Archives for the 'Personal' Category
Shit, my goddamned toddler is cursing!
By Josh Barsch
I got a text message from our babysitter, Sheena, while I was eating my microwave pizza for lunch at work Thursday. It said:
“Mia said the ’s’ word …ha ha.”
Mia is 3, and she won’t be four for another few months. In most families, this would be a cause for concern. In my family, we call her a “late bloomer.”
This is where I suppose I’m obligated to bring up the story of my own dirty mouth, and how I myself burst into the world of adult language. It was back in North Dakota in 1976, and to hear my dad tell it, I’d quietly snuck up on him while he was hammering a nail into something. Probably something wooden. Anyway, as I drew nearer, he missed the hammer and hit his thumb, and that’s when he yelled out “you BASTARD!” as many of us do when crush our own digits with blunt metal objects. I’m not sure if Dad was talking to himself or the tool, really, but on that day, one of them was a bastard, and the two-year-old version of me thought that was hilarious.
“Bass Turd!” I sung out, triumphant, as if cars ran on bastard fuel and I’d …
Don’t forget to tip your airline pilot!
By Josh Barsch
So I’m out on the deck Sunday afternoon reading the paper while the dogs and kids frolic in the yard, and I notice that this week’s Parade magazine is the “What People Earn” issue. You know the one — the one with about 100 mugshots of regular folks and their jobs and salaries, with the occasional celebrity and her 8-figure salary tossed in every now and then, just to keep us awake. (Gisele the supermodel made $33 million this year. I wonder if she and Tom Brady split the electric bill right down the middle, or if she pays a heftier share because she makes more.)
This is the only time of year I read Parade, because I don’t really care what Hilary Swank’s favorite cheat-food is. I don’t want to know why Aretha Franklin chose “maple scone” for her bedroom paint color, and I already know that Marilyn vos Savant is so smart that she could stick an 8-ball under her armpit and squeeze out a unicorn’s paw (You know what? Screw you, Marilyn.).
But the “How Schlubs Like You Are Scraping Together Your Meager Existence” issue is one of my guilty pleasures, and if you’re reading this, it’s probably one …
When I battle Satan, we will play Ms. Pac-Man
By Josh Barsch
I was in a Phoenix bar one time, and after several gallons of beer, I started wondering about what I would do if I ever had to battle the devil to win back my soul (That’s the thing about alcohol…if nothing else, it really gets you thinking outside the box). I’m a business owner, a husband, a father of two, a friend to many — simply put, I take care of a lot of people. So I try not to let anything catch me by surprise, and I admit, I cast a pretty wide net.
Anyway, I’m not sure how the real battles with the devil proceed, because all the ones I’ve ever seen have been on TV, and they’ve usually involved a rotund blues guitar virtuoso, string ties, top hats and at least one dusty crossroads in Mississippi. But I’m not very good at music, and Mississippi terrifies me.
On that particular night, I decided that (and I concur today), to preserve the high drama involved in these sorts of showdowns, the devil would probably let you choose the actitivity in which you’d like to compete with him to salvage your soul. I mean, he’s probably really good at everything, …
Products I Like: ClicknKids (Click-N-Read Phonics)
By Josh Barsch
Throughout her childhood, I’ve been a little conflicted about when to begin teaching Mia to read. When I was a kid, I read very early — I was reading at 3 years old. My daughter is a very sharp kid, and I’ve always just assumed that she would read as early as I did. This is a pretty tall assumption, though; 3 years old is damned early for a kid to be reading, and I didn’t want to be overbearing and force her to read before she was ready, or to place expectations on her that were based on nothing more than what I did as a 3-year-old. Then again, if the kid was ready to roll, then I definitely didn’t want to hold her back. Decisions, decisions.
A couple months after turning 3, she started twice-a-week preschool, and after a few months of that, she knows all of the letters of the alphabet and what sounds they make. If you know all those, you’re pretty much ready to start learning to read, so I asked her if she was ready. She said yes, so we now have our hats in the ring.
Something occurred to me shortly thereafter: I didn’t really …
Products to Avoid: Zonbu
By Josh Barsch
Unless you’re particularly interested in green computing (i.e., computers that don’t use much energy) or the Linux operating system, you probably haven’t heard of Zonbu, a small computer company in California that sells ultracheap laptops. I came across them in one of the tech/business magazines I read (can’t remember which one) and was intrigued by their unique proposition. At the time, they sold one product — a tiny CPU that was about the size of the Bible that the Gideons leave in every hotel room. It didn’t run Windows (great for security!), but its system emulated Windows for the user (great for usability!). It came preloaded with about 20 open-source alternative programs, so you could pretty much do any sort of basic computer use that you wanted to do (email, Web browsing, word processing, etc.). Its operating system supposedly updated itself, there was some online storage that came with the package, and it was only $99. You had to pay $14.95 or something like that per month for their online updates/no-hassle service, etc. Oh yeah, and it’s also apparently very earth-friendly, uses a tiny fraction of the power that a normal machine uses, is a “zero-emissions” computer, and …
Do you still love me when I cry?
By Josh Barsch
It’s official: my daughter is the Queen of Devastation.
The fistful of people out there in the world who know me extremely well would all probably agree that I’m someone who, for the most part, doesn’t take personal criticism very seriously. The words of others just don’t bother me much, even if they’re really, really nasty words that are intended to be hurtful. I admit it: there is a little dollop of arrogance about me that insulates me from this sort of thing, and it’s a very simple system. Here’s how the system works: If someone who doesn’t know me decides to tee off on me (usually this happens in print, rather than in person), then my natural reaction is: Why on Earth would I care about the opinion of someone who doesn’t know me? I mean, thousands of strangers could be cursing my existence behind closed doors at any given moment, and what’s to be done about that? Just because I happen to hear or read the comments of one of those strangers is no reason to get myself in a twist.
But if it’s someone close to me letting me have it, then in most cases, they’re probably right …
A&E Intervention: Entrepreneur vs. Alcoholism
By Josh Barsch
I am a huge fan of the show “Intervention” on A&E. It’s not that I like watching other people’s misery — I hate that part, actually — it’s just that it’s a weekly reminder of just how wrong things can go for you if you make certain poor choices in your life. And if you have children, “Intervention” is the world’s best instructional program about the multitude of different ways you can screw up your kids for life with behavior that spirals them into addiction later in life. You name it: physical abuse, neglect, absence, infidelity, emotional/verbal abuse, divorce, estrangement, death of a friend/family member — all of this stuff can rocket a kid into a life-consuming addiction later in life.
Pleasant thought, eh? Not at all, and my wife can’t stomach the show at all. But the misery and sadness is exactly why I watch it — to keep myself in check. Anyone who reads this blog with even semi-regularity knows that I am a father first and everything else comes second, and if watching some gut-ripper stories on shows like A&E give me regular encouragement to center my own life and doings around the well-being …
Josh Barsch founded StraightForward Media in 2001 after a brief career in print journalism. He now lives in the sticks of western South Dakota with his wife Christina, daughter Mia, son Ezra, two dogs Velvet & Holly, and cat Chanceux, all of whom he loves dearly. And four nameless hermit crabs, for whom he feels nothing.