{"id":1380,"date":"2011-02-11T06:36:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T12:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=1380"},"modified":"2011-02-12T10:53:41","modified_gmt":"2011-02-12T16:53:41","slug":"e-f-t-p-o-z","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2011\/02\/e-f-t-p-o-z\/","title":{"rendered":"E F T P O Z"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday, 07 February 2011<\/strong>
\nTonight, as we were lying in bed, Owen asked me if I ever wanted to travel back in time. We had talked about time-travel once before, about a week ago, when Jennifer and I were discussing its popularity in the Star Trek Universe. But tonight, he must\u2019ve wanted to broach the topic again.
\n\u201cSure,\u201d I said.
\n\u201cWhy?\u201d he asked.
\n\u201c\u2019Cause, maybe I\u2019d like to go back and fix some mistakes I made or try to do some things better.\u201d
\nOwen said nothing for a moment; I could tell he was thinking. Then he said, in the most astonished voice ever, \u201cI didn\u2019t know you could change stuff!\u201d
\n\u201cWell, yeah,\u201d I said, \u201cI mean, of course it\u2019s all hypothetical, but usually in stories when someone goes back in time it\u2019s because they want to change something.\u201d
\nThis took us into a conversation about what are some things that characters have tried to change in such stories, as well as a few examples of things I would like to change. Owen didn\u2019t quite get it, so I explained it this way: \u201cWell, you know how you left your light-saber at Grammie\u2019s house the other day?\u201d He said yes, so I explained that, wouldn\u2019t it be nice if he could go back to that time and tell his younger self to not forget it.
\nI kind of wish the conversation hadn\u2019t gone that way, because I would have rather discovered what it was that Owen found so fascinating about time travel. I mean, if he didn\u2019t want to alter the past in some way\u2026then what? Did he just want to observe events like a fly on the wall? Because, in that case, he could just watch some home videos. More likely, he probably wanted to return to happy times and relive those moments.
\nAnd I think that\u2019s a pretty good outlook on life: instead of desiring to go back and fix things, he just thinks it would be cool to experience the best times a second time.
\n\u2026Unless I\u2019ve ruined it for him now.<\/p>\n

Tuesday, 08 February 2011<\/strong>
\nDay two of my new semester at Hamline.
\nI had that feeling again where I think, \u201cWhat the heck am I doing here?\u201d
\nIt\u2019s easy to see how I get that feeling \u2013 most the students look younger than me. Unlike my last two classes at Hamline, I\u2019m pretty certain that I\u2019m the oldest student in the class; and probably by several years. There are posters hanging on the walls advertising internships\u2026there\u2019s nothing wrong with that it\u2019s just that I already have a job. I\u2019m sure several of my classmates also have jobs, too, but they probably just look at their jobs as temporary measures to give them some spending money. My job is more of a career \u2013 I needed a degree to get my job, and I don\u2019t have parents paying my tuition or for my dorm. In fact, I don\u2019t\u2019 even live in the dorms, I live off campus, with a wife and two kids. Is anyone else in the class even married?
\nIn my other two classes, we went around the room and introduced ourselves. I liked doing that because I enjoyed hearing other students say that they were married, or that they are returning to school after an absence \u2013 stuff like that. We haven\u2019t done that in this class. Oh well.
\nOur first two assignments were due today, too, and I\u2019m hoping for a couple of A\u2019s to kick off the semester.<\/p>\n

Wednesday, 09 February 2011<\/strong>
\nToday was an extraordinarily busy day in which I got to work later than I wanted to, then hit the ground running at work. After working through lunch, then attending a Toastmasters meeting, I left early to get home to pick up my wife and kids (and my mom \u2013 she\u2019s in town staying with us right now) so that we could get to the optometrists\u2019 office by 3:30.
\nOwen and I were both seen by Dr. Pat Wellik<\/a>. The whole experience was very draining for Owen. He was nervous the whole time, even after I assured him it was better than going to the dentists\u2019 office (\u201cI like going to the dentist,\u201d he said. Who says that?). He watched me get my eyes examined first, then he sat on my lap while Dr. Pat examined his eyes. He was not very cooperative at first, but Dr. Pat knew how to get Owen to be a little bit accommodating. He let Owen play with the remote control for the eye chart, then let him hold the special \u2018flashlight\u2019 and shine it into my eyes first.
\nOwen tried very hard to get all the right answers. He studied the images through lens 1 and lens 2 before making his decision on which one is clearer. One time he even asked the doctor to go back so he could double-check his answer. Dr. Pat said, \u201cWow, his answers are very consistent.\u201d Later, when Dr. Pat said, \u201cTell me when these two images line up,\u201d Owen sat very still and then finally said, \u201cI think they\u2019re lined up like this [he gestured] but they\u2019re not perfectly lined up.\u201d Dr. Pat laughed and said that was good enough.
\nThe worst part was the bright light the doctor used for looking at Owen\u2019s macula. Owen absolutely hated the bright light and I could tell he was mustering all his reserves to keep his composure.
\nFollowing a magic trick that the doctor performed well but was not received well by Owen, and a prize pencil, Owen went back out to Jennifer (who had finished her exam by then) and began crying. I gotta say, Dr. Pat did an excellent job dealing with Owen\u2019s anxieties, but Owen just couldn\u2019t handle the pressure of the \u2018tests\u2019 and the bright lights. We went out to eat afterward, and Owen needed to sit on our laps practically the whole time. He ate about a quarter of his meal, and after we got home, he just wanted us to hug him. At 7:30, he said he wanted to go to bed, and he fell asleep by 7:45.
\nMan, you know Owen\u2019s exhausted when he can\u2019t even outlast Isla.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday, 07 February 2011 Tonight, as we were lying in bed, Owen asked me if I ever wanted to travel back in time. We had talked about time-travel once before, about a week ago, when Jennifer and I were discussing its popularity in the Star Trek Universe. But tonight, he must\u2019ve wanted to broach the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1380"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1384,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380\/revisions\/1384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}