Depressional Time

Happy BRS

This is the worse time of year. Yes, while the snow is finally melting the remnants are all dirt encrusted and everything else is a soggy mess. It’s still too cold to spend extended leisure time outside and my wife is safely maintaining her self-imposed temperature exile, vowing to return next week as long as it warms up. Well, boo hoo, pardon me while I try to silence all the violins playing for poor old me. It’s been a very tough week at work and the Red Sox did nothing to cheer me up yesterday when they blew a four run lead in the penultimate inning.

Getting so Big!

Luckily I had Keene Friend aboard last night to help assuage some of the bitterness from that debacle. With that tough week at work, judging from the paragraph above, I must be feeling sorry for myself. That will not do. My descendants came to the rescue with a series of photos of the granddaughters which cannot help but ameliorate any depressed feelings.

FBR (center) Hanging with a Couple buds Yesterday

Tornado Aftermath

Thursdays are when Wingman has the day off and gets to spend the entire day with the FBR. From the photographic evidence he provided it looks like she had a tornadic day playing with her treasure trove of toys. She then had to dance the extra energy off and while I’m amazed there was an excess those days are so far in my rear view mirror that is understandable. Today she was at her favorite indoor playground, the Kidz Village, where she claims she works as an employee.

At Kidz Village

Ummm - Plastic Cake

Her cousin, the BRS, continues with her main effort – growing like the proverbial weed. Each new batch of photos I can see the incremental changes that arrive at breathtaking pace in the first couple months of life. It looks like I’m going to be able to spend the BRS’ first Easter with her although the likelihood of an Easter egg hunt is minimal, I’m sure to Riggins’ consternation.

Dad Hangs

Out for Walk with Freind

Riggins on Overwatch

Earlier this week I went to see Paul, Apostle of Christ. I remember early in my life reading an article where different authors nominated who they believed to be the most influential people in all of history. One author chose Paul of Tarsus and I was mystified because I’d obviously heard of him at church and concluded he was just a prolific letter writer. This led me to look into his story but with limited success because this was a couple decades before the internet. I was therefore hoping to gain a better understanding of his role in the early church through this film but I was disappointed. The acting was fine as Jim Caviezel moving on from Jesus to play the apostle Luke who is visiting an aging Paul in a Roman prison where he awaits execution. Paul’s story is then told through flashbacks but these are sparse. Most of the movie involves the persecution of Christians in Nero’s Rome and the Roman prison commandant’s sick daughter. Paul’s story is still amazing but for the most part rarely explored in the movie with his name on it.

Opening Day I Guess

Two Beautiful Ladies Last Night

Today marks the first games of the baseball season and a day I usually used to embrace with the trademark optimism of a lifelong Red Sox fan. I say used to because I’m just not that excited any more. I don’t know if that is a result of getting older or the glacial pace of the games. It probably has more to do with the unbelievable success of all of New England’s sports teams over the past twenty years, unheard of during my youth where my fascination with sports first germinated.

I’m much more excited about my nightly calls with granddaughters although the FBR is at times entirely too busy to focus on me. It’s during those lulls in attention that I can have an actual adult conversation with either my daughter or Wingman. The FBR always senses my lack of attention on her though and usually swoops in to interrupt briefly before returning to ignoring me. My daughter has taken to placing the FaceTime calls while the FBR is eating dinner and therefore constrained from ignoring me. She took a couple photos of the interaction last night which was a lot of fun.

Talking with Grandpa Last Night

Highlight of at Least My Evening

And We Learn she Was Eating Spinach Macaroni

And The Dancing the Night Away

Weekend Eve!!!

Leadership 101

I’m asked, at times, what made me successful both in the Army and after leaving military service, taking over an organization fraught with union-management issues. I always harken back to the twenty seven years I spent in the Army where, almost unbeknownst to me, I learned a lot about leadership. The concept of leadership is a not as easily explained because it truly depends on the individual leader and the people being led. All that being said I know leadership when I see it and most especially when I don’t.

We recently had a leadership retreat where we put some of the subordinate supervisors through some leadership training. I presented a lesson where I highlighted what I believed to be the precepts of good leadership, taken from both my time in uniform and since:

Set the Example - a good leader is always being evaluated by those he/she leads and should model the behavior under scrutiny at least to the standards subordinates are held to.

Take care of subordinates – one of the most important aspects of my success has been enabling subordinates to make a hero out of me by overachieving themselves. A leader has to know his people, what’s important to them and do everything within his power to insure those needs are met so they can be successful.

Don’t Play Favorites – you’ll always have subordinates you like better than others, that’s basic human nature, but a leader has to hold everyone to the same standard. A cardinal sin in leadership is unfairness and a label almost impossible to shed once subordinates have assigned it to you

Don’t walk by a mistake – this is corollary to setting the example. If a leader sees something he/she knows is wrong and doesn’t address the issue, he/she has failed. The weak-minded subordinates will interpret this to mean that standards have been lowered while the stronger ones will rightfully question their own efforts. Perception can become reality very quickly in any situation the leader is involved in because, as I noted above, subordinates are continuously evaluating a leader

Make decisions – this is one of the most common failures I see in civilian leaders. Subordinates will come to you with problems and expect you to resolve them. I was surprised when one of the early comments I heard from my civilian employees was that while they didn’t always like the decisions I made, at least I made them. People do not like uncertainty and this serves as fertile ground for the bad ones to sow discontent.

Focus at least one level above – Everyone has a boss. If an organization is going to be successful the leader of that organization needs to understand what’s important to that boss one level above.  

Confident but not arrogant – A leader has to have the confidence in his/her ability to lead or to at least project an image of self-assurance (perception = reality). Some of the worst leaders I saw in the military were ones of believed themselves incapable of error and refused to acknowledge any fallibility. One should never invest too heavily in received praise such as a performance evaluation.

Communicate – A critical aspect to leadership is the ability to effectively and quickly communicate what is expected of subordinates and the standards they must meet. There are very few mind readers out there.

Honest – You can’t get around this one and it’s actually the easiest standard to meet. Never, ever lie to subordinates. The truth has this pesky, almost infallible, ability to eventually come out and once a leader’s lies are revealed he/she is finished.

So granddaughters, when you read this in a couple decades I hope it offers you some insight into the mystery of leadership or at least my poor attempt to capture what I have learned. I offer it because I have it on good authority you both will be called upon to lead early in your adult lives. Quality is hard to miss, even at your very young ages.

Wife with one of those Las Lajas Sunsets

Pillow on Condo Couch Says it All

My wife continues to enjoy her tropical sojourn at our condo in Las Lajas. She’s had the builders in over the past week to address some of the things we noted on a punch list to correct and is very happy with the results. She’s also hosted her mom, her aunt, and starting last night her younger sister, so they’re having a lot of fun. Friends and family up here were pissed at me for the continuous photos when I was down there while they suffered through a polar vortex in January will be happy to learn she’s doing the same thing to me now. One that shows a Panamanian eagle stopping for a rest on the beach showers in front of the condo. I can’t wait to get back there.

Eagle Stop

View from Condo Balcony

Finally!

I hesitate to make any pronouncements because we are talking about New England but the snow finally seems to be receding. The edges of the lawns are starting to peek out from their snow cover and this will be the first week in the past month without a resident Nor’easter to contend with. I’m not making any plans to break out the sun tan lotion but it will be nice to be able to get out on the back deck to burn some steaks instead of creating a mess in the kitchen that I know I’ll have to clean up before my Favorite Panamanian returns. 

Snow Receding - Front yard This Morning

A guy I served with in the Army sent the following sample of bumper stickers seen on military bases. As I find myself surrounded by the most fantastically liberal state in the union in the People’s Republic of Taxxachusetts these caused me to harken back to the days when I wore a uniform. This past weekend marked the fortieth anniversary of first donning it:

Bumper-Stickers Seen On Military Bases

• 101st Airborne Division - “When it comes to Combat, we care enough to send the very best”

• “When in doubt, empty the magazine”

• “Sniper – You can run, but you’ll just die tired!”

• “Machine Gunners – Accuracy By Volume”

• “Except For Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism and Communism, WAR has Never Solved Anything”

• ” U.S. Military – Certified Counselors to the 72 Virgins Dating Club”

• " U.S Air Force – Travel Agents To Allah”

• “The Army – When It Absolutely, Positively Has To Be Destroyed Overnight”

• “What Do I Feel When I Kill A Terrorist? A Little Recoil”

• “Marines – Providing Enemies of America an Opportunity To Die For their Country Since 1775"

• “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Anyone Who Threatens It”

• “Happiness Is A Belt-Fed Weapon”

• “It’s God’s Job to Forgive Bin Laden – It was Our Job to Arrange the Meeting”

• “Artillery Brings Dignity to What Would Otherwise Be Just A Vulgar Brawl”

• “One Shot, Twelve Kills – U.S. Naval Gun Fire Support “

• “My Kid Fought In Iraq So Your Kid Can Party In College and Protest”

• “A Dead Enemy Is A Peaceful Enemy – Blessed Be The Peacemakers”

• “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But the serviceman doesn’t have that problem.”

• “The American Soldier does not fight because he hates who is in front of him; he fights because he loves who is behind him.”

The FBR almost didn’t want to talk to me last night, apparently she had her fill of me over the weekend, but she eventually relented when we got into a game of peekaboo. Later in the evening she placed her own call, without my daughter’s knowledge, to my wife down in Panama. Her abuela could not have been more pleased.

I checked out the sequel to Pacific Rim last night and really enjoyed it. Any blockbuster sequel has a hard row to hoe but this succeeds because it trusts the actors and they deliver, especially John Boyega. He continues to prove he is so much more than a reformed storm trooper and delivers the right combination of humor, panache, and charisma as the son of the last movie’s hero. Thankfully Charlie Hunam was jettisoned for a younger, more appealing crew of jaeger pilots. Jing Tian steals every scene she’s in, just as she did in The Wall. The kaiju are back menacing a rebuilding earth and Boyega along with Clint Eastwood’s kid are responsible for saving humanity. This movie puts to bed the notion that kaiju only fight in the rain and the CGI work was impressive as poor Tokyo is once again leveled by marauding mega-monsters. My only issue is with the climactic battle where the kaiju are so formidable that the jaegers are basically useless. Still it was pure popcorn driven fun with hardly a thespian utterance heard.

I finished the next book in RW Peake’s excellent series of a Roman infantryman’s experience in late Republican Rome with Marching with Caesar: Conquest of Gaul. The hero, Titus Pullo, finds himself in Caesar’s 10^th legion facing hordes of rampaging Gauls, Germans, and Britons. Peake’s excellent attention to detail brings the life of the ordinary solider from this era to life. It also highlights how much Caesar accomplished in the short span of time. He’s one of my favorite historical figures and it was so fun to see him viewed from one of his foot soldiers. A great read, I’m already on to the next book in the series.

New Jersey on my Mind

Hanging with the FBR in Maplewood Center

I haven’t inhabited the internets for the past couple days because I’ve been in complete thrall as only a two year old granddaughter can engender. I cruised down in the early morning hours of Saturday and upon arrival was greeted by a huge and very welcome hug from the FBR as her control over me was immediately and firmly established. Our first order of business was opening all the gifts her abuela had acquired for her over the past couple months and artfully placed in a huge Easter basket. There were stuffed toys, books, stickers, bubble machines, and a lot of pink Easter grass which the FBR immediately took to spreading around the living room floor while the toys awaited.

Abuela's Easter Basket

She acquired a flashlight of her very own since she steals mine every time she comes to visit. We got to work utilizing as many of the gifts as quickly as possible which meant art projects and sticker books were soon in full engagement mode. We also had to read each of the books she received, which included one of her hero – Daniel Tiger. We were soon out on the back deck where I was assigned the task of bubble blower in chief while the FBR chased down every soapy orb within range for destruction. Even though they received a lot of snow from this past week’s storm it was virtually all gone. There was one small section of snow in the very back of the yard and the FBR was soon on station there encouraging higher bubble production by hurling snow balls at me.

Welcome Back Grandpa!

Back Deck Bubble Operations

Our next destination was the restaurant that Wingman manages in downtown Maplewood. The FBR was obviously well known to the cadre of people who work for her father and we were afforded rock star treatment upon arrival because we had the FBR in tow. As with most restaurant managers facing the weekend lunch rush Wingman had scant time to hang with us but we were joined by the other Maplewood Curbside gal and her fabulous family. It made for a very long but thoroughly enjoyable lunch and the second gen curbsiders reveled in each other’s familiar company.

Wingman Managing the Situation

Fun Lunch Crowd at Wingman's Restaurant

2d Gen Curbsiders

A semi-weird evening ensued surrounding the FBR’s bath. She has always loved bath time and could be in the middle of an emotional meltdown which would cease at the mere mention of taking a bath. In the wild and wacky world of the two year old mind on Friday night she declared she wasn’t going to take a bath, just adamantly refused. My daughter rightfully figured the “grandfather effect” would cure all intransigence on Saturday night but once again – we’re dealing with a two year old. She fought like the dickens about getting into the tub even when told she was making grandpa sad.

Showing me her Creations

Reading Time

Artist in Residence

I was down in the living room after the failed bath attempt when the FBR came scurrying down the stairs and asked if I was still sad. When I said I was because she was so mean to her mother she ran into the kitchen and told her mother that she “knew what grandpa needed to not be sad – music!”. I’m not making this up. She ran to her toy stash and retrieved a play guitar and proceeded to serenade me. I defy any grandfather not to crack a smile at this point and when I did, she jumped up and down and ran to her mother proclaiming that grandpa was no longer sad. Of times like these are an old infantryman’s heart melted completely.

With her Haul

Depositing her Gains in the Piggy Bank

Sunday morning saw the big Easter egg hunt which the Easter bunny had hidden throughout the house overnight. There were a lot of them too, plastic eggs stuffed with either money or candy. I have it on good authority that it is not a good idea to try and stuff these eggs after a well spent celebration of First Friday – but I digress. The FBR immediately grasped the concept of the hunt and loudly exulted with each new egg found. It was hilarious and heartwarming and I found myself transported back to when her mother and uncle doing the same thing in a town house in Annandale, Virginia in the 1980s.

Facetiming with Abuela

I knew I had to share this with my Favorite Panamanian and we caught her just getting up at our condo. Via FaceTime she saw the FBR succeed in the hunt and open all of her treasures. Since my wife had done virtually all of the work preparing for this event (except the egg stuffing) I know it killed her to have to watch via video when all of her hard work was redeemed in a very happy granddaughter dance.

On the Pirate Ship

Mom Trying to Keep Up

Helping Where Needed

The Bow Slides

The egg hunt was followed by a trip to her now favorite playground which she calls the Pirate Playground since the centerpiece is a huge replica sailing ship composed of ladders and slides. Even though it was unseasonably cold the FBR was in her element charging from one apparatus to another usually with her grandfather trailing further behind. We had a particularly good time in the swing where she set new records for height with some healthy pushes from your author. There is something truly medicinal about a granddaughter’s squeals of delight.

Paths Are Boring Mom - Let's Strike out Through the Wilderness

Grandpa is a Good Pusher

And We both Loved it

We lunched at their favorite diner. I was exceptionally pleased when the FBR demanded to sit next to me until I figured out she was doing this because it offered her a better chance of escape then being hemmed in by her mother. She devoured some pancakes after liberally dousing the menu in maple syrup.

Diner Buds

Unfortunately the work week beckoned and when the FBR went down her nap I had to journey back to laundry duty as well as cooking for the upcoming week. The trip down and back both went well as the car could probably make the trip by itself now having worn a virtual path to Maplewood. I can’t believe that I now look forward to these trips through the traffic wastelands of Connecticut; well at least the ones going south.

The BRS with her First Band-aides

ABFA Mom

These kinds of weekend are impossible to fully capture in the written word so I’ve included a lot of pictures to make up for my lack of literary ability. The two granddaughters have termed up superbly to rob any chance of loneliness over the past couple of weekends in my wife’s absence. Next weekend could be a challenge since Great Aunt just canceled a proposed pre-Easter evening at my favorite Rhode Island Irish bar but I’m sure I’ll come up with something to amuse myself with.

Meeting New Freinds

Why Are These just out of Reach?

Going to Have to Grow

Speaking of the BRS, she continued to hold court over the weekend recovering from her first set of inoculations. She’s meeting some of her future playmates as a number of my Favorite Son’s and the ABFA’s friends have come to meet her bringing along their own children. It seems like yesterday when I would wander downstairs in our Charlton home after one of my son’s parties to find some of these same new parents strewn about the floor wherever they had fallen the night before, but that’s a story for another day.

Wife with her Las Lajas Sunset

Her Mother and Aunt Strolling the Beach - No Snow There

After suffering through the Easter egg hunt due to her distance from it my wife returned fire by sending photos of the beach and particularly the Sunday night sunset. She claimed it was spectacular even by Las Lajas standards which are lofty indeed. I shrugged it off since nothing could diminish the afterglow of time spent with even a bath recalcitrant FBR and her parents.

It Was Pretty Spectacular