Don't be a hero

A couple of weeks ago I went to Target to purchase some Huggie's pull-up diapers (the night time variety).  The night times are extra absorbent, which is very important.

Here are the two possible packages available:

Pretty simple right, one boys package and one girls package.

 

Wrong.

I outsmarted the diapers (even though there is a boy and a girl, respectively, on the covers).  Nothing on the packaging states that the diapers are specifically for one gender.  Click on the pictures, check it out for yourself.  Not convinced...next time your at a diaper carrying store take a look.

Natalie loves Buzz (the one featured on the "blue" package) and is indifferent to the "pink" package's Princesses. 

So, I decided to be a hero and buy the blue package.

Bad idea (side note: never let a non-parent be the wing man on this sort of endeavor).

They are gender specific (based primarily on the extra absorbency location within the diaper, which is slightly different for boys then for girls).  You are just suppose to know this nugget of information when making your purchase. 

What happens if you do not have superhuman parenting common sense and/or you feel like being a risk-taker one day?

I've learned a lot in my time as a parent.  I could have literally written a book on the do's and don'ts a father should generally follow (eliminating so many unneeded problems) if I would have just remembered to document these noteworthy moments.

I am not letting this one slip by, however.

Fathers of the future...don't try to unnecessarily be a hero in certain situations

Blue = Boy, Pink = Girl

If you do nothing else to protect yourself from potential pitfalls, at least make sure to follow this golden rule (even though it is a unfortunate norm in society).

Trying to get cute with your decisions when it comes to this topic involves far more risk then potential reward.  I know first hand.

You have officially been warned.

P.S. That wasn't the only issue I ran into with these diapers.  Issue #2 was based on deciphering the magical "age group vs weight range" line.  This is a lesser infraction however, so I will spare you the details.  Certain problems, such as this one (if I am not receiving royalties from a best selling book), should remain initiation opportunities into fatherhood.

I choose life

Gina's co-worker (and friend) Velma and her husband own a small private airplane.  In passing one day, G suggested to Velma that Bob should take me along for a flight sometime.

I'm glad she thought of me and thinking about doing it sounds like a lot of fun.  It would probably be one of the coolest things I ever experienced.

 

When she brought it up to me I politely declined the invitation.

Why?

It's not even like I don't trust Bob.  I would be very comfortable with him as my pilot.

I am not comfortable with the fact that the plane needs to be taken apart each fall and put back together each spring.  No matter what I'm told, the concept just does not sit well with me.

I've taken some crap for being so feeble (which is fair), but I'm happier dreaming about (and not acting on) things like that at this point in my life.

Rockin' the suburbs

As of today, I am the soon-to-be owner of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.  It's not being released on October 21, but I just pre-ordered.  In my opinion, the unconfirmed playlist is the best yet (though I wish Tribute was the Tenacious D song).

How is this possible?  Not easily.  It's not hard to figure out that I do not have the money to buy this game.  However, I have won quite a bit of money via work over the years from a program the company sponsors (team members nominate other team members for exceptional work) and have almost always spent that money on things we need around the house, etc.  Each time I do this, Gina tells me I should spend the money on something I want for once.

Enter today.  While I still feel like I should spend the money elsewhere (i.e. spending money on myself could also include new underwear, new work shirts, etc.), I rarely buy anything fun for myself anymore (for obvious reasons) and I must admit that I am very excited for this.

G doesn't love the idea but, who knows, maybe she will even enjoy the game in the end.

I'm not counting on it (mostly because she would then be accepting the game into our house)...but you never know.

Power struggle

From 5pm on Tuesday until 5am on Wednesday this week, we were without electricity.  Our whole extended neighborhood was for that matter. 

Until you don't have it, you forget how dependent you are on those kWh's of power.

Everything from not being able to close the garage door to not being able to warm up baby food becomes a hassle.  Not only that, but with small children it's never good to lose air conditioning when it's in the low 90s outside.  By 8:30pm, the outside light wasn't much help anymore either and everything had to be done by flashlight.

In the end, we pulled through just fine.  After freting during the night about Casey in a hot house, potentially not being able to lock the garage door all day and whether or not daycare would even be open (as they are only a few houses down) the power came on in just the nick of time to keep me from having to stay home and possibly missing my date with Messer at the Twins game at noon.

I now have a rekindled appreciation for electricity.

It's merely a flesh wound

Working on finishing my basement, I suffered my first injury in the 4+ months my dad and I have spent on the project.  The ironic part is that it had little to do what I was doing. 

For whatever reason, when the builders where doing the mechanical work they did not bend over the metal sheeting that they used to hold a portion of it up to the rafters.  I was adding a vent to a completely different portion of the structure and just reached backwards as I was coming down the ladder. 

The end of the metal was very sharp and my arm was sliced pretty good.  The cut iteself was about one inch long by 1/4 inches deep and 1/2 inches wide.  I've done my best to replicate it in 2D form below, as we forgot to take a picture of it.

Take a moment and feel the skin on your arm.  It's not nearly as tight as other areas of your body.  I was amazed at how wide the gash ended up being.  Furthermore, the skin actually curled over into the wound because there was so much loose skin.  It bled pretty well but stopped after pressure was applied in about ten minutes.

 

It looked much uglier then it felt.  There was not a lot of pain associated with it.  But, it was far too gaping of a hole to just let it heal on its own so I ended up going to urgent care for treatment (however, I was scolded by my wife for convincing my parents to let me drive to the hospital alone).

Two and a half hours later, I had seven stitches in my arm.  The doctor said the skin came together well so I may not have a scar.  I need to leave them in until next Friday and then need to use steri strips to keep it together for quite a while after that.  He said that when the stitches come out my skin strength holding the cut together will only be about 10% of what it normally would be.

 

To add insult to injury, I hadn't had a tetanus shot since '97 and I ended up getting one of them too.  I also have a funny looking area on my arm with no hair and it will make me look like (more of) a weirdo then normal for a significant period of time.

P.S. Nattie is impressed by the injury and made sure to tell daycare yesterday that "Daddy has big owie."  She wants to touch it (when the bandaid is covering it up) and has asked multiple times if I am OK.  She's so sweet.

T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Pray for us...and hope that you have boys.

OK, OK, I'm kidding.  In reality, this picture was just to dang cute not to share.

However, I do sense that we are currently in the "calm before the storm" stage.

I would like to submit this picture as visual proof of that.

Today's who's who

A couple of weeks ago, Gina and I visited Matt and Morgan in Chicago.  They now live in downtown Chicago so we wanted to see their new place, etc. 

We had a good time, as they are always great hosts.  Here are a couple of pictures from the trip:

They live close to Millennium Park.  I had never heard of it before we visited but I would strongly suggest checking it out if you are in Chicago in the future.  The park and surrounding portions of the city are amazing and the story behind how the park was built above some of the city's railroad tracks is pretty wild.  Cloud Gate was my favorite (and is maybe the single most interesting sculpture/monument I've ever seen).

Since returning, Gina and I have seen Nickelback's new video "Rockstar."  I am not a fan of the band, but the song isn't bad and the video has a handful of scenes filmed in/near Millennium Park.  For us, the timing of the video being released was perfect.

Bonds away, please

 

Last night I watched #756 crushed over the center field fence at AT&T Park on ESPN2.

 

I'll be honest, over the last week or so I have tried to catch an at-bat or two of Bonds each night.  Not so much because I was interested in seeing him hit the record breaking home run, I just wanted it to happen in the hopes that this whole thing would finally be over with in the media. 

The feat itself is incredble, regardless of what you think of the man.  However, the fact that America never embraced this chase and will likely still continue to call Hank Aaron the "Home Run King" is priceless.  Both good and bad Barry, you've got what you deserved.

Now can we please move on to something in baseball worth talking about...

Movies Reviews (2007A)

I don't see a lot of movies these days with the kids and all, particularly at the theater.  However, Gina and I try to watch movies here and there when we can.  Here's my reviews of the movies I've seen to date this year (most recent on top).

Also, the movies I'd like to see in the near future (likely on video) include:

Crash, Pan's Labyrinth, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Shrek the Third, The Bourne Ultimatium, The Italian Job, Ratatouille, Live Free or Die Hard, Knocked Up, The Da Vinci Code, Ocean's Thirteen, The Illusionist, Thank You For Smoking

Forty one hundred pages later

Yesterday, I finished the Harry Potter series.  I feel surprisingly poignant about that today.  While there is now some closure, just like so many others I am saddened that I will no longer read about Harry and his adventures again. 

I would have never expected to get so into this series, however I think that's probably one of the main reasons I've enjoyed the books as much as I have (and also because J.K. Rowling did a excellent job developing the characters).

Since there are so many people who are working on finishing or plan to eventually read the series, I will refrain from talking about anything in the books today.  However, I would like to share my favorite / least favorite characters in the series (and my grades for all the books and movies to date).  I will likely do a much more detailed list of items at some point in the future.

Favorite characters (in order): Ginny, Sirius, Hermione and Neville (in book seven)

Least favorite characters: Snape (in the first five books), Vernon and Peeves