This was supposed to go up at the beginning of June

It's getting so I can judge a week's eventfulness by the number of pictures I take. These past few weeks I haven't taken any pictures at all. Everything is starting to feel a little routine which probably means that it's about time for a change. It looks like we'll be changing our living accommodations soon. It's a little overwhelming to try and navigate the housing market here, but I think we've settled on an area close to some people we know and relatively close to a karate dojo. Hopefully things will work out. We'll be sure to keep you posted.

There have been a few advancements in Karate. Just to keep everyone up to speed, Liam is at his Brown 2 in both Karate and Kobudo (that puts him two tests away from his black belt in each of those). Lucy is now a brown belt, Miranda has her purple belt, and James his yellow. It's been a great lesson in persistence and accomplishment. There was also a piano recital for Liam and Lucy. Their teacher will be moving back to China this summer, which will be keenly felt. They've both grown considerably under her care.

In just a few weeks Liam and I will embark on some serious father-son bonding time. It's a long flight from Abu Dhabi to Texas, but I think our relationship can handle that kind of unbuffered intensity. Liam will be off to his first EFY. I wish I had some experience with these kinds of things, I feel like I'm kind of throwing hi,off the deep end. How do you counsel someone through their teenage years when you were so miserable at the experience? I really have no advice to give him on girls or friends or hobbies or goals. I can't help but look back on my youthful experiences with regret and embarrassment. I guess I am a wealth of knowledge of what not to do and how not to be.

We're coming to the end of our school year. With the changes and challenges of this semester, it feels like it's been a long time coming. Not too long ago, the college I work at decided that there would be a shift from laptops to iPads for each student. You might imagine that this can have pretty drastic implications both on infrastructure and teaching. I've been involved on an iPad implementation committee which has made things busier at a time when they should be slowed down. It's not the change as much as the pace of change that can be a little overwhelming. I'm used to major changes going through several committees before being slowly rolled out. That's not quite how things play out here. It can be taxing, but, if you're up for it,it can also be very exciting.

I took Liam and Lucy to see Snow White and the Huntsman last week. It was one of those movies that would have been improved by the absence of dialogue--the design, cinematography and special effects were of the highest calibre, but the plot and dialogue were painfully cliched. However, it did give us occasion to discuss why The Avengers was so satisfying and this was not. It's fun to have conversations like this with Liam and Lucy now that they're getting to an age where their critical thinking skills are starting to blossom (and what better use of critical thinking skills is there than to extol the virtues of comic book movies?).

I've been reading a lot lately and ideas and motivation. Drive by Daniel Pink is an interesting book on what motivates people. Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson makes some great observations on the role of networking and collaboration in the birth of innovative ideas. It's good to think about why people do things, but you can go a little crazy if you think about it too much. We've also been watching Friday Night Lights and even though it's about football, football is the least important element of the show. As my kids get a little older, sometimes it hits a little too close to home, so I can't watch too many episodes too close together, but it is always worthwhile.

Speaking of my aging kids, Lucy turned twelve this week. I'm sure most fathers of twelve year olds completely understand how I'm feeling when I say, "Ack!" Any day now I keep expecting her to call me out for the fraud I am. "You don't know anything about parenting, do you? You totally lucked out with your kids." she'll say. And she'll be right.

Yup, I think it's time for a change

Is this drastic enough?