Goodbye

My Dad died peacefully Monday November 8th at 1:38AM after almost a 4 year bout with cancer. It started in his prostate but spread. At several points, the doctors would say he could have 6 months to live (why is it always 6 months?) but he kept going on. For the most part, with pain killers, he got along ok. He went through some threatments and the side effects were bearable. He even got into some chemo that wasn't so bad. Then last year he had some type of chemo that in his words, "nearly killed" him. He basically stopped eating for 40 days.

He bounced back but there was going to be no more chemo for him. Gradually, he became more and more bed-ridden but still, he was relatively ok and usually was in pretty good spirits. Then, a month or so ago he exhibited some signs that either the illness or the drugs were getting to his mind and that's when I think he decided to leave this world.

So he stopped eating and about a week later was gone.

His memorial was exactly what I would like to have for myself. Not a gloomy affair but friends and family talking about him and a few nice speeches which included funny stories. Also, rather than have it end up at a pawnshop my Dad had given his old trombone to a proficient high schooler who played an emotional rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

Love ya, Dad.

A few of my memories that always give me a laugh were his references to any post-60's band as "degenerate rock pukes", his answer to any "Where is my..." question of "If it was up your ass, you'd know", and when I was a little kid, when I would wake up for school, I'd be in a stupor and he'd gently guide me out of my room "here you go, Jimmy" and into the wall.

By the way, I was planning on giving up this blog about a year ago but since my Dad liked to read it, I kept it going. So I'm gonna let it go and write the family stuff in my written journal... yes, an actual book. But in order to keep some kind of connection with friends, hwever tenuous that may be these days, I'm seriously considering looking into the Facebook thing that's in all the papers.

James Patrick Keough, Jr., 1940 - 2010

James P. Keough, Jr., 70, passed away at home on November 8, 2010 following a long battle with cancer.
Born August 29, 1940 in Duluth, MN, to James and Catherine Keough, deceased.
He attended Holy Rosary Grade School in Duluth and graduated from Campion Jesuit High School in Prairie du Chien, WI, 1958. He attended the University of Notre Dame for two years and graduated from the University of MinnesotaDuluth in 1962 with a degree in Business Administration.

He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the US Air Force in 1963, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1985. Upon retirement from the military, he joined the Boeing Company on the International Space Station Program and worked at Kennedy, Marshall and Johnson Space Centers, retiring in Cape Canaveral in 2000.
Jim is survived by his wife, Barbara; son, James (Kerry) and grandchildren, James Liam, Erin Ansley and Finn Patrick; daughter, Suanne (Jason) Register; stepchildren, Jeff (Cheryl) Ellis, Leigh Ellis, and Susie Ellis (Dale) Camposano; stepgrandchildren, Heath Ellis, Drew Montes, and Cole, Victoria and Noelle Nixon; sister, Mary Patricia (Erkki) Aspelin; and brother, Kevin (Pam); nephews, Mark and Erik (Karen) Aspelin.

A celebration of life in honor of Jim is being planned for family and friends. In lieu of flowers, donations in Jim's memory may be made to Wuesthoff Brevard Hospice, 8060 Spyglass Hill Road, Viera, Florida 32940.

Madness

Big changes at work the personal result being my commute is going from 45 minutes to 15. Woo hoo!

Lots of camping.... Erin and me at a Daddy/daughter Girl Scout campout in NW Georgia.
Liam, Erin, and I at a Halloween campout with the Cub Scouts.

Listening to an endless but very entertaining Twain's "Innocents Abroad" on book tape.

Finn had his adenoids removed and, like the King from Mario 3, he's back to his old self again.

We're heading to Disney (again!) for Halloween with a bunch of Kerry's family with many going as Pixar characters. Finn will be Woody, Erin- Jessie, Liam is going to be the magician with the rabbit from one of the shorts, and me... as some might guess, I'm going to be Ken.

Disney is ripping off PBS

Until just recently with the ease of DVR (or whatever exactly the Tivo-like thing on my cable is), PBS had always been the default with the kids. Liam and Erin grew up with Clifford, Sesame Street, Thomas, Bear and the Big Blue House, Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer, The Wiggles, and Arthur. I did end up learning the characters, many of the songs ( "I'm the map" and my personal favorite "Backpack" being just a few), and I'm still quoting lines from the Thomas shows as if they were Matrix or SuperBad references. Anyway, I know what I'm talking about when the subject of early 2000's PBS children's television comes up... as it so often does.

Before I had a family, I never thought too much of Disney's animated films. I did remember enjoying "Cinderella" and I had even saw "Beauty and the Beast" in the theater but really... the genre wasn't on my radar. Of course, having kids totally changes that and at times it seems like Disney is the only thing ON you radar but I have to admit, I did come to appreciate the classic films. "Cinderella" and "Bambi" both have moments of genius. Even some of the later ones are decent and, of course, Pixar is in a class all itself but no one really considers them "Disney", right?

Yes, they are often sappy and sometimes full of cliche but one thing I wouldn't have accused Disney of is a lack of creativity. And here, folks, is where the above ties together. Based on some of the stuff I've seen on their cable channel, however, I have to now say they are blatent rip-off artists.

All of a sudden, the Disney channel has several shows that do more than borrow from the PBS shows but instead look to steal the audience for the originals with flashier copies. First, there was "Handy Manny" with his talking tools which is an utter pirating of "Bob the Builder" and his tractors. "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" is not precisely Dora... I mean it's got the classic Disney characters but they are soulless and the whole feel of the show is like the Dora episodes with the backpack ("Toodles" in Mickey's case) being completey ripped off. If that was it I wouldn't even have noticed but then theres the "Imagination Movers" which is the Disney version of The Wiggles.

But the straw that takes the camel's cake is that goddamn Chuggington. I could go on and on about how it is inferior to the old Thomas shows but I'm only here pointing out how it's an example of the current practise of Disney of ripping off PBS.

The bastards.

Be sure to tip your waitress

"Finding Nemo" was the first movie my first son saw in the theater. It's a great movie. I have probably seen it twenty times and it's played in my house likely 40 - 60 times (and it's not even in the top 3 movies played).

Marlin the protaganist has had his wife and dozens and dozens of his childeren savagely murdered. He raises the sole survivor who is then abruptly taken from him. The whole movie is about him trying to get to his son. He finally reaches Nemo only to find (or so he thinks) him dead. He then turns his back on his only remaining friend and tears out on his own.

If it ended here, they could make: "Avenging Nemo: The Outlaw Josey Whales"

HOW TO HANDLE DIFFICULT WATER CONDITIONS

I was cleaning out my sock drawer this afternoon and found (among a lot of other things) the directions for a camping water filter I bought in... must've been the mid 90's. In it, there's a paragraph that says:

If you must purify water that is extremely cold (below 5degC/38degF) and extremely contaminated (for example, immediately downstream from a sewage outlet or livestock feedlot), pump the water throught the purifier two times.

First off, if you are next to a sewage outlet or livestock feedlot, instead of stopping to drink shit, why not walk a few more yards to a house or a building for water? I mean, I think I'd hail a farmhand before setting up to fill my nalgene bottle with the brown chunky water oozing out from under the fence. Or in the case of a sewer... if you are standing next to a "sewage outlet"... unless we're talking meteor-strike or WW3 time, I assume there must be other items of civilization around.... like a sink!!! Don't be shy now.

Second, in the extreme case that I actually find myself getting water from a sewer or livestock feedlot, I'll try to make the time to pump it through a few more times... like seven-hundred.

Hard labor

The team hiked into Panther Creek Falls today. Being one of the first relatively cool, or at least not-so-goddamn-freakin'-hot weekends in a long while, we made it a point to get out of the house. It's further than our usual haunts but I was in the mood for pushin' our limits a little.

Aaaaaaaand did it.

It's 3.6 miles to the falls and it's a long, up and down trek.... especially with a 2 year-old strapped to your back. Kerry says he's thirty pounds but that's gotta be old data. Or at least that's how I felt coming back.... another 3.6 g.d. miles.

I didn't remember it being so long! The first time I hiked in was at night and I was drinking beer as I went. Two activiteis that definitely do not go together.... and I'll be the first to admit that there are a LOT of things that do go well with drinking. It was probably twelve or thirteen years ago... back when I was a moron. There were dozens of sketchy spots along this trail where a slip-up could send you on a slide down a rock-strewn hillside if you were lucky or a quick tumble off a twenty foot drop if you weren't.

About an hour from the falls, everyone that was walking back (and there were a LOT of people on this thing today) would warn us about a yellow jacket nest. Apparently, they weren't idle warnings becasue plenty of the people also added that they had been stung. And here we are with two kids and a toddler. As the yards passed under foot, the warnings continued and the hornet scourge grew more and more fierce in our minds. When we got to the point, we hustled through. I saw nothing - no swirling mini tornado of black specks from the cartoons - but felt the dreaded something on my leg - GET IT OFF!!!!! Kerry got stung and so did Finn... he was a little upset, I mean he was crying but it wasn't the piercer and it didn't last long... pretty soon he was back to whacking me on the head with a stick for laughs.

You might wonder about this last bit but it was something I actually encouraged with silly grunts and wails. If you've had a toddler you'll understand. A laughing tyke is faaaar preferable to a screaming, crying one especially when said screamer is next to your ear. I'll take a few - actually quite a few as it turned out - hits to the skull rather than face that.

So we got to the overlook errrrr "overlooking" the falls ansd scrambled down to the little beach I remember camping on back in those zany days... yeah, real crazy... I was with two couples and I was the only one drinking and I don't believe we even went in the water. Anyway, there were tents there today along with a bunch of other people but only a few swimming. But of course Erin and I had to jump in.... Liam did too after watching us for a while. Even Finn played at the edge throwing in sticks and laughing at the romping Labs.

It was a little iffy about how long it would take us to get out and we knew Finn would soon be nearing the limit of how long he would put up with sitting in the pack. We had let him out once along the way and again at the pool but we knew he was going to hit his wall. Anyway, so we hoofed it back at a pretty quick pace. Finn did end up crying in my ear a lot and he sure wasn't any lighter on the trip back but we made it. I was a hating pup at the end... very tired and my shoulders just screaming bloody murder. I was very impressed that neither Erin or Liam whined at all or even made a single comment about being tired.

Then cheeseburgers at the grandparents... a pretty damn good day.

Neptune's Convoy

Here's a little ol'contrast I just noticed last night....

The first drink of a beer is often the best, and is sometimes even replete with majesty in moments like this. But as for the harder stuff, or whiskey as the case may be, the first sip of a double-shot on the rocks - though bracing - is hardly enjoyable to the tastebuds. I'd say the last one, slowly emerging from rolling and sliding thin-film amongst the cubes is the good'un.

And then before you know it, they gots ya.

And don't spend your time lookin' around
For something you want that can't be found
When you find out you can live without it
And go along not thinkin' about it
I'll tell you something true
The bare necessities of life will come to you

Miss you hiss

So what's common amongst these three songs and a few others that I can't think of?

Lovecats - The Cure
Hot for Teacher - Van Halen
I WIll Follow - U2

When I was in high school during the MTV AGE, I was pretty much a metal head but I always liked The Cure, one of the most original and talented bands of all time... so many unbelievably cool songs. I had had a friend in junior high who was into them.... I found out a long time later that this guy had committed suicide in college, something that surprised me since he seemed like a normal kid but I guess you never know what people are going through. Although the Cure's "Pornography" album is one of the most depressingly heavy albums I've ever heard, the fact that he got me into the Cure and his later suicide as far as I know have nothing to do with each other. Just some random associations of mine about the Cure. That and he had this poster on his wall. Plus that I was listening to them on my ipod while I mowed the lawn today and thought this whole thing up....

The motorcycle growl that is the beginning of the VH song was just getting going when my car was slammed from the left and heaved across the intersection. Speckles of glass were falling and a massive pain was filling my world but the first thing I just had to do was reach towards the radio and shutoff that goddamn song... there is just no way it fit the situation. Later on as the ambulance people were strapping me into a traction suit I found out that a driver had made a left turn into me. She panicked and ducked below the dash and kept the gas pedal pressed and the steering wheel turned so basically did a 270, jumped the median, and broadsided two more cars that had been sitting in the two lanes with her moments before. Turns out I was fine and that was the first of several pre-graduation accidents.

Speaking of college, one of my roomates (and I do mean "room" mate not apartment sharer... it was the same room) built a pretty impressive loft in our room. We each had an area for a mattress and there was a couch and a desk underneath. I remember doing schoolwork at that desk while listening to his "Joshua Tree" CD which, although I always liked U2 back then, was the first time I "got into" them... not that I actually put down any change for one of their albums though. And I know "I WIll Follow" is not on "Joshua Tree" - well, I do now - but the above is one of my few U2 associations. I did like Bobcat Goldthwait's parody of "With or Without You" but I can't find it on the boundless Internets.

Hold up

My Dad sprung for our first grill back when we got the house up here in stripmall paradise and it lasted a long while.... thans Dad! A few new burners extended it's life by three years. Then we repaced it with a castoff from some neighbors which didn't work out (it's basically fon full blast or not at all) so near the end of this summer, with some good deals out there, we picked up a new one.

Here's a pic.

New pets and new grill.... coincidence?

For at least the last 2 years, K and I knew we'd get a pet for Erin sometime. We wanted something small that would be easy to have someone watch when we went on trips. The focus was a hermit crab for a little while then it became a gerbil. then at the beach, it shifted back to hermit crab.

But we ended up getting them two guinea pigs.... and it turns out that Liam, although he always seemed apathetic at best about a pet (and actually against getting a dog, a view we share) was pretty excited about the little guys.

Their names are Jesse and Ryan although they are both girls... according to the pet store. Speaking of, we had planned to get them from a "rescue" or from someone that need to give them up but the rescue places wanted you to basically convert an entire room to a home for the guinea pigs complete with down comforters, whirlpool bathtubs, and a masseuese and the former owner thing just didn't work out.

Jesse was named by Erin for the Toy Story character. Not sure where Liam got Ryan. Ryan is by far the dominant of the two and they eat like... well, like pigs.

Tales of a fourth grade what the f-?

Thursday night, out of the blue, Erin asked me what a dunce cap was. She reads a lot of books in the American Girl series which are based in various times in history so I suppose that's where she picked up the word. Now, when I was a kid, we would have to stand in the corner if we were bad. It's hard to imagine schools nowadays doing that... oh the shame of actually having to be punished for disobeying the rules, it would surely traumatize the kids for life loosing cutthroats and sociopaths on society.

But I have to admit, much like it's not easy to imagine a teacher in the 21st century forcing a child to be made the object of whispering and tittering by his or her classmates for screwing around, it's difficult for me to see a kid being made to sit on a stool at the front of the class with a pointed cap because he was having problems getting the right answer.

When I was in fourth or fifth grade, every Friday we would have dance day at PE. In my elementary in San Antonio, Texas, PE was held in a big, metal building and overlorded by a large woman who was the one who paddled kids on their birthdays... Miss Ostrowski or Snuffleuppagus or something like that was her name. I suppose before I go further I should explain that... when a kid had a birthday, as I remember the whole school would gather round (though I suspect it might have just been the class) and the victim would bend over and get "gently" paddled with a large oar-like implement. The number of hits equaled the number of year the kid had become.

Anyway, for the dances, the boys would pick a girl and they would be partners. I remember one time I was all set to pick Janice Hayes, the crush of my mid-elementary years, but some mean kid named Billy picked her first. I clearly remember seeing the look of what I decided was dissapointment on her face... of course, she was hoping she would get to dance with the short kid with the Coke bottle glasses! Without even mentioning the fact that such "picking" of the girls by the boys would never be allowed these days, the rules of Friday Dance Day dictated that if a boy didn't pick a girl fast enough, he would have to dance with another boy. And one of the boys would have to wear a ribbon!!

Looking back on all this, I realize that this was because there were more boys than girls. So, much like the last sailor down from the sails of the "Bounty" getting whacked with a blackjack, no matter what happened, there would be boys being forced to dance with other boys.

After being too slow to pick Janice, I did not recover and didn't pick another. So I ended up having to dance with Victor.

But he had to wear the ribbon.

She bop-a-kimbap

I had lunch with a former cow orker yesterday and since I hardly ever eat out, I voted for an eclectic place and chose Dan Moo Ji, a Korean place not close to my work but not far. It was, of course, different from the usual and it was interesting not knowing what to order. The waitress made a few suggestions that we sheepishly followed.

We ordered the tuna kimbap that I saw being raved over on the net but it was no big deal. It came looking like sushi and the outside was sushi-esque. As a wrap, it would be pretty good but I guess it had me set for sushi but the thick and standard - hell, I'm not going to do a restaurant review. The food was so-so but I liked it because it was different.... which is not saying a lot.

Joe Bob says check it out.

Not quite up to speed yet

The soles of my feet are stiff leather, hardened by miles of hot sand, driveway rocks, and blazing asphalt.

While I doze off to sleep, my arms twitch in uncontrollable sweeping movements.

At 10, I wonder if today's a good day to have the first beer before noon.

I'm still spitting out salt water and sand.

I wore my sunglasses and re-applied sunblock every two hours...
at work today.

Requested pic

This picture does NOT do justice

to how absolutely pissed off they were.

Tons o'fun on 81

Last Friday, I left work and hit the road bound for Cana, Virginia, the stayover for my trek to Syracuse, NY.

With the Thule on top and an ipod full of podcasts and audio books (the free - ie., boring- ones), the mighty Odyssey finished the first leg without event and I stayed in a friend's guesthouse right near the VA-NC border.

The next day was a 10 hour romp through Virginia and PA entertained by Weird Al, Adam Corolla, and the CarTalk guys then I met up with my family poolside in Upstate and Team Keough was whole once again.

For I have not become Death, destroyer of worlds

Well, I was going to describe in intricate detail the suffering of the little guys in their hotbox of doom and my strange feelings of guilt... I mean, I don't care about spraying poison but for some reason, frying them in their home under the hot sun just got to me a little... I was even going to bring up comparisons to a Stephen King book I just finished in which a town is trapped under a mysterious, impenetratable dome.

But they managed to find a way out... the bastards!

Genesis 19:25

Two weeks ago while Erin and I were watering the plants over by the side of the house, we found ourselves surrounded by hornets. We ran off but both of us got stung... just once each though. No big deal but Eirn was a little shook up for a while... especially since she ended up carrying the squashed body of her assailant in her shirt into the house.

It turned out there was an underground yellowjacket nest where we were watering and when the jet from the hose was directly hitting their entrance, they took offence. Normally, I let the fauna have the lawn and the wild area. As long as it's a few feet from the house, it's free range. Once I found a snake and since it wasn't poisonous, I wanted to leave it but it was a big'un plus I had a baby daughter at the time so I caught it and put it a wooded lot across the street.

However, this was a high traffic area and right next to the area with the rocks that Finn likes to play in with his tractors. Last time I had a yellowjacket nest, I poured some gas down in it and they left... or died, I can't remember which. And this is what everything on the web said.

But 1) I don't like pouring gas on the ground, and 2) this was in a mulched area with decorative plants and I didn't want to kill them with gas. So I waited until night when all good wasps retire to their home and sprayed in a bunch of insect spray... and took off. I repeated this again the following night but with no results. The little guys (gals?) were happily buzzin' away.

Note I've never been freaked out by bees or wasps. They can practically land on me and I'll brush them off lightly but usually I pay them no mind and they do likewise. The denizens of this particular nest were the same..... but I was not going to have Finn come running in the house one day covered by stinging yellowjackets. The missus would not be pleased....

I had seen a single post online about putting a glass bowl over the entrance. Normally, according to the post, an obstruction would cause the yellowjackets to dig their way out but if it was a clear one, the "dig" command was not prompted and they would just keep trying to fly through.... until the nest died of thirst.

For some reason, squashing and even poisoning bugs doesn't bother me. I only do it whan I need to put it doesn't bother me at all. But this, this drawn-out torture did not appeal to me at all. But I did it.

To be continued

D'oh!!!!!

I cannot believe I've had this blog for more than 4 years and only now do I notice that I spelled "nauseum" wrong.

Goddamn.

Place du tertre

But on a positive note, I'm managing to feed myself... woo hoo!

Last night I made a vat of spaghetti and had it for lunch today, I will have it for lunch tomorrow, and maybe even Friday. Along with some of the giant cantaloupe Kerry bought Sunday and whatever I cut up of the watermelon quarter the neighbor gave me for helping him with his goddamn m-f'in grill. Plus I threw a bunch of sliced tomatoes into the sauce... another neighbor gave us a bag of tomatoes from his garden. Friendly neighbors hereabouts.

And tonight, along with the pale ale, I had this.

Pork chops with some cajun spice rub from a BBQ place in upstate NY I mentioned before. And tomatoes of course.

Pretty darn tasty if I must say.

Stompin' at the Savoy

Yes, yes it's nice being able to do what I want to do when I want to. It's nice putting something down and it still is there hours later instead of either being out in the yard or covered up with a painting of a horse.

But did my temporary pseudo-bachelordom start out all wine and roses? Nope... it started out in pain.

About every two years, my back gets thrown out. Now the first thing everyone says when they see me limping around like Methusalah with a hernia wincing at each step is "What did you do?" but the thing is is that it really doesn't have to be much at all. Last time was a box of books which is understandable. Once it was helping a guy push his car... also understandable. But I've done it picking up a stick in the front yard. And this time was just helping the neighbor get a fairly light grill off the back of his truck... at least that's what I think it was... it could've been anything.

So yesterday sucked and did today start off any better? No... it started out worse. I woke up at 5:30 this morniong and could barely move. With excruciating pain, I managed to get out of the bed and crawl to the kitchen to get some iboprofen - why do we keep these high up in a cabinet instead of on the floor? Then sent an email to my cow-orkers that I wasn't coming in.

But a few hours later I was at work.

Anyway after seeing that post linked to above about the Backout of 2008 I guess I have a few more days to look forward to which ain't a good thing since I've got the lawns of two homes to mow... mine and my in-law's new place nearby.

Joy.

Birk's Works

Yesterday at 6:30am, Kerry and the kids along with the in-laws piled into a minivan and took off for Syracuse leaving me to fend for myself for a week and a half.

Oh the agony.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm sad and miss them terribly... oh I will very soon but do I miss a screaming, whining toddler with a dripping, snotty cold who can't figure out what he wants and is royally pissed off that his parents can't either during the first few days that he's gone? Hell no.

Do I miss my wonderful wife who has been the one primarily dealing with said snottling while at the same time planning this trip and getting EVERYTHING ready and packed for it so has been understandably snappy at her hubby? Again, of course I will very, very soon but in the first few days of blissful peace? Not really.

Do I miss my crazy, laughing-endlessly older younguns, one of which can sit in her bed for 3 hours straight reading, the other who can spend an hour fine-tuning the gear ratio on a rope walking Lego contraption and another two on a domino trail, both of which will complain for hours about picking up a few clothes in their rooms? Well, yes.... a little bit.

Likely tomorrow evening though.... when I walk into a dark quiet house for the third night in a row and sleep alone once again with no one to chat with and no snoring tyke between us.... I'll be a-missin'em strong.

But for now, as I sit in a nice dark and peaceful house, the jazz station crooning and grooving uninterrupted for 3 hours, and my 2nd tall, cold glass of pale ale next to the monitor.... with time to think on what I'm typing and not having to run off and change a diaper or start Thomas and the Special Letter over yet again or get the runaround bunch to bed.... things are pretty cool, Daddy-O.

No really... your shirt's ON FIRE!

You can't beat a good roman candle fight.

Once, in college, my roomates and I were running around the front yard... probably on the 4th of July but who knows, it could've been freakin' Arbor Day for all it really mattered to us... anyway, we were lighting off roman candles. I'm not sure who had the bright idea to hold onto the things and shoot at each other (Sheer genius, I say!) but that's what we started doing. At one point, I was right behind Matt, fireballs firing. He ran into our apartment thinking he was getting away but, of course, I followed him in blazing away and we ended up with two souvenirs in the form of permanent molten black scars, one on the countertop and one in the floor.

When things had calmed down we were walking back inside and we noticed a small glowing orange-ringed hole slowly widening on the back of Matt's shirt.

Uhhh... Matt, your shirt's on fire.

Yeah... ha ha...

I've got a 12-sided die

Liam is in a Lego Mindstorms camp this week. We had him skip the intro camp and put him in the 2nd level one since he's had one for a few years. First off, although summer "camp" brings up images of lakeside cabins and pimply counselors, for Liam and Erin's age this is typically a week-long sports or learning class. There are many, many different camps from chess camp to mountain biking camp to guitar camp..... there's probably a video game camp or a High School Musical camp. In fact, I guarantee both those exist in NW Atlanta without even bothering to Google.

Anyway, to give an indication of what type of kid Liam's likely going to be a) he completely loves it, and b) the other day he came home all excited with the announcement that the instructor was going to give each kid their own USB flash drive at the end of the week so they could keep their programs.

However, I'm starting to reconsider our general disdain for video games. Every once in a while, I'll show the kids some random game on the computer... usually something very basic. Now I pretty much gave up games after college - hmmm, I figured I had blogged about this but apparently not.... something for the future - let's just say it involves the morning sun peeking in the windows and me creating a Doom level based on my apartment at the time... Anyway, I haven't really played games seriously for over 15 years and I can still easily beat my 9-year old son.

That ain't right.

The horror

Last night, Liam and I were shooting Nerf guns at each other in the backyard when we noticed a little bird fluttering around. Of course, we couldn't stop trying to kill (ie., two hits) each other for that so Erin ran over and realized it was a baby bird that apparently had fallen from it's nest. It was scared and was hiding under an old toy kitchen set that I had put under the deck a year or so ago to await it's eventual dump run.

I quickly dispensed with my foe who was spending more time picking up bullets than he was dealing with me - a deadly error - and shuffled the kids inside so that hopefully the momma bird would rescue the chick. That happens, right?

Excitedly, Erin ran around collecting bits of cloth, grass, and sticks in a shoebox to make a home for what she dearly hoped would be her soon-to-be patient. I told her not to go out back and disturb the situation as we wanted the momma bird to get her baby back, right? Of course, Erin didn't want this to happen... she wanted to take care of the chick. But she agreed that it would be better for the bird.

So we cleaned up and ate dinner (ironically, it was rotisserie chicken). After, Erin went out to check on the bird. A few moments of quiet ensued followed by a sudden blast of a bawl... a very loud, heart-wrenching wail! She came back in screaming about something having killed and eaten the baby chick and then I realized what had happened.

A little over a week ago, I found the remains of a dead rodent of some sort in a remote area of our back yard... actually, I had stepped with a bare foot into a particularly squishy part of said remains which even as I write this sends a disgusted shiver through me. After the ants and bugs had removed most of the "icky bits" I gingerly picked up the skull with a stick and put in a spot that gets a fair amount of direct sun so it would dry out but not be very conspicuous.

This spot happened to be at the edge of the deck right next to where the bird had cloistered itself where Erin jhad, to her horrow, discovered it assuming it was the freshly-slayed head of her desired pet baby bird.

After I quickly explained the situation, she was fairly easily consoled. The bad news was she ddidn't get a pet but at least it was ssafe and happy with it's mother.... or so I hope!

Piledriver

First off, I'm not taking a hiatus... I just have to get a few things done on the computer at home for the next week or so and that's gonna take up my freetime but I'll try to get in a little... maybe post about last weekend's latest camping fiasco where I decided to stand in the pouring rain for a few hours rather than get in that kid-crazy tent.

Speaking of freetime, Finn is taking up quite a bit of it. He is at that age where he doesn't do anything you say and he never wants to sleep so he's screaming half the time. Unfortunately, even if he had some comprehension of time-out, we have no real place to put him like we did with the other kids. Plus I usually play with him when I get home to give Kerry a break and with my efforts to jog in the morning because of the summer heat, I've got to get in bed by around 10 if I want a halfway decent night's sleep... which doesn't happen much...

By the way, he's "talking" a lot and doing the parrot thing. He hasn't quite mastered jumping other than on the bed. He's a pretty physical little guy and gets a kick out of me shoving him in the chest with one hand and knocking his legs out from under him with the other when he's on the bed. This hurls him flat on his back giggling, ready for another slam, and mad when I stop.

Das Commute

I had planned on leaving at 4:30 so I could get home around 6 but, nope, things came up.... especially with a customer in China... that made it where I didn't get going until after 5:30. The thing with China, by the way, is that in the morning when I get some questions from that side of the world, I usually put off answering them until later and focus on the European crap... since they still might get back to me before noon my time. China, on the other hand, won't be checking their emails until later on in the evening... except for a few guys that keep going until midnight over there.

But I digest - errrrp - so I called Kerry to let her know I was hitting the road, put my phone in my backpack, put on my sunglasses, and started off. Only while I was adjusting my rearview mirror - the one that clips to my sunglasses - the little plastic piece-of-shit bracket on it broke. It's late and I want to get going so a huge part of me wants to say "oh well, make do and get going" but I reeeeeally like having the rearview.

When I'm biking along a road with a lousy shoulder, especially going fast on a downhill, I can stay in the road and keep an eye behind me. If a car is coming, I hug that edge until it goes by. I can see big trucks coming. When I enter a right-hand turn lane, I can glance back (while still keeping my main focus in front) and see if anyone's entering. The right-hand turning lanes are a big deal riding in suburbia... do I hug the right then slow before they turn or do I stay in the middle in traffic?

So I hitched my star to the rearview and called up a friend that I was pretty sure was still at work inside. We tried cable-ties and twisty wire-wraps but what ended up working (20 minutes later) was good ol'black electrical tape... the duct tape of the spark chaser set. Finally, I jumped the tracks next to the parking lot and headed off.

A half-hour later, my worries were confirmed.... the 15 mile ride home was NOT going to be the brisk, exciting ride of the morning, it was to be a grueling slog on the side of the road in 90 degree sweltering heat.

In addition to being during a cool, sparkling morning, the ride in was also primarily downhill. Given that the Gwinnett county schools were closed and I suppose people were taking off early for the holiday, traffic was light and the mood was reminiscent
of the moment in the cartoon where Cinderella throws open the shutters amidst chortling bluebirds and happy chipmunks. The dew was glistening on the cowslip and there was an eager sharpness in the air, a feeling of "go get'em, tiger"! And there I was, speeding down 141, scoffing at the lowly drivers enslaved within their clunky chariots. I got to the office in 1 hour and 15 minutes, energized and rarin' to go...

But the ride home was another matter entirely... first off, traffic was a mess. Now, in general, the more traffic the better for riding home. One, you don't gave to worry so much about those right turning lanes or getting amongst the cars in general... everyone's going slow. Two, it's a huge boost for me to "beat" the cars.... passing the Hummer with GO BULLDOGS or the Lexus with FUCKNUT ACADEMY never gets old.

But when it's hot, you're riding uphill, and you are not used to riding AGAIN after doing 15 miles in the morning, there is something very taxing about riding endlessly next to a mass of car that is draining. And, God forbid, I stop and take a break on the side of the road. You have to stay standing and look sharp soldier! Three seconds after you decide to sit and and maybe call home and check in, some car is stopping in the middle of the road and the guy is asking "You ok? Did you wreck?" Yeah, I know I should be glad but I swear it happens the SECOND I sit down. I'll have my phone in hand and my bike well out of the road. I'm not sprawled in the gutter wrapped up in my bike, bloody and the wheels still spinning. And yet, they stop like they're forest rangers or the goddamn Peace Corps. "You ok, buddy?"

I'll reallly hate myself when I actually DO wreck.

The whole trip is basically uphill but for the last two, there's no "basically" about it. It's a serious uphill.

So I take to the sidewalks becoming a biker Uncle Tom. I never see bikers on the sidewalks. They claim their portion of the road with confidence and self-righteousness. Anyone who would ride on the sidewalk is basically saying bicyclists don't have the right to ride on the road. But I do... sometimes I ride on the sidewalks.

Ok... when the fact comes up that I ride a bike through the suburban streets, a lot of people say that bikers should stick to the sidewalks. First off, I'm pretty sure it's illegal. I don't think any cop would enforce it but sidewalks are for pedestrians. A person on a bike is a wide object and, especially when barreling along downhill, has no business on the same path as joggers, walkers, and moms with strollers. Second, sidewalks are hardly continuos... especially in the suburbs. They stop and start willy-nilly and a biker jumping off the curb into the road is a lot more likely to get hit by a car than a biker cruising along steadily at the side of the road.

But when I'm plodding along on my mountain bike, tired and slow uphill... and there's a sidewalk along side.... instead of sitting in the road, skirting the gutter, dodging sewer drains and dead possums and getting slammed every ten seconds by the wind of a passing SUV, I'm getting on that goddamn sidewalk.

The Challenge

Last Sunday, Liam and I went mountain biking on the trail at Central Park off 400. Last month, we got Liam a new bike, a black and red 24" Novara Tractor from REI. He was getting a little big for his old one plus he was getting into trail riding and the lack of shocks, handbrakes, and especially gears for the uphills was holding him back some.

This was his first time on the trail with his new bike. One or two little spills but he did pretty well. I have completely lost my balls in regards to anything remotely sketchy.... mostly I'm talking about steep drop-offs even the short ones. Part of this is due I'm sure to my natural risk aversion nowadays but I think most of it is the fact that I no longer ride trails.

But I do ride a bit more than I did when I wrote this but mostly on roads. And mostly the same road.... 5 miles out and 5 back on a main road through a supercluster of developments with a few massive hills. I even bought a new bike.... a Cannondale F5 . All black except for a spot that looks like someone took to it with a dremel with the grinder bit. Which is why I got it for $200 off at the REI scratch and dent thing.

I used to ride to work a few times a year back when I was 5 miles from home but I've been saying for a while that I would do the 15 miles to my new office. I've left a set of clothes there for the next day and two weeks ago I even got all geared up and started riding but turned around after a 1/2 mile because it was foggy... it's dangerous enough on a clear day. And I need to do it before it starts being 110 degrees in the afternoon.

That's it, goshdoggit! I'm doing it next week!

Let it out!!!

I must pay my respects (whatever that means) to Ronnie James Dio who died last weekend. He headlined the first show I ever saw.... way back in 84 at the Orange Pavilion in San Bernadino, California. It was the Last In Line tour with Dokken (a classic cheeseball hair band).

Never followed him much after that but did enjoy his role as the Lord of Metal in this.

Wait a sec... he wasn't even in that. I guess I just assumed while glancing through it in the way that people read on-line that only Dio could be the head of the Supreme Metal Council in its majestic hall atop Vatnajökull, Iceland's largest glacier.

The Pet Colombian, Part 1

At one point in my college travels, I lived with a guy - I'll call him Matt - in a small apartment on White Ash Trail just south of UCF in Orlando, FL. Our total rent was probably less than $500 a month but dammit, that was too goddamn high so we decided to get a roommate.

Only trouble was we didn't have an extra room. So Matt dry-walled in the dining room. Note that there was one of those bars between the kitchen and the dining room that you could sit at and talk to people in the kitchen. Cut out two pieces of drywall, do a little shaping with a boxknife, slap that shit in there, and - wala - no more bar area and you've got a ready-to-move-in room with a chandelier hanging in the middle of it.

Roberto moved in and we quickly began adopting many of his sayings into our conversation.

"Ch'out, ch'out" (check it out, check it out) - Please notice that there is an attractive woman in our presence.
"Thankyaverymach" - I appreciate the fact that they are indeed very attractive.
"Ah som'beeetch" - something has come between me and my goal, or
my luck is not very good today.
"Viva l'America!" - I love the USA, typically sung while drunkenly excercising with barbells
"Ahhh Americans vedddy rude!!!!" - typically exclaimed as an expression of displeasure when another has created a gaseous
environment in your immediate area

Smokey Treats

I never really smoked cigarettes. I tried them in high school once or twice and I have a distinct memory of sitting on a curb with a cigarette... coughing and thinking "why am I doing this? Oh yeah... peer pressure" and I never tried them again. I'm not saying I never did anything since then because of peer pressure but I definitely remember smoking being something I actively decided not to do because of it. That, and the fact that my first taste of a cigarette was when I surreptitiously snuck a sip of one of my Dad's PBR's only to find he had had stubbed out a butt in it. Funny it didn't kill my taste for beer, huh?

I've always considered it basically a weakness in others and a pretty gross one at that. I dated girls who smoked but always thought of it as a negative.

Then I was going to go into the "but I like smoky bars" thing then remembered this. Same title and all.... Alzheimer's anyone?

Random

Pretty much the first song I remember thinking was my favorite was "Rock and Roll Fantasy". I've probably heard it at least 3 times a year since then but strangely I can never remember who the hell did the song. Todd Rundgren sticks in my head for some reason but I have no idea who that is either other than some guitar guy that I should know something about.

Wait a sec... maybe my first favorite song was Andy Gibb's "Blood is Thicker than Water". Yup... that was on the bus on my way to 5th grade my first year in California.

And then there were two...

A week or so ago, Erin decided one of the tadpoles wanted to be separate from the others so she put it in a water bottle next to the rest. After a day or two, it died.

I got the old fish aquarium out of the attic and set it up tadpole-style (?) and the three remaining had been doing ok until tonight... well, actually tragedy struck a few days ago when - she says it was - Blueberry got "stuck" under a few pebbles and just now Erin realized she might be dead.

She was pretty upset about it for about ten minutes then Kerry mentioned that we should start putting live insects into the aquarium for the one tadpole that is basically now a tiny frog. So she ran out back and started collecting ants.


We buried Blueberry in the backyard next to Max. She may make me Dremel up a headstone tomorrow but she just as easily might never mention it.

91.1 huh?

I've always had the two Atlanta college radio stations on my car radio presets and they are always in my regular rotation... which is pretty constantly changing since I hate to listen to a song I don't like. However, unless it's one of the genre programs I rarely ever stop nowadays. The surf music show or Big Band Jump or the punk show on Friday afternoon driving home from work.... or especially Martinis con Queso, the lounge show I've loved for 10 years... those I'll hang around on but the usual stuff doesn't grab me anymore.

Now 88.5 WRAS plays decent stuff.... a good mix... but I'll typically not stay on for more than a song. Unfortunately, even when I hear a great song and I stay on until the DJ comes on, she won't say who played it he will be screwed up and won't get it right. 91.1 WREK is insane. One time they'll be playing a blues song, followed by a schmaltzy lovesong from Thailand, then a cookie monster thrash metal thing, then something that sounds like one of those Simon Says games being hit repeatedly by a cinderblock.

I used to listen to it a lot more and got into some good stuff....

Hater - a lo-fi grungy band I never heard of from anything else then or since other than the cd I picked up,

PJ Harvey - her stuff before that fish song was raw and aggressive, Rid of Me is definitely one of my favorite albums

PeeChee's - good punk/rock thing with a unique vocals, like Hater, never heard of'em again

Cardigan's - their CD Live is unlike the usual stuff I like but still one of my tops, I don't know why they decided to cahnge and sound like every other band... well, of course I do.

Slint - a band with some strange songs, it's been over 16 years since I bought Spiderland but I hear that spooky Captain song about once every 2 years on 88.5 or 91.1.

Portishead - well, it probably helped that the clubs I was hanging out played Dummy a lot but again, although unlike my typical stuff... one of my most played albums

When the whole grunge thing was going I liked Nirvana but I was way into Mudhoney for a few years. Then for a while their stuff wasn't interesting me and I kind of forgot about them. One day, I think I was in a Chic-fil-A drive thru line, and I was listening to 88.5 and this song came on and I was thinking, "Wow, a band that sounds like the music I want to hear" and it turned out to be the then new Mudhoney album.

In 87, I was into the Cult and I was looking around for something like them at Peaches, the record store we used to go to in Orlando. The guy behind the counter got me to buy an album but being cheap, I wanted to hear it before I opened it. My roomate worked at the college radio so sometimes I would listen to the music they had... I remember Celtic Frost for some reason. They had the album there so I listened to it there in one of the booths. Nothing on it really interested me... the band just sounded like the glam rock i wasn't into at all albeit with a shade of old Aerosmith... so I returned it still in the shrinkwrap. It was Guns n' Roses debut and with the later banned cover art. I just looked this up on e-Bay figuring it must be going for at least $100 but nope, $30-40 even unopened like everything else.

Cinco de Mayonnaise

I'm sitting here (typing on the BlackBerry) eating chips from Moe's dipped in Paul New - woops, Finn fell off the slide- man's salsa with a Dos Equis from a Beers of Mexico variety case from BJ's "decanted" with an opener from South of the Border... with a lime in it.

Only a Gordita could make it more authentic.

Orion's Steakhouse

Unlike almost 90% of the content on this blog, here is something no one will care about. By the way, sometimes I'm writing for Future Jim or possibly my kids but they will not care about this one either. I plan on writing a whole bit someday about how certain songs bring up memories and images in people (and of course to me in particular) and how every time you hear the song, the same collage of thoughts flies through your head just as it did a hundred times before.... of course, this might not happen to everyone since not every refuses to get new music and has to listen to the same tiny amount of the music he's managed to get into digital form which is itself a small subset from a meager collection of cd's, 95% of which he purchased before 1999.

Anyway..... I hate to draw you away from this fascinating pretext but to the point that no one will care about:

When I listen to Metallica's "Orion", an instrumental from their 3rd album which came out around 85 or 86, do I think of a Grecian hunter clad in a tunic and olive leaves jaunting through the forest with a bow and his legendary belt? I'm sure there's great story there somewhere but I don't know it and I don't think of that or anything else from Clash of the Titan's.

An image fills my head of a massive spaceship not streamlined or menacing but bulky and girder-encrusted... a little like the ship from Disney's "Black Hole" or maybe the one in 2001... but bigger. Much, much bigger. And at it's stern is an absolutely massive metal bowl a mile or so in diameter with the filling side pointed away from the ship. First, the ship is being built in some extensive orbital yard.... sections added on to it's growing bulk... figures in spacesuits welding plates and guiding equipment. All with the glorious blue and white sphere of the earth completely filling the background.

Then the figures are detailing it's interior... loading materials, running cables, etc. and putting the final touches on the exterior. And after a lot of milling about and some inspirational scenes of a launch sequence, small rockets fire and the behemoth slowly leaves earth's orbit and once it clears the engines die and a small object emerges from the center of the bowl.

And the H-bomb explodes.

I remember learning about the ORION project in the 80's either in a science fiction book (told as if it was a real project) or I saw it on the Carl Sagan COSMOS show. It was put forth as a way we could get to the stars with existing technology and I haven't looked it up since so I could be completely wrong about what it was.

So now I'll check it out.

Violet the Frog?

Erin has always had a fondness for bugs and so-called "creepy-crawlies". I can get her excited by saying "Let's go look under the log!" and we'll go down the hill in the backyard to where I burn sticks and pinecones. There's a big log from a tree I cut down 5-6 years ago that we sit on while cooking hot dogs and marshmallows.

Anyway, I'll push it over and Erin loves to see the ants, centipedes, maggots, whatever.... she'll pick up the worms and put them in whatever is her current "garden".

Over the winter, she kept a pet snail. It was "Shelly" for a while then became "Sheldon" when it changed shells (?). She would give it spinach leaves or pieces of carrot and she'd keep the jar clean in an attempt to show us that she's responsible enough for a pet. Then she had a toy dalmation with wheels that she pulled around everywhere and she gave it regular baths.

Now she's got a little terrarium in her room with 5 tadpoles (according to her... I'm assuming a few died) named Rosemary, Daisy, Blackberry, Blueberry, and Violet.

Casa uno mas

Home for a while but still wired
Mountain Dew and Coke go juice
Fun time, lots of visiting
brothers and sister in law, father and mother in law
mother father sister aunt uncle
canoed with Erin and Liam at Wekiwa Springs
fantastic beautiful saw a gator two turtles
Erin freaked out a little with the gator but in a nervous jokey but a little serious "heh-heh, let's get the heck out of here" kind of way
went to the Brevard Zoo
otters were Liam and Finn's favorite, Erin liked the armadillos who licked her feet
saw an early morning launch of the Discovery space shuttle, one of the last
lotsa Easter candy
egg hunts and bike riding including a major wreck by Liam - shaken but ok
Many Yenlings, Heinekins, plus a not half-bad vodka/pink lemonade/grape fanta concoction
saw Inglorious Bastards - brutal but cool
played 5-6 hours to finish Risk - a game that HAD to be invented before TV - 5 HOURS!!
Swam in a few pools and the ocean
awesome weather,
left at 5:40 Friday morning going down... made it in 9 hours, would've been 8 save for a wrong turn at Albuquerque
coming home, left before 7am Sat morn but took just shy of 12 GODDAMN HOURS
good times

I Heart Train

Well I'm down here on Spring Break in Central Florida... And, yes, if you have kids in gradeschool... you have Spring Breaks again.

Anyway... About this new Train song... as those hip kids in those wicked cool Mickey D's commercials say... I'm lovin' it!

The Perfect Storm

Biiiiig day tomorrow.... first, Erin's Pinewood Derby... worked on the car this week, registered it this evening... then Erin's soccer game.... THEN Erin's Leprechaun-themed birthday party. Took a half- day today at work to help get ready... still haven't come up with the games yet... instead I'm blogging...

And after her party, Erin plans to attend another.

Runny, Part 5

So I'll run 2 - 3 times a week for only about 3 miles each time. I'm taking glucosamine... I've never been a pill guy but it's basically chopped up shrimp casings or some chitonous substance... wait a sec, I forgot to mention that one of the reasons I'm running again is related to my anti-pill thing. It turns out that my cholesterol has recently crossed a threshold that has caused my doctor to recommend I take a drug to get it down. I've always had slightly high cholesterol in the 200-225 range but since my good cholesterol level was high, my doctor just said keep up the exercise and decent diet.

But now it's 230 and rather than go the drug route, I'm going to go stricter on the diet and keep up the running. My typical diet every day is a bagel with hummus (instead of my usual cream cheese), coffee with half&half (can't skip this) and for lunch, black bean burritos with spinach and more hummus instead of cheese, a bag of raw veggies, and a bag of cereal then whatever my wife makes for dinner. So we'll see how it goes.... if the cholesterol gets worse, I'll likely end up on Pravichor or whatever is making the rounds these days.

Anyway, although I miss running for real, I'm going to keep to it for health (not to mention the stress-relief and getting-outside thing!) I don't want to overdo it and hurt my knees which may threaten my hiking plans.

Speaking of, the fam did it's biggest hike ever together today... about 7 miles up and down Blood Mountain, the highest point on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. Erin and Liam made it to the top with nary a whine and Finn stayed on my back like the smart lad he is.

Diamond Dave

Thursday I heard that the guy who played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, Fess Parker, had died. I do remember having a coonskin cap at some point in my childhood but I don't really remember seeing much of his shows. We did watch Disney's "Davy Crockett and the River Pirates" a few years ago and it wasn't bad for what it was.

Anyway, the first thing I'm thinking is could they re-do a frontiersman show? Make it serious and realistic?

The 2nd, Fess in the 60's picking up chicks in a bar "Hey, I'm Davy F*cking Crockett!"

Top o' the mornin'

Last week, Team Keough went to downtown Decatur for a booksigning (well, "stamping", her hand had been injured) by Mary Pope Osborne of Magic Treehouse fame.

While Kerry braved the madding crowds with Erin, I wandered the square with Finn and Liam. There were a few guys putting up some banners around Mac McGee's, an Irish pub for St. Patrick's Day. From the outside, the pub looked very inviting and I was a wee bit parched. The fact that I had watched a show on the Food Network the previous night where they were in Ireland demonstrating how to pour the pefect Guiness did not help ease the temptation to head in. Having the kids though was a little awkward and we were planning on eating at Doc Chey's again so I declined.

Tonight though, once again yet another St. Patrick's Day has passed, another one much like the others with a few Smithwick's (the current beer being pushed as 'what they drink in Ireland'), and corned beef and cabbage, a meal I've always loved, my older son is starting to like a lot, and my daughter still is disgusted by... like seemingly 75% of everything we put in front of her these days.

Two additions:
1) a trip to McDonald's, a fine Irish establishment, for Shamrock Shakes, and
2) a shot of Bushmill's

Another St. Patrick's Day where Erin tries to trap the wily Leprechaun... this time with a trap on the kitchen table and another in her room using a glass of green food-colored tainted grape choose... which she promptly spilled onto the carpet AND neglected to mention it.

Sure and begorrah, tis a wild child she be.

Runny, Part 4

So my plan was to start biking at work for exercise... I bike on the weekends, I'll just start taking short rides at lunch... maybe I can find a big hill in Norcross... there's a big landfill just south of Jimmy Carter...

But it didn't work out. Biking is a heck of a lot more of a hassle than out-the-door running. So maybe I'll join a gym. But now I get to work at 7 because of traffic... I don't see getting up at 4 to get to a gym. Actually, that could work... what I don't see happening is going to sleep before 10 the previous evening. Once the kids are in bed, that's my time to catch up on crap...

I could do a gym in the evening... possibly... but I really don't want to go to a gym anyway.

1) I like getting outside.
2) Actually going somewhere and having to go back is a great motivation vs. some computer thing.
3) I'm a cheap bastard.

So I decide to start running again.

Runny, Part 3

Then we stop and drink a little at another spot off the side of the road while the "runners" keep on truckin' down the line... finally I cross the finish line.... along with one other guy that like myself, actually wanted to get a time.

Speaking of, my time from went I crossed the starting line was 2:29:00. Last year it was 0:49:20. Not bad when you consider I drank about 6 beers along the way...

And then, naturally, we all ended up at The Highlander.

Banner Weekend - Part 2

Well, I keep getting behind in these posts so let me wrap this one up...
after the zoo, we didn't feel like driving back to the burbs it being such a swell day and all, so we went to Doc Chey's in the Highlands, a nice, safe choice.. they even had kid's menu's and crayons.... man things have changed intown, ya know?

Anyway, a bit of a surprise especially given my post about the kids only liking standard fare but they loved it. And $4 for each kids meal... what a bahgin. Best, of all, Kerry and I got to enjoy a meal on a deck with real music and ketchup nowhere in site.

The next day the whole gang ended up biking on one of the new Greenways. Well, Liam and Kerry were biking, I was sitting on the side of the path re-attaching Erin's training wheels. She can "ride" without them... using the strictest definition of the word... she just can't steer or go straight for more than 3 feet. But then we did all ride... the kids saw other kids they knew... and we had fun.

But I didn't really get enough exercise so decided to another ride on my own. I was pondering doing my Taco Mac run but then a friend called and asked me to help him get his pool cover off. His place was about 7 miles away so I set off. I had picked a route to avoid as much riding along busy roads as possible however I had to assume there was an extra back way connecting two subdivisions to a third. One I knew about and involved a ride on a rocky maintenance trail connecting a park and some kind of power utility station. The other I had to hope for the best.. it looked to be no prob on Google Maps - Satellite.

But of course I ended up sloshing through a less-than-sparkling stream, riding along the trail-less side of a weed-covered hill, then pushing my bike up pretty much a cliff (I failed to notice the "contours" on my so-called problem-free route) to finally make the cut-thru. Then, it took some time to haul the soggy leaf-mass cover Deadliest Catch-style from the pool and, with the sun quickly sinking, I had to kill myself to make it back the 7 miles to home before dark.

Yup... a good weekend.

Banner Weekend - Part 1

Last weekend was fantastic. Of course the amazing weather was only more so given the fact that the weekend before, we were sledding after the biggest snowfall in Atlanta since 93.

Friday night, didn't do much but blog a little... but I was a-buzzin' on Bushmill's so chalk it up to a good night.

Saturday, we went intown and visited some friends in Oakhurst, I ate a pricey and tasty sandwich at Nectar in the village, then went to the zoo which had all the Finn favorites: gorillas, elephants, lions, and the pandas. Erin was into the meercats. Liam later made a poster about a Red-Tailed Boa Constrictor he saw (and touched) at the zoo for scouts.

And Daddy lost his employer's BlackBerry.

I had it attached to the backpack I was hauling Finn around in and we had taken him out of it but I neglected to find a better place for the phone and it must have slipped off. I realized this in the parking lot as the zoo was closing so went back to the gate. Things were a madhouse so I figured that even IF someone had already found it AND turned it in to a zoo person, the likelihood of it actually making it the lost and found by now were extremely slim.

But I knocked dilligently on the door with an actual LOST & FOUND sign and after a little while, a guy came out with my BlackBerry... and promptly dropped it to the ground as he was trying to pass it to me.

So like 90% of the things I "misplace" (such as my keys that right now I haven't seen for 3 days), I got my phone back.

Runny, Part 2

So we start off and I do the first mile down past the pizza joint and none of the Hasher's are there so they must be at the next spot. Unfortunately, my info on the "next spot" is very iffy and I end up making some calls and running to around the 4 mile point then back to the 3.5 mile and doing a lot of standing around looking for a group with a flag among the thousands of revelers until suddenly, I end up on a side alley with a bunch of screaming people with a few coolers of beer making speeches and congratulating a hash contingent from Puerto Rico and then it's off again to the next beer stop.

Runny, Part 1

The last time I posted about running was this.

I had planned to keep it serious for the Peachtree but my knee kept hurting so I gave it up. However I had signed up for the thing so damned if I'm not going to show up and do something but what?

And then... hallelujah!!!

I heard that the Hashers were going to have a pubcrawl during the run and, of course! What could be better? Why not combine my two loves... running and drinking... into one... running WHILE drinking! Sheer genius!

By Hashers, I mean this group of runners/drinkers (throughout the world, by the way) that I've always heard about and associated with certain members of over the years but surprisingly never really committed to in any form whatsoever until...

NOW.

I get off the MARTA and my starting time is around 7:40 or something (I can't remember) but I run south instead of north along Peachtree to a pizza joint that the Hashers are meeting at and sure enough, there are two guys sitting at a table out front and YES they are drinking beer. I go to the bar and buy a pitcher with thoughts that this is about the first time I've drank beer before 8am since... well, I was going to say since some frat thing where we were camping and had no water so had to drink Busch but damn... that was probably after 8 so who knows when was the last time I drank that early? But knowing my memory, I'll be damned if I'll claim it as a record.

So, to make a not so long story less so, more people show, more beer is drank, and most aren't signed up for the run and those that are aren't bothering to start at the starting line but I have a computer chip thingie on my shoe so after cheering for the wheelchair racers and the fast guys, I hoof it on up to the starting line a mile away and stand in the massive throng of racers... a-buzzin'.

Whiteout

Just a quick one on the big snowfall in the ATL. Here's a pic of Liam sleeding on the hill down the street from us. He's on the slide from our plastic kiddie playground thing which actually made a great sled. We've had that playground (structure? I'm not sure what it's called... it's a plastic block thing made out of panels with a slide) since we lived in Buckhead with an infant Liam and it was given to us by some friends who said they had inherited it as well.

True Romance in John's Creek

Kerry and I never do a whole lot for the romantic holidays... Feb 3 was our 9th anniversary. As a tribute to something I did a few years ago, I remade a dinner from Trader Joe's (Trader Vic's would've been somethin'! Maybe next year....hmmm....), and got a tiny bunch of flowers and a card from Publix. When I was picking up the card, I noticed a card with a Grey's Anatomy theme and thought I'd look for one with Lost, something Kerry's huge into and is in it's last season right now. But no dice. I went up to the Hallmark next door and the lady said she saw one which caused me to ransack the store in search but nope...nada.

So I went home and whipped up a goofy card of my own.

For Valentine's today, I got her a little "I Love You" frog that plays "You Really Got Me", a song that I semi-planned to air guitar to at our wedding reception but didn't follow through.

Today, it was cold and slushy outside, so we did a "hike" around the mall. I carried Finn on my back, my bid at weakly simulating exercize outdoors. The kids liked seeing the giant fish tank at Bass Pro, the Lego store, and an indoor shoot'em up pellet gun thing not to mention watching Dad do a climbing wall. Too bad Kerry didn't get a shot of me actually on it!

A week or so ago, a little frustrated at seeing all the cool restaurants in the paper that I had never been to, I said we should make a goal of going to a different restaurant once a month. But of course, when we decided to go out this evening, we ended up at the same place.


It's tough when you have kids. For Liam and Erin's sake, you gotta have a place with basic burger and fries/grilled cheese selection. We push them to try different foods at home but since we rarely go out, who wants to battle at a restaurant? And for Finn, you want a place that's relatively loud so you're not bugging anyone too bad. And even then, I spend half the time walking him around (literally) the restaurant.


Anyway, so the choice was Steak n Shake, Taco Mac, and Chili's. Steak n Shake was hands down the kid's favorite but I didn't want a greasy (albeit tasty) burger... my doctor recently informed me that my cholesterol has finally crossed a threshold... more on that in a later post. And I refused to break my 15 year streak of never ordering anything at Taco Mac except for Wings and beer.

So we ended up at Chili's... the same dang place we've been to the last two times we went out. Oh well, happy Valentine's Day.

Merry Christmas!

I left work at 3 today to avoid the inevitable traffic mayhem resulting from the afternoon snowfall. I brought my laptop AND my monitor so I could work at home but - sorry - I played with my kids in what, as far as I can tell, is the biggest snowfall since just before I came to Atlanta in 93.

But what I've wanted to blog about for a week... and never ended up doing because 11 just keeps rolling around and I get up at 5:20am... is last weekend. A busy, busy weekend.

9am Saturday morning the Pinewood Derby. Liam had designed, cut some, sanded, and painted his car with an eye for speed and his car easily won each of his 4 heats so he assumed that he would win a trophy... there being 3 for each group and 3 overall but no, the top 10 in his group were all basically 2.4 plus or minus 0.05 sec and he ended up in 7th place.

Then we made it to the 2nd half of a chess tournament. It's "interesting" that soccer and football around this area seem to be 80-95% Caucasian but chess... at least the tournament... was about 5% Caucasian... interesting a.k.a "pathetic".

Watched Toy Story 2 Saturday night thinking that Finn might get interested in something on the TV other than Thomas the Train but nope...

Sunday, sickened of seemingly endless days of rain, I was determined to get outside and do some hiking. Erin joined me and we did the AT from Woody Gap up Big Cedar Mt and back... a fairly steep climb and the whole deal was in ice and snow. Unfortunately, I failed to notice when we left the house that Erin had on bellbottoms and "Mary Jane" open top shoes.

No complaints from Supah-Koopa-Paratroopah Erin.

Just stone cold hiking.

She's the one that, someday, will do the whole damn thing.

C.H.U.D.

Well, I was going to give the whole long story about everything Liam and I did on the scout trip to a cave in Kentucky but you can look here for the overview.... athough that site doesn't prepare you for the fact that you will be living in a world of "muudy" clay... meaning EVERYTHING that touches the floor or walls gets instantly stained with reddish-black clay.... no big deal for the clothes we were in but the comedy of gingerly positioning backpacks, tarps, pillows, spare clothes, sleeping bags, etc was something to remember!

Anyway, although our tarp was positioned pretty close to a vile port-a-let, we had a great time.

The key thing for me is that, assuming his memory is like mine (and hopefully it won't be), although 99% of the stuff Liam does in these years he will completely forget when he grows up, he will never forget the fact that he spent the night in a big cave waaaay underground. He'll forget that we crawled around through tunnels and maybe even that we went out on an underground lake in a boat but he'll remember that he slept overnight in a cave.

Just like last year when we had an even better time on the USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier in Charleston. Liam won't remember exploring the control tower and the pipe-and-gauge-festooned bowels of the engine room and eating sausage and grit in the mess but he'll remember the fact that he spent the night on an aircraft carrier. Too bad that even though I brought ear plugs, I can't forget the snoring...

Note that in the picture to the left, Liam is sitting on his bunk...
my bunk was the one UNDERNEATH that one!

Weekend To-Do List: Sunday

1) Short hike with kids
check
2) Help Liam on Pinewood Derby car
just about done
3) Ride bike
check
4) Drink Purple Haze at Taco Mac
check
5) Take down Xmas lights
check
6) Take cargo carrier off minivan
check
7) Tell Erin "magic laundry basket" bedtime story
check
8) Read Thomas book to Finn for 34th time
check
9) Write up blog about cave trip
not started

Weekend To-Do List: Saturday

1) Bring trash and recyclables to Recycling Center
check
2) Help Liam on Pinewood Derby car
on-going
3) Do 300 push-ups
check
4) Read Thomas book to Finn for 30th time
check
5) Organize den achievements
check
6) Write up blog about cave trip
not started

Weekend To-Do List: So Far

1) Drop off tiling tools at Tom's
check
2) Answer Cub Scout e-mails
check
3) Test whiskey allergy theory
check (I'm cured!)
4) Drink beer while listening to ipod and screwing around on the Internet
check
5) Drink a few more beers while listening to ipod and screwing around on the Internet
Hmmm... let's see...
check

Into the Wild

Today, Liam and I walked across the street and into a wooded lot that backs up to an area of brambles and pines that follows a creek that snakes between two subdivisions and a possibly abandoned new one under construction. There was no path and we crossed over two small wire fences. We wandered for about a mile and half and saw nothing but a retention pond, backyards, and a few concrete manholes. When we got back home Liam said it was the coolest hike he’s ever done.

From an article by Michael Chabon in the New York Review of Books (it’s also in the book by Chabon that I’m currently reading):

Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood
By Michael Chabon

This is the kind of door-to-door, all-encompassing escort service that we adults have contrived to provide for our children. We schedule their encounters for them, driving them to and from one another's houses so they never get a chance to discover the unexplored lands between. If they are lucky, we send them out to play in the backyard, where they can be safely fenced in and even, in extreme cases, monitored with security cameras. When my family and I moved onto our street in Berkeley, the family next door included a nine-year-old girl; in the house two doors down the other way, there was a nine-year-old boy, her exact contemporary and, like her, a lifelong resident of the street. They had never met.

The sandlots and creek beds, the alleys and woodlands have been abandoned in favor of a system of reservations—Chuck E. Cheese, the Jungle, the Discovery Zone: jolly internment centers mapped and planned by adults with no blank spots aside from doors marked staff only. When children roller-skate or ride their bikes, they go forth armored as for battle, and their parents typically stand nearby.

There are reasons for all of this. The helmeting and monitoring, the corralling of children into certified zones of safety, is in part the product of the Consumer Reports mentality, the generally increased consciousness, in America, of safety and danger. To this one might add the growing demands of insurance actuarials and the national pastime of torts. But the primary reason for this curtailing of adventure, this closing off of Wilderness, is the increased anxiety we all feel over the abduction of children by strangers; we fear the wolves in the Wilderness. This is not a rational fear; in 1999, for example, according to the Justice Department, the number of abductions by strangers in the United States was 115. Such crimes have always occurred at about the same rate; being a child is exactly no more and no less dangerous than it ever was. What has changed is that the horror is so much better known. At times it seems as if parents are being deliberately encouraged to fear for their children's lives, though only a cynic would suggest there was money to be made in doing so.

On the 2nd sip I begin to admit

Two Fridays ago, I stopped into Pop’s and bought a bottle of Bushmill’s Irish Whiskey a little in honor of the upcoming St. Patty’s Day but mostly because I wanted to try a different liquor. I’m a beer drinker but every once in a while I’ll have a drink. Being something easy to mix, usually it’s Bacardi that I’ll keep on hand. But when me best rum ran dry, I decided it was time for a change.

I’m not much of a liquor drinker and I have have basically zero experience with whiskey.

I have vague recollections of a party at the home of the only “girlfriend” I had in high school involving my inane decision to put WASP’s debut album on the turntable and a bottle of Southern Comfort… which I don’t think is even whiskey.

My second “whiskey experience” involves a night in Colorado Springs with a cousin who liked to drink Jack & Coke’s where I ended the night gazing rapturously into the eyes of a future Mandarin translator for the Air Force and started the next morning with a 30 lb cinder block on my head.

So I decided to give it about 15 years to give whiskey another go. But something happened to me unlike anything that has happened before.

I poured a shot and took a small sip. It had the usual grimace-inducing bite of any strong alcohol but it also had a smoothness that wasn’t unappealing. A little while later I took another sip… same thing but I soon noticed a small annoyance that I can only describe as feeling like I had a thin metal bar embedded in the back of my head running from the middle of my neck to the just below the top of my head. I ignored it and after a while the shot was down and the annoyance became a dull pain. A dull pain that remained there for two goddamn days.

Since it started right after two tiny sips, I can’t imagine it had anything to do with the whiskey unless I’m allergic to peat moss or whatever is used to make Irish Whiskey… Three-Leaf Clovers? Heather on the moors? Sheleighlies?? Plus I have a whole g.d. bottle of Bushmill’s in my cabinet.

Kerry thinks it's because Bushmill's is generally considered the "Protestant" whiskey... Jameson's being the Catholic one.

I’ve been reticent testing either theory because I don’t want to have a throbbing bar in my head for two days but I gotsta know.