A good friend of mine sent this to me, and these are words I really want to keep in the forefront of my mind.

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend of mine wrote in the comments section about having her husband change music in hopes of getting him to write. I was about to write a long response in the comments, but figured I’d put it up here because, well, because I want to.

I don't think that above idea of just changing the music will will work. It isn't the music. It is that when I was in the writing zone, I was listening to the same music all the time.

It is probably why people who set aside time to write keep things the same: the same chair, desk, certain beverage, clothes, and music, whatever.

So if you want him to write you have to set up the condition/response thing.

Let me give some examples.

Example 1: Massage.

Let’s say Elaine wants me to give her more massages. Sure, I’ll do it whenever she asks, but she probably wants it much more often, and heck, it might be fun to train me. So, what she might do it have a bowl of Skittles around and hand me some, and encourage me to eat them while I’m massaging her.

If I’ve done this enough, then when I’m eating Skittles on my own, I’ll probably get the urge to give Elaine a massage, and therefore she wins.

Example 2: Money.

I have friends who come over to game. They could start a practice of bringing dinner over so Elaine and I don’t have to prepare anything. It could work like this. They come over and say, “I put the food on the table. You owe me $10.” Before I respond, they give me a hug. I give them $10.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat a few dozen times.

Eventually, whenever they hug me, I should give them $10, even if they don’t bring food.

Example 3: Sports.

This one actually happened. When I was growing up there were only six or so television stations within reception range. Some of the UHF (look it up children) stations would show Star Trek or other science fiction shows I liked. Unfortunately, like Fox, WB and UPN today, they also carried all the local sports games. So every so often I’d go to watch a television show I was really excited about, and what would happen? A sports game would preempt it.

I would be upset when the sports program came on, and eventually it lead to me getting sad whenever any sports program was on, and so, today, I don’t like watching sports on television.

I could give more examples, but I think the above makes the point quite well. I’d love to hear other stories of how people have Pavlovian responses. I just don’t want to hear that you are conditioning me to do things!

For my job I write. A lot. All the time.

In fact, while I used to be a pretty good computer programmer and have designed and built electrical circuits, I don’t get to that that anymore. I write proposals and bring in money to do innovative research to help this country. I write technical papers to share this state of the art information with the world.

Sometimes, I just can’t bring myself to write another damn word.

Yesterday was one such day. I had a paper to write for a conference, and I just didn’t feel like it. Maybe it was staying up way to late with my wonderful new daughter. Maybe it was because we just got finished with yet another proposal round. Maybe it was because it had snowed too much. Maybe it was because … maybe maybe maybe.

Whatever the reason, the words just weren’t flowing.

I even made a deal with myself. Since I was in desparate need of sleep, I would allow myself to go home after half a day (taking it as vacation time) if I got a rough draft done.

And yet I still delayed. I reviewed Non Disclosure Agreements and checked up on various projects. I made business phone calls. I just wouldn’t start my paper.

At one point I buckled down, closed the door, turned off NPR background noise, and said, okay, I’m going to write. I also turned on my CD of The Wrath of Khan Soundtrack.

That was a habit, turning on that music. I like hearing the music that reminds me of spaceships and combat (see my last post about Spaceship Porn – I think there is a trend here), and putting it in the background is pleasant, and not distracting and wordy like regular music and NPR are.

Before I knew it, I had three pages done, and the words were flowing. I was making fun and interested connections, and the whole paper flowed into place. I finished the whole thing in about two hours, and it was better than a rough draft. It was an almost complete paper that needed some overnight thinking to enhance and then some time spent adding polish.

After I came up for air it occurred to me how this happened. You see, whenever I’m in the proposal writing mood, I slip in the Wrath of Khan soundtrack or one of my Medieval Babes CDs. When the Muse is inspiring me and I’m in the writing zone, this music is most often in the background and usually quite loud as I’m doing the writing after hours or on the weekends.

And like the response of Pavlov’s dog, it seems that the act of playing this music while in the writing zone means that if I want to summon Calliope and beg her assistance, I just need to pop in one of those CDs and the writer’s block disappears.

At least, I hope that is how it will work. Now that I’m conscious of this process, I will be trying it when I want to get some serious writing done. Let’s hope it continues to work.

I have to admit, though, that it is kind of scary that I my responses can be so easily trained.

I feel like blogging it now. It turned out fine for me, but it wasn’t what I expected. You see, I thought it would be a cakewalk. A formality, to give us students experience in auditioning, but that they’d pass us because they know us as students and they’ve seen our performances.

I was wrong.

We went in as a group of nine. There were two groups for the Level 1 auditions, and another group for Level 2. Our level went first, but I was part of the second group. There were six instructors there doing the evaluations. I had only had two of them. One of the instructors isn’t even part of Second City Detroit. He runs the Improv Inferno in Ann Arbor. I had met him at a tech seminar downtown, and he recognized me.

We handed over our headshots and résumés, and then walked forward saying our names one at a time.

The audition itself was quick, only 30 minutes. We did:

1. Hot Spot. You sing a song and tag each other out. I did well, I think, selling each song and getting some laughs. My favorite part was when we got on a Christmas Carol kick, and I walked out and dejectedly sang the Dreidle song. That got a nice laugh. Well, except from one instructor, who just scowled the entire time.

2. Two person scene. I did this one great with my partner (who I didn't choose). I wish I had done this well in our class show! I got the who/what/where out there right away, and made that day different. He and I were awesome. We accepted each others gifts and got great responses.

3. Switch. I was able to callback to the two person scene, which went over well.

That's all.

I thought we all did well. Again, I was relaxed, thinking we would all pass. We went out to Buffalo Wingers afterwards and talked about the audition.

Two days later, I got a phone call about how I did.

I passed, so I can move on to the next levels.

However, only half my class passed, which shocked me. Also, of the six other people who weren’t in my class, only three of those made it too. I honestly expected everyone to make it, but they didn't. So much for it being a formality.

Sheesh.

We later found out what they were looking for. The audition was to see if we can create scenes that might possibly be scripted. It was also to see if we can support our partner and play together. A quick way to fail an audition is to sacrifice the scene for the funny.

They also spent quite a while talking about each of us individually. I would really like to have been a fly on the wall and listen to that conversation!

Oh well, onward with the learning, and preparing for the next audition. And yes, I’m still keeping a journal of my Second City experiences.

People don’t understand me when I say I’m reading Spaceship Porn. I get odd looks when I talk about how much I like that style of story, so I figured I should explain myself.

Some people, mainly women, read Romance Novels. They get enjoyment out of the romance (duh), maybe the sexual scenes, the descriptions of the characters, clothes, and places. That is, more than a good story, the Romance novel fulfills a need to get lost in that kind of atmosphere.

Well, some people, mainly men, read Spaceship Porn. This style is epitomized by the works of E. E. Doc Smith, where the whole novel is just an excuse to read about large scale spaceship battles. Things blowing up, combat every other chapter, some of it hand to hand bust mostly ship to ship, with advanced Navy space technology leading the way.

Ahhh, bliss.

David Weber, in my opinion, writes the best spaceship porn. His books also have a great storyline, and always manage to cheer me up. The good guys are very good and competent. The bad guys are very evil and also competent. The moral difficulties are clearly black and white.

The last book I finished by him was Path of the Fury, and it was a ton of fun. Take a very highly skilled futuristic space marine (she was part an elite commando unit) who has a need for revenge, an ancient Greek Fury (no, I’m not kidding, this is one of the mythical three Furies), and the most advanced ship that can only be powered by a sentient Artificial Intelligence, put them in a great background of intrigue, betrayal, and space pirates, and you have a very fun book. Especially since Weber makes three dimensional characters and knows how to tell a story.

So, when I’m looking for something to read that isn’t terribly hard on the brain and will put a smile on my face, then Spaceship Porn is for me!

So I can write about anything I want, and I still want to write about my family. And I will.

Conversation from the other day.
Elaine: Mommy loves Marcus!
Marcus: Daddy loves Marcus! Pythagoras loves Marcus!

That was so sweet. And yes, he can say that cat’s name now. And he says “baby Cassie” too. I’m currently teaching what the various resources are in Catan. Yes, indeed, Daddy does love Marcus. And Cassandra. And Pythagoras. And, as always, Elaine.

Time for more pictures!

This is the picture of all our hands. I don’t know why I love this concept, but I do. Maybe I should do one every couple of years. Trust me, it isn’t easy getting everyone in the picture, as the next one shows:

As you can see, Pythag is incredibly happy.

Here is a good one of Cassandra, I think.

Honestly, Cassandra was perfectly content except when this picture was taken. Actually, I think she is just yawning. What is cool is that Marcus is holding Cassandra’s hand. Elaine took this one – she thought it was really cute.

This should have turned out better, but, well, sometimes I take bad pictures, and Marcus looks like he is on some sort of drug. In fact, no one has their eyes open! Sheesh.

Earlier this evening I played blocks with Marcus, and this picture turned out quite well, I think!

I’ll be updating the Marcus picture pages in a bit. I also will make a Cassandra page, although eventually I think I’ll just have a family picture page. Or not. I can decide later. Enjoying my family is far more important than how the pictures are displayed.

I should give an update. Cassandra is staying awake more during the day. She still wakes up quite a bit at night, but it seems to get better. Elaine continues to improve but has a while to go before she’s fully recovered. I’m back at work. Elaine’s Mom is over quite a bit helping out, especially at night. I don’t know how we’d do this without her, though some nights I find out.

On Sunday, Marcus and I went shopping together. We picked up some new shoes for him, and then went to Sam’s club to restock on things we desperately needed around the house, like trash bags, diapers (both sizes), and, um, maxi pads. I think it is good for a father and his son to go out together and do manly things, like buying feminine hygiene products. It is a bonding experience, one I will surely treasure for a long time, and bring up again when he’s older and dating.

We had some friends over later to play games, and Eric and Katy brought us some dinner (yum!!!!!). It was nice, especially for Elaine, to have visitors, and Marcus loves to hang out with us when we are playing games. What I’m really looking forward to is when Marcus and Cassandra play those games with me!

Here they are! At long last, as Cassandra is sleeping next to me, Elaine is sleeping upstairs, Marcus is sleeping in his room upstairs, and Pythag is sleeping on a baby blanket, I have time to work on some pictures!

I still have tons of Marcus pics to do, and I am working on them also. Need...more...time....

(Okay, need less World of Warcraft.)

Enough blathering. Here are the pics with captions. Enjoy!

This is Cassandra, seconds after she was born. My little girl! Elaine looks very relieved.

This is also from her birthday, January 9th. She's very calm an quiet at the moment.

The first one is the whole family (sans cat). Marcus was thrilled to be with Mom again. These (and the one below) were taken on January 10th.

He was so happy, he curled up with Elaine. He was glad to see me too, don't worry!

We are finally home! This is on the 12th. I really want to take more family pics. Probably on Saturday or something.

These are just too fun. Pythag loves books! Even the ones that Marcus reads...

On Sunday, January 9th, at 8:46 PM at University of Michigan Hospital, Elaine gave birth to our second child, Cassandra Lynn Cohen.

Both Mother and daughter are doing fine.

Cassandra is a very healthy baby girl.

I cannot express how much I wanted to type those words out: Cassandra is a very healthy baby girl.

Elaine and I were so stressed about it, and we didn’t realize the toll it was taking on us.

After Marcus was born, I posted a play by play timing description of what happened. This is a different child, so this posting should be different too.

We checked into the hospital at 3:30 PM on Saturday, and after checking her out and stuff, they gave Elaine some Cytotec to induce labor at 5:30 PM. They planned to give her a dose every four hours for a maximum of six times before doing Pitocin (depending on how things go).

So, we tried to sleep. At about 1:45 AM Elaine was dilated 1-2 cm. It stayed that way until 9:45 AM that moring, where she was at 5 cm. Yay! Elaine gets the epidural, and more Cytotec.

Again, there was very little change for a long time. At 1:45 PM she was at 7 cm, the baby was still high and bouncy in the womb.

We tried to nap during the afternoon, but ugh, everything was beeping and making noise. We didn’t get much sleep the night before either.

At 4:40 PM she’s at 8 cm, but the bay is still high. Half hour later Pitocin is administered. And we wait.

By 7:50 they decided that enough time had gone by, so they artificially broke the water. There was tons and tons of fluids. But that started ball rolling. Actual pushing started at 8:19 PM, and Cassandra was born at 8:46 PM.

Elaine did great. Pushing incredibly strongly threw the pain, and it was a lot of pain. But she arrived.

The big question on our minds now were: does she have Downs? The doctors wouldn’t tell us anything. Seriously. They said there were no features, but that was all. At about 10 PM we had the resident pediatrician come in, and he was even more hesitant, not telling us anything at all except that the only sure way is through a blood test, and that it would take a week or so to get the results back.

This is far different from what we first told, which was that we would know as soon as the baby was born.

So although we were very happy with the birth, we didn’t relax, and the stress was still there. I’d like to say that we could accept the birth on its own, and yes, we were very happy, but in all honesty, we wanted our questions answered one way or another. We’d been having this unknown hang over our heads for six months, and now we were told we’d have to wait more.

The night went well. Cassandra took to breastfeeding very easily!! I took some pictures (which I’ll post later).

In the morning, another pediatrician came by, this time from our own doctor’s office. He was amazing. Came in, all happy and boisterous. Loves kids. He talks to us about a lot of things, and finally I cut in and ask about the Downs. Apparently the hospital didn’t tell them of our concerns, so he had no idea. We told him the full story. He walks right over to Cassandra and with full confidence says, “She’s fine. No indications. I’m confident she doesn’t have Downs. If you want a blood test I’ll do it, but really, this is a healthy baby.” He then proceeded to name all the indicators (skin tone, muscle, lip cleft, hand creases, etc.) and points out how they are not there.

I was amazed. Finally someone with answers, and even better, the answers we were hoping and praying for!

My headache went away. All the tension left Elaine. Even though we are staying another night at the hospital, I think we will sleep better tonight. I don’t know how parents learn to handle all the concern they have for their kids, but I guess Elaine and I will figure that out too.

Marcus Man is going to meet his sister tonight too. That should be interesting!

I ran home quickly to take care of the cat and to get the trash out (the truck was only five houses away, but I made it!). I’ll be heading back very soon to be with my family.

Two children.

Amazing.

I did a stupid thing before the holiday season. I purchased the massive multiplayer online game World of Warcraft. After reading tons of reviews on the various online games, and getting tired of City of Heroes, I felt I’d give it a go.

I hesitated because while I love Diablo (put out by the same Publisher/Developer), I was never a huge fan of the Warcraft games.

I shouldn’t have waited so long.

It was a big mistake. I play every chance I get. I’ve got a wonderful Paladin character and an evil Mage character. There are literally thousands of quests, and with the storyline that goes on the quests are interesting.

The beginner part is done well: you play the game like everyone else, but you also learn about how to work the interface and it doesn’t seem like learning. In fact, you sometimes have to come back to your starting area in order to complete a mission!

There are many different classes and races you can choose from. The only bad thing is there isn’t much variation between the classes. Some, but not like Diablo. The creation of your avatar also doesn’t have much variation (like Everquest II or City of Heroes).

But aside from that, the world is rich and the adventures are fun. They have craft skills that anyone can learn, allowing you to build not only useful items for yourself, but things you can easily sell at the various auction houses.

So now most night after everyone is asleep I’m going on grand quests, killing things, and having a blast. Staying up way too late and not doing other things, like reading and eating.

Ugh…what a mistake.

Four of us this year threw a party: your humble writer (Chuck), his beautiful wife (Elaine), their wonderful son (Marcus), and their not-so-brave cat (Pythagoras).

Once again, I bought way too much food. I really tried hard not to get too much. I only bought two bags of veggies with four different types of dips. I purchased some cheddar and four quarters of random cheese varieties, to go with the Gouda I had at home. Plus a big hunk of salami.

Tim and Nat brought over extra food for the hungry maw of a fountain (yay cake!) and a bunch of Mike’s, which people enjoyed. Especially the host.

Where I goofed was the fixings for the chocolate fountain. I got three pineapples, where one would have sufficed. We have tons of left over apples. Everyone loved the Oreo Cookies, but I have far too many left. The strawberries and pound and angle food cake are gone, but I never did get around to baking the cookies, so I have all this raw triple chocolate raw cookie dough left over. I guess my knack is buying too much food. I don’t want anyone going hungry at my place!

People stopped in and out all night. I think at most we had twenty over at any given moment.

The fountain of chocolate was a hit. I didn’t burn any of it, and we went through about three packages of chips to fill it. The only problem was that it was loud. The fountain, not the chocolate or lip smacking. And I mean LOUD. The sound was not fun to listen to, so we’d stoke up on dipping chocolate, then turn off the motor, but not the heat, and come back to it later.

The main game of the even was not Catan. In fact, I don’t think that was played at all. We played a new one (for us) called Puerto Rico. No dice, lots of thought and strategy, and fun. Also, Elizabeth just cannot be beaten. The only game I won was when she didn’t play. I must have my revenge, and until I do, I will continue to enjoy loosing to such a worthy adversary.

Shawn, Kim and their son Zach made it to the party, and it was wonderful to see them too. They stayed overnight, and Shawn helped to clean up after everyone left, much to the eternal gratitude of this host. Kim was also excellent at negotiating with the Police. That could have turned nasty, but a few properly placed words or something and the two cars left with no fines and only minimal stress to yours truly. I’m grateful that at least the FBI decided to call first, and she handled that too.

Marcus stayed up past midnight for the first time since he was an infant! We played our bottle tooting game, and he was showered with kisses when we rang in the New Year.

Cumara called us during the party. Apparently things are going great in Colorado. He’s found his vocation as Buddhist monk. He is changing his name to Gandhara Siddharta Chandramoul, has donated all of his worldly possessions to charity, and spends his time meditating and playing his didgeridoo. When I asked him if he was going to also become celibate, he just laughed and told me to meditate on the lotus. As he hung up I heard some high pitched giggling in the background.

Someone, and it wasn’t either me or Parsla, and definitely not her fiancé, suggested that we switch clothes. So for about an hour Parsla looked dapper in tan pants and a soft yet sharp blue micro-fiber shirt, while I looked elegant in a long blue tea-length gown with slim rhinestone straps. I didn’t go anywhere near the chocolate during that time.

We discovered that evening that while the world is a generous place, especially during times of tragedy, there are those out there with evil in their hearts. Someone from Australia is spoofing my company’s website, asking that they donate money for the Tsunami relief effort in Cybernet’s name. The money goes to some cretin’s personal PayPal account. Through some quick work the account was frozen, and I’ll let the person who is valiantly handling the problem discuss it once that chapter finally closes. Or he can comment here and let us know how it is going.

Karen also called. It seems that we probably won’t be seeing her again. As we have long suspected, she really isn’t human at all. She pretends that it is just a whimsical affectation when she calls herself a Pixie, but the irony of it is that she really is one of the Sidhe. One of the evil ones. She admitted to killing about eight people during her time in mortal lands. All people who got too close and wouldn’t stay quiet or enthralled were disposed of efficiently and cruelly. (Why do you think we haven’t heard from Shawn in so long? – those banal non-tawdry ungossip worthy posts of hers are obviously a forgery). And now that her scouting is complete, she is returning to Faerie, where they will begin the invasion of this plane of existence within a year. Fortunately, since time flows differently between here and there, we are safe. I’ve used my mathematical acumen to compute that one month in Faerie is currently 1.2 million years on Earth. I don’t plan on loosing any sleep over this, but I will miss Karen, and sleep a lot easier through the night.

I haven’t heard at all from Kara. Last I heard she mentioned something about her, John, a trip to Madagascar, photography, ancient Sumerian gods, and kumquats.

I did hear about Jeff. Always the busy guy, it seems he was in Ann Arbor over most of New Years, and yet decided to not even stop by to visit. Sure, he had family to hang out with. And he has all that school work to do. And yes, while everyone was celebrating he did work out the final proofs to The Hodge Conjecture (though between you and me I think he was a bit sloppy with his algebraic transformations, and Jeff, that was a skew-Hermitian matrix, so it is the negative of the complex conjugate, not just the complex conjugate itself!), go to Iraq with Bon Jovi as a bass guitarist to entertain the troops, and rescue Mrs. Emerson’s cat out of a tree. Whatever. He still could have spared five lousy minutes to show up at my party!

Not that I even gave him a second thought.

But now, it is the first day of a new year. The house is all cleaned up. The refrigerator is stuffed with food and the counters are overflowing with snacks. The tree is down. The cat has come out of hiding.

I think I’ll bake some cookies tonight.