Serious Parenting News

If your little ankle-biter loves Veggie Booty, you need to read this after throwing it away.
No joke.
Now.
We are lucky, with no problems, but it is giving some kids a serious case of Salmonella. That is a whole level of poop problems that I want nothing to do with.

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Prime again

I turned 31 today. Last year I spent the birthday soaking my feet in a wading pool on the porch while drinking cheap beer out of the cooler (softball leftovers). This year, I took my daughter to the gymnastics and dance academy for open gym, spent the afternoon trying not to clean the house, and playing play-doh fun factory. Another daddy birthday. Where are the strippers? The debauchery and hilarity? Well, none of that. Just a little fattening food.

The day did have a very bright side to it. I finally got to meet the family foretold to me by Mr. and Mrs. No-Hair oh so long ago. We had dinner with The Crazy Mexicans. Who, despite the nickname, were not crazy. They just have a two year old. That qualifies anyone as slightly insane, though they were as genuine and down to earth as you could ever ask for. I feel more at home tonight than I have felt since coming to Texas. I feel adopted by some great people.

My wife fell asleep while putting my daughter to bed. This is probably a 70% of the time occurrence. I suppose that means I get to dive into the book she got me for my birthday, The Gates of the Alamo. Not a bad ending for the day, though I will admit to having my goals set a little... differently... ;)

More Tales from Target...

After a ridiculous search through a poorly organized warehouse store (yes, I asked for help 3 times), Miss Neverpoop and I had this conversation:

• daughter: "Are you angry?"
• me: "No, I'm just frustrated with the store."
• daughter: "Can I see your angry face?"
• me: *grumpy face*
• daugher: "I can make an angry face, too."
• daughter: *much tinier grumpy face*
• me: "That's pretty good."
• daughter: "Mine's better. It helps me see in the dark..."
  

I believe her powers are beginning to manifest. It's early, but best not anger her...

Why?

A conversation on the way home from Target:

• daughter: "Are those clouds moving?"
• me: "yep"
• daughter: "Why?"
• me: "The wind is pushing them."
• daughter: "I can't see them moving."
• me: "They're very big, so they move slowly from our view."
• daughter: "Are those clouds moving?"
• me: "yep"
• daughter: "Why?"
• me: "The wind is pushing them."
• daughter: "Is the wind pushing them?"
• me: "yep"
• daughter: "Why?"
• me: "Above the northern half of Texas right now is a low pressure system. This is an area where the air isn't pushing hard. All of the high pressure, moisture-filled air from the gulf is pressing in on it and spinning past us in a generally counterclockwise motion. That's why we have all of these storms popping up over us."
• daughter: "Do monkeys poop?"
• me: "yep"
• daughter: "Do elephants poop?"
• me: "yep"
• daughter: "Do flamingos poop?"
• me: "yep"
• daughter: "Do gorillas poop?"
• me: "yep"
• daughter: "Do hippopopotomuses poop?"
• me: "yep"
• daughter: "I want to color one."
• me: "okay. We printed one out for you at home to color."
• daughter: "Do monkeys poop?"
• me: "yep"
• daughter: "Don't talk, daddy. It's supposed to be no talking."

It's pronounced yawn-ee...

Alright, so I am kicking butt and taking names at the gym now. But I need a good soundtrack to work out to.
This is your mission: I need upbeat, driving music to get me moving. And you will build the playlist. It can be from any genre, lyrics are optional, but I probably won't include showtunes.
Comment with the songs I should buy (steal) and include! Go!

It's only wafer thin...

I received some bad news yesterday when attending my new gym orientation session. It appears I am obese. According to the dude with the calipers who pinched me four times on my upper body, I am just over the line into obese.
He then promptly asked me how the hell a whale got so far inland, and whether or not I feared harpoonists. Or, he said something about how my BMI indicates that I really am just slightly above normal. But I heard that as, "don't feel bad, fatty fat fatterton. Someday we'll learn how to dig holes big enough to hide your body from sight and the general public won't have to live in fear of your blubber any more."

Here's how my brain handled it...

• Cognitive side: suck it up. You know you're not obese, but you are smart enough to know you need to join a gym and get in shape.
• Emotional side: that huwt my widdle feewings.
• Evil side: listen you scrawny little track-champ. I learned how to snap your neck with a punch to the head when you were still wondering what color your pubic hair would be. Give me one more reason to show you that intense rage trumps muscle right now.

So, I combined all of them and went through a tour of the weight machines with him. He was convinced, and I agree, that free weights will help me build muscle faster. But I am going to ignore soon-to-be-punched-boy and trust my physical therapists.
Now, if you'll excuse me, Dora and Diego only provide Daddy one hour of shower, blog, and news time in the morning. I suppose she could watch more TV, but I wouldn't want her to get so fat that she can't help her father shuffle his mouth-breathing gargantuan body through the buffet line.

One for Lush...

On Thursday, I found a blues jam to head for. It was pretty hip. It took place on a large stage set up for big shows. There wasn't much of a crowd, but I got to play with a full horn section, which is a damn rare treat. It was even cooler when I found out that the saxaphone player was a guy named Bobby Rey, a Texas saxaphone legend whose claim to fame was playing with the Hollywood Argyles in 1960 when they recorded Alley-oop. I know this will impress no one. Except Ben.

A little spacing could help...

It is always important to proof your work...

Kill it kill it!

I am trying to help a friend in Lawrence, and needed to use the good ol' intertubes. Here is my setup (warning, geekspeak follows. Real words found after geekspeak.):

• Cable Modem (decent enough, supplied by giant cable conglomerate that didn't want to use mine).
• New Wireless Router (less than 3 months old, 802.11 g/b broadcast so the older lappy can use it).
• Desktop in bedroom (using a wireless connection, because there's no cable in the master bedroom, wtf).
• Laptop in dining room (about 6 meters from the wireless router).

The computer in the bedroom has no trouble browsing the interwebs, and is connecting with excellent signal strength. However, it cannot access the router using its address and a browser. Curious.

The laptop cannot do a damn thing. No IP address can be obtained, though signal strength is excellent.

After the proper hip gyrations, troubleshooting, chicken sacrifices, go-spurs-go chanting, and restarting, no success. At this point, I decided to go for the repair method that is recommended by every tech person on the planet. Unplug the router, wait 10.234 seconds, then plug it back in. Restart the lappy and try again. It works.

Here is why I am pissed off. I KNOW NOTHING!!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT CAUSED THE PROBLEM, OR HOW IT WAS CURED!!! To me, this method of repair is like going to the doctor, and having her stop your heart, slap on the paddles, and rid you of the flu by reincarnation. It's the Dr. House method of IT work.

Who is the bitch who designed this "feature" into wireless routers? Why do they all do this? Show me his face and I will shake it off his head.

Do you want to know the right way to fix a computer? Ask Dr. Wife. The laptop had a problem: the power supply jack had broken free of the motherboard, to the point where no amount of wiggling would allow it to take a charge, rendering it ultimately useless. Her solution was to dismantle it, find the broken part, order a replacement, remove the old piece and its solder, solder on the new piece, and put it all back together. That's how you fix a computer. You blindly rip out its guts, trust your instincts, and use molten metal to rebuild it better, faster, stronger. We have the technology...

Y'all gots one a'dem blawgs?

After a brief but refreshing stop in South Bend (pre-Mexico trip warmup), we have arrived in San Antonio. The apartment, although sizable, is now filled with hastily packed boxes, and we are wading through them, room by room, trying to find such sundries as bowls, underwear, toddler paraphenalia, and screwdrivers. I found the scotch last night, and thankfully a liquor store (not in a box).

I had forgotten about apartment living, so we will start this off with initial impressions. It's a nice enough place; clean, well-manicured, gated. It has the usual quirks, such as broken items painted over rather than repaired (paint doesn't hold shelves in place, by the way). We hear running and thumping from neighbors. Even in the duplex we have lived in we didn't get that. It's tough for me to tell if Miss Neverpoop is awake and jumping or if it is the neighbors. But there are two things we have that have made the hasty move managable: a two car garage (read: box room) and a swimming pool.

Ah, the swimming pool. The ultimate in toddler bribery devices. She will do most anything (except poop) to swim in the pool (hence swim diaper). She loves the thing. It is clean, the kids who are there are all supervised. And Sammy is happy.

So what's next?

• Goal 1: make the home livable and de-cluttered.
• Goal 2: find a public library and a park to hook Sammy up with some form of non-daddy climbing entertainment.
  
• Goal 3: find a good preschool full of minions to do Sammy's bidding.
• Goal 4: get daddy a job.

When the ol'blue truck o'fun arrives, we will begin exploring the world. Speaking of exploring, have you ever been forced to watch an episode of Dora the Explorer repeatedly? If so, watch this now! Do it! Don't question it! Just do it!