Upcoming highlights
Thursday, March 16, 2006 at 4:16PM DATELINE: In the Shire, Indy, 16 March 2006
We are transitioning at high speed. With the move to the new house we switch schools and parish next year. Eldest goes to high school, and two boys shift to smaller grade school closer to our Indy home. The accompanying parish, likewise small, becomes our new church. That's the macro.
The micro is closing on the house on Monday, and beginning all the new utilities while ending all the old. In almost every case, we leave behind one provider and pick up another, which is weird, but Indiana is more balkanized than most on this subject.
We are days from moving in, after some business trips by me. Got the local movers set for the apartment-to-house move and have all the PODS scheduled for sequential arrival, followed by another visit from the moving crew to handle the heavy items I can't get outta the garage.
Today I walked on my big driveway. Not long, but big. Following feng shui, we designed the house with the garage doors not facing the street. Because of the swail along the property line on that side, we need to come up a drive and then do a 90-degree turn into the garage. Coming out, it's a Y. So the drive widens to almost 30 feet against the garage doors, which creates a very neat basketball platform.
Also walked around house today on sidewalk that we have circling the entire place, which was my wife's idea. Also very cool to do for the first time.
Spent morning going through all the antique lighting fixtures (all rewired) that we purchase for the house. Most are 80 to 100 years old, and are really stunning. All were reclaimed from old Indy houses. We picked them out last August--virtually our first choices. Now we were matching each up with its room or wall sconce placement.
Also did one of the last choices with my builder: where to hang all the towell racks, TP paper hangers, etc, in the various bathrooms. A weird coda to about a million decisions over the last 10 months.
Also walked the yard and made all the final landscaping choices: failing trees to cut, where to mulch, where to put rocks and bushes and the last trees we're planting. We must have cleared 30 trees to make the lot work, and we've planted about 30. In all I think the 4/5ths acre will feature about 100 trees, which will be great in summer but a bundle in the fall. The vast majority are all original forest, never tilled, so they stretch, on average, about 60-70 feet. None are climbers, however. Too bad. I had a pine in my yard as a kid that we could ascend to about 80 feet, which was really amazing.
Also marked out the footprint of what will arguably be the world's largest private playset, designed by me. Of all the nice things we've done with this house, this is clearly the over-the-top call by me and me alone. But I really have a soft spot for my kids on this subject. It's a great magnet for friends, and I like having a yard that other kids like to visit versus seeing mine run off all the time to somebody's cooler set. I am, admittedly, a playset snob. I just remember my own playset and yard as a kid growing up, and it was the most magical place for me, to include the wooden "log cabin" we put up every spring. It's weird, because I built our first Cedarworks in Rhode Island for my older kids, neither of whom will probably play on this one much, especially the high schooler--save in babysitting mode. No, this one is for my younger family (I like to intro my older pair as my kids "from my first marriage," because that really did feel like the first one, while having #3 and adopting #4 seemed to belong to a "second marriage," one bigger and more challenging than the first).
But I haven't forgotten the older kids. I constantly scan every river we cross and I am committed to buying the world's longest canoe as soon as we move in. We are going to explore this state from the waterline up, and there are some neat rivers here to ply.
Yes, yes, I am feeling full of expectations as we get closer to this house my spouse and I shaped in every tiny detail. Dad gone, building my first house--I feel like the man like never before. There is no longer that sense of seeking permission or pleasing those above, mostly because I've lost a lot of those "above" symbols lately.
So I see myself working meetings with Steve DeAngelis and our main DC guys Darrel Lowery and Kevin Billings and I realize: we're all about the same age. I keep looking around for the adults in the room--the much older guys. And they're not there. We're the guys who pull things off like this now. We don't ask for permission or seek approval so much as we win clients and attract partners.
It's just that time of life for me all around. Can't be the 8th of 9 any more. Can't be the boy wonder any more. Can't be a lot of things I was for so long any more. It all becomes so... for the marbles. It's about making change, making money, having influence, leaving things permanently improved and better. It's about providing for the right now and the next generation. It's an awesome sense of responsiblity.
When I went to DC in 1990, I met guys like I feel I'm now becoming, and they always blew me away. They seemed to know so much stuff I felt I'd never understand. They got business and bureaucracies and trends and relationships in all their magnificent complexity.
And they all mentored me graciously, consistently, and with great skill, subtly reminding me throughout that they did this simply because they wanted the next crew to do a better job than theirs did--a serious pay it forward sort of thing. Many were Catholics, and an amazing number were Vietnam vets, although none of them made a big deal about that and few had any regrets about their service. These guys were my icons. They demonstrated how to eat, how to travel, how to run meetings, handle careers, find the right services, buy the right car, network, deal with family challenges--the works.
I had no idea how much I learned from them collectively until I reached this point in my life: when there were fewer of them "above" than my replacements down "below."
So a sense of a tipping point, but also of nearly unlimited possibilities lying ahead.
And that's not bad for a day when my home features 3 strep throats, three colds and a broken ankle.
Reader Comments (3)
Tom-- congratulations on making it through all these profound transitions. Seems like an appropriate time to express my appreciation for how much you share with us, your readers-- its really amazing and really cool. More specifically, thanks for being the adult in the room to me... frankly you've become perhaps the primary, positive influence to me in the academic, strategic thinking realm, and yet because of this blog format i feel like i've also learned so much from your work ethic, your family ethic, and these other intangibles one normally gleans from senior family or community members in more immediate professional or geographic proximity.
Its been seriously beneficial, and I aspire to someday pay forward some of the immense amount you've already contributed. Thanks again and enjoy moving into the new house-- sounds like its about damn time!
RE: Considering getting a Canoe or Kayak?
This I know a lot about. Contact Matt at 'Fluid Fun' in Bristol, IN. Family business with many decades of knowledge from recreational to racing.
http://www.fluidfun.com/index.htm
(He is X-1980 Olympic team (the "lucky" guys that didnt get to go...).
Get what you need and want at a fair price - dont buy what someone "has" as is often the case. The drive up is worth it no matter what.
Congrats on the new home!! It was nice you to give us a peek at this phase of your and family lives.
I also feel at this point of my life (mid 40's) that "pay it forward" is probably my most important vision that I have. Just want to provide a good example to the kiddies (14 and 5)
And canoeing in Indiana -- takes me back to canoeing at "Chain of Lakes State Park" in Northern Indiana as a kid -- try it -- kids will LOVE it.
Now that you are a Hoosier -- You have to try a pork fritter sandwich and love IU basketball!! :)