Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2013

Being a man is a dangerous thing...

Tony, my younger brother, turned 18 this week and I was privileged to attend his birthday party. I thought too late about what I could buy him for his birthday and had to resort to give him something of my own. It would be an easy enough task as I own lots of neat gadgets and things an 18 year-old would like to have. But I knew that I needed to give Tony something extra special--something of significance to mark his 18th birthday. Something to initiate him into manhood. And that's when I thought of it. I have an awesome lightning bolt looking sword that I keep under my bed and it looks like it could do some serious damage to someone. Tony has seen it under my bed when we were roommates and I know he has always taken a fancy to it (as well he should). I also know that Tony can be impulsive and not think before he does something, so the thought of giving him a sword seemed like as bad an idea as it did good. But that's when the thought came to me: being a man is a dangerous

So I bought a minivan...

Inpulsive. In one word, that is how I would describe my spending habits. Mind you, for the most part, I don't have spending habits, as I usually stay at home and don't bother to go shopping. But when I spend money, it is usually not carefully thought out. Am I over-generalizing? Yes. But still.... ...I bought a minivan. There is this delightful website called fasttrackauction.com and they have great deals on used items almost every week. I have had reasonable success winning auctions from there and reselling the items of Craigslist for a minor profit. Is it worth my time? Probably not. But it's pretty fun. For instance, I bought a grandfather clock look-alike that was busted up (It was a gun case that looked like a grandfather clock). I made the necessary repairs and sold it for a small profit. Pretty cool! Well, it's cool until you buy a minivan. Let's back our story up right there. Last week I received the devastating news that my truck needs some

Eighth inning stretch....

So in follow-up, it would seem that all you need to do to get people to an event early, is have 8 Hall of Fame caliber former back-to-back World Series champion players plan on hosting a pre-game ceremony an hour beforehand. It turns out 2/3 of your attendees will arrive plenty early to be a part of that!

The Seventh Inning Stretch

Last night Katie and I got a chance to go to our beloved Reds stadium, Great American Ballpark. We enjoyed the best weather baseball could ask for while watching the Reds trounce the Cardinals--all in all, a great evening! As tradition would have it, everyone stood and sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" midway through the seventh inning--well, almost everyone. I was so enjoying the comfort of the light breeze and with how many homeruns the Reds had been hitting, I was quite stretched already and felt no need to join in with the masses of 21,000 people coarsely singing along with a Hammond's finest rendition of the beloved tune. But I felt quite out of place when I realized I was among the only patrons sitting. Even the elderly couple behind me had stood to jovially call out along with everyone else that it was "one, two, three strikes you're out!" Yet I stood my ground. Or rather, sat it, as it were. I observed other patrons around me, some fully engros

Secretly, Toys are meant to replace parents

There is an epidemic sweeping across America and it has devastating effects on our children. The problem: over-stimulation. The culprit: education. That's right. In the name of educating our infants and toddlers, companies are marketing to parents that a particular toy engages the senses with "bright lights" and music, engages fine motor skills such as "pushing a button," and " Introduces baby to cause & effect relationships, problem solving, balance skills & more !"  As Katie and I have seen presents given to Isaiah, or shopped for them ourselves, I have been overwhelmed with how many vibrant colors the toys come in, how many are battery powered, how many play obnoxiously long songs at unfortunate volumes (let's be honest, you can only stand to hear the same sequence of poorly pre-recorded midi songs so many times before something inside of you snaps), and cheaply manufactured parts. I want to open my own lines of toys called "