The First Day of School

Oh man, the first day of school. 2 months of lord of the flies, mostly naked, running wild - hunting, fishing, building and breaking shit, and just being a boy. followed by new clothes, bells, middle aged women (no offense) and their rules. it was either the best or worst of days - at a time when everything seemed like the biggest and most important thing in the world. I haven't had one in probably 6 years now - and really everything after grade 9 or 10 doesn't count, so its been a while. but i still remember the nerves, the friends, the cliques etc, etc. When I was a young guy I really struggled socially in school. I didn't get it, and i wasn't very good at making or keeping friends. Now I was always pretty big, so I was never physically bullied much - but kids can be pretty vicious when it comes to the name calling and exclusion. about grade 6 or 7 I started to come around and I made a couple of good friends that I would hang onto through most of high school. but I didn't really find my thing until the middle of grade 10. grade 9 went pretty well for the first little bit, but it wasn't long before the drinking and parties were inviting the grade 9 kids, and being the son of the principal I think I somehow got missed on most of the invites. I did pretty good with the ladies (for a 15 year old hick kid) regardless, but i was part of the out crowd still. I was a science/drama geek - which i didn't realize wasn't quite the highest on the social scale. haha. but part way through grade 10 I stopped dressing so weird, had a couple of solid friends, and didn't care so much (which it turns out is the secret sauce). by grade 11 I had a pretty good thing going and it was all down hill from there. but for those first 10 or so Septembers it was a hell of day. You're probably wondering why I am going on about this (unless you have kids). well yesterday was the first day of school for my 2 youngest brothers. Denver in grade 8, and Grayson in grade 11. Denny, a little like me, has a rough go with the social side of things - he doesn't get it. our mother maybe, kinda sorta, totally and completely babies him. and, fingers crossed, hes gonna have a wakeup call here in the next year or so. and Grayson is a bit funny. Hes a really sweet kid with a big heart and as far as I can tell he has found his grove. hes a very good golfer, big into basketball, good with the ladies, I think hes even the tambourine player in some band (chokes hysterical laughter back...). now as you could probably guess, Grayson had a great day - a good locker, good classes and teachers, and fun with his buddies. but poor Denny ended up in a fight on the playground after lunch and im pretty sure had a miserable day. I feel like i should say something deep about how your perspective influnces your happiness - but you get the point. Now, why do I care? Why write about this? well, its pretty simple. I work in a very, very busy house that 8 people live and stampeed through every day. and yesterday morning was a hell of a pile quieter! and if I can just find a way to get the boss lady to make a bit less noise - it'll be perfect! in this blissful absence of noise I spent the day cobbling tornado into our ever growing set of tools. I'm not sure I'm in love with the framework yet - but the server sure is pretty slick. more hacking today will hopefully help me figure that out!