SMH: Welcome Class of 2027!

As I entered the doors of West Aurora High School Wednesday night with Mary Kay and Aidan at my side, we saw a simple sign on the table, "Welcome Class of 2027!".

Yep, as we prepared for a 75-minute winding path of Kindergarten registration, there it was, slapping me right in my big, fat face.

There's certain 'years' that I remember for some reason.

• As a 9-year old, figuring out that I was going to be 33 when the calendar turned over to 1/1/2000.
• The summer of 1976, the Bicentennial Celebration of the US and the July 4th Parade in Des Plaines, IL (as my Dad was on the Board of Directors of the Des Plaines Elks Lodge, 1526)
• My 29th birthday (1995 when I spotted my first grey hair)
• I remember Benet Academy's 1981 Frosh Fest (I was a Sophomore working it) and some Alum was there with a baby who had a t-shirt on that said Class of 2000

Although I think I've joked about it several times that when Aidan goes off to College that I'd be roughly 60 years old and probably ready to retire, it really hadn't hit me down deep in the dark, recesses of my stomach that it would be 2027.

Now, I know a lot of my friends have kids at a wide range of age, so for some of you, well, you're well past this part of your lives but this is both exciting and frightening at the same time.

Open House at Goodwin Elementary is April 10th and first day is August 21st.  This summer is going to FLY by far too fast.

Hold on Brian, hold on tight.

Why Old Music Monday?

Yes, I know that in my original post, I said I'm using Old Music Monday as a vehicle to ensure I write more but it's also to take time to express my creative side which sometimes is blunted by the day-to-day rigor of my day gig.  But every so often, it crosses my mind that by the time Aidan is eighteen years old, I'll be sixty.

As we get older it's inevitable that we ponder what life will be like without us.  I'm not fixating on that, but with all of the social media we're engaged in, and I, a heavy-user, there's going to be amazing catalogs of material on us that one could use in tribute when we finally pass.

For me it's more about sharing with Aidan things that I may not take the time to do as he continues to mature and grow into the wonderful, young man he's going to be.  I think I'm doing a pretty good job of it right now by ensuring his iPad is loaded with a good balance of current and older music.

I'm amazed at which songs he gravitates to and which ones he doesn't.  It's actually become a bit of a game by me changing songs on his playlist to see what he picks up on the most.

But since life can be short and sweet, I might as well document songs and artists I love, give a tiny bit of history on where I was in my life or what was going on when I embraced it and hope that he learns to do the same.

So bud-bud, this specific tag is for you.

Uncle Tubby

To borrow a tag from my friend Heidi, I'm Uncle Tubby. It just means I *try* to eat well, but have a general lack of self control and indulge in whatever I damn well want.

To that end, under a challenge from my wife, I've joined Weight Watchers to see if I can make any headway.

Surprisingly, it's highly customizeable and thank Jesus they have an iPad app, otherwise I'd have an issue here at the start where I need to track everything passing these sweet, kissable lips of mine.

Original goal here is 30 pounds. Sure, in the words of Al McGuire, it's like a deck chair falling off the Queen Mary, but at this point, my fat arse needs to start something.

(W)horseshoe to the Head

When Jim Irsay says that Peyton Manning should "keep it (his comments) in the family", he does remember that it's a family that moved a football team under darkness of night out of the City of Baltimore, right?

His comments specifically were, "The horseshoe always comes first, and I think one thing he's always known, because he's been around it so long, is that, you know, you keep it in the family. If you've got a problem you talk to each other, it's not about campaigning or anything like that."

Jim, look, I know it was your Father but it was YOUR family who screwed over loyal fans in one of the most fantastic cities of the world.  Your family isn't as pristine and clean as you'd like it to be bub.

Peace, out!

Striking fear in the hearts of married men...

are the words "Honey, I've lost my engagement/wedding ring".

And those are the words I heard on Saturday night around 6:20pm.

We had finished dinner at one of our favorite pizzerias and had walked down the street to one of those custom popcorn shops that are popping up now as quickly as cupcake joints.  As MK was paying for our indulgences, she looked at her hand and noticed that the "rock" was gone.

I almost wish we were psych patients at the time and someone was monitoring our brain waves and activity.  I imagine that it plays out something like this:

• The woman thinks about all the sentimentality, the meaning, the love, flashes to the moment she was proposed to, about how she's let down her husband, how it is irreplaceable
• The man thinks, "holy cr@p, that's a shedload of money down the drain, thank GOD I have it insured"

Now, that's the funny me making that up but I'm probably not far off.  I can tell you with hand on heart that I thought the following:

First, I thought about what MK was feeling and how she was freaking out and THEN, I started retracing all the steps and where we've been for the last 2-4 hours.  I think it's truly how men are programmed.  We're functional beings and given a task we immediately put our brain into full-on process mode to "solve the problem". 

To be honest, for the first 10-15 minutes I didn't think once about the emotional part, it was hunter-gatherer "must find ring, must re-track every step until found" caveman mentality.  Sappy enough, but this is what "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" basically tells us.

Yes, I read that thing 12-13 years ago but at some point it's pretty accurate for most.  But didn't anyone other than me think that there was no way John Gray was heterosexual?  It's probably what gave him the insight into both genders, but I didn't see him trot out his own wife to give credibility.  That said, it's still pretty accurate.

So that's what we did.  Backtrack through the popcorn shop, then on the sidewalk all the way back to the pizzeria.  I was amazed at the kindness that the two couples showed at the table we sat at in that they all jumped out of their chairs and were on the floor with me looking under our previous table.  Along the way, my caveman instincts were mentally marking places we couldn't see/were tough to see so that at 7:00am when I was back in downtown Geneva on my hands and knees I would pay special attention to those "high risk areas"

All shop owners took our name and number in case they or their clean up crews were honest, found it and would call us and everyone was sympathetic and willing to help however they could, which is nice to see in this age of self-importance.

We spent probably twenty minutes looking around our car using a flashing light/glow wand (thank you large circus that was recently in town) to look around the car on the sidewalk and grass with no avail.

After resigning ourselves to move on to the next part of our search, the car and then Walgreen's and all other places my wife stopped during the day as well as ripping apart our house, my wife decided to look in what has affectionately been called "Momma Bag".

Momma Bag is the amalgamation of coloring books, sticker sheets, crayons, markers, pictures, paper, you name it to help occupy the little man's mind and hands when we're out at dinner or wherever.  She had been in the bag several times during dinner.  She decided to go through it all in the car before I pulled away.  I was nervous because it was dark and emptying bags can create further problems.

and there, at the bottom of the bag, was the ring.  Several thank God's were exchanged as well as a few Hallelujah's.  My wife was relieved.  My brain was still categorizing the places I still needed to search (yes, men are a bit slower).  I was relieved as well and it made the drive home a lot more pleasant than it could have been.  Even on the ride home, I was thinking about how that discussion goes with your Insurance guy.

Every year I curse that "special rider" on our home owners insurance that's covering that specific piece of jewelry as I don't always feel the premium justifies the item.  Yep, color me part of the converted.  Happy to pay that premium this coming June and for every year afterwards.

The upshot to all of this is that my wife has been shedding pounds like I eat chicken wings (uh, maybe that's not a good example of how we're exhibiting opposite behavior) and I'm so extremely proud of her and her dedication to getting to a healthier life.

With all that is good about that, one has to remember that things like rings and pants don't fit the way they used to.  If the pants fall down around your ankles, you're just em-bare-assed, but when a ring falls off, it strikes fear into the hearts of men and women.

The genius of "Nana"

From very early in my life, I always knew that my Mother was extremely creative.  After all, since she was a teacher of 1st & 2nd graders, she needed to show mad skillz at getting them to pay attention and learn something so that they didn't end up being a bunch of tools later in life.

I've been amazed at how, even after 30+ years since early retirement, she continues to use those skills to help teach and open up a world of knowledge to her Little Prince, her grandson, my son, Aidan.

Two years ago, I laughed out loud at seeing the appearance of construction paper cut out into cars, airplanes and other creative shapes for Aidan to put stickers onto or to color or to do whatever he wanted with them.  They were the exact same cut-outs that she used with my brother and I when we were little and with her students.  The templates were originally cut out of manila folders and she STILL has them.

But she's also had some "new tricks" up her sleeves that update methods she used back in the day.

The newest one takes the cake though:

We've already instilled a strong sense of "saving" into Aidan.  He has his own savings account at our local bank, he has a piggy bank that he puts spare change into weekly, and he participates in the "bank at school" program that our bank has with The Goddard School which he attends.

My parents are also headed back to Florida tomorrow and so their contact with Aidan will now be limited to phone calls and/or Internet video calls on the weekends.  He has made it infinitely clear that he didn't want Nana & Papa to go back to Florida because he was going to miss them and all the fun that they have together.  He said that he was going to be sad about it.  It's always a teary time for my Mom when she says goodbye to Aidan when they won't see each other for more than a week.  Waterworks flow.

It's with all of this in mind that she's created a nifty counting/savings/calendar technique to help ease the pain of the distance between she and Aidan.  She gave him a roll of pennies last night.  She told him that when he got home, to put 6 pennies into his "money bank" and then each morning thereafter, to put one more penny into the bank.  Not only does he make some money but when he gets down to the last penny left and he puts it into his bank, THAT is the day we pack up the car and head off to Florida on vacation.

Today was the first morning and he ran right to the bank and reminded me to help him get one penny out of the roll.  It's going to kill him to still wait 43 more days, but at least he'll know we're getting closer.

Well, this was a wasted year on Duey's Brain

2011 has been one hell of a year.  So many things as life whizzes by.

Unfortunately in August, things went a little haywire with life and in early September my Father-in-Law passed away suddenly.

Since then it's been even more hectic as this came totally out of the blue.  I've tried to be supportive to my wife and her family and a lot of time has been spent helping out my Mother-in-Law adjust to all of these changes as well as some personal ones she's going through.

So I do love posting to the blog but I have to be honest, it will likely stay quiet for a little bit longer until we can get things finally under control.

I am very thankful for all the support, love, laughter and insight that my family, friends and co-workers have given to me in 2011 and I endeavor to give back to them, more than they give to me in 2012.

Happy New Year everyone.  Be safe and enjoy life.

Ode to a Genius (one of a million going out tonight)

Steve Jobs, you were intelligent enough to probably realize the impact you've had on so many lives.  If you didn't, well, you're FB/Twitter feeds are blowing up to prove it.


I will never EVER forget the impact of the commercial your company made for the 1984 Superbowl.  I was a Senior in High School and had about 2 years of BASIC programming skills under my belt which I unfortunately learned NOT on Apple products.

My first Mac was the Mac Plus (1988) with an external 45MB Seagate hard drive.  Imagine my jaw dropping moment when I pulled the shroud off that Mac Plus to upgrade the RAM (anyone remember SIMM cards?) to see the signatures, engraved in the resin, of the Apple employees who created it, including YOURS.

The YEARS I spent arguing MacOS v Windows are years I'll never get back, but at the end of the day, you made a box full of capacitors, electronics and complexity accessible for ANYONE to use.  The fact that your product opened an entire world to my Father at 55 years of age that now allows he and my Mother to have Skype calls with their Grandson every Saturday or Sunday during the winters is just pure magic.

These things, which to some may be small, shaped my life and made me into the early technology adopter that I became and continue to be.  Although at times, well, many times, I cursed your business model, you stayed the visionary that you always were and when you went back to Apple, you saved it and made it even better.  I still argue with the business model, but who the hell am I to argue with that level of success....  clearly I had no clue.

Time is fleeting...

Wowzers.

We got a letter from Aidan's school that by the end of August he's going to move on to the next room, Pre-school II. Sort of came as a surprise because we though that he wouldn't move on until his 4th birthday but it's making sense that the changes now will happen in line with the normal school year schedule.

As much as we want him to stay this loveable little boy, which, he challenges us about every single night as of late with antics to avoid going to sleep, he's growing and it's going much faster than we ever thought it would. EVERYONE tells us this but you just want to believe that he'll stay this adorable little man forever.

And it has been challenging. One minute you can have almost an adult type conversation with him and the next he's making silly noises to try to drown you out as you talk to him about getting in his pj's to go to bed.

We continue to try to instill loving, thoughtful behavior into his life and he reflects that with things he says and does. But he definitely has the fighting spirit of his Mommy and Daddy. I know I can be tough on him but it's just me holding on to the last shreds of hope that I can protect him from everything bad in the world. Unrealistic as hell but yet, based on my own life experiences.

Don't get me wrong, we're not trying to change him, nor are we the worst stage-parents in the world, but we all know that these formative years will set him on his path and we just want him to have the best shot at it all.

You know when your Mother threatens you that she wishes you have a child "just like you"? Well, I'm glad he's just like us.

When is a vacation, not a vacation?

When you bring THREE laptops along.

Yes, sadly, we lugged three laptops on our vacation.  Our normal/family one, my work one, my wife's work one (yes, working vacations, vacations working).

Add to this of course, an iPad, iPod, Blackberry, HTC Evo and two sets of Bose noise-reduction headphones.  Further add in a 35mm digital camera, a pocket-sized digital camera and a Flip Video.

I needed a damn carry-on for just all the cords, wires and chargers!!

We're sad people........ but we're still having fun and by the time we get on the Disney Cruise ship on Sunday we'll be divorced from technology for at least a couple days.

A 3 year old's mind

So last night when I was putting Aidan to bed, I had another interesting exchange with him.

Prior to bedtime he was particularly naughty.  I won't go into details but let's just say that instead of staying up for another 45 minutes it was straight to bed time.

There were lots of tears and not wanting Daddy to put him to bed, but once we got settled down and I started to read it got interesting.

One of the books I was reading to him was based off of The Incredibles movie which is one that we have not seen.  Bob, the Dad, at one point blew off someone named Buddy.  Years later Buddy turned into an evil genius named Syndrome and tried to exact his revenge against Bob and his family.

Bob

Buddy

Syndrome

Aidan repeated to me that Buddy was a child when the initial incident happened and that now that he had "grown up" he turned into a "bad guy".

• He asked me if "Buddy had been bad to his Mommy and Daddy".
• I said "yes".
• He then asked me if "Buddy had been bad to his doggie too".
• I said "yes"
• He immediately projected Buddy onto himself and his evening's actions.
• He then told me that he didn't want to be like Buddy and that he wanted to grow up to be a good superhero.  (remember, we're in this massive Batman/Spiderman phase right now)
• I told him that "that is a great idea" and that "we want you to grow up and be a good superhero too"

He then let me finish the book.

It's good to see that he's recognizing his bad behaviors and then wants to make amends for what he's done.

Who knows, maybe someday  WILL be a good superhero.  We can only allow him to keep living his dreams.

You are your Father's Son

I'm sure many men have heard this as a phrase that basically says "you've grown up to be just like your Dad", which, depending on the family dynamic and your own situations could be a good thing or a bad thing.

As objectively as I can be, I can say that when it comes to passion for work, passion for family and core values, I did grow up to be my "Father's Son".

Where I didn't was in the fact that I don't want to get out of bed on EVERY given morning, I'm a technology geek (which is mostly just generational), I'm relatively A-D-D, my music tastes are radically different, and our political views are quite divergent.  Maybe those last two are related ;-p

But that's where the pay-it-forward generational fun happens.

• Aidan has quickly adopted the "mornings suck" attitude that his Daddy has embraced since, well, as long as I can freaking remember.
• He also has his candy addiction "jones" on very early in life, probably earlier than I did but then again, it's MY addiction he's carrying on so access to it is much easier than it was for me as a child.
• He already loves his technology.  Not only did he know how to swipe his finger on an iPod Touch just shy of two years old to flip through pictures, for Christmas he got his very own first digital camera.  Below are two pictures that he took along with a picture of the camera.  He can frame it well, but he's still moving his hands quite a bit so most of the pictures are Dali-esque.

Blurry Daddy or Daddy's normal look circa 1985	Extreme close-up of Wrigley

So I think we all know this happens but being more aware of it at this point keeps me on my toes.  Some of his mannerisms are very much like mine and he cracks us up with his "overacting" at time when he's trying to make a point.

I love him to bits.

Here's a shot from December of the three generations of LoCicero men.  Damn we're smokin' hot! ;-)