new resolve

what can i say?

thanks to this blog, it seems the only time i write in this crazy thing anymore is new year's eve, to get my resolutions down in print.

well, recognizing the new limits a child brings to our former way of life, i have pared what was already a sparse list of five resolutions down to three:

1. pray: give the Lord 15 minutes a day to speak to you.
2. save money: for yourself and your son's education.
3. exercise: get back your old wind and tone.

i'm asking even less of myself than even last year, which was attempted in short bursts, but not in any sustained fashion.

maybe if i can keep things few and simple, i can actually get them done.

happy new year, everyone.

in the rear view

just getting in under the wire again.

on the whole, i think most of my friends are glad to put this past year behind us.

at least in my experience, i hadn't had a year so fraught with loss and illness among my friends and loved ones since 1991, a really terrible year.

and yet, for all its pains and heartaches, 2010 was redeemed by the birth of our baby boy, who has been a constant source of blessings and joy.

for this, kris and i give thanks to a kind and generous God.

a little drink

so today, the boy drank out of a sippy cup.

this was a unilateral decision by his mom, seconded by me.

this was one of those "he has to stop drinking from the bottle by this age" kinds of things that mama worries about.

our first effort was a scrub. when offered the choice between a bottle of water and a sippy cup of milk, he wanted it both ways, which led to a lot of screaming and struggling.

mama had to go to work, so i had to do the next round solo.

after a nice nap, daddy and baby went to the kitchen, where i poured milk into a cup and let him sip, minus the lid.

then, i let him nibble on the spout on the lid, which he sort of gnawed on.

then i put the lid on the cup with milk.

and i'll be danged if he didn't start drinking. he must have taken about six ounces or so.

he finished a container of yogurt and a few cheerios for a full breakfast.

it sure felt like a miracle.

kris reported that he drank all his milk the same way at daycare and supper, to boot.

and he finished about five ounces not an hour ago.

maybe by week's end, we'll have washed his last bottle.

and another door to infanthood will have closed.

it really does move fast, doesn't it?

this is business not personal

so this guy writes about his feelings now that his beloved west virginia mountaineers have hired a hotshot offensive coordinator, but is conflicted over the manner in which it was handled.

long story short, football head coach bill stewart was told he'd either be fired at the end of the season or he could train his replacement next season and then retire.

seems kind of harsh, doesn't it?

but it's the way of big-time college athletics. it's a business upon which other sports entities at the university depend for funding.

would that all decisions be soft and fluffy and have a happy ending. but when it comes to dollars and cents, it's either loss or gain.

such a black and white view of situations is probably the reason i'm not a very good middle manager. i only see bubbling stew in decisions while strong managers boil them down.

next season may very well be like looking at a neatly wrapped package of ground sirloin in the supermarket in that i'm excited about the prospects a new offensive coordinator brings, but i wish i didn't have to watch how the final product came about.

season's fleeting

all lit up
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

while i always look forward to the christmas season, i can't say i've enjoyed one for some time.

maybe it's my line of work, what with daily deadlines and eagerly ticking off each edition as one step closer to the weekend.

we eat seasons in five-day chunks, so, yeah, why should the time between thanksgiving and new years be any different?

i wrote about this last year, too. maybe the addition of a baby who also makes demands on our time has made these days fly even faster than before.

(of course, once the boy gets the hang of having to wait for new toys, from his point of view, this period will move excruciatingly slowly.)

so i'm going to try to savor this time.

tonight, while i folded laundry, i listened to christmas music on the itunes radio and turned my christmas mixes to "shuffle."

i like listening more to radio than i do my own mixes or albums at holiday time because it feels more communal. everyone's listening, so the season must be here.

while i might be horking down this holiday in giant bites, i can at least take the moments to try to chew them well when i can.

turnaround time

i don't think i've ever gotten my picture taken while driving and i haven't shot anything from behind the wheel lately, so this photo will have to suffice.

but given it was shot at the turnaround point of a 30-hour thanksgiving car trip to southern florida, it also illustrates my latest concession to age: a slower recovery time.

i was wondering this week why i've been so slack with the little things like bottle washing and making formula, choosing instead to veg out and/or sleep.

well, it dawned on me -- again, as it has lately after long excursions -- that my body doesn't bounce back like it used to after days on the road with little sleep.

compound that the following week with a much shorter, but still intense, there-and-back to morgantown (with a three-hour drive in the snow) and it isn't surprising at all that i've been so beat.

well, we're staying home this weekend. i've just finished paying bills. i'm staring at dishes that can be washed tomorrow. there's laundry to do.

and i'll be ready to go at it -- right after i go back to bed.

let's hope our ailing boy -- another ear infection -- will be kind to us this evening.

last home game

bogo
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

the missus indulged me one last ball game saturday.

armed with dad's last pair of west virginia u season tickets and no one left to go with, i headed up the interstate for morgantown for my first solo road trip in i don't know how long.

i listened to the radio and cds and sang songs and had the time to let my mind roam in a way i hadn't in some time.

actually took the i-68 route into town that i always bypass and found i only had to stop at lights, not long lines of traffic. i guess the university recommends that route for a reason.

took time for a burger, shake and fries at hardees and ate at my sister's place before walking in a little late for the game.

with the temps at around 30 degrees, i was pretty warm in five layers of clothing -- union suit, t-shirt, thermal shirt, fleece jacket, stadium coat -- plus gloves, scarf, hat and thinsulate boots.

this wasn't the first time i'd sat by myself in the stands. as ever, the fans are ready to share in their joy and jawbone every once in a while about nothing. i high-fived and chatted with the old guy behind me a number of times. so it wasn't like being alone.

on the way out after the game, the souvenir tent offered a buy-one-get-one sale to get rid of merchandise. i found a couple of toddler-sized jerseys that i thought would fit the boy for the next couple of years.

(as you can see, either nike sizes pretty small or our boy is getting pretty long.)

took a quick nap, then went to see my old buddy jake over at his place and got to see his girlfriend, micalyn, and another buddy, matt, and his girlfriend, emily. we watched wvu's basketball team blow a 13-point lead and lose to miami, then i left for charleston.

it snowed the whole way down. driving kris' honda wasn't too much unlike driving my sister joy's old civic si back in the day.

listened to florida state play virginia tech, then oklahoma-nebraska on the am radio and just focused, focused, focused on driving. passed at least three salt trucks on the way down.

with all-season tires and careful, controlled passing, i made it back in three hours, including a fuel stop and burger and shake stop.

it was intense, but it was nice to know i can still do the light snow drive without the jeep.

funny thing about the alone drive that i think the boy should learn over the course of his life. he should learn the importance of knowing how to live and conduct himself in solitude and that there's nothing wrong with it.

on the contrary, i can think of no better way to get to know yourself and develop self-awareness. i hope he learns how to do this.

the mullenium bug

i don't know if west virginia's offensive coordinator did enough this last month to save his job. i suppose i won't be sure until after the champs sports bowl in orlando later this month.

if he can call a good game there, i wouldn't be surprised if he were back next year.

if he is, i hope he's learned the lesson of having a handful of plays that are run well instead of a garbage bag of tricks that sometimes work.

he reminds me of me as a high schooler and undergrad. instead of focusing on the tried-and-true formula of achievement -- good grades -- i concentrated on versatility in extracurriculars.

and you can see where that got me.

oh well

oh well
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

actually made another mountaineer game this year -- the last one.

even after this year's missteps, there was a lot at stake -- a big east championship and, more importantly, a chance to go to a bcs bowl game.

we beat an injured, snakebit and heart-heavy rutgers squad in tidy fashion.

no overwrought gadget plays, just good straight up running and passing. we actually looked good and i didn't want to eat my own liver watching.

then we had to depend on the university of south florida to win us our chance to play, since we missed our own opportunity with an inept, fumble-filled loss to the university of connecticut back in october.

that we had to depend on a third party to determine our fate should serve as a lesson. we had our chance and we blew it. this time it cost us.

south florida lost to uconn on a last-minute field goal in regulation, sending the huskies to play the oklahoma sooners in the fiesta bowl.

poop.

piece of cake

this is more than a hello kitty birthday cake.

it is a monument to great customer service.

my brother pj and i were picking up a cake for his eldest daughter's birthday gathering with her cousins this weekend.

unfortunately, a custom cake like the one his girl wanted required 24 hours notice.

well ... while we were contemplating buying the pieces and cobbling one together ourselves, a friend of the cake decorator visiting the counter at this west palm beach publix supermarket more or less goaded her into creating it by remarking how simple it would be to create it.

the decorator's friend was charming and helped run a family chain of sub shops. she hoped to start her own cake business.

all this i learned while she chatted up her buddy behind the counter.

in minutes, despite company policy, she put together a lovely confection that i hope would be a hit with pj's daughter and her cousins.

(actually, our whole experience at that publix was very nice. the cashier was chatty and kind and helpful in helping us not to damage the cake. she was most relieved the thanksgiving food rush was over.)

so thank you, "b" and your friend and colleagues at the publix. you really did make our shopping a pleasure.

road warrior 2: first concession

lolo and toboggan boy
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

dad's been my mentor for highway driving ever since i got my learner's permit.

by both example and word he taught me the rules of the road.

i learned strategy and technique and even philosophy with him in both the literal and metaphorical backseat.

(the sight of his head in my rearview mirror in those early days was most intimidating.)

while he, as i, could be guilty of impatience and pique behind the wheel, he showed what a joy the open road could be.

his best advice and antidote to road rage came on a stretch of i-95 southbound.

some driver was being a particular jerk and i was going to teach him a lesson.

dad saw what i was trying to do and cautioned me against such a dangerous and foolish attempt with four words: "the road is long."

and with that he nipped in the bud what could have been a protracted and stupid high-speed clash of egos.

i write all this because i was awakened on this holiday weekend's marathon drive by dad correcting himself from a steering error.

then, as i watched, he drifted into the next lane for no reason.

i told dad he was swerving and told him we should switch off at the next rest stop, which luckily was only a mile away.

that was the first time i'd ever sought to relieve him of his duty.

once home, as we got out of the car, he said, "you know, i thought i could drive all night," conceding that, at 74, he no longer could.

i think this was a bummer for both of us.

road warrior

road warrior
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

mama took this picture of the boy on the final leg of his first whirlwind marathon road trip with the fam.

the sun was peeking above the alleghenies between virginia and west virginia early saturday and he was ready to start the day after papa gassed up the yukon and bought some christmas presents at the hess station in wytheville.

he'd left his cousins a scant 12 hours before in west palm beach, fla., for the long journey into night. we'd spent all of maybe 30 hours on thanksgiving vacation there.

crazy? yes. but this is what our family does for a few moments of togetherness; he might as well be inculcated into this culture early.

for weeks, kris had worried about this trip.

and while i was impressed with his stamina for the long drive to myrtle beach this summer, i wasn't sure how he'd do on "the big one" that was essentially twice its length.

well, the boy acquitted himself more than nicely.

he slept for long stretches at a time with only a handful of brief crying jags that were remedied with a bottle or soothing words from his mom.

(of course, we were also blessed with a lack of catastrophic diaper incidents, so add that to the list of things we were grateful for this weekend.)

as we sat in the beckley ihop for a pancake breakfast a mere 13 hours later, i looked at our son happily burbling and looking around and thought, "he's in. he's a made man."

he took the toughest trip in the annual family itinerary and came out smiling.

i told dad that this was the first thing i'd ever been proud of him for.

pig. out.

i don't think i've ever had a bad thanksgiving day dinner. (just one more thing to be thankful for.)

that said, i pretty much eat only one plate filled with samples of the bounteous feast set before me.

this is usually enough to fill me up once i have a dessert sampler to go with it.

and that's a shame.

i really wish i could pig out with at least second helpings, but i can't. i get full and the pleasure of eating is over. discomfort can only follow another mouthful.

i suppose i could limit myself to say, the basics -- turkey, corn, potatoes, cranberry sauce and stuffing.

a "slim" menu like that, though, leaves out ham, sweet potato pie, green beans, bread and more.

too bad i like tasting as much as i like eating.

oh, well. gluttony just isn't as attractive to me as it once was.

what a pity.

whoa

kris and i took a moment to marvel today at how big our boy is getting and how he's ready to move to the next size car seat.

now, as i wind down with some laundry and dishwashing, it occurs to me that i don't think i took any pictures of the boy this week.

this is what they talk about when parents say the time goes fast.

i'm spending the week wishing the three of us would get over our various colds and infections, which also means i'm kind of wishing the days away.

we wonder and dream about his future while we wistfully hold on to a present that quickly becomes his past.

each day has had its challenge; each triumph, big or little, has been richly and wondrously fulfilling.

food net

i like burgers and i like pizza and i like playing on the internet.

i really like it when some combination of the two can occur.

i just took a survey with wendy's hamburgers using the receipt from my semi-ritual end-of-the-week cheeseburger on the way home from work.

taking it entitled me to a free single cheeseburger* (* bacon & cheese extra charge.) i have 14 days to redeem the coupon. i'll find some way, i'm sure.

the burger, btw, was worth eating a light dinner for at the office. it was a double combo with milk, which is what i always seem to drink from wendy's when i eat at home. weird. the fries were awful, as usual, but it was still everything i could have wanted in an illicit burger meal.

lately, i've become a big fan of domino's pizza's online ordering site.

using it allows me to order specials and create pizzas with no fuss. by using my credit card, they're already paid for when they get to the house. plus i have time to figure a tip.

but the best part is the pizza tracker that shows in real-time who has taken my order, who is making my pizza, who is checking my order and who is delivering my pizza -- all in a step-by-step bar graph. it's crazy.

of course, all of this would be moot if the pizza tasted like it used to, which was like something you'd eat if you were absolutely desperate for a pizza-like food to be delivered to your residence.

with the change of its recipe, from garlicky, buttery crust to yummy sauce and cheese, i have more incentive to order conveniently from the shop just down the hill than from, say, the papa john's across the bridge or driving to the delicious, but drug-addicted sloth-like drive-thru of the mama rosa's on the west side.

it's not better than those guys, but domino's is at least in the running when considering fast-food pizzas.

sick again

the first time i told my publisher that i thought i'd picked up my son's cold, she told me that when her children were little, she was getting sick every ten days.

i laughed, but she didn't seem to think it was an exaggeration.

well, here i am, up after sleeping away most of today after a night with a low-grade fever. my chest is a little congested and until i took a long, hot shower this afternoon, i couldn't breathe through my nose.

it's been maybe a month since my last bout of illness. and kris seems to be picking up where i left off.

i blame the boy.

my friend steven liked to refer to small children as "little germ factories." (this before he ever got married and had kids.)

i laughed and knew it was true, but wow, in real time, it's like a 12-round boxing match.

you battle and fight and scrap. you get to rest. then you have to do it all over again.

i also blame parents who knowingly take their sick kids to daycare.

kris says she came to pick up the boy and watched him standing outside some other child's crib as they took turns pulling a pacifier out of their own mouth and putting it into the others'.

she watched him do this six times.

now he has pink eye and an ear infection. (his third one in about six months. one more makes him a candidate for ear tubes. don't like the sound of that.)

this will pass. all the scurrying and getting run ragged i'm chalking up to the joy of parenthood. best roller coaster i've ever been on.

the angry guy

live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the spirit
through the bond of peace

eph 4:1-3

i haven't practiced humility nor gentleness nor patience nor forbearance at work in probably years.

when there's an alert notice on when my head explodes at the office, then i know i have lost what poise i ever possessed in my job.

when i was in grade school, the only male teacher we ever had blew his cool when our seventh grade class was unruly.

"would you shut the hell up?!" he cried.

well, we did, out of shock and amazement at his profanity. (it was a catholic school, after all.)

problem was, in subsequent use, it lost its impact. there was no menace or surprise in its utterance.

i'm still fairly cheerful at work. but my fuse is a mere fraction of what it was.

what i thought were rare, effective displays of temper are now weekly occurrences, what with the grousing and frustration with increased demands on a smaller staff.

i can't be like that anymore.

anyone who knew me in my previous incarnation has moved on; the side the new hires see now is perky, but short-tempered middle manager.

that's not me; this has to stop.

fed up

i’ve been an apologist for the present coaching staff since west virginia university head football coach bill stewart first assembled it.

after losing to a syracuse team we've owned for the past eight years, the excuses end today.

offensive coordinator jeff mullen seems to draw up fantastical plays with all kinds of bells and whistles -- which is wonderful when you're playing against conventional, college-boy defensive strategies.

problem is, he doesn't seem to have an answer for straight-up, pro-style smashmouth defense. and if he does, he doesn't seem to know when to call it.

after witnessing the deer-in-the-headlights playcalling in the face of a defense that was wasn’t having any of our tinker toy gadgetry, i think it’s time to get someone in the coordinator’s position who knows how to manage a ballgame in real time.

mullen needs to be shown the door.

after 23 years, poof, she's gone

been meaning to write this ever since my now former supervisor announced she was leaving for a new job last month. (wow. i was still a callow college student when she started working.)

while i'm pretty much over the shock, sadness and anxiety -- mostly since she's now gone -- it seems my reaction and that of the newsroom veterans she left behind was something not unlike that to the death of a loved one.

when kris called to tell me becky was leaving for a gig with the state, it felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. i was so depressed by the news i had to lie down. i slept the daytime sleep of one trying to escape reality.

to say she was a vital cog in the machine is an understatement.

not only was she a good manager responsible for many behind-the-scenes administrative tasks, after more than 20 years at the paper, she was a vital newsgathering source.

she was savvy to the movers and shakers in town, knew the interconnectedness of personalities and issues and, most importantly, knew what was important to her editors. her news judgment was invaluable.

i'm fairly certain everyone in the place would have figured her to be the last person to quit.

she was part of the institutional memory of the place. and for me, personally, my last link to my beginnings at the paper.

she was always kind to me and seemed genuinely interested in my doings. we both enjoyed musical theater and 1970s television.

even though she was a year younger than me, she still seemed like a protective big sister/cheerleader, which i always appreciated.

at the same time, we served as each other's sounding boards at various points in our lives and careers. she even tried to serve as matchmaker, but i was too dense to know what she was doing.

that said, i could always count on her for relationship advice all the way up to my eventual marriage. she really became quite a good friend.

so i was fairly mournful when i heard the news that she would no longer be a part of my day-to-day life.

truth be told, it was akin to having someone break up with me.

really. i was afraid the weeks between her announcement and her actual departure would be akin to a date i had in college, wherein the girl i was seeing broke up with me before we attended an awards banquet for our service fraternity.

i had to sit there with her knowing the whole time that our romantic relationship was over and that we would not be with each other "that way" again. it was a long, lingering death.

fortunately, newspapers being what they are, we had to keep moving to meet a daily deadline. there was no time for grief while there were pages that needed to be filled and sent to press.

and there were only a few minutes to mull over our impending loss and the sense of how screwed we were once we would have to assume the many unknown duties she was responsible for.

i drew some solace from something she said every time someone we deemed irreplaceable left: we always manage to go on.

and so we have these past two days.

it feels like she's gone on vacation and we're just filling in for her.

by the time we feel ownership of the position, we'll be reconciled with the fact that she's not coming back.

while i'll be the goofy uncle to her mother hen's care of the copydesk, we'll still miss her.

night shift

it's nearly 2 a.m. and i'm writing because i hardly get the chance to anymore.

the boy is dosed on tylenol and teething tablets as some powerfully painful choppers must be coming in.

the wife is dreaming nyquil dreams after a few days of some cold that caught up with her.

after blowing about two hours on facebook, i've emptied the dishwasher and filled it again with the past day's cookery and baby feedery.

(we're running it nearly every other day, what with the boy eating solid food with utensils and tiny containers for the food his mama makes. he still drinks lots of milk, though. and his appetite seems to be growing.)

he's got two lower baby teeth now. and he seems to have made a breakthrough on his first word.

not "mama."

not "papa."

"kitty."

xxx

that's 10/10/10 in roman. (and also the explanation for "30" signifying the end of stories in newspapers.)

this is the end of one of those one-of-a-kind days you get on the calendar with neat significances.

so i was pleasantly surprised to see on my nighttime jog not one, but two wedding receptions.

the first, at the summit conference center, on quarrier street downtown seemed to be breaking up.

a traditional crowd, by the looks of it. dark suits, black dresses, guests or bridesmaids in a pastel yellow.

i yelled at the party in the parking lot as i ran: "did someone get married?"

the girls looked surprised and suspicious.

a disembodied male voice came over a van. "yeah!"

"congratulations!" i replied.

"thanks!"

the other was a group in front of the sound factory, a local rock club. the joyous crowd delightfully tattooed, elegantly rocking and splendiferous in black, leather and, on at least one fellow, chains.

i caught these guys on my cool down along kanawha boulevard.

there were some hoots at the man in shorts.

"hi, girls," i said as i made my way around them on the sidewalk.

one of the crowd came out to invite me in. i high-fived her and told her to knock back a couple for me.

she seemed cool with that and we parted ways. seems their reception was just beginning.

hope everyone has a good time and a great life.

my wife, the marshall grad

gave kind comfort as i lay in bed, congested with the phlegms and mucouses of a summer cold, made more miserable with the third herd touchdown of the night -- against none for my west virginia mountaineers.

quietly listening on the radio, i nudged her as she dozed and said, "tonight's the night."

"what?" she asked sleepily.

"we lose tonight. marshall just scored again. it's 21-6."

"there will be blood in the streets of huntington," she replied.

"yep," i sighed.

"oh, honey, all that doesn't mean anything to me," she said, as she laid her head on my chest.

i felt like that old couple on "titanic," who embraced their fate together as the ship sank.

it was such a sweet gesture. i immediately felt at ease and prepared for the inevitable.

then came the comeback that i wouldn't have believed we had in us.

fifteen unanswered points and one overtime later, i awoke my wife once more.

"holy shit."

"what happened?"

"wvu won, 24-21."

"you're fucking kidding me."

"it was a miracle."

"seriously? couldn't you let us have just this one?"

i reached over to console her.

"don't touch me."

i love my wife.

to the s.o.b who made my wife cry

i don't know who you are, but you must be one self-absorbed, insensitive motherfucker to think it's ok to call someone first thing at work and unleash expletives you wouldn't dream of uttering to a stranger on the street.

what kind of self-righteous indignation do you possess that allows you the license to abuse and insult another person whose sole provocation was to answer your phone call?

what kind of courage does it require to anonymously speak with such hostility and meanness to someone who hasn't even begun to converse, let alone argue with you?

i would submit that whatever cause you espouse and whatever claims you may stake have about as much legitimacy and merit as the courtesy you have for others.

yours must be a monumental quest of selfishness.

for if it were anything of worth, it would not suffer the lack of respect it has garnered -- a mirror, obviously, of the regard in which you hold everyone else.

may you be happy in your sad, sorry kingdom of self-delusion.

nike faked out of its sneakers

the hue and cry over athletic apparel maker nike's alleged tacit endorsement of mountaintop removal mining was like watching a vast, all-conquering army surrender to a tiny band of shadow puppets.

seriously. i was pretty geeked up that the shoe giant had chosen my west virginia mountaineers as one of ten schools to model their new line of football gear.

i clicked on the link for the unveiling and watched some pretty cool animation and listened to the dramatic linking of the relationship of the state's tough mining heritage with the efforts of wvu's football team.

"they really put some work into this," i thought as i watched animated coal dust rising from a mine entrance and listened to the rhythmic clank of mining tools and falling rock.

a lot of drama, but they're selling something. "puffery," as i recall from my advertising classes.

the background for the illustration was gritty. foreboding clouds. a coal dust-covered football field.

the flattened mountaintop backdrop, while seeming to portray one means of extraction, i thought could have used equally dark and spooky hillsides. we are the mountain state, after all.

but these were mere quibbles with what i thought was a pretty bad-ass representation of my favorite football team.

a number of environmentalists, on the other hand, were deeply offended by what they viewed as the university's endorsement of that method of mining.

they voiced their disapproval. loudly, and with great drama.

"I am so angry. I love football, and I will not watch WVU again."

this, from an activist in washington, d.c.

back in corporate, officials reacted as though they had offended an ethnic or religious group and pulled the image.


what they offered in its stead was the same football player standing in anonymous football stadium.

and the cool animation? gone.

the whole thing just struck me as the result of not doing one's homework, then doubling back after being aggressively questioned over an answer, whether it was wrong or right.

if the advertiser knew what percentage of the state's population supported mining versus not, they might have ridden it out and shrugged it off.

instead, the sportswear behemoth fell for the blustery feint and trashed some striking creative work.

guess all i have to look forward to now is wvu's coal bowl game this week against marshall university.

and, no, i don't believe watching it makes me a friend of coal any more than practicing recycling makes me an environmentalist.

message to jeff mullen

to the offensive coordinator of west virginia university's football team, i have one thing to say: when you find something that works, keep doing it.

don't throw a change-up.

don't try to keep the opposition guessing.

don't try to be fancy.

put your foot on the gas and stand on it until the other team is a speck in the rear view mirror.

thank you.

wvu-marshall: a revelation

so my colleague and marshall university alumna, cara, proofs our first edition paper and reads this column about relationships between fans of west virginia university and marshall.

she said she liked what she read.

what followed was a sort of roundtable discussion/group therapy session among the remaining four staffers in the newsroom about the nature of the rivalry, for want of a better term.

what seemed to roil her most was the apparent incivility of wvu fans toward visiting marshall fans what with the cursing and tossed beer cans.

i offered that it was a demonstrative, loutish handful of inebriated partyers that were giving all of us a bad name.

and i conceded that wvu doesn't seem to handle success very well in that we become fairly obnoxious when we're on a hot streak, forgetting about things like sportsmanship.

but the thought since occurred to me that what cara and probably other herd fans perceive to be crassness directed to their school in particular is most likely rude and crude rowdiness toward our opponents in general.

if you want to be ridiculous about it, they should be happy we choose to mistreat them with the same vileness we reserved for perennial powerhouses like miami, pitt and penn state.

this is west virginia university. an equal opportunity annoyer.

cruel nature

while the boy took his afternoon nap today, kris and i got to eat lunch on the back porch, where we enjoyed tasty turkey avocado sandwiches and white wine.

as she looked out into the backyard, she wondered what she was seeing above the mimosa tree near the fence. something spinning, she said.

i looked and knew that the thing spinning was one of the hummingbirds that has been frequenting the young tree since it started flowering this year.

it was caught about 20 feet off the ground in a single strand of a spider's web; it was beating its wings furiously -- and futilely.

the scene was a testament to the tensile strength of spider spit.

as pitiful as the situation was, there was nothing i could do.

breaking a single strand of the floss 20 feet above me with a rock or stick would require aim i don't possess.

and even if i did manage to snap the thread, the bird would be so entangled by the sticky webbing, its wing would be useless. i don't think i could make the animal fly again and it would eventually starve.

"spiders have to eat, too," kris said.

i knew the creature would eventually grow tired and stop fighting; the spider just had to wait.

(lower animals scoring upsets on the food chain always creep me out.)

in a world where we fantasize about happy endings and harmony, moments like these remind me that life is rarely neat and pretty.

sizing up my sandwich, i noted that we were eating birds, too.

ours just died and were processed in a more "civilized" manner.

the difference between man and beast, i guess, is we're neater.

time sucker

this is how i spend the night with my wife now that the baby is asleep in his crib on a friday night:

• eating pizza and beer in bed while waiting for itunes rental of "kick-ass" to download
• watching "kick-ass" and laughing ours off from the cartoon violence
• updating my stupid facebook profile with pics like this one

btw, this was from the 3rd annual charlie williamson triathlon, where the relay team with my sisters finished 23rd out of 26th. i finished last out of the relay 5k runners, my reward for not running any distance since the boy was born.

(of course, none of us finished better than 20th in our fields -- that was pamy for swimming; joy was 21st in the bike; i was 25. the 26th team was disqualified. i walked three minutes three times.)

and now i'm blogging. precious hours of sleeping baby are being wasted on e-ffluvia instead of sleep.

i deserve whatever i get -- and i don't get to complain about it either.

this week's routine

sleepy butt
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

before i get ahead of myself, i have to remember what my buddy tom told me about child-rearing: it's always changing.

so i can't be getting too comfortable with the routine we have this week, in which we seem to have gotten the lad back to sleeping in his crib.

from my end, it's given me some normality in 3-hour shifts: wake, activity, feed, sleep, begin again.

after kris left for work today, i fed the boy and was able to get him to sleep long enough for me to take the nap i needed after getting up before i wanted.

then, with the weather seeming to break from the oppressively hot summer we've had, he and i took the mile or so walk around the neighborhood, which is like exercising with a 16-pound medicine ball hanging from your neck. took about 25 minutes.

we got home, i fed him his pureed squash and formula, and now he's been asleep for about half an hour.

we've managed this particular routine twice this week; if we can make this something regular for a while, it would make all our lives a little easier.

kris says he's sleeping way better at night -- six hours a stretch -- which means she gets to sleep, which is less nice than miraculous.

i know i can't count on things to remain this way, but i'm hoping the crib sleeping and regular naps are here to stay.

seriously, this time next year when he's ambulatory, the little monkey will likely be running my ass ragged.

still soaking in these moments, though, when he's still small enough to carry around.

pops

pops
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

and while i lament the mental hygiene of my wife and me below, i read on a friend's facebook post this evening how this weekend marks the last he'll share with all three of his boys together for a long time, as his eldest sets off for college next week.

even as i'm plumbing the depths of frustration from a tired, wired baby, i only need look at his pudgy cheeks and his slowly-filling hairline to remind myself that these days of having a tiny, adoring, totally dependent child are actually very brief.

i took the boy with me to the county courthouse to pay taxes and renew my vehicle registration. (he made eyes with every woman in the tax office, like some kind of puppy dog.) after my business was done, i left about the same time as another fellow, who kindly opened doors for me as i carried the boy.

at each door, he shared with me the observation that all loving parents have whenever they see us with the lad: "they're only small for a short time.

"next thing you know," he said, "they're asking for the car keys."

as we parted in front of the courthouse, he finally said, "then they're wanting you to take dance lessons for their wedding."

he was wistful and nostalgic.

i was grateful for the reminder.

beat

beat
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

our boy had his mom and me in bed by 6 p.m.

6 p.m.!

the sun was still out!

i think we have reached the point that my brother told me about years ago when all his children weren't sleeping alone or ambulatory.

he was talking about being out of his mind crazy with tiredness after days without rest from trying to keep up with his brood of three kids under the age of 6.

we might have a sense of what he's talking about.

the house is in a post-vacation shambles, without a 3-foot-square section of floor free of clutter.

we can't walk in straight line from one end of a room to the other.

and there's not much we can do about it right now.

our hands are tied to a teething baby whose dull, gnawing pains make him too fussy to leave alone for more than 15 minutes at a time and a work and summer schedule that left us one day a month to handle what used to be regular weekend maintenance.

the sense of being hemmed in by our house is only heightening the anxiety from fatigue.

we've got to break out of this.

beached, as in whale.

i told kris i wasn't so much feeling my age on this latest family trip to the beach as i was feeling my stage.

the morning we were to leave, i told her i awoke thinking back seven years of a vacation to the same destination -- the same one we've gone on since the mid-1970s.

i was in the best shape of my life, prepping for the first of what i thought would be many triathlons. i was single, wooing the woman who would eventually lead me to my wife. work was exciting, challenging and fun.

i've got a few creaks now and i'm about 15 pounds softer than i used to be. and while i've managed at least one road race every year, i've only completed that one triathlon. work, on the other hand, is work.

but i've got this amazing little boy who exasperates and thrills me at the same time. life is exciting, challenging and fun.

best line of the vacation came from my niece vivian.

we were at the hotel water park and she asked me why girls have to wear tops and boys don't.

i told her that girls have more area to cover.

"why?" she asked.

"because girls have boobs," her brother sam answered. (shocking to hear from a boy so young, 4.)

she replied, "uncle p has bigger boobs than me and he doesn't need a top."

happy

really, there is no entry here, other than i got a neat shot of my boy smiling. i love his smile. i need to get a video or audio recording of his coos and burbles before he actually starts forming words.

two steps forward

stranglehold
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

this was shot near the end of june.

there he was, the boy and his bink and his not recommended plush sleeping companion in the crib with his not recommended plush crib bumpers.

but he was asleep on his own for about six hours at a stretch.

then he got bit of a cold and he wound up back in bed with mama and papa. he hasn't been back since.

we're marveling at his growth and his progress with sitting up and his alertness and all.

as exasperating as it is to re-train him, i know it's just a matter of time before he returns to his crib and continues his road to becoming a person.

i told kris this evening as he slept in her arms to burn that sight into her memory -- his toothless head, those full cheeks, the slowly filling pate of hair -- for we will surely turn around and we will be old and he will no longer be a boy.

social butterfly

new best buds
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

last month, as i charted the boy's progress, i wondered how he'd handle june, what with his baptism and the wine and jazz festival in our sights.

well, let's just say he handled things like a champ.

didn't cry once during his baptism or even his post-sacrament dinner at the taste of asia (which ran about an hour too long, thanks to ordering snafus.)

and during the festival -- hell, he was astoundingly social and even managed two naps -- one during headliner joe lovano's set.

(he did catch something of a cold, with a bout of sniffles and congestion that pretty much obliterated the progress we made with having him sleep by himself in the crib at night. back to square one on that.)

and he even got to meet my buddy carrie, and her lovely daughter and mom, as well as a pair of carrie's workmates, sarah and andrew.

they were up for a memorial service for carrie's husband, mike, who died in florida and was raised in new jersey, but spent most of his work life here.

just a tidbit on mike: he and i were on a grocery run down in charleston, s.c., and he counseled me on relationships. he didn't try to sway me one way or another -- didn't presume to be an expert. but he did relate how fulfilling it was to make the commitment to settle down.

i didn't know it then, but his words were one of the first to help me recognize a good thing when i was seeing it. (yeah, yeah, so it took two years to sink in ...)

june in the rear view mirror

father's day
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

as months go, let's just say there have been better.

as much as my fear makes me a glass half-empty kind of guy in my heart's darkest parts, my hope forces me to approach things with a half-full optimism. (duh.)

and as much as i hated -- HATED -- losing two friends and colleagues, i have to believe that celebrating my son's baptism and my first father's day outweigh the sorrow at their deaths.

hope is forward; sorrow is back. and in this life we can only go in one direction.

mike and bob -- i love and miss you both more than either of you or i know. but i carry you both in heart and mind going forth hence, in my outlooks and my decisions. and i believe i will be the wiser for it.

God rest you both. pray for us and pray for our boy.

people who died

this fellow was one of my bosses before he passed away suddenly last monday.

bob kelly had been hospitalized since our boy's baptism in the middle of june and was rehabbing after being diagnosed with congestive heart failure. he died of cardiac arrest.

he was gone within hours after news of the death of west virginia's sen. robert byrd that same day.

we were already in the midst of an all-out blitz reporting on byrd's passing when our office manager got the call that our managing editor was dead as well.

deadlines being what they are, we could spare little time reacting to the news. we just worked diligently, mostly in silence.

we diverted two reporters to do a write-up on bob and ran a story on 7a, as close to the front as we could that day.

(i believe he picked the day robert byrd died to pass on so as to prevent us from putting a story about him on the front page.)

he was that modest; but his impact was huge.

during his tenure, he worked to turn dull reporters into sharper writers.

and he helped this would-be journalist get beyond creating prima donna design contest entries and instead strive for readable, direct visual presentations -- with smart concepts and execution, of course.

most of all, he had a terrific nose for news.

he personified "crazy like a fox."

for a paper decimated in a buyout and stripped of staff, ideas that sounded half-cocked gave our remaining reporters gems that our more monied competition missed entirely.

he gave our david rocks to hurl at the goliaths.

yes, some would call his management style hard, but you need a stone to hone a blade. (and he was as hard on himself as he was with his reporters, referring to his own work as well as others' as "drivel.")

i always liked to say that as aggravating as he was as a boss, the maddening thing was that he was right half the time -- the real pisser being that you never knew which time that was going to be.

already racked by arthritis, he'd been sick ever since kris and i came back from south carolina five years ago. he'd been hospitalized and was recovering from a near-fatal mrsa infection; i don't think he was quite the same man after that.

i'm especially sorry to have only gotten to see the photos of the man as an all-state basketball player at his memorial service. i had long been aware of his exploits on the court; i just wished i could have seen evidence of it, in light of his delicate state when i knew him.

my friends and former colleagues george and chris wrote terrific appreciations of him last week. and an artist friend and former colleague of bob's in wheeling created a lovely rendering of him as she recalled "the best boss i ever had."

we had just celebrated the life of my friend mike the day before all this happened.

i don't think the full impact of any of this has sunk in yet.

as for mike and bob, i know i'm going to miss them personally; bob for sure for his savvy contributions to the paper. as regards byrd, i have the horrible feeling this whole state won't begin to know how much it misses him until the money he diverted to us stops coming.

summer upon us

if you squint, you can sort of see and hear what a warm, muggy evening sounds like as summer approaches in west virginia.

life after baby

the kitchen sink
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

seeing the amount of work we put into our saturdays now, what with kris at work friday and me with the boy essentially one-handed and useless for housework, it struck me as a wonder we get to have a social life at all.

seriously, every day-long social engagement or out-of-town trip we take means we don't get anything done in the house.

no laundry, no shopping, no cooking for the week. and the recycling just piles up on our side porch.

that said, we are getting better at making quick work of our chores for planned events like the occasional family friendly dinner at murad's with friends.

(yes, we've gotten much better at planning. we'll have none of that silly, spontaneous crapola in this household, buddy.)

and wine and jazz comes along in a couple of weeks, so there's a good chance of a real public gathering with the boy.

we'll see how well that goes over.

crt doa

100531ibmmonitor 022
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

what might be last real ibm cathode ray tube monitor in the charleston daily mail newsroom likely died today.

i powered it up to do some photoshop work and the thing just started this high whine and the screen showed ... nothing.

i took this shot to document probably the last vestige of the first wave of the personal computer as brought to the world by the first great computer giant, ibm.

and it's big, like a dinosaur, if you consider that my entire laptop would fit entirely within the confines of its screen.

or that the housing doubled as extra shelf space for my insane collection of knickknacks.

what will likely replace it will be a monitor of similar screen size with a thickness that 's maybe 1/10 of its nearly 20-inch depth.

i remember my first newspaper job, seeing how the page 1 designer got to use the "big" 21-inch monitor, while we inside paginators used wee, 15-inch screens.

then when i got to the daily mail -- whoa! everybody on copydesk got to work with giant screens!

at the time i thought i'd never have thousands of bucks needed to have a big monitor at home.

now, i can probably get one for a few hundred -- and with superior imaging, to boot.

if my boy ever gets to seeing this, he won't believe how antediluvian this device will be compared to whatever paper-thin screen he'll be using in the future.

it's funny what the future keeps throwing at us.

still, though, i have to wonder ... where am i going to put all my junk now?

the most heart-breaking love letter you'll ever read

our friends carrie and mike got married back in 2004.

i'd known mike since i started working at the paper when he was the daily mail's west virginia university sports beat reporter.

he was always patient with my non-informed sports questioning and queries and was just a nice, smart, funny guy to hang around with.

carrie and kris got to be friends around the reporters' table at the old mulligan's on capitol street.

they became even better friends when it seemed the paper was going to fold and the three of us made a beeline for the south carolina post and courier.

so when kris and i got married, it made sense that they'd be included in our ceremony. the weekend of the wedding, they noticed a bump on mike's neck.

some time later, mike was diagnosed with a rare, incurable disease, cancer of unknown primary.

it's pretty awful in that, unlike other cancers, they couldn't cut or burn out its source because they didn't know where it was. they could only treat where it was manifesting itself, like swatting at flies.

his prognosis for survival was less than a year. that it's now been two since he was diagnosed is a testament to his treatment and to the fight these two have put up.

his latest round of chemo had to be discontinued because of the debilitating effects it was having on his body, despite its success against the tumors.

carrie noted how, for the first time, mike was feeling down in his battle. he was feeling sickly and, worse, like a burden on his family.

this prompted carrie to write this letter in her family blog.

That whole sickness and health thing was no joke. I even wore a white dress. I meant business. I wish with all my might that we didn't have the sickness part, but not for one single solitary second have I wished I had done things differently.

it is one of the loveliest and most heartbreaking things i've ever read from one person to another.

my prayers go out to these guys every day.

i hope they'd go out from you to them, too.

if you're jonesing for college football already

first, you can't beat the daily mail's west virginia university sports beat writer and colleague mike casazza for daily -- daily! -- weekday coverage of the mountaineers in his blog, wvu sports with mike casazza.

his only competition is the sublime smoking musket, but that's only because there's five contributors feeding this aggregator/opinionator, versus one of him.

(that, and now that school's out of session and sports-wise, we're in a dry patch, the musket has reduced to one or two compilations a week until, like, august. this makes mike's work all the more remarkable.)

but ... if you're really needing that i.v. drip of college sports and will lick the cheese off the wrapper of the last spring game burger, go to the pre-snap read. they're into day 23 of their 120 day countdown of the best college football teams in the land.

new york times sports writer paul myerberg gives an amazingly comprehensive look at each school, from an overview of the last season, personnel, coaching, scheduling and team assessments.

(this used to be part of the times' college sports blog, the quad, but it's been spun off this year. the quad will pick up the countdown once it hits 50.)

as usual, i'm excited to see where my mountaineers will wind up.

let's goooo ...

a-may-zing

in our little household, this has been an eventful month in the truest sense of the word.

we began in beckley to witness my niece celina's first communion. she is the first of the nine grandkids to partake of the sacrament. the boy was pretty much a good kid during the service, apart from a diaper change in the middle of fr. sacus' homily, which i think kris would have appreciated hearing. fr. sam is probably my favorite conservative.

this was followed a week later by mother's day. having lost the time to sneak a formal studio shot of the lad, i found a sweet shot of him, which i had framed.

after mass, we met with the rest of the mountain state branch of the family for a nice mother's day brunch at the embassy suites.

that evening, however, what we thought was a symptom of the boy's first tooth appearing became an alarming temperature of 103 degrees. this led to his first trip to the emergency room.

i left work early and stayed in the e.r. until late. the doc diagnosed an ear infection, for which he prescribed 10 days of amoxicillin. that was fun to administer on top of the zantac and antigas meds for his reflux.

next up was a weekend trip to morgantown via parkersburg to attend my sister joy's commencement at west virginia university.

between a nursing school reception and the actual ceremony, we took a side trip to mountaineer field -- the first of what i hope will be many with the boy.

joy was awarded her doctorate in nursing science. she was one of four in the nursing school's first class to receive this terminal degree.

the weekend of joy's commencement, kris caught a bad ear infection of her own. she missed two days of work and, so i wouldn't miss any, she and the boy stayed with her folks in parkersburg, while her mom and dad cared for her and the baby.

once they were back, i was back to caring for the lad and put him through his weekday routine, which includes tummy time. he's done pretty well with keeping his head up for some time now.

this day, he managed to roll over from a supine position, then managed the same trick from his belly. kris was happy to hear about that.

finally, this week, after his 4-month checkup, his pediatrician cleared him for his first solid food.

this is a shot of his second meal of the evening, as i was at work for the first.

apparently, he is amazingly impatient to get food shoveled into his piehole, and gets pretty pissy about the lack of speed. so pissy, in fact, that the hissy he throws prevents him from getting much more food in and only makes a mess.

so for now, we're using a specially cut nipple that allows cereal to flow through his bottle.

next month, he gets baptized. his cousins from florida will be coming up for this. i see another full few weeks ahead.

at some point, i'll sleep.