Okay, it’s true: I’m 35, but who was it that said that Life begins at 35! and 35 is the coolest age yet, and you’re not an irrelevant fogey who needs to start Yelping the best Early Bird Specials in the neighborhood? (I think it was me, on my birthday.)

For work, I’m happy with the flexibility of freelancing, but I always have my eye on cool part-time jobs to shoot for. I might think about a full-time job again if it were amazing enough. Well, I recently realized that there’s a position opening up that I’m qualified for: President of the United States! And now that I’m 35, I’m eligible to apply!

According to Wikipedia, here are the requirements to be POTUS:

1. Be a natural born citizen of the United States. Despite my dad’s old teasing that I was born in Jamaica (probably during my rasta phase from 1 to 1.5 years), my birth certificate confirms my Connecticut birth.
2. Be at least thirty-five years old; Yup.
3. Have been a permanent resident in the United States for at least fourteen years. Been here, done that.

The wiki also states an applicant that meets the above requirements still may be disqualified if:

1. They’ve already been elected president twice. Nope.
2. “Upon conviction in impeachment cases, the Senate has the option of disqualifying convicted individuals from holding other federal offices, including the presidency.” I think this means that if I were impeached from another federal office, I might be declared ineligible to be POTUS. Regardless, I don’t think I have to worry about it. I haven’t held an office since college. I’ve barely worked in one, either; my workspaces have all been glorified storage closets.
3. If you swore an oath to support the Constitution and later rebelled against the United States. I forget if I had to swear to support the Constitution to register to vote or get a CVS ExtraCare card. I’m positive that I haven’t rebelled against dear old America. Unless they mean in an ultra-cool, Rebel Without a Cause James Dean kind of way, which, in my case, is definitely no.

So, I’ve got the green light to apply to be President! Off to Monster.com to find that job posting…

I guess Cool Newbie feels the same way, ’cause he’s determined to get buff and hold his own around the house. Check out the staple of his workout: extreme push-ups!

Even though this is a normal start-the-day-at-4am routine for us, we ARE all super excited for Cool Dad’s milestone birthday!!!  Why? Well, of course, because he is the best guy in the whole entire world to us. We thank God for him and his effortless humor, coolness overflowing from his pores, and caring heart for all of those around him.

On top of this, we are having a family day in the city! Eating and partying our way through the Bronx, Midtown and the Upper East Side! Check our Twitter for the updates!

This has been my mantra over the last couple of weeks, mostly whispered through a clenched jaw and possibly bulging eyes. Cool Boy has engaged in his most rebellious stage yet, and I’m constantly reminding myself of the proper responses.

Cool Dad, after the 10th "Can I PLEASE just play a computer game?!"

Another thing I repeat to myself is, “How did this happen?” Are we somehow responsible for this sudden shift in behavior? Surely it has nothing to do with hiring that Freddy Krueger to surprise the kids for Halloween. 

Actually, I’m sure that the shift wasn’t all that sudden. And we knew that it was inevitable. CB is four and a half now, and he’s his own little guy with feelings and opinions on what he likes and doesn’t like to do.

My frustrations with his behavior are his own fault, you know. I wouldn’t get so annoyed if he weren’t such a cool, well-behaved boy to begin with. I’m consistently amazed at how quietly he can sit through various events and timeshare sales pitches. He won the Goodness Award at kids church. He cleans his own room and offers to help with chores. And he’s a loving big bro to Cool Newbie, almost never pushing or hitting him.

I’m so used to his good behavior that anything contradictory to it is an affront to me. These are the kinds of things I’m talking about:

• Occupy Cool Home. More than ever, CB protests when we ask him to do something, whether it’s with, “I don’t want to,” “Can I PLEASE just (some other action),” or simply “NO.” He’ll even protest things that we know he wants to do, like getting ready to go to the park.
• Badger badger badger. He repetitively asks for something despite being told “No” the first time.
• Grblfshht. Maybe he’s trying to speak Newbie’s language, but he has spells of making guttural grunting sounds. He likes to put his fingers and shirt collars in his mouth, too. Gross.
• Say what? This is way nitpicky, but he used to say, “Yes?” or “Yes, Daddy?” when I called his name. Now, there’s a lot more of just “What?”

I know, I know; it’s not bad at all. He could be a lot worse. It’s much like a #firstworldproblem, to quote the Twitter meme of complaining about something trivial when you actually have it really good.

I fight getting angry and raising my voice. But when he cracks a smile when I’m lecturing him, something inside of me ignites like hitting a barrel of gunpowder with a sledgehammer. (Gallagher, NOOO!!!)

As I’ve put more thought and prayer into responding to his misbehaviors, I think it’s getting better. Here’s what I try to remember when Cool Boy acts up – not a list of how to discipline children, but what I tell myself to stay cool.

• Compose thyself. I dislike the feeling of losing control. In work situations, I’ve been upset at people but never lashed out or said any biting remarks. I must remember that whether it’s in public or at home, having an outburst is a very uncool thing to do.
• Get down to his level. I don’t do this often because A) I’m lazy and only like to bend down to pick up fallen pieces of brownie B) I like the sense of towering over someone (which doesn’t happen often). Still, I need to do it so that I can…
• Look him in the eyes. Even as I type this, my heart warms thinking about my Cool Baby’s Boy’s big brown eyes, the same ones I stared into while cradling him in my arms at North Florida Hospital four and a half years ago. I think there’s something in my eye…(sniff)
• Speak clearly and firmly. I need to choose my words with purpose. While I might be composed, I’m still frustrated, and I’m the type who can talk myself back into anger. Just ask Cool Mum. Actually, don’t. My words need to be loving, but clear and serious.

And something I’ve found to be helpful after the fact:

• Recap. I like to discuss the situation later, when emotions are long-gone. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but give a gentle reminder in the context of a normal conversation.

This checklist works for me, and hopefully writing this has ingrained it further into my head. Cool Boy will continue to have his moments as he discovers who he is. Even when it’s tough, I pray that I’ll grow and learn alongside him.

A very poorly executed representation of my place at the conference. (click to enlarge) - photo: northwesternflipside.com

Looking back on my time at the BlogHer Writers Conference, the opening to Jan and Dean’s “Surf City” makes a splash in my head:

Two girls for every boyyyyyy.

Though it would be more like:

One hundred and twenty gals for every guyyyyy.

I think that attendance for the conference was upwards of 250. Two of us were dudes, but it wasn’t weird at all. I only had a fleeting moment of apprehension at the very start.

I strode into Thursday night’s welcome reception ready to unleash an arsenal of small talk. However, when I got to the bar, the swell of voices, all in the higher register of the fairer sex, disarmed me.

It wasn’t that I was nearly the only guy there. I was mainly afraid that everyone knew each other. (Many looked like they were reconnecting.) It’s hard for me to meet people in situations where everyone is eager to see their friends. Fortunately, there were many others who were attending their first BlogHer conference, too. Small talk was launched and eventually evolved into big talk about blogging, parenting, and even a long discourse on the current state of sci-fi.

The welcome reception was a great setup for Friday’s conference, which was all kinds of incredible. The organization and execution of the whole day were stellar, and I probably ate my registration fee’s worth of food.

Some takeaways from the day:

CONTENT

• The various sessions covered the ins and outs of publishing, like turning a blog into a book, finding an agent, and what a publisher does. We heard from professionals in all areas of the industry.
• There were small group mentoring sessions. I chose a memoir group, and a literary agent gave each of us tailored advice for writing our memoirs and working to get them published.
• Three successful authors talked about their different paths to getting published. Common themes were dealing with rejection and staying persistent. One author had her first two novels rejected by a total of 80 agents before she landed a deal with her third.

NETWORKING

We sat at tables for the sessions, which was great for meeting small groups of people at a time. Every conversation was an opportunity to find out what people are blogging about, which directly leads into learning about their lives. I love doing that.

BOLDNESS

More than a few people commended me for my boldness in attending a conference that was marketed to women. I didn’t feel particularly bold by being there, but I knew what they meant. I’m happy that I took initiative to:

• Consistently approach people that I didn’t know.
• Stand up and ask a question during the general session. I usually shy away from doing that kind of thing in large crowds. BlogHer CEO Lisa Stone, who moderated the session, welcomed my question by announcing, “It’s a man!”
• Tell people about our blog without feeling like I was “shamelessly plugging” it. Of course, this is a lot easier at a bloggers conference, but it was a good start.

Obviously, I had a great time at the conference, and I feel inspired, and more educated, to write. Hopefully this means that I can finally knock out this memoir that I’ve been toying with for the last year and a half.

And I have no doubt that BlogHer throws amazing events. We’ll be sure to attend next year’s annual conference, conveniently taking place in New York City!

photo: BlogHer

Big plans tonight: I’m hitting Ladies Night at a bar in Midtown! Bigger plans tomorrow: Attending my first writing conference!! And yes, these two shindigs are related.

I’m taking leave of my cozy home office to attend the BlogHer Writers Conference, which kicks off with tonight’s networking reception and continues with a full day of speakers and mentoring groups tomorrow.  When I first got the email about the conference, my razor-sharp deductive skills figured that it would be largely female-focused, so I kind of dismissed it.

However, as I read on, I was intrigued by the content of the conference, including

• Writing a book from a blog
• Mentoring groups on a number of topics (the memoir group particularly caught my eye)
• Marketing your book
• The different paths taken by three successful authors

And I’ve always wanted to go to a bloggers meetup, where I could make my favorite jokes about comment moderation without the awkward silences. (“What did my blog to say to the irrelevant comment with the suspicious URL? ‘I don’t think we’ve Akis-met…DELETED!‘”)

It made sense for me to sign up; I wanted to learn about everything that was being covered. Whatever book comes out of this blog will appeal nicely to a female audience. And I wanted to network with my fellow denizens of the blogosphere. But I was still worried that the event would be too gender-specific. When BlogHer replied to my email and said that it wouldn’t, I was sold.

And they said that another male BlogHer member was registered, so that makes at least two of us dudes. I’ll be sure to seek him out if I’m overcome with the need to talk about…well, I know nothing of manly topics like car repair or fantasy football. What it’s like to have a Y chromosome?

Either way, I’m excited about the conference. Several people, even ones who don’t live in this apartment, have encouraged me on my writing lately, so this could be a great push in putting my life and thoughts on paper.

When I graduated college and entered “the real world” (as real as the world of a Christian rock musician not using his engineering degree can be), I was finally responsible for my own big purchases. Since Macs hadn’t reached ubiquity, it was pretty much a no-brainer. The price, performance, and geek points for building my own Windows-based desktops made them the obvious choice.

The only Mac evangelist I knew was my friend Robert, who’d grown up using Apple computers at home. I used my fair share of Apple IIes at school, kicking some major butt in Karateka and melting some serious bricks in Lode Runner. But I never considered buying a Mac back in the early ’00s. Actually, we computer geeks ridiculed the idea.

When the marketing for Macs ramped up, I was even more repulsed. I didn’t like the PC vs Mac campaign. I identified with the mousy PC user, not the hip and hoodied Mac dude. So smug. Plus, I’ve never had a cool hoodie, so I was probably jealous.

That was my stance for a while. I’d never seriously used a modern Mac until I got my job in NYC in Oct 2008. My boss only used Apple, so the office was stocked with iMacs. I was thrown into OS X (the Mac operating system, as opposed to Windows) head first, and I survived, though I was still a Windows guy at heart. I even convinced my boss to get a Dell laptop when it was time to get my own work computer.

My stint using Apple computers ended in Nov 2010 when I lost my job. My PC at home served fine to embark on the job search…until it contracted a nasty virus/trojan/malware this past February. I don’t know how it happened, and I consider myself quite tech-savvy. (I pity the fake Nigerian prince who thinks he can fool me a third time!) The computer was down for three days while I wrestled with locating a good backup – I confess to poor backup practices – and restoring the computer without recontaminating it.

I never really trusted that ol’ Dell Inspiron again, and it was about time to get a new computer anyway, so I bought my old work computer. It was a fancypants Dell XPS notebook, and it could do everything I needed it to, except keep my eye from straying.

The aluminum unibody Macbook Pro (MBP) looked good. The backlit keyboard. The sleek glass trackpad. The halfway decent battery life. And the cool factor: I couldn’t deny that opening an MBP in a Starbucks was worth at least +15 cool points over plopping down with a Dell XPS.

However, I couldn’t justify spending the extra money. It would cost triple what I paid for the Dell! I couldn’t do that to myself and my family and, most importantly, you all! I wholeheartedly believe that “Cheap is Cool.” Could I ever consider myself frugal again after getting an MBP?

I wrestled with it, reading review after review, fanboy comment fight after fanboy comment fight to help me make my decision. I made my requisite spreadsheet comparison between the two computers. The Dell made so much sense, but the Mac just felt right. I even went to an Apple Store, determined to buy, but I chickened out.

I didn’t make my decision until I again turned my old friend, the spreadsheet, this time breaking down what I was willing pay for the Mac’s features. Here was my breakdown:

So, I was willing to pay a total of $2,300 for the Mac’s features. After this careful justification analysis, I ordered the MBP with ease, and I’m glad that I did. I’m especially pleased with the portability, battery life, fast startup, and Garageband.

While I’m a convert, I’m not an Apple evangelist. It’s not part of who I am, and I don’t have a white Apple decal on my car. If you wanna use a PC, go for it! There are things that I like better in Windows, like the handling/renaming of files and the functionality of Microsoft Office.

The MBP is merely a tool, albeit one that comes at a premium. I considered the premium worth paying, and I now have an effective and efficient tool for my work. It took a while, but you convinced me, Steve. Thanks.

So when I read in the New York Times about the recent study that suggests that being a dad leads to a drop in testosterone, I wondered what that meant for me. I’ve never had my testosterone levels checked, but I don’t think they were ever that high to begin with. Skirting on the edges of TMI, my legs have only wisps of hair on them, and my arms are bald (and silky smooth). They were actually the envy of a few swimmer and bodybuilder friends.

The study followed 600 men in the Philippines. From the Times article:

Testosterone was measured when the men were 21 and single, and again nearly five years later. Although testosterone naturally decreases with age, men who became fathers showed much greater declines, more than double that of the childless men.

And men who spent more than three hours a day caring for children — playing, feeding, bathing, toileting, reading or dressing them — had the lowest testosterone.

I don’t spend more than three hours per day caring for the Cool Boys, but I do my fair share. So, I’m not at the bottom of the testoste-totem pole, but I’m on the lower end.

John Cave Osborne has a great response on his blog on Babble, asserting that, as a father, he’s much more of a man than he was before, regardless of hormonal levels. I have a parallel feeling. As you’d expect though, I’m a lot more concerned with being cool than I am with being manly.

I’m a big fan of being a dad because I am so much cooler now than I was before. Oh, and ’cause of all the love, family, teaching, learning things about myself stuff, too.

Before becoming a dad, my cooltosterone levels were influenced by

• Having a cool, beautiful wife [+10 cool points]
• Being in a cool touring band [+5 cool points]
• Working as a data manager [-5 cool points]
• Bad fashion choices [-10 cool points]

So, I was a net zero when it came to cool. Then, CM and I started reproducing, and my cooltosterone was all like

• Having a cool, beautiful wife [+10 cool points]
• Having a sweet, cool baby boy [+10 cool points]
• Being in a cool touring band [+5 cool points]
• Going to Europe with said band when CB was 5 mos old [+5 cool points]
• Working as a data manager (for a while) [-5 cool points]
• Moving to NYC [+10 cool points]
• Having another sweet, cool baby boy [+10 cool points]
• The occasional bad fashion choice, but getting better [-5 cool points]

I’m cruising along at a sweet net 40!

As long as I’m cool, I can handle a little less testosterone, a little less leg hair. Who knows, it might make me a more fluid square dancer. Fatherhood is cool!

Until September 11, 2001, the landmark historical event in my life was the fall of the Berlin Wall, having effectively taken place on November 9, 1989. (That’s when East Germans were allowed through; the wall was demolished days later.) However, the fact that I had to look up the date and details on Wikipedia shows that while it was a seminal moment in world history, it didn’t mean that much to me. I was 13.

More memorable for me was Kurt Cobain’s suicide in April of 1994. It was on the 8th (I looked it up). I was 17, and I learned the news while doing some schoolwork in my friend Steven’s recreation room. I didn’t cry out or have lingering dreams about Kurt, but it certainly affected me. I loved Nirvana, and as a young guitarist, I appreciated their music (because I could actually play it).

Of course, 9/11 stayed with me much longer. I was in my office (read: storage closet) at the University of Florida when my co-worker Bruce asked if I heard about what happened in New York. I looked up CNN.com, and there was no turning back. I was confused and couldn’t fathom the scale of what was happening. I had never been to NYC, save any trips as a baby. It wasn’t until I saw someone jumping from a building, flailing through the sky above Lower Manhattan, that I began to understand — the violence, the destruction, and the death.

That night, I dreamt of Osama bin Laden waging a shadowed war on and inside of the United States; we hid in fear, and terror was a part of our everyday lives, like it is for so many people around the world.

9/11 was shocking and heartbreaking and frightening. It affected me as an American and as a human. But as you would expect, living in NYC has given me a deeper connection to it. I see the gaping hole in the skyline. I walk the streets that smoke and dust bowled through when the towers fell. I note the pictures and names of fallen heroes whenever I walk by a fire station.

This weekend will be busy with the usual family and social activities. I don’t know if we’ll make it to any memorial ceremonies, but I’ll keep track of the news.

One thing that I’d like to take away from the anniversary, and hold onto, is the renewed appreciation for life and humanity that we turned to after the attacks. It lasted for a couple of months in 2001 before we fell back to our usual habits. More than sadness, fear, or hate, love is how I want September 11, 2001 to affect me for the rest of my life.

photo: Ekabhishek

Unfortunately, we hadn’t spoken in a while with Life happening the way it does. We each have two kids and plenty going on. On a lark, I finally thought to ping Trey on Gmail chat to initiate a Life-Updating Instant Messaging Session. Not exactly a high school reunion or catching up over coffee, but we take what we can get.

At the start, I mentioned I couldn’t remember the last time that we talked, but then I noted that I could find out on Gmail chat history. (Note: We’re Facebook friends, but I’ve been mainly inactive on FB lately.) A little pang twisted inside of me, noting how unBFFlike of a situation that is. This was one of my childhood friends that I feel like I could trust with utter abandon in any situation, and I had to search my email to remember the last time we talked.

No big deal was made of it and the chat session went on. We caught up on families, hobbies, work, and the rest that fills our days. Hopefully we’ll keep up a dialogue over email and maybe wrangle up a Skype session so our kids can stare at each other, too.

I’m not too worried about our gap in communication hurting our friendship, but it obviously doesn’t help it. Maybe some would argue that it is hurting it – that Life is going on and the fact that we’re missing each other’s milestones isn’t just unfortunate, it’s detrimental.

I don’t know. I could do better, but mainly, I’m doing the best I can. I’d guess Trey feels the same way. Actually, I’m sure of it.

How do you keep up with your old friends?