Brian Banks, the football player recently exonerated of rape charges he’d already served 5 years in jail for, has convinced some teams to give him a tryout. He’s 25 now, so physically he should be capable. Who knows where his skill level is at though. Either way, best of luck to him.
I decided it was finally time to setup our pool in the backyard. It had taken a fair amount of effort to set it up last year, excavating the site by hand, leveling it and then spreading a tarp and sand to finish off the ground prep. When it came time to close it down in the Fall, I chose to leave the sand and the tarp, figuring I’d rather not redo all the work again come Spring time. Besides, if it snowed it would all end up buried by snow.
Of course, we got no snow this Winter, so that part didn’t pan out. But, it is time to set up the pool again and all that was required was to level the sand again. So I purchased 5 more 50 pound bags of sand to help get the job done.
The lass, upon realizing what was going on, was more than a little eager to help. Both kids have been asking about the pool for awhile now. The moment had finally arrived.
One way we’re fortunate with the kids is they both like to help. We’re unfortunate, for the moment anyway, in that they are not terribly capable. Time and a little experience will take care of the latter problem. So today was a chance for the lass to help a bit.
She appeared after the new sand had been laid down the sand and roughly spread around. She wanted to help. Unfortunately, this was an area where she couldn’t do much because it required some precision and patience. The former not being a trait a 6-year-old possesses and the latter not being something the lass possesses. None the less, an opportunity to help was promised, but she had to wait for the work with the sand to be completed. While waiting she kept absent mindedly wandering onto the sand and I asked her a couple times to watch what she was doing and not walk on the sand.
That led to the moment where I snapped a bit at her. No resulting disciplinary laryngitis or anything, but I jumped on her because I’d just finished leveling and smoothing the sand when she once again wandered onto it. (They do have a sandbox, BTW. Too bad they don’t use it more…) Now I had to redo work because she hadn’t been paying attention.
I knew I’d hit a nerve because she assumed the position: eyes staring off into the middle distance, lower lip protruding, somewhat hazy look in her eyes. She then silently and slowly turned her back on me and walked over to a somewhat private spot under the deck.
She was crying a little and didn’t want me to see.
As she did so, I gave her a bit of time and went about fixing the work she’d botched on me. I didn’t want her to think her help wasn’t welcome, but she needed to wait for a moment where her she could assist and I told her so.
She recovered quickly and when it was time to place the pool liner, she was able to help. She also helped unfold it and smooth out the wrinkles so the pool bottom would be smooth. She also helped a bit with the garden hose during the initial pool fill up- you know, making sure the water went into the pool and all.
So she got over her little moment and was able to help out. It’s not a pleasant site when you’re child reacts like that to the force of your words. But it has to be kept in mind that they did something to provoke the response. Otherwise, the logical outcome is that you’re constantly adjusting to living in their world (because you modify your behavior in order to not hurt their feelings). I don’t think that’s a place any parent should be.
I read the Old Man’s War trilogy from John Scalzi awhile back, but didn’t try out any of his other books. Over at GeekDad they reviewed his latest book Redshirts which comes out next week.
The thing’s I liked about the OMW series were the fast pacing of the book and the main characters were smart. Based on that review, it sounds like Scalzi has duplicated that formula here.’
I pre-ordered it through B&N today and am looking forward to it’s arrival next week.
Been out camping all weekend and just got back late this afternoon. Aside from getting out this quickie Memorial Day post, I’m too tired to blog about much. Though a weekend recap of some sort is certainly forthcoming.
Hope everyone’s Memorial Day was a great one. Back to the grind tomorrow.
Actually, that’s an inaccurate description. All you need for real sourdough starter is flour water and time. What I’m about to describe is a simple way to extend the supply of instant yeast a bit and also give a bit of extra flavor to your bread.
It’s really simple. Add a quarter teaspoon of yeast to a cup of flour and a cup or water. Mix it together and allow it to rise. If it doubles in an hour, then you’re good to go and use it. Alternatively, stir it up and allow it to develop a bit longer. If it doesn’t double in an hour, stir it up and wait again.
Once it’s usable, simply proceed with the normal recipe, taking care to account for the cup of flour and water you’ve already mixed up. So if the recipe calls for 2 cups of water, just add one more. Same for the flour.
Depending on how active the yeast is and how long it’s allowed to develop, the resulting bread will more closely resemble a sourdough bread than not. I used this trick the other day and the results were delicious.
And now they’re gone.
Assuming you’ve seen the Apple commercial with Samuel L. Jackson talking about date night, this may be of interest. One of the phrases I’ve wondered about since I first saw the ad was when Jackson talks about putting “the gazpacho on ice.” Siri then asks if he’d like a reminder, and Jackson replies with a quip like Siri is a real person. Charming.
Anyway, what I’ve wondered is if Siri really is that good at rendering speech to text? (There’s a brief shot of Jackson’s iPhone 4s with a screen asking to confirm making the reminder about the gazpacho.) Well, via John Gruber, the answer is no.
Not that I expect anything to come of this, but what constitutes false advertising? That seems like walking right up to the line, at the least.
This story is horrendous. The kicker being that the (now) woman wanted to “help” him clear his name, but didn’t want to give up the money from the settlement. How magnanimous of her. Good luck on getting him his time in jail back.
The boy came downstairs this morning and after saying “Good Morning”, the Wife told him he’d have to change his shirt. He had selected a nice white-blue plaid pair of shorts and a green striped shirt to “match.”
Even I knew that wasn’t a good idea.
The boy immediately balked. “Why?!?” he blurted at her, dripping with annoyance.
Upon being informed of his fashion faux-pas, he opted for the defiance approach. With gusto. The Wife measured him a moment and then put her foot down “You are NOT going to school dressed like that. Go put on the white shirt that’s on your bed.” How she knew he had a white shirt on his bed I don’t know. But her tone had clearly communicated he wouldn’t win this battle and he stomped off to his room. Literally.
I think we heard every step he took from the kitchen, up the stairs, to his room and back. I’m pretty sure I heard the sighs as well while he was changing shirts.
All this and he hadn’t even been up 10 minutes yet.
Things didn’t improve much when he got back down. The battleground simply shifted to the his sister and breakfast, where he continuously made a nuisance of himself to his sister. He’d deliberately stand in her way and stay in her way. He was taking out the frustrations of the loss of his shirt battle on his sister now. The Wife told the lass to just keep away from her brother. She also told the boy to knock it off or he’d end up in the corner for awhile.
After breakfast, the battle shifted to who sat where to watch morning cartoons. Things didn’t finally settle down until the third or forth Woody Woodpecker skit.
Where was I the whole time, you might be wondering? I was on the periphery catching up on news and drinking a cup of coffee. The Wife was handling things fine and my getting involved would have only resulted in telling the boy to go to school with no clothes on, both kids being grounded for the rest of their lives, TV privileges revoked and the cancellation of Christmas. Permanently. Oh, and I’d have threatened to shoot the Tooth Fairy as well.
That’s the difference between an adult and a child: one of us knows how to wake up in the morning.
The boy managed to rebound in his martial arts classes tonight, earning his stripe and thus his next belt level.
But it wasn’t easy.
He tested last month, but failed to perform some self-defense techniques properly, so he had to come back and work another month at it. He tested on Monday, but they still didn’t give him his stripe. The problem this time was with his technique in his forms.
Being young and immature, he stomped out of the school, leaving the Wife to figure out what had gone wrong. She learned the problems from the instructor, who also informed her that he could test again today and still earn his stripe.
Now, one might assume that given the circumstances, any normal individual would willingly, perhaps even eagerly, put in a little time to polish his forms to insure that he earned his stripe. However, someone who makes that assumption doesn’t understand the way 8 year-olds think.
I use the term “8 year-olds” somewhat hesitantly, because I’m aware that not all 8 year-olds are identical. That said, I’ve spoken with enough parents about enough similar-but-different circumstances to believe for the moment that the boy’s behavior is, basically, age appropriate. Certainly, it isn’t unusual.
Not that it isn’t frustrating. It makes me wonder if there’s anything we could have done different along the way to improve his ability to handle adversity. The pouting, feeling-sorry-for-myself, whoa-is-me, I’ll-never-get-it-right attitude is really tiresome. Did I mention that he does the same thing in math? I swear, unless he’s a superstar at whatever from the get go, this is the routine he pulls.
So anyway, he begrudgingly came and asked me to help last night at the Wife’s suggestion. Things started off very rocky. After the first couple of attempts, I simply looked at him and said “I can’t do it for you and do you really think you’ll earn your stripe if you do it like that tomorrow?” He muttered something unintelligible, at which point I simply looked away and said “Fine, do it your way.”
Reverse psychology is a startlingly effective technique. I had to employ it several more times, but eventually his enthusiasm was improved, as was his technique in his form. In the end, he probably could have practiced more, but he’d done enough and it seemed like a good chance to end on a high note.
I can say that the instructors expect a lot more from the red-belt level. I suspect that the little drama his practice was last night won’t be the last.
The first private sector attempt at space had a successful launch this morning. It’s an unmanned launch and is scheduled to dock with the Space Station to deliver supplies and take back garbage. It’s currently in orbit around the Earth. Cool stuff.
Read this and weep.
I’ve never liked the idea of college playoffs. Not out of any sense of an homage to tradition. Rather, I don’t think it will solve the problem its backers say it will: determining an undisputed National Champion in college football. My bottom line is college football is too matchup oriented, the season too short, and too many teams are competing for the title. As far as I’m concerned there is no solution.
Which is why I think the original premise of the bowl games, a reward for teams who performed well during the season, is what the bowl games should go back to. Of course, I suffer from no delusions that convince me it will happen. “Forward progress” and all that.
What the whole National Championship angle is about is money. Money for the NCAA. Money for coaches. Money for participating schools. Money for AD’s and other administrators.
But no money for the kids that provide all the entertainment. There was a time when the argument about the value of the education and the scholarship persuaded me otherwise. But no longer. Nor does the argument that “they’ll be playing on Sunday’s.” For the vast majority of college football players, that’s flat out untrue. There are over 100 division I-A colleges, many with rosters over 100 players strong. There are 30 NFL teams all that talent goes to. Clearly, the vast majority of players will lose out. But they still contribute to those games we watch on Saturday afternoons and evenings.
The more stuff like this I see, the more hostile I become to the notion of big time college football.
I’ve recently observed virtually identical behavior in a couple of kids I wanted to comment on.
First, a girl in the boy’s martial arts class, probably 10 or 11. She’s a red belt in the class, a very high rank. Red is the last belt level prior to becoming an apprentice black. That means minimally, she has 3 years of effort invested in her training. As do her parents.
My observation is that she ends up sitting on the periphery of the class in almost every class I’ve seen her in lately. She’s usually got an ice pack and is nursing some sort of injury. Though some times she doesn’t even have the ice pack, at which point my guess is she told the instructors that she wasn’t feeling well.
As it happened, I was watching the class a couple days ago with a black belt who often volunteers to help teach the kid’s class. The girl in question had once again become injured and he made a comment that she’s always injured. Apparently, she no longer wants to pursue her black belt. Her parents, not unreasonably, have stuck to bringing her to the classes. Hoping that she’ll come around and choose to finish her training and achieve a black belt. The head instructors think that it’s only a matter of time before she is able to convince her parents to pull the plug.
Now the second observation. This one occurred yesterday at a coach pitch game I volunteered to help out with. One of the boys on the team was in the outfield. It was hot out in the sun, but hardly brutal. For my part, I was wearing a black T-shirt, a remnant from the lass’ coach pitch game earlier. Her team has black team T-shirts. The kids were wearing bright orange T-shirts.
Anyway, I overheard this kid complain that there was a bee flying around him. I didn’t catch it all, but one of the other coaches was compelled to tell give him the age-old wisdom to simply ignore the bee.
A couple minutes later, the kid wasn’t feeling well. He was complaining about shortness of breath. He ended up going to the dug out to sit down and relax, get some water and calm down.
When it was his team’s turn to bat, the choice was given to him if he felt up to batting. He did, and took his normal spot in the rotation, the 2nd or 3rd batter in the inning as I recall. He got a hit and got on base as a result. When the inning was over, he remained in the dugout rather than going out into the field with his teammates. He didn’t want to take a chance.
In both cases, I see a kid using the one trump card they have in their formidable arsenal to get what they want. The claim of injury or sickness. Nowadays, this is the one thing that a parent or teacher cannot mess with lest the child actually be telling the truth. I’ve noted on many an occasion that kids are clever critters. Particularly when they really want something, or to avoid something. Consider these further evidence of how far they will go.
My own tactic for dealing with these situations is to communicate to the kid that I know they are bluffing. I’ll typically ask them some misleading questions, basically putting them in a situation where they are clearly concocting a cover story. Once they are at that point, I’ll good-naturedly dismiss them, perhaps even mock or shame them a bit, and allow them to continue with their ruse. I’ve done this on numerous occasions with the boy and the lass. If they choose to resume participation, then everyone’s a winner.
If not, well, at least they know they haven’t gotten away with it cleanly.
An essay about feeding the baby, over at Deadspin. It’s a bit profane, but has some real funny parts. The following in particular had me laughing out loud:
So you’ve got your formula, now you have to carefully take one level, unpacked scoop of the shit and add it to two ounces of water. They sell bottle warmers to help you warm up the formula for your kid, but I use warm tap water because I like to live DANGEROUSLY. In a perfect world, I would use pristine filtered water distilled from a distant lake in Finland, then lovingly mix the formula inside a Hamilton Beach blender in order to ensure consistency. But it’s 5 a.m. and there’s a baby in my hands that’s screaming to the point of bleeding out of its f***ing eyes, so that plan goes out the door. The baby will get 2.3 ounces of fluid and a half a jigger of powder, served CHUNKY STYLE.
Hilarious. I chuckled just reading through it.
This, too, is chuckle inducing:
They barf all the time, and yet I still fall for it when I’m rocking with them peacefully and waiting for them to shut their eyes and then WHOA HEY HOLY S**T HE’S BARFING PEOPLE.
So true.
The Wife made cupcakes when she was done with work today. The cupcakes happened to be for the boy’s birthday tomorrow. So she let him have first dibs at licking the mixing bowl. She let the lass lick the beater.
But the lass wanted some more, so she tried to get a pinch or two from the bowl that the boy was working on. Things quickly went downhill from their. The boy defended the bowl like he was the MVP goalie of the Stanley Cups playoffs. The lass resorted to every trick in her arsenal to penetrate his defenses. Including whining.
It finally got to the point that I told them both they were done. I shooed them out of the kitchen. Actually, it was more like ordering them out of the kitchen.
The boy didn’t take kindly to this situation. Apparently, he’s got some kind of 6th sense capability to accurately measure the amount of batter he’s consumed versus his sister. Something on the order of “A thousand-billion times” more. So he decided to take his frustration out on her by chasing her around with a rope and swinging it at her. The lass, or her part, ran around screaming at him to stop.
So, once again, I intervened. Telling the boy that it was just as much his fault as her fault that I’d made them stop eating the batter. I explained how he could have just told her to wait and that she could finish what he didn’t; that there had been no need for him to be so belligerent towards her. I took away the rope for good measure.
Anyone with experience with 8-year olds probably knows that my rational explanation had absolutely no effect on him whatsoever. He continued pursuing the lass around the house. The lass continued shrieking for him to stop. Finally, I’d had enough and confronted the boy a 2nd time. He finally relented his pursuit and went off to sulk. I also told the lass to stop shrieking and find something else to do.
Five minutes later I heard more shrieking from outside. I poked my head out. The boy and the lass were playing together on their play gym.
Last Thursday, I basically went insane for about a minute. I’d sent the kids upstairs to get ready for bed. We’ve had this arrangement for awhile now and it’s nice. They head up, brush their teeth and take care of other pre-bed rituals, and then we go up and say goodnight. It’s not one-hundred percent yet, but it’s getting close.
Well, that night ended up being a less than hundred percent night. I heard the lass whimpering. She’d started down that road just prior to going to be over her Lego project. Nothing like Lego troubles to thoroughly frustrate a child.
When I arrived in her room she was sitting in the middle of an unmade bed. Not unmade in the sense that it was a mess. Unmade in the sense that there were no sheets.
That was the beginning of the decent into insanity process. Frankly, I can’t explain why. It really wasn’t the lass’ fault that her bed wasn’t made. Although I was frustrated that she’d sat their whimpering rather than trying to do something about it. That frustration slowly ballooned into a full on fury where I was screaming as loud as I could.
When I was done, I hadn’t accomplished much. Both kids were completely silent, but the lass’ bed still wasn’t made. I was still upset as well, but I wasn’t screaming like a fool anymore.
So I made her bed, said goodnight to both of them and went downstairs to contemplate my absurd behavior. Definitely not one of my better moments in parenting. Kids can get under any parent’s skin, but in this case the lass really hadn’t done anything. Or, at least, nothing that directly precipitated my reaction. I’d taken a fairly minor offense, and blown it all out of proportion. Pretty child like, when you think about it.
My voice was done for the next couple of days. It finally started returning to normal in the last couple of days.
Some architects thought it’d be a great idea to one, make a bathroom at the top of an elevator shaft and two, give that bathroom a glass floor. The result is a 15 story view. DOWN.
Words fail.
The boy received a camping radio as a birthday gift from his grandparents. It’s actually a slick little device that’s not a toy. It’s really a grownup kind of toy. That hasn’t stopped the boy from taking a shine to it.
This is the device here. It’s not a normal radio by any stretch. The grandparents got it for camping, but it’s actually more like an emergency device. It works as a normal radio, but it also picks up the 7 NOAA weather bands. It has a solar charger and a hand crank charger as well as a 3 LED based flashlight. Lastly, the hand crank can be used, via a USB plug, to charge a cell phone. Pretty cool stuff.
While on the way to his martial arts class, he brought the radio and was listening to one of the weather bands. He then proceeded to inform the Wife that there was going to be “30% participation.”
I don’t think he was talking about his martial arts class.
Well, it didn’t seem like last weekend’s real life Wild Kingdom experience with the garter snake in our garden could be topped. But then this weekend came along and offered a similar high drama.
This time, everything happened out in the yard. The boy called out “Look a snake!” The Wife looked out of reflex, and then quickly went back to what she’d been doing. In the meantime, I looked out in the yard and spotted the frog first. Then I saw the snake trailing behind it, keeping pace pretty well. It was another garter snake.
The frog hopped about half-way across the yard and then decided to stop. That was the only mistake it took for the snake, who reared up and snagged it. The kids and walked over to check things out. It was a tree frog, and was squeaking up a storm. The snake was a bigger version of the one from last week, probably about 2 feet long. I considered going to get the camera, but the snake made quick work of the frog. The whole thing was done in less than a minute.
By that time, our dog was circling and sniffing, trying to figure out what to do. Apparently, leaving well enough alone wasn’t an option. The dog would carefully scent his way in, the snake would flick it’s tongue and then the dog would jump back and bark, circle around a bit and start it all over again.
So I grabbed the dog and had the boy step towards the snake and it took it’s leave of the yard. Heading back to the quieter environs of the hedges.
Today was a day for getting things done outside. After the lass’ Tee Ball game this morning, I mowed the lawn, followed by fixing the collapsed wood pile (permanently I hope), then putting in edging around gardens as well as edging others.
The lass helped the Wife with some garden shopping and the boy helped out with some of the edging. But they were tired of it all by mid-afternoon. So after building mud puddles and playing in water, they took a break and started looking at one of their animal books.
I noticed the giggling, but didn’t think anything of it. They could’ve been looking at pictures of some weird animal for all I knew. I’d gone to grab a couple of stones I was installing as edging around a garden.
Then the boy asked “Dad, how come a cow poops out it’s baby?”
And it was about all I could do to not drop the stones. Dang, why can’t there be some kind of warning about incoming questions like that? Like a siren or something, or maybe a voice “WARNING: Impending question that will sound hilarious…”
So anyway, I recovered after a moment or two. Then tried to explain that cows don’t poop out their babies. It just looks like that in the pictures…
Since I’d written something similar in spirit a while back, I thought I’d link this article at the Daily Caller. Unlike my ridiculous idea, this guy tries to leverage the current college football infrastructure, which is probably a deliberate thing on his part. That makes it more plausible than my own scenario.
That said, word arrives this week that the USFL is returning. Never heard of the USFL? It was a Spring league back in the 80’s and lasted right up to the point where they decided to compete directly with the NFL by becoming a Fall/ Winter league. It was where Jim Kelly, Hershel Walker, Reggie White and Earnest Byner, among other future NFL stars, got their start.
So why am I bringing all these up in a single post? Well, “the end of football” isn’t coming anytime soon. But, with the increased focus on head injuries and the cash strapped schools that supply college football, it’s not impossible to imagine a future where state legislatures decide that a sport like football has no place at an “institute of higher learning.” So couple that with the timing of the reincarnated USFL and I’m wondering if we don’t have the makings of a hedge against the possible elimination of college football programs. In other words, the USFL becomes a farm-system for the NFL. It will be interesting to see where this updated USFL gets its talent from.
Note this would also solve the whole idiotic “college playoff” debate, a not insignificant bonus.
It should be obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: this is all purely speculative on my part. But if it does happen, remember: YOU READ IT HERE FIRST!!!