Vegetarianism is sometimes denounced as not masculine.  But I will go on public record that I am sort of vegetarian.

I have considered this lifestyle change for several years, being inspired by friends (Esther, Roger and John) and recently doing more research via blogs and books.  Ji Seon remarked after I made my decision that she was wondering when I would.

My exact label would be “minimal meat eater who only eats humanely raised meats.”  But since there isn’t a technical term for that I usually find myself fumbling to describe my dietary lifestyle.  Saying I am pescetarian, i.e. a vegetarian who eats seafood, might be more accurate but people often don’t know what that is.

In public  I end up being effectively vegetarian because I don’t really want to ask if the meat is humanely raised because most likely it is not so I just eat the veggies.  This proves especially difficult at barbecues like the Mother’s Day barbecue the men in our small group did for their wives.  The organizer bought filet mignon steaks, which I love, and did not realize I just made this lifestyle change.  I did appreciate very much his sympathy.

The truth is I am still eating meat almost every meal at home.  We still have all this grass fed beef I bought in January which at least was humanely raised.  Also a good friend and avid fisher keeps giving me a large portion of the fish he catches, which I am quite grateful for.  Plus my wife and children are not vegetarian.

I consider this time a transition time for me.  I have actually enjoyed trying to put more vegetables and less meat into my diet.  For the first couple of weeks I noticed my energy was low.  I am not sure why but I think I might have been low in iron.  It seemed that went away after eating some Chinese leafy greens which I think are high in iron.  It might just be mental but I do feel more healthy.  That might also have to do with the fact I have been getting more exercise lately.

Tags: Ji Seon,vegetarian
Categories: Frank
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You are most likely viewing this page because you tried to access a post that is protected.  To view that post you must be registered and logged in.  After doing this please try accessing the post again.

Previously I was concerned about privacy, i.e. my blog posts showing up in unexpected places and being read by unintended guests.  I tried to address it by having everyone log in to view my blog but that proved to be a problem because RSS feeds no longer worked.  Recently I opened my blog to search engines and noticed a spike in traffic but I think that was mostly from Google.

I have searched for a solution for awhile and I finally found a good compromise, the User Permissions Plugin.  By using this plugin I can restrict certain posts to only be available to readers who are registered and logged in.  Also these restricted posts will not show up in RSS feeds.  I modified the plugin to redirect to this post instead of “/“.

The downside is that my regular readers will have to be logged in to read these restricted posts.

Regular readers please register if you have not already and always log in if you want to read all the posts, especially posts about my kids.

Tags: security,wordpress
Categories: Children, Web
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I was going through my old work email and I found this email I sent on Friday, August 28, 2008, the night we released the new Upromise Online Mall.  (The rumors about metric and the Y2K bug aren’t true but everything else is.)

These fixes were first tested by hot swapping the files in because Perforce was down.  During this time I was mercury poisoned by a broken CFL, there was a car accident, a pizza arrived upside down, Perforce went offline for several hours, Outlook decided to slow down, and there are rumors that everything is switching to metric and that there is a Y2K bug that happens at midnight tonight.

The email was sent at 9:54 PM PDT which does not seem that late until one considers that the team I was working with is located in Newton, MA.  The rest of the team was wide awake and it was almost 1 AM their time.  Some of the team didn’t end up going to sleep until 3 AM.

This is somewhat typical of releases or upgrades at major websites.  We try to test everything but when we go live several issues will suddenly appear.

This particular release though was an unusually event filled night.  Our configuration management system went down and our email server became incredibly slow making communication almost impossible (we moved to AIM).  The manager had to leave because his wife got into a car accident.  Fortunately she was okay and the manager got back online in a few hours.  Even the pizza that was ordered for the team arrived upside down, a bad omen.

To top it off Ji Seon knocked over a lamp in our living room and its CFL bulb broke, sending mercury dust around the living room.  It was like a toxic waste emergency.  We cleared everyone out, I put on a mask and started cleaning up, Ji Seon went on the internet to research what to do and even called the doctor who reassured us the amount of mercury was too small to be a health risk.  After cleaning up the best I could I opened all the windows and kept the kids upstairs.  I vowed that night never to use CFL’s again but I have since revised to that not using CFL’s in table lamps.  I can’t wait until LED lights become more common place.

It’s nice to look back at such a stress filled night with a smile.  I’m glad I am paid by the hour.

Tags: Ji Seon
Categories: Frank
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This is from Alfie Kohn: 10 Guidelines for Parents which is adapted from his book “Unconditional Parenting“.  I try to follow these guidelines but as one of my friends says, we end up reverting back to our default behavior.  I think the hardest things for me are assuming the best motivations and loving unconditionally.  Actually to be honest I really can’t do any of them.

10 Guidelines for Parents

1. Reconsider your requests. Sometimes when kids don’t do what we tell them, the problem isn’t with the kids but with what we’re telling them to do.
2. Put the relationship first. What matters more than any of the day-to-day details is the connection that we have – or don’t have – with our children over the long haul – whether they trust us and know that we trust them.
3. Imagine how things look from your child’s perspective. Parents who regularly switch to the child’s point of view are better informed, gentler, and likely to set an example of perspective-taking for their children (which is the cornerstone of moral development).
4. Be authentic. Your child needs a human being – flawed, caring, and vulnerable – more than he or she needs someone pretending to be a crisply competent Perfect Parent.
5. Talk less, ask more. Telling is better than yelling, and explaining is better than just telling, but sometimes eliciting (the child’s feelings, ideas, and preferences) is even better than explaining.
6. “Attribute to children the best possible motive consistent with the facts.” Nel Noddings reminds us that kids will live up to, or down to, our expectations, so it’s better to assume the best when we don’t know for sure why they did what they did.
7. Try to say “Yes”. Don’t function on autoparent and unnecessarily deny children the chance to do unusual things. People don’t get better at coping with frustration as a result of having been deliberately frustrated when they’re young.
8. Don’t be rigid. Predictability can be overdone; the apparent need for inflexible rules may vanish when we stop seeing a troubling behavior as an infraction that must be punished and start seeing it as a problem to be solved (together).
9. Give kids more say about their lives. Children learn to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions. Our default response should be to let them choose – unless there’s a compelling reason to deny them that opportunity.
10. Love them unconditionally. Kids should know that we care for them just because of who they are, not because of what they do. Punishments (like time-outs) and rewards (like praise) may communicate that they have to earn our love – which is exactly the opposite of what people need, psychologically speaking.

Categories: Children
1 Comment »

I have come to regret many rash decisions.  Examples are getting married and having children.  Just kidding .  My mantra now is to never rush into anything.

In fact typically I try to amass as much information as possible before making a decision.  However this often does lead to anxiety.

The following blog post by Seth Godin makes me ponder about whether I am doing the right thing.  And how do you define “a reasonable amount of data?”  Indecisive perfectionists like me live a tortured life.

First rule of decision making: More time does not create better decisions.

In fact, it usually decreases the quality of the decision.

More information may help. More time without more information just creates anxiety, not insight.

Deciding now frees up your most valuable asset, time, so you can go work on something else. What happens if, starting today, you make every decision as soon as you have a reasonable amount of data?

Seth’s Blog: I need more time.

Categories: Frank
1 Comment »

Yesterday was Dylan’s first Little League practice.  Unfortunately it was not as fun as Dylan and I hoped.

I think in general baseball is just not as fun as soccer, especially for little kids.  There’s just a lot of standing around.  If it wasn’t for the tradition of baseball in this country I might not have signed him up for it.

The first drill the boys did (there are no girls on this year’s team which surprised me a little bit) was learning how to throw.  Dylan is like me, he does not understand well instructions for how to do things physically.  For example the guys have been trying to teach me how to hit a golf ball but I am still horrible.  On the other hand I had a friend who would just watch a sport on TV and then go outside and do exactly what he saw.  The instructors were asking the boys to start in a throwing stance with the two arms out horizontally, the gloved arm out forward, the gloved hand pointing down, the throwing hand holding the ball up.  Dylan kept getting confused and at one point he was bending forward with both arms twisted, elbows on top, hands pointed up.  The whole thing amused me as I thought “That’s my boy.”

The second drill was learning to field grounders.  The coaches told the boys to act like alligators gobbling up grounders and stamped their throwing hands w/ an alligator stamp as added incentive.  Then they tossed the grounders to the boys.  At this point since there were only two coaches and nine boys the boys started getting bored as they waited for their grounders.  Three boys started making a little sand castle with the infield dirt.  Dylan started his own pile of dirt.  After practice I asked the coach if I could help w/ drills since it was obvious that another instructor could have helped in terms of keeping their interest.

The third drill was learning to run to first base.  This was the only drill Dylan actually enjoyed because running is fun.  The first time all the boys ran to first base and stopped.  The coach then told them they’re supposed to run past first base.  By the third time the boys wouldn’t stop running and ran into the outfield.  If the coaches hadn’t said anything I think they would have kept going.

For the parents, watching practice wasn’t too fun.  I amused myself by taking photos but I felt a little shy so I didn’t talk to anyone until one parent, a very nice mother, initiated conversation with me.  She actually had met Ji Seon earlier because they both had gone to the store to buy something for Little League and the other mother had taken the last one.

Two more practices, opening day, twenty games, two team parties, and closing ceremonies still to go.  Let’s hope it’s fun.

Tags: Dylan
Categories: Baseball, Dylan
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Ji Seon named Isaac her “snuggle bear” and Victoria her “snuggle bunny.”  Dylan suggested that he be called “snuggle hero.”

Tags: Dylan,Isaac,Ji Seon,Victoria
Categories: Children
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