Surviving Goliath

According to the Weather Channel, it was the deadliest U.S. storm system of 2015. And we were right out in the middle of it.

::

The drive down to Abilene was (mostly) uneventful. We left on Tuesday after spending the morning packing up (and making sure the kids had a list of phone numbers in case something happened to us.)
It's a two-day drive, two nine hour days with one overnight stop in Springfield, Missouri. We had audio books to keep us entertained, when we weren't just chatting. The weather was perfect, the roads were dry and in relatively good shape, and the traffic wasn't particularly bad.

The Route to Abilene

[We had one little "adventure" in Oklahoma City when traffic stopped rather suddenly due to a left-hand exit which had become backed up, and I was forced to test the anti-lock brakes on Cheryl's car. They worked! In fact, they worked so well that I was able to bring the vehicle to a controlled stop in an incredibly short distance. Between two lanes of traffic. It was an incredible adrenaline rush! Unfortunately, it only made Cheryl more nervous than usual about my driving. As if that were even possible.]

The air was so warm and delightful when we got to Texas on  Wednesday. Got there in time for some dinner (lasagna!) and the usual mid-week service at the church. Went home for ice cream and visitation time, then to bed for a much-needed rest, after being on the road for two days.

We kept our eyes on the forecast the whole time we were there, knowing that warm air just doesn't hang around very long in the middle of winter, and, sure enough, the weather prophets started yammering about a big storm coming in. Unfortunately, it looked like the storm would be coming in right about the time we were needing to leave for home. And it would be covering roughly the same ground.

We'd been planning on leaving Sunday after church, but our route would've put us right at the edge of the ice storm making its way across the southwest. So we bugged out early, at the crack of dawn, and drove lickity-split towards Fort Worth on I-20 and then up towards Oklahoma City. But the storm was coming awfully close in, and we did not like the idea of driving across all those overpasses in OK City with the rain water turning to ice; so we took some side roads to keep as far east as possible, then turn up north to catch I-40 east (instead of I-44) until we got to Fort Smith, then north again on I-49 to I-44, which we would take all the way up to Springfield, our first stop.

The Return -- Trying to Avoid Goliath

It was a rough drive. We may have gotten ahead of the ice, but the rain was with us the whole time, and it was a hard, driving rain which obscured the view and made passing all those trucks very, very stressful. There were a million trucks. And the visibility was just horrible. Not only that, but our little detours extended the trip quite a bit; we ended up spending nearly twelve hours on the road that day.

We rested somewhat in Springfield, but morning came too soon and it was time to hit the road again.

The situation for Monday wasn't much better. The storm was still moving east, the frozen portion of it crawling slowly across the plains. We just tried to stay in the rainy part, ahead of the ice. We'd much rather be driving in the pouring rain than the deadly ice.

But, oh! what a pouring rain it was! The constant pounding of it on the car, the never-ending chorus against the windshield, the thrumming in my head like a thousand tiny hammers. And the spray from the trucks which rendered my eyes completely useless every time we came close to them. Sometimes the only part of the road I could see was the yellow line on my left.

We decided to avoid Chicago completely, owing to the wintry blasts which were heading that direction, and instead planned our route through Indianapolis and Fort Wayne in order to stay in as much of the warm air as possible. It was hard, though, because we ran into all sorts of flooding-related delays in Missouri which put us behind schedule, and by the time we got to Fort Wayne, it was late and the road reports from Michigan indicated that the roads were ice-covered and dangerous.

So we stopped for the night there in Indiana with only three hours distance between us and our home. Three hours of darkness and snowfall and ice.

It would be much safer to finish the trip in the daylight, with time allowed for the road crews to clean up the mess.

And so it was. We woke up after a restful evening and got on the road by 6:30 a.m. and arrived at our house by 9:30, without having encountered any problems. The roads were cleared, the sun was out, and we were finally home!

:::

It's hard to describe the feeling of driving at speed when you can barely see the road. Sometimes it feels like one is using "The Force" to determine where the edges of the road are; sometimes it feels like the world is going to end in a fiery crash in the next second, and every moment in which I find myself still alive is gloriously euphoric ecstasy. Experiencing this sensory overload is tolerable in small doses, but it tends to wear out its welcome after hours and hours of the same thing. By the end of each day of our trip, my brain was completely fried, my eyes dried out from all the straining to see what could not be seen, my ears ringing from the sound of the pounding rain, my hands worn out from constant clenching on the wheel. There was never a rest so appreciated than the one found after a full day of travails such as this.

I would like to think that God had a hand in the whole thing, but it is difficult to ascribe Godly intent to the success of one particular individual (or family) when so many others did not survive. That seems a bit presumptuous. Nonetheless, we appreciate the prayers of our friends and family for our safety.

Pre-Christmas Blues

Glen Campbell was born on my father's first birthday, which is kind of weird and coincidental. He also grew up in the church of Christ, which is kind of weird and coincidental. We watched a documentary on Netflix a couple months back about this group of studio musicians called "The Wrecking Crew", and, interestingly enough, Glen was one of 'em. And then we watched another documentary this week about his final tour, "I'll Be Me", which was very, very sad. Because it was like having a front-row seat to Altzheimer's.

I'd already had a front-row set to that particular disease way back when Grandma and Grandpa Meyer were living in Longview and I'd spend my weekends there (while working during the week in Seattle). Grandpa couldn't remember when he'd eaten last. He couldn't remember what time it was. He couldn't remember my name half the time. The only thing he could remember was that he loved Grandma, and she cried every time he said it. Because she was so frustrated with trying to deal with him, even knowing that his brain was slowly fading away, knowing that none of it was his fault or her fault, but that didn't make things any easier.

And watching the documentary on Glen Campbell, watching as his family had to deal with his inability to remember things, brought all those memories flooding back. Sitting in the living room in front of the huge color television with both grandparents in their respective recliners watching Hee Haw or Lawrence Welk or Golden Girls, with Grandpa asking when dinner was going to be every five minutes, and Grandma leaning forward trying to make her dead eyes see the screen which had all her favorite performers on it. Watching the tears sliding down her cheeks because life was so unfair. Her world had become darkness, and her husband was losing his mind.

In the case of Mr. Campbell, it was strange that the last ability he seemed to lose was his ability to play his guitar. Even when he couldn't remember the lyrics, his fingers still seemed to know how to play. And when those fingers finally couldn't remember anything, they knew it was time to close out the tour and go quietly into the night.

That was in 2012. In 2014, he was checked into a long-term care facility. This year, 2015, he lost the ability to speak for himself. The world would never hear his voice again outside of a recording.

It's depressing when these people, who have been icons my whole life, get old and fall apart. It's a reminder that we're all getting older and falling apart. And, as the Bible says:

"No one remembers the former generations,

    and even those yet to come

will not be remembered

    by those who follow them."

:::

It's been very stressful this past week not having a paying job and wondering when things were going to start up again. I don't really fancy the life of a contractor, not when we're living on the edge of the razor with regard to income and outgo. Even a few days of missed income is sorely missed.

Contractors normally get paid a lot because of two things: one, they never know when their next job is coming, so they have to save as much as possible when they're actually making money, kind of like teachers who have to set aside some money to make it through the summer months; two, they have to pay for their own health insurance, which is beyond ridiculous these days. Unfortunately, since I haven't been contracting very long, we haven't set things up on that basis yet. So there's a bit of a panic that ensues when suddenly one contract is up and the other hasn't quite started yet.

So when the word came down that another contract was going to start soon, we breathed a very tiny sigh of relief, and then got very nervous while waiting for the paperwork to get done so we could actually get started.

It took most of the week.

We finally started working on Friday, and then there was a mad scramble to get in as many hours as possible before the end of the pay period (which is Saturday); but it's still going to be a very short week (i.e. a very small paycheck), and that's not necessarily a good thing when Christmastime is right around the corner. We've been so busy fretting about all the things going on around here, we've had barely a thought about Christmas. Which is just as well. There's no room to put up a tree, and there isn't a lot of money to spend on presents, and the basement still isn't done yet, and I'm frankly just not in the mood for it.

Haven't been in the mood for it in several years, actually.

Last year, I was fretting about getting all the Christmas cards done and mailed while trying to finish the basement plans so we could get the permit and get started working on it.

The year before, there was so much going on that we didn't even have time or energy to write or send out cards, except to immediate family.

Every year, seems the worst stress comes around Christmastime. We just can't keep up with all the things we're supposed to be doing, like getting out cards and shopping for presents and finding time to visit with friends and family and taking vacation time to rest and relax before we have to go back to the old grind once the new year rolls around.

We read about our friends and relatives on Facebook taking vacations to Hawaii and Florida and the ski slopes and DisneyWorld  and other fantastic places and wonder if perhaps there's something wrong with because we don't go to amusement parks or campgrounds or resorts, we don't lay out in the sun and get tan while drinking fancy fruit drinks or hang out by the fireplace at the ski slope and drink hot chocolate and we're probably denying our children some incredible experiences.

But how can we enjoy ourselves at those exotic locations when there's so much that needs to be done at home?

And once it's done, once we've gotten it to be the perfect little home we wanted, why on earth would we want to go spend our free time somewhere else? That just doesn't make any sense.

Unless it's visiting family. Or friends. Those are good reasons to go someplace.

:::

We've been studying a lot of Asperger's literature in order to better understand Adam. And the more we study the subject of mental processes and their aberrant disorders, the more we are able to identify the aberrant behaviors in our own seemingly "neurotypical" brains.

For example, I cannot handle choices. Too many choices overwhelm my brain. And I'm not talking about trying to decide which cereal to get when faced with an entire grocery aisle containing hundreds of different brands. I'm talking about deciding whether to route the wire to the outlet box horizontally through the studs (which means boring holes through all the studs) or vertically from the joist (which means boring holes through all the joists and then down into the stud wall). I have spent hours contemplating those kinds of choices. Which may explain in some small way why it is taking me so incredibly long to get the electrical work done in the basement.¹

There are lots of neuro-atypical behaviors in this family. Some of us cannot look people in the eye when we're talking to them. Some of us get extremely nervous and jumpy when in crowds. Some of us are exhausted by social interaction. Some of us respond to stress by mindlessly stroking an object of clothing until it wears out.

The spectrum of behavior is very wide, and we're all on it somewhere. Our family tends to bunch towards the introverted end of the scale, right close to the drop-off where shades of autism start to darken the lines. When you walk into our house, you will not find a bunch of kids bouncing off the walls in need of a jog around the park; you will typically hear the soft strains of music leaking from headphones and the pitter-patter of little fingers typing on keyboards or iPods, each in his or her own room, each in his or her own little world. Those inquiring for playmates to engage in physically demanding games will not find takers. And woe unto you who disturb a reader immersed in a well-written story, for your name shall be Mud and you shall be cast out forevermore!

Yet we are not really that unique, not (at least) among the set of people of our close acquaintance. Perhaps it is merely a case of "like calls to like". Perhaps it is because our children associate with other children of the same mindset, and we are pulled into close orbit with those families which display the same idiosyncratic behaviors. Perhaps it is because we don't know what to do with people who dress up in their favorite sports teams' attire and spend far too much money to go sit in football stadiums in the middle of winter to cheer on groups of people they don't even know in the hopes that they will win a game that has very little significance in the grand scheme of things.

For the most part, we're happy in our delusions of neuro-typicalness. It's everyone else who is weird.

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¹There are very simple rules to follow when wiring a house. They are all specified in the National Electrical Code (as amended by the specific State or Local guidelines). But they are not all as obvious as one might think.

For example, the Code says that all basement wiring has to be ground-fault protected. But should I use ground-fault outlets everywhere or just use a GFCI circuit breaker for each branch circuit?  If I have to add an extra branch to an existing branch that is already behind drywall, should I split the line between two junction boxes in the ceiling so I don't have to remove the wall, or just rip off the drywall and do the whole thing from scratch?

The same thing happens when I work on the car(s). A (relatively) simple fix ends up taking days because I'm contemplating all the possible ways it could be done. It took me a couple weeks to fix a bad brake line because I had to figure out the optimum route for the new line in order to avoid going up and over the gas tank (where the original line was routed).

Trepidation at the New Week

I still don't have a job yet.

It's kind of weird to think about because I have an office with a desk with a computer and a phone, but there is currently nothing for me to do, and if I don't hurry up and find something to do, there will be nothing on my paycheck. Naturally, it's making Cheryl very nervous. I'm not nearly so worried about it, just annoyed. Because there is work to be done, and there's going to be money coming in as soon as we start the work, but right now the two companies involved haven't agreed on all the terms.

Typical. The customer wants us to take all the risks and get paid next to nothing for it. We want them to pay for the work we're going to do, and to take responsibility for things that go wrong which are not our fault. Like, for example, finding out that the software we're supposed to be testing isn't really ready yet and we might have to re-run a bunch of tests. They want us to do re-runs on our own nickel, and we say Nope.

This is the kind of stuff that drove me crazy when I was doing Project Management. Dealing with customers who want Everything for Nothing. I know why they do it: their managers tie their pay and bonuses to their ability to swing a "deal". Which in this context is very nearly the same thing as a "swindle". But it's really stupid. We're not trying to cheat anyone here. We're trying to make enough money to pay our bills and give our employees a reasonable wage. After all, most of these guys have to get by in-between gigs. And pay their own insurance. Have you seen what it takes to get insurance on your own these days? Forget it.

I'm hoping to get a call tomorrow morning telling me that we are approved to start working. We already have a deadline to complete the tests, and every day we have to wait is one more day we'll have to work all the more faster to get it done on time. And you know the customer will start screaming if we even hint that it will be hard to make the deadline! Personally, I just want to keep the money coming in so that the CFO here at home is happy. Or at least not angry.

:::

We had our Family Meeting tonight but James wasn't able to attend, owing to the fact that he was Skyping with Tabea (and they were both falling asleep!), but we already know what he is doing this week: working crazy hours so he can save up enough money to get back to Germany. He's still thinking end of February. Which is fast approaching. December is almost over! January is almost here! Which means February is right around the corner.

December is almost over, Christmas Break is almost here -- one more week! -- and then the kids are out of school for a couple weeks. Adam has his exams Monday and Tuesday. Deb is grabbing as much work as she can; she's enjoying this thing of having money in her pocket. She did a little bit of shopping at Old Navy tonight and got a great deal on some very comfy outfits. Which she's currently wearing. She loves her cotton sweatpants! Mary is focusing on her (endless) homework. And her fan fiction, which she reads voraciously.  Did you know there was a fan fiction crossover series with Harry Potter (as a female) and Daredevil (from the Netflix series)? Nope, neither did I. That is just weird.

We're looking forward to getting down to Texas for the holidays. If it's as warm down there as it has been here lately, it's going to be a bizarre Christmas. It was over 60 degrees today! Of course, the weatherman says it'll be snowing by Friday, but the way things have been going, it might just melt away by the time we head south. I hope so. I don't enjoy driving on the interstate in the snow. Around here, it's easy because I know all the routes and alternates, and can anticipate the curves in the roads. But on the interstate, there's all those icky trucks and things which have 'momentum' and 'mass' and get pushed around by 'wind'. And I don't like being anywhere near them when traveling.

I still remember that winter back during college when it took me 24 hours to drive across the state of Illinois (on the way to Grandma's house in Indiana) and the roads were all icy and there were trucks sliding off all over the place and the adrenalin was pumping through my system so much that I couldn't think straight; it was enough simply to keep the car between the lines on the road -- when I could see them.

I'd still rather drive than fly, though. And it's a sad state of affairs in the US when I'd rather drive than fly. I love to fly. But I do not care for the current process. Nor am I completely confident of the condition of the aircraft which are flying. Sometimes it doesn't pay to know too much about how those things work.

:::

The basement is still moving along, but very, very slowly. Far too slowly for Cheryl. And I'm being a real butt about it. It's my house, my basement, my wiring, and after the fiasco with the plumbing company, I don't want anyone else touching my basement. Except for drywall. I don't mind someone else doing the drywall. But I want to know what's behind it! And I'm a bloody perfectionist about the technical stuff. I've got the design done just the way I want it, and that's the way I want it implemented.

I'm hoping it'll be ready for the rough-in inspection in the next couple of days. There's a couple of things I have to tidy up. But that shouldn't take too long.

I hope.

Reading Up on Things

We've been doing a lot of research on the Aspergers thing, trying to figure out what it is we're supposed to do in order to provide support and affirmation and all those things that parents want so desperately to provide for our children. Most of what we've read has to do with the alternate reality / universe that exists for Aspergians, how they view the world from a strictly logical viewpoint which so very rarely synchronizes with neurotypical folk, how they get so very frustrated trying to figure out the rules of society because those rules don't make sense. Society does not run on logic, but on people's ability to figure out what other people are thinking and/or feeling. Which Aspergians cannot do without lots of help.

I can't come up with a good analogy in order to understand what is going on inside my son's head. But one of the books -- which was actually written by someone with Asperger's -- mentioned that he (the writer) managed to "get by" in public by putting on other personas. And I can totally relate to that. Because as an introvert, it is impossible for me to go out in public without putting on a kind of mask. Sometimes the mask is only a slight departure from my "normal" self; other times, it's so completely different from the 'me' inside that I wonder if I'm suffering from multiple-personality disorder.

Being around kids is easy for me because my internal maturity level froze up around the age of seventeen. That was a great year. I could've stayed that age forever. But then there was graduation and college and career, and it became necessary to act a lot more mature than I really am. Yuck.

It's very difficult to be around adults, especially adults that expect me to behave mature. I'd rather be doing crafts with my Sunday School class, which consists of third and fourth graders. They know how to have fun! And they don't take life quite so seriously. After all, what's important in life, anyway? Having fun. Having snacks. Knowing that God (our Eternal Parent) is in charge and everything will be Fine. Oh, and nap time. That's important, too!

Dealing with adults, though, means I have to put on a Big Person mask. Talk about Big Person stuff. Like Work. Relationships. Theology. Issues.

That's hard work. Exhausting. So I can't wait to get home and take off all the masks and just be myself. If I have to be mature and adult all day long, it wears me out.

And if it's that hard for me, it's a lot harder for someone with Asperger's. At least I can read people's body language and facial expressions and tone of voice to figure out appropriate responses. But people with Asperger's are playing darts in the dark, just hoping to get something on the board.

It's amazing that of them have become very successful, married, had kids, actually faked their way into a seemingly "normal" life. They managed to create a persona that fit in with the rest of the world, at least for awhile. But there was always something ... odd ... about them. Like one of those absent-minded professors. Except some of them weren't professors. And it went a bit beyond absent-mindedness. And their families just couldn't figure out what was going on with them. Sometimes things worked out. Other times, things started to go south and everything fell apart.

We don't want that for Adam. He's incredibly smart, he's a lot of fun to be around (if you're into languages and games), he can be very sweet and affectionate when it suits him. He has such incredible potential.

Now we just need to figure out how to help him achieve that potential.

The Quiet Days

I haven't worked since Monday. I mean, I've worked, like, working on the house, in the basement, that kind of thing. But I haven't done any actual work for which a salary is earned.

Things are going to get interesting around here very soon if one of the many job opportunities doesn't pan out.

And there are many job opportunities around here. Oodles. Maybe not right in line with my career goals, but there is no want for work around here. No one has an excuse to starve around here (unless they feel that work is beneath them).

I talked to a recruiter today and filled out a couple job applications outside the context of my current employer, who has not yet provided any solid information about an available positions. It's maddening to work for a company which is supposed to be one of the biggest job placement firms in the world, and get nothing. Perhaps I'm expecting too much, too soon. But I'm impatient to get over this lull and move onto something else.

But this last gig really spoiled me rotten. Being a Systems Engineer and helping to build three flight simulation labs, getting to work with one of the most friendly groups of people I've ever met, actually looking forward to coming to work each day -- well, that's very hard to beat. Anything after that, short of going to Mars, is a let-down.

So my days are spent filling out more applications and calling recruiters and doing lots of on-line research to find out where the fun jobs are. That, and working on the basement.

:::

Finishing up the electrical work is a good way of going back over the original prototype design for the basement and discovering things that weren't done properly. Like the walls near the office door, down at the bottom of the stairs. I was wiring up the outlet near the bottom of the stairs when it occurred to me that the intersection of the door and the wall was wrong. Because no provision had been made for hanging drywall.

That is, the short wall I'd built to hang the office door on intersected the back wall in a place where there was no supporting stud. So the drywall could only be hung on the short wall and not on the back wall.

Like this:

So I could either move the interior studs closer in, or add some additional studs on either side. It would be easiest to move the existing studs, but that destroys the aesthetics of the stud wall, leaving an irregular gap between the studs, like this:

Sometimes, though, the aesthetics go out the window when the schedule (or budget) is tight.
So now it'll look more like this:

I thought about putting extra studs in-between the outer and inner ones, just to keep it from being some ridiculously large gap, but so long as the foam insulation can be cut to fit -- and it comes in 4x8 sheets -- there's no worry. The wall is not load-bearing.

:::

Tonight was the Holiday Band Concert, which is probably the longest concert of the year, bordering on two hours. Cheryl and I worked the booster table, selling Keycard books and Scrip cards and taking the money for the Florida trip, then dashed inside to catch the performance before heading out to the table again.

I am completely awed by my wife's ability to remember the names of all these people. They all come up to her as if she is some long-lost friend, calling her by name, smiling and giving her money. And she greets them (mostly) by name, too. Of course, she also knows each of the kids in the band and orchestra by name, so it isn't that much of a surprise. I know some of the kids in the Marching Band and some of the kids in the Orchestra (especially the ones who are in the Robotics club), but other than that, I'm clueless.

Makes me proud to be her husband. She is obviously well-respected in the community!

I had fun, too. She even let me sell a couple of the Keycard books! (I do best with checks, though; cash and I are not on good terms anymore.)

After the concert -- which was amazing, and Deb got to stand and be recognized for her amazing skills on the flute and/or piccolo -- we went home and had ice cream. And Deb, who has a soft spot for her old man, bought me some peanut butter cups! Which means I'll have to brush my teeth extra-carefully tonight.

I hope something comes up with the job soon. Otherwise, I'll have nothing to do but work on the basement...