Ben's Life Update #87

It's a testament to my complete disappearance from the online community that no one has yet tagged me for the "5 Simple Pleasures" meme.

Name 5 of life's simple pleasures that you like most, then pick 5 people to do the same. Try to be original and creative and not to use things that someone else has already used. Tag 5 people on your list.

1. My son's uncontrollable giggle when I'm tickling him.
2. Snuggling with the wife, (), when I come up to bed.
3. My son laying his head on my shoulder when I carry him up to nap or bedtime.
4. My son playing with my hand or snuggling when he begins to mellow for sleep-time.
5. Hot Fresh Mulled Cider & Cider Doughnuts on a Rainy Day

You can see how my priorities have changed of late. :) I'm finally getting to the point where family comes first, then work, then volunteering and then playtime. I officially take one day a week to spend with Will now. It is undecribably wonderful. We go to the park, sit and watch some of his favorite shows, or just run around the yard.

Kirky's mother being in CA to get her other child's family ready to move East has gotten me to make more of an effort to keep things done around the house. I actually did laundry yesterday and have been changing the bed weekly though not cleaning the bathroom or kitty litter as much as I'd like.

I don't think I really mentioned that Jon, is in Kuwait to everyone. He's hanging out there for a week or so until his equipment makes it over and then he's crossing the border to Iraq. We sent him with a webcam and a headphone mic so he can Skype and have video chats with his wife, . He's also got a camera and his LJ so hopefully we'll see more from him soon.

While I found out he is going to be much safer due to his unit's mission, I still have really mixed feelings about him being over there.

Many of you know I've had my ups and downs lately. With the holidays coming around, these are reaching a bit more extremes which is normal. However many of you seemed to "back off" when I talked with you about this. Please don't - I wear my heart on my sleeve because that's my way of reaching out and in essence asking for help. So step up the emails, IMs, and phone calls! Every bit helps!

Which brings me to an expanded version of the Simple Things meme:

1. Being able to bring all my friends together for events
2. Hearing about my friends' goals & dreams and pushing them to reach them or supporting them to accomplish them.
3. Learning so much about Disaster Services and taking classes.
4. How my son backs into my lap and puts his hand on my knee when something scares him or makes him nervous
5. Listening to friends talk about bliss, happiness, contentment and other wonderful emotions after going through rough patches.
6. Seeing my son comprehend and actually, logically work through a problem to come up with a solution on his own.

OK, I lied. Is there anything better than being a dad? ;)

But I do feel guilty about seemingly withdrawing from my friends. That is one of the disadvantages to having all my friends online is that they're not nearby to visit on a regular basis. That and visiting them for overnights is tough for those who have really small places - no floorspace for the Pack and Play! I miss everyone.

Just took a Local Red Cross class last night. "On The Scene", which covers what Disaster Action Teams do on the site of a fire or other local emergency. It was very casual and low-key as there were only 4 of us and 3 had been to a few fires already. Is it a sign of desperation that I drive about 2hrs down to New Bedford to take the class? I just feel like the more classes I can take, the better I can help. I love taking these courses. I'm learning so much.

Since there's a lull in courses currently offered by my Red Cross chapter, I've turned to FEMA for my Disaster education needs - more specifically the Emergency Management Institute's online courses. I just took and passed IS 100 - an overview of the Incident Command System put in place by Homeland Security as part of the National Incident Management System. It's basically a standardization of management structure and terminilogy for responding to emergencies so no matter WHO you are with, you can jump right into responding and you're all on the same page. I'm halfway through IS700 which reviews the NIMS itself.

I've also signed up for our regional response system in case of some sort of pandemic. Our city Board of Health is leading the effort called NSCAlert. It's mostly for those with health care experience but at least I can do data entry. It pushes up my priority level in getting my family vaccinated in such an incident and I can use all my Disaster Services training to step into any other roles as they arise.

I contacted our local Emergency Management director, (also the fire chief in our city), to see if I can get involved in Incident Response planning. Especially with winter approaching.

This weekend is our big baking weekend. We think we need about 800 to fill all our gifts. Should be fun. The next week I head to ApacheCon for the first time in about 3 years, HALO is doing press for the show so I get to man the press room, make connections between reporters and technologists, hear Cory Doctorow and Jaron Lanier speak, and see my friend Charel, who also does the BlackHat and DEFCON shows.

...Time Passes...

What a day. Took Will to the doctor's today. As I continue to say - I don't know how single parents do it. I was hoping he'd go down for his nap before we left so I could do some things like....oh....SHOWER maybe? I had to let the dog in the back yard instead of walk her because it was pouring BUCKETS.

So I manage to get him out to the car in one arm, umbrella in the other with his diaper bag over my shoulder and car keys peeking out of my fingers. The problem is once I set him down outside the car he goes running.

We got there and he was great. Took one shot to either arm and was playing two seconds later. Bawled every time I had to lay him down on the table but other than that he was good. *sigh* Awesome boy.

Please....stay in touch all.

Feeling Better - Daddy and Me

I've been very off physically the last few days so it's nice to be feeling back to normal. Unfortunately, I missed the second half of my Red Cross Family Services course where you learn and practice interviewing families "on the scene". Speaking of On the Scene, I also missed that class earlier in the week which is supposed to walk one through dealing with a fire or other local emergency. Finally, I missed the Volunteer Recognition Banquet last night. Not a huge deal as I'm way too new to get anything and I essentially donated a few extra bucks so some of the poorer college student volunteers could get tickets - money well spent.

I am SO digging this "Daddy & Me" time I've been spending with Will on Thursdays. Yesterday we spent the morning in our jammies watching a few TV shows and playing with toys on the floor. While he was down for his morning nap I packed a lunch, (peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, grapes, 1/3 of a bananna, and some goldfish), got some extra bottles, and laid out some warm outerware.

When he got up, I got him all bundled and we headed out to the newly-discovered Forest River Park in Salem. (I should say, new for me - not Will. He's been there a few times with a playgroup and his Nana.) This park is gorgeous and huge. The playground is quite big with lots of slides and things to climb. It's quite the little forest with the water nearby, lots of green grass, (although this is now covered by an array of colorful foliage), rocks, hills and such.

We had a BALL. I sort of set him down and followed him around. I let him do what he wanted and tried to be there to spot him just in case as he still hasn't grasped the full concept of gravity. A few times I helped him however I'm trying to get him to sign "help" when he wants assistance. It's funny....I was pretty self-conscous about looking like an overprotective dad following him around everywhere. But he is very active and still young at 18mo. While I want him to learn about gravity and being more careful, I still want to shepherd him through the learning process.

There were a few other kids that came throughout the morning. We arrived at about 10:30am and only one other mother with a 13mo old was there. At some point a mother with 3 boys- one being only a few months old and *2* dogs arrived. I don't know how she did it but she managed to feed the baby and in some cases hold the dogs on a lead while her other boys played.

At one point there was a girl who didn't seem to want Will to do anything she was. In some cases, I'll admit, he was following her around but if she saw him going for the car, she'd go for the car. If she saw him running to the slide, she'd try to get there first. At one point her mother was pushing her baby brother in a swing while she was hanging around. Will headed straight for the other swing and the girl threw a temper tantrum as her judicious mother tried to explain that she just got out of the swing and now it was Will's turn. Will just stood there with me silently and patiently while she cried and stomped and her mother talked it out. Finally, it seemed over so I popped him in while the girl continued to cry. What she didn't realize is that Will doesn't really have the attention span for swinging and about 30secs to a minute after he was in, giggling and swinging...he gave the sign for "all done" and that was that.

A few times he went down the side of the hill the playground was on and at one point ended up at the beach. I let him go as far as the water line because he kept sinking in the wet sand. I had to keep picking him up and plopping him in another direction.

He only really got fussy once. And that was after we started lunch and he was polishing his 2nd quarter of his sandwich. He kept trying to get up and go play but I held him on my knee because he was covered in peanut butter. He threw a small tantrum and then started to mellow. I knew that after 2.5hrs of park play it was time for nap #2. We cleaned up, headed home, got a milk bottle and settled in for some Little Einstein before he passed out.

I feel a bit guilty because Thurs are his "playgroup" days and I haven't gone once since I took over watching him on Thurs because I wasn't keen on socializing with a bunch of women. But it would be nice for him to have a common group to play with. He goes to daycare and has friends there twice a week.

I love being a dad.

Announcing: HALO Worldwide

For 11 years I've been involved in Web development in some form or another and throughout that time, I seem to keep crossing paths with the amazing Sally Khudairi. This includes meeting in person for the first time at WWW6 when she was with the W3C. We reconnected again post-college in 1999 after I decided it was time to join the workforce and became "Employee 1" at the Web standards consultancy ZOT Group.

Finally, (or I should say "Yet again"), I find myself in partnership with this incredible mentor and friend under the auspices of HALO Worldwide - where we do what is best described as "life counselling" for businesses mostly in the areas of high tech, art, luxury and non-profit organizations.

I've been working with Sally since just a week or two after I moved on from the OpenCourseWare project at MIT helping her with several existing clients and assisting with the proposal to and acquisition of a new and most excellent client. We've spent the last month-and-a-half working with this group and are very excited with what we've been doing.

The both of us have learned a lot since the "Dot-Com" era and ensuing "Dot-Bomb" and are feeding this experience and knowledge back into HALO. I can't think of a better place to be as the technology sector seems to be reviving itself after clearing out various kinks and detritus at the dawn of this new millennium - it means a lot that we've been one of the few groups to essentially reform after the fall.

Onward and upward. See you on the way.

RoadTrip: Lunch

We're here at the Brookdale Plaza eating some lunch. McDonalds - not the healthiest but then I didn't buy as much as I usually do. I'm being pressed to shut down so it's off to Starbucks Cherry Hill. We're downloading the Narnia trailer since we're listening to "Book 1". Ta

Roadtrip: Starbucks Danbury

We're here in Danbury, me with my Pumpkin Spice Latte, Nate with his heavily cream & sugared coffee, and Mom with her Cold Chai Latte. I got car sick in the back of the CRV with Mom driving so I took over. Feeling much better - onto McDonalds at the Brookdale Plaza.

RoadTrip: Off to Maryland

Mom, (), Nate, (), and I are off this morning to head to Maryland to see my brother Jon, (), off to, *sigh*, war in Iraq. His leave starts tonight and he heads out Thursday. God I hate how that sounds.

Anyway, I've decided to do some experimenting on this trip and on our way down 84W in CT, the Garden State Pkwy, and the NJ Turnpike, I've plotted strategic "break points" to get food or coffee as well as have access to wireless. Easy pull-offs where my brother and I can pop email, write any responses, check traffic for the remainder of the route, and continue on.

Cheesy, I know but we're all tech geeks in the family - even Mom - so I thought it would be fun. I'm going to try to make a post at each location.

Going down, first stop is Starbucks Danbury off I-84. Then lunch at the Brookdale Rest Stop on the Garden State Pkwy, (McDonalds wireless), and finally another Starbucks in Cherry Hill, NJ. Then off to Jon's.

I'd love this thread to be a deposit for words of advice for him, pointers to rules of what he can and cannot have, information about soldier Internet connectivity in Iraq and the various Net cafes the contractors have setup over there, connections to other people in LJ over-there who he can connect with and maybe even Iraq-specific family support groups on LJ as well.

Grey's Anatomy / Personal Update

Kirky, (), and I are desperately seeking the last 20min of Grey's Anatomy "Into You Like A Train". Monday Night football cut into the TiVo recording and damn if this episode didn't have me misty half-way through, only to cut off. Anyone? Anyone?

Things have been crazy. I went on my third fire with Red Cross this morning and should be getting my shirt and patch. Lots of training coming up in November and I'm in the office 1-2 times a week volunteering for a few hours.

We are, as always, |this close| to launching the new company. However since we've had our first client for almost a month I got my first paycheck!

Getting ready to head to New York for the big GoF Movie Premiere and incredibly massive live Pottercast recording. Apparently, over 2,000 people have RSVP'd to show up at the Barnes & Noble after the premiere for the taping. I'm just a fly on the wall as I haven't contributed to TLC/The Floo Network since PotterParties.com in July. But it's fun to see how we've exploded since then.

But before that, The Brothers DeLong have one more reunion this weekend prior to Jon, (), headed to Iraq with his unit. Naturally, the Army moved up his move date with very little notice. Nate, (), and I drive down with "me ma", (), this Saturday to send Jon off with all sorts of fanfare and brotherly love.

Will, (), continues to sprout like a weed and is already in 24mo clothing. He's signing more and more and is able to form vague words at 17mo allowing him some incredible communication. His mobility and agility is amazing and he is still as cute as a button. And he's still so laid back and happy. It's incredible - even when he's feeling bad he's just mellow and more quiet than usual. I've posted some pics of him during our "First Snow Storm of the season. I love Flickr - friends & family can grab a free account and add me to their buddy list, and I can give you permission to see many other photos of Will.

His favorite shows during television-time include the new Little Einsteins, Dora the Explorer, Blue's Clues, Go Diego Go, and Sesame Street. Special props to Little Einsteins from both his parents as well.

The Little Man is a big puddle jumper, loves playing in water and went out as a giraffe for Halloween last night. (Last time mommy gets to choose the costume so she chose well.) Pictures to come - especially those requested by PiperX, ().

More to come....thanks for the patience.