Bryce Moore's Blog, page 179

Diet Update: The 20 lb Mark

Lest you think I’ve given up on my diet, I’m here to tell you that’s not the case. It’s a little over 2 months now that I’ve been on it, and I finally hit the 20 lb lost mark this morning, which means I’m also under 200 lbs again.

I’m also officially very tired of being on the diet.

The best news is that I’m just 2.8 pounds from being “Normal” once again, which is my overarching goal, of course. Because if I can be normal according to BMI, then at least that’s one area where I can say I’m scientifically proven to be normal. Right? Right.

Since I’m getting that close, my mind is starting to turn to how I’m going to ensure I don’t go back into “overweight” territory. That’s always the problem, isn’t it? I’ve proven to myself time and time again that I can lose the weight when I really put my mind to it, but I’ve also proven to myself that I’ll put the weight right back on if I don’t watch myself.

This time, I hope it’s going to be different, and I have a few good reasons to believe that hope:

I’m exercising every day still. That makes a big difference, and it helps me feel much better on a day to day basis. Exercise is a no brainer I should have been doing all along, but it’s one thing to know something in theory. Applying that knowledge is the tricky part. I’ve found a way to exercise that works for me, and I’ve been doing it for quite some time now, so I don’t see any real chances that will stop.
I’m not going back on sugar. Ever since I stopped eating so much sugar, I’ve stopped gaining weight, This was normally the thing that made me slowly gain over time: brownies and ice cream. By limiting myself, I’m hopeful that solves the problem.
New goal. As you know, I’m very goal-oriented. I’ve tried to think of a way to tap into this to help me not just lose weight, but keep it off. My new approach is going to be forcing myself to do a weigh-in on the last day of each month. The goal is to be below 195 on that day. If I am, I’ll treat myself to a small reward. If I’m not, no reward. (Yes. I work for Scooby Snacks.) While this might cost a bit of money, I consider it money well spent, since the long-term health benefits will save me much more than whatever I spend.

Anyway. That’s it. The diet continues for a while, and then it transitions into the monthly weigh ins. I’ll be very glad to be done weighing food every time I eat it, that’s for sure.

Thanks for the words of encouragement and support, They’re always appreciated!

Where Do You Draw the Line to Save Money?

We’re planning another trip to Disney this year, and that means Bryce gets to obsess over small details (and start talking about himself in the third person.) At the moment, I’m looking at plane ticket prices (mainly because it’s too soon to start really looking at Disney prices, and I’ve got my fingers crossed they’ll be offering free dining again . . .)

Each time I look at these tickets, my knee-jerk approach is to find the cheapest tickets available and book those. But maybe I’m getting older or wiser (or just not as frugal), but I’ve been burned by that approach a few too many times in the past. It’s one thing to find the CHEAPEST FLIGHT YOU CAN, but then you still have to actually use those tickets.

In other words, it might seem awesome to save $150 a ticket by flying on an off day out of an airport that’s far away, with a 2 hour layover, on the red eye. But when it comes time to make that flight, and you’re stuck traveling or 12 hours for a trip that really should have just taken 6, you begin to wonder if it was really worth all the savings.

So it’s a balancing act. A few years ago, I think I would have gone with the savings, every time. It was the difference between being able to go on the trip or not, period. These days, when we’ve got a bit more extra money in the budget?

Let’s talk specifics.

For me to fly to Orlando, I can leave from multiple airports. The closest one is Portland, 1.75 hours away. Bangor is about the same, but it’s a regional airport. (Though it does do direct flights to Sanford, which is close to Orlando . . .) Then there’s Boston or Manchester, both about 3.5 hours away, though you can take a bus to Boston easily. (But if you take the bus, that adds on $150 of bus tickets for our family, which cuts into savings from flying out of Boston.)

There are no direct flights from Portland. There are some in Boston, but they cost more, so you eat up the savings you could have had if you go that route. (You’ve also left from Boston, which added a bus ride to your journey . . .)

But wait! There’s more!

We’re looking at Thanksgiving. And as everybody knows, Thanksgiving is a time when airlines like to hike their prices. So we can either fly at strange times for less, or pay more to fly when we actually want to.

Then again, there’s also Montreal. Canada doesn’t do that whole Thanksgiving thing, so we could fly at normal times for normal fares (non stop, even) . . . if we’re willing to drive 4.5 hours and make it into an international flight.

Add these all up, and there are so many moving parts, it makes my head spin. And how much money am I saving if I’m putting in 20-30 hours of my time just to save $150?

Which leads me to my question of the day: where do you draw the line, personally? Are you the sort of person who will go for the absolute cheapest, no matter what? Do you just ignore the ticket price and go when it’s convenient? There’s a lot of middle ground between those extremes, and I’m curious how other people decide where they fall in there.

Do tell.

The Wire 4:7 and 4:8

Episode 4:7

Carcetti won the election last episode, so that should be it for his storyline, right? I mean, that often seems to be the goal of so many other political shows and movies. So it’s very interesting that here we see him meeting with the former mayor and asking him why he walked away from the office, and the response (I got tired of having to deal with everyone else’s messes) is very telling. Maybe winning the race isn’t all it’s supposed to be?

Go figure.

But really, isn’t everything going right for a change? Royce is out. Burrell is on the ropes. Rhonda’s got a raise. Daniels is getting Carcetti’s eye (a far cry from when he was banished to the basement). Omar might not get shivved in jail. It’s all looking good.

Except it isn’t, and that’s sort of a continuing theme of this show that will only become more pronounced later on. Even when things are going well, there’s an undercurrent of trouble. The biggest trouble at the moment?

Herc. He’s so far out of his depth, and everyone else is focused on their own troubles that no one’s really watching this guy operate. This guy, who isn’t necessarily bad, but really just has no clue how to really do police work other than smash things together.

He’s the guy who’s in the best spot to actually do something about the worst player we’ve seen so far: Marlo. Herc is the guy who has Randy’s fate in his hands. Talk about a nightmare.

There are other problem spots, of course. Bubs is particularly troubling, and there’s no easy solution in sight for the man who keeps shaking him down for money. Sherrod is looking terrible. (I had no idea the guy trying to scare Namond was Sherrod until Bubs ran into him later.) Bunny and the professors are trying to slowly figure out a way to help their trouble school kids.

It’s a complicated show, but right now, there seems to be more ups than downs. And if that’s the case, then surely the defeat of Marlo, the success with the corner kids, and even a happy ending for Bubs can’t be far behind, right?

Right?

This is another 4/5 for me. This whole season is strong, but I’m beginning to wonder if it has any of those “WOW!” moments from earlier seasons that made me give them 5/5s. Perhaps this is my favorite season not because there are a ton of WOW moments, but that it’s so strong from start to finish. We shall see . . .

Episode 4:8

Remember how I said it was telling that the Wire had the former mayor scene with Carcetti right after Carcetti won the election? Well, it’s also telling that as soon as Carcetti wins and makes a splash as a white Democrat who can get black votes, the national Democrat office begins to circle the waters. And Carcetti, who’s been running on a campaign of hope and change and anti-corruption, suddenly has a look on his face. Like he’s seen the potential for him to rise to even greater heights.

Baltimore is one thing. But you can tell he’s now looking at maybe . . .governor? And of course, what’s the first thing the national folks tell him? Focus on statistics. “Reduce crime by 10%” Forget education, because they don’t feel like it can be fixed, so it isn’t politically prudent to try and tackle it. And just that quickly, Carcetti goes from simply thinking about doing what’s right for the city to thinking about what’s right for him. (Not that he wasn’t thinking about that all along . . .)

On a more positive note, I love watching Prez start to really succeed with these kids. Bunny’s experiments are one thing, but Prez is out here on his own, trying to do his best to figure things out, and I really want him to succeed, mainly because he’s grown so much over the seasons. So it’s rewarding to see his students start to like him. It gives me hope.

Michael’s home life, on the other hand, does not. There had been hints of this before (most specifically when Michael was so fast to bolt out of Cutty’s car after the boxing match), but it seems clear now that Michael was abused as a child, and by none other than Bug’s dad, who’s back from prison now. And Michael’s mom is a big enough loser to take the guy back in. The really sad thing is that there are good men in Micheal’s life who are standing there ready to help, but he’s unwilling and unable to trust them, because of that abuse. Prez and Cutty would totally help out, and probably have the wherewithal to get it done. But Michael has been burned once and clearly vowed to not let that happen again.

Our past affects our present, no matter what we might try to do.

I’m out of time for today, and there’s still so much I could talk about. Prop Joe and Slim Charles walking on eggshells around Marlo, respecting how violent he is and how good he is at making bodies disappear. Snoop and Chris discussing popular music. Carcetti doing the patrols with the police (and seeing firsthand how useless they are). All great stuff. Another 4/5, mainly because there still aren’t the WOW moments. But I love this show.

Thoughts?

Book Review: Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This has been a book that’s been kicking around my “to read” shelf for quite some time. It looked quirky and fun, but you never know with those sort of books if you’ll really like them or not. After all, what’s quirky and fun to one person can be confusing and lame to another. So it kept getting bumped back behind other books, until at last I was really in the mood for quirky and fun, and willing to take a chance on it.

I’m very glad I did.

I loved this book from beginning to end. Of course, I’m probably right in the middle of the book’s target audience, as well. It’s the story of a guy who loses his web design job and ends up working at a 24 hour bookstore in San Fran, instead. But it’s a bookstore with hardly any good books in it, and a slew of strange customers who come late at night.

Also, the owner has asked the guy not to open or look at any of the books . . .

It’s a cool, strange journey from there, involving everything from Google to codebreaking to historical facts about publishing. Also, long black robes. Pretty much any book plot could be improved with a few good long black robes, right?

In any case, it was a breeze to read, and fun from start to finish. It kept me turning pages while at the same time helped me think about things in a way I haven’t before. Not many books can do that for you.

If you’re looking for some good clean book-ish fun, look no further.

View all my reviews

THE MEMORY THIEF Copy Edit

How to tell your book is getting close to publication: you’re going through the copy edit.

When most people think of editing, they’re usually confusing it with a copy edit: checking spelling, crossing your t’s, dotting your i’s. Up until now, all the edits have been big picture things, for the most part. Scenes that aren’t working. Characters that aren’t consistent. Once most of that is ironed out, it moves on to a new set of eyes.

But copy editors aren’t just spell checkers and grammar Nazis. They also go through the whole book to check for consistency. That’s how I discovered just barely that my main character’s twin went from having dark hair to blonde hair in the middle of the book, for example. (Whoops. Maybe she dyed it off screen?) It’s also how I discovered that there’s a proper way to spell that frozen slushy drink you get at convenience stores: ICEE. All caps.

So even if I think that’s a lame way to spell something, I’m kind of stuck with it.

In the end, a copy edit for me consists of lots of scrolling and studying to see if anything needs changing, or if I want to be stubborn about anything in particular. Nothing too exciting, but it’s a real mile marker that says this book is getting ready to finally hit book shelves.

In six months.

Anyway. That’s my Monday. Hope yours is going well!

The Best Day Off is a Surprise Day Off

Snow day! I got up this morning to get ready for work. Dragged myself out of bed reluctantly, but what can you do? And so I was already resigned to my fate when I checked my messages, and discovered it was freezing rain out, and that the kids and I had both earned a reprieve from our fates.

Score.

Not that I can take the whole day off, of course. Still have to do my writing and exercise, and I have a Skype call at 1 for the Maine Library Association. But the fact is that I’m sitting here typing this in my pajamas, and you’ll hear no complaints from me about that. (Though one disadvantage? Today is baking day for Denisa, and that means I’m sitting here smelling all sorts of lovely bread getting baked up in the kitchen next door. And I’m still on my diet.)

Ah well.

In any case, I’m going to cut today’s post short, because it’s a snow day, and I feel like it. Try to get along this Friday without a thought provoking masterpiece from yours truly, and I’ll catch you all again on Monday!

The Best Book on Mormon Missionaries

As a former LDS missionary myself, I’ve read or perused a number of books on the subject. Before I went on my mission, there were some I read through to try and get a handle on what I was getting myself into. After the fact, I’ve read responses and reactions to missions online and in books. I’ve watched movies that try to depict missions, to varying degrees of success.

So when I first moved to Maine and started working at the University of Maine at Farmington, I was surprised to be approached by one of the professors and discover he was working on his own book on Mormon missionaries. He wasn’t Mormon, for one thing. Was this going to be some sort of smear campaign? (It wouldn’t be the first.) But Rob Lively seemed like a nice enough fellow, and I was willing to talk to just about anyone about the church, so I agreed when he asked to interview me for the book.

Through the course of the interview, I discovered just how serious he was about this. He’d sat down with over 200 missionaries. He’d interviewed President Hinckley twice. He’d gone to multiple MTCs and gotten permission to sit in on classes. He’d spoken to Elders, Sisters, Mission Presidents, Senior Missionaries, General Authorities. He was really doing his homework on this one.

Why was he doing it? I asked him. He said it was because he felt like so many people casually dismiss the Mormon missionary experience, unable or unwilling to look at missionaries as actual people with desires and dreams, instead content to classify they as nuisances to get rid of when they show up at your door. He wanted to write an unbiased, outsider’s view book on the subject so that people who aren’t Mormon can find out more about them in a non-threatening way.

Eight years later, the book is out at last.

I was quite surprised to see the final version. It’s much thicker than I expected. Most of the Mormon missionary books you see at Deseret Book or the like are brief affairs. Maybe two hundred pages, filled with quotes from church leaders and some basic advice for how to succeed on a mission. Rob’s book, The Mormon Missionary: Who Is That Knocking at My Door?, is 576 pages. It’s a tome, people. I hefted it in my hand and thought he’d really gone overboard. How in the world could anyone write that much about Mormon missionaries and keep it interesting for the whole of the book?

It’s a good thing I didn’t say that out loud, because Rob proved me very, very wrong.

I started the book Friday night. I was mostly finished by the end of Sunday. And I wasn’t reading anything I didn’t already know. I’d been on a mission, after all. Why would 576 pages on the experience be so captivating to me?

Because it’s accurate. More accurate than any book or movie on missionaries that I’ve come across. It covers every single aspect of the experience you can think of, from preparing for a mission, getting the call, going to the MTC, learning a language, getting companions, transfers, teaching, baptizing, service, coming home. You name it. Even more surprising, he easily and fluently uses mission lingo. Accurately. You can tell he’s been talking to missionaries for decades. He’s also attended church services here in Maine many a time. I’ve since gotten to know Rob and respect his approach. He really did set out to depict a mormon mission without any other agenda. There’s no anti-Mormon undercurrent, but neither is there a “you all better go on a mission because they’re doing God’s work and this is all true!” overtone either.

He doesn’t paint things too rosy or too bleak, but he also doesn’t shy away from the good times or the bad times of a mission, and almost all of it is rooted in actual missionary experiences and quotes.

Who would I recommend this book to? Just about anybody. Mormon, non-Mormon, missionary or ex-missionary or pre-missionary. If you want to understand what it is those guys in white shirts, ties, and name tags are going through, or the girls in dresses and name tags, then this is the book for you. If you’d like to think back on your own mission experience, this will touch on it in many ways, even while recognizing that each mission is unique and different.

I’m definitely giving the book to my kids to read once they’re old enough. I think it’s the best mission prep book that can be written, and I don’t say that lightly.

Before I left on my mission, the best piece of advice anyone gave me was this: “If you can think of it, a missionary has done it, and is probably doing it right now.” For good or bad, I found that to be true. This book encapsulates that in a way only a 576 page book could. Is it too long? Not at all. It covers the whole of the missionary experience, and it does so accurately and completely. It turns out that missionary experience is a whole lot more complex than I initially thought it was.

(*Full disclosure: as I mentioned above, I was interviewed for the book, as was Denisa. Both of our experiences ended up in various places in the book, though we’re not mentioned by name. (Rob keeps things fairly anonymous.) Still, if you’re looking through it and know Denisa and me well, you can usually pick out what we said. Denisa’s the only person from Slovakia interviewed for the book, and while there were a couple of missionaries interviewed who served in Germany, my pieces were easy for me to recognize. In each case, he treated my interview fairly and accurately. Did I like the book more because I liked seeing what I had said? Maybe. But I don’t think that really made a huge difference in my opinion of the book in the end.)

Well, now I’ve prattled on about this book for over 1,000 words. Have I gushed enough? Bottom line is that I encourage you all to go and read this book. If you have any questions after you’ve read it, I’m happy to answer any I can. Rob’s also going to be speaking locally about the book on May 14th, I believe. Should be good.

After you’ve read it, let me know what you thought.

The Wire 4:5 and 4:6

It’s break week here at UMF, but looking at the schedule, I think I might be running a bit behind where I should be to try and finish this rewatch on time, which means there’s no rest for me this week. And it’s election-themed to boot. How appropriate!

Episode 4:5

The fourth season is probably the most complex season so far, even if it doesn’t feel like it to people who have been watching straight through. After all, the beginning didn’t feel too bewildering, as opposed to previous season openers. But when you consider the sheer spread of the show, its characters, plots, and back story, things have really gotten complicated by now.

First off, you’ve got the continuing political story, with Carcetti doing his best to bring down Royce, but struggling to really pull it off. Then, you’ve got the school kids trying to navigate treacherous waters of young adulthood. There’s the remnants of Major Crimes, with Herc bumbling his way through just about everything. (How sad is it that Herc is the last man standing of this division? And how fitting that the system would end up sticking him there.) You’ve got Bubs doing his thing, Cutty popping up now and then, Carver continually evolving into better police, Lester trying to figure out what’s happening with the bodies, Kima struggling to figure out homicide, Omar robbing stuff, Marlo trying to kill everyone, the Co-op still running in the background.

I mean, McNulty isn’t even really doing anything at the moment other than showing up to smile now and then.

But the amazing thing is that it all works together wonderfully. We’ve got characters who intersect briefly to connect the plots. It all makes sense, and you know who’s doing what and why. That’s a tremendous feat to pull off. Bravo.

Some particular thoughts:

I’m a big Prez fan. He’s a genuinely good person who reminds me (strangely enough) of an older version of Namond. Namond doesn’t want to be tough. Not really. He just wants other people to like him. Think back to Prez in the first season, where he beat that kid up and ruined the kid’s eye. What an idiot he was. It’s hard matching that person up with the person we see now, but I think it’s because Prez finally decided not to be what other people wanted him to be, but to stick to what he wanted to do. That’s a real success story, though it came at a great cost.
Bubs. I feel so bad for him, always hoping that he’s finally hit rock bottom and will do something to get himself out of the hell his life has become. This episode was rough in particular. All his work on Sherrod is going nowhere, and he ends up getting beat up and laughed at. Bubs! Makes me wonder where Kima is in his life by now, but I’m thinking she probably told him in no uncertain terms what she thought of him and how he’s been leading his life. It’s on Bubs to turn things around.
Herc continues to be a complete tool. Even if his master plan had panned out, imagine what would have happened in court when the way they obtained all this evidence was revealed. Does Herc care? Nope. He can’t see further than his nose. Sigh. Of course, it doesn’t help that his superior is also an idiot. Way to keep things real, folks.
Though Rawls reveals himself to be surprisingly nimble when it comes to politics, playing both sides against each other and doing his best to situate himself perfectly no matter the outcome. He’s a smart cookie. Kind of vile, but smart.

It’s a good, solid episode from this show. 4/5 from me.

Episode 4:6

Would you look at that? Not only did Carcetti manage to pull off the upset, but he even was able to stay true to his wife for a single evening. Is the guy getting better? Becoming a better person? Time will tell.

I enjoyed this episode focused on backroom politics and the machinations that go into an election, although I did wonder how true to life some of it was. Mainly, I just can’t stand Clay Davis, and I want someone to beat him up every time he’s on the screen. He’s like a cockroach that just won’t stay down or die. And everyone knows he’s a cockroach except the public, and that one trait (being popular with the people) is enough to make him bulletproof against anyone who might try to dethrone him. Yuck.

But it felt good to see Royce go down, and it made for some really good television. The show isn’t predictable, so it was honestly hard to say which way the election would turn out. (Except that it wouldn’t end well for Gray.) Though I also wondered if all these people really go to the same church, though I suppose there’s one “main” church where they all want to be seen?

Regardless, this sets up the rest of the show with a great opportunity. Baltimore has a new mayor, and he seems like a conflicted, but ultimately good guy. Maybe. Kind of. Sort of. Better than Royce, at least. Right? In any case, a brighter hope for the future of Baltimore. Someone who might get rid of the Burrells and promote good, quality people to important positions. Someone who can finally fix things! Because that’s all that’s needed: just good people in the right positions.

Let’s see how that plays out.

In a different vein, can I just say how much I despise Namond’s mother? There have been some pretty scummy characters on the show, but I think she’s right up there in terms of what she does (or fails to do) to fulfill her role in society. Think about it for a moment. Namond clearly doesn’t want to be out dealing drugs. He’d rather be goofing off and playing video games. But he happens to be the son of Wee-bay, who happens to be one of Avon’s coldest killers (despite his easy-going nature and love of fish.) Namond’s parents both want him to be like his dad, out there making a name for himself and earning money. So his Mom drives him to the corner, tells Bodie to give the boy a package, and pressures Namond into going through with it. (And even then, he’s unable to do much of anything with it. He has no desire whatsoever.)

Why in the world is the mom doing this? Because she’s been used to being able to get money for free, and she’s alarmed that the money faucet is getting turned off. So instead of going out and . . . I don’t know . . . getting a job, she shoves her kid out the door and tells him real men deal drugs. Sigh. What a contrast between Bunny’s speech about corner kids and stoop kids. Other adults assume parents don’t want their kids anywhere near the corners, but Namond’s mom shows us that’s not always the case.

Other notes of note:

Cutty might win the award for “most awkward mentor” when he goes up to Michael and says how much he loves women. Kind of a strange thing to say to the kid, and I wondered if it was because Cutty thought Michael might think he was gay or a child molester? I have no idea. It also could just be that the guy is trying his best to be a mentor, but not really having any clue how to connect to Cutty. (And his womanizing seems to be alienating some of his other proteges, alas.)
Randy is out of his league in a big way. He’s a nice enough kid who just wants to open a store when he gets bigger, but he definitely (to quote his foster mother) shows poor judgement time and time again. His love of money just seems to get him into trouble, even if he’s willing to work for that money. First he went and delivered a deadly message to Lex, and then he went and stood guard while the other students had sex in the bathroom. Was it rape? It didn’t look like it from what we saw. But does that matter? Not since Randy’s willing to fold so easily. Don’t get me wrong: the kids should not have been doing whatever they did in that bathroom, and it certainly seemed abusive to me. But Randy should have known better than to stand lookout for money. Rape or not, it was against school rules, and by being complicit in it, he needed to either learn how to play the game and not snitch at all (or admit to any wrong doing), or know better than to get involved in the first place. Snitches don’t end well, and Randy just ups the ante by throwing down info on a potential murder . . .
Omar, meanwhile, is being caught in a much more efficient way by Marlo. He doesn’t bother with bounties. He just cooly has an innocent woman gunned down, and then blames it on Omar. Then all he has to do is sit back and wait for the police to do his business. Marlo is a cold hearted evil person. Yuck.

In the end, I’m going to have to give this one a 5/5, but I wanted to take a moment to note that the Wire really is breaking the mold for rating shows. I mean, this wasn’t the best Wire episode of all time or anything, but it’s just so darn great. So while it might feel strange to give it the same rating as some of the best episodes, how can I give it anything lower? The Wire makes other TV shows pale in comparison. But maybe it’s just right up my alley.

That’s all the time I have for today. Thanks for reading!

Was It Always Like This?

Talk about depressing. How many different things are there to worry about in the world these days? Whether it’s racist egomaniacs running for nominations (and winning), people gunning down strangers in the streets or at schools, people blowing up other people in markets or at airports . . .

Sometimes there just feels like so many ways in which the world is falling apart. So my question today is to you readers who are fifty-five and older. People a clear generation ahead of me. Was it always like this? Is it just that I’m getting to the point in my life where I start to actually pay attention to everything happening more that I’m seeing all the bad? Because I feel like I’ve always been tapped in to what’s going on around me, and so a big part of me wants to say this is all new.

But then again, World War II. World War I. Vietnam. There are plenty of time periods I didn’t live through. Does living now compare to the feeling of living then? I remember growing up during the Cold War. I was seriously concerned that the world was going to end by nuclear missiles at any time. It kept me up some nights. We had bomb scares at school and bomb drills. Did I just pass them off more easily than I can now?

I wonder if some of it isn’t due to how prevalent cameras and video cameras are these days, and how well connected we all are. In seconds, what’s happening on the other side of the world can be appearing on my screen here in the library at work, and so each time something happens, I hear about it and know about it. Would things have felt different in World War II if there had been the same interconnectedness back then? We can only speculate.

But like I said: what I’d really like to know is how things felt to people living in earlier times. Not sure if I have seventy or eight-year-olds reading this, but I’d love as much input as I can get.

In the meantime, my thoughts and prayers go out to the people in Brussels (including the three Mormon missionaries who were injured in the bombings) and Turkey. I don’t know what we need to do as a globe to stop ISIS, but whatever it is, it seems like it needs to happen soon.

Parenting in Uncharted Waters

I remember back when Denisa and I were expecting TRC, our first child. There seemed to be so many questions that I didn’t know the answer to. Experiences I’d never had before. How in the world was I going to be able to handle all of it? Naps, feeding, clothes, diapers, illnesses. It seemed like a ton of different things to worry about and figure out, all on the fly. Yes, we read different books about parenting, and that helped, but the fact of the matter is that for so much of those early years, we were basically flying blind.

Like a pilot who’s plopped in front of a control stick with nothing more than a “how to” book and the phone number of his teacher, and then told to get going, because that plane is taking off one way or another.

At the time, I was really just focused on getting through those first few years. If I could get the hang of that, then it must get easier from then on, right?

Wrong.

As I’m learning, that plane ride doesn’t stop once you hit altitude. It just transitions into new experiences to handle and figure out. This isn’t to say that Denisa and I feel like we’re floundering as parents at the moment. Just an observation that the low level anxiety of “what in the world do I do now?” never truly goes away.

It’s different for second and third kids, of course. You’ve had one kid’s worth of practice, and so you have an idea about what you’re doing. (Though of course each child is different, and you need to adapt to new circumstances as they arise.) But for first kids? That’s rough stuff sometimes.

So consider this an open invitation to all you parents out there who are ahead of Denisa and me. Who have (or had) teens and the like. If you could go back and give yourself advice to help things out, what would it be? Are there any big mistakes you made that could have been easily avoided? (Mine as a young father? Going down a spiral slide with TRC and breaking his leg. That was a seriously dumb move, young-Bryce.)

How do you balance letting teens have autonomy and yet do your best to keep them headed in the right direction? To date, we’ve mainly just been trying to do our best to maintain a good relationship with our kids. Talk to them frequently. Spend time doing what they want to do with them. Take an interest in their interests. But also continue to enforce family rules and have them be active participants in the family (chores, etc.)

Anyway. I don’t have much more in the way of comments at the moment. I’m at the beginning of this next phase of the flight, so I don’t feel qualified to say much more. But I’m always listening and open to advice. (The great thing about advice is you can always listen to it, and then you only have to apply it if you agree with it . . .)