Scootin around

push play: "I don't want a pickle, just want to ride my motor-sickle" the motorcycle song - arlo guthrie alice's resturant 06TheMotorcycleSong.m4a (this and all the other music links will allow you to download the songs if you have itunes. Free legal music, wow!)

So somehow I managed to talk wifey into letting me get a scooter this year. You have to know that I have been planting this seed for about 3 years. I was looking for a Stella, but since they are not making them right now I was planning on giving up. That was until I found an '04 Vespa that only had 100 miles on it. I took it for a ride and was sold. I negotiated on the price like I have been taught and it was mine. Since I got it here are some things I have noticed/learned.

1. Other motorcyclists don't know what to do with scooter riders. They have these special salutes, where they drop their left hand down about 45 degrees from the handle and nod their heads in respect. The guys with the rocket bikes, don't wave at scooterists. Way too cool. The Harley crowd is split. The old dudes with the jackets will wave every time. ( I have to admit, I was kind of surprized by this) The new jacks on the Harleys, not so much. My favorite is when one of the guys that would not usually waves see you at night and can only tell that it is a one light vehicle, they wave. . . and as soon as they realize their mistake, you can see the horror in their face, the hand usually drops quickly to get a scratch or something. I have tried to figure out what to do, and so I decided to wave at all of them. I got the thing because I wanted to have fun, this just adds to it.

2. It is impossible to get pulled over for speeding. Reason being that even though I take the thing about 60mph every day to work, I am riding a scooter, it looks like I am going 22mph.

3. If I duck my head to streamline with the scooter, I can gain a few extra mph.

4. I used to think that the reason people that rode on motorcycles where too cool to smile. That may still be the majority of the truth, but let me just say a bug in the mouth at 45mph is a mistake you only make once.

5. When I ride the scooter, it is "nerdy" when my wife rides it, it is "cute"

6. A motorcycle is for a man who has to prove who he is , a scooter is for a man who already knows who he is.

7. Kindergarteners and 1st graders think Monkey is the coolest when he rides.

8. Rain hurts.

9. Everyone has a comment. My favorite so far, happened when I was riding in the downtown area which was really busy on this Friday night. I was riding next to Timmy who was on his big 'ol motorcycle and a high school kid yells, "hey I like your scooter, it's really. . .red."

10. you can do a wheelie on a scooter.

Turn up the volume, we are in the final stretch. (I use my ipod every time I ride, I can do all the controls without looking, it makes it nice.) "I'm gettin' bugged driving up and down the same old strip gotta find a new place where the kids are hip My buddies and me are getting real well known, Yeah, the bad guys know us and they leave us alone" Get around - Beach Boys Good Vibrations Boxed Set- I am having a hard time finding this song on my drive, I will post a link asap.

Wifey Rules

Strike up the band: "a women needs a man like a

fish needs a bicycle" -

U2 -Tryin to throw your arms around the world, Achtung baby09TryinToThrowYourArmsAround.m4a

Do you remember when you were a child and you were watching a TV show that you were not quite sure you were allowed to watch? What did you do, did you watch it?

Not my kids. During the first cell of a cartoon (I guess they are all digital now, so maybe they are called something else) this is what you hear, "moooooooommmmmmyyy, can we waaaatchhhh this sssssshoooow?" Now you probably think, so what, that happens in every good childs home. Here is the catch, I am sitting right next to the child, not across the room, not on the other square on the couch, right next to them cheek to cheek. Oh and by the way. . . I turned the show on.

I told you about wifey rules: they are not written down anywhere, but as the boys we know them.

When daddy says it's bed time, the boys know they might get one more show, or one book, or even an extra Linky story. . .
When mommy says it's bed time, sure enough, it is, it's like she can turn down the sun.

When mommy thinks it's cold in the house, as sweaty as we might be, we all think it is cold in the house.

When mommy wants Texas Roadhouse, we suffer through it.

Monkey will ask me a question about life, and I could quote the Encyclopedia Britannica, but until mommy puts her seal of approval, I might as well be quoting the national enquirer.

We live in a mommycratic house, and we love it. . . at least she tells us we do.

Closing song: (Ha, you thought Celine Dion would make it here. Some rules were meant to be broken. ) Pretty girl you are the light of my life, I mean my everything You're the one I chose to make my wife, that's why you wear my ring.And when I'm feeling down and out, you're the one who will bail me out My love will always guide me home, pretty girl. Eric Clapton - Pretty Girl,Music and Cigarettes 06PrettyGirl.m4a

Are you ready to Transform?

Cue Music: Love and Peace or Else- U2 How to dismantle an atomic bomb. "Lay down your guns, all you daughters of Zion, all you Abrahams sons. . .we need some love and peace."
09TryinToThrowYourArmsAround.m4a











So as promised, Monkey started 1st grade. The parking lot was busier than the lines outside my store on Black Friday. The kids were all there with their new tennies on. Flashback: I remember shopping for school. It was the best part of going back to school. There was basically two different versions of this activity. The first tradition involved my foster mom taking me to K-mart and getting whatever she wanted me to wear. More than anything I remember the first time I got shoes with velcro. Wow, what an experience, I don't know how many times I opened and closed those things my first couple of days in school to try and get attention to my suppossed coolness. I was no dummy either, I knew when was the best time to do it. (popularity is all about timing and style) It was when I got to be the class lead and the whole (ok, half) of the class was walking behind me. "Teacher, I need to stop my shoelaces are untied" (what else was I suppossed to say, I was in first grade) I would stop and turn toward the line and unvelcro my shoes, pull them tight and of course you never look at the class, you got to hide your coolness, that is part of being cool, not acting like it, velcro 'em back up.

Now there is one thing about K-mart I hate! As a matter of fact when they went bankrupt a few years back this was the first thing I thought, good, now there are no other children that will have to wear TOUGHSKINS!! I hate those pants. (Sorry Ms. Hannah, she always told us not to use the word Hate. "It is such a strong word," She would say, well it's because of that strong feeling that I reiterate, I hate toughskins. If you have never had the pleasure of wearing them know this. . .you can't destroy them. The knees were so reinforced with patches that you almost couldn't bend at the knee. The knees where so tough that when you ran, you looked like you where running on stilts. I sometimes wonder if those stunt guys who get dragged behind a car in the movies wear these pants. How was I supposed to get new jeans if I couldn't ruin the old ones.

The second version of school shopping was my mom would take us to the mall. Wow, a whole mall! We would get $100.00. You know the first thing I bought was Levi's. I don't even remember much else, just remember spending $20.00 on a pair of authentic Levis. This was sometime around 5th grade. I am sure my foster mom was better at creating the wardrobe with a limited amount of California tax payers money, but I had style now. I had no problem washing the pants every day to wear them the next.


Flashback over.

So standing there waiting with all the other children and their parents I am doing fine, no tears. Pretty proud too. Monkey is decked out in Transformer. Transformer backpack, with attached transformer lunchbox, wearing a Transformer shirt. (Optimus Prime shirt and backpack, BumbleBee lunch box) I wonder to myself how many other parents have taught their children to love Transformers like myself and notice there is a few. One kid had a bumblebee backpack, one kid had shoes. (character shoes are banned in our house, wifey rules, by the way, that is a blog all in itself) So I am content that my kid is in the cool group. Good thing I didn't go with that whole Barney thing I had planned for him. It was about a minute until they let us in when I saw the school poster board that had a picture of Optimus Prime and it said "are you ready to Transform" I lost it. I knew this was another chapter in his life, he was going to Transform by the end of the year he will have new friends, new favorite foods from the cafeteria, he might even get his first crush. (Mine in 1st grade was Dawn, little pure blond haired girl, loved her so much I switched seats with a kid to sit by her. She was great and my love was so strong I didn't even mock her when she peed in her chair and it dripped on the floor next to me. I just figured she was so excited to sit next to me, she literaly couldn't contain herself.

So anyway, I delivered the little guy to class and he pretty much shooed me off, "bye dad."

"Bye son", sniffle sniffle.


















P.S. I have decided Monkey is going to work for a future President of the United States. The reason I believe this is because every time I pick him up from school and excitedly ask him what he did in school today, 9 out of 10 times he says "I don't really remember."

Fade out: Line'em up by James Taylor (A song about Nixon's last moments in the White House) 01LineEmUp.m4a



We all have dreams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs


This explains it all
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/manwoman.html

Why am I doing this?

I have thought of doing a blog ever since the day I heard of it, but I thought, I don't have anything to say online. I am not as opinionated and argumentative as I used to be. (I am sure there are some people who would argue, but we all know they are wrong.)





I have the punctuation skills of a 3rd grader and the spelling skills of a 4th grader.





But. . .





I thought, this is for the boys in the end, now I don't have to do that pesky journal thing that I keep telling myself that I need to do.





Now the question is what how to compose this information and how much to share. I like the idea of a blog in that it is a lazy man's way of getting out of many e-mails (by the way did you know that 1972 was the first year e-mails were created?)





I have only one complaint! No music! How can I tell a story without having the music that sets the mood on playing in the background. (currently: todd thibaud- Sweet Destiny; courtesy of Pandora.com, thanks for that Evan!)





So I have already demonstrated my obnoxious skills, and scatterbrained communication. So here is what you came here for anyway.





The Familia.





We are composed of many different parts. Numerous parts Grandpa, a mix of his families smiles, two parts bad daddy hair, a pinch of uncle nate's hair, two pieces of auntie Em's ears and the sprinkling of Wifeys' beautiful eyes and then there is the signature bent pinkie! That makes up the boys. In order: Monkey, Squawky, Linky. Wifeys (aka the women) and me. (I am pining for a little doggy, but have yet to prevail!)





This has been a great summer. We had soooooo much rain. We received over 30 inches in June. (I saw a stat that said L.A. only got 1.2 inches) Needless to say, I was the most excited about it. My job has done well with all the growing grass. I sell lots of Tractors because of it. We had floods all around us, but nothing happened on our street. Kind of made the Tornado weather boring though because the atmosphere was settled, no conflict. I think that is my favorite part of the year. I am excited to say we even had to get into the shelter one evening.


Monkey will be going into first grade this year. One week actually. I was accused of being sentimental last year when he went to Kindergarten. I have my hankie ready to go for first grade. He will be gone all day and because of work, I will only be able to spend one whole day with him a week and that is Sunday which is usually filled with other distractions.

Squawky just cut his head open doing what he does best, jumping around and "being crazy" as Wifeys likes to put it. He survived- his motivation for healing; the jumpzone. A bouncing castle type place. He is still suffering from allergies and allergy induced asthma. The last couple of days have been rough. He has been doing "breathing" 3-4 daily.


Linky has his own dance move. You sit on the floor, put your right leg straight out, left leg tucked in, right hand raised to the square, head turned to the left and bounce up and down. (obviously he has his mother's moves, because I could even do the hand and head thing at the same time.)

Wifeys has become the scapbooking queen. The boys lost part of their toy room to a new table and shelves on the wall to handle the mass amount of scrapbooking stuff. Most people talk of upgrading their house to make way for a new child, she talks of upgrading to a larger house to get her own scrapbooking room. I do need to state for the record that I only have one collection of anything, it is music and it all sits on my little ipod, so the balance is out of whack. (of course I am not counting the 45 inch tv and surround sound that takes up its fair portion of the living room)

I continue to work as a store manager for another big box retailer. It is a thankless job, I don't have people ever come up to me and say, "thanks for helping me pick out that shirt, I never would have got that date with that hot girl tonight", or "my marriage is so much better now that I have that mower and trimmer"; but it pays the bills. There are days I love it though. It helps with my need to have everything in order. I can go and straighten a whole aisle of batteries when ever I want. I also like to try and figure people out and their buying habits. I am the bad guy that puts video games right by the register so your kids will beg you for one. (hey, I made $7000 in sales on $19.99 games this month, beating all the other stores by over 160%) By my calculations, that is 350 blissfully happy children. I am making the world a better place.

So, there you have it. You are kind off caught up.

ending song: roses from my friends (live version prefered) by Ben Harper featuring one of my all time favorite lines: "he that laughs last, cried first" Take that steve! (he was the bully that used to beat me in 1st grade, I whiffled him in the fourth, I am not that quick) 2-02RosesFromMyFriends.m4a;01_-

P.S A few fun links not to be taken to seriously though. (blame Tyler, he got me stumbling in the first place!)

5 types of Mormons 2http://www.jasonbx.com/thoughts/reading/5kindsofmormon.htm

How to man hug http://scribbling.net/post/3591366/g

deanery

Main Entry: dean·ery

Pronunciation: 'dEn-rE, 'dE-n&-rE

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural -er·ies:

the office, jurisdiction, or official residence of a dean