Hooray For Saturday!

Geez, One More Thing

One of the busiest weeks for me and the good times van breaks down.

I'm doing a lot of stuff for a PDGA tournament coming up this weekend and today as me and mission control, in the backseats, are riding around, collecting stuff, the transmission decides to start crunching like the Captain's cereal.

Awesome, totally awesome!  This is just dandy!

I was scared to death to push the button that cycled through telling me how hot it was outside, to telling me the mileage on the vehicle.

We have 164 miles until the warranty runs out.  Whew!

It is now in Honda's hands.  Outstanding.  Nice.  Great.  Ugh!

Hillary Rocks!?

In the latest Hillary Clinton video, she is trying to rock the vote, or at least find a official campaign song.

The list of nominated songs is pretty lame to me.

Hillary,

Forget those songs, go with "Brass In Pocket" by The Pretenders.

You don't have my vote, as of now, but that's the tune you should go with.   The lyrics are perfect for your campaign.

Regards,

Kevin

Come One, Come All

Northern Kentucky has a new tourist attraction a few miles down the road from us.

The Creation Museum

Come one, come all, there's dinosaurs involved!

Actually, I'll have to go and gander at this without the kids. there's all types of parlor tricks and animatronics that I'm sure would scare the poop out of them.

I found their job application process interesting.

"All job applicants need to supply a written statement of their testimony, a statement of what they believe regarding creation and a statement that they have read and can support the AIG statement of faith."

Hmmm, equal opportunity employment?

Anyway, I welcome anything that isn't a Walmart to the community that can help the local economy.  They want to open a second superstore location less than 3 miles from their current location, that was just built less than a year ago.

I'm not a fan of that idea one bit and plan on doing everything I can to stand against it.

A Little Help Here

Dear Mother Nature,

You think you could do me a big favor and bring a little rain to this area. 

It hasn't rained in weeks and I've been up on this hot waterspout for quite a while.  How about you do your part and wash me out.

No need for alarm, I'll climb up the spout again.

Love always,

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Mom & Pop Town Lacks Mom & Pops

I've been kind of busy lately beating the streets looking for sponsors for a disc golf tournament I am helping run in a couple of weeks.

We live in suburbia, but to local folks the actual town we live in is pretty small.  The people just seem to not be aware that the place is about to grow by leaps and bounds and with that some locals or lifers, as more than a few folks I have met refer to themselves as, will be forced to deal with it or move.

I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, it's just happening.

I don't know if this is true, because we have only lived here as of a year ago, but the community seems to be right in a middle stage, between the sudden boom of big box retailers and restaurants, owned by big corporations, and the absence or decline of mom & pop local establishments.

I realized this when we first moved here, but I am really becoming aware of it now as I am out looking for sponsors.  I'm looking for places that will have something in common with those participating in the tournament.  So I'm visiting sporting goods places, restaurants, and local watering holes.  The bad part about this is that I am directed to corporate headquarters to deal with and I am getting nothing but, "No, thank you, ydda yadda yadda.", which is fine, no problem.

In the past doing this type of thing it's always the mom & pop or locally owned type places that are glad to lend a hand because of the advertising I supply back to them, but simply put, locally owned places of this type, in this area, are few and far between.  When I do find one, I can completely understand when they decline.  They are doing everything they can to keep up the business they have.

I guess I'm just thinking out loud here with this post.

I wish my community had more mom & pop type places to eat and drink in, it's up there on the list of many things I miss about Chicago. 

If I come into a lot of money I will open a breakfast/lunch type place that is open early in the morning for breakfast and closes after lunch.  It will feature great omelette's, pancakes, waffles, soups and sandwiches.

So it goes, anyone out there that would like to sponsor the Kentucky State Disc Golf Championship tournament in a couple of weeks by contributing cash or gift cards for tee signs and whatever else I can do for you, get in touch, we can make something work for all parties involved.

It Looks Like A Hammer

So Doodlebug is really becoming quite the potty pooper. 

Thank goodness.

She will still sometimes break into the poop dance when she's not quite sure about going to the potty.

The dance starts off with her walking on tip-toes, then proceeds to a feverish pace back and forth, finally it ends with a twist and rush to the bathroom in tears.

All in all, she is getting a lot better with it.  I really thought she would be in pooping in diapers until she was in school, but she finally has me thinking she will be fine before college.

I'm doing my part by executing back-flips, turning on the strobe light and music, and doing my little victory dance, but it's really hard not to just be completely disgusted to look in the potty and agree with your three year old when she says. "Look daddy, it looks like a hammer!"

Mighty Fine Vehicle

The kids and I saw this mighty fine vehicle on the way to go have lunch with The Lady at work the other day.

4x4 Cadillac Limo.

I'm thinking I would have loved to have that ride lined up for Prom '87.

What do you think??

No Regular For Nana

This was just overheard at a local supermarket where soft drinks are on sale.

Nana- We'll get two twelve packs of diet, two twelve packs of orange, and two twelve packs of regular for you kids.

Young Man- Nana, you don't like the regular?

Nana- I can't drink the regular, because it sticks to Nana's butt to much.

Young Man- You mean like your poo-poo?

Nana- .....silent embarrassment......

Out Sick

I'm out sick right now, yeah right.

I've got some kind of stomach virus that is kicking my butt and to put a cherry on top of that, The Little Man all of a sudden decides he doesn't like sleeping through the night anymore.

Life is grand!

I'll be back after I'm done puking my guts up and get a full night's sleep.

Interview With The Full-Time Dad: The Insomnia Chronicles

Sarah, from the blog Dreamdust, was interviewed by a person and decided to continue the trend by asking if anyone would like to be interviewed by her.  I accepted just out of curiosity of what in the world she would ask me.

From what I gather, here's a bit about Sarah. She lives somewhere in England, is quite a gardener, has a quick wit, and she is part of a gang of shutterbugs that use a lot of imagination in framing their shots and the outcome is always nice to see.  Her wonderful photos can be seen on her Flickr site.

Now here we go with her questions and my answers.

You recently enjoyed the delights of London - if I were to come to the USA, where should I visit in particular?

The first place I would tell you to visit would be New Orleans, Louisiana.  It truly is one of the greatest cultural cities in the world and now more than ever, it needs people.  It features some of the finest cuisine on the planet, an eclectic mixture of music that is a joy to be heard, wonderful art, history and culture, as well as some of the friendliest people in the country.  It also is the site of, in my opinion, one of the worst failures by American government in history.  The devastation left from the levee failures after Hurricane Katrina, approaching two years old, and the lack of compassion from federal and local governments to show any sense of urgency to put people's lives back together after that catastrophe is absurd.  It's something I think that people that do not live there are unaware of, and that needs to change.  Hopefully with people returning to New Orleans to witness not only the bad, but the oh so good, they can become aware of that so indeed things can change.

Other destinations, and don't forget your camera.

• New York City.  Sure see the city, but venture into the neighborhoods as well.
• Chattanooga, Tennessee.  See Rock City.
• Chicago, Illinois.  Same goes here as for New York City.
• Drive from Estes Park to Steamboat Springs in Colorado during spring.
• Vermont in autumn for peak color of foliage season.
• Las Vegas, Nevada...Viva!  See the excess, it's nuts and makes for good people watching.
• Our house.  I'll cook a meal, then we can venture out and you can teach us how to take photos.

Your Flickr username Hooray for Saturday is certainly a notion I support, but what's so special about Saturday from your point of view?

Saturday is the first day of the week I don't have to give 100% of my time to my children during the day.  I know that sounds horrible to your average person, but after all week, all day, of being the caregiver, entertainer, diaper changer, referee, short order cook, and conversationalist to a three year old daughter and an 19 month old son I'm in need of a little down time and get away.  Saturday my wife usually likes to take the children out and about and I get to spend some time doing nothing or hanging out with my buddies playing disc golf.  Saturday is daddy's day to relax a little bit.

What makes you feel content? That gentle happiness that washes over you and makes you smile a little secret smile.

Ha-ha!  Saturday.  See above answer.

Being able to watch our children grow up without sending them to full time daycare at this age is nice.  It's great for us to see our children do their first things, such as say a new word, walk, get every button on a sweater buttoned, or finally eat a vegetable.  It's very rewarding already and like I mentioned before our oldest is only three years old.  It's funny to go back and look at photo albums because one picture can spark memories of the entire day of what went on with us.  That is pretty neat.

If I gave you a time machine with which to visit your 18-year-old self, what piece of advice would you give that younger guy?

Wow.  I would tell him to make sure he stays in touch with his friends. Don't let time and distance get between them, allowing that to stop communications.  That, unfortunately, is something I have become horrible at, allowing time and distance to get between me and people I care about.  Because of that, I have lost contact with some real good friends from the past.

The kids are being looked after and you've got $1000 to spend on a date with your wife. How do you treat yourselves?

This will sound pretty lame, but it's been some time since we've been on a date.  I would enjoy going to have a good meal, then taking the wife shopping.  I'm a simple guy, but my wife loves to shop and she gets giddy when she buys herself stuff or anything for the kids and I enjoy seeing that joy.  We never get to do anything like that without the children in tow, so just the two of us shopping would be fun.  She can shop, I can people watch and point things out to her that she might like.  The only thing I would require?  On the way home we stop and get big hot fudge sundae, with two spoons.  Just the two of us, there's the romance!

So there you have it Sarah and the rest of you seven people that might read this.

Oh really!?  You want to be interviewed?  Leave a comment letting me know and I'll email you five questions of my choice.  You answer them on your blog and then you offer to ask someone five questions and so on.  This is what the kids are doing on the internet these days, sooner or later we'll all be acquainted. 

I may even find some of those old friends I lost contact with.