Underway

I'm no longer dead in the water. We sold the house and bought one much better suited to our needs. Most other projects are progressing slowly or not at all but at least one major goal has been accomplished.

Jackass Whisperer

Someone who is good at managing difficult people.

Dead in the Water

I am pretty much dead in the water on all self and family improvement projects. We have a major health challenge in our extended family and are working toward selling our house.

Aspberger's Syndrome and Video Games Update

We made a list of items that had to be accomplished and signed off by us before computer games could be played and set a specific time of day when they could be played. This has worked reasonably well.

Aspberger's Syndrome and Video Games

Spock has been diagnosed as having high functioning autism/Asberger's Syndrome which means:
He tends to think logically
Most of the time, as far as he is concerned, he is right and you are wrong.
He is on average about as compliant as a bad tempered mule.
He obsessess over things. One thing. It used to be Legos. Now it is MineCraft
Social Skills are not his strong point. He has trouble seeing the other person's point of view. The pattern for friends has been that they come over once or twice and then never come back again.

It also means:
He is not all that concerned about what people think so negative peer pressure is not much of a factor for him.
He can easily be at the top of the field in whatever he is obsessed over. Right now few can equal his skills at MineCraft.
He can jump straight to the solution of a complicated math problem that it would take me three pages of notes to get to.
He can build just about anything and figure out complex problems in very creative ways.
He is determined and is not easily dissuaded from pursuing his objectives. 

Quite a few years ago now I bought a PlayStation 2 for him. Video games play into his obsessive nature and have not been a good thing. Since the day I brought that cursed device home we have had fights over video games.

MineCraft has replaced Legos as the latest obsession. If he can't play MineCraft, he will spend hours watching videos about MineCraft. Listening to music about MineCraft.  All talk is of MineCraft. All research is on MineCraft.

MineCraft is not a bad thing but MineCraft 24-7 is not healthy.

My original thoughts were that video games were something he would have to live with and that he needed to learn to manage them in moderation. The trouble with that logic is that with boys and video games there is no moderation that is not forced. I've wasted many hours on them myself as an adult so expecting a young boy to be able to do so in moderation is not logical.

Yes, be judgmental all you wish and say we are the parents and should take charge, blah blah blah. Parents of aspie children will understand.


Eowyn and I have been discussing a plan that we'll implement this Sunday.

The Family

This is our family. We are real but our blog names are not our real names of course.

Captain Quirk - Me.. the Dad of the group
Eowyn - My wife and the children’s Mom
Spock - Our oldest son. Currently 14
Thing 1 - Our daughter
Thing 2 - Our youngest son


My wife and I are middle aged. We married a few months after I finished my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The children came much later. All three are adopted. Spock came to us at one day old. Thing 1 and Thing 2 are blood siblings and joined our family together at ages three and two.

I love the original Star Trek thus Captain Quirk
We love the Lord of the Rings books and movies thus Eowyn. Arragorn was an idiot. Eowyn was a much better choice than the Elf.
Spock behaves much like Spock and likes the character from Star Trek.
Thing 1 and Thing 2 can be as wild as the Dr. Seuss characters from the Cat in the Hat.

The half time chat & a culture of success

If this were a football game now would be when I'd be getting the chewing out from the coach and would probably be warming the bench for the 2nd half of the game.

This is not a football game. It us much more serious than that. Well, the seriousness of the situation might depend on the game but it is serious enough for me.

You don't have to smoke, drink, do drugs, cuss, take crazy chances or any of an assortment of bad habits, but you do have to eat.

Sugar may not be a drug but it sure is addictive.

The Paleo diet worked but not having grains to eat drove me nuts and I failed to stick with the diet.
Counting calories has not worked.
Avoiding my allergen foods has not worked.
Eating vegetarian has not worked.

I'm sure that many diets could work but none of them will work unless I do. Unless I stick to it.

Willpower alone is certainly not the answer. I avoid drugs, alcohol, and immorality by avoiding the people and places that would cause me to get involved with them. I don't allow it in my house and won't go near the stuff. Willpower has nothing to do with it. I have not been offered a cigarette or a drink in years because the people I am around know that I don't smoke or drink. Very few of them drink themselves and none of them do drugs that I know of. The church helps here. There are plenty of people and lots of clean activities. In fact, there is much more to do than you can possibly get done. If you don't go near the edge of the cliff you won't fall off of the cliff. Because of this commitment and the circles I run in avoiding these is easy.


Avoiding food is impossible and junk food is everywhere. You can't avoid being offered junk food because it is virtually everywhere. It is in the vending machine at work, on the break room table, in the Christmas gifts your co-workers bring you, at your children's birthday party, at the in-laws, and tempting you from the restaurant menu. At church activities the ice cream and brownies are waiting on the table to be consumed right after the prayer asking Heavenly Father to bless it to nourish and strengthen our bodies.

Somehow I don't have much faith that the prayer for the ice cream and brownies to nourish and strengthen our bodies will be answered.

The trick seems to be to build a culture of success around me. I can't really do a great deal to change who I associate with. My current commitments mean that I am mostly around my co-workers at work and my family and church associates after work. Work, children's lessons, Boy Scouts, church commitments, and family responsibilities mean that my circle of associates does not and cannot change much. However, these are people that are supportive of positive change. I could not really hope for a more supportive group. If I can just go for a few months without eating junk then the people around me will likely support me in keeping up good health habits. However, they have to know I am committed and won't bend.

So how do I get from here to there? Even one day is very difficult. A few months seems like an impossible task.