Category: Daily Life

Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.

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Rocky Hill Clown Day

Today is Rocky Hill Elementary’s Clown Day. This year Ringling Brothers came during Rocky Hill’s spring break so they missed their annual visit by the clowns. This year Daisy the Clown and Marty the Magician will be entertaining the children. I will do a brief juggling performance and then spend much time trying to teach 2nd graders how to juggle.

This event is always fun and will leave me hoarse and sore. Should make for an interesting time tomorrow when I juggle for Children’s Mental Health Week at the zoo! Tomorrow’s event is from 10am-2pm. Michael Messing will perform magic from 11am-noon (although I think he will end at 11:30). I will juggle from noon to 1pm and, for those that have seen my show, this year will be different!

The Comedy Zone is having a family day tomorrow. I was supposed to arrange to do a 10 minute juggling routine but never made contact with the right person. However, it is a smoke-free, rated G event for anyone looking to do something with the family after spending the day at the zoo–because if there was ever a day to spend at the zoo it’s tomorrow!

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Wishes come true and I bet reality comes crashing down

Boyfriend and girlfriend make a bet. At stake? A threesome! Looks like boy wins but I bet their relationship doesn’t last a week afterwards. Win the battle, lose the war.

So, here’s the story… I said to my girlfriend that any stupid website could get tons of hits, simply because people are bored all the time. She said that I was an idiot and couldn’t make a website that could get tons of hits if I wanted to. After a long argument (mostly centered around the fact that she called me an idiot) we made a bet:

If I could not make a website to get 2,000,000 hits, I would agree that I was an idiot; however, if I could make a website to get 2,000,000 hits, she would have a menage a trois (that’s a threesome to you non french-speakers) with me and another girl. I thought she was kidding at the time, but then she said she was so sure of herself, that she would even put it in writing.

At the time of this post–2,010,891–if you can believe the counter. The impressiveness of it is that not 9 hours ago it was around 600,000. Looks like it is going up at the rate of about 100 hits per second. By the time I finished typing this the numbers reached 2,031,379.

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I lead, er, herd, some scouts

Tonight’s den meeting was a blast! I really enjoy watching the scouts have a good time. We made 2 liter bottle rockets! They worked great.

We used this design (may have to view it via Google Cache). Another good link and a variation (check out the launch mechanism on that one!). You can even add a parachute. I want to build the pvc launch pad.

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Parenting – The Ultimate Test of Mental Fortitude

So how do you react when your 9 year old child disappears for 2.5 hours? You know he went to a friend’s house but he didn’t come home on time and you are certain of his location because the friend’s house appears empty.

So he returns home and you try to remain calm but long ago the emotions built yup and you want to give him what for! But you hold it together while he describes that he went to another friend’s house; a friend you don’t know and who’s parents you’ve never met.

Simple rule at our house: Let us know where you are. That is, if you change houses, tell us; call, shout, come home first, send a smoke signal but let us know and make sure we got the message.

Here is where parenting becomes art. At the moment a child stands before you and like wet clay on a table, he begs to be molded. At this time, a child that was self-initiated to find himself something positive to do with his time waits to see if you teardown his self-confidence and instill the seeds of doubt with regard to making his own choices. So do you 1) yell and scold or 2) tell him "good job" and ask that he call home next time. Sometimes, with emotions churning, it is hard to do the latter and so wrong to do the former.

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Definitions

lec·ture Pronunciation Key (lkchr) n.
1. An exposition of a given subject delivered before an audience or a class, as for the purpose of instruction.
2. An earnest admonition or reproof; a reprimand.
teach Pronunciation Key (tch) v. taught, (tôt) teach·ing, teach·es v. tr.
1. To impart knowledge or skill to: teaches children.
2. To provide knowledge of; instruct in: teaches French.
3. To condition to a certain action or frame of mind: teaching youngsters to be self-reliant.
4. To cause to learn by example or experience: an accident that taught me a valuable lesson.
5. To advocate or preach: teaches racial and religious tolerance.
6. To carry on instruction on a regular basis in: taught high school for many years.
nur·ture Pronunciation Key (nûrchr) tr.v. nur·tured, nur·tur·ing, nur·tures
1. To nourish; feed.
2. To educate; train.
3. To help grow or develop; cultivate: nurture a student’s talent.
par·ent Pronunciation Key (pârnt, pr-) n.
1. One who begets, gives birth to, or nurtures and raises a child; a father or mother.
2. An ancestor; a progenitor.
3. An organism that produces or generates offspring.
4. A guardian; a protector.
5. A parent company.
6. A source or cause; an origin: Despair is the parent of rebellion.

[Source]

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I juggled..punish me now.

Last night I juggled with the Knoxville Juggler’s Club. Excellent people! Very talented jugglers. I had a blast and when I came home I permitted myself some tv time with the wife, helped the beligerent 7th grader write an important speech for student council elections, then took a cat nap that lasted most of the night.

Now comes the punishment. My body isn’t sore like last time…at least, not yet. But I woke to find my Linux development server being uncooperative. Doesn’t want to find the network. Could be a bad nic. With the deadlines I have this week I can’t afford a moment’s downtime! Muuuurph!

Update: Dev server seeing network again!

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Parallel Parking Tip

Do you have trouble parallel parking? If you have a good hand brake and front wheel drive like this Honda Civic then you too can parallel park perfectly everytime! Or you could do it like they do in Japan. My favorite is the Mini-Cooper sliding into the space.

I went to 9th and 10th grade in Medford, New Jersey. I went to 11th and 12th in Germantown, TN. Because of the differing state laws on when you could get a driver’s permit, I missed out on driver’s ed and instead had private lessons. Johnny “Dr. Fever” Caravella pulls up to my house in a beat up Nova. To learn to parallel park we drove to Memphis State University where I practiced until we bumped into one of the cars then we would pull ahead to find another spot until we bumped into those cars and repeated the process. Eventually, I became pretty good at parallel parking.

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Dad Taxi

Apparently I’m driving a child to school today. I’d give a limb to get her to care enough to discuss these plans with me the night before. Had I known I was going to be in the car a half an hour this morning I would have woken half an hour earlier.

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Choosing your battles

It really bothers me to see the children sleep in their clothes. The teenagers are particularly bad about this. Jeans bother me the most as they can be tight fitting; however, I feel a bit hypocritical in that statement because when I go camping I might sleep in jeans (rarely, since cotton holds moisture against the skin it’s a bad formula with the chill night air) and I can recall sleeping or cat napping at friend’s houses still clothed.

I have tried to fight this battle and I just don’t think it is worth it. I feel strongly they would be more comfortable and sleep better in appropriate sleepware. Maybe I need to purchase them some new sleepware or fine some other incentive to help them. But I think the best thing is to walk away from this battle.