My son asks for help with a homework problem in math. The main point of contention with math homework is that when he asks for help, he’d like me to just do the problem for him, while I prefer to try and steer his thinking in the right direction, even though it takes a lot longer. “This is like the problem you helped me with last night,” he says. “Let’s try not to have a one-hour conversation about it this time.” Read more →
California Adventure
People I Thought Were Dead
George McGovern – U.S. Congressman, Senator, and Democratic presidential nominee. Updates George McGovern – died 10/21/2012, age 90 Read more →
Caulfield on Books
What I like best is a book that’s at least funny once in a while. … What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though. — J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye Read more →
Antipattern: Bore People to Death With Your Job Ads
A common piece of advice to job seekers is: Don’t focus your resume and cover letter on what you want; focus on how you offer what the hiring company wants. This advice also applies in reverse to a hiring company writing a job ad, but in practice, it’s almost never followed, which is why this ad for a position at the Irvine Public Schools Foundation (IPSF) jumped out at me: Read more →
HW Explains the U.S. Newborn Mortality Rate
Just in time for Mother’s Day, Save the Children has published its seventh annual State of the World’s Mothers report on newborn mortality. As usual, the U.S. takes a beating: Read more →
My Dog Sends a Bark Out to His Mom for Mother’s Day
Hi Mom! Happy Mothers Day! I can’t believe another whole year has gone by already! Seven dog years! LOL! My owners take really good care of me. They take me to the dog park here in Irvine almost every day. I am very loving, but when some dog at the park runs up on me and tries to get all dominant, I use my illegal ninja moves on him, especially if it’s a big dog, like a Great Dane. You would be proud of me! Thanks for teaching me to always stand up for myself. Miss you . . . Love, Lightning P.S. I wrote this post myself, but my owner helped me with the HTML. P.P.S. Say hi to Dad. — Lightning Read more →
My Hair is Too Short
The girl at Fantastic Sam’s cut my hair too short. She was telling me about a car accident she had yesterday and I asked her, “Were you drunk at the time?” “In the morning?!” she yelled. “Hel-lo!? I was drinking coffee!” O-kay, like, overreaction! Probably in major denial mode, and does in fact have a serious drinking problem. And like I said, she took it out on my hair. Read more →
The World of Make-Believe
I take my cell phone out of my pocket and notice that the battery’s gone dead. “Way to plan ahead,” my son says, without looking up from his GameBoy. Read more →
How Homework Gets Done at My House
My son’s reading Catherine, Called Birdy for his 7th grade Language Arts class. The book is set in medieval England and written in the form of a 14-year-old girl’s diary. “It’s got no theme, no plot, no flow, no fun, no nothing!” the boy says. “It’s gay!” I sympathize with him — it reads like a 13th century MySpace blog — but that doesn’t change the fact that he has to read it. “I refuse to read this book!” he says. “You can’t,” his mom replies. “I have a restraining order! Catherine has to stay 10 feet away from me.” And he tosses the book into the middle of the living room. I look over at my wife . . . her eyes are now closed and she’s biting on her lower lip, accompanied by a slow, dramatic intake of breath, all of which suggests that clowntime is just about… Read more →
Notes from the Asylum
My son’s on spring break and my wife — a moderately functional paranoid schizophrenic — is taking a day off to spend some time with him. Read more →
3 Former Titans of Industry Now Having a Worse Day Than You
Ken Lay – On trial for conspiracy and fraud. Could get 20 to 30 years in prison. Not good if you’re already 64 years old. Scott McNealy – Following yet another dismal financial report, resigns as Sun’s CEO after 22 years. Sanjay Kumar – Former CA Inc. CEO pleads guilty in $2.2 billion accounting fraud, faces up to 20 years in prison. Read more →
Another Reason Dogs Are Better Than Wives
Here’s how my wife describes me and the pug: an old man and a boring dog. But the dog doesn’t insult the old man, and that’s why the old man likes the dog . . . Read more →
101 Ways to Say No
My son’s got a seemingly endless number of ways to answer no to the question “Are you done with your homework yet?” Some recent examples: — Pretty much all done, yeah. — Yes I am! (Long pause) Except for a little reading… — What? Read more →
Building a Boat
Two men within a mast length of Rick Hedrick’s homemade 32-foot sailboat have toiled away on their boats for 30 years each. Another for 25 years. Another recently died before his life’s work saw the briny sea. By comparison, Hedrick, 61, of San Clemente, has practically set a land-speed record. He only had to give up 17 years – working every weekend and two or three nights a week after work to complete his life’s dream. . . . “Yes, I’m anxious,” Hedrick said last week at the Boat Yard, where men dream of water, sometimes for half their lives. “The only thing I have ever wanted to do is go sailing. But now that I’m here, I’m reflecting on everything. I’ve spent so much of my life here. I haven’t lived a normal life. I’m never home. I’m 61. I wonder, did I pay too great a price?” —… Read more →
A Day at the Art Museum with a 7th Grader
I took my son to the new Landscape Confection exhibit at the Orange County Museum of Art today. I don’t know much about art, but I do have a couple rules of thumb: Read more →
A Pessimist Looks at History
…Let me get this straight, we sent how many tanks and planes over there, it’s already been one full day and they still haven’t made it off of those beaches. Give me a break. How much money is being spent on that army again? Well I know I won’t be cheering for the abolition of fascism in Europe if this continues… — Posted on June 7, 1944 Read more →
My Dog Recaps the Westminster Dog Show
This pug, Ch Kendoric’s Riversong Mulroney, won the toy group at the Westminster Dog Show. He has won 65 Best in Shows. Read more →
Earthquake Preparedness
A colleague of mine had a vacation planned, visiting some friends out of state. Then a psychic told her that an earthquake would strike California during that week, so she cancelled the vacation to stay home with her family. If I really believed that an earthquake was going to hit on a certain date, I’d make sure that I was out of town. Of course, I’d hope that my child made it through okay. And my dog. As for my wife, there’s nothing wrong with our relationship that a couple tons of rubble wouldn’t fix. Read more →
Why I Don’t Own a Hatchet or a Gun
I’m in the processing of converting all the old content here into WordPress, which among other things, lets me assign categories to each item. I filed one item, principally about a woman who ran over her husband with a car, under several categories, including Murder and Kids. My son, who’s sitting next to me on the sofa doing homework, says, “You’re posting stuff about murdering kids?!” I say, “No, it’s about murdering husbands.” “You’re posting stuff about kids murdering husbands?!” “No, it’s about wives murdering husbands, which happens a lot, unfortunately.” “It would happen around here if Mom had a hatchet or a gun.” “That’s exactly why we don’t have those things.” Read more →