Category: Family (Page 14 of 16)

Jaimito got his first haircut today. What a big boy he was, very
serious, very still. Earlier it was all he could talk about though. In fact, he’d been talking about his haircut since this
weekend. I had mentioned that I needed to get mine cut, and Laura
had offered the idea of taking Jaimito for his first. "It’s
getting kinda long," she said. Jaimito must’ve overheard,
because he could talk of nothing else. "Daddy, we gonna get
‘aircut?"

"Yes little man. We’re going to get a haircut." And we
got in the car and drove off to the local Army post.

Once we got to Ft. Buchanan, we had to stop and get gas.

"Daddy, an’ da ‘aircut?" he asked turning his hands
palm up and shrugging his shoulders.

"We have to get gas first. We’re going to get the haircut
soon." And as luck would have it, the gas station didn’t accept
ATM payment. Sigh – I went to take out cash.

"Daddy? An’ now da ‘aircut?" he asked again, looking
bewildered.

"Soon, Daddy has to get money to pay for the gasolina."
Gasoline sounds cuter in Spanish.

"Oh, da ‘asolina’" He was satiated. Whatever it was
that Daddy said must be okay. Jaimto seemed to be thinking, I don’t know really, but he doesn’t seem worried why should I be?

We took out money. Daddy pushed the funny buttons, and Jaimito
retrieved the cash from the máquina.
After he pulled it out, he looked in the slot to see if there was more.
Good idea.

We got back in the car and drove once again to the gas station. This was just not going to do. "Daddy! Da ‘aircut!"
He wrinkled up his nose in an exasperated fashion.

"Just a second, little man. We’re going to get our haircuts
next. We’re going now. Just a second."

And he acquiesced. Okay, Daddy, whatever.

Once we had paid the gas, climbed back in the car, driven over to
the PX (where the barber shop was), and dismounted the car again,
Jaimito’s alegría begin to take hold.
He started talking excitedly about "Da ‘aircut" and I
would excitedly confirm the hair cutting.

We jumped over some rain puddles in the parking log. Jaimito
loved that, "Wheeeeee! Daddy, da agua!"

Once inside the shopping area, he bolted to the barber shop, but
upon opening the door, he got quiet all of a sudden. Hmm, the moment
of truth has arrived. I’m scared, he seemed to say.

There was an open chair, so there was to be no hesitating. "Up
you go, little man." I told the barber that this was Jaimito’s
first haircut, so we had to save the hair. "My wife will never
speak to me again, if I don’t collect his hair." He chuckled
and began to snip snip on Jaimito’s fine honey colored wisps. Jaimito
was frozen like a statue throughout the entire procedure. Was he
scared? We he just concentrating? I couldn’t say, but I kept up a
barrage of reassuring words and smiles. The other barbers
all remarked how well he had behaved. "Kids twice his age don’t
sit this still," said one.

And when we were done, there stood revealed the handsomest little
hombrecito that I have ever seen. And the
kicker is that on the car ride home he taunted me, saying, "My ‘aircut
better den yours." I couldn’t believe my ears. Did he say what I
thought he said? I laughed with him and said that mine was better. It
went back and forth until I agreed that his was better.

Jaimito was such a doll today. What a sweet sweet darling little
child he is. I love spending time with him.

This morning I was preparing breakfast when I cut my thumb while
sharpening a knife. I was rushing because the skillet was hot, and I
wanted to get that chorizo in there quick. Cold chorizo is a pain to cut when the knife isn’t razor sharp.

There’s a famous Spanish proverb:

When your blade is
dull and your chorizo is cold, defeat will follow you wherever you may go.

Or maybe I shouldn’t read Sun Tzu’s, Art of War while drinking. Anyway, feel free to use it as a personal philosophy.

Blood went everywhere. I grabbed a paper towel and proceeded to
apply pressure and hold it over my head. Jaimito looked concerned.
Daddy, what’s happening? Are you okay, he seemed to say?

Drat drat. I was also trying to get Jaimito’s breakfast. He
wasn’t complaining, so I went searching for a band-aid and some super
glue. Super glue makes a nice field expedient suture. I found the
super glue, and was trying to wrest the top off, yield, damn you,
yield! Blood started going everywhere again as I tried to work the
vice-grips on the diminutive glued shut stupid, stupid!! arrgh.
Geez, stupid tube. I tossed it in the trash.

Sigh, I grabbed Jaimito’s plate and served it to him, poured him
some juice. “Daddy, has a boo boo,” I explained. He looked
concerned and a little scared, so I smiled and went to look for
another tube of super glue.

I found it. The bleeding had stopped, and I patched my sliced,
julian thumb. Now, I needed a band-aid. Where are those damn
things?! A-ha. I found them. Scoobie-doo will have to do. Now
Jaimito was getting into it. “Scoopi doo” he informed me,
pointing.

Later in the day, I asked him if he wanted to kiss my boo boo to
make it feel better. He looked a little apprehensive, so I explained
that kisses make boo boo’s feel better. “Remember when I kissed
your little toes this morning when you stubbed them, little man?”
He stopped and thought for a little bit. I could see the courage and
bashfulness at odds right on his face. He was pondering his next
move. Then he suddenly grabbed my thumb and kissed it. I gave him a
big huge hug and thanked him for his cure and that my thumb felt much
better, thank you. He grinned from ear to ear and buried his face in
my chest, patting my shoulder.

What a lovely morning I had walking with Jaimito. He’s such a
delight, and it’s nice to see the world through his eyes. Everything is
important to him.

We headed out the door around 7:20 AM. He
was neatly tucked into his jogger-stroller with what he calls a "beep
beep," little Matchbox cars that he loves. Olaia handed him one before
she left with Laura for school. "Daddy! Daddy! Beep beep," he proudly
said holding it up. "Olaia!"

"Yes, I know. Olaia gave that to you. What a sweet sister you have, Jaimito."

We walked down the sidewalk and turned the corner. "Daddy!! Daddy! Doggie!"

"Yes
Jaimito, that’s where the doggie normally barks at us." He remembers
the exact house where a big dog habitually charges the gate and
furiously attempts to protect his territory. The dog wasn’t there this
morning but Jaimito made sure to point it out.

We continued
down the street on the sidewalk, the overcast morning and high humidity
quickly drenching me in sweat. "Whew, Jaimito, Daddy’s hot. It’s hot
out. Are you hot?"

"No!" he emphatically replied. "Daddy,
Daddy! Beep beep go bye bye." He pointed out cars passing us on the
street heading out to work. "Bye bye!" he called waving to the
multitudes of morning commuters. Some, mostly women, waved back and
smiled.

"Look Jaimito, the paper tree." We stopped and
examined a tree with papery bark. I have to look it up and see what
type it is. Jaimito pulled off a bit and made sounds akin to "Coool!"

As
we got to the edge of the neighborhood where it borders with the
countryside we heard a rooster. Cock-a-doodle-doo, it crowed.
"Cock-a-doo-dl-doo!" echoed Jaimito. "Daddy, Daddy! Da
cock-a-doo-dl-doo." And then he crowed in Spanish, "Qui-qui-di-qui!
Daddy, wow!" The rooster humored us with several more crows followed by
the answers of Jaimito, big rooster of the yard in his voice fuerte. What a show, let me tell you, like a chorus of barnyard sounds.

"Daddy
Daddy, da boat! Da boat en da agua!" He called out letting me know
about the house that normally has a boat parked in the driveway. It
wasn’t there this morning, and apparently Jaimito speculated that it
was in the water. What a smartie. "Daddy, Daddy. Papoo (Papi Tito) an’
da boat en da agua! W’ mami! ‘an Olaia."

"Yes, Jaimito, you went with Mami and Papi Tito on his boat in the water. Wow! That’s neat."

"Daddy
daddy, da ball!" He pointed to an abandoned ball in a yard that was now
covered with mold. It’d been there for months. It’s a highlight for
this little sportsman. It doesn’t matter the condition of the ball, as
long as it’s a ball.

"Daddy Daddy! Da arbol!" He stretched out his hand letting me know he wanted to touch the tree.

"Yeah, that’s a big tree, right Jaimito? A big tree. Ooo, that’s a nice big tree."

"Yeah,"
he agreed. "Ooo Daddy Daddy, da arbol!" We touched the next tree too.
It was a little tree. I rolled my eyes. There were a lot of trees, and
now we were going to have to stop and touch every one. Chuckle.

We
did four laps around the neighborhood, and the highlights for that
little munchkin never got old. Upon every lap, they were just as fresh
and new and exciting as if they were the first time.

Laura was out in a meeting today, so I was alone with the kids, the
two little delightful munchkins. They were getting antsy to get out, so
around four thirty, we decided to go to the park. I put on their shoes
and got them their clothes. Jaimito was particularly impatient. "Go go
go gogo….waaaaaaaaa."

"Jaimito, Daddy has to go pee pee. We’re still going to the park. I’ll be right back."

Suddenly from out of nowhere, a breeze picked up. I felt the back of
my neck tingle. It was a sinking feeling. I was miles from home and I
knew there was no one to save me.

I answered my frantically ringing cell phone. "James O’Malley."

«Hey James, Jose Camacho»

«How are you, Jose, how can I help you.»

«There seems to be a problem with our bandwidth. I’m not getting
access to the Internet, and my provider said that they are not showing
any connectivity problems with our site.»

«Hmmm,» I said as I did the pee pee dance. Damn! I lamented, tech support.

By then, the wind was blowing like a 2 year old lying on the floor
throwing a tantrum. I knew it was bad. Really bad. None of the hatches
was battened… or whatever you do with hatches. «Let’s take a look,» I
said as I logged in via secure shell. «You look good from here. I don’t
see a problem.» I was puzzled. I asked him about his machines, checked
IP’s, checked the web caching proxy. Nothing. I sent him running around
checking cables, different machines, different web-sites. Nothing.
Jaimito was still wailing.

Oh my God, the Cape wasn’t where I thought it was. I realized I was
in the wrong machine. «Jose, you won’t believe this. I was logged into
another client’s machine. Forget everything I said.» I felt like an
idiot, but we quickly got back to work. No time to fret. This was life
or death. I got him to go to the machine and log in. I wanted him to
run an IP traffic program so we could analyse from where the flood of
traffic originated. «Log in, type i-p-t-r-a-f and hit enter.» He typed
it wrong. I spelled it again and I got him into the program.

Turn into the storm, I kept repeating to myself, but it’s tough.
When you are being buffeted from all sides, you can’t tell from where
the winds are blowing. Suddenly a big one came crashing over the port
side. My cell phone started to beep. Arrgh, low battery. I quickly
found a charger cord and plugged myself in. I was now tied down on
deck. I wasn’t going anywhere. If the boat sank, I was going to go with
it. I still had to use the bathroom and I could no longer see what the
kids were doing, and the mosquitos were ravaging my legs.

I continued to lead him through menus and commands, having him read
to me the program’s output letter by letter. Every mistake costs
valuable time. What could be going on here, I thought? The machine is
spewing out tons of traffic, but I can’t log in. Normally, even when
traffic is heavy, the encrypted shell will at least give me a login
prompt. It looks like a ICMP flood from a virus worm, but I have that
blocked at the firewall. What is going on!

«Check the protocols on the outgoing connections,» I said. «I bet
it’s a large email attachment. And I bet it’s going over the IP-sec
encrypted tunnel.» Sure enough that’s what it was, encrypted
communications between nodes on their VPN. IP-sec packets take
precedence over normal Internet traffic, so if you flood the tunnel,
traffic outside receives a lower priority. «I bet someone sent a huge
email attachment and it’s stuffing up the tunnel.»

Jaimito is quiet now. I don’t hear him, but as any sailor knows,
that is the time to be afraid, be very afraid. «Hold on,» I told Jose.
I put the phone down and made my way to our bedroom. The floor was
sticky. Odd. The devastation I saw would bring a grown man to tears:
lipstick, makeup orange juice everywhere. The storm wrought more damage
than I could have imagined. "Jaimito!!" He looked up at me with guilty
eyes and handed me the smashed lipstick as if to say, I was just
looking to give this to you, Daddy. "Oh, you little boy!" I said in a
stern voice, which as any parent knows is more than sufficient to
initiate a full blown guilt cry. Jaimito started bawling again. Such a
good little repentant boy. I love him. But now was not the time, the
storm was coming again, and I needed to get back to my station.

I picked up the phone. «Jose, are you there? Good, now we see that
it’s a large email attachment. Let’s try to delete it from the mail
queue.» Type the command /root/qmHandel -l | less, then look for the
unique id of the email in the queue. Then type /root/qmHandel -dxxxx.
Rinse, lather and repeat until the queue is empty. I quickly realized
that the task was too complicated to attempt in such a tumult. «Let’s
just kill the whole email server, » I said. «Type k-i-l-l-a-l-l -9
q-m-a-i-l—s-e-n-d… no, not sent… s-e-n-d. Okay, got it. Did it
return an error. No? Okay, hit the up arrow and repeat the command
until you see it say "no process found." » This carried on for a while.
Mistakes, corrections, return to the command. I would leave the phone
make a quick circle of the house to see that hatches were battened and
attempt the log in remotely. «I’m in!»
I exclaimed. «Okay, that’s what it was, Jose. Let me go into the queue
and delete the e-mails. I’ll have it fixed in a few minutes.» I hung up
the phone and breathed a sigh of relief. I ran to the bathroom before I
exploded and Jaimito started wailing again as if to say, I waited all
that time and you’re still not going to take me to the park?! Poor
little thing. Of course, Olaia was a little angel, she stayed calm
throughout the perfect storm.

It’s just the beginning.

Remember
when you used to go out when you were younger? You would go out to the
parties, dances, merriment, and then you would come home to the quiet.
Well, when you have kids, the party comes home and stays like a
European house guest. It runs 24/7. It’s like one of those Rave parties
that go on and on and on. It never stops. It never lets up.

So
before you think that parents are old, boring, and un-fun, just
remember, we party harder than twenty somethings. We party harder than
college students. We party harder than high school students.

We go OUT to relax!

Jaimito, is a little party animal. There
is no doubt. He takes after his mommy. I guess that’s why I like
hanging around the two of them so much. In college, Laura was the
nucleus of all fun, our circle of friends orbiting like electrons
attracted to her positive energy. In all reality, I’m just along for
the ride. Sometimes it’s a bit bumpy, but oh the fun! Couple that with
the fact that she’s a good stable element, and you’ve got a perfect
party.

Jaimto is definitely Laura’s son.

He’s
been saying something for the past month or so. It sounds like
"Go-qool." He says it so emphatically and precisely, that is, the exact
same way every time. I, for the life of me, haven’t been able to figure
out what he has been trying to communicate. Today, as we were getting
up, he repeated it while Laura was putting on his shirt.

"Oh, you want to go bye-bye," she said.

"Is
that what he’s been saying?" I said incredulously. "He’s saying go out
or go bye-bye? Geez, all this time, I never figured it out. It was
never on my radar screen that he could possibly be expressing a desire
to go out, to get out, to go bye-bye." And my mind wandered back to all
times he’d said it. He’d been bored, looking for excitement.

"Daddy, I’m tired of my toys, I want some REAL ACTION. I WANT TO PARRRRRRRTTTTTYYYYY!!!"

"Hehe,
well I guess that explains it. He is your son, hon. Since, I’m not such
an initiator of partying, it never dawned on me that he could be
wishing for action, to go bye-bye." I shake my head, "Well, if you two
come up with something fun to do, you’ll let me know, right? I don’t
want to be left behind."

I was heading out after 5pm to
replace the mail server for Lord Electric and took along Olaia as my
little assistant. She’s always such good company, so helpful and
charming. This was probably going to be a long boring replacement, as
it involved pulling the server (a 2U unit mounted in a rack), stripping
out the 4 year old parts, and installing the new blazing fast
processor, memory, motherboard, and RAID disks. It sounds simple, but
it never really is. I am continually amazed at how long simple computer
tasks end up taking sometimes. It’s a simple transplant. Install a new
and updated Linux system, and then copy over all the configuration
files.

So here I am, heading out with Olaia. "Daddy, " she says, "People are always more important than flags."

"Huh,
uh," I stammered, glancing out the window and noting what she saw, an
American and a Puerto Rican flag on two flag poles. "Wow, little girl,
you are so wise. Do you know that most people go their whole lives
without realizing that? You are amazing. You know at the age of five
what some people don’t know at 85."

Olaia, grinned in the back seat. "Yeah, Daddy, am I smart?"

"Oh, yes, you are very smart, but more… you’re wise and you care about people. Where did you learn that?"

"I dunno."

"Well,
you’re too much, sweetie. Did you know that people fight over those
flags. Some people think one is better than the other and they try to
fight about which one is bigger, higher, lower, or more important? And
you know what they should know. They shouldn’t fight over flags."

She continued grinning bashfully.

The
server installation did not go as expected (it never does, so I should
have expected it, right?). Olaia stayed with me, coloring, and handing
me tools when I needed them.

Once, she brought me a cup of water from the water cooler. "Here Daddy, I brought you some water because maybe you’re thirsty."

"Oh,
thank you, " I absentmindedly said, engrossed in the guts of the
computer and some board or cable that would not fit where it was
supposed to.

"Daddy, aren’tcha gonna drink your water."

"Huh? Oh, yeah." I had forgotten I was holding it. "Hmmm, thank you Olaia. That was delicious.

Olaia
grinned, wrinkling up her face bashfully. She hung out with me until
Laura came with dinner, a nice Wendy’s triple cheeseburger, my
favorite. I ended up getting to bed around 3am, and as I drove home, I
smiled thinking about my little wise assistant.

With technology has come a multitude of conveniences, time savers, and
capabilities of which our primitive ancestors could never have
conceived. Take for example, the instant message. It is instantaneous,
travels at the speed of light to its intended recipient, delivering
important potentially critical information at the click of a button. It
can be sent across the world, around the block, or to the next room.

Laura at 15:01:18: Jaimito is poopie

Jim at 15:01:43: Roger, I’ll change him.

Toxic waste disposal emergencies such as the one above could have not
been addressed with such efficiency before the days of IM. Thank the
Lord!

Laura: Olaia, look up. See that red star?

Olaia: Mommy, that’s not a star, that’s a planet.