On Stepfatherhood: The Emperor Strikes Back

My wife has talked me down from writing another nasty letter to my step-son's father. Al obviously had another sit down brainwash session with AJ this weekend (which is really quite industrious of the jerk-wad, since his son was only with him for a few hours).

AJ stated rather matter-of-factly a few moments ago that "Mark isn't my family."

Iris talked AJ through the process of understanding how I in fact was his family, but all I could do was angrily type a legally threatening cease and desist letter.

Given the fact that an angry argument between Al and my wife that would upset her late in her pregnancy is a bad thing, I decided to save it to my draft folder instead of sending it.

The man is either a complete moron or an insensitive jerk. Neither of these things are a positive influence on AJ, not to mention them being disruptive events for my family. Its irritating, and save for the delicate situation we're in right now what with the pregnancy, they would be actionable.

Instead, I'm pontificating into the ether about it, hoping to blow off some steam. I feel a bit better about it, knowing that the world reading my blog knows what a jerk Alvin Lloyd Lynch, Sr. is.

/rizzn

Incredibly Angry

People won't leave my damn car alone.

I've never had my car broken into before last year when my radio was stolen and my windows and dashboard were destroyed.

Yesterday someone broke into my car again, and destroyed part of the engine taking out the battery.

I swear, I'm so pissed right now I could spit nails.

/rizzn

On Stepfatherhood: Reloaded

I just wanted to take a second and thank all of you for the loads of letters and IMs I've recieved in response to my post about AJ's father, Al. I appreciate it, and your words were very encouraging.

The comments ranged from the Star Wars-esque ("Your the true father, Mark, only you!"), to the common sense ("Love AJ the best way you can. Your love will carry more weight in the long run than the confusion of the moment."). All of it was much needed, and I'm glad I can count on my friends and family being there with sage advice when I require it.

I am re-focused, and will be able to deal with Al in a calm and rational manner as well as dealing with my step-son in a way that does not indicate the conflict that Iris and I are experiencing with his father. Most of you said the same thing (and I think you are unfortunately correct): there's not much I or Iris can do that will change Al's behavior towards his son, and us attempting to correct him or educate him on what he's doing will only exacerbate things.

As for what AJ has decided to call me, he is back to calling me 'Dad' now, and seems to have forgotten or at least set aside what Al said to him.

Talk to ya later folks. Got another gazillion lines of code to write today.

/rizzn

PS: Special thanks to Val and Jeff.

A Lot of Interesting Tech Stuff

There's just a ton of stuff I want to talk about and do with the blog lately and just don't have the time resources to do it.

• Spotplex looks cool, but I can't get them to issue me my code for my blog widget.
  
• P2P banking is here, and I want to talk about that a bit - bringing power away from the banks and back to the people.
  
• Google getting hit for a billion - that's big stuff. I talked to Joel this afternoon who amazingly hadn't heard yet, so no insider information on how they're handling it (not that I'd be able it to post to the blog anyways!).
• RAMP is shaping up nicely, I want to get new screenshots out there.
• I'm getting some great advice from my friends re: my stepson situation.
• redesign: all my sites need them.

Lots of things. Probably Thursday before I can talk though.

/rizzn

Update (5:32 PM): I'm on the warpath! 602 lines of code written on a contract job today! In less than two hours!. I'm the MASTER CODER!

Sorry. Just hadda brag a bit.

On Stepfatherhood

I don't often make direct references to my personal life, but the events of last weekend and this morning, I believe, compel me to at least journal my thoughts on the topic. As most of you know, I'm recently married (and still loving it completely, incidentally). With the addition of my wife to my family came her five year old son, A.J.

The reason my wife was able to marry me is that the father of her first child was a capital jerk by the name of Al Lynch, and as such she was not married to him. I won't reveal the intimate details of his jerkitude in deference to my wife's right to privacy, but the bottom line is that he's a selfish dolt, a condition that continues to rear it's ugly head to this day.

About a month and a half ago, AJ started calling me Dad - a decision he came to completely on his own, and one that filled me with joy. I love my wife, and I have come to love AJ as well, and to have him finally reciprocate the sentiment was something that really made my day. I hadn't expected him to start calling me Dad until Jacob was born and talking and calling me Dad.

The day after he started calling me Dad, he pulled me aside and said: "From now on, I'm going to call you Dad, and you can call me 'kid' or 'son', but just don't tell my [maternal grandmother] or my Daddy | [Al]."

The following day, he was to go spend a week with his Grandmother, Uncle and Father in Dallas. When he came back, it took several hours, but he eventually pulled his Mother and I aside to talk to us about some things his Dad had said.

"Mom, why does Daddy say you suck and you're a bitch?" AJ asked. "And why does it hurt his feelings when I call Mark Dad?"

Fast forward to this morning, two days after another two-day trip with his father, when AJ pulls aside Iris to have a discussion on whether or not he should call me Dad or not.

I'm sorry, but I don't think that a child of five years old should have to wrestle with these sorts of dilemmas. It's cruel and selfish on Al's part, and it ultimately is going to destroy his relationship with his son. I'll always be there for AJ, and I'll always take care of him, and while it hurts me that he may decide to stop calling me Dad so he doesn't offend his Father, AJ will never know that - not until he's old enough to handle that.

My nuclear family upbringing didn't prepare me for this sort of thing. At this point, I'm not sure what the right move is. Anyone out there with some serious input, I welcome your advice.

Hey Folks...

Sorry I'm not super talkative today. I'm waist-deep in RAMP programming. You'll hear more from me on Monday.

Have a good weekend.

/rizzn

UPDATE: Before I go, I need to share this with you. Try to overlook the fact that it promotes Al Gore's useless TV channel. Deuce!

Jacob Li Hopkins: More Baby Pictures

In my continuing effort to inform the entire world that I have a son on the way, here are even more pictures of my unborn child... this time, an entire gallery of them.



In this collection you can actually see his face, and his profile. I did a little bit of Photoshop work on them once I got them home, so they're a bit easier to understand what you're looking at.

/rizzn

Announcing: Jacob Li Hopkins

Well, folks: for those of you who knew already that my wife was expecting, you knew this day would come - the day where I turn the widely lauded website of Rizzn.com into my personal baby album. That day has arrived. This morning, we found out that my wife Iris is having my son!

And you know I've got pictures to show. Check them out... and click on them for much more high resolution versions.

Also, Happy Valentine's to all you out there. I hope you are at least one small fraction of as happy as I am right now.

/rizzn

A Relatively Uneventful Day

This morning, after Iris left for work at Birthway, a good long lost buddy of mine named Matthew Finkelstein called. Hadn't heard from a Finkelstein in a while, so it was good to get the update. He called on his way back to the airport after having visited Joel for a week. He sounded refreshed and ready to attack the world again.

We had a good conversation about my family life, and the interesting bits of goings ons in both our families. Alas, our conversation was cut short by a tunnel on the train he was riding into the airport.

I got to the office and made it a point to complete my email correspondence I had been neglecting all week long.

Yesterday, I had a very interesting conversation with my landlord. I can't get into all of it right now, but I promise I'll talk about it here in the near future. Those of you who remember my past run-ins with Bert will be shocked and amazed.

There have been an over-abundance of opportunity thrown at me this week, and I'm not sure if I'm handling everything properly. Today, I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed, and there's about a one week gap in money that isn't affecting my bill-paying ability, but is seriously cutting into my walking around money flow, so that has something to do with it (right now, I can manage to pay all my bills, but I don't have any liquid assets to buy coffee or smokes next week - a real bummer for those that have to see me on a daily basis).

I've got a few clients who will be paying up two weeks from now that should aleviate that problem, but in the mean time, I'm going to be a bear to deal with. Perhaps it's finally time for me to give up smoking?

I've got more to say, but I also have a headache. I'm going to head home for the night.

/rizzn

Busy Week, Busy Day

My week has been nothing but me running around, but somewhere in the middle of it, I've gotten a fair amount of work done.

My Dad gets married tomorrow. It sort of sounds weird saying that. My parents split up a couple years ago and personally, I didn't think he was going to get re-married. As it turns out, I was wrong. A lot of this week has been wedding related in that aspect. As I mentioned earlier, I started the process of opening up an investment account, and I spent a lot of time setting up new business with my stable of clients this week as well.

On top of all that, I've also been working on programming this ... thing. I'm not sure what to call it. I think its going to be a unified management system for my entire life, or at least that's what it's looking like. I've been putting off automating a lot of the day-to-day tasks of running the OblongBox network and ModernOpinion.

In creating the system I'm working on, I'm accomplishing a couple things at once. I'm creating some portable modules I can use for other projects (things like profile and user management) as well as creating some tools that can make my life simpler. As I'm working on the various components of the system (which I'm taking special care to make as compartmentalized and scalable as possible), my mind is reeling as to what it's eventually going to encompass. The amorphous blob of a plan that's in my mind currently is some sort of answer to the Google/Yahoo account - something that does everything. I'm thinking image, podcast, and blog management, profile creation, money management... things like this.

The modules I'm putting in currently mostly have to do with aspects of blog management. I'm throwing in a few things that are monetization tools for bloggers and a profile management system. I'm trying to think of a community-ish way that's different from the norm to tie it all together.

Another thing that I'm thinking I'm going to tie into the system is this monstrosity that I built this week sitting next to my workstation.

I've been complaining for weeks that the way I gather my daily news and information has been sorely lacking. I hate the bias of MSM, but I enjoy the presentation. I like the perspective of New Media, but the tools for viewing and enjoying said media are a little lacking.

So I built this two computer - three monitor setup, that will eventually connect up to a server component I'm building, too. Essentially, one monitor is going to display a video feed that will be coming down from a Shoutcast video server. The content of the video server will be a combination of video podcasts that I have set up on the server as well as recorded TV shows from my home PVR that will get uploaded on an automated basis.

The second monitor will be headlines and images displayed in that Matrix style I've talked about a several times. I'm going to rig up either a button or a touch screen setup that will display the full articles on the monitor next to it for in depth reading.

It's not something I could easily package up and sell, but it will be a neat little info-pr0n showpiece for my office. I'll try to get some pictures up soon.

Nominally Interesting Day

I've had a nominally interesting day today.

This morning was eventful. Instead of rolling out of bed at my usual 10:00 or so, I was awoken by a phone call from the adoption agency down the street. Its an organisation called BirthWay, and they offer free pregnancy tests, and it's mostly the pro-life answer in our city to Planned Parenthood.

My wife and I had gone down there a few weeks ago to get a pregnancy test as the insurance company we had applied to didn't believe she was pregnant - something about needing empirical evidence or some such nonsense.

While we were there a few weeks ago, the lady who runs the place got our number because Iris had pitched in and helped translate some of the Spanish-speaking people applying for the birth tests to the non-Spanish speaking folks who worked there. They asked if she'd want to come back and help, and she said yes.

Which was why I was woken up at 8:00 AM this morning.

So she went and worked there this afternoon, and said she really enjoyed herself. I went to my meeting at UT only to discover it had been cancelled since my contact was out at a doctor's appointment.

I stopped by 5Tribe earlier today to report my findings on the research they had me doing, and it may eventually lead to my re-hire there on a more permanent basis (to revive the polling project, something that in my absence has devolved into obscurity).

Back at the ranch, I've been working the last couple days on building some tools for creating communities, mostly user management and profile management tools - things that I can compartmentalize and resell or re-use in other projects.

So, all in all, only a nominally interesting day. I warned you with the title, though.

/rizzn

A Better Ending than its Beginning

Today ended a lot better than it began.

I spent the bulk of the day in meetings. I started out at 5Tribe, giving them advice on a number of fronts, ranging from ad copy, to internet marketing tips, from our potential PoddedMeat revival to reviving the polling system I created for them last year. I came away with a few promising bits of business I might snap up if I stay on my toes and do what I know I'm able to do assuming I keep my own feet to the fire.

I came back, updated the N-Ventive crew on what's going on with the new PoddedMeat project, checked my email, set an appointment with my new investment advisor, and hit the road again.

This time I ran out to UT, to try to finalize the new content management project, and consult with them on some new business. After we get the content management up and running this week, I'll be presenting them with two new proposals - one to take their campus bi-annual magazine online, and the other to create a student-life blogsite and community for them.

UT is turning out to be a cash-cow for me, and if I achieve my New Year's Resolution of finding at least two more clients of their caliber and time commitment, I'm going to be living the dream - working 15 hours a week and living large.

In the mean time, I've been experimenting with a number of new advertising techniques. I'm very pleased with what I've found, and I'm looking at ways to apply these into some publishable case studies very soon, for my work with 3Degree and for myself.

In the Interesting News Department:

I read an article that was a bit ambiguous this morning, but definitely sounds good. According to Reuters (via Yahoo!):

A potential shortage of coins in the United States could mean all those pennies in your piggy bank could be worth five times their current value soon, says an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Francois Velde, senior economist at the Chicago Fed, argued in a recent research note that prohibitions by the Mint would unlikely deter serious speculators who already have piled up the coinage.

The best solution, Velde said, would be to "rebase" the penny by making it worth five cents rather than one cent. Doing so would increase the amount of five-cent coins in circulation and do away with the almost worthless one cent coin.

"History shows that when coins are worth melting, they disappear," Velde wrote.

"Rebasing the penny would ... debase the five-cent piece and put it safely away from its melting point," he added.

It's an interesting proposition, and could mean that it's time to take all your liquid assets and invest in pennies. Perhaps? Not sure. Someone read the article and tell me if that's the proper way to read that, because the wording is ambiguously written, and I'm not sure if that's what it's saying or not.

At any rate, I'm off to home with the wife and son. Deuce!

/rizzn

What I'm Working On

I'll be brief - my step-son's father is coming in an hour or so to come and pick him up, so I need to head on home. Here's what you can look forward to in the next few days here at Rizzn.com:

• Some re-vitalisation over at ModernOpinion.com - I've got a few things planned, and hopefully the beginning of some monetization over there. I can't wait for that thing to start making some money so I can start promoting it! I thank my writers there for being so dedicated in this lean time of slow growth.
• An interview with Barry Cooper - a fellow has been making headlines lately. He's an ex-Narc who's instructing people with a penchant for pot how to not get busted. I sit down with him and talk about what he's doing get the inside scoop and all that jazz.
• The next iteration of PoddedMeat - A lot of fans out there are wondering what's going on with PoddedMeat. I gotta say, we have some exciting things in the works, and pending a few pitch meetings next Thursday, I can start talking about what we have in store.
• OblongBox - I'm going to do something about OblongBox. The momentum has sort of died around here, and I've got a few ideas to pick things back up.
• UT Tyler - I'm working on creating a news engine for the UT system's websites. I'll give the inside scoop on how I'm putting all that together.
• Optimus Rhyme - I'm finishing up my remix for the new Optimus Rhyme CD. It's gonna be neat.
  

Look for information on this stuff in detail tomorrow and next week. For now, gotta jet!

/rizzn