Parenting, 5 Months, Stuff They Don't Say

The stuff they tell you is true about kids. Here is the stuff they don't tell you.

You can't eat your dinner.
We were warned that we would need date nights after the baby was born, but I thought it was about romance. That part never really worried me. I knew we would make time for each other, and we do. Well it turns out that the problem is not about romance at all. The issue is that we can't eat our food. Of the hour that we are at the restaurant, 45 minutes of the time is spent walking the baby outside the restaurant. It is very difficult to eat dinner when you are outside the restaurant.

So, you do need a date night, but not for romance. It's so that you can eat your dinner.

There are places you can't go.
There are places that you just can't go with kids. Quiet restaurants are completely out of the question, too embarrassing to have the crying baby or kid throwing a fit. Also, sports bars often don't allow kids. If you have a favorite pub or sports bar and you are about to have a child, say goodbye to it. That's not your place to watch the game anymore. Babies and great beer places don't mix.

Side note, I am becoming more convinced of this every month that passes. The Starbucks "third place" of the next generation is the American pub. First dates used to happen at starbucks, they will start happening at a beer pub. Real estate agents and financial advisers across the country will meet clients in the pub instead of starbucks, even at lunch. The trend is really really strong. It is the young, hip, progressive thinker's place to be right now, and the momentum is hitting critical mass. It is extremely cool to know your favorite brewery right now, and it is becoming uncool to be clueless about beer. This trend will probably give way to a new legal drinking age of 18 as well, but that one may take a while.

Oh yes, the child. The worst part is the social life.
Being a part of a community is hard enough in this day and age. Being a part of a community with a 5 months old child is darn-near-impossible. It is totally fine for making friends, but it's really hard to frequent a location at all. So the community can't really happen. There is not a place in the world right now that I really want to bring our child to regularly.

There is a positive side though. At 4 months, we finally started to see a return on investment. The child can now recognize us as parents, and gets really excited to interact with us. This is rewarding after serving her without much return for 4 months. Believe it or not, it makes us want to have more kids. It gives us hope.

That's what they don't say about parenting at 5 months.

Community Part 4

Action Items for a Better Community
I have a feeling that a lot of people would like to change their communities in some way. Maybe we want to develop new communities because we recently moved, or maybe our communities have changed on us because other people moved, or because we started dating, got married, had a child, got a sickness, a child left the house, or we really want to spend all our time with our new dog.  For whatever reason we feel like our communities need to change, and we don't know how to do that.

Since location is so critical for community, I wonder if  we can start with location first, and then work on the attachments after that.

For finding a location, here are some questions I've been asking.

• Does it attract interesting people because of its qualities? 
• Can you contribute something to the location to enhance it? 
• How close is it to your house?
• Do you know your neighbors? 
• Can you hang out with your neighbors at all? 
• Are there any community events for your town? 
• Is there a local breakfast place, coffee shop, or place where people gather that you can visit? 

Building attachments at your location.

• Have you tried to be vulnerable at all? 
• Do you have a chance to share something that you are passionate about? 
• Is it a place that your family fits in and feels a part of the community?
• Is there some kind of activity that will give the community a sense of achievement?
• Do you admire any of the people in your community?
• Have you ever told someone in the community that you like them as a person? 

I hope these blogs on community have been entertaining to think about! Wish us luck as we keep exploring the communities of Bardstown, Kentucky! 

Community Part 3

Here are a few scenarios related to location, and community. It has been valuable for me to think through these possible scenarios as I think about my current communities.

Friends without a location
A friend gets a job in another city, and now she lives far away from her community. Before she left, she had a different going away party for each location she frequented. The whole community is sad at each location, not because they are no longer friends, but because they feel like the have lost her from the community.

She can no longer share the location with them, so she is no longer a part of the community. She can still chat with her old friends online, travel back to see them inexpensively, even do a video conference with multiple friends at the same time, but she cannot truly be a part of the community any more.

I think this is a big challenge of globalization. Sometimes its hard to realize how important community attachments are, but even if we do realize how important they are, it can be hard to move in and out of communities so frequently.

A location without friends
When I was in middle school, my family had season tickets to the Air Force Academy football games for many years. By many standards this would be the perfect place for a community. I know that hundreds of college football stadiums around the country are great locations that house thousands of small communities. Strangely enough, for my family, it was not a community location at all.

I'm not identifying this as a negative scenario, I'm simply observing that this situation can exist. It is possitble to have a great location for a community, and to visit it frequently, but never have community there.

For us, we really weren't looking for community at the football stadium, just family time. We sat next to different people every week. We didn't tailgate with a regular group. We didn't meet up with anybody consistently before, after, or during the game. It was a great location, and great family bonding time, but was not a location for community for us.

Friends and a location without frequency
Since I've been married, we had a small community of friends in a different city. We used to visit our friends in Gunnison every year or so with a group of people. It was a fantastic group, and we all developed strong attachments with each other.

Again, this was a positive annual gathering, and I am glad we were able to do this while we could. Nothing negative about this. At the same time, it wasn't a community. The frequency simply wasn't enough, and the distance between us was too far. We are close friends, and always will be, but we are not a part of the same community.

More soon. Also, this was my 300th blog post. I'm proud. Cheers!

Community Part 2

A physical location is a prerequisite for community.

My closest communities throughout my life can all be traced back to a location. Growing up, my most common locations were sports fields or church buildings. In middle school my community revolved around the basketball court in our driveway. In high school the locations were a tennis court, basketball court, and church. In college it was a park where we played ultimate frisbee, and classes.

Knowing the location indicates a member's involvement in the community. For example, in middle school, knowing the hardness or softness of the basketball backboard was an indicator of commitment. Knowing the backboard meant that they knew me, and my friends too, and they were a part of the community. The same was true at church. People in the community knew where to park for which service, which door was likely to be unlocked, and the closest bathroom at any given time. If a person was unfamiliar with the location, it indicated that they were not a part of the community.

Today I have many friends worldwide, but all communities that I've been a part of shared a location. Friends may exist that are not a part of my community, and we may be very close. But unless we hang out at a consistent location, it's hardly a community.

Therefore, communities are not virtual, they are physical. I believe this is true for Facebook, fantasy football, fantasy online gaming, and many others. They can never be a community by themselves. Also inferred in this line of thinking is that even if a group of people likes each other, is committed to each other, and has things in common, they are not a real community without a common physical location.

Next, we are off to ideas of globalization, and the practical challenges of building community. More soon.

Community Part 1

I'm starting to believe that a location for a community is a prerequisite to having a community at all.

When we lived in Colorado, our community was all spread out. We lived 20 minutes away from where we went to church, and 30 minutes away from where I coached basketball, and our friends were usually at least 25 minutes away from us at any given time.

Many times while living in Colorado, I imagined a perfect world where all of our friends lived in the same neighborhood and worked in the same square mile. We all shared lawn mowers and  power tools, and we grilled and had drinks together every night of the week. I still fantasize about that sometimes.

Since we moved to Bardstown, we unfortunately have the same challenge we did in Colorado; our friends are scattered all over. Some are in Bardstown, some are 25 minutes away at the winery, some are over an hour away in Indiana. Being involved in a community is not so easy when the community lives and gathers all over the place.

I'm thinking a lot about this, and I've been writing a lot about it. I have 3 or 4 blogs to publish with all kinds theories, judgmental statements, and stereotypes just for you. Well, hopefully it won't be too bad, but I will try to keep it exciting!

What Does Becoming A Father Feel Like?

Becoming a father, and having a child is just like They said it would be (those elitist people who try to describe something that we, those who never experienced the same thing They did, could never understand).

I wanted the birth of my first child to be an incredible and unique experience, but I grew tired of the same old phrases from They. "You have to experience it to understand it." And, "It's unlike anything you have ever felt." Just sounded too generic for me.

I hate admitting that They were right about it. I have never liked blog posts like this one. We are all human right? What is so special about having a child anyway? Sigh.

I am They now. I am trying to describe what it felt like to have a child. Contrary to what They said, it was very similar to other things I have felt before, but it was indeed unique. This is what it felt like to me. 


Waiting for Good News
Have you ever been waiting for news, not sure if it would be good or bad, and the news was good? It felt like that right before the baby was born, knowing everything was probably okay, but not quite certain.

My Team Won the Championship
Have you ever been sweating in your chair as the final seconds of the game clock run out in a championship game, and your team wins? It felt like that when the baby came.

Love at First Sight 
Have you ever seen someone and felt like you would openly give them your heart without even knowing them? It felt like that, when she looked at me for the first time.

Everything is Right in the World
Have you ever had a moment where complete strangers felt like friends, you didn't have an enemy in the world, and everything else will be okay? It felt like that especially in the hospital with every stranger I walked past.

A Religious Experience
Have you ever felt like you encountered your creator? It felt like that. I was a baby all of the sudden. Then I was a father of a baby. Then I was outside my body, outside of time and space for a second... or 2 hours maybe. Somehow that all made sense and I felt very close to God.

Big Data

Big data is a buzz topic. I normally don't find buzz topics very interesting, but this one has intrigued me.

Phil's quick definition: Big data is what Google does.

You want to find something on the web, but the web is flipping huge. Google boils down that large information to something that you are looking for.

Here are some things to know about big data that might be helpful to know. 

1. It can't be done on your home computer. As incredible as our personal computers are, they are too slow for big data.
2. It is expensive for the equipment. The company I work for just started a big data project that is going to require 20 different servers to essentially run one analysis program. To give you a visual, that's like a computer the size of a refrigerator that costs $50,000.
3. The research projects that Universities have done with big data have started to draw attention of companies that want to spend money on big data projects. In other words, the industry is growing, and very few people are experts in the field (I think of my very smart brother who is about to graduate high school).

You may have seen studies that caught your attention from big data already. One study looked at twitter to gauge how people are feeling around the world at any given moment. More recently, a university did a study that included more data than just twitter. They included blogs, facebook, any social media that they can find to draw a correlation between how people felt on a given day, and how the stock market reacted for the next 3 days.

Other studies get more specific to a company. They might be trying to answer a question like, "After a commercial in the Superbowl, how did people feel about your company?" Theoretically, someone who pays $5 million for a commercial, could watch the entire country's reaction to its commercial in real time. They may even be able to predict sales for the next week more accurately depending on the reaction a commercial had.

My examples surround marketing as you can tell, but there are more practical uses for this too. When networks go down at gigantic companies, it causes problems. A website goes down, email is unavailable, all kinds of problems can occur. The company I work for is using big data to solve those problems. It analyzes an entire network of computers, with enormous amounts of data (logs from servers, reports from load balancers, and many other tools) to hone in on the problems of a huge network

That's all. I'm just interested, and thought you might not have heard about it.

3rd Floor, 5th Bathroom

At about 10:00 each morning, the demand for toilets on Fort Knox increases. This can be a problem as there are only 3 total toilets, in 2 mens bathrooms, on a floor of 300 I.T. employees (a career field that is predominantly male.)

The main problems with this situation is obvious; there should be more bathrooms and more toilets. There could be many reasons for this, but it seems easiest to summarize it this way, "It is a government building."

Another element of this toilet problem is the timing of the cleaning of the restrooms. I definitely am grateful to have a cleaning service and consider this a luxury, but I must say that they have odd times to vacuum and clean. Like, while we are working. It sure would be more convenient (for us and them) to let them clean in the evenings after people had gone home. We can probably chalk this issue up to a government process as well.

I have learned to deal with this situation. Usually I avoid the 10 o'clock hour, but I have mapped out 4 bathrooms (8 toilets) on 2 different floors as a contingency plan. Yesterday marked a new level of planning for me, and I felt like it was a big step that I wanted to share. I added a 3rd floor and a 5 bathroom...

 

That's right. Of my 4 restrooms, 2 were being used, one was being cleaned and the other was being used for urinalysis testing. Sigh. 

I refuse to add another bathroom to my plan now. I have reached my limit. Five is enough. If I cannot find a toilet by the 5th bathroom, I'll just stand by the stall and wait.

Simplifying My Taxes, A Letter to the IRS.

While I'm simplifying my life one segment at a time, I decided I would take on the greatest challenge of all, simplifying my taxes. Turns out there are laws about this... Which led me to writing this letter to the IRS.

Dear IRS,

I'm writing you to discuss the simplification of my personal taxes. See, I want to pay my taxes. I'm thrilled to give you my money in exchange for the right to work, live, and own property in the United States. I couldn't be happier about the arrangement we have going here. My challenge is this, I just can't figure out how much money to give you.

I know how much money I made last year exactly, and I know exactly how much was withheld from my paycheck and given to you. I just can't seem to figure out what that is worth to you. It appears that I will need to fill out the following forms to figure this out.

• 1040
• 740mp
• Colorado Partial Year
• 740 full year
• Schedule A
• 3903
• Schedule E
• 4562
• Schedule M
• Schedule D

Is this really necessary? I'm an honest guy, and have no desire to cheat you out of any money. How much do you need? Do you need to have about 10% of what I made? 15%? 20%?

If you really want me to fill out all of these forms I will, but hey it's me, Phil. We've done business together for years. You know me, I know you. Just tell me how much I owe you, and I'll give it to you.

It doesn't have to be a flat tax, but couldn't it at least be simple?

Your Favorite Tax Payer,

Phil

The Goal 2012 - Rebirth of a Ballpoint Pen

In 2005, I learned to eat M&M's slowly. In 2010 I finished an entire tube of chapstick one year. In 2012, I am attempting to accomplish something equally as challenging.

I, Phil Mondy, intend to use an entire ink pen until is completely void of ink and no longer writes. I intend to do this by the end of the calendar year 2012. Furthermore I intend REFILL that ink pen with a new cartridge of ink, giving that shell of a pen a second life!

It was early in 2011 when this idea first came to me. I received a set of pens from an online deal site by the name of woot.com. The box of pens came with all of the necessary components I would need for this accomplishment, refills for every pen in the box.

'Absurd!' I thought to myself, having rarely heard of a person owning a pen long enough to empty it's contents completely. Even in all of such cases I'd heard of, the pens were simply disposed of. On the other hand, what was I to do with refills that came with my pens? Kids are starving in Africa! I decided I would put the refills in the drawer in the laundry room for further consideration.

Time passed, and the thought occurred again. Could it be possible?  Probably not, but I started to believe the impossible could happen.

Now here I am, against all odds. I'm going to do it. I will refill a pen in 2012, and give it the gift of life again. There's no turning back now.

Simplifying The Basement Part 2

"There is some perfectly good junk here." I said. "We can't just throw away perfectly good junk, kids have AIDS in Africa."

So naturally, out of my concern for Africa, we thought of Goodwill. They have a drive through drop off. It's so easy.

It's easier than selling for sure, but still more complicated than throwing it all away. Complicated is bad. Complicated is very bad. Like the devil. No, the Anti-Christ. The Anti-Simple.

Simple is the goal, the greater good, the messiah which will rescue us into 2012.

But I was weak. I should have stared my conscience in the face and thrown it all away; forgetting Africa and Goodwill, but I chose the option which made things more... I can barely even say it I'm so ashamed... complicated.

We made two piles. One of trash, and one of donations. It was a setback, but we did it. Then, we pressed on.

After many, many  mind-numbingly, word-jumblingly, proof-readingly difficult hours in the basement, we simplified the basement. Nine plastic tubs, a shelving unit, two fridges, a treadmill, and two people survived to tell the tale.

It felt good. We were still bested by consumerism at times, but I believe that we won the battle. We faced the fear. We stared consumerism and the face and said, "Simplicity is better than having more stuff, you ridiculous, consumerist dragon!"

One small step for simplicity, one giant leap for quality of life.

Simplifying The Basement Part 1

Nobody likes to think about organizing basements or garages or attics. They are a mind trap waiting to suck the energy out of us. Cleaning the basement is worse than standing in line, worse than getting a speeding ticket, possibly even worse than an office Christmas party. It's like voluntarily being banished to the dungeon. The dungeon is lit by a couple of small windows, and has a supernatural power to inflict guilt until it is clean and organized.

Did I mention the dragon?  The one that slings cardboard boxes filled with useless things constantly? Difficult to believe unless you see it with your own eyes, but that's what we had to face when we descended into our basement last week.

How hard was it, you ask? How hard was it to go into the basement and answer this simple question,  "Do you want to keep this?" I don't want to exaggerate here. It was mind-numbingly difficult, word-jumblingly difficult, proof-readingly difficult. It was hard. 

It was hard to answer a simple question 1,000 times in a row, no matter how simple the question was. It was even harder to answer the follow up questions.

Let's say the answer was yes. "Where should we put it?" Was the follow up question.

Well if we knew where to put it, it wouldn't be in the basement. So we had to ask, "How long has it been since we used it?"

Again, it's probably been a long time cause it's in the basement. So we ask the original question again with emphasis. "Do you really want to keep this?" And the cycle continues.

If the answer was no, we don't want to keep said thing, the follow up question was, "Can we sell it?" This was a huge rabbit trail. Selling things takes effort and it has nothing to do with cleaning, organizing, and simplifying which is what we were trying to do. We gave up finally and made a blanket rule. No selling anything.

That felt good. We made a rash blanket rule to help us with our simplifying. That's what I needed. A big fat dramatic rule to keep us on task.

And that's when my conscience kicked in.

(More tomorrow)