I’m making chili for dinner . . . “I don’t like chili,” the boy says. “Good. That means there’ll be more for me and Lightning.” “You’re giving chili to the dog?!” “And since I’m not giving any to Lightning, that means there’ll be more for me . . .” Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Parents
Homework Follies
My son takes a break from his social studies worksheet to explain his new system for organizing homework assignments. “I write everything down in my organizer, then I draw a happy face next to the easy assignments, a sad face next to the hard ones, and a sad face with tears next to the ridiculous ones.” “What kind of a face did you put next to that social studies assignment?” I ask. “Sad face. I should have put one tear. I gave reading comprehension two tears.” “Have you ever had an assignment where you put a sad face with tears showering from both eyes?” “I just started the system today.” Read more →
My Fantasy Football League Fantasy
My workplace is teeming with idiots who know more about some steroid-amped freak and how many yards he ran with a ball in his hands than they do about their own family members and whatever babysitter is raising their kids for them. Kee-rist! I wish I could go back in time and strangle them all in their cradles . . . Read more →
Happy Halloween
I look forward to taking my son out trick-or-treating every year. I have lots of Halloween memories, mostly happy, some sad . . . One year — he was in kindergarten or 1st grade, I can’t remember which — I took him out and he was so excited, running from house to house . . . As he was running back from one house, he slipped and fell right in front of a group of older kids. They were very nice, helped him up, asked if he was okay, which he was, but it really demoralized him. A couple of houses later, he said he wanted to go home. I asked him if he felt bad about falling down in front of everybody and he said no, he was just tired and wanted to go home. So I took him home. He’s 11 now and tonight he and his friends… Read more →
High Noon
“I can’t believe people are playing tennis at high noon,” my son says as we drive by the local courts. “They’re building up their stamina,” I suggest. “They’re getting skin cancer,” he replies. “They’ll need stamina to battle the skin cancer.” Read more →
A Lazy Sunday Afternoon
I’m stretched out on the sofa relaxing while my son walks around revved up from some computer game he’s been playing . . . “You wanna battle me?” he shouts. Read more →
The Family Lawyer
It’s taking a long time for our beverages to arrive at El Cholo, one of our favorite dining establishments. (Try the Sonora-Style Enchilada.) “The drinks are taking a long time,” my wife says. “Yeah,” my son agrees. “Drinks are supposed to come fast. I’m going to file a complaint.” “Who are you going to file a complaint with?” I ask. “Grandma Sylvia . . . she’s a lawyer.” Read more →
Interpretation of Dreams
I was looking for something in my son’s room this morning when he woke up saying, “Please stop it!” He didn’t seem to be really talking to me, so I said, “Did you have a dream?” WIthout opening his eyes, he said, “Mom was shuffling her feet for an hour!” Read more →
More Evidence There Are Way Too Many TV Channels
I overhear my boy saying to the dog, “What’s your favorite TV show with a dog in it? Scooby-Doo? Huckleberry Hound?” “Huckleberry Hound!?” I say. “Where did you ever hear of Huckleberry Hound?” “It’s on Channel 348.” Read more →
Mom Learns to Play Chess
She doesn’t have the patience for a full explanation of the rules, the pieces and how they move . . . MOM: How do I win? I kill your king? BOY: Mmmm . . . yes. MOM: Which one is the king? Read more →
Wasted Time
There was a profile of Jerry Buss, the owner of the Lakers, on TV the other night . . . Buss spent very little time with his family when his kids were growing up. When he and his wife separated, they didn’t tell the kids, and it was five years before any of them noticed the difference. True story! Clearly, I have not been nearly as ruthless as I could have been at disregarding my family in my pursuit of success. Read more →
Good Game! (Bleccch)
My son’s hockey game got completely out of hand. I’ve never seen a game like that . . . they led 11-9 before losing 12-11. My boy had eight goals. Neither team could stop anything. Read more →
Verbification
Reading an excerpt from the tray liner at KFC: We plate your food while it’s still hot, and serve it at the peak of flavor perfection. “Tell me something I don’t know,” my son says. Read more →
One Thing Bill Clinton and I Have in Common
. . . I was once the only kid at an Easter egg hunt who didn’t get a single egg, not because I couldn’t find them but because I couldn’t get to them fast enough. — Bill Clinton, My Life Read more →
Working Late
Sometimes when I’m working a little late, my boy calls me at the office . . . Read more →
What I’m Reading
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him. — Jonathan Swift I’m reading a great, very funny book called A Confederacy of Dunces, written by John Kennedy Toole in 1963. Unfortunately, Toole could not find anyone willing to publish the book and subsequently killed himself in 1969 at the age of 31. Read more →
HW Solves Two of the Thorniest Problems in American Education
Racial Gaps On average, black students who graduate from high school are equipped with the skills the average white student mastered by the eighth grade, according to federal tests. — “Equal access to schools fails to equalize education,” USA Today Blah blah blah . . . Read more →
Raising Kids and Dogs
I’m brushing my teeth in the bathroom when the dog, as he often does, runs in, jumps up, pulls the bath towels off the rack and starts shaking them around. It doesn’t do any real damage, but of course someone has to re-rack the towels. My son, who’s decided this morning that it will be funny to walk around shouting at everyone, walks in, surveys the damage and shouts at me, “Who let him do this? You?” Read more →
How to be Annoying
Your dad says: “Time to take a shower.” You say: “Customer service will be with you in a few minutes. Please hold.” Start humming a song . . . “Take a shower!” “Please hold!” Read more →
The Comfort of Methodology
Ill-specified systems are as common today as they were when we first began to talk about Requirements Engineering twenty or more years ago. Yet the task of creating complete and perfect specifications is not rocket science. We have adequate and comprehensible theories at our disposal for specification of finite state automata. We have proceeded over the past decades to develop and refine a discipline of applying these theories to real-world systems. In our methodological focus, we may have lost sight of some endemic problems that plague not the process but the people who do the process. Is it possible that an engineering approach to requirements is as badly suited to our real need as would be an engineering approach to raising teenagers? I’m beginning to think so . . . — Tom DeMarco, “Requirements Engineering: Why Aren’t We Better at It?”, 2nd International Conference on Requirements Engineering There are zillions… Read more →