Tag Archives: Fun

Our car…the worm edition

Adventure, Awesome, Family, Fun, Nature,

So a few days ago, I told you all about the fun we had with crows on our honeymoon.  You may recall that my brother and a friend had put a bunch of birdseed into our suitcases as well as in the car.  By “in the car” I mean inside the car…literally.  There was birdseed in the dashboard, in the heater vents, down in the seats, floorboards, and even more in the dashboard.  Well, you get the point.  Anytime we drove around and hit a bump, even months later, birdseed would fall through the dash and onto the floor.

The start of the birdseed saga!

Jump ahead to our move to Kentucky for graduate school.  We were in marital bliss.  I suppose we didn’t see the world around us very clearly as we missed some obvious things…you’ll see in a second.  So, we were poor and all that but it was cool being married.  Emily seems to remember a rough few years as she attempted to train and civilize me.  Once she gave up, things got much better.  Anyhow, part-way through school, we moved to an apartment above a funeral home (more on that in another post!).

We noticed some wormy things in the backseat one day while unpacking groceries or something at the funeral home.  I didn’t think much of it.  I squished them and went on with my business.  Days later, we noticed them again…and again and again.  It started to get serious pretty quickly.

The car...already doomed!

I got a wild hair and decided to remove the back set of the car to see what was going on.  Why oh why didn’t I just remain ignorant?!  The entire back seat was infested with meal worms!  I don’t just mean there were a few crawling around.  Oh no, the foam in the seat was full.  The carpet in the floor was infested.  It was a regular larval zoo in our car!

I often deal with things like that with extreme overkill.  We had a Chevy Celebrity which, incidentally, was the best car ever made!  I loved that car!  Emily and I sanded the thing down in the weeks before our wedding so we could get it painted.  We wanted to make a flashy exit from the wedding ceremony.  Anyhow, back to overkill.  A Chevy Celebrity has maybe 30 sq ft of cabin space.  An insect bomb for a 2000 sq ft house seemed about right.  Makes sense, right?  If some is good, more is better!

On two separate occasions, I set off house-sized insect bombs in our little car.  The worms remained.  It’s a wonder we remained!  I am certain that a concentration of insecticide like that was not all that good for us.  After losing on the second bomb, I just re-installed the back seat and we looked no more.

How did we finally deal with the issue, you may ask?  Well, we traded that car in for a Chevy Prizm, the second best car ever made!  It was new and worm-free!  I blame those worms on the birdseed.  I have no doubt that the seed had meal worms in it.  They lived a good life for a couple of years on all of the birdseed in the car.  That wedding birdseed was the gift that kept on giving!

Coopers Rock

Adventure, Awesome, Family, Fun, Nature, WV, , , , ,

A few weekends ago, we went on a little getaway vacation to Coopers Rock State Park in Bruceton Mills, WV.  I was mainly excited for the cabin in which we were staying and the hot tub it advertised on the back deck.  Never did I imagine how cool the park would be.  More about that later.

So, we got to the cabin after navigating the Grand Canyon road back to the place.  The cabin itself was nice and did in fact have a hot tub.  The kids jumped right in as Emily and I unpacked and prepared for supper.  I am not sure why, but the power went out and we were without water or AC.  When you are not prepared, both are pretty important.  Anyhow, several hours later, it came back on and all was well…even the well.  We could shower and do dishes, etc.

On Saturday morning, we gorged on cheap powdered sugar donuts and Doritos then headed to Coopers Rock (it seems like there should be an apostrophe in there but there isn’t).  Little did we know, but there was a celebration of the anniversary of the founding of the park.  The place was teeming with things to do as all sorts of groups offered nature talks, projects,  and hikes.

The kids built cool birdhouses and painted rocks.  We played on the play ground (where I tried my best to dislocate my shoulder).  We saw rescued birds of prey from the West Virginia Raptor Rescue Center and even got to touch a red tailed hawk who was very friendly.  It turns out, she was essentially raised in captivity so was not bothered by people.  The other rescued hawk and owl were not so friendly.  Still, they were awesome!

I think the best part of the park though, was walking the trails under the rocks.  We explored some and saw great rock formations.  The kids and I walked into a cave/tunnel and went all “Dora the Explorer”.  Abigail fell in the dirt and got muddy.  It was perfect and cool and a great time to be together as a family.

If you ever pass through the northern part of WV, stop in at Coopers Rock.  Its views are breathtaking and there is all sorts of fun to be had there.  It turns out that the hot tub was very popular, but it paled in comparison (for me at least) to the beauty of our state, just as it is!

Fire the missiles!

Adventure, Family, Fun, WV, , ,

Lest you think we are all work and no play when we go to our land in the country, I figured I should report on our war games…er…model rocket launching fun this weekend. We did work some but that bit seems like an old tune now. The kids were pretty much over the non-fun stuff so they explored some in the woods and found a new “hide-out” while I did the rest of what I had to do before play time. I have no idea what sort of cave, bramble or whiskey still they happened upon but they had an awesome time!

Preparing for launch!

Anyhow, we finished up with all of that and we headed to the top of the hay field to prep our launch area. There were a bunch of kids at the next house over so I think our position was as much an advertisement as it was anything else. So we launched a few rockets. It must have been the humidity or something because the nose cones were on so tight that they never discharged the parachutes. And what is a model rocket without a parachute as it heads back to earth? It’s a freakin’ bullet! Run!

Mission Control

Isaac and Abigail decided to invite the neighbor kids over and they brought some cousins so there were at least 6 kids…more targets! Just kidding. We were very careful to keep everyone safe. Everyone got a chance to push the launch button, which I thought would be the thrill. I was wrong. The real fun was racing across the field to recover the rockets! Who knew exercise was so fun!

The rocket!
10...9...8...7...

One boy said he had always wanted to launch rockets but his Mom wouldn’t let them (for safety reasons I bet!) I think I found our new role on the hill. We are the people who let you do all the stuff your parents won’t let you do!

Click to play the launch movie

(click here if your computer cannot play the movie above)

By the time we were through, we had a bunch of the parents up there too. We have met so many people and everyone has been so nice. I suspect most everyone confirmed that we are the unstable, crazy ones up on that hill. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing?

Driving in the hay field

Adventure, Family, Fun, ,

So yesterday, I mentioned that we went camping last weekend.  The spot where we camped is on the back side of our hay field which lays on a bit of a slope.  We drove both vehicles down to the edge of the woods and left them there overnight so we could have easy access to the junk that remained in them.

This was a month ago...before the grass really grew!

Since we knew it was to get hot, we decided to get an early start.  I am so glad there are no near-neighbors because I started the chainsaw at 6:30 am.  Anyhow, we packed up camp and planned to move the car and van to the end of the hay field where I am erecting my bear-deterring fence for the bees.  Emily started up the Subaru and drove right off though the thigh-high grass in the field.  The van did not fare so well.  The tires spun but the van never moved.

It was clear to me that we were not going to simply drive out so we had to go to plan b.  And then it struck me.  My friend Maria over at Chicken Blog sent me a cool book last year called Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do).  One of the things the book suggests is to let your kids drive a car.

So, I climbed out of the van and hollered at Isaac.  He’s 11 (and a year older than I was when I first drove a car).  I told him to get in and drive.  He looked at me with that, “Yeah right” look but I opened the door and pointed.  He climbed in and was terrified.  I think that was the proper response.  We did a crash-course on driving and then I went behind the van.  I planned to nudge it to get it moving while he drove it slowly and steadily across the field.  He started off ok, but when it didn’t immediately move, he gunned it.  White smoke rolled from under the tires.

“Dad, the speedometer showed 60!”  I have no doubt about it.  Isaac drove the car 60 mph in the hay field but didn’t move an inch!  We re-visited our driving lesson and on try #2, he successfully drove the van right across the hay field and up to the dirt road.  The boy was so excited and could not have been prouder of himself.  Although his friends did not believe him when he got back to school on Tuesday, he will probably always remember the first time he got to drive a car.  Sometimes a little (controlled) danger can be a good thing!

Camping!

Family, Fun, Nature, WV, , ,

Holy cow it’s been awhile since I have posted. It seems like time is flying! I certainly need to remedy that. So, last weekend, the hottest weekend of the year (so far), we went camping on the bee farm. I had to set more fence posts in the ground and I have been itching to stay up and see the stars and listen to the crickets. You know, they say you can find the temperature by counting cricket chirps for 15 seconds and adding 37. I don’t think I could count fast enough to make a good measurement so I am sure that it works. It was hot!

Anyhow, I dug more fence posts and cut a bunch of trees and brush. The kids mostly read their kindles but they also went on a rock hunt. I told them I would pay them if they would find sufficient rocks to make a proper fire pit. I wanted to hear crickets and by golly, I wanted to smell like smoke before I laid down for the night. The kids were great. They actually dug some rocks out of the ground. I suppose they saw it as an easy way to make things happen fast…find huge rocks and dig them up…make Dad carry them to make for an instant fire pit. Well, they did a great job though my back may never forgive me after carrying some of their finds.

All of this is to say, we got pretty hot and sweaty outside working all day. Luckily, I bought that tank I mentioned in the last post. We had 35 gallons of water to set the concrete posts, cook and bathe. Of course, bathing was a relative thing, but we made the best of it taking a cold water bath at our campsite.

Oh, I don’t want to forget…on the way walking the path between the tent and the car (which housed the water tank), I happened upon a copperhead. He wasn’t wearing pants thankfully or there would have been two of us in a code brown status. I grabbed a shovel and went after him but he was headed for the woods too.

We finally got cleaned up and went to bed. Rather, we went to clumpy ground…it could hardly be called a bed (gee whiz have I become soft in my old age). I never did get a chance to really look at the stars.  Still, camping on our land was absolutely wonderful!  We ate mountain pies and roasted marshmallows.  We giggled in the tent and woke up groggy.  It was a marvelous weekend, stiff backs and necks aside.

There is lots more fun to report including driving the van 60 mph across our hay field…but you will have to wait until next time to read about that!

Milkshake mania!

Awesome, Fun,

My company recently bought a restaurant in South Charleston, WV which will soon be converted into office space.  As a part of the process, all of the restaurant equipment has to be sold so remodeling can begin.  This was a fairly large, well known, established restaurant so there is a ton of stuff in the building.  Lots of restaurant folks have been through the place buying things they need but I was very fortunate to be among the first round of people to get a shot at a few things.  Let me introduce to you my new best friend…

That’s right…in my kitchen, as we speak, I have an industrial strength, commercial grade milkshake making beast!  This, my friends, is the Hamilton Beach 94900 which is capable of bringing frozen goodness and delight to men, women and children alike!  The price was right and karma was with us so we scored a gem!

But before you get too jealous, let me take you back to its beginnings.  Mainly, it was gross.  The sanitary status of the machine was questionable.  In fact, there was still a chocolate chip and gooey icecream on the impeller when I received “the Beast”.  After much Mean Green and elbow grease, the milkshake machine was made whole again.

So, we have made several milkshakes with this thing and it is so much nicer to use than a blender.  It’s  faster to set up, faster to clean, faster to produce a milkshake and it makes smoother milkshakes hands down.  I love the new milkshake machine and I think it is a hit with the family too!

Our woods

Adventure, Awesome, Family, Fun, Nature, Thoughts, WV, , , , ,

We spent our time at the property on Saturday walking in the woods.  Our plan was to walk more of the property line as we still haven’t seen the entire place.  We did hike the better part of the boundary and discovered all sorts of excellent things!  Except for the constant chatter of kids, the sounds of the woods were magnificent.  Actually, the chatter wasn’t so bad either as the kids were having fun.

When I was a kid, hiking in the woods was not high on my list of fun.  I played in the woods a lot but plain old hiking wasn’t good for me.  I was so surprised that Isaac and Abigail walked the entire 2 miles in the woods with only a small handful of complaints.  Incredible!

We did walk the better part of the lower edge of the place and saw all sorts of beautiful flowers and animal tracks of all sorts.  There were too many deer tracks to even keep track of but the kids tried to identify every print they came across.

That's Abigail's finger...she's the brave one

We spooked a turkey and saw the biggest centipede the kids had ever seen.  We found just a little bit of poison ivy and a lot of slippery moss.  Squirrels barked and birds announced our path through the woods.  All around us was noise but it felt like silence.  It was marvelous walking in our woods and this weekend was the reason we bought the place!  I am absolutely positive that my blood pressure is still lowered because of it!

Santana

Audio, Awesome, Fun,

I was in Las Vegas all week last week for a conference related to work.  It’s funny – I work in technology and the conference was related to technology.  The only thing was, there was no technology available at the conference so I was stuck with email and internet via phone.  So, anyhow, I am back and am somewhat comforted by the sweet hum of my computers.

I won’t bore you folks with conference details.  Instead I will share my favorite part of the conference…Carlos Santana was in concert at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas.  We got to see him opening night which was pretty cool.  Even cooler was the fact that we were something like 15 rows back and at center stage.  We could actually see the band and stuff.

I like Santana’s music and I especially like some of his most recent stuff.  Of course, he has been releasing great music for 40 years and it’s hard to say anything bad about most of his music.  We got to enjoy a tour through his years as a performer and it was a blast.

(click the image above for a video.  If that link doesn’t work on your machine, try the one here)

He’s a free spirit and kind of fun to listen to when he talks.  I can’t really explain it but he feels very “spiritual” in his own way.  He also has marijuana leaves as one of his backgrounds on stage.  Surprisingly, I didn’t smell a single bit of smoke.

for B.H.

 

The view from my room

So, I am glad to be back from Las Vegas and if you ever get a chance, definitely go and see Santana in concert!

Pregnant by Postcard

Fun

I think my favorite April Fool’s prank involved a postcard.  You may wonder what fun could possibly come from a simple postcard…let me tell you a story

Emily and I met our first day of college.  We knew each other but didn’t hang out much the first semester.  By the end of the second semester though, we decided we ought to start dating.  We hung around all the time and were great friends even before we started dating.  We wrote letters steady through the first summer and talked on the phone quite a bit.  I bet we wrote a letter 4-5 days each week.  We were a bit of a high point for profitability in the post office.  Most times our writing was silly stuff but it kept us going very well through the long summers.  I think it was probably cooler writing letters and courting long-distance than it would be nowadays.  Phone calls were still expensive and no one had computers so we communicated because it was worth it.

During spring break of our sophomore year, we decided to play a prank on my mom.  She worked downtown (Tionesta, my hometown with a population of around 600) so got the mail every day at the post office.  My parents got a PO box after the 900th time the mail box at the house was destroyed by the snow plows.  It was a prefect part of my plan!

Since human nature requires that anyone who touches a postcard reads the message, we decided to exploit the fact that my mom would in fact touch the post card when she picked it up.  As a bonus, since the town was so small, we were certain that the postal workers would also read the post card which would add to the fun.

So, Emily and I worked it out and on the fateful day, my mom called the house where I was waiting.  “We need to talk.  Come down town right now.”  The trap was playing out perfectly.  You see, Emily wrote a postcard informing me she was pregnant.  “What are we going to do?”, she lamented.  Of course, she was not even partially pregnant.

Mom confronted me, I confronted her (afterall, it was addressed to me, not her) and we eventually had a great laugh over the whole thing.  So, while I do not ever condone pulling the “I’m pregnant” trick on your significant other, it is pretty funny if you pull the trick on folks once removed.  Although, such a trick may be harmful to your health!

Yellow one

Family, Fun,

When I was a kid, we always played “the punch buggy game” wherein you would search for Volkswagen bugs and smack the daylights out of your smaller, helpless brother, just hard enough to torment but not hard enough to leave a bruise so your mom and dad would ever know.  You know?  That game.  It was a bunch of fun but, of course, it became more and more rare to see them as time went on since they stopped production.  We stopped playing at some point.

Of course, VW now has the beetles and the advertising campaign that goes along with them.  Adults saying, “Green one” and slugging a co-worker’s arm.  My kids started playing that (was it a year ago?) and we still have a big competition pretty much every day to see who can rack up the most “hits”.  We do not actually hit each other but rather just collect points.

Some other friends play a game where they get points any time they see a yellow car.  We play that game too.  As we live near a 3 schools (who ever thought it was a good idea to put three large schools near each other?  I mean traffic…hello?!), there are numerous school buses which do indeed count.

Now, the holy grail of this game is the elusive yellow VW.  It’s double points you see.  We always require that someone else sees the car so no one can make up sightings, especially for yellow VWs.  For the kids, that puts them at a disadvantage since they are stuck in class all day or are riding with Emily or me who are always playing the game too.  I take a little extra liberty with the rules too.  All I need is proof of a sighting, so I take pictures of any yellow cars or VW beetles and text/email them to Emily and the kids.

All of these pictures are my trophies.  That’s right, I am on a constant VW safari across the hills and hollers of Charleston, West-by-God-Virginia.  I am on the hunt and I am a mighty hunter!

Does anyone else play these games?  All the time or just on trips?  Can you help fuel our madness?