BREAKING: Son Suspended, Mom A-Gassed

(Dateline: My two blocks up the street)

Our neighbors and long time friends have the nicest son, Andrew. He really is great, very polite but sincere and geniunely funny. We have known him since he was born and our daughter has been in the same grade with him throughout four years of elementary school so we never expected him to have a dark, sinister side. Thus the news we got from his mom yesterday morning was a shock.

Andrew was frightened to go into school to the point of panic. He revealed to his parents that he was facing a 10 day suspension for behavior in school per a meeting with his principal the day before. Apparently this 9 year old menace to society was to be publicly excoriated for a very high crime. He had farted on a girl while playing ball in gym class.

Naturally the mother was beside herself. She assured her boy that everything would be alright and that certainly, there was a misunderstanding and she would call the school. As soon as she could she got the principle on the phone and declared that it must be a mistake and that these things must happen all the time in sports. The principle appeared confused by her vigorous defense but assured her that he would look further into the situation.

A couple of hours later Andrews mom got a call from the school office. A secretary told her that they had conducted an investigation of the matter but, frankly, couldn't figure out what happened. However not to worry, her son would not be suspended until they got to the bottom of the matter.

When the mom in question got home, her heart still racing from a day of suspense, Andrew casually came up to her with a slight aura of sheepishness.

"Mom, you know that thing about farting on Piper? Well, the more I think about it, the more I think I just dreamed it last night. In fact, by the time I got to school, I was pretty sure of it... I was just very sleepy this morning. Sorry."

I got nothin' to say....

Wanna Work From Home: Be A "Best"

While more and more men tend to hearth and home more and more men wish they could work from home. Internet ads and Good Morning America fluff pieces make home-work sound easy and fun, it is in fact, usually fruitless and frustrating. Real employers don't want to pay a salary to someone who's first priority isn't them so to get a paycheck in the mail you need to find something you enjoy and become so good at it that someone will be forced to pay you for it.

I have carved out a nice niche managing investments but I am not a stock picker in the sense that a million other day traders are. Long ago I found a technical niche in the markets that appeared to have a predictability. I researched and refined my niche until I became one of the top experts in the country at this one little thing. By finding one little art that no one else was mastering, I found a skill that now pays off quite well while fitting the demanding schedule of a haus-mensch.

An interesting allegory to this theory is the story of the quarterback and the snapper. I recently read about a former college quarterback who won a Heisman Trophy a couple decades back. He was the best player on his team and he surely got all the glory and the girls back in the day. His college roommate was also his center and he was neither the best player on the team nor the most acclaimed but he did have a skill. Rather than being the best player on his team or even the best center, he was the best long snapper. In fact he was so good at getting the ball to the punter that he made an NFL team as an undrafted rookie. Playing perhaps a dozen snaps a game, he was in the league for 13 years while his Quarterback roomie never collected an NFL paycheck. I often wonder what it would feel like for the man who was the best player on his team, most important player in all of college football, to visit the big-ass house a dozen years of NFL salary has bought his roomie who probably had to fight for scholarship money but was the very best at one, tiny, inglorious skill every football team needs.

Confucious said a thousand years ago and it still holds up: ... Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. ... Start with something you enjoy and find a niche to perfect. It may take years to master your niche or find a way to monetize it but look around... you have time on your hands between diapers and playdate appointments.

Can You Really Give 110%

Can you really give anything 110% ? This phrase really bugs me and it has become ubiquitous in our culture. I think it was invented in a deodorant commercial so it obviously has credibility with the washed masses but I can't help but gag on the ill-logic of it.

I recently started a new business. As a stay at home parent you need to work for yourself one way or another if you want to get a respectible return of cash and self respect from the rubbery schedule life has handed you. I used to be in the business of selling mortgages but that morphed into a full time, straight commission job as grief counselor. Last year I was in the business of losing money. This year I am learning from the mistakes of 2009 and starting a new business that WILL make money and I WILL enjoy doing. As I thought about how successful this new endeavor would be I muttered to myself that I was 100% sure of success ... dare I say 110% sure? No, in fact to my logic 110% would be 10% UN-sure. Follow my logic.

100% is to the described item or attribute a finite and real description. It is the same at 360 degrees are in a circle. If you are 110% of a circle you are really 36 degrees away from being a complete circle. The further you get from 100% of anything the further you are getting away from what you are describing. This is science, not faith people.

You see, if you are as completely sure, or committed or full of it, whatever, you would be 100%. Right? So to go beyond that real 100 you would need to push into hypothetical optimism for the next 10. Do ya' follow? Since optimism presumes doubt those extra 10% would thus be expressions of doubt. Over the years people have stretched the expression to the ridiculous, as in "I am 200% positive that baby isn't mine Maury". Well, by my well oiled logic, to be 200% sure means you are 100% unsure. Look at that baby ... THAT'S YOUR BABY!

So the next time you see some sweaty butt-munch on TV professing to the camera that " I give it 200% and so does my deodorant", you can be 100% sure that he never gives his best... and he stinks too.

The Sound Of Music Acid Test

Obviously men are hardwired differently than women. Emotional judgements and appreciations are often diametrically opposite between the sexes. The Reinvened Wife tells me with obsessive frequency that I am stony a Cro-Magnon and yet I think that I am an overly sentimental puppy dog. I soar and swoon with every mood shift of my wife. I feel the sting of every physical or emotional injury sustained by my children. I honestly cannot smile for two days after a Steelers loss. Since we do not have the benefit of seeing ourselves as others see us we can do a little research on our emotional selves by examining how Daddy and Mommy view popular culture. This insight may or may not help your relationship but to quote a very smart bookie I once knew, “Smart beats stupid two out of three times.”

One of the most accurate and directed emotional thermometer in pop culture would be the “Sound Of Music” test. This musical mishmash of schmaltzy sentimentality and Nazis has proved to be a relationship staple since 1965. It is ironic that this icon to the feminine sensibility would come out the same year that unveiled the ultimate traveling icon of the masculine sensibility, the Rolling Stones. Both test relationships regularly. Women nestle their mates onto the coach for a long night of Rogers and Hammerstein just as men drag their better halves to a packed stadium for a night of Jagger and Richards. How we come away from these trials tells us where our emotional temperature is.

I always come away from “The Sound Of Music” with three clear conclusions:

1. Those children were so much better behaved before that wench Maria showed up. She isn't there two scenes and the kids are literally hanging from the trees.

2. When the Mother Superior sings “Climb Every Mountain” she clearly wants to make the Nazis look good by contrast. The performance is so sadistically saccarin that diabetics need a hit of insulin before watching it. Even women go to the refrigerator during this showkiller.

3. When the Colonel starts to sing odes to mountain shrubbery he loses all believability as a U-boat commander. The writers either took liberty with his song choice or his military career.

If your opinions mirror mine I can spare your wife the breath and tell you that you are an unsentimental bastard. You are also absolutely normal, if that is your goal. Men have been unsentimental bastards at least since the invention of marriage so it must not be a serious relationship threat. It does, however, mean that you need to take steps to project healthier emotions. You may not agree with the emotions that you will be projecting but there is a big difference between 'being' emotionally honest and 'appearing' emotionally healthy. Put another way: if 'being' emotionally honest got you into this mess and 'appearing' emotionally healthy can get you out of it. Woman will appreciate the effort eitherway.

Indianapolis Wins & Footballs Newest Genius

The Indianapolis Colts beat the New York Jets by a big score, 30 - 17 but it didn't look that way at halftime. As Braylon Edwards stretched a beautiful pitch from Jets rookie QB Mark Sanchez into a touchdown and a 10-7 lead over the Indianapolis Colts I couldn't help but think "Oh my, he's bound to collapse of exhaustion since his team didn't rest him down the stretch for the playoffs".

The Colts, who always appear so invincible going into the playoffs have been, with one exception, "vinced" every playoff campaign short of the Superbowl in this long Peyton Manning era. To avoid the Noid again, new Head Coach Jim Caldwell forsook a run at a perfect season and pulled his star quarterback and many starters early in what became their first loss in game 14 against... ummm, I forget... oh yeah, against the Jets! This strategy did have the effect of letting the Jets, who's season was given up for dead a week before by their own coach, into the playoffs. It also blocked the Steelers, who also won out their last three games only to miss the playoffs due to tiebreakers. One shouldn't be too hard on Colt's coach Caldwell for using this "lose to win" strategy to spare and repair his top guns. Noted football genius Bill Belicheck often presumed football genius Marvin Lewis both bought into the same theory after they locked up playoff spots. Both Patriots and Bengals were rudely dumped in the first round of playoffs by wildcard teams who, one must presume, didn't have the luxury of resting players down the stretch. Puts a different spin on genius dunnit?

Clearly these coaching geniuses never watch Survivor on TV. Seemingly every year a team of reality schmucks takes a dominating lead over another team of reality schmoes. Seeing an insurmountable lead they decide it would behove them to take the foot off of their opponents neck long enough to torpedo an unpopular or inconvenient teammate or settle a score. Without fail the team that pauses to take a breath or settle a score ends up losing out, chemistry shattered and spirit broken.

The football gods clearly decided to forgive the Colts rookie coach at halftime. Probably because he already sacrificed a potential perfect season on the alter of foolish football canards. Keep it up Mr Caldwell and you might become a football genius too, just like Marvin Lewis.

Doc, I Need A Pill... Stat !

So it's 2:44 in the afternoon on a Sunday. I'm being as intimate with my wife as wide awake kids will allow: we are both surfing the web at the kitchen table while listening to NFL pregame in the background. This is the 21 equivalent of reading poetry under a willow tree. Suddenly, breaking the mood, comes the resonant tone of a commercial announcer axing if I am troubled by "erectile dysfunction".

No, I do not dismiss the needs of the many out there who could use some help getting over a physical or emotional hump, so to speak. I do however, regret that my kids will grow up more comfortable talking about penile performance than prophylactic protection. It's just the hypocrisy that big pharmaceutical companies can talk about manly matters over my dinner, but God (apparently) forbid educators offer advice to tweenagers on how to avoid pregnancy, syphilis and nasty reputations. Why are there no no grumpy old men standing outside the offices of urologists with humongous pictures of flaccid penis', protesting this unnatural endowment?

Perhaps I would be in a more generous mood if Merck or Johnson & Johnson (wouldn't that be appropriate...) would come on TV with a pill that gave me and the ReInvented Wife what our sex life really needed. A pill that made the kids go away for three hours at a time. One can hope.

Love Means... Taking It On The Chin Like A Man

One of the strangest pop icons of relationship bliss came out of the seventies. Two cherubic mates held hands naked every day on the cartoon page of the newspaper stating to all who could stomach it, “Love Is Never Having To Say You're Sorry”. If you are wondering why we never see those two love birds anymore it is because they are long since divorced. That is just my guess but I will stand by it. If they truly believed that they never had to say, “Sorry, you are right and I am so wrong”, then divorce was inevitable.

It is not enough to say you are sorry when you are wrong. You need to say you are sorry even when you are right. If you really want this relationship to work you need to say that you are sorry while the knife is still poking out of your chest. You will know in your heart whether you were at fault or not, and you probably were. Either way, if you make her happy you make yourself happy

Yeah, my guess is, that "love is..." guy is currently pushing 300 lbs with hair growing from his teeth. He's living with his third wife who keeps him bankrupt with binge shopping from QVC and donations to TV evangelists. Yet every morning he starts the day with "I'm sorry dear" and he doesn't stop until the lights go out because he will never have the chance to go back and take it on the chin for the nicely rounded naked girl he loved way back in the seventies.

Oh, and she's still hot and remarried to the Class of '73, Short wave radio club Captain, who grew up to appreciate a good thing and reminds her of it everyday.

Alzheimer's Soundtrack: The Buzzcocks

Most of the muzak I put up on the AlzTrak is bubblegum pop meant to catch you old farts up to what is good on todays radios. This is from a band nobody in America ever heard about and it is the template for Green Day and any band that pretends to play Punk today. This sound was my cure for zits in 1979. If lead singer Pete Shelley didn't sound like a feminine can opener this guitar band would have been the next Beatles. If you like this there are a lorry full of great punk-pop anthems from The Buzzcocks on YouTube with awesomely awful EuroTeeVee vids. Your kids will actually like this because absolutely no one else they know has heard of it.

Funniest. Shit. Ever: How Many Wheel On A Big Rig?

This is one you can share with your kids and they will be rolling on the floor. Not all of my humor is filthy but I prefer to post stuff that makes me snort coffee out of my "booger-vault" (stole that from a NY Times best seller)because sometimes I fear I am turning into Ned Flanders with all of this "Hug your kids" crap. I prefer to aim at being a hairy knuckled Erma Bombeck or a male version of Dave Barry.

Funniest. Shit. Ever: Super Friends

I thought Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd were funny discussing the various shades of gay in "40 Year Old Virgin". They can't hold a candle to this version by Superman and Batman... probably because Rudd and Rogan don't have superpowers. For one thing the World's Finest superheros get 6 minutes plus out of this paper thin gag versus a minute for the human actors. Batman is a total genius in a hairy freak, piss your pants funny way. I really did have to run to the bathroom halfway through this the first time ... it made me shit ... really.

Leno/ Conan + NBC = FUBAR

Yeah this isn't a TV talk show blog but everyone cares about late night TV and this latest Leno drama is such a nice distraction from suckish mid-winter news. No, I am not trolling TMZ... this came up on Yahoo mail. Conan to FOX at 10:30 makes a ton of sense to me ... that's my take. And NBC will make yet another huge late night blunder to keep Leno's stale jokes on the air:

As TMZ first reported, after the Olympics, Jay Leno will get his 11:30 PM time period back. We're told network execs have told Conan they will let him decide if he wants the midnight to 1:00 AM time slot. If he does, Leno's show will only be a half hour. If Conan walks, Leno will get a full hour, informed sources tell TMZ.

Our sources say Conan has not decided what he wants. We do know he's pissed, because he was given no advanced warning this was coming. Conan's people told NBC they are considering the offer. Translation: Mr. O'Brien -- I have Rupert Murdoch on line one, Stephen McPherson on line two, John Landgraf on line three, Jeff Wachtel on line four ...

A decade ago NBC tripped over themselves to make Leno a success and it resulted in David Letterman giving The Tonight Show it's first successful competition since Steve Allen replaced the test pattern. Leno would have just been the next Arsenio Hall if he had been the initial pilot of "The Late Show" on CBS. Like Dave before him Conan will take his small but loyal audience to Fox where an early start will work well with affiliates. And NBC will again get to practice that idiot look that they've mastered the past 15 years.

Is Reality TVee Good Kid TVee?

My daughter recently pulled me aside to show me some artwork that she had taped to the cellar door in the kitchen. There was an adorably misspelled chore chart and a spinning wheel filled with fun destinations like "Resteront" and "Out For Pitza". Apparently she had invented a game where her and her brother could earn points doing chores that could be redeemed by spinning a wheel of fortune aimed at the 9 year old heart.

As impressed by my little girls inspiration, I was shocked at how immediately my 11 year old son caught on to the game and actually yearned to participate. Only after a couple days and a few free snow shovelings and vacuumings did I realize that they had stole this wonderful idea from a low ratings reality show on ABC called "The Supernanny".

Now, the ReInvented Wife and I watch this show every once and a while to remind us that our kids aren't the worst demons on the planet but we didn't understand how much they were paying attention over our shoulders. Shows that feature compelling human interaction like "Survivor" or "America's Next Top Model" play like game shows were the objective is to use personality as much as intelligence as tools. After years of guarding them from these media influences I am becoming more and more tolerant of reality shows as long as I have checked them out thoroughly myself. I certainly don't need my children to be learning about hypocrisy and botox just yet so we'll leave "Real Housewives" off the watch list for now.

3 Sentences Can Save Your Marriage

You will know that your marriage is no longer eligible for annulment when you first hear this phrase, “I just wish I could talk to you like one of my girlfriends.” Early on in our marriage my reaction to this was usually something clever like, “Fine, call one while I go out for a drink.” I would be upset that the woman in whom I had invested the rest of my life valued the opinions of her friends over mine. Only years later did I realize that she did not value their opinions at all. She valued the fact that they would not have any.

When the ReInvented Wife calls a girlfriend and says; “Would you believe?”, “Okay, tell me if I'm crazy or not?” or “I need your opinion on something.” the question is strictly rhetorical. If a friend were to put time and thought into an honest answer she would stop being a true girlfriend. There are only three things a girlfriend needs to say in response to a phone call and they had better stick to the script. Some pronouns may vary but the action verbs are consistent. Here they are but don't tell your wife that you know:

1.) “YOU ARE SO RIGHT.”
2.) “AFTER ALL YOU'VE DONE FOR HIM?!!”
3.) “F@#* HIM!!!”

So now the next time you want to be her “girlfriend” you know what to say. Say it verbatim. Creativity will only cost you points. If it doesn't seem important to be your wife's best friend you have serious issues to resolve immediately. To better frame the problem we have to look back to our not so distant ancestors for clarification.

Millions of years of trial and error taught the Homo Sapien male to hide a broken arm from hungry predators or ambitious rivals who would pounce on any weakness. Modern man hides his social, psychological and physical injuries due to this vestigial fear. Exposing a problem is the modern equivalent of showing a bloody wound which could have been a fatal mistake to our distant ancestors. This is a lot of baggage to offload in one generation. The next time your wife nags you to go to the doctor over a trivial ailment you can tell her that you don't want the doctor to bludgeon you with a rock.

Women, on the other hand, tend to externalize when faced with difficulties. Nature has taught them that expressing a problem to trusted loved ones can provide comfort and aid. Gathering and nurturing requires cooperation and inter-reliance. Injury to one is treated as an injury to the group.

In the old world a matriarch protected and organized three or more generations of women while the men often led very separate lives. Thus, Mommies have an instinctive need to share their every weakness with someone they trust to be there for them with comfort and genuine interest. Now you understand why you can't get your wife off the phone with her mother.

The modern man who elects to become the gatherer and nurturer needs to understand that communication and cooperation is a key to his family's success. This openness does not come naturally for the human male but it is an essential evolution of the species and he should take pride in it. Opening the ears, opening the books and opening the wounds are basic building blocks in a great marriage.
All of that said, never begrudge your wife her friendships. Her friends protect you from emotional radiation that you do not want to be exposed to. Entertaining every facet of her personality could lead you to a dangerous level of schizophrenia. Embrace her sisterhood and keep it at arms length at the same time.

Simply put, treat her the way you want to be treated and keep in mind how often you want your friends to tell you:

“YOU ARE SO RIGHT.”
“AFTER ALL YOU'VE DONE FOR HER?!!”
“F@#* HER!!!”

ReInventing Fatty Diet: Many Ways To Tie A Rope

As I've mentioned before there are two keys to an effective diet. Water and fiber keep your body happy while you gently starve it of calories. Fiber can come in so many forms: veggies, breads, cereals. You should be taking from all of these sources throughout your day but it is good to have a built in fiber crutch that doesn't require any thought or preparation. For me that crutch is Fiber One cereal. I'd like to show you a few ways you can add this awesome weapon to your dietary toolbox.

First and update: A week into the diet I weighted in at 240 lbs this morning. That's down 5 from my starting point. I'm actually quite happy with that because I have not had good track to run on this week including New Years and all. My saving grace yesterday after a lot of grazing was I had a bowl of Fiber One mixed with Rice Crispies for dinner. I even succumbed to a keilbasa sandwich at midnight with a beer, so you can imagine that I didn't expect to see a loss.

The key to fiber is that it makes you feel full all day. Eaten with a lot of liquid it expands like an overloaded sponge inside of you. Your gut feels guilty from the excess and you are likely to feel like you overate. Meanwhile that fiber is just sliding through you like a long piece of thick rope. As it pulls through it tears garbage from your colon walls that could have developed into polyps, colitis or cancer. This is a way to loss weight and really decrease your risk of disease at the same time.

Here are some different ways to incorporate "Rope" into your menu:

- RopeBurgers. Crush the Fiber One up just a little bit and mix one cup with a pound of ground turkey. Add an egg and a strong dose of your favorite steak sauce to flavor. Make into burgers and cook just like a regular burger but don't go rare at all... think about the turkey. Eat as many as you like but watch the buns. Served over lettuce with balsamic vinegar, you can eat until your pants burst.

- Rope Sundae. Stir a half cup of rope into a cup of your favorite yogurt, I love the boston creme pie. You might have a tough time finishing this it's so filling and so good.

- Rope Cookies. This isn't low calorie but sometimes you want a cookie and this one is WAYYY better than anything off the shelf. Start with a box of white cake mix, blend in a whole stick of butter/margerine, one egg and two tablespoons of water. Now blend in a cup of finely crushed rope and as many chocolate chips as you wish. Make and bake cookies for about 10 minutes. Not low calorie but feel free to experiment with sugarfree cake mix and low fat margerine.

- Tuna Rope Salad. The name says it all. Take salad, add tuna, sprinkle on rope. Viola! Use whatever dressing you like best but it's great with just balsamic vineger.

- Rope Float. How do you make a dead nun float? Take two scoops of dead nun and add root beer. Same principle. Diet pop actually goes really well with cereals. Try a dash of orange soda with your milk.

If some of this sounds gross, that's great. Play with your food. You won't lose weight if you can't live with the menu so make it your own... and don't forget the Rope.

Back To School Guilt Trip

The kids went back to school today and the ReInvented Wife headed back to work. All were sad throughout Sunday at the prospect of real life again. Back to spending the day doing the bidding of "The Man". Getting everyone up and out of the house is a chore that had the added bonus of shoveling fresh snow but it lasts an hour, maybe 90 minutes and then the house is empty except for me and the ReInvented Dog. While my two kids and wife lament that their lives are not their own, my life is all my own. I am alone, with my dog and my freedom and a guilt that can feel suffocating.

From the dawn of time until perhaps thirty years ago the idea of the man nesting and gathering while the woman went on the hunt was absurd. Neither nature nor nurture has prepared me for this role even though it is best. Never does this guilt lay heavier on my pride more than the first day that the family goes off to a hard days work while I stay home to nurse a cup of coffee and figure out what to do with my life.

I don't feel guilty when I pick up the kids at three and proceed to feed, nurture, tutor, entertain and maintain them until they go to bed. I won't feel guilty when they are home from school 2 out of 5 weekdays due to holidays, sick days and innumerable school administerative days off. I won't feel guilty when I am running up to the school at 10:30 to watch a concert. I certainly didn't feel guilty when I tried to do all of those things with real jobs and real bosses who always, eventually concluded that they wanted employees who could actually work a real schedule.

Stay at home fathers aren't paid the big bucks for what they do when the rest of the family is in servitude. Our sacrifice is giving up the ability to serve other masters in exchange for serving our own kin. At the age of 47 it's far too late for me to head to California and sleep in my car until I get the dream job making movies. My life doesn't belong to me any more than it belongs to the ReInvented wife with her suckass job or my two kids with their suckass teachers.

Still, as I nurse my coffee and vent into my computer, the guilt won't completely go away despite all of my best rationale. Then I wonder if I would feel any better in any other circumstances or is this just the way I am encoded, by nature, to think. Is it against human nature to be satisfied with any situation? I would love to ask Tiger Woods that question this morning.

Alzheimer's Soundtrack: Beautiful Girls

If you are old as dirt and haven't listened to pop music since the advent of hip-hop because you can't figure out the lyrics you need to give Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" a spin. The Jamaican Kingston piles a thick layer of ghetto nuance over a harmony that would feel at home on an AM pop station in 1964. In fact much of it is ripped off from Ben E. King's "Stand By Me" but it's not a sampled ripoff, it's a really cool tribute to a genre. He wears an intentially infantile voice like a falsetto to great effect. I actually like the kids radio version that substitutes "... in denial" for "... suicidal" but this is a pop radio gem. This is weird stuff that you won't be able to scrub out of your ears for days.

Activities Anyone?

Our township has a wonderful Recreation Center that is adjacent to the swimming pool, the skating rink and everything else extracurricular hereabouts. When you come in to buy your first pool pass you see that there are hundreds of classes and activities to indulge in. The Rec Center offers everything from yoga to piano to gambling junkets, but the real smorgasbord of fun is aimed at the children. Your intentions start out so pure and benevolent. What could be wrong with fun activities for the kids? Before you know it you can find yourself living out of your car, a slave to the Rec Center.

The Boy was three when Mommy and I decided to enroll him in swimming classes. Mommy was dreadfully afraid of the water because her father's idea of water safety lessons was to throw her into a hotel pool by herself. We endeavored to do a little better, which was a pretty low threshold. For three years I took my son to lessons every Saturday and afterwards we would go out for a milkshake. He didn't really catch to swimming until four years later, (ironically in a hotel swimming pool) but he loved every lesson and he loved every milkshake.

The Girl was almost four when we sent her to her first activity. It was not dance but rather Creative Movement. Creative Movement mostly seemed to be controlled rolling but it shows parents how cute their little girls look dressed up like ballerinas. This first impression insures years of dance classes followed by years of hoping that she won't really want to be a Dancer. If she decides to pursue such an exclusive career path I would prefer it had the upside of Astronaut or Senator. When she graduated to ballet it required Daddy and Mommy to learn her first recital dance so that we could coach her at home. “...step to the left, slide and look at the pretty ring...” I still find myself doing a little interpretive ballet in the morning when no one is watching.

Swimming begets baseball begets karate and so on and so on. Soon Daddy found himself trading sunday school classes for Karate classes as if they were baseball cards. Worn out kids learn by elementary school how to whine and moan and a father has go steel himself against this inevitable assault. Exhausted Dads will cut evil deals to quiet an exhausted child. If you find yourself at a ball field on time for Juniors game but you do not remember how you got there you have probably pushed the envelope to far.

The family calendar can get so cluttered that you have to schedule inactivity. No matter how hard you try you will find yourself over-scheduled at some point. Batteries need to be recharged by dads and lads alike. Do not forget about your littlest ones who patiently go along for the ride to their older siblings events. It becomes claustrophobic and you will find yourself with a family that lives in the car between classes and games. Being strapped into a carseat is no way to grow up.

There are so many choices out there that you can never keep up with the all the demands on your child's time so don't even try.

Try to limit activities to one class or sport at a time. Remember that there will always be other after school obligations to consider. The rat race of overlapping schedules will come up no matter how much you effort the schedule. A week of running from school to karate to sunday school to ballgames will quickly sizzle the ambition out of the eagerest beaver. Stay on the lookout for signs that your prodigy is ready to drop out and become a beta tester for Gamecube.

Activities are supposed to be fun diversion from a child's main vocation, which is school. Especially when homework kicks in, your little ones will be putting in the equivalent of a forty hour work week. While it is very hard to get fired from this job it is very easy to loose inspiration and go through the motions. Wise parents make sure that their kids have time to just be kids whenever possible. Do not let extracarricular fun deteriorate into a never ending series of part time jobs. Having actually worked a never ending series of part time jobs in my youth I can tell you it is not inspiring.

A good rule of thumb is to let your child do any activity they want to try for one complete season or course. Make it clear that they will finish what they start whether they love it or loathe it. This is a golden opportunity to teach a lesson that will stick long after they have bored of the French horn. Any person who makes it a point to finish what they start with pride will be successful in life. Eleven weeks of paper-folding classes may seem a high price to pay for an occasional party trick but that isn't the real payoff. The real payoff comes when your little adult can muscle through a college courseload that is boring enough to sedate a hummingbird and stessful enough to make a rock sweat without ever considering failure as an option.

ReInventing Fatty: Water, Water Everywhere...

Everyone who pretends to be an expert on weight loss will tell you, don't look at the scale everyday. It will constantly send you mixed signals. Yes, you can shed 5 pounds one day, only to have it come back the next day. Mostly it has to do with the fact that we are basically sacks of water. Here is a great example from the past two days.

I had dipped a couple pounds out of the gate on my life-altering ReInventing Fatty Diet Plan (any corporate sponsors who want to jump on board early and cheap, send me a line, natch). Tuesday was a superb diet day because I was basically on the road the entire day so I skipped lunch and ate a fantastic ham soup of my own making for dinner. Any kind of soup without cream is a belly buster because you are loading up on one of the keys to a successful diet: water. However on New Years Eve morn I woke up to a horrific 247 pounds! Not only was I up 2 lbs from where I started but I was up four from the day before... YIKES. Not to worry though, good news was around the bend.

This morning, 24 hours after the dreaded encounter with 247 I weighed in at a happy 241 lbs. How the heck did I shed 6 pounds overnight? What was my miracle secret? Listen up and ye shall be wiser by far.

Yestermorning, perhaps an hour after the fateful weigh-in, I took my kids to an all you can eat breakfast buffet which I used and abused. I ate sporatically throughout the day but did skip dinner because the left in the late afternoon for a sleepover. The Reinvented Wife and I then spent 6 hours ringing in the New Year at a casino where I kept my face entertained with Pizza and Sambucca. We capped off our first New Years Eve date sans kids in 12 years with a slimming burger at a Waffle House. I should have woken up like Jabba the Hut ... but instead I lost 6 pounds ... how?

First, the 247 was an artificially high number due to the large amount of salty soup that I ate the day before. Water fills you up and flushes you out but if you also take in too much salt your body will suck that water up and hold onto it for safe keeping. Then I spent the evening binge drinking clear liquor with only a hint of soda water, a natural diuretic. This told my body it was time to squeeze the sponge so to speak. There's a reason you start "makin' water" after the second beer and then you're back in the head every 30 minutes for the rest of the night.

My guess is tomorrow I will be lucky to still be at 241, especially since New Years Day will feature lots of food, occasionally interupted with lots of TV watching from the couch. Perhaps I should wait until the 3rd to look at the scale again.