I hate to see my son cry when I drop him off for the first day of school. Fortunately he’s old enough to drive himself this year. # Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Kids
Playing With Pain
My son comes home from playing basketball at L.A. Fitness with what looks like blood all over his white T-shirt. “Is that blood on your shirt?” I ask him. “Yeah. A guy followed through on his shot and smacked me in the face.” “So your nose was bleeding?” “Yeah. I wiped it on my shirt.” “That’s awesome.” “I know. It’s sick.” Read more →
Living in Beverly Hills
LOS ANGELES — Donald Bren’s two out-of-wedlock children testified Monday in the fraud case they brought against their billionaire father that they didn’t lack any material things growing up in Beverly Hills, but that his absence in their lives made them feel angry, hurt and abandoned. — ocregister.com Hey kids, that feeling — is called “life.” Read more →
What I’d Really Like, Dad, is to Borrow the Car Keys
My son walks into my room and says, “Dad, where are your car keys?” “Where are you going?” I ask. “Gym,” he says, and starts to walk out of the room again. “Wait a minute. Where are you going?” “To the gym.” “I got that, but you asked me a question and you’re walking out of the room before I answered it.” “I thought you could give me the answer as I was walking away.” “Well, I can’t because the keys are in my pocket.” “Oh,” he says. “See, that’s what threw me off,” I say, “is I’ve got the keys right here and you’re walking in the other direction.” “I don’t have time to stand around,” he says. “You don’t? Well, I don’t have time to figure out other people’s mystifying behavior.” Read more →
Short Books
My kid’s got a summer assignment for AP English — select and read two novels from a list of about 20. I’ve been telling him since June that I’d be glad to go over the list with him and recommend books that he might enjoy reading but he’s put it off so long now that I’m limited to recommending short books that he might enjoy reading, and that leaves us with Ethan Frome, Wide Sargasso Sea and All the Pretty Horses. He comes back from the bookstore with Frome and Sargasso, two books about men who marry crazy women. He ruled out All the Pretty Horses because it’s 300 pages long and “I read the first sentence and it had like six adjectives.” Read more →
A Dog at the Airport
Picking up my family at John Wayne Airport . . . There’s a guy walking around the baggage claim area with a toy poodle on a leash. I point this out to my son and say, “I didn’t know you could walk your dog around here. I would have brought Lightning.” “Maybe it’s a bomb-sniffing dog,” he says. “A bomb-sniffing poodle?” “Yeah.” Read more →
Twitter: 2010-08-09
RT @robdelaney: Just saw a cute little boy eating a HUGE cookie! I taught him a lesson about loss that I know he'll appreciate one day. # Read more →
Comparing Hands
My son comes home from playing basketball, holds his hand up in front of me and says, “Let me see your fingers.” I don’t know what he’s up to here but I put my palm against his palm and we compare fingers. They’re about the same. Mine are maybe a little longer. “HA!” he says. “It’s your fault I can’t dunk! Bad genetics! I can get over the rim but the ball comes out of my hand because I can’t palm it.” “Hmmm,” I say. “I could palm a basketball easily when I was your age so your theory doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.” “Could you dunk?” he asks. “I’m still working on that. I hate to admit it but I don’t think it’s going to happen for me.” Read more →
Losing Pitchers
Driving Tests
My kid is taking his driving test today and he wants to take it in my car, so I’m driving my wife’s car to work. Her car is more upscale than mine. It has features like Average Speed displayed on the dashboard. What I can’t figure out is why the Average Speed is always 24 MPH. It was 24 MPH when I left the house . . . I’m almost at work and it’s still 24 MPH. I wonder if there’s some way to reset that. Maybe if I press this MODE button here on the steering wheel . . . HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!! Having your car radio suddenly come on full blast — which is what happened when I pressed the MODE button — is like someone jumping out of hiding and screaming at you. It’s alarming and you can’t recover from it right away. Later, when I… Read more →
NARCh Wrapup
As expected, Mission Black Ice 93 and the Mississauga Mission Rattlers reached the Bantam Platinum finals, with Black Ice winning 4-3. The Colorado Kodiaks won the bronze medal, which you could think of as the gold medal for the rest of the field, because no one was in the same class as the Rattlers or Black Ice. My son’s team, Revision Devil Dogs, had a killer draw: three of their four round-robin games were against the three medal-winning teams. They tied the Kodiaks and lost the other two. Had they been able to beat the Kodiaks — and the Kodiaks’ goalie made a tough save at the final horn — the Devil Dogs would have advanced to the playoff round and the Kodiaks would have been ousted. Final thoughts In a way, I’d like my son to win every tournament he plays because I want him to be happy, but… Read more →
Happy 17th Birthday
My son turned 17 today at the NARCh tournament in San Jose and he went with his teammates to Applebee’s for dinner. The boys know that he doesn’t like to be the center of attention for things like having “Happy Birthday” sung for him in a restaurant so I’m sure they made every effort to prevent that from happening . . . Read more →
NARCh – Day 2
Two more round-robin games on Day 2 . . . Game 3 – Mississauga Mission Rattlers Remember when I said Mission Black Ice is the best 16-and-under team I’ve ever seen? I may have spoken too soon on that. I’ll be shocked if the Rattlers and Black Ice don’t face each other in the final to find out which team is really the best in the universe. The Devil Dog goalie was great yesterday but not today. He gave up eight goals, should have stopped about five of them, but didn’t get much help from his teammates either. Final Score: Rattlers 8, Devil Dogs 0. Ouch. Game 4 – Colorado Dynamite Both teams came into the game with a good chance of slipping in to the playoff round as the fifth and final seed with a victory. It was a very even game — too even. The game ended… Read more →
NARCh – Day 1
The Devil Dogs played two round-robin games on Day 1 . . . Game 1 – Mission Black Ice 93 Black Ice is from New York. They’re a great team. Best 16-and-under team I’ve ever seen. In fact, they’re better than any 18-and-under team I’ve ever seen. What a juggernaut! The Devil Dog kids looked nervous. They looked tight. They didn’t handle the puck cleanly. Black Ice was ahead 3-0 after the first period. The Dogs tightened things up and played a scoreless second period. I wanted to say something encouraging to my boy after the game. “You played them even the second period,” I said. “No we didn’t,” he replied. “Well . . . on the scoreboard you did.” Final Score: Black Ice 3, Devil Dogs 0 Game 2 – Colorado Kodiaks The Dogs matched up better physically with the Kodiaks than with Black Ice although the Kodiaks… Read more →
A Bad Start
The tournament is off to a bad start and the boys haven’t even taken the rink yet. One boy showed up yesterday with a 103 fever. I’m hearing this morning that his parents took him to urgent care. Nobody knows right now if he’s going to be able to play. Hang on, it gets worse. I don’t know who knows it yet but another boy went home late last night. His mom, who wasn’t at the tournament, died in her sleep. She wasn’t the healthiest person but she was about the same age as I am and wasn’t expected to die. I heard about it this morning from one of the other dads, who’s a friend of their family. He heard about it last night when the boy’s dad woke him up with a phone call. My son doesn’t know about it yet. He’s still asleep. I’m trying to think… Read more →
Hazing
My son’s a high school senior. He’s been playing in a basketball summer league with the school team. When we hear about the Dez Bryant hazing story on the car radio, he says, “We made Norman [a sophomore] put our dishes away at the San Diego tournament.” “Why him?” I ask. “He talks a lot. Pierce [a freshman] is quiet.” Read more →
Leaving Tomorrow for NARCh
We’re heading out tomorrow morning for NARCh in San Jose — the grand finale, end-of-the-season roller hockey tournament. The tournament’s actually been going on for a week and a half but Casey’s division — Bantam Platinum — doesn’t start till Tuesday. Bantam is the 16-and-under division, with a DOB cutoff date of December 31, so this season’s Bantam players are kids born in 1993 or 1994. The Platinum division is the AAA division. Most tournaments call the skill divisions A, AA and AAA, but NARCh calls them Silver, Gold and Platinum. So Bantam Platinum is 16-and-under AAA. In order to play at the NARCh final, your team has to play in a regional qualifying tournament. Based on your results in the qualifier, the tournament committee either assigns you to the Silver, Gold or Platinum division, or — if it’s a close call — they assign you to two divisions… Read more →
Pat Haden
Patrick C. Haden, acclaimed civic and business leader and USC alumnus, will become new athletic director effective August 3, 2010. — USCTrojans.com Pat Haden — athlete, scholar, businessman. He’s a lot like me, except for the athlete part. “You’re not a businessman,” my son says. “I’m kind of a businessman.” “No you’re not,” he says. “Okay. So Pat Haden’s a lot like me, except for being an athlete and a businessman.” Read more →
Donettes for Breakfast
My son bites into one of his donettes . . . “Do you ever eat the whole donette in one bite?” I ask him, popping an entire donette into my mouth. “No,” he says. “You’re missing out.” Read more →
My Idea of a Good Time
Raising intelligent, loving, sturdy children! Protecting some good woman! Dignity! Health! Love! Industry! Intelligence! Trust! Decency! High Spirits! Compassion! What the hell do I care about sensational sex? — Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint Read more →