Author: Chris Souther

Chris joined the Air Force out of high school. After four years of supporting communications for the Department of Defense, the White House, and stations around the world, he left the military and moved to Atlanta. For the next six years, Chris continued working in the telecom field, eventually traveling around the country teaching companies like MCI, Nortel Networks, and Cabletron, how to do what he did.

When the dot.com crash happened, upon recommendation from his wife, Chris re-enrolled in school and earned his B.S. in Communications (PR & Marketing).

Since then, he was worked in network security, healthcare, banking and finance (and FinTech), general high tech (AI/ML, Cloud, IoT), and most recently, application development fields. Now, with more than 15 years of both Marketing and Communications under his belt, he helps organizations grow their business through the proper application of marketing, communications, and content.

And he blogs on the side. It keeps him sane.

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Dad Blogs Family

Well, there is the water, and caves and horses to ride…

Roadtrip I ‘m in a bit of a quandry. Help me out here.

My mom (one of them anyway) lives in Tennessee, in a tiny little town called Walland. It’s just on the other side of the mountains from Pigeon Forge and Dollywood and all of that tourist greatness.

She also lives right on Little River. In fact, I can wade right into the river from her back yard.

All of this adds up to a whole lotta reasons why I should go see her…more often. Except that it’s a 3.5 hour drive from Roswell and the drive isn’t especially kid-friendly. We’ve only been up there once this year, and that was in the spring, so we’re really due to go back up.

CareerMom is in New York this week on Thursday and coming back Friday afternoon and we’ve discussed my taking MLI and heading up to see my mom, leaving CareerMom and MLE at home. What really shouldn’t be that tough of a decision, is laden with choices:

Pros:

  • Getting a break from the constant attention needs of MLE (who is a HUGE daddy’s boy!)
  • Getting to spend some quality time with MLI playing in the river and drinking too much soda pop (what an “old” phrase) on the road trip
  • Seeing my mom
  • CareerMom suspects she left her glasses there last time and without them at night after she takes her contacts off, she can’t see much of anything. I could verify whether or not this is true and potentiall retrieve said glasses, thus potentially saving CareerMom loads on a new pair!

Cons:

  • The price of gas
  • The 7 hours of drive-time
  • My mom really wanting to see MLE since he’s “the baby” and arguably, quite the draw from a personality standpoint

Frankly, the price of gas isn’t THAT big a deal, but I felt I should throw it in regardless. And admittedly, a huge thing for me is that I feel guilty leaving CareerMom at home to deal with MLE by herself all weekend. At least when I’m home too, we can switch off for a few moments of sanity.

Whaddya think? Suck it up and take a road trip, or stay home and keep CareerMom sane?

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Adventures in Swimming (with kids)

lifeguard “But I don’t wanna go,” he says with his fingers in his mouth and his little lips quivering.

“Honey,” I say, “Mommy and Daddy have already paid for your swimming lessons, and you’re going to learn how to swim. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” he says, with his eyes looking towards the floor and with a posture that tells me he’s only doing it because he knows that the next thing I’m going to say will be something he REALLY will not want to hear, such as, “If you don’t get in the water this very instant and start swimming, when we get home, you’re going to your room until I say you can come out!”

MLI has swimming classes every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. at our health club. To work our schedules around his swimming and CareerMom’s desire to go to an aerobics class at 8:30, I went earlier, then after my workout, I took him out to the pool for his 30-minute swim session.

Last week, due to the holiday, he didn’t have his regular teacher. Instead, he had some young stud-wannabe kid, who was nice and who did a fine job. I figured we’d have the same guy today so we walked over to him and he said, “Oh, Anna actually will be his regular teacher. She’s over there.”

He pointed…I stared.

Anna.

A more appropriate description for her might be, “Future Baywatch Star” if Baywatch were still on television.

Anyway, after daddy composed himself, we walked over to Anna and introduced ourselves and after a bit more blubbering, I finally threatened convinced MLI to get in the water where he had 30 glorious minutes with Anna…while I tried (hard) not to look like I was trying not to look.

And don’t think little boys are dumb either. MLI clung to her (and not in a “I’m scared” kinda way) like he clings to a slice of pepperoni pizza. And for the record, he did NOT cling to the boy teacher in the same fashion.

So, next week, when CareerMom asks if I can again accompany MLI to swim lessons, I’ll cheerfully accept. And I think I’ll have to make Saturday, Chest and Biceps day…cuz…those body parts really need the work.

(Hey, I’m married, not dead!)

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Family

Spreading the love

Compromise P art of my charm, I like to think anyway, is my ability to humbly step aside for my betters–and there are many.

Today, I’m going to step aside in the blogsphere and promote another writer whose work has given me more than a few chuckles over the years and who now has a new book out.

But first, a little history:

Mil Millington started a Web site a few years ago dedicated to, “Things My Girlfriend and I have Argued About.” It listed, in bullet form more often than not, the completely banal, and often offbeat arguments he and his live-in, full-time girlfriend (Margret) have had.

Since that time, most of the material has now been published in book form, but every now and again, usually when he’s promoting something new, he sends out an e-mail to his subscribers. The e-mail is a loosely disguised plug for whatever it is he’s selling now, but it also includes a touch of what he’s known for, Arguments with Margret.

So, without further ado, I’ll pass along the link to his old Web site and his most recent e-mail. If you ever think you and your significant other have some really stupid arguments, think again.

Best enjoyed in this order for better context:

(Yes, this is a bit of a copout as I have nothing interesting to write about today)

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Please buy my product

Working from home definitely has its privileges. Frankly, I get just as much work done from home as I do when I go into the office, AND when I’m not terribly busy, I can do things around here that need doing so that I’m not trying to do them when CareerMom comes home and wants to hit the gym.

When I’m home, I often turn the television on for the background noise. It’s interesting what’s on TV when it’s not prime time. It really gives you insight into the target audience. For instance, so far today, I’ve seen:

  • Robert Wagner pitching reverse mortgages (He used to be one cool cat!)
  • J.G. Wentworth commercials by the oodles (How many losers have structured settlements out there anyway?)
  • Wilford Brimley hawking diabetic medical supplies (Is it just me, or does he seem just REALLY angry all the time?)

Apparently, in addition to Work from Homers, there are also a lot of people who have sued others (and won), along with a bunch of older folk with money problems.

This got me thinking about how, when I get to be 75 years old, who will be on TV trying to get me to buy stuff!

“Hi, I’m Harrison Ford. Do you have enough life insurance?”

or maybe…

“Hello, I’m Calista Flockhart. You may remember me from a little show called “Allie McBeal” and today I’d like to talk to you about freedom. Do you have problems getting around Wal-Mart? Is taking care of your grandchildren too difficult because you didn’t eat enough when you were younger (like me) and now your bones are brittle? Maybe what you need is a personal Hover-Chair!”

Isn’t it sad? Already it’s difficult to watch people like Tom Selleck and Pierce Brosnan–people we thought were cool–get old before our eyes. I haven’t seen the latest Indiana Jones movie, but I know that when I do, I’m gonna be scrutinizing Harrison’s face, looking to see how bad he looks!

Me, I’m going for that “distinguished gentleman” look as I age–as if I have any say in the matter. But who knows, worse comes to worst, maybe I have a career as a non-celebrity spokesperson for the pharmaceutical industry:

“Did you try to lift too much weight in the gym? Did you screw yourself up good doing it? Me too. Let’s talk…”

Makes me smile just thinking about it!