The Day Before the First Day

Tomorrow is the first day of School for SuperPizzaBoy. He was feeling a little nervous about it so Sweetie called me and said we needed to do something special for the Boy this evening. I’m always up for something special so instead of running after work on the river trail I came home.

When I got home I found that he had been working on a Godzilla movie. He is doing the screen play. I loved it. His best friend Q is a Godzilla fan. He is coming over for a sleepover on Friday night. I can tell they are going to work on the movie in amongst the Pokemon discussions, video games, and pizza chomping.

The Boy wanted to go play miniature golf. So off we went. He did very well. You should have seen him a few years ago. He had no idea what to do. Now he plays pretty well plus he has learned how to cheat almost as much as I do.

Then we went to eat mexican food. He loves mexican food. Actually he loves the chips and salsa. The food is just a bonus. He got a sopapilla afterward. With honey. He polished that off also.

Bad news when we got home though. Time to go to bed, the dread words “school tomorrow” and “you have to get up early and get going.” Groannnnnnn.

Poor PizzaBoy. I used to try and tell him that he only had about 12 more years or so of school, then work for about 45 years, and then he can start sleeping in. In only about 57 years. That didn’t cheer him up for some reason so I quit mentioning it. I mean it is only 2065. It will be here before he knows it!

Meet the Teacher Night!

Tonight was Meet the Teacher Night at SuperPizzaBoy’s school. The school is a private school K-12 that works with kids with learning disabilities and Asperger’s Syndrome. There are only about 145 kids enrolled in all 12 grades so it is a very small family type situation. Mrs. Yogi is co-President of the PTO and I am her first assistant. So I was asked to cook the hot dogs for the picnic they have after the introduction.

So I cooked 500 hot dogs. They didn’t know how many they needed so they bought a bunch and I cooked all of them. I didn’t mind. Hot dogs cook fast and need constant attention so you don’t get asked to do anything else. The weather was nice and so were the people. All I needed was a beer and life would have been good.

Of course I missed the orientation and didn’t meet the teacher but she is the same teacher as lasat year. So I don’t think I missed much.

The Olympics are Here!

I love the Olympics. Summer, Winter. I love them both.

So far I’ve seen lots of beach volleyball, synchronized diving, fencing, swimming, gymnastics, and rowing.

I can’t stand to see most of the sports any other time. Thats pretty shallow don’t you think?

What fascinates me is that for many of the events the athletes train intensively for years and then they have only a minute or so to perform. They either nail it or they lose. If they slip up, they are gone. Its brutal. I feel that I have to watch them. I owe them that much. Regardless of what country they are from.

I like watching the Americans of course. I like watching athletes from all the countries. I especially like watching the Chinese during this Olympics. They actually seem to have personalities. They always seemed to be part of a borg before with no individual characteristics. I like looking at the city of Beijing. It is quite the city. I love the architecture. The Bird’s Nest stadium is magnificent. There is also a hotel that is seen on television. It is pretty cool.

It seems that the 21st Century is the era of the Chinese. Their economy is growing quickly. I don’t really know where our economy is going. “W” doesn’t seem to worry about it too much. I don’t know where this prosperity is going for the Chinese. I wonder how much more freedom they will be given as time goes on. Perhaps we will meet them in the middle somewhere. It seems that since 9-11 we have voluntarily given up our freedom Some people seem proud of not having as much freedom as they used to have. What’s the deal.

Cub Scouts Start Again

Patrol Leader Rick called for a parent meeting today. We met at his house and we went over the program for the coming year. The boys, including SuperPizzaBoy, are second year webelos and they should all graduate at the Arrow of Light Ceremony this coming January. We all started together as Tiger Cubs 4 years ago. They boys have grown up and so have the parents. I don’t know what the statistics are but I get the feeling that not very many cub scouts become boy scouts.

I don’t think that SPB wants especially to become a boy scout. I think that we are going to try to get him in a troop where he might have a friend. He doesn’t really have any friends at the patrol.

The parents have bent over backwards to help SPB out. I will always be grateful to Rick, Joe, Tami, Mark, Carol, Julie and the other parents that helped him out.

We’ll see how it goes.

The parents all liked my new shoes at least.

Open House

Our across the street neighbors, Mark and Julie, are scraping us off the bottom of their shoes and moving to a bigger house in a fancier neighborhood. They are actually good neighbors but they are leaving and of course we are glad that they are moving up in the world a little a little bit, will miss them, and wish them well.

First however, the neighbors get even by engaging in one of life’s guilty pleasures. We have been looking forward to it all week. Ever since their realtor put a sign out front announcing an open house this weekend. Oh boy, we get to see what they have done to the house, and what kind of furniture they have and how they have decorated. We get to go through the whole house! We even get to peek in their closets.

So we went. The house looks great. Julie has decorated well. The landscaping in the back is great, their granite counter tops in the bathroom look really good.

This is fun, who else in the neighborhood is leaving?

New Shoes

Things are pretty quiet at the Yogi Den. You can tell because I am all excited because my new shoes came in. They are pretty unique. They are finger shoes. I had to order them special off the internet. Is not the internet wonderful?

A coworker of mine got some last year and I have been jealous ever since. So I finally splurged. They don’t have sales on these and the local outlet is constantly sold out

Sweetie is not too happy with them. She is not going to be seen in public with me if I wear them. Nana, my mother-in-law is not too proud of them either.

Hey, I like them. Pat, my coworker, has 5 pair. Maybe that is why he is still single.

They sure feel good. SuperPizzaBoy is spending the night with a friend of his. I cannot wait for him to see them. He will like them, I’m sure.

We are going to see the Drillers tonight. We are going to Johnny’ beforehand. Tonight might be the night that I show off my new shoes. I’m not wanting to aggravate Sweetie though. I’ll just play it by ear.

Legal Affairs

Sweetie and Nana (Sweetie’s Mom and SuperPizzaBoy’s only living Grandmother) met me downtown today. We walked over to a law office. Nana met with her new money manager there and Sweetie and I talked to an attorney about getting our financial affairs in order to make sure that SPB is taken care of when Sweetie and I are gone.

The man we talked to has a son with special needs who is now grown and living away from his parents but has full time caretakers. It is too early to tell just how independent SPB is going to be but I am an older parent and we need to make sure that he is taken car of properly. The attorney comes well recommended. It was obvious that he knew what we are talking about. He is living it.

He made a lot of complicated concepts sound simple. They are simple in concept but complicated in execution. This is not going to be cheap but I cannot think of anything more important.

We talked to him for a while. We have some forms to fill out and to send back to him and they he will send us a letter with some options. In the natural gas business we make people pay dearly for options. That is what is going to happen here.

SuperPizzaBoy goes for a Ride

Sweetie had a meeting to go to tonight so it was just me and SuperPizzaBoy. The weather has cooled off quite a bit so its time for the boy to go on a ride. We loaded up his Triton which is a super duper tricycle and we went to a nearby paved trail. I hate and fear traffic especially for the boy because he doesn’t always pay attention to what is going on. The paved trail is just the thing.

He has not learned how to ride a bicycle yet. We tried and tried but it just wasn’t a happening thing. We saw the Triton in the newspaper so we got him one. It is very cool. It is steered with the rear wheels by the use of levers. He really likes it.

Anyway, we had a good time. We left the dogs at home. They wanted to go but they are such a pain in the butt.

He made two or three laps of the place and then we went home.

Sweetie and I like to go bike riding. We would like SPB to be able to go with us. His next bike may be a three wheeled bicycle. That could happen next year. That would be lots of fun. My next bike may be a recumbent bike.

I think the Triton is fun also. I had this theory at one time that it would be impossible to turn it over on a corner. I was wrong. But at least I didn’t fall very far.

The Spies of Warsaw

Just finished “The Spies of Warsaw” the first book I’ve ever read written by Alan Furst. The book is set in Poland in 1937. It concerns French Spies trying to find information about German armaments and plans for the invasion of France.

I don’t generally like historical fiction like this. I mean we know that the Germans kicked the French’s butt early on. This book though held my interest. It has a lot of plot turns, bad guys who get done in, romance, intrigue and not very many plot holes.

I give this ***1/2. I’ll be looking for other books by Mr. Furst.

Sorry!

Last night was game night at the Yogi house. Not video games although we did play some of that. We played an old fashioned board game. Not techno at all but lots of fun. We played Sorry, the three of us did. It was great except it turned out to be two against one. I was the one. That made it not fair.

I knew that something was up when the other two players were doing some sort of pregame ritual. When I asked them what they were doing, I was told “nothing.” I knew that things were going to be bad for me.

The game is kind of fun for double crossers like me so the first opportunity I got to submarine SuperPizzaBoy I did. Below is his “going to get revenge” face. And he did, I came in third so I had to get my stabs in early. They got theirs in late.