Oh by the way......

I don't know if I mentioned this or not but I have a son. His name is Finn. Just thought I would bring that up in case you weren't aware. Yeah that's him to the left, my son, Finn.

Yeah I got the memo, I just don't care

I think I have career ADD. I don’t know if there is such a thing but if so I might have it. Tough to be sure about these sort of things though, you don’t want to just go around self diagnosing serious illnesses like this. I am caught between wanting to stand out and do great job, being the best at not only my job but filling the cracks in other areas of the department as well and doing enough to be just OK. I seem to fluctuate between the two with increasing frequency lately. I just had to do a self evaluation for my yearly review and I found the whole process mildly amusing. I found out that it doesn’t matter what I say in this review or what my managers say either since I already received my small raise, which was decided upon at the budget meeting the year before. Without any monetary value to this process I’m really not interested. Also I found out that the scores on the reviews are essentially predetermined. There are 4 possible ratings you can get in each of the categories. SE – exceeds expectation, FM – fully met, AQ – acceptable with qualification, and LA – less then acceptable. Turns out that the powers that be will not accept any more then 2 SEs no matter what the manager puts. So the raise is predetermined before the year starts, and the scores are predetermined before the review starts all that is left is the fancy words that they write in each of the sections. I’m not interested in nice words, it might be the Ritalin talking here but that my backside has had all the smoke blown that it can handle. Really there is no benefit to being great, the only benefit is in not sucking so bad that you get AQs or LAs. Yet even knowing that I still find myself trying to really make a difference. That pesky career ADD comes up out of no where and I’m filling out my TPS reports in button downs and slacks. I need a higher dose Dr., the current prescription is just not cutting it.

Mates and States

With Kate and Finn in Texas I have a lot of time on my hands and instead of doing something productive I have edited these pictures with the states that Kate, Finn, and I have visited. To the Left is Kate's map. Below is Finn's and mine is the last.

I'm kinda sad tonight

Kate and Finn are in Texas visiting her grandma and grandpa and knocking out Finn's 11 state in 10 weeks. That has to be a record, where can we look this up. Anyway I am missing them a bunch tonight, not just them though, my parents are in SB having a BBQ with old friends and I wish I was there. Or I wish I was in AZ with my brother and our friends there. Or I wish there was something going on here but between vacations and theses writing nobody is around to do anything. So alone I sit in the living room, having watched a movie where the guy gets the girl, playing games on the computer and missing the people I love.

A letter to my boy

Dear Finn,

Last night you laughed for the first time. It wasn't just a smile, you have been doing that for a couple of weeks now, no this was a laugh from deep in your gut. You made your mommies night with that laugh and made me joyful to the point of tears for hearing it, and jealous to the point of tears for not being the one to see it. We were in Southern Kentucky, on our way home from a weekend of visiting Auntie Em and Uncle Logan in Tennessee. It was getting dark and we were stopping for dinner at Cracker Barrel because we had a gift card there and no money for anything else. We were feeling tired and poor and little sorry for ourselves and then you laughed. Then you laughed again and we were spry and rich. You made our night Finn, you did what nothing else good have done for us at that moment. The thing is you have been doing that a lot lately. Earlier that day we had lunch with Logan's parents and you smiled and flirted with Logan's mom and then went to sleep when our food came. Sweet, beautiful, angelic, such a good baby. We hear it over and over when we are with you and it never gets old. You are such an amazing little one Finn. You have already brought healing and joy, seen 10 states, and caused an international stir on Wall Street at the tender age of 9 weeks. I can't wait to see what else you have in store, while I enjoy each and every new moment with you. You laughed last night Finn and once again reoriented my world in a few seconds. Thank you. I love you. I'm so proud of you.

Dad

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Last night we watched us some TV at home and then later with friends and the two shows we watched I really liked. It wasn't sports, or some cop drama with brief nudity but rather a show about dancing and another abour Fashion Design. When Mark and Kendra were here visiting Finn Kendra got Kate hooked on the show So You Think You Can Dance. Well fast forward a couple of weeks and now I am really enjoying the show too. I know the names of the dancers and their speciality, I watch in agonizing anticipation as Ivan the Hip Hop Dancer tries his hand at Contemporary (a noble effort but not good). Living with Kendra for a year had an interesting effect on me. I remember Jesse, Mark, and I going to the movies to watch some fruity dance movie and not wanting to admit that we all kinda liked it. Now I will admit that I really like a dance show. The afore mentioned Ivan will probably be voted out this week because people are much tougher on Hip hop dancers struggling in other genres then they are with Contemporary dancers struggling with Hip hop.

The other show of the night was Project Runway and that is just great TV. From Tim Gunn imploring the designers to "Make it work" to the lovely Heidi Klum this is an entertaining show, especially while drinking tasty Woo Woo cocktails. I thought that if I watched 3 hours of TV a week it would be a basketball game, or at least Sports of some kind, but my life now is dance and fashion. I am becoming more and more like Mark everyday.