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A full day
Little E and me had a pretty full day. … Read more
Category: …And Little E Makes 3
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If you think that’s bad, wait ’till you see the other guy
Little E had a run-in with the parking lot pavement today. Wait, this is sounding like a bad mafia flick. He faceplanted during physical therapy today. He’s trying to put a brave face on it and says it doesn’t hurt, but all I can see is that little face with boo boos on it. Poor little guy. No wonder he’s hiding behind Knuckles.… Read more
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Little Guy, Big Plans
About a week and a half before Christmas, I noticed that Little E had scribbled stuff all over his dry-erase door calendar – something on nearly every day. When I inspected it up close, I realized he’d written out a day-by-day plan for what kind of food he wanted to eat that day. Kinda OCD for a five-year-old, but then we had the idea… if behavior that day has been good, and chores have been done… why not? … Read more
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Conversations with my son, part 8931
On the way home from picking up pizza today, Little E and I discussed why he laughs at a joke on one of his favorite shows, but doesn’t laugh when he says the same thing himself because it’s not inherently funny on its own.
- ME: Maybe it’s not funny because it’s out of context.
- E: What is context?
- ME: It’s what’s going on around what you’re saying. Context is the other stuff around it. Context can tell you a lot. Context is pretty important.
- E: [giggling]
- ME: What?
- E: You keep saying context and it sounds funny.
- ME: Ah. That’s subtext…
This is why I’m not an English or lit teacher. Or, for that matter, any kind of teacher. 😆… Read more
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Happy faces, happy places
We had a pretty modest Christmas at home this year; thanks to a few friends showering me with gift cards early enough to do some shopping, I was able to get Little E a small heap o’ goodies, and a little something for the Mrs. too (get your mind out of the gutter). Not a huge amount of stuff, but with Little E, it’s always best not to overwhelm with stuff, but to provide some goodies that are relevant to his interests (to coin a phrase).
Really, if you look real close, what you’ll see is that he got a bunch of goodies that just continue pushing him toward his somewhat unfortunate destiny of becoming v2.0 of me. 😆 I’m still working to ensure that the upgrade includes more hair, less belly, and a big ol’ brain. … Read more
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The Christmas card that never was
I had the bright idea, a couple of weeks ago, to design our own Christmas card, have Little E color it, and then I’d rescan it, print copies, fold them up and send them out.
Naturally, within 24 hours, our printer suffered a complete mechanical failure and decided it would no longer feed paper, or even so much as power up without a strange wheezing, groaning sound. I had already assembled some “clip art train wrecks” for Little E to color in his own unique way; sadly, I couldn’t get them onto paper in time to execute our grand Christmas card plan. … Read more
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Karmic payback delivered hot and fresh to my door
So, on Sunday when I went to get Little E out of bed, he was bouncing with energy. After all, he had Sonic and Tails and Knuckles with him. Wait, what!? He wasn’t supposed to get Knuckles until Christmas morning.
This is a story of how karma occasionally delivers a pretty stout bitch-slap decades later. Let’s rewind a bit. … Read more
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Pre-Christmas fit check
There’s a time-honored engineering practice called a fit check. You take real pieces of real stuff – even if it’s not quite to full factory specs – and make sure it at least fits together the way it’s supposed to. If it doesn’t, you refine the shape and size and do another fit check. When everything fits, you’re good to go. Even though it was never meant to fly into space, the shuttle Enterprise (seen here) spent a lot of time strapped to real fuel tanks and real booster rockets at Kennedy and at Vandenberg AFB, because it was the only fully-constructed shuttle that could be spared for fit checks. … Read more
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I cannot tell a lie…
I should be grateful that my kid is honest to a fault. There are worse problems to have with one’s children. I’m not saying he doesn’t have an ounce of guile – he does – but he doesn’t try to double down on the bet when caught out. I should probably try to write him in during the next election.
Example: when he gets caught sneaking out of bed to try to get a little extra Game Boy time in. … Read more
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Invade The Arcade 2012 edition
Five years ago, a bunch of my buddies and I drove for hours – some for quite a few hours – to invade a retro arcade in Springfield, Missouri. It was quite a unique destination at the time – an old-school arcade, complete with pinball machines and nostalgic items all over the place, where you could get in for five bucks and play to your heart’s content. It’s not a bad business model: once inside, they have a concession stand to keep you there (and keep draining your wallet), and they’re probably counting on their patrons only sticking around for an hour or two. Which, with the three-hour one-way drive time to Springfield, was a bit enforced in our case – we had real lives and crap to get back to.
If I had a buck for everyone I’ve ever heard in the arcade collecting hobby talking about how they’re going to start their own version of 1984, I’d be able to start my own version of 1984. Fortunately, some local collectors have beaten me to it and opened up shop last weekend in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and it’s gotta be said, the 40-minute drive (instead of a 3-hour tour, a 3-hour tour) may just make Arkadia Retrocade the happeist place on Earth for me and mine.
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