tesst

tester

The Johnny Cash Children’s album.  Yep, that’s right, back in 1975 when I was just a year old Johnny Cash was busy in the studio recording his first and only album for kids.  After listening to the first track it’s immediately clear that the storytelling that made his music so compelling for adults is the same thing that cause children to lean into the speaker to see what’s going to happen next… and to understand why that Man, Dan is so Nasty.  It was probably the last thing I expected to find while mulling through the “Outlaw Country” genre.

Now Elliot thinks the music is OK but Isaac can’t get enough of it.  So, have a listen and watch below and if you feel moved then please let me know what you think about it.

Nasty Dan was the meanest man I ever knew
He’s stomp and scream and be real mean the whole day through
He’d frown a bunch he ate nails for lunch and he’d never laugh
He’d growl and yell and I hard tell that he never took a bath
Nasty Dan was a nasty man hard to understand that Nasty Dan
Now Nasty Dan was a nasty man the whole day long
He’d go where he could he’d try real good to make things go wrong
He’d jump for joy when a little boy would trip and fall
And the only words that he ever said were I don’t like you at all
Nasty Dan was a nasty man hard to understand that Nasty Dan
Now a real interesting thing that I want you to know about is this here
Because it’s the most important thing it concerns a girl and things klike that
Now Nasty Pearl was a nasty girl that met Dan somehow
She said you like me rotten as can be let’s get married now
So they went and they did and had a nasty kid
And I must confess that Dan pretty much leaves everyone alone now
And he doesn’t bother anybody anymore cause he just lives in his nasty ol’ house
With his nasty ol’ wife and his nasty ol’ kid in nasty happiness
Nasty Dan was a nasty man hard to understand that Nasty Dan

This base/T-ball season is the transition year for Elliot.  It’s the season when the coaches start pitching 3 - 5 pitches (depending on the likelihood of the batter making contact) before putting the ball up on the T.  Now I’ve got to say that from the very first game Elliot has been a hammer at the plate only using the T 3 times this year.  This past Sunday he and quite a few of the other boys took their game to a new level with Elliot and 2 others actually knocking it past the baselines and into the outfield.  There’s nothing like seeing those little guys make contact like that, smiling ear to ear and then tearing down the first base line.

Now fielding in Base/T-ball is a different story…  keeping 4-5 year old boys focused between batters… heck, between pitches is a tall order but they’ve done well in this area also.  I happened to be SUPER proud of Elliot who stayed right in front of a line drive from one of the other team’s big hitters.  As it nailed him right in the chest he maintained his composure, picked up the ball and made the play at first before stopping to check himself out.  It really looked painful but like most boys he was proud of his injury… his smile was awesome as he rubbed his wound and readied for the next play.  Heck, I think everyone was impressed.

I’ve been the pitcher for the Blue Monsters all season which I wouldn’t trade for anything, though most of the coaches don’t want to do it.  It’s a lot harder than it seems and the pressure to pitch a ball the boys can hit is bigger than you may think.  But standing on the mound and making eye contact with each one of those kids, readying them for the pitch, encouraging and joking with them the whole time really is rewarding.  It’s so much damn fun sometimes I can’t believe they let me do it.

I’m not sure how many more seasons or years I will be a useful coach to these boys but hanging up my coaching hat will be a sad sad day indeed.

I will include some pictures next week.

I love weekend projects… when they’re over and I get to stand back and enjoy the work that’s been done and money that’s been saved. Last summer we had a ceiling fan installed in Elliot’s bedroom. His bedroom has always seemed to get the hottest which is why we did his room first. I guess it’s because it faces the blazing rays of the hot afternoon sun.

For both rooms there was no existing wiring in the ceiling and I got hung up on a few points and after a few days of trial and error we had to call an electrician who in about 1.5hrs had everything up and running. It was humbling and since then the closest I’ve gotten to electrical work around the house has been putting batteries in the kids toys or plugging in a blender.

As the heat has been approaching again though it’s become clear that our youngest sweaty little monster needed a fan in his room as well so a few weekends ago I picked up a fan while at HomeDeopt. The box sat almost right int he center of the living room for about three weeks. It was pretty much a piece of furniture. The kids were playing with cars on top of it and… ugh, I was just DREADING the idea of climbing back up in the attic. All of the insulation, the running wires down through the wall, back up and wiring a switch, mounting a ceiling fan box, hanging the fan as well as putting up a junction box which I had never done. But Sue indicated that it was time to get cracking and there was no denying… she was right. So I dutifully climbed up into the darkness and went to work.

It went on and on… so much time passed that Elliot asked how many more weeks I would be working on it! I made many mistakes along the way but have come out of the experience a bit wiser about wiring and proud to know that when Isaac got up and saw his fan this morning that he had a huge smile on his face.

In the event anyone else ever needs to wire a Hunter Ceiling Fan to a wall switch with three…. switchers? well, here is the wiring diagram I put together. I’m still confused about how to include the wall outlet but I’m sure I’ll have that taken care of in a day or two.

Listen to the audio while reading:

The sand and water table we got a few years back has been the longstanding hit of the backyard. Though in it’s history it’s been more of a water, dirt and mud table it never fails to entertain and the incident below was no exception.

While taking care of a few things inside I noticed that the kids seemed to be laughing a LOT which is usually a bad sign so I went to check it and found both of their heads dipped in the table which had been filled with water. I grabbed the camera as they chased each other around the yard throwing mud on one another and then going back to the table to dip their heads in.

I let it go on for some time and when it was time to come in I just grabbed two towels and had them take their clothes off and hosed them down and marched them up to the tub. They thought it was all GREAT! and I HAVE to agree.

I love the conversations kids have:

E:  Ugh, your breath stinks!  Go brush your teeth.
I:  Well… so.  I want it to smell bad.
E:  Well, you should go brush them because if it stinks people will make fun of you.
I:  Hm, well if they do I will just blow my bad breath into them and make theirs stink to.

This weekend I decided to take on the tangled mess of wires beneath my desk which has been bothering me for a long time. When you have 2 computers, 2 routers, externals drives and other assorted geek stuff I guess such messes just come with the territory. An article I ran across recently titled “Top 10 ways to get cables under control” and seeing the pictures and then seeing the first picture that you see below… well, I knew I had to do something. If you take a minute and look through the list you will see that the solutions have varying degrees of difficulty so it only made sense to take on the most complicated which involves mounting most of the wires and all of the hardware on a pegboard (which I had to cut to shape first) and then mount it on the underside of your desk. So 6+ hours later and 1 trip to HomeDepot I have 25 or so pounds of equipment strapped to the underside of my desk and feel reasonably satisfied.

In the picture above you may notice that I’ve used wire rather than the zip ties that were used in the post I noted above. My suggestion to you, if you’re considering taking on such a project would be… use the freaking zip ties.

Isaac turned 4 yesterday and though I will be following up with a more thorough rundown after his party (on the 5th) here is a quick interview I did with him while putting him to bed.