I’m not sure exactly where the time went but today my daughter (who I’ve always called Junior on the blog) is 8. Here’s a pic of her from the local fair sporting her recently won pimp hat and blow up AR-15:

Happy Birthday, Sparky.

Our new pup is doing well. At 8 weeks, he’s crate trained mostly (only two accidents in the house, which were not the dog’s fault) and he mostly sleeps through the night. He’s quick to learn and seems pretty smart.

We also have two cats. The small cat wants nothing to do with the dog. Of course, she wants nothing to do with the other cat or most people either. But the larger cat has warmed up to the pup some. They play some and, heck, have even shared a bed. Sometimes, the pup wants to play and the cat has had enough. So, she fires a warning shot. She’ll pop the dog in the head with her paw while her claws are retracted. If he persists, the claws come out on the second head thwack. You can see him stop after the warning shot in this video:

He can be taught.

My dog did:

Also, my son has heard this song in the car. And he sings part of it some times. And he gets the lyrics wrong: Money don’t grow on cheese. I laugh every time I hear it.

And it’s his birthday. Six years old. So, yeah, they do grow up fast.

Happy birthday, Son.

So, Obama is now progressive on gay marriage, like Ted Olson and Dick Cheney. I don’t recall those two getting a lot of pats on the back from pundits and media for it. Gee, I wonder why?

Also, on the drive to school, I listen to the local affiliate of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy radio for weather and traffic. The topic was, of course, gay marriage. And they were getting the usual calls from people poo-pooing gay marriage. After about a minute, I changed it. I don’t want my kids listening to that nonsense. We know a few gay couples and our kids think nothing of it. And let’s keep it that way.

This is Popcorn, our soon to be new pooch:

Affectionate booger:

I was bottling my homemade wine last night and Junior was watching. She seems to like watching the corking process. And she says to me you know, you could probably make money by selling that. I said I probably could but that’s illegal and it’s just for your mom and I. She then asked why it was illegal. And I told her about alcohol laws and how they were stupid. At seven, she then says So, you can’t just make stuff and sell it? I said to her that if you did, you’d be breaking the law. After a few seconds, she says that’s stupid. I tell her that she’s right.

I was proud.

My dad is good at it. He can entertain people for hours with his various adventures and misadventures. He was a soldier, a policeman, and a fed among other things. His tales keep kids and adults alike laughing at his wit and amazed at some of the things he’s seen and done. Me and the wife were talking about this last night. We think we’re gonna have him over, put a couple of bourbons in him, and set up a video camera. Assuming he’ll go for it.

The other thing is it made me think about the stories I’ll tell to my grand kids. They’re not exciting at all. My dad talks about his encounter with the five foot tall Mexican with a four foot long knife, how a grease gun almost got him killed, or the day he had to stack 400 bodies. What I’m I gonna say? And then that one time I calculated the effective interest rate on a $100M credit facility with a 35% make-whole premium over two years. That will keep ’em entertained.

Spring kinda happened:

And more blooms:

Some mulch:

Also, started the box garden, here’s some starter chard and Brussels sprouts:

And stuff in pots, some peppers, spices and tomatoes. The Mrs. had the idea to use corks on the end of bamboo skewers to label stuff:

And some more pots, green peppers, red peppers citrus mint, and oregano:

Today, I’ve been married to my wife for a decade. It feels much longer. I kid. But, seriously, where does the time go?

Happy anniversary!

My phone has a pattern lock in which you must trace a pattern on the screen with your finger to access it. This is to keep people out of it. One day when I was driving, the Mrs. needed to use my phone but she forgot the pattern and couldn’t get it in three attempts. If you get to five, it locks down for about 10 minutes. Junior then says to the wife to let her see it. She takes the phone, looks at it, swipes her finger and hands the unlocked phone to her mom. I asked her how she knew the pattern and she says she didn’t. She says she just saw the pattern my ‘finger grease’ left on the screen. Clever. She should work for the FBI: FBI, stumped by pimp’s Android pattern lock, serves warrant on Google.

A bit back, my five year old son had a wart on his big toe. After trying some over the counter remedies and having his pediatrician try to freeze it off, the wart persisted. So, he was referred to a podiatrist. The doc prescribed a cream that we were to apply daily for 24 days. Imagine the sticker shock when I got to the pharmacy and saw that the retail price for the cream was $975 (yay, co-pay). After about 5 treatments, the wart fell off but we kept applying it for the full run to make sure. Then, we have a follow up appointment with the podiatrist to make sure we’re all clear. And we are.

I then tell the doc that I was a little surprised at the retail cost of that stuff. And he tells me that if I knew what it was for, I wouldn’t be surprised that people would pay that. Seems it’s for warts that occur in, uhm, areas that are a bit more embarrassing.

A bit back, I noted the correlation that the more embarrassing the prescription you drop off at the pharmacy, the hotter the pharmacy technician will be. Only I didn’t realize it was embarrassing at the time. But, yeah, she was pretty nice looking too.

Some smart cracker discusses getting your kids into preparedness.

Come and take it!

And she thanks Oleg for the new knife.

Navigation and fire-starting.

Last weekend when I took my kids and my nephews, we took them to Mike’s range. Mike was a very gracious host who more than went out of his way for us. I was running back and forth between a firing line to help my nephews shoot and the rest area to tend to my kids. Mike happily stepped in and took over instruction with the nephews. I left them for a moment to come back and Mike has them doing drills, magazine changes, and doing a few scenarios. Something I was unable to do, due to tending to kids. Mike is one hell of a guy and I appreciate all he did for us.

Thanks, Mike, it meant a lot to the kids and I!

This past weekend, some friends and family headed out to the range. My son, who is five, had only shot a suppressed 22 rifle before but he wanted to shoot the AR-15. Given that the TemplarCustom rail makes it a bit too heavy for a a five year old, the solution would be to shoot prone from a rest. But it was wet and muddy so plan B was I got to be his bipod:

Watch that grin right after the first shot and how eager he is to fire the second shot. That’s why we win. Shooting is fun and it puts grins on people’s faces, no matter their age.

Video by Oleg Volk

Fun day. Met up with Mike at his range and let four kids do some shooting. The day concluded with some Tannerite and an AR from Anderson Manufacturing:

A few things:

This is my nephew’s first shot beyond 25 yards and the first time he’d shot with a high-powered scope. And he hit first time.

Despite the incident, Junior walked up just now and asked for that sandwich. I was proud.

Took the kids to the water park this weekend. On the way back, we stopped at a Mexican joint where I got a big sandwich called La Cubana. It was huge. Full of shredded pork, cheese, bacon, avocado, seasoned mayo, and lots of other goodies. And it was huge. I couldn’t finish it. Junior kept eyeballing it and was bored of her wings so I gave her a big slice. Later, she got hungry and asked for the sandwich and the Mrs. heated it up for her.

I’m sitting at the bar in the kitchen surfing the internets when I hear some stumbling behind me. I turn around and see Junior and she’s terrified and not making a sound. There’s a bit of sandwich on the floor. She’s choking. I leap from the stool, position myself behind her, and administer the Heimlich maneuver. One thrust and a big chunk of shredded pork hurtles out of her mouth and lands about three feet away. I ask her if she can talk. She says yes. I ask if she’s OK. She says yes but she’s scared. I give her a hug and tell her she’ll be OK.

As I mentioned once before when my kid’s life was in danger and I had to react, time just stood still. It lasted a few seconds but it seemed forever. I was quite deliberate, making sure to mentally note that stuff I’ve learned in various CPR and first aid classes. I was deliberate in placing my hands in such a manner as not to break her ribs. And had the presence of mind to hear the sound of the food leaving her mouth and knowing to stop. It was a pretty bizarre experience.

After, came the what ifs, mostly from the Mrs. What if I had been downstairs or in the shower or just not in the room. I reviewed some stuff with Junior (like the universal sign for choking) and if it happens again to come get me as fast as she can. I also told her she needed to chew her food more, especially meats.

She doesn’t want any more of that sandwich.

My son has been watching Transformers Prime, a new cartoon. Watching it the other night, he looks at me and says: Why is Optimus Prime running? He can turn into a truck.

A fun way to teach the kids the alphabet:

I told you he wanted to be famous on the internet. Warning, gratuitous use of elementary school bad words:

My five year old son walks up to me and the Mrs. and says he wants to be on youtube. He had a few ideas about what he wanted to do. I looked at the wife and said: He could be famous on the internet, which is kind of like being the one guy at the bar who doesn’t suck at karaoke.

He recorded some stuff featuring his new favorite toy (Trash Packs) and we may put some up tonight.

Teach your kids to fight, it may come in handy: Ga. girl fights off would-be abductor in Walmart. The girl is 7.

I actually talked a little bit about self-defense with my kids and my nephews and nieces. Teaching them useful things like fight in public and never go to a second location. And not to scream help in public since that doesn’t get attention but rather to scream things like You’re not my daddy. I don’t know you. Leave me alone.

A few weeks back, my five year old son informed me and the wife that he wanted a Wii game called Skylanders. Having just given him no less than eleventy billion toys for Christmas, we said no. He, then, informed us that he had his own money and asked if he could buy it with that. Sure. I hop on Amazon and order it. I tell him that it will be here in a couple of days. He looks frustrated because he wants it now. He then turns the laptop around and shows me Target’s webpage and says “Target has them. We can just go there and pick one up.”

A five year old who can’t clean his room, fold his own laundry, or remember to flush the toilet can hop on the internet and tell you that the local Target store has an item in stock. I like living in the future but not that much.

Junior is participating in a science fair. She decided that for the fair, we’d make some rock candy. She set out to make four flavors: vanilla, cinnamon, orange and grape. I suggested that we make some bacon rock candy. She looked at me and the shirt I was wearing and said I know bacon makes it better but we don’t have to put bacon in everything.

Heh.

Heard around the house from Junior to her mom: So, all the men on this channel are bad and all the women are crazy? The wife responded with yes.

They were watching Lifetime while scrap-booking.

So, I went to show my ten year old nephews a youtube video. Sat in front of their computer and hit the mouse. Mmm, a Mac I grumbled disapprovingly. One of my nephews looks at me and says You know what PC stands for? Piece of crap.

I laughed. Internet trolling in real life.

Tam started it but the most played songs on my iPod:

Believe – Trapped Under Ice
God’s Gonna Cut You Down – Johnny Cash
Nothing Compares 2 U – Me First and the Gimme Gimmes*
Turning Point – Superjoint Ritual
Bring the Noise – Anthrax
The Horror and The Gag – Ramallah
Madhouse – Hed P.E.
This Dearkened Heart – All That Remains
Three Little Pigs – Green Jello*
Punk Rock Girl – Dead Milkmen*

The ones with asterisks are there because they’re on the kids play lists and they like those songs. I like them too. The rest seem to be the first song of particular play lists I listen to most.

My five year old son on the show Wipeout:

it’s funny ’cause fat people are falling.

That show, by the way, I think marks the end of western civilization.

For Thanksgiving, my son got to shoot his first gun:

We were shooting at pumpkins and gourds left over from the fall season. Now, he’s five. You can see he’s having some trouble shouldering the suppressed 10/22. Over CTD, they’re discussing guns for the young shooter. And this reminded me that my dad, who was there when my son was shooting, said maybe I should get him a Mare’s Leg in 22LR. He could shoulder that. Something to consider.