Puff Man

Boys and Guns

2006-06-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

If you, as a parent, make a decision to not purchase toy guns you've not won the battle. Mrs. Puff seemed to be leaning into the "anti-gun" direction. Then....

While on vacation one of the boys (at the age of 3 no less) discovered a piece of coral and came to the quick realization that it looked like a gun.....and it should therefore be pointed at someone while saying "pow pow". Where did that come from? Possibly from the other 3 year olds they hung around with in the church nursery? I don't recall seeing any "war games" on my shift.

It wasn't from TV. We allowed little TV viewing during their younger years (and allow even less today). We're pretty strict on what they watch and at that time they were limited to things like "Bear in the Big Blue House", "Winnie the Pooh", "Baby Einstein", and "Dora the Explorer".

It is amazing all the things they've used as guns.
Legos
Tinker Toys
Paper towel tubes
Sticks
Rocks
Action figures
And one day, duct tape (these guys are geniuses!) and cedar 4x4's left over from their play set.

We had our first ever "weaponized" Christmas this past year. With their toy guns, the boys have conquered the yard, their room, and all points in between.

Still, it was very surprising when one of the boys at the end of dinner was putting his leftover porkchop in a ziplock and he suddenly says "Look! It's a gun!" and he holds his pork chop like a gun and says "POW POW".

My First Surgery

2006-06-15T18:53:00.000-07:00

I got my knee fixed today. Despite the grogginess, I feel pretty good.

I could be off crutches by Monday. That is just absolutely amazing.

Despite the hoop jumping with the HMO, the fact that I had my knee repaired in 3 1/2 weeks makes me happy we haven't nationalized health care like Canada.

This was my first surgery ever. My first experience with anesthesia was interesting. I was complaining about a headache due to caffiene withdrawals (surgery was at noon so no food or beverages since midnight). The doctor says he had something which would knock that headache out quick (the anesthesia). He injects it into my IV and within seconds I start feeling something I can't describe.......then I feel panic.....then my vision begins to blur.......then my headache goes away......then I say "Wow!".....then I wake up two hours later in recovery.

Pretty strange. Two hours of life vanished. That's the only way to describe it.

But I have to admit that with my right knee shaved....I've got some pretty good looking legs.

Something you don't want to hear your Dr. say....

2006-05-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

"I'd do it myself but I don't want you screaming in my office."

Oh yeah, that made me feel really good.

Church Adventures

2006-05-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

It's always a challenge getting the kids to pay attention to the sermon on Sunday. The one thing that can get them focused is when the pastor introduces a visual aid like tools.

This Sunday, the pastor showed 4 of his favorite cutting tools: a machete, a hand saw, a knife, and some hedge clippers. One of my boys, who up to that point had been playing "left hand beats up right hand" despite my "knock it off" growls, spies the implements of destruction. Instantly, his focus is on the pastor, his words, and the tools like an Atkins dieter on a bowl of potato chips on his first "cheat day."

As part of his sermon example, the pastor says "I'd like four parents to volunteer their six year old boys to play with these outside after the sermon."

It is, of course, a joke showing the absurdity of such a suggestion.

The joke is lost on the boy.

As the chuckles swell slightly, my boy says "Why is everyone laughing? DADDY, I'M SIX YEARS OLD! I'M SIX!"

Getting Older - It Really Does Suck

2006-05-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

I turned 38 on Monday. I am two years shy of 40. If you would've have asked me on Friday if I was feeling any older I would have said "no".

But, if you would've asked me Saturday at 8:46 AM after I blew out my knee during a work out......well........dammit.

Looking forward to my first MRI and surgery.

:-?

Bugs and Kids

2006-05-25T19:09:00.000-07:00

Bugs are cool. They really are. If you've never watched something like Buggin with Rudd you are missing out.

That being said, I don't want the damn things crawling on me.

Look, I'll pick up a worm, or a lady bug, or a daddy longlegs (they aren't poisonous) but that is about it. If a spider or a roach gets on me I will squeal like a little girl and run like Osama in Tora Bora.

So, what to do when one of the kids walks over with some hideous looking thing in his hand and tries to give it to me while saying "Daddy, isn't this cool?"

First, I don't want the kid thinking that bugs are not cool. Second, I don't want to pass along my "distaste" (OK, pseudo-phobia) for bugs to the kids. NOTE: I think most parents do not want to pass along their "freaky" tendancies to their kids. At least, I hope they don't.

Again, bugs are cool WHEN THEY ARE NOT FREAKIN' CRAWLING ON ME!

Take a deep breath and think up an excuse to not touch that bug. Something like, "Wow, that's pretty neat, buddy, but daddy's skin has special glands that release acid that will cause that bug to die a horrible death if I try to hold it. It's a good thing you don't have those glands, isn't it?"

Then I run inside and squeal like a little girl.

The Jig is Up - Maybe

2006-05-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I broke down and let a couple of co-workers know where my blog was today. That may or may not be a bad thing considering it could double my readership.

Welcome Kermit and Z-man!

Their names have been changed to protect the innocent.

BTW, these two are really funny.

When is Children's Day?

2006-05-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

Returning from the annual “scramble to buy a Mother’s Day present with no idea what to buy”, one of the boys asked me when Children’s Day was. Oddly enough, I recall asking my dad the same question at some point in my youth….probably about the same age as my boys. My dad’s reply was a gruff “Everyday is children’s day.” That’s it. That was all he said. The apple not having fallen far from the tree, I started to give the same reply. But before I said it, I realized that I had no clue what my dad meant when he said that. So I set my mind to wondering…….

And now, I think I know what he meant.

Parents make sacrifices, every day, for their children. Sometimes willingly, sometimes begrudgingly, sometimes without even realizing it, we (parents) do without things because we love our children. Perhaps it’s living in a less expensive house so one parent can stay home…….or playing less golf on the weekends in order to take them to the park….or driving that paid off car a few more years to put more money in their college funds…..or stepping off the career fast-track to be home for dinner every night…..or not going out with friends because you’ve had several late nights at work this week……or not spending Sunday watching football because they want you to spend time playing with them……or spending money on swim lessons, dance lessons, soccer, or baseball instead of buying that new set of clubs.

I believe THAT is what my dad meant all those years ago.

So happy Children’s Day, my son.

Today, tomorrow, and until I leave this earth.

Bun No Longer in the Oven

2006-05-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

The last of the clan arrived via C-section on April 3rd weighing in at a "Nurse gasping" (seriously, they gasped.......I didn't because it was showing kilograms at first) 1o lbs 3 oz. Mrs. Puff did her best to push that toddler out but Little Big Puff was in no mood to be that squished.

No "cute baby cry" on this one either. She has got a set of lungs on her!

And, man, oh man, are we tired.

Meet an "Islamaphobe"

2006-02-27T19:46:00.000-08:00

I am against the purchase of American port by Dubai Ports World. I have a real problem with any Middle East company owning anything in America, quite frankly. Is it because I am a racist? No. It is based on what I have seen of the countries in the Middle East.

In my 38 years of life, here is what I know of the Middle East (and Middle Easterners) going back as far as I can remember:

OPEC
Iranian Hostage Crisis
Marine Barracks Bombing in Beirut
Lockerbie
Achille Lauro
Marine Col. Higgins
Kobar Towers

....and dozens upon dozens of images of Presidents being burned in effigy, and the American flag being burned, and crowds chanting "death to America". No, I'm not creating more links. If you haven't seen these same images over the past 38 years then you've been asleep. And if you can't think of other acts of violence perpetrated by MEs against Americans then you've been asleep in a bubble.

And what do we do? We send them money. Billions of dollars worth of aid every freakin' year. We send our military on humanitarian missions to help them during natural disasters....

And there are actually some people out there saying we need to prove to THEM we aren't bigots! That we need to prove that Americans do not hate everyone in the Middle East!?!?!?!

Puh-leez!

If anyone needs to prove they don't hate, it is the people in the Middle East.

And until they do, they can forget about ownership of anything in the US as far as I am concerned.

Adventures in Texturing

2006-02-11T16:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally got around to putting the texture on the ceiling in the nursery. Lessons learned? A few:

1) Don't make a vaulted ceiling the first attempt at texturing.
2) Use a wall-to-wall drop cloth (I did). "Goobers" went everywhere.
3) Tape off and cover the walls (see #2).
4) Angled ceilings suck (refer to #1)
5) The mixing of the mud will go faster if you spend the money on a "beater" and a drill to fit it
6) Mike is truly a master and his site (and advice) are worth a heck of a lot more than what he charges.

It took me two hours to do the room (about 12 X 12)....and, man, was I sweatin' when I was done. I had to forego the use of the poles and do everything by hand and ladder due to the angled ceilings. It looks AWESOME!

Mrs. Puff was unimpressed........but my kids were.

Bauer/CTU Violate FISA?

2006-02-07T07:41:00.000-08:00

Last night, CTU gets a voice recording of the terrorist who has stolen nerve gas and has threatened to use it to kill Americans. CTU springs into action and scans the "chatter on the NSA satellites" for a voice print match to determine the guy's plans.

Well, they get a match and listen in on a conversation that leads them to the person who will provide a chip to the terrorist. The chip will allow the terrorist to release the gas. This is CTU's one and only lead to the nerve gas.

I don't recall them getting a warrant first......

Granted this is fiction, but did CTU just violate FISA? It was effectively a wire tap without a warrant on a DOMESTIC (both phones on US soil) call.
If polled, how many 24 watchers (I am assuming the viewership cuts across the political spectrum) would say CTU did the right thing? What would Leahy/Kennedy/Biden/Reid/Dean say about such a scenario?

Just curious.

Popcorn Zen

2006-02-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

Well, I've finally discovered the answer to the thought that has plagued since we moved into our current house in 2003: "I wonder how hard it is to remove the popcorn from ceiling."

No, not Orville's kind from the kids throwing it too high while trying to get it into their mouths. The kind that some idiot somewhere thought, "Hmmmm......cottage cheese....on the ceiling....yeah, baby!"

OK. I know why builders do it. It's cheap and it hides shoddy workmanship, but why a home buyer would elect to have it is beyond me. How much extra was it to get some other texture? One to two thousand? Over a 30 year loan. C'mon!

I've done a lot of research trying to find a different way to remove it....different from what every site and professional was telling me (spray it down with water, not too much, and then scrape it off). After concluding there was no other way and concluding that my wife was going to continue to nag me to do something about the poor paint job (last loser to paint the room got it all over the ceiling...and, no, it wasn't me) in kid-number-four-on-the-way's nursery, I picked up a scraper and a spray bottle and geared up for battle.

OK, she was pushing for spot touch ups but I didn't think it would like right and this inquiring mind just had to know.

Here are some things I learned:

If you house was built before the 70s, get your popcorn checked for asbestos before you start removal.
Has your ceiling been painted? If not, good times. If it has, good luck.
Get a good, wide taping knife (yep, taping knife) and a spray bottle.
Get everything out of the room. Take down curtains. Take down blinds. Put a waterproof tarp on the floor. If you don't want to have to repaint your walls, cover from the ceiling down about 2 feet. Close off the room. Wear goggles and a mask. Dust gets everywhere.
Work on about a 3X3 area at a time. Spray it down. Wait about 2-3 minutes. Spray it again. Wait about 2-3 minutes. Try scraping. If it doesn't come off (down to the drywall) fairly easily, spay it one more time. Then scrape. You may have to periodically spray parts of it that are stubborn.
I used a spray bottle. I've read some articles that recommend using a garden sprayer, but I'd worry about getting it too wet as well as having a lot of water under foot (which mixed with scraped popcorn would make an even bigger mess).
Always scrape in the same direction as the tape. If you scrape perpendicular, you'll ruin the tape. Also, be careful not to get the tape too wet.
As you do more and more, you'll be able to scrape down to the drywall to the point that you won't have to do major sanding to get the ceiling nice and smooth.
Have two enthusiastic 6 year old boys who share your hatred of popcorn ceilings and want to climb up the ladder (and wear goggles and a mask) and do some scraping. (Practice saying in a calm, encouraging voice every few seconds, "Hold the scraper flat, buddy, you're tearing the drywall" prior to bringing them into the fray.)
When you are ready to apply your new texture, check out www.drywallschool.com. The majority of the information is free, but if you want to do some new texture on your ceiling you'll have to pay $10 to get the instructions. I did. It was worth it. I start the retexture (crows foot) this weekend.

One room down. Ahhhhh, non-popcorn ceiling bliss.

And as a walk through my house, the victorious popcorn-ceiling slayer, I look above me to the popcorn ceilings that remain and say ever so softly, "Your days are numbered."

All I got for Christmas

2006-01-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

We were watching video from this past Christmas last night. One of the twins is opening his first present. He tears off the wrapping paper and comes to the gift box. He says, "Hey, all they got me was a box!"

Why "cool" underwear is bad

2006-01-17T12:18:00.000-08:00

Two things every parent should know about 5 year olds and soccer:

1) Most of the kids out there don't get it
2) If your kid wears "cool" underwear to a game, he'll want to show them off

I won't elaborate on #1 since any parent who has had a kid play soccer has a good idea what I am talking about. I just want to talk about #2.

I've got twin boys. One is the competitor the other is the disrupter. Let's call them "C" and "D" for short. C gets out there and goes after the ball while D wants everyone to play tag, cowboys (with finger guns.....feigned gasp), or something other than the game actually being played.

Soccer shorts are baggy and apparently you can grab the side of them and pull them up pretty high. High enough in fact for everyone else to see your underwear. As the kids are standing in the middle of the field waiting for play to commence, D discovers this.

D is wearing his favorite "Batman" underwear. D suddenly yells to his teammates "Look at my Batman underwear!" Before Mrs. Puff can fully instantiate her feelings of mortification that my son is leading the rest of the children down the path to the dark side of the force, the rest of the kids start pulling up the sides of their shorts to show off their underwear too....both teams. One kid, realizing that not everyone can see how really cool his underwear is, starts to untie his shorts....and then the coaches step in. Thankfully.

It was plain white underwear from the next game until the end of the season.

Adventures in "natural medicine"

2006-01-17T11:43:00.000-08:00

When we lived in Houston about 8 years ago (has it been that long?), my wife (Mrs. Puff) and I became good friends with a couple at our church. The wife of the couple, Angela, was getting very involved with alternative medicine (mainly herbs and homeopathy) and got Mrs. Puff interested as well.

Well, Mrs. Puff goes out and buys books, herbal supplements, homeopathy, and a rain dance outfit (kidding) just in time for me to succumb to some nasty viral food poisoning.

Side note: it was Mrs. Puff's potato salad served at a "young couples potluck church gathering." Everybody who had the potato salad got sick that night. Shhhh...don't tell her I said that.

I started feeling achy about 10 minutes after we'd gotten home from the gathering. Ten minutes after I crawl into bed I'm running to the bathroom to "purge my body of the offending parasite".....in other words, I threw up. Then I drank some water. Then I went back to bed. Then I ran back to the bathroom. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

In the midst of all this, I develop chills and I cannot get warm. Mrs. Puff immediately consults one of her books and discovers a potential cure my chills.....cayenne pepper pills.

Some time between when she gave me those pills and I actually put them in my mouth it should have occurred to me that since I couldn't hold down water I probably couldn't hold down those pills either. No matter. I took them. Ten minutes later, they came up with the water....however, the pills didn't come up since they'd dissolved......just the cayenne pepper.....along with my cries of "holy crap (wretch), I am on fire (heave)!!!!"

I love spicy food, but there is a big difference when the direction of the spicyness is opposite from the way you typically enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Mrs. Puff is still a heavy practitioner of homeopathy, herbs, and supplements. She has used them on me and the kids and successfully cured all sorts of minor illnesses. I still remain skeptical about homeopathy despite the number of times it has actually worked on me. I am certain my insurance is thankful for how few doctor visits we've had over the past several years even though the bastards won't reimburse me for the stuff.....nevermind. Future post.

Change in direction

2006-01-17T11:37:00.000-08:00

When I started this blog, I had visions of being one of those serious, conservative, political commentary blogs a la Polipundit or Right Wing News. Did I say visions? I meant delusions. Whatever......

What I've found is that I've more interest in reading those blogs than writing for mine....as you can tell from the date of my previous post.

So, I'm going to switch gears and blog about other things I care about such as family, religion, culture, and on occasion politics (but only when I get really miffed).

And while I'm at it, I actually may post something.......