New RipStik riders beware

There's a new toy out called the RipStik (link opens in new window) that is like a skateboard for the non-Euclidean universe. Instead of one solid deck and four wheels, the RipStik (also called a wave board, along with various other knock-off names) is two decks that swivel over top of a swiveling wheel each. It's easier for kids to move and balance on, and with its peculiar motion capabilities, you can work it almost like skates to propel yourself along, even up hills.

The problem for Jordan came with the learning curve the first couple of days, which resulted in his falling a lot, catching himself a lot, and stopping himself from falling, sometimes all at once and suddenly. The repetitive, sudden movements caused a strain in his neck and shoulder muscles, and now he has a stiff neck.

But on the bright side, as soon as his muscles heal, he'll be a highly proficient RipStikker. Till then, we're working on keeping his head from tilting to the side and getting it pointed in the right direction.

The Creation of Mr. Pumpkin

The Halloween jack o'lantern is a thrill for every youngster, it seems, and nothing seems more natural for him or her than to give the goblinesque creation the most realistic of appearances, getting every tooth and whisker just so. That is, until they try to carve it themselves.

Just two months shy of eight years old, my son appeared ready to handle at least part of the chore of slicing the orange melon's considerably meaty flesh, and I'm happy to report all went well. We used the score and score again technique, where a light line is notched with the point of the blade along the area to be cut. Then a second stab deepens the line, and a third or fourth goes all the way through the meat.

For the nose and ears, I demonstrated out the cuts don't have to go all the way through, but still provide plenty of pumpkinized realism.

And we even ate some of the noble squash, just to prove we could.

The picture at the right would have shown some of the cubed delights, if I'd taken a second to make sure they had made it into the picture. But here's what we did: all the pieces we took out--the eyes and the mouth--we saved, plus I cut some pieces of the fruit or flesh or meat or whatever you call the part that you eat. I cut them in small cubes, melted some butter in a small frying pan, added a couple tablespoons of brown sugar, and cooked them for about 15 minutes, just till they were soft enough to eat, but not mushy.

Okay, so it wasn't the healthiest of meals, but if the pilgrims had brought butter and brown sugar, I'm sure they would have done the same. Probably.

Buttcrack basketball, anyone?

My son stayed with me last night, and as he got himself up and ready for school this morning, I marveled at how far he's come in the social world. It wasn't that long ago that I had to wake him up, throw him in the shower, wash him, rinse him, dry him off, put his clothes on him, brush his teeth and then be ready for the day. No more.

He sets his wristwatch alarm to wake up by. Gets in the shower and mostly lets the water run over him till I remind him to use the soap and washcloth. He can operate his own towel now, as well as comb his hair--front and back--and it looks good. I would often forget the back of my hair long into my high school days. Score one for the boy.

Other clues tell me he's developing into a normal human. For instance, he knows when his pants are too short, though he's still too young to care all that much about it. He'll soon be too tall for all his long pants, and as long as they reach somewhere around his ankles when he stands, it's not too embarrassing. What would be embarrassing would be if he decided the solution was to pull them down so half his butt is hanging out. I guess such things are necessary evils of letting kids fit into their own versions of society.

But if I see that stuff hanging out around me, I reserve the right to play buttcrack basketball with paperwads, grape seeds, or other similar objects until it's removed to its proper place, which is under at least two layers of clothing.

Don't ask, don't tell

My son is in soccer, a recreational league, to be exact, meaning that everybody plays no matter their skill level.

I don't understand soccer very well, but I help my son's team as an assistant coach because I can help keep them from digging the grass, their noses, their butts, etc.

What happens, though, when your league won't explain a rule for you? I won't go into it here, but suffice to say that with three different answers to the same question, it's impossible to teach something to the kids.

We have 11 to 13 year old kids being referees for our six and seven year olds, and they're following the same indecisive rule for slide tackling and goalie touches, so how do they administer those rules? The answer is, they don't.

I'm not used to being told I'm acting "worked up" because I demand a simple answer to a simple question. Answering a question with a question isn't answering the question.

Soccer already has a rough row to hoe in the U.S. And if these league associations can't get it together to be specific in how coaches and referees are to call the game, then they're doing themselves no favors.

In Jordan's recent softball league, every question I asked was given quick and thorough consideration. In no case did the questions result in changes being made, because in those cases, the answers they had in place were sufficient. It took till almost the end of the season for me to agree with a couple of them, but I did.

I guess it's a matter of personalities or something, but it sure would be nice to have the same care and understanding given to dummies like me who never heard of soccer growing up in the hills of southern Ohio.

Soccer world

Fall soccer season has begun and Jordan has a good team again. We've got a great coach, and I'm the assistant coach again, so that's as it is.

Team is second- and third-graders, and the kids are getting a much better idea of how to play. We have referees this time, so coaches are not on the field, but we still get to roam the sidelines and yell instructions.

Soccer is a cool game. It's a world game. Great soccer players can go anywhere. Might not understand what the people are yelling at you, but there you are.

Standing on the line

It's almost fall, and Jordan has been in school two weeks already, or maybe one. To him it feels like too long already. Yes, school is boring. He barely tolerates the long periods of sitting still, trying to be quiet. Many times he doesn't tolerate them and has to "stand on the line." This is the cost of talking and having fun: losing time on the playground. Sometimes it's worth it, I tell him, and sometimes it's not. It's the way the world works.

We have to obey the rules. School rules are silly. I didn't tell him that. He already knows, I'm sure. It's not like he's breaking the speed limit, shoplifting, stealing cars, burgling a dime store. He's talking and moving around, things the human body were built to do. But in the world we've constructed the past couple hundred years, it's best to keep your head down, mouth shut, and put that widget on the gadget as it goes by on the conveyor belt.

Vacation post 2009

My second annual vacation with Jordan found us plying the Lake Erie coast again, because, hey, if it isn't broken, don't repair it. We did add a couple of things, though, and left out a couple others, just for balance. And variety.

One thing left out was forgetting to pack the Cedar Point season pass. This time, we forgot nothing important (three unimportant things I don't recall right now) and were on our way shortly after church. Didn't take long for Jordan to fall asleep, but that's cool. He'd watched a movie on the way, so a little nap afterwards while the wheels go round couldn't hurt a thing.

We had two places reserved, one a motel with a fridge, coffee maker, microwave, pool, playground, and excellent breakfast. We began our stay there for four days and ended the week with two days of camping out at East Harbor State Park on Lake Erie. I'll spend a few weeks between now and next year thinking about starting out at the campground and winding up up at the motel. Could go either way. The camping really helped us to wind down from the fun of...

Cedar Point amusement park. This year's visit to the park came with the revelation that Jordan had grown just enough to be eligible for the rides that required him to be 52 inches tall. And we took advantage, believe me. The best new ride was Maverick, a twisting, turning metal coaster that had a line an hour long every time we rode, but it was worth it. A close second was Top Thrill Dragster, which also featured a hefty line, but we got there early and only had 30-minute waits.

The weather on Lake Erie (where Cedar Point lies) cooperated with our plans to spend as much time at Cedar Point as possible, but we also visited a couple of other play areas where Jordan got to drive a go-kart, play some putt-putt golf, and his favorite, ride bumper boats. If you've never experienced bumper boats, do yourself a favor and do it.

What can I say about Sandusky, Ohio, the lake, the park that you haven't already heard? Probably not much, so I'll throw some out here and you can make up your own story: Dippin' Dots, Vintage Cars, Dodgems, Ferris Wheel, sea gulls, forgetting where you parked your car, finding your car, the evening fireworks extravaganza. Can you think of more?

One thing different this year was the proliferation of cell phones. I admit to carrying mine around everywhere and taking over 100 pictures during the week with it. My digital SLR stayed in the motel's safe and deep in the darkness of my car during most of the trip. I took four pictures with it. But they were darn good ones.

I even took a picture of some people on the Ferris wheel and tried to bluetooth it to them. We couldn't figure that out. I think my phone might be to blame, although I can bluetooth easily to my old phone and to my computer. Getting to another iPhone and another computer isn't as easy as it should be; indeed, it hasn't been possible yet, so I'm missing some important piece of information. But I was able to message the picture to the folks from the Ferris wheel, which was pretty neat in itself.

We spent half a day on Kelleys Island. (For you punctuation nerds like me, they don't use an apostrophe in the island name.) Jordan likes to go to Kelleys because he gets a chance to drive the golf carts we rent to go around on.

Kelleys has a great beach, where we spent a couple of hours, and an excellent state park, with a couple of rentable yurts that are right on the beach almost. Very Hawaiian feeling. Might consider staying there a night sometime.

One thing we quickly found about the island entertainment: it's largely adult-centered. Very few restaurants that didn't also offer liquor, which is part of the mystique, perhaps, of a maritime-themed business district.

But there's good news, if you're like me and my son and not so big on the drinking and smoking:

Erie Island Coffee Co. and Papa T's, two places on Division Street where you can find good coffee and good food, along with great service. Of course, I zeroed in on the coffee shop because I like coffee and needed to augment my blood-caffeine level. Erie Island Coffee, according to Jessica, the beautiful and helpful attendant at the shop, is based in Cleveland. I think they are giving Starbucks a run for the money when it comes to coffee drinks and non-coffee drinks for the little ones who don't need the added stimulation.

Jessica directed us to Papa T's just up the street for good food and ice cream sans the alcoholic haze. The picture of Jordan eating an ice cream was taken on the porch of Papa T's. The only trouble we had at that place was choosing one of the over 30 flavors of ice cream for the cone. Anyone know what Superman flavor is? Or want to go half on a peach ice cream cake?

Soon enough it was time to go camping, Jordan's first experience with it. He especially liked the idea of the campfire and kept trying to get me to fetch more wood and make it bigger and bigger. So for our final night, we built a monster for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. He ate two hotdogs and half a dozen marshmallows, but the fire burned for over five hours. It had been a long time since I spent the evening watching a fire burn. Felt like a pioneer, albeit one who buys his wood in bundles at the local general store.

Our first evening at the camp, we spent a couple hours at the beach, which was nice, but they're doing some work on the bathrooms. It's not Waikiki or even Myrtle Beach, so it gets a little crowded, especially during July tourist season, and the waves, well, the waves are bigger at the Kings Island wave pool, but that's not the point, is it? The point is, you can go really far out into the water, throw Frisbee, football, whatever, and it's calming and relaxing.

Back to the beach for some sand/mud castle building and to the tent for a night's rest on the ground.

And then it rained.

The gentle thunderstorm wouldn't have been so bad, but it turned out the tent had never been seam-sealed. The manufacturer had kindly included a bottle of sealer in the tent peg pouch. I plan to ask them if anyone ever requested a tent that leaked and was that the reason they didn't just make the seams more water-resistant. Definitely a case of "buyer, pay attention to what's in the bag next time."

But only a pint or so of rain got into the tent and nothing was harmed, except a pillow. I gave Jordan mine and I used a couple of beach towels for the rest of the time there.

All in all, it was exciting. And something else struck me: the honesty of campers. I mean, it doesn't take a lot to unzip a tent and make all kinds of trouble, but you hardly ever hear of it happening. The same for beach people. Beach blankets, cell phones, car keys, all sorts of things get left behind while their owners enjoy the water that feels too cold at first.

We packed up on a Saturday morning. By Friday, the campgrounds, which had been practically empty the night before, had become filled with campers. It got noisy, and not the good kind of noisy that we experienced the first morning after the thunderstorm. That morning, birds of many kinds awakened us. From inside the tent, they sounded like all sorts of creatures: ducks, dogs, hyenas--who knows what?

Jordan had never heard so many so close, and he was amazed and enthralled. I recalled my youth as a child of the country, where I could recognize a lot of bird calls. Was quite an old memory those repetitious bird calls pulled out of me. Those were the days--having the time to memorize bird calls. Wow.

We left around 9 and headed for Cedar Point for one last hurrah on the Dragster before heading south to Uncle Les and Aunt Grace's where Jordan made them uncover the pool, despite it being only 76 degrees. He seemed not to mind. Likes pools, I guess.

And that's it, folks. Vacation 2009. I put a hundred pics in a flickr account that you can see, if you're feeling especially voyeuristic. It's here, and you're more than welcome to take a look.

July the What?!

Before the month is over and I'm out the door again, wanted to quickly post a pic and a promise of more posting to come to let the family member and friend who read this blog (and whoever that other person is) that I am still waiting for the mythical time when I can spend a few unhurried minutes putting together my thoughts on vacation, softball, and many other things a father and son take the time to do when the days are longer and the nights are filled with blood-sucking flying beasts and the beat-down of thunderstorms on our tent.

Oh, it's an exciting story, one well worth pulling up a seat and a bowl of popcorn to hear/read. You'll see (I hope).

A moving story

We've finally learned as a society that movement is essential to health. Not a big revelation, until you think about how hard we try as a society to keep kids motionless and silent.

As soon as we can, we shuffle them into classrooms of other kids and tell them to sit still and do nothing till told differently. Then, when they're older, we wonder why some of them get planted in front of the TV or behind a desk and do little else but add to their posteriors.

I'm glad summer vacation is here for Jordan. We spend a few hours a day reading, writing, learning, and part of it involves watching science programs on the computer screen. My desk, pictured, includes a NordicTrack ski machine that I use a few minutes most days. I have it set up for Jordan to use when he's here. Can't keep him off it, so I figured might as well size it for him.

While a program about the Kileaua volcano was on, I left Jordan in the chair and went to the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee. When I came back, Jordan was on the exercise machine while watching the program.

Did he deduce that his future life would be better if he trained himself now to keep active? Did he decide he needed to increase his heart rate so his brain would be fed more oxygen and he could learn more thoroughly? Or does he enjoy moving around on the NordicTrack and feel like he could do that AND watch the volcano show?

Movement is natural for children. Becoming a stationary blob takes a lot of effort from well-meaning parents, teachers, and employers. As a society we need to change that paradigm, drastically and soon.

I prefer my fertilizer from the bag

Don't you just love how people let their dogs walk them around, especially when they stop in front of your house to defecate, urinate, and dig around?

Have a clue, dog people! That's nasty.

I used to have a dog, and when I walked her in public, I walked her, not the other way around. I didn't stop in front of somebody's house and say, come on, Fido, crap in this stranger's yard. No, I took the dog to a common area, a walking area, away from where kids might play, and that's where the dog was trained to go.

Even if you clean up the poop, the germs are still on the ground, don't you think? I have yet to see anyone with a spray bottle, spraying down the affected area and drying it nice and fresh.

One thing you never see in the grassy area outside my window: Kids playing. I do not wonder why.

I don't like public education

Jordan came home last night with a paper on which the teacher wanted a parent signature. The paper was an assignment that was supposed to be a letter, but Jordan had taken very little time with it and obviously was goofing off, not trying, and had produced something barely readable. I was upset. For two reasons.

First, that he would try to pass off such terrible work as anything near the best he could do made me shake in my socks. Had to count to ten to keep from going ballistic.

And second, because this is the type of stuff he's learned at school. How to goof off. How to laugh at butt, fart, and underwear jokes. How to be rude. How to get away with as much as possible, and how not to care a whole lot if he does get caught now and then.

If not for the fact that his writing and art abilities were many times better as a four- and five-year-old, I'd not complain so much. But they were. His skills in those areas have decreased. His math skills are the same as they were two years ago, and if I hadn't kept at him to remember those, they would have deteriorated, too, because they haven't made it to his skill level in his school work yet. And they won't make it this year.

The only reason that he can read as well as he does is because he wants to. Reading is necessary to understand many of the video games he plays.

I suppose I can take consolation in that, other than the property taxes we pay, his public education is free. But for some reason, that provides small comfort. And for the amount of taxes the house that he lives in requires, I don't think the deal is good at all. Unfortunately, we can't direct those taxes to anything else.

I will never believe that public school, as it is designed today, is the best way to teach a child. For parents who treat school as little more than daycare, it's all right, but for me, it seems to be nothing more than time to goof off, socialize, and conform to the lowest common denominator. But like so much else in the U.S. today, there's nothing better for the price available.

Mad thermals

I strive to be a writer in my playtime, and to help, I'm in a critique group of various individuals who usually do not agree on anything much in the realm of writing. It's a good cross-section. Somebody's bound to like what you do. And somebody isn't.

A recent story I wrote for kids dealt with flying and the science of flying, specifically thermals. Couple of people couldn't believe that kids seven years old would have any idea what a thermal is. To them I say: watch some Sesame Street once in a while. But I say it with a smile firmly planted because everything we say to each other is given and taken with a grain of salt, which, I suppose, is meant to season the comment and make it more tasty.

From the photo above, taken at the Wright Patt Air Force Museum in Dayton, you can see the evidence that at least in the case of my son, flying is a way of life. He's known about thermals for at least two years, and while he might not be able to give you the scientific reason for their existence, he definitely knows they exist, that they are more prevalent on south-facing hillsides, and that they help you fly.

Couple of years ago, I observed him and a friend flying, and the other guy said, "Wow, Jordan, you got mad skills."

I could only agree.