Giving IT is always better than getting IT.

I’ll let you to define IT.

Did you have any weird family phrases growing up?

Here are some that we had:

“ootsie-ootsie” – a small hill that when traversed causes that dropping feeling in your stomach

“weenie” – if you can’t take it, you’re a weenie

“any-who” – a variation of anyway

“bye-bye” – it’s not just bye, it’s bye-bye

“oosa-good-puhpay” – you are a good puppy.  we were saying that before Jar-Jar Binks

“hide and watch” – in other words, stop asking and start watching

“well, we did that” – someone’s bound to say it when we’re done with, well, pretty much anything

The Race Finals

The Trophy

I know it’s weird but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about some of the cats we had when I was growing up.  We had lots of cats.  We did live on a farm after all.  We had dogs, too, but I always liked the cats better.  Some of our cats I didn’t like, but for the most part, I’m a cat guy. Here’s a rundown of some of them (because I know you are just dying for the details):

• Columbus “Lumbus” (all black)  — Lumbus was the first cat I can remember.  Mom said he discovered the kitchen before his eyes were even open.  He turned out to be our oldest cat ever.  It wasn’t pretty when he got old and started losing teeth and control of himself.  I think Mom finally took him to the vet and had him put to sleep. We buried him in the wind-row under a stump.
• Freckles (calico) — Freckles was a very friendly cat.  She had quite the motor.  I liked her a lot.  She disappeared one day.  A few weeks later I discovered that she had gotten run over on I-35.
• Pastel (white with light and dark gray spots) — Pastel was dad’s cat.  She came from a cat named Hooker at the Wichita Historical Museum where my dad use to work (as part of the Oakland Avenue Craftsmen).  She was Dad’s shop cat.  She would jump from my dad’s workbench into his arms.  And, Pastel would pee in the toilet.  Seriously.  I witnessed it firsthand and, as far as I know, my parents never trained her to do it.
• Douglas (white with large gray spots) — Douglas was my all time favorite cat.  He was a rumpy-riser manx.  We got him from a family friend–Benson.  Benson told us his mother and siblings had been killed by a coyote. He was so tiny that we had to feed him milk from a dropper.  He grew up to be huge.  Sadly, he got run over on 87th street.  I vividly remember our neighbor Joanie picking his lifeless body off the dirt road as I watched from my second story bedroom window.   It was pretty devastating for me as a kid.
• Shrimpy (gray and white tabby) — Shrimpy was a dimple-rumpy manx.  Mom says he was bigger than Douglas.
• Toes (orange and white tabby) — He had extra ones on each foot.   He was a really mean tomcat.  He tore up all of our other cats.  He lived in our hay loft and pooped everywhere.  Every time I saw him I threw something at him.  Rocks, sticks, basketballs, etc.
• Shorty — I don’t remember a whole lot about Shorty except he was a manx.  Where my parents live it wasn’t uncommon to find abandoned cats on the side of the road.  I think Shorty was one of those.
• Purrky (gray and white tabby) — I always get Purrky an Doodles mixed up.  One of them was OK and one was really annoying — like meowing all the time, hanging on the screen door and trying to get in the house all the time.  Both had lots of kittens.
• Doodles (gray and white tabby) — see above.
• Wacko (orange and white tabby) — I guess Wacko would sleep in the chicken barn on top of a pig at night.   I don’t really remember.
• Pearl (white)  — Pearl was bright white.  She got some kind of cancer and died a few years ago.
• Gusto “Gus” (black and gray tabby) — My parents still have Gus.  He hates everyone.  Mom says he’s mellowing out.  I don’t buy it

So there you have it. My history with cats.  I’m sure I missed some.

(photo courtesy of silversideup1992)

Uh-yeah.

She pulled out several plastic bags full of LEGO goodies.  She said something about how she just wants to get rid of them and that her son doesn’t really play with them anymore.   We all started digging for money in our pockets and purses.

My daughter nearly started hyper-ventilating.

We walked away whispering about what a steal it was.

We went back a few minutes later and bought the rest of them.

We spent a total of $18.50 for this:

4506 – Deep Sea Predators
4742 – Alpha Team Chill Speeder
4744 – Alpha Team Thunder Tracker
4748 – Alpha Team Ogel’s Mountain Fortress
7648 – Mars Mission Mobile Mining Unit
7697 – Mars Mission Claw Tank Ambush
7770 – Aqua Raiders Deep Sea Treasure Hunter
7771 – Aqua Raiders Anger Ambush
7772 – Aqua Raiders Lobster Strike
7775 – Aqua Raiders Aquabase Invasion
8272 – Technic Snowmobile
8646 – Racers Speed Slammer Bike

From what I calculated from various sources around teh interwebs, that’s about $517.00 worth of LEGO loot.

Here’s the big reveal to my son:

Here’s some more pics on our Flickr page.

Ah, the memories…

Funny thing is I don’t remember ever having chickens in there.

Pigs, horse, cows, baby opossums, poop.  Yes.

Welp, Saturday was a milestone in our family.  Rachel agreed to let me migrate all of her e-mail from Juno to Gmail.  It was supposed to be my Valentines present from her.  I bugged her about it to the point that she threatened to retract her “gift.”

Anyway, I registered a new domain and set up a new Google Apps account.  I converted her old e-mails to mbox format with juno5bdb.  Couldn’t get the Google e-mail uploader to work with the e-mails in Thunderbird, so I converted them to eml format with IMAPSize.  That worked good.  I uploaded over 1500 emails from Outlook to Gmail in about an hour.

Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Juno -> Remove

Ahhh, progress, sweet progress.

I just had to go to the Fry’s Electronics store down the street. We don’t have cool stores like that in Kansas City. I could spend the whole day in that store. Sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiif. Ahhh, the smell of electronics. Sweet manna from heaven.

After a while, we headed east to the Kemah Boardwalk (warning: annoying auto-play music). It was OK. It was a small amusement park on the Galveston Bay. Ho-hum.  Here’s some pictures.

The highlight was the three nice retired ladies sporting the “Rock Chalk Shamrock” t-shirts in honor of the Jayhawks on St. Patrick’s Day. I even didn’t care that one of them smirked and asked about my Bucks shirt. Hey, I can be a native Kansan and still root for the Bucks. Someone needs to.

We snarfed a quick leftover lunch in the parking lot, we headed for Dallas. I was tired already and this trip was a real drag. We did see the big ole Sam Houston statue.

We finally made it to Dallas. We had some time to waste so we decided to find some Texas BBQ to really make the comparison with Kansas City BBQ. We had seen Pappa’s Bar-B-Q places all around, so we decided that’s what we’d try for dinner. Very nice atmosphere. We got a sampler platter and a few sides. The ribs were very tender. Brisket was so-so. The coleslaw was excellent. However, the meat didn’t really have a smoky flavor and the sauce was real tomatoey. It was good, but, sorry, just can’t stack up against Jack Stack in Kansas City.

After that we bummed around a local Target and returned the rental car at about 9-ish. We took the Enterprise shuttle to the airport. Our flight was set to leave at 6:00am the next morning. We figured that it would be a waste of money to have the rental car for another day and a hotel room for 5 hours, so we decided to camp out at the airport.

Bad idea.

Dallas Love Field Airport has a central TSA checkpoint, which just so happens to close overnight, so we had to sleep in 5 or 6 of the 25 or so chairs outside of the terminal area. It was fine for a couple of hours. Nothing was open and there were hardly any people around. But, that didn’t stop the annoying PA announcements from going the WHOLE STINKIN’ TIME. I tried to sleep, but there was just no way to get comfortable. I got bleacher-butt real bad. Not good.

We met an older gentleman who had a 6 hour (!?) layover in Dallas while en route to Houston. It was a last minute flight for a funeral. The poor guy struggled and struggled to get comfortable and rest, but he just couldn’t do it. He ended up walking back and forth in the hallway for 4 hours. We talked a security guard into letting us use a chair from another area, but it didn’t really help him that much.

I finished the Chasing Cool book I had been reading. Pretty good book.

Caleb slept almost the whole time. I maybe got in an hour. Rachel stayed up the whole time. Becca slept a little longer than me. About 4 am, a real annoying family showed up with takeout IHOP. Rude. Ugh. About 5 something they opened the checkpoint and we finally made it to the nice terminal seats.  Didn’t matter, we were all zombies, except of course, for Caleb.

I hardly remember the flight home.  We arrived in KC at 8 something in the morning.  Took the shuttle out to our car.  Wouldn’t start.  Had to pay $30 for a jump.  Home.  Must…get…rest…pillow…ZZZZZZZZZ.

You better believe that I’m not booking flights for weird times anymore.

And so it went.  Texas Vacation 2008.

When deciding where to go to church on vacation, we thought we’d dip our toe in to water of a mega-church. The closest one to where we were: Lakewood, where Joel Osteen is pastor.

Since it is such a huge church and because it was mostly out of curiosity that we were even going, Rachel and I discussed whether or not it was appropriate to bring our camera. I opted just to snap a few discrete shots with my phone.

Once we found the parking garage, we took a shuttle to the arena/sanctuary.

We were greeted with a firm handshake and a “Welcome to Lakewood.”

Right inside the front doors and up the escalator was a huge bookstore and what was apparently the mission statement of the church emblazoned on the wall.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. — Jeremiah 29:11

Seemed quite obvious based on everything we’d seen so far that this verse was a central to everything at Lakewood.  Osteen’s book, Become a Better You, was on display in several places around the sanctuary.

We looked around a bit and headed over to the help desk. They pointed us in the direction of the floor where they had children’s church. The children’s ministry was divided up between two different floors.

The check-in process was impressive. You can’t tell very well from this picture. Each kid filled out a card that was immediately entered into a database at one of the eight check-in kiosks. We got 3 stickers — one for each of the kids and one for us parents. We had to present the parent sticker when we picked up the kids.

Rachel and I headed for the sanctuary. Most all of the “good seats” were already filled. We ended up in the upper level stage right section, right next to the platform. Here’s a good shot (that I didn’t take) of all the whole sanctuary.

The service started out real nice. The music and band sounded amazing considering where we were sitting.  There was a choir on both sides and up from the platform. The band was behind, but in front of the golden spinning globe. The worship team had about 8 vocalists. Once the band was done, the whole platform the band was on sunk into the floor and all of the musicians walked out into a lower level. That was pretty slick.

It pretty much went downhill from there, IMO. Osteen’s wife and “co-pastor” got up and did a little sermonette after one of the songs.

Ugh.

She had another little spiel before the offering.  The word “offering” is apparently very clappable.

I wish I could find the sermon that Osteen preached online somewhere, so I could post it here for you to have a listen.  Nearly all of the verses were taken out of context.

It was basically a steady stream of God’s blessings on your life, prosperity, destiny, just believe it, free will, nothing is impossible, ad nauseam.

We picked up the kids with our sticker and headed back to the shuttle and then to our car. We quizzed the kids about their worship experience. Something about Pater.

I’m so disgusted just pondering it all again, that I’m not even going to write about the altar call, and my thoughts about whether Osteen is a Chuck-E-Cheese robot or a real person.

If I find that sermon, I’ll post it.

We ate lunch at the Goode Company Hamburgers and Taqueria which was pretty close to the church. We got there when they were still serving breakfast. I ate a fajita dish. It was pretty good. It just happened to be right across the street from the Houston’s that I ate at while attending NYC in Houston in 2003.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel, changed clothes and hit the road for Galveston. Not only was there construction on the road, but everyone from the whole United States of America was heading there for Spring Break. It really wasn’t that far from the hotel, but it ended up taking almost 2 hours to get there. Once there it was cold, very windy and frankly, not that great.

The highlight probably was the dead jellyfish on the beach. Caleb had fun poking it with a stick. I think I’d rather visit a tropical beach next time — one with out the Spring Break, my stereo / car / girlfriend / motorcycle / six-pack-is-better-than-yours morons.

You can see all of the pictures here.

The plan was to spend the whole day there. That’s what we did. We pretty much saw and did everything we could.

A few highlights:

Mission Status Center

This started with the Blast-Off Theatre and then moved into an impressive array of screens, monitors and live feeds. The guide in this area was very knowledgeable about what exactly was going on with NASA, like, right then. Since there were astronauts actually in space when we were there, it was especially interesting. She talked in certain terms about returning to space and the upcoming goals and timelines for NASA expeditions. It was fascinating.

Historic Mission Control Center

This was the mission control center that was used from 1964 until 1998. The Apollo missions, including the Apollo 7 and 13, and several Shuttle missions were all controlled here.

Saturn V Complex

This is particular building held the Saturn V rocket used in many of the Apollo missions. Huge is an understatement. The rocket itself was nearly as long as a football field. Toward the top you can walk in-between the last booster stage. It was amazingly complex for being so old.

Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory

This particular facility was a 15 minute charter bus trip away. It’s as close as the astronauts get to the extended weightlessness of space. It’s a pool that’s 202 feet wide, 102 feet across and 40 feet deep. I was a little disappointed that we couldn’t get down closer and see inside. You can see the viewing area on the other side of the pool from this Wikipedia panorama shot.

Here’s the other pictures I took.

The plan was to go to the Alamo, eat lunch at the Buckhorn Saloon (for which we had a really good coupon) and head to Houston.

I thought the Alamo was very interesting. I’m not saying I didn’t pay attention in history class, but I really had no idea about the history of Texas or the battle for it’s independence. I spent a lot of time reading the chronologies in various places around the main building. The famous picture of the Alamo was just a small part of the huge fort area. You can see more from my pictures here.

We walked down the street to the Buckhorn Saloon & Museum for lunch. It was crammed with stuffed animals and little creepy according to my daughter. Reminded me of Frank Phillip’s lodge at Woolaroc in Bartlesville, OK. I ate a pretty darn good bacon cheeseburger. We didn’t pay to go see the museum upstairs. It looked pretty interesting. I snapped some pictures inside. They’re along with the Alamo pictures if you follow the photo link above.

After lunch we headed east toward Houston. That was one dull drive. We finally made it to the Comfort Suites in Webster, TX. Very nice hotel. I would recommend it highly.

We checked in, lugged all of our luggage up to our room, jumped back in the car and headed toward the downtown Houston to the Toyota Center.

The Houston Rockets vs the Charlotte Bobcats at the Toyota Center was one of the highlights of the trip for me. First of all, it was an NBA game, which I always enjoy. Second, Rachel found us $10 tickets.  (BTW, despite what people say, nosebleed tickets at an NBA game aren’t really that far up. )  We were on the top row at one end.  Third, it was Clutch’s (the Rocket’s mascot) birthday and he invited mascots from around the league to celebrate — one of which was Bango, the Bucks mascot. Rachel, being the cool wife that she is, snagged an autograph from him on the back of our Rockets program. “Go Bucks Go — Bango” looks real nice framed on the wall next to my computer. She also took the cool picture you see here. Finally, the Rockets set a franchise record for the most consecutive wins — 21 when they beat the Bobcats. The crowd was absolutely crazy. What a fun atmosphere.  Here’s the rest of the pictures I took at the game.

On the way home, I somehow missed an exit and we ended up stuck in traffic right next to Reliant Park.  Don’t ask me how we ended up there after being at the Toyota Center.  Guess a Clay Walker concert had just let out — whoever the heck that is.   He must be popular based on the amount of traffic.   Rachel gave up on helping me with directions at this point — for the entire rest of the trip!  I was on my own.  Sniff, sniff.

We made it back to the hotel eventually.

We got there early and they let us in anyway. Since it was a weekday before spring break, it wasn’t very crowded. The weather was really nice, too. Overcast and temperatures in the 70s.

We visited the dolphin pool first thing. Rebecca was over-the-top giddy/excited. Rachel even (briefly) overcame her irrational animals-are-gross complex and touched one. (Baby steps, baby steps.)

Caleb liked the Texas Splashdown ride and the “giant octopus” (in the shark exhibit).

The Shamu show was so cool we watched it twice.

I was a little surprised that Seaworld had a lot of amusement park rides. That wasn’t what I had pictured in my mind. Everything was way better than Worlds of Fun, that’s for sure.

Anyway, here are the 200+ pictures from Seaworld.

We ate a so-so meal at TGI-Friday’s on the way back to the hotel. What is it with TGI Friday’s wait staff? Ours was completely annoying. This is our second such experience there.

I headed back to the hotel. We loaded up, checked out, ate a quick breakfast and headed for San Antonio.

We stopped mid-way in Waco, TX to see the Dr. Pepper Museum. It was pretty cool. We poked around the gift shop and sat down by the soda jerk and sipped a genuine Dr. Pepper made with pure cane sugar. Mmmm. Here’s some other pics.

Side note: They say “Everything is bigger in Texas.” Well, everything except for the entrance ramps on all of the highways. Maybe it’s that way in other states or maybe I just don’t get out much. Anyway, I never got used to it on the whole trip.

We finally arrived in San Antonio and checked into the Hill Country Inn & Suites that we reserved through Travelocity. I was pleasantly surprised. It was nice except for the bathroom. The toilet leaked and the shower had a reeeally slow drain.

It was then off to El Mercado in the Market Square and the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio.

El Mercado and the Market Square was cool if you like cheap Tex-Mex trinkets (which I don’t). We did eat dinner there. That was good.

The Riverwalk was all that people said it was — and more (j/k). I thought it was really cool. From the street you wouldn’t even know it was there, but once you get down to the walk area, it’s like a whole other world of restaurants, art and cool trees. Here’s the pics we took there. And no, I still haven’t been able to figure out how to get decent pictures at night with my camera. The pictures don’t do it justice.

What a long day — an early morning for me, lots of driving, lots of walking and a late night. We all crashed pretty hard back at the hotel.

The flight in was not that great — the taking off was fine, but the descent to Dallas Love Field was a killer on everyone’s ears. Much worse than I had experienced on any other flight that I could remember.

We got off the plane trying to get our ears working again. We picked up our luggage with no problem and headed out to the pickup area. It wasn’t long before a minivan taxi pulled up. Perfect. We get in the car and tell him we want to go the Red Roof Inn. He mumbles something that I couldn’t understand and takes off. I’m glad it was late because he was all over the road. I knew where the hotel was in relation to the airport. It seemed like he didn’t even know where he was going. I quizzed him a about the location at the Red Roof Inn. He snapped at me, saying something like “You doubt?” We made it there fine. Whew.

Our room was nice except for the musty smell.

Rachel worked her magic in finding us the best deals on practically everything. We researched everything and had it all planned out. The kids were super excited to say the least.

I’ve uploaded over 600 pictures to Flickr. I’ll describe what we did each day in a separate blog post and pull out a few pictures here and there.

My dad used to take me to things like this at the Kansas Coliseum when I was a kid. I always enjoyed it. Darryl Starbird’s Rod & Custom Show was always a big deal. When I wasn’t playing with Lego, I was out in the sandbox with my Stompers making tracks. The cool cars, big trucks, tractor pulls and the monster truck races were bigger than life.

I think my expectations were a little higher than they should have been. On the way home from the event I felt about the same as I did after watching The Empire Strikes Back again a couple of years ago. It was so awesome as a kid, but as an adult, I’m like, “Wow, this isn’t as good as I remember it being.”

So here’s what I did like about Monster Jam at the Sprint Center:

The Sprint Center is stinkin’ cool. Being able to see the outside from the inside is pretty amazing. We could see that was going on pretty well from the nose-bleed section. Every seat had a cup holder and was pretty comfortable. Didn’t seem too cramped at all. The scoreboard and the marquee around the arena was pretty spectacular and bright. The parking wasn’t a problem at at all. We paid $10 bucks for event parking and only had to walk a block.

So here’s what I didn’t like about Monster Jam at the Sprint Center:

The event itself, well, sucked. Here’s why:

• They took my favorite pocket knife at the front gate. They gave me the chance to take it back to the car, but I didn’t want to do it for the sake of my son. Like I’m going to storm the cockpit of the arena. I’ve been to several events at the Target Center in Minneapolis and the Xcel Energy Center in Minneapolis all post 9/11 and not once have they not allowed small pocket knives. Stupid.
• The arena was too small to really race the trucks. The races were like 20 yards over three cars. What kind of race is that? A wheelie contest?? Hmmpph.
• The drivers were too passive (with the exception of the Avenger driver) and not daring at all.
• The announcer/emcee guy didn’t know what he was doing at certain points in the show.
• The quad races were obviously staged and ho-hum.
• The freestyle motocross riders were also ho-hum. I’ve seen much better stuff on the X-Games on TV on Sunday afternoons.
• There was no surprise. I hoped that Grave Digger would make an appearance and do something crazy, but no. At the end, I’m saying to myself, “That’s it?”

So, in conclusion, it was fun to get out and do something with my son, but it was pretty obvious to me that monster truck racing has gone the way of WWF wrestling — much better in the good old days. Take me back to Bigfoot and Snake Bite thank you. The Sprint Center was cool, and I’m looking forward to seeing a real event there some day — a basketball game or something.

I waited 2 months for this reaction. I was very excited about the Wii and so were the kids when they ripped off the wrapping paper… The pictures just didn’t capture the moment.

Some thoughts now that we have a week of Wii under our belts, er, straps.

1. For me Tennis is the most fun out of all of the Wii Sports. I have some seriously sore upper body muscles. I’m up to a 590+ something rating, but I keep getting waxed by the computer. I need to find the right technique for that unhittable shot that my brother-in-law kept laying on me.
2. Out of all of the Wii Sports, bowling got the most action. We looked up the Wii easter eggs online and were able to do the 91 pin training trick. That was pretty cool.
3. My kids are fascinated with the concept of a Mii. I think they’ve created about 30 of them so far. All the family on both sides, friends — and the most recent additions — Chuck Norris and the cast of Charlie Brown.
4. Wii Play is OK. My kids spent a lot of time fishing and blasting everything that moved in the shooting game. The Cow Race is cool and funny, but got old after a while. I couldn’t get anyone to really play the tank game with me. I thought it was fun.
5. Now that I’m home I’ve set up the wireless features. Pretty sweet. Did the first update. I was a little surprised how long it took.

1/2 UPDATE: Finally got up to Pro status in Tennis. It’s much harder now. Still fun.

I wasn’t planning on staying but he seemed interested in fixing me lunch. I obliged.

He started off explaining me the difference between hobos and tramps. Hobos were the good ones. They work for food and contribute it to the community pot of food over the fire at the tent. The tramps, well, they steal and aren’t good neighbors. Hobos are basically good. His story continued with lots of interesting details as he fixed my “hobo stew” lunch.

I was a little uneasy when he set the bowl in front of me. I recognized most of the ingredients. I ate it like a good grandson should. It wasn’t very easy on my stomach or my taste buds. About halfway through my bowl Grandpa said something like “now that you’ve gotten through some of your stew, here’s what’s in it: cream of mushroom soup, shredded roast beef, mixed vegetables, diced French fries and…crumbled up pancakes.” Yes, pancakes. I used my buttered toast and a big glass of milk as a buffer between bites after that.

I was mostly done with my stew by the time Grandpa sat down with his bowl.

Grandpa started off with a mini-rant about Nancy Pelosi.  I don’t really remember what the context was or even the point, I just thought to my self, cool, Grandpa’s raking on Nancy Pelosi. Anyway, I digress…

He talked about how his life hasn’t been anything spectacular, but good because of the situations the Lord has put him in various points in his life.   Stories of God’s compassion and hidden agendas to help people that really needed it.   For my Grandpa, God’s plan is an exciting, daily mission to discover and execute with flexibility — blessing people and finding fulfillment along the way.

Something about what he was saying — about being ordinary and in the middle of God’s plan — resonated with me.  I felt a connection.  I’ve always viewed myself as pretty ordinary — nothing spectacular or amazingly skilled.  I do find fulfillment in making things easier for people, which is a trait (I now see) that Grandpa has been exhibiting his whole life.

I’ve heard a lot of stories from Grandpa in my lifetime.  Some of them I dismissed in my head with a “yeah, right, Grandpa.”  All kinds of stories set during World War II in France, the chaos surrounding the flood of 1951 in Argentine, KS, and chance encounters with various people of intrigue, etc.  I think the stories last week are my new favorites.

• Watching my mother-in-law play Gotham Racing on the Xbox
• There was that Christmas when my mother-in-law choked on something (we don’t really know what it was) and the Heimlich Maneuver was administered.  Good thing the EMTs were just down the street at a Christmas eve service.  They were too late.  She was already OK.
• Nothing is worse than the stomach flu over Christmas.  All but one of us had it coming out of both ends.  Miserable.
• There was that one time my sister-in-law fainted on me at the altar during communion at the Christmas Eve service at the church.  Good times.
• My wife knocked me completely out in the first round of Wii Boxing.  Embarrassing.
• When my daughter was a toddler, she ate, oh, I don’t know, 20 or so green Christmas tree cookie-press cookies.  I know, it’s a lot.
• One time we went to see a high school hockey tournament at the Xcel Energy center in Minneapolis.  Can’t beat 6 bucks for a whole day of sweet hockey action.
• One of my personal highlights — Bucks vs T’Wolves at the Target Center.  Oh, and the Bucks played it close all game and then pulled away at the end with some clutch shooting.  All five of us Bucks fans had a good time.
• We sent my in-laws to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert one year.  They called us from the concert on their cell phone and we got to hear them rocking out the joint.
• Then there was that one year when the heat went out on our 1992 Mercury Grand Marquis on the way home from MN.  We stopped somewhere on I-35 and got a bunch of hand-warmer packets and stuffed them in our socks.  Not fun.

Hope you’ve had a Merry Christmas.

I have to restrain myself when I observe people (like this blogger) talking about someone else’s or treating their own children as an unwelcome burden. These days children are treated like noisy little pets, neglected, or spoiled so much that they’re controlling the whole family. It’s obvious (at least to me) which parents don’t care about their children. Attitudes like those in the above blog post make it worse. Those attitudes are passed along one way or another. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My family is more important than my career and my entertainment. I honestly can’t remember feeling the need to escape from my children. That being said, I certainly could do less of “my thing” and spend more quality time with my children.

One of the best decisions my wife and I have ever made was for her to stay home with our kids. It wasn’t easy and there were times we didn’t know what the heck we were doing. Ultimately there were no good reasons to let anyone else raise our children.

I don’t buy a lot of excuses that people make about parenthood.

What is it really?

Not enough money in the bank? Career not in the right place? Kids scare you? Dirty diapers not for you? Like your 8 hours of sleep every night? Cramps your style too much? Kids are way too gross? Feel inadequate?

Here’s my 10 reasons why why you should have kids:

1. You get to choose what values you pass along to your children.
   Don’t like that your parents forced you to eat brussel sprouts? Here’s your chance.
2. Kids are fun and it only gets better as they get older
   Yes, my son did say: “Superman wears a cape with Velcro on it so that when he goes the bathroom he doesn’t get poop on it.”
3. Children bring joy into your life that you can’t measure.
   The first cry. The first steps. The first words. The first “I love you, dad”, etc. Good times…no, really good times.
4. It is very satisfying when they understand something you’ve been trying to teach them.
   It’s priceless when they do or say something that you taught them without any prompting — especially in front of someone who’s not part of your family.
5. Responsibility brings maturity
   Life takes on a new seriousness when you are responsible for children.
6. You’ll never have enough money or be totally prepared
   Stop kidding yourself.
7. Your parents love grandchildren.
   Why not nip those questions in the bud?
8. Your kids may just be interested in something you’re doing or something you know…
   And be convinced that you know everything there is to know about it.
9. At some point, your children will actually help you.
   Personally, I’m looking forward to my son being old enough to mow the yard.
10. Your parents did.
    Nuclear families are what makes society work.

Have anything to add, Faithful Reader?

Here’s some pix.