got your attention?
In an effort to be the best parents we can be we have started a gratitude list during diner. One of my son's first moments of gratitude revolved around being grateful for his penis...........fish. That is what he calls his weather loach fish. Link below---yes they do look a bit like a penis.
penis pic (weather loach fish)
Full disclosure my family's dinner table conversation is often R rated. We use words like penis and we sometimes talk about sex and drugs and rock and roll and use 4 letter words. I am not saying that is right (or wrong) I am just hoping that you won't judge our parenting and I won't judge yours.
But more about penises.
As we roll towards the end of school the usual fun festivities are going on. This includes the distribution of school yearbooks. As usual after the yearbooks are distributed the kids are given time to sign each others. Turns out my son is a bit of a Picasso (actually he has failed pretty much every fine arts class he has taken) and he added a bit of a flourish to his notes---a poorly drawn penis. Sadly, my son was hardly original in this--much of the student body was drawing penises in each others yearbooks (I too have some in my yearbooks from yesteryear). But my son gets caught by a teacher who sees his artwork in another kids yearbook the teacher is signing. My son gets sent home from school along with 2 other aspiring artists. Using some basic statistical methods analyzing his yearbook I would have to guess that 80-100 students were scrawling penises in yearbooks. Punishing less than 5% of the students committing a crime creates a challenging parenting moment, and sends a poor message to the rest of the students (do the crime and let the usual suspects take the fall).
I want to support the school when they discipline my child. I tell my son that because he is outspoken and loud he is liable to draw more attention to himself and therefore needs to have extra good behavior. I tell him that drawing penises is juvenile. But it is really hard to me to find a really good teaching point. He didn't toss other kids under the bus for a victimless crime. I agree with him on that. He didn't fight about it, he took responsibility which I also agree with.
Maybe there is a good teaching moment here for all of us. Sometimes we as a society would benefit from being a bit more mellow, a bit less PC. The teacher who saw the offending penis drawing could have just ignored it. What damage would that have done? What if people had either laughed or cringed or ignored Michelle Wolf's speech at the DC correspondents dinner? Did it really deserve to be dissected and analyzed by every 'pundit' under the sun? Did that help improve discourse in our country? For crying out loud she was giving a roast toast--what do you expect? For that matter what do you expect from middle school students at the end of the year with pens and yearbooks.
What can be as important as our behavior is how to choose to respond to other's behavior. If you go to a political roast expect to get toasted and accept that as the cost of some laughs. If you give yearbooks to middle school kids expect some colorfully autographs. If you don't like that then ignore it, and if that doesn't work for you then maybe you have to inspect everyone's yearbooks and send as many porn artists as you track down home. But maybe seeing 25% of the student body in the vice principal's office might make you reassess your decision. Sometimes the right thing to do is nothing at all.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
forget math lets go for a bike ride
Riding a bike in Chicago is either a life risking endeavor or your riding the trail on the lakefront. The lakefront trail isn't bad but its crowded and you still have to get to it which involves riding on regular traffic roads. Riding a bike on the streets of Chicago is kinda like playing Frogger on acid. The odds of getting hit by a car door, bus, or someone pulling out of an alley are very high, and eventually your frog always gets run over.
Which makes my son laugh when the mayor of Aspen drones on in all seriousness about how to make the town of Aspen more bike friendly. Yea you could do it, but as he said ' I could do 360s down Main street and not get hit'. He is right. Aspen is very bike friendly. I would say Aspen might be the Disney World of biking. There are bike trails and bike lanes everywhere. Riding up to the Maroon Bells, or Ashcroft or Independence pass are some of the best rides in the country. And they are just out my back door. There are also 1000s of miles of mountain bike trails as well.
Which brings up a slightly different biking challenge in Aspen. Check your ego at the door. There are a number of ex professional bikers who live here full or part time. There are a number of world class athletes who live here full time and ride bikes. There are a number of really rich folks who spend A LOT of money on their bikes. And there are e-bikes (electronic aid). Which means you will get passed a lot.
Examples:
1. Driving down Main st the other day going 25 mph I look in my rearview mirror to see Johnny Law on a bike keeping pace with me. He is barely pedaling a crappy looking bike with a flack jacket and a gun and he is doing 25 mph up a slight hill. WTF. Ah he is on an e-bike. I've been passed by e-bikes all over the place. Heading up independence pass (a solid climb) I was passed by a husband and wife who look like they just pulled a jail break from an assisted living home and they cruised right by me---and the e part of the bike was so small that I almost didn't realize they had a motor. Thank God cause otherwise my ego couldn't have handled it.
2. I was heading up to Ashcroft and was passed by a professional team out for a training ride. I'm kinda slow and old, and they were young and fast. Thank goodness they were all wearing their practice team jerseys so I knew exactly what that was that flew by me. Sometimes the pros (and ex pros) are not so kind as to let you know who they are and it can be a bit tuff on the ego. I was passed by a couple of older women who were probably going 12 mph up a 7 degree grade while chatting about what to bake for the school bake sale. That hurts. But that is Aspen.
3. Equipment. I'm kinda old school and cheap so I really don't want to spend $10k+ for a new ride. I ride an old Schwinn (ok its a Gunnar Tire-Biter from 1998) --which was an ok bike 20 years ago. I was riding downhill from Ashcroft with a friend of mine who has a nice but not great new bike. He was probably 15% faster than me downhill and I was in a much more aerodynamic position. Conclusion---new tires blow away old tires. And if you got cash to spend, you can work a lot less and go a lot faster---ergo that guy who passed me on a $20k bike might not have my heart or legs but he sure has my pocket book beat and that means he is going to crush me on the road.
And I am ok with that. I get to ride over the contintinal divide, next to high mountain streams and lakes surrounded by jaw dropping beauty with minimal car traffic. But I will get passed. A lot. And I am (mostly) ok with that. I just need to make sure I don't get pulled over by a police man on a bike for speeding in my car---I am not sure I am ready for that.
Which makes my son laugh when the mayor of Aspen drones on in all seriousness about how to make the town of Aspen more bike friendly. Yea you could do it, but as he said ' I could do 360s down Main street and not get hit'. He is right. Aspen is very bike friendly. I would say Aspen might be the Disney World of biking. There are bike trails and bike lanes everywhere. Riding up to the Maroon Bells, or Ashcroft or Independence pass are some of the best rides in the country. And they are just out my back door. There are also 1000s of miles of mountain bike trails as well.
Which brings up a slightly different biking challenge in Aspen. Check your ego at the door. There are a number of ex professional bikers who live here full or part time. There are a number of world class athletes who live here full time and ride bikes. There are a number of really rich folks who spend A LOT of money on their bikes. And there are e-bikes (electronic aid). Which means you will get passed a lot.
Examples:
1. Driving down Main st the other day going 25 mph I look in my rearview mirror to see Johnny Law on a bike keeping pace with me. He is barely pedaling a crappy looking bike with a flack jacket and a gun and he is doing 25 mph up a slight hill. WTF. Ah he is on an e-bike. I've been passed by e-bikes all over the place. Heading up independence pass (a solid climb) I was passed by a husband and wife who look like they just pulled a jail break from an assisted living home and they cruised right by me---and the e part of the bike was so small that I almost didn't realize they had a motor. Thank God cause otherwise my ego couldn't have handled it.
2. I was heading up to Ashcroft and was passed by a professional team out for a training ride. I'm kinda slow and old, and they were young and fast. Thank goodness they were all wearing their practice team jerseys so I knew exactly what that was that flew by me. Sometimes the pros (and ex pros) are not so kind as to let you know who they are and it can be a bit tuff on the ego. I was passed by a couple of older women who were probably going 12 mph up a 7 degree grade while chatting about what to bake for the school bake sale. That hurts. But that is Aspen.
3. Equipment. I'm kinda old school and cheap so I really don't want to spend $10k+ for a new ride. I ride an old Schwinn (ok its a Gunnar Tire-Biter from 1998) --which was an ok bike 20 years ago. I was riding downhill from Ashcroft with a friend of mine who has a nice but not great new bike. He was probably 15% faster than me downhill and I was in a much more aerodynamic position. Conclusion---new tires blow away old tires. And if you got cash to spend, you can work a lot less and go a lot faster---ergo that guy who passed me on a $20k bike might not have my heart or legs but he sure has my pocket book beat and that means he is going to crush me on the road.
And I am ok with that. I get to ride over the contintinal divide, next to high mountain streams and lakes surrounded by jaw dropping beauty with minimal car traffic. But I will get passed. A lot. And I am (mostly) ok with that. I just need to make sure I don't get pulled over by a police man on a bike for speeding in my car---I am not sure I am ready for that.
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