One Dad's Life

Daddy's Little Girl

I have run across a large number of talented writers during my (so far) brief experience in the blogging world.  One of the first was Ron.  Ron is a pastor who moved away from just outside the beautiful St. Louis area to live right next to a giant, frozen, "lake" that stretches to the horizon.  To be fair, it's probably not so icy right now, but still...

Anyway, Ron is an amazing writer.  He does humor, he does serious, he ties it all together with God.  I suppose all that pastor training has paid off.  One of the best things he does is take small, normally insignificant things and make them meaningful.  Stephen King has this same talent, except he takes the small, normally insignificant things and make them scare the tar out of you!  Case in point, Ron once made toothpaste being spit into a sink represent everything that is great about being married to your best friend.

I should have hired Ron for my birthday post for my wife!  Clearly, I struggle with anything approaching sentimental. I can write about blasting the sprinkler through my bedroom window, or car-driving dogs, or a bizarre banjo-playing man, or my daughter's slumber party, or even giant underpants, but it's all goofy...and goofy at a beginner's level.  Sentimental, I can't do.  Ron can.

Well, another actual writer noticed Ron's work (check out the link to Ron's blog at left), and also noticed that Ron had a daughter.  The actual writer, who I'll call Gregory E. Lang, since that's his name, asked Ron to write a story about him and his daughter for possible inclusion in a book.  Ron did.  It made the book!  You can read about this at Ron's daughter's blog (is this even correct grammar?)

If the book sounds interesting, you can look it up at Amazon.com, or click the handy link to the right.  The book title is "Daddy's Little Girl."   Apparently, Ron's story is on page 51.

Full disclosure: If you buy the book from the link on the right, I will make several pennies, or some amount of money...if it ever adds up to $100.00 and amazon.com sends me a check!  Feel free to buy it anywhere you want, though.  This is not a "for profit" website!   I won't hunt you down or anything.  Of course, since I had half-a-zillion hits the other day, according to Ron, if everyone bought a book, I'd retire and practice my writing skills.  I could finally open that porcupine petting zoo I've dreamed about!  See?  Everyone would win.

StumbleUpon

Apparently, someone entered the "One Dad's Life" site into "StumbleUpon" this afternoon.  All of a sudden, I have somewhere around a BILLION hits. OK, not that many, but significantly more than usual!

So, to all the people Stumbling here, today, welcome!  Enjoy the site and I hope you come back soon.

Wii Nirvana

It's going to be very hard to get anything resembling productivity out of our house for the next few weeks...at least until the novelty of the following games wears off!

This past weekend, I picked up two AMAZING games that has our family totally enthralled:

1. Guitar Hero III for the Wii
2. Mario Kart Wii

Oh my gosh.  My entire family is addicted to these games already.  Everyone else is tired of hearing about them!  Naturally, I thought it was time to tell the tale to all my readers!

We played Guitar Hero for the first time at my sister-in-law's house on a Sony PS2.  I was surprised by how good that game actually was.  I immediately wanted to get it for our Wii.  We also have an X-Box, but the Wii is definitely our console choice. I would have purchased this game right away, but I heard of the audio problems for the Wii version of the game, and wanted to wait for the fix.  Additionally, the extra guitar controllers weren't initially available.  Finally, a month or so ago, the fix and extra controllers were released.

We decided we would buy them when school was out, thinking the game would be quite the distraction.  Well, thanks indirectly to a comment left by abunslife, I discovered that Guitar Hero III and all the accessories were on sale this week at Gamestop. 

Clearly, I had to get it.

Also, Mario Kart Wii was released on Sunday.  Thanks to the same comment, I reserved a copy of the game at said Gamestop, which I picked up on Sunday morning at exactly 12:01AM.

Probably everyone knows what Guitar Hero is, but let me tell you...you would not believe how addicting the game is, AND I ACTUALLY PLAY GUITAR!!!!  The cover of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" is amazing, and actually causes cramps in my hand on just Medium difficulty level. 

Prepare the ice bags.

On Monday night, my wife and I broke out the new Mario Kart.  We raced each other in several of the courses.  Clearly something was wrong with the game, because she won.  NOBODY beats me at Mario Kart!  Well, at least on the Gamecube.  The game uses the Wii motion sensitive controls pretty well, and we were able to race without even opening the instructions.  The steering wheel accessory is actually really nice.  After the sorry excuse for a race against my lovely wife, she decided to go read, and I continued to play.  Clearly, she knew that her success would be short lived.  I'm thinking she left in fear, not fatigue!  I did better after she left, so I decided to explore other options in the game.

I went straight to the network play.  It was amazingly cool!

You have a choice of selecting "regional" opponents, worldwide opponents, or "friends."  I selected worldwide, and in a few minutes, I was racing against people all over the world.  I can't even read the Japanese names I was racing against, but it was still fun!  Racing actual people beats racing the computer any day.

How cool is that?

Seriously, for all you gamers, drop what you are doing and go get Mario Kart Wii and a Wii if you don't have one, and SEND ME YOUR WII FRIEND CODES. (see my email address in the "about" page) I'm talking to YOU, St. Louis (and beyond) bloggers and readers!  We can then race each other, and you can laugh at the ridiculous Mii that I made...which happens to look exactly like me.  Of course, you'll also have some of our "custom" Mii's come visit your console...including my youngest daughter's Mii that is made entirely of eye-brows, and a "Prince (the artist)" Mii that I made.

So, to recap:

My recommendation is to run to the nearest video game outlet, and IMMEDIATELY purchase both Guitar Hero III, and Mario Kart Wii.  Send me your friend codes.  Meet me online.  Abandon sleep.  It's fun!

Happy Birthday, Dianne!

OK, everybody drop everything you are currently doing and sing "Happy Birthday", to Dianne, my wife.  I'd drop things, too, and join you, but I believe there are noise ordinances that specifically preclude me singing in any form.

.....I'm waiting....

OK, excellent.  Very nice.  I knew you could do it.

You know that Dianne is my wife, but what I haven't told you is that she is also my best friend.  It's a good thing she's a "she" or I'd have a lot of issues to work through!  It's pretty cool being married to your best friend.  I'm a lucky guy.  I love waking up in the morning and seeing her, and I can't wait to get home from work to see her again.  I don't really like calling her during the day, though.  She has one of those Motorola Razr phones, and the sound quality is somewhat ghastly.  Phone problems aside, I'd rather hang out with her than anyone else.

That's not a bad thing to be able to say after 15 years of marriage!

We make a good team - we are interested in all the same things, but have different talents related to these interests.  Whether it is writing, photography, art, music...you name it, we work well together at it.  The fact that we share so many interests gives us the opportunity to work on big projects and accomplish a lot, since we aren't taking time away from each other to do these things.  This is particularly true for the music we do with church, or the musicals we work on together.  Each of these things takes an ENORMOUS amount of time and dedication, but doing it together makes it all possible.

We even like the same TV shows, with one notable exception:

I like "COPS" and she likes "Ghost-hunters."  It's a character flaw I'm willing to overlook, though.

Oh, and she's a cute little thing, beautiful even, in that natural way that doesn't need makeup or Photoshop. (I'm still incapable of getting a good picture - I'm planning to work on correcting that this week!)

So, happy birthday, to my best friend and wife, Dianne.  I love you, Dianne!

Photo info:

1. The "Birthday Girl" button!
2. Opening presents from the kids.  L-R My Uncle Allen, my nephew, the beautiful Dianne!, daughter Rebecca (in the back), daughter Rachel, and my Dad.

Sunday Special Edition

I've settled into a regular Monday-Friday posting schedule, but occasionally, there may have to be "special editions" to cover things I'd like to cover.  This week, I realized that a major benefit of maintaining a blog is that people will send you information, either in email or in comments, that pertains to your areas of interest.

This week, I had several interesting items, so here's credit to all of you!

1) Scott P. (no website submitted) sent me some information on The City Museum's website where they feature photographs from selected visitors.  I love taking pictures there, and have quite a few to choose from!  Here's the link if anyone is interested in submitted photos, too.  Thanks, Scott!

2) Tony of savvydaddy.com in Chicago, invited me to participate in a "Daddy Blogger's" project, which I am considering...time being the primary concern here!  Thanks, Tony!

3) "Abunslife" commented on one of my posts, and partially solved my "Mario vs. Wife's Birthday" problem...and unintentionally caused another problem!  She mentioned that her husband was going to a Gamestop store at midnight to get the Mario Kart game the very second it was legal to buy it.  I've done this with albums/CDs before, but didn't know the same thing happened with game releases!  Well,  I went to the Gamestop website to see if they mentioned this or listed store participating and stumbled on their weekly ad.  This ad mentioned that "Guitar Hero III" and the extra guitar controllers were all on sale this week.   So, I stopped off at a nearby Gamestop and bought Guitar Hero III.  We were planning on waiting until school was out, but I've never seen it on sale before!  The discount paid for a big chunk of "Mario Kart!"  Anyway, I also reserved my copy of Mario Kart, and was at this particular Gamestop (Kingshighway & Chippewa) at midnight this morning to get the game.  Special mention to these Gamestop employees who were very friendly and very helpful.  This is nice in a day when it is too common for customer service to be seriously lacking. 

The problem?  I now have 2 addicting new Wii games, and I haven't finished Zelda, yet!  I will probably have to just quit my job to get the time available...unless you all give me a blogging "vacation!"

So, thanks to everyone that reads the blog or sends me email or comments!  It makes all the work worthwhile. 

Major "Minor" Life Events

OK, this weekend has at least two pretty big life events for us.  These aren't really major things, like buying a house, having a child, or adopting a wolverine or anything like that, but they are big non-the-less. 

The first event is that it is my lovely wife's birthday.  Now, when I say lovely I mean she is totally gorgeous...this isn't a joke...however, I am completely incapable of taking a good picture of her!  Seriously, this will someday be the subject of a post here on One Dad's Life, and I will show proof!

The second event is that Mario Kart for the Wii is coming out on Sunday.

Let's talk about my wife's birthday first, as it is arguably more important.  Her birthday is actually on Monday, but we will be celebrating on Sunday (Oh oh, possible conflict with Mario!).  She has a writer's meeting on Monday or something.  Hey! Perhaps I could have her and the other actual writers make a guest post!  I could even have a completely narcissistic theme foisted on them.  Something like "What I like best about 'One Dad's Life.' "  Yep, that would be cool.

Anyway, we will be going to my parents house to do the birthday celebration stuff.  This is fine with me, except that I like to do the cooking for her birthday...and other major events.  So, while it will be held at my parents, I will still be doing the cooking.  Crews are there right now, ripping out that novelty electric quartz stove-top and putting in a gas stove-top like God intended us to cook on.   If humans were supposed to cook with electricity, God would have sent Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison to us MUCH sooner!

This means that as soon as church is over, I will likely be heading directly to my parents house to start cooking.  This doesn't leave a lot of time for me to get Mario Kart for the Wii.  The game comes out on Sunday, remember?!  This also doesn't leave a lot of time to PLAY Mario Kart.  What am I going to do?  I can't just ignore Mario Kart (it comes with a steering wheel!), and I can't just skip out on my wife's birthday celebration.  Well, I guess I could be gone for just a bit, like 30 minutes - maybe even 60.  I could introduce a diversional controversial subject like "Do you think its OK to plant your annuals before the snowballs bloom?" and then make a run for it in the ensuing pandemonium.

I rush to Best Buy, pick up the game, rush to my house and play the first course, then rush back to my parents and then end the argument I started with a clever, "Oh, never mind, I was thinking of something else" kind of statement.

Genius.

City Museum Field Trip

To continue on the City Museum theme (without the giant underwear),  I went to the City Museum in downtown St. Louis last Friday with my daughter's Kindergarten class.   When we got in the museum, the class received some instructions from a staff member, the adults got tags to wear, and we split up into small groups. 

The school has a policy of a 1:2 ration of adults to Kindergartners.  My particular group had myself, one of the mothers, and three kids.  That's a 2:3 ratio.  This is better than 1:2, but I'm thinking they were only counting me as 1/2 of an adult...that would even out the ratio. (work it out, math fans!)

After doing a few of the slides near the lobby, and walking into the caves  - wherein I first scared the tar out of the kids in the dark and then for payback smashed my hand into a rock that my 42 year-old eyes could not see in the dark - we headed to the area called "Art City."

I'll pause for a bit here to let you catch your breath from that run-on sentence.

Better?  Good.

The "Art City" area is a corner of the building where there are an almost unlimited number of options for making stuff.  You can work with clay, you can paint, you can do mixed media, you can make snowflakes while being read a story, you can...oh my gosh I lost the kids!  Good thing we have that 2:3 ratio! 

Anyway, "Art City" is a very colorful place.  I had a camera.  Can you see where I'm going with this?  I tried to alternate keeping an eagle on the kids...one kid in particular who insisted on escaping if you happened to foolishly close your eyes while sneezing.   That kid needed a 2:1 ratio, as in 2 adults to cover her alone!

My daughter could have stayed in this little corner of the museum all day long.  Strangely, she didn't seem to have much artistic inspiration that day.  This is very unusual for her, as she usually has a plan of exactly what she wants to make.  She was a bit out of it this day.  However, she did have fun, and I got some very colorful pictures.

We stayed in the art area until one of the circus performances.  This show features a rotating roster of performers, and the first show was a combination juggler/contortionist/overall weird dude.  He was very entertaining.  Then it was off to lunch in the architectural hall.  The afternoon was spent climbing through some tunnels, going down slides, playing in the skate-less park (an indoor skateboard park that no longer allows skateboards) and generally exploring the rest of the building.  It was raining all day, so no outside activities.  This was probably for the best as the teacher really didn't want people going out there.  She was afraid a kid would climb to a certain point and become catatonic and require rescuing.

Even keeping an eye on the kids, this is a fun place to go. No matter where you look, or how close you look, you'll find something you didn't expect!

All the photos are from the "Art City" area, except the circus ring.  I like that picture because it gives you a good feel of what the museum looks like.  The amount of stuff in there is just amazing.

photo notes:

1. top photo: My daughter Rachel making something with clay.
2. paint table -  Rachel on the left looking dazed!
3. mixed media - Rachel in the center
4. scissors!  I can't resist those saturated colors.
5. The circus ring.  Through the glass and to the left is "Art City"

No tweaking of images was done, other than watermarks and scaling.  The place is just that colorful! It's a photographer's dream.

Underpants Photo of the Day

As I mentioned earlier in the week, last Friday provided a bonanza of photos (230) and events to discuss here.  Everything on the blog this week has come from events taking place on that day.

For most of the day, I was at The City Museum with my youngest daughter Rachel and her class.  For all of you who haven't been, or for out of town readers, this place defies all description.  It is built in an old warehouse or factory in downtown St. Louis.  It is full of amazing things to climb through (and slide down!), old pieces of architectural detail from the city, artists, animals, etc.

I could write about this place and post pictures probably for a whole year without much trouble!  However, time is short for me today, so I will simply post a picture of one example of the zany-ness you can expect as the norm at this destination.

I provided a zoom of the sign portion of the display, since for me this is what completes the piece.  I don't actually think the sign is indicating a rule - like "don't walk on the grass" - since everything at the City Museum is pretty much hands-on.  Instead, I take the sign as advice.   I listened to the sign.

Tomorrow:  ART CITY - a messy little place inside The City Museum that defines "hands-on."

The Joy of Youth

Shortly after taking the picture in yesterday's post, I was driving by Wilmore Park in the south city area of St. Louis on the way to pick up my daughter - hoping I wouldn't be late, after the necessary delay for photography of the bunny! (see Monday's post)  I was struck by the saturated colors of the lawn, plus the dark tree trunks soaked in the day's rain with the leaves just budding out on the trees.   I love pictures of greenery.

I vowed to stop after picking up my daughter and try to get a quick snapshot of the park, and the feeling it gave me.   I was already late for an overlapping engagement, but when a possible photo opportunity presents itself, you must act!  We stopped our car and I clambered out. 

I had to walk a short distance from the car to get the shots I wanted and Rebecca decided to go with me rather than stay in the car or explore other areas of the park.  Fresh from a dance rehearsal for the show she is in this spring and summer, she was bursting with energy from the excitement of doing the show, and the dance steps and songs she had just learned.   She took off down the sidewalk dancing, without a care as to what the passing motorists would think.

I snapped a quick photo as I was walking to my intended destination.  However, while looking at the preview on the camera screen, I realized that maybe this was the better photo opportunity!   I took a series of shots of her dancing back and forth on the sidewalk, trying to capture the motion, energy, and spirit.  These are not easy things to capture on a static medium such as film (or the current digital equivalent), but I was lucky.  How nice it must be to be so full of such unihibited joy and energy!  As adults, it seems we rarely get these moments.

 

Although I did end up taking a few pictures of the park, I primarily focused (pun intended) on my beautiful daughter dancing, and it made the evening.  Not only did I get a series of great photos, but it was a special moment with my daughter.

We were 45 minutes or more late for our engagement, but it was worth every minute.

Life is good!

Author's note: I just discovered that this is the 100th post on "One Dad's Life."  Unbelievable! Feel free to invite your friends over and hold your own "One Dad's Life 100th post" party. Better yet, just tell them about the blog!

Hippity Hop Hop

Last Friday, I took the day off from work and went with my daughter's Kindergarten class to The City Museum in St. Louis.  More on this later in the week.

Naturally, as always, I had a camera with me.  I "rolled over" the counter on the camera which means we've taken 10,000 pictures with this little Canon A520 point and shoot!  On Friday alone, I took 230 pictures, and got a bunch of pretty good pictures.  I am tempted to post a series on Flickr, so I'll let you know if this happens!

Friday night, on the way to pick up my oldest daughter from a rehearsal, I happened to notice this little bunny sitting in our driveway.  I almost didn't see it, since our driveway is rocks and grass...and weeds.  The little guy blended in pretty good.  I decided to get him out of the driveway, so no one would drive over the rabbit.  I gave him (I really don't know if it is a "him" or a "her" but I got tired of finding different ways to call the rabbit "it") a little push, but he didn't really move.  He wasn't afraid of me at all!  So, I put some work gloves on and picked him up.  I didn't really know where he should be, so I just brought him to the flower bed next to the driveway.  He hopped under some plants and I got in my car to leave.  THEN it dawned on me that a person doesn't ordinarily have many opportunities to get a picture of a baby rabbit, but I was worried about being late.   I snapped one picture, which didn't turn out, then he hopped to another plant and I tried again. 

Success!   I got the shot on the second attempt!  I actually stopped trying after shot number two. This is unusual for me, as I rarely take less than 5 pictures of any single subject.   I'm pretty happy with the results, though.