New Job Title On My Resume'

Let's start out by saying I am still up in the air about the new South Dakota High School sport of Competitive Dance Team or Competitive Cheering. I'm not gonna argue, the girl's are athletes and it takes athleticism to compete, but I find it hard to think that someday I will get to watch highlights of "competitive cheering" on the local news at night, and I will care about the outcome of a competition, or whom the state champion is.

With that said, one of Steph's friends coaches the "Competitive Dance Team" at Iroquois High School, and she asked if I would put together their dance routine music. I have watched the movie "Bring It On" and have caught some of this "competitive cheering" on ESPN 2 at 1:30 in the morning, and I kind of understood what she wanted. I like a challenge, and I have never edited a music mix of this sort, so it would be a new job title I could bestow on to myself.

So on some recent road trips I packed my MP3 player with all the Hip Hop/Dance-type music that I own, and wrote down a set list to compile the songs together...DJ style.

It is harder than it sounds, but I think I got the right amount of flow, speed, breaks, and cool samples included in the 1 minute and 15 seconds of funk that Iroquois will be the best dance team in a 5 mile radius of the town. I actually think it turned out really good.

I'm also pretty sure that my obscure taste in underground and indie music will have the girls dancing to the only mix in the state that includes music from Timbaland & L.L. Cool J., Jurassic 5, Public Enemy, Family Force 5 and sampled school bells and bomb explosions.

I guess I will be cheering for IHS' competitive dance team this year, unless someone else wants music from Lake Byron's biggest name in underground dance mixes...DJ Tommy G.

My boy Mark-O

Watch this clip...about 2:15 in you get to see Mark-O in a younger state...pretty cool to have this old video...and he's still going strong.

I fell asleep in a crib tonight.

Let's just say we have been having some trouble getting Brecken to sleep lately. I think he knows that the party dosen't stop at 9:30 p.m. when he is sleeping and it kills him not to be involved in whatever is going on.

Friday night was a late night getting home so we struggled with him. We did the right thing as parents and gave up, letting him fall asleep in our bed...then moving him to the crib.

After a day spent outside, on Saturday, I though he would collapse from exhaustion into his own bed. Nope. After his bath, he didn't want anything to do with his bed. So we faught him on it.

Steph finally got him settled enough that he would lay his head down and scream at only 50% of his volume capacity, so I took over the job of patting his back to settle him the rest of the way. Now, that is tough to do for a long period of time, because you are bent over the railing of the crib, so I decided to jump in with him.

His bed is pretty comfortable, and I must have been pretty tired, because Steph woke me up 15 minutes later...I was all curled up in a ball, and would have spent the night there if she would have left me alone. Now I am awake writing on this stupid blog at 2:30 a.m.

BobbleHeads.

Outside of the history of baseball teams giving away bobble heads, I don't really get the whole bobble head thingy, but if you want a General Lee, Oprah, Jedd Clampett, Pope BenXVI, or Tom Brokaw and Mt. Rushmore, more power to ya.

I prefer my bobble heads a little more classic in nature, even a football bobble is pushing the limits. With that said, I made these before bed tonight...for no reason at all.

Brecken had no choice, he had to be in his dad's favorite team's uniform...Maxim on the other hand has chosen the Boston Red Sox as his team, because he likes Coco Crisp...the player. He also likes Cocoa Crisp the cereal...I think there is a connection there!

Phones and Popcorn

Watch this first...then scroll down to read about it.





Click here to read more about this amazing feat.

The readers like it when I am in pain.

Saturday's post about the beatdown I received via my 2 boys caused many readers to walk up to me and say how funny it was that the boys beat me like that...glad I could give you a laugh.

Isn't it funny how we get joy out of other people's physical pain. Like when someone gets hit by a door, or falls off a bike, or someone slips on ice and breaks a hip, we laugh...and then make fun of them to their face.

I think God built us with a healthy fear of pain so that we wouldn't do things that cause us to get hurt...that being said, I have a sore back and a sunburn today. Not from wakeboarding like you would expect...I am pretty sure I got it from scooping and hauling wheelbarrows of dirt to some holes in our yard left by some tree stumps we had removed. Now why wouldn't my internal "ohhh this is gonna hurt" monitor go off before I started doing the yard work?

No more Kung Fu movies.

On behalf of fathers everywhere I am making a plea to Hollywood...no more kid movies about karate, kung fu, or any martial arts.

It seems every generation has it's karate movie that gets kids to pretend that they can control their "Fists of Fury" like some little Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. Enter the Dragon, Karate Kid, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, and this year's hit cartoon...Kung Fu Panda.

For the record, Kung Fu Panda was super funny and I loved the movie (I love anything with Jack Black in it), as did Maxim and his little brother. Naturally after the movie it was time to act out the fight scenes with dad as the bad guy...which is fine...when I am ready for it.

Tonight after baths the boys wanted to do a little Kung Fu action and since mom is in Minneapolis I entertained them by turning the living room into our own dojo.

The problem with my kids and their Kung Fu is that they don't pull their punches, or know when dad is expecting to be punched. We Kung Fu'ed for 15 minutes and I was kind of done...as I was getting off my knees, I got caught with a little "Fist of Fury" from Maxim. Let's just say if I was still on my knees he would have hit me in the chest, unfortunately for me I was standing up...and he hit me hard!

I went down in a pile, clinging to life, or what was left of it. As I was reeling with the pain that every man has felt, and trys with all that is in him to never feel again, Brecken came in for the kill. Did you know that 2 year olds have a fist that is the same size as your eye socket?

I actually didn't get my eye closed in time, and I saw his fist smack my eyeball...up close! I turtled up like I was getting beat down by muggers and tried to protect my vital internal organs and at that moment Brecken followed up with a kick to my earhole. I think he broke my hammer, anvil and stirrup. (the three little bones in your inner ear)

Needless to say I cried, "No Mas, No Mas!" and ended the beatdown.

Maxim walks away and says to Brecken, "Come on brother, the battle is over." I was crying and laughing at the same time.

What happened to "gentle rains"?

For the record, I like the rain...it waters my lawn, fills up my lake, makes the landscape of Earth look prettier, washes my Subaru...etc.

My only complaint is...this spring and summer it seems like every time there is rain forecasted it includes 70 mph winds, golf ball size hail, and an insane amount of lightning. Last night was one of those nights, I could actually see the lake's waves because of the constant lightning.

Then when the thunder hits, we get a new visitor to our bed. Brecken has figured out how to escape the crib, and then wanders into our bedroom during storms, or points where he is done sleeping and wants to hang out with other humans.

He has been doing this for a week or so. One night he couldn't find the door and he ended up sleeping under his bed for the rest of the night. Steph was surprised to find him all curled up under the crib when she went in to get him in the morning.

We did get the gentle rain this morning which was very nice, but just once this summer I would like to go to bed with the windows open and the rain falling...instead of the windows closed and the hail pinging into the glass.

SIDE NOTE:
By the way there was some excitement at my Uncle and Aunt's lake in the Huron city limits today (Ravine Lake)...you might want to check out ksfy.com or keloland.com tonight to get the full "actual" story...right now the rumor mill in Huron is in full swing.

I heard 3 or 5 aliens from the planet "ROutekliNg68U" found the old snowman that used to sit on the roof of Newberry's on the corner of 3rd and Dakota submerged in the lake and they notified local news icon Mike Carroll with the Daily Plainsmen that he should do a story on it. Mike and Roger Kasa went out this morning and found something underwater, but couldn't figure out if it was the snowman, so they called over to Ida Mae's to get the cops to come out and check it out...the rest will be on the news tonight. (seriously, the stories surrounding things like this are like movie plots from the '60's, I actually heard that an airplane with "dead body surveying technology" flew over the lake and found a car and a body. If that's true that's pretty cool technology, since the body has been in the lake since '95.)

Yeah, I took a little vacation from the blog...

I don't plan the breaks from the website...they just happen. We have been pretty busy around home and I have been traveling the mountains of Montana and Idaho over the last 2 weeks, so don't feel sorry for me. I hit the Craters if the Moon National Monument yesterday, very interesting landscape. Check it out if you are in the Eastern Idaho foothills.

You will also have to go through Arco, Idaho...drop in for lunch at the Pickle Place...super good "road food". Also a place with some character and characters!

The areas I have been to are simply beautiful, the Bozeman area and Sun Valley/Hailey, Idaho area are places everyone should visit once. Imagine the Black Hills on steroids.

Brecken and Steph are enjoying some time alone this week as Maxim is staying at his best friend's house in Sioux Falls...his first real stay over away from home. I'm going to pick him up when I get back from Idaho, it will be fun to see him.

Brecken has added a couple of new talents to his 2 year-old resume...he is a huge skateboarder, and also rode the skim-ski last week. The skim-ski is a one piece ski that most really young kids learn to ride before they double ski. I'm not sure 2 years old is the right age for a kid to be skiing on his own, but he wanted to and he loved it. Thanks to Erkel and Ray-Ray for helping him get started. He might be the first wakeboarding-skateboarding-cowboy, but that would make him very well-rounded.

Can't wait to get home, get on the lake and slow down enough to enjoy what's left of summer.

Perfect Weekend

The 4th of July is usually too busy to enjoy, but this year was different. We felt very compelled to throw a big party at the house, but we never really did. I think the most people we had last weekend was around 25, which is a perfect number...considering a lot of them were under the age of 13!

We watched the fireworks around the lake a couple nights and just enjoyed the whole perfect weather weekend. Only one day was really windy, but that made the annual Lake Byron paddle boat races very interesting.

Monday was a snap back to reality as I had to catch a 6am flight to Montana...gotta work, I guess.

Toad Scares Man To Death...

The above headline almost made it into the local paper.

Last night, as I was walking from the lake up to the house, a frog or toad jumped on my foot, and scared me...almost to death.

I had flip-flops on and when it landed on my foot the first time I screamed and kicked my foot to get it off of my foot, but it must have got caught on my sandal strap and hung there for another kick. I was dancing around like a little school girl and kind of half screaming...then I lost my balance and almost fell down some steps.

When I finally regained my composure I did a quick look around to make sure the neighbors weren't out watching or there wasn't any boats going past the house. Nobody else was around, it was just me screaming, the toad jumping and God laughing.