The Prize

The dentist visit went well yesterday. He has no cavities, and as a prize for being good, he got himself a Black & Decker play tool set. It came with a screwdriver, hammer, two bolts with nuts, and two nails. When I was a good boy at the dentist office at that age, I got that plastic frog with the tab on his ass that you would push down and it would jump into the air, tumble around and land on its back. When did full toy tool sets come into play? If my satanic old dentist from when I was a little boy had given me toys like that, I wouldn't have locked myself in the bathroom at his office to avoid going in there. I also probably wouldn't have tried to escape from his chair as he was approaching me. I'da thought, 'Hey, all I have to do is suffer through this hairy nosed beast for a few minutes, and I'll get myself a radio controlled hovercraft.' That totally would have gotten me through the horrors of my former dentist. Well, maybe not totally, but it certainly would have helped.

We're also watching the Yosemite fires with great interest right now, as we've got reservations to be camping there in a few weeks. We're not so much concerned with the lack of power, as we'll be using a nearly 35 year old tent trailer, but with the abundance of smoke. It's going to be little E's first trip to the great valley, and if we can't see the top of half dome from the Ahwahnee, then why go? Hopefully, by the time it comes around to us leaving, the smoke will also be gone. My dad and I have to go over to my wife's parents house, as it's there tent trailer, and rewire the hitch again. We seem to do this almost every time we leave. I went over there the other day to check it to make sure it worked, and it blew my brake fuse. So something's not right. I figured we'd go anyway, but I don't suppose it's a good idea for the people behind me to not know when I'm slowing down. It may cause a problem I don't want.

Go See the Dentist

My little boy is going to the dentist for the first time today. I'm not taking him as I just went last week, and I get to go again in a month for a really fun 'procedure' called root planing. I'm not going to describe the fun that it is, if you want to know about it, google it. I take no responsibility for what you may find.

He's had teeth for a while, but we haven't taken him into the dentist before because I didn't want him to experience the horrors that I did as a youngster. But his aunt has become a hygenist and is willing to be the one who cleans his teeth. I'm not to hot on the dentist she works for, but I guess I can't win them all. Or even win a few. I get a victory here and there, but I think that's what marriage is all about. Losing. Anyhoo, he's gonna be in there and probably not getting teeth cleaned to much, mostly will probably be riding the chair and having them counted and seeing where his aunt works. Hopefully it won't be a horrible experience that will haunt him for the rest of his life, forcing him to live in fear of any kind of dental work. Not that I do, much. Let's just hope for the best, yeah?

On a happier note, yesterday I went to Lowes all by myself, and that was wonderful. I got a lot of neccessities for the fountain area, and planted many new flowers and ferns and such. I hope that they all survive. If I can get about 80% through to the next summer, I'll consider yesterday's planting a success. Also, I get a year for them to die where Lowes will replace them. I'm keeping that receipt.

How Do You Sleep?

We have learned a few things about the Beta fish lifestyle. I've never had a fish at all, well, I had a goldfish for a couple weeks once, but that was it. My lovely wife has had large aquariums before, with multiple fish inside, even had little frogs to clean it. Her knowledge of these water creatures is that they don't sleep. At all. If they don't move, then they die. Apparently, this doesn't apply to the wonder Beta, as Dory is a lazy little fish. He'll just lie on his little fake plant and just stay there. No movement at all, no fins flippering around or anything. It's possible that we have a fish that gets seizures and has them frequently throughout the day, but I feel that this is unlikely.

The first time this happened, I thought we'd killed the little guy. Maybe that he'd somehow become trapped inside the deathlike grips of the plastic plant and simply could not escape. So I shook the plant a bit and he came back to life and swam around in his little circles. So for those of you who are considering a little neat-o Beta fish, keep in mind that ours has a tendency to sort of nod off. Of course, this could be a very common occurrence in these fish, but nobody at the pet store gave us the warning of, "Hey, these guys will sort of slip into little fish comas. So don't freak if you see it happen, they're fine and will resume movement."

Fisherman's Wharf

We took the kids into San Francisco on Saturday to meet up with the now infamous Aummom, whom I knew back when we were just angst ridden teenagers. It was good to see her again as it's been many moons since we last talked. So since she was at the BlogHer convention in the city, we decided to make a day of it in SF and went to Pier 39, apparently the long way, and just moseyed. As a bonus, we got some Boudin sourdough off the pier and had a mini lunch-dinner, or Linner that night.

It was the first trip into San Francisco for the kiddo's and after driving around there for the few hours we were there, I remembered why I hate doing that so much. It's just to much confusion for me. It appears as though there's a logic to the streets, but just when you figure it out, it changes. Plus, the GPS didn't really help as much as I thought it would, as it didn't seem to know which streets were one way streets. I say this because it took us about 20 minutes to get from the hotel to the pier, and then about 4 to get back, as we discovered that we were actually one street over from Powell. I don't know the city at all. I'm much better at checking where BART goes and getting off at the appropriate stop and walking to my destination.

So another pic of the kiddos, this one at Fisherman's Wharf:
Also, tonight while I was giving that darling little angel on the left up there a bath, she pooed in the tub. That was awesome. It's the first time I've ever scrubbed a tub. I hope to never do that again.

Hot Rod Lincoln

Got myself a speeding ticket yesterday, in my minivan, that was a bummer as I was thinking to myself at the time, "Don't get a ticket." I didn't try to get out of it, as I'm not a sexy type girl. I don't know what I could do to try to keep an officer to not get me a ticket, if you know of anything, I'd love to hear it. I do know that I can go to traffic school, and that I can do that online, which is great, as I've done it in a classroom and that was horribly boring. Besides the fine that's a-comin' the worst part of this is that now for the next 18 months, I won't be able to go to traffic school again, and as such will have to be the perfect driver. That's the real tragedy.

I got that ticket on my way to my last softball game, which we won. The team we played was undefeated with one tie, now they have one loss and one tie. We're the team that gave them both. I also almost killed a guy during the game. This one was unintentional. I was coming across second on a double play ball and in stepping further sideways to avoid the runner coming in, my approx 65 mph throw to first was slightly off line and just barely out of reach of the first baseman. Unfortunately for the runner after he crossed first he ran directly to the point where the ball was going and it hit him right behind his ear. It made a sickening thunk ball on skull sound and his legs just stopped working and he went down limp. He got up a couple seconds later claiming he was fine. He asked the guy on his team coaching first if the ball hit him. His coach said, "Uh, yeah dude. In the head." The mohawked dude that I hit stayed in the game and throughout it said he was fine and didn't seem affected to much by it, so I guess it worked out fine, but thank God it didn't hit him in front of his ear. I've hit a select person before on the basepaths, but that was in the middle of his back and he had it coming.

So all in all another interesting day for me yesterday, and it all happened within the same three hour period. I need to try to spread these things out more.

Fishin' Blues

Here he is.

It's been named Dory, like in Finding Nemo. I don't get it personally, as it's a guy fish now named after a ditzy female fish. I voted for Zeke, but got shot down. But as it's the kids fish, they get to name it. Hopefully this guy will last for a while. There is a 15 day return policy, where if we bring the dead fish back with a sample of the water, and it's determined that it's not our fault it died, we get another one. These were labled in the store as "Hardy and Easy to Maintain" which is exactly the type of fish we need.

Drive My Car

Yesterday was odd for me. More than usual. I had a contact lens fitting in the morning to return to my two-eyed days, and the computers weren't working so I got to wait for a while whilst she hand wrote everything to get me set up. The fitting itself went great, thanks for asking. Which was nice, because the last time I tried one of those, I didn't get anything because she didn't feel that I was ready for them. But in hopefully just a couple of weeks, I'll be contact lens guy, and not that guy with the glasses. I don't know how much all this will end up costing, but I'm hoping for the best, even though my left eye has so much astigmatism in it that they're going to have to custom make the contact for it. Yup, you heard me, custom contacts baby.

This appointment was in the morning out by our house and away from my work, since my wife's parents are in Disneyland. . .again, my mom's been watching the kids, so normally I'd just take them to her house on my way to work, but since I wasn't going to work in the morning, my wife had to get the kids up and ready and meet my mom. I don't remember the last time that she had to do that, and needless to say, she didn't complete the task on time. Which was fine. But it was nice to wake up and not have to do that.

Then the weirdest thing happened last night. Well, maybe not the weirdest thing but totally odd. I was heading down to get the mail, as our box is in front of our neighbors house due to lazy mailmen, and he was out there and I commented about his new truck. This guys probably about 55ish, has two grown daughters and had an old red Toyota Tacoma. Now he has a new '09 (as he repeatedly told me) Toyota Tacoma. He's obviously very proud of this new vehicle, as it's also the first automatic he's ever had. Which was impressive to me, as I've never had a stick. But as he was showing me the interior, he says to me, "Go on, take it for a ride." I thought he was kidding or something, but he wasn't and I wasn't sure how to say, "That's a fine and generous offer, but I'm afraid to crash into a pole and ruin your nifty new little truck." So I took it for a ride down the street and back, he was very proud and excited about his new acquisition, and rightfully so. After 13 years of that old beat up thing, he's finally earned his new one. But my dad bought a new GMC Sierra three years ago right after we bought our house, and he still won't let me drive it! Maybe because he knows me better than my neighbor does.

All-Star

Got this link from my dad the other day. We went to a Ports game to see number 17, Sammy Carter because my little brother used to play ball with him in high school. He was an all-star this year and hit in the Home Run Derby, didn't win, but played. This little scuffle didn't happen there, or at Stockton, but it got me thinking that my brother knows two professional athletes. One being Sammy, who's in High A ball for the Padres. And Matt Gutierrez, who's backup, backup for one Tom Brady. I didn't play with anyone who's now a professional athlete. I played against a few in little league, and met plenty, but never was a teammate with one. Both these guys are really good guys, so I'm happy for their success and hope to see them on the big stage someday.

Of course, when I was a kid I used to dream about being a big league ballplayer. The closest I get to that now is the slow pitch softball games that I play. I played golf in High School, that's right folks, be impressed. Lettered and everything, but now, it's hard to even get out a few times a month. I see these guys playing a game for a living and I'm not so much jealous of their success and ability to play on an elite level, but boy, I'd love to play just half as much as they get to. I think that's the real tragedy here, I'm getting in worse shape by the day. I'm a bit to lazy to exercise all that much, I believe it was Neil Armstrong who said, "I believe that my heart only has so many beats in it, and I'm not going to waste them on exercise." Amen to that brother. But if I could get myself out there more, not only would my skill rise, but it'd be tons o' fun. The only other thing is that it's hard for me to find people to play with that live near me. I usually end up going out on the course and pairing up with someone I don't know, and while that can be fine, it can get old quick. Especially when there's a massive gap in skill.

Put on Your Sunday Clothes

There was a concert Saturday night in nearby hick-town of Clayton. It was a country cover band who weren't that great. Possibly bad even. The musicians were good, but the lead singer was a 50 year old Filipino. She couldn't sing very well at all. It was a very strange experience there, as all the songs she sang were either Shania Twain, Faith Hill, or Gretchen Wilson. I'm sure there were some others also, but not very many However, it was free, and it was at a nice new park with a playground on it. So most of my time was spent over there watching my kids. That was great, as Little E spent most of her time running up the stairs across the long second floor of the play structure, and down the swirl slide. At the bottom of the slide, she'd run back over to the stairs and start over. She did that for about 20 minutes straight. Then we had to take a break for a while and have her drink some water. Then it was another half hour or so of that after we went back. The only interruption of her quest to go down the slide was when the older kids were confused as to the proper direction of the slide and would head back up while she was coming down.

Mr. T, on the other hand, was much more adventurous. He discovered some older kids and decided to run rampant with them, which may have ended badly, as a couple of them had fists cocked and ready to go. When T put his up, it was time to get back to the blanket.

All this was going to happen before going to the Drive-In to see Wall-E, as I still am unclear as to the happenings of that little robot. However, we discovered that, for some reason it was the second feature, and it is paired with 'Hellboy 2'. Seriously, not making that one up, you can go see Hellboy 2 at 8:30ish, and then when that little slice o' Heaven is over, you get to see Wall-E. If you make it through Wall-E (which starts at 11:40 pm) you can watch Hellboy 2 again. Sounds like a great night of fun. Why pair PG-13 Hellboy 2, a rollicking adventure of sci-fi action and violence, and G rated Wall-E, a family friendly sci-fish film? Well I figure, that since both descriptions of the films say that they're sci-fi movies, the geniuses at the Drive-In figure, what the heck. They'll be fine together. Needless to say, if they had wanted to pair them together, why not put the G rated family film first, so the kids could see that and the parents could then take them home to go to sleep while the rest of the grown up audience could see Hellyboy 2 at the appropriate time. But I guess that's why more people know where the Drive-In is because of the Flea Market.

Side notation: We're really close to getting the kids a couple of little goldfish, as they're only 26 cents each. However, we learned from the pet store people that a little one gallon fish tank isn't big enough and we need to have a filter, and special water cleaner and such or the fish will die. When we were at the pet store, I saw about 10 out of 40 of these 26 cent fish floating around in a lifeless fashion. So tonight, we're going to another pet store to get some cheap fish who will in all likelyhood die within a few months. I am not going to feel guilty about this death as the pet store has all the necessary equipment and can't seem to keep them alive. But if we don't go with the 26 cent goldfish, we'll just run with the 12 cent Feeder Fish. Since their name implies that they are bred to die, no heartbreak there either. Now the question is, should we just keep replacing the dead fish as they come or allow the kids to see the wonders of nature at work. Maybe it would help them cope if they flushed the toilet. But seeing Finding Nemo as much as they have, we'll probably get new ones as we discover dead ones. After all, they're just little kids.

What's New, Pussycat?

I have been slightly derilict in my posting duties. (heh, I said duties.) But there have been many things happening of late, I've changed to my new cell phone, we've just received a new Nikon D40 kit, the A's have got a few new players, and the New Year America style has just happened as well. Happy Birthday to U.S. baby. So some quick snapshot style happenings.

I've changed the Nokia celly that I'd picked for the Sony, it's green, lean, and sexy. Like the Hulk if it was a midget. It's neat-o keen in all it's sleek glory. Only drawback? It has 12MB of memory in the phone, but 6.5 of that is already gone. So although it's a free phone, we had to buy a $27 memory card to add all my kickass ringtones to it.

Our new camera has arrived from SoCal. We bought it from Costco for supercheap and wouldn't have even known about it had my dad not called. He wasn't sure if it was a good idea for him to let us know about the deal, as he feared we'd make a rash judgment purchase. But he did, we got it, and have 90 days to take it back. We don't know if we'll keep it, though it's ninja like greatness is only matched by my new haircut. But since we've got a trip to Yosemite planned we figure we'll take it for that, see if it is really what we're wanting, and go from there.

As for the 4th of July, it was good. Played some baseball, even took on some 4 square baby. I was like super good at that one. Never played that I could remember.

There it is, in the driveway of the Aunt and Uncle, there are two blood relatives in the picture and an in-law, and a future in-law. The ball, not regualtion. It was almost as high as T is.

It was a fun day, and on the way home, after watching the fireworks from those lawn chairs in the driveway, we saw this...Yup, that's ol' Herbie. Lindsay wasn't driving, but I have to admire the guy for going all out with the paint. I've never seen one of these before. I'm sure there's a few other scattered around out in the midwest or whatnot, but here? My first sighting.

Hope your Fourth was fantastic also.

She Said She Said

My little innocent, little girl is becoming less innocent and more like an annoying teenager. Yesterday, as we were coming home from the library with her big brother, she started one of her fits, when I buckled her in, she helped with the top portion, but not the main buckle on the bottom. I informed her that the next time we buckled her in, she could do the bottom but not right now. That's when she started telling me, over and over, "Daddy, you don't tell me no."

That in itself would be bad enough, but this morning as I was trying to get her out of the toyroom and into the van to go to my in-laws, she was ignoring me. So I got her brother into the van and was heading back inside, when she opened the garage door and, while using a much deeper voice than I've ever heard her use, pointed her finger at me and said, "Daddy, you come here. Now!"

So I've got to put a stop to this now, before she really is a teenager. If she's going to act like this now. I don't want to know what it'll be like in about 12 years. Not fun.