Author: King Tom

There’s More to Hope Than Meets the Eye

For Hope’s bedtime tonight, we were looking at this book of pictures of animals. She would tell me what kind of animal it was then would ask me it’s name, to which I would reply with some name off the top of my head.

Me: And what are these guys?

Hope: Whales.

Me: Right.

Hope: What are their names?

Me: Um…Bluestreak and Optimus Prime

Hope: Optimus Prime is a robot!

Even though it serves me right, I’m very proud.

And because it’s winter, here’s Hope in the snow:

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What Hope Wants for Christmas

One of Hope’s favorite books is Don’t Get a Gink, a story starring The Cat in the Hat as he tries to convince some kids looking for a pet to not pick the titular creature. The book never says why one shouldn’t get a Gink. Additionally, judging by his actions from his first book, I don’t trust the Cat in the Hat. So each time we finish the book, I tell her that I want a Gink. Lately, I’ve been telling Hope I want a Gink for Christmas, something she always protests.

Recently, we were getting Luke and Hope’s picture taken with Santa. Hope went up, sat in his lap and shouted out “My daddy wants a Gink for Christmas,” to which Santa politely asked her to repeat. But she continued her argument, saying “No! No Gink!”

I don’t know if she ever got to tell him what she wanted for herself. But in between laughing at the situation it felt nice that when she had the chance to speak with the big guy, she thought about me.

Have a great Christmas.

Hope and Luke with Santa

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Thumbs vs. Stars

I’ve been into digital music for a long time.

Back in the days before Napster, I remember getting songs from shifty FTP sites and spending a week ripping my CDs to my computer. I’ve also listened to a lot of streaming music, starting when one of the earliest versions of Windows Media Player featured a directory of radio stations with online feeds.

From the early days, my player of choice was WinAmp. I still use it to listen to my music on my computer and phone. Lately, though, I’ve been branching out- to Google Music (to store my music elsewhere and to buy new music) and services like Spotify and Pandora (to discover new music, or to listen to something I may not own). Each service/player has its own peculiarities, but there’s one thing the three streaming programs have in common that sets them apart from WinAmp how users rate songs.

Years back, WinAmp added a feature allowing users to give star ratings to songs. You give five stars to the songs you really like, zero to the ones you hate. Works great, especially if you have a large collection.

Spotify and Pandora opt for the simple thumbs up, thumbs down approach. For the most part, it makes sense if you’re adding new music to a playlist. Give a song or artist enough thumbs down and you’ll never hear it again. But for songs that are already on the playlist, it’s useless. Google Music also uses this approach, which doesn’t make sense. With Google Music, you’re listening to songs you already own. Why would you give a bunch of songs you own (for non-ironic purposes) thumbs down?

I’d much rather (for songs I’ve already said I wanted to listen to) rate a song with the more specific system. If I give a bunch of songs a thumbs up, that means I like them. But I don’t like them all equally.

If I had it my way, every way I listen to music would allow me to rate songs on a 1-100 scale. But that’s why I don’t write software.

King Tom

Hope’s Law

It’s taken more than a year, but a bill inspired by Hope is now part of Ohio Law.

This evening, Governor John Kasich signed Senate Bill 135, designating September as Craniofacial Acceptance Month. The Civee, Hope, Luke, The Civee’s parents and myself attended the signing with the bill’s sponsor, Senator Eric Kearney and some of the staff from the Cleft Lip and Palate Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. It was an incredible event to be a part of.

After waiting with sponsors and people involved with other bills getting signed, we got our own session with the governor. Luke had fallen asleep in my arms while we were waiting. We were ushered into the governor’s office, introduced and he started to talking to us. We thanked him and right off the bat, The Civee mentioned several of the state agencies and programs that helped us with Hope’s surgeries and therapy. The Governor invited Hope to come sit in his lap, which she did. He was explaining the signing process to her, but I think she really wanted to steal one of his pens.

He looked at me and said “tell me about her.” Even thought I was on the spot, I threw out everything I could think of-I mentioned she was born with a cleft lip and palate, has had two surgeries (but left out that she’ll need more) and has received therapy both at Nationwide and from a county school. He said it looked like she was doing great, which I agreed with.

The Governor then asked me about Luke (who had made it up to my shoulder, still asleep) and said “he’s perfect, isn’t he.” I instinctively replied “yes, they both are,” not trying to correct him, but more proud of both of my children.

Governor Kasich was really nice with us and took a bunch of pictures while signing the bill. He asked Hope to sit in his lap again at the end and pointed out the desk was used once by Abraham Lincoln. Hope seemed to like listening as he told her a bit about the 16th President. I really wanted to say “Hope, we met him at the fair,” but this time I kept my mouth shut.

And just like that it was over. We got one of the 50 pens used during the signing, which I’m going to put away somewhere for Hope. I’m happy we did this for many reasons, but the biggest is to raise awareness and get appreciation for those affected by craniofacial issues and those who help them. I’m also happy we did this for Hope. She’s too young to appreciate it now, but maybe she can use the experience for a civics class or something in the future.

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Hope’s Bill: Progress

A bill inspired by Hope is headed to the governor’s desk (or whatever surface the governor uses to sign acts into law).

Earlier today, the Ohio House passed Senate Bill 135, which designates September as Craniofacial Awareness Month. The Senate passed the bill back in May, during a session in which Hope got a nice round of applause from the lawmakers. This has been an interesting process to watch since The Civee first gave testimony on the bill more than a year ago.

I could go on about how great this is, but I think the Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Cleft Lip and Palate Center’s Facebook post put it best:

(And yes, the Christina referred to in that post is The Civee).

So thanks to The Civee, Senator Kearney (and his staff) and the team at Nationwide.

But that’s not the only cleft-related item. Today, I found out about Smile Trek, a journey undertaken by Marine Winston Fiore, who walked 5,000 miles across Southeast Asia to raise money for cleft surgeries. Fiore took the walk with fewer supplies than I have in my car trunk and used his Android and Google Maps to plan the trip. I don’t see anyone with an iPhone walking 5,000 miles across Asia. It’s an incredible story, check out the video:

And finally, here’s a picture of Hope and Luke:

King Tom

Columbus Ohio: City of Red Lights

I’ve lived in Columbus for almost 13 years. Driving here is different than around the New York area, where I grew up. There are some reasons why driving is easier, but there are a number of other factors that make it more difficult and aggravating.

While most of those reasons have to do with other drivers, there’s been one that’s annoyed me particularly lately: the fact that most of the city’s traffic lights are not synchronized. It’s a simple concept: if you’re driving one direction down a major street, the lights turn green one after the other so you don’t get stopped by red light after red light.

I work downtown, so I deal with this everyday. But yesterday afternoon it really got to me as we were driving home from COSI, a simple drive down Broad Street to Fourth Street to I-71. On that drive, we went through ten intersections with lights. We were stopped at red lights at seven of them. I’m not talking about drive to the light and come to a rolling stop and wait the two seconds for the next light to turn green. What happened with most of these lights was as soon as one light would turn green, the next would turn yellow, then red right as we got to the next light.

Downtown Columbus is not the most hopping place, especially on a weekend. There’s no reason for a quick ride to be punctuated by stops at seven red lights. There are small towns able to synchronize their stoplights. Why can’t Columbus?

King Tom

Learning to Move

Luke is almost five months old and he’s starting to do a lot more than just lay around.

Hope is very happy that her younger brother notices her. Luke will often laugh when she makes a funny noise or tries to joke with him. When Hope was Luke’s age, The Civee and I read every book or website we could find to know where she should be developmentally. We knew exactly what milestones she should reach each week and celebrated every one.

But with that a few years in the past and Luke being our second child, we are more relaxed. We don’t have all the milestones memorized. We don’t need to. We are happy he is where he is and celebrate each new accomplishment when it comes. Having two kids takes up more of our time, but it’s great watching them together.

And just as Hope was moving around as soon as she was able, Luke is ready to follow in her footsteps. Luke likes to stand up, whether it’s in his exer-saucer or Johnny Jump-Up. We think in the past week he’s spent more time in the exer-saucer than Hope did all the time we had it out for her. Hope is more interested in the exer-saucer now, showing Luke what each one of the distraction gadgets does.

But Luke isn’t content to just stand (with assistance) in one place. He enjoys time on the floor, is able to roll from one side to the other (and will roll all the way across a room if given the space). Luke is also starting to work on his crawling technique. Take a look (and I am aware he’s drooling. He’s a teething four-month-old. It happens):

I can’t remember the last time The Civee or I picked up a baby milestone book. And it doesn’t matter. Luke is developing and it’s something Hope, The Civee and I are able to enjoy. He’s happy. And he keeps us entertained.

 

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