Peanut

He's already so huge compared to these two-week pictures.

More Like It

Anxious to redeem the Philippines from my prior vacation post, I am pleased to report that Calatagan is fantastic (with photos to prove it).

Valentine's Lip Sync and Other Updates

I don't have permission to post all pics and videos, but here is Katie doing "It Takes Two" by Rob Base, with Michael attached. And since I felt the decoration team did an excellent job, I have posted some pics of their work. And a few other pics for good measure. If/when I obtain permission, I will add some excellent video.

This guy flew by my head at our Scout camp out last night. Picture doesn't offer scale. About one inch long. Hyrum Liddicoat expertly knocked him out of mid-air with his iPhone, missing my ear by mere inches.

Force Awakens via projector = best camp out ever.

Katie at work

Valentine's Playlist 2017

Songs from another great year with Katie Hart.

1. The Eye, Brandi Carlile--This song makes me thankful Katie had the patience to stick with me early on.
2. Try Everything, Shakira--Like, for example, having another baby.
3. Getting Ready to Get Down, Josh Ritter--I just think it's a fun song.
4. I Lived, OneRepublic--Pretty much our family theme song. "I owned every second that this world could give; I saw so many places; the things that I did." We listened to this about 15 times while driving from Charleston to Orlando last summer.
5. O Mio Babbino Caro, Renee Fleming--One of these things is not like the other. But Renee is just the best.
6. Astronauts, Rachel Platten--"Let the world disappear, there are places up here we can hide. Somewhere only we can find."
7. I Fall To Pieces, Patsy Cline--No explanation necessary. Just so great.
8. Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash--Ditto Ms. Cline.
9. We Know the Way, Opetaia Foa'i and Lin-Manuel Miranda--Another one made poignant by our frequent travels. "We keep our island in our mind."
10. Cupid, Sam Cooke

They Arrive

We watched Arrival last night. Such a great film. Shot straight into my all-time favorites list. Mild spoiler alert ahead: As Louise had her brain rewired by learning an alien language, I feel that my brain is being rewired by learning 12-year-old female offspring language.

But seriously, as I approach middle age, time has changed. The past is a bigger part of my present and, increasingly, I can predict at least the major trends of the future. Time becomes compressed. In the film, Louise sees the future. She sees pain and heartache. However, knowing that there is also joy, she makes the decisions that lead to the painful end. This resonated very much with my religious beliefs. Similarly, I have found great spiritual peace in accepting my place in the universe. Make no mistake, I am not resigned; I am consecrated. I interpreted the movie in this way. Louise "arrived" at spiritual peace by proactively choosing the path that was already laid out for her.

It is joyful to arrive, and to watch the arrival of my children.

Speaking of, here is a nice pic of Michael

I Have ADD

I'm not being funny or ironic. I officially have it; professionally diagnosed. I take medication for it. I am sharing in this forum with a small audience in mind. Maybe this will be helpful to them. If it is of interest to others, bonus.

I don't really love talking about it. Of all the mental health problems out there, I feel like my ADD probably has the least stigma, yet it totally has a stigma. Such as when a potential employer, upon learning that I take medication, said to me, "We don't hire people like that." Or, less seriously, but still not awesome, when people casually comment about how ADD is a made up thing.

On that point, for the sake of conversation, let me concede that it is a "made up" thing. That said, college is a made up thing. Sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day as a child is a made up thing. Placement tests are made up things. Personality screens used by employers are made up things. All of those made up things systematically work against people who have brains that work like mine. So when I get diagnosed with "made up" ADD, and I can take medication that allows me to pass those screening tests and become gainfully employed, I am thankful. So I don't even care if it's made up. The diagnosis describes me accurately and the treatment is effective.

Seeking professional help, even if a formal diagnosis does not follow, is not a sign of moral weakness. Accepting a diagnosis, including the taking of medication, is not giving up.

Of all the books I've read in trying to understand my own condition and other issues in my family, I like The Explosive Child the best. The prescribed solutions are not even as useful as the underlying premise of the book: That we all want to be good and useful to society, just some of us are unable without extra help. It is so charitable. And really it applies to all of us, not just those with problems that put us on one spectrum or another. We all have difficulties we are trying to overcome.

Finally, to my fellow ADD afflicted, and those married to such, I recommend Brandi Carlile:

I am a sturdy soul
And there ain't no shame
In lying down in the bed you've made
Can you fight the urge to run for another day?
You might make it further if you learn to stay

National Lampoon's Subic Vacation

We wanted to get out of the city for a few days. Manila is a massive concrete jungle and with the baby, we hadn't yet had a chance to get to any of the world famous beaches of the Philippines.

All the top rated beaches, even though still in the same country, require either a boat or a plane ride from Manila. With the baby, we were hoping for just a reasonable road trip for our first time out. For various reasons, I had procrastinated the reservations. So the main resorts were all booked up. Thus, I looked for a house through Airbnb.

Based on conversations overheard here and there, I had Subic Bay in my head as a reasonable place to go within a few hours drive of Metro Manila. I booked a house that looked nice online and we headed out. Upon later reflection, I was able to recall that those overheard conversations said only that Subic Bay was "a place" that a person "could go." No actual recommendations.

The drive was  nice. No problems there. As we rounded a corner and made the final descent over the hills and into the bay, I started having my first apprehensions. We could finally see the water, and it was full of massive tankers.

We rounded another corner and were greeted by the sign: "Welcome to Olongapo Home of the Most Beautiful Women in the World." At first we found this charming. Before long, I was realizing less virtuous reasons a town might label itself thus. Think Bourbon Street, but less classy and totally impoverished.

We pulled in to our neighborhood and Katie just started laughing and saying, "It will be fine. It's totally fine. This is an adventure. This will be fine." Imagine that being said in a kind of hysterical, Shutter Island sort of way. If you've seen any films by Eli Roth, you should be able to imagine the neighborhood perfectly.

Our house was indeed nice. Once inside, it was totally nice. Our hosts met us. They were kind. They made some recommendations. The kids, very good sports, were eager to get to the beach. So we quickly settled in and then reloaded the car in beach mode and headed out.

At the beach, my pattern recognition radar sent up immediate warnings, but it took a few minutes to process and act. There were no families at this beach. There were no children, except mine. Up and down the beach there were middle-aged (and older) white males and young native females. No families. Huh, that's weird.

There was a party barge about 50 yards out in the water with a restaurant on it. My kids were just getting into the water near the barge when Katie asked me how they might flush the toilet on the barge. Indeed, I could see the barge had a bathroom. So I walked to the water and told the kids that the barge might be discarding human waste so let's move away and please, don't put your heads under water.

That's when I noticed that the water was black and viscous. I pondered that for a moment as we walked down the beach away from the barge. The kids got back in the water. I saw a sewage drain from a beachside hotel draining directly onto the beach, the sludge being absorbed by the sand. I looked down the beach from that sight and saw that the sub-sand sludge would be entering the bay exactly where my kids were swimming.

So I did a Google search on my phone of "can you swim in Subic Bay." When the results came up, I ran to the kids yelling, "Out! Everyone out right now!"

Oh, Internet. You only find what you Google for.

On the bright side, when we returned to our rented house, we discovered Settlers of Katan as the first board game the entire family loves to play together with minimal fighting. So that's a major win, frankly.

Next day, we tried a nearby water park in order to enjoy water while avoiding the bay. We were almost literally the only ones there. It was like one of those post-apocolypse movie scenes at the abondanded amusement park.

Here is the view from the top of the water slide ladder:

We enjoyed the slides. I still told them to keep their heads above water and mouths shut tight. We enjoyed the clean private beach area.

Here you can see the local kids, wearing their school uniforms, sitting on top of the rock watching my kids in the wave pool.

The kayak ride in the bay, below, ended it for me. It was a clear kayak, meaning I could see below. As I paddled through and over garbage, I just couldn't take it. We returned, earlier than planned, to Metro Manila.

Tim's Favorite Things 2016

Things I used for the first time, discovered, read, watched, experienced during 2016 that were totally awesome:

1. Bullet Journaling. Rediscover the joy of analog. I switched from Moleskine to Leuchturm and I am very happy with the switch.
2. Movies. 2016 was full of (mostly Disney) movies I love.
1. Finding Dory. Average in many ways, but I loved the idea of absent parents leaving clues to help us find our way home when we get lost in the big ocean of life. Love, love, love.
2. The Jungle Book. "The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack."
3. Moana. What a great theme: Looking backward to our ancestors gives us courage to move forward and explore. Truth!
4. Fantastic Beasts. A hero without muscles, Newt Scamander wins with kindness and quiet persistence.
3. The smell of baby powder and Dreft. Having a baby again is so awesome.
4. The Man of La Mancha. So, I saw this 20 years ago, but listened to the soundtrack this week for the first time since then, and discovered this musical only has meaning when you reach age 40. My new favorite. Now I have to read Don Quixote.

Christmas Pics

Warning: Intended for grandparental audiences; others view at your own boredom risk.

Henry with new Pokemon game for 3DS, and reindeer antlers.

Michael observes and plots for greater participation next year.

These are so-called "gaming" headphones, designed to be worn comfortably for many hours.

So many more gifts and we are thankful for all, but didn't want to post a pic of literally every item.

I Walked in Manila Today

We have a driver. I feel like I could end the post with just that sentence. Think about that. I, Tim Hart, totally ordinary kid from Idaho with a modest government salary, have a personal driver. So the economics of Manila are nuts.

So my driver was driving me to work this morning. Katie needed him back earlier than usual for appointments she had. Traffic, always a nightmare, was worse than usual. We were completely stopped, half way to the embassy. So I made the call: I'm getting out. Driver, go get Katie. And I walked the last two kilometers.

You see things when walking that you miss when driving. You smell things. You feel things. Homelessness in America is usually an individual thing. In Manila, on the busiest avenue, it is a multi-generational family affair. I observed families washing, eating, playing together. On the highway. So the economics of Manila are nuts.

I don't have problems. If I ever imagine that I have problems, please punch me directly in the face.

Hey, I'm 40, Yo

Just turned 40. So now I get to pretend like I've learned some things and that they are worth passing on to others in a blog.

If we practice gratitude, disappointments can reveal a sense of purpose.

The secret to progress is rhythm. The longer you keep a similar rhythm of life, the more your mind will come up with natural and easy improvements to efficiency and effectiveness.

But too long in the same rhythm is stagnation, and you'll get depressed. So do something wacky every now and then.

In the professional world, we are all replaceable. So we distinguish ourselves primarily through loyalty and effort.

And a rant: The longer I spend in professional life, the more convinced I am that there is maybe $1 trillion of hidden value waiting to be unlocked in our economy but hiring managers are too lazy and too lacking in creativity to understand how and where to look for real talent. Like this LinkedIn article (link) in which a hiring manager tells about this laziness and lack of creativity and tells everyone to adjust accordingly instead of telling hiring managers to stop being bad at their job. This is the opposite of Liz Wiseman's Multipliers, which is my new favorite corporate leadership book.

My business partner and I were hiring an administrative assistant years ago. We received many resumes from former and current administrative assistants and one resume from a restaurant kitchen manager. My partner threw the kitchen manager out immediately. But I said, wait a minute, what do we know about restaurant kitchen managers? She receives urgent instructions delivered without regard for politeness, she deals with angry people, she delivers urgent instructions, she manages (in her head) a hundred micro-details about patron dishes and keeps it all straight. This is exactly the skill set we need. Let's interview her. We eventually hired her and she was perfect for the job. Plus she was more grateful and therefore more loyal. I changed careers but she is still working for my former partner 9 years later.