Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

Hope everyone is enjoying Christmas, Hanukkah, or the holiday season in general!

Photo credit: The other Sam Bradley.

California Dreamin': On the Road

Picturesque La Jolla, California.

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I've not been a very good blogger in 2008. My irregular posting has led me, at times, to think about shutting it down altogether.

This has been an incredibly busy summer with classes, writing, and masters thesis. Still, there has been time for fun.

Last week was spend on a road trip with my dad, driving around Southern California.

We brought bicycles and found riding trails along the Pacific coastline. We spend time at the beach, and we visited various university campuses, including Cal Tech, one of my new favorite places.

It was a great week for being a human; however, it was not such a great week for being a blogger.

The visit helped me set some long-term goals, and it helped me find some great places to take my kids on a next trip to California.

The last such trip I took with my dad was 1991. I'm hoping we won't wait 17 years next time.

Spending Time in Colorado with Family

Sorry to have gone out-of-touch. Staying at a cottage in the woods with no Internet access.

Regular posts will resume next week.

Happy Father's Day, Dad

A photo from Bloomington, Ind., in May 2005. Where does the time go?

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Wish we could be with you today!

Paul Tilley: Thinking of the Family

I have never heard of Paul Tilley before last month. From what I have read, he was an exceptional man and a great advertiser.

Sadly I learned of Tilley only after his apparent recent suicide. The creative chief for DDB Chicago fell to his death from the 27th floor of a hotel.

Reading about Tilley in Advertising Age reminded me of friends and acquaintances who died too early by their own hands.

I cannot imagine what goes through the mind of a person that leads in the decision to take ones own life. I hope that I never even glimpse a shadow of that mind.

But I do know the pain and suffering that is left behind. And it's a cruel pain wrapped with thoughts of responsibility. Lives are shattered never again to be the same. Little girls -- much like my own -- will grow up never knowing a parent.

As with many mental illnesses, the problems that lead to suicide and draped in untruths and stigma. Many people think that the will to live is tied to the neurotransmitter serotonin; when serotonin levels drop too low, suicide is an all-too-real risk.

I hope that those of you reading this will never think of taking your own life. But if you do, think first of Paul Tilley's family. Think of your family. Think of Tilley's two young daughters who will never have a father at their soccer games, graduation, or wedding. Think of your daughter, son, mother, or father.

Think of every one you know who would spend the rest of their lives wondering what they could have done. I know I feel this way about my former college friend. I knew he was having a rough time, and I will forever wish that I would have found another way to reach out.

Most of all, talk to someone. Anyone. Pick up the phone. Call someone you love. Call someone you trust. Life can be cruel. Life can seem hopeless. But there is always some hope. Please allow someone to help you find that hope.

Happy Birthday, Dictionary

UPDATED 6:16 p.m., two typos fixed: Note to self, if you write about copy editing or dictionaries, proofread really carefully.


I don't have many prized possessions. Actually, to be truthful, I don't have many unprized possessions. I am a pack rat of the first rank.

Among the myriad junk that I have collected over the years, however, a few things stand out.

It may be silly, but one of these things is my Webster's New World College Dictionary, third edition.

My copy turned 10 years old yesterday. It was a Christmas present from my parents in 1997. Luckily, I had the foresight to jot that down on the inside cover at the time. Otherwise I might have forgotten.

December 1997 was an exciting time. I was one semester away from graduation from New Mexico State University, and I had just learned that the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund had selected me as a summer 1997 intern.

Dow Jones is a very competitive internship, and I wanted it badly. Moreover, my Dow Jones internship had a Bay Area tie -- and I was in love with the Bay Area (I still am). First, I would train for two weeks at San José State University, and then I would work the summer at The Modesto Bee as a copy editor.

And to be a copy editor, you needed a dictionary. Not just any dictionary, mind you. You needed the dictionary. You couldn't have one editor spell the world "traveler" with one "l" and the next spell it "traveller." You needed a uniform tie-breaker. (My dictionary prefers the single "l").

First we turn to the Associated Press Stylebook. That was our bible. I miss it, really. I used to know that thing inside and out. When the new edition came out while I worked at the Albuquerque Journal, I went through it entry by entry charting the changes. We distributed the list in the newsroom. I think that I still have a copy somewhere. Anyway, I digress.

The Stylebook covered a lot of ground. But it did not cover all of the ground. And when it fell short, the Stylebook pointed to Webster's New World College Dictionary, third edition, or as we called it NW3.

Since I was going to be a "big boy" journalist in a few weeks, I needed a "big boy" dictionary. Before I had time to buy one myself, my parents gave me this one for Christmas in 1997.

The dictionary that you see above finished out the year at NMSU's student newspaper, The Round Up. It made the road trip to San José. It spent 10 weeks at The Bee. Then it road tripped back to Las Cruces, where it sat on my desk as a reporter and then sports editor. Then it moved with us to Albuquerque. And I won't bore you with all the trips that it made through graduate school. However, it is bicoastal, having lived in both California and New York. Here it sits today in the middle, Texas.

Late in the evening of Christmas Eve this year, I was sitting beside the fireplace reading Walden, which I of course should have read many, many years ago. On my lap was NW3, as the 1840s Thoreau tends to use words not used today. And while I scanned that dictionary, somehow a spark went off in my mind.

And all of a sudden I stopped. Looked up the way you do when you're scanning memory, and I thought "I think this dictionary is 10 years old."

So I flipped to the inside cover, and sure enough in my embarrassingly childlike handwriting was "12/25/97." In a couple of hours, NW3 would indeed turn 10.

I am sure that a lot of dictionaries are given. And I am sure that a lot of dictionaries are begrudgingly received. Perhaps none was so welcomely received as this one. It's been a real friend during this past decade -- a better friend indeed than several humans who would label themselves as such.

There's a new edition out now. Maybe two. I need to buy the new one. Words change. Languages are alive, after all.

But don't worry. NW3's not going anywhere. Sure, the cover is held on by duct tape. Sure, the corners of the pages are discolored by thousands of searches. But this dictionary is like part of the family. And it will always remind me of a time marked by boundless optimism.

Thanks for the dictionary, mom and dad. As presents go, it was tops.

Sorry I've Been Out of Touch

There's a new baby around, after all.

Late November Weather on the Desert

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- Happiness is riding your bicycle in the mountains on the day before Thanksgiving while wearing a short-sleeved shirt.

Riding with your dad makes it even more fun.

An Open Letter to First-Time-Parents

It will go faster than you think.

Time, that is.

Sure, you know it will go fast. People have told you that. You even believe that time will go fast.

But the thing is, you have no idea.

Early on in my first daughter's first year, we moved to Albuquerque. My wife, Emily, needed to take two classes at the University of New Mexico to finish her degree at New Mexico State.

At the time, I was working as a copy editor at the Albuquerque Journal, which meant that I basically worked 4 p.m. to midnight. So Emily took her two classes in mid-morning, and I would watch the baby.

As a new male parent, I had no idea what to do with a baby that small. And the baby liked her mother. So it was a stressful time for me. And I'm sure that the baby could sense my stress, which made it a stressful time for her.

Luckily for me, she fell asleep most days in the car after we dropped Emily off at UNM. Also lucky for me is that gasoline was still cheap then. So I'd point my little white Pontiac Sunbird westward, drive out to Edgewood, turn around, and come back.

I can close my eyes and see her in the car seat in the rear-view mirror.

When she did not fall asleep, we'd head back to the apartment on Constitution Avenue NE (my favorite address of all time), and play with blocks. We had these rubber Winnie the Pooh blocks that I would stack up, and she would sit between my legs and knock them over. Time and time again.

Eventually, she'd tire of that and cry. And I'd go to my wits end to find some way to entertain her. Those two hours seemed to last forever. I thought they'd never end.

And then one day, I'm staring at her sitting next to me at Sonic drinking and apple juice slush.

And she's 9.

And where in the hell did 8 years go?

And I was smiling, but there was still a tear in my eye.

And I'd give anything to have that baby back for two hours.

For two minutes.

You know that time will go fast.

But really, you have no idea.

Make Memories: Spend Time with Your Kids

The Kansas City skyline and Union Station as observed from atop the Liberty Memorial in 1980.

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Kansas City's Liberty Memorial as observed from the south in 1980.

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A surprise package arrived this week. It was from my father, who lives about 6 hours southwest of here, in Las Cruces, N.M.

In the package were some slides and a CD of the scanned slides.

On the outside of the unmistakable Eastman Kodak yellow slide box is my dad's unmistakable handwriting, "Sam III -- 110 slides Oct 1980."

By my calculations, I have been alive 12,496 days. A lot of those days are lost in my neural network.
I can tell you nothing about them.

But I remember that day so well. I had forgotten that it was in October -- or even 1980 for that matter. I had forgotten that they ever made 110 film, although I vaguely remember that camera.

What I do remember is my dad spending the day with me. I remember driving around downtown Kansas City. I remember one-way streets. I remember looking for places to park legally. And I remember my dad telling me stories about when he used to work downtown.

I was 7 years old.

That is a humbling kind of feeling for a parent. I happen to have a 7-year-old. I took her to the Texas Tech football game last weekend. We tailgated with some friends before the game. It was fun spending the time together. But never did I consider the possibility that she might remember that day forever.

I've thought about these pictures from time-to-time. Something small will happen, and it will cause me to think of that day. And I'd wondered where the pictures were. I knew that they were somewhere, as, like me, my father keeps everything.

And then the package arrived unannounced. And the power of visual memory took me down memory lane.

Of course I remember the time with my dad. But I also remember a lot about Kansas City, my home. I've always loved the Liberty Memorial. The top picture was taken from the top looking north. Absent are the two new buildings that are now the trademark of the Kansas City skyline, One Kansas City Place and Town Pavilion.

The bottom picture is looking at the Liberty Memorial from the south. In the upper right portion of the picture, you can see the Hyatt Regency hotel. In this photograph -- and others on the roll of film, you can see that the revolving restaurant is not finished. Given that the Hyatt opened in July 1980, this suggests that it took several months for this roll of film to be processed.

Still, more than 27 years later, I am amazed at the way this day imprinted upon me. Why did this .008 percent of my life make such an impression?

The thing is, you cannot choose which days will imprint upon your children. That is up to them and the idiosyncrasies of human memory. Many times I have heard my dad tell the story of taking his twins (from his first marriage) to see the Kansas City A's. Mickey Mantle hit a home run that day, and dad tried to impress upon the girls the history of the moment to no avail. Years later they do not remember the day.

I suppose that the answer is to simply try to give your kids as many memories as possible. I don't do that enough, although this posting was interrupted for an hour or so as we went to the park to feed the ducks and play on the equipment.

A view of the ducks and geese taken by my 9-year-old moments before the birds mobbed us in a fashion that would have made Hitchcock proud.

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Perhaps I will never know what motivated my dad to take me around town that sunny Kansas City day in 1980. I just know that he did.

It's funny how this roll of film is at the intersection of so many childhood memories. That incomplete revolving restaurant, Skies, in the bottom picture became my favorite. It would become a birthday tradition.

Less than a year after these pictures were taken, 114 people died in that Hyatt hotel. It was a Friday night, and we were driving around buying a bunk bed as my 8th birthday present. I can still remember the chilling radio report.

Twenty-three years later, I would return to the Hyatt as a guest. In 2003, the hotel hosted the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Here is a picture of me with colleague James Angelini at that conference.


I always had a love for Downtown Kansas City, even though it never really revitalized during my lifetime. I think that love may have started this 1980 day. I don't know why it happened, but I am glad that it did.

If you're a parent, I hope you take some time with your kids to make a memory that will last a lifetime.

Girl Power: Working on Four of a Kind

We have a long way to go in terms of gender equity in this country.

In the meantime, I'm doing my part. We found out yesterday that our fourth baby, due in December, will be a girl.

I'm excited. I was pulling for a girl. Really. I'm not lying. I'm not putting on a brave face. I strongly wanted a girl.

There are a lot of reasons why.

It would be remiss not to mention my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I like things that match. I don't take much joy in "one of these things is not like the others." But that is, honestly, a small part of it.

Allow me to digress and tell you a bit about the conversations that a soon-to-be father of four girls has had over the past decade.

Ten years ago today, we were expecting our first child, which turned out to be a girl.

From the moment I mentioned it, people presumed that I wanted a boy. Really I hadn't given in much thought, and honestly being a pessimist, I wanted only a healthy baby.

But I was instantly amazed at the presumption and how comfortable people were talking about it. It never occurred to them that it might be sexist.

Fast forward two years, and we were expecting the second child. Then it really started. I was amazed how many people would say how much they hoped it would be a boy.

There was no modesty about it. No verbal tip-toeing. Just flat out, "You must really want a boy." Then looks of pity when I told them we were looking at two of a kind.

Three years later, with girl 3.0, it was even worse. Perhaps for this reason if no other, I decided that I really wanted that baby to be a girl. And she was. And she's great. They're all great.

So when my wife became convinced that we had to have a fourth baby (something about even numbers and ancient Pagan rituals), there was no question what I wanted: girl!

Yesterday we found out: girl! I'm happy. But I am saddened by how many people feel badly for me. So when I tell people, I have taken to this somewhat preemptive storytelling style such that I will not have to hear the same pro-boy comments that I have heard for a decade now.

I feel like the bizarre Seinfeld episode about denying being gay:

"Congratulations on another girl, not that there's anything wrong with that."

I'm really not doing it justice here. But if I get one more "you poor bastard" look shot at me, I might have to burn someone's bra.

And, oh yeah. Four kids later, and I still get to go into public restrooms alone.

GIRL POWER!

Happy Independence Day 2007

Over-regularizing the English Plural

We have three gigantic dice. I don't know where they came from. One is red, one is white, and one is blue.

Today my 3-year-old was playing with them. I grabbed two of them.

"Give me back the dices," she said.

As a cognitive scientist, I was very proud.

It took a lot of processing to apply a rule where it didn't belong.

Seventh grade English be damned!

Career Began in Northern California

Ten years ago this month I was assigned to The Modesto (Calif.) Bee as a copy editing intern. It's a great newspaper. And I loved it there.

My assignment to Modesto came as a quirk. Having gone to school at New Mexico State, the decisions committee at the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund slated me for the Tucson Citizen.

I still remember the phone call clearly (but probably not as well as I think). Dr. Bill Tillinghast called to offer me the job. I trembled with excitement as I heard the news. I wanted that internship more than anything I ever wanted in life.

Dr. Tillinghast explained that I would attend the center for editing excellence at San Jose State for two weeks (read about a related memory) before heading back to Tucson.

I'm still not sure what came over me. I told Dr. Tillinghast that I might never leave the Bay Area once they got me out there.

He paused.

"We have an opening in Modesto, " he said.

"Where is Modesto?" I asked.

"About 90 miles east of San Francisco," he said.

"I'll take it," I said, pumping my fist in the air.

Life took a left turn in that moment. My love affair with the Bay Area only grew. In 1997, the goal of living in the Bay Area nearly consumed me.

So off I went.

Things went well. My dad drove out with me. We visited San Francisco together. It was amazing.

Dad flew home. I went through boot camp with Dow Jones (the greatest educational experience of my life), and I moved to my apartment in Modesto. My wife, Emily, joined me in Modesto after her summer class.

I had an interview with the Contra Costa Times, an east Bay paper. Life was awesome.

My wife became pregnant about that time. Although I had finished my degree at NMSU, she had a year left. There was no way that I was going to be apart from my first born. Life took another left turn.

So I picked up the phone. I called Harold Cousland at the Las Cruces Sun-News. I asked Harold for a job. Ten weeks before I competed with his paper as the editor of the NMSU student newspaper, the Round Up. That day I wanted a job.

Luckily Harold had a job for me.

So on August 31, 1997, I loaded all of my belongings into my white Pontiac Sunbird, and I headed south on Highway 99.

I left Northern California in the rear-view mirror that day, and I have not been back since.

In the interim, a decade went by. I tired of journalism's long hours and low pay. I wound up with a Ph.D. and three daughters.

In two more days, I'll fly into San Francisco again. In many ways, it will be as if the decade never passed by.

Happy Easter 2007

Kids Say the Darndest...

With three daughters, I read the same books many times. I must admit that I get bored. So sometimes I change the words. One character, Stinky MacGee, becomes Stinky Chloe, much to the chagrin of my 5-year-old. Well, last night, during a different book, Chloe reached the breaking point with my creative license. I tried to explain that she should like variety and welcome creativity. She replied, "I like creativity when I paint but not when you talk!" Har!

Back to School

... but not for me. While all of my friends in the academic world return to classes, I celebrate the quarter system -- one of the many advantages at OSU. We do not start classes for another three weeks! Of course, my friends hate me now. However, when I am teaching in June, the situation will be reversed.

My oldest daughter began second grade at her new school today, so it is a bit of a sad day. It is always scary sending your "baby" off to be in someone else's care for six and a half hours. She will do well, but it is a melancholy day for me.

Another Piece of the Lab

The lab seems to be coming together. I am told that the psychophysiology equipment is sitting on the loading dock waiting to be shipped. In the meantime, I took advantage of the good fortune of having my father in town. Borrowing a good idea from my friends in Indiana, I wanted a shelf for the equipment. The shelf adds a second layer and keeps the equipment from sprawling all over a desk.

We spent most of the day today putting the shelf together using my new table saw -- something I thought I would never own. As someone who studies emotion, I read a lot about snakes, phobias, and anxiety. Well, I am saw-phobic. And I hated this, too. But the end result turned out nice, thanks to dad. We made it out of 3/4 inch plywood with a nice oak hardwood veneer. We also added a thin strip of oak veneer to the outside of the plywood, so the shelf looks like hardwood.

Although this shelf will be a great addition to the Communication & Cognition lab at OSU, the best part of the project was spending another day working with my dad.

That's So Raven

You have not lived until you have attended a Raven concert with a couple thousand people including several hundred pre-teen girls. As a media researcher, I always enjoy opportunities to partake in media for which I am not the target demo ... that is until 500+ little girls began to shriek. I regained my hearing several minutes later. My 5-year-old daughter had fun, my 7-year-old was a bit afraid of the screaming in the dark, and my 20-month-old slept until the screaming began. Then she resumed her normal habit of shaking her head "no" at everything she did not like, including the screaming. Here is a picture of her having a smiliar reaction during a recent Fourth of July parade.

It was the girls' first chance to see a media "person" in person. Again, this was a mini experiment for me. They were largely unimpressed, except that the 5-year-old wanted to know why Raven couldn't see her waving.

After the concert, it was 97 degrees outside, so we made the obligatory visit to the Butter Cow, got some ice cream, and went home.