In the 90’s when Mad About You came on, I watched that show (though it was at it’s best in season one). There was a point in one episode where Paul Reiser talked about how when his dad was the age Paul was now, he knew things. 

I haven’t asked my dad, but it’s a conversation I want to have some day soon. I always felt like he knew how to do everything. The question I want to ask is “did you? Or did you fake it? Or just try, fail, fix, and try again?” I look forward to that conversation.

By the time I was 30, I got married, had all three of my kids, had about five real jobs, lived in two houses. But I never fell like I was a real dad. I am the least handy person I know. Cars, homes, appliances, electricity, plumbing, you name it, I had to ask a friend or a relative, or hire someone to fix it. 

Over the last couple years I have tried when time permitted, to get better at this. I try to think through the fact that it’s not that I can’t do these things. It’s more that I’m not naturally inclined towards these activities, so never observed others doing it, and don’t take the time to learn. That shift has allowed me to realize that if I set my mind to it there will be some, though certainly not all, of these fix-its that I may be able to accomplish. I remember reading The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck. He tells a story of trying to fix brakes on his car. He forced himself to go very slow and pay attention. He still hired people to fix most things, but after this episode he realized it had more to do with making a choice between spending his time or his money on something, not that he couldn’t do it. 

Today, the garbage disposal backed up and we had standing water in our sink. After an hour of letting Drano sit in the sink, water was still there. With the help of my son James, I gathered my tools, some rags, and a bucket and went under the sink. I sat and stared for a minute. I took out the pipe that I thought was the problem, emptied it of some gunk, put it back together. SUCCESS! 

Sometimes it’s the little victories that make you feel like you are moving forward on the road to being a grown-up. Even at 40.

Links:

Moonlighting

Mad About You

From a friend who grows several hundred tomato plants, on how to try and avoid tomato blight.

Despite the demise of print, thought this was a great poster in defense of the written word.

We hopped in the minivan this morning and headed over to the Chanhassen Service Center. Wow. This place can change the stereotype of government office buildings and the people that work there.

When we first walked in, we were barely 2 feet inside the door, when someone announced, “I can help you over here.” So often in past experiences, I’ve had to guess at who’s window was open, or clear my throat to get eye contact, not just at government offices but at my places (looking at you, airline counters.) Instead, this woman made it clear right away that we could come to her for help. And she was great, friendly and knowledgeable. We got all three kids’ passports taken care of in under 10 minutes.

The building itself is well done too. They had a TV in the area with clips from movies and trivia questions which kept the kids attention. They also have a drive-thru for certain transactions.

So, thanks Chanhassen Service Center, you guys are great!

Link: http://www.co.carver.mn.us/departments/prts/chan.asp

From their website:

Greeter station and NEW Customer Management System

Customer Seating & Children’s area

Drive-Thru Window for tabs!

ATM available

Fast Track Service Now Available on Titles and Drivers Licenses!

The Service Center handles Motor Vehicle transactions, Drivers License transactions, Passports, Passport Photos, DNR transactions, and Hunting & Fishing licenses.

Motor Vehicle transactions include tab renewal, title transfers and out-of-state registrations. DNR transactions include boat, snowmobile, ATV and off road vehicle registrations and transfers.  Drivers License transactions include, renewals, change of address, change of name, and ID cards. Game & Fish transactions include all types of angling & hunting licenses.

1. We used homeway.com to rent an apartment rather than a hotel. This was a great experience for us. The site itself is easy to use and allows for really good filtering so you can find what you are looking for rather easily. Staying in an apartment rather than a hotel gave us four important benefits:

- Location: We were one block from the Natural History Museum on the Upper West Side,  two blocks from Central Park, and a block from the subway. This was ideal.

- Laundry: The building had a washer and dryer so we only packed for 4 days, then did laundry one evening. It was great not having to pack as much as we would have had to for an 8 day trip if we had no laundry. (While there are obviously laundromats we could have used near hotels, we felt more comfortable having one in the building.)

- Refrigerator: We walked to a nearby grocery store and bought food for the week, and stored our doggy-bags from restaurants in the full-size refrigerator. Hotels often have a fridge, but usually a very small one that at best would have fit a half gallon of milk and one doggy bag. 

- Value: For this location we paid much lower than we would have had we tried to find a hotel in a similar locale. It wasn’t a huge apartment, but we didn’t need it to be, we needed a place to sleep and occasionally eat.

2. During our planning my wife and I did some research to come up with a bunch of choices for things to do. This was one of the occasions that social media is your friend. I put a message on facebook, twitter, and a couple e-lists I am on, and we got great recommendations from people who live there, as well as people who’ve vacationed there. The best notes were from two people I know in NYC who connected via facebook, and a high school friend of my wife who was also connected via facebook. We got tips we never would have known about. 

We then took about 30 choices and put them on a whiteboard and had our kids each markdown 3 “must-haves” and then star others they were interested in. This gave us the talking points to discuss with them which places to go, and how to group them. (Our kids are 14, 12, and 10 so they are old enough to engage in this planning.) We ended up with a great plan that didn’t keep us busy every minute of the day, and provided enough structure on certain days to allow us flex days as well. I’ll do a follow-up post on our itinerary.

3. I use tripit.com and the corresponding iphone app to keep track of all tracking and confirmation numbers, and my wife also prints them all off and has a packet for all of our reservations. This works very well.

4. I downloaded a couple NYC subway apps to my iphone and we printed off a subway map for the kids to study. We really wanted them to lead and to be comfortable. Giving them our itinerary ahead of time as well as the subway map gave them a comfort level that allowed them to give us directions. In fact, we generally had to tell them to SLOW down, as they were so far ahead of Jenn and me. 

5. This combination of digital and analog may seem like overkill but gave us the ease of use and at-our-fingertips that we desired.

6. We got the seven-day unlimited subway pass for each of us and this was the right call. We got our money’s worth and never worried about if we had credits on our subway card. We hopped on and off with impunity and riding the subway was a highlight for my 10 year old.

7. Bring comfortable shoes. We calculated on one day we walked over seven miles.

8. When you have a chance to get the audio tours, like at the Empire State Building, do so, it makes the experience so much better. Getting the history really adds to the trip.

Like I said I’ll be posting the itinerary in a follow-up post. It was an amazing trip.

“the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has.”

“Throwing away then all things, hold to these only which are few; and besides bear in mind that every man lives only this present time, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or it is uncertain.”

“Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and mountains…it is in they power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere, either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble, does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility.”

The Golden Sayings of Epictetus.

Links:

Harvard Classics, The Five Foot Bookshelf

Golden Sayings of Epictetus