The son-unit received his formal MA diploma from the University of Iceland yesterday, wrapping up his graduate work in Viking & Medieval Norse Studies. It’s kind of weird to think we won’t have a good excuse to visit Reykjavik (except maybe transferring through on Iceland Air) any more, but we’re both really proud of the work he put in on this, the knowledge he gained (and shared), and this journey he’s been on.
For the record, I am now (besides the cat) the least-educated (by degree) person in the house. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Of course, the question (which we try not to bring up too much, not wanting to be those parents) is, what now. He is applying for museum work, some possible archaeological positions, and whatever else he can find in the field, focusing on local things here in Colorado but also a bit elsewhere in the States. Meanwhile, he has some part-time work (and is looking to improve that), and, regardless, he has a roof here over his head for as long as he needs it.
So today is a milestone date for me, which means I’ll probably blabber about it far more than anyone is interested. But, for the record …
Today, 30 years ago, I arrived in Colorado.
I was born and raised a California boy, starting up in the Bay Area, then moving down to LA when I was in early elementary school. Except for a brief 9 month stint up in Fort Collins (Colorado) when I was in high school (as my dad tested out a different twist on his career, which he decided he didn’t care for), I lived, went to college, got jobs, got married, in California.
That is the year that was
Fast Forward to 1994, which was not a great year for me — going through a (zany but moderately amicable) divorce, tied up for several months living out of a hotel for a project I was trying to rescue for my employer, and, subsequent to that, sort of kicking around the office, trying to figure out what was next (and learning all about this amazing Internet that the company was finally connected to).
Then my boss asked me if I wanted to move to Denver and become the IT Manager for an office they were expanding there.
Denver? DENVER?! (Hmm. Denver …)
All other factors aside, this was nearly a non-starter because (a) I don’t take changes in expected life paths well, and (b) I was very much dating a new girlfriend (and an old friend at that) and didn’t relish the prospect of screwing up a long-distance relationship and losing her.
Sure, I had some indication that I liked Colorado from that brief high school stint. And it was a chance to break out of my funk, not to mention to advance my career. But … still … even after I got over the surprise, there was that relationship thing I did not want to screw up.
I was smart enough not to outright say “No” (or “Yes”), but told my boss I’d sleep on it.
I called the girlfriend, explained my concerns, and she said to take the offer and we’d work it out.
Everybody in Denver who bitches about DIA forgets about how much more they used to bitch about Stapleton.
So I did. And then, at a big Thanksgiving Dinner (with my family and hers), I popped the question. Yay, romance. And the next day, we hopped in the car and I moved to Denver. (She only came along for the ride, and headed back home shortly after, juuuuuust before Stapleton was decommissioned).
And I’ve been here ever since, and never looked back. And, if things go as planned, I’ll be here the rest of my life, because I love this town and this state.
So far so good on the Happily Ever After thing.
Oh, and we did work it out, and got married the following April. (Which means we have another big milestone anniversary next spring. Hmmmm.)
So that was one milestone. Another comes tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Wow. I’ve been doing a piss-poor job of updating the blog here.
Yeah, yeah, all the normal reasons. Job really stressful. Busy with stuff at home. But ultimately it really is about prioritization: I’ve doing plenty of stuff with my quotations blog, and even my gaming blog has been getting some love.
What I usually do here has traditionally been “my life” (boring), “my pop culture stuff” (uninspiring of late), and “my politics”.
Aha.
Politics has been — a wildly stressful hot mess. Trump & Co. are simultaneously terrifying and fury-inducing in their smug proto-fascism and very direct threat to people I love (and, hell, to me under certain not-necessarily-the-worst-case scenarios). Biden’s problems filled me with existential dread (since somewhat alleviated by Harris — but that’s a whole other set of posts). And, with everything else going on, it’s just hard to write about and face that terror and dread and fury in a way that isn’t just incoherent keyboard smashing.
Sigh.
(And, yes, feel free to mutter “Trump derangement syndrome” … and keep walking on.)
Can’t promise I’ll be more active here, but it’s bubbled to the top of my attention again, so … let’s hope for the best.
The problem with providing bios of people say cool things is realizing when people tend to die.
So I run a (much more active) side blog, focused on quotations: WIST.info (WIST = “Wish I’d Said That”). Quotations have been a labor of love for me for a lot of years, the close thing I have to a pure personal hobby.
A sample quotation … about quotations
I have about 3,000-odd people who I quote there, and for each I track name, birth/death date, a few words of biography, and an image. Because knowing who said something, when, and what their background is can be useful in understanding what was said. Also, I’m a history geek, so there’s that.
For the last month or so I’ve been slowly crawling through that list of quoted folk to confirm, for those of the contemporary era, if they are still alive. It’s kind of embarrassing (as an history geek) to cite someone who died five years ago with just his birth date. Unprofessional, you know.
Anyway, updating biography snippets to include death dates has been kind of disturbing, emotionally. I have to check everyone where I just have a birth date, no matter what it is. But I can, actuarially, make a few preliminary assumptions.
Folk born in the 1910s are almost certainly dead.
Folk born in the 1920s-30s are probably dead, but not necessarily. And not jumping to that conclusion is important, because I have a parent and a couple of in-laws that fall into that category and they are not dead and I do not want them to be, so I keep rooting (and keep wincing).
On the other hand, folk born in the 1990s (and later) are probably not dead … but they need to be checked any, because accidents, disease, drug abuse, etc. may very well have taken such people.
And then there are people in-between. Like, oh, say, myself, born in the 1960s. A majority are not dead (yet), but a disturbingly large minority are, again due to accidents, disease, abuse, or just an “early” death.
Remember, Man, that dust thou art and to dust thou shall return.
I have not reached my Biblical three-score-years-and-ten, and an still enough below the US average (esp. given my economic bracket) that it’s not too worrisome. But being reminded by research that Things Happen, and there are famous people born later than me who have gone to join the Choir Invisible is … not reassuring.
And that I have loved ones who are on the far side of those numbers, even less so.
Memento Mori – “Vanitas” by Philippe de Champaigne
One would think collecting quotations would be, like collecting stamps, an very cool and unemotional and non-risky passtime.
For the record (and since I’ve been so lax at blogging here this year):
Well, that was sure a year.
COVID-19 dominated our lives in a dozen different ways, as it did everyone else’s. In our case, we went from Empty Nesters to a Fully Full House. First James came home from school for Spring Break … and never went back, as the school went all-remote for the rest of the semester and this fall. And, of course, all those cool summer archaeology programs and internships were canceled, so he did some remote learning classes.
Then, once he was home, Dave’s mom, Gloria’s retirement community went on indefinite lockdown, so we had her move in with us. Dave’s office closed, sending him off to Work from Home. So all four of us got to rattle around together for months until it was safer and easier for Gloria to move back to her place.
On that work front, Dave’s still busy doing chief-of-staff and program management work at [REDACTED], albeit from a laptop and spare monitor on the breakfast room table. He hit two years tenure there this December, and is quite happy about it. Margie continues as the Human Resources Data Governance & Management Lead for [REDACTED], and has been recognized for her achievements by being handed even more big high-visibility projects. She was already full-time Work from Home; the biggest difference for her has been no trips out to the corporate HQ in [REDACTED].
James’ college career at Scripps has been turned into endless Zoom sessions. Fortunately, in our connected world, he’s stayed in touch with his friends. He’s completed the first half of his junior year, and plans a semester abroad in Sweden, focusing on Viking studies. Our cats, Kunoichi and Neko, at least, have enjoyed all the extra company.
Aside from that, things have been quiet. No live theater, no restaurant visits, no vacation travel. We did fly out to Scripps for Parents Day in February, and Margie and James made an isolated drive out there in the summer to donate James’ car (which was just accumulating dust and car insurance bills in a college parking building).
Aside from that it’s been sitting at home, cutting our own hair, ordering delivery from local restaurants to help them stay afloat, having video happy hours with friends and family, and staying safe for ourselves and our loved ones. We miss traveling, having folk over for game parties, and we’ll miss our Twelfth Night party this year, but we’ve been blessed in not having anyone in our immediate circle die or face permanent health damage from COVID-19, and we intend to keep it that way.
So, all in all, not the best of years, but a memorable one — and one we lived through. As always, being together makes both the occasional bumps survivable and the good times even better. So a very Merry Christmas (and other seasonal holidays and celebrations) to you all, and a Happy New Year, too.
Picked up The Boy at the airport, home from college. Thoughtfully wore MOM and DAD name tags, and held up a SON placard, just in case he didn't recognize us. pic.twitter.com/UrrF7EKnJO
Picked up The Boy at the airport, home from college. Thoughtfully wore MOM and DAD name tags, and held up a SON placard, just in case he didn’t recognize us. https://t.co/UrrF7EKnJO
Remarkably enough, he was willing to actually acknowledge recognizing us.
We also drew a lot of smiles from folk arriving in the main terminal from the concourses (including one guy who yelled out, “Dad!”).
It’s an odd confluence of events and commemorations.
Three things of note.
It is, of course, Star Wars Day. “May the Fourth be with you,” as they say. James messaged me that, and when I mentioned it to Mom, who’d never heard it, it drew a chuckle. So totally worth it.
Yes, an awful joke, but it still always draws a chuckle from me.
This is the fifth anniversary of Dad’s passing. I don’t talk about it much, even now, though I still think of him often — what he would think of something, how he would enjoy a joke, music he would enjoy, all that kind of thing. I miss him.
Dad, with Mom, on a visit to the Denver Botanic Garden
This is the fiftieth (!) anniversary of my First Communion. Which I only remember because the gift I got for it, a St. Christopher medal I wore for many years, had the date engraved on the back: 5-9-69.
It’s not something that means quite as much theologically to me as it once did, but it was a huge milestone in my childhood, and that it’s hit that kind of anniversary is … well, once in a lifetime.
Ah, the joys of old school photos.
It was a nice day — sleeping in, running errands with Margie, texting with the boy, dinner out with Mom. Pleasantly domestic and familiar. An odd confluence of anniversaries and events, with an otherwise pleasantly ordinary day, but, then, ever.
Or whatever aspect of this time of year brings you and yours joy. And maybe gifts. But at least mid-winter calm and promise and perspective. I wish it all for you.
This is the first year we're celebrating in our home state of Colorado since I moved out here 24 years ago. With Margie's folks, and now my mom, in Colorado, it made more sense to hold the celebration here — thus leading to a whole new set of traditions being started.
And James is home from school, and my brother John is visiting, so it's a wonderful family time. Christmas dinner at our place tonight, including some friends, which is also awesome.
Good times. I hope yours are good as well.
(And here's looking back fifty (eep!) years at Apollo 8 and the most famous picture taken of our planet.)
Which is not the sort of thing we usually do in this household, but was relatively easy to do in an evening, because it's only seven whole episodes.
But it's seven whole great episodes. And while there are some story threads I could imagine expanding into more time than given, it rally didn't feel like they compromised on the overall story they were trying to tell. Indeed, they had enough time to include a truly delightful done-in-one ep that deserves to be a trope in many other shows. Or maybe its own series.
I won't spoil anything, but there's some fine cuing up for Season 7, which apparently is a thing, thank heavens. [1]
A few years back, the kid started going to a private flute instructor, to bolster his flute-playing beyond the work he was doing at school. The one that he was referred to by another student was Tamara Maddaford, who, if you are looking for flute instruction for your kid in the south Denver metro area or even further south (she’s located in Castle Rock), I highly recommend. She’s done a great job with expanding +James Hill‘s repertoire and skills.
Twice a year they have a flute recital — one for the holidays and one in the spring/summer (end of the school year). Here’s James’ performance for that, last evening, a solo piece called “Kokopeli” by Katherine Hoover.
I mention +James Hill coming out as my transmale son, primarily because over the past seventeen-going-on-eighteen years I’ve presented him as my daughter, Katherine. Given that I’ve talked about her (him) a lot over the past years in social media, if I just changed pronouns and names there are some folk out there who would scratch their heads and ask questions. And since it’s something I’m not out to hide, I thought I’d just be up-front about the matter.
While this has been James’ identity to himself and his parents and close friends for the past few years — a very considered, researched, and thoughtful recognition and understanding of who he is — it’s been a more deliberate process outside those circles. In the past months and weeks he’s come out to his grandparents and close family friends, he was open to the college he applied to, and he’s talked with his uncles/aunts and cousins, which covered all the people he felt he wanted to personally let know about it.
(For the record, the reactions from family have all been supportive, and I’ve been stunned by how cool his peers at school have been.)
At this point, he’s given permission for people to talk about it. So, here we are.
Pragmatically, its good timing; as he’s heading off to college in the fall, it’s an ideal time to establish his new identity in his new circles. Sort of like everyone does when they head off to college.
Anyway, hopefully this will forestall any confusion about future references I make to him. He’s our son. We love him.
In the words of that great fabulist philosopher, Stan Lee: ‘Nuff Said.
Some folk might have noticed I’ve been largely not-online of late. (Most folk, I expect, have more than enough this-n-that in their social media streams to not notice.)
The Christmas holidays were a week en famile out in California, enjoying the usual Christmas bonhomie. That was followed by a week of my staying on while the wife and child headed home, helping prep for my mom’s move from SoCal to Colorado at the end of January.
I headed home after that, only to come heading back out when my Mom managed to fracture her left forearm (the ulna, for those physiologists among you), putting it in a cast and making her far less capable of dealing with day to day stuff, let along an impending move.
So there were a couple of weeks in California doing move prep, and then the actual move out here, and then … well, pretty much since then several hours a day helping with unpacking and getting her used to the (very nice) retirement community she’s living in, and all that jazz.
It’s been … intense. Remarkably (on both our parts), Mom and I are still speaking with each other.
(And sidebar kudos have to go to my parents-in-law who live in the same community and who’ve gone above and beyond to help my mom feel welcome, and to my wife and child who have both helped the effort overall as they could, and kept me relatively sane when they couldn’t.)
Things are by no means all settled and skittles and beer. My mom’s disinclination to change in her life (just one of several personality traits of my own that I’ve had highlighted in origin over the past couple of months) and the amount of change that’s been firehosed onto her even in the kindest and gentlest ways remain a challenge for her (and me). And her having to deal with being largely one-armed has not helped that situation at. all.
But we persist. And it will get better (as it already has). And, perhaps, I’ll be able to creep back onto the Internet again (both in terms of time and in terms of “Do I really need the aggravation that following current affairs gives me?).
So it was always the plan that, with the moving van arriving at my mom’s house on Saturday the 27th, I’d fly out there on Monday the 22nd to lend strong back, moral support, etc.
Then it turned out my mom fractured her arm over the weekend. Soooooo… I’m flying out today, instead.
Which changes a variety of plans, for all that it’s less than a week early, but if being unemployed doesn’t mean I can’t change my travel plans without worrying about PTO and ongoing project tasks, then what good is it? 😀
So, off to California again. Albeit this time a one-way flight, as we’ll be driving back. Exciting times!
I stayed out in California an extra week this year to help my mom get packed up for her impending move to Colorado. It was emblematic of how family traditions change. For Mom it’s an obvious change — a series of changes that she’s been dealing with for a number of years since Dad passed away, but faces even more as she leaves her home of forty years. We spent the evening at dinner than then afterward with some friends of hers from church, so it was a set of good-byes and thinking about the past.
That said, it was a change for me, too. I’m not sure I’ve spent a New Year’s Eve apart from Margie since we were married, but it was fun (if I couldn’t do that) to spend the time with Mom and her friends, and thinking about the changes in our family traditions (including since Margie’s folks moved out near us), and about how things will further change (for the better, but change nonetheless) with Mom’s arrival.
But thinking about change is a natural part of the turnover of the year.
I brought out some party favors and we actually rang in the New Year at midnight. Good times.
The biggest stress was the whole most-of-the-year-unemployed thing. Which would have sufficed, but there were enough other blood pressure pumped during the year — not even counting US political madness — to challenge my hypertension medication mightily.
On the other had, there was a lot of positive in 2017. Life with my loving wife. A kid who gets niftier with every passing year. Some satisfying writing in November (and elsewhen). One of the most enjoyable RPG campaigns I’ve played in perhaps ever. Teeing things up for a remarkable 2018.
And that year has so many possibilities. A couple of incredible trips. A new chapter with the kid heading to college. My mom moving to Colorado. And, one trusts, a new job.
Past realities. Impending possibilities. With friends and family to make it all worthwhile. I look forward to it.
I finally got my mom’s not-actually-eggnog “Recipe” up on my wife’s recipe. She originally scribbled it down on the back of a bill envelope in 1975 when she heard Mike Roy on the radio (or maybe saw him on TV) giving it. With variations, it’s been a standard for Christmas Morning Gift-Giving at her house ever since.
For the record, I am now (besides the cat) the least-educated (by degree) person in the house. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
