Personal

Boundaries

Dave Farquhar Personal

So an ex-girlfriend finds you on Facebook and contacts you out of the blue 12 years after the fact. What do you do?

1. Jump up and down like a giddy schoolgirl because someone’s interested enough to find you after all that time?

2. Passive-aggressively sit on the message?

3. Tell her exactly what you never had the chance to tell her?

Although option 2 crossed my mind, I thought it best to handle it a little bit differently.

My wife wasn’t home at the time, so I actually had a few minutes to think about it, which is probably good. The answer really was pretty easy.

I didn’t even open the message. When she got home, and after our son went to sleep, I told her, and I asked her to read the message and tell me what she wanted me to do with it.

Just this past Sunday, our pastor said in his sermon that one thing destroys marriages the fastest: secrets. To me, this seemed like a classic example of something (most likely) completely innocent that could very easily turn into something out of control under the wrong circumstances.

While my option certainly could be construed as overkill, it eliminates all possibility of misunderstanding. And it sends a very clear message that she’s more important than the ex.

Nothing in the message made her feel uncomfortable or threatened. Curious certainly, but not threatened. She spent some time poking around the ex’s Facebook profile and asking questions. And that was fine. It’s better for her to know than to wonder.

Maybe I handed over more control than some people would be comfortable handing over. But since this was completely innocent, what was there to be afraid of? I trust my wife, and this tells her that in a big way.

An hour or two later, I wrote a reply. I was cordial. Cordial is the appropriate tone. I’m not interested in being best friends. And being hurtful 12 years after the fact accomplishes nothing. Well, nothing worthwhile anyway.

And I was brief. This is also appropriate. Minutes after I saw the message, I talked to one of my best friends for the first time in months, and we talked for about 15 minutes. If that’s all I have right now for the guy who was the best man at my wedding, then I shouldn’t have more than that for someone who broke my heart 12 years ago and–I’ll say it–wasn’t very nice about it.

All relationships are different, but I can’t think of any good reason for two people, both married to someone else, to be writing long epistles to each other 12 years after the fact. That only invites the mind to go all sorts of places it shouldn’t go. "Your Wildest Dreams" by The Moody Blues doesn’t need to be cuing up in your head, and neither does anything by Barry Manilow.

I asked my wife to read my reply before I sent it. It’s all about checks and balances. She knows what’s going on. I was going to say it also prevents me from saying things I shouldn’t say, but self-restraint in e-mail is a requirement for my job and I’ve had lots of practice. But everyone is different.

"So are you going to friend her?" my wife asked. I said I didn’t know.

That, too, is a situation where everyone is different. If the parting wasn’t especially bitter and two people can both gain something by corresponding occasionally, why not? On the other extreme, if the sight of a person’s name triggers fight-or-flight mode, then it’s obviously not a good idea.

If the sight of a person’s name does cause you to go into fight or flight mode, I will say, speaking as someone who’s been there, that you need to deal with that issue. I don’t say that flippantly; I spent a lot of time and money working through it myself. It’s not easy but it’s necessary.

Ultimately the most important thing to do when a situation like this crops up is to keep priorities straight. There’s no reason to say, write, or do anything on account of 12 years ago that might mess up today or tomorrow.

Depending on what you make of it, this situation can sow seeds of trust or seeds of doubt. Personally, I’d rather have trust.

Marley and Me

Dave Farquhar Personal ,

My wife and I watched Marley and Me tonight. Good movie. Not as good as the book, of course. But I think they did a good job of adapting it to the screen.

I guess the book and movie hit me on three levels, rather than just two. I’m a parent, I have a Labrador Retriever, and I went to school to try to be John Grogan. That last part didn’t quite work out, but that world just doesn’t seem to exist anymore, not with a major newspaper closing its doors pretty much every week now.I’ll get the first question out of the way. Yes, the movie gives a pretty accurate picture of what life is like with a Lab. Some chew more than others. Ours has demolished a curtain, a window shade, and scarred a couple of doors, but not much else. Marley has her beat. I’ll spare you the stories about the fascination with toilets and dirty diapers. The book talks about that more than the movie, and it’s true.

And underneath the mischief is a heart of gold. You see that in the movie in spades, and it’s all true. I think pretty much any dog is capable of that kind of love, and capable of sensing when we really need them the most, but Labs are especially good at it. They may not know everything that’s going on, but they’re perfectly willing to just sit there with you and get through it, and they’ll never, ever hold anything you say against them.

The attachment between dog and child is every bit as strong as in that movie. When we first brought our son home, he was a bit suspicious of that big furry thing, and probably a bit scared of her. I remember him looking at her with those big, wide, not-so-trusting eyes. They weren’t the same big wide eyes he looked at Dad with. It took a little while for the two of them to adjust to one another, but they did. He’s 13 months old now, and he’ll climb on her or pull on her ears, laughing like it’s great fun, and she just sits there, tail thumping the floor in approval, trying to lick him. When he cries, if she’s not sure we hear it, she’ll start whimpering and jumping up on things until she has our attention.

It’s very easy to see the two of them growing up together just like the dog and kids in the movie.

I know from my own experience that his life as a journalist is glamorized. I lived that portrayal at the beginning. While all the other reporters have great stories to chase, his assignment is two paragraphs about a fire at the city dump for the police blotter. Sometimes that turns into a great story. One Saturday I was listening on the police scanner and learned about some guy burning leaves in a BBQ grill in his front yard. Then a gust of wind came, and the next thing we knew, his neighbor’s house was on fire, along with the same neighbor’s barn and field. I rushed out there and found a disaster. I have no idea what it was, but the neighbor really opened up to me, and it turned into a great story. The editors thought so too, and what normally would have been a couple of paragraphs in the blotter ended up taking up most of the page.

I chased a lot of stories of people burning leaves in BBQ grills–you wouldn’t believe how often that happens in central Missour-ah, with an "uh"–but it rarely even merited more than a line in the blotter.

I loved every minute of it. I hated every minute of it. It’s called paying your dues, because nobody wants to do write about misdemeanors and city council meetings for more than a few months. You hate writing meaningless copy, but the worst writing job is still better than doing anything else. Right? Um….

The gruff, bald, humorless, emotionless editor? True. Definitely a stereotype, but this particular stereotype has a lot of truth.

I think that’s what really hit me the hardest. Fifteen years ago I wanted to be a journalist. I changed directions because a computer professional can work pretty much anywhere. I didn’t want to be stuck writing obituaries and police blotters for a small-town newspaper 45 minutes outside of Toledo making $18,000 a year. I wanted to be able to afford a house and a car and a dog. The price I paid for a job that pays a living wage is boring and mundane work (although important). But I can’t write about it because I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement. I’m not even supposed to talk all that much about it, which is a shame because I have some great stories, like the one where a guy who makes three times my salary called me up, complaining that the network was broken because a service running on his computer couldn’t contact 127.0.0.1. (Translation: his computer couldn’t figure out how to talk to itself, so obviously it’s a network problem.)

Not being able to talk about it is the ultimate price. John Gorgan’s stories are funnier than mine, because everyone can relate to kids and dogs. People eat those stories up. I can tell you the story about trying to log into a domain controller and getting an error message that the computer can’t contact the domain controller. I yelled, "Look in the mirror!" The third time it happened, I probably inserted another word before "mirror." A small number of you reading are laughing and trying to diagnose the problem. The rest of you are wondering what on earth mirrors have to do with computers and why would anyone think that’s funny?

So I’m insanely jealous of John Grogan, but increasingly his life is something that no longer exists. Newspapers are closing their doors left and right. There aren’t enough jobs out there for the best of the best. And the only people this seems to bother are other journalists. I blame Fox News and talk radio, neither of which would exist without credible news sources to seed them, but that will become obvious soon enough.

So I’ll settle for having a son and a dog, and being able to afford to live in a safe neighborhood. And maybe when I’m 40 and too old to be in IT, I can finally tell those other stories.

It’s what I do.

Dave Farquhar Personal ,

I awoke this morning at my usual time. It was Saturday. I really just wanted to roll back over, pull the covers over me, and sleep another 30 minutes, but it was Saturday. And that’s not what I do on Saturdays. It didn’t matter that I was tired, and it didn’t matter that it was 10 degrees out. Staying out of the cold isn’t what I do on Saturdays.I got dressed, grabbed my coat and a map, and headed to my car. I knew where I had to be and when, and I was running late. I don’t know how I can get up at my usual time and still find a way to run late, but I guess I’m just talented that way.

I drank my morning cup of coffee in the car as I made my way into the city. Google would say to take the interstate, but I avoid interstates. It was Saturday. I might miss something interesting. Nothing interesting happens on Saturday when it’s 10 degrees out and sensible people are still in bed, taking cover under flannel sheets and a half-dozen quilts. But it was Saturday, and that’s what I do, whether it’s January or June.

I got excited when I saw someone putting signs out. Aha! Something interesting I didn’t know about! Then I realized the signs were advertising my planned destination. I turned onto a lonely road. There weren’t a lot of cars parked on the street, and most of the cars that were parked weren’t running. I started getting hopeful. Maybe it wouldn’t matter that I was running 15 minutes late. Then I saw some faces I recognized, sitting in cars, trying to keep warm. I angled into a spot a few doors down from my destination. I took a last drink of coffee, pulled my hood over my head, tucked my hands into my pockets, and trotted down the sidewalk, up the steps, and onto the patio where a box of numbers was waiting.

Number 47!?

I took my number and headed back to my car. I didn’t get too dejected, because it’s Saturday, and that’s not what I do on Saturdays. Saturday is like Christmas when you’re a kid. Even the most disappointing Christmas is still the best day of the year when you’re a kid. That means the most disappointing Saturday is still better than the best day at the office. Even if I got number 47.

Besides, getting number 47 meant that 46 other people decided it was better to be out in the 10-degree cold than under flannel sheets and a half-dozen quilts. Maybe that meant I wasn’t crazy. Or maybe it meant they were crazier than me, since they probably got up earlier than I did.

I walked back to my car, motivated no longer by excitement but rather by the prospect of a warm place and a good book to pass the time. But of course I didn’t pick up the book right away. I checked the time. Eight twenty-five. I had 35 minutes. I checked my map. I weighed my options. Something else was going on about four miles away, but did I have time? I decided to stay put. About half the time I stay put in that situation, and about half the time I go, and about 99 percent of the time I wind up second-guessing the decision. It was Saturday, and that’s what I do.

So I sat in my semi-warm car, reading a 50-year-old book about metalworking, wondering where on earth one might find the tools described in the book now that we just buy things made half a world away instead of making them. And the only answer I could come up with was in the basements of people old enough to have read the same book, only way back when it was still possible to buy stuff like that.

I looked around. More cars were coming, more people were taking numbers and then taking shelter. But there was only one person who looks for the same things I do. The others must have decided to go someplace else. Or maybe they were less dedicated than me, still keeping warm under flannel sheets and a half-dozen quilts like sensible people.

Eight fifty-five came, and people abandoned the warmth of their cars for the 10-degree cold and the privilege of waiting in line. Someone standing next to me had number 42. Another had 45. Close enough. I watched a latecomer walk up the stairs and take number 94 out of the box. That meant at least 93 other people were about as crazy as me.

A man opened the front door and announced he’d only have room for the first 25 people. He started calling out numbers. A few didn’t show, so numbers 26 through 30 got in, including the guy who looks for the same things I do. But I can still find stuff in his wake. There’s another guy who’s a lot more likely to beat me to things I want, and he wasn’t there, so that didn’t bother me.

I looked around, trying to see who I recognized, and trying to remember what they look for. I wondered if they were as cold as me. I already knew they were as crazy as me. I bounced my knees up and down and wiggled my toes to try to keep warmer. It didn’t help much.

Three people left, and the man returned to the door and let five people in. The people who left came out empty-handed. That’s never a good sign. But the guy who looks for the same things I do was still inside, which meant he might be finding good stuff. Hopefully there would be something left for me too.

Another person left and five more people were allowed in. I didn’t complain. One more left, and then another, and finally I heard the man call number 47. I was in.

I surveyed the house. It was small, but nice. It had lots of nice woodwork and was solidly built–the kind of house that can stand for centuries. But there are fewer and fewer of those now, because tastes have changed and many houses like it get bulldozed to make way for what’s popular today–or for yet another Walgreen Drug Store. So I went out of my way to admire the woodwork, because in 20 years there might not be any of it left outside of the City Museum.

Based on a number of things in the house, I surmised the owners had been of Italian descent and Catholic. Given the area, neither was a surprise. Neither was what I found and what I didn’t find. Spend enough Saturdays doing what I do, and you start to notice patterns.

I lost track of time but I spent three dollars. I didn’t have to wait in line, so I guess most people weren’t buying much. I never saw the guy who looks for the same things as me inside, and I never saw him leave. Sometimes he’s sneaky that way. I put my change in my wallet, tucked my treasure under my arm, pulled my hood over my head, and walked out the door and to my car. After quickly double-checking my map, I headed to my next estate sale.

It was Saturday, and that’s what I do.

On transitioning from high school to college

Dave Farquhar Personal

I took a phone call tonight from my old college fraternity. I’ve been trying to be nicer when they call asking for money. The organization and I see eye-to-eye on virtually nothing, but the poor pledges who have to make these phone calls every year have no control over any of that.

We actually ended up having a nice conversation about the transition from college to high school.I can’t say it’s something I’ve ever talked about, but the transition was a bit rough for me in some ways. I wasn’t valedictorian, but I generally took harder classes than many of the people who outpaced me in GPA. In some of my classes I was more like a teacher’s assistant than a student, because I knew the subject matter better than the teachers did, and they would readily admit it.

Frequently I was the smartest guy in the room, and I liked it that way.

In college, I was never the best at anything. I told him one of my classmates is now the beat writer covering the Cardinals for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. That’s the caliber of person I found myself competing against.

It was hard to settle for being good, or very good, when I’d spent the previous 12 years being elite.

Yet, it wasn’t until I got over my ego that I actually managed to even be good. Considering my course load, my first-semester 2.8 GPA wasn’t all that bad, but it was a lot closer to average than I’d ever been. I never dropped below 3.0 the rest of the way, but I never approached my high school numbers.

I guess it was good preparation for adult life. There’ve been times when I was the smartest guy in the room again. But it doesn’t happen very often at work. But at work, the guys who are smarter than me who also have bigger egos than me also aren’t all that happy.

Give me a choice between being content and being the star, and I’ll take contentment every time.

I only talked to the 18-year-old pledge for about five minutes, so I didn’t go into this kind of depth. I don’t think he wanted to hear that kind of a lecture from a stranger 15 years older than him.

There are lots of other questions I would have liked to ask him, but I know the answers to all of those are the same as they were in 1993, and I can’t change any of that for him. I don’t know if that brief conversation that resulted from me asking how his studies were going helped him. But maybe it did. Or at least I didn’t make him feel any worse.

That’s David L. Farquhar, Security+ now

Dave Farquhar Personal ,

I got a few letters behind my name this afternoon. I passed the CompTIA Security+ exam with flying colors. And that means two things: I get to keep my job, and I was qualified to have the job in the first place, but now I have a certificate that says a third party agrees.My personal opinion on the test: You have to approach it like any other test. Another coworker took the test at the same time I did. He was joking around with other people and talking up a storm beforehand. Meanwhile, I was pacing, counting on my fingers and not talking to anyone. I had five things I needed to remember until the clock on the test started and I could scribble them down, so I was focused solely on those five things.

My coworker said he was worried about me because I appeared to be nervous. But that’s just how I am before tests. I review a few things up until the time I’m supposed to walk in, and I take any aid the system provides. If I can carry in an index card, I do that. In the case of CompTIA tests, you can ask for a pencil and piece of paper and scribble down whatever you want on it after the test starts. So I did.

I probably would have passed without that, but I didn’t want to score a 765 on the test (passing is either 764 or 765 out of a possible 900). I wanted an 899. For what it’s worth, my score was a lot closer to 899 than 765.

My coworker and I also both believe the test is designed to frustrate you. The first 30 or so questions were pretty easy. Then my coworker missed 18 questions in a row. He knew he missed them, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. I was pretty confident about my test, but most of my questionable questions came in bunches too. The real key is to not get bogged down in those rough stretches. It gets better.

Of the 100 questions on the test, only 85 count. The contents of the other 15 are anyone’s guess. Some are questions they’re considering to add to the test’s question pool, and based on how people answer them, they’ll decide if they’re fair or unfair. Some are just plain garbage. I had two questions, I think, that had no right answer out of the four options. I think those are control questions to thwart the companies who pay people to take the test and remember a few questions verbatim so they can build up a bank of test questions to sell. If, for example, you pay for some questions and see one asking where the password hashes are stored on a Linux system, and all four responses start with C:\, you’re going to lose confidence in that provider.

As for classes and books… CompTIA’s official class and book cover a lot of material, but there’s an awful lot of middle-management bull in the book and class that isn’t on the test. We had a manager take the test, and he knew the book forward and backward and paid attention in class, but he didn’t pass.

By the same token, every sysadmin who attended the same class and took the test has passed so far. Having lots of recent experience to draw on helps. I can harden Windows systems in my sleep because that’s been my job description for the last couple of years, and no week-long class can cover that kind of depth.

But the interesting thing is, I got very few questions about system hardening. I got a lot more questions about encryption and firewalls, where my knowledge is weaker. I don’t know if the test determines all of your questions at the start or if it uses the first few questions to figure out your weaker areas and then tries to concentrate on those, but I suspect it might be the latter.

But with Security+ out of the way, I’m thinking about other certifications. Network+ is supposed to be easy when Security+ is fresh in your mind. Given my hardware and operating systems background, A+ should be easy.

Adventures in flooring

Dave Farquhar Personal

My wife and I went shopping for a new kitchen floor tonight.

I think we may have found perfection.Everyone I’ve talked to who has linoleum floors loves them. They’re durable, water resistant, and easy to clean. I’ve read about linoleum floors in 100-year-old houses holding up just fine. I think 100 years sounds good to me–that’s more years than I have left. And it’s made from materials that grow in friendly countries, which is something we would do well to consider more often.

There’s even a company named Forbo making a product called Marmoleum Click, which is a linoleum floor that clicks together like laminate. So potentially I could rip out the old floor on a Saturday and spend Sunday afternoon and early evening putting down the new floor, and have it ready to go immediately. Or with some luck, I could finish the project in a day.

The problem is that Marmoleum (and linoleum in general) isn’t something you can run down to the local big-box store and buy. Forbo has exactly one dealer in St. Louis, but fortunately it’s a charming store not far from where my wife lived when we met. And supporting a small locally owned business appeals to me.

At $4.99 per square foot, the price is comparable to any other kind of floor worth having, if not lower. Plus I’ll save a bundle by being able to put it down myself, and it has a 25-year warranty, not to mention the track record of lasting 100 years or more. Stingy Scottish misers like me really like that aspect.

Why men have difficulty with fashion

Dave Farquhar Personal

My wife keeps telling me I need to untuck my shirt. I usually comply, but under protest. You see, when I was in school, we used to get in trouble for not tucking our shirts in.

I’m pretty good at following rules. That’s part of the reason I have the job I have. The problem is when rules change all the time.I remember going to the doctor once, soon after I got out of college. It was painfully obvious that his clothes were at least 20 years old. They were in fine condition, but hopelessly dated. Standing near him, I looked like I’d jumped out of a fashion magazine.

But I understand now. He didn’t care about looking hip. He was a doctor. He had bigger concerns on his mind. I’m guessing his criteria for picking out clothes in the morning went something like mine do now:

1. Is it clean?
2. Is it free of holes?
3. Are the holes visible?

As long as the answer to #1 is yes, and either the answer to #2 is yes or #3 is no, I’ll wear it.

I’m not a doctor, but I have lots of things on my mind these days too. Like what patches Microsoft released this month, and how I’m going to navigate a tangled bureaucracy, get them loaded onto 240 servers (including some with no connection to an outside world, half of which are separated from me by a network connection that makes a 56K modem look fast), and do all of this in two weeks without making my boss mad.

I’ve actually managed to pull off this trick about 22 times now, but I’m always trying to think of ways to improve the process. Any improvement to this exceedingly difficult process makes my life easier and my cranky bosses happier. My boss doesn’t care whether I look like I stepped out of the pages of a magazine or like something a bum wouldn’t want to be seen with, as long as I get my work done.

My wife says I need to dress like my friend Jon. I’ve known Jon about nine years. We go to the same church and usually sit near each other. Jon’s a mechanical engineer. A couple of years ago he designed machinery that turns sheet metal into body panels for Acuras.

I’ve never asked Jon, but I’m guessing when Jon looks at an article of clothing, two questions go through his mind.

1. Will that keep me warm (or cool) enough today?
2. How would I go about designing a machine that makes those buttons?

My biggest gripe is that clothes aren’t something you learn just once. When I was in school, by the time I learned what you were and weren’t supposed to wear, the rules changed. I’d re-learn it, but then they’d just change again.

In college, I learned that I could neatly sidestep the issue entirely by wearing all (or mostly) black. Sure, it made me look like someone who listened to The Cure too much, but as a matter of fact, I did listen to The Cure too much. I didn’t have to think about what matched, or if the particular shade was in or out. People didn’t look at me and try to figure out how old the clothes were, who made them, or where I bought them. They’d just look at me and conclude that the radio station I listened to didn’t have a letter Z or Q in its call letters.

But in 1998 I got a job with a dress code, and my all-black trick no longer would cut it. So I bought a couple of pairs of khaki pants and five button-up shirts and figured I was set. This shopping spree set me back almost $200.

The pants wore out, but I still have the shirts and they still fit, so I see no problem with continuing to wear them. After all, they don’t infringe on my current employer’s dress code and when I bought them, they cost me about a day’s pay. And furthermore, shouldn’t my wife be happy that I’m still the same size around that I was when I was 23?

I think my wife would counter that it’s nice that I wear the same size shirts as then, but they don’t have to be the same shirts.

I’m pretty sure Jon would tell me that some battles just aren’t worth fighting and the best thing to do is just wear whatever clothes your wife says you should wear.

I say this because I know Jon’s wife told my wife that it took her years to get Jon to dress the way he dresses now.

The next time I see Jon, I need to ask him how many years. But I probably won’t. Sometime in the next 72 hours, my boss will come to me with a line in a configuration file that needs to be changed in all 240 servers and, naturally, we’ll have about 20 minutes to do it. I’ll get it done the same way I always get it done, and then I’ll move on to solving the next problem, and I’m guessing that by mid-Wednesday at the very latest, I won’t even remember having said or written a thing about clothes on Sunday.

Frankly I’m more concerned about how I tell my boss that we have a lot of servers with system drives formatted with 512-byte clusters and they’d probably perform a lot better with 4K clusters.

Knowing things like that usually doesn’t get me raises but it gets me job security. The clothes I wear don’t get me either. So that’s why I’d rather let someone else worry about clothes.

Getting domesticated (or at least more handy)

Dave Farquhar Personal , ,

I go back to work tomorrow. I wish I could take at least another day or two off, but something came up and they need me Monday.

I spent some time tackling little projects around the house. Watching This Old House for the last six months or so is paying off.The day we brought my son home, I had a project waiting for me. A wind storm had ripped one of the gutters almost completely off the house. It was hanging by a thread on one end, and the other end had twisted itself around a vent over the kitchen. Nice. The vent probably kept the gutter from completely coming off.

I asked a friend from church to help me with it, because there wasn’t really any way one person could do it all at once–especially when that person is me. While I’m perfectly comfortable straightening metal, drilling pilot holes, and screwing it into place, I’d rather fill out tax forms than climb on the roof. Fortunately, with help we got it done in about 30 minutes.

When the weather finally gets nicer, I’ll drive some screws into the other gutters. For now they’re hanging on OK, but I doubt they’ll last another year without some intervention.

I also fixed a leak in the bathroom sink. I fixed it a few months ago with a bunch of PVC pipe repair kits, but the local Sears Hardware didn’t carry exactly the combination of parts I needed to reach from one end to the other. I ended up needing to mate two threaded pipes in the middle. My temporary fix was to put a smaller piece of pipe inside the two. Most of the time it worked, but sometimes it leaked.

I managed to find a threaded connector at Home Depot that fit, but it was galvanized steel and weighed way too much. There was no way these PVC pipes would support that weight. I settled for a female adapter. It screws into the threaded pipe on the bottom, and I rely on a press fit to for the top. I could secure it with some PVC glue, but first I’ll see if friction and gravity do their jobs. PVC glue isn’t something I want around the house with a little one roaming around.

Finally, I have some loose kitchen tiles. I found the original adhesive in the garage this morning. When I pulled one of the tiles, I could see why the adhesive failed: It’s the wrong kind of adhesive for the subfloor I have. So I picked up a combination adhesive/grout and we’ll see how it does. I’m not sure if one substance can do two jobs well, but theoretically I only need a little, and I’d rather buy a little of one thing than a little of two things. And I don’t see how it could be any worse than the original stuff.

I ended up paying about $10 for a quart of the adhesive/grout, $3 for a trowel, and another $3 for the tool for applying the grout. That’s not too bad. I should need a chisel, but with the original grout crumbling, I think I can get by without it. Good thing, because I couldn’t find one at Home Depot.

I’ve never laid tile before, but I’ve seen it done several times now on This Old House, so at least I know what the proper technique looks like. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but neither did whoever put this stuff down.

Once I get this project out of the way, the house will be a little bit nicer and a little bit safer. And I’ll have a little more experience.

This changes everything

Dave Farquhar Personal

I won’t post specifics in order to protect him, but I became a father this week. This is my first, a son.

Don’t expect any coherence in any of this. These are just some thoughts in the order they come to me.I’d never changed a diaper before in my life. The day he was born, I think I changed four. By the time I did the last one, I was even able to change one without him screaming bloody murder.

As I changed those diapers, it was so clear how vulnerable he is. He’s pretty much defenseless in every single way. Maybe that’s the idea, so parents will protect and nurture them.

They had to monitor his blood sugar really closely at first, and he screamed bloody murder whenever they took those samples. I tried to figure out how I could convince them to let me take the sample. Of course any sample I took would be from me, not from him.

Balancing your son’s long-term safety against comfort for the moment is a bit difficult. In the long term, all of those shots and other things will make him healthier. But there’s no way to explain any of that to him. All he knows is that strange people are hurting him and he can’t hear mom’s and dad’s voices anymore.

So far it looks like he has my ears, my eyes, my hair, and my wife’s nose and bone structure. The combination quickly made him popular with the female nurses. I hope his vision ends up being comparable to mine and my dad’s, but I sure hope he doesn’t end up being as prone to ear infections as I was. It also might be nice if he doesn’t get his first gray hair in the sixth grade like I did.

I’ve always been afraid to hold other people’s babies because I was afraid I might drop them. I haven’t had any trouble with him. It’s easier for some reason when it’s your own.

Trying to bribe a newborn with promises of a puppy, trains, and Tonka trucks doesn’t work. I didn’t think it would, but I thought it was worth a shot.

It’s also impossible to explain to the dog where my wife is and that she’s bringing a baby home. My dog loves kids, and any time kids come to visit, she’ll walk around the house looking for them even a couple of hours after they’ve left. I don’t know how she’ll react to a newborn, but once he’s big enough to crawl, she’ll have a playmate for the rest of her life.

I used to joke, derisively, that some people want to baptize their babies before, or right after, the umbilical cord is cut. I actually understand that attitude now. I still don’t agree with it (except in case of dire emergency of course), but now I see the perspective. I wasn’t there in the room holding a glass of water. But did the thought cross my mind? Yes.

Confessions of a \"child man\"

Dave Farquhar Personal

I read an editorial about the “child man” phenomenon and it made me mad.

I fit those stereotypes, spending most of my 20s living in an apartment surrounded by toys, in somewhat social isolation, when I was supposed to be “growing up,” taking responsibility, (whatever those two things mean), getting married, and pumping out kids. I even had people telling me this back in that era.

Believe me, I wasn’t living this way by choice. And it wasn’t for lack of trying that I was stuck there.I did date some girls after college. Notice I call them girls–it was appropriate. The first relationship started just a few months after I graduated. For worse and for better, she became one of the most influential people in my life, and sometimes that influence still lingers even though it’s been nearly a decade since the last time we spoke to one another.

Marriage material? No way, although you couldn’t convince me of that when I was 23. If you asked me then, she had it all: reasonably good looks, sky-high intelligence, and she and I could talk for hours about any number of different things. Ask me now, and there were problems, most of which had to do with maturity: She knew everything (just ask her); she had a very difficult time accepting me for who I was, flaws and virtues; her self-righteousness got on my nerves; and perhaps most importantly, she was still in school while I’d started my career, and she couldn’t relate to the demands my employer was putting on me, or to the difficulty I was having adjusting to those demands.

She also said I had a drinking problem. Yes, at the time I was drinking more heavily than I ever had before or since, but I was having two or three drinks a week, never more than one per day, and I never drank alone. Since alcoholism runs in my family, it wasn’t the smartest thing for me to be doing, but the quantities were small enough that I wasn’t hurting anything either. I know because nothing weird happened when I stopped.

Actually, there was one other problem. At church a few months after she and I had broken up, I asked three middle-aged men what I needed to be looking for, because I didn’t know. Dwight, perhaps the wisest of the three, spoke up first. He said to look for sexual attractiveness because you’re going to look for that anyway, and for someone your family approves of because they’re going to have to interact for a very long time, and for someone you would trust to raise your children correctly if something were to happen to you.

Dwight’s advice was so concise and brilliant that neither of the other two said much of anything except that they agreed with Dwight.

Everyone else had always given me a much longer list, and what was messing me up was that this girl was tailor-made for those longer lists. But she only went one for three on Dwight’s list. My family resented the way she controlled me and didn’t let me be myself, and I totally wouldn’t trust her to raise my kids because she would homeschool them and they wouldn’t know how to deal with people–just like her.

And as for the attractiveness, let’s just say she wasn’t worth being shallow for, and leave it at that.

So Dwight set me on the right path at 23. I knew what to look for. The trouble was finding it. As far as girls my own age, there was only one who went to my church. She and I had gone to high school together. We got along fine, but it never seemed like we had much in common. There were plenty of girls in high school, but whenever 23-year-olds had tried to date my younger sister, I always looked down on them. And when I tried dating someone still in college, we had trouble relating. Wouldn’t it be worse with someone who was still in high school?

So I got a new job in St. Louis and moved there. I needed that break anyway. By that time the ex had graduated, met someone else and was all but engaged (she was in a hurry), and had left town, but Columbia still felt like it was half hers. I needed to go either to Kansas City or St. Louis, because either of those would be mine. I had more connections in St. Louis and that helped me get a job, so I landed there.

And? Well, there weren’t a lot of 23-year-old girls at my new church either. There were plenty where I worked, but they were almost all engaged or married. Those who weren’t had a lot of baggage and nothing ever happened.

So to fill up the empty apartment, I spent most of age 24 writing and publishing a book. I’d say that took a little bit of responsibility, and a lot of other things.

So I wasn’t meeting girls at church or at work. I needed to get out, right? Check out the bar scene or something! Well, wrong, because I know what kind of person you’ll probably get if you do that: someone a lot like the girl I dated when I was 28.

At 22, she was a lot younger than me. How’d she rate against Dwight’s rules? Reasonably attractive, although a slight downgrade from her predecessor. She seemed to get along fine with my family. Raising kids was the unknown. Two months in, I saw a potential problem–she was entirely too much into drinking and party living and had no interest in outgrowing it. (By then, I was down to a couple of drinks a year.) I held on for five more months, hoping that would change, and even trying to force a change. That didn’t work out so well. My friends told me I really needed to break up with her. They were right but I didn’t want to believe it just yet. It didn’t matter though, because she broke up with me first.

So there I was. Back on the market at 29.

The nice thing about 29, as opposed to 23, is that your range broadens. At that age, it’s perfectly OK to date someone 8, 9, even 10 years younger than you. And, like 23, you can date someone older than you too. Being alone again still stank, but at least at 29 I had more options than the last time around.

And this time I actually shopped around a bit. I read a book that tried to help you know in five dates or less if someone was worth pursuing and I guess it helped, but all I really needed was Dwight’s rules.

In this case, I knew about two weeks in how she’d do on #3. I got sick and missed some work. She took care of me. And all I could think was that if this was how she treated a guy she’d just met, what would she be like with her own flesh and blood? She met my family soon afterward and did fine. Mom really liked her. So that was it for rule #2. And #1 was a given, since there wouldn’t have been a second date if #1 hadn’t been OK.

So I got married at 31. I’ll be 33 when our first son is born. I guess we’ve had some ups and downs but my coworkers all complain about their wives more than I do.

If I’d done what these “man-boy” critics wanted me to do, I would have gotten married 10 years ago, wrecked my life, wrecked that girl’s life, and we would have made a really unpleasant environment for our kids. And then we would have been left with two unpleasant choices: Stay together for the kids and wreck their lives some more, or a really messy divorce and perhaps wreck her relationship with her family, who believe there’s basically no justifiable reason to divorce, ever.

I think I did the right thing by waiting. Not that I had much choice in the matter, but on some level at least I always knew what I was looking for. I suppose I could have made a mistake at 23 but even then I knew something wasn’t right, and I don’t think I would have actually gone through with it. The relationship at 28 was more of a long shot to end up becoming a bad marriage because of the alcohol. There was no point in all my hard work to avoid becoming an alcoholic if I turned around and married one.

I did the right thing for me, my wife, my son, and society. Those “man-boy” critics need to go do the right thing for society too, and just shut up.