Be The Pigeon

Then (1994) ... Now... When I was a kid, I'd sometimes fly with my dad on his routes around the country. During my college years, this was a particularly fun time, and my freshman year I spent many weekends flying all over the country with him, doing my homework in flight and helping out as a volunteer flight attendant. Things got to the point where I even had a uniform shirt and was accepted as one of the crew. It was a great time in my life. It was a great time for my dad and I to grow closer, and I enjoyed the fast pace in my first year away from home. It wasn't uncommon to fly to the Northeast and back to the west coast again in a single weekend. To date, my kids haven't exactly shared in the fly-wherever-you-want lifestyle. A few weeks ago, however, when we went to see my parents in PDX, they got a taste of what it was like for me. It was a great time to pass on a bit of the Peanut Legacy to them. On our return flight from PDX, I noticed that the flight attendan...

A couple years ago , Jo and I decided to take the two older girls skiing for scout ski days. It's not the kind of thing we typically do, for lots of reasons. The day didn't go so well. It was super-de-dooper cold and the kids didn't eat anything good before we started. After one try down the hill, they were done, and so was our day. Last weekend I decided to try my luck once more, but learned from my previous mistakes, maybe. It was again Scout Ski Day, where you can get a lift pass and free lunch for $25. How can you pass on that when it can easily cost triple on a normal day? To boot, Amy is in fifth grade and gets a free pass from the ski people . Double bonus. So we had to go. First, it was just Amy and Misha with Dad this time. A little quality bonding time. Jo doesn't have any love affair with snow. My coworker was kind enough to let us stay at her condo so we could avoid the morning drive and enjoy a more leisurely morning. We wanted to leave by 5,...

Yeah, I'm proud.

I'm white trash. I admit it. I'm comfortable with it, even. How liberating to proclaim! As promised, I took a group of dads and their kids to the county-fair Demolition Derby. It was so much fun! I had never been, and really had no idea what to expect. After a lengthy trip to Burger King for some nutritious dinner (took 15 min to get the first order served, so be very careful at the Ken-Pratt location if you're in any sort of hurry), we made our way over to the fairgrounds. Parking was a disaster. Without nice little white lines to guide us, we are apparently a fallen society. People were parked pretty much everywhere, usually with about 7 feet between cars, just so there wasn't room for another car. I wound up parking in the race-team pit area. But once things finally got started, WE HAD FUN! You all obviously know that the basic tenet of such an event is for the cars to cream one another. But, come to find out, there are actually rules to the whole thing! ...

As promised, I took the kids to the Church farm way up north last Saturday. We had to get up at a lovely 4:30am and drive for a good hour to be there around 6:00. Then a short ride in the back of a pickup and we were in our very own field the size of Manhattan, full of beans. Not sure if you can make it out in the picture from my phone, but the rows are about 2/3 mile long. We were supposed to have 300+ people for our field. We had maybe half that. Many folks misinterpreted the "rules of engagement" and were down on hands and knees pulling every little weed. After more than an hour, many of them were only a few hundred feet down their first rows. I was somewhat more liberal in my application of the rules. In fact, as time went on, I became about as liberal as a granola-loving biker wearing hemp pants with a special prairie dog pouch in Boulder. By the time we'd been there 3 hours, my rules were "anything two feet or taller". It was a good rule. The ki...

We're currently in Phoenix, and having a great time. The weather is much cooler than normal, something for which we're grateful. Grandpa has a bird that he affectionately refers to as "my brother," though I don't really see any resemblance. The girls have enjoyed scaring the darn thing to the point of needing psychological help. Yesterday afternoon, Amy was going upstairs to change into her swimsuit, when I heard, "Dad, come help! The bird is pecking me! It won't let me upstairs!" Fierce, ferocious, bird. Amy and Kristen have been somewhat nervous and reserved around "Skipper" since we got here. Misha, though, took a liking to him right away and wanted to be his friend. Skipper had other plans. Last night, she was doing something and trying to pick him up when all the taunting of the day (not from her) came back. He pecked her face pretty good. Poor thing. Really hurt her feelings. She says, "I don't want to talk abo...

One of the fun things I've done with my kids over the last couple years has been to watch some of the classic movies from when I was young. Of course, we started with Star Wars, and my kids are junkies now. Then we moved on to Indiana Jones (but had to skip the 2nd one since it's a little intense). We also picked up ET along the way, and somehow it keeps coming to visit us from the library. Finally, we've just started into the Back to the Future trilogy. The thing that really gets me is how much swearing there is in that (PG) show! Back when I watched it as a kid, it surely didn't have that much swearing. I'm certain it's been redone to add more expletives than it originally had. That has to be the answer. Not like I want to admit that we just got immune to hearing all that. Anyway, the kids love it, and we find that we have to be a little more cautious about screening what (in our minds' eye) we originally thought would be great for them. Funny h...