Quick Hits

Happy Mother's Day.  Now, an Ada update:

Ada was playing with Mardi Gras beads this evening and singing everything that she was doing.  I explained that it was like she was in a musical on Broadway.  I then sang to her: "Do you think we should write a musical about Mardi Gras?"  Her immediate response, perfectly sung, was: "No, that's a bad idea."  She's probably right.

We went to the driving range again today.  Ada has a little 7 iron, and she is getting a lot better with hitting the ball.  She always wants to go lefthand low, even on full shots, and she often forgets to keep her left arm straight.  But I remind her, and she does a pretty good job of doing the right thing.

On this Mother's Day, it's important to congratulate Kat on how well she has trained Ada in various things.  Ada used to get up way too early and bother us, so Kat installed the "Family Morning Time Light," which is a timed light that comes on at 7 a.m. every morning.  Ada is not allowed to leave her room to bother us until that light comes on.  Many mornings I will hear Ada come out of her room at about 6:30 a.m., go straight to the bathroom, and then return to her room.  She then emerges when the light comes on.  I wish she was so easily trained with toothbrushing and protecting her food from dogs, but this is a great example of how well Kat relates to tiny humans.  I appreciate the opportunity to sleep in that the FMTL provides, and all of the credit goes to Kat.

I tried to explain deja vu to Ada today with no success.  While we were at the driving range, she told me she had a "weird feeling."  I tried to explain what might cause weird feelings, but I didn't really get anywhere.  My plan all along has been to talk to Ada like she is an adult and expect that she will pick things up.  But sometimes my inability to explain things becomes clearly evident.  Today, when we were listening to U2's Raised By Wolves -- one of Ada's favorite songs -- the lyric was "Boy sees his father crushed under the weight...."  Ada asked what it meant to be crushed, and I said it was like being smushed flat.  She then asked what it meant to be crushed under the weight, and I said it was to be smushed by something heavy.  She thought this was no good, and then I said, "Well, in this instance, it is metaphorical.  No one was literally crushed."  She then asked what metaphorical meant, and I absolutely could not explain in a manner understandable to a 3 year old how the pressures of life can bear down on someone and, while not literally crushing him or her, it can impact them deeply.  Ada didn't seem to care though as she just returned to singing the chorus.  She has learned something from that song though because whenever she hears it, she says "raised by wolves means you are wild."

The fact that Ada listens to these songs in the car results in some pretty funny exchanges sometimes. A week or so ago we were at a park and met another girl who was about Ada's age.  This girl was singing "The Wheels On the Bus."  She asked Ada if she knew that song, and Ada said "Yes. I know that song, but I know other songs, too, like Shake It Off and All About That Bass."  As a parent, I don't know whether that was something to be proud of or ashamed of, but it was hilarious.  And Ada was deathly serious about it too.  In her mind, pop hits and preschool standards are one and the same.

Ada went all the way across on the monkey bars by herself recently.  I was there to catch her if she fell, but she did it on her own.  However, when we went back to the park, she was afraid to do it again.  I reminded her that she had done it, but development is not a perfectly straight line.

This shouldn't be only good things about Ada because I am fair and balanced.  She needs to say please and thank you more without being prompted.  I'm going to be even more vigilant about ensuring that happens.  It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.  I'm going to get her to memorize that.  And I'm going to teach her what metaphors are.  And a thousand other things I'll tell her that she will ignore.  But I enjoy the process, and, to at least some degree, I think she does too.

Good Hang

Ada and I have spent the weekend together because Kat is away for some well-deserved rest and relaxation in Phoenix.  Ada fully understands that she is dealing with a less talented and able parent, so she seems to be on her best behavior.  Emma, however, is the opposite.  Much like Lily during her younger years, Kat's absence causes Emma great concern, which manifests itself in trying to destroy the house and ensuring that I do not get much sleep.  I took Emma to the dog park yesterday and she ran for miles, but she was still pretty amped up.  She is a wonderful dog, but it is difficult to say that with any conviction after she licked my face when I was dead asleep at 4 a.m.  I am excited for Kat's return and the return to Emma's normal level of craziness.

Lily, on the other hand, has embraced old age and acts like many of the retirees I know: speaking through gritted teeth, sighing, shows of annoyance, and occasionally snapping at the youth.  It is still definitely preferable to Emma, but it would be nice if Lily had a little more patience with little children, which is actually different from the retirees that I know.

Now that the section where I complain about the dogs is complete, let's discuss the weekend.  Ada and I went to the Prescott Regional SciTech Fest, and it was pretty great.  I learned a lot, although I am not sure that Ada had as much fun as I did.  Robotics might not be as interesting when you are three, but Ada did a good job of going to all of the booths that I wanted to go to.  She liked looking at sun spots through a telescope and just looking at the sun through some protective glasses.  She also got to sit in a helicopter, which she enjoyed.

This is a selfie of Ada and I while being "filmed" by a computer programmed to only read edges. I told Ada it was like we were in Waking Life before it was animated.  She wasn't that interested.

After the SciTech Fest, we went to the Prescott Chalk It Up event, where an entire parking lot gets turned into art.  Ada wanted ours to be entirely blue.  She then wrote her name in red over the blue.  We had a good time.  Although it might have been a mistake to put ours right next to a really impressive one.  That was bad selection on my part.

As we were driving to the Chalk It Up event, Ada was looking pretty tired in the car.  I asked her if she thought she could make it through.  She said "I'll be fine after I take a little car nap."  (The car nap extended a little longer than expected, but we still made it.)  I wanted to tell Ada that while Kat loves what she calls car naps, I don't know that car naps are actually a "thing."  I mean, there is this, but that's quite different.  But a car nap is a good thing, even if not every family gives sleeping in the car a specific name.

To close our day, Ada and I went for a walk and then ran around at the park.  We played tag and made footprints on the cement.  We also played Simon Says, but Ada has a long way to go.  She does understand the rules and knows when she makes a mistake, but she has some work to do.  I think it is because she is a good kid who likes to follow directions, just like I think I was.  But we will keep working on it.  My attempt to explain it to her using the concept of a condition precedent for the performance of a contract did not work.  I don't know why.  Oh well.

 Here is Ada happily running.

Live!

My family thinks I am preoccupied with death.  I don't know where they get that idea, but I have been "enjoying" two books and a podcast that are tied together by the fact that they involve the deaths of people near in age to me. Obviously, it is a shock for a young person to have someone his or her age die, but, as we age, that occurs more and more often. However, I am still only 33, so it is only real tragedy that causes the deaths of people that age.

The book I recommend wholeheartedly is The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs. It is truly an incredible story about Rob Peace, a brilliant African-American man who grew up in terrible poverty in Newark, New Jersey, and largely without a father because his father was in prison for murder. But nevertheless, Peace attended Yale and graduated with distinction in the school’s most difficult science major. While at Yale, Peace sold marijuana, and he continued to do so after he left. He taught science at the prep school that he attended, but then became seemingly aimless. He worked for Continental Airlines on the runway, and the most telling scene in the book is where he is sitting on a luggage cart reading an extremely advanced biochemistry textbook just to "stay sharp." Understandably, his co-workers could not fathom why someone who could actually grasp what was in that book was putting luggage in planes.

And this is the struggle that Peace faced in his life, and the book does an excellent job conveying through action, not simply by telling. Once he went to Yale, it was harder to belong in Newark. But when he tried to be the person he was in Newark, everyone thought he was pretending. It was not even that Peace could not go home again, it was that no matter what he did with his life, it seemed to be below his potential. These were obstacles that the overwhelming majority of Yale’s student body did not have to face.

Hobbs, the author, was Peace’s roommate at Yale. While he struggled in getting his work published after graduating, no one had an opinion about his potential or what he should be doing. He was simply allowed to keep working and learn from his mistakes. While it seemed that lots of other people wanted to put pressure on Peace to achieve certain things, he did not necessarily place that on himself. He wanted to vindicate his father, who always claimed to be innocent, he wanted to help his mother, and he wanted to change his life. In the end, Peace created his own "brand" of marijuana by using his chemistry background. However, competitors were not so pleased with that. He met his end like many drug dealers do, by being shot to death by unknown assailants in 2011. He was 30 years old.

Knowing the ending does not make it easier to stomach. It is a wonderful book with a truly humane description of an incredibly complex person. It powerfully shows how much it matters where a person comes from, even if it is not supposed to matter at all.  I’m sure someone will make it into a movie, but, trust me, you want to read the book.  It's a true story that is nevertheless a page-turner.

The second book is Boy on Ice by John Branch, which chronicles the life of Derek Boogaard, a gentle giant who became the National Hockey League’s "enforcer," only to be ravaged by concussions and injuries from fighting. He died in 2011 at age 28. Boogaard, like Peace, was also trapped in that he loved hockey but never had the talent for the sport to play at the highest levels. However, he did have the ability to fight at the highest levels, which allowed him to reach the NHL. He abused prescription drugs to battle the injuries and ensure he could keep fighting, and this pounding on his body caught up with him. His brain was found to have chronic traumatic encephelopathy (which numerous football players have been shown to have), and the story of his life raises serious questions as to why fighting is still allowed in the NHL.  It is terribly sad that someone could achieve his dream and yet simultaneously have this achievement kill him.

The last of the trifecta is Serial, a podcast you may have heard of. There was a bit of a backlash because it became so popular, but ultimately, I do think it was really good. As someone who likes true crime, likes the law, and likes podcasts, I am the prototypical listener, but I highly recommend it to anyone who has not listed to it (if such people exist). Hae Min Lee obviously was nowhere near my current age when she was murdered, but she was a senior in high school in January 1999 when she died. I was also a senior in high school in January 1999. Serial caused me to try to remember my activities back at that time, but I can’t say that I recall all that much.

I don’t have a neat takeaway from these three pieces of culture, except that they all are enjoyable.  While I normally like to be eclectic in what I consume, sometimes a theme just emerges.  My family would say that my taste in music demonstrates that the theme that emerges is always death, but I don't know where they get that idea.  Life is for the living -- and for meditating on death -- it's for that, too.

Our Winless Season

My high school football coach, Mr. Pfeiffer, reached 100 career coaching wins this week, so I texted to congratulate him.   I told him that he would have gotten there much quicker if it were not for the 1997 season when our team won a total of zero games in the season.  Coach Pfeiffer responded that the winless season was one of the most enjoyable years he had in coaching, and I told him it was one of the most enjoyable that I had playing.  That season was the only one in which my high school played 11-man football (or, as it is more commonly known across the United States, "football") instead of 8-man football (which is a weird Corn Belt thing that is largely ignored elsewhere).  However, adding those three players makes a world of difference, as our team found out.

I have tried to remember that season, and, like most of my memories, I can remember an overarching narrative (no wins), a few various scenes (shown below), and little more.

To wit:

Our first game of the year was the closest.  We might have lost by single digits, definitely not more than 20.  We were playing a consolidated team that involved a direction, a county, and black uniforms.  I believe it was the Northeast Fillmore County Raiders.

Later in the season, we took a very long bus trip to Ravenna, Nebraska.  I don't know if that game was close.  But the memory that is crystal clear is when our quarterback Jay Theis (who honestly should have his own 30 for 30) was being chased by enormous pass rushers, as he was every time he dropped back to throw.  But this time, rather than take a huge sack, he heaved the ball in my direction.  The referee on the other side of the field -- thinking that Jay had thrown the ball away to avoid the sack -- threw a flag for intentional grounding before the ball had actually hit the ground.  However, a 5'10" 140 pound wide receiver with what could charitably called poor speed -- me -- swooped in and caught the pass and advanced it for a good gain.  The referee sheepishly picked up the flag as the fans screamed that you can't have intentional grounding on a completed pass.  I don't blame the official.  I was hard to see me out there.

Just briefly on Jay Theis: he was the best athlete I ever saw in person.  I played baseball, basketball, and football with him on basically a daily basis for seven or eight years.  He would do truly amazing athletic feats like it was nothing.  His knees then entirely fell apart when he was 17 years old.  It was very sad, but unlike a real 30 for 30 like "The Best That Never Was" on Marcus DuPree, Jay never made bad decisions with his life or felt like things had been unfair.  But I was there and know how good he was.

Back to the winlessness:

We are playing a team in red, maybe Stromsburg, maybe Red Cloud, maybe Hebron, maybe the University of Nebraska JV.  We are, unsurprisingly, punting.  I'm running down on coverage, and I see four or five of their players forming a line in the middle of the field running parallel to the side line.  The punt is coming down on my right as I am running down, and the line of blockers is to my left.  I know what is being set up because I can see it happening.  The returner is going to run across the field, the line of blockers is going to crush us, and he will run for a touchdown.  Seeing this, I run to the other side of the blockers to make the tackle where the runner will be, not where he is.  The returner stays on the same side of the field (were too many of our players too smart? Seems unlikely.) and, I think, runs for a touchdown.

I always knew it was important to play smart, and I liked that in football you had the best opportunity to see things that could help you play better.  On defense, I always tried to pick up tells and watch for tendencies that could help me make up for my lack of speed, size, athleticism, confidence, and determination.  While I did not watch film, I did try to watch for keys before and during every play.  I can remember a practice where we were scrimmaging, and I was on defense and a sweep was run to my side.  However, because the end who was my assignment had run away from the direction of the sweep, I stayed with him.  It was odd to leave the area where the play seemed to be going, but when the throwback pass occurred, I looked over and saw every that every other player on defense was far from the ball, except for me.  And I have often thought about this play in other contexts when I wonder if I am right about something, even though everyone else seems to think otherwise.  I had a reason for doing what I did, so I knew it was right to stick to my assignment.  So whether it is life decisions or law decisions, I normally trust my instincts, and they have rarely steered me wrong.  I'm not a contrarian by nature and I'm not advocating thinking with your gut instead of your brain, but I like to think that this experience in football has made it so I am not the type of person who would follow the crowd in the Solomon Asch conformity study.  If I was in that position I would say the obviously correct answer no matter what other people had said because -- during that one practice, on some October day in the 1990s -- I ended up where the ball was, not on the other side of the field.  (Of course, I may be overthinking it, which I did back in 1997 and still do today),

OK, back to the winlessness, once again:

I really cannot remember any other games.  I think we played eight of them, but I have already related every game I can recall.  I remember as the losses piled up, Coach Pfeiffer's pregame speeches started to center on a theme.  The theme was: tonight we are playing a football game; this is an opportunity to win a football game; let's win a football game.  As we continued to hear this speech, we started treating it as a mantra, repeating it at practice, and incorporating it into other aspects of our lives.  (Now it's lunchtime.  This is an opportunity to each lunch.  Let's each lunch.).  It was a back-to-basics analysis of the situation that, while humorous to us, was also inspiring.  However, even with this mantra in our minds, we could not seem to, you know, actually win a game.  I remember Jay Theis achieved some sort of overall yardage record, which was good.  But I honestly don't know if any of the games after the first one were close.  But I also know that we never gave up, and Coach Pfeiffer was a big part of that.  We played hard every game, and that is why I can remember a winless season fondly.

That season was, for me, as I type here today, more than half a life ago.  But I still take certain lessons from it.  You can be dignified when facing long odds.  You will, someday, laugh at your own misery.  You will forget the details, but not the people.

I enjoyed our winless season.  I thank Mr. Pfeiffer for coaching us, and I thank my teammates for playing.  While we could not, in the words of Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap, "go to 11," I enjoyed the attempt.

Great Child

Ada has taken to asking us whether she is being a "great child," and most of the times that she asks she is being just that.  However, there are also plenty of times when she is not so great, but I think I will focus on the positive.  Some recent highlights:

During our trip to Florida, she informed an entire plane of passengers that she did not have a brother because "My mom only likes one child."

The following conversation occurred;
Ada: Can I watch another kid's show?
Kat: No, I think it is turning your brain to mush.
Ada: What's mush?
Me: See, your mom is right.  Last week you knew what mush was.

I took Ada to the park yesterday, and we had a wonderful time.  She is becoming an excellent companion, although she is getting much heavier on the back of my bike.  It gets harder and harder to ride up the hills, but our time together is very enjoyable.  We played "freeze tag" at the park for quite awhile.  In Ada's universe "freeze tag" is a game where one person chases another and when the chaser yells "freeze" the other person has to freeze like a statue.  Then the chaser says "unfreeze" and the chase begins again.  There is no point and you cannot win, but Ada really likes it.

This week Ada and I are starting Itty Bitty Sports at the YMCA for soccer and basketball.  We went to the Y today to attempt to get a preview, and it went well.  She was doing a better job of not touching the soccer ball with her hands and kicking it with more velocity.  I also attempted to try her out as a goalkeeper, but I did not like the looks I was getting from some of the other people at the gym.  I tried to tell them, How do I know if she's good if I don't fire some shots at her?  Oh well.

While it was sad to say goodbye to my Grandma Gautreaux, I was glad that she had gotten a chance to meet Ada.  The photo of me, my dad, Ada, and Grandma Gautreaux that was included among the remembrance photos at the funeral was my favorite.  I was also glad to see my brothers, the two people who make me laugh more than any other people in the world.  It was a sad occasion, but it was nice to be together.

I enjoyed being in Florida.  The beach was great.  However, I do not know how people on the East Coast watch sports.  I fell asleep before most every game was over.

Speaking of sports, the Kansas City Royals magical season continues.  I attribute much of the success to their number one lunatic fan, Shirley Gautreaux.  Mom and I got to see the Royals dismantle the Arizona Diamondbacks in early August, and the Royals have not lost many games since then.  I am excited for the Royals-Orioles series, although I cannot think that the television executives at the network that  who owns the rights to the ALCS is quite as excited.

Kat has given me a book about raising a three-year-old and another about four-year-olds.  It makes everything sound rather complicated, but the thesis, from what I can gather, is that children are insane.  But all I know is that I do enjoy being a parent, even though I guess I never thought much about it when I was younger.  October 6, 2014 is the four-year anniversary of when Kat told me that she was pregnant.  I can remember the date because the Bar Exam results came out on October 7, 2010, and Kat gave me the news one day before.  I can remember thinking that obviously I really need to pass the Bar Exam now (even though I could do nothing to change anything at that point) because I don't want my future child to ever realize that I was not even a lawyer when he or she was born.  I have no idea why I found this important.  I also remember thinking that I was glad that I would be 30 before the future child was born because I would seem more mature.  I was no more mature than when I was 29, and I don't think that Ada will ever think of this.  But at that time, I cared.

I did not think a whole lot about what it would actually be like to be a parent, and I would say that I don't really know much more about it now.  All I know is a little bit about how to try to co-exist along with Ada.  She makes things fun and interesting and occasionally harrowing, and each day is an adventure.  We received her first school pictures last week, and she is looking very grown-up already.  However, she is the same kid that needs to be rocked like a baby after her bath.  So, like the book says, three-year-olds are a mass of contradictions.  And, more and more, so am I: I can't wait for each new milestone, but I feel it is all moving too fast.  But I just have to enjoy it, because Kat and I "only likes one child."

Ada-lescence

Ada is becoming quite adept at looking at me with disdain.  I will admit that this is the only sensible reaction to some of the things I say to her, but I must admit that she has acquired the ability to provide me with withering glances at astonishing speed.  Like most everything with Ada, she is rather precocious.

I did not think that facial expressions were hereditary, but the look that Kat gives me that she calls "dead eyes" has clearly been passed down to Ada.  It took Kat a few years to master, but Ada is already a pro.  It is a look that says many things at once: "I have no respect for you"; "I did not choose you as a parent"; and "I would prefer to be doing basically anything else but listening to you."  This is a look that I know well.

Even despite these occasional looks, I could not be happier with Ada.  She is a great kid and a lot of fun to be around.  And she is blessed with a brand of amnesia that allows her to still want to spend time with me, despite my track record.  Yesterday, for example, Ada suggested a bike ride to the park. Upon our return, I was drenched in sweat. Ada was just sitting in the seat on the back of the bike and riding along.  However, this did not stop her from immediately telling Kat as soon as we returned that 'The bike ride made her really tired.'  I asked her which part made her tired: the sitting on the bike or the sitting on the swing while I pushed her for an hour.  She said it was the combination.

She also requested that I juggle for her yesterday.  And when I briefly stopped to try to explain something to her about how it had probably been about 20 years since my parents bought this juggling equipment for me, she gave me the dead eyes look and said tartly: "Juggle, clown."  I then started doing a terrible impersonation of Joe Pesci in Goodfellas and asking her if I amused her, which led to much more dead eyed staring.  So I went back to juggling.

Ada had her first sleepover with a friend last night, and apparently she did quite well.  She absolutely does not seem fazed or concerned by almost anything and continues to be frighteningly confident.  She does not seem to need her parents, which is an interesting thing for me to ponder. Basically all kids grow up and then do not need their parents, which can be difficult to come to grips with for parents.  It is why I often hear people say that they want to freeze their kids at a certain age or have them stop growing.

I do not feel this way, and I do not know at what age Ada should "freeze" because each year brings new and interesting challenges.  But I do have some concern about the fact that, at her current rate of development, Ada might decide it is time to strike out on her own at age 11 and begin panning for gold or running a travel agency or flying planes.  She might decide she has learned enough from us and is ready for her own adventures.  Everyone fears being outgrown.  And that fear is at its apex with children because all parents know it will happen.

However, it is easy to remind myself that Ada is three, not thirty-three (which is what I am, and I still see my parents with regularity -- see you soon, Mom!).  When we are at the park during our bike ride, this fact was made rather frighteningly clear.  Ada decided to reach for the bar that holds up the rings on the playground, but she missed.  And she was going to take a scary tumble.  But I caught her, and she instantly started crying because of how scary it was.  It scared me quite a bit, too.

I don't like staying so close to her on the playground because I want her to learn to be careful and to have her own fun.  But I don't want to be so far away that I can't help.  I know Ada doesn't need as much help as many other children, but I still like being there for her.  Despite the dead eyes and "Juggle, clown" and everything else that goes along with trying to raise a three-year-old, I truly enjoy it.  I may not have looked thrilled to be trying to bike uphill in the heat with a 40-pound kid on the back singing songs while utterly oblivious to my labored breathing, but if you were right up close you would have seen a smile. Bike rides with Ada are the best stress relief I have ever found.  I look forward to many more years with a perfect, confident kid who will soon be riding her own bike next to mine.  Even if it means I have to hear "Don't sing, Dad" come from the backseat every time I so much as hum along with the radio, I don't mind.  I look forward to it.

A Remembrance of Easters Past

It’s time for a little holiday nostalgia, so I return you to the years of 1981 through 1994. Although I have no records to support this, I believe that I traveled at Easter to the Rinne farm near Keytesville, Missouri, for nearly every one of those years. (I can’t really recall when Grandma and Grandpa moved to Cordova, Nebraska, and if I text my mom to find out she will instantly call me, talk to me for awhile, and then close by thanking me for calling. At which point, I will sheepishly point out that I only texted her. But anyway, to avoid all that, I'll just guess.)  But I want to take you back to what it was like to make those annual Easter trips.

School would be for half a day on Thursday. My dad would get to the house early Thursday afternoon and then begin cursing at how utterly unprepared we were to actually leave. We would throw things together haphazardly and then get into a poorly-made vehicle. Some of these trips may have been made in the "drug van," which was a giant brown van with two front seats, one row of seats, and then a black void. (I nearly got frostbite on my toes one year on a Christmas trip to see my other grandparents due to the van’s complete lack of insulation). But my more vivid memories of the Easter trips are being in a sedan of some kind (possibly even the old Cutlass) and being crammed in with my brothers in the back seat with limited leg room. Keith and I on each side, and Elliott smushed in the middle. I would stare out the window as the countryside changed from farm fields to farm fields to farm fields. Maybe changed is the wrong word.

It was a six-hour trip, which was interminable to the young me.  I can remember the towns: Beatrice (this meant stories of my mom's childhood, which were ... uh... something); then the Missouri border (bathroom break); then St. Joseph (could only be referred to as St. Joe, who always seemed like St. Joseph's cooler alter ego); then Chillicothe (which I always enjoyed saying); then Marceline (I'm probably asleep by this point) and then the farm.  During the last few miles, my dad would claim he could turn on road signs by flipping from dims to brights.  This did impress and confuse me at the time, which is a sad commentary on the young me.  At this point, it's about 10:30 p.m.  And the second I step onto the back deck I can smell the popcorn.  Grandpa has his air popper going, and I've got popcorn soon after I've gotten a hug from my Grandma.  This was an era before cell phones, so my Grandpa only vaguely knew when we would be arriving.  But it seemed the popcorn was always hot and tasted perfect.  He might have been making it all evening just to be prepared, but this could simply be the magic of grandparents.  Then, I would get in bed -- either the foldout bed in the living room or maybe a bed upstairs -- and try to fall asleep.  It wasn't always easy because I was excited for the next day's adventures.

Friday would be a day of four-wheeling and sports and good meals.  That evening, we would travel to Salisbury to go to Good Friday church, which was always a somewhat scary service.  Lots of darkness, terrifying scripture readings, people whispering.  It was a rather chilling scene.

Saturday would be more adventures, maybe some exploring, croquet, basketball, or fishing.  We could go with Grandpa to feed the giant catfish.  And, of course, copious amounts of good food.  In the evening, we might sit down with even more popcorn to try the TV to see if any stations come in.  Maybe there was a movie of the week (I think I remember seeing LA Story there, but I remember nothing of the movie.  Could have been Roxanne.)  Sometimes at the end of the late newscast, Dr. Red Duke would appear.  He seemed like a cable access "doctor" who relied on remedies that "Big Science" did not want you to know about.  These segments were always enjoyable for their occasionally bizarre turns.

Easter Sunday would be a much happier service, and then an Easter Egg hunt in the front yard.  It was thrilling to find an egg with chocolate in it or a dollar bill.  Then, a big lunch and our goodbyes to Grandma and Grandpa.  Then, it was back in the car to head home.  Six more hours in the car smushed in with my brothers, and trying not to have my dad yell at me too much. 

Those Easter weekends are what I think about when I think about my grandparents.  I probably am getting numerous details wrong (maybe we left on Wednesday, maybe we did not go through Marceline on the way, maybe we didn't have popcorn right away, maybe Dr. Red Duke was a staid and sensible doctor, maybe he was not even a doctor).  But it does not really matter what the truth was now.  The memory is what I treasure.  I loved those trips.  I loved that farm.  I loved spending time with my grandparents.  I love that I can still go back there in my mind.

But of course I can only return in my mind.  One of those people is no longer with us.  I would never, under any circumstances, want to ride for six hours in the backseat of a sedan.  Someone else owns the farm.  But if I just smell the popcorn, I go back. 

Sometimes when I'm watching Hulu Plus, they have a commercial for Disneyland that attempts to guilt parents into bringing their children to Disneyland to "create memories that will last a lifetime."  But honestly, the Dumbo ride probably is not that memorable.  Long car rides, the anticipation of seeing your grandparents, frightening church services, and Easter egg hunts, those are the memories that will last a lifetime.  That is what childhood is about.  Now that I have my own family, I hope to start making those kinds of memories with them.  (I'm sure they are not looking forward to it.)  But I hope someday they can look back with a smile the way that I do.  We are not going anywhere this Easter, but, like the Chicago Cubs, there is always next year.  I hope that when Ada is older, she can think about Easter and have similar happy memories.  We should all be so lucky.

Happy Easter.

I only blog when it rains

We have been in a long drought that finally ended yesterday, so I decided it was time that I get back to dropping my witticisms on my eager audience.

Emma the English setter puppy and I went for a nice hike today.  We walked the Enchanted Canyon subdivision that is near our house and then part of the Centennial Trail.  Emma is a good companion, although she is far from trained.  Each good thing she does is tempered with something terrible, like stomping on me when I'm sleeping, licking my face when I'm sleeping, biting my ear while I'm sleeping, or barking at me when I'm sleeping.  In other news, I'm tired during the day sometimes.

Ada is continuing to do good stuff most of the time.  She is getting quite good at recognizing different letters and numbers, even without prompting.  I was wearing my Basketball Jones T-shirt yesterday and she pointed out many of the letters on it.  However, there was some confusion regarding the fact that the letter "T" was on the shirt, but the entire shirt was a T-shirt.  I know I am on record as saying that the language skills of young children are not that impressive because they are being taught language every day of their lives with literally no other responsibilities, but even I have to admit that English is a confusing language.  Sometimes I think that my bad puns may be stunting Ada's growth.

The all-too-common scenario is that I will be driving with Kat and Ada in the car, I will see a sign, and then make a bad pun.  Ada will then say "Daddy, what you saying?" (Ada speaks a pidgin of 2.5 year old and jive).  Kat will then begin to explain the terrible pun, give up, and say she is taking a nap.  This happens at least twice a week.

Ada is great at asking questions.  She may not be quite so good at listening to the answers, but I am glad that she is inquisitive.  She is also excellent at saying her last name and listing the names of people she likes.  That list is Mommy, Daddy, Marc, Susan, Eric, and Grandma Shirley.  Sometimes Gpa G makes the list.  Keith and Elliott you have work to do.

Ada has also been helping Kat with a painting project in the house.  Now that we finally own the floor we walk on, Kat has thrown herself into painting the cabinets.  The lower cabinets will be blue (the actual name is calm ocean or itinerant whale.  Something like that, I don't recall exactly).  The upper cabinets will be cream.  (Actual name cream, I think).  Anyway, I think it will look great.

In law news, I really have nothing for you.  Although I was interested in this opinion from the California Supreme Court denying Stephen Glass admission to the California bar.  As a journalist and now a lawyer, it was quite interesting to me as Glass was a disgraced journalist turned law clerk.  Maybe it is just my forgiving nature, but I feel like Glass should have been admitted.  Telling the truth in written work is sort of a lawyer's stock-in-trade, so I understand a hesitancy to admit someone who lied in writing for years.  But it seems that Glass has made the necessary changes.  And it seems like he would be a very good lawyer.  I simply do not see the grounds for not admitting him and giving him an opportunity.  Every year hundreds of lawyers make bad decisions, and they face the consequences and are later reinstated.  I think it is naive to pretend that Mr. Glass can never be a lawyer because he invented a web site for Jukt Micronics.

In other news, I heard some rumblings about controversy regarding Arizona, but I have been pretty busy lately, so I am not super familiar with it.  I've got nothing for you on that matter.

I recently read Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin, who for many years was Carson's attorney.  I expected more discussion of the legal ethics of writing a book like that, but the book did not have it.  I think it likely that the publisher reviewed the manuscript and said something alone the lines of "99% less about boring law stuff and more salacious details about a contract being out on Johnny's head."  I also did some online checking to see if lawyers were complaining about the breach of confidentiality, but I did not see much.  Now Carson treated Bushkin shabbily and the end of their relationship was not pleasant (similar to all of Johnny's relationships), but the details of the representation are still confidential, except for certain exceptions.  And I don't think that the mob putting out a contract on Johnny's head in the 1960s falls under any of those exceptions.

It's much easier to maintain confidentiality when an attorney has information in which there is little interest, but I still think it is important.  My thought is this: you take it to the grave.  The best example of this might be in the documentary Shadow Billionaire when the titular billionaire Larry Hillblom's attorney is interviewed.  Even though Hillblom was dead, his attorney said that he had asked Hillblom (during his life) whether he was the father of certain children who were claiming to be heirs.  The attorney said he told Hillblom that he would not tell anyone what Hillblom said, and then the attorney looks right into the camera and says "And I'm not going to."  That is what confidentiality means, and that is how such things should be handled, at least to my mind.

OK, that was too much typing.  And I did not even get into sports.  However, mark your calendars for March 16, 2014, when Ada will attend her first spring training baseball game.  She is already excited.  It's the Angels and Mariners with Ada and I on the lawn for probably like two and a half innings!  Pujols! Trout! Cano! Ada! Funnel cakes!  It should be great.

Mopes the Clown

Kat and Ada have been gone for the last 10 days, so nothing has happened here other than sadness and book reading.  So for the past 10 days my life has been a lot like it was before I met Kat.  Sometimes when I seem less than thrilled by Kat and Ada's hijinks, Kat will ask me whether I would prefer to be back by myself in that studio apartment in Yuma. That is normally how she phrases it.  Sometimes she just says "Do you even like us?" in an exasperated voice.  My answer is always: No, I don't want to be back in that apartment, and of course, I love you guys, now please, let me watch this game without interruption!

But seriously, other than the fact that I was able to watch all 82 games of the 2004-05 Phoenix Suns season and read all of the books I wanted and listen to Death Cab for Cutie as much as I cared to without any eye-rolling, literally nothing was better back then than it is now.  And even that can only take you so far.  I don't know if I would watch all 82 games of the 2013-14 season if you paid me my current salary just to do that.  And I can still read books (although at the much slower pace of one and a half pages a night before my eyes start to close) and listen to Death Cab for Cutie when I choose to, although always by myself shamefully with headphones in to avoid ridicule.  I think Transatlanticism still holds up pretty well, though IMHO.

Brief music/Ada tangent: She has a CD player in her room that she enjoys having on while she plays, but it only holds one CD.  So after listening to Contra by Vampire Weekend roughly 4,000 times, I demanded that the CD get changed.  So I went to my CD collection (we had those before The Cloud was invented) and pulled out Give Up by Postal Service.  I explained to Ada that this year was the 10th anniversary of this record and that it was one of the best records of the 2000s.  Ada gave it a brief listen and, because she shares her mother's joy in ridiculing my musical tastes, demanded that it be taken out.  She can listen to Vampire Weekend on loop, but Postal Service did not last a day.  I have not even tried Death Cab because I know it would have the same fate.  Biology says that Ada's DNA is half like mine and half like Kat's, but I think it is much closer to 90-10.  Or Kat has spent thousands more hours with her than I have and has used this time to her advantage.  It's probably both.  Anyway, do not even hum The District Sleeps Alone Tonight near Ada or she will shut you down with a glare.

But that long introduction was merely an ... uh ... introduction to the fact that I have been reading a lot because I have no one else to hang out with while Kat and Ada are in North Carolina.  So I have a lot of recommendations for you.  First, read The Sports Gene by David Epstein.  It's great, but it will make you think about steering you children toward certain sports where they might have some sort of genetic advantage, which may be a bit of a slippery slope.  But the book does an excellent job of demonstrating that heart and grittiness and toughness and Eckstein-ness is important, but the difference between two people with similar heart and grit can come down to body type and natural EPO levels.  Just like Tyler Hamilton's book The Secret Race made it clear that bike racing really came down to watts per kilogram (how much power you could generate from how little weight in your body; the idea being to be thin but have the endurance -- through heightened EPO levels -- to still generate the power over time) many sports come down to whether you have the body type to be able to compete.  If you want to be a top-level distance runner, you should probably be short with long legs (compared to your overall height) and not weigh very much.  This may seem like common-sense, but Epstein shows how even differences of a few pounds or a few inches can have a huge impact.

I still think it is good for kids to play all kinds of sports.  Obviously, I was never going to play sports beyond high school, so I'm glad I got to play them all when I did.  If I had just focused on one sport, I really do not think I would have been appreciably better, and I would have missed out on all of those experiences.  I'm not connected to youth sports these days (by my choice, not court order, mind you), but apparently, in my discussions with people who know things, many kids today choose one sport rather early and then ignore all others.  That seems like a recipe for burnout and just not much fun.  Epstein does not delve too deep into that subject, but he seems to agree that there are not obvious benefits from singular focus on a sport at a young age.

Anyway, I went on too long about that, but I really do think it's an interesting book, whether you like sports or not.  In an entirely different vein, I just finished reading two books that are two variations on the descent into madness: The Disaster Artist and Prisoner of Trebekistan.  The Disaster Artist is the tale of the making of The Room, the worst modern movie ever made, as told by one of the actors, Greg Sestero.  If you have not seen The Room, which sprang from the mind of the extremely strange Tommy Wiseau, it is worth your time and money, if only because it will make you want to say "Oh hi, Mark" and "You are tearing me apart, Lisa," all of the time.  If you have friends named Mark and Lisa it works even better, but it's fun either way.  I think The Room is actually worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space on many levels, although Tommy Wiseau and Ed Wood share some traits.

One of the "interesting" things about Wiseau is that he is so secretive about his background that no one really knows where he is from or how he got his money (which he wasted on making The Room and paying for a billboard in Hollywood advertising the film for five straight years).  Even the author, who spent more time with Wiseau than almost anyone, can only present Wiseau's backstory as a theory as to his origins.  What was personally very interesting for me is that Wiseau, after emigrating from somewhere in Europe, apparently took root in Chalmette, Louisiana, at least according to what he told Sestero.  Wiseau is said to have bagged groceries at Schwegmann's but did not like Chalmette.  During filming of The Room, Wiseau also was known to wear camouflage pants regularly, which leads me to believe that he also wore camouflage pants in Chalmette.  And he had to have purchased those pants somewhere.  And thus, in my mind, there was a time in the late 1980s, when a confused Tommy Wiseau was in the same army surplus store on Paris(h) Road as a confused Jeffrey Gautreaux.  Yes, we crossed paths.  And, I'm going to make a movie about it, even if everyone I know tells me it's a terrible idea and that it's a waste of money and it makes no sense and that if all we did is cross paths in an army surplus store, why are we playing football in tuxedos?  Those are good questions, but I'll show Hollywood.  I'll make my movie.

(Please let at least one of my readers have seen The Room or that last paragraph might have been a waste of typing.  Let me know in the comments.)

That was long, too.  This is what happens when Kat and Ada are not around.  It is just a descent into madness while talking about other people descending into madness.  It's an ouroboros of madness. Anyway, Prisoner of Trebekistan is a book by Bob Harris about his time on Jeopardy.  The game recaps are actually quite tense and exciting, and his explanation of just how hard he worked (and maybe went a little crazy) demonstrates that it takes more than knowing a lot of stuff to succeed at Jeopardy.  For Harris, at various points in his life, Jeopardy was simply a job, and he would go to amazing lengths to recreate the experience as he prepared.  Similar to Moonwalking with Einstein, Harris just shows how much one brain can remember, and it is quite impressive.  If you are a Jeopardy junkie, it is worth a read.  If Jeopardy is just another show to you, it's probably a miss.

Quick Recommendations:
Behind the Mask on Hulu.  It's a documentary series about mascots.  I'm not sure if it's particularly great, but there are some funny moments.
@Midnight.  This is also on Hulu.  It's comedians making fun of people on the Internet.  It's kind of like Tosh.GameShow.  See what I did there?
Aziz Ansari Buried Alive.  This is on Netflix.  It's pretty funny.

OK, I've gone on too long.  No one will get down here.  This is what happens when I'm by myself.  If I were still in that studio apartment in Yuma I would have blogged much more often over the past nine years (probably similar to the drivel above), but I would not be happier.  Even if I could listen to the Postal Service without drawing the ire of a tiny two-year-old dictator, I would not be happier.  Not even close.

I don't look forward to broken hearts

I haven't blogged in a while, so I have tons to tell my loyal readership.  When I get my new phone I'm going to get an app called "Remember to Blog About ...."  If it doesn't already exist, I'll create it.  But because I don't yet have this app, all of the interesting, insightful things I meant to blog about have already been forgotten.  You are left with only the garbage you are currently reading.

First issue: Is being a parent weird or am I just a weird parent?
Today, Kat, Ada and I were at a birthday party for a 3-year-old.  While the kids were running around, one of the mothers of another kid pointed at Ada and said to me, and the exact words are important here: "Is that yours?"  Now, I know that the generally accepted answer would be yes.  But this question makes me uncomfortable because it makes it sound as though I own Ada.  I prefer to say that she is her own autonomous person but we have a familial relationship.  I have this same difficulty with calling her "my daughter."  I don't own her, and I don't have much of a claim to her other than sharing some DNA.  She does her own thing, and I do mine -- we just happen to spend a lot of time together.

But, having said all that, I responded to that mother by saying, "Well, I don't own her, but we live in the same house."  This made this woman thoroughly confused.  Kat had to reassure this woman that I was actually Ada's biological father and that, no, she should put down her phone and should not call the cops.  This has taught me that there may be no point in trying to explain that yes, I am Ada's dad, but I don't call her mine because she is her own person.  I may have to give in, but it still makes me feel kind of weird.  But my attempts to explain this only lead to people knowing I'm weird.  If anyone has suggestions about how to answer questions about Ada that seem to implicate the Thirteenth Amendment, I am all ears.  For now, I am going to just mumble something and then run away.

Second issue: Football or why I'm glad Ada is a female.
I highly recommend the Frontline episode about the NFL concussion issue called "League of Denial."  I also recommend "Slow Getting Up," a book by former NFL tight end Nate Jackson.  The book explains what it is actually like to play in the NFL if you are not a star and will make you pretty sad throughout.  Another book that will make you sad that is tangentially about football that I "enjoyed" is "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain.  The book seems to do a pretty good job of encapsulating what it might be like to fight for the US in a modern war, both in the battlefield and back at home.  Despite its sadness, it actually is pretty funny.

But to get back to League of Denial, 44 of 46 brains of deceased NFL players that have been examined had chronic traumatic encephelopathy (CTE).  And while there is undoubtedly some selection bias in that figure -- after all the players that have healthy brains after playing aren't yet dead -- that is an amazing number.  What is even scarier is that a 21-year-old and an 18-year-old that had played football also were found to have CTE. It seems difficult to say that more research is needed to rule out other causes in light of these statistics.  And yet the games go on.  And I continue to watch.

This is not a blog entry about how I'm giving up watching football.  I still enjoy watching it, and I enjoyed playing it.  But I'm glad that Ada will never ask me to play football, so I don't have to make that choice. Girls can get concussions playing soccer or basketball or any of a number of other sports, but the incidence simply is not the same, despite statements by people who rely on the NFL for their paychecks.  If you read the stories about ex-NFL players or try to watch them go about their daily lives, it is difficult to enjoy football as you once did.  But still, Cowboys against the Washington Professional Football Team (I won't get into that issue right now) should be a good game Sunday night.  I'll be watching, no doubt.

Third issue: Aha!
I also highly recommend "I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan," the memoir of Steve Coogan's unctuous chat-show host character.  It's hilarious and you can really hear the character saying this drivel.  I had read that the audiobook was actually better than the real book, but you can't put an audiobook on a shelf and point at it and say "Aha!"  I'm also excited to see "Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa," the full-length film released this year in the UK that should be released in America next year.  It is a bummer that Netflix Instant does not have any AP, but if you want some Coogan instantly, you can't go wrong with Saxondale or In the Loop.

I'm also reading The Infatuations by Javier Marias.  I think it is good, but I may be too dumb to understand smart people's books.  I read about it in the New York Times Book Review, and I'm working my way through it.  I'll let you know.

Fourth issue: Ada!
She is quite the comedian, even though she does not understand the concept of humor.  I have been trying to teach her a knock knock joke to annoy people with, but she has not caught on quite yet.  I was working on the following:

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Impatient cow.
Impatient co--
Moo!

She has a ways to go, though.  What is hilarious is when you ask her whether she wants to do something, and she enthusiastically states: "I do!"  But it sounds like "adieu," so I have been trying to teach her to say that when she leaves as well.  Like they say in all of the parenting books: Puns can never start too early!

But while she can be funny, she can also be a little mean sometimes.  And you would think that a 20-pound mass with a low IQ should not be able to hurt an adult's feelings, but when she tells me that I can't play with her, it is a little dispiriting.  It makes me think about the times that I was not so nice to my parents and makes me regret those instances even more.  Ada isn't old enough to tell me she doesn't love me, but I know that will happen in the future because I did the same thing to my parents.  It is simply a part of growing up, I suppose, but it doesn't make me look forward to it.

These other parents (who are so gauche that they call their own children their property!) often say how they want their kids to stay the way they are and stop growing up.  I don't say that because I look forward to Ada getting older and learning new things.  But I don't look forward to fights and arguments and slammed doors.  I don't look forward to the things I did to hurt my parents.  I don't look forward to broken hearts.

But Ada does scores of things every day that help me not worry about the broken hearts.  I'll give you two for free.  One is when we are playing in her room and she goes and shuts the door and says it's "for piracy."  That always makes me laugh The second is when she pretends to cook for me at her play kitchen and says she will make me "me-balls and sawgambi," aka meatballs and spaghetti.  I'll always have these memories, so I don't worry too much.

In the end, I know that I am a weird parent, and I know that I have a weird, wonderful kid.  I hope that I can help her have a great life.  Aha!

As you probably know from Kat's blog (which is sort of the New York Times to my blog's biannual trailer park newsletter when it comes to getting news first), we went camping this past weekend at Dogtown Lake near Williams, Arizona. It was three families each with a two year old. It went about as you would expect. I'm not sure what I thought going in, but there was no shortage of crying. My plan was that I would be able to blog because camping normally allows sufficient leisure time for such pursuits.  I wrote part of this while I was there, but, as you can see, it did not go up while I was still enjoying the smell of verdant pines.  Also, I tried to type it on my iPad, which meant I had a solid hour of corrections to make anyway.

It was very pretty  at the lake and the weather was great. I'm (still) not very good at sleeping on the ground, but I was not cold. It was nice though to be spending an August day in Arizona and feeling chilly. I'm a big fan of Williams. It has a great golf course. The weather is beautiful. It has nice mountains. It has lakes. It has Rod's Steakhouse. I'm on board with it. Apparently Kat's dad is on board with it, too, although Kat and Kat's mom don't feel the same way.

Although Prescott has some things going for it as well.  After a healthy meal of In-n-Out Burger this evening, I told Kat that you really cannot beat living in Arizona and yet not needing to run your air conditioning in the evening in the middle of August.  Also, the movie theatre in Prescott reopened this week, so I'm no longer living in a two-horse town without any of those newfangled moving pictures.

But let's get to the important stuff: Ada facts, which is my name for news about Ada and the toys that are left strewn all over the house, sometimes to such a degree that you have to sift through them down to lower levels to see the toys she used to play with before moving on to newer, more annoying toys. So, yeah, the Ada facts are these.  She is improving by leaps and bounds. She is able to say complete sentences regularly. She can sing the ABC song with very few mistakes. She can sort of count. And, of course, she's not really interested in hanging out with me. (The other day I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk. She said no. But then when I went to go sit on the couch rather than go for a walk, she complained to Kat that I didn't leave! She wanted me to go for a walk by myself so I would not bother her!).  In short, she is learning quickly. She loves to "play castle" and talk about what the king and queen are doing. She loves to play with her horses, watch horses on television, ride actual horses, and talk about horses. There are a lot of horses in her future. And in my future. And in my bank account's future.

She's also kind of a jerk sometimes. She is definitely experiencing the terrible twos. Some days she fully adheres to the Groucho Marx song "Whatever It Is I'm Against It."  And I'm not really the disciplinarian in the family. Kat regularly says: "Jeffrey, parent."  But since I don't really know how to do that, I can usually get away with just giving Ada a hug and telling her it will be okay.  However, improved parenting skills on my part are probably necessary.

In other news, I recently finished Manifest Injustice by Barry Siegel, which is a recently released book about William Macumber, a man who spent nearly forty years in the Arizona Department of Corrections for a murder he likely did not commit. His release was the culmination of more than a decade of work by the Arizona Justice Project. Sharon Flack, an attorney I work with at the firm, worked on the Macumber case for the AJP while in law school and for many years after.  She plays a prominent role in the book, and though I had worked with her for almost three years, I had no idea she was a part of such an amazing story.  (Although I did start to get an idea when I noticed like twenty copies of the book in her office).  But nevertheless, it is is an excellent book and highly recommended.  Like most books I like, it's not exactly a feel-good beach read, but you will have an appreciation for Mr. Macumber and how he continued to make an impact on the world even while he spent more than half of his life in prison.

I have not blogged or tweeted because I have been busy, but I am going to try to be better about that. There is plenty going on, although my problem is most of it I cannot talk or write about and the rest is often not worth documenting.  Although, as a person who regularly reads deposition transcripts, the fact that something is not worth documenting does not mean that it does not nevertheless get documented.  So even if it might be boring, I'll try to put it down here on digital paper and see if I can make it less so.

Last, Kat and I recently Netflixed "Shut Up and Play the Hits," which is sort of a concert film/documentary about the end of LCD Soundsystem.  I would not call it a good movie, although it was a good final concert.  But my favorite line from my favorite LCD Soundsystem song "All My Friends" is: "If I'm sued into submission, I can still come home to this."  And that is what I think about when I look at the photo below.  That just about no matter what happens, I will always have these two to come home to, and that is a great thing to know.

There's a science to walking through windows

This might be controversial.  This might place my extensive readership in an uproar.  But I'll say it anyway.  It was easier to be a parent 30 years ago than it is today.  Now before I get a bunch of comments (unlikely but bear with me) about how parents today can use technology to control tiny children (what with iPads and iBlanket and iWouldreallylikeitifyoustoppedcrying) please remember that such technology is a double-edged parenting aid.

Ada has grown rather accustomed to seeing what she wants when she wants.  She will say, in a voice that is deathly serious: "Gabba?"  This means that Yo Gabba Gabba should soon be washing over her in all of its peyote dream glory.  Kat has taken to telling her that "That show is not on right now," but I think Ada has figured out we live in an on-demand world.  She knows that DJ Lance Rock is available at any time, and we cannot pretend otherwise.

If I asked to watch Sesame Street when I was two, my parents could truthfully say it was not on at 4 p.m., but Ada knows she has seen Sesame Street at all hours of the day on various devices.  I do not lie to her.  I explain that yes, we can watch seemingly anything we want online, but we are not going to watch the Muppets right now.

The life of a toddler is one of unmet demands.  But some things are actually on-demand, and this complicates parenting and discipline.  It also complicates my use of my own iPad.  I have to use it in hiding sometimes (like I have a drug problem or something) because if Ada sees it she will say: "Elmo too?" while looking at me in a way that can only be described as "intense yearning."  It's terrible.  And I can't say "Elmo's not on" because it is not true and Netflix has a ton of episodes at the ready.

Anyway, I don't think parenting is going to get easier.  Ada loves sunglasses, so I'm sure she would love Google Glass.  However, she's never going to find out about it.  Because, after all, "Google Glass is not on right now."

Continuing my old-timey rants about "the future," I don't think anyone listens to full musical albums anymore.  It's just singles and YouTube clips and snippets in commercials.  And in my small way I try to rebel against that by trying to take my time with music I care about.  Last weekend I listened to the new The National record "Trouble Will Find Me" while walking the new Centennial Trail, which starts near our house.  I thought it was a great mix of activity and auditory experience that will keep both in my mind for some time.

While I can remember the first time I saw the Gangnam Style video on YouTube, I can't remember the 2nd through 25th times, and this shows the rather disposable state of most music today.  Right now I'm reading "Bruce," a recent biography of Bruce Springsteen.  And it seems that when people were listening to Darkness on the Edge of Town on vinyl for the first time, it was a momentous, near religious, experience.  While there are many artists today whose music is far from momentous, there still are many bands that can deliver that sort of punch.

For me, The National definitely delivers on that level.  While they are sonically different from the Boss, I think lyrically they are just as interesting.  And clearly they both share an attention to detail and thirst for perfection that can make recording sessions stretch for months.  If you get an opportunity, at least listen to "Graceless," by The National, which is my current obsession.  Although the prior paragraphs were in support of listening to the entirety of the work of the artist, just give that one a listen.  If you like it, there is plenty more where it came from.

I'm enjoying the Springsteen book.  I've always been impressed by the sheer magnitude of the shows he and the E Street Band would put on.  While I never got to see one (and the Dancing in the Dark video is not all that accurate), I can appreciate that kind of effort.

My favorite Springsteen song: Atlantic City off of Nebraska, another album that you should listen to throughout and celebrates one of my home states claims to fame: psychotic murderers.  Well, that and football.

OK, that's all.  Remember, it's the side effects that save us.

32

I had a nice birthday today.  And, of course, a nice anniversary as well.  The past six years with Kat have been six of the best of my 32 years.  If I had to rank them, all six would probably win the top ten.  But as this is not Bleacher Report, I don't think I actually have to rank them.

Kat and I were trying to get Ada to wish me a happy birthday, but all she would say is "happy cake." She has conflated birthdays with cake, which is not necessarily inaccurate.  I'm it optimistic that Ada will understand things by June 22, but she does learn pretty quickly.

My birthday weekend had far more bodily fluids than I would normally prefer.  Ada and Kat were both sick, and I have not felt perfect either.  However, it was still fun to be together.  Soon we will be sick together in a new house, which is also an exciting development.

This past week someone at my twice weekly 6 am basketball game asked me how old I was.  I said I was going to turn 32, which meant, according to all the sabermetric research I had ever read, my prime was now over.  Even though I'm out of my prime and the best I can hope for is a one or two year contract, I'm still excited about the future.  Part of me thinks that, all joking aside, i am getting kind of old, but I like how each new year brings new adventures and challenges.

Fitting in with this theme, I have been reading "Why Does the World Exist" by Jim Holt.  It's sort of like an intro course to philosophy and epistemology, but it is pretty enjoyable.  As the universe is believed to be about 14 billion years old, 32 years is a pretty minor sliver, but I prefer knowing about my minor sliver to having no idea.  I don't know why the world exists or why I have gotten these 32 years, but I'll take it over the alternative.  I love Kat and Ada, and I look forward to many more years with them.

Some Thoughts on Child Rearing

Although I would not recommend it, one could go back and reread all of the blogs I have posted on this blog and others and would find that the only real theme in my posts is that I only come to understand the actions of others and myself long after those actions have occurred.  This was pithily summed up on a wall hanging in my grandparents' bathroom that said:

You are too soon old and too late schmart.

This wall hanging contained the accumulated wit and wisdom of hard-working Baueren und Landwirte from Deutschland.  Because it was in the bathroom, I had plenty of opportunities to read it, and it has stuck.  And now that Ada is around, it is more true than ever.

But, notwithstanding the fact that I learn everything too late, here are a few nuggets I have picked up as a parent.

People say it is impressive that babies can pick up language so easily, but, in reality, it is their lives that are so easy and this makes learning language simple.  If an adult did not have to do anything all day -- including feeding one's self and dealing with bodily functions -- I know that adult could learn French in no time.  I have gone over scores of words with Ada REPEATEDLY and she is only now getting them.  Babies are great, but let's not go too far.

That said, Ada is doing very well with learning English. (She is doing terribly at learning German!  I tell her each day: Ich heisse Ada. Wie gehts?  But nothing sticks!)  Anyway, I heard her say her first complete sentence to me the other day, which, unsurprisingly, was a critique of my parenting skills.  While I was carrying her to the grocery store, she clearly said: "I can walk." I immediately put her down, at which point, she tried to run into traffic.  She is duplicitous, but I like it.

During that same trip, I put her in a shopping cart that has a little "car" on the front of it.  She enjoyed it, but even when we were done, she would not get out.  She was just sitting in it in a cart corral.  I was stymied in luring her out, so I had to tempt her with pizza.  That worked, but then I had to buy her pizza.  She is duplicitous, but I like it.

I took her swimming yesterday, and she did very well with going under water.  In the past, she had cried, but she was learning to close her eyes and mouth while under.  I was relating this to Kat later, and I said that I was able to hold her under water for up to a second without getting any crying on re-entry.  Kat was a bit, to use her word,"judgy" about me holding Ada under water, but I told her I just want to "stretch" Ada.  We'll see if Child Services understands what it means to "stretch" a child.

Even though I clearly am a first-class parent, there are some quandaries for which even I have no answer.  One that currently bedevils me is the proper response when people think Ada is a boy.  This happened three separate times yesterday at the library and happens regularly.  I think Ada clearly looks like a girl, but I can also remember many times in my life when I looked at babies and was not sure.  My technique was to use non-gender specific language to refer to the child, like "What a cute baby!" or "Look at that little monster" or "It's Pat!"  Other people, however, are not doing that.  I'd like Ada to be as tough as any boy, but I'd also like her to be referred to properly.  My technique is to just ignore this rather than correct people.  But I do not know if this is good or not.

Other impressive Ada feats: stacking things up and then saying "Too high" as it falls down; falling down the stairs; helping us buy a new house; watching the Muppets very intently, and, my personal favorite, drumming perfectly in time whenever Proud Mary by CCR is played.

I like watching the old Muppets shows with Ada. Some of it was pretty subversive.  Yesterday, Ada and I watched as Peter Sellers, in a not-even-thinly veiled impersonation of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele (complete with Hitler mustache) gave an evil massage to an unwitting pig.  It was hilarious and disturbing.  Ada now knows more about World War II, though, so I think it was helpful.

The uninteresting foregoing stores are all very reminiscent of what happens when there is a comedian that you like who has children and then his or her entire set is now about babies.  Everyone hates that, but I have fallen prey to the same disease.  I know people came to this blog to read my sharp takes on the world of sports or the books I'm reading, but now its Ada Ada Ada.  I hear you loud and clear, and the rest of the blog will be thankfully Ada-free.

College basketball is basically backyard fights at this point.  I don't think it is even watchable.  However, for some reason, my opinion that the NBA is in absolutely every way superior is not accepted by many people I meet.  If a certain baby I know and I end up watching college basketball (like if the remote breaks) I remind this certain baby that this is an inferior brand of basketball, but, you know, any port in a storm.

But I filled out an NCAA bracket nevertheless.  My theory for the bracket was that the most annoying storylines are bound to happen, so I need to predict them in advance.  This was the thought experiment: What is the most grating thing that Jim Nantz could repeat ad nauseam until I want to stab my own ears and eyes?  I decided it has to be Indiana winning the title as Nantz tells me for the thousandth time that Tom Crean is Jim and John Harbaugh's brother-in-law and that the Harbaughs faced each other in the Super Bowl (because, of course, I forgot that).  The Super Bowl was even on CBS this year, so it all fits in a beautiful, terrible way.  So when you are seeing repeated Harbaugh crowd shots, remember who told you first. 

My bracket is doing terribly, however.  I thought an Indiana-Butler regional final would be really annoying (and thus occur) because it's an in-state battle, would have constant Brad Stevens pharmaceutical mentions, Harbaugh crowd shots, past Butler near misses, and blah, blah, blah.  Well, that is not happening, but a man can nightmare, can't he?

Shout-out to Owen Gautreaux, the manliest Gautreaux yet.

I'm reading The Help because I'm a Midwestern housewife in 2008 apparently.  It's been a long slog.  If only I had someone to assist me in finishing it.  Oh well.

One Man Book Club

I recently finished A Wilderness of Error, which is Errol Morris's book about the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case.  For people of a certain age, the case was big news for many years, but it never was for me.  I basically knew nothing about it, which is important because those who do know about it often do not know what really happened.

Morris, as he always does, focuses simply on truth.  For anyone who has watched The Thin Blue Line or Fog of War, they will understand Morris's ability to present reality in a way that makes fiction seem unnecessary.

Wilderness of Error is a good read for everyone, whether a lawyer or otherwise.  It demonstrates -- to me, quite convincingly -- that even if MacDonald may have murdered his family, there was no way a jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that he had done it.  These statements might seem contradictory, but thy are not.  A criminal case -- involving a person's life and liberty -- is not a civil case where one side with 51 percent must win.  The deck should be stacked against the government, but the MacDonald case appears to be a situation where the inverse occurred.

The other very interesting fact about the MacDonald case is how the worlds of journalism and law collided to ruin MacDonald's chances of ever succeeding on appeal.  Once Fatal Vision (the book and then the TV movie) became popular, the actual facts of the case became obscured by the "facts" of the book and TV movie.  The main "fact" that became gospel was that MacDonald went loopy on diet pills and slaughtered his family, even though this was hardly even a theory of the government at the trial.  It basically became a "print the legend" scenario from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, but the legend being printed seemed to harm MacDonald's chances on appeal. 

If MacDonald had ever won on appeal to get a second trial, seemingly every juror in the country would have been prejudiced.  But MacDonald has never even gotten that far.  Simply being innocent -- if there is no new DNA evidence or some other factor that shows the trial was somehow erroneous -- is not necessarily grounds to reverse a conviction.  And so today, after 30 years of appeals, MacDonald is still in prison.  Ironically, the parole board has told him for years now that he will be released if he just admits he committed the crime.  But if he is innocent, how can he?  I will never understand the penchant of the government to demand remorse and an admission of guilt by a defendant who has not been convicted and maintains his innocence.  If MacDonald has served enough time to get released if he just said some words, he has served enough time to be released anyway.

MacDonald has always maintained his innocence, and today it is the only thing keeping him in prison.  But if you read Morris's book, you will understand why Morris would rather remain in prison than admit to a crime that no prosecutor could prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you would like to read another outstanding book that investigates the difference between the story people think they know and the truth, you should also read Standard Operating Procedure, a book by Morris and Philip Gourevitch.  It is about Abu Ghraib and will probably haunt your dreams, but sometimes the truth does that.

I hope to have some good beach reads for you in future installments of One Man Book Club, but for this one I definitely recommend A Wilderness of Error.  It is the most fun you will have reading about a miscarriage of justice this year.  I guarantee it.

Bad Reporter

The title of this post is not only the name of the FX sitcom I am writing about my time in journalism, it is also true of my general failure to blog.  However, the fact that I rarely write on here is not because interesting things are not happening.  It is a lot of fun to watch Ada grow and learn new things.  We are able to communicate with her, although there are times she may be just ignoring me. Most NBA coaches get at least two years before Ric Bucher starts reporting that the players are tuning them out, but I did not even get that long.  Of course, Ada and her mother are both quite adept at pretending to listen while I go on extended one-person exegeses about such topics as the parol evidence rule, replacement referees, and advanced baseball statistics.  And I, of course, love them for even bothering to pretend.

It has been great fun taking Ada out with us on bike rides.  We have a seat for her that is interchangeable between my bike and Kat's bike, and Ada seems to enjoy the rides.  I have to commend Kat for how well she has succeeded at integrating a tiny person into the stuff we like to do. Basically I'm thanking her for the fact that I have not had to sacrifice any of the fun I get to have even though I also now get to hang out with a pretty cool kid who likes to watch football and golf.

While it is not all fun and games, it is quite an interesting experience.  I'm excited for Elliott and Katie to have some of these experiences soon with my nephew, Jones Alvin Gautreaux.  (That might not be his name, but that was the boy name Kat and I were going with, although we were going to use the middle name of Elliott.  Anyway, we won't be using it and it is too good not to share.  But geez, if the actual parents want to choose the name, I guess I'll leave it to them.)

I will be in attendance in the club section today's Miami Dolphins-Buzzsaw that is the Arizona Cardinals tilt.  I'm not certain that the quarterback play I will see today will be better than what I used to see on Thanksgiving Day at Gerald Rinne Field at Mildred Rinne Stadium.  I am going with a co-worker who is a TAMU grad and actually believes that Ryan Tannehill is an NFL quarterback.  I have told him all week that Tannehill is simply terrible, which probably guarantees that on Monday, after Tannehill torches the Buzzsaw for 350 yards, Peter King will be writing something gushing about how Tannehill learned to throw by tossing hay bales on a Texas ranch.

I said the Cards would go 4-12 this season in the season preview I wrote for Street & Smith's magazine (oh, you didn't see it?), so a win today means they must close the season on a 12 game losing streak.  But Arizona teams do not handle success well, so I am expecting a close contest today.  I'll be live tweeting all of the amazing perks that go along with the club section under #53percenter.

Good win by Nebraska last night, although I only saw parts where they played terribly. When the only player you can trust on the entire team fumbles after running into his own teammate, that is not a game your team will normally end up winning.  So for the Huskers to come back is pretty impressive.  However, Wisconsin might not be any good.

I'm reading a book called Who Gets What by Kenneth Feinberg.  It is about his work as a special master distributing large settlements in mass tort events, like the 9/11 Compensation Fund.  If you enjoy mass torts - and if I know my audience, they do - it is an interesting read.  However, I think it is hampered by the fact that so much has to stay confidential.  I'm similarly hampered in telling Kat what I think are funny stories, but she has informed me that these stories are not actually funny.  Anyway, if you are interested in further reading on mass torts - and I know you are - I can also recommend anything by Richard Nagareda.

In summary for those who don't want to read all of this: Ada is a good kid, football, football, mass torts, summary.

Really long law post I typed on my iPad when I could not sleep

While I don't normally delve into the political realm on this blog because I don't know anything about politics, the interesting developments in the legal (entirely non-political, of course) world this week have spurred me to action. I spent this exciting Friday night reading the health care decision (which has such an unwieldy name it will be interesting to see what future decisions call it: NFIB, Sebelius, Obamacare seems too colloquial for legal writing, but I guess we will see) and the immigration decision, Arizona v. United States. I need to spend some more time with the immigration decision, but I do have some thoughts on the health care decision, although I'm sure you can find better insight throughout the web, or maybe even scrawled on a bathroom stall door. But nevertheless, I'll give you what I got.

As I said above, this is not a political analysis by me, whether that sounds convincing or not. For anyone who has read the opinion, my statement clearly echoes Chief Justice Roberts' statement that he was not making policy judgments but simply applying the law. Despite his best efforts to downplay the political, the prevailing sentiment appears to be that Roberts voted as he did to protect the legitimacy and esteem of the Supreme Court, which, while not a political decision, is still a decision not grounded in the law. The sentiment also appears to be that if Roberts had made a political decision he naturally would have sided with the conservatives, and,  if this sentiment is so pervasive, it seems pointless to attempt to protect the legitimacy of the Court because everyone has already decided that all of the decisions are political. However, in our current metaculture, one can hardly achieve any goal without a harsh spotlight focused on the attempt to achieve it. Thus, Roberts may have ultimately decided that making his decision was more important than why he made it.

Further, Roberts follows the Rehnquist model for being the Chief, and Rehnquist cared deeply about the esteem of the Court. He knew that the Court's power only exists when the other branches of government and the people respect its decisions because the Court has no army to enforce its decisions. But when a Chief begins to place the opinion of the Court before the Opinions of the Court, legitimacy can easily suffer. But, these decisions aren't made in a vacuum. Roberts did not make his decision entirely for any one reason. This country is so polarized that any decision is simultaneous grounds for sainthood and impeachment, so Roberts obviously understood that no decision would improve the view of the Court in everyone's eyes. So why did he decide as he did? Let's consider.

First, it's true that labels often don't matter. Early on in law school you quickly learn that calling a thing X does not make it X. Stating in a contract that the contract is not unconscionable and the interest rate is not usurious, does not make it so. Roberts used this first year maxim to explain why the individual mandate, though enforceable by "penalty," was really a tax. Whether this was persuasive depends on one's point of view, but it is well established that a court should interpret a statute in a way that makes the statute constitutional, if such an interpretation is reasonable. The dissenting Justices called what Roberts did "rewriting" the statute, although it is not as though the statute would now operate differently. Roberts ignored the labels, said the mandate acts as a tax, and construed the statute in a way he believed constitutional. To me, his analysis is defensible and well written. Like Rehnquist often did, Roberts wrote the opinion to be understandable to the layman. He clearly explained the trip from A to B to C; whether people care to ride along is a different issue.

Second, the decision to strike down the Medicaid expansion followed from clear precedent that one also learns early on in law school. The federal government cannot make "Godfather" offers to states when conditioning federal funds. The removal of all Medicare funding from a state is, as Roberts wrote, a gun to the head. South Dakota v. Dole (which is one of those case names with a hidden joke because it is about federal highway funding to states, although welfare funding would be funnier) pretty clearly prohibits the federal government from this kind of coercive conditioning. Thus, Roberts' decision is again defensible and clear. Lots of people will not like it, but it is clear how he gets there.

Also, like the best Rehnquist opinions, this opinion by Roberts seems strange and unexpected until one considers how well it solves the tangle of problems with which the Court was faced. No one really expected the "individual mandate as tax" argument to go anywhere, but Roberts saw how he could use it to uphold the constitutionality of the individual mandate, not expand the Commerce Clause, respect the legislative branch, and improve the perception of the Court. Being a good lawyer is about solving multifaceted problems, and this often means sacrificing intellectual purity for meaningful solutions. And let there be no doubt, Roberts was a great lawyer. While some will want to vilify Roberts for (allegedly) placing results before process, time, not men and women in robes, will be the ultimate judge.

On a different note, there is definitely some weirdness in the opinion that is highly noticeable to anyone who has read more than a few Supreme Court opinions. I do not claim to be the first to present these ideas, but I read the opinion without having read any commentary and some things jumped out at me. (Kat can vouch that I made these comments before reading anything else, although once I looked online these same thoughts were presented better and more clearly, but, nevertheless, I think they are interesting and my audience is captive). I do think Roberts switched sides at the very end. There are some obvious clues that point to this. Most are in the dissent by the conservative Justices. Rather than attacking Roberts' majority opinion, as a dissent normally would, the dissent takes apart the Government's arguments in its brief. Although the conservatives never miss an opportunity to flay the government when it wants to expand federal powers, it does not seem right to just ignore the opinion of the Court when it goes the other way. The conservatives' dissent definitely reads like it was the majority opinion at one time. In fact, my theory is that Roberts wrote it originally (although less harshly), he then abandoned it, wrote his own new majority opinion, Scalia came in and harshened up the dissent a bit but did not so revamp it that it actually dealt with the new majority opinion, and because the Justices wanted to leave for vacation, the whole thing went out. This is obviously highly speculative, but what leads me to believe Roberts originally wrote the dissent is that all four of the other conservatives signed it together -- it has no single drafter. This is relatively unusual. To me, if the Justices left the conference with Roberts already with the liberals, Scalia would have written the dissent. It seems more likely that they left the conference with Roberts with the conservatives and Roberts, as the Chief, gave the opinion to himself. My conjecture will take awhile to prove. We can hope Roberts will release his papers after he retires or dies and we can figure out what happened as June 2012 came to a close.

While I'm not a huge fan of the conflict and animus that is attendant with politics today, I do like it when there is a big Supreme Court case because it gets people interested in the Court and interested in the law. Maybe some people will even read Roberts' opinion and find they enjoy it. I certainly did. Because regardless of one's opinion of the Supreme Court or the national perception of the Court, the Justices, like judges across this country, have to give their reasons for their decisions. They cannot rely on dogma or morals or "common sense" or polling; they have to "show their work" and that is real justice.

(If any of this is interesting or made sense, it is largely in part to Professor Toni Massaro's Constitutional Law II class at the University of Arizona.  Professor Massaro shows students how to analyze Supreme Court decisions to a depth that goes beyond the holding and actually considers all of the factors that could play a role.  The parts that are boring or just plain wrong are, of course, mine.)