MichaelandChrissy.com

Halloween always reminds me of GWAR.  I used to have all of their albums, and I went to their Halloween concert in Chicago every year.  I took Chrissy to a GWAR concert once, when we first met, and she enjoyed it.  I was pretty young, still in high school, when I first saw them on MTV in 1989.  I was shocked to find that MTV Music actually had that footage on their web site from so long ago.

I was browsing the GWAR videos on the MTV Music site when I found their cover to Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out”.  This made me terribly happy.  I had heard the track before, but it didn’t have the same impact as seeing the band, in full regalia, playing one of my favorite songs (many of Alice Cooper’s classics rank as favorites).  It almost makes me want to go back and see them in concert again!

I guess I’ll always be a GWAR fan.  I still sing “The Road Behind” in the shower.  Hopefully nobody notices…  There are very few CDs that I carry in the car, and GWAR makes up about half of them.  When I’m not listening to news radio, I jam out to GWAR, Alice Cooper, or Marilyn Manson (I was the only guy at his concert in a polo shirt).  It helps with the commute, even if it makes my driving style a little aggressive.

I’m not sure how scientifically accurate this is, but BunkBeds.net estimates that I would survive for a mere one minute and nineteen seconds if chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor.  That’s based on my fighting skills, jumping ability, and bulldog tenacity (or lack thereof).

survived for Michael
1 minute, 19 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

That hardly seems fair.  I’d like to think that I could fake out that dino with some quick moves and then strangle him Jabba-style with his own chain.  I’d probably be eviscerated with his powerful forward claws though, but not before putting up a good fight!  Aiden has bunk beds, so I should go practice.

survived for Chrissy
54 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

UPDATE: Chrissy read this post and decided to try her luck against the Bunk Bed of Doom.  She didn’t even last a minute!  However, I just raised my chances by 20 seconds by adding the possibility of throwing her at the velociraptor.   “I don’t have to outrun the raptor, darlin’, I just have to outrun you!”

Aiden was too young to carve pumpkins last year, but we thought it would be fun for him this time around.  We bought our pumpkins about a month ago, and they’ve been sitting on our front porch for a while.  This weekend was the last chance to carve them before Halloween, so we got to work on them.  We haven’t carved pumpkins for a few years, so this was a re-education process.

We picked up a carving kit last year (we love day-after-Halloween clearance items!) that included some awesome templates.  I picked out a ghost template that didn’t look too complicated and Chrissy picked out a “spooked” face.  The tools that the kit came with made carving easy.  We put down newspaper and gleefully cut them open.

The evisceration quickly got messy.  We stripped Aiden down to his diaper so that he could help clean out the pumpkin guts without ruining his clothes.  He didn’t like it.  Chrissy’s tiny carving saw bent halfway through, so she gave up early to take up baby duty.  I finished my ghost and then turned hers into a “puke face” pumpkin.  They turned out pretty nice!

Scheeringa Farms is a fresh produce vendor not far from where we live.  It’s a nice, family-owned place close to Cline Avenue and 45th in Highland, IN.  They have a petting zoo every year around Halloween, but we’ve never taken Aiden there before.  Chrissy’s Mom took Aiden last year, but Chrissy and I have never gone ourselves.  Well, today we took Aiden and Gavin.

Aiden enjoyed feeding the animals, but they were really hungry and sort of aggressive.  There was a vendor that sold animal food there, so we bought an ice cream cone full of seeds to feed the goats and llamas.  We didn’t get far with that cone!  One llama ate the entire cone right out of my hand!  I had Aiden in the other hand, so we both got mugged by that llama.  It was funny though.

We also fed carrots to some goats and donkeys.  Although the animals were hungry, they were very gentle, so no one was bitten while feeding them.  Aiden also got to pet the bunnies, his favorite animal.  He got to play the ubiquitous duck game as well.  Gavin slept the entire time in the Baby Bjorn, but he was under a blanket due to the chilly weather.  It was a nice little outing for a cold Saturday morning.

I was playing with an interesting new web toy today.  It’s called “Wordle“, and it makes images of words based on text (or web sites) that you give to it.  Wordle takes all of the words fed to it and jumbles them up into a nice cloud.  This one was created using the words from the “Family” page:

You have a lot of control over the word cloud.  There’s a good selection of fonts to choose from, as well as an array of color options (including a custom palette based on colors that you provide).  You can also determine if words should be horizontal, vertical, or a mixture of both.  It’s easy to get lost in the details, or just click “randomize”.

The second word cloud was made from the RSS feed from our web site.  I deleted the word “Vaseline” from the cloud by right-clicking on it and clicking “delete”.  That was helpful. Wordle is really simple to use, it’s fun to play with all of the options, and it makes some pretty neat images to decorate your blog with.  Give it a try!

Gavin was baptised on Sunday, October 19th, 2008.  We now have two Catholic boys in the family!  Gavin was very good: he slept through most of his first mass, but woke up just before receiving his baptism.  It was a very nice ceremony.  Aiden was very good throughout the mass as well.  Our family members took lots of photos for us.

Afterwards, we had a family gathering at our house.  It was still early in the Fall, so we had the tents up in the backyard while the weather was nice.  Everyone had a good time.  We’re looking forward to spending more time with Gavin’s new godparents, Cassie and Nick.

Erik Kastner put together a neat little tool called “Spell With Flickr” that accepts a word through any web browser and returns a set of pictures that spells that word.  The results are pretty awesome, and you have the option to re-select a letter image by clicking on the letter itself.

Aiden:

The script uses the images from a Flickr group called “One Letter“.   Who would have thunk that people take pictures of single letters in the street and then post them to Flickr?  You even have the option to use the images in their original size or square them off for uniformity (these have been squared off).

Gavin:

The tool also allows you options to do the same thing on your own site.  You can download the source code or just copy the relevant HTML code from the results page.  I was able to post Aiden and Gavin’s names by copying and pasting the code provided by the tool.   So check it out, and send random messages to your friends!

Chrissy is the best Mom ever, so of course she deserved to take a day off for a twelve-hour scrapbooking event.  I’ve been at home alone with Aiden before, but so far I haven’t had both kids at the same time by myself.  Chrissy’s mom took pity on me and borrowed Aiden for the morning.  That left me with Gavin, who refused to sleep, and he was cranky all morning.  When Aiden came home, he went straight down for his nap.  I only had one kid to keep track of, but I was still feeling overwhelmed.

Then Gavin dozed off, finally, just before Aiden was supposed to wake up from his nap.  Unfortunately, I dozed off as well (worst Dad ever).  Aiden woke up from his nap and, unsupervised in his room, inexplicably dumped half a jar of Vaseline on his head.  He just reached in and grabbed huge handfuls of petroleum jelly and smashed them into his hair.  Consequently, all of his bedding, stuffed animals and books (that he first dragged into bed with him) were coated in a layer of greasy goop.

I woke up about an hour after Aiden’s nap should have ended.  When I ran in to check on him, he was still in bed, surrounded by the oily carnage.  The first thing I did was to call Chrissy’s Mom (and take pictures).  She was busy, but said that Katie would come over to help me.  I put Gavin down in his crib so that I could clear off Aiden’s bed.  I made a pile of ruined bedding (including Ellie, Aiden’s favorite elephant) to take downstairs, and then put a fresh fitted sheet and pillowcase on the bed.

Katie came in and put Aiden in the bath while I took the bedding downstairs to be washed.  Unfortunately, the Vaseline wouldn’t come out of his hair, even after three tries with baby shampoo.  Katie then tried to wash his hair again with Dawn dish soap.  That helped, but he still had a mohawk.  Gavin was starting to wake up at this point, so Katie fed him while I tried something else.  A quick Google search showed that corn starch or baking powder would soak up the Vaseline from Aiden’s hair.  I covered his entire head with baking powder, then washed his hair twice.  It worked!

Now that Aiden was taken care of, I needed to clean his sheets.  There’s lots of advice online about getting Vaseline out of hair, but not bedding.  I had put everything in the washer on the delicate setting with hot water and extra rinse time.  That seemed to work on most of it, but the comforter and fitted sheet were still a mess.  So I pre-treated the splotches with Dawn dish soap, let it sit for half an hour, and then washed them again in hot water.  Still no luck, but at least the majority of the crisis had been contained.

Aiden played for a while until dinner time.  Katie stuck around for awhile to help me with Gavin, since he still refused to go to sleep.  I was very grateful for the help.  But I still had to talk to Chrissy when she got home.  Chrissy wasn’t happy about the sheets and the comforter, and tried to clean them again with Spray N’ Wash.  This was more than the comforter could handle, and it split open, sending stuffing all over the washer.  Those are now in the garbage, as is the jar of Vaseline.

It’s been getting a little chilly here lately. Last week, the temperature dropped to fifty degrees during the night, and I’ve been wearing my light jacket in the mornings. Chrissy dug the flannel sheets out of the closet, the first sure sign of Fall. Flannel sheets are great: they keep you warm and toasty in bed when the weather starts getting colder.

When I first moved out on my own, I bought a brand new comforter for my brand new bedroom. The sales person told me that I’d be happier with new sheets as well. She had me feel the high thread count (read: expensive) sheets to see how great they were. I splurged a little and went with the good stuff, and discovered the joy of silky soft bedding.

I used the high thread count sheets year-round until I met Chrissy. She liked them, but not all the time. The high thread count sheets are great for spring and summer, but winter and fall require something more cozy.  Flannel sheets fit the bill nicely.  I wasn’t thrilled when Chrissy first tried to replace my sheets with flannel, but now they’re a cold weather tradition.

It is time to renew my license plates, but my car is up for emissions testing.  I drive a 2002 Acura RSX, and this is the year for all 2002 cars to get tested in Indiana.  I find it hard to make time to do these things, so of course I waited until the last minute, despite being prodded by Chrissy to act.  I was already late for work one day due to a LakeNet board meeting, so I decided to stop in at the emissions testing place real quick.

So I took my car in and it failed.  I got three error codes: P1163, P1298, and P0420.  P1163 means that there is a problem with the oxygen sensor that monitors the catalytic converter efficiency.  P1298 says that the load detector that regulates the oxygen sensor may be broken (or the oxygen sensor is bad).  And finally, P0420 says that the catalytic converter is not operating at peak efficiency (or the oxygen sensor is bad).

I took the car into the local Honda dealership, where I get my oil changed, and they ran some diagnostic tests.  It turns out that the catalytic converter is fine, but the oxygen sensor is indeed broken.  Acura sells the part for $350, but it will cost $425 with installation.  Why is it that replacing a lowly sensor is only slightly less expensive than replacing the entire catalytic converter?

Well, as it turns out, I could have bought the same sensor at Auto Zone for $175.  Half off? Why didn’t I go with that?  It’s the time constraints.  It would take a week to order it through Auto Zone, and after that, I would have to find someone to install it before I lose my drivers license for having expired plates.  If I pay the extra money and have the dealership do it, I can turn around and get my plates just-in-freakin-time.

So today, my car is in the shop, and it’s costing a small fortune.  Unfortunately, with the economy going to crap right now, it’s not really the time to volunteer to pay an extra $200 when I shouldn’t really have to.  I really shouldn’t have procrastinated.  It seems that every time this happens, I say that I’ve learned my lesson.  And overall, I should really listen when my wife tells me to get off my butt and get things done.