Adventures of a Seattle Dad

There are some residents of Seattle that seem to be of the opinion that, because they pay taxes, they can drive on any public road. While this might be technically true for now, when I am selected as Traffic Czar For Life there will be some changes. For starters, lets discuss scooters. Some people like them, and that is fine so long as they keep them to urban areas. When they drive them out in the suburbs on roads with high speed limits, then we have to have a talk. Take West Valley Highway Scooter Guy for example. If you have a scooter that maxes out at 30 mph, it should be a caning offense to drive it on a road that has a 50 mph speed limit. Traffic is already slow enough without you driving around 20 mph below the limit. Secondly, if you do own a little, red scooter, you should not, ever, under any circumstances, drive it with a black leather biker jacket and one of those black helmets that look like a WWII German Army helmet. When you are buzzing along, 20 mph below the speed lim

You may have listened to the Harry Potter series on audio in the car with your child too many times when you are at Cub Scout "God and Family" class and they talk about the story of the 5 loaves of bread and the 2 fish feeding 5000 people and you think of Gamp's Law . Of course he had to ask around for what food they already had because no one can make food out of thin air... ahhh, no. Wrong book.

I have known for some time that I am sub-optimal at yard maintenance. I take a Darwinistic approach to gardening, for example - the strong survive and the weak die out. I reason that plants in the forest don't get fertilized and trimmed, so why do I need to do that to plants in my yard. Here in Seattle, we humans are only temporarily borrowing our yards from the forest,anyway. When 2012 happens, or North Korean nukes, or the big earthquake, or Rainier goes off, or space aliens attack and we are all wiped out, the forest will take back Seattle in about half an hour, give or take. Maybe a bit longer, but you see my point. My retired neighbor operates on a higher level of yard care. His yard is spotless, trimmed, and perfect at all times. We are getting ready for a party next weekend and I amazingly remembered to check the hot tub this morning. The heater was completely powered off and the control panel was blinking the unhelpful message "OH" at me. Perhaps indicating, &qu

Today, Pat Robertson went on TV and declared that the earthquake in Haiti was the Haitians fault for making a pact with the devil to free them from French rule. He has previously declared that Katrina was caused by legalized abortion, and of course, that 9/11 was because of the gays. Just last night, Alex and I attended a "God and Family" class for Cub Scouts. One of the lessons of that class is the parable of the Prodigal Son and the point of the story is that, even if you turn your back on God, He will always welcome you back. I have a lot of issues with organized religion, but the "words in red" in the New Testament are the really the whole point of God's message, in my opinion. Be nice to each other, help each other out regardless of age, social status, etc. Jesus famously pissed off the established church of the day by hanging out with tax collectors, and other "unclean" people just so he could tell them that God loved them just as much as every

We went to Wyoming for Christmas and New Years this year and it was an excellent trip. One might think that going someplace that has below zero temperatures and blizzards for "vacation" is crazy, and I wondered that myself before I went. When I returned to Seattle, however, the 47 degree temperature and rain felt like a tropical mist by comparison to Wyoming. Now I wonder if I should go to Wyoming every winter just to remind myself how easy we have it in Seattle. There were lots of other differences between Wyoming and Seattle. For example, they have this deal call "sun shine." It isn't gray all of the time. Sunglasses are required for beady-eyed, Seattle people. Amber's parents live out in the country and when you walk outside in the morning on a calm day do you know what you hear? Nothing. Not anything. No freeway, no airplanes, no sirens - nothing. Since it is winter there aren't even bird or insect noises. You just hear this amazing silence. The fi

Babies cry on airplanes. Everyone knows this. It is what they do. They can't help it. When the plane is landing, the pressure changes and the baby's ears hurt until they can pop them. If the parent gives them a little bottle to suck on, then they swallow, their little ears pop, and they stop crying. This is old news, but every flight that I have ever taken ends with babies crying during landing. There are always new parents who don't know what to do about this issue, so why don't the airlines help these parents out? On every flight they show us how to put on a seat belt , but they don't hand parents with infants a little bottle of water with a nipple so the baby can suck down some water while landing? You can get 26 channels of TV on the screen on the seat back in front of you, but you are on your own with the baby? I don't get it.