🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Silence🎶
Public AI🖥️
BTY🎂
THE DAILY UPDATE
Three Little Things To Notice and Be Grateful For:
- Toothpaste caps
- Multiple ear piercings
- Wildflowers
Wordle 1,096 3/6
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🟨🟩🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Connections
Puzzle #374
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🟦🟦🟦🟦
The song in my head when I woke up: The Sound of Silence, by Disturbed
Favorite line from the song in my head when I woke up: In restless dreams, I walked alone
Commute Tunes: My drive home from work yesterday was accompanied by songs from my Hard Stuff playlist.
- Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, AC/DC
- Institutionalized, Suicidal Tendencies
- Estranged, Guns N’ Roses
- Who Made Who, AC/DC
- Crazy Train, Ozzy Osbourne
- Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
Something I’m looking forward to today: Boy The Younger’s birthday celebration.
Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: A weekend getaway with Wifey Poo.
Something I’m grateful for from yesterday: A good work-in-the-office day.
What I’m writing: Yesterday’s Two Crappy Pages involved a long journal entry of me trying to figure some stuff out.
What I’ve written: Bringing AI to the Public Sector: Imagine a city where a resident posts on social media about a hazardous road condition, such as a large pothole, and tags the local Department of Transportation. That city’s social media monitoring system would instantly detect the post, process the information, and automatically generate a case management ticket.
There was a moment when I thought Boy The Younger’s entrance into the world was going to happen in the front passenger seat of a Nissan Altima. Wifey Poo had gone into labor about an hour and a half before, and her contractions went from widely spaced out and uneven to a regular every-three-minutes very very fast.
At the time, we lived in Middle of Nowhere, Missourah, a good hour from the hospital where BTY was scheduled to be born. So there I was, at midnight, driving up a lonely, windy country road at 85 mph, hoping no wildlife would step out to say “Hello,” as Wifey Poo hee-hee-haaaaa’d beside me and Boy The Elder rattled on about Bakugans from the backseat. That BTE was in the car was unexpected. The person who had agreed to watch him in the eventuality Wifey Poo went into labor slept through numerous phone calls, so BTE was part of this death-defying drive toward Columbia, Missourah.
Reaching Interstate 70 was a blessed relief. All of a sudden, the road opened up and I pushed the Altima to over 100 mph.
And that’s when the flashing lights popped up behind me. I pulled over, rolled down the window, leaned out and screamed back at the officer, “She’s having a baby!” He cautiously approached, shined a flashlight on Wifey Poo beside me, and said, “OK then. Let’s go.”
The last three miles to the hospital was done with a police escort. Of course, BTY then slammed the brakes on his entrance into this world, and it was another few hours before he was born.
It’s been 15 years since that day, and suddenly I’m confronted with an adolescent on the verge of his learner’s permit. My hope is that he doesn’t take driving tips from his dad’s journey to the hospital on the day of his birth.
This is a bittersweet time in my life, a time I’m having trouble figuring out. I’m exceedingly happy about the state of my children. BTE is now married to a wonderful woman, and I have a real daughter-in-law. BTY is a great kid who has found himself on the baseball field, academically and in life quite well in his latest trip around the sun. Everything with my boys is good.
And yet I find myself sad… sad that BTE isn’t “B” at all anymore. He’s MTE — Man The Elder — or something like that. And BTY is following too closely in his footsteps. On this trip around the sun, he will get a job. He will learn to drive. He will soon find new freedom that doesn’t rely on me and Wifey Poo.
This is an inherently good thing. It’s as it should be. And yet here I am … feeling quite bizarre and unable to figure out exactly what it is that’s going on with me.
This is uncommon for me. I’m the master at identifying not only my feelings but the feelings of everyone in my orbit. And I don’t have a clue what’s up with me. I’m happy … but I’m not. I feel vindicated for my parenting style … and yet I’m also feeling as if my purpose for the past few decades is winding down, so what now?
I’ll be fine. I always am. But I’m struggling figuring this one out.
Happy birthday, my son!
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