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So the little man has an annoying habit. We’ll be walking down the street, or across a parking lot, or wherever, and he’ll stop to pick up some random bit of interesting-looking trash. Now this is an 8-year-old we’re talking about here, not some toddler. But if you have, or have had any contact whatsoever with, a male child, then you know that discussions regarding germs, bacteria, or hand-washing are completely useless.

It all started a couple of years back when his Cub Scout den talked about the “leave no trace” ethic. Well kudos to Den Leader Matt, the lesson stuck.

Now look, I’m all for picking up after oneself, especially when traipsing through the wilderness, the psuedo-wilderness of the scout camp, or even the local park. But there have to be limits, or you’ll spend all day getting from here to there, and you’ll arrive with a full hefty bag.

Take yesterday for example: The boy just picked out a sweet pair of Adidas b-ball shoes, complete with the skull laces. Can he really be a men’s 5 already? We’re walking out to our car, and he grabs somebody’s index card shopping list off of the ground. I patiently explain for the umpteenth time that picking up the paper has now changed its status. Before, it was somebody else’s shirked responsibility. But now that he’s picked it up, it’s his. Even though it was already litter, now that he’s taken possession, it’s his litter.

He responds that he’s just trying to leave no trace. So as we pull out of our spot, I point to other pieces of wind-blown trash that have made their way to the edges of the parking lot, and I make what seems to me a well-reasoned argument. Why stop with just that one piece? Maybe he should grab one more, and then one more, ad infinitum. Of course I didn’t use the term “ad infinitum”, because then I’d have to make an aside to explain what it means, and that would ruin my parental speechifying flow.

And for the briefest of moments, I noticed that I sounded like a father in a Twisted Sister video or something. Like one of those “You don’t understand how the world works young man. Just wait until you have a job, and responsibilities, and people counting on you, and …” dads. Blecch. But truly, that vision lasted just a millisecond, and it didn’t derail me from wrapping up my argument.

If the goal is to remove all litter, then he could almost make a lifetime endeavor out of it, just in this one multi-big-box parking lot. And that’s what I told him. So then I close with my clincher: “How would you know when to stop picking up litter? You’d never really be done.” To which he responds simply, “I’d just keep doing it until it made me happy. Then I’d stop.”

Huh.

If you’re old like me, you might remember this bit of internet humor that went around in the mid-nineties. It was a supposed high school paired writing assignment that went south very quickly. See Alex Bogusy and Snopes for a couple of examples of the story.

Cut to last night. We’re driving to dinner, and Styx’s “Come Sail Away” came on the classic rock station. Now, just to be clear, I love Styx. The Grand Illusion was the first album I ever brought to school for our 5th grade “bring your music to class” days. So I was perfectly happy to enjoy the fine musical ramblings of the boys from Chicago.

However, my darling wife disagrees… L don’t dig on classic rock. But before my bride scowled me into changing the station, I remembered that paired writing story. And I was struck with how similar that song is to the high-schoolers’ essay. The first half is all idyllic and, well, meaningful. And the second half is aliens.

I know Dennis DeYoung gets the sole writing credit on the tune, but now I’m wondering if Tommy Shaw and DeYoung secretly did a “I’ll write the first 2 verses, then you close it out” thing?

The other day was my 2nd-grader’s inaugural ride in the front seat of the van.

He was checking out the new view from up there: Dad, what’s that? What’s that one? What’s that? I was explaining what a tachometer is, and trying to figure out why our Honda Odyssey even needs one, when he read the passenger-side mirror: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”.

So I explained what that was all about, and it got me thinking. The 2 rearview mirrors have completely different functions, different magnifications. And they’re not interchangeable.

If the driver’s side was zoomed out and convex like the passenger’s, you wouldn’t know just how close someone coming up on your left to pass really is. But if the passenger side wasn’t wide-angle, you’d miss someone in your blind spot.

Kinda like life. Sometimes you need a focused, accurate perspective, just to make sure you’re not about to get rear-ended when changing lanes. Other times, you need that broader but less-accurate passenger-side view, just to make sure you’re not missing something way over on the periphery.

Moreover, you need to make sure you’re switching back and forth between them often enough. You get fixated on one or the other, and something comes up and bites you.

So as this year passes into the next, and before you get bogged down in too many holiday to-do’s, resolutions and yearly goal lists, remember the mirrors. Keep your focus, but don’t forget the wide view too.

It’s good to have another front seat buddy. Although, just like his sister before him, he needs to understand rule #1 of front-seat passengering: the driver owns the radio.

… and three’s a trend. Don’t wanna get ahead of myself here, but I’ve now kept to a posting schedule for two consecutive Mondays. Woo-hoo.
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I remember back in the 80′s, seeing Michael Stipe and Mike Mills cover U2′s “One” with The Edge on an MTV awards show, and I thought that that was a fantastic rendition:

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So I got laid off about a month ago.

I’d love to write you a few thoughtful paragraphs about how I’m feeling, what I’m doing, and what the future may hold. But I’m in kind of a bullet-point mood, so here goes a few random observations:

• The severance package was decent enough (I’d been there for just short of 10 years), so I’m not feeling a panicked urgency to take whatever I can find. I’m trying to balance spending enough time to find a good fit, with not Read more »

My head is spinning right now. I’ve come to an unexpected realization:

I don’t really care how my kids do in school.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to underparent. I care very much what they do in school. I care about what they learn, I care about how they treat other people, and how others interact with them. It’s just that I feel like maybe I’ve finally turned some corner with not having any of my own ego tied up in their being A students with 160 IQ’s.

Carlin had a riff that went something like “Think about how dumb the average person you meet is. Now realize that half of the people in this world are dumber than that.”
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This is why I don’t have a journal. 8 months without a post. I suck.

    
Hey, here’s a couple of things that I’ve been listening to lately:

• http://www.RecklessKelly.com
• The Nerdist
• The Adam Carolla Show
• The Pipeline

All good. All funny. All worthy of staying awake on the bus for.

http://www.missyhiggins.com/

Okay, so I’m clearly behind the curve on this one. This is from an album released 2 years ago, but I just heard her for the first time this week on KBCO. Wikipedia says the song’s been featured on Grey’s, NCIS, Smallville and One Tree Hill. Which explains why I’d never heard it before.

At first hearing, I thought it was a new one from Brandi Carlile, but there are some subtle differences. Just a touch less gravelly I guess. Anyway, good stuff. Check her out: