Guess What? Another post!

I attended the FJH band concert tonight.  It was delightful – there was plenty of John Williams music (Star Wars, Jurrasic Park, E.T., the Cowboys) and I took some nice pictures for the end of year slide show.  But one of the best parts was actually after the concert.

Blog this is Ron. Ron, blog.

Hi all!  I know haven’t posted any of zany comments of late.  I’ve tried to start blogging again 3 times, but I just don’t seem to find the time.  And now there’s Facebook . . . anyway, I’ve returned for a quick post.  Enjoy this YouTube video – filmed and made fun of by yours truly in the annotations.  Anyone who still reads this rocks!

2008 Christmas Ornaments Premiere!

LAME!

I’d guess that buying a new Christmas ornament every year is a fairly common thing. Brenda and I cemented it as a family tradition early on. Each year, every member of the family (Brenda and I are combined) gets a brand-spanking new ornament for the tree. I’m not talking about a new shiny glass ornament shaped like a ball, I’m talking, a cool (normally licensed ornament) that costs approximately its weight in aluminum.  (Does anyone know how much aluminum is by the bulk these days?  I’m not sure, but worth their weight in gold sounded a little excessive.)  The plan is that someday, when we send our children off into the world, they’ll have some darn cool ornaments to start off their first tree.

Over the years Brenda and I have found a few good ornaments at “normal” stores (I’ve gotten some cool ones from Toys R Us) but usually, we’ve discovered that it’s faster and easier just to go to Hallmark, choke down paying too much for an ornament, and moving on with life.  There is a metric buttload (that’s slightly smaller than the Imperial buttload) of ornaments on eBay (like this high quality gator in a sweater and these so-called Rompin’ Stompin’ Cowboy boot ones) , but browsing through them isn’t the easiest if you don’t have something in particular in mind.

So off we went to Hallmarks in the mall and buy ornaments we did.  I now proudly present to you, the Bailey Family Ornaments of 2008!

This is the one Brenda and I chose. It lights up and makes bips and boops from the early 80's. I know, you're jealous. It's ok.

Luke got a Spider-Man. This ornament is a really nifty piece of work showing off the power of perspective. He may or may not have had help selecting it.

This is Jack's ornament for 2008. For his first ornament, we selected a classic Pooh. You can never go wrong with Pooh, right? Technically, we purchased this before we knew he is a "he," but another benefit of Pooh is that he's pretty gender neutral.

And, for the record, the lights ARE blinking on the bottom half of the tree tonight. I have no idea why.

Dia de Acão Gracias (loosely translated from Portuguese: Day of Thankful ACTION!)

I had a very vivid reminder on Wednesday of how grateful I am of the many, many good things in my life.  Brenda and Jack were taking a quick nap and Luke was tottering around perfecting his graceful walk.  I was momentarily distracted from my fatherly duties by a call from my mother, informing me of the chance to be had next month to attend a Sound of Music play/sing-a-long/vomit fest.  Anyway, my dear, sweet mother called and I was distracted from my son for a moment.  After talking with her and Britt for a moment, I realized the bathroom door is open.  This is bad news in my house (Luke blogged about this, remember?)  I was so grateful when I walked in and realized that Luke hadn’t made it in to the toilet yet.

So as the “Day of Thankful Action” is upon us, the time seems right to list the many things for which I am grateful!  The list has been posted in alphabetical order to spread out the humorous filler, making it more tolerable to be read by the average human being.  I promise there’s a pay-off at the end of the list if you’re willing to stick around!

1. A comfortable floor to roll around on with my older son (and Jack-Jack too someday)
2. A great job that I love
3. Anti-biotics
4. Awesome friends (who throw Diet Coke bottles in the air for me to take pictures of)
5. Batteries (they make life so portable and convenient)
6. Birth mothers who place their babies with adoptive parents
7. Bren’s caring family that take care of us (and our kids) when we need help
8. DVRs
9. Epidurals (without them Sunday night would have been a lot less pleasant)
10. Japan (Hello? Nintendo and Playstation both come from there, duh)
11. Luigi
12. Mario
13. My calling (how many people get to crawl around in church attics pulling cable and get to call it church work?)
14. My caring family that take care of us (and our kids) when we need help
15. My digital camera that allows me to take as many stupid pictures as I want (and the ability to put them on the Internet for the whole world to see!)
16. My neighborhood friends who make Clearfield such a nice place to live
17. My Nintendo DS Lite
18. My Playstation 2
19. My Wii
20. My X-Box 360
21. Pacificiers
22. Pac-Man
23. Paper clips (What? Can you imagine life without paperclips? We’d have to staple everything!)
24. People who serve our country and protect our freedoms (way to go Lindsie!)
25. Shigeru Miyamoto
26. Slobbery kisses
27. Smoked turkey
28. Star Wars
29. That refrigerator box that withstood months of abuse in our basement that we had so much fun in (you are missed Fort Baiffett)
30. The ability to name my children after cool fictional characters
31. The creation of digital aliens for me to shoot to keep my real aggression in check
32. The good news of the Gospel
33. The knowledge that God loves me
34. The noise a zombie makes when you shoot it in Left 4 Dead (my current game of choice)
35. Way too many games to play on my various and sundry video game systems

There you have it, my top 35 things to be thankful for! Oh wait, I forgot my real top 3:

Brenda, Jack and Luke

And here’s something you should be grateful for: You weren’t me faced with what to do when you realized that Luke actually HAD gotten to the toilet already and you had to deal with this:

Brothers

Just a quick note to let everyone know that all is well. We’re home, Jack’s home, Luke’s home, and Taffy’s home. So, things are going great. (cluttered of course, thanks to Luke’s innate desire to empty every drawer, cupboard, closet, and storage space in the house onto the floor.) Luke still doesn’t seem too interested in his little brother. The more I think about this, the more it makes sense. He’s not even one yet, he doesn’t know what’s really going on. I guess in my mind’s eye he was going to have an epiphany and suddenly strike up a conversation with me about how nice it is to be a big brother. In retrospect, expecting anything that is not Cookie Monster, flashing with bright lights, or dancing around crazily to keep his attention for more than about 30 seconds might have been expecting a little much. We did however get a great shot of him peeking up at Jack on Grandma Bailey’s lap (it wasn’t as great as it would have been if I had had the camera about 20 seconds earlier, but it’s still great.)

Pre-Jack Jack Posts that I never got around to posting! Clean computer desk

Welcome to a new feature of my blog! These are a bunch of things that I’ve been meaning to post over the last few weeks and never got around to.  Since I have a few minutes over the next couple of days, I thought I’d make good use of the time and throw some of them up so you can see my pre-Jack Jack state of mind.

I took this picture weeks ago to show off how nice the computer desk looked after I had cleaned it off – thinking it would make a funny blog post.  So here’s how nice my computer desk looked at one point:

Is that a Gremlin in the center? I have had some computer problems of late.

Jack has arrived!

I’m leaving the details of the labor and delivery to Brenda (she seems much better suited to discussing the joys of child birth than me) but I wanted to post a couple pictures quick before she gets all serious and introspective and stuff. Here he is:

Jack and his gamma-irradiated friend.

This has got to be one of the best/weirdest pictures of Luke ever. So far, he actually seems pretty ambivalent about the whole little brother thing, but he sure looks giddy in this picture.

Action-y shots of Mento-y Explosions!

If you haven’t read the post below this one, do yourself a favor and do so before you look at these pictures.  Trust me, it will all make sense after you read the one below.  Ok, maybe not make sense, but it will definitely make more sense.  Ok, you’ll probably still wonder why I did this, but at least you’ll know how cool bright orange duct tape makes even the least moving cars look.

Power, power, POWER!

Brenda making some post-last minute adjustments. It wasn't long after this that I kicked the car for being so dang heavy. Cassie then called me a sore winner. 😦

Luke, tuckered out from all the excitement started to get a little fussy at the end.

Having given up on actually getting our vehicles to move, Adam resorted to lobbing bottles of Diet Coke with Mentos inside backwards over his head. I'm not sure what, if anything, he was trying to accomplish, but I got this cool picture of the aftermath.

Mento-RAMA!

Science in action!

I’m sure that most of you have seen the totally awesome reaction that Diet Coke undergoes when you drop a couple of the peppermint Mentos in it.  This of course, leads to an awesome new meaning to Mentos’ nickname – the Freshmaker!  I’d seen the videos on the Internet sensation as well as the Mythbusters episode discussing the “cultural phenomenon” that is diet cola and Mentos, but I’d never experienced the sheer thrill that comes from dropping nasty, chewy mints into caffeinated, artificially sweetened beverages.  My friend, Adam, decided it was time to change that.

Yes, we did buy an old RC car from the D.I. and strap a modified 2 liter bottle to it with bright orange duct tape in an attempt to gain forward momentum. Why do you ask?

You see, a few years back, Adam founded a group, that will someday be famous for our many awesome adventures.  We are Nitro Monkee Adventure Team – and we go off in search of adventure, excitement, and the chance to laugh at each other.  Some of our projects were a success (we made a wicked sledding hill once and then tried to kill ourselves on it by repeatedly throwing ourselves down the hill at the mercy of the tube we were using and gravity Our kite powered cart project did not fare as well.  I think a few basic sketches may still exist somewhere, but the only real progress I saw was that I bought a wheel at an Army surplus store for the front of the cart and Josh bought a kite.  I’m pretty sure that’s most of what happened with that project.

No action figures were harmed in the making of this picture, don't worry. No really - they weren't for two reasons: 1. Adam removed the G.I. Joe before initiating the carbonation explosion and 2. Adam's car never moved. But it looked pretty darn threatening.

However, this project turned out to be a qualified success.  Only one problem arose from this experiment – we learned that while Diet Coke and Mentos looks pretty darn explosive, the reacting foamy spray isn’t really that strong.  Definitely not strong enough to push a modified RC car or a G.I. Joe vehicle with 2 liters of liquid taped onto to it very far.  I’m proud to say that my vehicle (which I just nicknamed “The Freshmaker” despite that fact that I threw it away a week ago) actually ended up winning the competition (if by winning you mean my car moved a couple of millimeters under it’s own power.)  Adam’s action figure tranport took close second in a crowded field of two while Paco’s car (a Batmobile model from Batman Begins) took home the “Best looking vehicle prize despite the fact that he hadn’t actually hooked any Diet Coke to it and pretty much lovingly held it most of the night.”  Other prize winners: Brenda with the “Most Supportive Wife” award (I came up with the idea of using aquarium sealant for the spout on the top, Brenda figured out how to hold the Mentos out of the diet cola until the time of our choosing using a magnet.)  Chewie garnered many accolades for winning the “I Brought My Dog Instead of a Soda and Candy Fueled Car” award.  Cassie won the “Miss Congeniality” award despite the fact that she’s married (her smile always wins over the judges.)  Isabelle was awarded the “I Put Up with Weirdos” award.  Finally, Luke took top honors in the “Coolest Blanket Based on Cartoon Animals” department.  Despite the fact that none of us are candidates for the next “Engineer of the Year” I had a blast and am already making plans on how to improve my performance with the Freshmaker II.

The family that attempts to shoot off rocket powered cars together, stays together.

Come back tomorrow for some more cool action shots of the activity. And don’t worry, I’m already working on a streamlined design for “The Freshmaker Dos.”

I’m in need of assistance! (Don’t worry it won’t hurt)

I was never in pep band in high school – many of my friends were.  Sometimes I’d take a kazoo with me and try to pretend, but I was never part of the “in” crowd in band.  I know, I seem the right type to be a band geek, don’t I?

Well, that lack of pep band experience is catching up with me.  One of my current resposponsibilites as the advisor of the Student Body Officers at school (well, I guess technically, this is seperate but it’s happened because I go to all the games) is that I am in charge of the music at basketball games.  I play music before the game, during half time, and when one of the teams calls a time out. I have a blast (and today I accidentally blasted some ears!) but I’m feeling slightly defiecient in the music choice department.  My music choices are largely nerdy and based mostly on music from movies (the full nerdtastic list below!) and I’m looking to expand my horizons by putting some quality “pep” music on my CD.  So here’s my current list to play before the game starts:

1. Henry the VIII
2. Super Mario Bros.
3. Goofy Goober
4. Raiders March
5. I’m a Believer
6. Route 66
7. Girlfriend
8. Back to the Future

And this is my current list for time-outs:

1. He’s a Pirate
2. Star Wars Clone Wars
3. Dr. Mario Chill
4. James Bond
5. Best Years of our Lives
6. Disco Imperial March
7. Sh-Boom
8. William Tell Overture
9. Peter Gunn Theme
10. Jaws
11. Twist and Shout
12. Louie Louie
13. We will rock you

I know, there’s some pretty nerdy stuff on there. You should have seen the list before I cut it down.  Now, I’m happy with the choices I’ve got so far (it’s gone really well), but in two games I’ve already run through all my music at least once. I’m looking for more songs – so friends, family, any stranger who happens across my blog – here’s your homework. I need song ideas. Peppy songs. Exciting songs. Get you pumped up songs. Thanks in advance!