Fear of Hot Dancing.

Jeez it's hot!
Not Hollywood sexy hot.
Hot, as in sitting in an oven, hot.

Last night was a record for our neighbours in Burbank as the minimum night temperature was 77F (25C).

Coming from the UK I always said I'd never complain about the heat, so I won't. However even though I won't complain, I never said I wouldn't get scared...

Yesterday we had a power cut late in the afternoon. The house became silent...well apart from the annoying beep from my computer's UPS and the automated phone call from the alarm company. The silence of the air conditioning was unsettling. I even could hear it above the noise created by the long queue of impatient motorists leading to the dark traffic lights.

Our house has a reasonable amount of insulation, so the heat increased gradually, but it was foreboding. Lynn was away in New York and I was to take our boys to see the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

I worried that if the power issues spread it would be a catastrophic mistake to be at the Hollywood Bowl. This seems so alien to me. Being scared to go out because of 100mph winds or severe snow storms feel much more natural to me...so much so that I'm not that scared, I have a level of experience and hence over confidence. ;) To be scared of sunshine and heat is still new to me.

I gathered together flash-lights for later and considered not going to the concert. It was going to be a risk even without the heat issue.  Our boys might not appreciate the old music of the orchestra or the art of the scheduled dance performance by Diavolo.

Fear sucks. So we went. The boys loved the orchestra and even stayed reasonably quiet, only once asking for more snacks. Then the Diavolo dance performance started. They were totally blown away, completely engaged in the event; the orchestral sound and the acrobatic dance. Especially Lachlan, our 6 year old.

The artists were amazing, though from our seats way back almost at the lip of the bowl, the dancers were almost a blur, even on the large video screens. Mind you perhaps that was for the best, it was so hot that it was probably better that we couldn't see every bead of sweat on all that Lycra.

Within 2 minutes of arriving home, power was returned and our aircon resumed its calming drone. I needn't have worried a jot.

This morning, however, grandiosity got the better of me. I sneakily thought I'd remind Lachlan of the performance as he entered his classroom. He was exhausted and I thought if he told his teacher why, she'd surely understand the value of the experience and cut him a bit of slack. And if his teacher got the idea that I was a great dad, so much the better.

So I asked him what his favourite part of the performance was and he replied, 'The Dancers...did you see? They were naked!' And with that he entered his classroom.

Now I have a new fear, a fear of what my son told his teacher about the hot, naked dancers that Daddy took him to see.

Bank Insecurities: DO NOT TYPE YOUR BANK CARD PIN INTO A PHONE. EVER.

 (Photo credit: fables98)

Banks. They annoy me. A lot.

Do I need to write more? Do I need to justify myself?
Probably not. Unless you work for a bank, or own one, then you probably agree with me.

My annoyance is significant, specific and stewing in my brain. So I'm going to vent. Normally I'd type a blog like this and save it as draft, so that I can delete it later. This time though, I think I have to share if just to make sure that you DO NOT TYPE YOUR BANK CARD PIN INTO A PHONE. EVER.

The Chase Bank has allowed unknown people in Texas to empty our checking account twice so far. Last week they called me to say there had been suspicious activity on my account again and so they'd locked me out of online banking until they could clear it up. Then they requested I type my pin number into my phone to verify who I was.  I wouldn't do this and so I was threatened that I'd have to physically go to a Chase branch. I then told each of the 5 people I was passed around, the reasons why I WILL NOT TYPE MY BANK CARD PIN INTO A PHONE. EVER.

I've been asked to do this before and I've always refused. Why would I want to broadcast my pin number to AT&T or T-Mobile or any of the phone call carriers who are routing my call? Also I work at home, but if I were to do this from an office phone you can be sure that my pin would also be stored on the office switchboard database too. And for what it's worth, the metadata that the NSA was accessing and was the subject of so much controversy is this very data; the numbers you type into your phone.

Now let's face it, if the NSA has been legally-ish obtaining this data, there will also be a significant number of organizations and individuals with more clearly dubious motives illegally gathering this data too.  Telephone exchanges are really just computers now and use the same technologies that the internet does..... So I guess we shouldn't be too worried. It's not as if there are foreign governments and criminal organizations on the internet constantly trying to hack in and steal data... [I can't remember, which is the emoticon for sarcasm?]

In fact if you want to go low tech too, it's fairly easy to attach a call logger to landline telephone wires and just wait for a 16 digit number followed by the '#' and then the 4 digit pin followed by '#'.

I've complained to the Chase Bank Fraud Hotline... blah blah blah.... Actually my personal bank battles will probably never end and are not that important in the big scheme of life. So all I ask that you just take one piece of infomation from this blog post:

DO NOT TYPE YOUR BANK CARD PIN INTO A PHONE. EVER.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/27/heres-how-phone-metadata-can-reveal-your-affairs-abortions-and-other-secrets/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

When you need a camera....

I've been doing a lot of filming of my family lately. First there was Lachlan's pre-school "Spring Sing" His class danced to 'Foot Loose' and although he was great, he really came into his own for the whole-school dance to 'Gangnam Style.'

We arrived at the Spring Sing a little too late to get a good camera position...a lot of parents arrived over an hour and a half early! So I shot the whole thing from way up high in the back balcony. Though it actually worked out quite well, because I used a tripod and was away from the bickering and tantrums of....yes, you guessed it, I'm referring to the parents trying to get a better view.

Anyway two days later was Lachlan's 6th birthday and he had a pool party at home.  I played Gangnam Style to see if he'd do anything. He was spectacular!  Without flinching, he found a commanding spot and started the dance he'd learned so well. He wasn't nervous, he didn't care who was watching and he didn't ever seem to care if his friends would join him... though they did of course.  I've edited a great mix of the school and the home performances... which I'll probably share publicly in about a dozen years time.  I think 18 is a good age to see yourself dancing to popular music aged 6... Nahahaha! I am that evil dad!

However, there's a couple of things I missed getting on camera. Like when the lifeguard we hired for Lachlan's party, calmly jumped in to save his struggling friend...and then when she saved another friend a bit later...and then when she saved another friend a bit later.  I'll never regret having a lifeguard at that party, but the 3 saves would have made a great a YouTube video!

After the party, there were high winds forecast. Not high winds for Scotland of course, but then hot weather for Scotland is like a winter's evening here in Los Angeles. We'd bought, and I'd fought, two very cheap gazebos for extra shade at Lachlan's party. So with the winds coming, I thought I'd dismantle one gazebo and try to secure the other to see how it would hold up to these very slight winds. (I'll help you read between the lines here - The gazebo's cost less than $20... and they are overly complex... and I was tired...OK so I couldn't be bothered!)

With all the work clearing up, I needed a shower...  I was just waiting for the water to warm when Fergus came shouting that Mom wanted me.  I thought she was just hassling me that dinner was ready, or the iPod needs charging, or her phone wasn't working the way she wanted it to, or... well you get the picture! So I said I'd be there after my shower. A few moments later Fergus shouted again that Mom really needed me.

The result is that I have no footage of Lynn at the far end of our backyard, relentlessly holding on to a twisted-and-flying-upsidedown gazebo. And I am also without any footage of me arriving to the rescue; partially wet and wearing only pajama pants...