My home boy

My friend, fellow blogger and professional Orca trainer Rich Siegel over at Round Seventeen published a post the other day about the joy and resulting consequences of his two daughters returning home from college.

It is the season.

His post hit home because, like the swans trying to return to Capistrano through the radioactive air of San Onofre, my college boy also pulled up stakes and managed to find his way back home from the Lone Star state. Alright, it's not exactly like the swallows and Capistrano, but you get what I was going for.

Anyway, last Thursday night I returned from picking him up at the airport. His 6pm arrival pulled up to the gate at 10:04pm - a four-hour mechanical delay was the culprit. It was a monumental inconvenience, and eviscerated any plans we had for the night. But frankly, I'd much rather the plane be deemed airworthy while it's still on the ground.

When he set foot in the house, he was beyond tired. After a four-hour delay and a two-hour time difference he's lived with for ten months, young Mr. Spielberg was a wee bit cranky. Completely understandable.

The good news is it's like riding a bicycle - a bicycle that's an eating, cash swallowing machine - the imprinted routine of living at home comes rushing back as if he'd never left.

So despite the laundry I know will pile up, the dishes that will inevitably have to be bussed by me, the floorspace that'll be taken up while he plays Arkham Knight again on the Playstation and the never-ending juggling of cars so he can visit with friends he hasn't seen in ten months, I am beyond happy he's home.

I'm happy for another reason which I'm not at liberty to talk about, but let's just say - for reasons that are nothing but good - he may not be spending his sophomore year in Texas. Not that missing the Campus Carry Law going into effect is going to bother me too much.

Side note: when I asked him a while ago what he thought about Campus Carry and if everyone at school was talking about it, he looked at me and said, "Dad, no one's talking about it. It's Texas. Everyone's already carrying a gun."

I'm really happy he's home.

Getting hosed on a new sprinkler

There are so many things I can't do. Now, contrary to popular belief, not all of them are because I don't have the brains or the ability. Some of them are merely because I just don't want to. No one's ever accused me of being an overachiever.

One of the many homeowner repair items, and one of the more common ones, that falls under the second category is sprinkler repair.

I had to take my beautiful daughter to school Tuesday morning. I know it was Tuesday, because that's one of the two days a week my city allows me to water the lawn without getting fined. No one said the drought was going to be easy.

Anyway, when I got back home from her school I noticed one of the sprinklers on my front lawn doing its impression of a knocked over fire hydrant. Or 'Ole Faithful. What I'm saying is it was a gusher.

Now, I know, you know and the American people know all that means is a sprinkler head was broken or gone, probably taken out by our gardener when he was mowing the lawn (another thing I don't want to do).

I actually do know what's involved in fixing the sprinkler. Dig up the dirt around it, unscrew the old sprinkler head, screw on a new one and replace the divot. Pretty simple.

And yet, as I like to say, no job too small for somebody else to do.

So I had a sprinkler repair company come out - ironically, they're called the Sprinkler Repair Company - and had them fix it. It took fifteen minutes start to finish. I don't even want to tell you what they charged, but at least the "making me feel stupid" was free.

Lesson learned.

From now on, I'm going to make more of an effort to do the things I don't want to do, both around the house and in the outside world, even though I damn well know how to. And maybe save a few samolians in the process.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to call and get somebody out here to change this lightbulb.

Guilty pleasures Part 10: San Andreas

There are three things I noticed immediately while watching the latest disaster film, Into The Storm. No, 2012. Nope, The Day After Tomorrow. Mmm, maybe Twister. Or Volcano. Was it The Core? Ah, I remember: San Andreas.

First, it's almost unearthly how similar Dwayne Johnson and I are built. It's like looking in a mirror. It's boggling how two completely different, unrelated people with, and I'm going to take a wild guess here, completely different workout regimens can look so much alike.

Second, when the big one does finally hit, as we all know it will, I'd like to be somewhere near Dwayne Johnson. That guy knows exactly what to do in that situation. It's uncanny. Who would've thought his years in the wrestling ring would prepare him for unlimited acts of heroism during times of shifting tectonic plates?

And third, I'm so unprepared for the giant quake that's coming it's not even funny. Well, except the part how I'll be driving along and suddenly the car will get swallowed up by a giant hole in the road that just appears out of nowhere. That'll be good for a laugh.

I went into San Andreas expecting nothing more than a fun time, a stupid script I've heard in every other disaster film of the past decade (apparently "Ruuunnnnn!" is a popular line of dialog), impossible scenarios and great special effects. And I wasn't disappointed.

In movies like this, it really doesn't matter who the actors are - the special effects are the star. And in San Andreas, they're spectacular. Buildings crumble. Bridges fall. Glass shatters from skyscrapers onto the street below, where pedestrians are running for their lives. Cue the tsunami.

The movie delivers on everything you'd expect it to.

Here's one special effect I wasn't expecting: I don't know how Paul Giamatti managed it, but he actually pulled off chewing the scenery while it was falling all around him.

I said it doesn't matter who the actors are. Let me backpedal a bit and say Alexandra Daddario is irreplaceable as Dwayne Johnson's daughter. In fact there ought to be a law that she plays the daughter in every film from now on. Or the sister. She just needs to be in every movie, okay?

Anyway I won't tell you how it ends, but when it happens for real, let's just say it'd be a good idea to have my construction company up and running.

Mindless fun, great eye candy and a loud, entertaining two hours if you let it be.

I give it an 8.5 on the Richter scale.

Shame the shamers

I saw this on the news last night.

There's this asshat riding around on his bicycle in some city in California. Every time he sees someone watering the lawn, or water runoff, or a leaking hose spout, he yells at them and takes pictures of the alleged offense. Then he posts them online.

He knows nothing about water conservation, the new state conservation laws, what government department to report them to or much of anything else. But that doesn't stop him from water shaming these people.

It's only a matter of time before someone has the good sense to turn a fire hose on him and knock him off his tricycle into the next zip code.

For some reason, the act of shaming people for things we don't like is the newest sport. People are shamed for how fat they are. The color of their skin. Their hair. Their religion. The number of people they've slept with. Their sexual orientation.

There are less damaging forms of shaming, like late shaming (always arriving late). Or selfie shaming (chastising people for taking and posting too many selfies - alright, that one may be legit).

Bullies shame people for being weak. Democrats shame people for being Republicans, which is ridiculous because any right-thinking (see what I did there?) Republican is already ashamed.

When did treating people like shit become acceptable? It doesn't come from any real desire to point out what you perceive as something that can help them improve. Shaming is strictly for making the shamer feel superior to the shamee.

Here's the thing: enough. Let's stop tearing people down, making them feel bad for who they are - and about some things they can't do anything about - just to make ourselves feel better.

Unless it's trying to shame your kids into cleaning their rooms. Then it's for a good and righteous cause. But it still doesn't work.

It's hard enough trying to carve out the life you want in a world that's so demanding, increasingly frightening and moving so fast. No one needs to be shamed by some stranger on a bicycle. Or worse yet, friends.

Even the word shaming has taken on the feeling of a fad that was so fifteen minutes ago. Try to be a better person. Show a little restraint and resist the douchebaggery of the moment. Rise above it.

If you can't do it because you're a decent person, then do it because idiot shaming is probably next. And if you haven't stopped by the time it gets here, you're on the list.

The thrill is gone

There's a saying when you like a car so much, you can't get it out of your mind. Since this is a family blog I'll paraphrase it: "If it were a person I'd marry it.".

I remember how completely smitten I felt the very first time I ever saw the PT Cruiser. It was a blue-line drawing in Motor Trend magazine two years before Chrysler actually put it into production. And it looked awesome. The retro styling, the street-rod, American Graffiti-ness of it. It appealed to me on a completely visceral level. It was sexy.

But because you think something is sexy at one point doesn't mean you'll always think it is. Just ask my high school girlfriend.

Anyway, having fallen hard I immediately made it my mission to learn everything I could about it. I also started saving my pennies and counting the days until Chrysler actually rolled it off the line. I wanted to be one of the first in California to own one.

Then a funny thing happened. I was over it.

When they came out, they looked tamer than I'd expected. They also looked like a fad car - there was nothing timeless about the design. In fact just the opposite: it evoked a very specific time, you know, the one that's passed. Because of that, it was just a novelty.

When I finally rode in one, turns out it wasn't fast (It had the Neon engine in the first model, although to be fair they boosted the power in subsequent versions). It was roomy but not comfortable. And after the Highway Institute and insurance companies had a chance to rate it, come to find out it wasn't all that safe either.

I saw a black one on the road today, waxed to a gloss and reflecting the sun into my eyes. And in the same way you see an old flame and can't help but wonder what might've been, I tried to picture myself behind the wheel of that Cruiser today.

I couldn't. All I could see was the white-haired, 65-year old lady straining to see over the wheel, going 45 on the freeway.

Enforce the death penalty

Last Tuesday, Proposition 34, which would've repealed the death penalty in California, was defeated. As well it should've been.

In the week leading up to the vote, and early election eve before all the precincts had been counted, some of my well-intentioned friends were posting fast and furious about how Prop. 34 needed to pass. They talked about how immoral the death penalty is. How it isn't a deterrent. That it was costing the state too much.

As if it were about cost.

I love my friends, and appreciate their sentiments. But I'd like to explain why I think they're wrong on this one. Let's take it point by point:

Moral equivalency

For starters, I've never bought the argument that putting murderers, and in particular child murderers, to death brings us down to their level. It is an absolutely false analogy. Violently murdering innocent adults and young children, then executing the murderer as a consequence of their crime are two completely different things. No matter how much you'd like them to be, they aren't morally equivalent.

Not a deterrent

The fact is the death penalty is the best deterrent there is. Not to criminals in general, but certainly to the individual being executed. I guarantee you nothing deters a convicted murderer more from committing another murder than being put to death. Besides, while some corners would have you believe the reason for it is to act as a deterrent, it's not. It's about enacting justice for a heinous crime.

Costs too much

I recognize it's a reality, but it still seems vulgar to me to talk about it in terms of cost. And I'm not sure where cost comes into the equation when it comes to justice. The argument is all the mandatory appeals that go on for years - years that are torturous and cruel for the victim's families - is much more expensive than life imprisonment. Although most anti-death penalty proponents choose to ignore it, when the hidden cost of items like medical care, psychiatric care, educational benefits (yes, benefits) are factored in, especially for convicted killers with a life expectancy of 40 or 50 years, it becomes more costly to warehouse them for life. If people are genuinely concerned about the cost, instead of arguing against the law they should be advocating for the layers and years of appeals to be handled in fiscally responsible, expeditious manner.

It's inhumane

I think the notion that lethal injection - executing a prisoner in the same manner as you'd euthanize a pet - is inhumane needs a point of reference. Inhumane as opposed to what? Stabbing a 4-year old child 50 times in the bathtub? Using the claw end of a hammer to bludgeon someone to death? Decapitating a 7-year old, then for good measure cutting off his hands and feet? It's nice to care so much about the guilty, but I believe the concern is misplaced.

And while we're on the subject of inhumane, let me again mention the victim's family. The real inhumanity is the fact they have to wait decades while the California appeals process runs its course. Decades without their loved ones. Decades of knowing their tax dollars are paying for three squares a day for the monster that killed their baby, sister, brother, mother, father, friend. I not a big fan of Texas, but in 1998 they passed a law expediting the appeals process. People think they execute people like crazy, but the numbers tell you they don't have a higher amount of people on death row. They execute a higher percentage of them because of the expedited appeals.

I also notice many of my friends against the death penalty aren't parents. I'm not saying that in a judgmental way, it's just an observation. I do think, as any parent will tell you, that having children changes your perspective on the issue in ways you never could've expected. I can't even watch movies like Ransom or Without A Trace anymore.

I do agree the system needs to be overhauled, although probably not in the same way my friends do. Again, I think California needs to take a page from Texas' book and reform the appeals process. Expedite it, and reduce the number of appeals given to convicted murderers, especially in cases where DNA is the primary evidence.

If you've followed this blog at all, you know this isn't a new position for me. I've posted here, here, here, here and here about criminals for whom death doesn't come close to being a good enough punishment. Sadly, there never seems to be any shortage of them.

My wish is that nothing bad enough ever happens to anyone I know to change their mind if they're against it.

But I also hope they consider the people who's lives are forever changed by these killers, and think about the only way they and the victims can ever truly have justice.