Classical Christmas

A belated Merry Christmas to you all!!! It's been a crazy 3 days for us, but all in all the Christmas holiday weekend went pretty well, the kids got a lot of good stuff. T got some boxing gloves and a bag from his uncle, aka my little brother. That was sort of unexpected and unneeded, but he loves his Pow Gloves so it's ok for the moment. My parents got us the best gift, a GPS unit. It's spectacular because when we go on these vacations, navigation isn't usually our strongest point.

We were heading up to Yosemite trying to go what we thought was a quicker route. We were heading up Hwy 4 towards Angel's Camp passing Copperopolis (great city name) and needed to turn right on O'Byrne's Ferry Road. I asked my lovely wife what road we were looking for, and she told me we were searching for O'Bryant Ferry Road. So when we passed O'Byrne's Ferry Road, we figured we must be getting close, as O'Byrne's Ferry seemed very similar to the O'Bryant Ferry we'd read about in our Mapquest directions. So after a 45ish minute detour, we found our way back to the road we were searching for, we ended up going all the way around three towns (which is a big trip when they're not next to each other) and finding the other side of O'Byrne's Ferry road. It probably would have taken about 15 minutes to take that, the correct, road.

So the GPS will be spectacular, we'll be able to just go where we want without worrying about our subpar navigational skillz. My plan now is just to fill up the tank with gas, then drive almost half of it out, and turn around, and tell it to get me home. That should be fun. I don't know where I'd end up or how it will bring me back, but I know it will find me the quickest route if I so desire.

E also got a mini-kitchen, which I'm sure has nothing to do with her being female and having a life in the kitchen ahead of her. It's probably more because my wife always wanted one for herself when she was little, and has talked her mom into buying this one for our daughter. It still hasn't been assembled because she's not sure where she wants it to go. I can't wait. She's also received a bunch of fake food, but some of the cans and boxes are name-brand. She has little cans of Green Giant green beans. She got a box of Hamburger Helper, some Duncan Hines cake mix, and some other stuff that I can't remember right now.

And so for a look of things to come, I took over 100 pictures of my in-laws crazy Disney fetish in their house, and will be posting some of these photos over the next few days at random. I know some of you have heard the tales of this house, but still don't understand just how nutty it is. Be prepared folks, be prepared.

Who Needs Pictures

Thanks to a friend I've never met, there is now a visual to go with the Corvette crash story from a few days ago. This one features a Ferrari and a lot more destruction, but the idea is there. It's amazing how difficult it is to find a picture of a similar crash. I suppose that shows how rare the sight was. Now that I've realized this, I wish I would have stopped and tried to get a shot with my phone. Oh well. So thanks, T!

Now imagine this without a garage, moped, and less garage door. The car was actually lined up perfectly with the front of the Corvette. Incredible. Looking at this picture, I wish I would have seen this one also. Maybe I need to watch some NASCAR to get my wreck watching urges down. Or I could just watch Cars again. I should probably just watch Cars again.

Present Tense

Every year my wife buys something for me for Christmas that makes me feel like a 6 year old who wants desperately to rip a small incision in the side of a wrapped present to get a glimpse of what lies within. It's always some ginormous box that somehow manages to get under the tree, or in this case rested against the wall beside the tree, and always makes the joy of getting stuff come rushing back.

I've become accustomed in my older years to receiving things that are mostly practical, useful or necessary. Gone are the days when I'd open a X-Wing fighter, go over my cousins house, where he just got the Falcon and we'd play all day out in the freezing winter weather. In are the days where a gift card to the local Safeway is a joy.

But my wife has always managed to get me some great stuff. A couple years ago for my birthday she got me an XBOX. Something that I wanted, but had no hopes of getting. This was a startling gift for me, as all other gaming systems that I'd owned throughout my life, I'd purchased. On another note, I did just hook up the old Nintendo 64 a couple weeks ago to play Blitz 2000. It's still pretty fun.

So now this giant box is staring at me as I wander through the living room, taunting me with its mystery. I know that it will be something good, or if nothing else, something big. I'm getting all jacked up just thinking about it. And just as when I was a kid, I can't wait for Christmas morning.

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town

Fear not faithful few, for I found a feasible functional Car With Guns On It. It was located at Target and labeled as a Target exclusive Transformer. It will have to do the trick. View it's spectacularness below.
So Santa will have done his job and it's not nearly as violent as i had pictured. Plus, it's a Transformer, which makes two for him this year, so that's a nice bonus.

He has his preschool Christmas, er...Holiday party in a few hours, so that should be fun. Apparently, they're going to sing some tunes. I don't know which ones, but I'm guessing that one of them is Jingle Bells, because he's been repeating the chorus to that one for the past week or so. Over and over and over and over.

Race Car Driver

It's really hard to find a race car with guns. I don't know if this was common knowledge before I started my hunt, but it should be. All my son wants from Santa this year is a race car with guns. I can find some GI Joe stuff, but they are jeeps, and tanks, and hummer style vehicles. You'd think that you could find a HotWheel with some weaponry on it, but you'd be wrong. There is no such thing.

I submit this idea to the head of Mattel, stop messing around with the Barbie Corvette, that just makes the Corvette less cool, instead put a machine gun on the Camaro. Do something useful, turn a superfast car into a superweapon. I know that somebody else must have thought of this before, so I can't imagine why it hasn't been done yet.

If anyone out there has any information about this toy and where I might find one, please let me know. I don't think that it's going to be an urgent matter as I have managed to procure an Optimus Prime transformer that has a firing something on it. I don't know if it's a missle launcher or a plasma cannon, but either way it shoots in robot form. So that's something.

Tomorrow should be fun as his preschool is having a "Holiday" party, as you're not allowed to say Christmas anymore, even though that's what the Holiday party is for. We didnt' get two weeks off of school because of Kwanzaa. Of course that one wasn't invented until the late 60's anyway. But that's another talk for another time. Enjoy those Christmas tunes whilst they're still on the air!

Little Red Corvette

I haven't put this story up because I was hoping to find a picture of it somewhere, without it it's hard to truly visualize the amazingness of it all. It all started on my normally boring ride home from work on Friday down the long two lane road that takes me home.

There was an unusual amount of traffic for 4 on a Friday. This is the one day that I can mostly just get home while driving the speed limit. Friday, however, I was pushing about 4 mph. Then an ambulance went flying by me down the middle turning lane, followed closely by a cop car, then another cop car. And about 5 minutes after that, another police officer in a 4-wheeled vehicle. Apparently this was either the biggest accident up ahead that had ever happened, or they just had nothing else to do.

Now this stretch of road that I was traveling down on a bad day will take me around 15 to 20 minutes to complete. On this day after 25 minutes I was almost halfway down, and this is where the coolest accident I've ever seen had occurred. I'm not saying that I'm glad people were hurt or anything because, to be honest, I have no evidence that anyone was. There was a fire engine, two ambulances, and five cop cars there. A crowd had also gathered around on the sidewalks and in front of the nearby Starbucks. We were being diverted around the scene of the accident as it had claimed both lanes of this particular street.

There was four cars directly involved that were still where they were when the accident happened. An old Ford truck in front, followed by what I believe was a Civic, then a brand new Corvette, and finally an Altima. Now, you're probably saying, "Hey, that sounds boring and I don't care!" Well you'd be right, what makes this cool is that the Civic was on top of the Corvette. Yes, that's right my friends, the front bumper of the Civic was on the ground in front of the greatest sports car ever made, and it's back bumper was sticking up in the air a little more than halfway down the roof of the Corvette.

I'm not sure how this happened, and apparently it wasn't amazing enough to make it into the paper. But then again, the Times is a pretty crappy paper. So without any official reports, and because I'm not a Mythbuster...yet...I'll give you what I believe is the happenings of this amazing sight.

Phase One: Ford, Civic, Corvette, and Altima are all driving down the road, happy as can be at a top speed of what usually isn't any more than 30 mph, if you're lucky.

Phase Two: Ford driver (being a moron) stops for no reason in the middle of the road. Civic driver (also not that brilliant) tries to stop before running into the back of this massive truck but fails.

Phase Three: As Civic driver has hit the brakes to late, Corvette driver (the only intelligent one here) manages to stop just in time, however as the Civic hits the Ford, it goes slightly under Ford's back bumper, bringing Civic's back bumper off the ground slightly.

Phase Four: As the Civic bumper raises off the ground and Corvette stops just behind this, Altima driver (who has no business being here) hits the back of Corvette and causes Corvette to lose hold on the brake and slides ever so neatly under back bumper of the raised back bumper of Civic.

Phase Five: Since Altima driver is not a good driver (otherwise they wouldn't have an Altima) it pushes Corvette along just enough while Corvette driver is still trying to re-apply brakes to cause Corvette to slide under the wheels of Civic which makes Civic climb higher onto top of Corvette.

Phase Six: I drive by and see madness and am unable to get a good picture with cameraphone.

And thus you have the craziest crash I've ever seen. I wish I could have seen what happened to cause the back of the Civic to climb onto the hood of a Corvette. I'm sure it was spectacular.

So let this be a warning to all you Corvette drivers out there, don't follow a Civic to closely. They just want to jump on top of you in a car dogpile.

Play That Funky Music

So because I know you're curious, here are the songs stuck in my head right now.

I Was Just Thinking by Teitur
Don't Need Anything by Glen Phillips
Brady Bunch Theme
Be Like That by 3 Doors Down
Main Street Electric Parade by Disneyland
I'll Be Home for Christmas by Nickel Creek (and many others)
Knight Rider Theme by a synthesizer (no words, just humming it a lot lately, it was my wife's ringtone)
Bare Necessities by Baloo (my wife's current ringtone)
George of the Jungle Theme (my son sings this one a lot. well, actually it's just "George, George, George in the jungle watch out for that tree!" over and over and over and over...you get the idea.

So some are good, and some suck, and some are just annoying, like the American Gladiators theme that just popped into my head. Oh well. Enjoy those tunes suckers!

Our Retirement Plan

So, because I haven't put anything up here in a few days. And I'm lazy. And I have one of him playing baseball, I present my little guy demonstrating how he's gonna let me quit working in about 20 years. And we don't have a belt for him...in case you're wondering.

Trouble

Our little Tster got what amounted to his first note home from the teacher. He got sent to timeout three times in his preschool class on Tuesday. It's only a 2 1/2 hour class. The teacher told my mom (who takes and picks him up) that he was just running around and not listening. (Which is what he's been doing at home a lot lately also.)

We asked him why he got in trouble and after denying that he did anything at all for about 20 minutes, he offered an explanation that i don't fully understand. Apparently, the whale was going to slow for the Pirate ship and that was causing problems, so he got sent to timeout. I don't know why the pirate ship was chasing the whale at all, to be honest. Unless Ahab was the captain.

Also, it's unclear to me in what waters this pirate ship was sailing. As it was explained to me besides the whale being to slow, the pirate ship kept running it over. So it seems that this whale was just hanging out in the ocean, then this massive pirate ship comes flying towards it, runs it over, realizes that it hit something, flips around and runs it over again. Maybe it was just a whale watching trip gone bad. Who can say? Certainly not our boy, who is sticking by that story. So maybe there's some truth in it somewhere. Maybe the whale is some other kid, and the pirate ship was T on a trike. It would certainly seem possible, and to be honest, kinda funny. This kid lying on the ground while T runs him over on a trike again and again, screaming "C'mon whale! Move! I'm sick of my ship getting dings because of your lack of swimming skills!"

Well, maybe not funny...for the kid on the ground. Also, just so you know, I'm not raising a bully. Bullying is bad. I'm raising a kid who will be able to take care of himself. And if that includes using funds from other kids to get his milk because his parents forgot to give it to him that morning? Well, then that's what has to happen.

And for those bleeding hearts out there who believe all creatures are wonderful and lovely and we should save the spotted mini toad in southern Bolivia, I'm kidding. He's not a bully, and he's actually very polite, asking "May I" and says "Please" and "Thank you." He also gets mad when he says "thank you" and you don't say "you're welcome." He'll yell at you, saying "I SAID, 'THANK YOU'!" until you say 'welcome'.

So to all whales out there, watch out for those pirate ships, and today when I get home, I hope you weren't massacred at the hands of my 4 year old.

I've Got A Name

This morning on my way to work, after I stopped to get Starbucks Hot Cocoa from the weirdest lady ever, my van said it was 39 degrees outside. 39!!!!!!! I didn't know my van's thermal gauge went below 48. It was so cold out there that my face hurt just to be outside.

This may not seem like a big deal to some, but I ask, what happened to all that global warming talk? It's freakin' COLD!!!!

I also got a weird discussion from the toothless worker at the Starbucks about my name, which she wanted to write on the cup even though I was the only person getting anything. She asked if it was Daniel on my birth certificate, and when I responded yes, she replied that her son was named Danny on his birth certificate. She decided (in her wisdom) that since his friends would one day shorten his name for him anyway, she'd just do it at birth. So now wherever he goes, people want to call him Daniel, which is incorrect because his name starts as Danny. It can be shortened to Dan, but can't be lengthened. Which seemed weird to me, why would you start somebody out with a nickname? This has done nothing (according to her) but cause problems for him throughout his life, as bank loans, school documents and other legal papers. This also leads to another question, if we can have nicknames that are shorter, what's the name for a longer version of our names? I've decided now that since I'm not doing any research about it, I'm going to coin the word, 'Dannyname'. So now if someone is named Bob and you want to call them Bobby, you can! It's their Dannyname. Spectacular, yes?

So kid whom I've never met whose mother named him Danny on his birth certificate, have no worries, you can now be called Daniel, it's totally legal and acceptable. As I live in California, and we can make whatever laws and rules we want no matter how stupid. I decree that this is a real thing. Congratulations to my readers, you have witnessed history.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

That's right boys and girls, Christmas is coming to my house! After much discussion, my wife won. Her family and mine are going to gather under the roof that I pay for and celebrate Christmas together. It should be an interesting day, as with that many people there are more than a few presents to open. Especially her parents, who seem to lose their minds in Company D (which is the employee only Disneyland store, they don't work there, but they visit so much that they've met people who will let them shop there). This gift over-giving is fine, they're the grandparents and they have earned the right to spoil them stupid, but it takes them almost 45 minutes to open everything. Although this year may not take as long, as T has been asking me everyday if it's time to open the presents yet. I think this is the main drawback to getting the shopping done early, there's temptation under that tree, and I don't know how long he'll hold out. I think next year, we'll find small tears in the wrapping paper. Hopefully just small tears, otherwise he'll be playing with his new stuff 4 weeks early.

And yes you read that last paragraph correctly all 3 of you who read this. I am almost done shopping. Why? Because I hate shopping. I don't like wandering through aisles looking for the 'perfect gift.' I like finding cool stuff that people will like and getting it. I hate returing things also, though I'm going to be returning at least 4 things. Two are because I had to buy extra stuff, which my wife told me to do, then she decided that we didn't actually need those things and now I have to take them back.

As a guy, I don't like returning things, it's like saying that I didn't know what I was doing the first time I came in here, so I need to try again. And hopefully, this time, I won't screw up and have to wait in this special line to give it back. I had to return 2 pairs of jeans yesterday at Target. I had to return them because even though I have only two pairs of pants, and neither of them have no holes in them, I wasn't allowed to purchase more than one pair because "Christmas is coming!" ...I know, exciting presents for me this year, huh?... So I'm standing in line with about 12 other people and only one of them is a dude. And he's exchanging a broken xbox game. Which to me says that I've become a chick. This is why I normally make my wife return stuff. (Also because usually she's the one that bought it.) Guys just don't feel right in a return line. It's in our DNA, or RNA I can't remember my bio right now. Or is it chemistry class... anyway, the moral is, I don't like returning stuff. Not at all.

Thank You

So since I skipped it a bit, here's some of what went down at our family Thanksgiving. We went to Lower Lake up to my Aunt and Uncle's house. They're the ones who make the greatest salsa ever. They have at least one full acre, and as I'm not sure how to eyeball acreage, I'll even say there's a good chance that there's more than that. Maybe 2ish. Anyhoo, they have what has to be the coolest thing that Big Ty has ever driven.


Yup that's him driving the tractor. His, or at least my, uncle is helping push the pedals, but the steering and bucket controls were all 4-year-old. This was one of the first things he did there and it became impossible to top. But we tried, we went for a wandering style walk past a grove of olive trees that are apparently not supposed to be able to grow anywhere but the wonderous land of Italia. But there they were in Lower Lake, looking as lovely as ever. Little E was bundled up for the journey and posed for pictures

She's quite the little ham. Which we didn't eat, because we're Kosher. Well not really, but the turkey was delish, there were authentic beans a la mi tio. Fun was had by all and the kids did really well.

All I Want

I have discovered my son's newest, and biggest fear.

We spent yesterday putting up our Christmas decorations. We did some on Saturday, during which Ty kept asking when we were putting the Christmas Tree up. He was told we would put it up Sunday. So when Sunday morning rolled around, he hadn't forgotten this and bugged his mom to no end. But was told that he would have to wait for his dad to wake up. (It was my day to sleep in.) So I stumbled out into the living room earlier than I wanted, as my wife sometimes (always) forgets to shut the door and keep the noises out, and as soon as he saw me he informed me that it was time to put the tree up. We held him off for another hour or so, so I could eat and freshen up a bit. Then we were on.

We have what's known in some circles as an "Artifical Tree" or as I like to say, an environmentally friendly green Christmas triangular decoration. So we had to assemble this dude, and Ty helped of course, then once our sweetastic tree was assembled, he dove into the decoration box (almost literally) and started putting decorations all over one small area of the tree. We managed to start spreading them out to make it less bottom-heavy. And once it was completed, he asked if we could open presents. There were no wrapped presents in sight at this point, but apparently he's made the connection between environmentally friendly green Christmas triangular decoration, and presents.

We were out of almost all foods, which brings us to his greatest fear. He went to the grocery store with his mom and whilst he was there, his constant question was, "Daddy's not going to take the Christmas tree down, is he?" That night before he went to bed, he asked, "We're going to leave the tree up, right?" And this morning when he woke up, before he even got out of bed, "Is the tree still up?"

Ah, to have such simple concerns in life. When all you want is the Christmas Tree to stay up.

Baseball Ballet

To steal an idea from a friend of mine (you know who you are) I've decided to share the greatest video i've ever taken with my digital camera. (A Sweetastic Canon digital elp 600...or something like that). This is from Easter of this past year. We were all just hanging out in our partially destroyed backyard, playing baseball (as we are known to do) when this wonderful bit of kismet happened. Enjoy. And friend whom I stole this idea from, don't worry, it'll still look like you did it first.

Ramblin' Man

Well for my faithful few, the time has come to up the ante on this here blog. I figure that I have to commit one way or the other, and since I'm so good at saying I'll commit to something. I'm committing to this. Totally, gonna post at least 3 to 4 times a week, and if there's nothing exciting to post about, then be prepared for my rambling, which I can totally do, without difficulty. I can go on about the most inane things for hours and hours. Just ask my wife, who usually tunes out my little stories a couple minutes in. This sometimes doesn't work out so well as there will also be important information thrown in that she misses because she's no longer paying attention. But I guess, "You'll listen to every one of his boring stories" isn't in the wedding vows. (Mental Note: If we reaffirm our vows, make sure to put that in.)

I know you're all excited to hear about the new grass, the good news is that it's still alive. The other news is that we still can't really walk on it. The sprinklers have been going so much that the whole back yard is pretty soggy, and I'm afeared to waltz around on it until it's had sufficient time to solidify itself up. The grass is very perky though, and the seams are slowly going away. I'm supposed to be able to mow it next week, and as I know how enthralling that story will be, you can be sure that it's gonna be up here soon after I'm done.

In other news, little E has taken it upon herself to learn all about the world around her by asking the same two questions over and over, "Whoisit?" and "Whatzat?" These are used properly. When asking about a person on the phone, she asks repeatly, "Whoisit?" until she figures out who it is you're talking about. Which was fun when my brother called, she doesn't talk to him that much and had to be told who she was talking to consistently throughout the conversation. And that's probably enough of the 'my kid is adorable' talk for today.

Sees ya soon!!

Costume Montage

A wonderful night of adventure was had by all. We made our first rounds out in the neighborhood. The past couple of years with T and E, we went to the mall as we figured there would be good candy and lots of kids. We were not correct in our assumption. Most of the candy was gone by the time we got there, 20 minutes after it started, and the kids there were mostly older kids who could get away with trick-or-treating at places where all their friends worked.

T was ready to go at around 3o'clock last Thursday, but managed to survive until last night. We left and hit the houses on our block and were already swimming in candy. Apparently the theory on our court is that since hardly anybody takes the time to walk the courts, take whatever you want. You want more candy, here take a couple more handfuls, no really take more. Which became my philosophy when the 7 kids came by our house later. They did pretty well for themselves.

We had been training T to say "Trick or Treat" when the door was opened, but he was more comfortable with "Hello. I'm Buzz Lightyear, she's Tinkerbell and she wants candy too." Which ended up working out OK for him and he did say "Thank You" to everybody so I was satisfied with that.

This little lady got the hang of things rather quickly. About the sixth or seventh house we went to had the lights on and the pumpkins out, but nobody was home (apparently). So T rang the doorbell and we were standing there for a few seconds and nothing happened, so our little princess started whacking the door with her wand and yelling for them to open up. I'm not sure exactly what she was saying, but I believe it was "Hey!! Open up this door and drop something into my pumpkin!!! I got dressed up and I'm walking around in this cold and you have lights on and should be giving me candy!!!" But I don't know if that's what she really said. It sounded like "OOoooeenn!"

We had to cross a few streets and in order to do that, I had to take that little pumpkin and pick her up. She fought me and whined until I put her down and she got her pumpkin back. Then all was cool again, but for those 10 seconds we spent walking across the street, bad things man. But all went well. Good hauls for both kids (or for us, you know, check the candy take the 'unsafe' ones away) and they had a great time. T now is preparing for his trip to D-Land with mom, and mom's parents. He's gonna wear that costume down there also. I wonder if he'll sign autographs?

Bonus picture: This is from T's preschools Halloween party, they had a parade and little pot-luck thing, and there was one kid in T's class who dressed up as Superman, had the cape, boots, fake muscle suit. And was wearing a Batman mask. It was the greatest costume I saw. You gotta enlarge this one to see the greatness.

Thriller

T is going to be Buzz Lightyear this year for Halloween. We went all out and got him the costume from the Disney Store with light up wings, boots, gloves, the whole bit. He even has a Buzz gun that lights up and makes the really annoying electronic laser sounds. His pre-school Halloween parade was today and the whole class, and the 3-yr-old class all got to walk around the playground and outside for a bit before returning to the classrooms. While we were in the class the 'Child Of The Week' was identified as the kid who would get to lead the parade. By the time they got to the outside of the playground, my man Ty was leading the pack. Out in front shooting all comers with his laser. There were two other Buzzes in his class, both with other costumes. No light up wings, no gloves, no shiny spacesuit. The 3-yr-old class had two Buzz Lightyear's both with the same getup as our own little hero. There were two cowboys, two Minnie Mouses, an Ariel, a girl who kept asking her mom when she would get to put on the makeup, and my personal favorite, a kid in a Superman costume, full on fake muscles, the belt, the boots, the cape, and wearing a Batman mask, with the ears and everything. It was quite awesome. It seems that he couldn't make up his mind which DC superhero he wanted to be, so he decided that he would be both.

Little E is set to be Tinkerbell (yes we have a Disney theme this year) but she doesn't really feel like wearing the poofy costume. It's basically a swimsuit with ruffles and wings attached. She is not a fan. She likes the loud clompin shoes, and enjoys whacking me with her wand, but not a fan of the poof. She was bawling last night when we tried it on her. Hopefully tonight will be better when she's more awake and T's in his costume also. Here's hoping. Pictures to be posted in a couple days.

Last Dead Mouse

I've found mice poop on my desk for the past week. Until today. Today is the first day in five days that mouse poop hasn't been on my desk or in my keyboard drawer. Needless to say today was a little more exciting than the past four. Plus it's Friday.

There has been evidence of mice for the past two weeks, but last week I was geeking out in SF and didn't have the unabashed joy of finding little mouse pellets on my workspace. But there they were, little chocolate chips of joy left by small furry creatures. Yesterday the pest control company finally came after we called our union about the mess. He left approximately 12 traps in a 1200ish square foot area. I haven't checked the trap next to my desk yet, but I'm hoping that there's a furry little dead dude in there. (And I don't mean Robin Williams). Now for those of you who think this trapping and killing of mice in my workspace area is wrong. It's not. This is the most right thing that you can do. They're obviously lost and can't find their way back outside where they belong, so to keep them from being more miserable, we remove them from the building. Then they're free to never bother me again. Plus, poop is gross. In no way is it not gross. Having little pee spots next to your keyboard in the morning also isn't the best way to start off a day of work. Trust me on this one. It's not. Thank God for bleach. Of course, the smell of that is a bit pungent, but it's way better then poop pellets. Way better.

The pest control dude was supposed to come back here at 11 this a.m. and here we are at 15 after and still no sign of him. I shouldn't be surprised, after all it took 8 days of calling to get them here once.

I am going to invent a new type of mouse trap, like a little electrical dog fence, except for mice. It's going to detect something small, and poopy walking over it and when it does, it will let off a small 1.21 jigawatt shock, thereby knocking the little bugger off it's feet and probably a good 30-40 yards up and or backwards. I'm loving that visual. Little mouse comes pooping along and walks across the MouseZapper3000 and SQEEEEEEEEEKK!!!! across the room it goes, slamming into a wall and dropping neatly into a disposal unit. No muss, no fuss. The patent has been applied for.

A disclaimer, if you don't like reading about mouse destruction, don't read the above post. Thank you.

Crazy

Last week was pretty crazy. I spent most of my time in SF at a php training class totally geeking out whilst learning the basics and semi-intricate laws of MySQL and PHP. So who knew that I was such a nerd? Well, most of you did probably, but still to what extent? Well, now you know.

I was in this class with a 64 year old man who worked for Blue Cross in Texas, but lived in New Mexico, and has been a programmer for over 40 years. There was a third student who was in her early 30's who had been taking a 3 month intro to web design course, so she didn't really have the knowledge that our elderly friend did. Then there was me who was sorta in between with my 2 plus years of experience designing sites. But I got enough out of it to prepare a mini sales site. Sweet, huh? Yeah, feel jealous of my geektitude. So anyways...

This past weekend helped me get back in touch with my outdoorsy, Mexican heritage by doing a ton of yardwork towards placing a brand new carpet of beautiful grass in the backyard. (Special thanks to Greg and Tom for helping out Saturday.) My dad and I were able to lay the sprinklers down the side yard yesterday and hopefully will be able to finish that next weekend. Then perhaps the week after that, GRASS!!!!! The excitement is palpable. I can feel your joy through the internets.

For the next time, I want you to think of the weirdest thing anyone has ever said to you. Then we'll see if mine beats yours. Not that I'm competitive.

Back In Your Own Backyard

A quick update for my concerned readers out there, all the kids are fine at the homestead.

I spent a good portion of the weekend doing some Fall Cleaning in the garage. And I discovered that I've been accumulating a good amount of odd devices. I found out that I have 6 brand new light switches, a conduit box for a wall outlet, 7 outlets, literally hundreds of zip ties, about 5 tubes of different kinds of caulk, tons of hangers and hooks, a plethora of loose nails, and some of the old Pergo from when we put in our floor. I can now make a nice miniature dollhouse for Lizzie with a fully functional electronic system in it. But due to the bad luck I've had recently with electronics and the kids, this may not happen.

I used to wonder where my dad got all his random stuff, but I think that I'm starting to realize that I buy random cheap stuff from the hardware store just in case I'll need it someday. Which I'm actually hoping to do later today...at Harbor Freight. Some of my purchases come along with legitimate buys, this past weekend we spent some of the off cleaning time at OSH getting our new sprinkler system material. That was exciting. As is the upcoming weekend where I get to demolish the backyard, and dig long trenches into the ground. Which of course precedes the laying of new sod that we've been planning for almost 2 years now. After living with dirt and dead grass in the backyard for so long it will be spectacular to have greenery on the ground that isn't from a genus of weeds.

Pictures will be taken throughout the process and will be posted here so you can all be bored with the fun!

Sing After Me

T received his first preschool illness. It seems to be nothing more than a pretty nasty cough at this point. But he seems fine other than that. He was singing this morning, interrupted occasionally with his smoker cough imitation. Well he kind of sings along with certain songs, but mostly he knows only a phrase of the song here and there, which he sings with reckless abandon, very loudly. Which is fun when I'm driving and suddenly hear from behind me, "C IS FOR COOKIE!! GOOD ENOUGH FOR MEEEEE!!" Then Lizzie laughs hysterically. Such fun.

I also just got a peanut free snack suggestion list so I can better figure what to send along to his preschool on our snack day. Did you know that Nutri-Grain bars are okay, but Granola and energy bars are not? True story.

Stay tuned kids, next time I'll tell you about the Halloween costume.

Reno

We got our first trip sans kids last weekend. We get these each time somebody we know gets married and has a wedding outside our county. It's the third time we've been away without them. The first was our honeymoon in Vegas, the second was up by Auburn at a buddy's wedding, and this time it was my cousin who got married in Truckee, CA. This allowed us to leave the kids with the in-laws, spend a night in Truckee and then head to Reno the day after. We took Monday off work to sleep in and enjoy the ride back. Well, I slept for a good portion of it. But don't worry! I wasn't driving.

Reno was an experience that I haven't had in a very long time. It had been at least 5 years since I was there last and maybe even longer. We stayed in the Silver Legacy and because we booked with out AAA card, we got a free buffet breakfast. Pretty sweet, yeah? We got all settled into our second room, the first had the horrible reek of smoke in it, and headed down to lose our fortunes. We were just wandering around when we got stopped by a timeshare presentation lady, who offered us $50, free dinner, and 4 days 3 nights vacation at a spot of our choosing if we'd suffer through a 90 min presentation. So of course we did. I'd never done one of these before, and it was as strange as I'd pictured it would be. In the tram on the way to the hotel where the presentation would take place, I noticed that we were the young couple, there was also a black couple, a mexican couple, a retired couple, and one that was in their mid-40's with kids somewhere in middle to high school.

We got matched up with the youngest salesperson there was, the black couple got the black salesman and so on. It was a very awkward first few minutes as our new BFF Camille tried to get to know us. From there we went into a room where Serge, who just got over here from the MotherLand, gave us a group sales pitch in his very thick East European/Russian accent. I think somewhere in it, he said that if you liked camping then you were homeless or something. I wasn't really paying to much attention. After that nightmare, we got back out with Camille who tried to sell us this wonderful program for only $11,000!! Holy Crap!! We said no thanks and got sent to the last chance lady who gave us our free stuff and we were back at the hotel in time for our free dinner. But, honestly, if you ever have the chance to do one of these and the free stuff is good, do it. Instead of blowing our cash in the casinos, we were getting stuff. Plus we came out of Reno ahead from gambling plus the $50 we got from them for free, so it was a very successful, and fun trip.

Also yesterday, when I went to get T up from his nap, he told me, "Don't wake me up, I'm still sleeping!" So I let him sleep some more. Even though he never slept. Check out "Don't Need Anything" by Glen Phillips.

Electric Avenue

Big Bad Ty learned something on Monday about light sockets. That is, it's a bad idea to stick two keys into a plug. I don't know how he reached the keys or what possessed him to try this, but the two little keys (think padlock size) were joined by a small metal keyring and that sucker was toasted. The keys were a bit singed also, as was T's middle finger. He was fine after about 30 minutes, but the initial shock and the lingering burn mark and pain should be enough to deter this little guy from trying that again.

And for those of you saying, "Well Smart Guy, why wasn't the socket protected?" I say to you, "I dunno." It was where it was and the keys were supposedly out of reach, so we learned that we need to install some more of those plastic socket baby proofers, which we did. So they're now fully stopped up. He now would have to remove the plastic baby proofer to stick something else into the socket...which I'm not putting past him, this kid is dangerous. He's like a 3 foot high Evil Kenivel, just without the full body jumpsuits and motorcycle. Though that would be a good Halloween costume. Hmmmmm....gonna run that one past the wife.

Today is his second day of preschool, he loved the first one on Tuesday, so we'll see if that enthusiasm will last. When I asked him if he remembered his teachers name, he just told me, "He's a girl." Which is true, he is a girl, but he's also called a she. Which is something else that we're working on. The whole masculine/feminine pronoun understanding. We'll get there by Senior year, I'm almost sure of it.

Also, for this installment of, "Listen To What I Tell You To And You'll See Your Future" we're going to have a song that T's been listening to almost nonstop for the past couple of weeks, so it's stuck in my head at the moment. It's called "The Ballad of Casey McPhee" It's from Sesame Street, sung by Cookie Monster, or Frank Oz for those of you who've lost that bit of your childhood. Cookie Monster plays an engineer who must get his trainload of cookies, chocolate milk, ice cream, and 'Moo Cows' through a snowed in mountain pass for the kids on the other side. It really kick some serious tail and I can't wait for the tour to come around.

Pre School Musical

Today T had his first little meet and greet for pre-school. His actual classes start next week, but this was his first chance to meet the teachers and the kids and see the room. I wasn't sure how he would do, though I figured he'd be okay. But I wasn't really prepared for how quickly he'd be okay. We walked into the room and he was holding onto my hand and I said, "Look, buddy, they have Play-Doh over there." and that was really the last time he bothered to speak to me until it was time to go. He played with the Play-Doh, he found the cars and got all them out, found some legos, played with some toy turtles, got out the pots and pans from the play oven, rode the trikes outside, found the slide, played with the blocks, discovered the bathroom, and that was all within a half-hour. He really enjoyed it and it was nice to see that he won't be the crier in the class, we all saw him too. His name is Curtis and T was used by the teacher as the kid to put the peer pressure on little Curtis to get him to quit crying and come into the classroom. It didn't work.

Whoa, I thought I posted this last week, bad blogger.

State Fair

The California State Fair has come and gone, and we made our yearly pilgrimage to our Golden State Capitol to see the sights. And I gotta say that this was one of the more disappointing years. I remember when there were tons of animals, and horse racing, and most of the counties had exhibits at the fair. This year we saw only rabbits, goats, cows, and the baby chicks from UC Davis. There were no long horn bulls, no sheep, no pigs, no chickens, no ducks, no geese, no turkeys. It was rather disheartening to see that there is a serious lack of livestock in California. I don't think that it's the vegetarians, because the lack of meat eating would logically cause an abundance of these animals. So I can only assume that the farmers don't care about their state fair blue ribbons anymore. Which is sad because, really, what else do they have to work for?

The counties exhibit was again a let down. The great Contra Costa County didn't participate again. Of course the winners are usually farm counties with years of heritage and old folks to sit on the board and cook up new ways to make their exhibit the coolest ever! Solano County actually had the best one, but it could be because they were giving away free Jelly Belly's.

But the kids had fun in the 100+ degree heat. They got to run around a little and got some really poorly made free sunglasses, so that was good. They also got to make a mess with no reprisal and T enjoyed the Thomas part of the Toy exhibit where he could play on two Thomas tables full of trains almost by himself. That was hard to pull him away from.

Also, on a completely unrelated note. I discovered that I really like Fenton's Creamery, but there is way to much ice cream on those plates! Which, I know, doesn't seem possible, but I saw four very hefty people share what i believe was a banana split and they couldn't finish it. That says something.

Until next time, when there will be a quiz on the implications of me having discovered a song that's been around for almost 40 years. The tune is Goin' to California by Led Zepplein. Give a listen if you haven't yet and just enjoy the thought. Everybody wants to come here. And damn if there aren't a lot more songs about California than, say, Wisconsin, or South Carolina.

Ice, Ice Baby

It's quite an amazing thing that at the age of 15 months, one can amuse oneself with nothing more than two paper cups and some ice. The fam went to a Ports game on Saturday and we managed to stay through the whole 9 innings. Which we didn't think we'd be able to do with two kids under 4, but when 9:40 rolled around and the game ended, we took two happy kids home, the best part is that they passed out about 5 minutes after we got into the van. (Yup the family minivan...so sporty). But one of the reasons that we were able to stay the entire game is that Little E was able to spend the last 3 innings taking ice out of one cup and putting it into another. Then moving it back. Occasionally she'd pick up the cup in the left cupholder and switch it with the cup in the right cupholder.

Tyler spent some time over in the kids zone on the inflatable jumpers and slides. My little brothers took him over there and found out that he knows how to wait his turn, but he doesn't prefer to. He jumped straight into the jumper and cut in the line for the slide. So both kids had a blast, the grown-ups got to see a good game. All in all, a beautiful night at the Port of Stockton.

Honestly, what sounds like more fun than that?
This is T going down the slide with my two brothers taking pictures of him with their phones. There's something about to much technology here, but I'm not sure what it is.

Ramblin' Man

My birthday weekend has come and gone, and though it wasn't an All-Star type bash, it was still plenty of fun. I was shocked by my parents when they got me an iPod, which is still cool just to hold and feel like I'm totally hip. Well, maybe I was until I said that. My lovely wife took me and my buddies to an A's game. They played the Angels and won, which was awesome. I don't know what it is, but it seems that since California is just a superior state, we don't really have another state to not get along with, so as a Northern Californian I hate LA. Now I know that that's in direct conflict with a certain Randy Newman tune, but it's just the way it is. If they didn't have Disneyland, I'd never go. And as an extension of that NorCal vs. SoCal rivalry, I don't like the Angels, or the Dodgers. Even though I've been to both stadiums to watch games. There's nothing quite like watching a Dodgers/Giants game while wearing an Oakland A's jersey. I didn't know who to root against more, but I had to side with the Giants eventually. Although, the Dodger Dog I had was making it hard. Man that thing was tasty.


But anyhoo, my brother and dad took me golfing at The Links at Bodega Harbour. It was a pretty nifty course, right along the ocean and plenty of houses to hit. We found out that at least one house had bulletproof glass when my dad hit a screamer directly into it. That was pretty nifty. My brother, eco-nut that he isn't crushed a ball out into the ocean from the 18th hole. And since we were playing around a protected marshland area, for the 16th and 17th holes, you had to get out of the cart that they made you drive, to walk the two holes. It was strange, and yet also really nice to be amongst the reeds and probably thousands of golf balls that had been hit into the water there.


So here I am 28 years later, and I still think I knew more when I was 18. At least, I was a better golfer then. But damn, at least I still gots the form...
Golf, the Pacific Ocean, family, good day. Except I left my sunglasses in the golf cart and my parents had to drive back up today to get them for me. But still good day.

Music fun for today = Don't Need Anything by Glen Phillips, you should all know who this guy is and if you don't know him by name, you probably know him from Toad the Wet Sprocket. Check it, Hear it, Love it.
Adios yo.

Fishin' in the Dark

Pictures as promised...I know you've been holding your breath.


First off is Little E at New Hogan Lake, notice the tiny trees, the abundance of sun, heat, and dirt. This photo was taken before all the injuries were sustained.















And here we are enjoying BBQ'd burgers, all except Little E, who is enjoying a ketchup sandwich.

















And T finally got to go fishing, after throwing rocks into the lake for a bit, whatever fish may have been there were long gone. And since there was some algae there that was getting caught on the lure, he ended up happily casting his rod with nothing more than a weight and a bobber. If you noticed the sandals, we brought shoes for him on this trip, but they were the one pair that didn't fit him well anymore, so he wore those flippers the whole trip. His feet were pretty filthy by the end of the day, but it's all worth the fun of cleaning when you get to go camping. He's been asking to go back almost every day.

And I'll leave you with this picture from Big Trees, and boy are they. The tallest living things on the earth. Really makes you appreciate the ants crawling around underneath. Well, maybe not appreciate, but notice in a different way. This is of the kids in the middle of a tree that had this hole cut in it so cars could drive through about 80 years ago. It's one of the smaller trees at only around 200 feet.


Don't forget to listen to your music. Ashokan Farewell, by Mark O'Connor

Camp a Little While in the Wilderness

We made it back from a lot of traveling on our camping trip. We started off at New Hogan Lake on Saturday, in the 95 degree heat, with the small semi-shade trees, and sloping campsite. And if that was New Hogan Lake, I'd hate to see what Old Hogan was like. Really, though, if you don't have a boat, it's not a great place to be. We couldn't check into our site until 2, so we ate at the local Round Table, then after we set up our trailer, we took a drive to get the kids to sleep and ended up driving all the way up to Big Trees. We found out that they had spots available for the next night, so we left as early as we could on Sunday, threw everything back into the trailer, and took our time getting up to Big Trees, stopping for a couple hours at a really nice park in Angel's Camp, which they constantly remind you is the home of the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County so the kids could run around without falling onto rocks for a bit. There were frogs everywhere, I think each store had their own frog dressed in the uniform of that particular establishment. The fire department had two.

Little E discovered that she's a little clumsy around campsites, she left without a scratch on her. She came back with skinned knees from constant falling, a scratch above her right eye from falling into a picnic table at Hogan Lake, and a slight redness from when she was leaning against the trailer door when her big brother opened it from the other side. She went from the inside of the trailer headfirst onto the step and tumbled onto the ground. It all happened so fast, and yet seemed like slow motion to me. But such is life.

They did get to see a lot of tall trees and some taxidermied animals in the Visitor's Center at Big Trees, which Little E loved, she was just as giggly as could be staring at a 5 foot high black bear. Big T also got to go fishing at Hogan Lake. It was his first time, and he spent the first five minutes or so throwing rocks into the water where we were going to fish, so he didn't catch anything. But he had fun casting and reeling in his line.

Some pictures will appear next time with a little more detail. Big T, though, loved the trip and is inviting everybody he meets to go camping with us. A morning hasn't passed yet, that he's asked if we're going back.

Talkin' Baseball

I'm not doing as well as I should be right now as the A's have lost 9 in a row and seem to be on their way to their first meaningless September since 1998. With the way things are going, August might be meaningless. So bring together your friends, light a candle and remember the good times and hope for the best next year.

Also, after 2 out of my 3 softball teams made playoffs last year, which ended up forcing me to pick between them when they played each other in the second round, none of my teams are going this year. I don't really understand why, as we're really the same teams without any major changes. One of the teams is even in a weaker division this year than we were last year. Of course all this means is that I'll get more golf weekdays in this year...I hope. So to cheer myself up and since T-Ball is over now, here's something fun:


Yup, that's my boy. Next year he's going to play in a league where they actually pitch to him instead of just putting the ball on a T and letting them whack at it. If you look at the picture you'll notice a bigger guy in the same red shirt of the Lansing Lugnuts. That's the coach, who didn't really do much. His wife made a snack schedule and at the top she put a picture of a football field, goalposts and a football. The first game out, the coach wore spikes. The last two games, they didn't even come. I don't know how they picked a coach, but it wasn't the best way to go.

Also something that I just noticed: There are two electrician/data cable guys here right now pulling and setting up the data lines in the building in which I work (not that I'm doing this at work) and they're looking for "black tape." I call the same thing "electrician's tape" but apparently when you actually are an electrican, you call it black tape. Why not just "job tape" or "my adhesive"?

And here's today's session of "What You Should Listen To"
It's a song that I'm sure most of you have heard, and if you haven't, you should be ashamed. Hang your head right now and feel pity for yourself that you haven't heard this tune that I'm about to mention. Go have a listen to a little tune called 'Helena' by Nickel Creek, it's on the album "Why Should the Fire Die?" and it's spectacular. There's such a painstaking plea and pure rage. I loves it myself. And yes, Nickel Creek is the greatest band ever.

Camp Town Races

We're going camping soon and as it is going to be Little Lizzy's first trip, and as Big Guy Ty has gone a few times before, we felt that we were ready to try it tent style. The first time we went we took an overcab camper on the old brown truck (RIP), and have gone in Tent Trailers, and even stayed in a cabin once, but never have made it in just a tent. I know some of you feel that the only way to camp is to take a pup tent, a mummy bag, some dehydrated prunes and call it a great time out. I'm not inclined to feel that way. Yes I suppose that it gets you more in tune with nature, but after being in to many pit toilets, well, I don't like that music. So we bought our first tent at the greatest camping store ever, K-mart. Ok, so they're not the best store ever, but they had the tent on sale. It is not actually called a tent, it is known as a Family Vacation Cabin. And, boy is it ever.As you can see it is quite large, 16' x 14' to be exact with a 90" clearance in the middle. It has a port for electrical, comes with a remote tent light, there's a closet in the back, a doormat included, a screened front porch attached, three total rooms and sleeps ten. So of course, this is how I thought we were going to rough it in the wild. Then during our pre-trip attempt to assemble this tent, we discovered that it was going to be a little too rough to get this monster up and also watch two small people. And as I can't get it up all on my lonesome, it went back. We have since ordered a trailer hitch for the most awesome minivan and hope to have that on Tuesday. An attempt will be made to attach that without professional help on Wednesday or Thursday, and of course we'll have to hook up the electrical and then take the Trailer out to make sure everything works before our trip. So we'll see how that all goes. It's only supposed to take a half hour to actually attach the hitch to the van and as everything is pre-drilled, we're hoping that that's the case. I'm just glad that it stays late until 9:30 or so and we'll have enough daylight in case it doesn't quite work out as easily as I hope it does.

Big Guy Ty is excited to go and he's picked out his very own fishing pole, a Spiderman one. He's been practicing out in whatever yard he's in for the past couple weeks now, I think he's just trying to throw that little practice fish over the neighbors fence. I had to get a fishing license to take him fishing, and 37.50 later, I better catch a few whoppers. We're planning to have Miller's hot dogs our second night there, but if Ty and I can get our limit, we'll be having fish sticks instead.

I returned an air mattress that we bought when we thought we'd be in a tent and the lady said that we should rough it at least once. "Do it the hard way" she says. I say that going camping to a new place that's supposed to get up to 96 degrees with two kids under the age of 4, then that is rough, and as such, counts as roughing it. Tent or not, ready or not, look out wildlife, we're a-comin.

Working Class Hero?

Welcome to the biggest little show on this particular blog. I've been lurking and quasi-stalkerish on some blogs for a while now and so, by court order, it's now time for my mind to be unleashed on the world. It's fun for me to read others thoughts and so I am going to make myself believe that others now want to know what's happening in my wonderfully squishy and slightly forgetful mind. Not that it's being helped right now at work where I've been relocated and have a plastic sheet hanging from the celing to help keep the asbestos and sheetrock dust away from my delicate and virginal lungs. I don't know that it's being all that effective as the plastic only comes out halfway across my desk before stopping. I suppose that's as far as dust will travel. I need an Ionic Breeze something fierce right now.

But as my mind is squishy and forgetful and not brave due to the dust and also a fear of having fears, which I believe is called phobophobia, this will be a query about who today's biggest stars are. I pass by a banner on a lightpost everyday coming home from work that proclaims the Concord Pavilion (currently called SleepTrain Pavilion at Concord) to be the place to see, "Today's biggest stars, Under the stars." Then I pass by the pavilion, which is also on my way home...it's a long way home, and it let's me know that coming to the pavilion this year are Al Green, Lyle Lovett, k.d. lang (who doesn't know about capital letters yet), Rush, Styx, Foreigner, Journey (minus one Randy Jackson), Def Leppard, and even Alice Cooper. Now I'm not hip to the current music scene as much as I could be, but how many of these bands are really "Today's Stars"? I know that they're still known, but c'mon. Of course, to be fair, they will also feature Hilary Duff (awesome), Bianca Ryan (who I had to look up and it turns out that she won "America's Got Talent" last year, so I guess we'll see, eh?), and of course Marilyn Manson and Slayer, who I guess are stars. They're certainly a little nuts. But who knows, maybe they'll get some last minute big names.

The music I listen to, however, doesn't usually include many big names, although they're at least under 40. Most are still under 30, which means they're automatically current, right? They have Myspace pages and everything. And for those, mostly on the east coast now, who haven't seen Nickel Creek yet, do it now before they're gone. They're due to be gone as a band after the summer, just as a little FYI. There is nothing more than a fiddle, guitar, mandolin and upright bass, and yet it sounds like so much more. You never know who they'll cover when you see them live. I've heard songs from The Band, Radiohead, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and even Britney Spears. If you've never heard it, google 'Toxic Nickel Creek' and be prepared for awesomeness beyond cooliocity.

And of course, that will be the first of many "Danny Recommends" musical bites for you to chew on with your audio recepticals. And since this is the first post and it's a mini-celebration worthy of corn dogs and a Nick Swisher home run celebration dance, I'll even give you another one to check out. Clear your mind and open your ears, then let your fingers do the walking to find yourself Luke Bulla's interpretation of Exit Music for a Film. I dare you not to remember Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio trying to do Shakespeare. Ha! You have already failed.
"Hand me my longsword!"