Commuter Daddy? Make that Commuter Dud.

My oldest son, Sam, recently placed second in his school's geography bee, among several other accomplishments in the month of January. One of the stepping stones to his geographic success was knowing which state's residents have an average commute longer than 28 minutes:



I'd never have guessed that one corrrectly. Commuter Son #1 knows more than Commuter Daddy! To be fair to my commuter knowledge, this question came during a map-aided, visual-clue portion of the program. Still, you have to like that the apple is not falling that far from the commuter tree.

I know all this thanks to Brandy capturing some of the key moments on video. I completely missed out on attending the geography bee in person. I was smack dab in the middle of a training session that I could not reschedule, given some pressing deadlines at the time. The irony was I was 20 minutes down the road, and not the usual 300 miles away on one of my regular excursions. My proximity made the miss all the more excruciating.

One of the benefits of my half-home-office, half-on-the-road work situation is a predominant ability to arrange my schedule so I can attend these sorts of events in person. Sometimes, when work is at its most stressful, being able to attend the kids' special moments in school and elsewhere keeps me motivated -- and frankly working harder. An hour missed during the normal business hours usually translates to two hours or more worked after the kids go to bed.

Missing the geography bee made me 0-for-3 over the course of a few weeks, though. Just before Christmas, I had also arrived late to both Mason's and Benjamin's holiday performances on separate days.


Thankfully, with a major launch out of the way at work, I've rejoined the family. Over the last few weeks, I've attended two band concerts, taken Mason to a previously unscheduled basketball game, and even found time to walk with Mason and our dog, Ruby, to school on a couple of mornings.

Hopefully, I'll continue to keep my inner Dud at bay for a while.