My son looks at his plate . . . “What’s up with these little tomatoes?” he asks. “They’re cherry tomatoes,” I tell him. “I don’t like cherries,” he says. “They’re not cherries. They’re tomatoes.” “The flavor is different than regular tomatoes.” “They’re concentrated. They pack the maximum flavor per square inch. Or since we’re talking about volume, I guess I should say the maximum flavor per cubic centimeter. That’s why Mom bought them.” “Actually,” his mom says, “I bought them because they were on sale.” Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Kids
Imagine Finding Me
Visual artist Chino Otsuka has created composite images of her past and present selves, like a digital time machine. This is so good. Otsuka’s work has restored my faith in humanity, which was pulverized a couple of days ago by the news that Ashton Kutcher has a million followers on Twitter. I have a rule of thumb about art and artists: If a normal person has no hope of seeing the point of your work without an accompanying explanation about you and your artistic “theory” — you suck. I look at Otsuka’s photos and with no words at all I’m immediately transported, I’m weeping with joy at the possibilities of life . . . If, again I have a chance to meet, there is so much I want to ask and so much I want to tell. — Chino Otsuka If you could go back and meet yourself as… Read more →
A Father-Son Day
Everyone’s got armbands and 3-D glasses . . . — Elvis Costello Irvine schools are on spring break this week. I took a day off for father-son activities with my boy, age 15. As we were driving back from lunch at Wingstop, I said, “You want to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D IMAX?” “Not particularly,” he said. I’d already decided that I did want to see it so I got off at the Irvine Spectrum exit. “I guess this means we’re going to see it,” he said. “You know what they say: Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time, but regret for the things we didn’t do is inconsolable.” “Oh shut up, Sophocles. It’s a movie for two-year-olds.” “No it isn’t. There’s a giant girl in it. It looks cool.” “I’ll be the combined age of everyone else in the theater.” We got there a… Read more →
Basketball Diary
I was shooting some hoops at the park this afternoon with my boy, sort of guarding him so he could try out some moves. I suggested that when he drives past a defender, he should cut back into him to keep him from reaching out and making a play on the ball. He tried it again but still didn’t cut back into me with enough gusto. The third time, he overcompensated. Before he even got past me, he drove his shoulder into my solar plexus and knocked me off the end of the court. Did I mention he’s the same size as me and a lot younger? Ouch . . . I’m still feeling it right now. Read more →
Overheard
“Tomorrow is Good Friday, right? Isn’t today something too?” “I have no idea, Mom.” “I’m gonna call the church.” — ChinaVagina Read more →
IHF Post-Season Awards
The IHF post-season honors have been announced. My kid was selected to play in the all-star game on April 18, and to receive a Special Achievement Award, sponsored by the Anaheim Ducks and bestowed by the IHF on kids who’ve distinguished themselves off the rink, via academics, community service and extracurricular endeavors. It would be nice if modesty prevented me from mentioning this stuff, but I’m happy to see the boy coming into his own as a well-rounded young man. Northwood High School dominated the Special Achievement Awards. The IHF has 30 high schools participating, 53 teams and almost 600 kids, of whom 11 were selected for this award. Four of the 11 were from Northwood, showing once again why Northwood owns all other high schools in Orange County and probably the nation . . . Read more →
Rollo Takes a Walk
The Northwood Wind Ensemble went deep into the repertoire at last week’s Irvine Band Festival for some avant-garde pieces, including one called “Rollo Takes a Walk.” “It’s the quirkiest, gayest piece I’ve ever played,” my son said. “Rollo” didn’t have any good percussion parts, just oddball instrumentation with rimshots, slide whistles, etc. “And in measure 126,” he said, “everybody stops playing and says, ‘Rollo…takes…a walk.’” “Hmmmm.” “Except it’s not written into my part so I don’t say it . . . and I play one note on the chimes.” “What note is it?” “An F.” “I’m thinking the Rollo composer could follow up with an entire Rollo suite,” I said. “‘Rollo Takes a Shower,’ ‘Rollo Takes a Test,’ ‘Rollo Takes a Vacation,’ you see where I’m going with this?” “Stop being stupid,” he said. “Why is it stupid? Because you didn’t think of it?” Read more →
What Kind of Vegetable?
My wife says to the boy, “What kind of vegetable do you want with dinner?” “Cauliflower,” he says. “What? We don’t have any? That sucks.” He’s not a big fan of vegetables . . . Read more →
Two Bright Spots in the Recessionary Landscape
Fewer kids in day care More women in porno Read more →
Ducks Visit WIHA
The Devil Dogs played in the WIHA tournament in Irvine last weekend, losing in the Bantam AA finals to the Reebok Blades. Wild Wing, the Ducks mascot, was there. Two of the Power Players were there too. You can’t see the girl on the right because I’m a bad photographer, but there are better pictures of her here. My son is the taller boy with the crooked sneer he likes to be photographed with. I hope he outgrows that. Someone said to me, “I bet you wish that was you in the photo.” I must be getting old because I hadn’t thought of that. I did get to fist bump the Duck mascot though . . . Read more →
The Beauty of Cultural Diversity
My son’s one-eighth Japanese on his mom’s side and the student body at his school is about 40 percent Korean, so when he comes into my room yelling, “YES! I am going to shove it” — punctuated with a fist pump — “at those Koreans tomorrow,” it doesn’t take long to figure out that Japan must have won the World Baseball Classic . . . Read more →
Crucial Conversations
I know my son had a history test today, and that history is a make-or-break class for him. I want to ask him about the test but we’re having a delicious family meal at Olive Garden and I don’t want to break up the festive mood in the event the news turns out to be bad. I decide to ease into it with some small talk . . . “So, how was recess today?” o_O (BLANK STARE) I continue, “I know you had a history test today but rather than get right into that, I thought we could start with some small talk about recess.” He says, “I haven’t had recess since 6th grade.” “Oh. In that case, how was the history test?” Read more →
An MVP-Caliber Performance
He said it was “an AYSO 10-and-under caliber trophy.” He doesn’t really care though. He doesn’t display the trophies he already has. He had a great season though, and a great game in the finals. The coach asked him to play defenseman this season — which he’s never played — because they had too many forwards. He made a few mistakes but it turned out to be a great coaching move because he’s probably the strongest skater in the league and the best forwards on other teams got frustrated when they couldn’t just skate around him like they could with all the other defensemen. He’d get my MVP vote, if I had an MVP vote, and if the league had an MVP award, which it doesn’t . . . Read more →
IHF Champions
Northwood won their IHF final game against El Dorado, the number one seed, 5-2. I saw this team at the beginning of the season and said to my son, “You guys are going to lose every game.” He said, “I think we’re going to go undefeated.” It turns out he was closer to being right than I was . . . Read more →
Good News
My wife runs an insurance agency. She handles all the customer service calls herself and as a result, a) she gets to know her customers very well; and b) she hears a lot of bad news. Today she sent me this email: One of my best clients just passed away yesterday. He is 65 years old and had a heart attack. One of these days I’d like to hear good news sometimes. You and Casey are my good news. Probably I don’t say enough good things about her . . . Read more →
HW’s Parenting Pointers
Facebook exchange: 1st woman: Why does my 15-year-old son ALWAYS have to push his boundaries??? 2nd woman: Same reason you and I did at 15 🙂 Yeah — bad parenting. If you haven’t figured out what your kid is all about long before he turns 15, you’re both fucked. Sorry, but I ain’t Doctor Fuckin’ Phil. I’m bringin’ it! Read more →
Diversity
“Forty percent of the people at my school speak Korean,” my son says. “Or Chinese. I can’t tell the difference.” Read more →
Situational Avoidance
My son’s got a hockey game tonight. His mom is going to bring him to the game; I’m going to bring the hockey gear and meet them there. There’s a risk when we do it that way that the boy gets there and isn’t able to play because I don’t show up with his equipment, but that’s never actually happened. In fact, I’m almost always there first. In spite of that fact, he says to me this morning, “Get there early tonight so we don’t have a situation like last week.” I say, “We didn’t have a ‘situation’ last week. I got there exactly the same time you did.” “Just get there early,” he says. Read more →
Check Your Facts
It’s 7 p.m. and my son’s ready to make a deal . . . “If I study for an hour,” he says, “can I go play basketball at 8?” His mom is skeptical. “You just played Xbox for five hours,” she says. He shakes his head vehemently. “Four-and-a-half hours,” he says. Read more →
Teaching Coding to Kids
VSLP Overview View more presentations from llangit. (tags: studio visual) Read more →