This year was no exception -- we got there around 2PM, when the party was in full swing, and left around 9:30 or so, after some of the relatives fired off an impressive barrage of fireworks.

This was the first year I can remember where the kids really didn't need much supervision, with a couple of exceptions (mainly involving a fire pit and one unfortunate altercation that involved a foot to the face). It was a nice change of pace, especially since I got to contrast it with my wife's cousins and brother, both of whom have younger kids, get run ragged as they chased their pre-schoolers around.

The only tough thing was that the kids were pretty exhausted by the time we got home -- James was in tears he was so tired, so it was a bit of an effort to put everyone to bed.

Still, I worked for a damned good graphic design firm for a couple of years, and have spent virtually my entire adult life and professional career with Macintosh computers. So it was inevitable that I would develop a real interest in and love for various aspects of design, typography, and that some of those tools and vocabulary that designers use would eventually find their way into my arsenal.

Netflix recently delivered Helvetica, a charming documentary by Gary Hustwit about the most ubiquitous typeface in use today. It tracks the story of how Helvetica was made, what designers think about it, and how it's used in modern life. On the surface it seems like a dry topic, and I guess to some it is. But I highly recommend it to anyone who may have any interest in type or design.

What makes Helvetica (the documentary) so interesting is that the designers don't uniformly rhapsodize Helvetica as the ultimate expression of typographic design. If they had, it'd be an hour-long ad for Helvetica, and that would be boring. In point of fact, some are quick to point out that Helvetica does represent the ultimate expression of a particular theory of Swiss modernist design philosophy that, 50 years later, is quite unlikely to evolve or change.

Some love it. Massimo Vignelli, who counts the New York Subway and American Airlines among his successes (both of which use Helvetica), is a practical example (Vignelli says in the course of his interview that if he's being generous, he counts maybe 12 useable typefaces, period). Lars Müller refers to Helvetica -- without any sarcasm -- as "the perfume of the city." An oddly apt albeit strange metaphor (considering the perfume of some major cities seems to be more similar to urine and rotting garbage).

Others absolutely loathe it, such as Erik Spiekermann, the German typographer who created FF Meta and ITC Officina, who rather derisively refers to Helvetica as "air," and says "there's no choice, you have to breathe, so you have to use Helvetica."

Paula Scher, a product of 60's counterculture who made her bones designing record covers for Atlantic and CBS Records in the 70s, decries Helvetica (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) as the ultimate expression of bland corporate fascism, and blames both the Vietnam and the Iraq War on it.

I admit that some of this comes off as rather navel-contemplative, and I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. But I think that if you watch it, you may be surprised at just how ubiquitous Helvetica is, how powerfully it can be used, and how polarizing it can be.

When the phone rings and no one, including my eldest, who has a phone in his room, on his desk, within easy reach, bothers to pick it up, despite my having pled and begged them to answer it if their mother and I are not available;

When I wake up in the morning and find the kitchen table littered with the detritus of breakfast -- empty cereal boxes, half-filled bowls, bottles of milk and orange juice left to fester in the open air, despite my constant reminders for them to put that stuff away after they're done;

When I find they've dropped food on the kitchen floor/toys in the hallway/any manner of crap in the living room/the piles of shit that litter their rooms and not bothered to clean it up, preferring instead to let Mom and Dad's maid service take care of it;

When the dishes in the sink pile up to the point of not being able to operate the faucet anymore because the dishwasher needs to be emptied, and no one will do it until Bonnie or I raise our voices.

Honestly, I don't overindulge my children. I don't helicopter over them every moment of the day and I don't think they're totally precious, exceptionally gifted little wonders who shouldn't lift a finger for manual labor.

I think I've given them some reasonable guidelines to go with, some basic age-appropriate responsibilities to maintain. And I've tried to instill some sense of fraternal responsibility to each other and filial responsibility to us. I guess at the end of the day I've just done a lousy job.

I can't say that I was a big Jack Black fan from the start. I didn't really "get" Tenacious D the first time I saw it, and some of his over-the-top shtick wears thin on me after a while. But as Po the Panda he's great, and the movie has a surprisingly rich voice acting cast made up of a-list talent. Unfortunately, with the exception of Ian McShane as the bad guy, the snow leopard Ty Lung, and Dustin Hoffman as Shifu, the kung fu master, most of the actors are wasted -- there's not enough dialogue to go around, and a few of them -- like Angelina Jolie as Master Tigress -- don't have a distinct enough voice to really make a difference either way.

Regardless, the production quality is top notch. Dreamworks has, with a few exceptions, become a great competitor to Pixar as a premier studio to turn out computer-animated movies, though they are, by all accounts, still playing second fiddle for the most part. In this one they really nailed the look and feel of the setting, creating an epic, mystical, storybook Chinese backdrop for the action. And we didn't have to suffer through the inevitable schmaltzy cover of Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting" (sung by Jack Black, of course) until the end credits rolled.

Anyway, the kids loved it and it got us out of the rain (and into an air-conditioned theater) for a couple of hours, and James was happy, specifically, so it was time well spent.

Alas, I've been putting off yard work for a while now that I absolutely have to do -- I'm not looking forward to it, but have no choice now. Bah.

Anyway, yesterday was the day. James went into the hospital at 7:00 AM, went into the OR at about 9:30 and by 11:00 was waking up from the procedure. It took us most of the afternoon to convince him to drink enough fluid to convince the nursing staff to discharge him, but he finally, begrudgingly did.

He's doing well -- no sign of fever, but he's very, very uncomfortable and doesn't want to talk. He's also eating very little and drinking very little, which the nurses told us is to be expected. Still, we've stocked the house with all the things he asked for prior to the procedure -- ice cream, popsicles, jell-o, kool-aid and the like. So when he's ready, there will be plenty for him to get down his throat.

He's not totally out of it, though -- he's got a good sense of humor, still, and has smiled at funny jokes and even chuckled a bit (though it hurts his throat to do it).

It's weird having James around without hearing his steady stream of chatter. Of my three kids James is easily the most talkative, so to all of a sudden have him here but not talking is a real cultural shift. Of course, I know it's only temporary, and that's a good thing.

I've been an AT&T customer for many years -- first suffering through years of subpar AT&T Wireless service using their TDMA (analog, craptastic) service and then more recently as a Cingular/AT&T customer using an EDGE-equipped phone (yes, my beloved iPhone). In between I spent a couple of years tithing to Verizon wireless.

Having a cell phone is, by most measures, a pretty important thing these days. Although I don't need it, strictly speaking, to survive, it makes life a lot easier. Probably 90 percent of my business calls come in through my cell line -- it's printed on my business card and I give it to whomever asks for it. A great deal of my personal calls are also made on my cell phone -- calls to the wife to let her know that I'll be out late or picking her up from work, calls to and from personal associates who work with me on the special ed parent's advisory council, calls to and from friends and so on. There's also the off chance that I'll need it for some emergency.

Despite this, my experience with cell service living on Cape Cod has been nothing short of wretched. I experience few dropped calls, so I guess there's a modest truth to AT&T's claims, but the actual voice quality of the calls is fucking vile. I get drop outs and breakups damn near constantly, and I can't remember the last time I had a conversation where, at some point, either I or the person with whom I am speaking says, "Can you repeat that? You just broke up."

Now AT&T is on the cusp of offering the iPhone 3G, which I can get for laying out another $199 and extending my contract another two years. As I've written about recently on Macworld, I'm not planning on rushing out and buying it -- part of the reason, as I've convinced myself, is that I think the actual technical improvements on the new iPhone are pretty mild. But really, what it comes down to, is thinking that AT&T's cell service is total shit.

Looking at their coverage area map, they say that 3G coverage blankets the Cape. But I have a very hard time believing that given how lousy their 2G coverage has been. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" seems to be the operative way to go here.

All of a sudden the principal of Gloucester High School has a fuzzy memory, now that the national spotlight is on him, a week after Time magazine published an interview with him in which he said more than a dozen teens at his school formed some sort of "pregnancy pact." Turns out that the story is total horseshit.

A girl at the school who's pregnant was recently interviewed, and she confirmed that there was no such pact in place. She told WCVB that the school not handing out contraceptives is a bigger problem, as teens are having sex anyway.

I think it's awful that 16 or 17 teenage girls in Gloucester are having babies before they're even finished with high school, but I think it's more ridiculous that this has turned into a bloody national circus because of some incompetent town bureaucrats and administrators who don't know when to shut the hell up.

But regardless, is there anyone cooler in NASA than Gene Kranz? I don't think so.

I've noticed that CNN.com and other Web sites that I visit on a regular basis to get my fix of news are relying more and more on video and podcasts to convey information. And I find it irritating.

For one thing, video and audio takes a lot longer to load than text on a page. For another thing, I can't scan video and audio information as quickly. And for another thing -- and believe me, it's not lost on me that this is why they do it -- video and audio holds me hostage to in-line advertising.

Parking was a bit of a chore, so I circled around for a bit before I found a spot and was stuck at a light. On the corner was a crowd of pedestrians who, at first glance, seemed to be waiting for the light to change.

In a fit of collective ignorance, they all decided to cross the street against the light, when the "Don't Walk" sign was clearly visible in their direction, including a couple pushing a toddler in a stroller. I realized what they were doing and stomped on the brakes to avoid killing anyone.

"That's what happens when you don't pay attention to signs," Bonnie warned.

Emmeline and I, perfectly on cue: "No, that's what happens when you're stupid."

By all three accounts, this week has been a waste of time for the kids. Absolutely no schoolwork was done -- the kids have spent their week playing board games, going on field trips, and watching movies in class. Which makes me wonder, frankly, why the schools didn't just end the academic year last week.

I can appreciate that it takes some time to wind down the curriculum and clear out the classroom, but I'm no more interested in seeing the public schools act as glorified babysitters for my kids as I'm sure the teachers are in same. And given how many complaints I've heard over the past couple of years about what little time there is in the school day thanks to MCAS testing (here in Mass.) and No Child Left Behind, I'm a little disappointed that the faculty and staff couldn't find a more constructive way to end the year.

Having said that, I'm also glad that all three kids made it out in one piece. Now I just have to get through the summer with them being underfoot for most of it.

Americans who think this is "going green" need to wake up, smell the hydrocarbons and get off their bloated asses.

I think it's great that the average 2009 Dodge Durango HEMI Hybrid user will "reduce fuel consumption by several hundred gallons a year," but my improving their vehicles to 20 MPG, that just shows you how damnably wasteful auto manufacturers -- and by extension, the consumers who buy these vehicles -- have been. It's shameful.

Meanwhile, decade-old Geo Metro LSI's -- GM-branded subcompacts that get between 35-40 miles to the gallon, still -- are going for several times their Kelley Blue Book value on eBay as commuters pinched in the pocket by high gas prices are trying desperately to find something, anything, that will defray the cost of $4 a gallon gasoline.

I just paid $2.99 for a gallon of milk. Too bad cars can't run on that.

a) I don't know you're on Twitter;
b) I've seen your Twitter page and found your comments to be inexcusably boring and pointless; or
c) I visited your Twitter page and found that you're following thousands of other people, and probably really don't care whether I follow you or not.

Near as I can tell, they're doing ok for the last term -- their teachers haven't alerted us to any major issues, so that's a good thing. And I think they're just looking forward to being able to sleep in and lounge around. So am I, for that matter -- I'm tired of waking up at the crack of dawn every morning to crack the whip and make sure they're ready for the buses.