Wow, it’s been way too long.

Life has been so many things lately: busy, scary, fun, hectic, frustrating, daunting, exciting, painful, amazing … and more.

But none of that has made it here. For some reason I just haven’t been inspired to write, or felt I had time to do it. Even now this post is going to be very short, as I’ve just got too many things to do.

I'm not in this photo, but I did run between this huge inflatable dude's legs.

But I wanted to at least let you all know that after just over a year of running I completed my first half marathon! I did it barefoot, as planned. I did NOT do it in under 2 hours, as I’d hoped to. And I did NOT do it injury-free. You can see all the details over at dailymile. I’ve actually been much better about posting there than here lately, so if you want to catch up a little and don’t mind reading about running, have a look over there.

Until next time!

I missed my own blogiversary. This blog is now one-year old. Yay blog!

I started badassdadblog on April 14, 2009. That first post was titled “stuff that’s hard,” and in the 12 months since, I think I’ve done my share of that sort of stuff. I’m not sure a full recap of the last year is worth the time to read (or write), and much of that you could get by going through the archives, if you wanted. But I do want to share a few things on this auspicious occasion.

March for Babies 2010. Photo by Megan Hook.

I’m very proud to have walked in last weekend’s March for Babies with Heather, Mike, and Annabelle Spohr (who is clearly slacking off by not having her own blog. I mean, you’re three months old, kid! What are you waiting for?). This blog was largely inspired by the amazing courage, resilience, and support I witnessed from and surrounding the Spohrs when they lost their first daughter, Madeline, just over a year ago, because of complications related to her premature birth. I discovered many wonderful things through those events. An amazing community of parents and others, an enjoyable and valuable outlet in writing, and the power of social media to bring people together in very real ways.

Another thing I’m proud and happy about is my health and fitness. I’m in better physical shape than I’ve been at any other time in my life. I’m wearing pants the size I wore in high school, and I ran 10 miles last week. In a row! That’s huge for me. I’ve been running regularly since October 2009, and the benefits have been amazing. Weight loss and fitness are definitely among them, but so has been finding yet another wonderful online and real life community: runners. Much of that has been through dailymile, which has been a constant source of motivation, support, and inspiration for me as a new runner.

Here’s how many miles I’ve logged so far:

Better yet, here’s how many donuts I’ve burned:

Other areas of my life have been less rosy. OK, to be fair, there’s really just ONE area I have any reasonable right to bitch about: work. Or, more specifically, lack of work. Or, if we’re being REALLY specific, lack of income. I’ve certainly been busy for most of the last year. Between working with a close friend on his startup business, building web pages for small businesses with a former coworker, and many days being full-time dad, there’s been no shortage of WORK. There’s just been a shortage of monetary compensation. I think one day I’ll look back on this year, a year where I have been able to spend more time with my boys and my wife than ever before, and think how lucky I was. But that will be much easier once I am again gainfully employed, and not worried about the steadily sinking waterline of our savings.

I’ve written less often here recently. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, or whether I plan to do more or less in the future. I intend to keep writing, and I expect I’ll go through periods when I’ll write a lot, and others when I’ll write less. Whatever the case, I want to sincerely thank you. All of you who read, comment on, and share this blog with me. It’s been a really exciting, challenging, fun year. How about we go for two?

I took the plunge. I switched my blog from Blogger to WordPress, and full-on hosted WordPress, at that. Got myself a spiffy grown-up theme called Thesis, and even wrote some custom CSS and PHP. If you don’t blog, you probably don’t know what this means, or care. If you DO blog, congratulate me! It was actually fairly painless, after the few nerve wracking minutes when nothing worked. Now that it’s done, I’m sure I’ll run into the odd hiccup here and there. Change is hard. If you notice anything funny, please drop me a line and let me know.

What does this mean for you, oh reader of this blog? Probably very little. Things look different, I suppose. Hopefully better. Some of the tools and toys I can use now might make it easier and/or more fun for you to interact with this blog, me, and others who read it. If you read the blog via RSS, hopefully you won’t even notice the change. Again, if you DO notice anything odd, lemme know.

One thing to note, if you were following my blog through Google Friend Connect, you’ll need subscribe to my feed or connect in some other way. If you CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT GOOGLE FRIEND CONNECT!, let me know in the comments and I’ll see about adding it back.

Also, if you were previously on my blogroll, you’ll notice it’s gone. I, uh, kinda lost it. I’m not sure how that happened, but I’m gonna have to start building it from scratch again. Truth is I’ve been pretty behind on blog reading lately, so it’s probably a good time to revisit that list.

This is a time of change. Of new beginnings. Of growing up. At least, for my blog.

Dear Badass Dad,

Hi! Remember me? It’s been a while so I just thought I’d make sure you hadn’t forgotten about me! LOL! Like you would! Ha!

Luvs,
Your Blog

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Dear Badass Dad,

Hi, again. I don’t want to be a pest – LOL! – but since I didn’t hear back after my note a couple weeks ago I thought I’d write again, just to make sure you got that last note. Can’t trust email, you know! Ha ha! Anyway, drop me a line, or even toss some photos my way for a Wordless Wednesday. Whatevs! Just wanna stay in touch.

Totes lurve you,
Your Blog

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Badass Dad,

Hi. Uh, this is awkward. I know you got that last email because I sent it return receipt and I saw you opened it like one minute and 38 seconds after I sent it, so since it’s been almost a week I’m really wondering if I did something wrong. Was it that thing a while back where people couldn’t leave comments? I swear that wasn’t my fault. I have NO IDEA why that happened, but it won’t happen again, I swear. Please, just post something. ANYTHING!

Your Blog

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All right, Assclown. WTF? It’s September, dude. You posted like TWICE in the WHOLE MONTH OF AUGUST! You expect people to just keep checking their reader or clicking the bookmark to your blog to find the SAME OLD SHIT!!!??? They won’t, dude. They’ll fucking punt your ass and move on. You may think you’re some hot shit dad blogger but man you are a DIME A DOZEN! Anybody can put up a blog, dude. It’s not hard. It’s totally easy and FREE, so seriously, ANYBODY can do it. I mean, you didn’t even customize your fucking blog template. You used some stock Blogger bullshit theme and expect people to give a SHIT ABOUT YOU!? Whatever, dude. They don’t, and neither do I. I’m done. I give up. You can fuck off for all I care.

Your Former Blog

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I’m sorry. Please write.

Love,
Your Blog

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Seriously, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean those things I said. Of COURSE people still care about you! You’re a GREAT blogger! I mean, you’ve got like 47 followers! And I’m sure that’s just a drop in the bucket since most people don’t even know what following IS! I’m sure you totally have HUNDREDS of people who read EVERY POST you write, and would read every day if you posted more. Not that you need to post more. You totally don’t. I mean, three weeks seems like a long time to go without a post, but that’s totally just my opinion. I’m sure you have some brilliant cunning plan or whatever (LOL!), and your next post is probably going to be huge! EPIC!!! Not that all your other posts aren’t. They totally are!

Friends? I hope so. Please write.

Love,
Your Blog

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Now I’m worried you might be dead. Are you dead? Please write.

Your Blog

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Dear Blog,

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Just been busy and haven’t felt inspired to write. Don’t worry, I’ll write soon. Thanks for checking in. And, uh, chill out, ok?

Sincerely,
Badass Dad

“Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world. Even if what is published is not true.” 

It’s Tuesday.

That means I should write a blog post. Tuesday is blog post day.

Why Tuesday?

Well, weekends are out – I’m usually too busy to write, and everyone’s too busy to read. Monday is too “back to work” and Friday is all “weekend’s here!” Wednesday is “hump day” and Thursday is “almost Friday!” So, Tuesday.

But yesterday was a holiday, so this feels more like Monday. We had a lovely long weekend. I took Friday off and went to see Star Trek with Lisa. Much fun. We had sushi for lunch and had a nice relaxing time with no kids in tow. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were family days. Hanging out with the kids. Seeing friends. Going to the park. Bailing on plans to go to the beach (sorry, Pete). Putting a bench around our tree in the backyard. Other than a marked shortage of naps for me, it was a wonderful long weekend.

Today the California Supreme Court upheld the ban on same-sex marriage put in place last year by Proposition 8.

I 100% expected this, but it still makes me sad.

I expected it because the court wasn’t ruling on the merits of same-sex marriage. They did that already. In spring 2008 when they said it was legal under the state constitution for same-sex couples to marry. So a lot of gay couples got married. Friends of ours. And family. Then some folks with lots of money put an initiative on the ballot last fall and changed the state constitution. So gay marriage was no longer legal. So today the court ruled on whether the process surrounding that ballot initiative was legal, and they said it was, so gay marriage is out. But, since it was legal for a few months, anyone who got married then is still married. Which is nice, I guess. Also, confusing.

This isn’t a political blog. It’s a parenting blog, basically. Which means it’s a family blog. And this is about family. Very close friends and members of my family are gay. Some of them are married. So far this has not caused the destruction of a single straight marriage that I know of. I’ve seen several marriages fall apart recently. It’s terrible to watch friends go through the deconstruction of everything they thought they would be doing for the rest of their lives. It’s heartbreaking. And sad. And not one of them blamed gay marriage.

Prop 8 proved what I’ve believed for a long time: the California ballot initiative process is a disaster. Lawmaking shouldn’t be left to the general public. Politicians are far from perfect, but we elect and pay them to do a job: make laws. We give them that authority and responsibility to understand the implications of the laws they make and to do the right thing. They screw it up a lot, but it’s their job. It’s not our job.

Even if you think we should vote on how to spend money or on taxes or bond measures, civil rights should not be subject to majority rule. The very concept of civil rights hinges on protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority. If left to voter approval, we’d still have racial segregation in certain parts of the country. There are many more persuasive arguments for gay marriage than any I could make. I doubt I’m going to change anyone’s mind. Sadly, I’m not sure minds can be changed on this issue. I hope I’m wrong. Everyone should have the right to marry the person they love. We need our leaders to lead. This shouldn’t be about what people think. It’s about what’s right.

So, I’m disappointed in California, the only place I’ve ever lived.

But Star Trek was cool. So there’s that.

I’m not good at sticking with stuff that’s hard. I tend to start things then not see them through. Here is a list of things I’ve started and not really finished to my satisfaction.

• guitar lessons
• bass guitar lessons
• voice lessons (yes, I got a degree, but more on that later)
• blogging (see how sometimes I try again?)
• working out (i’m back on this one, and so far so good)
• losing weight (see above)
• pyramid schemes (this was a bad idea. it’s good I bailed)
• writing thank you notes
• cleaning up immediately after cooking

I get all fired up about something new. Then days, weeks, or months (ok sometimes a few minutes) go by and I’ve forgotten about it completely. Blogging is a good example. Last October I discovered a whole bunch of blogs by fellow parents I found inspiring, motivating, funny, and generally awesome. So I thought, hey, I could do THAT. So I started a blog. Because it was free, and because I could. I wrote a few posts. They were pretty lame. I couldn’t think of much to write besides “hey, look, I have a blog!” So that petered out after a few weeks.

Today I’m starting again. We’ll see how it goes.

I was inspired in part by two amazing people and the unbelievable community of love and support that has grown up around them. They are parents. They blog. They’re on Twitter (I’m on Twitter to. @badassdad05. Come find me and say hi.) They’re funny and warm and open and generally awesome. They are Heather and Mike Spohr. You can read about them on their blogs The Spohrs Are Multiplying and The Newborn Identity. Be forewarned, it gets pretty sad. Last week they lost their little girl Maddie, 17 months old. Lisa and I went to the memorial service today, and it was beautiful and positive and completely emotionally exhausting. I’m really glad we went, but man it was rough. And I’d never met Maddie. So I can’t begin to imagine what her family is experiencing. Well, maybe I can begin to imagine it, but then I really want to stop imagining it because it’s horrible.

So, I’ve decided that if they can stand up at their daughter’s funeral and say things that are funny and moving and poignant then I can write a few words now and then. And pick up my guitar more often. And practice songs I don’t already know.

We’ll see how it goes.