Though I’m a “techy dad”, I’m also a bit frugal.  I don’t buy technology items simply because they exist.  Rather, I see if it will be something we will use and whether it is worth the price.  For example, I would love to go out and buy an iPad 2.  I even feel a bit left out without owning one.  However, I just can’t justify spending that kind of money on something that I don’t see the use for.  Similarly, we don’t have smart phones as I can’t see spending $30 a month PER PHONE for a data plan.  That’s $720 a year that we could use for other things.

(And the fact that I’m posting this days before my birthday isn’t a hint at all. )

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Is there a piece of technology that you’d love to buy but can’t quite afford?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #98

I’ve been signed up with Google+ for a few weeks now and it seems like an interesting service.  I’ll admit that I don’t use it as often as I use Twitter.  That’s mainly for two reasons.

First of all, I can update Twitter via SMS message, Seesmic Desktop program, API-powered tweet from my blog, Twitter.com or a bunch of other sites/services.  Google+ can be updated only from the Google+ website.  Assuming Google has an API planned, the amount of third party tools supporting Google+ should skyrocket upon its release.  Google has also been testing SMS updates, albeit in India which doesn’t help me.

The other reason I haven’t used Google+ much is more thorny.  You see, on Twitter and here I go by “TechyDad.”  When I first signed up for Internet services (decades ago), I didn’t really care about privacy and thus used my real name.  After I became a father, though, and after B began TheAngelForever.com, I saw the value of anonymity (even partial anonymity).

Being “TechyDad” means that I can mention things in general without worrying that some stalker might track down where I live.  And remember, I’ve had an Internet Stalker before.  As worried as I was when the whole thing went down, I was comforted that it would be extremely tricky for her to pinpoint my address.

Proclaiming my real name to everyone via Google+ negates this anonymity.  Had Google+ been around during my Stalker episode, I would have worried that said stalker would take my real name, run it through some phone listing/lookup tools and (even though we’re unlisted) find our home address.  If someone who is even slightly unhinged finds that out, they might decide to pay you a visit.  Harassment over the Internet is bad enough.  Harassment that spills into real life is a whole different class of bad.

The thing is, though, Google could solve this easily.  They already have a Nicknames field.  Let people specify nicknames for themselves and assign those nicknames to circles.  Then, let people decide whether or not those circles get to see the user’s real name.

Suppose John Smith has three circles: Family, College Buddies and Blogging.  His family would likely want to see him as John Smith.  His College Buddies could see him under the nickname “Dunk” (earned during a college basketball game) but would also be able to see his real name.  His Blogging circle members, meanwhile, would only see him under the nickname “Dunkers Shame” which he uses to blog about various embarrassing things he’s done in his life.  His real name would remain hidden to everyone in this circle.

Under this setup, everyone wins.  Google would know people’s real names.  People who want complete anonymity could hide their name from everyone except Google.  People who want partial anonymity could have multiple identities for multiple circles.

There are bugs to work out, of course.  For example, what if one of John Smith’s College Buddies is also in his Blogging circle.  Would he see updates by “Dunkers Shame” or “Dunk”?  Would his real name be visible?  Would we need to set up a circle hierarchy?  (Name preferences from Circle 1 override name preferences from Circle 2.)   I’m sure Google could solve this dilemma.

Until they set up some kind of pseudonym/nickname feature, though, and let people hide their true names, I just don’t see myself using Google+ much.

Most people who know me would say that I’m very even tempered.  Perhaps to a fault, even.  I can take abuse after abuse and keep my calm while trying to resolve the situation.  Indeed, if we’re ever in a situation where we need an even head, I’m the person who makes the call.  When we need someone to be forceful and perhaps even raise their voice a bit, B handles it.  (See?  We compliment each other’s talents nicely!)

However, I have a confession to make.  I actually have a very bad temper.  A horrible one, in fact.  The problem is, my temper doesn’t usually flare against people unless they are very close to me.

Growing up, I was bullied mercilessly, but I rarely lost my temper.  Meanwhile, my sister could make me blow my top with a single word or action.  She was so good at it that she made it into an art form.  She would do something to me designed to make me lose my temper.  I would blow my top and get physical (e.g. push her down).  She would cry to my parents.  They would see her down and me standing over her and I would get punished.  At the time, I thought it was horribly unfair.  It still is, but I understand it more now that I’m a parent.  When you have 2 kids with conflicting stories as to what happened, the best you can do is rely on what you have seen occur.

Later, my sister got married and moved out.  My father became the person who pushed my buttons.  In this case, he didn’t mean to do so.  It was just that I was living back at home after the freedom of college and was having trouble following the “it’s my house, you’ll do it this way” rules.  So we’d fight (verbally, rarely physically), not talk to each other for a week and then (spurred on by my mother who hates conflict) would make up just in time for the next fight to begin.

Once I moved away from my parents, we got along much better.  He’ll still get on my nerves from time to time, but not to the “I’m not talking to you for a week” level.  Now, the people close to me are my wife and my kids.

I’ve written before about how I get quiet during arguments with B.  This is primarily because of my temper.  If I talk while I’m upset and my temper flares, I’m likely to make sweeping generalizing statements that are highly hurtful and not true at all.  This will not only hurt my case (nothing shatters your argument more than a poorly thought out personal attack), but will hurt B’s feelings.  While it might feel better in the short term to rant and rave rather than hold back, it’s better in the long term to calm down before discussing sensitive topics.

That leaves the kids.  Ideally, I’d like to say that I keep an even temper at all times and never yell.  This isn’t an ideal world, though.  I try to keep an even temper and not yell, but lately it seems like the boys have conspired to push my temper to the brink.

First, NHL will refuse to do what we tell him to do and insist that things have to be done the way he wants them done, WHEN he wants them done.  Then, JSL, having just seen his brother get in trouble, will repeat his brother’s actions perfectly.  NHL will yell and scream while JSL will make mocking faces.  My blood starts to boil as I raise my voice telling them to behave.  Finally, I’m yelling outright at them and sending them to their room.

When they’re in their room and I’m calming down, I’ll get hit by a streak of guilt.  They’re testing boundaries and need to be given firm reminders of what is and isn’t appropriate, but I feel awful when I yell at them.  I *want* to be the fun loving parent who plays with them all the time and has a blast.  I don’t want to be the rule-setting parent who comes down hard on them if they decide to scream and try to run away from us in the middle of a store.  However, I have to be both.  It’s a tricky line to walk sometimes.

I definitely have room for improvement in not letting my temper get the best of me.  I’ve had success in the past with the “repeating things three times” method.  (Tell them once.  Say “Second time… [repeated message].”  Then say “THIRD TIME! [repeated message]. Do NOT make me repeat myself AGAIN!”)  I need to force myself to rely on methods like that more than yelling.

Do you ever find yourself losing your temper with your children?  What do you do when this happens?

Some days, it just doesn’t pay to be a grown up.  I remember, back when I was a child, “expenses” was a fancy word which my dad might use to tell me why they couldn’t afford to buy me that new toy that I wanted (after I had gotten tired of the other once-new toys I had).  Money was a boring subject which only got interesting when you found some on the sidewalk.  As an added bonus, the perspective of monetary value was all skewed.  That’s a fancy way of saying that I thought I was rich when I found $10 on the ground.

As I got older, I began to understand more and more what money was and how important it could be.  To some degree, I was still protected from the harsh realities.  My parents paid the bulk of my tuition and other assorted costs.  The rest were paid by loans.  Oh sure, I’d need to pay those back, but to a college student, paying by loan (which wouldn’t need to even start being repaid until you graduated) was essentially the same as free.

Once I graduated, I decided to get a job.  This wasn’t so much because I needed the money, mind you, as because I wanted to accomplish something.  I had decided against graduate school because that seemed like more theoretical work and I wanted to make stuff.  Meanwhile, having left the college dorms behind, I moved back in with my parents.  Yes, I bought a car and thus had payments to make, but the lack of rent, repair costs and more kept me from feeling the harsh sting of reality.

Still later, I got married and B and I lived in an apartment.  I was finally in The Real World.  We made rent payments, paid our phone and cable bills and made sure all the other expenses were taken care of.  I saw that splurging on something for me made a dent in our saving account balance and so I tried to rein in my urge to splurge.

When we had NHL, of course, the expenses multiplied.  Suddenly, there was this little guy who almost literally ate money.  We needed money for clothes for him (which he went through all too quickly), money for diapers for him (which he’d fill up for us), and, once he began eating solid foods, money for food for him.

Next, we moved into a house.  This was the American Dream, right?  Own your own house?  Well, at times the Dream seemed more like a Nightmare.  Some days, it felt like everything in the house gathered in a great big conga-line waiting for its turn to break.  It felt like money went out for repair costs as fast as it came in.  Add in a second child and I often felt like I was running on a monetary treadmill.  One that someone turned up to level 20.  Jane!  Stop this crazy thing!

Why the sudden interest in money?  Well, as you know, we booked a trip to Disney World for just the two of us.  This is a splurge for us as our usual “time to ourselves” is a meal out (preferably someplace we have a coupon for) while B’s parents watch the kids.  Still, it’s our 10th anniversary so we figured we’d do something special.  Considering that our honeymoon was also in Disney World, this will, in some ways, be a second honeymoon for us.

Still, once the trip was booked, that conga-line marched on.  First, our bedroom TV went dead.  This was an old, CRT, non-HD television so it was bound to die eventually.  I lugged it downstairs and brought in a spare TV we had.  (Also, an old CRT, non-HD set.)  Except, that set was dead too.  So we had to buy a new TV.

Then, last night as I was shutting down and preparing to go to sleep, I tried to close my laptop.  I felt something odd, like it was snapping in two.  Alarmed, I opened it up and saw that it was coming apart.  Panicked, I booted it back up.  Luckily, it still worked.  I just couldn’t close the lid.  So I backed up my laptop, shut it down, and carefully put it to the side.  Now, I need to find a place to repair it and hope it doesn’t cost too much.  If it does, it might be cheaper to just buy a new laptop.  Either way, it’s another expense that we really didn’t need.

Some days, being an adult is overrated.  Can I go back to being a kid again?  Maybe just for a day?

Thanks to the air conditioning units in our windows, we’re able to stay cool on these hot, hot days.  Unfortunately, since there are gaps in the window/AC unit, we also get some unexpected visitors.  Like this little guy.

He’s a bit small, so here’s a closer look.

His visit was short-lived as he met a squishy end.  This was the fourth of these critters that have invaded our home.  We can’t help but wonder what kind of bug is this?  Are they living in our house or just coming in from outside?  Any ideas?

Thanks to a bunch of last minute planning, we’ll soon be heading to Disney World.  This time, without the kids.  This will be our first time to Disney World sans kids since our honeymoon.  (Of course, we didn’t have children then, so it was easy to go by ourselves.)  In the short time that we’ve come up with the idea for this trip and planned it, I’ve had a weird mixture of emotions.

I feel happy at getting to spend a week with my wife without little guys interrupting.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love my boys.  It’s just that sometimes I want to spend time with my wife.  We get very few date nights and even fewer complete nights without kids.  Our only “vacation” without the kids was when we went to BlogHer last year.  That trip, while fun, was hardly a romantic getaway.  We’ve been married for 10 years and we deserve this time to ourselves.

While I’m feeling happy, though, I’m also feeling guilty.  After all, the kids love Disney.  Since we told them what we’re doing, they’ve alternated between begging to go and accepting it sadly.  If we announced tomorrow that it was all a cruel joke and they were coming with us, they’d be the happiest kids in the world.

Along with the guilt is fear.  Not just my fear of flying, but fear of the unknown.  We’ll be leaving the kids with my parents during the week.  My parents have never watched the kids for any length of time.  I’m sure they’ll do a good job, but my mind keeps conjuring up scenarios.  What if NHL has a panic attack?  What if JSL won’t eat anything?  What if the boys don’t behave?  Every less-than-perfect scenario is playing through my mind and it scares me.

Still, I know that we need this trip.  We need time away from the kids.  If we don’t get time off to work on us from time to time, the constant stress could negatively impact our marriage.  And a negatively impacted marriage is *NOT* going to raise our kids well.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you gone on trips without your kids?  If so, have you ever felt this mixture of emotions?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #97