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Benjamin's Lullaby (A.K.A. All Is Well)

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When I first posted my series of entries about Ben's last day on Snow White's Scary Adventures, I had begun writing a song but had only completed the chorus. I added that at the end of the fifth post in the series, without drawing any particular attention to it. Since then I have had a myriad of distractions (work, family illness, the usual), but I did finally finish writing the complete song. Here then, in its entirety, is Benjamin's Lullaby (A.K.A. All Is Well).

SWSA - One Month Later

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It’s been just over a month now since the closing of Snow White’s Scary Adventures, and the first question pretty much everyone asks me is, “How is Ben doing now that the ride is closed.” Well, I ain’t gonna lie to you, it’s been hard on him. I wrote about Ben's first time back a few weeks ago, which happened on an appropriately gloomy day. The entire visit to the park that day consisted of us walking into Fantasyland, Ben examining the construction walls around The Graveyard Of Snow White’s Scary Adventures (TGOSWSA), and then dejectedly leaving the park. The most positive thing I can say about that visit is that Ben did not have any meltdowns, so I guess he handled it fairly well all things considered.

The Autistic Feedback Loop

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The first  half of 2012 was very trying for Ben from a gastrointestinal perspective. I’ll will try not to be too explicit here or revel in the scatological details, just suffice to say that from somewhere in mid-2011 up until last May my son had an ongoing toileting issue. It was extremely unpleasant for everyone involved, and was a major regression from previous behavior. It hand taken us up until 2006, when Ben was thirteen years old, to finally get him out of diapers. Then after half a decade of general peace and happiness in the bathroom arena all of a sudden Ben seemed to be making a strong and concerted argument for going back to diapers. This was not something we even wanted to begin to consider.

Hello, Good Day Sacramento!

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This morning I was interviewed by Cody Stark on Good Day Sacramento, talking about Ben's last night on Snow White's Scary Adventures. Head over to their website if you would like to see the video. A big thank you to Cody, he was a lot of fun to talk to and he also wears an awesome bow tie (bow ties are cool!).

Dad Again

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Still going through my old journals looking for details to work into my book about Ben (working title - "3,500: An Autistic Boy's Ten Year Romance with Snow White"), and I came across something I wrote back in 2004 about my dad. This was written late one night, immediately after getting home from seeing the movie Big Fish. It was a few months after I had moved from Seattle to Orlando, and my then-fiance, now-wife Kris had not yet made the move so I was living alone in a new city with no friends or family nearby.  It was odd stumbling across this only a few days after my Father's Day post earlier this week, and I feel like it really gets to the core of some of my own mixed up feelings about my dad.  So anyway, here it is, resurrected from eight years ago: I spent about fifteen or twenty minutes this evening hiding inside a bathroom stall with my face buried in my hands; I was crying, sobbing as quietly as possible because I didn't want to have to talk to anyone or explain what was wrong. Of cou ...

An Old Ben Story

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Last night I was reading through my personal journal, looking for things to include in the book, when I came across this entry from May of 2002. I laughed out loud, and thought it was worth sharing:

Hello BoingBoing Visitors!

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I have to say, I was more than a little gobsmacked when a friend of mine tweeted that Cory Doctorow had posted a link to my blog on BoingBoing.net. I have been a fan since I first stumbled across Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom right around the time my family moved to Orlando. I read Eastern Standard Tribe literally while sitting in line for the passholder sneak preview for the Revenge of the Mummy ride at Universal. If there is anyone on the internet I truly admire, that would be Cory Doctorow and I am truly honored that he would post about my son.

New Web Host

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Due to the large spike in traffic to this site in the past two weeks, I have migrated to a new web host (PowerDNN). If you are seeing this post that means you are now seeing the new server. If by any chance you posted a comment on one of the blog entries and you don't see it anymore, that means you got caught in the middle of the move and your comment was sent to the old server. Please free to re-comment, I do appreciate your feedback.

Dad

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On this Father's Day, I would like to take a little time to remember my own father. He passed away nearly sixteen years ago, a victim of colon cancer, and I still miss him.

Growing up, we had kind of a distant relationship. It wasn't horrible or abusive, I know so many people for whom "father" was synonym for "monster", but we were never particularly close. My parents separated when I was very young, and I only have three memories of the time in which I lived with him in the same house.

Video of Ben's Very Last Ride

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My friend Robert just posted a very excellent blog entry describing his experience on the last night of Snow White's Scary Adventures, which includes tons of excellent pictures and a few videos. You can read it at:

Scary Adventure's - The End is Here

This video is from that post, but I thought I should include it here as well. It show's Ben's very last ride, the one where he went all alone on a ride for the first time in his life. Click the "Read More" link to see the video.

Ben and Snow White

Ben and Snow White

About Shmoolok

The word "shmoolok" is a mashup of the longtime computer handles for my wife and myself ("Shmooby" and "Lokheed", respectively).

I originally created this website to be a place for my family to connect, but it has since grown into something a little different.

As for me -- I am a father, a husband, a son, a software developer, and a writer. On any given day I am not sure how good I am at any of those particular things, but I do try my best.

Thank you for visiting my website.

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ISBN: 1-482-09330-8

Benjamin's Lullaby

Popular Entries

There has been an influx of new readers to my blog. If you wound up here looking for stories about my son's ten year romance with Snow White's Scary Adventures, here are the major blog posts you will want to read:

SW1K - The Full Story

SW1K Redux

SW2K - The Full Story

SWSA Final Night - Prelude

SWSA Final Night, Part 1 - The Beginning of the End

SWSA Final Night, Part 2 - The Fairest One of All

SWSA Final Night, Part 3 - Counting Up, Counting Down

SWSA Final Night, Part 4 - The Big Ending

SWSA Final Night - Epilogue

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