corndog and rootbeer

The New Normal

2010-08-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

Something funny happens with parenting. About year 5 or so…you finally let go of your life before kids. It’s like some hazy distant memory bathed in golden dappled sunlight from that summer in Mexico in 1986.

Early parenting is like sporting fresh heartbreak, you go from day to day in your new situation unable to shake or accept the fact that you’re no longer dating Angelina Jolie. And to make matters worse, you keep bumping into her and she’s with that new dude and you can’t even really strike up a conversation because you’ll inevitably have to make fun of his performance in Meet Joe Black.

But you can’t keep your eyes off of her.

You sigh every so often.

And time, marches on. One day followed by another long-ass day.

But the years, like little ninjas, sneak past your guard. And you realize one day that she’s become a funny story in your life, just cocktail conversation really. You have trouble believing it yourself.

“Hey I used to date that chick Angelina Jolie forealzyo”

It’s so foreign now.

I don’t know what I did before kids. It’s profane, the amount of time I had.

“I think I’ll practice my beer pong today.”

“I wonder if I could learn to do a cartwheel.”

“A sesame seed is like how many poppy seeds big?”

“Should I compare all the Pupusas in the area and like make like a list of which ones are best?”

“What should be my next hairstyle?”

“Can I rap?”

“No not this bar, lets go to an even better bar!!!!!”

Yeah…stupid shit. Hours and hours of time used as building material for a giant effigy of King Meh and his golden burro, SirDanceALot. It’s like some dude collecting arrowheads to make a pretty necklace for Burning Man while I’m trying to sharpen a stick to stab a rodent to eat before I die. Pre-kids vs. post-kids mang.

By the third kid, you kinda have your systems in place. The days although still long, are not necessarily fraught with new challenges.

I can touch poo.
I have an internal atomic clock time-out timer in my brain.
I can carry three carseats while texting
I can tell which kid is out of bed by their acoustic footprint.
I can titrate children’s Tylenol
I can walk with screaming kids unaware of the general public staring at me
I can spend every night of my life, after the kids are finally in bed, putting the house back together as if I’m closing a restaurant with shitty hours and no pay.
I can do all this with a dumb smile on my face, because it is my new normal.

Has been. For a while now.

It’s kinda weird finding myself in this place. Settled comfortably, steering this slow boat into the middle years of my life. I’ve navigated past the party boats, the yachts, the grand sailboats and sleek racers jockeying to get under the bridge. I’m finally hitting open water.

The middle years seem vast. It’s a bit calmer, a bit sharkier, and city lights have been replaced by an equally beautiful starlight. And as my oldest kid starts kindergarten this week, I’ve realized how quickly and quietly the years can slip by. Before you know it,
you look back and can barely see the shore.
Maybe Angelina’s on it. Waving goodbye. To somebody.

Oh Yeah, Did I Mention Our New Kid?

2010-02-25T21:28:00.000-08:00

Yeah we’ve gone zone defense. Tres kids. I had this great idea to blog more with the birth of my third child, to document the first year of his life with great detail in order to preciously encapsulate his entry into this mad crazy world.

What the hell was I smoking.

You know, going from zero to one child is definitely the hardest. It reshapes your entire identity. I don’t give a damn who the hell you were before that, you’re now a parent. Blahblahblah. Now you’d think going from one to two would be about twice the work of one…

Wrong.

Going from one kid to two kids is definitely 2.378 times the work of one (that‘s a period not a comma). I can show you the calculations.

Now going from two to three….definitely not as bad as I had feared…..but still bad. You get into this strange antediluvian property of the oldest child being able to actually assist you in the day-to-day tasks necessary during parenthood.

“Son, hold this.”
“Son, grab the fire extinguisher”
“Son, hold the steering wheel for a second”
“Son, hit the raccoon for real this time”
“Son, is my head bleeding a lot or just a little, my vision is temporarily suspended”
“Son, dial 911 on the real phone not the Wall-E phone”
“Son, I’m not going to tell you again…yes that was a real alligator, now get me Mr. BooBoo”
“Son, what did I just eat?”

Four-year-olds can do all kinds of shit. Unless they’re sleepy. When they’re sleepy they’re like little Tony Montanas at the end of Scarface reeling around the room looking for more effective weapons. Fortunately I am immune to nerf.

What was I saying?

Oh yeah, three. We had our third baby. Our last planned kid. And in one way it’s a relief. We can finally see the end of the tunnel for this stage of parenting. The diapers, the bottles, the sleep training, the childcare issues for newborns, the herniated belly buttons, the gallons of spit-up, the nuclear bomb shelter stockpile of industrially pumped breast milk. But in another way, it’s so so sad. Have you ever tried to shove a four year old into a Bjorn? It’s embarrassing on many levels and functionally almost impossible.

I can hold my baby in my arms, like a football. I can run really fast with him like this. I can hurdle immense objects like stray juice box straws with the greatest of ease. I can wear him while playing my PS3 and still rain pwnge on yoooob like failgravy from the gods of mt. pwnlympus.

Sorry.

I’m going to miss this baby. His balding head like mine. Oh crap yeah that’s another thing I’m freaking going bald. Wait I have to save this for another post.

His puny yet unnamed fists (mine are named Thelma and Louise but that’s neither here nor there).

His little baby faces of indignation when confronted with the injustices of this world. Like zomg what’s this feeling before I shart? Or the ever present, am I being stabbed or am I hungry?

You kind of wish you could revisit all of the ages of your children at your leisure. When they’re on a two week Vegas bender in your stolen car at the age of 13, it would be nice to make them infants again. When you’re trying to get a Phil&Ted’s onto the BART and Mr. No-I’m-Not-Going-To-Move-For-You-Because-As-You-Can-Tell-By-My-Briefcase-I-Am-Kinda-A-Big-Deal isn’t getting out of your way, it would be nice to switch them into something a little more mobile….like 27ish maybe.

Mostly I’d probably keep switching from 4 months to 4 years unless I needed to really get something off the top shelf. Damn kids I hope you grow bigger than me. Parental Hint: Don’t start smoking at 13.

And to be honest, I’m going to miss myself at this stage.

A young father is like a drunk bear. Indomitable spirit and full of fight. Possibly lacking his bearings a bit, but fierce like a 40 year old gay man in a Twilight t-shirt. You cannot domitable me because I am indomitable. You see I am way too young at this stage of my life to know how things will end up…so I am going to assume they end up swimmingly. And you can’t change my mind on this. I know that through hard work and sacrifice, I will absolutely succeed in every single damn thing I ever casually attempt in this world and I will shine like a damn supernova.

See all that crap I just typed. Only a young father could believe that shit. And I do. And this is the charming smarmy bastard I am going to miss the most. Me at 37, raising a family.

Before I lose the last of my hair.
Before that vacation home in Healdsburg never materializes.
Before I fail to retire at 47.
Before my kids think I was an OK Dad but a little too into the blogging thing.
Before my wife one day says she made the “smartest” choice in marrying me
Before my Ferrari never gets here.
Before I realize that my kids friends think I’m that Dad that tries too hard to be cool.
Before I’m the oldest guy at the club.
Before my kids don’t go to UCLA
Before I stop laughing at how ridiculous these sentences are.

Before I grow up maybe.

I’m strong.

Being a Father makes it so. And at this moment
I know, in my relative youth, that I will miss the man that I am today.
A father who believed for a moment that
with his family in tow,
he could never fail.

Viva Los Tentacles

2009-12-01T14:22:00.000-08:00

“In my defense, these prison walls…they couldn’t hold anything in at all.”- Mariachi El Bronx

2009-09-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

You take an LA punk band named after a NYC borough and have them release a Mariachi album. You know what you get? The beautiful soundtrack to my current life. With the house we bought and all that comes with it ( you see what I did there Dan?) 2009 has been a series of dervishes and small fires. But with 60% of our boxes unpacked after living here for 4 months, I’m starting feel enough of a semblance of my former self to suddenly realize…what the hell just happened?

You see the problem lies in the tiny fact that somehow I am still not in Los Angeles.

In fact, strategically, I don’t see how buying a new house get’s me closer to this goal. Add to this the fact that my wife is constantly accompanied by this man and I'm lead to believe that something might be amiss here.

I may have been outmaneuvered. I think she swept the leg.

Maybe it’s for the best. She’s only known the Henri with that chunk missing, the LA piece. She might not like the complete me that she would meet back home. I’m like Voltron minus one tiger arm. I mean let’s say we get down there and she’s like… “Wassup with that flaming sword?”

Oh I’m sorry, you didn’t know I’m Voltron?

Meh.

Our new house calls to me with endless projects. So many little bits and big bits to repair and restore. By the time we got her she was incontinent and had been through one too many abusive relationships. I’m sorry anyone let you get like this. Built in 1915 this fine girl has seen it all. She saw the country go dry during the roaring twenties, she lived through the great depression, she watched the neighborhood boys leave to fight in World War II, she welcomed as many back as she could. She watched the Fords and Chevy’s rumble through her streets in the fifties, and listened to the college kids find their voices during the sixties. She listened to disco and newro. She’s watched many families grow and move on. I want to make sure she sees some better days.

So far I’ve given her new pipes wherever I could. I’ve put in a basement drainage system to keep her dry. New electric panel and systems to put some new spark in her. We’ve taken up three generations of flooring from the kitchen and removed the old furnace chimney. The giant asbestos monster octopus in the basement is long gone…freeing up a bit of breathing room for a truly bad-ass 98% efficient, full filtration, tiny monster of a modern furnace.

The fact of the matter is…I know we’re in this house for a bit. In this place. Away from Los Angeles for an uncertain period of time. And through tendrils of slowly sinking roots I hang on tight to the flickering hope that my first girl will continue to wait for me. It might be longer than I had believed, but every year or so I have to remind myself, and her, that one day I’ll be back.

So to make a long story short, that’s the reason why you hear Mariachi El Bronx coming from my pants every time you see me. I‘m just homesick.

People think it’s my ringtone.

Sorry bro, it’s my theme music. I’ll turn it off when I’m done.

The Pope of Dirty Thirties

2009-08-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

That’s odd. Yeah I’m sitting here in my living room and it’s oh…10 am and I’m all alone. I don’t work Mondays and the kids are in preschool and the wife, she got called in to work today to sub out another doc. And I’m thinking to myself…when in the hell was the last time I had a day to myself?

Damn. Maybe 4 or 5 years?

I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m kinda into this parenting/husbandry thing. But I’m sitting here in my living room with the leftover bone piece of a giant cowboy steak from the night before, a 7-11 cup filled with ice and black coffee, and I’m watching the Pope of Greenwich Village.

A giant steakbone, big gulp sized superblack iced-coffee, couch, empty morning, and the Pope of Greenwich Village.

I just had to repeat it again.

And in the middle of all this grace, I have to figure out what to do with the entire rest of the day.

This is good. Really really good.

It’s the kind of DIY grubby happiness that filled all of my college years. Usually a cottonheaded Sunday morning that was hot already, the first of many camel lights, a coke a coffee, some M&M’s, and big fat smile knowing I had to figure out what to do that day other than study. The heat in Los Angeles. My weak-ass little window swamp cooler. My ghetto apartment in oh-so-not-ghetto Brentwood, down the street from OJs wife.

Grubby happiness.

You really can’t let me out of my cage. I’ll devolve pretty quickly. I need some structure and deadlines and urgent tasky things to do to weigh me down. I could easily follow this morning with video games, 7-11 runs, assorted scratching and daydreaming until my wife came home to find college Henri sitting in the living room asking for more ashtrays.

Seriously WTF happened to Mickey Rourke? The Pope of Greenwich Village is such a great film. And don’t get me started on Barfly. That would be a great double header.

Some days when I miss LA I’ll watch Wassup Rockers, Entourage, and Quinceanera all together. It’s like those jelly belly combinations. It works really well, takes the edge off for a few weeks.

There I go…devolving. Thinking of weird random stuff.

I think a lot about the day when the last kid goes off to college, and before the first kid comes back home to slum it for a few years. I think me and my wife will look at each other and say….what now? Or more like….I’m bored.

It’s odd how we get there. Baby steps. Slowly going from independent individuals, to parents who don’t really function that great without their primary objectives tearing up the house.

And it’s odd how that chain smoking slacker that used to live in the Westside, that dude that would spend those awesome lazy Sunday mornings driving along the beach in his little Celica with the top down, would end up here. Gigantic mortgage, cool little neighborhood that the fifties forgot, a job, a wife, some kids, some happiness.

Kinda like those little precursor fault-line tremors that build up to the big one. I think today is a way to look back at slacker youth and smile and reminisce before I break down in 10 years and buy a Ferrari in true “the big one” midlife crisis fashion.

I just wanted to say that I got a lazy day off with my breakfast of champions watching the Pope of Greenwich Village. I still have the Celica. It’s parked right outside. Maybe I’ll go for a drive today.

Marriage in the Time of Geese and Aeroplanes

2009-08-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

So I was at a kick ass brunch this morning celebrating the double baptism of my boy Fayedunnaway’s daughter and nephew when his wife, who I usually try to hit on because our boy Puffy is no longer around to hit on her, turns to me to tell me something about MetroDad.

First of all MetroDad is my boy because

a) We’re eerily similar in numerous odd ways.

and

b) Homie gave me a shout out on his blog way back which led to the raging success and fame of my own abandoned blog which led me to the tens and twenties of readers who adore me quarterly.

But then she said something funny…she said divorce. And I said wut?

And all I could think of was that damn conservatory of butterflies where he proposed to Bosslady. One thing I accepted long ago was the mystery and utter wackiness of life. I dated this girl in college for years and one night she came over and said it’s over. Out of the blue. The odd thing was that throughout our relationship we never had a single fight. I said wut? Then sadly moved on, sucker punched. I didn’t put up too much of a fight. I figured it’s hard enough to find the right person to be with in life…the last thing I wanted was to be with someone that needed convincing to stay with me. So good luck and go…quickly.

But marriage is a whole ‘nuther ball of wax. And add kids to the mix…and boy forget about it.

I’m absolutely shocked that I’m still married to my wife. I’m shocked that any marriage can survive kids. I’ll tell you the reason why.

It’s all dumb luck.

What people don’t get is the fact that having a kid, raising a kid, being married with kids, is an experience that cannot be prepared for or logically planned. Before you have your first kid, there is no way in hell you can possible pick the right co-parent. And that’s what marriage with kids is all about…finding your co-parent.

Ok. Say you’ve never flown a plane. All you know about piloting planes is what society and pop culture tells you. Now imaging picking your copilot. There are a few really stupid ways to pick a co-pilot.

“I want a co-pilot that’s hot”
“I want a co-pilot that makes me laugh”
“I want a co-pilot that’s rich”
“I want a co-pilot that likes the same movies that I do.”
“I want a co-pilot that is upwardly mobile”
“I want a co-pilot that drives a Porsche”
“I want a co-pilot that completes me”

Ok. Now you and the co-pilot you’ve picked get to go fight a fucking war.

“Damn I shouldn’t have picked the funny one”

I want a co-pilot that can fly a friggin plane with me.

You really, seriously, can not predict from dating how someone is going to go into war with you. It’s dumb luck. When it goes well people like to pat themselves on the back and say…damn I always knew the right person that I was looking for. When it goes bad, people always say, they didn’t try hard enough to make it work. The hell with that, I say you make the best choice you can with impossibly limited information and cross you fingers and hope for the best. Dating will never prepare you for parenting. And you will never know how a person will co-parent until you’re in a dogfight.

Then again you can have two great co-pilots that fly the plane great but one still punches out because they can’t stand the music on the plane radio that the other person insists on.

I dunno.

And then there’s “the one” argument. We have to divorce because I’m not in love with you anymore. You’re not “the one”.

Screw that.

Many people might think I’m a dick for what I’m about to say but marriage ain’t about love. It’s about commitment. It’s about being so committed that you’ll ignore the fact that you were meant to be with Megan Fox, despite the number of times she calls you, in order to follow through and raise a kid.

And despite all that, there’s this. Sometimes divorce, as nasty as it is, might be the right thing to do for the sake of your kids. If it ain’t going to work, dear god let it not work sooner rather than later. A lifetime of parents who stayed married for “your” sake really isn’t as great as it’s cracked up to be. It can hurt kids just as much, it’s just a slower more drawn out pain.

I believe in fighting like hell for a good co-parent. And fortunately I happen to love my wife like a madman, despite her silly rules like please stop dating Megan Fox. But that’s just gravy. I just need to keep this damn plane in the air. But all I really wanted to say is that this blog, for me, will never reflect the man that I am but rather the man that I had hoped to be. And with this in mind, I know that my boy MetroDad would do whatever he could for the sake of his girl. And I do believe Pierre would do the same. And I’m sorry for the struggle involved in reaching their ultimate understanding but I trust it was as right as rain.

Son Meet Hockey

2009-06-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

“What’s that?”
“It’s the Stanley Cup Final”
“What’s that?”
“It’s called Hockey”
“How come they---
“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGHGHGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“How come you yelled?”
“AAAAARGARRGGGH NONONONONONONONONOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”
“How come NONONONONO?”
[heavy breathing]
“No Yelling Daddy!”
“It’s called Hockey”
“Ok Dad”
“See the puck?”
“No”
“It’s right there”
“No”
“Now it’s there”
“No”
“It’s there now”
“No”
“See it? It went there”
“No”
“Ok there it is there”
“I See it!”
“Ok they have to hit it into the net”
“Ok”
“And they ride ice skates”
“Ok”
“It’s like futbol”
“OK”

[1:32 seconds pass]

“AARARRRARRGHHGHGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!NONONONONONONONONONONONONON”
“No Yelling Daddy!”
[heavy breathing]
“Mommy says how come there’s no goalie?”
“They pull the goalie to have more offensive players”
“But DAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaad”
“Yeah Buddy?”
“Wassagoalie?”

....

“Dad they’re fighting!!!!!”
“No son they’re hugging.”
“How come?”
“Because they won the Stanley Cup Finals”
“How’d they win?”
“They scored two goals and the other team only scored one”
“That’s not enough Dad”
“Huh?”
“Dad that’s only 3”
“Yeah 3 goals total, but one team has 2 and the other team 1”
“That’s not enough that’s only 3”
“You just have to have more goals than the other team to win”
“Because they got it into the tent?”
“Yeah they got it into the tent more”
“Now the other team is sad?”
“Yeah son they’re sad”
“They crying?”
“Yeah maybe, but it’s ok”
“It’s OK to cry?”
“It’s always OK to cry when you lose the Stanley Cup Finals”
“OK”

....

“Dad I want to play Hockey with them!”
“With those guys?”
“Yeah!”
“Do you know how to ice skate?”
“No”
“Then you can’t play”
“I have to Ice skate first?”
“Yes, and you have to have a beard”
“A beard?”
“Yes, it’s in the rules”
“Ok”
“Ok let’s count beards”
“Yay!”
“1”
“2”
“3”
“4”

....

“23”
“24”
“25”
“26”

....

“Dad I think I like Hockey”
“I think I like you”
“I like you too Dad”

Goodbye Sweet Heart

2009-05-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

This is not a home. It is a love story.

It was at the end of what would later be called our first date, looking for furniture for her home, me along for the ride solely because of my cargo capacity vehicle, that I walked into her house, burritos (that she bought us) in hand: fat chubby Salvadorian payment for my schlepping assistance.

You own this house?

Yeah.

Sweet.

She gave me a tour. I saw her tiny Toyota completely surrounded by boxes like a crazy person in her spacious two car garage.

I saw her pink bedroom with stenciled vines and a poor mattress set, sans bed frame, rocking a tatami headboard.

How exotic.

Are you making fun of me?

No. I love it.

You ARE making fun of me!!!

I saw an entire floor’s worth of unfinished basement and my eyes grew wide.

You’ve got to be kidding me. Look at this crazy space down here.

Yeah I know.

Do you have any idea what you could do with this space?

Yeah I don't know.

It opened up into a big overgrown backyard.

I love
you
r house.

Thanks.

We ended up getting married.
Me and the girl with the house.
And we laughed
And built
And threw raging parties
And fixed
And laughed
And drank
And dreamt
And ate
And wished
And built
And had kids
And threw quiet kid friendly completely non-raging parties
And loved one another
And loved the little life we build in this lovely house.

We’ll miss you
Dear girl.
May our good times and love continue to
Bounce off your walls
For many more families to come.

The Night We Bought the House

2009-04-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

Your mom packed you kids up along with a bunch of toys and met me after work at the other house, the one that we didn't want to buy but the one we had to see nonetheless because it was on the market and a bunch cheaper than the house we wanted. You kids ran amok in the dark old walls of this wacky home as I looked at all the potential it held. Your mother saw only a dilapidated old house with bad bones. Our agent didn't think much of it either. So we crossed it off the list and left.

We hauled ourselves into our respective cars and caravanned through the winding streets of this great little city, got turned around a few times before finally arriving at the real house we wanted. We let you kids loose again as we sat in the staging and signed page after page after page of our offer. It was dark, and this house too was old and worn down. But it had good bones and I was going to put a new heart into her. You kids laughed screaming through the house, amazed at the fact that you could see one another through different corner windows in the living room.

Finally we were done. The offer was going to go in. And as our agent left, we gathered you kids up and walked out of what we hoped would one day be our new home. We were all hungry and tired. We headed to a local ice cream shop to have our dinner. The thought that this could be our little ice cream shop in our little town was heartwarming. Sure, the reality of any small town usually lies in the dark bits, and kids can get royally screwed in any place U.S.A., but all that we can do as your parents is simply make the best decision that we can, cross our fingers and hope that lady luck is on our side. We hope that you kids can grow up reasonably safe and although we can not prevent you from seeking out dangerous situations, we hope that danger doesn't always have to come looking specifically for you.

We wanted a place that had good public schools yet was close enough to the real world that you kids would not grow up tooooo sheltered. We've been looking for a few years for the right house. Well to be honest, we've been looking for two years to find ANY house in this town that we could afford. We finally found one. She was a wreck. A fine girl that hit some hard times along the way. She needed a heart transplant and some neurological work as well. Oh and she leaks, did I mention she leaks? But you couldn't help but notice she had some class and some dirty grace. She was almost a hundred years old. She was the one we wanted and we did everything we could as fast as humanly possible from the moment we saw her to be at this point tonight. Our agent was on her way to present our offer.

So we sat that night, the four of us, in an ice cream shop eating dinner way past your bedtimes. Your eyes were as big as saucers at all the ice cream in the place. There were college kids from Cal celebrating birthdays, there were local high school kids hoping to one day be those Cal kids. There were older couples sharing dessert. And there were even a few kids that, like the two of you, were up late in disbelief surrounded by sweets. There we were, your parents, knowing that we could not predict the future and understanding that sometimes fate is inescapable no matter what your zipcode is, yet hoping nonetheless that this town could be a good place for you kids to grow up. That night we ate cheeseburgers and Reubens and chicken fingers and fries. And everything tasted better dipped in the little packets of hope that we carried with us. And the ice cream was as sweet as could be.

Slainte

2009-03-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

This month has been a complete whirlwind. We've been undergoing supersecret project 9000 which is of a sensitive nature and a complete timesuck. However from within this frantic dervish of which I shall share much of in the future upon its supersecret completion...I rise my head long enough to whisper...ahhhh it's my favorite day of the entire year.

We've been so busy that tonight is the first St. Patrick's day in a million years that I did not even have time to make colcannon.

Crying shame. In then end when everything is done...it will all be worth it. But for now, forgive me for not sharing our supersecret family project for now.

I do have enough time to stop a moment and listen to The Pogues, one of the finest bands in all of human history. I'll have a bit of Tullamore Dew. And wish all of you a Happy St. Patrick's Day.

May the roads rise to meet you.
May the wind be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
The rain fall soft upon your fields
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

The Young Damien Hirst and Other Rainy Day Projects

2009-02-16T22:01:00.000-08:00

Uggg the rain. Yeah I'm not a rain person. I'm not a cold weather person either. Most people think it's ridiculous that I would consider Northern California as too rainy and too cold but....it is. And yes I do understand that compared with the rest of the world, the Yay Area has a comparably high warmth/dry score. Meh. Still too cold. Still too wet.

So we're all cooped up inside. The backyard is wet and my projects are tarped. We need some arts and crafty stuff. Ok I pick...Damien Hirst.

So after hunting around the house for half an hour looking for some type of dead animal to cut in half and preserve in formaldehyde, the thought occurred to me that what I really like about Damien Hirst is the relative diversity of his work. Maybe we weren't going to find any creature that we could embalm on this rainy day. Sorry kids. The closest we came was a hard boiled egg cut in half and pickled in separate jars to be titled "Eggs Separated". Hmmm I'm going to have to pursue that idea.

Well lucky for us Hirst has his uber-silly spin art paintings for us to pursue. Now I'm not going to get into the 'What Is Art' argument here. Basically this question is now and will always be completely in the control of the cultural gatekeepers in society. The definition is always in the air and shifts with the shift in who holds the reins from generation to generation. It's cultural...it's flexible. For me though...the Hirst spin paintings are dead and soulless. Which ties in perfectly with the themes pursued so well in his other work. Meh.

This isn't to say I have anything against spin art. For kids and a rainy day...sounds perfect. We need a spinnermabob.

So just get a box. Cut a hole. Tape a piece of egg carton to the middle. Then thumbtack a paper plate to it. Ta Da. Spin away.

Now this is a manual spinner that can't quite get up to a respectable RPM. So it's better for spirals and circles. If I had a bit more motivation I'd modify an orbital sander for some good dangerous times.

Nonetheless...I think the kids' work came out great.

Next time kids, I'll promise to have a large mammal to cut in half.

You Are My Julie

2009-02-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

I was in 5th grade. Me and my buddy Mike had gotten his older sister to take us to the movies. It was a cold night...and we were warmed only by the fact that we were getting into an R-rated film. Little did I know, during the next two hours I was about to permanently form every notion I would ever hold about Love for the rest of my life. The year was 1983 and the film was Valley Girl.

Anyone who thinks for a second I am trying to be funny, seriously needs:

1) A good thrashing
2) To see this movie. Again.

Fast forward 15 years and I was....I kid you not....crashing an 80's valley girl theme party. I was wearing gigantic JNCO raver pants and wondering who's stupid idea it was to stop here before heading to Spundae when I saw my future wife in an asymmetric ponytail talking to other similarly dressed girls while her 80's decked boyfriend sat sullenly on a couch. Somewhere far off in my brain something seemed oddly familiar about this situation. This was interrupted by the overwhelmingly louder and more pressing question...What in god's name where we doing here????

We left. Quickly. No I did not turn around to sneak back and talk to that ponytailed girl. No we did not rush out to Hollywood, because we were in ummm Northern California. I guess I could have taken her to the Tenderloin, which is the closest thing to Hollywood I got up here. I strongly remember the plight of her boyfriend bedecked in 80's garb. I remember feeling really really bad for him. I remember thinking that there would be no way some girl could ever get me to do stupid things like that for her.

Fast forward 10 years and I'm married to her and blogging about making Christmas toffee. Who's laughing now eh??? You win 80's former boyfriend dude...you win by a mile.

Here's all I needed to know about love from the film Valley Girl.

Love Is Wonky: Yeah we're from two different worlds. That's the only way it works. Nerds and beauty queens. Punkers and Soc's. Fat and skinny. Tic Tac and Kodiak. Hollywood and the Valley. You and me. Of course we'd meet one day.

Real Love Deserves Grand Gestures: Ummm yeah. Do something stupid for those you love. Check. Happens all the time. Hell I blog about my kids. That's pretty lame. I know no shame. Love is embarrassing...and often. I may have never slept in your front yard, or taken a job at the local theater to pester you and your date, but I built you a bed to get you to go out with me and I once made toffee at your request. I told you I love you on the internet. That's pretty punk for a fat old former Kodiak chewing ex-Hollywood native with big-ass dusty raver pants still in his closet.

Music Is Everything: Our lives must always have a soundtrack. Keep the music on. Loud and Always.

When in Doubt Go To Du-Par's: Celebrate a new love or miss the one that got away with a cheeseburger, fries, milkshake and some precious time carved out of the chaos. The heart needs food. Apparently I have like 16 hearts or just one gigantic one because I am um...fat now.

Broken Heart? Hit the streets: Drunk in Hollywood nursing a broken heart. Repeat as needed. Haven't been back in awhile. Let's keep it that way.

If You're Cool You'll Hang Out at The Central (and listen to The Plimsouls): Now known as the Viper Room. Still my happy place.

Never Trust Blond Guys Doing Karate: Obviously. If still in doubt please see the Karate Kid.

In the End Love Will Sort Itself Out Just Right: In Hollywood at least. Strangely enough, I still await this to be proven wrong.

Happy Valentine's Day Baby. Like totally.

Most Mondays

2009-02-10T21:43:00.000-08:00

Our default Monday is spent at the California Academy of Sciences. Golden Gate Park is beautiful....as is the drive over this rickety old bridge soon to be replaced by some newfangled thingermabob.

We usually think we're gonna save money by bringing our packed lunches which is an absolutely marvelous idea...until we break down and blow $20 on two desserts and 4 drinks. You know what though...only in San Francisco is this considered museum food.

Chef Charles Phan and Loretta Keller's Caramel pot de creme and the infamous ginger ice cream sandwich trapped in a little display case like an oddly otherworldly delicious ice cream creature.

It's all so worth it to give our little girl her weekly penguin fix.

In Case of Recession: Make This Pasta

2009-02-07T16:56:00.000-08:00

Yeah so there's this thing called the recession. Times are tough and money's tight. Funny because growing up in my family no matter how much money was flowing into the family empire...times were ALWAYS considered tough and money was always tight. In a dramatic reenactment of a scene from the Cosby Show, one day my immigrant father sat me down to have a serious conversion about fiscal realities to hammer home the importance of cash flow and presumed volatilities and he threw in a sprinkling about swoptions and constructing derivatives....blah blah blah. Basically, the take home point was that, according to his financial analysis, a minimum family income to survive in 1980's America was $200,000.

Umm...wut?

Hey Dad I have my MBA now...I claim shenanigans. You know the funny thing is that his analysis was done in all seriousness. I am sure that there were some pretty big contingencies and assumed financial emergencies like ummm...accounting for a piano falling from the sky and knocking you out of work for a few decades or perhaps a Madoff or two in the mix. Basically I was raised in a home that never felt financially secure no matter how much money we had. I guess it's just the immigrant mentality.

Sometimes the best things in life are free....or at least inexpensive. And genetic spendthrift that I am...I'm always looking for value. In these tough times, it occurred to me that there is no better embodiment of value than making some homemade pasta. It combines entertainment for the kids with a cheap meal that just coincidentally tastes better than pretty much anything.

Yeah, make your own pasta. Make your family happy. Make your 200 large last longer.

Here's what's in it for dads: Gear. It's no Ferrari, heck it's not even a nice espresso maker, but I can afford an Italian pasta maker with multiple gears, a lot of chrome, and it's as heavy as a bench vise. It's still gear and gear is good.

For Kids: Play-Doh you can eat. Enough said.

For Moms: An afternoon your kids and husband are occupied and laughing and somehow in the end dinner is ready.

Ahhh the San Marzano tomato. It's 4 times the price of a normal tomato. But hell...a normal tomato is like a buck a can? You're worth it. Life's too short...you my friend, are absolutely worth 4 bucks. Buy San Marzano tomatoes and get all flossy.

(ummm...these tomatoes aren't real San Marzanos by the way...closest thing they had at the store today)

More Gear: Get a good food mill. Mill some San Marzanos. Get some garlic. A nice olive oil. Some good wine from the night before. Some fresh basil. Salt. That's it. Fry up some garlic in oil. Add the tomatoes and wine. Throw in half the basil now and half in the end. Fuggetaboutit.

Oh Meat? Oh yeah if you want to make a nice Sunday gravy then toss in a ton of meat and let it go all day. Pretty simple. But even without the meat, you've got all you need. Make sure you salt it enough. If it's lacking something....often it's a pinch more salt. Tomatoes are truly strange that way. Careful though because the San Marzanos usually come salted.

OK Pasta. Homemade pasta is really easy.

1 cup of flour
1 egg
some water
some salt

Seriously that's it. Don't mess around.

Make a little flour volcano. Put the egg in. Throw in a few pinches of salt into the egg. Stir it up. Slowly let the egg eat up more and more flour. Add a bit of water when you need it. You should end up with something that has a Play-Doh texture. Knead it a bit, fold, smash, fold. Throw some chunks to the kids and let them mash away. Get it all together again and let it sit while you wait for the sauce to cook down.

Ahhh I forgot the most important part. Listen to some Coletrane. Drink some wine. Kiss your kids and your wife. You're not going to have enough of these nights.

Throw some salted water on the stove to boil. Let your sauce cook down a bit. Break out the pasta maker to the raucous cheers from your kids. Mount it up, take out your sitting pasta dough ball. Rip the ball in half. Grab a piece and feed it to the machine. Fold it in half and feed it again. Repeat. Flour it up when it gets sticky so that it passes through the machine easily. The texture will get smooth and beautiful with each pass.

With fresh pasta I've found that I like it a bit thicker. Like a nickel thick. We usually cut it up into large squares rather than traditional pasta shapes. Like a giant pappardelle. If you don't have a pasta maker you can use a rolling pin. Just roll and fold and roll and fold and roll and fold etc etc. For fun you can cut shapes with a cookie cutter. Clean Play-Doh machines will technically work also.

Boil up your fresh pasta. Sauce it. Add some really nice parmigiano reggianno. You're worth it. Mangia. Mangia. You'll be amazed how much your kids eat.

You just fed your family for like 7 bucks (and the San Marzanos cost $4). Noice.

And For My Next Stunt...

2009-01-27T19:56:00.000-08:00

David Blaine's got nothing on us. I mean c'mon...buried underground for a week, trapped in an ice cube for a few days, standing on a pole for awhile. Pshaw. Try parenting nonstop for four years. You just got pwned Blaine.

Yeah it finally happened. Me and the wife got our first real break from parenting in 4 years. We got away for a weekend without the kids.

You know that look on Blaine's face when they let him out of whatever box he's been in? That was us at the airport. That beat down look. Looking around and wondering how we got past security so quickly. Sitting on those swank Herman Miller airport seats with no kids to wrangle. No car seat turban on my head. No fights to pick with non-parental travelers. But just like Blaine coming out of some coffee can...you can't expect yourself to able to right yourself right away. You can't just wash 4 years of parenting off in the lavatory and come out skipping and ready to tear Las Vegas a new party hole. Hell you can't even stand fully upright for at least 48 hours.

So there we were, smiling at the ground, hunched over and waiting for our spines to erect. Holding hands in wonderment. Sitting at the airport with nothing to do but wait for our plane to pull in. Nothing. To. Do.

The silence was deafening. Peppered only by the phrase “Can you believe we're on our own???” repeated 763 times at the airport alone.

I bought a magazine.

The flight over was amazing. We had nothing to do other than flip pages and sip refreshing complementary tiny cheap drinks. I swear a ginger ale on a plane without having to wrestle your kids tastes like Shipwrecked 1907 Heidsieck.

We arrived and, hunched over, caught a cab when we stepped out into a warm Vegas night. We checked into our hotel pretty late. Sat in our room frozen. We were weighed down by so many possibilities we were immobilized.

Eventually I headed out to get some Canter's. I returned with two Reuben's. We ate them and promptly fell asleep. We were full and happy.

We slept as long as we wanted. Women, money, fame, booze? Naw....sleep. I'll take the sleep please. Two orders of all you can sleep sleepy sleeps. I was like Tony Montana with a giant desk topped with mountains and mountains of sleep. I was so full of sleep I could do anything. I was ready to take over this place. We checked out of our crash pad and lumbered across the street to the Palazzo. Things started to get interesting.

“Good morning Senior Corndog you will be staying at the Lago suite”

Cool
Wait a second that sounds weird.

“Yes sir we have upgraded you, unfortunately your room is not ready, please check back in 2 hours”

Sure.

Brunch me. I've always considered Bouchon to be Thomas Keller's version of Applebee's. Just a straightforward solid bistro that is not supposed to be anything more than that. Just like Applebee's is a straightforward solid suburban reminder that you have no better place to eat right now.

We love it at Bouchon. We had a few beignets and espressos. I followed this up with some roasted chicken and savory waffles. I noticed that my view of the patio and warm sunny day continued to improve throughout brunch. To our astonishment we were soon sitting fully upright. Our spines had begun the recovery process. We were finally decompressing.

We hit the craps tables.

“Baby needs a new pair of Robeez!”

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner. We got lucky, had a lot of fun, and soon had dinner money in hand. Well actually like a few months worth of dinners. We went back to check in.

“Sorry Senior Corndog your room is still not ready”

Hmmm...getting pissed here.

“Oh wait, it looks like it is just about done”

Getting better.

“We've upgraded your suite”

Got a lot better. Wait a sec...I thought I was already upgraded.

“So you mean the upgrade to the Lago suite?” I asked

“No sir, we've upgraded you again. Would you like to see the floor plan of your new suite?”

“Sure”

So the dude pulls out this big binder and flips a few pages.

“Here, sir, was your original suite...”

Nice. I'll take it. Wait...he flips a few pages.

“And here is the Lago Suite...”

Great, even better. Then the dude starts flipping more pages.

And more pages.

And more pages.

“And here, Sir, is the floor plan of your new suite.”

We were towards the end of the binder.

The floor plan had two pages.

I had a good feeling about this.

So we got our keys and made our way up to our floor. Walking down the hallway there was something bothering me that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Until I got the door. Then I realized.....these doors are all huge on this floor. And there are two of them.

Yup two big fat double doors to our suite. Keys goes in. Doors open. And then....

Holy crap.

Wow...thanks Venetian/Palazzo. Thanks for mistaking me for someone important.

Our suite was 1300 square feet. And $4900 a night. This is what I call an upgrade. It's also a great way to ruin every future trip to Vegas...because we're never going to get a place like this again. C'est la vie.

Now of course we didn't want to leave the suite. With an extra bedroom, I called up a few people to see if anyone wanted to fly out to Vegas RIGHT NOW. No Takers. Next time I'll post it on the blog.

So of course I had to turn on every TV in the place. I got to the bathroom and looked at the two TVs on either side of the sink vanity. Hmmm...why on earth were there two TVs here? I finally figure out that they were needed for viewers bathing on either side of the bathtub. Of course. Of course. If I put my head on this end I need that TV and if I rest my head on the other end I need another TV. That's like having a double ended fork. Redundant yet full of win.

So we tried to hang out in the suite all day and night. But eventually we got hungry....oh yeah we should eat huh?

Went to eat at N9ne at the Palms. Truffled Gnocci and a giant ribeye built for two. We rolled ourselves out of there cruised about a bit and eventually made our way back to our suite at the end of the night.

It was fun. And man were we due. We love this place and it had been waaaay too long since we had been here last. My wife loves the dice...and the dice have always loved her back.

The next morning I missed my kids really bad. Oddly the novelty was over. We had our fill and although it had been less than 48 hours away from the kids...it was starting to get a bit too long. Believe me it was really great and unbelievably awesome to jump from parenting to Vegas in a matter of hours. And normally here's where I would espouse some ranty fabled fatherhood stuff. But it was just a simple thing. I missed my kids. Everything about them. They're cool. And I was in withdrawal. The wife too. We saw it in each other eyes in the morning. We couldn't fly home fast enough and lift our kids high, cover them in kisses, and throw them on our backs again.

After breakfast of course.

Stuff I Did: Building a Play Kitchen Stove

2009-01-19T16:54:00.000-08:00

I owed my boy a toy kitchen. I'm talking over a year now. My wife claimed he loved playing with toy kitchens. Just like she claimed he would LOVE a toy stroller. I'd be the first to admit that I really didn't want to get my kid that stroller. My wife thought I was being a Neanderthal about it. I told her it was like seeing him wearing a USC jersey....I know it doesn't mean he's going to go to USC, but for some reason the sight of it would make me feel woozy. She said meh and bought him the stroller right away. He played with it a bit then said meh. Then I said meh to any future bright ideas she had about the toys he'd love. Including the kitchen.

Well a few years too late I finally decided to get around to that kitchen stove that I had promised to build. Oh yeah, so the original plan was to buy a toy stove...but for some reason I just didn't want a giant plastic stove/kitchen. I was thinking it would be cool to have like a little Viking/Wolf stove. Must be the undeniable and incredible value of marketing in our society.

So I drew up some plans. Bought some plywood. And poof...Dadmagik.

For any Dads (or Moms) out there that like making stuff and don't already use pocket hole jigs, all I have to say is....Duuuuuuuuude(ette).

So it turns out the scale of the oven ended up a tad bigger than I thought.

I used cabinet hinges to allow the zero-clearance stovetop to open up for storage.

And they're off!

Enjoy kids...sorry it took me so long to get around to building it. Heck I waited so long to build this for my son that he now has a sister he's forced to share it with.

It also makes an awesome toybox.

Let me know if anyone wants to build their own stove. If enough people are interested I'll try and post detailed plans in a future post.

We're Gonna Need More Bullets

2009-01-14T13:27:00.001-08:00

Yeah time huh. It um...flies? As you can tell by my last post I've been in a bit of denial about the whole winter thing. In fact, what better way to ignore winter than to...ignore winter. So let me stretch here a little bit and put on my blogging slippers. Shake my head a bit to get the gears/marble rolling and begin explaining my absence.

My garage was a mess.

It's almost clean now. Wow what a chore. Don't believe me? Here's proof.

You know in all seriousness, I was talking to Peachboy the other day about not blogging and other than the fact that it is no longer the year 2006, the other second most valid explanation for my absence can be summed up in one word:

Defragmenting.

I'm defragmenting bro. I've got so many little odds and ends in my brain it's ridiculous. I'm like a mental packrat. I've had to make room for all of these little tidbits of info and along the way a few useless items have been misplaced. Like face recognition for anyone I went to high school with. Not a joke. They're all wiped out. My multiplication table. Completely misplaced. I have to do ridiculous mathematical gymnastics to derive 3x8. I know 3 * 10 – 6 = answer. Hmm I guess that's not really hard enough to be called mathematical gymnastics. Mathematical rythmic gymnastics maybe. And not the ribbon, maybe like that Ball thing.

I knew somewhere deep inside somehow that 2008 was going to be a bad year. And boy howdy it sure was. From the rise and fall of my gaming clan, to the financial meltdown, to the realization that my garage needs a thorough cleaning. Things have come to a head. I finished my MBA, my kid started preschool, I entered my 4th year of parenting, I finally came to the realization that I am STILL not back in Los Angeles (for the love of god why the hell am I still not in Los Angeles?????!?!?!!!). I had reached that point where my brain shuts down and my Life needed defragmenting. I figure my brain holds about maybe a meg of data. That little meg took a damn long time to defragment.

It really was caused by an upheaval of my schedule. Up until this year I had a great routine. Fix eyeballs. Go to night school. Parent. Blog. Oh and eat drink and all that other stuff.

But when grad school ended...I was set loose a bit. Just a little too much free time injected into my schedule.....and the wheels came off the bus. Plus there is that whole Los Angeles thing. I have finally accepted the fact that I am currently, at this present time, not in the city of Los Angeles. I know, I know, it's been 11 years since I've lived in LA but for those past 11 years I have refused to accept the fact that I am. Not. In. LA. Right. Now.

You see my BEING resides in that city. I am not a complete person outside of it. Scoff if you will. You can roll your eyes as much as you want. I've had strangers tell me that LA would be more than happy to have me back (I see what you did there by that smarmy remark by the way). It is nonetheless true. I don't care how much eye-rolling you do at me because as self-centered as you think Los Angeles is, as its proudest citizen, let me set the record straight by saying I don't give a damn what you think.

I kid. I kid. That was funny. Did you see what I did there? err nevermind.

Seriously, I have accepted the fact that I am not currently in the City of Los Angeles. It has entered my reality. I am no longer in denial. I am not happy about it. And one day I will be back home again. But for now...after years of therapy (or the cheap stuff they pass off as therapy outside of LA) I understand my current geography. I no longer stare in disbelief at my Nav. I no longer try to get to Pico from Mission. I no longer scream at every burrito vendor in this town for putting beans and rice in my burrito (seriously cut it out). I no longer tail octogenarian drivers to simulate traffic on the 10. I no longer hope and wish. I simply accept. And quietly wait. This world, if there is anything good in it, will steer me home one day.

/rant

I'm getting hella ranty in the Yay Area. Get me to a sideshow. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

/hyphy

OK ok ok . I am really happy that it is a new year. The wife and the kids and I, all have big plans. I plan to try to blog. It's like a journal but stupideer. My wife will try to ease up on being the reigning queen of Facebook. My boy has learned to tell a joke at the ripe age of 3.5 oh and he does a magic trick now too. Hilarious. The baby girl will try to stop taking out her biggest rival in world domination...her big brother. There will be a new president who used Yoda as his slogan writer.

“Change We Need”

WTF? Yoda???? I thought Bob the Builder's “Yes We Can” was good enough. Dude's connected, that's all I can say.

I mean what were the Yoda rejects?

“Win I Will”
“Vote for him You will not”
“Lose I Shalln't”
“Vote or Vote not, there is no try to vote for that other dude”
“Cool, Am I, Know I Do”

Sorry...got off track there.

My defragmenting has taken a bit longer than I thought. But I am running 37% faster now. Things are looking tidy around here, and I've got all the important bits in little cubbies. I am basically feeling really lean and mean. Finally. I have the feeling that this will be a really great year. So Happy New Year (yeah I know we're two weeks into it already get off my back).

I'm gonna post all the crap I did while on blogcation.

When I get to it.

Yeeeee-eeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Maybe.

Hold on to Summer

2008-10-10T23:13:00.001-07:00

Yeah I'll admit. I'm in denial. I refuse to accept the fact that summer is over. Seriously, when the hell did time decide to ramp up all of a sudden? I turn my back for one second and suddenly there are Christmas trees up. Can't we at least wait for Holloween? Jeeze I'm trying to finish a damned snowcone here. Ahh well...

Here's the latest Offsprung.com contri. Smell it before the ditto ink dries up.

Your First Day of PreSchool: Today You Are a Man

2008-09-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

Today you are a man. Childhood is over and it's time to stare life squarely in the eyes and say defiantly, "My man-ness has no equal, my ferocity no joints".

This summer I finally ended my academic career, and today I packed you up in the morning to begin yours, and like some long distant nomadic son of Ghengis I gave you some figurative yak milk as you mounted your little horse and rode over the steppe with birds um...taking flight and singing and the early morning laggard stars scarring my retinae as they burn themselves out prematurely solely to highlight the beginning of your destined journey to greatness. Your yak milk consisted of a juice box, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and some grapes. Your horse was a walmart carseat in my old jeep.

Your preschool is an academic powerhouse. Stealthily disguised as "Play-Based", it kicks Montessori in the nuts with programs in engineering, chemistry, leadership, math, and social sciences. Well...it has legos, paints, blocks and a playground. Your mother and I had dressed you in the finest warrior garb, your green hill gorillas shirt. You were also equipped with a nap bag, a construction blankie and a billiard ball themed pillow that you had carefully selected at the fabric store.

You carried your yak milk tightly in your lap as we made our way over the hills and towards your school. We parked and made our way into the place packed already with little fellow warriors. We were greeted by your new leader. We put away all of your little items in various little cubbies labeled with your name. You saw a lego table. You got to work.

Afghanistan soon arrived with daughter Nanas in tow. He had a video camera. So did we. You smiled at your friend Nanas, we were glad you guys could be together on the first day of school. We said our goodbyes. You barely looked up from the legos. You were now in a time-out free zone for the rest of the day (your school is progressive that way). Good luck. To the school I mean. Good luck school.

You are now the primary decision maker in your new realm. You're on your own. You have the freedom and responsibility to choose your own activities. Paints vs legos. Blocks vs. Story time. Little Car vs Tricycle. Punch vs Kick. You are now your own little man. Now as much as I realize that this freedom tastes like honey from tiny golden bees feeding solely on wild aspen clover...you must realize that you are now holding tiny little reins to a gigantic beast of an ox named YourLifeDude. So get a grip son. Get a good grip and never let go.

And as you take that first ride over the nearest hill, know that one day you will pass me heading the opposite way. And as we pass, if you ask me what lies ahead, I hope to whisper to you something wise and valuable. I'm not sure today what that message will be...but if I had to take a guess I think it will be simply this. Beauty, son. Beauty lies over that hill. Hold on tight and try to find it.

Dia de la Meat

2008-09-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

Ahhh Labor day. There's a Holiday for my Dad. Let's celebrate Labor! Labor is the only measure of a man...and it always wins. That's unfortunate because it trumps my charming potbellied smarmy je ne sais quoi. Labor.....always.....wins. The whole turtle and the hare thing. Brains and talent really really mean nothing. The sheer bruteforce strength of labor can overcome every obstacle. Not too bright? Here's a trick...memorize the entire book! You don't have to be too bright to memorize something.

What exactly is Labor Day anyway?

From the department of labor

The first official Labor Day Celebration was comprised of...a street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations" of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families.

Now that sounds good...a holiday celebrating the working man. I have immigrant workers guilt...I don't work as hard as my father before me. Simple fact. Yet isn't that the whole point of being a Father...you hope that your kids have an easier life than you did? Well....maybe not. Anything remarkable achievement involves a difficult course. So I guess that means that struggle ain't that bad. My life often seems to lack that struggle so I add arbitrary difficulty to my day to balance the guilt that I feel for having a charmed life. Some days I worry that if our happiness in life is meted only to average out over the course of our lives, then somewhere up around the bend I will come face to face with a really really really bad day. Like an ooops I wiped out Uganda kind of day. Well I guess until that day comes, I better load up on double fistfuls of happiness...

If Heaven were a weekend, I already know its agenda.

1) wake up with family
2) drink buckets of black black black coffee with wife
3) start a fire
4) cook meat
5) eat meat with family and friends.

Mix in some drinking of beer and building of some stuff throughout the day. Perfectamundo.

Over Labor Day weekend I did this not once, but twice, groundhog day style. Two days, twelve racks of ribs, 10 hours on the new smoker. Lotsobeer. And somehow a new potting bench was also built for the wife. Here's to them working Dads.

Summer For the Win

2008-08-31T23:25:00.000-07:00

Everything comes to an end. The gaming clan I founded rose to become an international powerhouse before it's founder (me) and leader (me) woke up one morning (3 days ago) with the sobering realization that he (me) was applying Six Sigma to a group of kids who typd lik dis. WTF? Seriously, I'm pretty sure it's almost over. And it came just in the nick of time because this weekend was Labor day. And that means I needed all the free time I could get to work furiously at not laboring.

So check back soon...there might be a few signs of life returning to this little place, where the Corndogs are free and all the Rootbeers are beautiful.

Down With Oxygen

2008-07-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

Let me just put this out there. I hate the environment. Ok ok environmentalism. I prefer the correct term of conservationism or preservationism because I still hold onto my belief that oxygen was the greatest poison that this world has ever known, and if those poor little anaerobic species had any clout or opposable thumbs, they might have been able to stave off the apocalyptic disaster that photosynthesis brought about, leaving me without the privilege of typing this in my boxer shorts holding a Pall Mall in one hand and some CFL in a spray can in the other.

I believe that cities like Seoul or Manhattan or San Francisco or Los Angeles or London with their monsters and structure and noise and smell and sunlight blocking temples of steel and blinking massive crushing weight are the most beautiful objects in this entire world. They're jewels, bright shiny deadly glimmering stinky jewels. And I love them. I love the man made. I love trees and crap too, don't get me wrong, but when you take a man who in Paris loved nothing more that traveling its subways over and over and over again, c'mon what do you expect.

Graffiti are the city's wildflowers. They spring up spontaneously and in "the wrong place" they'd be called weeds, but in reality they're absolutely magnificent. Beautiful. Amazing.

Ok so I'm not into recycling. I'm not into saving water. I don't bike to work. I don't turn lights off. I don't believe in "letting yellow mellow". I don't do any of that crap.

Until recently.

I live very close, like a hemp hacky-sack throw, to Berkeley. And I live in a magical place called Northern California, which after Los Angeles is my 5th favorite place to live (Los Angeles being 1 through 4). And although I have not changed my political views (Barr '08) I have found oddly enough, some conservationism seeping in. I can't really explain it other than the fact that my buddy Su, who've up to this point I have made the point of preservationismally(TM) canceling out (I put one aluminum can into the waste stream for every can he recycles...and I use twice the amount of cans that he does so I am double-canceling him out), might one day shoot me in the face with an environmentally friendly yet still deadly slingshot if I kept going down the path I was on.

I don't believe in saving this world for my kids. I will let this planet become what this planet will, without putting any pressure on it to become a doctor or lawyer or "saved" or "human friendly". Dear Earth, you can become a total delinquent...I love you unconditionally.

But oddly enough, despite my laissez faire attitude, I am now doing all the stuff that I didn't care for before. I recycle, I let yellow mellow, I'm doing all that crap. And it's not for the Earth or my kids or the betterment of society or to fight global whateverism. I do all this because I am really really cheap.

Yeah, I am cheap and I don't like to waste things. It pains me to no end, and finally, it has caught up to counter my anti-preservationism. I just can't waste stuff anymore....it's hard to make a can. Might as well try and reuse it somehow.

It's kinda like ants. I don't kill ants. Or spiders. Well I try not to kill damn near anything. It's not because I'm Buddhist, it's not because I believe that this little ant has spiritual value. Its because this little ant is really really really hard to make. Seriously. Can YOU make an ant? Jeeze if I went through all the trouble of making a freaking ant...a tiny complex little biological machine with social structure and wacky strength, do you think I'd be pissed if you nonchalantly smooshed it simply because it committed the crime of "Being in your presence". I mean, doooooooood. Leave that little ant alone.

"Why did you kill that ant?"

"Because it was among many, inside of my house, and within my field of vision."

Damn that's harsh. Just clean your house and stop eating like cookie monster.

Ok ok I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live....be free and take the path you will. I'm ok, you're ok. What the hell was I talking about?

Ahh yes, the point of my story is this....I save all kindsa crap now and am totally getting into recycling stuff because I'm tired of wasting crap. I want to reuse....not because I like the environment. I think we should let the World go where the World wants...um in it's little hand basket. Those little anaerobic dudes took the bullet for us, we can only return the favor for anything this planet wants to replace us with....c'est la vie.

OK. Ok. I'm really here to talk about my worms. Yes worms.

Ok me and my wife drink enough coffee to choke a racehorse and make it say "hmmm I'm peeing more than usual". I mean ridiculous amounts of coffee. Juan Valdez has a picture of me taped up on his bathroom mirror and every morning he says "One day bitch".

Sorry Mr. Valdez, you will NEVER get to retire, I don't care how old your donkey is.

So we produce ridiculous amounts of coffee grounds which go directly into the waste stream and one morning I woke up with an epiphany.

"Crap, I can use those coffee grounds"

Yup, I'm cheap. I'm gonna turn those coffee grounds into worm castings and feed it to my lawn and make it grow big and strong and green. I know I know...lawns waste water. Whatever.

I'm building a worm farm. My kids will love it and I will convert a 1 pound of garbage per week into worm food.

So here's the money shot (Continued...)

How to build a worm farm that eats garbage, smells not too bad, and can be used as a behavioral stick (eat your dinner nicely then we can look at the worms son)

You need a bin. 1 cubic feet per 1lb of weekly garbage. And you need 2000 redworms (2 lbs) for every lb of Daily garbage. Hmmm units do not match. OK here we go....

1 cubic foot = 280 redworms eating 0.14 lbs of garbage per day or 1 lb of garbage per week. Expand as needed.

The bin I got at Target....little file bin with a flippy lid. Cool. Drill some drainage holes in the bottom, maybe some tiny little breathing holes in the top. Set it in a pan to catch liquid gold (worm version).

Now bedding....shred an ass-load of paper and soak it in water for about an hour. Wring it out to the consistency of a damp rag. Fluff it up and put it in the bin. I use junk mail and old newspapers.

You're gonna need a bunch of redworms. Stick with redworms because that's what the internet says. No nightcrawlers. The redworms are well suited for composting due to their appetite for organic matter and temperature tolerances. I got mine at a bait shop....costs about twice the amount that you would pay on the internet. But I got to save 250 worms from death row.

Dump the worms in.

Feeding: Pick a corner of the bin and bury your organic waste. Think of the worms as vegans and feed them accordingly, not a lot of meat or dairy or eggs. Make sure they have some gritty stuff for their little worm gizzards such as coffee grounds, crushed eggshells, etc.

They will slowly turn everything into worm casting rich composted lawn gold. When the bedding has been converted you'll need to transfer the finished product out. Smoosh everything over to one side and put fresh bedding in the other side. Add food to the fresh side and wait a few days. The worms should eventually migrate over to the new side and you can remove the compost from the other. Pick out any worms and worm egg things from the compost. Use it in your garden or add it to some water and make worm tea fertilizer. Worms will double in about a months in ideal conditions.

Now a word of warning....I really have no idea what I'm talking about. This system has been cobbled together from various internet postings and I have just started, so I have no idea how any of this will turn out. There is however a book that every worm site seems to mention, so I am going to simply assume that it is good.

Worms Eat My Garbage

It probably has the real way you're supposed to do this....but hell I can usually just figure stuff out so my way is probably still the best.

No More Heroes

2008-07-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

So here I am. Driving in my old beat up Jeep, down a hill, with the evening peaking and bathed in the last little bit of Northern California light which seems to last forever during the summer. The dirty bits of Oakland and strip mall heaven of Hayward down below. Like the day I drove to my wedding, crossing the Bay Bridge to a weird and wacky life before me, I was now heading into new territory only this time in the opposite direction. Yeah, I'm saying goodbye to a big piece of my life. Yeah that's right, I'm done with studying. Really. Seriously I am. That's it. Kaput.

I had always thought that if I won the lottery I would become a perpetual student, jumping from field to field for the rest of my life in studious bliss. Like some small Texas high school football hero driving past his Alma mater on the way to his night shift at The Wafflehouse, I too have trouble letting go. Yeah I peaked in college so what. But flash back 24 hours and you would have found me sitting at a desk trying for the life of me to motivate myself to just study for this damn final. And I couldn't do it. I was done. Out of gas. It wasn't hard....just didn't want to. I blame it on the kids.

My Dad used to tell me that when you're young, your brain is nice and soft and as you grow older it hardens. My brain was ok until the day my brain was on kids. This is your brain....this is your brain on kids. Having kids had knocked the taste of higher learning right out of my mouth. You see the thing is, even after you get used to the schedule and logistics, even when you can cruise through a pattern of child rearing day after day, even when you become efficient....parenting still is a massive drain on the...well the everything. Drains your body, your brain, your spirituality, your bank account. Even when you think it's easy it's really not....you've just gotten used to the pain. And when you do get some free time, you spend it furiously relaxing. Strangling that free time and relaxing the hell out of it. And like some washed up old part-time fighter, I'm left shadow boxing in the ring of higher education about to get knocked the F out. Ok I got knocked the B+ out...but still shameful nonetheless. I hate the B+. Its the best of the not-an-A you can get. That's so half-assed. My GPA consisted of a series of A's and D's. And back in my Bruin years before the netertubes, you'd have to call a freaking phone number to obtain your grade. And this crappy machine would want to make sure that the D that you got didn't sound like a B so it would say....."In Biochemistry 153A your grade is.......DUH-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!" I mean not that I got a D in Biochem, c'mon I freaking love biochem. Wait what was I talking about? Yes...washed up fighters.

I'm all washed up. Old and beat up. Waaaaay past my prime. And the sad thing is, looking back, I never got to really fulfill the promise of the gifts I was given. I had a brain back then, but paired with a pathological laziness and horribly impressionistic youth, I was never gonna amount to nuthin. The only thing I could do well was a standardized test. And I banked on these damn things to get me through everything. Crap I've taken everything.... CAT, PSAT, SAT, AP, GRE (two flavors), MCAT, OAT, GMAT, and I almost took the LSAT for fun because I heard it had logic games in it. And I always did well. Every interview was the same...

"Can you explain why you have such a low GPA? Any unique challenges that you had to endure?"
"Yeah, I don't like to study."
"That's your answer?"
"Yeah. But I'm Effing brilliant"

I mean hell you could spin it so many different ways...

"I don't like to study, I only like to learn."
"The days I skipped class were the days I became a more complete human being."
"It's not about the grade I got in that class, it's about the class in which I got the grade. I'm classy bro."

I took courses out of sequence. I've shown up to 3 hour finals 2 hours late because I was furiously memorizing the stupid textbook outside of the exam before I walked in. I've rarely slept before an exam in undergrad. Ok the truth is I played A LOT of Streetfighter 2. I mean A LOT. And I was on BBS's a lot...that was a precursor to teh internuttzzoars.

I guess what I really need to say is just this....

(continued)

My dear and beautiful Studying,

I wanted to make you a mixtape to encapsulate how I feel as I prepare to take the first of many steps away and alone without you. I was gonna put a lot of Bright Eyes on it and some Postal Service and then of course some really obscure shit so you'd think I was cool but then mix it up with some Chi-Lites and stuff so you'd know I could be playful and stuff you know. But my double cassette recorder is broken and I'm all out of tapes, so I'm writing you this letter to say you-know-what you-know-when and if you want you can play your own favorite songs when you read this although keep in mind that the songs you pick would be nowhere as awesome and deep and touching as the ones I would have picked if my Sanyo wasn't broken. Anyhoooo.

Ahh yes, Studying. Studying, do you remember when we first met? I was 1 minute old and the nurse was counting my toes quietly to herself and I thought hmm interesting and then you showed up and whispered into my ear that if I watched closely I might learn something, and so i did and I learned that I like nurses uniforms. Hmm wait a sec, I'm getting you mixed up with Learning, yeah yeah I know, you hate her guts and you think she's a dirty hippy, don't get all crazy Studying. Don't be like that. Ahh yes, now I remember. We first met when I had to count to 100, and it was really quick because as soon as I got past 15 then it really is just logical isn't it? Oh no of course, of course not, it was all you. It was your help that got me through that one.

Remember the summer we spent together reading the entire dictionary? When other kids were forced to play outside, you and me got to hang out, just the two of us, and memorize 6 pages a day for 90 days? Yeah that was the summer before 4th grade I think. If only "collegiate", as in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, was a word that sounded the same in Korean so my mother could have picked something a bit more age-appropriate. Doesn't matter because after that summer my whatchamacallit was seriously improved.

We had some really good times together. There was that whole multiplication thing that I figured out phonetically before you came along and helped me with the rest of it. Remember 8 x 3? I figured it out on my own because hell just listen to it....eight times three. Ok three and three and three and three and three and three and three and three. Tadah...24. Yeah that was a bitch. And then no one believed me.

Remember that time in Kindergarten when I spoke no English and I had to take a test and the teacher was asking us to circle the tiger and I had no idea what the hell was going on because when you hear Charlie Brown wonkawonka sounds followed by intense circling activity by your peers all around you and all you know how to do is eat lunch and take naps, you can't help but to look at your neighbor and circle what they circle. Busted. What the hell is an isolation table anyways and why are the walls so high and why the hell do I have to sit here? Cheating? WTF? I'm ESL, I know what a damn Tiger is, just say in in Korean and I'll get an A. Oh well I'll just cry. Damn I digress, you weren't really with me there that day were you.

OK, so lets just remember the good times. Proper nouns....remember us and proper nouns. What a disaster. Everything was a proper noun. What do you mean grape is not a proper noun, its the proper noun for a type of fruit. I name thee, grape! I name thee, chair! I name thee, Kevin! Big fat D on that one.

Remember the spelling B? We lost on wen, I mean "when". The hell the word "when" makes a blowing whispery W. I could spell flower why the hell did I lose on "when". Spell this.

OK damn have we really been together that long? Remember high school?

Yeah me neither.

Ok remember college? What a torrid raging affair. On again, off again. The fights and splits we had. The crazy passionate all-nighters. The women that came between us. In the end though it was always you that stayed with me when times were rough. The caffiene binges, the long desperate nights. Watching the sunrise from the top floor window of Kerckhoff Hall, what a miserable sight. That physics midterm we walked in with 15 minutes left and finished 5 minutes early. Remember the MCAT? The first standardized test that could not save my GPA? The king Hell of all tests. The test that while studying for I actually thought I broke my brain.

"What do you mean there's no such thing as broken brain? I swear it's broked bro."

That's the last time I trust those quacks at student health services.

And then there was gradschool and eyeball time. We're were like an old married couple at that point. No more torrid raging passionate nights, just a comfortable, if not predictable, relationship. You wouldn't throw a fit when I went out without you. You stood by my side and supported me through clinics and rotations. Externships in funny places. Strange demands from varying attendings. That tour through Oklahoma. Yeah we were comfortable and familiar with each other then but we were still happy.

I guess Business School was our swan song. I should have seen it coming. We'd had a good long run and no matter how compatible or in love two people are, things can still be monkey-wrenched. It wasn't you, it was all me. The first half of business school I thought we could keep going the way we always had, but by the last bit I knew that something was different. It's not fair to you for me to pretend that we still have that magic. I'd spend most of my days away from you...to be honest some days I wouldn't think of you at all. Our nights apart, I didn't miss you and that's when I knew that it was wrong.

Who's to blame when love dies? Does it matter? Is it any less heartbreaking? I know we had dreams for the future. We were supposed to go to Law school next, it was supposed to be beautiful. The fun we were going to have with the LSAT, finally completing the triple crown of standardized tests. How we were looking so forward to the California BAR exam and how wonderfully brutal it was going to be. I know now that that day will never come. Out of respect to you I know that I will never share that moment without you. It simply won't be a part of my life anymore and it is a dream we will never share apart.

The PHD in Immunology that was supposed to come last...I won't even breath it's memory.

Yeah, we had big dreams you and I. Sometimes dreaming ain't enough. And as I slowly let go of your hand, I tip my head to the times we had. I light a last cigarette to remember those long lost days when we were young and so passionate. Damn this cigarette tastes like shit. Here let me throw it out my window. Ok sorry. Yeah I guess we never can really go back. If I was melodramatic I'd leave you hanging with an "Until we meet again" but that's for someone far younger than me to say. So instead I say this...I loved you with all my heart. And with all my heart I let you go. Thank you for the time we had together, in our youth we were truly unstoppable. I loved you Studying. I will never forget you.

Farewell dear heart,
Henri

P.S. Stay cool forever.

Sweet and Tender Hooligan

2008-05-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

Ok in my defense you do have a bit of a reputation for crying wolf. Someone even looks at your train funny and you scream bloody murder....

"What happened little buddy?"
"My Train"
"What? Someone took your train?"
"No. Someone wants it."
"Err...what?"
"He wanted my train."
"But he didn't touch it?"
"NO."

Hmmmm. So this morning I heard you crying in your room and I thought maybe you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed or maybe you were just announcing the fact that you have awoken and need to play some GTA4 because it's totally awesome....er wait a sec, that would be me...yes GTA4 is totally awesome.

Anyway, I thought you were just trying to tell me you wanted the door opened. So I pop into your room and see you crying on the floor and I ask whats wrong and you mention something about some train's coal tender, which I find and give to you and you stop crying and you start smiling and then I notice to my mild dismay that YOUR HEAD IS COVERED IN BLOOD.

My boy is covered in blood. High holy hell almighty I'm gonna punch the universe because somehow my kid is covered in blood. OK don't panic. You're smiling at me and holding a little train coal tender in your tiny bloody hands and you're super excited that I found it and you're now looking for the train it goes with and I think you're about to start singing a little Thomas song to go along with your little happiness and it's really freaking me out because your doing all of this COVERED IN BLOOD.

"Hey little buddy"
"Hey Big Buddy"
"Um...can you come over here please?"
"You find my coal tender????"
"Um yeah I found it for you...but come here and sit down ok?"
"OK!"

So I start wiping blood off of my boy with a diaper wipe...and wiping and wiping and wiping. 1 diaper wipe. 2 diaper wipes. 3 diaper wipes. 4 diaper wipes. I wipe blood off his hands and face and chin and cheeks and forehead and then I get to the hair and its everywhere. Finally I find the source, a 4 mm laceration on his scalp. He sees the blood and amazingly seems to notice it for the first time.

"I have ouchy?"
"Yes"
"OH! A leeeshun?!?!"
"Yes boy you have a lesion."
"I Have leeeshun and my blooood?!?!"
"Yes"
"Oh OK!"

And back to train time.

It always sucks when your thinking stitch or no stitch. I'm poking and prodding his scalp and seeing how deep the laceration is and wondering if I should just superglue it but after a bit of pressure it stops bleeding and I grab some antibacterial ointment and slab a bean of it into his scalp.

"I have hair lotion?!!!?!"
"Yes Son"
"Oh OK!"

And back to train again.

"Um little buddy...what happened? To your head."
"OH OK! I was here (points to door) and then I hit my head here (makes a long arcing motion and smacks the corner of the train table)"

So from what I gather from your elaborate demonstration is that somehow you made some type of flying arcing journey through the air from the door to the corner of the train table. Wow....I would seriously think you'd be a bit more pissed. You nail the corner of the train table with your head and bleed all over the place but what seemed to really make you cry was the fact that in this process you misplaced the little coal tender that goes with one of your trains.

Tough on the outside, tender in the middle. I want to grow up to be just like you son.

I'm Not JayZ

2008-04-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

These are apples and pears, cockney for stairs, hand picked and shipped to me from a small family organic farm. They sit on some sort of fabulous silver thingermabob. Now as parents you toss aside many things. I got no nights out. I got no fast car. I got no city view. I got no entourage. I'm losing my mojo/steelo/and street cred along with my hairline to some far off land called thetwenties. I blame it all on the parenting lifestyle. It consumes you. Takes all your time, ruins your relationships with your city friends and allows issues such as preschool and optimized nap schedules to take up residence in a brain that used to house nothing but Sonic Youth lyrics and zippo tricks. So screw you JayZ. I don't need your penthouse. Check out my organic fruit in a metal whatchamacallit. Flossy flossy. I'm living hella large people.