According To:

1. A ruling on Bacon... According to the internet, there is no 'Greater Hudson Bacon Guild'. Well, guess who's been laboring under yet another false presumption. I was in the offices the other day, to gab with Kristi. All was as it should be, until she broached the bacon theme with something Tim had shared about his bacon preparation protocols; it seems that he bakes his in the oven. 'Bakon'?

This morning, Pat was asked by his wife Carla. "Do you have to do bacon EVERY Sunday?" Dearest, dulcet lambs, without whom we men are incomplete, It's Bacon..

Presented with this surge of bacon confusion, and given that bacon IS the purview of Men, and in the absence of a Greater Hudson Bacon Guild, The Man Code heretofore adopts this bastard child of the breakfast table as ward. All bacon-related queries may; and questions of protocol and practice must, be directed to this regulating blog.

Resolved: Bacon may certainly be prepared, in the oven, at the prescribed temperature, until it chances upon the desired crispness or lack thereof.

Resolved: Pat indeed must "...do bacon EVERY Sunday".

Good Day!

Just In Time

So, while it is possible to be a man and not a Dad, it's just too pathetic to be a Dad but not a man... So, this in mind, I very nearly missed an opportunity to show I am either.

We do AWANA, and when I say 'we' I mean I sit in the office at church and answer questions while the kids participate in all of the activities. Anna walked in to the office and told me that a boy had hit her in the face with a ball, and ".. he had not even cared." I comforted my little girl and kissed the side of her face, where I could see the ball had hit. She lingered. Suddenly, it dawned on me that she was awaiting action of some sort..
"Would you like me to go, and talk to them about it?" She nodded, yes. I walked into the community room to perform some quick, corrective action. "Did one of you boys hit this little girl in the face with a ball?" I asked. A nice, you man confessed, adding that he didn't mean to, and.. I stopped him. "Did you apologize to her, for hitting her in the face, with a ball? He began to start with a second explanation. I repeated my question. A couple of little girls, interested in the spectacle unfolding in their space, piped up. "NO, HE DIDN'T! He said that he had not. "Do you think it might be a good idea to apologize to her, now? I suggested. He apologized, the nice kid.

As I walked out of the community room, I looked at my daughter; in her eyes and all over her face was something I will never forget. She was looking at her Daddy, who had come to stand up for her, had taken up her case and followed through on what was important to her. She felt valued and honored that I had been there for her when she needed me to be there. She can trust me more, now. She knows that I believe her, and what matters to her, also matters to me.

Thank You, God for letting me be the Daddy of that little girl. Thank You for not letting me fail her, tonight.

I'm Still Laughing..

Man, do I love me some children's literature!

Marking My Territory

I really have no time for a dog that marks, in my house. It is a challenge to my position when he does it on my stuff. To be fair, Ohana used to do it and Maggie peed in the house for a while after we adopted her. Gizmo began when he got here and continued even after his castration, as many dogs will. There's just something about the urine that matters to dogs.

This morning, he marked in my bedroom. I took him outside on a leash, held him down with my foot and, sparing not his face, marked my territory. He squealed a little but stopped struggling as soon as he realized what it was. I walked him inside, drenched to the skin, and let him wait outside the tub until Cheryl was done with her shower. He is now, once again, a cute, fluffy dog.

The other two dogs were Very curious about his smell, after the soaking. I wonder what they're thinking.

Man Code's Rule of Thirds

I have this theorum which, given the referendum, by virtue of my position of sole writer for this site, must be affirmed as a 'Rule'; to whit: 'Any stimulus which, by itself can compel an action, must itself be subject in it's authority over the body and it's actions, to the influence of other ovrwhelming stimulus'. Here's my example: I am in constant levels of varying pain. In this, pain is the stimulus. I subscribe to a pain management program of medication and moderated activity. If either of the two components are inconsistent, the level of pain stimulation overloads the limbic system and I get uncontrollable spasms throughout my body.

When I find myself thus cascading I have previously been resolved to ride it out and chastise myself for allowing the wheels to, once again, fall off of my pain plan. Hmmm. Enter my new 'Rule'. Think of the pain in it's extremity as Stimulus #1; driving my body into spasms. In order to interrupt the signal to my brain I need a stimulus with equal or greater power to compel...I nominate the pleasure center. Pain and pleasure work in the same way, using the same receptors for different must-read messages; "Stop doing that, it's causing damage." And. "Do some more of that, it brings benefit." The body is hard-wired to hit the pleasure button and release those feelgoods, the endorphins. Pleasure seeking behavior results in propagation of the genetic line, provisioning of nutrients and maintenance of overall health.

Given the option, I suspect that the body will elect pleasure, to abate tortuous pain and I believe it is within our grasp to force the process.

Tell me if this passes the sniff test.

Hangman

Timmy was there when I awoke this morning. I generally stretch my arms and legs, shoulders, hips and hands before I can get out of bed to take my morning pain-meds. Tim contemplated me in silence before asking. "Dad, why did you go to the war?"

I explained that I had chosen to be a soldier many years before and that as such, it was my duty to go and do this thing. I explained that there was a very bad man, named Saddam Hussein who was the leader of a country and he had been killing thousands upon thousands of his own people for many years and America's soldiers answered the call of humanity to stop him and remove him from power. I said. "and we did catch him; he was dragged from the concrete hole where he had hidden himself. He was put on trial by his own people and they determined that he was guilty; they put a rope around his neck and they hung him.



Right away he said It's like 'hangman' the game but he didn't get to guess his letters!

No Tim, he sure didn't.

Flash To Bang

In the world of uniformed military 'flash to bang' is a rough estimate of the distance you are from an explosion. Sound travels about a kilometer a second, so if you count off the time from flash until you hear the bang, you should know approximate distance.

I developed a vernacular characterization to apply to those I thought of as pompous and useless people; "all flash - no bang". I want to discuss with you, reader a problem endemic to our society at all observable levels; the impression that some lives do not matter.

As a parent of two pre-teens, I am sensitive to the culture they are entering, wondering what role I have played in creating it and surveying my options to prepare them as young followers of Christ to impact His will. I am home all the time and devote a tremendous amount of attention and circumspection to both of my kids. The way that they are changing in maturity, becoming more aware of content and context and connecting with the world has me "on the bounce" as Sergeant Zim would say. The other morning, while I was making breakfast, Timmy brought out a deck of 'Armored Vehicle Recognition' cards from the 1980s. He said that he had some cool cards that he wanted to give me, that he had been 'saving for a long time' I replied that I recognized them since I'd given them to him... He began to review them, quizzing me about each one. He showed me the picture or described the vehicle or just read me the name; I was supposed to tell him something about each one. This made me smile because it was exactly what we used to do in the Infantry to train for 'Squad Intelligence' testing. Timmy described one vehicle to me and I asked him if it was a tank. He replied that No, he didn't think so because it had no main gun mounted.

I'm doing some things right. I try to be the same person when I am alone that I am in their presence because integrity can't be compartmentalized. If you spend any amount of time around someone or if you are a trained intelligence agent observer you can detect where the pattern ends and the frayed thread begins to reveal what is behind the curtain.

I am in a position to see a lot of what happens in the environment that my family lives in. I think spatially, which makes me good at analyzing and making obscure connections. I also have learned to be silent about what I know so people talk freely around me. I have long felt that there are perhaps more liabilities connected to great intelligence than there are benefits; I cannot enjoy the bliss of ignorance or convince myself that all is well, so how do I raise children that I anticipate will be every bit as perceptive as myself and yet encourage them to engage in a world that is really just a rotting melon?

There is, admittedly, a fair influence of my own psychological damage in this perception of mine but not so much that there really is a Santa Claus

"ich will sie bumsen" The days of my youth included seasons of rebellion and forays into dangerous behaviors. None of what I experienced as a wild teen placed me in nearly as much peril as that which today stalks a naive high school student who engages in risk behaviors. I do see the danger that lurks in the daylight, in the guise of harmless or even helpful strangers but I just don't believe that the kids who put that slogan above on their facebook page are even mildly aware of the scent it puts out to real predators.

I believe we too value less noble pursuits than we are capable of. It cheapens us as the children of God when we set, as virtue, the deception of appearance over substance of Godly character. I see our political process as the vilest example of this chicanery. In the last Presidential election campaign we saw the very worst of subtleties emerge in the manipulation of the electorate. Sophisticated marketing strategies were very successfully applied in order to influence the audience at a subconscious level; the very goal being the association of strong character values with someone who had none of those attributes. I expect that this degraded state of character is an end-times trend. We have been a state in decline as has been the case with any culture that sets themselves aside from God and replaces Him with secular aspirations. We are only a step away from making God illegal in America but as I have long averred, I will resist and become noncompliant with societal fads that make my behaviors illegal. Remember that the Constitution of the United States of America does not grant rights but recognizes inalienable rights granted by God and therefore inseparable from the citizen by the machinery of the state.

Be assured, I am the parent who actively pursues the well-being of my children.

Regardless of how an individual conducts themselves with the tasks they have accepted responsibility for, they are not just valuable but precious, to God. Each of us can take no step that is not seen by a loving heavenly Father who delights in us and mourns our bad choices. It then falls to us to be caregivers for our brothers and sisters in the way that Jesus would, cherishing and jealously protecting them.