Ladder Girl

Another notch in our Parents of the Year nomination.  Well Father of the Year, because this one was all mine.

Thursday I got home a little early, so Bobbins ran some errands.  Just me and the girls.  We went for a nice walk with Olden.  The HVAC guy came over to look at the heating--a/c unit, in preparation for summer.  I wanted to get on the roof to look at it with him, to learn a few things about the system.  I figured the girls would be fine in the backyard, Josie in her exe-saucer and MM running around with Olden.  So I left them out, put up my extension ladder, and went up.

About 5 minutes later Bobbins came home.  I thought she'd get the girls and get ready for dinner while the HVAC guy and I finished up on the roof.  Another couple minutes passed and Bobbins came into the back.  I heard her say "Oh my goodness!" and I looked back toward the ladder, and there was MM on the top rung, trying to figure out how to get onto the roof.  She had climbed up about 10' all by herself.  She must've watched me do it and decided to give it a go.  She wasn't scared in the least bit.  I grabbed her and we laughed about it, after our heartbeats returned to normal.

Later we took some photos and video to memorialize the occasion.

               

Pump It Up

Last Friday night we went to a Pump It Up birthday party for some of the girls' friends.  The place is a warehouse full of huge inflatable slides and courses that kids and adults can do.  At the end, the kids pile into a room for pizza and soda.  We were a little late and missed the first room but enjoyed the slides.  Well, Bobbins, me, and Josie did; MM not so much.

Could one of these things hold all three of us?

         






Group shot of all the kids, zoom in on Josie zooming right back

          

Her Own Cute Post

You can't beat that smile, even if it is from Torquemada.

        

        

MM and Mom at the Childrens Museum

Last Thursday Bobbins met up with a few of the other moms and -- armed with treasured culture passes from the library -- hit the Childrens Museum of Phoenix.

           






"Shopping" at the Play Grocery Store.  MM excelled.

                 

"I know there's something in there."

Party Weekend 1

Two weekends ago was quite a party weekend for us.  Saturday morning MM and I went to the baptism of my colleague's daughter at our church, then to lunch at the couple's home afterward.  They also have two girls and just put in a little swingset and playhouse.  MM was jealous and asked me for the same.

While it wasn't a party, Bobbins and Josie went to a Memorial Mass for our dear departed friend Marie.  She is certainly in a better place now, which is some cause for celebration.

Sat. night was the going-away party for Kevin, Jessica, and their kids.  They are moving to the northwest and the mom's group wanted to do a proper send-off, which entailed a Sound of Music-themed party.  The moms even wrote a Jessica-themed line of lyrics to one of the movie's main songs and sang it for her.  And of course they put together a scrapbook.  Bobbins did up some real nice decorations which you can see hanging below the stairs.

Special packages by Bobbins

             

Par-tay









The gals prepping to sing; the waterworks begin . . .

        



Reviewing the scrapbook.  That's Kevin's best running shirt.

            

This about says it all

Bobbins, Jess, Jenny

Obama Presents a Joke

The big news story of the day is the President presenting his 2012 budget, which is more of a joke than a real plan for fiscal sanity.  This was the best illustration I saw:

$3.73 trillion — total spending this year (25 percent of GDP, highest levels since World War Two).


$46 trillion — total spending over the next decade.

$8.7 trillion — total new spending over the same period.

$26.3 trillion — Total new debt, including entitlement obligations, predicted by 2021.

$7.2 trillion — Total deficit predicted by the end of the decade.

$1.1 trillion — How much the White House estimates the proposal will reduce the deficit over the next ten years.

$4 trillion — How much the president’s deficit commission recommended reducing the deficit over the next ten years to avoid financial catastrophe.

$1.6 trillion — The projected annual deficit for 2011 (11 percent of GDP), up from $1.3 trillion in 2010.

$2 trillion — Amount the budget will raise taxes on business and upper-income families over the next ten years, which includes letting the Bush-era tax rates expire in 2012 (for incomes $250,000 and up).

$50 billion — Amount the administration plans to spend this year on infrastructure and transportation “investments.”

That last amount is slated for Obama's, and liberals', beloved high-speed rail.  That they honestly believe such a system is a good idea belies their lack of seriousness.  Like it or not, this nation turned away from rail as a means of human transport 80 years ago.  The Great Depression pretty much killed it.  The Government tried to bring it back in the 1970s with Amtrak, which is a near total failure.  Yet they want to try it again?  How can you seriously propose this?  I know one of the ideas is that it's supposedly a cleaner, "greener" mode of transportation (which is doubtful, in my mind), but the cost is beyond unaffordable.  This article spells it out pretty nicely.

Girls Update

MM is pretty much potty trained and she's not even 2 yet.  We'll spare you the gory details from photos.  She's had a real problem going #2, but thanks to the advice of Aunt Mel, who recommended a daily dose of Activia yogurt, she's gotten better.  I'll never forget the other day standing in the kitchen eating and hearing the sound of water hitting plastic.  I looked down and there she was just going pee like it was no big deal.  Bobbins has done a terrific job training her.

Josie, like her sister at that age, has a sweet disposition, but unlike her sis, is a terror at night.  We've taken to calling her Torquemada.  It's not that bad, but at 4am it seems that way.  We got a couple tips recently we're going to try.  The hard thing is that you can't let her cry it out because she'll go a whole hour + crying or making noises.  I'm sure she'll come around soon.

                

             

Learning how to spend money -- I mean, shopping with mom at Target.















As today's Valentines Day, I got MM a little card.  I started to sign and had to stop.  Thankfully the first letter's the same and the second is close.  I realized I had to sign it "Dad" instead of "Doug."

Party Weekend 2

We followed up the Saturday of parties with one on Sunday, which was not just any Sunday, but Super Bowl Sunday.  I've gone to my buddy Dennis's house every year since 2005.  There's a ton of kids (and toys) and it's very family-oriented.  Kevin and Jess came along for the first half.

           

The girls had primetime seating.  Sienna really enjoyed it.

          

There was a ton of delicious food.

      






I was glad to see the Packers win.  I didn't really care either way, although it was nice to see the Steelers lose a tight one after stealing the game from the Cardinals two years ago.  I was really glad for Aaron Rodgers, the anti-Favre, who deserved it.  I'm not sure what happened to the Steelers, but they didn't show up.

Phoenix Open

Today I was out at the Phoenix Open.  I hadn't been in a few years, when I went one Saturday with my friend Jimmy.  That seems like eons ago even though it was only 2007.  The last time before that was when I was in college, 1997 or 1998 I think, when the tournament was a lot smaller.  A bunch of us guys went and I remember chanting "ASU, ASU" at #16 when a younger, pre-major-winner Phil Mickelson came to the tee.  The vendors handed out a lot of free stuff and it was a lot of fun, even being under 21.

They've really gone all out on 16, as you can see in the photo at left.  The entire whole is a stadium.  It's long been known as the rowdiest hole in golf, and this certainly cements its reputation.  I cruised by there toward the end of the day and even then, Thursday with freezing cold weather, it was rocking.  The alcohol flows quite freely.  I watched Vijay Singh sink a par putt, then watched his group tee off from #17.  It's a shorter par 4 and one of the guys in the group (not Vijay, he was just short) drove the green from the tee.  Amazing to watch the pro's.  [17 is the only par-4 that's been aced (hole-in-one) in PGA tournament history.  That's the island green of #15 in the photo at left.  Full course map here.]

One of these days I will have to play the Tournament Players Club Stadium Course.  I played the TPC Desert Course back in the day with my dad, Uncle Jack, and Steve.  It's a good challenge too.  But having been out there today, I've got get on it for real.  In the summer when I can afford it.

I am for sure going to volunteer at this tournament or others when I'm retired.  I think it would be a blast to carry the little sign with the players' names and scores.  There is one of these with each group.  Standing around holding a QUIET sign would be okay too, I guess.  But it would be fun to walk the course amongst professionals.

A note about the cold:  I about froze my butt off.  It's probably official, I'm back to being an AZ cold wimp.  The cold tolerance I built up in OH has dissipated.  The highest it got out there today was 40.  Where I spent most of my time had no heat, just a couple little space heaters.  Some of the women were bundled in giant parkas.  It's supposed to get back to the 70s this wkend which can't come fast enough.

Is Egypt Iran?

The Egypt story is reaching the saturation point.  I have been saying since the beginning that the scary thing about the 'revolution' in Egypt was the prospect that the Islamists, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, could take over, just as the Islamists led by the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran in 1979.  Nearly everyone despised the Shah then, and a generally popular revolt composed of a broad swath of Persian society overthrew him.  The Islamists were the best organized with the most charismatic leader, which enabled them to assume power on the Shah was deposed.  The same could be said of the MB at Mubarak's departure, although they lack the charismatic leader (at least as seen by the West).  Iran wasn't an 'accident,' and neither would Egypt be, but the Islamists taking over is not predestined.

Another interesting Egypt-Iran comparison was in 2009 Iran, where the people rose up against the mullahs over the presidential election but were outlasted by the regime and slowly, brutally repressed by the basij.  It doesn't look like Egypt is going that way, but you never know.  Mubarak's not a fool and the Army hasn't totally left him yet.

Pajamas Media did a great interview on this topic with Abbas Milani, the Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University.  It's a great examination of the issue from both sides.

Still Obama

Krauthammer had a great dissection of the State of the Union speech:  The Old Obama in New Clothing.