Doesn't Pay Attention, Doesn't Follow Directions

My son is the quintessential "absent-minded professor." And I'm sorry to say he gets it from me. Often portrayed as a talented, brilliant thinker whose focus on theory or invention leads him to ignore or forget his real-world surroundings, the absent-minded professor is prone to making lame-brained mistakes, like putting his shoes on the wrong feet. Or watching the stars so intently that he steps into a mud puddle. More generally, the phrase is used to describe people who are so engrossed in their own little world that they lose track of their surroundings.

We'd do well to keep an organizer or a PDA, if only we could remember where we put it. Post-It® notes work well, too - if we bother to look at them. It doesn't matter if they're plastered all over the PC monitor; we're so lost in the space between our ears we simply stop seeing them for the organizational tool that they are. The sunny yellow squares begin to remind us of a lion's mane, and next thing you know, we're on a mental safari in the Serengeti.

People like us make great novelists and poets, but we don't do well on assembly lines. We'd be a danger to ourselves and others if heavy machinery, sharp objects, and repetitive work were involved.

Fortunately, homework is merely repetitive and a paper cut never killed anyone. Or did it? (Google is a great distraction. I call it "the rabbit hole.") Anyway... a little more organization wouldn't come amiss. I'm sure my teachers would've appreciated it, and maybe it's not too late for my son to develop better habits.

NOT that I think it's going to be the magic bullet or anything, but I am looking forward to reviewing some clever chalkboard wall decals from All Modern Baby. If they don't help my son and me get organized, they will at least appeal to our inner artists. While my babies aren't babies anymore, I was intrigued with some of the versatile furniture and products they carry, such as Stokke Care Changing Table Student Desk Expansion Kit that is designed to grow with your baby. Add a couple of Stokke Classic Tripp Trapp High Chairs - high chairs that convert to chairs for kids, teens, and adults - and you've got the perfect little study desk or gaming desk.

Please Update Your Bookmarks!

I'm changing my blogging headquarters.

I'm not abandoning this blog, but if you want to get the latest posts, be sure to bookmark http://jahangiri.us/news - because most of them will go there.

Survey says...

With only eight votes and a clear lack of strong preference, I'll be keeping this blog around for a while, but I will be focusing for now on my new blog, "It's All a Matter of Perspective: Mine." I hope you'll come visit me there!

A Note Would've Been Nice

After several days of struggling to set up WordPress on my own hosted domain, and to configure it just so, "pretty permalinks" and all, I'd finally got everything working. But at a price.

Opening up your entire installation with permissions set to 777 probably isn't real smart. But it worked! And I wrote to hostingsupport to gloat about my unique combination of cleverness and stupidity - which was my second mistake. Or so I hope.

I think they locked me out of my own WordPress installation. At least, I hope they did. Because .htaccess has now been replaced with a small HTML error page, and I appear to be locked out of that whole subdirectory by a higher authority.

Which is what I'd do if I were troubleshooting a manic customer's account - especially after they'd informed me of every step in their painfully haphazard, buckshot approach to the scientific method ("After exhausting myself trying to change permissions on each file, one at a time, I said, 'Screw it,' and set ALL of them to 777 - and guess what? - it worked! Yippee!") But a note would've been nice.

Because now I don't know if I just hurt myself with some stupid user error, of if they really locked me out - and if they locked me out, was it for the very sensible purpose of preventing me from altering anything while they helped me to resolve all my issues, or was it just to shut me down and shut me up, once and for all?

I'm tempted to start all over again in a brand new directory. So there. See how important it is to COMMUNICATE? Grrrrr.

No, patience is not one of my virtues. Why do you ask?

President Obama Setting an Example for Schoolchildren??

H. says, "Students have new ammunition in the fight to lean back in their chairs!"

To which D. replies, "Sorry, just because so-and-so (even if it the President Of The United States) does it, it doesn't make it right."

D.'s argument is not without merit, but I believe it is essential that children be allowed to emulate the President and lean back in their chairs. Falling on one's head, or getting the wind knocked out of them when the chair passes its tipping point, provides an early and practical lesson in physics, balance, consequences, and the rationale for listening to authority (which is why it is also essential to tell children NOT to do this, even while recognizing the value inherent in the behavior). Elementary school children (and possibly U.S. Presidents) are 67.4% less likely to sustain a serious physical injury as a result of "backfall." Children, because they are naturally resilient; U.S. Presidents because their Secret Service detail has been trained to dive across the room in under .45 nanoseconds so as to cushion the President's fall.

It should be noted that several important diplomatic protocols would be breached should anyone but Mrs. Obama attempt to point out to the President the likely consequences of leaning back and tipping his chair. Even Mrs. Obama would be permitted only the most subtle of raised eyebrows unless First Daughters Sasha and Malia were also present in the room, allowing the First Mother to use the First Father as an example to them of "what not to do even if you're the leader of the free world."