Category: Uncategorized

It’s amazing how many things we accumulate in a lifetime. I have a tendency to keep more than I will ever want/need/use in a lifetime simply because I hate to see useful stuff go to the landfill. The irony of it all is the only time I ever consider an item’s utility is when I pack or unpack it, see it and ponder whether or not to keep it.

Sentimental items simply add another layer of throw-away difficulty. Though none are really useful (I can’t think of the next time I’ll ever use my high school mortarboard tassel), they help us to remember a significant or special event/person inevitably adding to the clutter of our lives.

I had a friend recently ask me what I considered the most difficult thing to throw away. After listing several sentimental items as possible answers he replied with, ‘a garbage can.’ Turns out he had an old trash can that was no good and had put it on the curb with the rest of his junk but the garbage men wouldn’t take it. Even after writing the word ‘trash’ on it he would still find it on his curb when he returned home from work. After three weeks of unsuccessful attempts to dispose of this worthless trash can he finally took his saws-all and cut it into pieces. I guess sometimes an item that isn’t sentimental or even useful can’t be easily thrown away.

I always wondered if someone was paid to come up with those weird verification words we’re asked to type in on secure sites. Granted most are just gibberish but every once in a while you’ll see something that seems coherent. Even more amusing is the fact that these things actually have a name: CAPTCHAs. It’s an acronym that stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. I’d feel better if there was a human on the other end generating these. If a computer randomly plugs characters in and creates the distorted shape how secure can it really be? Wouldn’t there be a way around it? It’s like radar detectors. I’m pretty sure the one I used back in high school would be completely worthless today because the technology is constantly improving. How long will it be before we start getting a CAPTCHAs that a computer AND human can’t read.

Ever wonder why girls don’t have warts on their fingernails? Turns out nail polish is the perfect home remedy for eliminating them. Yes, the unsightly viral blemish of witch noses and alleged side effect of handling toads is no match for nail polish. I’ve never had warts, but my two boys have been infected.

We tried the fancy (and expensive) Dr. Scholl’s Wart Bandages, but just like regular band-aids you have to keep them on to be effective. Needless to say, we went through a box within a week. In most cases it would make the wart appear worse. My oldest was shocked to see something that resembled a frosted mini-wheat growing out of his hand after removing the bandage one day. I couldn’t help but agree with his complaint that it appeared to have gotten bigger. It was time for a new remedy.

We had always heard that you should smother a wart in order to kill it; like putting duct tape over it (this must look incredibly ridiculous so we voted against that remedy). The other solution was coating the wart with a healthy amount of nail polish. My wife has plenty of clear nail polish and she was more than happy to oblige them. After several weeks of the daily nail polish treatment, my oldest is proudly sporting a wart-free hand. It’s humorous to see them diligently applying nail polish to their warts like a couple of high maintenance teen girls. (Don’t tell them I wrote that. This post will already get me in trouble.)

Well, it looks like the Vikings’ dream came true… again. In dramatic Favre form, the legendary quarterback agreed to come back for another season with the Vikes after months of speculation. I kind of feel sorry for Childress and the rest of the Minnesota squad being strung along and played like that. Brett’s über-celebrity status is so blown out of proportion that I’m beginning to fear that this return’s even more about the money than the love of the game. Or maybe twenty is a rounder number (twenty million certainly is).

I like Favre, but I’m beginning to lose more respect for him every season. That beloved aw-shucks, good old boy charm that he’s feeding the media with statements like ‘I’m here to have fun’ (clearly, because making practice at the beginning of training camp wasn’t an option) and ‘there’s nothing left for me to prove’ (except that he’ll be the only 40-year-0ld quarterback in the NFL to do what he’s doing) is beginning to wear thin. Minnesota’s so desperate to win a Super Bowl that Favre can pretty much name his price to get what he wants out of it. Sad. The ‘loyal team player’ legacy Favre established with the Packers became tarnished with me the day he came out of retirement the first time.

Traveling with the boys can be challenging at times. Their close proximity to one another while strapped in is a tempting opportunity for them to irritate and taunt each other. This almost always ends in some physical contact, screaming, crying and yelling. As torturous as it sounds for each of them, it’s really the driver who loses. Yet another case of their extreme competitiveness rearing its ugly head. Yes, there’s nothing quite like taking some good old fashioned sibling rivalry on the road.

To help alleviate some of this needless bickering, my wife created somewhat of a game. Each participant is to find as many yellow vehicles as they can (by the way, construction vehicles don’t count), each time indicating their success by yelling the word ‘SCORE!’ Although the game was intended to keep their eyes on the road and off of each other, the basis of racking up points naturally degraded this into another competition. Before we knew it, they took turns denying that one had actually seen a yellow car/truck/vehicle while the other loudly protested. When their diplomacy of screaming at each other failed they resumed pounding each other.

We’ve since modified this game to be a team effort only – with no individual scores – which has helped, but I still can’t help but cringe every time I spot a yellow vehicle while driving.

I’m not a greenskeeper or a gardener, but I don’t think I’m alone in wanting a green lawn. This summer has been exceptional with regard to temperature and moisture so the lawn really hasn’t needed too much attention. That being said, we always seem to have a recurring fungal problem in one half of our front yard.

Granted, this area of our lawn is almost under the constant shade of some very large Elm trees, but it only seems to affect the one section. Virtually overnight we can get a small Smurf colony. In fact, while we were away on vacation, our neighbors were charting its growth. I think one of them was a mycologist or something and was hoping to see if this crop of ‘shrooms was edible.

Knowing full well how mushrooms spread their fungal goodness, it’s always a challenge to keep the boys from obliterating them (i.e. punting, kicking, smashing, golfing). Instead we prescribe the use of the patented hand-in-a-plastic-grocery-bag method of harvesting. I’m sure to casual on-lookers it appears our boys are cleaning up after a month’s worth of dog business. Ironically enough we don’t own a dog but it’s a good way to put a stop to their begging for one.

I’m certainly no chef, but I can follow a recipe. I don’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen, but I’ve had to pinch hit now and again. Every once in a while I like to venture beyond the safer fare (toast) and try something more challenging (homemade soft pretzels). I credit the number of flops I’ve had to my lack of experience but I have also found that preparing dishes isn’t just combining ingredients. Order, technique and timing have their place as well. It is chemistry after all. Thanks to Food Network’s know-it-all Alton Brown I can feel comfortable being one of the culinary illiterates out there and benefit by his superior knowledge and entertaining form of teaching. I may have learned a few new tricks but I doubt I’ll be given free-reign in the kitchen anytime soon.

I had the opportunity to revisit the relaxing recreational activity known as fishing this past weekend. Though I managed to lure three fish from Beaver Bay, I still don’t consider myself an angler. The fact that I, a junior fisherman, had the most bites in our fishing party is why I have a difficult time believing that there is any great amount of skill involved in fishing. The rod wasn’t mine. The lures weren’t mine. The bait wasn’t even mine. I simply happened to be casting and reeling the line that these small fish decided to take the bait from. Simple luck. Ironically enough, luck was the very thing that turned me off to fishing so many years ago.

As a kid, fishing with either of my grandpas was an almost religious occasion. When you went fishing, it was for the entire day. If you were on the water, you stayed on the water (even if you had to ‘go’). I tried many times to catch fish, but failed. Watching everyone else pull in their limit of fish while I picked off the weeds and re-baited my hook was enough to discourage me from liking it. It was fruitless labor. My younger brother and dad certainly looked forward to fishing more than I ever did and before long I had removed myself entirely from this great American father-son pastime because I simply had no luck with it.

My oldest son enjoys fishing and has already landed more fish than I have in my entire life, so for his sake I feel obliged to try it again. Thanks to my brother-in-law Doug and friend Kelly, I got the chance to bone up on a few things. I relearned how to tie a fisherman’s knot, how to free a line hung up in weeds and how important it is to thread your line through the eyelets of your rod (sorry Doug). Yes, for the first time in almost thirty years I actually enjoyed fishing. Thanks, guys!

Every August, at the insistence of the queen, all bees must leave the colony and aggressively attack humans. Or so it would seem. Our youngest received his annual bee sting yesterday from some yellowjacket that thought it would be cool to inoculate a seven-year-old in the palm of his hand. I couldn’t help but ask him if he was carrying the bee around. His reply between sobs was a firm, resounding ‘NO!’ I also learned (through subsequent whimpers) that he wasn’t collecting, swatting at or otherwise aggravating said bee but was attacked unprovoked.

We’ve always told our boys that when a bee circles you, not to swat at it. The affirmative phrase, ‘if you leave them alone, they’ll have no reason to sting you’ was running through my mind as I tried in some way to explain to him why he was unjustly stung. I couldn’t think of anything. I just comforted him as he nursed his hand with a bag of ice, tears still rolling down his cheeks. I don’t know that I’ll correct him if he vengefully swats and kills the next bee that goes near him.

While in Seattle we were intrigued by two eager street magicians. I’ve seen street magic on television before and was always skeptical of how ‘real’ it was. I thought that there must have been some behind-the-scenes trickery going on, though the spectators always seemed genuinely entertained. Naturally I kept a watchful eye as this young twenty-something lured in my oldest son for a card trick.

It started out with your typical ‘pick a card and don’t show me’ but then he pulled a new one. To really make it obvious that he couldn’t ‘cheat’ on this seemingly standard card trick, he had my son write his name on the card he picked with a sharpie marker. He did all those impressive, vaudevillian magic moves – the slow deal, the inverted shuffle, the switch – to reveal my son’s chosen card every time without fail.

Probably the most unbelievable was when, while expecting another clever reveal from the deck on the table, he told my son that his card was on his shoulder. And it was! I realize there had to be some slight of hand, but even my eagle eye couldn’t detect how he pulled this off. I started analyzing the logistics of this young wizard’s ‘power’ trick. I thought about the distances, proximity and fact that my son was standing right in front of me with this shoulder in plain sight the whole time. Admittedly I was entertained.

With all of us standing dumbfounded with mouths agape (several passersby included) the magician attempted to pull off his most difficult trick: getting the spectators to purchase the $20 DVD that purportedly revealed how to do the tricks he had shown us. We politely declined, thanked him for the show and slowly walked away.

Later that same day we encountered another young charlatan performing card tricks. We obliged him by again volunteering to take part as audience assistants. When the routine started to look familiar I thought to myself, ‘this time, I’ll figure it out.’ After ten minutes I was still dumbfounded (and amazed) when the pitch for the $20 DVD purchase came up. Again, we declined and sheepishly walked away. Though both magicians were legit (I saw their vendor permits), the second was a lot more persistent with his DVD offer, almost begging and belittling us when we declined. I couldn’t help but think that we had just experienced the most sophisticated form of panhandling. Ta-Da!