Jonah's Wardrobe

That's a misleading title. I'm talking about the clothes Jonah wears, not the place he stores his clothes.

But he does have a wardrobe-like storage thingy, more like an armoire, according to my wife. It was built by her father and is plain but very well built, especially considering that Jonah literally climbs inside twice a day to get clothes. I'll sometimes peek into his room looking for him and see pants or socks come rocketing out of the armoire doors to hit the far wall. He's got a good arm.

Anyway, what Jonah wears. Well, like the other boys, he pretty much wears whatever he wants to. Timothy is pretty good (for a guy) at picking out outfits that match. Think young urban professional just out of law school. Stephen is a little worse, along the lines of a college sophomore who doesn't live near a laudromat or a Gap.

Jonah is the guy Weird Al imitates.

Striped shirt and camouflage shorts. All red outfits, with each piece a glaringly different shade. Orange and red. My wife and I wait breathless at the bottom of the stairs most mornings to see what he's put together. His most consistent pattern is red socks. He is now on his second year of wearing only red socks.

One of these days someone will say something to him, and he'll have enough self-awareness to feel embarrassed about it. Then he'll stop, and a little piece of his Jonah-ness will be lost, and I'll probably cry. But until then I'm taking pictures and giving big hugs. Because what 5 year old needs to be concerned with what he's wearing? No sweatpants or pants with holes to school, that's my only concern.

One last thing. Jonah has this black, long-sleeve shirt with a skeleton embroidered on it. It's his Halloween Shirt, and he loves it. He wore it to school back-to-back on October 30th and 31st.

And then he wore it to school yesterday, November 28.

Memelicious

Speaking of cars, there's a great discussion going on at "On Considering Inconveniences," a friend's blog. The author, Fiorinda (not her real name) asks 3 questions about the cars we've had, have, and love. Lots of fun.

It's what I'll call an In-Place Meme, since you need to post your answers on her blog (which I find super-convenient). You can comment anonymously if you want.

Be sure to bookmark the blog, since she'll be doing more of these, and they're bound to be interesting.

Kings, etc.

We learned a new card game this weekend.

Thanksgiving was good. We went to my wife's parents' house (someone please double-check the grammar of those possessives there) and had a grand old time. I may have mentioned it before.

Friday was calmer. My wife went shopping and got some Christmas stuff for the boys, including their annual Christmas Eve Pajamas from the Disney Store (we wouldn't think of getting them anywhere else, dear Expatriate).

After she got back, a friend took me up to the Gwinnett Varsity for lunch and to pick up the new (to us) car.

On Saturday an old friend came by with his kids for the afternoon (he's not old, we've been friends a long time and I can't think of a simple phrase that says that; long friend? sounds Kerry-esque; longtime friend? sounds Prairie Home Companion-ish; anyway 28 years and counting). His wife was out of town and our kids hadn't played together in a while, so he came over.

The kids played video games. Okay, we played too. Then we left the kids and went and sat for awhile in another room. Man, what fun. It's another milestone, like letting the kids sit at their own table at a restaurant. They were in one place, we were in another. Any moment now, they'll all hop in a car and head off somewhere, leaving us old folks to sit around and wish they would stay. Not now, though.

So we played cards, and my friend taught us a new game called Kings In The Corner (I think). We had never played it before, and my friend dealt the cards and said "It's like solitaire." At that point, my wife said, "Ah," and didn't need more explanation. I, who don't know how to play solitaire, did need more, so he explained. Lots of fun.

Here's how it goes:

1. Shuffle the cards. Deal 7 cards to each player.
2. Place remaining cards face-down on the table and lay out the top 4 in a cross around the deck. These start your "lines" (that's what we called them; I'm sure there are official names but I'm not looking them up; so there)
3. The player to the left of the dealer goes first. Cards are laid out of his hand onto the lines in descending order, alternating colors. So if a red 8 was laid down, the next card would have to be a black 7, then a red 6, etc. Aces are low.
4. If the player's hand has a King, it can be put at a 45-degree angle between two existing lines and becomes its own, new line.
5. Lines can be picked up en masse and placed onto another line (so long as the combined line continues the proper order). This clears up a new space for the player to create another line from their own hand.
6. At the end of their turn, if he has any cards remaining, the player draws the top card from the central deck.
7. The player on his left begins their turn.
8. The first person to lay down all of his cards wins.
   

My friend said that his two boys like to play, so I tried to teach it to my guys last night. They got it very quickly (except Jonah, who doesn't like cards, and Sam, who doesn't like to sit at the table). We played several hands. Timothy won twice; my wife, Stephen, and I each won once.

We'll probably add this to the game repertoire, but with Chess, Stratego, and Battleship coming for Christmas, King In The Corner will most likely become a camping game.

On The Day After Thanksgiving . . .

We bought a car.

Nothing fancy. It's 13 years old, has 177k miles on it, the clearcoat on the hood is coming up, various lights et al. have issues.

But it's an Accord, with no wrecks and less than 200k miles on it (given how much I drive, it'll probably never make it that far in the 5 years we'll end up keeping it). And it came at a price that allows us to replace at least one garage door opener.

Our house has a 2-car garage. But instead of one big opening with one large door, we have two smaller openings with two small doors, each with its own opener. And by small, I mean that there are about 3 inches on either side of the van mirrors when we go through the opening. Pulling into the garage is like docking a supertanker. But if I mess up, I don't kill lots of sea birds, I scratch my wife's car. You decide which is worse.

Of the two garage door openers that we inherited with the new house, one has a light that doesn't come on, while the other opener refuses to work at all. I unplugged it when it died because the motor sounded like it was running even though the door wasn't opening. So now the plug hangs down in the garage like a barnacle from Half-Life. I have issues about walking around on that side, and every time I get near it, my subconscious starts scanning for a crowbar.

But with only one car, we had nothing to park on the other side, so it didn't matter that the door wouldn't open. Now it does. I may just get them both replaced, so that a) they'll match, and b) we can get remote openers that work on both of them. Now we have one remote that works just on the working door. It's about the size of cell phone from 1985, and I'm worried that the radiation from it is leaking into the children. The other remote is a 2-button model, one for each door, and is the only way to open the second, now broken door (there is no doorbell thingy for that one). We kept that remote in a safe when it wasn't in use.

All this is to say, the car was inexpensive. Which is good, and it will allow us to return the far half of our garage to the car-storage function for which it was created, instead of a repository for as-yet unrecycled plastic milk jugs, spare child safety seats, and tools that I'm too lazy to put back in the shed.

It's probably a good car, although my mechanic will have a final say on that on Monday morning. It passed through all my filters, but nothing compares to having someone pop the hood, pull the tires, and jack it up and look underneath. Especially if that person knows what he's doing and isn't afraid to tell you the truth.

The boys, of course, love it. It's green, which is in the top five favorite colors of all of them. And, as Stephen said after inspecting the car inside and out, "Good. Now we have two Hondas again."

The Force is strong in that one.

Actual Conversation 3: Words On Thanksgiving

Okay, there were 2 of these yesterday that were true signposts pointing to the crazy world in which we live. Let's begin with Jonah.

As per 4BoyMom request, the boys were to dress yesterday in jeans and a collared shirt. This is a mullet of an outfit, and was explained to the boys as "school pants and a church shirt." Timothy and Stephen grasped this just fine, and we got out Sam's clothes for him anyway. I figured Jonah might have a little trouble, as this was a clothes-picking that was outside of any normal routine.

He did just fine, though, and brought me a pair of brown khakis.

Jonah: "Dad, can I wear these pants? They're Thanksgiving pants."

Me: "Sure, Jonah. Why are they Thanksgiving pants?"

Jonah: "Because they look like a turkey." As he says this, he's flipping them back and forth to show me the resemblance.

Me: "Go check with Mom."

Jonah walks into the bathroom where my wife is getting ready.

Jonah: "Mom, can I wear these Thanksgiving pants? They're the color of a turkey with all its feathers pulled out."

My wife, chuckling: "Sure Jonah. Those are good pants for Thanksgiving."

Jonah: "Thanks Mom."


As per 4BoyHome tradition, we spent Thanksgiving Day with my in-laws. Lots of folks were able to make it this year, and the count was 10 adults, 3 teenagers, and 10 kids. Not bad.

We left around 8 to come home, having already put the kids into their pajamas. My wife and I normally bet on how many kids will fall asleep on the way home, so it's a habit of hers to check and see who's asleep when we get off the Interstate near our house. We were in the front, Timothy and Sam sat in the middle row, and Stephen and Jonah sat in the back.

4BoyMom: [turning around] "I think they're all asleep."

Timothy: "I'm not."

4BoyMom: "Stephen, are you asleep?"

No reply.

4BoyMom: "Jonah?"

Jonah: "I'm not asleep."

Timothy: "Sam's asleep."

4BoyMom: "No he's not. His eyes are open."

Sam: "No. I'm asleep."

Keeping A Promise

I bought the boys a BB gun last night.

Yesterday was Car Day. I spent my lunch hour checking out Hondas and Acuras in the used car lots on Lawrenceville Highway near our house. I literally walked from one lot to another, getting VIN's, mileage and prices. Then I came home and made a spreadsheet (I love Excel), checking the harvested VIN's in Carfax.

It turned out that several of the cars had wrong odometer readings. And by wrong, I mean exactly 100,000 miles. Some coincidence, that. When I called the dealers to let them know, they were of course shocked, shocked to learn of it. Not that it would have much of an impact. The price difference between a 93 Honda Accord with 140k miles and one with 240k miles is just a couple of hundred bucks. But those are my couple of hundred bucks, so I printed out the Carfax reports just in case.

And so, after work I went and did a few test drives (after calling my Dad to find out what I should be looking for in a test drive; thanks Dad!). I drove a 93 Accord with 240,000 miles on it (the odometer read 140,000), and it drove like a 13-year-old Accord with 200k+ miles on it. In a word, nice. Very Honda-y, some roughness in the engine, no wobbles, even when stopping at high speed. Man, I love Hondas.

I also drove 2 Acura Legends. Big cars, both out of our price range originally. But my Carfax findings (1 was missing 100k miles, one had been in a major wreck) dropped the prices into view. One drove superfine but looked like bears had overwintered in the interior for more than a few years. The other was a year newer, with the familiar mid-90's Honda interior appointments, and had no sign of ursine inhabitants. But it drove like crap. Bumpy, grindy, loud. This was obviously the major wreck car, and it showed.

Then I came home, quickly inhaled a quesadilla, and then drove to Discover Mills to meet a kid with another 93 Accord, this time with only 177k miles. Nice kid, nice car. Good ride, no wobbles or bumpies. I'll probably buy this one if a) nothing comes in on the Auctions today, and b) if my mechanic says this car is alright.

But enough about cars. We're here to talk about guns. BB Guns, actually, or, more accurately, Air Rifles.

Both Timothy and Stephen are in Cub Scouts, and at the beginning of this year the three of us went to Adventure Camp, a.k.a. the BB Gun camp. It was an overnight camping trip on Friday and a variety of outdoor activities on Saturday. We actually didn't camp, since that Friday was the day we found out that Timothy is allergic to some heavy-duty antibiotic. I forget the name . . . But we drove down early Saturday morning for the activities,which included shooting BB Guns, Archery, seeing live animals, and an odd environmental game that had hundreds of Scouts and Dads running around an open field.

Timothy loved the animals best, but he also enjoyed the BB Guns. He shot pretty well, especially considering it was only his second time out. Stephen, though, shot a bullseye. But it was on Timothy's target. Regardless, that was the target he was aiming at, so I'm counting the bullseye.

Both loved the shooting, so I figured a BB Gun would be a good Christmas gift. So I stopped into Bass Pro Shops and got one. Just one air rifle, two pairs of shooting glasses, and 1200 BB's. I'll get some targets and set up a range in the backyard, and we'll shoot.

And, just like when I was a kid, if I ever see or hear of them horsing around with it, shooting people or animals or houses, it will become my gun for ever and ever, amen. But they won't be using it unsupervised for many years to come, so I'm not going to worry about it now.

Until then, and until Christmas morning, there is, in my office, in the bookcase behind all the paperback novels, a Daisy Red Ryder Air Rifle. And no, there is no compass in the stock, and no "thing which tells time".

Quote of The Day

Who said this, and where:

Restrictions are great, because they make you more imaginative. They make you rethink things. They make you not do the obvious.

It's a great quote, and is universally applicable. From video games to theology, it's a great point.

Alright, you have until Monday morning, 8 AM EST. That's . . . a lot of hours.

First one with the full correct answer gets something. A bagel. With shmear. With or without me, your choice. If nobody gets it right, I'll take myself out for two bagels.

Note: this is not an ongoing feature. I ran across this quote purely by random.

Actual Conversation, 2

Me [hoisting Jonah up off the floor as he drags himself out of bed]: Good morning my happy monkey!

Jonah [in the 10 second funk along the path between Sleeping Jonah and Full-on Jonah]: Good morning Dad.

Me: I made hot chocolate. Do you want some?

Jonah: Is it snowing?

Me: No, sorry.

[5 second pause]

Jonah: Ok.

Trending Epicurean

My wife's book club met here last night, so she spent pretty much the whole day cleaning the house.

[Alright, in the interest of truth, I'll point out that this is only one of my wife's two book clubs. The one last night was the one from church. The one that met the night before that (!) was a new neighborhood club, at which my wife and her friend Kelly are by far the junior members. By something along the lines of 30 years.]

Anyway, as part of her tornado of cleanliness my wife put new sheets on everyone's bed. This included the new flannel sheets for Timothy and Stephen's bed, which had been purchased a week or so before, and about which Timothy had asked approximately 30 times. So he was happy when they got put on.

So happy, in fact, that when he got home from school he pulled the covers back, got in and read. Then he played his new Gameboy. Then he read some more. All snug and secure in his new flannel sheets.

Of course, this meant that the bed that my wife had carefully made up hours in advance of her friends coming over was now messed up. So she let him have it.

Jonah had messed up his bed, too, by getting into it after it had been made up. But he was sick, so he didn't get hollered at.

Nonetheless, this did not dampen Timothy's enthusiasm for his new sheets. When we got home (my wife made me take the boys out to dinner; please don't throw me in the brier patch!) and the time came to put them to bed, he very excitedly pointed out how warm and comfy they are. I was very happy for him.

Please note: my wife also put flannel sheets on our bed, so all is now right with the world.

Crowing For Now

We just bought our third iPod.

We got our first one about 3-4 years ago. It was one of the big, non-color, non-video ones built on a hard drive. It worked great and did what it was supposed to do (i.e., replace the neverending stream of craptacular portable cassette players that I used when cutting the grass).

It worked for 2 years and then died, probably of a hard drive failure, probably because my wife used it when jogging. "That's right kids, in my day digifrombulators (we called them MP3 players) were as big as the palm of your hand and worked using rapidly spinning magneticized metal disks. And when they failed we cussed and threw them at things. Very heavy, and good for killing squirrels."

When it died, we were left iPod-less for a few months. We really couldn't afford to replace it. Then Apple came out with the Shuffle, and then they apparently got some back and put them up for sale as refurbished units. We rejoiced and bought the cheapest iPod that was available. Under $100 for 1 GB of flash memory goodness.

Not being an audiophile, I can compress the songs to get several days of music on there. And I can fit two decades of talk.

But it didn't have a screen. This didn't matter to me, since during my use of it both of my hands are usually on a lawnmower or a rake and my eyes are watching out for toys or vermin. So for a solid year, all of my Mars Hill listening, all of my 5000 Years of Chinese History listening, podcasts of Hugh Hewitt, etc., have flown from a little plastic stick into my head without hiccup or wrinkle.

But my wife wanted a screen. Her iPod use is different from mine. She likes to put gazillions of songs on the thing and then fidget with it while walking, jogging, driving, or especially while riding in the car while I drive. Very American spirit-ish, not content to just take what is thrown her way. Admirable, of course, but not consistent with the use of a screen-less iPod.

So I sold a car and bought her a Nano.

Just kidding, although we did use a small amount of the money from the sale of a car to buy the cheapest iPod with a screen. She loves it, and now she'll keep Country music off of mine, and I'll keep History of Ancient Egypt, Rome, Byzantium, whatever off of hers.

Now, this was actually a prelude, to establish us fully in the Apple camp. When we first bought an iPod (and, now that you mention it, a Mac), folks asked us why we'd pay so much for one, when decidedly cheaper models were available.

Here's why: I work on Windows computers all day.

Check this out for a better description: these guys tried to install the software that came with the new Microsoft Zune. Please read the whole thing.

For posterity (in case the link gets gone), and because it's at the end, here's the money quote. They're trying to uninstall the Zune software because something wasn't working right (raise your hands; yeah, I've been there too):

Icing on the cake: restart after uninstall. No, sorry, the icing on the cake is the crash our computer took after we hit this, causing our RAID 5 array to crap out and spend a few hours rebuilding.

For the record, I installed iTunes on a computer yesterday and it took 10 minutes, including download time.

Update:
I forgot about this from last year. It's what Microsoft would do with the iPod box. It's a video, very funny.

This reminded me that I still have my original iPod box on a bookshelf in my office. I'm not quite sure why, but it looks awesome.

Walking with Mr. Ludd

Last week was a bad week for me, computer-wise.

On Tuesday, I discovered that my cat has a new walking path in my office. I don't know what it is with animals, but (just like my kids) they have inexplicable favorite places to be and inexplicable favorite ways to get there. My parents used to have a cattle farm behind their house, and the cows used to walk, en masse, along the fence every so often. Many mornings when we were visiting we would gather on the back porch and watch the "Cow Parade". Then some neighbors got a yappy dog and the cows stopped coming by my parents' fence. Now they've clear-cut the pasture and wooded hill and are building a new neighborhood. Ah, progress.

Anyway, my cat now walks behind my desk several times a day. He stays in my office most days, presumably because I'm there, but also possibly because none of the kids are there. But on Tuesday, for the first time, he did not steer clear of my power strip, the one that plugs in both computers and monitors. He stepped on the switch, and then, while I was yelling at him, climbed up on my desk to stare at me. Bad move. I picked him up while bizarrely mumbling "bad kitty" and the like, and then put him in the garage for a while.

Neither of us learned our lesson, because he did it again a couple of hours later. So I moved the power strip. It now resides on the bottom rung of my computers' rack mount (actually a short, metal towel rack that my wife didn't want anymore).

On Wednesday, my mouse finally died. It was a 5 year old optical (i.e. ball-less) mouse and had given good service for a long time. But it had been skipping and refusing to move just a little for a few weeks. By Wednesday, I couldn't move it at all (by this I mean that I could move the mouse itself, but it had absolutely no effect on the cursor on the screen; just so we're clear).

I switched mice (mouses?) with another computer to see if it was the computer or the mouse, and, thankfully, it wasn't the computer. So I had to buy a new mouse, which might have been a pain, but Microsoft has kept the form factor the same. So I just have to get used to a new color. Yay.

On Friday, my monitor died. It was even older than the mouse, being a 7+ year old Gateway CRT (big, heavy and hot). Its demise was very inconvenient, because I had work to do on both computers. A little juggling, lots of shutting down and restarting, and I was able to finish the day. But by Friday afternoon, I never wanted to see another computer again.

But yesterday I got my new monitor, a 19" LCD. Very nice. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have dozens of sticky notes to transfer.

Rained Out and Flushed Away

Well, we were going to play putt-putt.

Yesterday, a little over a week late, was the Friends Party for Timothy's 9th birthday. As previously described, our kids get about 4 birthday celebrations each year. First, on the Day itself, each gets to open presents from us (and, I suppose for the future, from his brothers). Second, at some point within a couple of weeks before or after, we'll have dinner of some sort with my parents (and possibly my sister's family). Third, there's also a monthly celebration with my wife's huge family, where the whole clan will get together and (in passing) celebrate the birthdays from that month.

Fourth and finally, there's the Friends party, where the boy chooses a few friends (historically, between 1 and 12) and we'll do something. Stephen's birthday is in the summer, so we've had a sprinkler party for him (I think that was the one with 12 friends). Jonah's is three days after Christmas, so we usually grab whomever is still in town and still has some celebration left in them for a quiet get-together. Sam is 3, and hasn't really been old enough for a friends-only party yet.

But Timothy's birthday sits squarely at the beginning of the Holiday Movie Season. So he has seen several movies as his party, including The Incredibles (highly recommended for all occasions) and Zathura (not recommended at all; as Stephen said after seeing it, "Dad, promise me we'll never buy that movie." I did so promise).

As the oldest, Timothy's birthday requests are the most extravagant. He's asked to go to the new Georgia Aquarium, but at twenty-something dollars a head, we had to say no. He's also asked to go to that Medieval Times jousting restaurant, but the tickets are even more expensive, so we had to say no to that, too. Sometimes it sucks to be a Dad.

This year, he wanted to go play putt-putt. Supposing this to be cheaper than an aquarium or turkey-leg trip, we agreed.

Then the complications began. First, I was going to be out of town for the weekend of his actual birthday. So we picked the next weekend, but 2 of his friends couldn't make it (he had picked 4). We finally agreed on a weekend when 3 of the 4 could come, and he decided to add another friend to the list.

The day of the party arrived, cloudy and cold. We dithered. I checked the weather, but it said only 10% chance of rain. My wife wanted to plan something else, but when I asked Timothy, he still wanted to go putt-putt. So we raked leaves.

Later in the day, still cloudy, now 20% chance of rain, still putt-putt on the agenda. Friends arrived, 30% chance, coudy and windy now, still putt-putt. So we pack 4 third graders, 1 first grader (Stephen wanted to go), and a worried Dad into the car and headed off to Stone Mountain.

When we arrived, it started to sprinkle. No biggie, I had seen the radar and it was a very thin line of showers. Then we saw the signs: DeKalb County Family Cookout. The place was packed. There was nowhere to park near the putt-putt course. So I drove to another set of parking lots, thinking we could walk. After all, my wife had told me not to come home for 2 hours (the boys had gotten into the creek before we could leave, and it had frazzled her a little). But the rain kept falling.

So I called my wife, and she said, "What about a movie?"

"Fine by me. What's playing?"

She checked the local dollar theater, "Nothing."

"What about Regal 24?" This is the mega theater built on top of the old 85 Drive In, where I first saw Star Wars. Good memories there.

She looked, "Well, Flushed Away is playing, but not until 4." It was barely 3:00. This was unacceptable.

"What about North DeKalb?"

"Bingo, 3:20. Come get Jonah."

I did, and we all piled in. I normally get a kick out of the stares I get whenever I take 4 boys somewhere, so I was loving walking around the mall with 6 hyperactive boys. We "stood" in line, got our tickets, and got into the theater just as the ads came on. Perfect timing.

The movie was great. No cussing. One poop joke, one fart joke, and two burp jokes. That's all, and not too bad for a Dreamworks related movie (I think Shrek surpassed all of that in the opening credits). It's a very funny movie nonetheless, and very pro-big-family. The singing slugs were great, as were the ninja frogs. My guys laughed throughout, and then talked about it all the way home.

Oh yeah, when we got out of the movie, it was pouring down rain. It seems I had read the radar wrong (actually, I neglected to look at the loop). It wasn't a thin line of clouds, it was a thin column of clouds, followed by another, and another. It hadn't stopped raining since we had left Stone Mountain park, and it rained on through presents, pizza, and cake.

I think it stopped as my wife was taking everyone home.

On Manual Labor

Okay, Fall is back in favor.

I'm coming to admit that my recent aversion to Autumn had to do primarily with the trees I was dealt. The big oak in front of our house was the main culprit, with its tiny, brown, flat leaves that fell to carpet the lawn for 4 months straight and were impossible to blow.

But now, in the new house, we have an amazing variety of trees and leaves. Out front is a deep red Japanese Maple that is still mostly intact after slow weeks of color change. Just over the border to our neighbor's yard is a vibrant orange maple of some sort (Sugar Maple?). It has glowed like a neon sign for almost a full month, coloring the afternoon light in my office a bizarre shade.

In the backyard is an even bigger Japanese Maple, this one a rich purple with jagged leaves. There are also several other maples and some River Birches that long ago dropped their yearly burden into our creek. Our back deck and postage-stamp back lawn are adrift in gold and red.

So I'm liking Fall, from a visual standpoint.

I'm also liking it from a work standpoint, since all of these crumply leaves are easier to blow, rake, and pick up than the graphite sheets of oak leaves from years past. A few Saturday morning hours of blowing, a little raking, and the help of 3 boys cleared the entire front yard today; a job that used to take dawn to dusk.

When we began this morning, my wife took the three younger boys for their Thanksgiving haircuts while Timothy and I got started. He raked all the leaves that were in the driveway (a considerable amount) while I blew the lawn. As we finished that, the haircut expidition returned and Stephen came out to help. They loaded several bags with leaves while I did clean-up work with the rake.

Then we took a football break. Timothy can really throw and is even getting good at catching. Stephen tries really hard, but is still at the place where looking impressive while throwing is more important than getting the ball to the receiver. In the midst of the break, Stephen had to leave for a birthday party and Jonah came out to take his place. Timothy and I continued to throw while Jonah blocked with the rake, and I considered it good QB practice.

Finally we finished loading the bags (Sam came out and picked up a single handful), and I sent the boys in to start cleaning their rooms (later today is Timothy's 9th Birthday Party; we're going to play putt-putt) while I collected the tools. That's when I noticed the side yard.

It's a small area, but it was already a couple of inches deep in purple leaves (again with the maples), so I figured I'd rescue the grass underneath. Not wanting to get bored, I went inside and grabbed the iPod, vowing just to listen to whatever was on there (most likely Country music left on by my wife).

But it turned out to be Audition, a 30-minute podcast from Mars Hill Audio. First came some snippets from some recent bioethics interviews (Leon Kass, et al.); good stuff, if a little weighty for a Saturday morning. Then they finished out the podcast with a reading from an article called "Shop Class as Soulcraft."

Wow. It's about craftsmanship, working with your hands, and it is great stuff. If you have ever worked with your hands to make stuff, either for work, hobby, or leisure, it's a great read. Here's a brief snippet:

I began working as an electrician’s helper at age fourteen, and started a small electrical contracting business after college, in Santa Barbara. In those years I never ceased to take pleasure in the moment, at the end of a job, when I would flip the switch. “And there was light.” It was an experience of agency and competence. The effects of my work were visible for all to see, so my competence was real for others as well; it had a social currency. The well-founded pride of the tradesman is far from the gratuitous “self-esteem” that educators would impart to students, as though by magic.

I was sometimes quieted at the sight of a gang of conduit entering a large panel in a commercial setting, bent into nestled, flowing curves, with varying offsets, that somehow all terminated in the same plane. This was a skill so far beyond my abilities that I felt I was in the presence of some genius, and the man who bent that conduit surely imagined this moment of recognition as he worked. As a residential electrician, most of my work got covered up inside walls. Yet even so, there is pride in meeting the aesthetic demands of a workmanlike installation. Maybe another electrician will see it someday. Even if not, one feels responsible to one’s better self. Or rather, to the thing itself—craftsmanship might be defined simply as the desire to do something well, for its own sake.

So you should probably go read it. And here I'm specifically instructing you: Dad, Steve, Brian, Al, and Gary. All of these folks are master builders or fixers, whom I hold in awe (I myself am a very minor fixer, and haven't built anything of consequence since grade school). I'll probably read this article a few more times and continue to wish I knew how to make something real.

And if one day one of my boys tells me that he doesn't want to go to college, that he'd like to be a mechanic, or a plumber, or a welder, then that will be fine with me. Anything but an actor.

The article is here for free.

The 55 minute reading is here for download for $3.

The 30 minute Audition podcast from Mars Hill Audio is available from iTunes. And, of course, more Mars Hill stuff, including a subscription, can be found on their website.

Enjoy.

Discriminating Taste

Every time we drive by the McDonald's in Tucker, Sam says, "Jonah is sad." You see, there's no McDonald's there anymore. They tore it down.

Micky D's is Jonah's favorite restaurant in the entire universe. I have driven the full length and breadth of many small southern cities, eyes scanning between the sky and horizon for the golden arches. We have eaten very early and very late while on the road to take advantage of a disadvantageously placed McDonald's. We have also made two stops on occasion, picking up a golden-wrapped Precious in advance and taking it in with us wherever we go.

It's the cheeseburgers, you see. Jonah will only eat McDonald's cheeseburgers. Not the Varsity (it's brown on top and smushed!), not Wendy's (it's square!), not Burger King (the cheese is melted!), nor even Chili's (also melted). We have searched far and wide to find another cheeseburger to please the palate of my third child, the blue-eyed fast food tyrant. If we do go somewhere else, he will eat something else (following much wailing and gnashing of teeth).

If we leave the house after I get off from work, and if the word "dinner" has been mentioned even in passing, Jonah will start begging to go to McDonald's as soon as we get in the car. "Are we going to McDonald's?" "Can we go to McDonald's?" "Why aren't we turning in to McDonald'?" "Dad! YOU DROVE PAST MCDONALD'S!?!"

So you can probably imagine the scene within the car when my wife, Jonah, and Sam drove past the Tucker McDonald's, only to see it gone. The building was missing, only a muddy rubble remained.

Sam still talks about it whenever we drive by.

They are rebuilding (although they took a horribly long time to put up a notice saying when they planned to re-open). And so there will be a McDonald's in Tucker again, starting in December.

We will of course be there on opening day.