Archives for December 2015

You Should Blog About Raising Strong Daughters

December 7, 2015 by Jack Steiner 6 Comments

That Alan Parsons Project listening run that started in The Medium Writing Temperature is still going on inside my head and on my iTunes.

So I am back at the computer accompanied by Eye In The Sky and a focus on distilling the million thoughts in my head into a more manageable grouping.

Got to calm down the noise and break up a six-mile long “to-do” list in bite size chunks and pieces.

It is late Saturday morning and I am standing on the sidelines of my daughter’s soccer game.

We’re one minute away from finishing up the second overtime period and if neither sides scores we’ll move to penalty kicks.

It is a brutal way to determine a winner, especially because this game is for the championship.

My daughter has no idea how badly I want her team to win or how it all ties into something that happened several years back.

Back then she played for a different team and her coaches were awful.

No need to rehash all the reasons why they were bad and awful.

Suffice it to say that I carry some anger and guilt from then because I should have pulled her from that team sooner, but thought that if she gutted it out it would be a good teaching moment.

Some years later I look at that as having been a mistake. It would have been better if I had gotten her out of there sooner, but I didn’t.

Flash back to present and I am cheering her on, my girl is deceptively fast. If you haven’t seen her run you probably won’t expect how fast she moves.

Dear old dad is obviously biased and proud, especially when I see her use her shoulders to bull her way through a crowd and save a goal…twice.

I want to take pictures so that I can preserve this moment. I want her to see what I see, a face filled with joy and determination.

You Should Blog About Raising Strong Daughters

“I heard you do some writing, ever thought about starting a blog? A lot of writers do it.”

The speaker is another parent on the team. I nod my head and I say I have written a couple of posts.

“You ought to blog about raising strong daughters.”

I nod my head and tell him that she just won some awards at her school for History and PE, but I don’t mention that with the exception of the ‘B’ in her math class she has all ‘A’s.

Nor do I mention she told me she is frustrated because her older brother has straight ‘A’s and she wants to match him.

But I do tell him that the night before the game I had a long talk with her.

“I want you to focus on having fun.”

“If we win I’ll have fun and if we don’t I’ll cry.”

“If you play hard and give it all you have got you’ll have no reason not to be proud of yourself and no reason not to have had fun, win or lose.”

“Daddy, do you understand how badly I want to win.”

It is not a real question and I get it, because she gets that competitive fire from me. Â I still dive on the floor for loose balls and run through people in a simple pick up game.

I understand, but I don’t want to her to assign value solely based upon the outcome of the game. I want it based upon how hard she/I/we work.

Work hard and you can go to bed knowing you did all you can do and be comfortable even if it doesn’t go your way.

It is a brutal way to determine a winner, especially because this game is for the championship.Click To Tweet

Any moment now the ref is going to blow the whistle and the second overtime will end. I yell at her to look for her moment and go for it.

She intercepts a pass on the far left and starts dribbling up the sideline. She is outracing the girls behind her but in a moment she’ll be smack in the middle of some defenders so she tries to kick the ball over their heads into the center of the field.

It is a chip shot that isn’t bad, but I can see from her face it is not what she wanted it to do.

I don’t care because I can’t be prouder or more excited for her.

The ref blows the whistle and we go into penalty kicks.

What Is Important

The girls on both teams line up and alternating taking shots on goal.

For a few moments our girls are ahead and it looks like we are going to win, but that is not to be. Today they’ll see just how harsh a way this can be to lose.

A girl on the other team takes her shot on our goal and a loud cheer goes up, our goalie has blocked it, except she hasn’t.

She knocked the ball down but there is enough momentum and spin on it for it to drop and still roll into the goal.

Milliseconds later the other team screams with happiness and tears start to fall down the faces of our girls.

But what catches my eye is my daughter she is running to comfort our goalie and to tell her it is ok.

Later on the division head will tell my girl he thought she was the best player on the field and we’ll say thank you.

It makes me proud to hear that but what I am proudest of is how my daughter looked out for her friend and teammate.

That is what is most important.

I don’t have it on tape or film so I can’t show her and even if I did I don’t know if I could really make her see what I saw.

I hope that joy and confidence never leaves her, I know the image won’t ever leave me.

The Medium Writing Temperature

December 5, 2015 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Midnight approaches and I have written more than 10,000 words today, but almost all of them have appeared on the other blogs I…support.

Lyrics jump out at me, things worth sharing here because they have my attention:

Don’t say
Words you’re gonna regret
Don’t let
Fire rush to your head
I’ve heard the accusation before
And I ain’t gonna take anymore
Believe me

Eye In The Sky- The Alan Parsons Project

The music moves to Time and then onto a new artist and my train of thought is derailed by the dog.

Don’t know why he went nuts, but I took the time to make sure nothing weird was happening inside or nearby.

Maybe the squirrel he declared his arch nemesis woke up and threw some nuts at him or maybe that damn dog is feeling as squirrelly as most people seem to be.

There is a lot of fear and ugliness out there and I’ll readily admit the reason those lyrics caught my ear is because some people poked the bear hard enough for me to want to come out swinging.

Doesn’t happen as often as you might think, probably because I am good at venting here or on the court but this time I really thought about unloading upon them.

Probably would have felt good to useÂ my wordsÂ to let them know in no uncertain terms what I thought but I opted against it because sometimes the most effective tool we have is silence.

Sometimes I intentionally ignore people. Silence scares people, but I like it.

Not because of the fear but because sometimes the way I find the answers to questions is by quieting the noise around me long enough to listen to the song my heart is singing.

The Medium Writing Temperature

Can’t say I need another blog, not with the six or seven I have now. Don’t have to think twice about whether I am overextended because the answer is yes.

But there is a method to my madness and that is to seek out tools and resources that help me become a better writer and to help me reach more people.

That is how and why I decided to test out Medium to see if it is just a time suck or a tool that will help me become a better writer and reach more readers.

Too early to say, but I do like the way the link to my profile renders as a big image here.

View at Medium.com

What Will I Share On Medium?

It is a mix of new and old content. While you are certainly welcome to follow me there I can promise you this joint will continue to serve as a hub.

I like being self-hosted, don’t want to take the risk that comes with being a digital sharecropper.

Anyhoo, I’ll keep posting some of the new and old material there to see what sort of impact it has…if any.

It is a relatively harmless risk, no reason not to see what happens.

The Difference Between Bloggers & Writers

December 3, 2015 by Jack Steiner 12 Comments

There are writers without blogs but no bloggers without writers or so someone once told me.

I must have scrunched up my face a bit when they said it because they immediately got defensive and told me I knew what they meant.

Sadly this mind reading ability they credited me with doesn’t work on other topics and in other areas because if it did I’d make use of it.

Hell, a fella could make a lot of money and do a lot of fun things with that kind of magic or so I imagine.

Can’t say for certain because I have never had the opportunity to try it out. Not entirely sure that I’d want either, sometimes it is better not to hear and know certain things.

The Difference Between Bloggers & Writers

But if push comes to shove and you want more a more substantive answer I might dig into how a blogger has to produce content and make sure the blog works as it should.

Those of you who are long time readers have seen several theme changes here and are probably aware that every time I change something I have to fix something else to make sure the parts and pieces work together.

Ten thousand posts makes that a bigger job than you might realize because that touches upon links, SEO and more.

It means thinking about whether you should optimize old posts so that they work better under the current situation or leave them alone.

For example, my current theme uses a featured image at the top of each page. The posts that don’t have a featured image look a little bit naked without that image.

Go back into the archives and you’ll find lots of those and lots that weren’t tagged or categorized, not to mention the tons of broken links.

When I started this back in 2004 it was a whole different ballgame and I didn’t think about organization, SEO, monetizing or any of the other crap that comes with this stuff.

Should We Delete/Modify Old Posts?

I often think about what to do with old posts. I wonder about whether I should delete some and or modify others.

I correct spelling or grammatical errors whenever I come across them, but I tend not to do much about trying to optimize old posts for SEO other than maybe adding meta data or a keyword to focus upon.

And of course I do my best to fix bad links as I find them.

As for deleting old posts, well I have gotten rid of a few that were embarrassing or so riddled with bad links they no longer made sense, but I tend to be very cautious with what I nuke and what I don’t.

Those old posts tell a story and they help provide benchmarks I can use to determine if I think my writing has improved and or is improving.
My pal Mr. Frost and I share that bit about endings in common, I often have no idea where I am going to finish until I get there.

That is part of the fun in writing for me, I take joy in the journey. It is a giant puzzle that I put together piece by piece.

The more time I spend reading and writing the better I become and the easier it gets to put those pieces together or so I often say.

There are those moments where I wonder if the best I can do is spew out tired crap that would be better used to wrap fish in.

Sometimes the biggest challenge is to maintain perspective about the quality. That doesn’t just apply to whether we think our work can be improved but also to the stuff we think is great.

Home runs fall into foul territory from time to time and even the most graceful of us can trip and fall down a flight of stairs.

And now dear reader let me share another thought with you that rumbles around the old percolator inside my skull.

What would happen if I walked away from the blog?

Would I be happier or more fulfilled by spending more time elsewhere? Would I be more productive?

Would anyone notice or care?

To Be Or Not To Be Noticed

I have said many times I write first for me and then for you. I have shared thoughts about how I would write regardless of whether anyone commented on my posts.

And I have.

Not every post has a comment. Some are orphans that have received no outward expression of love.

But I wonder how it would feel if I found out that I left the game and no one cared. It might hurt more than I like to think or imagine because as much as this is about practicing my skills and chronicling the lives of my family there is something more to it.

There is the dream that in some way this leads to a different sort of writing gig than the places and opportunities it has already taken me.

There is the brutal truth that would come with that knowledge that no one cared.

“Your words don’t resonate or move people. You can’t make them imagine places or people or feel something.

And if I can’t do that, well then I can’t expect to turn fantasy into reality.

A Father’s Truth

I try not to tell my children to do as I say and not as I do as much as possible.

This is one of those areas where it is important to me to show them the importance of not just talking about a dream but of taking action to move it from one place to another.

I’d rather try and fail than fail to try.

Giving It The Old College Try

December 1, 2015 by Jack Steiner 6 Comments

Steiner the minor called me this afternoon to share big news with me.

“Dad, I got in. I am going to start taking classes next semester.”

It is too bad he couldn’t have seen me smile because the grin on my face would have made that old Cheshire cat feel like a fake and a phony.

“I am so very proud of you, all the hard work is worth it. Good things happen when you put your mind to it, this is just one of many big accomplishments in your life.”

“Thank you, I wanted to tell you in person but I didn’t know when you would be coming back.”

I told him it was ok, and he took a moment confirm he was on Bluetooth. When I said I was he asked me how many miles I had put in and I said it would be around 400 or so today.

“You should be proud of yourself, I can guarantee your family is.”

“I am proud of myself.”

And with those five words I was transported back in time, the high schooler shrank four feet and 13 years.

Giving It The Old College Try

I remember encouraging the baby who figured out how to stand to keep going. I remember how he would cruise around the house and how one day he was so engrossed in walking and learning about the world he forgot he wasn’t holding onto anything.

“Go little Jack! You can do it, walk to me.”

We held out our arms and though he didn’t make it the whole way standing it didn’t take long for him to figure it out.

Hell, once he stopped crawling and went vertical it took no time to move from a couple of steps at a time to a sprint from one place to another.

“Be proud of yourself! You worked hard for it.”

The baby toddler and boy heard that more than a few times because there was reason for him and for us to be proud.

And as he grew bigger and older he also heard us tell him that you didn’t get to be proud for nothing, you had to work for it and you had to earn it.

It wasn’t until he was having a hard time in middle school that there was a reason for me to let him in on the secret that your parents are always proud of you, some times more than others.

Somewhere during those years I think he heard me describe putting an effort into doing something as “Giving it the old college try” but I never realized just how soon that would refer to him going to college.

High School & The College Experience

I don’t know how long it took for the smile to disappear from my face. Can’t say whether it was a minute or an hour after his call.

What I do know is I replayed his words about having gotten into the program over in my head and thought about what it meant.

He is halfway through his freshman year of high school but in a very short time his freshman workload will include a couple of college classes.

When he started at the school I knew this program existed and that some of the students graduate high school with enough college credits to enter as sophomores and juniors but I don’t know that I really imagined he might be one of them.

And then I started thinking hard about what I want him to get out of high school and college. I started thinking about the experiences that he might have and the opportunities that could come from both and tried to figure out if this program helps or hinders it.

It’s A Good Thing

The bottom line is getting into the program is a good thing, at least as I understand it.

Ask me why I am concerned about an honors student being recognized for their hard work and being given additional opportunities to excel and I’ll tell you that I want there to be some kind of balance here.

What that means is I don’t want him to be so overloaded with work he doesn’t have time to be a kid and do other things.

The Cross Country team has been a great experience for him. He loves it and as long as he does I want him to continue.

Not just because I think there are valuable lessons that come with being part of a team but because running is a sport you can do your whole life.

You don’t need a ball or other people to do it.

It is a way to exercise and stay in shape. It is a way to disconnect from the electronic bubble that so many of us live in and to get outside and feel the sun on your/our backs.

I want him to have time to hang out with friends and do the kind of stuff you, I, we did in high school. It shouldn’t be all work and no fun.

But if I understand the way this program works it doesn’t have to be crazy/busy burden time. It can be something that helps foster his love of learning and challenges him.

And if for some reason it doesn’t work, well we can always dial things back.

I am so very proud and so excited for him.

The news today reminded me again how fast the clock moves and how brief a moment our children live with us.

Sometimes it feels like forever and then sometimes things happen that remind you how quickly time is compressed into then and now.

The toddler is long gone and so is the little boy. Now the teen stands before us.

There is still time before he heads off into the world on his own, long enough to be noticeable but short enough to be recognized.

I’ll take whatever time we have and give it the old college try to be present and enjoy it, but damn, that sun in the sky above moves far too quickly.

You Should Blog About Raising Strong Daughters