One Dad's Life

Friday Photos - Leavenworth, Kansas

My family spent this entire week in the town of Leavenworth, Kansas, visiting a large portion of Dianne's (my amazing and beautiful wife) family for Thanksgiving.

On Monday, Dianne and I went wandering around a bit, taking photos and visiting little shops while our kids...well, we didn't really care what our kids were doing.  They were playing with their cousins and more importantly WERE NOT WITH US!

One shot, that I played with for nearly an entire day, I published on Wednesday.  Here are a few more. All shots taken on Monday, November 24th, 2008 with a Nikon D60 dSLR and the 17-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens.  Enjoy!

Building right across the street from Wednesday's picture.  Some processing in GIMP has been done on this shot, to reduce the color saturation and slightly posterize the final picture.

 

Another old warehouse, with striking red doors!

 

Closeup on one of the doors.

 

Another warehouse. I liked the "402" painted on the brick, for some reason.

 

A bridge across the Missouri River on the Leavenworth riverfront.

Enjoy your weekend!

Thanksgiving 2008

What do I have to thank God for?  My cars are falling apart, the kids don't listen, and I'm the only one who does anything around here!  Sound familiar?  Let's look at two related statistics:

According to the United Nations, 852 Million people, or approximately 13 percent of the total world population, are starving.

In 2006, Americans spent 35 BILLION dollars on weight loss products alone.

If you are reading this blog, there is a statistically good chance that you are not having problems getting a Thanksgiving dinner together, or finding a place to have that dinner. This means that you have food and shelter, the two basic needs of life.

EVERYTHING ELSE IS GRAVY!

In fact, most of the complaining that I hear, and most of the complaining that I do are actually complaints about all these things we have! It is no longer enough for us that we have a car, or house, or computer, or job, or phone, or TV.  No. We also want each of these items to be BETTER - and preferably better without costing us any time, money or effort!

This is really quite silly, and a serious waste of our time and energy. 

If you are reading this, chances are you are really better off than most of the rest of the world. We should recognize this fact and seriously stop all the whining and complaining!  God has got to be shaking his head in disbelief at our general shallowness.

If we all focused our thoughts on what we truly need, I think most of us will find we are in pretty good shape.  Then, think about how much gravy we have!

This also changes all those daily tasks that get to us all sometimes.  Instead of thinking, "I've got to mow that lawn / wash those clothes / fix the house" think of how lucky we are to have the lawn, abundance of clothes, or that house!  Then we get to mow the lawn, get to wash the clothes, and get to fix the house.  How lucky is that? (not a sarcastic statement. Weird, I know.)

I've got no complaints.  It turns out, I have a lot to give thanks to God for, and a LOT of gravy. This blog, "One Dad's Life", is my way of focusing on the gravy in my life.

Life is good.

Happy Thanksgiving, "One Dad's Life" readers!

Wordless Wednesday - End of the Line

My wife, Dianne, and I spent some time on the Leavenworth, KS landing riverfront area on Monday.  This is one of my favorite shots from the outing.  I played with this photo for an entire day and made probably a hundred different versions.  I'm not sure if this is my favorite, and it isn't exactly what I was going for, but it was the last version I made, so I'm posting this one!

At least I learned a LOT on layer masks and gradients while working on this. More pictures coming on Friday from the same photo shoot.  Enjoy!

A Trio of Marcus Shots

The "One Dad's Life" family is essentially on vacation this week for the Thanksgiving hollidays. So, I thought I'd share our vacation by sharing some of my vacation photos!

This series of three photos is of my nephew, Marcus, being held by my daughter, Rebecca. 

All shots taken with a Nikon D60, 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 lens, no flash, high ISO settings (hence the digital noise!).

Childhood Memories - Car Trips

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was going on long car trips. My mom had made this big denim thing that hung on the backs of the front seats that had a bunch of pockets for my brother and sister and me to put all our books, drawing supplies, and other miscellaneous items we HAD to bring in.

I remember spending hours with a straight-edge, triangle, and a french curve drawing, of all things, train engines!  Diesel train engines.  In minute detail.  I loved trains.  Still do, actually. In between drawing, I'd read library books...lots of library books.

Another one of my favorite things was following our route on a map.  I was the navigator!  I'd carefully watch the exits, mile markers, and towns and constantly watch for the next major upcoming landmark. I always wondered about all those places we drove past.

I'd nearly forgotten about my love of maps as a kid, but the other day driving home, Dave Glover (on the aptly named Dave Glover Show) mentioned that maps were dead, and had been replaced by mapquest and the GPS.

What!?!?  This couldn't be! Suddenly my love of maps came rushing back to me, and then I realized that he was right. I didn't remember the last time I had really used a map unless it was on Mapquest or our GPS.  Then I started thinking about what one of our typical longer car trips is like these days.

Sure, the kids still bring stuff to draw with and they bring books to read.

But, we are also packing more electronics than NASA used to launch the original rockets that went TO THE MOON!

There are iPods (multiple - and multiple as in having FOUR iPods), also portable DVD players, cell phones (my oldest daughter manages to keep in constant contact with all her friends - which is critical), and multiple Nintendo DS portable video games machines.

The old standby car games like the license plate state game or travel bingo (remember those little cardboard bingo cards with the little red windows you could close when you found the item behind it?) have been replaced with three out of four of our car occupants playing Mario Party DS via the wirelessly networked Nintendo DS games.  I abstain, because I'm driving and it doesn't really seem safe for me to be kicking everyone's posteriors in the mini-games while I should be watching out for road hazards...and other cars.  In the back of the car, my wife and I are both packing our laptops.  We of course need those in case we need to remind each other of something...you have to send the email with something!

Oh, and yes, we have the GPS, too.

It's Finally Here!

After many months of anticipation, it is finally here!

I'm so excited, and I know you are, too!

What's that you say?  You don't know what "it" is?  OK, I'll clue you in - I have a wife and a nearly teenage daughter.  Do you have it, yet?  Here's another clue:

It is "Twilight : The Movie."

Yeah, that's right. The event of the century.

Now, I don't have too much room to comment, because I haven't read the books, and all I know about the series was summed up in this post.  However, as far as I know, the whole thing centers around Edward, who is apparently dreamy.  Oh, and he's a vampire. That, too.

I think it is probably a good thing that I work away from the home all day, as there have been MANY preparations for the whole "Twilight" event.  I'm sure there has been a certain amount of girl-shrieking going on, too.  My daughter, Rebecca, is making a shirt or a jacket or both for the movie viewing, I'm not sure which.  Apparently, it would be sick and wrong to go to the movie without supporting Edward.

I don't get this. There is a frenzy akin to "Beatlemania" going on here. At least "The Beatles" were actual people playing actual songs they actually wrote.  In this particular case, there is a book about a fictional character and then an actor is playing the part of the fictional character.  On a screen.  A movie screen.  The actor playing the fictional character will not be able to witness the undying adoration being showered upon him or his character - whichever.

I suspect the "Twilight" preparations will continue until the moment they all go to the movie Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, I will probably hear all about this continuously for the next week as I have made the unfortunate decision to take all of next week off work.  Bad timing on my part.

Maybe I'll have to go to the movie, too, and since it is apparently a viewer participation movie, I'll bring certain supplies from another viewer participation movie : "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."  That's right...anyone caught girl-shrieking in the theater gets sprayed with the fire extinguisher.

Life is good!

Compare to...

When I walked in the door last night, I saw some of the sale and advertising brochures that are delivered to everyone's home each week on our dining room table.  I idly flipped through one of them, from a discount store, while I ate my dinner...because I didn't have anything better to read like the side of a cereal box or anything.

The first thing that caught my eye was a refurbished Dyson vacuum. Hmmm, been watching out for one of those.  But then I was distracted by a row of Christmas trees with lights and everything! Hmmm. Sparkly.  Now, I don't need a Christmas tree, ours is pretty much the best around, (not that I'm bragging) but they still catch my eye.

It was then that I saw the incredible deal they had on trees!  "Compare to $200.00" one price declared on a $110.00 tree.  What a bargain!  Of course, never was this tree offered at $200.00, and chances are you are currently seeing it at its highest price of the season.  At first I thought, "how deceptive" but soon realized that this was a step better than all the ads that read "Originally $200, now $110!!!"  Now that is deceptive.  We all know that the tree was never $200.  I guess it helps convince people the $110 price is actually a good price.

Recently, I saw a similar sign in a store that said "Originally $50.00, now $40.00!!!"  They had the exclamation marks, too.  Weird.  But there was more - they also had fine print.  The fine print was trying to explain the whole "Originally" thing.  Perhaps the FTC has gotten involved in the crazy pricing schemes.  The fine print explained that the "$50 price is indicative of an offer price that may not have ever registered a sale."  (text is not exact, wish I had written it down, but it is very close).

Huh?

There were thousands of price tags with the same "explanation."  I fail to see how the explanation makes the fake "original" price any better. 

So last night when I read the whole "Compare to $200" pricing, I realized how brilliant that scheme was.  They never actually indicate that the tree was ever $200, they are just asking you to compare the amount of $110 to the amount of $200.  While I don't have any actual statistic to prove my case, I think that probably upwards of 80% of the worlds dumbest people would correctly understand that $110 is less than $200.  Hence, a bargain!

I can think of so many applications of this whole "compare to X" sales technique that I could make a "top 100" list right now.

Think of this: Gregg, as a single guy (clearly before I met my wife), I approach Halle Berry. Let's listen in:

Gregg: (voice inside Gregg's head) Oh. My. Gosh. It's Halle Berry!

Gregg: (regular out loud voice) Halle! Yo!

Halle: Eeeeewwwwww.

Gregg: Compare me to a guy whose feet are on backwards and wears a bib!

Halle: Come with me, my dream date!

See how brilliant the whole "compare to" advertising method is?

I'm going to try it at work, too:

Gregg: (to HR VP) I'd like for you to raise my salary to 200K per year.

HR VP:  Time for that random drug test, Gregg.

Gregg:  Compare to 400K per year.

HR VP:  Do you want the checks direct deposited?

See! Still brilliant!  This could work with our picky eater, too.

Gregg: (to picky eater - let's call her Rebecca because that is her name) Here is your dinner we slaved over for 90 minutes.  You'd pay $50 for that in a restaurant!

Picky Eater (Rebecca): Eeeeewwwwww.

Gregg: Compare to eating roadkill.

Picky Eater (Rebecca): While gross, I still don't see the difference. Plus you don't HAVE any roadkill here!

Gregg: rats!

OK, so it didn't work out that time. Still, two out of three times the "compare to..." technique was a winner.  I'm sure you can come up with applications in your own life. Feel free to share!  Oh, and while you are evaluating this post, compare it to a guy who doesn't use punctuation, the vowels "e" and "a" and randomly capitalizes letters. 

Pretty awesome post, isn't it?

Wordless Wednesday - Music Man Cast

Taken by our stage manager, Larry. He did a great job with the sepia old picture look. I don’t know if it is the entire cast from last week's production or not…haven’t counted!  I think there were 74 people in the cast - not counting orchestra and crew.  My daughter is 3^rd from the right in the back row (under the “L”), wife 5^th from the left right (edit: oops! Thanks, Mom!) in the back row (under the “CITY”).  Click to enlarge!

Last Week's Surprise

Doing this whole "blogging thing" has resulted in a number of surprising events and opportunities for me. Among them is how I ended up meeting most of the bloggers I read on a regular basis and how readily you become friends. Of course, you already know so much about them when you meet! 

I've been approached by a reality TV show, if you can believe that (I said "no", for the record).

"One Dad's Life" was even featured in "The Riverfront Times", which is a local paper focused on entertainment and events in St. Louis.

There have also been numerous requests for product reviews on "One Dad's Life", which so far I've turned down as well...though haven't closed the door to doing that in the future.  I'm a natural skeptic, so doing a product review might have some interesting results for the manufacturers!

Then I received an email, which said in part:

"My name is Kristen Hare and I'm a freelance writer with the St. Louis Beacon. I'm working on a story about mom blogs and after finding your blog, thought dads should have their say, too."

Hmm, interesting.  The St. Louis Beacon is another local newspaper that is competing with the Post-Dispatch, and published only online.  Kristen and I exchanged a few emails and setup an interview time.  As it turns out, the interview was pleasant and I enjoyed it! 

Yesterday, the article was published.  You can find it here.  Don't be confused by the "Mom Blogger" title - I'm really in the article, and I really am a Dad!  The St. Louis Blogger's Guild is also mentioned in the article, and a couple of the people interviewed are members as well.  (For those of you who may not know, I am an active member of the St. Louis Blogger's Guild and also write a monthly post on "Parent Blogging" for the Guild.)

As for me, I wonder how much time from my allotted 15 minutes of fame this is taking up?

What Am I Going To Do With All This Free Time?

Now that we finished our "Music Man" run with a sold-out show! (Yeah!) and things are basically back in order after striking the set, I am planning what I am now going to do with all the free time!  In no particular order, here are "10 Things I am going to do with my new free time."  Enjoy!

1. Listen to some music that isn't "The Music Man."
2. Play some Nintendo! (Professor Layton is my current new craze on the DS, Animal Crossing on the Wii will be purchased this week)
3. Transfer all our Christmas CDs to my iPod for the Christmas season!
4. Eat dinner at home...and before midnight!
5. Start writing my memoirs.
6. Start conversations with my wife with a phrase other than "what time do you have to be at rehearsal tonight?"
7. Get reacquainted with my house.
8. Spend some time in therapy trying to get the word "Shipoopi" out of my head.
9. Sleep! Glorious sleep!
10. Start working on the next show!