New Video ... Anderson's limitations the day his cast is removed ...

A new post?

Long time since I posted here. Facebook ... it kind of took over for a while. But many things have happened since the last blog. Christmas at Disney World with my Dad, buying a new house and Anderson breaking his leg, among other things. but here's a new video with the blooper reel on the right ...

It's your Birthday!

Party Time ... September 6th, the day after Anderson's birthday ...

Birthdays are - by definition - week long celebrations in our house. At least my birthday is, and I'm trying to impose this on my son. With this idea, you have the excuse of cake, ice cream and pizza for an entire week. If Jewish people have things like Hanukkah and celebrate for days on-end, so can Anderson. I'm merely trying to translate that idea into our lives, just without the dreidel game.

So Anderson had his official birthday party, and Olga, Amadeus and my mom came to celebrate. Anderson, of course, was blissfully ignorant about the importance of this event, which signified that we would no longer care about celebrating the months as they passed by. In essence, we were turning 12 celebrations a year into 1. He was getting robbed and didn't even know it, and all he was excited to do was to tear open wrapping paper. Basically, we were giving him beads and trinkets for Manhattan, and all he cared about was crinkling paper.

He needed legal representation.

Famed (and now deceased) OJ Simpson attorney Johnny Cochran.

Contemplating legal representation ... saddened by the early demise of Johnny Cochran.

Unfortunately for him, he didn't have that. But he did have cake and both tuna fish and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (painstakingly made with the crust cut off by Natalie and my mom.) The PB&J was well received by all, and the tuna fish was well-received by our cat Newton.

Balloons!

Gathered around the table to celebrate (of note: none of us could play the kazoos)

The all-important "chocolate cake all over me" shot ...

In all, a good time. Lots of cleanup afterward and the cats liked batting around the balloons as well. We thank all of the grandparents for coming and Anderson loves the gifts (although he's yet to get over his father giving him "Pop Rocks".)

Growing up

Anderson - all 2'4" of him - at the Children's Museum in Austin ...

Mary and the Malloy boys visited Texas from Rochester, NY (home of the "lilac festival" ... ugh) to see what it's like to be in a manly part of the world. After first parking their saddles in Houston, they hopped into the rented SUV and moseyed into our neck of the woods.

A painful amount of "Texanisms", eh?

Having them here forced us to leave the air-conditioned confines of our house, which we will be remodeling starting in winter/early spring. We went to the Children's Museum and then the zoo, which is a safe haven for exotic animals that were owned by private citizens who bit off more than they could chew.

First, the museum, which had a "construction zone", for all of those parents who dream of their kid growing up to compete with illegal immigrants for a low hourly wage. Or an engineer. Maybe that's the idea ...

Anderson getting ready to go into the construction zone ...

In a building undersized for little construction workers ...

The following day we went to the zoo and saw an assortment of wild animals, including panthers, tigers and lions. Remarkably these animals were being kept at home as "pets". Imagine being the unsuspecting burglar who sneaks into one of those homes ...
Even more remarkably was the fact that they called this the "Austin" Zoo, even though the zoo is so far outside of Austin that you think you're almost in Mexico.

Mary and family with Natalie, Anderson and me ...

Having to interact with Mary took a lot of energy out of Anderson, although the boys liked playing with him and are remarkably well-adjusted (and even intelligent!) considering their mother's parentage. After intensive psychotherapy to recover from the experience, Anderson needed to recover ...

Glacier National Park

So I haven't submitted an update for the last almost 4 months. I'm going to try to do a series of blogs that should have been done before to make amends. I'll start with Glacier National Park ...

Once upon a time in the summer ...

My friends and I first started hiking when I was 18 years old. You could call it hiking - I guess - and our first experience was a near-death experience in Shenandoah National Park that involved 7 waterfalls, rain, ice, bears, a deer that looked like a sign and a 25+ mile hike that was supposed to be 5 miles long. And being rescued by a Virginia lesbian couple who had a "Virginia is for Lovers" bumper sticker on their car. Classic trip. Despite nearly dying, we were stupid enough to continue hiking and returned to Glacier National Park to risk death yet again.

I flew from Austin to Kalispell, Montana, where I rented a car and stayed with Tobin and Molly in their plush new house. It was odd sleeping and waking up without Anderson wandering around in the morning. We went to breakfast and Tobin and Molly (whom I know from Vermont ... Tobin and I did our internship, residency and fellowships together ... and I like to take credit for setting the two of them up.) After this, I bought some gear - including bear spray - to get ready for the hike. I then rushed to the Glacier Backcountry Office to make reservations for the hike before picking up my friend Matt from Houston. There is where the first mistake was realized ... I'd forgotten my passport and would be unable to cross the Canadian border, which was part of our planned itinerary. As the Canucks have been cracking down on Americans who wanted to steal their moose, I was left in a bit of a dilemma: Should I get a permit for the original itinerary and risk getting stuck at the border or should I paln a different route and ruin the plans of my friends? Hmmm ... me stuck in the cold or my friends inconvenienced ...

So the new route avoided crossing the border. I drove to the airport in Kalispell and picked up Matt, subsequently informing him that his leisurely vacation hike was about to be replaced by a significantly harder route. We called Mike, who was driving in from Calgary, where he'd flown into, and told him that we screwed him over. Oh ... and since I couldn't get into Canada, the first night of staying in a Canadian hotel was changed to a 3 mile climb to a random campsite in Glacier. Time to try out the gear ...

We started the uphill Bataan Death March (okay, it wasn't that bad) to the campsite and made it to a mosquito-infested site before the sun went completely down. Matt was cursing me out, saying that he missed watching Canadian ESPN, which likely had curling highlights in their "top 10 plays of the day". Still, most of the stuff worked and we managed to survive the night.
In the morning, we woke up and decided to only snack, as cooking would have involved effort. Knowing that we would be meeting Mike in a different part of the park, we were in a bit of a hurry ... we didn't want to keep the all-important CFO (Mike is the chief financial officer of a law firm and we endlessly make fun of him because of his title) waiting. So we started hiking down the trail to the car when a guy ahead of us casually mentions that he'd recently passed a bear ("I think it's a black bear", he claimed) on the trail.

Surprisingly, this didn't throw us off too much. We continued hiking and stopped at a trail junction for a break and snack.

"Crllack. Crllack."

Luckily, the aforementioned bear sauntered up and decided he was going to take a break as well and was headed directly toward us. We hastily put on our packs and wandered down the trail, me with my bear spray in hand and Matt, with his bear spray packed in his backpack. My philosphy on bear spray is that it's a nuiscence for the bear. To truly gain the upper hand in bear encounters, my idea is to grab the bear spray and turn it on myself. That way, the bear knows that if you're crazy enough to harm yourself, there's no telling what you'll do to them. And then they leave you alone.

Matt and I, at a different point in the hike.

Finally we made our way back to the car, loaded up our stuff and, after a brief stop in a hotel gift shop, made our way down Going-to-the-sun Road to Many Glacier to pick up Mike.
Mike was rested after spending the night in a Canadian hotel and had clearly spent his morning watching Canadian ESPN. He knew all of the Brett Favre updates (Brett Favre was mulling coming out of retirement) and seemed well versed in the finer details of the National Hockey League. We despised him for his night of good sleep and drove to the trailhead. Our 5 day hike would start at Packer's Roost and eventually take us to Stoney Indian Pass, Mokowanis Lake, Elizabeth Lake and eventually through Ptarmigan Tunnel and back to Many Glacier, where Mike's car would eventually take us the hell out of the park.

By the end of a hike - no matter how impressive the scenery - we always want to get the hell out of the park.

After backtracking in the car for about an hour and a half, we begrudgingly left the car and any hope of Brett Favre updates behind and started the hike.

The first day we saw a mother moose and her calves, but our nemesis was a group of rather aggressive deer, who decided that the campsite was theirs and that anything that was there was for the taking. This was one of them, and I unfortunately don't have a picture of the one that grabbed Matt's boot (and ran with it for about 75 feet with us in the chase group.

Evil deer.

As most of our hike's go, Matt eventually breaks (and whines about wanted to do the next hiking trip in Maui). As the pictures I have were taken by Matt, there unfortunately aren't any shots showing him in significant pain.

Me and the CFO (oddly, none of his "people" are in the shot)

The hike came and went ... oddly we saw no Grizzly, although we supposedly walked right by them. We met the assortment of odd characters (including "Captain Frank" a ukulele playing Kiwi who lives in New York and has a public access TV show. Although I don't have a picture from the trip, here's a shot of Captain Frank (so named because he offered everyone Captain Frank rum) from his website and a link if you want to see how ridiculous ... er, creative his band can be ...


http://www.sonicuke.com/index1.php

Finally, a picture of the three of us ...

Next trip is likely Maui because Matt's a wuss ...

No Longer a Hippie

Getting strapped in by a stranger with sharp objects? Thanks, Mom and Dad ...

So Anderson just graduated from college. Okay ... not really. It just seems like it's been so long since I've given an update that it seems feasible. Busy. When not busy, lazy. We've had company and work has been busy for both of us, but here's the promised haircut update ...

So when I last wrote, Anderson's hair was - as Natalie put it - out of control. I was okay with the long locks and was always a fan of the sixties, but Natalie didn't like the long locks and didn't like my "let's not bathe him for a week and make him into a true hippie" idea, so we decided to get his hair cut. The big question was where.

My family members know this, but most of my friends do not. My father frequently attempted to cut my hair when I was a kid, even going to the point of purchasing a "barbering at home" kit, which he brought home with pride when I was around 5 years old. Unfortunately, as well-intentioned as my father was, he did not also purchase the supplement to this, entitled "*How* to Cut Hair at Home Without Embarrassing Your Kid". His engineering mindset was simple ... the hair is long. I'll cut it. It won't be long anymore. Simple enough, right?

Except that the cut was never even. So he had to balance the other side. And then the other. You can see where this is going, right? Every haircut resulted in a shaved head. I have multitudes of school-age photos that demonstrate my father's barbering technique. Having suffered through this, we decided that Anderson would see a professional.

But what kind? A regular hair stylist can surely cut infant's hair, but we opted for the overpriced kid's specialty haircut. $16 for a stylist to spend 5 minutes cutting the 4 strands of hair that your kid has. And there's always a line, because every family is there taking pictures. Like these ...

Looking at the camera. Inner thoughts? "Someday I'm putting you in a bad nursing home..."

Mom, placing Anderson in a sleeper hold ...

Promising to take him back to Sea World ...
Over. Bring on the women ...

So Anderson now looks more like a little boy that an infant. This is important, as he has graduated from the infant room to the toddler room, where all of the kids are bigger than him. Well, in weight. He still has a head that matches most 3 year olds ...

Thankfully he's leaving the infant room as one of kids has been biting his arm. The day care center makes up "incident reports" and lets us know that Anderson was bitten. They don't, unfortunately, tell us who the culprit is. Natalie and I will be hiring a lawyer in the near future to bring the criminal to justice. This being Texas, we're pushing for the death penalty.

That's all for now ...

Finally ... an update

Disclaimer here. I've essentially stolen my wife's post (we maintain separate sites as she is fearful that her relatives won't understand my sense of humor. Hmmm ... does anyone really get my sense of humor?) and added my comments instead. It's a little edgier, I guess. It's kind of fun to go from the bucket of sunshine she delivers to my sarcasm. So here goes ...

Anderson's likely doing drugs right around now.

Really. Look at the hair. Rapunzel's got some serious locks and needs a haircut badly.



So we went to San Antonio for a vacation in the broiler. First, we got a hotel room on the Riverwalk at the Marriott, which was right next to where "Coolio" was putting on a free show. Remember "Coolio"?

Me neither.

Anyway, we walked right by the concert and saw the Alamo, where all sorts of interesting people come to play.
This is a real person with a "Free Hugs" sign. We didn't partake. Nor, actually, did anyone else in the 5 minutes we were near him. Scary. Still, we were at The Alamo and Anderson enjoyed taking in the historical significance.
Okay. That's a lie. I maintain that the most disappointing place to visit in America is The Alamo. First, it's a tiny little fort in the middle of a city that dwarfs it, making it seem even smaller. There's also a lot of stuff that isn't original, mainly because the Mexican Army blew the fort to smithereens.
People don't use the word "smithereens" as much as they should.
Finally, the presentation of The Alamo itself is boring. You don't really get a sense for what happened and have to watch the IMAX movie across the street to really appreciate the significance.
But we dragged Munchie's butt there in the 100 degree heat.
There best part of the trip was the Children's Museum. Anderson got to play with tons of things, including a big, unrealistically fake rooster ...

A big fake cow udder...
The real winners were the fish. He got very excited and started squealing loudly when he saw them swimming around. The squealing continued for 5 minutes and I believe he actually frightened the fish.
Anderson also had his first swim in the hotel pool. He braved the floaties well - and tolerated the size 3T swimsuit. Note that it doesn't even remotely fit him. Still, we give him props for not polluting the pool.

We then roasted at Sea World. Anderson wasn't as amused by the sea lions show as much as I was. In fact, I kept handing Anderson off to Natalie so I could see the show. A gripping caper ... who stole the fish? Cliffhanger, I tell you. More plot than a Lindsay Lohan movie ...
Note the Shamu doll. Won by yours truly at the arcade (admittedly, it was a "play until you win" game, but I won nonetheless ...)

Our favorite picture of Anderson yet ... he's actually starting to look like a little boy ...

While I was away, Natalie went to a party (me being away was likely a party in itself, but this was an actual party) and snapped a couple of good shots ...

That's it. Next up ... Anderson's first real haircut ...

4th of July and the curious success of "Double Bubble"

I know that 2 weeks have passed since July 4th, but work has bogged me down a bit. Still, as this is a collection of stories of fatherhood, issues of the day and a journal of Anderson's 1st year, I feel compelled to tell the story of Anderson's first parade.

Woo frickin' hoo.

The day started off as many July Texas days do. Birds chirping. The sun comes up. Birds flopping to the ground. Icarus. It's just damn hot. That being said, Anderson is a Texan and doesn't mind the heat. At least he doesn't tell me this directly, so I'm pretty sure he likes the heat. So 8:45AM comes and Natalie is on call in a cool, air-conditioned fertility center doing things with an ultrasound machine that I prefer to not think too much about. Anderson and I are on our own, and after he jams down a couple of containers of food and loads up his diaper (which I change), we drive off to the local parade, set to start at 9AM. It's already in the 90s, but I throw him into the stroller anyway so he can see a parade. Thankfully, the parade marshals aren't even remotely organized and the parade starts at 10:10 without a hitch. 93 degrees by then, but at least Neo gets to see a Texas 4th of July parade.

The fire truck leads it off and Anderson smiles at the blowing sirens. Or he's just loading up diaper number 2. Hard to tell, but he seems to enjoy it. Then the various Cub Scout and Girl Scout troops walk by. Little Johnny, Jimmy and then some friendless, older kid who is an Eagle Scout. Always strange kids, those Eagle Scouts.

The it happens. The first "parade car" with candy. Of course, some kids from the local little league are trying to pelt anything that moves. Candy comes with a price, a welt on the arm or the proverbial eye out. Thankfully they weren't evil enough to throw it hard at Anderson, but there was a mad dash for the candy.

Imagine everyone's disappointment when they found out that they got "Double Bubble". For those not familiar with Double Bubble, it's been around for years. Per Wikipedia, it was invented by Walter Diemer in 1928 who said "it was an accident." An accident indeed. I just don't get it. This is a minimally flavorful gum from the first time it hits your mouth and that flavor lasts about 7 seconds. After that, you're chewing a lifeless wad of rubber.

And it's been produced since 1937. How has it survived?

I have a theory. This is the only confection that is expressly made to be thrown at other people. It has a reasonable weight and is somewhat aerodynamic. More importantly, multiple "Double Bubbles" can be thrown at once, for a shotgun-like effect. While it stings, it won't permanently damage the victim, as Jolly Ranchers might. Fun for everyone in the family.

So we picked up 3 "Double Bubbles" as well as some grape-flavored spherical sugar rocks, watched the lame parade pass. People dancing with lawn chairs walked by. People walked by with their dogs. The guys who think it's cool to have an 80 year old car drove by next. Then mercifully it came to an end and we subsequently walked back to the car. The stroller was easier to push than it was earlier as Anderson had sweat off about 15% of his body weight. Other parents did the same ritual, all an attempt to bond with a sense of national pride.

Anderson came home and slept, likely suffering from heat stroke. I did the same, drifting to sleep with nightmares of Anderson as an Eagle Scout.

More pictures later ...

Deliverance Part III

Ahh ... a Tennessee wedding. Nothing quite like it. They even spelled "Tennessee" wrong, having misspelled it "Maine". Not even close.

Sorry for the delay in getting to part III of our sordid tale. I actually calculated my work hours last week and worked close to 80 hours. I feel like a resident again. To recap, we went to Gatlinburg, TN for Natalie's sister Diana and Aaron's wedding. We ate pancakes, frolicked in Dollywood and then ... the main event. All I can say is ...

Disappointing.

Just disappointing.

Why do I say this? First, everyone at the wedding had teeth. Dammit, this is Tennessee and there are certain traditions to uphold. Nobody came to the wedding with vomit on their shirt, and the bride was not visibly pregnant. For God's sake, the groom didn't even smell of Mad Dog 20/20!!! Finally, the bride and groom did not have their first dance as a couple to "Free Bird".

What the hell sort of Tennessee wedding is this? I feel cheated.

Here are some pictures ...

Natalie, Anderson and many of the bride's family. What's wrong with this picture? You're right ... nobody is sprawled on the lawn ...

Natalie and Diana, neither of which has anything close to Tammy Fae make-up.

Aaron and his lifetime servant, per Tennessee statute 103.73:2.4.

Diana, giving a ring to Aaron. Shortly after this Aaron gave his new wife a mop, apron and iron ... a Tennessee tradition for signifying his love.

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be traveling on, now,
'cause there's too many places I've got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
'cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.

Bye, bye, its been a sweet love.
Though this feeling I cant change.
But please don't take it badly,
'cause lord knows I'm to blame.
But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you'll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.
Lord help me, I can't change.

(Okay ... maybe it's not a remotely appropriate wedding song. At all. But it's the National Anthem of the South. So there it is.)

Deliverance (Part Two of Three)

A brief update: As I write, it is 94 degrees in our house. The air conditioning system has been out for 3 days (thankfully one of Natalie's partners has let us stay in their home while our cats guard the place and melt.) Any inappropriate comments are clearly due to the heat. Because clearly I'm not that way otherwise.

Dollywood.

It just rolls off the tongue like a canker sore. How did the world get blessed with Dollywood? The sordid history of how this only-slightly-more-talented-than-Charo singer had an amusement park named after her is summed up in wikipedia ...

"Dollywood is a theme park owned by country music singer Dolly Parton and the Herschand Family Entertainment Corporation. It is located in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

The park first opened in 1961 as a small tourist attraction named "Rebel Railroad", featuring a steam train, general store, blacksmith shop, and salloon. In 1966, Rebel Railroad was renamed "Goldrush Junction" and in 1970, the Cleveland Browns football team purchased the attraction. In 1976, Jack and Pete Herschend bought Goldrush Junction, and in 1977, renamed it "Silver Dollar City Tennessee" as a sister park to their original Silver Dollar City near Branson, Missouri. In Dolly Parton became a co-owner and the park was renamed "Dollywood".

First, I'd like to point out that the Cleveland Browns have never won a championship since they invested in what is now Dollywood. Serves them right.

Second, I'd like to also point out that Dollywood wasn't as scary as I'd imagined. Of course, I imagined a hayseed filled group of first cousins with mutated children milling about with neither teeth nor shoes, asking questions like, "Dad look at the squirrel in the park. You want me to shoot that varmint for dinner?" (Do people other than Yosemite Sam call things varmints?)

So my expectations were pretty low. Still, I had to chuckle when an announcer introduced one of the acts as "another one of Dolly's cousins" and wondered if she ever kissed him full on the mouth. And then there were some entertaining shops that sold t-shirts ...



I guess someone thought that it would be a cool idea to take advertising slogans and make Jesus puns out of them. I'm imagining the guy running the small business plan by a bank loan officer ...

"You see, I'm gonna make me some cheap and tacky carnival shirts, but my angle is to make 'em cheap and tacky with references to Jesus! And then I'll sell 'em in Dollywood at a shop 'where wisdom is found'."

A casual blend of advertising and bible thumping. Love the Mountain Dew rip off ...

Now, anyone I know would tell that person to sleep off their 0.37 blood alcohol content and return when they're sober to laugh at how drunk they were. In Pigeon Force, these ideas are met with enthusiasm. "Damn, Cletus. Can I git me in on that? Oh. And do you wanna go git some pancakes and then and shoot something?" So there's a shop selling this, mostly in XXXXL sizes.

But Anderson - surrounded by people who spell at his level - had a great time. He was met by a likely child molester dressed as Madeline and posed with yet another likely child molester dressed as some rabbit that I'm supposed to know. I guess I should read more children's books.

Anderson thinking, "Quit touching my bottom."

Here's a rabbit inappropriately touching Anderson with a dirty old man watching on.

Anderson also rode the carousel with Natalie holding onto him. As you can see, he's not thrilled.

Overall, it was pretty entertaining. Disneyland for hillbillies who buy Jeff Foxworthy t shirts. Other highlights included a couple who asked us to take a picture and said all we had to do was "mash down the little button once, then mash it agin'." Multiple church groups, all wearing their special church t-shirt. Lots of youngish big people in electric wheelchairs.

Next ... the wedding ...