The Daddy Filter

Paul H - who in space and time lives a half mile and a year away from me, talks about the The Daddy Filter.

Read most of that Beating the Brand and was very pleased to know that I am a lot saner than you are. Your problem is that EVERYTHING you see and hear become integral to you. For me, most of it is just noise.

Helps as a writer, hurts as a person. Now that I'm blogging it gets out of me faster but I have a 9 1/2 year backlog...

Maybe you have to have kids to understand the value of disinterest is child rantings. You need to implement the Daddy filter... Mine kicked in 24 hours after my kid was born. First night Jeremy was brought home from the hospital, every little noise woke me up, every five minutes. All of the noise was nothing more than distress, fear, and being pissed off that his nice, wet, warm little room had been tossed in a garbage can earlier in the week. The next night, I slept like a baby - Jeremy didn't. Next morning Rebecca was noticeably pissed at me with that wifely skewed face that tells you you fucked up.

"Didn't you hear him last night?," she scolded.

"No... was he in trouble?" I asked.

"Just fussy for most of the night - hardly got a wink." She was smoothing out when the post delivery chemicals finally kicked in.

"YOU DIDN'T WAKE UP ALL NIGHT LONG," she scolded.

"Sorry honey, the Daddy filter kicked in," I said quietly.

"What?" was all she was able to utter.

"Oh it's like doing a sampling of certain frequencies over a period of time, gauging the relative importance of the harmonics, the levels and distortions to qualify the need to remove oneself from sleep. I mean really if Jeremy were in Mortal Danger I'd be there faster than you could get out of the bed - but the other annoyance noises are locked out. Sorry about that - it's just noise," I said, thinking real sadly that she had a clue what I was talking about after the first 4 words.

"GIVE ME ENGLISH, ASSHOLE," was her reply.

"Okay... if I was asleep and Jeremy was in mortal danger - I'd wake up damn fast and save his cute little ass. All the other noises and annoyances have been filtered out in my head so I'm not disturbed from my slumbers, and can wake tomorrow to go to work so I can finance the next noise maker you will eventually insist upon."

"YOU MEAN YOU WILL SLEEP AND I'LL HEAR EVERYTHING, FEED HIM... [and a whole
litany of woeismesfollowed]"

There is a time when you can make a woman so angry that they can't speak a word. I was fortunate enough to learn this when I was a lot younger.

So I said, "Yep... you got it. I work the day shift so you can stay home and work the Night Shift. Fair is fair." Then I just left the room. It was safer that way. They might not be able to speak, but they can still pick up a variety of sharp objects and throw or lunge at you with them.

The Daddy Filter. It's real and part of the genetic makeup of most males. Coming soon to a retailer near you.

I've had quite a few other people tell me about how they dealt with kids - I'll write more on their implementations of the Daddy Filter when I get a chance.

But - you know what? I'm capable of dealing with kids fine - at least for a day-long period - so long as the television isn't on. I was over at Claire's the other day, the morning tv was on - I haven't watched any morning tv in going on 25 years. I remember this 30 second plug for safety this and safety that with safety man! Brought to by [brand name] and [brand name]. Be sure to be safe! [brand name] and [brand name] want you to be safe!

I really, really think that this sort of thing overstimulates the associative memory circuit. I turned the boob cube off at this point - so I could focus on painting - and on not falling off the ladder I was on.

Brian Clapper

I haven't seen this guy in - I don't know, 9 years? But somehow Brian Clapper, tuned into some sub-layer-one of the IP protocol, and got in touch last week.

I can't remember when we first met - I think it was at telebase? - or was it earlier?

I thinkit it was when I was trying to get a book done with then VP, Jon Tulk. (Jon, with Eric Raymond, had written the most influential book on portable programming I'd ever read. It's now sadly out of print.) Jon and I were going to do a book on porting DOS programs to Unix - Jon did most of the work - we submitted the first draft for review and the universal comment came back - what about Windows to Unix? Ugh, aggh, :choke: lesson - don't pay attention to reviews.

Anyway, somewhere along the way, maybe over Jon's home-made beer - I met the bearded, code-writin, joke makin, trombone-playin Brian Clapper, and we hung out.

I had an insanely fun day spent with Brian, Jon, and company in early 1994. I introduced him to Linux... there were people leaning over cubies to look at it... Brian really got off on the colored ls ... and inside of a couple weeks he was happily hacking on the system.

Brian moved deep into the woods of Penn about 4 years ago, and loves it.

I've been telecommuting for four years. Been a dad for going on three; my daughter, Arden, will be three in November. As a 42-year-old greying dad, I rarely feel my age. Some days, I feel 50. Other days (courtesy largely of Arden), I feel 30. It's a fascinating (and sometimes scary) trip.

He commented on Beating the Brand.

F-ing terrific.

It especially resonates. We're much more aware of such things now that we have a child. Want to get bombarded with marketing pitches and branding? Have a kid. Somehow, people figure out your new status, you enter the Parenthood Demographic, and your mailbox becomes saturated with some of the most amazing, over-the-top crapola you've ever seen. The most common marketing motivator: Guilt. ("You wouldn't want your precious child to [insert dire consequence here], would you? Of course not. Who would? Nabisco's Partially Hydrogenated Oil Biscuits can help.")

Feh.

And then he told me about the kind of interruptions he likes.

My office is a converted porch off the laundry room (first floor). This morning, Arden and my wife Charlotte were out walking around. As often happens on such days, I was startled from my work by a tapping on the window that's 2 feet from my right ear. They were there. I opened the window, lifted the screen, and looked down to see Arden beaming up. "Hi, Dada." I reached down, extended my hands, and told her to grab hold. She did, and I lifted her two feet in the air for a kiss. I was further rewarded by her giggling.

You just can't beat that kind of interruption.

Brian writes a good schtick. Here's one on why he runs Unix.

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I spent most of this beautiful Saturday working through paperwork and spreadsheets and thinking about two very hard decisions. I completely forgot about a birthday party Clair was having for her 8 year old at the pool at the Trout Farm until shortly before it was supposed to be over.

When I got there, I grabbed a beer, sat in the shade, and sat, kinda grumpy, watching the kids and the parents, deep inside their own stories, having fun. I needed to get outside of my own story, but it wasn't working.

That kid saw me, came running up, gave me a hug - introduced me to all her friends - told me about the horses - and I smiled for the first time all afternoon, moved my chair into the sun, and enjoyed the party for a while.

mike  ¶ 7:19 AM