts? I guess it’s no different than potty training. It will happen in time, just don’t push it. The teachers in his school are on the ball, and he gets extra time with a reading teacher so he has the best that he can get with my tax money.

And I have to remind myself that he is six and his attention span is short. The truth of the matter, as it suddenly occurs to me while writing this is that I see his disinterest in studying as an echo of how I used to feel about schoolwork, and it worries me that he might end up having those same feelings.

In what can only be the wheel coming full circle I find myself thinking about cutting back on TV time and video games, yes.. I have become my parents. And it’s funny as hell.

Can play an essential part in the maintenance of a balanced view of the world and ourselves. That is my revelation for today. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t something that needs to be physical, or even something done to us by another person, but its necessary for balance.

When things go well we are happy, we are comfortable, and we get lazy. Think about that job you have, remember how on the edge you were at the beginning, how hard you pushed yourself no only for your boss’ benefit, but for your own.

Fast forward a few years, things have gotten routine, boring, safe. You come in to work, have your coffee, read some email, surf the web, get some more coffee, etc. until your entire day has become nothing but another carbon copy of the last. Before you know it your weeks start to blur and without even realizing it — you feel dead inside, a husk of the worker you once were.

Or, you go down another equally destructive path… You become narcissistic, cocky, flippant. Your work begins to degrade but you can’t see past the golden glow of your own worth that you have constructed around yourself. You end up fucking up because of your own hubris and find yourself out on your ass without a job.

Congratulations, it turns out that you are not that delicate and rare orchid that inspires people to wipe your ass and worship the ground you walk on, rather you are a mere dandelion — easily replaced by someone better, smarter and less expensive who hasn’t lost his or her hunger to succeed that you once had.

So how can you remedy this situation that is starting to spiral out of control. Simple solution — Slap yourself mentally. Write a note to your future self telling the future you to stop being an ass. Do whatever it takes, employ whoever you can, but get that slap.

Hell, just bookmark this post. It might help you in the future when and if you need it, why do you think I wrote this after all? For you? Yeah.. that’s it.

I really have no respect for our President any more. His latest antics over the $35 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) was the last straw in a long line antics on his part that made me utter — “What a fucking asshole.”

He huffed, he puffed, he said he would veto it, but in the end it was all just one man’s attempt to bully the Congress into backing down. And why?

What is $35 billion when compared to a pending $189 billion request for Iraq & Afghanistan in 2008? And how was this $35 billion to be paid for? Increase in my taxes? No.

By an increase in the federal tobacco tax from 39 cents to $1 a pack. What better way to have something that kills people pay for health care for children. As a Father I know how important being able to get medical treatment for my son is.

I can only imagine the panic that I would feel if I found myself in that grey zone of income where I made too much to qualify for public aid, but not enough to afford insurance. Hell a simple trip to the ER could end up costing $5-6k for something simple. What will a parent say? No son, we can’t afford to take you to a doctor.

Its insane, this president is out of control. In the end he signed it. He had to, his pet project (the war) forced him to. The sad thing is that he will have a legacy, the world will remember him, just not in the way that he thinks it will.

The First Rule of Knit Club is…, originally uploaded by Eleven 22.

You don’t talk about Knit Club. The second rule of Knit club is… You don’t fucking talk about Knit Club. And the last rule is… if this is your first night at Knit Club — You have to Knit!

Okay, so I am no Brad Pitt (its the hair right? LOL). What the hell am I doing you might be wondering. Knitting of all things. The next question is logically — Why?

One word: marytree. Yup, our favorite artistic free spirit is a knitter, and at one of the parties we attended we began to talk about her knitting projects.

She said she could teach me to knit, I scoffed. Me? Knit? Why don’t you just cut my balls off I thought. But, she had planted a seed in me head, and the ball of yarn just kept growing.

It came to a head when Karin dragged us along to a book signing, as Maverick, Betty and I circled in the back, perusing the books I came to the craft section, and as luck would have it, a book on how to knit.

I walked by it a few times, finally uttered something under my breath and decided to buy it. You couldn’t have seen two more surprised looks when Karin and her mom saw what I had bought walking to our cars.

So when Karin was away at her conference, and the three boys I was watching were slowing driving me insane, I took them to Michael to get some sort of craft item to keep them busy, and while I was there, bought some yarn and needles.

The first yarn and needles I bought were not as I would soon find out, rank amateur friendly. So I went back and did what any good man would do, bought bigger. Way bigger. Much better results.

So what you see here is the end of my first roll of yarn, its going to be a scarf for Karin, a small token if you will to pave the road toward my iPhone purchase.

When the cold winds of January blew in a snowy winter wonderland, I cheered for our good fortune to have a Southern facing home. With the trusty TORO snow-blower purring like a cat, I would eat through the snow like it was butter. And as the day would go on, my driveway would dry from the Sun’s glorious rays.

I didn’t expect to find myself cursing the Sun this summer. Keeping my grass in the front from dying has proven to be a monumental task. I should have known it would be like this, our backyard in our old house was always a step away from cactus-ville.

The difference being that I could ignore the backyard if I wanted to, I have to see the front every day. It got even worse when our builder decided to finally level out our front lawn (there was a depression from an incorrectly back-filled sewer line), the already old and close to withering death grass that they put down was barely holding on before we went on vacation to Vermont.

When I saw that we were having 100 degree weather back home, I could just imagine the straw I would be coming home to. Yeah, it did turn out to be pretty brutal, I have two nice large dead sections. That phone call should be fun to the builder.

So now we are attempting to bring our lawn back from the dead, watering morning and night every other day. Walking out in the morning to turn on the sprinklers, getting my feet wet on dew, and invariably getting a shot from the sprinkler.. really makes me jealous of people with sprinkler systems — Lucky bastards!