captkevman

Well, I gave it a shot.

I made it to J (K if you count this post), but due to some pretty major real-life distractions, I’m throwing in the towel.

It was fun to write on a semi-regular basis again, and this challenge has definitely inspired me to do so more often. I hope the momentum keeps up, but honestly, I have more pressing things that require my immediate attention (my marriage, my family, my house, and my business come immediately to mind).

At least I lasted longer on this one than I did the 30 Characters Challenge last November. So I guess there’s that.

To everyone who has followed my ramblings this month (and beyond), THANK YOU -especially those who have responded and left comments, either in the comments section of the blog or via Twitter or Facebook.

(I’d say I’m throwing in the towel, but I need to make sure I know where that is at all times….)

I mentioned in my “H” post that my marriage had just endured its first major trial since we got married nearly fifteen years ago. Again, I won’t go into details about what happened, but I will discuss what I have taken away from it.

Our marriage had fallen into the trap where we never had time to see each other without the stress of the house and the kids (at least one of our kids is very challenging to deal with daily), and since we’re on opposite work schedules, very little got done in the house as far as cleaning/maintaining it. We each expected the other to pull more than their fair share of duties in both housework and parenting, and eventually, we started regarding each other with a bit of contempt. We had lost the joy of being together. We had lost Kevin and Angela to being dad and mom, the stresses and schedules of our respective jobs, and all the other trivial but necessary minutiae of life. We weren’t living, we were coping.

So it got to the point where this Trial emerged and threatened the very foundation of our family. This trial came to a crescendo last night, and it wasn’t until late last night/early this morning that we learned how we had fared, so it was a long and excruciating night for both of us.

Early on in this trial (which lasted about a week — the longest week of my life, ended by the longest night of my life), something deep within me had surfaced — something that illuminated to me my shortcomings both as a husband and a father — that compelled me to work harder at being better at both of those roles. It carried me through the week.

Thankfully, we passed this trial better than I had expected or had even dared to hope. After tearfully celebrating in each other’s embrace, we both got some much-needed sleep for most of the morning, and we set off with the kids to go to the playground, which ended up being too crowded for us to even park the car. So we drove around, not really having a destination.

We found ourselves driving near the park where we got married, and we had not visited there in years — certainly not while the kids were old enough to remember. So that became our destination. We parked the car and walked to the deck and gazebo overlooking the water where we exchanged our wedding vows. It was like time had brought us back, and we looked in each others’ eyes and watched the years fall away.

I was falling in love with her all over again.

We shared this special place, this special day, with our kids. We told them this is the place where our family began, so it was a sacred and special place. Angela and I held each other overlooking the water mere inches from where we wed. Our daughter explored a few trails through the wooded area near the gazebo and found a stick she fancied. I told her that stick had fallen from a tree that was most likely growing the day her mother and I exchanged vows. She kept it as a souvenir of her visit, and asked if we could come back again.

We left the gazebo and made our way out of the trail and stopped at the playground so the kids could play before we got back in the van to leave. Angela and I sat there, enchanted by the others’ gaze, smiling and giggling at each other like grade school kids in puppy love.

We came back home, had a bit of a nap while the kids played and watched TV, and we ended the evening dancing in the kitchen while the kids looked on in mock horror (or maybe it was real horror - they’re not used to seeing their parents acting this way, fawning all over each other, giggling and smiling and laughing with each other).

All I know is that in the past 24 hours, I’ve experienced the lowest of lows and the highest of highs and I feel like a renewed man with a new lease on my life, my marriage, and my family.

And right now, I’m so full of joy I can barely contain it.

The old saying that the best tool is the one you have with you does indeed ring true, and I’ve found that since carrying an iPhone around with me all the time (pretty much non-stop since Apple issued me one in July 2007), I tend to snap a lot of photos with the camera that’s built in to it.

It’s never been the best quality camera (although admittedly, I do not own an iPhone 4), but it’s been good enough. When my initial contract was over in 2009, the iPhone 3Gs had recently come out, which included support for recording video. I had considered getting a Flip Mino pocket camcorder, but at that point, I figured, “why bother?” I had a video camera in my pocket now, so why carry around another device?

The recent demise of the Flip camera by Cisco got me thinking about that again. In fact, I had just purchased a pocket HD camcorder from a deal promotions site (not a Flip) just prior to reading that the Flip line was canceled.

But why would I buy a pocket camera when I already have one in my iPhone? Well, the iPhone camera experience leaves a bit to be desired. First, snapping a photo or video is cumbersome, at best. On my iPhone 3Gs, if I want to record myself (narcissist that I am), I can see neither the preview image to frame the shot nor the control buttons to capture it without a mirror. So for recording things like quick self-snapshots or video blog entries, it’s almost useless. And as far as video is concerned, the microphone is positioned incorrectly to optimally capture the audio from your video source: usually, what is recorded is prominently from the opposite side of the camera.

That’s why I was surprised to see the Flip killed. By most accounts, they were great little cameras (although I had not yet purchased one). And by a few other accounts, Cisco killed the Flip because they weren’t quite sure how to run that business after acquiring it two years earlier. That’s a shame.

I’ve got a Creative Vado 720p HD pocket camcorder on the way. I’m sure in terms of quality and ease of use it’ll be no Flip, but I’m anxious to see how much it gets used compared to my iPhone video camera.

I guess we’ll see in a week or so.

I first met her on the phone, and even then, I could hear her smile. She had a quiet energy and youthful zeal in her voice that lifted me during a dark period in my life.

We spoke for hours a day on the phone for an entire week before we first laid eyes on each other. During our conversations, my low self esteem painted the image of a monster in her mind’s eye, and yet she wanted to see me anyway.

We arranged for a meeting at a local mall, and when I first saw her, I thought I was in a dream — or perhaps about to become the victim of a cruel prank. How could this stunningly beautiful young woman possibly want to be with someone like me?

She greeted me with a heart-melting smile and a huge hug, and I reciprocated in kind, still stunned that such a perfect creature would want to embrace me. I presented her three roses I had concealed inside my jacket. We walked around the mall, starting with the video game arcade, and spent a couple of hours getting to know one another in person. We had a quick bite to eat at Chick-Fil-A, and I walked her out to where her father was waiting to pick her up (we were both car-less at the time, I had been dropped off by a friend and caught a bus home).

We smiled and hugged and agreed that we would see each other again. We filled the time between with marathon phone calls every night.

—-

Five years later, we were in the hospital. The pain started early in the morning, and we arrived just before dawn. After all day being tended to by nurses and anesthesiologists, she gave birth to our first child, our daughter. It was exactly five years, almost to the exact minute, from the moment we first saw each other.

Another eleven-plus years have passed since then, and our family is still going strong. Sure, we have our challenges, like everyone, and yes, we could probably do things a bit better and work a bit harder. But for all our imperfections and foibles, we have each other. She fills in my weak spots and I fill in hers. She makes me a better man, and I make her a better woman.

Epilogue

This entry (and all after it) were delayed by the first real trial our marriage has faced in its nearly 15-year existence, which took place over the course of the past week. I will not be more specific than that, but suffice it to say that we have both emerged from it with renewed energy and conviction we haven’t felt since we first met.

More than ever, her smile moves and inspires me to be a better husband, better father, and a better man.

OK, so I really couldn’t pinpoint a “G” topic.

Oddly enough, every one of those items in the post title have a common theme: breaking down barriers of sexuality. Maybe I’ve got something subconscious going on here.

I recently saw the “Gaga at Google” interview, and since I pretty much don’t listen to the radio, I figured I’d see what all the fuss over this Lady Gaga persona was all about. Although I still question her fashion sense, I was rather impressed by her thoughts as an artist and I walked away from the interview with an overall positive impression.

I made the mistake of showing the interview to my wife, who was instantly smitten by Lady Gaga as an artist, and as a result, I’ve been listening to non-stop Gaga streaming over YouTube and Pandora for the past few days (another artist she’s obsessed-level nuts about is P!nk).

Lady Gaga is apparently an icon in the gay community. I can see why that would be the case, and I have a great deal of respect for her in that regard.

I believe gay rights is a civil rights issue, and I’m encouraged by the increasing acceptance of gays in modern society. Companies like Google, Apple, Disney and others are leading the way in recognizing committed same-sex relationships and other non-traditional families. Shows like Glee integrate gays and straights as if it’s just part of everyday life (which it is). And the U.S. military is even coming around to accepting every individual, regardless of sexual orientation.

I normally don’t soapbox about issues like this, but there are people whom I care a great deal about who are affected by this issue daily. Unfortunately, I can’t be more specific than that, because there are also other people whom I care a great deal about who have been conditioned to think that homosexuality is a damnable offense and that gays are hopeless sinners.

One day, each will reveal themselves to the other, and maybe some eyes and hearts will be opened.

I recently found myself on the needing end of a confidant, and quite to my surprise and chagrin, after going through my inventory of current relationships, I found no one that fit the bill. It’s not that I don’t have any friends, it’s just that I no longer have any friends close enough that I could approach with my burden.

I suppose that’s just something that comes along with age. In high school and college, I was fortunate enough to count several people on my “Best Friends” list. Back then, I was a good friend, and I had good friends. I don’t know if the years have made me more self-absorbed, less generous with my time, or a combination of the two, or something else entirely. I don’t find myself getting close to people as easily as I did when I was younger.

Even though I have a marriage and a family and a business that all take precedence in my life, I still make time to do “me” things: I organize a cartooning group, I goof around online / on my computers and iThings, and I’ve been trying to reconnect to my creative side a bit. Maybe I am just getting selfish in my older age. Is that normal? I still enjoy doing things for others and helping when I can, but I don’t do so nearly as much as I did in my youth. Back then, I put everyone else’s needs before my own.

Maybe life has teetered to the other side of the seesaw before finding the balance somewhere in the middle.

Then again, just reviewing this post, there sure are a lot of “I”s and “me”s in here.

I have a rather unremarkable spiritual life. While I was raised as a Christian, I’m not aligned with that faith in its current incarnation. I do believe in a Higher Power of some sort, but I don’t think it’s a magical man in the sky that grants wishes if he’s showered with enough praise. I think nature has a design, and we have sort of a sixth sense that is attuned to that design and lets us know if we’re proceeding down our life’s path appropriately or not.

Having said that, I’ve been extremely frustrated with my life for the past decade or so: neither my wife nor I are the parents I’d hoped we would be, we’ve struggled financially, our house is in constant chaos, yadda yadda, etc.

That has caused a sense of discontent that has permeated my existence for the past dozen years. That is, until recently.

I’ve recently found the “Everything Is As It Should Be” filter, and it’s been working wonders on my life so far. I no longer look at my defiant daughter and wonder what I did wrong — I now see a unique girl who is communicating her needs in the only way she knows how to do so. I no longer see a hopelessly cluttered house — I now see some extra stuff we can donate or pick up a few bucks for at a yard sale. I no longer see a frustrated marriage where I barely get to spend any time with my wife — I now make a few minutes here and there to nurture and grow my relationship with the beautiful woman I fell in love with so many years ago.

As a result, I’m no longer constantly angry and frustrated — I’m now smiling and laughing again like I haven’t in years.

Don’t Be A Jerk (DBAJ) was the cardinal rule in the online gaming group (as well as its host forums) I played in during the early 2000s.

It’s a basic rule of society, and of course it’s managed to make its way into our family’s ruleset, as well. Our kids are at the ages (11 and 8, currently) where they are aware of the motives behind their actions (well, most of them, anyway), and so I’ve been pointing out DBAJ whenever appropriate. To my surprise, the kids have been somewhat responsive to it, as well.

Now, all we need to do is convince the people running this country to apply the DBAJ rule, and maybe some shit will actually get done.

(I’m not holding my breath, though.)

captkevman has been my online nickname for nearly 15 years now. There are variations - in the beginning, it was CaptKevMan, and sometimes I abbreviate it CKM or ckm, but it’s always been a variation thereof. I’ve settled on the all-lowercase captkevman, but it’s always been pronounced “captain kev man.”

The origin of the name is pretty straightforward: when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoon characters was Hanna-Barbera’s Captain Caveman. When time came in the mid-90s to pick an AOL screen name, the cool techie-sounding variations on Kevin were all taken up: digikev, kevtron…(OK, so maybe I didn’t try very hard for a tech sounding name). So, I pulled from my childhood memories and merged my name with Captain Caveman’s. Of course, I only had ten characters to work with at the time, and it stayed abbreviated/blended throughout the years.

I’m now 40, and I’ve pretty much become captkevman online. 99.9% of any search results you see for that name will be linked to me (there is a guy who was selling some skeevy DVDs on some non-eBay bid site that uses the name, though - that guy isn’t me, but I’ve politely asked him to stop using the name).

I’ve wrestled a while with who I am vs. who captkevman is. captkevman is mostly the real me, but like everyone, there are some aspects of life that I just don’t openly talk about. So it’s the filtered me. While I speak my mind often, other times I bite my tongue, since I have many acquaintances with differing perspectives, and I don’t want to cause any waves. And even though captkevman is my personal persona online, many of my business customers also know about it. So I must necessarily filter what is attached to the name.

I’ve set up an anonymous account or two here or there for when I really need to vent. I don’t use them often, but they’re out there. And no, I won’t say what they are (that would defeat the purpose of anonymity now, wouldn’t it?). I’m not a proponent of using anonymity as a weapon to cowardly attack others, but I do find it a valuable and sometimes necessary tool for honest self-expression. I’ve had one anonymous account open for about four years, and having recently checked its stats, I’m apparently the only person who’s ever viewed any of  its content. And that’s just fine by me.

But for all you know, or need to know, I’m simply captkevman.

I am a hopeless gamer.

I’m not talking about a die-hard World of Warcraft hermit or a gung-ho First-Person Shooter sniper (although I have been both in the past). I’m a husband, a father, and a business owner, so unfortunately, I don’t have time for extended gaming like I used to.

But thanks to the explosion of casual gaming brought on by the mobile market (particularly Apple’s iPhone/iPod/iPad App Store), I still “get my game on” quite a bit in much shorter sessions that are far less distracting than, say, a weekend-long WoW bender (“It’s 4 a.m. already?!”).

Two of my favorite games over the past several months have been bird-themed. Of course, anyone not living under a boulder over the past year already knows about Rovio’s behemoth Angry Birds and its variants. Like millions of others, I’ve enjoyed the game, and my kids have, too (they were thrilled when they finally saw it in 24-inch glory on our iMac). More recently, I’ve found Tiny Wings, a very simple, yet beautiful game for the iPhone.

Although visually similar (they’re both based on very simplified cartoon versions of birds), Angry Birds and Tiny Wings come from two different philosophies. The Birds are Angry because the mean Green Pigs have stolen their eggs; they want to get their eggs back, and in order to do so, they must destroy the offending pigs. So there’s some hostility there. And some violence, since the pigs’ homes must be destroyed to free the captive eggs.

Tiny Wings is a tale of hope and determination. Its hero is a ball-shaped rooster who can’t really fly due to his…erm…inadequacies. Fortunately, he lives among some very hilly islands that complement his round belly rather well, and he utilizes them together to surf the crests and valleys like a champion skateboarder, trying to maintain as much airtime as possible and go as far as he can. His only enemy is daylight, and he must get as far as he can before the sun sets.

Angry Birds is known for its physics-based gameplay (different birds behave as different types of projectile weapons, while different building materials used by the pigs react differently to what is thrown at them), but its complexity is wrapped inside a very simple, very appealing cartoon presentation.

Tiny Wings is remarkable in that it only has one control: tap the screen to have the rooster “ball up” and fall faster. But timing is key here. Fall at the wrong time, and you can get stopped dead in your tracks, wasting precious sunlight and progress trying to accelerate again. It’s also remarkable in that it seems to be the work of a sole creator, who created the art, music, sounds, and code for the game. Impressive.

There are plenty of other games out there, probably even a few others with birds. But these are a couple of games that have kept me interested and playing, and they’re great examples that it just takes a simple idea with a bit of polish to appeal to a wide audience.

Apparently, there’s an “April A to Z Blog Challenge,” where the goal is to post one blog entry per day (except Sundays) during the month of April. Having just found out about this challenge, this is the entry for April 1.

I’ve been meaning to spend more time blogging — not necessarily here, but I figured here is as good a place to start as any.

The only theme I’m going with for this challenge is to just…write. The entry title will be apropos to the theme, but that’s probably about it. We’ll see where this goes.

I was pulling out of the parking lot of my office building today, waiting for one car to enter traffic during lunchtime. The car had just pulled out of the Starbucks’ drive-thru, which spills out into the parking lot just before the main road.

So, there was Car A (who had pulled out of Starbucks, waiting to enter traffic), Car B (me, who pulled up behind Car A), and Car C (who was trying to pull out of the Starbucks drive-thru behind Car A).

As we were waiting for Car A to enter traffic, I noticed Car C inching closer and closer. So I inched closer and closer, since I had right of way. As Car A finally entered traffic, I pulled forward and immediately got an earful of horn as Car C’s driver (dramatized in photo above) scorned at me indignantly.

Listen, kid. It’s not my fault you don’t remember Basic Driving 101. If you’re turning into a lane (or a road, or a parking lot), you yield to the car that was there first.

Or lean on the horn and get pissed. Whatever works for you, I suppose.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t bring age into the equation. The young woman driving the other car couldn’t have been any older than the picture above (early 20’s, at the most), and the sentence “Listen, kid…I’ve been driving longer than you’ve been around” actually escaped my lips as I pulled into traffic.

And thus my transformation into my father begins….

(Yes, I realize this was more of a Twitter-quality content post, but as you can see, 140 characters just wouldn’t cut it in this case.)