Touch a Truck Day

This week end we took T out to Touch a Truck Day. It was an excellent idea, and I had never heard of anything like that before. It was just a day set up by the city and county governments to let young kids come out and have a hands on experience with the vehicles they find so fascinating. There were vehicles there like: 

[caption id="attachment_131" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="My son drives a fire truck. "][/caption]

 

 

 

 The Ladder Truck. I think this was one of his top two favorites. He spent a lot of time climbing on the truck, playing with the shiny parts, and climbing in the seats.

 

 

 

 

I think the Ambulance won top honors with T. They hooked him up to the EKG machine and showed him his heart beat. He also got to play with the seat belt on the gurney, which oddly enough was almost more exciting for him because he could demonstrate to everyone how it worked. He opened it, and put the belt back together several times. 

[caption id="attachment_132" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="My son tours the ambulance."][/caption]

 

 

[caption id="attachment_133" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="My son in a GradeAll Ditch Digger"][/caption]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another truck that he enjoyed was the GradeAll ditch digger. It was huge, and he got to get inside and play around a bit with the handles and horn. 

 

Also, they had a city bus, a street sweeper, two police motorcycles, a police car, the bomb squad had their robot out for him to watch, John Deere tractors, and even a garbage truck. It was a nice way to spend the morning together as a family. Little baby Q even had a good time rolling around in her stroller, and Mommy was the photographer for the trip. We followed up the morning with a nice lunch, and then home for naps. Well, at least we tried to get T to nap.

Palin-Biden VP Debate Winner Is...?

I was very excited to watch last nights VP debate. Not because I care about the issues, because seriously this is the VP debate. If I want to hear about issues I'll wait for the presidential debate. I was excited just because of the entertainment value it could possibly have held. It was the same reason I love to go to hockey games. Hockey is a great game and everything, but I go to see who gets slammed into the boards so hard the glass breaks, and who gets thrown out for fighting. I watched the debate in anticipation of seeing someone blow it so bad that the whole world would be talking about it for decades. This debate surely had the potential to be exceptionally entertaining. Unfortunately, the show was lacking in that and ended up being a serious debate. 

The debate didn't change anything for me. I don't see her as a leader, and I still wonder how she was able to run Alaska. Here are some things from the debate that annoyed me:

1. "Now, John McCain thankfully has been one representing reform. Two years ago, remember, it was John McCain who pushed so hard with the Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) reform measures. He sounded that warning bell." Yes, thank God he sounded that warning bell, if he hadn't sounded it who knows what might have happened? We might be in a real pickle right now! Oh, wait! The great "Maverick" wasn't able to get enough people behind him after sounding the warning bell to make a difference. I guess if I thought about it enough it might make me think that John would be a good Vice President. Someone who could see something that could be wrong and tell it to a real leader who could actually make a difference using that information. Palin said it best,"People in the Senate with him, his colleagues, didn't want to listen to him...". Does that sound like a leader to you? By that standard, I should be president. Heck, no one listens to me either!

2. When asked who was at fault for the current economic problems, whether it was the borrowers, or lenders who were at fault Sarah stated," Darn right it was the predator lenders, who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house. There was deception there, and there was greed and there is corruption on Wall Street. And we need to stop that."  That is a good answer for Joe six pack I guess. A good answer for the people who lost their house and want someone to blame, but a real leader would have been able to put some of that blame on the borrower as well. Let's face the facts, I have gotten home loans in the past, and I have never had a lender tell me,"No, you should borrow more than that. Think bigger and better!" No, People look at houses, find one they want, decide if they can afford it, and then apply for the loan. So the first problem is the borrower making a bad choice, and not thinking it out beyond the first six months of the loan. If you apply for an adjustable loan you have to assume it will go up at some point. So, the borrower has some blame here and Palin ignores it to pander to the common person who is looking for a way to pass the blame onto those with deeper pockets. Of course the lenders are not right either and do deserve some of the blame. It is their job to go through the process and make sure the applicant actually has a way of making payments on the loan they applied for not only at the time of the loan, but also when the rates go up. If anyone should know that rates go up, it would be the lenders. They definitely should reap what they have sown. If your lending policies have gotten you to the point of failure, I am sure there is another bank that will happily buy you out at half your value. Buh-bye!

3. How many questions were asked to Palin that she completely ignored? She ignored them because she had no answer. In other words, she lost that point and was hoping to answer a different question she could at least recite a much rehearsed lie for. For example:

BIDEN: "Gwen, the governor did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild. He did support deregulation almost across the board. That's why we got into so much trouble."

IFILL: Would you like to have an opportunity to answer that before we move on?

PALIN: I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again. 

Did she ever come back to that? Of course not. And this happened several times. She had a question staring her down that she had no good answer to, so she ignored it. Better to change the subject than to have another Katie Couric moment. 

Over all, she had survived the debate without amusing us all. I guess that was the best she could hope for, especially without John McCain sitting in the chair next to her. There is no doubt though that as a debate, Biden won this hands down. 

::: Don't forget to vote in the poll to the right if you haven't already. Thanks! ::::: 

Baking Cookies

Most of our little family is stricken with a nasty little cold. All of us, except for baby Q. That is so lucky. It is so sad when a baby gets a cold. I am guessing the germs came from T's preschool friends who love to share such things. As is typical, T ended up with the lightest case of the virus. That is a good thing for him, but for some reason L and I always get it worse. She started getting a sore throat one day, and then I got it the next. Then we got sinus stuff, and then lung stuff along with coughing. The whole nine yards. All of this happens of course when I had to get the house ready for chickens to arrive. 

It has been almost a week now that we have been fighting this cold. We are all coughing yet, but it seems to be lessening a bit. Feeling like I had a bit if energy I asked L to pick up some cookie dough on the way home from picking T up from school. I thought T and I could have some bonding time and bake some cookies together. Nothing like a project that ends with eating cookies. 

Now, it is a fun idea, but it leads me to a couple of questions. First, how clean can a little boys hands ever really get? I just ask because his job was to roll the spoonful of dough into a ball and place it on the baking sheet. As I watched him rolling the ball around and around in his hands I was wondering, how well did he really wash those hands? 

That lead to my second question, will a 350 degree oven really kill those possible germs in 12 minutes? If it were not for the fact that they are delicious cookies, I may not have risked eating them. 

T didn't resist eating them either. In fact, he started eating the dough about 30 seconds into the rolling process. I showed him how to roll the dough into a ball, and then gave him some dough to roll by himself. His first ball, dropped a chocolate chip onto the table which he picked up saying," Oooops, a chocolate fell off.", and then he ate it. Finding it tasted delicious, he smelled the ball of dough he rolled and tasted that too. At that point I figured we needed to clarify the rules of cookie baking or there will be one upset tummy and no cookies when we are done. Rule: He can eat that one, but the rest have to go on the baking sheet. He did a great job with it after that. The cookies, which may or may not be little balls of cold virus, turned out perfect. Even T's Mommy approved of the finished product. We need more bonding time like that. =-)

You Know You Are a Dad When...

The other day I was holding Q. Actually, I had just fed her a bottle, and holding her up on my shoulder so she could burp. She was up with her head the same height as mine, and she slowly turned her head to look at me. As her face got adjusted so that she was looking me in the eyes, her mouth was inches from my nose. At that moment the burp had climbed all the way up, and came flying out of her mouth at full force, right into my nose. Mmmm, baby burp smell. =-) This got me thinking about what other things happen to me now that would never happen to me prior to being a dad. I thought maybe I should see if I could make a list of things that fall into those categories. 

1. I definitely never had a baby burp in my face prior to being a dad. I assume, like most dad's, I stayed far away from small baby like creatures when I was not a parent. I had a slight fear I would be asked to hold the baby, and most likely I would do it wrong and break it. Now, a nice baby burp in my face just makes me happy knowing that she won't be hurting from a gas pain later. 

2. Walking through the house in the dark used to be relatively safe. Now I walk as gently across the floor of my living room as I do across the chicken house floor when it is filled with curious baby chickens, who tend not to know they shouldn't run under the boots. I learned in the chicken house to shuffle along the floor to avoid making space for a chicken to run under my feet. In the living room I also shuffle to avoid another incident where the plastic Buzz Lightyear caused me to fight back tears of pain as I walked across the room to turn on a light. 

3. Prior to being a parent my conversations, although not always fully mature, seldom had me using voices of muppets. Now I spend time on occasion reading to T while having my Elmo voice ask me (the Daddy voice) leading questions about the story. I hold Elmo in one arm, and T in the other and all three of us talk about the story as I read. T really likes hearing Elmo's crazy thoughts about the story and characters, and he always corrects Elmo about what is really happening. 

4. Before I was a parent, L and I would have spontaneous dates anytime we didn't feel like cooking. We would start out by heading to a nice dinner and then possibly decide to take in a movie without giving it a second thought. Now, a date is something few and far between due to the intense planning that is involved. There is the notification of relatives to make sure we can get one of them to baby sit. Usually the honors go to grandma and grandpa. Next is finding a good day to do it where we both will have the energy to go on a date. Believe me this is often the most difficult part. Spending the day with a toddler and a baby, or even just one of the two, can drain the energy out of you fairly quickly. Next is the fact that we have to get the kids to grandma and grandpa's house early enough so that we can grab a quick meal, then catch an early movie so we can be finished in time to get back, pick up the kids and get them home in time for bedtime. It is basically more work to take some time to ourselves than it would be to just sit at home and hope the kids go to sleep right away so we could watch a movie on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. 

5. In the pre-parent years I could finish typing a sentence without having my face grabbed. I say that because as I was typing the last item T decided he wanted to show me something. He started talking to me, and I was trying to quickly get my thought down before it faded away. I didn't type quick enough for T. He isn't shy about making sure the audience is paying attention. He grabbed my face and said,"Daddy, listen to me, I have to show you something." He put his hands on my cheeks and turned my face so that we were face to face. Eye contact while talking is important you know. And yes, I do need to work with him on the virtue of patience, among a few others. In Spanish we say 'poco a poco', which means little by little. Life is a journey remember and he will learn all things in their proper time. 

 

Just a side note: There is a poll on the side. Please cast your vote for your presidential candidate. It seems a bit one sided so far. Thanks!

Cool Blog of the Week! -- (Number Three)

It has been a fairly hectic last few days here on the farm. It is time to get the next flock of chickens, so I have been rushing to get things done. Of course the night before the final shipment I get an equipment failure. One of my motors that pulls the food from the feed bins outside the house into the smaller bins in the house gave out on me. I am having people come in to try to resolve that issue this morning. Hopefully they can get it going in time for me to have food ready for the baby chicks. 

Anyway, on the Cool Blog of the WeeK!

This weeks winner is: Diary of a writer - The life of Casey Emerson:

Why read it?: I came across this blog on BlogCatalog, which is a site designed for bloggers to see each others sites. I clicked on this site since it sounded interesting to me. It is written by Casey Emerson who shares her day to day life as a writer. I was curious as to what an actual writer thinks about and does when not actually writing. I enjoyed the first few posts I read, and added the site to the list of sites I follow. She is a very interesting person, and her writing on her blog is fun to read. Her latest post about her ex-boyfriend stealing her football cards pulled at me, and had me feeling mad at that loser ex, and wanting her to win. I wanted her to get those cards back even though it appears not likely to happen. (Sorry Casey. At least your not still dating that putz.)

If you are looking for a blog to read that is well written, and fun to follow along with, then take a tour of Casey's site and hopefully you will become as much of a fan of her writing as I am.