"Get to bed - it's a school night"

This is the first time these words were spoken in our house. Drake is starting Kindergarten tomorrow and Emmy Kay is starting Pre-K. A big day in our house...literally. Both kids will be home-schooled so the walls of our home will take on a new role, school-house. Everyone is really excited around my house so I hope everything goes well tomorrow.

We have planned to home-school our kids for a long time. We have thought about this a ton and feel like we are doing the right thing. People always like to weigh in with their opinion about it and it runs from support, to people thinking we are doing the worst thing for our children. I could say a thousand things about it but I think the bottom-line for us is that we will take it one year and one child at a time. Regardless, I believe we can provide an education for our children that is at list 1% better than the government or a teacher with a room of 20 - 30 kids. Time may change my mind, but right now we are getting ready for school tomorrow.

I am very fortunate that my wife is extremely organized. She has the kids schedule planned out for the next 3 months with lessons for each day. On top of that, I can go to our shared Google calendar and see what their school schedule is for each day. Changes will happen, but I am glad we are going into this with a plan. At least with a plan we have somewhere to adjust and we can figure out what to change. Becoming a parent of 4 kids has been a crash-course learning-curve on so many things. It has been a fun and exciting 6 years. Now I am very excited about adding a totally new dimension to our family...this is taking it to the next level.

Tomorrow morning the school bell rings at 9am and the fun will start. The challenge will be to learn how our kids learn. So far, we think Drake is linear and Emmy Kay is...well, she is...Emmy Kay. She once told me that she did not want to go to church because the people at church keep trying to teach her "new stuff" and she didn't like it. I am not a very abstract thinker and Rachael tends to think in straight lines so most likely, Emmy Kay will be schooling us on thinking outside the box. Quite honestly, I think it will be good for both of us. Also, for anyone that says home-school kids aren't "socialized" - spend 15 minutes with Emmy Kay and you will understand why we are not concerned.

So find a seat, sit down and get ready for class.

Rest in Peace Micah

I had to put my cat to sleep today. He had liver disease and the medical options were limiting. We probably could have spent a small fortune and kept him going, but it was not the best alternative. Now he is gone and we have to move on.

Micah was not a nice cat. In fact the term we used most often was nasty. However, he was a very entertaining cat. Weighing in at about 20 pounds and with more hair than Rapunzel, he was a very pretty cat. And I believe that was his biggest issue. He wanted to be a tough cat but he was caught in a pretty-boy's feline body. Micah lived everyday with inner turmoil. We considered therapy, but he would not open up. Instead he would just lash out at us and hiss or growl. A terrible and gutteral growl. Unfortunately, coming from his fluffy face, the growl just wasn't very menacing. He had wiskers that curled around his face like a clown cat. Micah would then try to scratch you with his claws. We had removed his front claws for the safety of the furniture, so he was left with soft mittens that actually had tufts of hair growing between his foot pads. He would swat at you with paws that looked like cotton balls. Again, he would get angrier. That is when he would begin to come at you with the sharp teeth. By then, I just wasn't interested and would walk away. I think Micah was one to bottle his emotions until the right time to snap.

The emotional "uncorking" always seemed to come at his brother Joel's expense. Joel is his exact opposite. Joel weighs in at about 20 pounds, but he is short-haired and sweet as could be. He really is a lap cat (if you want a 20 pound cat in your lap). Every once in awhile, for no apparent reason, Micah could not contain the nasties anymore and would pounce on Joel. He would bite him, swat him and get the back claws up to scratch him. You could see the look of confusion in Joel's eyes like "what is wrong with you!" After a few minutes of chasing Joel around, Micah would feel like the pressure cooker valve was sufficiently vented until the next time he just had to let go. Sometimes he would try it with me and swat at my leg when I walked by, but those incidents usually landed up with me shadow boxing the cotton ball paws until he became worn out and frustrated. Or at the very least a little more angry.

Let me also add that Micah did not have the best grooming habits. Cats are supposed to groom themselves, which he did for the first few years. But after awhile I think he just could not keep up with the amount of hair he was producing. This led to knots and mats on his fur that were the size of a kitten. Not surprisingly, he did not like to be groomed by me. I think I pulled a few litters of kittens worth of fur off him over the years. I wasn't gentle and given my perception of his need to be a "tough cat" I think I was a little harder on him. Typically when I would groom him, there would come a point where he just couldn't take it and would turn and go feline on me. This usually ended with a number of scratches and scrapes on my hands and arms...not pleasant. On the bright side, at least his hair will be with us for a long time. When we went to China last year, we found his hair in our luggage. Whenever I travel for work, I find his hair in my bag or somewhere on my clothes. We keep a clean house, but Micah was a very hairy cat and it will not be gone anytime soon.

I got to be with Micah for his last few moments and he seemed settled for the first time since he was a kitten. It may have been the heavy dose of drugs the vet gave him or maybe he had made peace with his inner turmoil. Either way, I don't believe that animals have a soul to live for eternity, so that was my goodbye to him. Plus, if I did believe that animals did go to a heaven or hell, the rules would have to be very "loose" to get Micah through the Pearly Gates.

Micah left us with lots of funny stories and interesting conversations. He was the kind of cat that would make visitors double take and ask us if he was so big because there was something wrong with him.

Oh, there was something wrong with him...it just had nothing to do with his size.

Rest in Peace Micah, we will miss you.

I caught a bug

No really, I caught a bug today. Now, this shouldn't be that big of a deal but I did it today and I did it all by myself. Okay I have to be honest, I hate bugs. I mean scream like a school-girl hate bugs. Rachael and Drake do all the bug killing in our house. We have an exterminator service because as George Costanza's father says "I will not stand for infestations." So, catching a bug was a big thing for me.

I was in the backyard picking up some of the kid's toys during their nap when I saw a very large red and black bug walking in the grass. I got a little closer to it and it looked like a spider or ant but with red and black fur on it. I had never seen anything like it. Fortunately the kids have been catching bugs lately so I had a butterfly net nearby and grabbed it. I went for the bug and put the net over it. Quite honestly, I had way too much net for a bug that was about a half inch or so long. I got the thing to go into the net but then I needed something to put it in. The kids have bug jars, so I called into Rachael to grab one for me and bring it out. The kids were taking a nap, so I could not enlist their help. Rachael came out quick, but by the time she got outside, the bug had climbed out of the net and fallen next to the house. It ran quickly for the house and before I could maneuver the big butterfly net, it ran up under the hardiplank siding....and was gone.

I was really bummed. More than I should have been considering my general aversion to all things "buggy." Rachael only saw the bug for a second, but we both agreed that it was very cool...well, maybe not cool, but definitely different and Drake would love to have seen it. The only thing was, we had no idea what we had just seen. It was big like a spider but really looked and moved a lot more like an ant. Only it was so big and the black and red fur only made it more confusing. We decided to look it up on Wikipedia and sure enough there it was...a velvet ant.



I had never heard of this thing before. It has the nickname "the cow killer" because the sting from this critter is so painful. It looked menacing when I was chasing it, but I had no idea it could inflict that much damage. Now I was really upset that it had gotten away. Evidently they are not commonly seen, due to spending most of their time being nocturnal. However, I had seen one and almost caught it...almost.

I went out to start mowing the lawn and thought I will look one last time. I went to the spot where it crawled up under the siding but I didn't see a thing. I decided to look around the side of the house and as soon as I walked around the corner, there it was - racing along the outside of the foundation by the fireplace. I darted back into the house yelled to Rachael to come back outside because "it is on" again and grabbed the bug jar on my way back out. I rounded the corner with just enough time to get the jar over the velvet ant before it got to the end of the fireplace. I used a little finesse to get the lid on and voila...I caught a bug.

It was very exciting and it actually turns out that the velvet ant is not an ant at all but is a female wingless wasp. She does have a very wicked sting but she has never been known to actually kill a cow. The kids finally woke up from their nap and were all in awe at the big furry ant. Normally, we follow "catch and release" rules at our house but given the potentially painful sting of this little fuzzy lady, I think we will let her expire in the jar and then move to the "release" portion of the program. Not the most humane solution, but I have four kids and two cats..."humanity" is not what keeps me up at night...I think the correct term is "insanity."

4.0 to Four-dot-done

On Sunday we welcomed William Michael to our family he was 9lbs 2oz and 20 inches. A big boy and the final installment in our collection. Will and Rachael are both doing great. The "big" kids are very excited about their new baby brother.

HAPYFOTHRDAY

On Father's day we went out for bagels before church. I had just ordered and we were waiting for our bagels to come out. I was sitting with Rachael and Blythe Ann. The big kids were over at a corner "play area" with some toys, crayons and stuff. I was just drinking my coffee and talking with Rachael about our plans for the day when Drake walked up and gave me this on a napkin he had asked for earlier.

It made me tear up. Not only was it very sweet of him to give this to me, but he has never written anything before. He will write his name and write out letters, but not words. He started reading all on his own about 6 weeks ago by sounding out words. Now, he is sounding them out in his head and writing them down.

There are not enough words to express how much I love this little guy.

I have told people before and I will say it again...I am continually amazed at how my kids manage to make everyday better than the one before. Every day is a Happy Father's Day.

Of Sir Francis Drake and Minivans

For those of you who do not know, my family is a descendent of Sir Francis Drake, the first European to circumnavigate the globe. My mother's family has lived off the sea as fishermen for over 200 years and many cousins in my generation were fishermen for most of their lives. My father's family is from Norway from an island named Reksta, so I am sure they spent some time on the Nordic seas as well.

I can make the argument that I come from a long line of seafaring people. In fact, my mother was actually named after her father's schooner, the Lucy Mary (see below). Yes, she grew up in a culture where the children were named after ships and not the other way around.

Fast-forward over 350 years from the birth of Sir Francis Drake and you get to me - a marketing manager living in Atlanta, Georgia. I yearn for the cold seas of the North Atlantic but alas I am trapped in North Atlanta. We are in a drought and there appears to be no chance of getting a ship out of port. One day I may sail on the seas like many generations before me, however today I must just drive to work.

Yet, the call of the sea is still in me.

So....this weekend we transitioned from a one car family (for almost a year) to a two car family. I believe it was my pining for the sea that caused me to purchase a new flagship for my Asphalt Armada. We bought a Silver Kia Sedona minivan. I now have 2 minivans in my armada...the fleet is growing. Sir Francis Drake had his ship, the Golden Hind and therfore I shall now refer to my new minivan as the Silver Hind. She is a glorious vessel and my entire "crew" is very excited about the new flagship.
Stock Photo


As an additional footnote, I would like to add that we bought this minivan outright. We walked in, negotiated our deal, wrote a check and walked out with the van. 4 years ago, I would never have believed we would be able to do this and it was a great feeling. I thank my wife for getting us on Dave Ramsey's debt elimination plan which helped make us believe this was even possible.

The odor of a young Paul Anka

I scoff at you who love your iPods. I think you are living in a bubble. There is a monstrous world of music out there and you are trapped in your flourescent colored box. From a form-function perspective, you cannot beat the iPod, but from an experience perspective it comes up short...very short.

As the MP3/iPod craze swept the country, I decided to go in another direction. I went with XM Radio. I held back behind the first wave of available radios and was fortunate enough to catch the XM Inno and ride the big wave. The Inno has full XM functionality, portability, MP3 play-back, recording capability, auto tuning by artist, scheduling and much more. It is an awesome product.

What I love about the Inno is the experience. It gives me access to music I would never find on my own. I typically camp out on Alternative Rock, Jazz, the Starbucks channel, 80's, 90's, NPR, Yankees games, Big Band Jazz...lots of stuff I know and love to hear. Most of the time I know the artists and I even know the lyrics. I can hum the tune and it is all famliar...just like you folks trapped in the "walled garden" of your iPods. However, since I am listening to live radio, I also get to hear music in the same genre that I have never heard before. And that is where the Inno provides such a great experience. When I hear a song I like; I just hit "record" and it pulls the song off the internal buffer and it is on my Inno to be replayed forever.

So, I hear songs I would never hear otherwise...which brings me to the great "find" that motivated this post.

The other day I was listening to the Big Band station (channel 73) when this gem came on. The sum is so much stronger than the parts. I wasn't paying complete attention when it came on and then I realized what I was hearing. I could not believe that my Inno was going to give me the opportunity to bottle up this magic....it is gold, pure musical gold.

Enjoy the magic with me...I give you Paul Anka (of "Puppy Love" fame) singing the Nirvana classic, "Smells Like Teen Spirit."