Weekends

What better way to spend a Winter's Saturday morning than to watch your little fellow learn to play hockey?

Learning

Our resident kindergartner, J, has begun to enjoy the ability to read some 2 and 3 letter words. The other day, he went over to our bookshelf and got a book to flip through and look for words he recognized. Here is a picture of him reading his first "big people's book." An interesting choice of first books:

No Excuses

Dear Blog,

I haven't forgotten you. Not to make excuses (but I will anyway), but it seems that three kids is a bit busier than two kids (always blame the kids for one's lack of diligence) and there are a few things to take care of at work (if there are no kids, go with the "work's busy" story). Add in a little holiday fever (if no kids and unemployed, holidays will always suffice), and things get a bit dicey. In the end, the blog loses out. I'll be back, though.

A good looking fella

Our Boy, known as baby G:

My weekend in pictures

To recap:
- One World Series title, after waiting 25+ years for a championship (by the way, J got school off for the parade)
- One happy Dinosaur and one happy bat with over 6 lbs. of candy
- One big 10 lb. 4 oz. healthy baby boy
- Amazing

A Busy Weekend

A few things are going down this weekend, including:

1. A's due date is today. (A point of clarification, the picture below is not the inside of A, but a pic a found elsewhere) However, the spirit of the picture remains, and the baby has a good chance of being named "Series" or "World" (in honor of the great ex-76er World B. Free) or something of the like.

2. Halloween: I will be taking a dinosaur and a bat (think flying mammal, not louisville slugger) around s. philly to procure signficant amounts of candy. A is going as a pregnant woman (maybe). I am going as a dad who wants to snake the "big people candy" (e.g. heath bars and hershey's almond bars) from my kids' bags.

3. That's about it. Let's go Phillies and let's not have another night like this:

Heritage

It appears that I have passed along the curse of being a Philadelphia sports fan, which I received from my Father. Below is a picture, and the arrival should be any time in the next two weeks:

Some are weirder than others

I often have those moments where I clearly see my personal quirks and weirdness. And sometimes I feel that I am stranger than most. And then I hear about articles like this. And then I realize that there are some out there who are crazier than I.

Apparently, people are sending text messages from a huge satellite in Ukraine to a faraway planet, with the hope of getting a text in return in about 40 years.



If there is contact made, I nominate my friend Matt M. to be a spokesman on behalf of mankind. He likes aliens, speaks in complete sentences, and will graciously offer to treat any foreign beings to a vanilla milkshake. My sister, B, would be good at this as well.

It's always cool in philadelphia

The Boss decided to set up shop and give a free concert in support of Obama here on Saturday. Between free concerts, a lousy football team, and a baseball team in the NLCS, there is always an adventure to be enjoyed here in town.

This is cheating

The Fightin' Phils won the NL East and are on their way to the playoffs. I've noticed a disturbing trend in sports celebrations, pictured here:




The recent trend is to wear eye goggles when participating in the traditional champagne celebration. Being somewhat of a traditionalist, I believe it's important to feel the burn of the bubbly and reject the Michael Phelps look.

These are the things I think about instead of the current financial markets. I'm also currently listening to these talks, and I can strongly recommend Ferguson's talk.

More Catch-Up

Time to play catch-up now that I've been away for a while. Here's an attempt:

1. A and I are now school parents. We drive to school, pick up, receive frequent fund-raising requests, etc. Yes, J began kindergarten last week, and we all lived through the first three days. He declared his first day of school to be "the best day of school ever." We also observed he and B playing home-school and overhead J teaching B some Spanish words he had learned. So those are a few highlights. Being an optimist, I'll save all the low-lights for some cold, rainy winter day....

2. Speaking of winter, it seems summer has slipped away and now there are Halloween and Christmas decorations in all the stores. I've made about 4 trips to HD/Lowe's the last few days as A and I wrestle a new pedestal sink into our bathroom, so I know that those home repair stores are all about the holiday decorations.

Well instead of kicking against the change of seasons, I think I'll just continue to listen to Jon Foreman's "Fall" album which is the best of his 4 "season" albums.

3. Although the pace of life of our family has picked up speed with the start of school, I've still had time to enjoy the joys of having baseball and football season overlap.

Seasons Change

Well, the transition from summer vacation to fall happened quickly. I don't like fall much because it means winter is coming soon. On the other hand, fall also brings this:

Back

Was away on two weeks of vacation at the Jersey shore. I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Outstanding

A and I and the boys went out after church yesterday to watch the basketball game between the U.S. and China.

I saw this commercial, and it immediately became an all-time favorite - and the TV at the restaurant didn't even have sound. Amazing rendition of the anthem (from the '83 NBA allstar game in LA). Amazing footage of the U.S. team. Please go enjoy it here.

08.08.08

Beginning tonight, the world focuses on China. Naturally, the run-up to the Olympics brings all kinds of news specials, articles, pictures, etc. I find most of these to be incorrect/unfair in some way, but I roll with it. However, yesterday I read this beauty on the front page of the sports section of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"A walk through the Forbidden City was a hike in a sauna, tears occasionally streaming from irritated eyes. If a middle-aged tourist walking around with a camera felt this kind of oppressive discomfort, what would it be like for a marathon runner?

Leigh Fitzgerald, a former Haverford College track athlete, had the answer. Living and working here as a trader of carbon credits (a business invented entirely thanks to pollution), the 24-year-old has all but given up running outdoors.

"My brother is a runner," Fitzgerald said. "He went out and did a 10-mile run while he was here. He came back and he was coughing up blood. He didn't run again."

Fitzgerald runs indoors on a treadmill. On the rare occasion when she can see a small range of mountains from her window, she'll take a run outside. It doesn't happen often."


My only response is:





Is there any other reason to write these urban legends other than to "show up" China? I'm no doctor, but I don't think a run in unclean air causes one to cough up blood. Well, I guess if the air is laden with sharp metal and broken glass...