E-motion-less

Another fun Halloween Story takes me back about 6 years to when I was in college (uh oh, it was 6 years ago, man oh man I am old). I was up in Pittsburgh visiting my beautiful fiancee, now wife, Renee, and I was staying with a buddy of mine, let's call him Hamon Dall. Now Renee was actually working and I was up there on fall break, so I had absolutely nothing to do, so one day Hamon and I went to Target. As it was close to Halloween, the store had all its fine decorations out for all to see and buy, so we went looking through all the various pieces of junk that people could buy to make their house look "creepy." With Hamon's parents out of town we figured that we should buy some junk to make his house look scary, so we went down the aisle that had the lights and stumbled upon the "motion lights," such characters as a motion pumpkin and motion bat. These lights would show a pumpkin becoming scary or a bat flying, but what really caught our eye was the tag for a motion ghost, just think of the possibilities a ghost flying through the air, how much creepier can you get (note that in our minds the motion ghost looks nothing like the picture above, just thought I tried to scare anyone who is reading this with the not so common blow up ghost decoration).

Noticing that they were out of the motion ghosts (noting that they had a plentiful supply of the other motion lights) we asked if they had any more motion ghosts in the back, the worker went back and could not find any. Knowing that it was our destiny to find one of these things, we went to the next store only to find the same thing, plenty of motion bats, but no motion ghosts. We started to suspect that either they had to pull all motion ghosts or that they were actually trying to have motion goats, and made ghosts by mistake (why the whole motion goat thing would work for Halloween is, in itself, a spooky mystery). So we decided to spend the rest of our free time during my week up there looking for motion ghosts, we probably visited about 4 or 5 Targets and even called a couple, of which, they all mysteriously were out of theses ever elusive motion ghosts. We finally came to the conclusion that the motion ghosts probably too closely resembled a KKK member and Target decided that having a "motion racist" would not fly during Halloween.

What are you roasting?

I listen to the Relevant Magazine Podcast each week and it is by far one of the best podcasts out there. As Halloween approaches, it is only appropriate for me to give the relevant podcast people some credit for one of the best "alternatives to Halloween" ideas. One of the hosts of the podcast lived near a church that would put on the Holy Ghost Wiener Roast as an alternative to Halloween. The name is pure awesomeness, I really think that all churches should host a Holy Ghost Wiener Roast, I think it could be used a great evangelizing tool. So really, if you want to take the idea (as I did to write this post) go ahead.

Late Night Queen

During our honeymoon I was awoken one night at around midnight by the sound of crowd laughter coming from the television. Even though I had already been asleep for about 2 hours, my wife was still up watching something on the good ole television. It was at that time that I decided to request that we not have a television in our bedroom for the rest of our marriage (what can I say, I like my beauty sleep). This has played a huge part in me getting to bed and not being awoken by my wife giggling at the TV or having some loud advertisement scare me out of my sleep.

As you may or may not know, Sunday morning at 3am (China time) was the finals for the Rugby World Cup, I got up with my UK friend and we watched England lose 15-9, needless to say, I was quite tired on Sunday, but I didn't a nap, so I headed to bed a little bit before 8pm. My wife decided to watch some episodes of Grey's Anatomy (as we got the first 3 seasons on DVD from a friend that is moving back to the US). When I woke up at around 11pm, I noticed that Renee was not in bed yet, so I walked to the office to find her watching Grey's Anatomy, I warned her to come to bed cause she will be tired the next day, but my warning fell on deaf ears. I then awoke at 3am to find that the place next to me in bed was still empty. I fell right back to sleep and have no idea when she came to bed, but I do know that she had to get up around 7:15 this morning, so I can say with certainty that there was not much sleeping going on for my wife last night.

Oh what the kids'll say...

Maddie is at an age where she really is learning a lot and she is able to express in words some of the things that she learned. This morning while my wife was getting dressed, Maddie looked up at her and causally said, "Babies suck on boobs." While definitely true, my wife immediately looked at me and said, "why would you teach her that." In regards to any statements that are a little off color or that relate to random things (like nursing a baby), my wife immediately thinks that I taught our daughter the statement. Well, I didn't teach her this tidbit (not sure why it would even come up in a conversation between a dad and a 3 year old) and to prove it to my wife, I asked Maddie how she found out about this.

Turns out that in the nursery on this past Sunday there was a girl who is about 1 1/2 years old that started to cry and the mom took her and started to breast feed her. Regardless of the fact that the child being breast fed is a little old, (although I have heard of kids up until first grade getting breast fed, can you imagine this, the kids is playing soccer in the park and they just run up to their mom for a fill up, kind of creepy) I guess Maddie watched how the mom was able to sooth this child by having them suck on the breast and was able to decipher that women's breasts can be used, as she put it, "like a bottle." So a perfectly good explanation for how my daughter learned this act and she definitely got me off the hook.

Updates

We are now back down to a family of 4 as Renee's parents left the other day. This would mark the first time since the end of July that it was just the 4 of us in the house. We had a great time with all the guests, but it was good to have some silence last night as we ate dinner as a family of 4.

I feel bad because I never owned up to 2 things I mentioned regarding baseball way back at the beginning of the season:

1. I won the bet with my friend back in the States because the Orioles ended with an overall record that is 1 better then Pittsburgh Pirates, it was actually pretty cool because it came down to the last game of the season and the O's were able to pull it out for me.

2. On the same light of the Orioles, remember I made the whole prediction for how the Orioles were going to do. Just as a refresher I said they would finish 4th in the AL East (plus for me), with a record below .500 (another plus for me), but I did say they would have a record of 80-82, so a huge minus for me since they ended the season with only 69 wins, so yet another season down the toilet bowl.

Stick with baseball, I saw the Rockies play the Giants back in May and had no idea I was watching a team that would eventually make it into the World Series, I actually hope they win cause then I can say that the one game I made it to this season involved the new home run champ and the World Series Champions, although I do think the AL is much stronger then the NL so that may not happen (but take a note from above, my predicting skills are not that great.

World Cup

I got up at 2am this morning to go to an Irish Pub and watch the England v France Semi Final World Cup match. If you have been reading, you would know that I have really gotten into Rugby since getting hear, and going to watch an England game with a British friend is always fun, in fact the place was packed with Brits for the 3am start. To cut to the chase, England beat France 14-9, and for those of you not familiar with Rugby scoring, it is similar to American Football in that a try (touchdown in American Football) can result in up to 7 points. As you can see, there was not much scoring, but the game was really intense and a really fun game to watch (England came from down 1 with 6 minutes left to take the lead and win the match). Most of the people there were not expecting England to win (which I am learning appears to be the typical British expectation, that their team will fail, so if they win, they can be all the more excited), so they were very excited to see the result. My friend and I have already booked a table for next weekend's final match that will put England versus either South Africa (note they got beat down by South Africa already in the World Cup) or the surprise of the World Cup Argentina.

On a side note, much of the world thinks that we Americans are pretty simple minded people, although I have observed many things to make me believe that we are actually one of the better countries when it comes to racial tolerance (I know we still have many racial issues, but believe me, it is definitely not as bad as some other countries). I was stunned to hear during the broadcast that one of the black French Rugby players (I only noted 3 black players on France's team) had a nickname of the "Dark Destroyer." Does anyone else out there think there is anything wrong with this nickname???? Again, we have racial problems in the US, but I don't think it would ever fly if a black player of any sport was called the "dark" anything. I guess he is okay with the nickname, or maybe it is just that so many white people refer to him as this that he has just accepted, either way he should probably think about his nickname being shortened to the "destroyer" unless of course there is a "light destroyer" on the team, then I can see the name being justified...oh wait, no, that just makes it worse.

Splish Splash falling out of the bath...

Remember where I was on the parenting scale? Well, I can't remember climbing up on the parenting scale, so I must be around a 4....and continuing to fall. In an attempt to be a good family dad, I got out the video camrea to tape my kids having their nightly bath so we can look back on it and laugh about the "good ole days." Anyway, the kids were having fun and showing off for the camera when all of the suddent Jacob starts to climb out of the bath and then, of course, falls right out of the tub flat onto his face. Being a great dad, I made sure I got it on tape rather then trying to save my son. Jacob is okay and only cried for a minute (more stunned then anything) and it definitely was one of those videos that we will crack up at everytime we watch it, but I definitely fell a couple more spots on the parenting scale (is there anyway to go below 0?).