Tag Archives: alex

Winding Down

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2010 is drawing to an end, and in only a few days we’ll be hosting our last (and biggest) party of the year with our annual Nightmare Before Christmas party. As I sort through the various Christmas Cards (none of which will be reciprocated this year – sorry folks), I stumble across the occasional Holiday Letter. This is kind of a tradition on the Andres side of my family. I have quite a few of the ones that my Grandmother sent out, and every year my Mother and Uncles do their own versions that they include with their Christmas Cards. I even did a few myself, but with my immersion into the world of blogging it seemed like most of the people who I would send out that letter to would already know what was going on. When you consider the fact that I kind of suck at getting out cards to begin with, putting the additional pressure of writing a letter to include with them on myself seemed kinda pointless.

So it goes.

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Gratitude

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Yesterday I took the whole family to the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida. This was my second weekend in a row at the resort, as Krystalle and I had gone the previous week. My big gift for the whole family this year was the purchase of Florida Resident Annual Passes.

It’s already been worth it.

Due to the fact that I had to buy a new car over the weekend (something I’ll write about later today in a much more detailed “state of the Mike” post) money is likely going to be tight and future trips are going to have to be much more in the “bring it from home” category. Yesterday, however, I tried to be a bit on the relaxed side and we did all of our eating in the parks.

While there are many things I could talk about during the course of the day, one really stood out as being a shining example of how awesome my son is.

While we were walking towards the Pirates of the Caribbean ride he kind of pulled me aside and asked me how much money I had planned to spend today. It was kind of an odd question, and I told him so. “I’m sorry,” he replied. “It’s just that I know things are kind of tight and that you spent a lot of money on the tickets and I don’t want to stress you out by asking for things that you can’t afford.”

I damn near started crying right then and there. Not out of any sense of shame or sadness, but out of sheer appreciation for the fact that he was considerate enough of the household finances and their impact on my stress levels to take a moment and make sure that our family vacation wasn’t going to make matters worse. Maintaining a household is one of those things that you don’t often get recognized for – especially from the kids. This is not a dig on them at all. It is simply the way of the world. I had no appreciation for how hard my Mom worked to maintain the status quo around our place until I grew up and had to do it myself.

It’s nice though, every once in a while, to realize that they recognize what you put yourself through to make sure they have what they need and want.

Also? As much as it feels like hubris to me to say it I have to admit that when I see him do things like that I am filled with an enormous sense of pride over the job I’ve done with him as his Father. I look at things like that and I pat myself on the back for a job well done.

So, yeah…I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.

Jumping around like an idiot

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Image by geishaboy500 via flickr

It’s a Saturday night, and I am in the process of firming up the fact that I am the best Dad ever.

You see, as opposed to sitting at home futzing around on my computer or even, perhaps, going out on the town I am sitting in the lounge of an indoor Parkour track that is located in Odessa, Florida. Have you not heard of Odessa, Florida? Yeah, neither have I, really. It’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere, about an hour from our house. There are no decent places to hang out anywhere near here, unless you consider McDonalds a “decent” place to hang out (and even that is about 10 minutes or so away). Why am I sitting in this lounge, you may ask? Because my son has recently been intensely interested in Parkour, and he really wanted to come up here and take the two hour class that they are offering.

So. Here I am.

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30 Days Of Music: Day 1 – Your Favorite Song

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So…My friend Heather has been doing this here list for a few weeks now. I have to admit that I’m a lot like her in that this is likely not going to be done in anything remotely resembling 30 days, but it does give me some quick fodder to actually put some content out on the site.

The whole point is that you have this list of 30 different music based topics you’re supposed to write about. Day 1, for example, is your favorite song.

I hate this question. With a passion. I don’t know that I have a favorite song. I have favorite songs of the moment. When you ask me what my favorite song is the answer that comes to mind wouldn’t be the same answer I’d have given you six months ago, and it probably won’t be the same answer six months from now. So telling you what my “favorite” song is becomes kind of a problem.

That said…

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Hello my friends we meet again…

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…It’s been a while. Where should we begin?

Ok, I own up to it. I’ve utterly and completely neglected my personal blog because I’m all over social networking and any time I feel like expressing my thoughts, feelings, or what is going on in my life I do so using 140 characters or less.

Wheew. There, I said it. Acceptance is the first step towards recovery, is it not?

Although I’m not entirely certain I really WANT to recover.

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*tap* Is this thing on?

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Ok.  Yes.  I suck at updating.  I’ve gotten used to doing all my updates in 140 characters or less over the course of my day and have spent all of my verbose writing energy over at ShrinkGeek.  You caught me.  I’m a horrible person and it’s perfectly justifiable that the number of people who visit my site every day has dropped to about 6.

I fail at internet celebrity.  Seriously.

I could say that my life has been exceedingly busy lately and I wouldn’t be lying, but I’ve used that excuse before and promised that I would change.  I mean it this time, though, baby.  Come back to me.  It’s going to be different.  I love you more than I love that silly old Twitter business.  She means nothing to me.  All I give her is a bunch of cheap, quick hits.  You?  You get all the depth and breadth of my soul.  My innermost feelings.  The very essence of what it is to be ME.

Just ignore all those workout posts.  I was going through a phase.

Umm…Did I just anthropomorphize my blog?

Is that even a word?

So anyway.  Updates.  Right.

Got back in town on Sunday from the (now) annual excursion to Indianapolis to attend GenCon with Alex.  We has an absolute blast.  The highlight of the con was our participation in the NASCRAG tournament, and I’m proud to say that our team managed to snag both the best name category (“We Have 3 Virgin Men”) and Third Place overall.  Not only that, but Trish took home the prize for MVP in her portrayal of Sexy Kobold Left…or was it Sexy Kobold Right?  It was really hard to tell.  For those of you who are too lazy to click the link, NASCRAG is an annual role-playing tournament at GenCon in which rules take a back seat to having fun.  The focus isn’t on who knows the game mechanics but more on who plays their character the best and puzzle solving.  We had so much fun we’ve already determined that NASCRAG is a definite for next year already and our team is already starting to form.  We also managed to snag a few spots in a Second Edition Paranoia game loosely based on the Star Trek universe called Paranoia Trek (a GenCon tradition, apparently).  I managed to win a prize for role-playing in that one for my stunningly accurate portrayal of Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway.  I’m not entirely sure if I should be proud of that one.  We continued the silliness in a rousing game of Luchador : Way of the Mask, and Alex enjoyed that one so much he actually purchased a copy for himself and wants to run it at some point.  Finally we got to try out the latest edition of Call of Cthulhu in a scenario known as “Beatings :  The Musical” (which was, apparently, the censored title….the original title was “Buggery Hoedown on the Gaza Strip.”).  That was a very entertaining mix of the silliness we’d been participating in all weekend with some good old fashioned Cthulhu chills.  Yes, we died at the end of the adventure.  But, hey!  We did NOT go insane AND we managed to prevent the world from being destroyed for another 100 years or so.  Go team!

Negatives of the con?  I attempted to pick up a copy of Call of Cthulhu along with a few GURPS supplements from Atlas Games and had the very embarrassing experience of discovering the Chase had decided to cancel the credit card that I took along for goodie purchases the night before (after I had used it to pay for dinner).  This is not the first time the Chase has screwed me over, but it was the worst and will be the last.  I have one card left with them that has a zero balance, and as soon as I’m able to make sure I have another “emergency” card on hand to take its place I’m canceling that one.  We also had a lovely experience with Alex’s blood sugar on Sunday morning due to the fact that he ran out of one of his types of insulin and didn’t tell me about it because he thought I’d be mad or something.  He had high levels of keytones in his blood and was vomiting before we got on the plane to come home.  I was able to get his blood sugar down to a reasonable level with what we had on hand and we made it home without incident, but it was a real pisser of a way to end the vacation.  It was also another reminder that he is not completely mature enough yet to handle his blood sugar related issues without being monitored closely.  I know he hates that, but until he proves we don’t need to anymore it is how things have to be.  There was also a snafu with the hotel bill that caused my bank account to be overdrafted, but that managed to get fixed and I’m being sent a coupon for a suite upgrade for next year.

Overall, though, it was a fantastic time and as usual I have come home with a renewed desire to get together with the family and friends to do some more table top gaming.  I have also walked away from the weekend finally able to see a picture that has been forming in my head ever since I made a concerted effort to actually read the Fourth Edition Dungeon Masters Guide from cover-to-cover.

One of the things they pointed out in that book is that a good Game Master never says “No.”  On the surface that seems like a truly disastrous statement to make, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it was a completely true statement.  The fact of the matter is that in many ways a role-playing game is just an improvisational theater game.  You have a set of rules, you have an established character, and you have one person setting up the scenarios you will encounter who has an outcome in mind.  The fun comes in the getting there, and as part of that the players are just as important to telling the story as the game master.  Accepting that an RPG is a form of improv theater it makes sense that the “never say No” rule of improv carries over to table top gaming.  This is not to say that you let your players get away with completely running over your story, but it’s imperative that you let them actually take part in shaping it.  The best game masters I’ve ever played with did this, and I saw many fine examples of it this previous weekend as well.

I am inspired to do the same.

On another acting note we’re still in the midst of casting the 2010-2011 Jobsite Season with all the angst and anxiety that goes along with it.  I have at least one more show to audition for on August 31st and I’m still waiting to hear about another one.  I have already landed a few roles and gotten very close on a few others (including one that, unfortunately, I REALLY wanted…and not just because I could use the extra paycheck).  I am thinking that, next year, I need to at least go to the Tampa Area Unified Auditions at the Gorilla Theater.  Jobsite has been my theatrical home for the last 7 years and as far as I’m concerned they will have my eternal loyalty but I wonder sometimes if I’m doing myself a disservice by not at least seeing if anyone else would like to use me.

I was, however, reminded of something yesterday by a fellow actor and parent.  Every role that I miss out on is one more opportunity to spend time with my son before he’s grown up and out of my house.  I have plenty of time in my life to act after he is gone, but I will never get these years back.  The role I was gunning for hard this year would have prevented me from going to GenCon with Alex in 2010, and while I was prepared to make that particular sacrifice I think in the long run the time Alex and I spend together will be a much better investment.

A few brief notes on health care

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My son suffers from diabetes.  A little over a year ago he went into a state known as diabetic ketoacidosis.  He almost went into a coma and if we had not gotten him to a hospital there is a good chance he could have died.  When he got out of the hospital he was told to follow up with his specialist, so I called to make an appointment.  The earliest I could take my son in to see his specialist was four months later.

I have been using Prevacid for years to control my acid reflux.  A condition that, if let unchecked, can lead to Barret’s esophagus and, subsequently, cancer.  This is the condition that killed my Father.  When my insurance providers switched at the beginning of the year I was told that my medical provider would no longer cover Prevacid, the medication my doctor wanted me to be on, and that I had to switch to Aciphex.

I have also been using Metrogel for years to control my Rosacea.  Recently my insurance provider decided they would no longer pay for that medication either and I had to switch to another one.

There is no generic equivalent available for the type of insulin my son has to take for his diabetes and my insurance provider considers it non-formulary.  That ONE medication of his is $60 per month.  This does not include his other insulin, his needles, or his test strips.  There IS a generic equivalent of his second type of insulin, but it does not work as well and we will be switching back to the non-forumlary kind after his next appointment with his endocrinologist.

Alex had a problem throwing baseballs and was diagnosed with a condition called little league shoulder.  My insurance company would only pay for about half of the visits that his physical therapist suggested.  After we had run out of therapy his condition still persisted and he still cannot properly throw a baseball without causing himself some pain.   At this point we’re holding on to hope that he will grow out of it.

Should I go on?

All of you people who think this shit only happens in countries where they have “socialized medicine” are fooling yourselves.  Insurance companies get in the way of you and your doctor all the time. They deny treatments.  They deny medications.  They tell you what doctors you can and cannot see, even if said doctors have huge waiting lists.

Is socialized medicine better?  Damned if I know.  What I DO know is that all this bullshit being spouted about how there is nobody between you and your doctor right now is a bunch of lies.

Brain Dump

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I started writing this post a few days ago.  I figure I’ll just go ahead and append on the end of it with the understanding that, perhaps, my head space is a bit different than it was when I first began this ramble.

Not only do I feel the need to break up the utter and complete monotony of posting nothing but my workouts here, I also have a compulsion to simply talk about a few things.  Get some stuff out of my head and out there in the ether as it were.  As a result this may end up being an incoherent post at times, so I apologize in advance.

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Captain Kangaroo was a bloody genius

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I grew up watching Bob Keeshan play Captain Kangaroo. I don’t remember the show vividly to be completely honest. I believe I had moved on to bigger and better things by the time I started forming real memories. My memories of the show are more impressions than anything else. I found a quote from Keeshan this morning, though, that indicates he may have at least somewhat influenced the person who I became as an adult.

The responsibility of parents is to raise children who do not need parents.

When my son is an adult I want him to not need me anymore.  I want him to call me or shoot me an email every once in a while to let me know what is going on in his life, hell maybe even every day if he feels like it, but I want him to lead his life on his own.  I want him to face the challenges life throws at him on his own two feet, and when life knocks him on his ass I want him to get back up again on his own.  If he can’t I want him to know he can always call on me to help but I want that to be the aboslute last thing he would do – not the first.  Not because I will make him feel like shit about it, but becuase he doesn’t WANT to get help from anyone else to solve his problems.

I have, in the last few weeks, seen two very different examples of how bad it is for adults to rely on their parents to get them through life and I can’t have that for Alex.

Captain Random Strikes Again

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I think I might need to take another look at The Artist’s Way. Sam got me a copy of it several years ago, but the touchy-feely aspects of the book really turned me off and I put it down.  I don’t even know where my copy is.  Krystalle picked up a copy of it for herself a few weeks ago, and while she was just as put off by those aspects as I was she has been working with the program and it seems to be making a big difference for her.

I need to do something, though. I feel like I’m out of touch with my writing.  I’ve gotten used to communicating via 140 character messages on Twitter and I seem to lose cohesion on my longer posts very quickly.  Yesterday, for example, I started writing a piece on super hero archetypes as leaders and why Bush, who could be compared to Batman, failed.  It started out strongly enough but I just kinda fizzled out and ended up saving it to a text file on my desktop.  I may or may not pick it back up again at some point.

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