A Celebration of Life

I attended a “celebration of life” ceremony last night. The name of the observance felt odd because the gentleman had passed on to the other side. The deceased was the father of a former student of mine. A relatively young guy only four years my senior. He had lost control of his motorbike and crashed into a pole. I don’t have the details of how the accident happened but the end game was that he was killed. After the reading The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran)...For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one..., my former student, now a freshman, spoke to those in attendance so beautifully about his father and the lessons he had taught him. He said, “My father always taught me to treat others equally and said if you do this, you will have friends everywhere in the world. I hope I can be as good as my father was,” he ended. It was well spoken, articulate, authentic, from the depths of the heart. I had met his father at a parent teacher night. Although the interaction was brief he struck me as “real”. He wore his hair long and he didn’t dress up – something I appreciated and admired. He was a stay at home Dad and didn't try to pretend to be someone he wasn't. What you saw was what you got. He stayed after my talk to the parents and made an effort to shake my hand and thank me for teaching his son. As I left the “celebration” I hugged my former student, now fighting back the tears that streamed down his face, and told him how proud his father would be of him. As I rode my motorbike home I pondered my life, my Dad, Mom, sister, my son, my wife, my own role as father and husband, my own "celebration of life", and the reliability of my helmet.

A blood surge

Bam! In one second my boy went down. I was watching him and clapping as he maneuvered himself around on his oversized tricycle. As I moved into the kitchen my eyes left him for ONE second. I knew the reason he had fallen was because he craved his Daddy's attention. I ran over and noticed the tricycle was on its side. Zee was in a bad way as his face lay planted on the marble floor. I quickly assessed his little cranium for trauma and then I noticed the blood gushing from his tiny mouth. I tried to remember CPR, my EMT classes, my breathing techniques. My boy was bleeding a lot. I observed his mouth. I noticed his little teeth had nearly gone through his upper lip but they were intact. I focused on keeping my voice calm while Zee looked to me for help. I hugged him close as I tried to apply pressure - he wouldn’t have it. I place an ice cube to his lip but to no avail. I tried a frozen banana, licking it to entice him, as I kept trying to apply pressure as the blood dripped onto the floor, soaked my shirt. I filled a cup of cold water in desperation and put it to his swelling lip. Zee swallowed some as the remaining water turned red. “Thank goodness!” I thought. But the blood kept flowing. I quickly rang Vanessa to see when she would be home. I didn’t want to alarm her but I thought it might be time to get our boy to a medical facility. I found a glass jar of popcorn kernels and shook it to take Zee’s mind off the pain. It worked and he started to play with it. The blood surge started to subside. My breathing became less like a sprint and more like a marathon. Zee looked at me with the biggest fat lip I have ever seen. Mom arrived shortly. I warned her about looking at the lip. She gasped at the sight and my heart felt as if it was stabbed. Zee had settled down and made the signal to Vanessa for the breast. Vanessa and I feared it would be too painful for him to feed and it might create a negative association. We were wrong…fortunately. Zee took to the breast as if nothing had happened. Vanessa and I looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief.
Later, at the medical facility, as Zee flirted with the woman at the front desk I reminded myself that there will be more of these bang ups. The woman at the front desk handed me a card with a name on it. It read Master Zee Dickey. I realized my boy had graduated. He was no longer our little Zee or our little Bear. He is now our Master Zee….with a fat lip.

La Vida

What can I say? Life is good. Zee continues to grow and blossom as the local women jockey for a chance to hold him, touch him, kiss him, croon over him, take pictures of him. They are the paparazzi and Zee the star. He is an icon as the women run toward him "Zee, Zee" they scream. I swear that you would think he was the next Buddha or the offspring of Mohammed - but I love every bit of it and I am known as Zee's Dad. Bapak Zee. I am the father of a star - My star.
Vanessa is loving her work and on top of all of her duties at work she is studying to be a lactation consultant. It is great to see her so passionate about something so important. She is still breastfeeding and is doing some very interesting work and advocacy in relation to breast feeding.
I continue to learn, to grow, to question myself, and to love it all. Teaching is an even more enrichening experience than I could ever imagined. Although it is draining and leaves me exhausted it also envigorates and excites me at the same time. It seems as if there is never enough time to soak up all the knowledge. I am taking an online coarse related to conflict, race, disrimination, identity, the Holocaust and designing a Conflict curriculum and then a Holocaust curriculum after that as it relates to bystanders and perps. It is interesting to learn more about my Mom and how much prejudiced she endured and how much she and my father overcame. So much to learn. Vanessa and my conversations are deep and interesting and we are surrounding ourselves with positive people but our days are a blur as we realize the week has passed and Zee has learned a new facial expression, sign, word, Mensa problem.
My parents just wrote to tell me about a good friend who I met in Mexico years ago at a Hostel in D.F. that stopped in to have dinner with them. He was accompanied by his wife and child. How cool is that. A good time was had by all.

I ran a half-marathon yesterday morning with some friends and it felt good. There was a light breeze on part of it and I thought about my family and friends. I felt my pace increase as a smile spread across my sweaty face. About 20 0f us went to take coffee afterward and while there I received a call from Vanessa to tell me some of our closest friends from Atlanta had just told her that they may be stationed here in Big Smoke with us and they will be living in the same complex. We will be neighbors! How cool is that? We are keeping our fingers crossed that all falls into place as is meant to happen. Life is happening and it is seldom I get a chance to blog, to reflect, or to take it all in but it's a good thing when there is that time to do it. A friend stopped into my class today and asked me if I wanted to do an adventure race in Singapore. ....why not I said. What else do I have to do.
It is amazing how your body adjusts to four and five hours of sleep and loads of Java and sleeping in is 0500.

The Route

Bali Adventure Race

Bali Adventure Race

We didn't come in first but sure as hell should have. To make a long story short we came out first on the run and me and my teammate were leading the pack on the Mt. Bike. Unfortunately, after having to walk our bikes up a very steep Mountain side two guys from a competing team caught up. I wasn't worried because I knew their other 2 team members were already toast, fried, flat lining. I decided to wait for the rest of my team and head for the hills. With team together we pedaled like the wind through rice paddies, roads, and Bali heaven. I had the other two competing team members bright colored jerseys who had passed us earlier in my sights. We rode and rode and rode and as we caught up to them I suddenly realized that I hadn't seen any trail markings. In my haste to catch them I realized they had missed the turn and gone the wrong way.

We did a quick about face and after hiking our bikes back up the Mt. and down the other side we realized the other teams had caught up. We were no longer in first place. After passing a number of others on the single track with little blood letting we caught our competitors. The same team that came in second place in the marathon jungle run in Malaysia. A team made up of a sub 3 hour marathon runner, a former Green Beret, a former legionnaire who spent two days in hospital after the Malaysia run do to severe dehydration, and woman who could wear the man pants like most men could never do. Anyway, they put in their raft before us but we managed to paddle past them toward the small village on the other side of the beautiful lake. Once on the other side a team member was to grab a leaf off a certain tree (which was not made clear). Both rafts pulled in simultaneously and we sent the young buck on our team who had come up from the land down under (Australia) to join us. With leaf in hand he ran down from the village. We were in first place. A cry from the other team claiming it was the wrong tree forced him to scramble back up the steep hill to find the sacred tree. The other team's member came running down with a leaf in hand and they quickly paddled away as if old salts. Maybe it was fixed. Sadly, they beat us by 5 minutes to the other side. We finished the run, bike, and raft race in 5:20 minutes. Fun was had by all. We are looking for another race to go head to head again.

Father and Son night

Vanessa had to fly to Sumatra last night as part of her saving the world mission. Fortunately she left me with a stash of two bottles of white liquid gold aka breast milk.

After work Zee and I cruised the town (or neighborhood) and then met friends in the gym to get Zee some walking exercise. We made it home by 7:15 and little man sucked the milk down like it was breast milk (wait a minute...it was breast milk). His eyes rolled back into his head and I knew he was heading for dream town. I laid him down to bed and was feeling pretty good about myself until...

My mother always used to tell me, "No hay como la mama". The translation roughly means there is nothing like Mom and if she isn't around your screwed. At 12:00 midnight little buddy wanted Mom. And he wanted her bad...at 01:30 until 02:15. And again at 0300 until 0330. I thought of my Mom's phrase and realized how true she is. Daddy just wasn't enough. Zee man was missing his Mama.

The phone rang at 0600 this AM and Mama was calling because she was missing her little man Zee.

Bali Adventure Race

I am leaving bright and early for another adventure race in Bali tomorrow. Hopefully this one won't be 11.5 hours as it was in Malaysia. Apparently we will run, Mt. Bike, and then paddle our way across a lake. I still don't know the distances but rumor has it that we should only be sweating for a good six hours. The stakes are high as many fellow runners in our local running club will be there as well. Who will have bragging rights? I am teamed up with some Irish laddies and we are calling ourselves Celtic Pride. I apparently have some Irish blood somewhere in the geneology. Should be interesting. I will report more on my return. Z

Anniversary Celebration

The paparazzi were on hand and captured Vanessa and Zane leaving a fine dining establishment in Jakarta while celebrating their sixth years of bliss together.

Zane and Vanessa could be heard sharing their high lights of the year and all the cool things to be expected for the year to come.

Look for it in the next issue of People magazine. 

Too many toys

Zee was spoiled by his friends on his first. He was able to add on to the collection of empty boxes and plastic bags of spaghetti originally provided by Mom and Dad. 

An excited Zee rides his new bike

 

 

Vanessa tells the story of Z

 

Zee turns 1

Wow, what a great day. Cake, tubs of ice cream, friends, gifts, swimming, and many water balloons hurled at unsuspecting youngsters. 

A view of Lake Powell

 

Vanessa provides Zee with some good lovin' 

A great visit home

We had a breathtaking trip home and as always we wish we had additional time. We felt a bit like global nomads as we stayed with various family, friends, Uncles, Aunts, and cousins but it was great to see them – and even greater that they made such an effort to care for us (even giving up their own beds – that was much appreciated Shayne, Efrain, Ted, and Maggie). In each place we were surrounded by lots of love and Zee along with Vanessa and I enjoyed all the extra attention we were extended. (To view a plethora of photos from the trip click here)

We spent our first few days staying with our good friends and making reconnaissance missions to see Vanessa’s step mom, my sister and Zee’s cousins before heading up North to spend a few days with my parents in beautiful Prescott. After eating the best homemade Mexican food at the Eagles Nest (aka my parents place) in the Southwest we then made our way North to Lake Powell.

We spent about four days on a house boat on beautiful Lake Powell which spans Arizona and Utah. What a magical place. There were ten of us on the large boat equipped with stove, kitchen, appliances and A/C. It was even equipped with a slide on the back of the boat which provided lots of entertainment. My brother-in-law also had his ski boat which made for some pretty amazing wake boarding at sunset. We explored canyons, swam, and relaxed. Our last night on the lake was interesting as a storm blew in and gave our boat pretty good shaking. The boat radio was quite busy as fellow boaters radioed in for help as they were knocked into rocks by the strong winds in the dark of night. Mayday was the word of the night. Fortunately for us we had anchored in well and suffered no damage. It was a great way to spend a week with family in one of the most attractive places in the world.

After our boat ride we caught some shut-eye at my parents nest in Prescott, AZ and stopped by to visit Vanessa’s sister and brother-in-law which included more of Zee’s cousins before continuing on to Mule Creek, New Mexico, a small town near the AZ border with a population of about 100 people. Billy the Kid, of Western gun fighter fame, used to hide out here and his little shack still stands and is within walking distance of Vanessa’s parents abode. It is a very quiet and picturesque place with not much to do but relax in a hammock, read, hike, and watch the hummingbirds feed (just what the body needed). We were joined there by Vanessa’s brother and wife and their son Ryder from San Francisco who is not much younger than Zee. It was nice to for the boys to catch up We threw a nice pre-party for Zee’s upcoming 1st year old birthday this Sunday

After the trip we drove back to Phoenix where we stayed with Vanessa’s good friend who is planning on getting married in December (which means we will be back) and they had lots to talk about in regards to the big day. Our final day was spent at my sister’s house and my parents, and Uncle Max came down to visit. Zee was passed from one loving relative to the other and he wore an adult sized grin the entire day. The day was filled with lots of coffee, great food, family and interesting conversation – the kind of days I long for.

Did I tell you we even went house hunting??? More later.

No Longer a Baby

Where does the time go? Our little Zee will no longer be a litte baby after August 6th. Yep, he's on his way to toddler land. It's funny how I look at Zee's growth and it suddeny dawns on me how fast I am ageing. Ahhh, come on wisdom, where are ya?

We had a wonderful time while back in the US and a pre-party was in order given we had to jump on the big bird home before Zee's actual big day. Zee was surrounded by an abundance of love and good times. It was great for him to spend quality time with his grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins. We plan on having a pool party on Sunday for his big day with lots of cake and tubs of ice cream. Click here if you want to see a plethora of additional pics.

Here in Arizona with our friends

Zee and Colin share some good times together.

A run in the Jungle

Yes, I am alive and well. The jungle run was fantastic. We started in the jungles outside of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Saturday June 3rd at 7:30 AM and finished in the dark of night at 8:00 PM. One of my team mates had to drop out due to extreme dehydration, heart arrhythmias, and slurring of words (mostly obscenities) at a check point around 5 hours. We spent the last 7 hours picking off other teams trying to make up for lost time. It was the type of run you would hope for - Leeches, blood, mud, rivers, tumbles and spills, more blood, plenty of rain, and extreme exhaustion. I’m hooked. More to follow later…

Nigel and Shirine Wed!

 
Our dear friends, Nigel and Shirine got married this weekend in Bali! The ceremony was gorgeous and the party that followed... divine! 

The Happy Newlyweds

  

Not to be outdone by daddy, Zee also sports a Batik for the wedding

  

Breakdancer in the HOUSE

  

I always love a good boogie!

  

Genius baby learns to read and make own food at 9 months!

 
Zee gets really into his bedtime reading. I caught him studying up on dietary recommendations and recipes for applesauce. After a few minutes of study he remarked, without looking up from the text, "Hey mom, I don't think I'm getting enough Vitamin A!" 

GQ Junior

 
The latest fashion for the 'under one' set this season is a striped onesie. Accessories include sockies, plastic bibs and baseball hats. 

Hey good lookin'

  

Busy, Busy, Busy

Ok all, I feel very bad because I have not had the time to update the blog. I feel like I am disappointing my readers and therefore my readership is going down and may never return. I have not provided you an update on Vanessa’s birthday or on Zee’s new found love…yep he’s discovered the mirror and he loves himself. Vanessa and Zee are doing great. I may have to have Vanessa take over for a bit but she is as crazy busy as myself.

I am swamped and I hoping to climb out of this deep trench soon. I have eighty presentations to grade and I am organizing a “speak in” tomorrow with about six speakers. They will speak on prescient issues of the 21st Century (e.g. environment, human rights, science and technology, etc). My students are beginning their last unit and I want them to get an idea of what is going on from people in the trenches and just how scary this world of ours is looking. My students will have to research a topic in a group and present their issue at the end of seven weeks. It should be an interesting. I will try to post some significant visuals soon and hopefully provide more interesting news soon…..time, time, time.

Zee and Mommy are all smiles 

New Look

You may have noticed an addition to the blog. I have included a site from www.last.fm think you will enjoy it. Basically you are able to enter a band or artist you enjoy and this site will put together a compilation of similar artists for your streaming pleasure. It is a great way for you to get some exposure to some less well known but exciting groups out there for free. Create your own radio station with songs you really want to hear. You will see the last five songs that I am listening to. If you refresh you will see new songs if I am listening at that moment. I have eclectic taste. We can even link up. My call name is Grubstaker if you want to look me up and connect. A special thanks to Mkinzer for sharing this site. Enjoy!

A Stellar Day

I love great days! Today was one of them. I had taught my students/kids about Command and Market economies but I wanted to figure out a way for them to apply this knowledge to the real world. This crazy world of globalization in which you pick up the phone to order a Dell Inspiron notebook computer from Tennessee and the person who answers the phone is located in Bangalore, India, who then sends the order to Penang, Malaysia that manages the ‘just in time’ processing orders. The microprocessor comes from the Philippines, the memory from Korea owned by a Taiwanese company, the graphics card from China…..until you get your computer assembled from parts from over 400 suppliers throughout the world in less than a week. A world in which, according to the book “The World IS Flat” by Thomas Friedman “No two countries that both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald’s. (Border skirmishes and civil wars don’t count, because McDonald’s usually served both sides”.

I ended up creating a tribunal/role play that dealt with the issues of ‘sustainable’ development and ethical trade. The scenario was a fictional multinational toy factory located in the US that was getting bad press because the factory workers located in China were striking for higher wages and better working conditions. The students were put in five groups: Toy Store executives in the US who contracted out manufacturing of their toys to factory owners in China, factory owners in China (the suppliers who manufacture the toys and hire low wage employees), the Chinese government, all rural women factory workers (who earned lower than minimum wage, worked 72 hours a week, had compulsory overtime, and lived 30 women to a room with little to no ventilation). The last group was an International Foundation for Ethical sourcing that had been hired to bring all the groups to together to resolve the issue of the factory workers striking for better wages and working conditions as well as to reduce the blowback for the company. These students acted as the mediators/judges/arbitrators. I told them they had to resolve the dispute of the factory workers on strike because the strikes were spreading throughout China and threatened the economic and political stability of China. This was all based on a real case study. I watched in amazement how the students reacted.

To cut to the chase the students loved the lesson and although they had learned the benefits of a market economy they also gained a better understanding of the other side of market economy that is often overlooked. The issue of TNCs locating to countries of the South because wages are lower, unions are weak, and environmental standards are low and not strictly enforced. The fight to get the lowest price on goods and the highest profit margin which may have negative affects on the workers.

The students were able to see how this idea of globalization is playing out. The demands were heated, fingers were pointed, bribes were attempted, and death threats made (just like in real life) and learning happened. They could see how hard it was to maintain codes of conduct, pay fair wages, and still make everyone happen in an ever changing world and in a country that wants more multinationals to boost the economy but walks a tight rope on how the command side for fear of losing the market side to other countries.

I had several students stay after class to ask me why people stay in jobs they don’t like or in which they mistreat people. I love it when it they question. I love it when they are engaged. These students of mine who will be running businesses of their own, be leaders of countries, making policy….it’s a good thing. One of my students asked me why these workers who mistreat people just don’t leave their jobs? I asked her what she thought. Another student chimed in to help her out and said because they are paid a lot of money and if they leave the job they probably wont find a job that pays the same amount. I ask if being paid a lot is the most important thing. I see blank stares and heads start to move from side to side. "You know," I say, "I used to have a job that paid very well and I wasn't passionate about it. Now I am a teacher. Do you think I get paid a lot?" That was a no brainer. "No, Mr. Dickey we know teachers don't make a lot of money." "But do you think I'm happy?" "Yeah, you're happy and I think that is more important than making money because you feel better and don't hurt people," my normally shy student replies. "I agree with you," I tell her. " These factory owners could always quit and do economics, " she says. When I ask her what she means she tells to me they can trade online like her. She says she has made a great sum of money e-trading on the Internet. She explains that economics is all she has known. Her parents are economists and since she has been a small child economics are all they talk about at home. Even her grandmother trades online. She says the problems we discuss are often talked about at home and apply to buying stocks. Did I mention she is in the eighth grade? Another student asks me if the workers at our school are treated fairly. Another student from a class I had earlier in the day quickly reports that the workers are quite happy and said they make a fair wage….she smiles and says she has already walked around and asked them. Did I tell you I love my job!