henry the frog

My Wife’s Various Run-ins with the Law This Weekend

2011-10-31T16:32:00.002-05:00

Saturday evening I walked (by which I mean “staggered”) off my flight from London and checked my e-mail. There was a note from Progressive thanking me for processing my claim for the accident I was in earlier that day. Since I was in Europe earlier that day and the only accident I’d been involved in there was some bad curry, I realized that something must’ve happened with the Mrs. HTF. After she picked me up I learned that a lady had caused a car accident which involved her running into the side of the Honda Civic my wife was drving. Thankfully, no one was hurt, except for my car. Traci told me how the lady had at first denied hitting our car at all – that story changed when my wife called the police. Apparently, Traci got along quite nicely with the officer and all was good.

On Sunday morning on the way to church we drove around a corner and saw a car off to the side turned totally upside down. Clearly, an accident had just happened. I pulled over and in full-suit ran up to see if the people were ok. I pulled out a male & female teenager – both were dazed, but unhurt. They both seemed to be ok except that the female was accusing the male of driving badly and bumping into her during the crash. As a fellow-male, with a few years of experience, I told him that he should get used to being accused of things and quickly apologize. He just looked confused.

When the policeman showed up he checked out the accident and then saw my wife. Confused he said to her,

“You again?”

Yep, it was the same police-dude from the day before. Traci explained that this time she was a really innocent bystander. I thought the irony was kinda funny.

So I’m hoping that my wife is able to avoid accidents today . . . but it is Halloween. Maybe I should dress up as a cop…

New and painful forms of exercise for the inflexible

2011-03-04T15:34:00.001-06:00

Yoga is something other people do. It’s usually those ladies who can pick up an apple with their toes and put the thing in their mouths, while standing on the other leg and listening to music that would not only put most humans to sleep, but would render small animals quite dead – from relaxing too much. Well, this is what I thought about the yoga crowd.

And then the Mrs. HTF miraculously got me to go get my Yoga on with her a the Y.

There were only like 7 people in the room and the instructor, Lydia, (I remember this name mostly because I cursed it in my mind a few times) immediately sensed that I was a newbie. I guess I have that look of “guy who thought yoga was a creamy breakfast food.” She asked me about injuries and since I didn’t even have a mat, gave me her backup. But I couldn’t help by notice the tone of her voice as she talked to me – it was like I was asleep and she was trying to influence my dreams without waking me up. At one point I almost poured water on my head to make sure I was actually awake. She talked like that for the entire hour – I can only assume she has no children.

The class started off fine, but I was quickly, and painfully reminded of how inflexible I really am. Balance was special too. Standing on one leg while holding & extending the other in front of me totally blew my mind. I only crashed into my yoga neighbors like 6 or 7 times. I also had to get used to the total silence in the room. Lydia is the only one allowed to talk I guess, and I had a sense that if I said a single word or made a noise that the group would collapse on me and pummel me with their mats – quietly. During one pose, bizarrely named, “Downward Dog” I glanced around thinking I was doing it “right.” At this point Lydia (can you tell I remember this lady’s name?!) walked softly towards me, grabbed my hips and lifted them in the air. This was both confusing and painful at the same time. At the end of class was my favorite pose – which I’m sure has an unpronounceable name – where we just laid on the mat and closed our eyes. I totally nailed that particular pose – there was no need for instructor intervention.

A few days later a buddy took me to a Pilates class – so my experience with new and painful exercise techniques grew even more. I’ll spare you the details, but lets just say that when that class was over I thanked the instructor and she said, “Don’t worry, Pilates is much harder for men than women.” After which, she smoothed out her hair with her left foot and did some texting with her right foot while doing the splits and lifting a smallish Honda over her head.

So if I left you with an impression that I didn’t like this stuff, that was wrong. I actually did dig it, and you know that by the fact that:

I went to a Yoga class by myself a few nights later.

(true story – I caught a girl copying one of my poses in the most recent class. At which point I laughed, … silently)

That Mysterious Box of Cables

2011-02-10T13:24:00.001-06:00

I’ve learned that I have a severe weakness for electronic gizmos that do, well, stuff. In fact, most times that I find myself in a “shopping” environment I gravitate towards anything electronic and will attempt to buy gadgets that I already have, except the newer ones with more “features” and or blinking lights. I don’t think this weakness makes me particularly unique, in fact, what I think it makes me is:

A guy

My dad is the same way, so I guess I could blame him a bit, but I look around and well, most dads are that way, so he’s totally off the hook. Still it’s fun to reminisce about the attic in my parent’s house which became a graveyard for printers, scanners, fax machines and mysterious cables that no one could reasonably identify. All guys have a “location” for those cables and cords that came with the electronic stuff. The vast majority of these cables won’t ever get used and will, in fact, probably never leave their plastic wrap and/or twisty tie. This is only partially because we don’t really know what they all do. It’s also because the odds are off the charts that we already have a cable exactly like the one that came with the “new gadget.” The Mrs. HTF asks me frequently to “organize” (by which she means throw away) the plastic tote that houses my cable stash. I’ll poke around a bit and then put the lid back on realizing 3 things at roughly the same time:

1. I don’t know what many of these even do or which gadget they came with

2. In spite of #1 – it’s guaranteed that someday, somehow I will desperately need one of these things to save the world and/or to transfer video

3. I think there’s a game on the TV I need to watch now

Of course, this is a totally rational reaction to the problem. I’ll probably address it later by spending a crazy amount of money on a newer version of whatever that comes with cables that aren’t compatible with the older version, thus rendering those old cable obsolete. Too bad I’ll never be able to ID the old ones, but that’s beside the point. Now I have something newer to play with.

It looks WAY easier on the TV…

2011-01-24T15:52:00.001-06:00

I remember after Christmas break in elementary school that lots of kids would show up proudly displaying their “lift ticket thing” attached to their oversized winter coats. This sticker was of course earned after their parents dropped some serious coinage at a ski resort. Living in Kansas, this also meant they’d traveled a bit to find actual mountains. Despite going to college in Utah, home to many a ski lift, I never went skiing on purpose (I’m assuming you don’t count trying to stand on a sled as it rocketed down a hill… not one of my more graceful dismounts).

A few weeks ago we found ourselves at a ski “resort” up the road from my wife’s childhood home. It was my first time skiing on, well, snow, so I was pretty apprehensive, but since I was going to take lessons I took some solace in knowing that there would be athletic teenagers there to teach and help me. This understanding was shattered when the Mrs. HTF revealed to me that the lessons we’d booked were just for the kids. She was to be my “athletic teenager.” This was semi-ok because, well, how hard could it be? You just stand on these fiberglass things and pivot to avoid the larger trees, right? Outside the lodge I put the skis on for the first time. That part was the highlight of my morning of skiing. It was all “DOWNHILL” from there.

The first task was making my way over to the lift and generally moving around a bit. The ground was flat, but I was averaging roughly 2 inches per hour on the 30 foot walk to the lift with my skis on. After several minutes of serious effort I let Traci know that I’d be removing my skis and would watch happily from inside the lodge. This was where she put her ski-boot down. She was not going to let me quit. (I suspect this was partially driven by the amount of money we’d spent for me to go 6 inches on my skis. But I’m sure there was some tough love in there too) She made me fight through the panic and we somehow got on the lift. I liked the sitting part.

On the dismount from the lift I immediately fell down – this was a clear, and foreboding sign for the rest of the morning. Getting up was WAY harder than I’d expected, but I got lots of experience as I matriculated my way down the hill. Now it should be pointed out that the Mrs. HTF scores about a 7 on the patience scale. There are limits. She did a pretty miraculous job of getting me to not just get on the lift, but also to make my way down the mountain as well. But it should be stated, I’m quite certain she thought about leaving me on several occasions. Each time I fell I consistently couldn’t figure out how to put the skis back on. She’d help me out, but after the 20th time, the frustration was so palpable that I’m pretty sure thought about stabbing me with a ski pole and calling it an accident. Still, she stuck with it and somehow I made it down. But here’s the thing…

Once I got down I realized that I actually liked it AND I’d figured out how to stop, sorta, so I didn’t collide with Deadly Alaskan Tree Monsters (good name for a rock band).

From then on it was relatively smooth, though not graceful, sailing. My kids picked it up really quickly, especially Sydney. At one point, and I’m not making this up, she literally skied in a circle around me while I went down the hill. We went back a few days later for night skiing – yep, I liked it that much! I’m sure I still look goofy going down, but I love it anyway and…

I have one of those sweet sticker lift ticket things on my coat!!

PS – Thank you, Traci for teaching me to ski AND for not leaving me to be eaten by confused moose

Moms In the Stands and Dads on the Sidelines

2010-12-08T16:42:00.000-06:00

This is a Guest Post from an esteemed blogger, who writes well and makes sense, so definitely not a typical HTF post...

The orange slices at halftime, the fleet of minivans shuttling players to and from practice, the words of encouragement after a tough loss... yes, little league parents are a big part of their children's games; at least the ones who help make treasured childhood memories.

They may also be the memory their kids would rather forget, such as Mom yelling at the coach to get Junior more playing time. In the last decade or so, little league parents have become notorious for sticking up for their little leaguers to the point where they make the games less enjoyable for the players, the coaches, and the refs. All parents want their children to do well and get a chance to a play (and experience the joys of winning), but it seems there is a gender divide between how each parent handles a child's success -- and failures.

Moms are often the most ferocious advocates for their little athletes, and as a result will shift blame for an athletic shortcoming from lack of ability, skill, or effort to outside forces like injury, stupid coaching, bad plays, or the other team being evil/good/bad, depending on what is most fitting for the situation. Moms like to coddle. They like to make sure their kids are emotionally sound, and by their definition it usually means protected from criticism. Moms try to protect egos and massage bruised ones, and so will tell their children and everyone who wants to listen that their son or daughter had a bad game due to a phantom injury, the coach putting them in during the wrong situation, dirty play from the other team, or a blown call.

Dads also love to blame coaching and reffing, and unfortunately some have taken it to extremes. But rather than simply deflect all the blame on these outside factors, Dads will also put some blame on the kids. Dads can be gruff, realistic, and not averse to a little "character building." Though the refs may get their fair share of verbal abuse during a game, and there will be plenty of grousing about how a coach does not see a little athlete's potential, if a little leaguer has a bad game, a Dad may let them know about it.

Little League parents want to see their children succeed more than anything else, but when they don't, they deal with it in different, often gender specific ways. But at the end of the day, it's just a game, and more than anything else it is joy to see children playing a game and having fun.

J. Gustav is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on forensic psychology schools for Guide to Online Schools.

Emergency Rooms, 3rd-World-Dictators, and the Moon Fest

2010-12-02T17:10:00.001-06:00

As I write this I’m sitting in the semi-pleasant waiting room outside the “Surgical Center” of our local hospital. A “loved-one” is back behind all these walls getting some necessary repairs and perhaps an oil-change thrown in. I don’t like hospitals, few people do. And if you do I’d submit that you should sell your services as a proxy for those of us who hate the place. So like, the next time I have to go the ER or something, you could go FOR me. I might even consider paying you to visit the people that I should be visiting. I love those people, but I dislike hospitals THAT much, and I’m pretty sure they’ll eventually forgive me – referring to the people, not the hospitals.

A couple weeks ago I did actually have to check myself into the ER. (see the Brian Regan rant about hospitals, seriously, you must watch it) This was an odd experience. I walked in, I’d played hoops a few hours earlier and was pretty capable of, you know, walking, but they threw me in a wheel chair and then got me on a bed where I was told to “lay flat” repeatedly. I was wheeled around everywhere I went. It was like I was a lazy 3rd world dictator. Everyone was pretty nice though. Except I think they need to have a better way of prioritizing people as they walk in. Like there should be a nurse at the door, one of the more experienced ones, who can glance at you, ask a couple questions and then tell you if you’re in the “Extreme-Emergency”, “Plain-old-emergency” or the “Not really much of an emergency” lines. Just seems more efficient, and safer. Just so you know, I’m totally fine – zero problems, except that the tape they used to adhere the IV to my arm left behind “awesome residue” (good name for a rock band) that refuses to come off even with the use of power tools and spatulas (at the same time!).

These places have a weird smell that I’m convinced is pretty universal. I’ve smelled it in lots of hospitals in several states and even other countries. But I think that’s to actually make them not-so-comfortable. If you run a hospital, you probably don’t want people, you know, trying to move in or retire there on purpose. So you make the place smell bad AND you make people wear these gowns that make you feel pretty much totally naked all the time. You have look down constantly to make sure that your nether-regions are actually a little covered. And the back of you, where the “flap” is, is basically the 24-hours-a-day-moon-fest. Oh yeah, and there are needles too.

Anyway, despite all this, I’m thankful that we have hospitals, and this one even has wi-fi in the lobby, which is a plus. But that doesn’t mean I have to ever enjoy dropping by…

Beach Boy Karaoke, Swagger, and Impressive Wiggling

2010-10-22T15:39:00.001-05:00

You know how the model in lots of TV sit coms is less-than-average-looking-guy married to way-above-average-looking-woman. (right here I was gonna list the shows for you, but let’s see in the comments if you can list them…trust me it’s a long list.) Sometimes people land things that they really don’t deserve – and strangely this often results in unintentional comedy. That last sentence pretty much describes my whole life, which I’m good with. Recently I was “matched” with a new assignment in our church that yet again proves this point. I am now the official DJ for teenage church dances. If this confuses you, I’m right there with you.

DJs, by definition it seems, are cool. I haven’t been cool in like 20+ years, and even that is debatable. Perhaps the last cool thing I did was land a spit-wad directly between the eyes of a the girl I liked in 2nd grade. I was a hero amongst the large group of 2 eight-year-old boys watching me. I guess it was all downhill from there. But DJs have to have swagger and be hip, so the image of the bald-dude who thinks he dances WAY better than he actually does standing behind a bunch of equipment telling the kids how to “get down” should absolutely make you laugh. (don’t worry, I’ll put pictures up here when it actually happens – I’m nothing if not self-effacing)

One of the surprises so far is that whenever I tell people who are super-old like me about it – they actually want to come hang out with me during the dances. I’m gonna go ahead and call that my posse. And we’ll spend the entire first dance coming up with our “street names.”

I haven’t been to one of these dances since I was the teenager. I’ll admit, I have super-great memories of them and was a little less-inhibited than I should’ve been probably. This includes the time I did a semi-spontaneous karaoke to a Beach Boys song with 8 girls on the stage in front of the confused on-looking crowd. But I’m pretty convinced that I’m gonna be laughing a lot looking down on the crowd. People watching paradise…

So as awkward as I might look trying to be cool up there – at least I can fell some consolation as I look down on the teenage kids trying to wiggle around and impress each other.

Now I just gotta figure out street names for me and my homies…

HTF the Fantasy Football League –Week 5 Update

2010-10-15T01:08:00.001-05:00

You know that whole tree falling in the forest without anyone to hear it thing – well, in spite of me not writing about it, the HTF Fantasy Football league has been rockin’ the last month since I gave it a shout out here on the blog. Last week’s games were particularly close and featured a super-tight 6 point win by the up and coming NYTrainSpotters against Tiffany’s high-scoring crew. JJ’s Diamond people made sure that “True to the name Tony” stayed in last place, but just barely. The Gobstoppers snagged their second W and I eeked out a smallish-margin-win against the Goatz, whose mascara-wearing QB named Tom was on a bye.

But Matt’s Cannibalistic Pigs sit atop the league after rattling off 3 wins in a row including a beat-down of the Crushees.

This week the top and bottom ranked teams actually play each other and you know who most of us will be rooting for. Go Tony-boy – surely the Chilean Miners are on your side!!

2 Continents, an inflatable kangaroo, and those little white bags on airplanes

2010-10-12T16:01:00.001-05:00

Nobody who flies on planes a lot likes flying on planes a lot. Still, it beats driving, walking, or, uh, swimming to get to where you wanna go. The blog has been a little sparse lately because I took several, really-long, plane rides, which, judging by the fact that I’m back now and not stranded on an island with polar bears and smoke monsters, were successful. I went to Sydney and Singapore, which I’ve learned are actually farther away than they looked on my globe growing up. (like a quarter-turn and I went from the West Coast to Asia – not a big deal.)

A few things I learned/observed during my travels:

Being upgraded 30 seconds before you board a 14 hour flight feels an awful lot like somebody ringing your doorbell while you’re writing your mortgage check and handing you a bag of hundred dollar bills. I’m guessing…
Ambien totally works
Sydney is an awesome place and they love them the tourists. Also, so many people called me their “mate” that the Mrs. HTF has reason to be jealous.
Went for a jog around the Opera House, botanical garden and the harbor bridge, which other than dingos and marsupials are like the only Australian things I recognize – best jog evah!
Sometimes the perfect gift for my kids is standing in a window wearing boxing gloves. This was the case with the 3.5 foot tall inflatable kangaroo that’s now a fixture in our family room.
Harbor Cruise was awesome. We saw some sweet views, some houses worth $50 million, and a smallish island which we nicknamed “Tasmania.” The cruise was slightly less awesome during the torrential rains. Sadly my fish & chips didn’t hold up well. And for “seafood” that fish didn’t taste very good after being drenched.
Flight to Singapore delayed 8 hours, so I pulled into the hotel at 4 AM. Good morning!!
Singapore is a lot like South Florida except much cleaner, the people are way nicer, fewer alligators/snakes, and most people there speak better English than I do. (not a stretch)
I’m not a shopper, but if I was I’d visit Singapore often. Technically speaking – the shiny stuff in the shops was stunning.
The place feels like it was all built in the last 2 years – again, much shininess.
The flight home was horrific as everything that was on my inside suddenly wanted to be on the outside. You’d think this would be fine after a time or two, but I got to have essentially a 15-18 hour party with those surprisingly (and thankfully) strong “motion sickness” bags stuffed in the seat in front of me and/or the squeaky clean restrooms in Tokyo on the layover. The good part was that with the time changes I literally landed in Seattle before I took off from Singapore (wrap your head around that), so it was like the whole thing never happened.

All said it was an awesome trip and I got to hang out and work with some marvelous people who may or may not ever speak to me again. I leave you with this important photo I took at a Sydney park, which is TOTALLY clear:

Can’t you just find a tree over there?! and other notes from the scout campout

2010-09-27T14:39:00.001-05:00

I camped a lot growing up – and in spite of that I always told myself that when my boys did the boy scout thing that I’d go on their campouts with them. This was mostly so I could see stuff happen first-hand that they would be teased about or possibly arrested for later. But there was at least a tinge (measured precisely) of wanting to hang out with my aging offspring. This weekend I went with three 11-year-old scouts and their 2 fearless (and I mean that term in the most literal sense – because I know the 3 boys personally) adult leaders.

Here are a few things I learned/experienced:

Food and/or hot dogs tastes significantly better when eaten on a campout. I suspect this is often due to the fact that you eat it roughly 4 hours after you expected to due to camp-setup. Also, there’s often no microwave nearby, so that slows things down a bit too.
Despite their best efforts, the scouts proved that you can’t really take a single match, light it, and drop it on a huge log to start a fire. They learned this a lot of times because, well, they had a lot of matches and once you start lighting those things – pretty hard to stop.
Sometimes, with roughly 50 bazillion spots in the woods to choose from, a boy scout will choose to relieve himself next to the picnic table that has your food on it.
There’s a direct relationship between the lateness of the night and the crudeness/weirdness of the stories told around a campfire.

Coming up with a skit spontaneously is way harder than it looks. The boys performed a 3 second skit where they all walked up, shot and/or machetee-d each other and then fell to the ground laughing. You’d think competing with that wouldn’t be so tough… Luckily, we had a seasoned scout leader with us who directed a skit where I would put a bag over my head and then people would faint if they lifted the bag.
Watching three 11-year-olds put up a tent without help is way more entertaining than it should be.
Flaming marshmallow sticks are way better than regular old flaming sticks. Also, sitting directly on bags of marshmallows is apparently a fair and acceptable way of protecting them from other scouts.
Dumping bacon grease on the fire is even better than eating the actual bacon.

So as you can see, I learned a lot and had a great time. Looking forward to the next adventure…

Superheros, Hairless French Cats, and the HTF Mailbag

2010-09-24T16:22:00.001-05:00

The HTF mailbag got a rare hit this week. Remember to send in your questions/comments/words of any sort to henrythefrog@gmail.com.

So here we go (longtime blog readers will quickly recognize the prose here):

Dear HTF,

So you might would be interested to know that word on the street is that you were the one who hung the Blago jury. The word on the street is that you were afraid that The Hair just wouldn’t look the same with the hard water of hard time.

In case you were wondering, additional words on the street that I have heard about you: that you own a hairless cat, that you also own The World’s Fastest Amphibious Car and that Spineroos in the water are even more fun than on land, that you secretly like snakes, that you prank call local businesses using a Scooby Doo voice, that you once had a sweet perm (during your boy band days), that you were responsible for New Coke, that your real name is Francois, and that you actually like to talk like Scooby Doo when doing Water Spineroos with your hairless cat in your Amphibious Car while drinking New Coke AND eating Pop Rockets! Oh, and that you totally named your hairless cat "Francois McDoo" (Francois/Scooby hybrid). Oh part II, and that you’re Batman. (Totally explains The World’s Fastest Amphibious Car. As well as the ability to drink New Coke while eating Pop Rockets without your stomach and/or head exploding.)

I cannot reveal my sources, but I am asking you to confirm and/or deny these statements.

Enquiring Minds Want to Know; AGM Wants to Know!

Let me begin by chuckling about the phrase in your first sentence – “might would be interested.” That one is a winner. For instance, “I might would be an excellent NBA center.” On the Blago thing, I’m sworn to secrecy, but there may or may not be a deal in place awarding me the next Illinois senate seat that opens up.

For paragraph 2, I knew there were some “words on the street” about me, but I had no idea that some of those words would include Spineroos or Francois or even Batman. While I can neither confirm or deny any of that specifically. Here are a few facts:

“Hairless Cat” is a good name for a rock band, but would make a horrific pet that would scare the people
The name is Frankie Mac – and he’s clearly against all things French. In fact, at the mention of his name, the Frenchies put up the surrender monkey flag and award me the Eiffel Tower and some truffles
The Car you mentioned may or may not exist, but it’s classified, and it’s green, and I can plug my iPod into it.
Had nothing to do with “New Coke”, but that was possibly the term I used in junior high while daring people to snort Pop Rockets.
Snakes are evil. There’s not a debate to be had there.
I’m Iron Man (not the other guy)
Perm = no comment

Thanks for the inquiry, AGM. Just don’t go believing all the words on the street.

Electronic Messages/Voices and Remembering Car Phones

2010-09-22T15:24:00.001-05:00

“Daddy, when you are you going to be done talking to your computer?” – this was what my daughter asked me last night when I hosted a meeting with people in Singapore, Sydney, and Hong Kong while I sat in our home in Seattle. And I did this by talking into an invisible microphone somewhere inside my computer. This seems normal enough to me, cuz I do it regularly, but I paused for a minute this morning to think about that. Guess it’s gotta seem kinda funny to my 4 year old.

I remember the first “electronic message” I sent in like 1993 to a girl I liked. It was super-amazing! (though I think the written notes at school were more fun – I wonder if kids do that anymore…doubt it) It was a few years later before the term “e-mail” showed up. Today I spend most of my day sending and receiving e-mails (or so it seems) – it’s significantly less fun now than it was in 1993. I actually asked the Mrs. HTF out on our 2nd official date via e-mail when we kept missing each other on the telephone – nobody had cell phones back then (though I think people had “car phones,” which is a funny term now. Can you imagine a phone that only worked in your car?!). She teases me about that now, though I’m guessing that there are roughly 4 million dates set up every day now with text messaging. I think sending an e-mail back then showed a lot of dedication because it was at least a 10 minute proposition to “log-on” to the dial-up network that made that awesome modem noise, and then each screen took at least a decade to load.

My kids won’t get any of this fun. Of course the list of technology fun they’ll never get to have is really long. My wife showed me an 80s photo of a friend of hers on FB last night where she had a HUGE Walkman strapped to her belt and big foam earphones on her head. People used to JOG like that and listen to 10-12 whole songs WITHOUT SKIPPING. Ouch. Anyway, I think I’ll revisit this topic, cuz I think it’s fun. But I’d love to hear your reminiscing as well – maybe even some fodder for the usually empty HTF mailbag…

As for me I need to get back to talking to the voices in my computer.

HTF The Fantasy Football League – Week 1 Report

2010-09-16T01:37:00.001-05:00

We laughed, we cried and half of us were happy after week 1 of HTF Fantasy Football. I think it’s appropriate to begin with the weekly honor bestowed by that little Japanese car company for the most embarrassing smack-down:

ouch…

Judging by a rush of roster moves this week a few of us are not so convinced that our teams have what it takes. In grand fashion I was crushed by JJ, the Cannibals feasted on some Gobstoppers, Tony’s Terror Squad EEKED out a 2-point win over the team whose name no one can confidently pronounce and the Goat-eeze grew all over the chins of the Potters from the NYC. But the performance of the week (both best and worst) was in the Toyota game. Congrats to the Tiff who more than doubled that girl from O-town.

Good luck in week 2!! (unless you’re the Cannibals, who I think should really stick with veggie burgers…)

That Funny President and a new job for Traci

2010-09-14T15:42:00.002-05:00

Last week I was scrolling through news stories on the interweb (yep, I’m that up-to-date on current events) and noticed that our President had dropped some un-intentional comedy on a press conference. He got some question about tax cuts or stimulus (something like that) and he looked at the reported with a little disdain and pronounced,

“We can’t afford it.”

I may be the only one who found that line hilarious. But I actually expected him to smile and/or wink at the people with notepads and pens in front of him. But he maintained a straight, even stern, face. Regardless of your politics, and I’m guessing that some of you have politics that shouldn’t be regarded at all, the idea that math is being done in our government to figure out “what we can afford” is kinda funny. “We can’t afford it” hasn’t been relevant there for a while.

In our family, those types of statements come always from the Mrs. HTF who is the absolute owner of all money stuff. I may work in Finance at a small-ish software company, but at home I’m the guy who turns in my receipts and has absolutely no idea where money goes. It’s all on the computer, her computer, and I could probably figure out some of it. I think we pay bills sometimes, but not sure to whom or how we do it. For all I know we tightly roll up cash and the intimidating crows outside deliver the payments. Now you might think this dynamic would bother me, but in fact, I’m more concerned about how the kids got toothpaste up on the ceiling. You see, with Traci running the show we’ve never had money troubles. It’s kind of like bedtime at our house – my involvement, however well-intended, only screws things up. (this hasn’t stopped me from pretending every night like I’m actually helping with bedtime while I’m jumping on the bed with the kids…)

So my point is this – Barry Obama totally needs to hire Traci to run the financial show there for a while.

The NFL case for Daddy DVR Time (DDT)

2010-09-10T16:43:00.001-05:00

Pro football kicked-off (pun totally intended) its season last night with a Viking quarterback who may or may not have dentures and/or Depends playing against a team from New Orleans whose motto is “Who Dat” which clearly means they’re REALLY good at football. I watched the game as I usually watch football – late at night on the DVR, several hours after the “real” game ended, and with the volume on so low that the human ear can’t detect it (this is so it doesn’t wake up the 5 sleepers upstairs). This is mostly because for whatever reason my wife isn’t completely down with me disengaging for like 4 hours at a time while the kids are at their, um, busiest. Yeah, I guess that’s fair.

I was reminded that I really like watching the foozball, and how life has kinda gotten in the way of staring at a TV for entire weekends at a time. A few years ago the Mrs HTF and I had just finished saying our little before-bed-prayer and I opened the eyes I realized that a few hours earlier the college football national championship bowl game had ended and not only had I forgotten, but I hadn’t seen a single bowl game that season. (in case you don’t know there are at least 2 bowl games for each company listed on the New York Stock exchange, so that’s, um, a lot) At that moment I realized that maybe my distance from the football had gotten maybe too extreme. So now I pay a bit more attention and catch those DVR’d games every once in a while.

For the record, with the 30-second-skip-button I can watch a 3.5 hour NFL game in just under 30 minutes…efficiency baby! Too bad we can’t DVR some of life’s other events (the DMV, work meetings, or perhaps conversations we were done with like 30 minutes ago but don’t seem to have an end in sight . . . etc.)

Wet ‘n Wild ‘n Wacky At The State Fair (and a little Flannel too!)

2010-09-02T01:04:00.003-05:00

We like exploring new places, and we probably like it a little bit more than is normal. By “we” I’m mostly referring to my adventurous wife. She has a list, and infinite one, of places to go check out. This is similar to a list a US Senator might keep of “stuff to do if we had infinitely more money to spend.” We may cross stuff off the list occasionally, but it’s constantly growing. We’ve checked out a lot during 18 months here in Washington, but apparently we haven’t seen everything just yet.

On Thursday we hit the fabulous State Fair in Monroe. I’m not a State Fair guy by nature, but the Mrs. HTF is pretty good at getting the troops excited about things like livestock, scones and huge quilts. This is a mystical power that never ceases to amaze and confuse me. We did get our state fair on and did some animal petting, junk food eating, and spent WAY too much time in the arts and crafts area – this was salvaged for my boys when they found the Lego exhibits which they proceeded to belittle and ask me how they could get their “stuff” in there next year because it was “way better” than the displays in the barn.

But then something happened that dampened our spirits in a serious way. It started pouring rain, and it was that super-cold rain that feels like I stuck my bald head into and ice-maker dispenser on the “crush” setting. All of us, except for our fearless leader, wanted to go home in the worst way. Our complaints were scoffed at because,

“We have to stay for the lumberjack show.”

And stay we did. Here’s some proof – remember that while I filmed this I was suffering from six kinds of hypothermia and was the only person without something covering my melon (not that I’m bitter or anything). But the guys in flannel were undeterred and put on a show:

The race between flanneled-man-power and flanneled-chainsaw-power

We also had our first ever all-family-roller-coaster-experience on THE WACKY WORM:

A roller coaster only slight less wild than Mommy driving to church…

So even though we’re still trying to dry out a few days later it was actually a pretty good time. But if you go, be sure to take a parka covered with a rain jacket, unless of course you’re wearing flannel, in which case you don’t even need to wear pants, cuz you’re THAT tough!

Those words that make you chortle…

2010-08-31T12:29:00.001-05:00

I like words, I really do. But I also really like unintentional-comedy. Words often cause unintentional-comedy simply by, well, existing. And we all need to laugh a bit more than we actually do. SO… to determine the draft order of the 2nd Annual HTF Fantasy Football League each of the folks have picked “funny words” and we’re asking you to vote for your favorite or favorites. There’s only a couple days until the draft, so do it now, please.

Even if you don’t give a skadoosh about our scrumptious shenanigans that may or may not involve phytoplankton having infarctions after eating baba-ganoush with gubernatorial candiadates debating dopplegangers and fibbertygibbets while dancing a mean jiggery-pokery – you really should vote!

And The Winner Is . . .

2010-08-27T13:26:00.001-05:00

We have our winner! Thanks to all of you who participated in the “random drawing contest thing for a $60 gift card to buy most anything online.” We (no idea how “I” became “WE” but it sure sounds more impressive, right?) had lots of entries from AWESOME people – including some shout outs in other blogs and on the Facebook. And our winner is:

REBECCA STEVENSON

This is a friend I haven’t seen in like 20 years, but recently reconnected with. Congrats to her and may she buy fun stuff.

Special thanks to the promotions department at CSNStores for sponsoring the goodness!

Getting Blue in the Face and Holes in the Teeth

2010-08-26T01:18:00.005-05:00

One of the cool parts about being a dad, aside from getting to roll up to the public library in a dented mini-van, is getting abbreviated reports of how the day went from the people who didn’t get to go to the office. This usually involves cryptic half-sentences shouted towards me when I walk in the door, and at times the events are urgent enough to warrant a cell phone call during the day.

One such “urgent event” is whenever my 4 year old suddenly remembers that the “2” button on mommy’s phone is a speed dial to daddy AND that she needs to push this button . . . a lot. This can happen 40-50 times on a given day, and the likelihood of it increases exponentially when I’m in an important meeting. Of course after a few times of ignoring the calls I assume that my wife actually urgently needs to talk because either she’s close to sending a child back to where they were 20 years ago OR the child has done something to another child that causes the same outcome OR something is on sale and she needs my opinion on whether to buy it or not (said opinion will then be ignored). Instead, I find out that I’m being prank-called by a 4 year old who diffuses the situation with incredible skill by simply saying, “I called to say I miss you daddy, and I love you.” You’d have to be a mean dude to stay mad after that.

This week I got a call from my wife, but only after a “warning text” where she let me know that the upcoming call was gonna be really unpleasant. You see, it was “take the boys to the dentist day” and we’ve learned to always expect the worst. And we got what we expected. On the call I learned that the dentist had surmised that our oldest hadn’t put a toothbrush in his mouth since George Bush had decent approval ratings. This is in spite of us nagging him constantly to brush those things and floss a bit too. His cavity has its own zip code and zoning laws. We were told by the disapproving dentist that we actually have to brush the kid’s teeth ourselves. (side note – try to keep a normal face while you brush someone’s teeth – WAY harder than you think…) So we get to be super-embarrassed, terrible-parents AND give this dentist guy more money – the upside is that he’s gonna:

stick a needle in my son’s mouth. (something I’m totally good with, since it seems like a semi-legal punishment)

When I got home that day I was greeted with the strange one-liner that, “Braeden was swimming as far as he could at swim lessons and HIS HEAD TURNED BLUE.” I wasn’t quite sure how to take this – surely his swim teacher was an evil monster that should be thrown in jail. But then Braeden entered the conversation, smiled at me and said,

“I had my goggles on too tight… it was kinda fun.”

Gotta love those Daddy-reports….

I Voted . . . sort of

2010-08-23T15:45:00.002-05:00

I voted last week – you probably did too. But I did it while sitting on my bed reading stuff online about each of the candidates (and perhaps watching Youtube videos of them tripping or saying things out of context that made you think they hated children). This is probably a little different than how it goes down in Iraq. We’ve done absentee ballots for quite a while, but somehow it doesn't feel quite like voting. It feels a little bit like watching church stuff on TV instead of going to church. Kinda like my vote should be worth a little less than the guy who took the time to drive to the Junior High and stand in line so he could vote. Still, since my vote is worth the same as that dude, I’ll keep doing it via the mailbox.

The big mid-term elections are coming up, and from what the make-up-caked-talking-heads on the TV keep saying – there are gonna be some serious changes. For example by the time the election is over, instead of a country run by career-politicians, we’ll have a country run by career-politicians who very recently won an election. I’m not sure one election, especially a mid-term is going to change everything, but it makes for some good theater. And it makes a strong case for us to KEEP OUR DVR so that we can skip all of those commercials. (that last sentence may or may not of been directed at the Mrs. HTF)

Anyway, be sure to pay super close attention to your local races. And then in November we can get back to watching those awesome Old Spice ads again.

Junior High Dances, Football Helmets, & Porta-Potties

2010-08-20T12:30:00.001-05:00

With the rapid approachment (a great word I just made up) of the football season there’s anticipation in the air of NFL mini-camps. There’s also some serious BO-stench in the air there as well, but I’m choosing not to talk about that. Every team thinks they have a shot. It’s kinda like the first few seconds at the junior high dance. You think, “hey, this could be awesome if everything goes exactly the way I’ve been trying to imagine.” If only willing it would make it so… (I’d be significantly taller and have a lot more hair if “will” was all u needed). Well, the 2nd annual HTF Fantasy Football league is about to kick off and there are similar stakes and a massive sense of unfounded optimism. One of our more skilled (at what? – I’ll let you decide) managers sent in this question:

Dear Amphibian Friend:

In preparation for the upcoming FF season I have been doing the following:

· Religiously watching the “Chiefs Training Camp Update” every night on my local news

· Religiously reading the bottom-of-the-screen crawl for NFL news on ESPN while my husband hogs the TV to watch the Little League World Series

· Tracking Ben Roethlisberger’s progress toward not screwing up over the past 2 months so his suspension will be reduced (it won’t), and

· Researching which players are “HELMET OFF” and “HELMET ON” because there is a direct correlation between playing ability and HELMET status

What do you think my chances are this season?

CM the GM

Let’s be clear, your name, or rather, call-sign, there are the end may well be your best FF attribute. Thanks for the great questions. I’ll tackle each line one by one:

If by “religiously watching Chiefs training camp” you mean that you’re praying that they’ll win more than 3 games, then that works. If you plan to draft an actual Chiefs player, that strategy will work perfectly, but only if you draft all Chiefs players
I’m withholding jokes about watching children play baseball on TV out of deep respect for your husband. I don’t get watching actual men play baseball on TV, so the kid thing confuses me.
Ah, Big-Ben the role model… You can draft the guy, but just please avoid setting him up on dates with your friends.
Important to remember that a key purpose of helmets is to “cover up the ugly.” I’m not sure just wearing a helmet means a dude can play. I proved this myself during my own adolescent football career. But if that strategy is working for ya – you go girl!

I think your chances this season are certainly off the charts. You’re guaranteed a victory with those keen strategies. And since you brought up Chiefs training camp – I leave you with this training technique in which the starting running back attempts to do, uh, two things at once…

Be sure to send your questions, regardless of how random, into henrythefrog@gmail.com!

HTF Givin’ Stuff Away!! You’re gonna wanna get in on this!

2010-08-18T14:49:00.001-05:00

For some reason for like the last week I can’t get that “I Wanna Be a Billionaire” song out of my head. This may be because, well, I wanna be one. But one of the biggest reasons would be to be able to give stuff away to the people. I have this fantasy about leaving thousand dollars tips or giving the family with the rickety, old mini-van a brand new ride. Well, it’s not exactly that, but I have the awesome chance to do a giveaway to some of my favorite people on the planet – you guys! I’m giving away a SWEET $60 gift card to use at any one of 200 online stores to buy stuff you NEED like yoga mats, wire wisks, remote control leopards, or dining room sets . It’s pretty much anything you could want thanks to the groovy promotions department at CSN Stores – who are apparently new HTF fans.

Trust me – you’ll have zero trouble using the $60 gift card. There’s no catch. Here’s how you enter:

Post a comment on this post or send me an email – the comment must include your email address. You can only enter your e-mail address once, so spammage isn’t gonna help!
If you post a link back to this post on your blog, let me know and you’ll get an additional entry!

AND if people enter the contest and tell me in the comment/email that they came here from your blog – you’ll get an additional entry, plus they’ll get their entry.

Remember – your email address is your entry! If you don’t want the world (which may be a bit of an overstatement) to see your email address in your comment, then just send me the email.

I’ll take entries up until the end of the day on Aug 25th – then will select a random winner. (by “random winner” I’m not calling the winner RANDOM per se, but if you read the blog you probably are a bit random) Good luck!!

Leisurely Evening At The Pool

2010-08-17T15:23:00.001-05:00

There’s nothing quite like finishing off a long day in the office by being mauled by gaggles of small children in a public swimming pool. Which is precisely what I did last night because that’s what you do when your wife has been home with the little people on a hot day without air conditioning.

Public pools are an awesome scene, but not for the faint of heart. Easily the scariest place is the bathroom/locker room. If there was ever a room where you shouldn’t roll around in bare feet – this is probably it. Let’s just say, toddlers trying to navigate wet swimsuits while taking care of urinal business can result in some, uh, “liquid outside of the pool.” I think the assumption is that the actual pool water has enough cleaning effects to cancel out the nasty – this is an assumption I challenge.

Also in the locker room is the unavoidable “nudity with strangers” thing. Not typically a big deal, but, well, I’ll leave out a few stories. Last night I was doing the swimsuit change and was just about the drop my drawers when a 2 year old GIRL came flying around the corner and almost ran into me. Luckily I had time to, well, not flash her. Her father was right behind her and quickly realized the awkward moment that had happened. He quickly took care of her and whisked her away. A few seconds later the SAME THING HAPPENED. At this point I resolved to become swimsuit-man from inside the biological weapon that is the public toilet stall. At no point did bare feet touch floor, but I did successfully get dressed.

Once in the water I instantly became the juggle-gym/punching bag/drowning victim of my kids and their friends. This was expected, but the onslaught was particularly ferocious yesterday. I judge this by the claw marks, bruises, and time spent laying on the bottom of the pool with multiple kids standing on me. After a while I escaped to what I expected was the relative calm of the toddler pool, only to be clocked in the eye by my daughter wielding a plastic dump-truck. This caused actual bleeding. But her friend made it better by slamming a plastic bucket on my head.

The part I left out . . .

I had a ton of fun last night!! (but may wear a helmet next time)

Struggling with complex math…

2010-08-13T13:34:00.001-05:00

Friends, there are still a few more slots left in the always-um-special HTF Fantasy Football League. We want to have 10 teams and have 8 awesome (brave) readers who are in:

- Tiffany, Christy, Dave, Aubri, Aaron, Matt, Jerianne & me

So that leaves like 13 or 17 spots open.

Right?

Ok, maybe it’s less than that

Anyway, this is your big chance to be part of the fun and be featured on the blog for being dominating and/or getting crushed.

As an extra incentive there will be a prize for the winner!

And it won’t be this:

It’ll be even better! So drop me an email and get in on the fun!!!

Teen Frog

2010-08-12T15:20:00.001-05:00

A couple nights ago the Mrs HTF was out on one of her female-only adventures. After I put the little people to bed I found myself doing what I usually do when I’m alone – just kinda walking around the house, slowly, and sitting down in random places thinking of what I should do with the alone/free time. Then I go sit in another place and do the same bit of thinking. Well, that night I turned on the TV and, for reasons I describe later, watched the entirety of the “Teen Choice Awards.”

I thought it would be a less-serious, more appropriate version of the adult award shows. But the opening song was Katy Perry singing something about “Let’s go all the way tonight…” So right off I was hit with the fact that “teen shows” meant something a little different than I thought. Still, with the help of the fast-forward button on the DVR, I endured the rest of the show, including way more of Taylor Lautner’s chest than in all the Vampire movies combined. Now I should tell you why I turned it on in the first place… (actually, I shouldn’t tell you, but I’m going to anyway)

Recently Traci made an observation that at first I scoffed at, but then realized was awfully correct. (most of my observations get scoffed at and then scoffed at again . . . and again – appropriately) She said:

“You’re a closet teenager.”

This is factually correct, and pretty embarrassing. Without knowing it I try really hard to like the same music teenagers do (loudly), to like the same TV shows, to stay up late without fearing consequences the next day, dancing badly, stuff like that. Only I get to do it without the zits or the fear of my Biology mid-term. I guess I channel the inner-teen because, well, those years pretty much rocked (and I had hair then). It’s also a self-played-mind-game that I do to avoid the really apparent fact that I’m getting ancient. I know that “happy teenage years” is a phrase some of you think makes as much sense as “common-sense-government.” And I’m sorry about that. But for me that was a good time.

So if I call you randomly at 2 AM asking if you wanna come over for Pizza and a Fletch Marathon – just roll your eyes and remind me that I have a budget meeting at 8 AM and that I haven’t had hair since Bill Clinton won an election.