Grassman

A few nights ago, Liam was complaining about his dinner. At the time, I was reading a book about 12th century England in which, at one point, the main characters are on the brink of dying by starvation.

"Liam, you oughtta be happy you've got that food. In the book I'm reading, a family was so poor they had to eat grass!"

Liam looked down at the meatloaf on his plate.

"I'd rather have the grass."

Uncle Duke:

Part 4
Ok, if I’m at Disney ever again (and here I’m in a fantasy world of my own making with “if”) and I’m NOT poolside at one of the hotels, the place I choose to be is Epcot.

The World Pavilion thing is awesome. You’re walking in one “land” with cliché architecture and the perfect cliché music and arguing with the “cast members” about the capital of Morocco (whoops… she was right!) then suddenly you’re in another with a Guinness and twinkle-eyed and red-cheeked innkeepers throwing leprechauns at you… well, not really on the leprechaun thing but you see where I’m going with this.

Then, as night sets in, we’re walking through the America part with Liberty Hall and all that and I note over a loudspeaker that Night Ranger is about to start playing in 5 minutes.

Now I’ve never been a big fan of Night Ranger but1) I came of age in the 80’s, 2) I love music live, and 3) I’ve got a buzz and it’s Night Ranger!!! The fam heads to some ride and I head to Ye Olde Pig & Whistle or something to that effect for a ye olde Sam Adams to watch the show.

Mostly it’s just them clowning around with a lot of banter and some acoustic stuff that I don’t recognize. They do the “Sister Christian” thing of course but while I was there they didn’t play “Don’t Tell Me you Love Me” which I actually remember liking. They came across pretty cool actually… enjoying playing and not taking themselves seriously whatsoever.

Then my God… it happened. They were screwing around doing samples of whatever the crowd yelled out and I suddenly found myself in The Land Where Dreams Come True, cold draft in hand, with an 80’s power ballad band playing “Highway to Hell”.

My friends are gonna be there, too.

I can tell you… sniff… it was quite a touching moment.

Uncle Duke:

Part 3
The next day was Epcot. Ok, the plan was that while the women of the bunch were having a “Princess luncheon”, the guys would have lunch at a steakhouse in the Canada pavilion and after a long morning of rides and lines and FastPassing, I was more than ready to kick back a little.

Here’s the deal with the FastPasses: you go to the ride and pick up a ticket that “reserves” you a ride at a later time and you don’t have to stand in line with the commoners. Kidding aside, I honestly don’t lump this in with the elitist thing because the FastPasses are free. You just have to get there in time before they all get picked up… which can be a challenge on the more popular rides. But initially, I kept forgetting about this. I just trudge along with the group and I don’t pay attention to where I’m going… I don’t really have any personal preferences at these things and damn if I’m getting remotely involved in any of the family squabbles (by the way, not only were the in-laws there but so were Kerry’s two brothers and a sister-in-law and a 1-1/2 old nephew) over what ride to get on. Who gives a rat’s ass… I’m 41 years old.

Anyway, so we’d get to a ride and I’d look up with a “Hey, Liam.. all right we’re going on the Space Ranger Coaster… to infinity… and beyond!” but we wouldn’t be. We’d just be there to pick up the FastPasses then go halfway across the park to another ride that we had picked up passes for two hours ago.

So around noon, we get to some puppety kids thing and Coach (that’s what we call my father-in-law) mentions we need to get FastPasses for some thrill ride (versus said “puppety” thing) and it happens to be on the other side of the park… which it ALWAYS is. I volunteer to go get them while they are all on Figment’s Imaginary Wonder Puke or whatever it’s called and meet them at the restaurant… which is right next to where we currently are. Hell, 1) it’ll give me a goal which is a nice change of pace from following along pushing a stroller, 2) I can give ol’ Figment a miss, and 3) the faster I get to the restaurant the sooner I can do the only thing I myself enjoy at these things…. people watch while drinking a beer. Note, I say “myself” because I get a huge kick out of doing all this crap with the kids… but every once in a while, I need to grab whatever Jim-time I can get.

So I freakin’ Tom Cruise it across Epcot, grab the Fastpasses, and back across the park to the steakhouse where - surprise – there’s no bar. Ok, I’ll sit at a big table by myself and drink… can you seat me now? Nope. So I head up to the major walkways to grab a beer from a vendor and here comes the gang… I guess the line for the puppet thing was a short one.

Uncle Duke:

Part 2
We pulled up to the gargantuan Lincoln Log cabin that is Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, Kerry ran in with Finn to secure the room, and it was left to me to get the luggage up to the room. A bellhop… is it ok to say “bellhop” or is that politically incorrect? Anyway, a “cast member” promptly appeared with one of those rolling carts, ready to lend assistance.

Now for some reason, I’ve never liked having others carry my bags for me. Even at a hotel in Shanghai where it was like I was in the 30’s as far as labor was concerned and there were half-a-dozen guys standing around in the lobby just waiting to help you out, I carried my own suitcases. Mostly it’s because I hate being involved in anything that smacks of elitism but also it’s because I’m a cheap bastard and I don’t want to tip. But this time, my hesitation to accept the help of the Disney attendant was rooted in embarrassment.

We started pulling things out of the back of the minivan and stacking them up on the cart…. coolers, cases of juiceboxes and mini-cereals (the kind you could conceivably cut open and pour milk into but does anyone actually DO that?) from Costco, backpacks…. and everything was half-open and spilling forth. We were about halfway through and I had no idea what was supposed to go up and what could stay in the van and damned if I was going to put a 12-pack of Bud Select on the top of that mess and walk through the lodge so I told him I’d be back, drove off, and parked the van.

However, shame would not keep me from my beer so I transferred each bottle into a big red cooler and carried it back to the lodge, through the lobby, up the elevator to the 6th floor, down a hall roughly 10 rooms long (one side), then down ANOTHER similar hall (did I say this place was big?), and into our room where naturally I opened one up, plopped down on the balcony, and took a loooong sip. Then, fortified, I stuck the beer in the mini-fridge, and set off to bring the crap up.

Naturally, it turns out ALL the stuff had to come up so it ended up being two carts and a $10 tip. Ouch.

Everybody's movin-movin-movin-movin

By the way, this whole episode will have taken 5 separate clinical visits:
1) the initial consultation; "Hmmm... looks like a torn meniscus. Better get an MRI."
2) the MRI; like lying down on the floor for 45 minutes at a Kraftwerk concert with a white towel over your face.
3) post-MRI doctor visit; for some reason, I had to personally bring the MRI pictures to the doctor; "Hmmm... yup, it's a torn meniscus."
4) pre-op; sign papers... that's it
5) the surgery

Each one of these involved taking time off from work. I can't imagine what this will be like when we eventually go to socialized medicine. Maybe that's why I always get an out-of-office whenever I e-mail Europe. There out sitting in some goddamn waiting room.

Jim Kneesium

My pre-op instructions were not to drink any liquids or eat any food 12 hours before the operation. Thursday morning, I awoke at 6am and decided that 1) "liquids" certainly couldn't include water right? I mean, ya gotta drink water, and 2) a little coffe wouldn't kill anyone.

At the doctor's, I ended getting the riot act read to me by the receptionist, two nurses who discussed the situation back and forth, and the anathesiologist who explained to me that your cough-it-out reflex is basically shut down when you are put under. If you puked a little you could pull a Jimi Hendrix and no one notice.

But they went through with it and I survived. In fact, when I came out of it I felt great and could walk around. This was a 180 from the last time, roughly 9 years ago for a BS deviated septum surgery when I could barely stand and after Travis drove me home, I fell asleep for twenty hours.

They gave me a prescription for ibuprofen and hydrocodone. I've taken the ibuprofen to keep down swelling but I haven't touched the painkillers because so far, I haven't felt any pain.

Let's hope it stays that way.

The geeze's knees

I bought my first 12-pack of Bud Light a few days ago. I remember reading somewhere that light beers had slightly less alcohol so to me, light beer is a "value- depreciated" option.

However, I can feel my middle chubbin' up lately because, although I still consume as much food as alaways, I haven't been running for about two months. About 6 months ago, I noticed some pain in my left knee but if I stretched a fair amount, it seemed to go away and never really bugged me while actually running anyway. Then it gradually got worse.

I went to a doctor who pretty much guaranteed it was a torn meniscus. Had an MRI and sure enough, that's what it is. If I don't run or hike, I don't even notice it.

But since that's what I like to do, tomorrow I'm going to get a little piece of the meniscus removed via arthroscopic surgery.

Uncle Duke:

Part 1
We picked up the kids at school and hit the road. Fueled by 3 Diet Mountain Dews, 2 Cokes from Chic-fil-A, and snack-crap galore we made it to the Pop hotel at Disney in ten and a half hours… pretty decent for hauling an 8 yr old, a 6 yr old, and a 4 monther.

The kids wake up at the usual 7:30am and we trudged past titanic 8-track cassettes and yo-yo’s to the food court complex to get our coffee. We ended up with the same 12$ refillable cups as everyone else… cups we were to retain the entire trip… heck, we still have them now since they have been deemed “souvenirs”.

Seeing tourists walking around on tidy paths wandering among day-glo buildings, some of them in motorized wheelchairs and all clutching the same identical plastic mugs as we were, I was reminded of the scenes in WALL-E of the massive generation ship crowded with fat, pampered humans floating around on hovering lounge chairs slurping “cheeseburger-in-a-cup”s.

With Liam and Erin with Kerry’s folks, we had lunch at Hollywood Studios. I walked up to the register and caught the tail end of a conversation the “cast member” was having with a 10 or 11 year old boy about a hot dog eating contest. I made a friendly comment and she said he had eaten 125 hot dogs in 5 minutes. I chuckled and said that was impossible. She smiled and countered “Nothing is impossible in a child’s imagination.”

Give that cast member a raise, Walt!

I purchased a draft Yuengling and a Cuban sandwich from said dream-purveyor and sat outside with my beautiful wife and did a little people watching while I enjoyed my cold beer with zero knowledge of the luggage nightmare to come.

Dale:

Last week, we spent a week at Disney and, of course, the kids loved it! Basically, the whole thing was to celebrate the 60th birthday of Kerry’s Dad since it was a long-time dream of his to do a big multi-park Disney extravaganza with family.

We stayed at two Disney hotels: Pop which was a crazy-cool place with giant Bigwheels, Yo-Yo’s, and Rubik’s Cubes and the Wilderness Lodge, a resort done up Pacific Northwest-style… huge but charming with rustic wood and stone everywhere plus a pool and beach to boot! And everything with the polished but non-intrusive Disney professionalism and drive for perfection.

The first day the kids went to Animal Kingdom with the grandparents while Kerry and I moved all our stuff from Pop to the Lodge… with Finn, of course. We also met up with an old college roommate of mine that I recently found on Google. He worked at Disney then and I knew he’d be working for the Mouse still and I was right. We did a quick tour of Hollywood Studios and Finn did his first ride.



The next day we hit Epcot. Liam loved Soaring, a simulator ride where you fly over California and Erin talked with Crush, the sea turtle from “Finding Nemo”. Even before it started, I knew that he’d pick the “dudette with the pink thingy on her noggin’”! The guys had an early dinner at a steakhouse in Canada to celebrate Mike’s birthday (no, not Kerry’s brother-in-law) while Erin had a Princess lunch in Norway.

Hollywood Studio’s was the next day’s event where Liam rode the Rock’n’Rollercoaster twice… this was his favorite ride of the whole ord- I mean, deal… and we saw a really well-done show of Beauty and the Beast. I swear, I had remnants of that choked-up feeling again when Belle was crying over the beast’s apparently slain body.

Aaaaand the NEXT day, after waking up before 6am so we could make it to a breakfast with Mickey & Minnie Mouse, Pluto, and Donald Duck (with Micky-shaped waffles!), we spent most of the day at the Magic Kingdom. The roller coaster Liam rode Thunder and Space Mountain multiple times. Erin’s favorite was Peter Pan but not to be outdone by her brother, she laughed gleefully the entire time she rode on Thunder Mountain although she barely made the height restriction… she did Space Mountain as well. Then we stayed until around 11pm so we wouldn’t miss the fireworks.

The last day, before hitting the road for home, we spent a few hours actually AT the Lodge taking pictures, playing in the sand on the beach, and looking for “hidden Mickey’s” which are tiny, barely recognizable Mickey outlines spread throughout all the Disney parks and resorts… they had a printout at the desk for the ones at the Wilderness Lodge with riddles like:

In the lobby colors abound
In the rocks is where I'm found.
On the corner - color of red
Three circles make my head

Good thing Tracy, Kerry’s non-Suanne sister-in-law, bought us a Hidden Mickey book!

The Wilderness Lodge really was awesome and I wish we had spent a little more time there instead of concentrating on FastPasses and hitting all the big ride at the parks. I have to say that staying completely in Disney and not even having to see your car for the whole time is worth the money… assuming you can find discounts, of course. Thankfully Kerry spent months researching this trip and we ate cereal and Pop Tarts in the room for most of the breakfasts plus cheap snacks and PBJ’s at the parks for the kids. It doesn’t hurt having two generous in-laws doting on your kids either! Many thanks to them.

Another tip is to definitely buy the $12 refillable coffee/soda cup at the resort… they'll pay for themselves in half a day.

All in all, we had a great time... not a relaxing one by any means but definitely fun was had and memories were made... and digitally preserved in gigabytes.

Slice of Life, Part 731

Tonight, after buying a bag of tortillas, a bottle of Frank's Hot Sauce, and a carton of cheap vanilla ice cream at Publix, I turned on the radio to hear the depressingly gloomy "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails (even more brooding than Trent's usual) followed immediately by Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right".

I never was too into NIN but no doubt the guy's got talent. And I was never a fan of the License to Ill fratboy stuff save for it gave the Beastie Boys "license" to produce a lot of greatness. But I loved the transition between dark, emotion-laden dirge and "Kick it!"

Wow... that video was even worse than I remember.

Anyway, then I get home and Erin's in trouble. She had asked if she could have some carrots before dinner. She sat at the table pretending to munch on carrots when she really was eating a Halloween Butterfinger (it's fun-sized!) she had under the table.

You are dead to me.

Don't worry guys, I'm working on my Disney epic. I just have to lay the law down here and inform everyone that until Dec 1, I will see no Christmas decorations and hear no Christmas music. I will not talk about Christmas for what is there to talk about? It does not exist until Dec 1.

Unless, of course, I see this on TV.

Not bloody likely!

But first... more Erin!!!!

Out of the frying pan...

Well.... it's finally come. We're hittin' the road tomorrow headed south for Disney.

We just had a re-org at work including more than a 100 people taking voluntary retirement plus the fiscal year just ended and any order remotely ready had to ship so it'll be fantastic getting away from all that. Not that running around Disney with 3 kids is my idea of "wewaxation at wast" but there's only so much "what's the part number for an SAE6-JIC12 swivel", "the PZ242 sensors's not working and the one uses an unapproved laser", "all these splitter cables need to be repinned", and "this order needs to ship immediately" comin' at me a mile-a-minute, a different crisis every 10 minutes that a brain can take even with regular watering.

Anyway, it'll be fun with the kids.

The hotel charges for wi-fi so I likely won't bring the laptop and I ain't typin' anything significant on a Blackberry so my blogging will likely be confined to my good ol' journal.

See ya next Tuesday.

Oh, look at him!!!!!!!

Many women seem to have an apparently irresistible urge to say how cute babies are. I’m trying to be less negative so I it only lasts a few seconds, but whenever the claque of women converges, squealing and mewling… I feel the need to get Finn a t-shirt that says “Yes. Babies are cute. Thank you. Now shut the hell up already.”

Lago de los Cisnes

Tonight, thanks to Kerry’s brother-in-law, I had a father-daughter night out with Erin. We saw the Atlanta Ballet’s performance of Swan Lake. First, to pick up the tickets, we met Mike at a Starbuck’s in Druid Hills where I fortified myself with what I thought would be some much needed caffeine and Erin spilled hot chocolate on herself. Actually, it was just a few spots on her pink sweater. No biggie and Erin has never been one to let anything like that slow her down.

I realized that I needed to get some cash because most likely the parking would cost something and typically those places don’t accept credit cards. I drove around the strip mall we were in but didn’t see an ATM. Then I figured that at the ballet place, we’d get a ticket from some machine and have to pay on the way out. I’d find an ATM inside the theater.

So we headed up to the Cobb Performing Arts Centre (gggrrrrrr… I hate those obnoxious “re”s but that’s how it was spelled, I mean, mis-spelled) and, of course, there was a guy at the front of the parking deck needing 5$ cash.

I flustered “I knew this would happen!” and asked him where an ATM was as I prepared to turn around somehow then I figured he saw Erin in her pretty dress in the back seat and he waved me through with a “Go on and park”. Very cool of him, if I must say.

So we head in… amazingly, I meet a co-leader of my Cub Scout den in the lobby… and get in our seats. Erin immediately pulls from her purse a Kit Kat from Halloween that she planned to surprise me with. We share it and settle in to watch the ballet.

I don’t really know what it is but there is something about live orchestra music or maybe it was the dancing… I don’t know… but every once in a while when I’m in an audience watching a live performance I get this surge of (I guess) emotion like I’m going to cry or shout or something. I swear it’s a real mystery to me. It’s not like I am amazed at the skill of the dancers (which was very good) or am captivated by the music… at least my conscious mind isn’t. I’m just sitting there and this feeling hits me.

And then, naturally, the absolutely hilarious ballet scene from Top Secret intrudes and the emotion is run out of town.

Erin was totally into it and I was actually enjoying myself as well. I mean, it is a LOT of just dancing around, but the performers are damn good at it and I loved that Erin was entranced.

But then… she had to go.

And by “go”, I mean as every parent knows, go potty. I look around and we’re in the middle of a row surrounded by dressed-up couples and the two main stars of the ballet are doing one of the highlight dances. I told her that the intermission was coming up fairly soon and could she hold it? She said yes but she when she started fidgeting I took her out.

After the restroom while we waited for the intermission, Erin danced in the lobby next to a screen showing what was on stage. She was having a great time and told me she didn’t want to go back in. She loved seeing the performers but she wanted to dance more. We stayed out there almost until the end with Erin dancing the whole time.

Gravy boat! Stay in the now!

Liam is a pretty smart kid… he’s good at math and can concentrate for hours on whatever he’s working on but the little guy is about as aware as a bowling ball. Kerry has actually wrapped his Christmas presents while he was in the same room. Now part of this is that he focuses so intently on what he is doing but he really is often oblivious especially regarding other kids.

Erin not only seems to know the names of all her classmates but can tell you something about each one of them not to mention the fact that she also talks about some kids that are in other classes. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure that if I asked Liam what the names were of the four kids that sit with him at his table in school, I’d be lucky to get two correct names.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is a just a phase because I am somewhat like this. There are several (Is about a dozen considered “several”? No?) people at my work that have been there over ten years with me and I don’t know their names. Also, the old saying “I’m bad with names but I never forget a face” may be true for some people but not for me. I’ll forget your name AND the fact that I ever met you.

One night BACK IN THE DAY at Dark Horse in Virginia-Highlands a cute girl walked up to me saying “Hi” like she knew me. I did the “Hey” thing but admitted that I couldn’t remember at all who she was. She kind of laughed assuming I was messing with her then when she realized I basically had no idea who she was she became a little pissed. It turns out she was from my work and I had talked to her several times and a lot more than the “hi” in the halls.

It was the context though! My work and social life were basically two completely separate entities back then. Unless I actually got someone to go into town I NEVER saw anyone from my work ITP. Never. I explained all this to ol’whats-her-name and she acted as she blew it off but the rest of our brief conversation was strained and awkward.

Dumbass.

I've got the powder! Ur-ur-urrr eh eh ur-ur-urrrr eh eh...

I spent the last few days in a place full of machines that look a little like this but with more of a 40’s or 50’s look to them and a whole lot of white powder all over'em.

I learned that laundry detergent in powder form has superior cleaning ability and it’s a waste of money paying the soap company to add water to it to make it a liquid. Also, in Europe, they don’t get a plastic scoop in every box like they do here and when you see thousands of scoops on tiny conveying tracks you’ll understand why.

Landfills.

How tough is it to keep the same freakin’ scoop?!

Let the bodies hit the floor

As far as sleeping goes, every one of our kids has given us a crazy time in their first 3-4 years. I expect Finn, too, will end up sleeping in the bed with us for his first two years then it’ll take two more to get him in his own bed. I can’t complain too much… I suppose it’s a small price to pay for such great kids.

Anyway, so the night after Stone Mountain, Finn is up much of the night so in between bouts of crying and feeding, Kerry needs to sleep and the way she can get to sleep in a hurry is to have talk radio buzzing away next to her.

To me, this is insane. When I was in school, I used to sleep with a fan next to my head and I can understand music, I guess, but talk radio? I like pitch black and no noise. I could deal with a fan or white noise but no way on the talk radio.

So I end up on the couch. But then this is where she ends up when Finn needs to nurse and she watches TV to stay awake. The floor in one of the kid’s rooms is where I spent the night. And now that it’s getting cold, I’ll probably have to dig up my wool socks.

Back in Periwinkle

I spent last night on the floor. I spent the previous one outside on the ground.

Saturday, after a typical day of yardwork, Liam, Erin, and I cooked up hot dogs and s’mores on a fire in the backyard. We played Crazy 8’s in the tent and Erin won two games, both victories being fair and - I’ll even venture to say - square.

After her hard-fought conquests, she made one of her announcements that she was going to sleep and fell promptly… asleep. Liam and I stared up at the starry sky – well, mildly starry for a northern Atlanta suburb – and talked not of life on other worlds nor of playground politics but of the economy.

I woke up at 5:45, poked the remains of the fire around a little, and headed up for a rousing breakfast of coffee and a sinkful of dishes. The kids stumbled in an hour and a half later and Kerry made everyone pancakes, hash browns, eggs, and bacon. Yay!!!! The sink’s full again!!!

The big plan to celebrate Liam’s 8th birthday was to pickup two of his chums and head to Stone Mountain. We actually paid for doing some of the stuff we’ve never done like a 4-story “barn” in which you collect foam balls for points plus the chance to shoot your buddies, a “4-D” movie in which a bullfrog belches on you, a crazy rope course that turned most of us into wimps plus a little one with a zipline, miniature golf, and the gondola rid down the face of the mountain . And we did our usual Stone Mountain stuff like a lunch on the lawn with homemade sandwiches and Publix-brand sodas, the train, checkout the blacksmith, and I was pleased to see that Liam insisted on hiking up the trail on the side.

But a bit more on the ropes course. This thing was a gigantic Mario adventure! I’d go on about swaying platforms and flying buzzsaws but I wouldn’t know because we never got past the 2nd leg on the first level of a dizzying 3 or 4 level complex. Yes, you are strapped to a rope that you pull along through a metal track over your head but a) there’s a fair amount of slack in the thing, b) even on the first level you’re high above concrete and peoples’ heads, and c) it is far from easy… the first “element” was a balance beam with a rail so no big deal but the next was a choice of a 4-rope “bridge” meaning 4 ropes and no actual bridge to speak of or a balance beam with NOTHING TO HOLD ON TO. That’s the part that gets me.

And looking around I could see it was going to get a LOOOOT worse… swinging boards, wavy beams, and more all far overhead. I determined that if all these normal (ie., NOT Spiderman) could do this I was going to. But when one of Liam’s friends said “forget it” and Liam decided he was on to something, I readily bailed. I shall return.

More later… I’m heading to Augusta tomorrow night for an install at a plant where they make the detergent not just the boxes this time so either I’ll get a fair amount of time to blog in my hotel room or I’ll get zero because I decided to have a few with the local gentry.

Whoops...

Did I say the 20th of September? Make that the 20th of October!