Originally uploaded by debaird. Yes I do. The first movie I saw in a theater was Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. The first movie I took my son to was Space Jam. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Kids
Obviously Aurelius
I’m reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations when my son, referring to the cover photo above the author’s name, says, “Who’s that? Zeus?” “No,” I say. “Caesar?” “No. It’s Marcus Aurelius.” “Hmmm. That seemed too obvious.” Read more →
EppsNet Hotel Review: Santa Maria Resort, Fort Myers, FL
I recently spent a week in Florida with my son for a roller hockey tournament. We stayed at the Santa Maria Resort on Fort Myers Beach. The place was great, like a furnished 2-bedroom apartment with a fully appointed kitchen: oven, stove, microwave, fridge, freezer, plates, bowls, pots, pans, silverware, etc. We went to the local Publix grocery the first day and stocked the place up with food and beverages. We got all this for about $50 a night less than we would have paid for a room at, say, the Embassy Suites. And when I say “room,” I mean that usually when I travel with the boy, the hotel room is in fact a room and we’re both in it together. That’s a problem because he likes to watch TV in hotel rooms and I’d rather read a book. But with the 2-bedroom setup — each bedroom on opposite… Read more →
The Saddest Cartoon I’ve Ever Seen
Pacific Cup 2007
My son’s roller hockey team won the Pacific Cup final last weekend. For teams in California, Arizona and Nevada, Pacific Cup is the biggest tournament of the year, not counting national championships. The team will be playing at NARCh in a couple of weeks. His 12-and-under team won the NARCh tournament two years ago, but I’m not as optimistic with this year’s bunch. The problems include: Read more →
Easy Mac
My son takes a break from doing some video editing on the computer, trudges downstairs and into the kitchen, where his mom is cleaning the floor. “Can you make me some Easy Mac?” he asks. “I’m cleaning, honey,” she says. “Can you make your own Easy Mac?” “Bah!” he says, trudging back upstairs. “Does Steven Spielberg have to make his own Easy Mac? Does George Lucas have to make his own Easy Mac? Does M. Night Shyamalan . . .” Read more →
Go Tell the Spartans to Program a Football Game
I ponied up the 50 bucks to join the XNA Creators Club and so far I’ve been able to code and deploy some rudimentary 2-D games on our Xbox 360. “Can you program a football game?” my son asks. “No . . . first of all, I’m just learning this stuff, and second, you can’t expect one person to duplicate the efforts of dozens of people over a period of years.” “Haven’t you ever heard of The 300?” he shouts. “Yeah. They all died.” “But they gave a valiant effort!“ Read more →
Is There a Drummer in the House?
We were at my son Casey’s 8th grade graduation this morning when one of his teachers came up to me, obviously revved up about something, and asked, “Did you hear what happened at the assembly yesterday?” From the breathless tone of his question, I assumed at the very least that someone had lost a limb. “No,” I said, “what happened?” He told me they had a performance by a street percussion group called Street Beat, and as part of the show, they asked for a couple of volunteers from the audience. Casey plays the drums, and a lot of kids were yelling and pointing at him to be selected, so he was. What they did with the volunteers was, the Street Beat guys would play something and the kids would try to match it. My kid was able to match everything perfectly, the other kid wasn’t, so they sent the… Read more →
I Forgot About Her
I’m explaining to my 8th-grade kid that his mom is pretty attractive for a mom, but he’s not seeing it. I list off several of his friends’ unattractive moms by way of example, and then ask him, “Which of your friends has a better-looking mom than Mom?” “Lopez,” he says, naming one of the kids on his hockey team. OK, I’d forgotten about her . . . Read more →
The Finer Things in Life
One thing you can’t help noticing in spending a day at LACMA, what with the proximity to West Hollywood and all, is that gay guys really like art. I mentioned that to my son and his response was “Case in point: you,” which wasn’t very nice. He’s not much of an art lover . . . I admit that I occasionally drag him along to an art museum, because I feel like he should know at least a little bit about it whether he likes it or not. On our way back to Orange County — in keeping with my mission of introducing the boy to the finer things in life — we stopped off at the original Tommy’s stand at Beverly and Rampart, not only an L.A. landmark, but a favorite of USC students for decades, where you can still get — as the boy did — a double… Read more →
Coconut Pancakes
The Epps family was in Thai Town in Hollywood late Friday night. Most establishments were already closed . . . one exception was a Thai sweet shop called Bhan Kanom Thai, across the street from the famous Sanamluang Cafe. There were three generations of Thai women in the shop: 1) A very cute, very poised 9-year-old girl, who probably could have run the place herself; her mom; and Grandma, who was cooking up some coconut pastries about the size, shape and consistency of silver dollar pancakes. My wife walked out with about 25 dollars worth of the coconut pastries and other goodies. When we got back on the 101 South, our son announced he was hungry. “Try those coconut pancakes,” I said. “Best thing I ever tasted. I’m in heaven.” “I don’t like coconut,” he said. “How can you not like coconut?” my wife asked in alarm. “It’s a main… Read more →
Another Reason I Never Put My Kid in Day Care
A day care worker in Tulsa, Okla., was looking after eight children ages 7 and younger. One of the kids, a 2-year-old boy, would not be quiet for nap time, so she bound his hands and covered his mouth with masking tape. That silenced him — permanently. The boy died after several days on life support. I never did trust people enough to have them raise my kid. Never did. Now if you were to respond that the average day care worker is no less capable than the average American mom of raising a child without killing it, I’d say — you’re probably right! I’m just talking about my kid . . . Read more →
How Much I Care
We’re having dinner at Chili’s, and long before the food arrives, my kid has already informed me that I should have ordered meat instead of a salad, and that he can’t believe how quickly I ordered a refill on my soda. “Are you going to micromanage the whole meal for me?” I ask. “I can’t see how it makes any difference to you what I order or how fast I drink my soda, but somehow it does.” “It shows how much I care,” he says. Read more →
So Much for Dominating the White, Black and Hispanic Kids
My son and I are watching a Citibank commercial in which a woman in Japan drops her son off for his first day of school. As his mom starts to walk away, the boy looks back anxiously . . . “What’s the Asian kid nervous about?” my son says. “He’s going to get better grades than the rest of the kids anyway. Oh wait, all the other kids are Asian too. Ouch.” Read more →
It Can’t Hurt That Much
I was telling my son about a woman in Arkansas who’s about to give birth to her 17th child. Her oldest is 19. “Doesn’t that hurt?” the boy asked. “I wouldn’t know,” I said, “but it can’t hurt that much if you’re willing to do it 17 times. It can’t hurt as much as, say, a kick in the groin, because after I took one kick in the groin, I wouldn’t sign up to take 16 more.” “The pain goes away, you know.” “Are you suggesting that I would be willing to take 17 kicks in the groin?” “Over a 19-year period, yeah.” “Agree to disagree.” Read more →
Fortune Cookies
Last weekend, we had dinner at a Chinese place with some of my in-laws. As usual, my son and I were left at one end of the table to entertain ourselves while the rest of the group chatted with each other in Thai. Near the end of the meal, the boy started reading through the fortune cookies and ad libbing the messages: “‘If you’re reading this, you’re most likely Asian, which means your mom will yell at you a lot.’ ‘This fortune cookie is stale. You’re not going to like it.’ ‘You will fulminate in 10 seconds.’” “Fulminate?!” I said. “It was one of my vocabulary words.” Read more →
EppsNet Restaurant Review: Norm’s
I hadn’t been to a Norm’s restaurant in years. There isn’t one in my neighborhood. We discovered this one because it’s close to the new place where my son’s taking percussion lessons. Not only was the boy able to get two eggs, two sausages, two pieces of bacon, half a dinner plate full of hash browns, and two gigantic slabs of French toast with butter and syrup for only $5.99, he managed to polish off the whole thing before I even finished my salad. Excellent value! Rating: Five stars. Read more →
Vox Clamantis in Deserto
As we’re driving home from a hockey tournament, my son and I see a car with a license plate frame that reads DARTMOUTH VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO “Is that the kind of thing they teach you at Dartmouth?” he asks. “Apparently,” I say. “Doesn’t seem very useful.” “No, it doesn’t,” I have to admit. Read more →
Mrs. Bryant Throws the Gyroball
My son’s having some trouble with 8th grade Algebra. When I work with him on it, I can see that he knows the material and he can do the calculations . . . his biggest problem is a fatalistic, let’s-get-it-over-with, I’m-no-good-at-math attitude, which leads to careless errors, and frustration if his first approach to a problem doesn’t work. I encourage him to take a more positive attitude, to go into the next test saying positive things to himself, like “I know this material” and “I can handle these questions.” “But I don’t know it,” he says. “Mrs. Bryant [his math teacher] throws the gyroball every pitch! And sometimes she hits me with it!” What we have here is a classic self-fulfilling prophecy . . . Read more →
Casey Goes to Washington
Pictures from my son’s 8th grade trip to Washington, DC. Read more →