Saturday, June 23, 2007

Hobo Hoagie

I went to what I can only assume was another in a long line of Greensboro's illegal indie rock nightclubs last night, and as I stood there drinking a giant Icehouse with a paper bag around it I made a comment about the bag being my hobo huggie. The person I said this to misunderstood me and thought I said my giant beer was a hobo hoagie. I swore to him that I would try and get that phrase popularized through my media connections (i.e. this blog). So I would suggest that you start your summer off right and drink an over sized beer w/ a paper bag wrapped around it and call it "lunch".

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Unsolicited Advice

Say you're riding along in your minivan w/ your kids listening to the Sirius satellite radio. You're looking at what's on and see Frank Zappa on the Vault. You can't resist a Zappa deep cut so you flip over there to find the timeless classic Titties & Beer. At this point you need to change it to something else no matter what your rock and roll instinct is telling you. Just trust me. Oh and if some teenage girl makes a left turn in front of you and you have to slam on the brakes, let it go unless you want to hear an endless chorus of the word "fuckwad" repeated from the back seat.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Grand Prix Du Canada

Finally, Formula One racing is in a time zone I can deal w/ (eastern), and this year is the start of a new racing phenom, Lewis Hamilton. He's a rookie and finished in 3rd in his first race, second in the next 4 races, and finally broke through and won today. He's also the first black guy to race full time in F1. This is where NASCAR is screwing up w/ its diversity iniative. Hamilton drives for McLaren Mercedes which also fields the car of the defending series champion Fernando Alonso. In contrast, Bill Lester (the only black guy to drive in NASCAR for a long time) has a part time ride for a 3rd rate team. Maybe there would be more minority interest in NASCAR if the minorities winning races were doing it on national tv instead of at Hickory Motor Speedway. Next week the F1 series is at Indianapolis (on Fox at 1pm), so you can check it out yourself.

Even if racing isn't your thing, check out this crash from today's race. The dude had a broken leg but should be ok otherwise.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Medical Update

Well, I went back to the dermatologist yesterday b/c I still have this freaking rash. When I was there in March, they said it was Pityriasis Rosea but now they say it is guttate psoriasis. It should still go away permanently once it finally goes away, but I'm now going to spend my lunch hour for 3 days a week standing in a hexagon shaped stall that has prescription strength light bulbs. I'm only in there for a few minutes, but it takes 25 minutes to get there from where I work. At least I won't have to go outside to get a tan this summer.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Science Question

I was watching Curious George on PBS w/ my kids and like a Stairway to Heaven it made me wonder. In this particular episode George got sick and the doorman's dog ended up taking care of him while the man in the yellow hat went to work. I hope this means that in the evolutionary chain it is perfectly acceptable for a monkey to watch my kids if they are sick. And also that my cats could watch the monkey.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Virginia Beach

Since school ended on Thursday (and by the way, this was the first time Desmond had that "I'm so excited it's the last day of school" feeling. I'd forgotten how good that felt) we went to the beach on Friday. My brother Kevin moved to Virginia Beach in January, so we decided we would go there. He lives about 20 minutes from the ocean, so we stayed at the Atlantic Sands Oceanfront Hotel. There were only 2 problems w/ the trip, Desmond and Izabella. They screamed and hit for the whole ride. I didn't exactly have directions, so I made a few navigational errors around VA Beach and the Friday traffic was not forgiving. It took us about 6 hours to get to the hotel. We planned to meet Kevin and his roommate Chicken for dinner, but we strolled down to the hotel restaurant for some appetizers and, most importantly, drinks while we waited for them. We sat on the deck looking over the ocean (and watched military helicopters do some kind of training that involved dropping soldiers in the water and then flying them around while they clung to a rope attached to the helicopter) and discovered that there was live music on the deck Friday and Saturday, right below our 3rd story room. Eventually we made it to Mahi Mah's for an excellent seafood dinner (I had the Virginia Cobia b/c I figured it was fresher than the Idaho Rainbow Trout). The kids behaved great at dinner (although the 45 minute wait for the table was a test of patience). Then we went out on the beach to see the free Huey Lewis and the News concert. We didn't stay too long figuring the kids would go to sleep after a big day and it was almost 10 o'clock. However the band was still rocking on the deck, so Maria and I hung out on the balcony while the kids stayed in the room. Desmond stayed in bed and fell asleep. Izabella waited us out and went to bed at 11:30.

The next day started out w/ me getting the kids ready to go to the beach before 8. It wasn't very crowded at that hour so they had their choice of sand plots. Less than an hour later they were heading back to the hotel w/o their dad (who thought we would bring back the stuff we brought to the beach). It was before 9 when we got back. They were interested in playing Power Rangers in the room (which involves punching and kicking each other as far as I can tell). A few hours later the whole family tried the pool and then went to the beach to wait for Uncle Kevin. This was the sum of our beach and pool experience for the weekend. It was about a 1/2 hour of pool time and 2 hours of beach time. Finally, I convinced Desmond that we wouldn't go to the rides that night if he didn't listen to his parents and he shaped up immediately. He had a good time and while Izabella couldn't ride everything she wanted (the European accent of the Himalaya operator "Do you vant to go faster?" was pretty enticing but the ride went too fast for us to allow it) she seemed scared out of her wits on everything except the choo-choo. When we came back to the room Desmond went to bed w/o incident again while Izabella stayed up until 12:30 w/ us.

Sunday it rained so we went to the aquarium. This seemed like a good idea and Desmond was into the sharks while Izabella and I got to touch the stingrays in the pool. There was another building featuring poisonous snakes (another Desmond favorite) and the 1 mile walk there seemed like a good way to wear out the kids. Unfortunately, it started pouring rain about halfway there. We went back to the car and Maria noted that the next time we go to the aquarium we should try not to fall in. We made it to Kevin's house that evening for dinner and on the way home Izabella finally fell asleep at a reasonable hour.

The drive home wasn't as bad b/c there wasn't much traffic and I knew where I was going this time. The Sirius radio even produced some Birds of Avalon. It only took 4 1/2 hours to get home and I'm considering going on vacation w/ the family again at some point in the future.