Bucket!

On Wednesday night Karl got sick. SICK! While eating at Little Azio, he barfed his fruit punch and cheese pizza all over the floor. Later, he was able to eat a few crackers and some apple slices. Then it occurred to me that he might get sick again, so I asked if he wanted to sleep with a bucket. I was joking really, but Karl said, "Yes" and thank Yahweh he said that. Ten minutes after I turned out his light that bucket was getting some hot bile action! Ten minutes later Karl was hurling again. And again, ten minutes after that!

Oh little green bucket, you saved me the horror of having clean my son's puke from his bed, the walls and the floor. I can not thank you enough.

Alley Cat!

Last Saturday, on Valentine's Day Eve, Karl and I, along with our friend Rob Evans, went over to Birmingham Alabama for BiciCoop's Annual Heartbreaks Alley Cat and Prom. We took our Schwinn De Luxe Twinn tandem. Getting it there was a harrowing experience. The thing is huge and I kept thinking it would go flying off the back.

We got to the race about an hour before it started. We got settled in, I introduced Karl to the Birmingham friends and paid the entry fee. Karl and I then went on a short ride to work out any kinks we had with the bike and to give Karl and me a chance to learn how to ride the bike together. When we got back for our warm up ride, we had about 5 minutes before the race started. Karl had time to eat a Honey Bun and drink some Gatorade. I asked some of the locals how to get to the first stop. We got ready. We were stoked. We were going to win this thing!

Photo: {t}photograpic

Alan from Bici gave the call for the racers to line up and then he gave some final instructions on the race. It was a two manifest race. You completed all the checkpoints on the first manifest in a specified order, came back, and picked up the second manifest. Each manifest had the same check points, but you had to do them in a different order. With that, Alan said "Go!" and we were off!!

Photo: {t}photograpic

We rode with a small crowd to the first stop. We did the jumping jacks and push ups demanded from the managers of the stop, but when we left, things went wrong when our chain came off the derailleur. Not only that, the chain was caught between the gears and a nut that held the rear fender to the frame. It took us about five minutes to get the chain back on. When we got the chain back on, we let out a cheer. Before we got rolling, I asked Karl if he wanted to take a picture. He said, "We can't do that! We are in a race!" This kid was serious!

We turned a corner and could see blinking lights ahead. Bikes! The competition! We hoofed it for the second stop and Rebecca, the checkpoint manager, asked Karl to tell a joke. He told the timeless classic about the chicken crossing the road. It gets you everytime. While there, some of the other racers pulled up. Were they the ones that were just six blocks ahead of us? They must have gotten lost.

As we pulled away, Karl said that the other racers said, "Crap" when they saw us. If you have ever raced an alley cat, you know exactly how they were feeling.

The next stop was BiciCoop. Oh, and we threw down! They had Karl and I have a dance off. Karl creamed me. He is a much better dancer. Watch the video for proof.

Karl and me dancing at Bici on 12seconds.tv (Sam A Porter)

After Bici, it was off to Parkside Cafe where a table full of beautiful women tempted us with booze. Karl said, "I am a kid" and I told them I had no money. If you had no money, you could not partake in booze and if you did not drink the booze, you did not get the four minute time bonus. Rats!

Then it was back to the start/finish for our second manifest. When we got there everyone cheered for Karl and generally went crazy. They told us we were third! Oh! Third! It was on!! Karl got the eye of the tiger! We grabbed our second manifest!!

Photo: Elisa Munoz

I looked at the manifest. Bici Coop was the first stop. There was a huge hill to climb to get there. Alan looked at me and said, "Yeah, that's a huge hill." I was not stoked. We ended up walking part of the way. Then, after we got back on the bike, Karl and I got in a fight because Karl needed to coast, but we were going up hill and we could not coast. We both chilled out and started working together again.

When we got to the top of the hill, I got disoriented, but Karl had us. He told me how to get to Bici and we were rolling.

We were hanging tough in third, with about four miles to go. Karl was telling me that his legs never hurt so bad in his life but he could keep going if he could coast every once in a while. Suddenly, another team caught us and passed us! We just slipped to fourth! We could keep their pace when we were pedaling, but when we took a coasting break, we would lose ground. Slowly, they were pulling away from us! Then, our chain came off again. This was the fourth time during the race. Karl said it was okay and told me not to cuss, but now there was no way to catch the third place team unless they had a mechanical or a flat.

However!! We did not give up! We left our last stop and headed home. We laughed at a car that we kept catching up to, wondering what they were thinking. We pulled into the finish to cheers and people telling us that we got fourth place. Everyone wanted to talk to Karl. Someone asked if he was tired and he could only reply with a "yes".

Photo: {t}photograpic

We went upstairs and got our picture taken. I grabbed a beer and Karl got some snacks and chilled out listening to an audio book.

Photo: {t}photograpic

The award ceremony came and Karl got the prize for First Junior Racer and we shared the prize for Best Dancers. We will be back next year, oh yes! Ready to climb that podium!

Photo: {t}photograpic

First Concert!

Friday night Karl went to his first concert: The Residents!

For Christmas, Karl bought me a ticket and tonight I went with him and his mom to the show. We got there around 8:20. Before long Karl got bored waiting so we had him hold water in his mouth without swallowing for two minutes. Repeat! That kept him busy! The Residents came on around 8:45, only 15 minutes late.

A friend's mother once described The Residents as "nightmare music" and, with this show, they seem to have taken that description to heart. With just a keyboard, guitar and a singer, they have distilled their music down to a discordant ghee. The singer would start off tempo, then go off key, then the guitarist would do the same, playing nonsense and noise, and then the keyboard would end up playing one low nausea inducing note. Then, the song would snap together, throbbing, and right when you were understanding what was going on, the singer would play the worst harmonica solo you have ever heard. I have heard terrible harmonica solos, but seriously... gah!!

You know, now that I think about it, Willie Nelson does the same thing. Well, maybe just the off tempo stuff.

If you somehow found the music toe tapping and easy to listen to, the topics of the songs ensured nightmares would be had by all. Nearly every song was about murder and death. They started off with a song about a teenager who killed an infant. Another was about a woman's memories of how she caused her mother's death, how her father lied about it, and that she had gold fish that died once too. With one song, a white powdered faced man with red gashes came up on the screen and talked about how he was a sleep walker and how he killed his wife in his sleep. Then, the ghost of his wife came back from the dead and taught his daughter how to hold a knife, stab him in the face and kill him. I seriously thought Karl was going to lose interest.

The first song I knew was "Six More Miles to the Graveyard" followed a few songs later by "Semolina". If you are not familiar with The Residents, "Semolina" is a pretty decent introduction, although the version they played at the show was very different than the original released in 1978.

They did two songs for an encore. "Die, Stay, Go" was upbeat and had bright lights. Karl approved!

As we walked out, I asked if Karl liked the show and he said, "Yes." I asked Karl if he danced and he said, "No." I asked him what he thought of the show and he said, "Gruesome."

I think... yeah... gruesome... I think that covers it.

Found Film!

Karl and I were walking around neighborhood the other week and we found two rolls of film. One roll was smashed flat, but one was still intact! We threw the smashed roll away. We brought the other roll home.

Yesterday we decided to find out what was on this roll of film. We thought about it for a bit and wrote down what we thought might be on there: pictures of vacations, pictures of pets or crazy pictures of family. I wondered if pictures of naked or dead people would be on there, but Karl said no.

We walked the alleys in the rain to CVS.

We gave the roll of film to Denise. I gave her the disclaimer that we found the roll of film and that if there is anything crazy on there, it wasn't us who took the pictures. Bobby, the manager, laughed and said that maybe more customers should give that disclaimer.

This is the machine that will make the prints!

Denice told us that the prints would be ready at four, so we bought some gold coin chocolates and walked home.

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We ended up getting busy with other stuff and never made it back to CVS yesterday, so today we walked back! Karl is has a new game called Pocket God and he talked about it the whole way there. Apparently, it is quite good!

We got to CVS and, miracles or miracles, I had my claim ticket. This made it easy to get our film. We were getting excited.

Now, when you find something on the ground, you better have your expectations set very low as to what you are going to get from it. In fact, to better share in the experience, I would like to ask you to set your expectations very low as well for a moment.

Are your expectations low? Yes? Good.

We handed our claim ticket to Denise. She walked away for a moment. When she walked back, she was fumbling around with something and she said, "The film was all messed up."

She pulled the film out and said, "See?"

We saw all right. Karl and I both said, "Aww, man!". I had a moment that was like my life flashing before my eyes, but, instead, it was all those pictures I never saw flashing before my eyes. Later, Karl said he was disappointed.

Then Denise allowed us to take a picture of her holding the film up and everything was good again. We were not going to get to look at someone else's dog or their vacation or whatever, but we had a picture of Denise holding up that film and that was pretty fun. We were happy.

When we were leaving CVS I said, "How often do you find a roll of film on the ground?"

Karl said, "Yeah, I know."

We walked a longer way home and swung by BP for snacks: Smart Food for Karl.

Bugles for me!!

Parlor Trick!

Here is a fun parlor trick for you! How do you remove the coin without touching the matches? Karl and I are going to show you!

But, first! Did you know that children do not know how to light matches!? I didn't! I just figured that, if you were eight years old, you had played with matches. How do children expect to burn down apartment complexes if they have not figured out this essential life skill?

Teaching Karl how to light a match proved to be surprisingly difficult.

We went through about 10 matches before we got a successful strike.

What were we doing wrong? What were we missing? Ah! Pressure! Karl was not applying any pressure when lighting the match. Once we figured that out, Karl was lighting matches like a pro!

Here is how to light a match:

1. Hold the match at a 45 degree angle.

2. Apply just the right amount of pressure to the match book.

3. Strike the match away from you quickly!

4. Oh wait!! Before you do #3, know how to put the match out.

Let's get back to our trick, shall we?

To remove the coin, light a match; not the two matches that are part of the trick, but a separate match. Ignite the middle of the angled match.

Fire!

This picture is bad, but the angled match will stick to the vertical match, curl up, and lift itself from the coin.

See!

Now you can remove that coin and buy something important for that special lady you impressed with your clever parlor trick!

Boobies!

Most boys want to look at boobies on occasion, but they don't have a easy way to go about doing this, do they? Luckily, your local grocer has boobies. Lots of boobies! In the form of Land-O-Lakes butter packages. Land-O-Lakes, I am sure, is very happy to provide these sex education materials to your child. We are happy too!

Each package has two pretty ladies.

Cut out both panels with the ladies.


With one panel, cut away everything but the knees.


With an exact-o knife or other sharp knife, cut the bottom and the sides of the butter package the woman is holding. This will make a little flap you can lift up and down.


You will have two pieces now. Like so...

Line the knees up so you can see them through the open flap. Turn over the panels and tape the 'knee' panel to the 'flap' panel.


Here we have the finished project: Flap down.

Flap up!

That makes one happy kid! Thank you Land-O-Lakes! We salute you!

Bikes!

Last month Karl and I camped at Red Top Mountain. While we were there, we hiked the "Iron Hill Trail." For the past month we have been wanting to go back and ride our bikes on it. It's short. It's flat. It is pretty perfect for an eight year old's first off road biking experience; we call it "maize". Oh, I mean, we call it "mountain biking".

I figure if something is worth doing, it is worth doing half assed. So, I pulled out my old mountain bike, a 1992 Canondale with pedals with no cages and a rusty chain, and we hit the trail. I will have to say that the bike has amazing brakes. Cantilever! I need to go back to those.

You might have guessed from the first picture that something did not go right. A quarter mile into the ride, we hit our first down hill. Karl rode into a gully and crashed. I suggested that a dragon bit Karl's tire and that made him crash, but he was having none of it and he said that stupid gully made him crash. He did say that he disappeared into the underworld for a bit and had to come back. Then he said something about going to a pizza palace, but I was still thinking about him going to the underworld and how interesting that might be.

Anyway, after his crash, he was pretty bummed. I mean, a five minute bike ride and then a crash? What is this all about? Bike riding in the mountains sucks dad! He really wanted to end it and go home.

But!! He bucked up and we rode on. He was not entirely enthused at first. The long pants and the scraped knee were not a good mix. Whatever kid.

We rolled up his pant leg and soon the boy had his confidence back up and he was riding like a pro. There was only one tricky downhill with a turn where he might have finally learned the importance of a front brake. After a while, I even got enough confidence to ride next to him on occasion.

The ride just got better.

And better!

Look at him go!

Final opinion? Approval!