OK, wait a minute.  I have to wonder about that greeting to start off a letter.  I’m sure it comes from the quaint time of “Miss Manners”, and I like to hope that it applies to at least a few people in my social circle.   But to be honest, I have all confidence that many people I know, if presented with an anonymous survey asking “Would you kill the barista in exchange for a free Frappuchino” would tick off the box, then be angry enough that a pop up window didn’t appear with a coupon for a free drink that you’d write to the company to tell them off.  Then go buy a cup of coffee.

But I digress.

Dear Gentle Reader…*ahem*…,

I’m going to put on my grumpy old man cardigan for a bit today.  I was out playing with my oldest, and I had one of those rubber band powered balsa wood planes to share.  I have to say, I’m a bit irritated.   These things have been around for most, if not all, of my 35 years, and I remember enjoying playing with them as a kid.   But I was horribly disappointed opening this thing.

The plane, provided by company Revell, is utter garbage.   Don’t get me wrong, they’ve always been flimsy pieces of junk, but they’re also cheap.  You get what you pay for, basically an afternoon of entertainment but not much else.  These days, though, it seems you’re getting even less than that.  The wings seem thinner than I remember, the “paint job” stamped onto the wings was blotchy in it’s application.

The biggest insult, however, was the rubber band.  I can go two ways here.  On one hand, it was a disappointment in that it was less a rubber band, but more a rubber strand.  ”Rubber band” implies a completed circle, ready to go out of the package.   What I found instead was a long length of rubber band material.   This is where the other mind comes in; you’re getting enough material for 2 of the old size bands.  As an adult, I was able to put a quick knot in it and hook it up, but if I were a 5 year old, opening this staple of childhood for the first time, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

I suppose it’s good that the price of these is around $2.00 (slightly more for the “wheeled” model), but it seems that this low price comes at a higher price of quality.

OK, rant off.  I’ll try to have a glass related post in a day or so.  Between kids and the day job, my creative soul’s been running on fumes, but I have shows coming up on the 25th and another on the 26th, so I’ll be out in my shop quite a bit in the coming weeks.

Until then, make something pretty, share it with those who matter to you.  And don’t get burnt doing it.

But it occurred to me, if you’re well behaved and a good little boy or girl, Santa shows up with high end merchandise, according to legend and market conditions in the fall.   But what if you’re bad?

I think we need to start the story of Phil, from accounting.    Phil being the fairly unpleasant bean counter actually tasked with keeping your deeds ledger, and as such, the real force of knowledge in the Claus organization.   Phil’s watching more than jovial top level manager, St. Nick, so it only makes sense that such an overworked employee would snap and go on a rampage against those who made him and his staff work overtime doing data entry on the naughty database.   Heck, some kids cause such a bottleneck that they crash the server, for the umpteenth time that day.  Phil’s got to be steaming.

So do you think we can get Hallmark on board?

“He knew when you were scheming, he knew when you were awake
You’re entered in his ledger, so be fearful and begin to quake”

Who’s with me?

Also, like many, I listen to my ipod while I’m working. So I’m fairly well isolated out in my little shop. Tonight, I left the light in the backyard off so it wouldn’t attract so many bugs to the back door; it’ll turn on when I approach the porch. Unfortunately this means a fairly dark walk to the house, where even with a flashlight it’s dark, and I run the risk of looking like a prowler.

In my own little world, I wandered back from the shop tonight with my flashlight, scanning here and there for skunks and what not. Nothing.

I went inside and closed the place down. It was quiet except for the ceiling fans which I turned off. I found the dining room light on which I thought I had switched off, but it’s possible I didn’t.

I turned off the lights and wandered upstairs and into the bedroom, I could hear the TV on in my room from the stairs. My wife was asleep, but she had turned on an extra fan so she had also turned up the TV. Off went the set, leaving only the slightly at odds sound of two fans buzzing at slightly different pitches, and then I heard a bump. Or did I?

Being the daddy, it’s my job to investigate and to make sure that everything’s ok in the kid’s room, so I go out into the hallway and my youngest comes silently, but determinedly tromping out of his room and into the light of the night light beaming from the bathroom into the hallway, thumb firmly planted in his mouth. He makes a beeline to me, arms opening wide, so I scoop him close, hug him tight and he falls back to sleep on my shoulder.

Carefully tucked into bed, a kiss upon his head, daddy has once again slain whatever demon lurked in the darkness and all was right in his world.

Around here, sometimes we really do have bumps in the night.

I’m using my little soap box today to solicit some ideas.    My 4 year old is in daycare during the day with his younger brother and a bunch of younger kids.   He’s also been acting up.

Our suspicion is that he’s bored.

I can see that, he’s out of his age group, so he pretty much acts like he’s in theirs.

So here’s my plea for ideas….

Does anyone have any ideas for a multi-day project that a 4 year old can work on with minimal supervision?  I don’t know that he’d be much of a gardener, he’s a bit young to muck about with construction tools (though a hammer and nails might be doable).  Welding’s out (though on the list for when he’s older…yee ha!).

I’m in uncharted territory here, but I need to find something to engage him before he drives us nuts.

For those of you who’ve been there…any ideas?

The letters were shaky, the N looked more like an M, but full of confidence and pride, my son leaned back and beamed, “Now I can write my name in the concrete!”

About a month ago or so when we got his end of the year status report from pre-school it said that he was still tracing his name, but not yet doing it on his own.

I have to replace some concrete on the corner of the house where I installed a short apron, so I told him, if he can learn to write his name, he can scratch it into the concrete when I’m done.   I barely thought he was listening let alone paying attention, but it stuck with him.

This morning he wrote his own name, and he remembered.

And I am proud of him.

I guess now I have to get cracking on that concrete project.

Well last night he and his little brother had a grand old time on their “water slide”.  It was nice,  but not exactly environmentally friendly as all that water just goes elsewhere.   So since I don’t want to drain the well just for their amusement, I came up with something else.

They have a wading pool, I have a utility pump, voila.   Our very own little water slide.

I think they’ll like it.

Super high tech, I know.

The Aqueous Dispersion Device

Our Aquatic Propulsion Unit

Careful ultramodern infrastructure was key to the project's success

Starting with a string of beads spelling out their name, the children then get beads to mark milestones and procedures.  Go for a blood draw, that’s one type of bead, chemo another, x-rays, heart operations, etc, etc, etc…all stuff distracting kids from the business of growing up and being a kid.

In short, BOC is a group of nice folks.

They rely on donations of beads from bead makers all over the country and world that work in glass, polymer clay, wood, felt, metal, you name it, and when they don’t have enough of a certain type of bead, they have to buy and supplement that type with plastic beads.

Recently I learned that the kids that undergo radiation treatments get glow in the dark beads, and that BOC’s been supplementing with plastic beads.

I’ve decided to do something nice, and I’m making an effort to make 60 glow in the dark beads to send off.   This is a lot of beads for me, since by and large…I don’t do beads.  But I have glow glass, I have mandrels, and doing 10 beads a session isn’t a whole lot when they’re on the smaller (not 1/4″ rod) mandrels.

I think I got 11 in the kiln tonight, so I’m ahead on the next session.

But I got the “exciting”, though descriptionless, themed Whopper they have in conjunction with “Iron Man 2″.  For the most part it was bland with pockets of spice that weren’t distributed well throughout the sandwich.

The really weird thing…we got the kid’s kid’s meals.   You would think that maybe the toy would have something to do with “Iron Man 2″; movie tie in licensing costs big bucks.  You’d be wrong.   Both kids got a “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” toy, one of which broke within the first 45 seconds of play.

Bland burger, bland decor, 2 year old promotional items…frankly I think your advertising targets are the least of your worries.

On the upside, the orders were right, the staff did a good job, and the fries were delicious.

But the toy for the kids.  Seriously?  That’s the movie that finally pushed “Temple of Doom” off the heap as worst Indiana film ever.

“J, want a breakfast bar?”

<thumb in mouth>mmh.

“Take your thumb out, is that a yes or no?”

<thumb out>mmh.

“How about an apple? Want an apple?

<thumb in mouth>mmh.

“Take your thumb out, is that a yes or no?”

<thumb out>mmh.

“Yes or no, J”

no.

“Ok, then I guess you don’t want a snack”

H: I want an apple!

So here’s the weird thing, I get that call.  The gist of the call, linked below, is that ‘we weren’t going to tell you, but since the media found out and decided to send trucks, we thought maybe we should tell you before you see it on the news’.  Even that’s not so terrible until you also factor in that the preschool classes are being moved to the high school next year.  I have to be buzzed into my kid’s current school, evidently there’s no such system in place at the high school.

Like I said, aside from the nutter who was arrested, I don’t think anyone did something wrong, per se.  But if you’re going to use the broadcast system, do it the day of; this was actually a good message for a change, feel free to gloat and assure parents that you have the kid’s backs.

By the way, Massachusetts is a dual consent state for call recording, however the message was left on my voice mail, granting consent by the caller for the recording.  My phone service delivers a copy of the message to my email.

The call: highSchoolArrest_04142010

UPDATE: Funny how she left out the part about him being a sex offender and attempting to sign someone out of the school.  Hmmph.  Missing info here.