Speechless

I am at a loss.  A loss for words.

As a Catholic I understand the church teaching on life, from conception to natural death.  Suicide is not part of the catechism and is not an option.  I am also an EMS responder and I know that it is an option though all too often.

Tonight after a happy go lucky family dinner I was stopped with the words that Robin Williams, one of my favorite actors, had apparently taken his own life.

I am here at a keyboard, unsure how to process this.  Williams was one of those people on my Ten People To Meet list.  Ugh.  Ouch.  Why?  Why would he prevent the world from his talents?  Why is it he did not find the same joy he brought to others with his characters from the Genie in Aladin to Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning Vietnam.

I have known for years he has battled both addiction and depression.  Surely he did not need Obamacare to find a physician who could treat him.  He placed himself back in rehab earlier this year to help keep himself sober.  Surely he had all the mechanisms in place to maintain his own safety.

His performance as Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting made me believe he had it together and could overcome.  His performance made us believe...like most of us do when we want to think things are okay.

I look at him and he is a classic manic depressive and his audiences got to see those great moments when he was on.  When he loved us for loving him and he found ways to entertain us in new and inventive ways.

My question for this lost life is who is the next person who will take their own life because we missed the signs they were in deeper than we thought they were.  We have lost an amazing talent.  We have lost a man who could make us laugh with ease in any film, who brought us to tears over his student's self-inflicted death who fought too hard to find his voice (Dead Poets Society), and he reminded us of the importance of family in Hook and Mrs. Doubtfire.

I wrote about responder suicide back in February and whether it be an Oscar winning actor or a guy who I have ridden the ambulance with it breaks me.  Why would someone take the gift given to them and take it away from everyone else?

I am horrified.  Not by the act alone, but the utter desperation that must exist in those who can find no way out of the pain in their own mind, but to stop their mind and body.  I speak regularly across the country and parts of the world and I usually can get by in any conversation, but tonight, I am speechless.

Daddy Deals

Hmmm..ready for a deal?

I am not much into haggling as a parent.  I recently realized that offering choices as to where we go to eat was a disaster as two of three children old enough to verbally communicate would always come up with four options or there would be a lobbying effort intense enough by my sons on the eldest daughter that K Street would be proud.  That has caused the decision to return to mom and dad while they can still choose their menu items.

However, I recently came across another blog post about limiting screen time.  Limiting screen time?  Do I have to do this?  My oldest gets his school work done without complaint and without reminder.  My wife and I don't even ask anymore because we normally get a look back like don't I always have my work done.

His school work is good, his grades are As, he participates in baseball, he raises money for ALS research, and he serves at church.  Kind of hard for me to give him a hard time.

Little brother gets good grades too though getting him to do work under his own initiative has been a little bit harder, but the calendar still says summer.  Why am I messing with them?

That being the case, the writer of the aformentioned blog has a great idea.  Don't limit screen time.  Her answer is you can have all you want once your other stuff is done.  Her list is her list and I don't know that it could all be mine, but I am interested in seeing where this exercise may go.

While I have not ever been a huge fan of having to have beds made, I have found that when their beds are at least made they also have a clean floor.  When the covers and sheets have been kicked off and cover the floor, they are covering land mines of Legos, baseball cleats or other game paraphernalia, and every item we need at the last minute such as library books to return.  That is a good item to have on a list.

As for required reading....eh.  Both my sons read well on their own and took on the Harry Potter series entirely too young so it is a little hard for me to require them to do something they already do, i.e. it isn't a chore and I don't want reading to be a chore.


Like required reading, I am also not sure about required creative time.  Can you force creative time?  Isn't that why Lennon and McCartney were writing lyrics on restaurant napkins because inspiration hit there and not when they were sitting in a room forcing...."creativity."

They also have found themselves in some magical military academy at some point this summer as the "Yes Sirs" and "No Sirs" seem to be flying without request of late.  Moreover they are extending these courtesies much more liberally of late than I had previously noted.  This has even spread to knocking out chores so it is hard to say do a chore when they are already getting most stuff done.  This being the case, do I need to add this to the list if it is already happening?

As we get to the school year I am not sure how to address some rules for screen time, but since they are knocking stuff out anyway, I am not sure if I am going to haggle or not.  Maybe Daddy doesn't have a deal.

Vacation

Various news reports have President Obama leaving for vacation in Martha's Vineyard for the next few weeks, but the real question we should be asking is: Hasn't he been on vacation?

While the President leaves town to play golf with NFL stars and other friends, seven year old jihadis are posing on Twitter with the severed heads of their enemies.

Should we then be surprised that Hillary Clinton, trying to feather her
own nest is already slamming her former boss as weak on foreign policy - when she led the State Department.  It would make for great daytime television drama if the soap opera weren't so real.  Meanwhile her leadership style appears to be to check poll numbers and stick her finger to the wind hoping for providence.

The fact is that neither one of these amateurs has any idea what goes on in the real world outside their dense little circles of friends and sycophants who tell them what they want to hear.

While it has become common practice to simply blame Bush for any problems Mr. Obama has had to face, he has now owned the office for six years.  Is he that helpless that he still blames his predecessor?  What is interesting is how calm, cool, and collected President Bush has been on all these attacks.  While I still find him to the wrong President who vastly increased the police state that is the US, he looks like a monk in comparison to Mr. Obama.  Moreover, it has been Obama that has destroyed the US military, not a foreign foe, but its own leader that makes it less likely to be able to confront attacks in the world.

Perhaps Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton are hoping you will not notice as things continue to spiral out of control, but it spiraled out of control on their respective watches.  Perhaps they hope that you will be too ensconced in your NFL schedule or holiday shopping.  Maybe they are hoping you are too busy making ends meet to notice the trail of disaster they have left behind.  Hopefully though voters will remember that while the world burns these two enjoy their vacations from the limelight.

Judged By The Content Of Your Skin

I am sad, yet thankful.  In a few days I will end my relationship with Facebook and I can be pleased to know I will no longer have to see people posting such inane comments as "President Obama's news conference on his decision to conduct air strikes in Iraq showed his decisiveness and strength. I LOVE seeing him lead."

Yes, this came from a friend of mine who is black and I feel sorry for her.

Obama has not shown decisiveness or strength.  For weeks now, ISIS - the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria - has been forcing Christians to either renounce their faith or be killed.  The world has watched as children are beheaded.  This President who showed his true colors with his red line in Syria was backed into the corner by a Junior Varsity team as the President's own team would say.

His amateurs these past six years should be a warning sign for future elections - hint hint Mrs. Clinton - but unfortunately probably will not be.  President Obama has no obvious goals and seems disinterested in protecting Christians in Iraq, much less protecting the gains America made by sacrificing her soldiers in the war in that region.  His interest seems only to maintain whatever is left of any electoral chance the Democratic party might have this year.

I get that there is a great deal of question about whether or not we should have ever entered Iraq and clearly the goals of fighting there were questionable to begin with and no exit strategy existed with President Bush either, but once you go in, you can't just pull up stakes and run and hope everything works out.

Unfortunately I still see people who refuse to acknowledge this President's administration has been an abject failure.  He passed one of the largest domestic legislative initiatives ever...without support from the minority.  He has watched as American significance has fallen around the world.  He has managed to watch as more and more Americans leave the workforce - lowering unemployment - but causing our country to become one of the least productive ever.  Further, black unemployment is twice that of the other races tracked, i.e. President Obama does zero for the people who love him the most.

I believe Martin Luther King Jr. would be rolling over in his grave.  His arrests, beatings, and the threats against him were made so that people could be judged by their actions and not their skin tone, but instead it is increasingly clear that blacks in America would rather have a black President than a good President.  They have ignored his multiple errors.

I Scream, You Scream...

Ice cream.

Is there anything more American than that?  Okay, apple pie.  Baseball.  Football.  Mom.  But aren't they all better with ice cream?

So to complete my most recent conference experience, I enjoyed a quick tour of the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory outside Tulsa.  I had no idea they knock out 100,000 gallons of ice cream...per day!  Wow!  I also had no idea that cartons of ice cream enter a blast freezer upside down where they are super chilled to minus 68 degrees Fahrenheit.  (I will note I was a little disappointed our tour guide could not give me the quick answer to how cold that was in Kelvin.  Oh well.)

In any case, I did not even think about the issues they brought up with starting a company a hundred years ago to make ice cream given "everybody" made their own. In any case, if you need a quick diversion while in Tulsa for you and or kids, this isn't a bad one.  For a few bucks you get to see ice cream pretty much straight from the cow to the carton and enjoy a couple of scoops or sugary goodness.

P.S. For those of you I know who are wondering about the Fahrenheit to Kelvin thing I can not tell you the formula, but I can say that -68 F would be 217.5944.

Cars and Girls...

Coming back from another conference and doing another drive to speak a few times made me thing of the Florida Georgia Line song Cruise.  I could tell you I had some great meaning on this one, but I don't.  I heard it at a minor league baseball game recently and liked it as intro music.

I realize this is not the best reason for a tune, but it's a song to keep everyone happy this afternoon o. the way home.  Enjoy your ride and enjoy your weekend.

Dizzy At Dilly's Deli

As I noted yesterday, travel with five children requires the kids eat free meals when and where able.  After a full day of donating blood, speaking at two sessions, and looking for a third that was cancelled where to eat, where to eat?  In this case, we ended up at Dilly's Deli.

We skipped appetizers here mostly because nothing blew us away, but unlike the usual chips/salsa combo they offer humus, tabouli, and a couple healthier choices.  We did however go four bottles deep of Boylan's root beer.  I always enjoy the surprised look on a server's face when my kids, paraphrasing Radar from MASH, inform him they don't need glasses or straws because you don't use those in combat.

Unfortunately the smiles did not continue as I did not go with my gut and instead had a Vincent Carbone.  All their sandwiches are accompanied by names that I guess are supposed to add life.  Unfortunately this Tulsa take on a Philly cheese steak was lacking and should have been on life support.  I should have gone with a Dragoo or a Margie's Reub, a pastrami and cheese or Reuben sandwich respectively.  Oh well, live and learn.  It isn't that it was bad, it was just eh.

Nonetheless, the group was happy as they concluded their meals with either chocolate or chocolate chip cookie dough milkshakes which weren't that impressive.

The service was good and the place was kid friendly.  Everyone else enjoyed their meal so I think it pretty much met my expectations IF I had ordered my first choice.  I let my head play games with itself though and probably ordered the wrong thing.  3 Stars for not disappointing and being a decent place to take my brood.

If you are looking to throw back a Boylan's soda or sandiwch, you will find the Dilly Deli at:

402 E 2nd Street
Tulsa, Oklahoma  74120

Have fun!