If you look a little deeper, you can find adult bullying discussions. The “focus” of bullying changes, but the feelings and effects of that bullying are the same as they were when we were kids. Some bullying is overt. People actively picking on others or degrading them. People intentionally posting passive aggressive nonsense that is clearly directed at certain people. (thank you social networks) Even something as simple as posting online about some “truism” you believe that passively degrades other people. Things like “Why on earth would anyone think blah blah blah is something anyone wants to [hear|see|think]” constitute some of this passive aggressive crap.

Hell, people need to be mindful that bullying can be directed at anyone. Your spouse or significant other, your friends, your kids, your pets. It’s a pretty insidious event in our world. Bullying comes far too easily to most people and calling someone out on their bully results in? More bullying.

What is the point of all of this? I’m hopeful people are more mindful of how their words and thoughts affect other people. I’m hopeful that people learn to self-identify bullying habits or are willing to hear criticism from others that their words or actions are classic indicators of bullying.

A year or so ago, I decided I was going to be less snarky and sarcastic. That hasn’t worked out so well. What I have done, or tried to do, is to try to be less biting and mean in my sarcasm. There is a very broadly identifiable line in any friendship or relationship that can be seen and denotes when your jokes are mean-spirited or nasty. I’ve tried to learn to see that line more often than not. If you think I’ve crossed that line, let me know. I’m grown up enough to hear it.

Edit:
After I wrote this, I found a really nice website from PBS about Adult Bullying. Good stuff to read through: Adult Bullying

The picture seems to suggest that heartache could be avoided simply by making better or more informed decisions. What if your decision was valid and your partner changed? What if you did everything in your power to foster and nurture the souring situation, but there was no hope to save things? People and things grow apart.

Personally, I’m done living with regret. I’m done worrying about whether my marriages failed because I was a failure. I’ve learned from them. I’ve moved on. I know who I am and where I need and want to be. I’ve grown as a human. I wake up every day and choose to be who I want to be. (the Iron Giant was right)

I guess at the end of the day, I don’t let thoughts like the one captured above dwell in my mind. They’re a breeding ground for self-doubt, self-loathing, and frustration. My life doesn’t suck because I lost two months of pay a few years ago when my employer ran out of money. My life doesn’t suck because I’ve had two failed marriages. My life doesn’t suck because I don’t have a collection of friends as large as I may think I want. My life doesn’t suck. I’m not about to wake up tomorrow and let myself start doubting or second guessing the events that have shaped my life and led me to the moment where I’m writing this post. I am happy to just be.

Being older than I was a day ago isn’t really the point. I’m fine with being older. I guess I’m thinking about my place in life. I have a great family. A great job. I’m back in school and doing well with that, finally. I couldn’t be happier with being who I am as a human. I like me and I like where I am, fundamentally, in life. From the outside looking in, my life is probably enviable. Probably isn’t too far fetched, I’ve been told as much in the past. I can’t complain about the places I have been, am going, or plan to go. I’d be jealous of me.

What has got me thinking this year is that I login far too often to social networks. I see pictures of people I follow at meet ups having fun. I see Facebook friends at Halloween parties. I see people getting together to watch a game or tailgate. I see people doing things with people. Not with the people that live in their house. They are out with friends. Doing friendly things. I don’t. I haven’t really since I lived in Hawaii nearly 20 years ago. It’s been that long since I had a group of friends that I saw all the time and went out with. My adult experience has been that friends are no longer people you hang out with. They’re people you see at holidays, your kids birthday’s, or the rare movie. I am jealous of all of the people online who have friendships that exist outside email and instant messaging. I joke with a friend of mine that we have to schedule a quarterly event just to see each other. It honestly works out that way.

This isn’t a slight against the people I call friends. This isn’t about you. It’s about me. I am a loner and have been for a long time. I don’t want to be, but life gets in the way and having friends hasn’t been a priority for me. Friends are something I’d love to have, but I don’t work too hard at it. Partly, it’s a time issue. Mostly, it is a fear of rejection. Why would I want to invest time or energy meeting new people if they’re going to disappear from my life anyway? It seems like a losing proposition to me. I would rather spend my time with my family or a video game. They’re probably not going anywhere. Probably.

Our experiences make us who we are. Mine have made me weary of personal relationships. My parents are divorced. My dad has been divorced twice. Each time, I met a new family. Had new siblings. I know without a doubt he’s where he needs to be now and I don’t have to meet anyone new. I’ve been divorced twice. Uprooted after each. New town, new house. New state in some cases. I haven’t had many actual relationships because I don’t like investing time or energy in things that I don’t see having value.

I’ve mentioned it before, I was a Navy kid and moved constantly as a kid. Before turning 17, I lived in 7 different places. That stunts the fostering of friendships.  I know precisely one person from my life before I turned 12. I “talk” to a few from my teenage years. I barely interact with anyone I met in my 20s. I suspect I’ll say the same things about my 30s when I’m 45. By then, I hope I’ve broken my cycle of mistrust and unhealthy relationships, but I have no experience to suggest otherwise.

I’m not asking to be fixed. I’m not asking for sympathy. I’m just using my blog as a place to get a thought out of my head. Trying to wrap my mind around how I’ve ended up here and maybe find a way to be a different human in the future. Some of you reading this are good people. Some of you I probably miss daily. Some of you I wish I knew better. (I actually wish I knew everyone I knew better)

As a teenager and young adult, tinkering was cool. I wanted to build my own PCs. I wanted to manage all of my own dip switches and memory banks. I wanted to know the refresh rate of everything and troubleshoot the problem of every strange noise and whir my computer made.

Until I bought my first real mac. Bought during the dark times of Steve Jobs exile to NeXt. The power mac 6116.  It was a great little machine. Fast. Intuitive. Everything my IBM workstation wasn’t. It was far from my last mac. I went on to own a few older 68K macs, a Powermac 8500 (which is in my basement), a Cube, a powerbook 5300, and just about every Apple laptop since. I was in attendance the day they announced the Titanium PowerBook G4 and bought one that morning. I am officially an Apple fan boy.

What did I learn from all those machines? They were tools. Elegant tools, but tools.  They allowed me to get my job done without having to worry or tinker over every little things on my machine. When Steve returned to Apple, his mission in life was to change how we used computers and more broadly how we integrated technology into our lives. He brought the NeXT OS, NeXTStep, with him to Apple and birthed Mac OS X. The iMac, iBook, iPod. iPad. iPhone. Macbook. MacPro. iTunes, iWork, iLife. MobileMe (and mac.com before it) and the various iterations of iOS that have been released into the world. Each and every one building from the success of its predecessor. Each one innovating the field again. All of them refining what a computer could be in our lives.

It wasn’t that Steve wanted to put a shine on an existing device. He wanted to reshape them. He removed the floppy drive. Eventually, he’s removed the DVD drive as well. He waited to add USB until it was useful/ubiquitous in favor of Firewire. He insisted that Thunderbolt be used in place of USB 3 because he saw a future in Thunderbolt and thought USB 3 was just the result of ‘me too’ design. The iMac wasn’t the first all in one in the world. It clearly wasn’t even the first all in one Apple ever produced, but it was so stylish and so easy to work with that it showed up everywhere. (ignore that stupid hockey puck mouse). The black powerbook was a trend setter in mobile devices. The current brushed aluminum look showed up on powerbooks and soon was everywhere.

It wasn’t sufficient for Steve Jobs to make things different just to say they’re different. They had to be different for a reason. A lesson I’ve since learned on my own and use that mantra in my daily life. The flurry of buttons and switches that exist on PC laptops? Nowhere to be found on a Macbook. Removable batteries? Gone because they can design larger batteries if they remove the latch mechanisms.  DVDs? Gone because they can deliver software digitally through the App store.  With every iterative change, there is a reason. Each change, leading to more and more simplicity.

Steve Jobs made me fall in love with Apple Computers when I was a kid. When I was old enough to buy them on my own, Steve had been sent off to create NeXt Cubes that I couldn’t afford. My love for Apple remained. Steve returned and made it cool to own an Apple device. Now? I wake up daily regretting the day I switched from my iPhone to an Evo.  It wasn’t about the speed or power of the devices he dreamed up with his cast of designers and engineers in tow, it was about making every thing simpler. Making our lives and jobs a little bit easier.

Every time I’m asked who my hero is or was, I’ve never had an answer. Given my reaction to hearing that Steve Jobs has passed, I never realized I actually had an answer. His influence in my life and my career was obvious but subtle to me. He’s my hero in the same way my parents are my hero. It’s easy to take that kind of influence for granted. Now he’s gone. RIP Steve Job 1955-2011

Starting today, I’m going to start using my blog more often. I’ve restarted the Shrinking Me initiative.. I may start posting the occasional comic book review. Who knows. I need to post something. I miss having an outlet for my thoughts and figure my domain should be useful for something more than just email.

I heard Megan stir around 1130pm or so. A whimper at first and then she started to call out like she needed something. I walked into her room to find her sitting up in her bed fully alert. She smiled as I came around the corner. I tracked down her pacifier and handed it to her. She smiled even more and popped it into her mouth. Then she looked at me like she wanted something.

Typically, marie and I would pick her up and take her into our room for a bit more of her bottle before she’d pass out but I needed to sleep. I patted her bed next to her and told her that she needed to lay down and go back to sleep. She looked up at me as I said that and I fully expected her to smile and reach for me.

Instead? She rolled over and fell asleep. I covered her up and 6 hours later she woke up again.  If it weren’t for the fact that I did a few other things after that before finally falling asleep, I might have convinced myself I dreamt it. I never, in a million years, expected her to actually go back to sleep on command. I’m willing to bet that it’s the last time that ever happens

AL CENTRAL White Sox

AL WEST Rangers

AL WILD CARD Rays

NL WEST  Giants

NL CENTRAL  Cubs

NL WEST Phillies

NL WILDCARD Braves

NLCS  Phillies over Cubs in 6

ALDS  White Sox over the Rays in 5

WS   White Sox over the Phillies in 7

The list of schools I applied to was very short. I remember getting into all of them, but that could be hindsight and hubris talking. I’m pretty sure it isn’t though. My first choice was DePaul University in Chicago. I loved their computer science program. I loved the idea of living downtown. I loved the idea of being in the city. To say I was excited would be a gross understatement of how happy I was.

I filed my grant and financial aid paperwork. I applied for on campus housing. I registered for classes. The summer of my graduation flew by terribly quickly. I spent some time with my best friend Jason in Florida. I got my first (and last for a long time) kiss before I left for school. [that may be a story for another day] I got my room assignment and found out I’d be in a dorm with two roommates; Shane and Kevin.

It was time to move away to school and my parents couldn’t make the trip. I packed what I needed, hopped a plane and my grandfather took me downtown to find my dorm and see the campus. What seemed surreal a few months earlier was now just my reality. Making friends, finding a job and playing around in Chicago were the easy parts. I wasn’t prepared to be a grown up or be a college student. I was ok playing a fraction of the role.

I never thought the aceademic part of college was particularly difficult. Learning has never been my problem. Doing the work needed to stick around was. I toyed with being a college student and ended up with a less than stellar GPA after my first two semesters. I wasn’t in danger of being suspended or put on probation, but I wasn’t doing as well as I thought I should be. I wasn’t doing as well as my dad expected. I was going through the motions of being a college student. I was doing a poor job of it, too.

My dad transferred to Hawai’i during my freshman year at DePaul and I followed along the following summer. I took the opportunity to tuck my tail between my legs and leave school. I was giving up. To the outside world, I was taking a golden opportunity to live in Hawai’i rent free for a few years and attend the University of Hawai’i. The official story is never the real story.

I really did move to Hawai’i. I really did go to UH. I really did enjoy myself immensely in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I wasn’t any closer to my goal, but I was doing something. Who cared if it wasn’t terribly productive? I finished all of my pre-requisite classes at Leeward Community College and head to the main UH campus. Cue the next convenient excuse. My dad retired. My parents broke up. My grandfather from earlier in the story passed away after a bout with cancer. The hard thing would have been to stay in Hawai’i and grow up. I moved home to Chicago to be with my mom and niece.

I got a job and never went back to school.

I’ll spare you the boring details about moving around the country, keeping jobs for no more than 18-24 months and getting married twice. Who wants to hear about that? Fast forward 13 years from 1996 to 2009. I was finally in a place where I’d let myself consider going back to school. I found an online college that provided real degrees. A quick application later, I was accepted at the University of Maryland as a Computer Science major. I took a few classes. Never really finished any of them. Blamed my travel schedule. Blamed my place in life. Blamed my criminology book getting stolen from my checked bag. I privately blamed myself for not following through with yet another big plan in life. I left UM as quietly as I started UM. poof.

While chatting with my wife in the car a few months ago, I made a flippant remark about becoming a sociologist. That would satisfy my need to know and understand people. We shared a good laugh. I couldn’t get that out of my head. What if there was some validity to my desire to become a sociologist? What if that’s what I wanted to teach? What if that’s who I want to be when I grow up?

When I thought about this new plan for my life, I wasn’t filled with worry or fear. I was filled with a great sense of purpose. I bought a book for my Kindle to research what exactly sociologists do. I was fascinated and intrigued. I wanted to know more. I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

This story started 20 years ago when I applied to DePaul. This story takes place in a world where I applied to the same school 20 years later. I’m a Blue Demon again. I’m just as excited this time, as I was last time. The difference? I think I’m finally ready to be a grown up. I applied the first time because of where the school was, what the world said about its computer science school and what I thought I wanted to be. This time? I want to finish what I started. I want to be who I was meant to be. I want to finally grow up.

I think I’m ready. I’ve found the person I want to be with for the rest of my life, after a few false starts.  We’ve been together for 3 1/2 years and are as happy today as we were when we met. I’m a week shy of being with my current company for 4 years and I have no intention of leaving. I own a home and bought my first new car on my own. I have an awesome niece that lives with me now and is doing really well. I’m step-dad to the coolest 5 year old ever. Last, but certainly not least, I’ve been an actual dad to the best thing to ever happen to me.

I’m still not a grown up, but I think I’m getting there. More importantly, I’m finally in a place where I want to finish what I started 20 years ago. The coolest thing? I get the chance to finish it where it started, not in spirit but in reality. This makes me immensely happy.

My wife and family bought me a training session at benihana for Christmas.  It includes a private lesson where I can put 30+ years of observation to the test. In my head, I know how the process works.  I can see how everything is cut, prepared and served. We will see if my muscles have picked anything up in all my years of watching and following along.

The activity of the day will be followed on by a family meal next week. I get to cook at benihana for my family. I get to show what I learned. That should be fun.

The weird part of all of this? I can see every cut, flip and seasoning that goes into a meal. I’ve seen it so often that I feel there is muscle memory already in place.