Better Off Jed

This past weekend, my wife, my sister (and her awesome dog), and I drove up to spend the weekend with my sister’s fiance who lives in Jersey City. My wife and I had tickets to see Wicked on Saturday and we’ve never taken advantage of the convenience of my future brother-in-law’s apartment.

On our way to New Jersey, about 10 minutes after getting on the Turnpike – over an hour from home – my wife puts her head in her hands, shakes her head, and laments, “Oh no!” She realized that, in the confusion of making sure the kids had everything they needed to stay at my parents’ house for the weekend, she forgot to pack underwear and socks for herself.

We weren’t in any rush and my sister was sure there was a Wegmans grocery store just off Exit 4. We decided that we’d pick up dinner at Wegmans and try to find a nearby Target or Kohls, so my wife could buy underwear and socks. Since we weren’t exactly sure where the Wegmans was located, I handed my awesome Motorola Droid to my sister to find it on Google Maps. She typed in “Wegmans” and told my phone to navigate us there.

When we got to Exit 4, the Droid said that we were about 10 minutes away. We started driving and something kind of felt off to me, but I ingored my gut and we continued to let the Droid guide us. As we got closer, the Droid told me to turn left — into an active adult community. We all commented that seemed strange. My wife surmised that we were cutting through the community to get to Wegmans and she was jealous that this community had a Wegmans within walking distance.

Two turns later, it was pretty clear where the Droid was taking us. It wasn’t taking us to Wegmans, the grocery store. It was guiding us to The Wegmans, who happen to live in the active adult community that we were driving through!!! I pulled the car over because we were all laughing so hard. We considered knocking on their door, but decided that we shouldn’t bother them.

After we composed ourselves, I used the Droid and was a little more explicit in our Google Maps request. I asked for “Wegmans Grocery”. Thankfully, The Wegmans only lived about 10 minutes from Wegmans and we were happy to find that it was conveniently located next to Target.

Side Note: My wife doesn’t usually read my blog or any blog for that matter. As soon as these events started to unfold, I knew that I would be documenting it here. As we were walking into Wegmans, still laughing about the situation, my wife says, “I wish we had a place to write this down, so we’ll remember it.” I said, “Are you kidding?” She realized and said, “Oh yeah, you can put this in your blob.”

I’m not sure why I’m so riled up about the situation with the Conan/Jay Tonight Show situation. I just feel really sorry for Conan. He is totally getting screwed by NBC and Jay Leno. NBC didn’t give Conan any chance at all to be successful. Financially, the Jay Leno Show was a success. However, it provided an awful lead in for NBC affiliates’ local news, which in turn provided an awful lead in for Conan.

For people that like Jay Leno, they didn’t have a reason to stay up for The Tonight Show with Conan. Jay is cannibalizing Conan’s potential audience. So, how can NBC call Conan a failure? That just irks me to no end.

I have never liked Jay Leno. Never. In all fairness though, I can’t say I was a big fan of Conan either. It’s not that I didn’t like him. I had always thought he was funny, but I never really watched him before he got The Tonight Show. I tape The Tonight Show every night and the next day, I’ll usually just fast forward to the guest interviews. I don’t watch the monologues and skits and other stuff.

I know that Letterman is beating The Tonight Show in the ratings, since Conan took over. Of course he is! Why wouldn’t he be? My question is whether Letterman’s audience grew or if the Tonight Show’s audience shrunk. Basically, how many viewers switched from The Tonight Show to Letterman. I bet it’s not as much as you think. I’m sure those numbers are out there somewhere.

When Johnny Carson retired and Jay got The Tonight Show and Letterman bolted to CBS, it took Jay three years to beat Letterman in the ratings. So, now they put Conan in an awful position and blame him for not holding on to Jay’s Tonight Show numbers. It just infuriates me.

Apparently, next week is Conan’s last week. I will be watching and I hope he just totally skewers Jay and NBC all week long. Then, I hope he goes on Letterman and skewers them some more. Then, I hope he goes on Kimmel and Ferguson and Oprah and anyone that will have him and he skewers Jay and NBC some more.

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The 2008 season was a tough one for me because my son insisted on being a Giants fan, rooted against the Redskins, and just basically decided to actively root against any team I wanted to win.

At the beginning of this, the 2009, season, my son totally abandoned the Giants and was a full on Redskins fan. If we saw someone out in public wearing Giants gear, he would boo them. The look on his face when I bought him a Chris Cooley jersey to match mine at the beginning of the season was priceless. I was so proud. Fathers and sons are meant to root for the same team — as long as it’s the father’s favorite team.

The 2009 season started out with high expectations for the Redskins. In fact, through the first six weeks, the Redskins faced winless teams. That has never happened. The first 6 games should have been a cakewalk (I expected 5 - 1), but they were a pathetic 2 - 4:

1. Loss vs. Giants ( 2009 record:  8 - 8 )
2. Win vs. Rams ( 1 - 15 )
3. Loss vs. Lions ( 2 - 14 )
4. Win vs. Buccaneers ( 3 - 13 )
5. Loss vs. Panthers ( 8 - 8 )
6. Loss vs. Chiefs ( 4 - 12 )

The Redskins fortunes did not improve. Toward the end of the season, I could tell my son was becoming frustrated with rooting for the Redskins. I wasn’t too surprised when the Ravens  started to figure into the mix. He started asking for Ravens t-shirts and he wanted a Ray Lewis jersey. I wasn’t too upset, since he made it clear that the Ravens were his 2nd favorite team behind the Redskins.

The morning after the Redskins played the Giants on Monday Night Football in week 15, I told my son that the Redskins lost. He sheepishly replied, “It figures.” Soon after that, much to my chagrin, he announced that the Ravens were now his favorite team and that the Redskins were now #2.

Uh…what? When did this happen? How did he decide this? Apparently, my nephew, who is a huge Ravens fan (and so is his dad…see…isn’t that nice?), convinced him that since the Ravens had a better record, he should like them better than the Redskins. Pledging allegiance to a team is not supposed to work that way. I tried explaining the difference between a loyal fan and a “fair weather” fan, but my efforts have fallen on deaf ears.

I realize he’s still young and he may flip flop, but it is still frustrating for me. I’m trying not to give him a hard time about it. In week 17, the Redskins and the Ravens played at the same time. I agreed to watch the Ravens game with him, but mostly because the Ravens game had playoff implications and the Redskins game was meaningless.

My wife and I had recently decided that my son needed a new comforter for his bed. He requested to have his room be an NFL room. Not a Redskins room. Not a Ravens room. An NFL room. My wife found a nice comforter that had all of the teams’ logos on it, but it was no longer in stock. So, he carefully considered getting a comforter dedicated to one team. Somehow he settled on the San Diego Chargers. I think he picked that one because the colors went well in his room. The Chargers are well positioned to make it to the Super Bowl this year. My son may have a new favorite team soon.

Now that I think of it, the Chargers were my favorite team at one point growing up. Why? Because I got a little plastic Chargers helmet out of a gum ball machine. Completely random. That really puts things in perspective, but I’ll keep hyping up the Redskins.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything on this blog. I’m not really sure why my posts have gotten so infrequent. I guess life is just really busy and nothing has really happened lately that has “inspired” me to write. I have one friend who actually complains to me when I don’t post often enough. He is also the subject of this post, which I’m sure he’ll enjoy.

There are only two friends from college that we make a concerted effort to keep in touch with. Luckily, they are married, which makes it easier, especially since my wife and I are particularly bad at the staying-in-touch game. After we graduated college, we lived about 3 miles from each other and would pretty much hang out all the time. About 12 years ago, they moved to Florida, but somehow we manage to get together once a year or so.

Of course, I was thrilled to get a call last week from our friends. They were making an impromptu drive up the east coast — crazy, right? — to visit family in New Jersey and they wanted to stop by on their drive home. They had a baby since the last time we saw them that we were dying to meet, so we were even more eager than usual to see them.

They came over yesterday and we had a really great visit. Their older son’s age is right between my daughter and my son. My kids had a great time with him: playing on the Wii, playing air hockey, dancing and singing. It’s really a pleasure to see our kids, who don’t see each other that often, get along so well. And, their younger son, who is now about 15 months, was really something. He was running all over the place. You couldn’t help but smile. He’s a really cute kid with a really bright personality. It was just hysterical watching him run from one room to another and explore our house. He even knew not to touch my TV (he called it a “no-no”), so that was an added bonus! And my daughter (who just turned 10 last week!!!) gained some good experience for her babysitting resume by keeping him occupied.

On one of these “hit-and-run” visits, we’ll usually bring in food. Typically, they will arrive, we’ll decide what to eat, and then we’ll go get the food. Our friends are very generous and whenever they visit, they always insist on picking up the check. He’s the kind of guy who will slip the waiter his credit card at the beginning of the meal, so we don’t even have the chance to argue over the bill. His generosity is certainly appreciated, but totally unnecessary.

I outsmarted him this time. About a half-hour before they arrived, they called to tell us they were getting close. We suggested that we get Ledo Pizza for lunch and they were fine with that. So, I quickly ordered the pizza and picked it up before they arrived.

Well, I must have really threw him off his game because he sent me a text message this morning at 6am:

Jed, I feel horrible. It just occurred to me that I did not offer you money for the pizza. Please let me know how much it was. I feel awful that we came to your house ate your appetizers, pizza, and brownies without pitching in. I don’t know where my head was at?

If I were to text him back, this is what I would say:

You did not dine at a restaurant. As our guests, you certainly don’t owe us anything. You brought the fun, we brought the food. No biggie.

I’m not going to send that text. I’m going to tell him to read this blog entry instead. You see, there’s an accessory for my awesome phone, the Motorola Droid, that allows me to use it as my bedside clock. So, when he sent me that text message at 6am, he woke me up…on my day off.

So, please, please, don’t feel bad about not picking up the tab for lunch. We were happy to do so. Instead, feel bad about waking me up at 6am. You don’t owe me money; you owe me about 2 hours of sleep!

Two years ago, my son was 3 and rather frightened by the whole notion of Halloween. In fact, last year he totally opted out. He told us straight up that he did not want to go trick or treating, so he stayed home and helped pass out candy.

Over the past year, I have definitely noticed my son becoming more confident socially. I wasn’t sure how this would translate to Halloween, but I was hopeful that he’d want to participate this year. A couple of months ago, he decided that he wanted to dress up as Anakin Skywalker (btw, I will hopefully write a separate post regarding his growing obsession with Star Wars).

My daughter, who dressed up as an Eskimo, had arranged to trick or treat with 4 friends, who each have younger siblings. We ended up having a caravan of 10 kids (ranging in age from 3 to 9) and 4 dads. On a crowded and dark Halloween night, it’s not always easy to keep track of everyone.

My son was quite the trooper. It was as though he was never afraid in years past. He really had a great time. He didn’t even think twice walking up to the house that caused his body to quake with fear two years ago.

As an adult, I’ve learned that the trick to “trick or treating” is figuring out where the half way point should be to turn around and head home. That is a trick I haven’t yet mastered. At what I thought was the half way point, the thought of turning around and heading home was outrageous to the kids.

My son gave out first. He complained that his bag was too heavy. My rule is that if they want to trick or treat they have to carry their own bag at all times. He wisely chose to surrender his bag and hang with me while the rest of the kids secured more candy.

Soon after that, I could sense the energy level of the group diminishing. They weren’t as chatty and they stopped trying to run ahead. Finally, one of my daughter’s friends declared she was done and within about 20 seconds they all decided that they had had enough. The problem was that we were about a 10 minute walk from home. So we decided to skip the rest of the houses and go straight home.

As usual, only about 1/2 the candy was worth keeping. There really ought to be an approved list of acceptable candy. Does anyone really like getting a small, yellow box with two Milk Duds that end up being hard to chew and stuck to your teeth? The only time I ever see a 100 Grand bar is on Halloween. And hard candy? Come on! Lollipops maybe, but little cinnamon flavored suckers? Please. If it were up to me, you could only give out the following:  Kit Kat, Reese’s, Crunch, M&Ms, Nerds, Hershey miniatures, 3 Muskateers, and Whoppers. That’s it! That’s the list!

Anyway, despite the steady drizzle of rain (I forgot to mention that part), my kids had a successful Halloween night. I was very happy that my son got over his fear and had a great time trick or treating!

My son hit a walk off home run in his t-ball game last Sunday. Pretty exciting, you would think. However, it’s not really. It’s really just a coincidence.

My son is in a beginning t-ball league. They are just learning the fundamentals. The games last 3 innings. Every kid bats every inning. There are no outs. When the team in the field fields the ball, they throw it to first base…no matter what. Every kid hits a single. However, the last kid to bat for their team in an inning hits a home run. The team has a set batting order that rotates one position every inning, so every kid has a chance to hit a home run during the season. So, it just so happens that my son was batting last in the 3rd inning, so, by default, he hit a walk off home run.

I know I’m downplaying it a bit, but he is really enjoying playing t-ball. You should have seen the smile on his face as he was rounding the bases. He’s having a fun time and it’s fun to watch him play.

It always irritates me when my kids don’t finish their milk at a meal. There are times when I implore them to finish their milk, they make an attempt, I turn around, and they escape my presence before they finish. I have learned to not fill their cup to the brim, but that doesn’t seem to work. They always finish what I give them and ask for more. I even tell them while refilling their cup that I expect them to finish it, yet, alas, they do not.

I came up with a new rule. It’s a stroke of genius really and very straightforward:  if they don’t finish their milk, they owe me 25-cents.

That’s it. Pretty simple. And, it’s working beautifully. Especially for my daughter who has been known to not even take a sip of milk during dinner. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this sooner. Of course, the rule is predicated on the fact that my kids actually have money. They get an allowance for chores, so the rule is golden.

Thank goodness for Guitar Hero World Tour. Ever since I got that game, my son’s interest in songs with subjects about fruit salad, cold spaghetti, etc. has certainly waned. Barney beget The Wiggles beget Imagination Movers beget The White Stripes. Long car rides are now tolerable, however, making sure my kids only listen to songs that are appropriate for them is an unwelcome, but necessary, challenge.

A few months ago, my son and my daughter were clamoring for iPods. I told them that they’d have to save up their allowance if they wanted it get an iPod knowing that it would take them forever. My in-laws generously offered to pay half. When the kids finally saved up enough money for their iPods, my in-laws also generously bought them iTunes gift cards as well. And the struggle begins.

Their song selections started out innocently enough. Between my daughter and my son, they bought songs from artists you’d find on the Disney Channel (Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Jonas Brothers, etc.) or on American Idol (Jordan Sparks, Kris Allen, etc.). They would also hear songs on the radio that they like by artists that for the most part are benign, but I am quickly learning that you have to be careful.For instance, my daughter loves the song Hot and Cold by Katy Perry. Not a bad song, but their is an utterance of the b-word. We let my daughter buy it. She also wanted Katy Perry’s Waking Up In Vegas. We said no to that one.

We let my daughter get Lady Gaga’s Poker Face and Just Dance, although the latter’s subject matter — while not having bad words — is probably not appropriate, since it’s about a girl at a club who’s totally wasted. I don’t think my kids have picked up on that aspect of the song. We definitely will not be letting her get the song where Lady Gaga talks about taking a ride on a guy’s “Disco Stick”. I hope she hasn’t heard that one yet. Ugh.

Enter The Black Eyed Peas. A couple of weeks ago, I bought them I Gotta Feeling and had no problems with the lyrics. Last night, my son decided he wanted Boom Boom Pow. I’ve heard the song on the radio a million times and never heard anything objectionable. I fired up iTunes and found the song. I noticed that there were Explicit and Clean versions of some of their older material and took note that their new album was not marked Explicit. If a song/album is not marked Explicit, wouldn’t you assume that it is “safe”? Guess what? It’s not.

We bought Boom Boom Pow and started listening to it and I heard a few mentions of the “s”-word. I actually started the song over a couple of times to make sure that I heard what I thought I heard. Usually, if a song is released to the radio, there is an option to buy the Radio Edit version of the song. No such luck.

I contacted Apple’s support via online chat and explained my problem. I meant to capture the transcript because it was kind of interesting, but I won’t bore you with the details. To make a long story short, marking a song Explicit and/or providing a Clean copy of the song is solely at the discretion of the record company (Interscope Reconds in this case). It turns out the Radio Edit version of the song is available, but only if you buy the entire album of “Now That’s What I Call Music, Vol. 31″. Uh…no thanks.

I did a quick search of the Amazon MP3 store for a clean version of Boom Boom Pow and came up empty handed. The ironic part is that there were comments on Amazon.com that described the same experience as me: bought it for a young child and were shocked to hear the bad language.I’ll certainly be more careful next time.

In case you were curious, here’s the songs my kids have bought since they’ve gotten their iPod:

On Labor Day, we took the kids to the final home game of the Bowie Baysox, which is the Orioles’ AA minor league affiliate.

Minor league stadiums are a lot of fun. They are much smaller than a major league stadium, so every seat is great. You can clearly hear the umpire calls. The players are minor leaguers and the players often make some entertaining errors. The other benefit of being in a small stadium is that the chance that a foul ball comes your way is probably 10 orders of magnitude higher than in a major league stadium.

Just before the game started, I went to get some food for the family. I come back to our seats along the first baseline with the game just underway.  We were with another family and we had all of our kids on the bleachers in front of us.

I had my hands full when I hear the crack of the bat. Something made me look up. Here’s what I thought to myself as everything suddenly went into slow motion:

Wow. That ball is high.
Hmm…I think it’s coming our way.
Uh…I might have a chance to get that if I wasn’t holding the food.
Wait…I think it might hit my daughter and she’s not looking.
Oh…s**t!!

Yes, the ball did hit my daughter. She wasn’t even facing the field. It hit her right on her trapezius muscle between her shoulder and neck. We were very lucky that it didn’t hit her collar bone or her head. Thankfully, it was a pop fly and not a line drive, which could have been much more dangerous. Of course, she was stunned and started crying. A paramedic came over from the First Aid station to check her out. She had some swelling in the area and a light bruise, but otherwise she was fine. For those wondering, yes, I did recover the ball after the commotion died down.

Before we left home for the game, we contemplated bringing gloves, but decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble. Hindsight is always 20/20 although I’m not sure it would have helped given the way things played out.

My daughter wanted to go home and was very upset. I showed her that I had the ball, which — all things considered — was pretty cool. She was still too upset to care. After she calmed down, she became really interested in the ball. We thought it would be cool to have the guy who hit it autograph it for her. Unfortunately, it started to pouring rain in the 5th inning and we didn’t get the chance.