The Phish Shirts - Update

It has been few years since I gave WonderWife™ my beloved Phish t-shirts and in that time she has tormented me by making me think she might have thrown them out.  Well, all of my frustrated complaining paid off this morning when, for my birthday, she presented me one of the shirts neatly framed, ready to be hung in my study.

"You didn't really think that I actually got rid of them, did you?" She asked me.

"For a while there, I actually wasn't sure," I told her.

Once again, she truly earns her internet nickname.


UPDATE #2:  You asked for it, so here it is...

Winning the Lottery

I'm over at Hot Dads today pondering what life would be like if I won the lottery.  (And despite what you're thinking, the first thing I would do is not run out and buy an iPad.)

Random Tuesday Thoughts: You Gotta Start Somewhere

I've been reading Keely, the Un Mom, for a while now. Every Tuesday she posts a slew of random thoughts and invites everyone else to do the same. Every Tuesday I forget to do this. But not today.

Let the wild randomness start!


I wonder if urban legends exist anymore because of the internet. Think about it. When I was a kid, stories such as the Life cereal kid, Mikey, dying because he ate pop rocks and soda were considered communal “truths.” Now a days, it’s all too easy to check the validity of anything because all of the world’s information is at our fingertips. That is both really cool and kinda sad.


I was looking at the daily celebrity birthdays on IMDb, as I do every day (yes I know I’m a movie nerd), and saw that an actress was turning 38. She’s getting old, I said to myself. Then it dawned on me. I will be turning 37 this week. If she’s old, I’m old. Shit.


If I were a childrens' book author, these are some of the tomes I would write, just 'cause:

• Captain McSqunity and his little dog Ratso
  

• Don’t Put That Needle in Your Mouth (and Other Cautionary Tales)

• Why Do You Think Your Finger Smells Like That?

• Bob, the Imaginary Friend Who Doesn’t Like You
  

• Every Time You Eat a Chicken Nugget, An Angel Loses It’s Wings – A Child’s Guide to Veganism.

Technology is breeding indecision. I have over 3000 songs on my iPod and I constantly play it on shuffle, but the right song never seems to come up. I can’t watch more than a minute’s worth of a video on YouTube because I’m constantly thinking about what the next one is and if it’s better than what I’m watching right now. I’ve got a stack of shows on Tivo to watch, but can’t decide which one to turn on. There’s too many choices and my attention span seems to be suffering as a result.


Despite being over politics, I’m still planning on watching the State of the Union address.


I wonder what my 14 year-old self would think of my life as it is now? Would he be content that I have a good job and a great family? Eh, he’d probably just be happy that I’ve had sex at least twice.

It's Never Been Easier to Find Me

After over two years of writing this blog, I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy the Daddy Geek Boy domain name. 

That means instead of adding that pesky .blogspot in your address bar, all you now have to do is type www.DaddyGeekBoy.com and through the magic of computer science that I won't pretend to understand, you'll arrive here.

Tell your friends!

Of course you can also follow me on Twitter /@DaddyGeekBoy for bite sized chunks of DGB goodness.

Curious Sounds

It took a bout with pink eye and a restless night for me to have a breakthrough with my daughter. Historically, Sprout hadn't been into bonding with me. She was too busy trying to sew herself to her mother's hip than to bother with getting to know her dad. It's not like I wasn't trying, but when the girl is too stubborn to even let anyone else but her mom feed her, you start to get the idea of what was dealing with.

So on a chilly night, when both kids were sick and WW™ had spent a couple of sleepless nights tending to our offspring, it was my turn when Sprout started screaming. The poor little thing not only had pinkeye, but a terrible cough and an ear infection. She was in misery. It was 9pm and she had only been able to muster a few restless hours of sleep. I picked her up and started to rock her. She soon settled and I put her back in the crib, but it wasn't long before she woke up and was screaming again. However, this time a curious sound came from her mouth. It sounded an awful lot like, "Daddy! Daddy!"

"Let me go get her," said WonderWife™.

"No way. She's calling for me," I said proudly. "I'm getting her."

WW™ was all too happy to oblige and went back to burying herself in the comforts of Facebook.

This time I brought Sprout to the couch and laid down with her on my chest. She wriggled for a little while, but I rubbed her back and she soon passed out. I lay there quietly pinned under my sleeping daughter, the remote tauntingly just out of reach. The next thing I knew, I opened my eyes to a house was eerily dark and silent. I had passed out. I squinted to see the clock--a cheap digital piece of crap that was always 5-17 minutes wrong. After some quick math, I concluded that it was after midnight. I slowly got up, maneuvering Sprout back to her bed as delicately as if it were my turn late in a very long game of Jenga. Successful, I stumbled back to my own room to finish up the night's sleep.

In the morning, another curious sound came from Sprout's room.

"Dad! Dad! Dad!"

This was truly unprecedented. Never in that girls' entire life did she want to see anyone first in the morning other than WonderWife™. Yet this morning, all she wanted was a hug and a kiss from her daddy.

We both learned something that night. Sprout learned that I am an awesome snuggler. And I learned that despite Sprout's attachment to her mom, her daddy was able to give her some comfort at least for one night.

Apolitical

Like an atheist who questions the existence of God, I have grown cynical about our political system. I have never been very politically minded, preferring to keep myself in a safe bubble of pop culture over reading a paper or watching the news—endeavors that usually make me all too depressed. But things changed during the 2008 election. For the first time, I became politically aware and informed. I was deeply invested in the outcome. I was passionate. I read papers and watched the news. I was swept up in a feeling that we were on the precipice of something great. That it was possible to raise our voices and be heard. That election meant something to me, as it did to a lot of people on both sides.

In a year’s time this feeling has not only diminished, but what is left is a sense of helplessness and heartbreak. I’ve come to realize that despite grandiose promises, we are incapable of altering the political machine. Our political system is like a mutating virus that has shielded itself against anything that could dismantle or change it. Yes, a year ago expectations were extraordinarily high and there was a colossal mess to be cleaned up. But even with those lofty expectations tempered, I am unable to be optimistic that three years from now anything will be that different from how it is now.

I have grown weary of the game of politics, of the pundits who pass along opinion as fact and of the public who is all too eager to swallow it without question. I am tired of our lackadaisical attitude towards the truth and the childish name-calling and finger-pointing that has become political debate. I am angry that my father can’t get insurance because four years ago he beat cancer. I’m saddened by my friends’ constant fights with their insurance companies. I am troubled for those without heath benefits at all. I ache for those who cannot be married. I worry for my children and my grandchildren, whose futures were mortgaged to fix problems that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. I am aghast that no steps are being taken to save the planet on which we live.

To me the problems we face don’t feel like partisan issues, they are human issues. They are big and they need to be fixed. Yet our elected officials don’t seem to be working with our interests at heart. There is only gridlock and infighting. Those who stand to make a profit now have the loudest voices and the most sway. I don’t believe that politicians are evil, just greedy. Despite what they want us to believe, they don’t live in the same world that we do. They are shielded in a bubble of their own and are not affected by their own actions.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, democracy simply doesn’t work.” - Kent Brockman, The Simpsons

I don’t like feeling this way. By nature I am not a cynical person. But I’ve come to believe that government will not fix things. Yet, we have created a system that will not allow us to operate without it.

The end result of my becoming invested in politics, even for a short time, has been disappointment and pessimism. This has led me to once again become apolitical. I want proof that the system works before I will believe in it again. Until then, I’ll be in my bubble, where at least I know I am safe.

Racca

Sprout is developing quite a vocabulary for a girl her age. (Both of my kids started talking early, and have refused to shut up ever since.) In fact Sprout is at that magical time where she seems to learn a new word or two every day. But for as many words as she knows, there are still a lot that she doesn't. Thankfully, Sprout has come up with an all-purpose utility word.

Sprout will sit on my lap as we look through a picture book. I point to animals and ask, "What's that?"

"Lion," she'll say.

"How about that one?"

"But-fly."

"Great! And this one?"

"Racca."

This is a word that comes up a lot. During dinner, Sprout will point to an item on the table and say, "racca." She will ask to read, "racca" or ask about the toy "racca." There are times when her "racca's" become quite pronounced and forceful. "Racca! Racca! Racca! Racca!"

While I'm thrilled she's trying hard to communicate, it's proving to be quite a challenge to tell racca from racca.

Delurk Yourselves, Year 2

Today in the blogosphere we celebrate Delurker Day—a day when us bloggers drop all sense of dignity and beg for all of you silent readers to come out from behind your electronic facades and alert us to your presence by leaving a comment.

I started this blog in order to create a record of my kids’ lives and so that my family and friends always had the ability to check in on the Geek Boy clan. I never gave much thought about who else would be reading it. But somehow, I've amassed a small but stable readership. It's been surprising and flattering how it's grown, especially this past year.

Sincere thanks to all of you who keep coming back to read my insanity. That said…comments are like crack for us bloggers. Once we get a taste of audience feedback, we crave more. And I'm jonesing here, man!

The most comments I have received on a post (discounting my replies) was for this one that got 19. My Delurker Day wish is to break that record. Help me make my dream come true!

Seriously comment or no comment, with all of the vast amount of options in the world to occupy your time, I'm truly touched that you choose to spend some of it with me.



Oh and if you're looking for a post where my pride is intact, check out Venus vs. Mars where I'm debating the merits of being emotionally invested in your relationship.

The Crazy Cult of the McRib

“The McRib is back…for a limited time!” the sign screamed out from the front of the Golden Arches.

“Curious,” I thought as I drove by.

For those of you not in the know, the McRib is a boneless barbeque pork sandwich. It first showed up around ‘89 and remained a staple of the Mickey D’s menu for about a decade, when suddenly it was announced that it would disappear forever. However, since then the sandwich has been popping up sporadically in areas around the country for brief stints, surfacing like a migrating whale before vanishing once again into the abyss.

A fanatical cult of McRib worshipers soon developed who keep track of the mythical sandwich’s whereabouts via websites. People travel to and gather at the places that serve the McRib, like a strange tailgate party that keeps changing stadiums but never ends.

The first time I saw a commercial for the McRib, I thought it looked disgusting. I was especially skeeved out by the way they made the patty look like it had bones. As much as I love a new product, this was one that I had no desire to try.

As the years have passed, the cult of the sandwich has grown. I fully realized how much of a cultural benchmark it was when the McRib cult was parodied on the Simpsons in the form of Krusty Burger’s Ribwich. When I learned that the McRib was coming to LA, I decided the time was right to try this mysterious object of cult worship. I took myself to the McD’s drive thru and bought myself one. (You read that FTC, I bought it myself!)

Inside the box was a sloppy mess of BBQ sauce under a bleached white bun. I love BBQ, but hate it when it’s slathered in too much sauce. Usually over-saucers like Tony Roma's or Chili's are trying hide mediocre tasting meat by drowning it in sauce.

There is a reason why the McRib is drowning in sauce. Even by McDonald’s standards, it’s not a very good sandwich. All you really taste is the BBQ sauce, which is too sweet and lacks depth of flavor. The sauce even overpowers the onions and pickles, which at McDonald's is no small feat. The pre-formed, chopped patty has the same consistency as a McNugget, expect that it’s not fried so its texture can best be described as “slimy.”

Cults are curious things. Having cult status, does not necessarily dictate quality. There is no particular reason why something develops a cult around it. Some cults I can understand, like Rocky Horror Picture Show or fans of Arrested Development, while others are confounding like Twi-hards or Oprah worship. I’m afraid the McRib falls into the ever-widening category of cults I cannot understand.

After a few bites of the sandwich, I pitched it. If I’m gonna clog my arteries, I might as well do it with something better…like bacon. There's no cults around bacon, are there?

How I Spend My Commute

A little while ago, Sci Fi Dad posted this comment on one of my posts:

My challenge is on days where work is particularly shit-encrusted I have to both push that out and transform into "Daddy" on my commute home (my commute, mind you, with every stupid person who should never have been given a license in the first place).

I hear you loud and clear, SciFi. Most evenings, I spend 30-35 minutes in the car driving across the San Fernando Valley from my office to my house. I depend on that time to clear my head and get myself into daddy mode. Every so often, my commute gets congested like a nose during flu season and it takes me considerably longer to get to and from work. This is a lot of time to spend in the car, especially if you have a “shit-encrusted day.”

In my query for reader requests, I was asked what I listened to on my commute. I love music. There is nothing better than blasting some great music in the car, singing top notch in the audio cocoon that is the cab of your automobile. But the problem is when I listen to music my brain is still churning. Thoughts about work and the day creep into my head. I replay bad moments over and over. I worry about a project or plan for an upcoming meeting. These are the demons that will prevent me from being a good dad and husband when I'm off the clock.

This is why I don't often listen to music on my commute. I listen to podcasts. Words. Stories. News. Anything that forces my brain to process the ideas it's hearing and keeps it too busy to focus on anything else.

There are hundreds of podcasts out there and I have one for just about every mood I'm in. I find them to be nice, bite-sized pieces of radio, just the right length to finish in a drive or two. Here are a few of my favorites:

• This American Life – The granddaddy of modern public radio. I only jumped on this bandwagon a few years ago. Don’t know what kept me so long.

• Radio Lab – This American Life’s nerdy cousin. It’s a slickly edited, science geek-y show that covers science, music and so much more. You will learn things that will blow your mind and force you to rethink some things. (My favorite fun fact from the show: the amount of time you spend with your eyelids closed due to a blink while watching a typical movie is 15 minutes.)

• I Love Movies – Stoner comedian Doug Benson invites a few fellow comedians on stage to talk about movies. Sometimes they actually get around to talking about movies.

• The Moth – Stories told live in front of audiences by people from all walks of life. Some are riveting. Some are hilarious. All are true.

• SModcast – Director Kevin Smith (who is the king of all fanboys) and his buddy, Scott Mosier, sit around and talk about stupid shit for an hour. Sometimes it’s gross and sometimes it’s misinformed. But it’s always really funny. It reminds me of sitting around bullshitting with my friends.

Add a few shows from NPR and you've got my recipe to clear my head to and from work.

If you have trouble letting go at the end of the day, try listening to words instead of music. Maybe they too will help.

The Wit and Wisdom of the Bean, Volume 3

My son is filled with nuggets of wisdom. (He's also filled with dirt, Play Doh and boogers, but that's another post.) So it gives me great pleasure to present to you the third showcase of the wisdom of the Bean:


“I will never get tired of eating food.”

While reading a picture book without words: “Mommy wiped the words away.”

“I tiptoed through the room because your eyes were closed but your ears were open.”

WonderWife™: "Are those pants too long?"
The Bean: "No. They are the same size as my legs."

“Kind of new isn’t new, it’s old.”

“You can’t go out in your jammies. Nobody wants to see that.”’

After watching Toy Story: “Blue infinity and peon!”

“Mommy, a boy has a lot of things to say.”

While wearing a windbreaker: “Now I can run around the house breaking wind.”

After being told he could not wear his jacket: "But I want to break wind!"

"Do you know what elephant food is called? Zoo-oup."

“The 2 girls in the house are wearing clothes and the 2 boys are still wearing their pajamas. That’s math!”


Click here for Volume 1

Click here for Volume 2

First Machine

The bell rang as you crossed the threshold of the small store, your body filled with trepidation. Overhead intimidating machines hung precariously. More were lined up on the floor. An overwhelming array. You held my hand and smiled as I suggested your favorite color. Perched in the middle of a row was a red one at which you pointed emphatically. You examined the machine with curiosity, but your timid moves betrayed your apprehension. When you discovered its bell, you decided you wanted to take it home.

You proudly showed it off to your mother and sister, who were waiting in the doorframe as we arrived at the house. You commented on its shininess, it's rich red hue. A helmet was secured to your head and you tentatively mounted the machine. You moved your feet and it began to move. With a little bit of guidance, you soon mastered the controls and tamed the beast. WIthin minutes you were flying down the sidewalk.

That day you rode your first bike. You felt the wind in your hair and the cold against your cheeks as you sped along under your own power. You felt the rush of adrenaline and the exhilaration showed on your flushed face. Today, you became free.

All the while I stood there watching you, silently reminiscing about my own youth and the machine that I loved.

Optimism

In December 1999 the world was going to end. Thinking about it now, the irrationality of Y2K seems somewhat quaint, but at the time people were genuinely afraid of the future. Not me though, I was optimistic.

I had just become disengaged, narrowly avoiding a situation that surly would have ended in divorce long before we would be required to take off our shoes in the airport. My life had been turned upside down and I felt scattered, like a snow globe after being shaken. In the aftermath, I made a conscious choice to put down the Playstation controller, peel myself off the couch and squeeze some fun out of this new decade, assuming that there would be one.

As we now know, the world didn’t end in 2000 and I spent the next few years making good on my promise. I saw in the inside of many a club and glimpsed my share of sunrises after sleepless nights. Then I met WonderWife™ and the true nature of the decade would begin to take shape.

Just as the bits inside a snow globe settle and so did my life. A ring was purchased. A wedding planned. Real estate bought. Children born. And somehow without meaning to, I became a full-fledged grown up during this past decade. Happily.

I am as optimistic about the onset of the next ten years as I was at the commencement of the last. I have endured through the growing pains of new parenthood and I think I am just now hitting my stride as a husband. I am content. Now I get to watch my kids grow up. The future looks rich indeed.