What the pile is trying to tell me

So this afternoon I faced down something that I'd been avoiding for months . . .

Deodorant...

Just kidding. I got to "clean out the closet." By my wife's definition this means choosing the clothes that I never wear and putting them into a large bag destined for donation. (or possibly to sit in our garage until I need something she put in there) I took my first shot at it, and apparently shot an "airball." I thought I had created a sufficiently large pile, but Traci made it clear that we were just getting started. You see I have what I call "the rotation." This means I have like 4-6 outfits that I've worn over and over the last 7 years or so . . . and that's about it as far as clothing that gets used. To my credit the rotation does change a bit with the seasons - for instance, I try to keep the grey cotton shorts in the drawer during the most serious blizzards. But I also have my essential back up drawer of miscellaneous t-shirts. Few, if any, of these have ever seen the light of day. But I NEED them, all 36 - unfortunately I can't really explain why to my lovely wife. There are quite a few other things in there that get worn maybe once every 2 years, but I can't part with them. Well, after my feeble attempt, she sat me down and took over. Over the next 20 minutes or so my "wardrobe" (I feel silly calling it that) decreased by exactly 92.56%. In the process she helped me to understand that I have as much sense of style as my three year old does - expect without being cute in any way whatsoever. Also, this enjoyable 20 minutes that I'll never get back served as a pleasant reminder of the several pounds that I've packed on since I last went clothes shopping in the 90s. So that part was fun. Anyway, everything turned out fine. And there's a large bag of clothes in the garage (for now) to prove it.

Here's a little photo of Sydney with "The Pile"

There's no frostbite in baseball!!

Weather in the middle part of the country is about as predictable as my 3 year old girl. She can warm you with hugs and kisses one minute, and send a shiver through your spine by screaming at you for no apparent reason the next. (some recent things I've been screamed at for were terrible evils like when I tried to put socks on her or when I sang her a good night song . . . guess the singing is pretty horrific.) Anyways, a few days ago at my 5 year old's first ever baseball practice it was approaching 80 degrees - wonderful baseball weather. Then this little thing called a "cold front" moved through. I'm no meteorologist, but I think "Fronts" are another name for Mother Nature's mood swings. Just 3 days later I found myself shivering on the same baseball diamond try to convince my son that it really wasn't that cold once you got moving around. (if by "moving around" you mean walking back to the car where the heater was blasting) His first to-do at practice was to pick up a bat and hit a few balls. Pretty benign, right? Well, these bats are made of aluminum, and the part I haven't shared with you yet was that the wind chill put the temperature at 22 degrees. So in essence, when you picked up a bat, it became part of your hand in a painful way. Like a guy with hypothermia hugging a giant ice cube. He was a trooper though and did his thing . . . but the volume of the muttering increased with each swing. By the time he was done, he was in fact, DONE. As his friends fielded grounders and ran around the bases, Braeden let me know that he wouldn't be doing any more baseball today. It was just too cold he told me every few seconds. I tried in vain for almost 30 minutes to convince him that he could do it, partly because all the other kids were doing their thing. But it was in vain - his mind was made up . . . perhaps frozen in place. Eventually he was telling me through slushy tears that he wanted to just go home. Finally, I let my pride down and told him we could leave. As we drove home I asked my son if he had fun . . . almost rhetorically. I got the exaggerated rolling of the eyes that I deserved.

Ah . . . the kissing fish!

Here's a fun one for you, my 5 year old is in watching some cartoon, he just came running in the room laughing hysterically, I said "what happened?"

He said, "Big Jet just got kisses from a kissing fish." And he laughed even harder.

Having kids is great. (I have no idea what he was talking about, but apparently kissing fish are really funny and we should all get some!)

Lest there be any question about what "imports" are . . .

It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas.
--George w. Bush

Beaverton, OR
09/25/2000

On 2 year's rest . . .

So a few days ago I went and tried, stressing that word, to play full-court basketball for the first time in a long while. Going in there with almost two year's rest I assumed I'd totally dominate. Actually, I set the bar a little lower - being able to walk again within 3-4 days would be a stunning success, but I was content with survival. I stretched and jogged around a little bit before we started - this part went marvelously. I even made a few shots in the warm up. Then we began . . . Now let me say in all fairness, I can do 3-4 miles on the treadmill without much struggle, it's not like I'm totally hopeless or anything. But after roughly 2 minutes of play, all of my cells, except for 3 or 4 of 'em, were on fire. I was huffing and puffing so hard I was afraid I was gonna do structural damage to the building. At one point the guy I was guarding got an outlet pass and went flying down the court towards his goal. Now I knew exactly what I needed to do, I just needed to run him down and get in front of him. He had a little head start, but I knew I could catch him . . . At least my mind knew it. With literally no one around me I took two quick steps towards him . . . I was off to the races, or so I thought. Then, like some kind of drunk panda bear, the top half of my body kept moving in the direction I wanted it to, but the feet were quite content to be stationary. I fell flat on my face at midcourt, skidded to an ugly halt, and my guy scored. A thing of beauty. It's rough to spontaneously fall down on your face, all alone, for no apparent reason. All the guys were good enough to not say anything to me about it, but there was no need - any semblance of pride in my hoops prowess is gone. I'll keep going back though. The moral of the story: I should've probably stretched more or at least have worn protective gear with an oxygen mask.

So shopping is a REALLY big deal I gather . . .

I saw this bizarre article and couldn't help but share. I mean, I get that you wanna save a few dollars or find that special something, but, come on . . .

Fantasy Football

So it's the day before Thanksgiving and things at work here are slow to say the least. So I decided to research a little for my fantasy football picks this weekend. I discovered what millions already know, - there's WAY too much information out there. I just watched videos with expert commentary and everything. How do you get to be a Fantasy Football expert?! Those were NOT the guys getting dates in high school. From what I gather, it's all these guys do. There are pages and pages of "recommendations" and "rankings" to help out those of us who, you know, can't dedicate more time to Fantasy Football than we do sleeping. These guys tried very hard to crack jokes and act like this is entirely like hosting a day time talk-show or something, . . . didn't work. Shockingly, these weren't the best-looking guys you've ever seen and u can kinda picture them holed up in their parent's basements with 3 or 4 computer screen pouring through really important information, like how does Drew Brees do in away games on astroturf in the 3rd Sunday of November with a republican in the white house and a slight bruise on his non-throwing wrist. Anyway, I was quickly over-whelmed with advice so I made my little picks, and well, . . . I'm headed back to real life now as opposed to fantasy football life. Do you think those guys make more $ than I do? . . .

I suppose there are worse things to collect

Just when you thought nothing too interesting ever happens in Canada . . .

You know what to do . . . right?!

So you may not know that I have 4 kids (ages 7, 5, 3, and 1). Well my wife left tonight to go to DC where her sister just had a baby. That leaves me home to "babysit." (I've never understood why when the dad stays with the kids it's called "babysitting." But that's no big deal.) My wife is great, and I could write all day about why, but one thing she does is worry that I'm gonna miss something important - yes, there's good reason for her to do that. But for the last several weeks she's be writing various lists to remind me of the million or so things that I could forget to do while she's gone. I get that there's a lot to remember and I'm a remedial Mr Mom, but I started to chuckle (in secret of course) at all the reminders. This morning though was the ultimate question from my wife:

Her: "You know what to do if you guys run out of food, right?"

(Long, awkward pause where I looked for her to show a sign of sarcasm, you know, like a smirk or laugh . . .)

(I'm still waiting for that sign . . .)

I must be worse at this than I thought . . . oh well, I know that if we run out of food we go to my parent's house, so at least I've got a good answer. =)

Rodent Power

So the next time your flight is late, you might look into this as the cause . . .

My favorite part is that the plane is still grounded.