Cub World 2009

This past weekend I attended Cub World 2009 with my son and his Cub Scout troop. The camp offers three separate “sleeping villages” for the boys: Tee Pee Village, Box Cars, and The Fort. We were assigned to the fort, which was my son’s preference. We had an enjoyable weekend participating in many activities: archery, BB guns, slingshots, whittling, logging, blacksmithing, leather working, animal tacking, plant identification, cooking, various craft projects, singing camp songs, and watching/performing skits around the campfire. It brought back a flood of memories from camps I attended when I was young. It was a very hot weekend, and it was a challenge to keep all the boys hydrated and sun blocked. We were able to cool off by enjoying the dual lane 100ft+ slip ‘n slide called “The Log Run”.

Over all it was an enjoyable weekend. My son benefited from all the activities and made good growth improvements while we were there. As well as earning a dozen or more merit badges. I benefited from becoming more patient, and becoming a better leader. I look forward to next year when we attend Gilbert Ranch.

Pinewood Derby 2009

This past weekend my son and I had the chance to build and race our first pinewood derby car. This was a great opportunity for me to continue to instill my philosophy of "if we can think it up, we can build it". In the past I've included my son on various phases of my own projects. Showing him that we can build anything. However he's never really caught on or gotten excited about any of it (unless it has to do with video games). However this time he seemed to catch on to the idea, and was pretty amazed by what we came up with.

We constructed our car using the Official BSA Derby Car Kit, a NASCAR helmet Pez dispensor, a pair of plastic exhaust pieces from a toy semi truck, yellow duct tape, an old bolt/washers (weight), hot glue, some number stickers, and 2 coats of blue and clear/gloss finish spray paint. I made sure to weigh the components at various stages of construction to ensure it weighed in just under the 5 oz max (final weight 4 7/8 oz).

We arrived onsite Sunday to race with all the other kids. Unfortunately the school custodian didn't arrive to let us into the school gym so we setup the track outside and suffered in the cold weather (there was still snow on the ground 4 hrs earlier). We made the best of it though for the kids.

Soon the racing action started and everyone had a great time. One of the parents was positioned as the starting gate keeper, and did an excellent job of riling the kids up, getting them excited and voicestrous about every race. The races were purely for fun this year, as in past years people (ie. Dad's) have become too competitive. Our car wasn't the fastest, but not the slowest either. It was however one of the top 4 best looking cars! I took notes however and next year I'll do some more research, testing, and tuning.


In the end everyone won a trophy. I was happy to see the scout leaders came up with creative award categories, which each child won via voting. Much better then a traditional "participation" award. Ever kid came away feeling like their car won them a prestigious award. We ended up winning "Shinniest Car"!

LEGO Birthday

We celebrated my son's 8th birthday this last weekend with all his friends even though his actual birth date is around Christmas. We do a family celebration on his birthday, but find it hard to get his friends involved due to the holidays. So we generally postpone a formal party till January. This year Logan chose a LEGO theme and we held his party at JJ Jump. A friend of mine is a pastry chef, and she created an awesome LEGO cake for us. The kids had a blast!

Tough Licks

My son decided to start his extreme sports career last night by riding my friend’s daughter’s scooter down a steep driveway, only to crash at the bottom and impale the handlebar into his chin. Fortunately the daughter was nearby and did the right thing by walking him out of the road and running to get me. When I heard, I initially thought ok, no big deal, small scraps and tears. However walking around the corner of the house I see my son crying with blood running from his chin, small pool of blood at his feet. This was no normal tumble, this is going to require a trip to the hospital for stitches. I pulled my shirt off, wrapped it around his chin, and walked him up to the house. We put ice into a cold pack, put it on his chin, carefully walked him to the car, and drove off to the hospital. An hour later my son was all stitched back together, and a lot happier. I’m sure he’ll think twice before pulling anymore scooter stunts. We made sure to get him ice cream on the way home. I took some before & after pictures of the wound, for historical sake.

Warning the following pics are a bit gory: Before & After.

However this brings up a parenting issue I’ve been struggling with for a while. How much do you worry over your kids, and when do you just let them injure themselves so they’ll learn. Everyone is so over protective of kids these days. Obviously times have changed, it’s a miracle I survived as a child. When I was little, I didn’t have a car seat with cup holders and video games, I had an upside down 5-gallon bucket in the back of my Dad’s work van, sitting in between 1/2 ton weight machinery that could crush me in a sec if we had to stop too fast. I got to play with power tools, hatchets, dirt bikes, etc when I was definitely not old enough or parentally supervised enough. And today I worry, stress, and over parent if my son climbs a tree. Of course I blame most of my son’s woosiness on his mother, she coddles and spoon feeds him constantly, and there is only so much control I have during the 50% of the time he’s with me. But I’m too blame also, because I haven’t done much to rectify the situation. This has become an issue constantly on my mind, and I have tried to just let go. Let him go be a kid, get hurt, take his licks and learn from them. This recent injury is proof of that, of course right afterwards I went right into over protective mode. Where was I? Who gave him the scooter? Why wasn’t another parent watching? Etc etc etc. I have to admit it’s hard, but it’s important my son become self reliant, and learn from his mistakes. I’m not always going to be around. So hopefully after this event he learned that scooters can be dangerous, and maybe he shouldn’t roll full bore down a steep driveway? Time will tell.

The Greatest Show on Earth??

Last Sunday we took the kids (Evan, Sophie, and Logan) to see the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. I've never been to the circus before, and neither has Logan, so this was a good opportunity. We all met up early and took the MAX train to the rose quarter from Lloyd center, the kids enjoyed the train ride. We made sure to get to the Rose Garden early so we could see the pre-show activities. However the most memorable pre-show activity was pretty unpleasant. The Rose Garden doors didn't open until Noon. Many families with small kids sat around the nearby fountain patiently waiting for opening time. Kids ranging from infants to mid teens, most however were 3-10 years old. 30 mins before opening time a clown, holding a large sign and a megaphone walks up. All the kids eyes light up as they see him, thinking that the circus is going to provide some line entertainment. The clown walks within 10 feet of the waiting line and starts yelling into his megaphone (with the output volume maxed out). The noise was ear piercing! After listening to the clown for a couple mins and reading his sign (stating something about 19 Dead Elephants), everyone realizes that it's a radical PETA protester. No one was excited to see this guy, but what can you do? It's a free country and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If this guy wants to show up and say a few words about animal abuse, so be it. Everyone just tries their best to ignore him. However after a few mins he starts to GRAPHICALLY explain some elephant abuse scenarios. Everyone becomes irate. It's just not okay to say that type of stuff in front of small children. The fun didn't stop there, he then starts to explain the criminal backgrounds of a few employees of the circus from over the years. Graphically detailing some of the accusations (child porn, sexual molestation, public masturbation, ...). That is just too much. And with the megaphone blasting in your ear 10 feet away, it was nearly impossible to ignore the guy. I'm surprised he wasn't evicted due to public disturbance or noise violation. At this point I even wanted to go kick some sense into this guy. Some people yelled at him to quit scaring the children, or to quiet it down. At one point a couple large guys walked up to him and tried to get in his face. However the Rose Garden security pulled them aside and asked that they not. Seems like they've dealt with this guy before. Mean while this guy's female friend is walking around handing out propaganda coloring books to the children. She's got everyone fooled into thinking she's some nice lady handing out some circus freebies. I saw her walk up with the clown, so I knew better. Some ladies were even bringing their kids up to her asking for a coloring book. Darci picked one up on accident from her. It was stating stuff like "Bears don't like to ride motorcycles, they like to be free in the woods". That really pushed the line in my book. You don't directly put your message out to children. The guy in front of me had four little kids with him, he gave the lady an ear full. Telling her "you should be ashamed for what you're doing here, there are kids present". Her only come back was "Well it's horrible what they do to these elephants". I really wanted to smack her for being so ignorant. I think the only thing saving these two from a full on beat down was that there where children present, and no one wanted to subject their kids to a blood bath. Having never been to the circus before, I don't know what kind of abuse any of the animals are put through. Maybe I'll do some reading now and see what the whole story is. However these two really handled the situation poorly. There are a hundred better methods of getting the message out then to lower themselves and abuse children in the manner they did. That doesn't make them any better then the elephant torturers they profess to hate. They could have setup a booth, walked around silently with a sign and handed out leaflets to anyone interested, held an organized protest downtown, made a documentary special air it on OPB, etc ...

Eventually noon rolled around and we were all able to enter the building and put those assholes behind us. Found our seats and enjoyed the pre-show, which consisted of some small clown comedy acts, unicyclists, jugglers, acrobat acts, etc. I really have to commend the circus performers for one act of kindness. Somehow it was brought to the attention of the performers on the floor that a small boy had become lost. I don't know if he wandered up and told them, or if someone found him lost and brought it to their attention. Regardless, they brought him out into the open performance area and asked him his name, and who he came to the show with. Then they had one of the camera men display the boys face up on the large display screen on the wall of the Rose Garden. They announced on the loud speaker the boys name, that he was lost, that he was looking for his Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin, and for them to please come down to the floor and claim him. They kept his face displayed on the big screen, while giving the boy extra attention (including him in their comedy act, playing with him a little). This lasted for about 5 mins and then the kids Aunt came down and claimed him. This really helped reunite the family. Having been lost myself many times at large scale events when I was little, I know how scary that is, and it can take quite a while to find your family and meanwhile everyone is freaked out. Before the main show started I went to the concession stand to get a drink. I knew the prices where going to be high, but I didn't expect the robbery that was going to take place. $12 for an elephant cup snow cone, $5 for a 24 oz. Coke, and $5 for a pretzel. Geez... I stopped briefly at the souvenir counter, and quickly walked away after seeing a stuffed elephant for $30, and the fun lighted toys for $15-25. Dang!! Logan was quite upset that he didn't get a light up sword. But heck, the toys where more expensive then the admission tickets. The main show was very entertaining. They had lots of clown comedy acts, classic & Chinese acrobatics, trained cats & dogs, the classic strong man, some elephant tricks, Russian horsemen stunts, and even a seven motorcycle globe of death. It was all pretty entertaining, but far from the "Greatest Show on Earth", it might have been that back in the early 1900's when there wasn't much professional level entertainment accessible to the average joe. Today however the show is pretty subpar. I'm much more impressed by the performance and showmanship of the Cirque du Soleil. However the circus is deeply ingrained in the history of America. It's provided us with entertainment for generations, showed us the oddities of the world, and provided employment and home to the outcasts freaks and midgets for over a century. :P It would be a shame to see it disappear like so many other beloved venues.

Estacada Camping Trip

This last weekend we camped along the Clackamas river, approx 40 miles past Estacada. Justen left early in the day and scouted the many state/federal camp grounds as well as some free spots off hwy-224. We ended up with a really good spot. It was right off hwy-224, with the Clackamas river on one side and a small creek run off on the other. The creek made for a safe and fun play spot for the kids, easing my fears of them playing along the fast moving Clackamas. There was two established fire pits and many tent spots around the camp, and no one else for miles. The only down side was no toilet facilities, which was only really a minor complaint for the ladies and kids. While I don't prefer shitting in the woods, I'll gladly take that over the poorly maintained and highly used vault toilets. By the end of the trip all the kids conjured their fear of doing their business in the woods, and the complaints from the ladies became less frequent. This trip was the maiden voyage for our tent trailer which we recently acquired. We had to take it down empty as I haven't had the time to finish the interior paneling and new cabinets. I hadn't yet upgraded my s10 blazer's toy package from a class 2 receiver to a class 4, so I was a little worried about towing it. Especially since we did a rush packing job and the trailer weight was unbalanced. It took quite a bit of concentration to tow it out on the windy hwy-224 and I found myself going to hot into some of the suggested 25-35mph corners. But we made it safe and sound. On the return trip I took the time to equally distribute the trailer weight and it towed great. I was amazed at the difference. It was so nice to have the trailer on the trip, we slept in amazing comfort. One hurt irritation though occurred on the last day when we were packing up the trailer. One of the support rails that holds the slide out beds, pulled straight off the wall. I found that it was only hanging on by a few stables. How cheap is that? A structure that is made to support 300+ lbs is stabled to the wall? I'm constantly amazed at how cheap these campers are build, and they charge so much money for them. I'm actually glad this happened, since the camper is still bare I'm going to pull all the support rails off, reinforce the walls around them, and secure them properly with some lag bolts. This baby is going to be a tank when I'm done and will last for years to come. For this trip I also made a Ladder Golf setup. An amazingly simple horseshoe variant game, made out of $25 worth of hardware supplies & some old golf balls. I'd seen this game being played before at a couple different car camp grounds. I did a little research and decided to make myself a set. It was great success and a lot of fun to play, even though I think I only won one game the entire weekend. Thanks to Heath and Justen for your assistance and use of your shop tools! Overall it was a good trip. The weather report had stated mostly cloudy and chances of showers for the weekend. However it ended up dry, sunny, and hot all weekend. Although not hot enough to jump into the cold snow run-off river water. I only wish more of our friends were able to make it out to enjoy it all with us. Maybe next time, I know we are overdue for a large group trip to the Trask!

Who Killed the Theatre Experience?

I am a movie buff! I love movies and the experience they provide. For a couple hours you get to see life through another's eyes, understand different perspectives, see exotic places, go on an adventure, etc. It's an experience! Movie theatre management is ruining that for us all, and the MPAA thinks it's the p2p networks that are ruining box office revenues. The local average price of a ticket ranges from $6.50-$9.00 depending on the day/time that’s 2-3 times the price of a rental, the purchase price of a bargain DVD, or the cost of a one month - 1 DVD at a time Netflix membership. In the end it'll cost about $30 for the average couple to see a movie (2 Tickets + $10 for pop & popcorn). For that cost you get to pick the movie you would like to see, the rest of your theatre going experience is up to fate; an exciting game of Russian Roulette. Of course it's one that must be played. To get the full experience of any movie you must see it on the big screen, with the high quality sound system. For the last couple of years I've started to be highly selective about which movies I choose to see in the theatre. Most movies I simply wait for them to be released on DVD, because most of them are utter crap. There are some movies however that just HAVE to be seen in large format to appreciate. Mainly sci-fi, fantasy, action, horror, etc. Anything that has lots of action, special effects, or large scenery. It's hard to appreciate the massiveness of the Death Star on your 27" home TV. Now when you go see it on the large screen and the space station is towering over you at 10' across you start to respect it more. When I go to see these movies on the big screen, I want to see it on the biggest screen possible. I don't want to see it in the small 20' screen auditoriums, I want to see it in the 50'+ screen ones. This has been such a huge annoyance in my life lately. I expect that if I go see a movie on it's premiere weekend, and it's a high enough grossing film, it had damn well AA be in the theatre's largest auditoriums. Often though I buy my ticket and when getting to the auditorium I find that I've been sent off to the smallest auditorium in the building. I have to presume this is the overflow section, and it is in fact also playing on the larger screens. They desperately need to integrate a theater diagram into Fandango, and list which auditorium each show time is playing in. Of course they won't do this because they know no one will purposefully buy a ticket to the small screen showings. I think from now on if I get sent to a small screen auditorium I'm going to demand they exchange it for tickets to the large auditorium showings. Maybe if I'm annoying enough they'll start making some changes. I also have to have the perfect seat. I have to sit in the exact middle of the screen, center row, center seat, and if at all possible away from annoyances (talkers, miss-behaving children, crying babies, seat kickers, teen make out couples, scream prone girlies, popcorn spilling gluttonous fatty, etc.). And why the hell can't people respect others viewing experience and get a baby sitter for their children? I'm a parent and I know better then to bring my child to a prime time showing. If I decide it's a film he must see in the theatre we will go to a weekend matinée, and I will make sure that he's quiet and respectful of others. Often I'll go see a horror film, at primetime, on a premiere night and some dumbass will bring their baby along. Oh and guess what happens at the first loud jolt in the movie the baby starts screaming. And they don't leave the theatre. Dip shit! I think babies should be banned from the theatre all together. Fortunately here in Vancouver one local business owner and film fan opened Cinetopia. And they have 21+ age restricted auditoriums and show times. That should take care of 90% of the annoyances that ruin my experience. Plus they serve Beer and real dinner food before the show starts, that should help increase my enjoyment. I haven't yet been to a showing there. I think I'll go check out a viewing soon. Hopefully it'll be everything I've always dreamed about and I'll bring all my business to them.

Review: Rainbow Playground Depot

I attended a birthday party for a friends daughter at the Rainbow Playground Depot. They have a large indoor showroom with several small to extra large big toy type play structures, and the entire floor is padded with thick foam tiles. They also provide a couple small rooms for birthday activities and refreshment. The kids had a blast playing on all the structures. All of which had unique designs and toys that you won't find at the local school or park playgrounds. The best part was the entire thing is inside. Which is very important here in the north-west. So the showroom gives the building double usage, they can show off their innovative designs by giving kids hands on experience, and to help raise revenue they rent it out for birthday parties. Which is also free advertising as the attending kids get a couple hours to play on the structures and then beg their parents into buying one for them at home. To help plant that bug further, there is no shortage of catalogs. Every 10ft there is a another large bin full of 1" thick catalogs. At the end all the kids had a great time, and I was glad to see another kid birthday party location option. Something besides the usual Chuck E. Cheese echo "";

Baby Alert!

It seems to be baby season again, as a lot of folks I know are expecting. In fact two of them have already delivered. First was my neighbors new daughter, Karly Ryan Leonard born 3.7.2006 @ 10:13 am, weighing 5lbs 5oz, measuring 19in long. Next was my good friends the Stadlers new boy, Noah Michael Stadler born 3.14.2006 @ 1:25 pm, weighing 8lbs 3oz, measuring 22in long. And in a month or two my other good friends the Buckwalters will be delivering their baby. It's a very exciting time for my friends, and a wake up call that times are changing. It seems like just a few years back we all were single and care free. Now couples are starting to get married, buying houses, and starting families. I however had a jump start on that with the birth of my son Logan. I've been on the "fast track to retirement" as a coworker of mine stated (Associate level college courses completed at age 18, professional career started at age 19, and first child at age 21). So since I've been through a bit of the married with children life, I'm a bit hesitant to go back to it. However I do understand that this time there will be a lot of positive differences, and the support of friends w/children would provide social support. However these days I'm just feeling selfish, there is so much I want to see & do, and procreating would just get in the way of that. I do eventually want more children. I would love to have a daughter so that I can get the life experience of it, and another son is definitely desirable. However I fear that my timeline of events won't be quick enough for the maternal clock ticking within my better half. I guess we'll just have to take it day-by-day and see how things sort themselves out.