Category / life

Lily’s Creek

lilys-creek

After hiking through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Thursday, we stopped on the way back out of the park and walked down to a clear (and very cold) mountain stream. The kids had changed out of their boots and into their Crocs and were walking around on the rocks in the creek. Fearful that they might slip and fall in, I told them all to take off their shoes and walk around barefoot. I have some priceless video of this… the water was probably 50 degrees.

Well, it was only a matter of time before it happened: Lily, while standing fairly close to me, slipped and fell. She got up, slipped again, and I grabbed her on the way down. She slipped again while we were trying to get/keep our footing but I still had ahold of her, so she was okay at this point. (I should also note that the water was moving pretty fast and was probably 3 feet deep right next to where she slipped. Oh, I was also holding the video camera through all of this… tense moments!)

She was crying, not because she was hurt, but because she was terrified. After a few minutes, she got herself under control and we walked up to the car to change out of her wet clothes. I mentioned while we were walking how proud I was of her because she dealt with it and got over it very quickly. It was impressive.

Later that night, we were sitting in a restaurant and Char asked the kids to turn over their placemats and draw a picture of their favorite thing from the day. Of course, Jack drew picture of Lily falling in the creek and crying. (He’s such a putz!)

When we asked them to share their pictures, Lily got pretty bashful and started crossing things off and hiding it. It was clear she didn’t want us to see it, so (of course!) we forced it out of her. To my surprise, she had also drawn a picture of her falling into the creek. Except in her picture, though she was dripping wet, she was smiling. She had also included me in her picture holding on to her. She wrote, “The best part of my day was falling into the creek because Dad was there to catch me.”

Here’s a picture of what will always be known as “Lily’s Creek.”

Doing something for your kids, every day


I was working on my Indianapolis Business Journal article this morning and noticed a post on the Wired Magazine GeekDad blog. The post was called “Cool Little Parenting Rituals” and referenced two Dads who were doing a little extra something for their kids on pretty much a daily basis. Both of the Dads he featured are artists who spend a little of their spare time each day creating lunch bags for their kids. Lunch Bag Art simply says “A new bag each day for my kids. I’m the dad. I make these during my lunch break.” Judging by the detail on some of these, I’m guessing he has some extended lunches; they are very, very cool.

Another also dresses up the lunch bag every day: After seeing the robots his son had drawn on their chalkboard, Justin decided to rip them off [his emphasis, not mine] try drawing some them on the lunchbags. He says he creates “Lunchbots” as a fun way to express his love for friends and family, and that alone makes it worth doing. They’re seriously cool, and I imagine seriously fun at school.
So, all of this got me wondering… what can I do?

It’s cold, but not *this* cold

Jack walked into the room this morning and asked for my iPhone so he could check the weather. “Dad,” he said, “it’s minus twelve.” I really wanted to crawl back into bed.

So I go out to start the car and it gives me one of those, “ooohoooohoooohIdooon’tknoooowifIwaaanttooootakeyooooounaywheretooooday” sounds. It eventually started, but wasn’t happy about it. Like I said, it’s really, really cold.
And then I received a link to this video, in which two guys are taking bowling water off an outdoor stove, tossing it into the air, where it instantly turns into snow. Boiling to snow in about two seconds. 
THAT is cold. I’m surprised those guys got out of bed.

60 Minutes makes you impotent

I haven’t watched 60 Minutes regularly since I lived at home with my parents, but I do listen to the podcast versions while doing other things, like cleaning the gutters, blowing leaves around with my kick-ass leaf blower, or riding my bike. So I don’t really know which companies are advertising during the broadcast, but I can tell you who should be: Pfizer and Lilly. In fact, I’m surprised that some sort of erectile disfunction (ED) aid isn’t stuffing all the commercial breaks.

Understanding why is simple. Watch any broadcast and you’ll find yourself:

  1. seriously, absolutely perturbed and
  2. completely unable to do anything about it

As you can imagine, this combination has a horrid affect on men. Enter the key to sanity: Viagra and/or Cialis.

Consider the story about credit default swaps and the industry insiders who were sending emails that read, “Let’s just hope we’re rich and retired by the time this house of cards collapses.” They sent those emails three years ago. (And there’s nothing you can do about it.)

Or the story about the titans of Wall Street making $600 million a year (a figure I wish I had made up) while hiring physicists to create investment vehicles out of bad loans that could be repackaged and sold with AAA ratings. (And there’s nothing you can do about it.)

Or the story of the Delta Force that had Bin Laden trapped in the mountains (in 2004) and couldn’t go after him because someone higher up the chain of command kept denying them approval. (And there’s nothing you can do about it.)

If stories like these don’t do it to you, there’s always Andy Rooney. Yikes!

I read the other day that GM, through its employee health insurance program, is the largest single buyer of Viagra in the world. They spend something like $18 million a year on Viagra alone. I wondered if auto industry workers were just more depressed than the rest of us, but now I think they were just watching 60 Minutes.