Month: February 2013

Things our Kids Should Know (Before College 2030)

/ Shane / 1 Comment

The other day I wrote an article about Things our Kids Should Know Before Starting College. This sparked some debate on Facebook about whether or not balancing your checkbook is already out of date (I say it’s not, but clearly this is not a settled issue).

This begs the obvious question: which pieces of advice WILL be out of date by the time the kids go to college? Should I not recommend that my children remember to charge their car phones or learn how to clean VCR heads? How could I even know what sorts of things will be out of date by the time they are ready to move out on their own?

I think about my grandma and how, in her lifetime, we went from outdoor toilets and horse-drawn carriages to always-connected-cell-phone-computers-in-our-pockets. Surely by the time I die, some of the things common in my life are going to seem as silly and outdated as going without indoor plumbing. But which ones? How could my grandma even have imagined something like an iPad when she was a kid?

No worries my friends, my friend Dan is here to pick up the slack: Things our Kids Should Know (Before College 2030). His (much more useful) list covers everything from augmented reality glasses, how to disable your personal robot, nanoparticle food, and reminders about how to correctly use your personal defense drone (and how to appease the Google/Robot overlords, of course).

Indy Mini-Vacation

/ Shane / 4 Comments

We took a little bit of an extended weekend last week and took a quick trip to visit my sister in Indianapolis.

Let me first start by saying that this is probably the most I’ve ever enjoyed my sister’s dog Luna. I love dogs, but I often don’t love that particular dog. My kids are usually terrified of Luna, and I can’t blame them. She towers over them, and it is very easy to get accidentally scratched or knocked over in her exuberance, to say nothing of slobbery smooches all over your face. The anxiety of the kids kind of rubs off on me. However, this time wasn’t so bad. I don’t know if Luna is calming down as she gets older, if my kids get less anxious as they get older, or maybe it was just being in Luna’s own environment, which was less stressful for all of us. In any case, I think everybody enjoyed Luna a little bit more this time.

Of course, the main thing to do in Indy is go to the Children’s Museum. It is *exhausting* going to that place. It’s so big, and there’s so much to do, but it takes a lot out of you.

Evie enjoyed drawing self-portraits:

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And we all enjoyed reproducing “American Gothic“:

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Sorry Rachael and Matt, I think Sara and Ollie did it best:

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Probably the most exciting thing for me was getting a chance to play Carcassonne. This is a board game that I have heard a lot about, but never had a chance to play. I have to say, it lived up to the hype. There is a lot of strategy, and I can see that each game would be a little bit different. It has a lot of things in common with other games that I like, with no obvious downsides (and you can play with only 2 players!). Plus, I won, so definitely that game is awesome.

The other best part was the awesome chocolate covered cherries Rachael made for me, which were the best I’ve ever eaten, homemade or otherwise. Therefore, I promptly forgot them in her refrigerator.

Evie found time to absolutely massacre Rachael in checkers, and we played a lot of hide and seek (and lots of hide Luna’s treat).

We took a leisurely Monday getting home, with several stops along the way including a stop at Purdue. The kids were pretty excited to see where Sara and I met, lived, and got married, and I enjoyed my trip to the APO office. I’m not sure why I get such a kick out of dropping in there, but it’s fun to see a place where I spent a lot of time, and to look at all the names and pictures of people I haven’t seen in a long time. It sure helps to have a friend of yours be the one in charge of the yearly scrapbook when we were pledging. Sara and I are well represented. And yes, I bragged to my kids about all the plaques with my name on them. (And yes Nathan, I showed them how you won the Friendship Award 6 times, no need to bring it up again in the comments!)

We even had a chance to stop in at Triple XXX and introduce Oliver to the Purvis burger:

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Cheeseburger + Peanut butter = Happy Ollie

The only black mark on our trip was totally our fault. We 1) forgot Ollie’s face steroids, and 2) didn’t bring Evie’s inhaler. This directly resulted in Oliver having a massive, itchy, sore face eczema outbreak, and Evie developing a reoccurring wheeze and cough. And with Evie having breathing trouble, this also lead to a pretty rough night of sleep for the 4 of us, which never helps anything. Sara even asked me if she thought we should bring the inhaler, and I said no. Lesson learned. The problem is that, even with the proper medicine at home, if you don’t nip these problems in the bud, it takes some time to get them back under control.

All in all a good trip though; hopefully Rachael and Matt enjoyed hosting us as much as we enjoyed being there (probably doubtful).

The Case of the Bread in the Night

/ Shane / Leave a comment

“Aw, shoot, we forgot to put the bread in the oven!,” I said.

It was about a quarter ’till eleven p.m. and I was just climbing into bed. Unfortunately two loafs of bread had already been rising on the stove, so it’s not like we could just put them away and save them.

“Just put it in the oven. We’ll hear the timer when it goes off,” said Sara.

“Are you sure? What if we don’t hear it?”

“Well, I’ll hear it for sure. And if we don’t, it will just keep going off until we do hear it.”

I wasn’t really sure that would be a good outcome in this situation, but I was so exhausted I did what I was told, climbed into bed, and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

The next moment I was jolted awake by the timer going off on the oven. I leaped out of bed before I had time to wake up, grateful that I had heard the timer. I stared blearily at the clock. Something about the time was nagging at me. It seemed wrong.

11:45?

In my haste, I slammed into the foot board while rounding the corner, waking Sara.

“Is it 11:45?” I asked as I ran from the room, confused.

The bread didn’t seem to be burned, but it was pretty dark and I didn’t seem to be thinking clearly. Just to be sure I turned on a light to check. In my sleepy state I somehow flicked the garbage disposal switch instead of the light, even though the two are nowhere near each other. Perhaps the bread was a *little* dark, but maybe not.

Surely if it had been cooking for an hour instead of half an hour, double the correct time, it would look burned, right?

I stumbled back to the bedroom.

“What time did we put the bread in? Wasn’t it like 10:45?”

“I don’t know. I think so, but that doesn’t seem right.”

Well, apparently it was right, and the timer had been going off for half an hour without waking us. It turns out that our bread is a hearty creature who laughs in the face of an extra baking. It was surprisingly edible. The crust was sort of thicker than usual, and a slice had to be eaten with plenty of water to avoid dehydration, but other than that it was fine.

I think it is safe to say we won’t be doing THAT again anytime soon!

(and by that I mean listening to my wife)

Quote Monday knows things

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Me: “What is it about swim class that makes you have to go to the bathroom?”
Evie: “Well…maybe the butterflies in my tummy just want to have a little bit more time before we have to leave.”

Evie: “How did you know what that was from?”
Me: “Because Daddy’s know things.”
Evie: “Oh yeah? What’s…one million plus one million??”

Me, singing: “Peoria! Peoria!”
Evie: “I don’t like to sing that anymore. It didn’t seem right to make fun of a street.”

Evie: “Do you know how to babysit?”
Me: “I think I can manage.”
Evie: “Well…you don’t sit on the baby.”

This is a different childhood

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie has been doing a lot of writing lately. They say a writer writes what they know…

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I’m Poor. Please Help. 2 Dollars Every Day.

I think a lot about the kids growing up in Chicago, and what a different life they’re going to have. We see a lot of “picnickers” (as we like to call them) in our neighborhood. Homeless people and panhandlers are just part of Evie’s surroundings. Normal.

On the way to Evie’s school, we go under a highway overpass. Beyond the fence is what can only be described as a homeless shanty town. There are mattresses and semi-permanent structures, even a grill. In the limited time that we spend at that intersection a few times a week, we’ve seen a lot of activity. Homeless people climbing in and out through gaps in the fence. The one homeless guy who sits on the corner every morning and takes in tons of cash, food, and cigarettes. Seriously, we sit at that light for a few minutes, max, and in that time he probably takes in at least $20, every day. When he gets food he puts it in a community pile for other homeless guys to pick through. One time we even saw the members of the community furiously shoving mattresses out under the fence on one side as the police were coming in on a raid from the other side.

Evie hasn’t asked me many questions about all this, considering. However, I know it weighs heavily on her mind. Obviously, given the picture. I don’t really know what I’d say to her. “Be compassionate about your fellow man, but ignore these ones and don’t make eye contact.” How do you explain that? I’m not even sure how I feel about it myself.

So, long story short, if you see Evie panhandling on the street, please help her out. No reason we can’t put her learned skills to good use.