The fruit I eat is over ripe.

Well, a lot of things are going on right now… the epic four month war with the poison ivy in the backyard is gradually coming to a close, I’ve fallen in love again with Superfuzz Bigmuff and King of the Road, and the joint next door has become a halfway house… privately-run and probably no big deal but most likely, we’re gonna shuffle along to another neighborhood, hopefully to a place with a basement so toys won’t be constantly underfoot.

Alas, I can’t go into detail about any of these earth-shattering events because we’re packin’ up and hitting the road tomorrow for a week in Bethany Beach, about a half-hour south of Funland!

Silly Forth

Wednesday I did the Peachtree. I did want I wanted to do… beat my last year’s time… but it was close. A lot closer than I thought it would be since I trained more and it was cooler but, hey, I guess that’s what turning 40 means.

One problem was I started out a little too fast. The first 3 miles I averaged 7:30 per mile. Then the hill killed me and, at 5 miles, I ended up 30 seconds behind where I needed to be to beat my last time and had to kill myself to get 48:03 which was 5 seconds better than last year.

After the friends we were meeting all showed up, we went to Susie’s where I showered up then we went to a cookout at her parents’ house. Good ribs and an awesome backyard!

We stayed there for a while and Kerry decided she wanted to see the fireworks at Centennial Park. I was practically falling asleep and hated that idea but we ended up at her brother’s place near Emory to hang out until it was time to go to downtown.

Mike, my brother-in-law, just graduated from Emory and he lives right next to the college so the street was one of those social areas where everybody knows each other and kind of walks back and forth between houses… especially on a party day like the 4th.

Anyway, I was looking for a Coke to wake up but the only thing in the fridge was beer so I had to “suffer” with that. Liam was playing with one of their dozen or so game consoles and Kerry and Erin were out on the lawn watching some “kids” fool around on skateboards. Some friends of Mike’s came by and somehow I ended up at a house across the street playing beer-pong.

Kerry says she played it a few times in college but I’ve never heard of it. They had a large flat table setup on a typical college beer can-strewn and ripped-up screened-in porch. Basically, you arrange 10 plastic cups of beer at both ends of the table then each team of two takes turns tossing a ping-pong ball aiming for one of the cups.

And, of course, you drink.

Carl and I ended up winning two or three games handily but Kate and her roommate just barely won the last game before I bowed out. I have to admit it was a lot of fun reliving my drinking game days but that ship has long since sailed in more ways than one.

We headed down to the madness that is the 4th of July fireworks show at Centennial Park, parked under in overpass in an area that looked like the suitcase of money/kidnap victim trade-off scene in a mob movie, and soon found ourselves sitting on the grass amongst a sea of families all snacking and awaiting the show.

At one point, Liam and I were in one of the long lines for the too few port-a-lets and a woman joined a guy in front of us complaining that some folks were getting crazy or causing trouble or something… she wasn’t making complete sense. She left and soon people started coughing all around me… it wasn’t bugging me but most were saying it was mace.

Liam really had to go so I talked a guy just about to go in to let him cut in and while I stood outside a loud bang went off and, over in the area from which it happened, I saw crowds of people running in all directions. People were saying it was a gun shot and were leaving the line area so I hurried Liam out of the john and headed back to Kerry and Mike. I guess it could have been a firecracker being the 4th and all but all the bits and pieces of conversation I heard were saying it was a shot and one person specified it was not a firecracker.

Since we were not that near where the problem was and things had seemed to calm down plus we were in a huge crowd and the fireworks were just about to start, we decided to stay. They were cool and all like always. And, just like the last time we were at Centennial for the 4th, there were a few stray fireworks blasting down into the crowd area so there was even more of that sort of unwanted excitement. Then, the long slow walk back to the car was like a tour through Buckhead 3am on a Sunday mornin’.

My head hit the pillow hard when we finally made it home after midnight. Going to work the next morning was not my idea of a freakin' holiday, ya know what I’m sayin’?!

With MINTY, every day is a dizzy delight!

In their choice of toy passions, my kids are very retro. Although neither Kerry nor I were into these, Liam's into the Transformers which started in 1984 and Erin is into the My Little Pony dolls which started in 82.

For a while with Liam’s Transformers, since all the characters have names and stories, plus I figured someday he might think it was cool to know which ones he had, I tried to keep up with the toys… and actually I still am but I know I’ll have to give it up soon.

Anyway, to keep things even and because I have an OCD side of my head that needs to come out every once in a while, I’m keeping up with the ponies… much more so than Erin herself.

I think her first was Minty who she got around 2 years ago… she used to play in the pool with it. She came up with another somehow… Glitter Glide, I think. Back then, these were just two of hundreds of little girl toys she had.

Then in May, when we were at Disney, we stopped by a toy story where they had a whole massive My Little Pony dress-up thing. She ended up with two more ponies… Cinnamon Breeze and Merriweather. Plus she got a bunch of clothes for them.

So now she has four ponies, not to mention Tra-La-La, a little pony that came with Meriweather’s balloon set. And instead of making up stories about Buzz Lightyear infiltrating Zurg’s asteroid fortress and Bilbo tricking Gollum under the Misty Mountains, I’m telling how Minty and Glitter Glide ended up sipping cocoa at the ski chalet when who dropped by?

Why Cinnamon Breeze, that’s who!

Things are never dull when Cinnamon Breeze is around! This lively pony is always full of exciting new ideas for having fun. She has so many ideas, in fact, that they come and go like the breeze—better catch the latest one before it's gone!

Sigh.

Bon Jovi Beat The White Stripes To Number One
In the American album charts...

I guess I’ve finally joined the 21st century.

No I didn’t do anything so rash as to start carrying a cell phone… mercy me, no!

Kerry got me iPod for my running and boy, this thing is tiny! Since it’s so small and since… err… well, since I’m Jim, she got me an orange one AND had my phone # engraved on it.

Intown Hijinks

Last Saturday, I headed intown to hang out with Matt and Travis in celebration of T and my upcoming birthdays. We had dinner at 6 Feet Under which is a very cool little seafood/bar-type joint around the corner from Matt’s…. across from Oakland Cemetery. I came up with the idea to get raw oysters on the half-shell. I don’t know why but it’s one of those foods that I decide every 10 years or so to try again and see if I like it. When it comes to food, I hardly ever burn bridges.

Mehh… they’re alright but I probably won’t get’em again for another ten.

Shot some pool and saw a band at the “new” Lenny’s. Get this.. the band was named Dark Overlord.

Dark Overlord? You’ve got to be kidding. We decided their marketing campaign needs to have the guy that voices the monster truck ads proclaiming “Trapped in a glacier since the early Eightes and only now freed from their icy crypt… it’s Dark Overlord!!!!” Actually, they did sound like they’d make a pretty decent Slayer tribute band.

Finally, hit the place where all the kids are hangin’ out these days. To me, Astoria has absolutely no atmosphere. I just feel like I’m at a crowded restaurant. In it’s defense, however, the two or three times I’ve been there have been after three a.m. and I’ve been half-blasted but I still say it’s no Earl.

Speaking of half-blasted, the night ended with a beer shower for yours truly and it took me ten minutes to find my clothes the next morning. Happy Birthday to Jim.

P-l-l-l-leeeeeease!!!!

Regarding Liam's readiness for PG movies.... forget it. I rented Roger Rabbit last Saturday for Family Movie Night, thinking the PG rating was only given for Jessica's less-than-modest attributes but, no, there was a guy shot in the back twice and a pretty scary performance by Christopher Lloyd not to mention his getting run over by a steamroller before you know he's a Toon.

I should have cut it off when Lloyd "killed" a cutesy cartoon shoe by "dipping" it in acid.

Bad Dad... bad!

Certainly, Ma'am.

Sometimes I wonder if very physically attractive women have an altered sense of reality. I mean, every guy they meet, every male cashier, repairman, desk clerk, and every cop they cross paths with treats them sweetly… “oh, no problem.. I can take care of that for you, miss”. I can’t imagine they get the blasé indifference that’s the norm from service personnel. Every Home Depot guy hops to assist them with quick attentiveness. The guy checking the groceries is smiling and cheerful. The world is such a happy, helpful place!!

But, then again, I guess they also get the annoying glances, the disturbing leers, and the persistent guys that won’t stop coming on to them. And maybe people being nervously nice to you all the time gets to be a pain. It’s all relative as usual.

By the way...

Just in case you didn't know, the reason that the Transformers movie is a big topic in the household is that one of Liam's obsessions is playing with them... as detailed here.

Autobots, transform and roll out!

Next month, the new Transformers movie opens. I just found out that it’s a PG-13… and even worse (for Liam’s sake), it just scraped by getting an R. Sure, a lot of this is publicity… Hollywood wanting its cake (toys) and eating it, too (adults want an edgy movie) but either way, Liam won’t be seeing it anytime soon.

To be honest though, I’m not sure if Liam would even get upset by it. Cars being tossed around wouldn’t phase him. I’m not sure how people getting shot would effect him. I suspect it wouldn’t bother him much but even so, there’s no reason for him to see that stuff for a while.

I’m not saying he’s desensitized… far from it. If there’s any suspenseful situations or anything that even hints of ghosts or something about to pop out, he’s out of the room. He couldn’t even get past the first 5 minutes of Revenge of the Jedi because Jabba the Hut’s castle was too ominous.

I told him I’d wait until he could see Transformers and we’d watch it together but he said he wants me to go and then tell him about it… which works for me because I kind of want to see it. I never grew up with the toys so couldn’t care less about keeping to the “true spirit” of the cartoons. An action-packed, robots-shooting-missiles-while-smashing-through-cars thrillfest definitely sounds like something I want to see on the big screen versus someone’s widescreen in 5 years and, of course, I wouldn’t even bother watching it on our TV. Like a lot of others of our ilk, Kerry and I hardly go out to see movies anymore so when we do, we tend to see eye candy.

That being said, the flick better have a decent story and something to make you care what happens to the characters or I’ll walk out feeling I wasted my time and money like I usually do after I see one of these movies. Likely it won’t but it’ll probably have enough.

Mike Nesmith's mother was the inventor of Liquid Paper

I found this on one of the very few sites I regularly visit on the Net. Along with Snopes, I check out the Onion (and actually their A.V. Club much more than the humor site), Yahoo News (hey, it’s there), 2 or 3 blogs, and maybe Boortz’s site every once in a while… that’s about it. Oh wait, I used to go to Craig’s Previews every few weeks but now only monthly.

And that's all I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one other thing – except for this ashtray.

And this paddle game. That's all I need.

Anyway, I still use Liquid Paper. Granted, only once or twice a month… barely enough to keep it liquid. In college, I was probably one of the last students to use the Typewriter Lab to type up a paper. I think the Mac’s were comin’ in but I didn’t want to deal with signing up or accounts or whatever so stayed with the ink-smeared keys.

Come to think of it, other than one FORTRAN class, I rarely used a PC in college… at least not undergrad. I did actually write a game on a TRS-80 when I was in Junior High. It was a Space Invader-style thing but with only one alien. But it DID come at you!

My first experience with the Net was on my roomate’s PC. Wait a sec, now that I think of it, I did use a PC in college…. playing Lemmings, Incredible Machine, and Civilization while my roommate was at his girlfriend’s. When he was on it one night (his computer, that is!), I realized he was writing text messages… but more importantly, he was receiving them.

“You mean those are from other people?!”

But even more than the technology, I remember being amazed at the fact that it was FREE and argued that there was no way that would last for long. Yeah.

Back in those wild and crazy days, people didn’t think anything of having a few and starting up their computers and heading to their homepage but I’m ashamed to say that my first post was made while I was intoxicated… and it wasn’t even under my own username! The horror…

I didn’t get my own e-mail address until years later in Atlanta… on Yahoo probably around 95 or 96. And, along with my work one, it’s the only one I’ve ever had.

Fort Wilderness... Now in Technicolor!

Here's the campsite. Note that we left everything out all the time even when we gone for hours... just like everyone else did.















Here's us standing DIRECTLY in front of the entrance to the Magic Kingdom. The monorail station that we instead went to is off to the left.















Here's the obligatory pool pic. Kerry's taking the photo (as in 99.5% of the time). My sister visited us for one day and night. Note that they sell draft beer at a window in the building in the background!















The fam and Chip (or is it Dale?) at the place where they had campfire sing-a-longs followed by a movie.















And of course, what review of camping at Disney would be complete without a shot of the fancy-schmancy "Comfort Stations"? Not your typical campground port-a-let, eh?

Some Clarification of the Previous Post

We planned on 4 nights but added another because we were all having a good time and the place was definitely relaxing. On the second day, coming back from the immaculate restrooms (or “Comfort Stations” as Walt calls’em) Liam smacked his toe on something and split the nail. He wailed like a banshee for a while but was then over it. The incident did not dull his excitement over the new privilege of walking to the restroom and back on his own.

On the morning of the third day, Liam felt sick and, after breakfast, proceeded to reintroduce his oatmeal to the world. Since he was fine later, we assume it was something he ate the night before or (one of several all-encompassing diagnosises resorted to by dumbfounded parents) “general overexcitement”.

The “moovvees” Liam refers to were shown outside every evening on a big screen right after the Chip’n’Dale Campfire Singalong. Although Erin would typically fall asleep about 3 minutes into the movie, Liam was very into these… even Bedknobs and Broomsticks but especially National Treasure… so much so that he threw a bit of a fit when we planned to skip a movie to watch the nightly fireworks from the lakeside beach across from the Magic Kingdom (I hate calling it that by the way… sounds like some elfin land in Oz where the pink bunnies can talk… but it’s more specific than my usual “Disneyland”). The show also featured a “purad” of towed floats with various lighted-up animals displayed on them.

The Coleman tent had two dividers but they weren’t very useful except just to designate areas. The “kichin” tent was a screened-in tent that we put over the picnic table. We prepared and ate food here. This proved a lifesaver since it was lovebug season and even though they don’t bite or even try to land on you their sheer numbers made me glad that Kerry bought it. Not to mention there were these crazy birds (Boat-Tailed Grackles for the Marks) that would have robbed us blind if we didn’t have the tent zipped completely up. No mosquitoes though and the weather was perfect. Great pool weather during the day and cool in the evening.

I’ll skip the part about the monorail for now although a Mai Tai at the Polynesian was brutally murdered and it was Be Cruel to Kids Day at the gate of the Magic Kingdom.

On the topic of bikes, I think this and the pool were the hit of the trip. Each campsite is in a group of about twenty sites on a loop that at any given time is a veritable racetrack for kids on bikes (and teenagers in golf carts but that’s another story). Liam was constantly doing the loop and even Erin rode around a few times making it the first time she rode on a bicycle… albeit with training wheels.





Chalk one up for Flordudu!

From Liam’s Journal

5/31/07 I went camping at Disny for five nites and six days. It was fun. I bent my nale on the secint day. I pucte on the third day in the morning. My nale got better on the fourth day of camping at Disny World. We got to wotch moovvees every nite. But on the first day we only wotcht a little bit of Peter Pan. On the fith day insted we wotcht a purad. I didint wont to do it. We have a tent that has three rooms. We have a kichin tent too. We went on a bus, boat, and the monural too. We rode bikes. There was a outside pool. Look at Liam Keough’s rite big toe. Wut do you see. There was a exirsise trale. We went on it on our biks. Erin dinit ride her bike.

6/2/07 This morning I was sad. Becas we wir leeving flordudu and camping at Disny World.

Wuss Camping

Another blog sabbatical is looming... this time only for a week. The fam and I are heading down to FORT WILDERNESS at Disney... I think it's the place that Daniel Boone wrestled a bear... or was that Davey Crockett?

Anyway, we bought a new tent... a bit of a monster but it'll be plenty roomy. Heck, we'll probably play hide and seek in the thing.

Is it me? It's me, right?

Is everyone not seeing the pic of my impressive spring below or is it just me?

So... what's with THAT thing?

I’ve got a massive spring. Yeah… a spring. The same kind of thing like a car shock or a Slinky but huge.

Wire Diameter = 1-3/16”
Free Length = 32”
OD = 7”
Pitch = 2-1/8”
# Turns » 16
Weight » 110 lbs

It’s not quite the size of some of the “hot coiled” ones here but it’s bigger than any of the ones this place has got in their inventory!

I think it is a railroad spring or a very big elevator spring but can’t quite figure it out.

One night while living in the fabled place on 14th and Piedmont, I walked out one morning and it was perched on top of a fountain. As any of my friends that have helped me on any of my 5 or 6 moves since then can attest, it’s a heavy son of a bitch and I have no idea how someone ever got it up there.

Anyway, it was still there that afternoon, that night, and when I got home from work the next evening. So I snagged it before someone else did. Since then, it’s mostly been a plant stand and always a conversation piece but now it sits in my garage, the perfect spot for my leaf blower.

Birth of a Biker

Yesterday, I took Liam to Central Park... no, not THAT one... I'm talking about the WOTP version. It was his first time riding his bike on a trail. I was a little worried about how he would make out.

We have a horrible place here at home for becoming a decent bike rider: a steep driveway sloping to a through-street in which it's tough to see speeding cars coming over a hill. No cul-de-sac full of kids. Not even any sidewalks.

So Liam kept his training wheels for a while. One day, they broke so I took it as an opportunity to try to force the issue and took him to a local park. He was doing fine but the one fall made him swear off bikes forever: "I'll never ride a bike!" So I got new ones and put'em on.

About a year later, his grandfather got him a new bike... a big one. It too had training wheels. I took him back to the park. He rode it but he was very unsteady even with the training wheels... and he didn't like that his feet could not easily reach the ground. So I jumped at the chance to get him off those extra wheels.

"How about you go back to the small bike... but without the training wheels?" He didn't like that idea but he didn't like riding around on the tall bike either. He agreed and we took the small bike sans trainers to Florida. He took to it immediately with no falls. We rode around Ker's brother's neighborhood and even went for a mile or two on a paved bike trail. He loved it.

Anyway, back to the present. Although he'll occasionally ride the new one, Liam gets around mostly on his small bike. He's been a bit of a daredevil riding through the frontyard, off the edge of the front walk, down the hill into the neighbor's yard, etc., etc. so I figured I'd see how he would do on a dirt trail.

We ended up riding half of it... roughly a mile and a half or two and really didn't finish it only because we had to go to a soccer pizza thing. He went over roots, along steep edges, and over rocks. Once, when we stopped to take a break, he said "We should do this every weekend."

Now I just wish the new bike had gears!!!

My One and Only Viceroy

Erin had her dance recital today, something she's been gearing up for for weeks and weeks. She was a butterfly ballerina and a tapdancer in "Topsy-Turvy World". Not that we expected it, but she had no stagefright at all. After her two dances, she was in the audience with us and nothing could draw her rapt attention from the rest of the show.

Her one non-girly girl interest has surfaced in the last few months.

Bugs.

Yes, bugs. She'll pick up a a grasshopper, a caterpillar, or even a grub or a worm without the least hesitation. We got her a little kit with a magnifying glass and a wooden "cage".

I've got nothing against the girl stuff. Her dancing was the cutest thing ever and I'll tell her unicorn bedtime stories for the rest of my life if she wants me to but it's nice to see her get into something other than fairies, rainbows, and ponies.

The Face Off

All right… I think my on and off affair with facial hair has finally come to an end. A little over a month ago, I started on a goatee.

I endured the tickle phase which ends about a week or two in… this is the phase where you can’t stop noticing and messing with it with your lips. The itchy phase starts after a week and basically ends about 2 – 3 weeks in.

I made it through this. I also pushed through all the inane comments (“Hey, you’ve got some dirt on your lip.”) as well as the absolute loathing of the goat by my beloved.

But what I could not get past was the PAIN that starts 3 weeks in and is noticed mostly when trying to sleep. I like to sleep on my side and with my face against the pillow, it felt like I had a thousand tiny needles digging into my face… which is pretty much exactly what I DID have!

At one point, I was a little stressed out because of work and the fact that I wasn’t running much due to said work. So with the goatee, sleep was not coming easy. It came off because of this plus the fact that it’s a pain in the ass to upkeep. With a clean-shaven face, yes you have to shave everyday but it’s a clean sweep… like trees felled Lorax-style for a development. Easy. With facial hair, unless you don’t mind the scruffy haggard look, you have to be pretty meticulous with the razor. Maybe when I’m 50 or 60, I’ll go for one of the Civil War looks but for now and the immediate future, forget it.

Anyway, while shaving my face free of the thing, I tried a few looks and searching the Net for the various names came upon The Great Goatee/Van Dyck Controversy. Apparently, what everyone calls a goatee is not really a goatee… or at least with the facial hair aficionados on the Net, it ain’t. A goatee is just the part on the lower chin that makes you look like… well, like a goat. See Shaggy, Maynard Krebs, and that guy from Anthrax.

What most call a goatee should really be called a Circle Beard which is a really dumb name. A Van Dyck sounds damn cool but I guess this is really more of a “Johnny Depp as a pirate” thing. Or Colonel Sanders. To me, Door Knocker sounded a bit lame as well at first but, you know, it really kind of looks like one.


Then I went for the classic Truck Driver. Again, to my barber-inclined pals, this is a ”horsehoe with soul patch”. But I hate the term “soul patch” and everything else it’s called. It’s just a patch, dammit.










The Chevron ‘Stache with Patch. If I was really going to keep something, this’d probably be it.
















And finally my dear friends... this is what I call the Snooty Concierge.

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