I’m hosting a meetup to drum up excitement and participation (and one free ticket!) to the impending Dad 2.0 conference coming up next month in Austin, TX this Thursday night (Feb. 9) at SweetWater Brewery during happy hour (5pm til 8pm).  I’ve reserved us the VIP area, where we’ll get tours of the brewery and samples of sweet sweet beer to precede a few hours of merriment.  Hope to see y’all there, and maybe you’ll even win a free ticket!

Let me know if you’re coming, so I can get a rough head count for food and brew.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Apparently, just before you die, your bushes start eating your windows.

Aha!  It’s a residence!

Tame that bush, little shaver!  1-800-TAME-HER.

There’s much left to do to the outside, such as painting, re-landscaping, replanting the grass, fixing cracks in the driveway, and replacing whatever chunk of pipe was shooting water through the front yard and down to the street all last night.  But at least the bushes are gone and the leaking roof replaced.

Inside, there’s ripped out carpet, ripped out linoleum, ripped out walls, new paint colors, new appliances, new kitchen counters, new windows (not yet installed), new flooring, a new furnace, and a bunch of new furniture to go with the six new people living there (with the prolifically shitting rats in the basement).  There’s much left to do with unpainted trim, an unfinished basement, and a horrendously homely master bathroom.  But at least the termites are gone.

And at least the excessive bush is tamed.

I realized I claimed 2008 was the Year of the Muskrat, but I was foolish and naive back then.  Here’s why 2011 was, in fact, The Year (especially in comparison to 2010):

I start writing for DadCentric, and it almost immediately gets voted the #1 dad blog in the world by Babble.  And then again by Parents magazine.

I attend my first Mom 2.0, and they announce a whole new version just for dads!

I do my first product review of Dove soap products for men, and it becomes the most successful soap ever produced and marketed, and I get a 5-Star Friday award.

I participate in my first Movember, and we raise so much money that cancer is virtually assured to be cured by Thanksgiving ’12.

I go to Mardi Gras dressed like Buddy the Elf and spread so much good will that they cancel Lent.

I help educate a sheltered white lawyer on urban lingo and sexual harassment and make the world a better place for employment.

After FOUR DAMNED YEARS of trying to sell our house, we do it.  And leave for vacation a few hours later.

I attend my first paranormal investigation, and Ray Parker Jr announces he’s writing a “Muskrats ain’t ‘fraid of no ghosts” ditty.

I visit Minnesota for the first time, and the state publicly apologizes for the politicians it has produced the past decade+.

I attend my 3rd BlogHer, bring Pretty Bride for the first time, and spend the whole conference learning how lucky she is to be with me.

I give the Sandusky victims the courage to speak out after accidentally emailing my 3-year-old’s teacher about legal steps taken to prevent my touching children.

After over six months of looking and numerous rejected bids, we buy a new house!

I eradicate child sex slavery in Atlanta and poverty in Nicaragua.

Big shoes, 2012.  Big shoes.

Because family Christmas photos were meant for Buddy the Elf costumes.

We chose the longer trail, the two of us.  The rest of the group opted for the short trail, as it was getting dark, and none of us had a flashlight.  We crossed winding paths past large trees, across foot bridges, up hills and back down them…about a mile total.  Darkness filled in around the canopy, and we were about a quarter mile from the end of the trail when I heard it.  A deep, guttural growl that told me, “I know you’re approaching.  Go away.”

I stopped.  “Did you hear that?” I asked.  Silence.  But then, more growling and barking, as if fifteen beasts were sternly admonishing us to leave or be torn limb from limb and eaten for supper.

The trail map indicated there were howler monkeys near the end of the trail, which I assumed meant 10′ hairy carnivores that hated gringos.

I froze, unable to see from which direction the howls were coming.  Then they got closer.  My friend, who was in front, turned and sprinted past me toward the trail head we’d left a mile ago.  I followed.

“I think they’re coming after us…the barks are getting louder…closer!” I bellowed while trying to keep up with my former pro soccer playing companion.

“Just keep running til we can’t hear them any more!” he called over his shoulder.

A mile later, we were muddy, soaked, and panting for air in the parking lot where the other 7 from our group waited.

Me:  “We were nearly killed by howler monkeys!”
Him:  “You mean the little creatures that live in the tree tops and eat leaves when they’re not sleeping 15 hours a day?”
Me:  “Eat a dick.”

I can’t help others’ jealousy over my uncanny ability to survive in the face of tremendous peril.

During the rest of the weekend, we played soccer, made craft projects, and picked up trash on the sides of the road with a couple hundred children.  We scouted lots to purchase and on which to build additional classrooms for their school.  We met with parents and teachers to learn how we can improve on the past 5 years of partnership.

We had a pinata party.  They were INTO it.

I spent much of the first day with Jeremy (5) and his brother Rafael (11).

And was even invited home with them to meet their parents and be served coffee and Ritz crackers.

We walked down the side of a mountain, past homes like these:

I tried to pull from that one semester of Spanish in undergrad 15 years ago.

After two days that went by too quickly, we promised them we’d be back in May to visit again and start construction on the additional buildings.

Lunch:

Upon visiting a coffee plantation shortly before dinner, a young woman approached me.
Her:  Hello.  What’s your name?
Me:  Michael.
Her:  You staying around here?
Me:  Yes.
Her:  Where?
Me:  I…I don’t remember its name.  Is someone making you ask these things of me?  Are you–you know–being forced to get money for…
Her:  I just wanted to practice my English and find out what you thought of my country!  (walks off)

The rest of the trip, any time a local was friendly, my travel companions took great pleasure in insisting she was NOT a child prostitute.

And then I flew home, again realizing just how blessed I am and how eager I am to continue to donate time and money to helping these children, and how essential I believe introducing them to my own children is, so that they never take what they have for granted as we move into the season of “I want!” perpetuated by American culture and doting grandparents.

Saturday morning, I took our 16-year-old to join a group of strangers at an old building by some railroad tracks near the airport to perform what we were told would be “renovations/clean up” work. The initiative was arranged by our church, which asked that we perform 8,000 service hours this Christmas season (we did 15,000), and this was our part.  We went by Chick-fil-A for breakfast (where one is supposed to seek fuel before doing God’s work) and arrived early at the facility. When the group arrived, before we started receiving projects and breaking into teams, we learned how the facility in which we stood would be utilized.

I’d heard Atlanta had a bit of a sex trafficking issue, but I assumed it was exchanges occurring via connecting flights from the Far East to the Way North or Down South, and that the activity pretty much stayed at the world’s busiest airport, just south of the city.

I was wrong.  Actually, about 100 adolescent girls are sold sexually every single night in Atlanta.  It’s rampant, and it’s local.  Instead of flying to Costa Rica or Thailand for this type of sordid entertainment, these bastards are coming here.  It sometimes starts with 5 year olds.  It frequently begins with 9 year olds. They’re kidnapped, brainwashed, often drugged, and then sold over and over each night until they bring home $1,000 (often 10 tricks a night).  A typical pimp will have 5 girls he’s trafficking, so the revenue is astounding.  So astounding, in fact, it’s becoming the preferred source of income generation for gangs, instead of narcotics.  Drugs are sold and gone.  People can be reused, you see.

The place we gathered on Saturday offers a place to escape from this lifestyle, along with counseling, role modeling, and advocacy for the victims.  The building we visited was to become a refuge for former slaves to live, so that they’ll have a permanent address (needed to attend public school), a support network, counseling, etc.  In short, the walls I spackled and painted for 4 hours Saturday morning will soon house girls the same ages as two of the three girls who live in my house.  Girls who’ve been set free from the worst psychological and physical torture I can imagine.  Girls who were snatched from their lives and converted into property.

Having been a homeowner for over a decade, I’ve spackled, primed, and painted many a wall for my tenants, my family, and for myself.  But Saturday’s mudding was different.  Tiny pushpin holes I’d usually let go, I filled.  Barely noticeable crevices in closets, behind doors, next to baseboards, in corners–everywhere I saw a hole, a divot, or other imperfection–I wanted it filled and perfectly smoothed before painting.  I wanted these finished walls, once they became “home” for one of these victims, to be the most blemish-free addition to their recovery I could possibly muster.

As we got ready to leave, I picked up one of the brochures next to the door and turned to the “connect with us” section.  I filled out my personal information and checked boxes for “give,” “serve,” and “advocate.”  You can do the same here.

Because selling children for sex?  Is fucking evil.  I don’t care what God you do or don’t believe in, or what moral compass you do or don’t profess to have.  And I don’t see it going away on its own.

I try to categorize bad news as either:  1) a problem or 2) an expense.  If it’s just the latter, I can bust my ass, file a bunch of lawsuits, and make the issue go away.  But if it’s the former (or if the expense is…say…$20,000 or so), great weeping and gnashing of teeth commence.

On Thursday morning, my bride was at our newly-purchased “forever house” to start painting with her mother and overseeing the kitchen renovation when she called me to say this:

We have termites.

You know when Ferris notices the odometer and mentions it to Cameron?  Yeah.  She mentioned something about load bearing beams and jacks, and then I realized the date was December first, meaning my month of abstinence from alcohol had ended a few hours prior, which told me all was still in God’s loving hands.

Never mind that the lead paint test came back positive, too.

So, I spent the next few hours exploring litigation options between bouts of kicking myself and sprinting through the liquor store to prepare for what’s supposed to be my favorite event of the year:  my annual black tie optional Christmas party.  Which would have been a difficult arena for making merriment that particular day, given its beginnings, but for a spectacular gift brought an hour into the party by a special friend:

A gift that made all care melt away among the perfectly belted homages to INXS, Crowded House, Duran Duran, and other awesomeness from our ’80s cover band.

Because problem or expense, good friends and red eyes make everything better.

And now, I give you “Movember Shrugs.”

If you too would like to upgrade your face like I did mine, look here for a special holiday season rebate that’ll help you get one of these bad boys for yourself!

And if you let Dave at Blogography.com know you’ve donated, you totally get put into a drawing for cool prizes from Avitable and him! Today’s your last chance.  Otherwise, as a colleague at my office said today, I’ll go back to harassing Oliver Twist.