David Fiedler: Infobahn Warrior

I am just so proud of this kid.

It was just 4 years ago or so that Scott was floundering a bit in high school. He had/has the brains, but he just didn’t have the motivation or interest for most academic subjects, at least the way they were being taught to him.

But he had shown a heck of a lot of aptitude for doing a bunch of mods to my car back in 2003 when we first got it, and that got him to take some automotive tech courses, and suddenly he was getting A grades. Susan and I both grew up in academic backgrounds, but we did not hesitate to encourage him to follow his own path…the one he not only desired, but was good at. And when he said he wanted to follow his dream to Universal Technical Institute, arguably the best school for automotive mechanics in the country, we supported him there too.

The decision to attend UTI was not taken lightly. Not only was there a serious financial commitment (I believe the proper term here is "a shitload of money"), but Scott would have to leave every day at 5 AM for classes…and this is a kid who used to have trouble with attendance and lateness. And UTI is very serious about attendance, because their full program takes 22 months of straight instuction — no languid summers off here — to get you the equivalent of 3 years’ schooling in just under 2. Individual courses are 3 intense weeks long, and if you miss more than one day, you have to take the entire course over.

Scott put his head down and never looked back. And when he graduated today, he had taken just about every course you could: Automotive Technology. Diesel. Industrial. And an optional Ford course (he has an entire binder full of Ford certificates). And he got on the Director’s List (like the Dean’s List) almost 20 times.

But the thing he wanted most was to be accepted in one of the prestigious MSAT courses, which prepare you for a career working with a specific manufacturer’s vehicles. And he set his sights high: he wanted no less than the BMW program, which is called STEP (Service Technician Education Program). And you can’t just decide to take it…they must choose you. And if they choose you, you’re essentially getting a full scholarship, because BMW pays for the whole thing.

So I’m doubly proud to announce that he will be starting BMW STEP training in August…as the only one in his entire graduating class to be accepted.

Congratulations to Scott…a wonderful, mature, hard working, and very talented young man.

(See all the pictures here).

Tags: automotive technology, BMW, family, mechanic, Scott Fiedler, UTI

When President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the usual suspects were all like “Wow! First woman Hispanic Hispanic female Latina woman from Puerto Rico!” and I was like “Cool, but what about Benjamin Cardozo?” Well, it turns out that ol’ Ben don’t qualify as Hispanic, as Lord Peter Wimsey might have said, because his antecedents were Portuguese, and that’s not Hispanic. However, it is Latino…and then again some people think that Cardozo’s family was originally Spanish, not Portuguese. But plenty of people wouldn’t count Cardozo as anything even remotely “Spanish” in origin, because he was Jewish, and hey, we’ve let lots of Jews onto the Supreme Court so now they’re no longer considered minorities any more.

So what’s the big deal about this stuff? Nothing! It’s just that some people get all excited about the “first this” and “first that” until the end result is that everyone is issuing press releases like the “first disabled lesbian Native American to be named CEO of a green renewable energy firm in the Midwest” or something. As far as I’m concerned, an announcement of this magnitude should be about someone’s qualifications and background, and all this minority rah-rah nonsense should be left for the last sentence in the last paragraph of the press release, if at all. But what do I know, I only spent 20 years as a journalist.

So what about her qualifications? Well, Judge Sotomayor is apparently a top-notch pick and more than just well qualified, having graduated summa cum laude from Princeton and having spent almost two decades as a respected Federal judge. No problem there. And I have nothing to say about any of her so-called “litmus test” beliefs — where people decide if they like a judge based on their “check the box” position on abortion, gun rights, free speech, death penalty, etc. — because apparently she hasn’t signaled one strong preference or another on these subjects in all this time. So that’s very good, because every case should be decided on its own merits, not as a rubber stamp based on a judge’s personal opinion.

My main concern with Judge Sotomayor is simply her reported viewpoint, given in a speech, that a “wise Latina woman” (sic), presumably herself, “would reach a better conclusion than a white male”.

Let’s pause here for a moment. Can you imagine any Supreme Court nominee in the last 25 years who wouldn’t have been totally demolished if they had said “a white male would reach a better conclusion than a [fill-in-the-blank minority]“? That sort of remark would be rightly considered as totally racist, and before anyone on either side of the aisle even considers confirming Judge Sotomayor, they ought to get a very clear answer from her on how she reconciles that kind of statement with her sworn duty to judge cases fairly…especially given her decision in Ricci v. DeStefano.

Well, I’m not sure how else to put it.

According to this article in the Jerusalem Post, Rahm Emanuel, who is Obama’s Chief of Staff, warned hundreds of top supporters of Israel that stopping Iran’s nuclear program is conditional upon Israel making “progress” in its “peace” negotiations with the “Palestinians”.

Essentially, Emanuel is using third-party nuclear blackmail, implying that if Israel doesn’t do more for the Gazans — you know, the people that all the Arab countries wring their hands over but want nothing to do with themselves — then Obama will sit back and let Iran blow up Tel Aviv with a nuclear weapon. Naturally, the Israelis will not let things go that far but will target Iran’s nuclear facilities themselves if necessary…at which point, Obama will join the chorus of pious denouncers of Israel’s “aggression”.

Politics may suck, but Rahm Emanuel sucks the worst.

Well, this morning my father called me, out of the blue.

Since it’s Scott’s birthday, I held out some hope that he was calling to speak to Scott. But no. He was only calling to tell me he was now back in New York, and that he was OK.

"And what about you? And your family?"

"We’re OK".

"Well, it’s warm here in New York. We brought the warm weather with us, haha".

And that was about it. No questions about why I hadn’t called him in 6 weeks (maybe he lost track, or maybe he knows I’m pissed off at him), no mention of Scott (maybe he forgot, or maybe he no longer cares), no variations from his usual phone script.

I guess I’ll hear from him again in October, when he goes back to Arizona.

Meanwhile, here are some pictures from Scott’s birthday .

Tags: father, Sidney Fiedler

I’ve tried. I’ve really tried.

It’s been eight years now since I’ve seen my father, and even then I had to schlep my whole family down to his house in Arizona. He had just bought it, and was determined to show it off.

The fact that I had just had a heart attack six weeks before was beside the point. He couldn’t be bothered leaving his new place to come see us. We couldn’t afford to fly down there since I had just lost my job a few months before, but he said he’d pay for the airplane and half the car rental, and my doctor said it was OK, so we went.

And he didn’t spend a lot of time with us while we were there, either. His plans for us involved us all traipsing through endless corporate shopping outlets and then eating out at restaurants they (he and his wife) could boast to their friends about (we found a fabulous Chinese restaurant there on our own, but they pooh-poohed it because it was located in a strip mall. Their loss.) The idea that this might be somewhat boring for a family with two young boys was lost on them. And oh yes, they live in effing Sedona. Who visits Sedona for outlet stores?

So we decided we would visit more interesting things, like Meteor Crater, the Grand Canyon, and some of the local New Age power spots. In fact, we rented an extra-large car so there would be enough room for all of us. No chance; I don’t think they ever got into it once. Every morning I would call them to meet, and there was always some excuse: "Your dad’s in the shower now and I can’t sit for long periods in a car because of my sciatica, so you all have a nice time and we’ll meet you for dinner". The next day: "Your dad’s in the shower and I can’t get in and out of a car today, I have to sit for long periods. Have a nice time and we’ll meet you for dinner." The next day: "I have to pack and run lots of errands today, so have a nice time and…".

The best part was a few weeks later, when he refused to pay me back for the plane and car, because we hardly spent any time with them while we were there.

Well, that put quite a damper on our relationship, and we didn’t talk for some time. Eventually someone — my sister, my aunt Millie, my cousin Esther…I forget — convinced me that I only have one father, and I should call him again. So for the sake of the kids and my own relationship with him, I decided to be a big boy and make the first move. OK, we started talking again. But again it was all about him: "Guess what? We’re going to Iceland!" "We just got back from New Zealand" "Leaving on a cruise to Alaska next week"

But never a word about visiting his son, daughter-in-law, or grandsons…or his daughter, for that matter, who also lives reasonably near us. We hinted. We asked. Finally we almost begged. But again, he couldn’t be bothered visiting us. Apparently, they had some sort of social standing based on where they were visiting, and Northern California wasn’t exotic enough to impress their friends.

In the last few years, his entire contact with us has been his two annual calls to his grandsons on their respective birthdays (and often again on Chanukah). Oh, I’ve been calling him regularly every week for years. Our conversations are very quick, because he has them scripted: "How are you doing? How are the kids? How’s the weather? Nice talking to you! Click!" For a while there, he was actually alternating calling me every other week. That stopped for no obvious reason, but I gamely kept up my end. He also used to call on my birthday, and Susan’s, and our anniversary, but in recent years that has dropped off to zero due to imagined slights, based on the order we write names on envelopes or how often he thinks we ask about his wife.

Whenever I tried to have more of a conversation with him, past his script, I mostly got a stony silence. He didn’t want to talk about anything else, especially anything of substance, and certainly nothing resembling actual feelings.

But this year he went too far. He didn’t even call for Steven’s birthday. Great way to treat a kid who hasn’t seen him for half his own lifetime.

So, that’s it. I’m tired of his basically ignoring Susan, who’s never done a thing to him. I’m tired of his pretending he doesn’t have email. so that I can’t send him pictures of the kids. I’m tired of his non-communicative phone calls. I’m tired of wanting him to act like a real man, father, and grandfather. And I’m tired of my kids’ disappointments and tired of apologizing to them for his actions. There’s no excuse for him acting this way…especially since his father did exactly the same thing to him!

But wait, there’s more.

Scott texted me today for my father’s phone number. Since Scott’s birthday is a few days away, I guess he’s trying a psychological reversal: calling his grandfather for his own birthday, since he knows he can’t expect his grandfather to call him any more. But he’s also hoping to invite my father to his graduation. Frankly, it hadn’t even occurred to me to invite my father, and I suppose that’s the worst part.

I guess I don’t really consider him part of the family any more.

Tags: family, father, Sidney Fiedler