Back Story (M): Summer Came To Visit

M is for Miscellanea, remember?

It reached the eighties here in the Twin Cities yesterday. That was—though deeply unusual (a phrase which here means "record breaking")—quite enjoyable, early in the day at any rate (more on that later).

I stunned my son Riley when he got off the bus from kindergarten when I said "I have to go back to the house for a few minutes, then how about we go to the park?"

First off, I don't think the thought had crossed his mind yet this early in the spring—and trust me, this is a kid that does think of the park very early in the spring—and secondly, even though I can usually enjoy taking him there, I never am the one to suggest it.

So off we went to the park for a while, and he was mighty miffed when I told him it was time to go so I could get dinner on the table before I had to leave for my class. (I'm taking Internet Programming - Client Side at Saint Paul College, as I work toward a Web Developer Certificate.) I finally got him to head for the car, but not without hearing about how we're coming back to the park again tomorrow (which would be today, now) and every day next week (during his spring break).

The bad part about summer showing up for a day is that folks at Saint Paul College had no idea how to switch on the A/C I guess. It was sweltering in our classroom, a condition made worse by all the computers turned on in the room!

Our first order of business at class? A quiz! I started off real good—I really know this stuff rather well—but then the heat started to get to me and I found myself struggling over stuff I knew that I knew. What an annoyance!

The rest of the class went well though; we're really getting into some cool JavaScript stuff now, which I cannot wait to apply to my Web Developer Quest site, not to mention what I might be able to do for this blog!

And being that this is primarily a "book talk" blog, I guess I could mention that the textbook we're using (New Perspectives on JavaScript by Patrick Carey and Frank Canovatchel) is really excellent for learning JavaScript from. And it is even better for learning JavaScript with a teacher, but I think most educated individuals could do quite well with only this book.

So—back to my story—summer visited, as I was saying.

For one day.

Today it is back to being what I—with my seriously thin blood—would have to call "mighty cool".

So guess where Riley and I wound up after he got off the bus today?

Right!

The park.

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(R)ecreation [From my "Back Story" blog]

What do I do to kill time? Well, I:

• read
• watch TV:
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
• The Class
• House
• Brothers & Sisters
• CSI: NY
• Medium
• Two and a Half Men
• CSI: Miami
• CSI
• Numb3rs
• Veronica Mars
• How I Met Your Mother
• go to movies
• blog:
• Back Story
• Love All Books
• Famous Blogs
• Web MaJoR
• Techsploration
• surf the web
• research my family tree (though not recently)
• and?

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Or perhaps M is for . . . [From my "Back Story" blog]

Miscellanea.

In the immortal words of the not-so-immortal Stan Lee: 'nuff said!

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The Story of O (iteration 1) [From my "Back Story" blog]

As I said, using FORM, the O stands for Occupation.

Occupations I've had:

1. Shoe factory worker


2. Telecommunications specialist (USAF/Post-USAF)


3. IT professional


4. Stay-at-home dad

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Let's try this again [From my "Back Story" blog]

I thought I'd learned from my mistakes, but I guess not. At least this time the problem was an offline error. I had a really nice entry being edited yesterday for this blog, and got my machine hung before I saved a copy (I just saved what I've written in this post so far!)

So, now I'll try to re-invent what I wrote once already, and you can bet I'll be saving this puppy often as I do.

Before we get started with the back story that is the raison d'etre for this blog, I'm going to explain how I'm going to proceed with giving you some idea "what I'm about" in the most useful fashion.

I tend to be someone who likes my route well thought out before beginning a trip, and a plan of action before beginning any venture. As such, I'm going to lay out my plan so that you know what to expect.

My intent is to concurrently implement two techniques that I've been familiar with for many years:

1. The first technique (I was taught this a number of years ago by a salesman) gives you the ability to converse with anyone you'd like to get to know better (and, in the salesman's case, anyone you'd like to sell something to).
   
   This first technique is called FORM.
   
   FORM stands for Family, Occupation, Recreation, and Money (or Message). If you introduce yourself to someone and start a discussion about your families, jobs, recreational interests, and then talk about whatever your message is (or what you're selling) you stand a better chance of investing that person in what you're saying.
   
   And since this blog will be (as I hope all my blogs are) a conversation between myself and my readers, I'm going to be using the FORM method to structure the information you learn about me.


2. But wait, there's MORE!!!
   
   The second technique I'm going to employ is something from my former life in the world of IT (information technology): spiral development. Yes, I'm going to iterate over the FORM areas of my life (mayhap not so much over the M), providing a high-level view of my life at present and how I got here, and then on successive iterations going into more and more detail (but not so much you get sick of me, I hope!)

So, beginning with Family, (iteration 1), I am:

• 50 years old


• a husband (to wife Julie)


• a father (to son Riley)


• a stay-at-home dad (for six years, come January)


• an orphan


• the fourth of my mother's six kids (I have an two older "half sisters" and a "half brother")


• the first of my father's three children (I have a younger sister and a younger brother)

That's enough of the first iteration on family. Next time I'll talk about my occupation (such as it is).

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