The institutional mouthpiece of Kjel.org

The CEO had an irritatingly boring weekend. I didn’t go to work Friday since the lad was sick and couldn’t go to daycare. I ended up not leaving the HQ that day. The lad was too sick for Little Gym on Saturday morning, and too sick to do much of anything. The CFO had various work-related events to attend to on Saturday, so again I didn’t leave the house all day. On Sunday, the lad was still ill. The CFO had yet more activities at work that required her presence. I at least made it out to the grocery store for 45 minutes on Sunday morning, but aside from that, nothing. A lot of bad TV got watched, a lot of laundry was done, a lot of effort was undertaken to air out the HQ. Not much else. And now it is Monday again.

The CEO may not be the very best father, but I sure as hell am not the worst:

Father wants son, 12, to be circumcised
A divorced Olympia-area man who has converted to Judaism is fighting a court battle in Oregon to have his 12-year-old son circumcised against his ex-wife’s wishes. So far, Oregon courts have squarely sided with the father, who has custody. The man’s ex-wife lives in Oregon. “The primary custodial parent is the one that makes the decisions about religion and education and about matters of child-rearing,” said Kathy Graham, associate dean for academic affairs at Willamette University College of Law. Other family-law experts agree but say the courts should at least make sure the surgery is in the best interests of the child. “You’re talking about not just religious instruction or whether you’re going to send the child to parochial school or public school,” said Lawrence Gorin, a Portland attorney. “This is a matter of permanent change of bodily structure. And it’s irreversible.”

And now for the understatement of the decade:

Mark Johnson, a Portland lawyer asked to comment, said the case should not be decided based only on the legal papers filed on behalf of the mother and father. “Frankly, the child should have a lawyer.”

I plan to remind the Jr. VP about this story the next time he complains about anything.

Awesome:

Homeowner’s sign drops f-bomb on people riding the OHSU tram
By KATU Web Staff Video PORTLAND, Ore. - Someone really doesn’t like the new OHSU tram, and now everyone who rides the glistening new transport knows it. Tram passengers reported that the sign appeared Monday morning and made the feelings of one homeowner crystal clear. What isn’t known is who the complainant is. No one answered when KATU reporters knocked on the door of the home. The large, professionally-produced sign simply says “(expletive) THE TRAM” in large black letters against a white background. The tram was the target of fierce opposition from homeowners who ended up living below the aerial transit. They cited privacy concerns as their main point of opposition.

The CEO stayed home today from work: the Jr VP is sick as a dog. The CFO heard him barf last night and wound up taking care of him most of the night. I got up early and took care of him so that she could sleep a bit. She absolutely has to go to work today. Me? The factory will make it without me for a day, and it’s not like I’m not continuously on email or unreachable by phone if there is an emergency. The lad is finally asleep and the CFO is off to her job; now I need to work on getting some certain smells out of the HQ. I’ve got a lovely afternoon planned.

Double Holiday! Quite a few excellent holidays lately it seems: not only is today World Intellectual Property Day, but it is also Take Your Child To Work Day. I’ve got the Jr. VP here with me working on some trademark related items. As it turns out he writes quite a mean demand letter. He likes to threaten all kinds of terrible things in his letters, often involving flying monkeys, forced naps and/or the lack of pizza. Threats of extrajudicial action, so to speak.

A huge party at Kjel.org tomorrow. Huge.

Yesterday evening the Jr. VP decided that he needed a couchtop fortress. He went around the HQ and collected every pillow owned by Kjel.org, and then set himself up in a pillowy lair.

Hmm, what am I missing here? I’m pretty comfortable, but something’s not right. Oh, yeah. I’m still wearing clothes.

Mmmm, much better.

Coming up with baby names is fun but also difficult and a bit stressful. Despite my earlier proclamation it is unlikely that “Tank Wayne” will be on the birth certificate. And the nicknames already bestowed upon the boy (Wombstretcha, and now also, much to the CFO’s chagrin, Bladdapuncha) while fine, are not suitable as formal monikers. Where to come up with a name? Oddly enough, grandmothers from both sides of the family have been considered as name sources for our forthcoming boy. So have sisters, further out relatives, characters from books we like and the TV show Serenity. While we have no set answers yet, a few parameters have been established:

1. The new boy can’t be named after anyone the CFO or I knew at one point and didn’t like. Perfectly good names have been ruined because of people one of us went to high school or college with.

2. We (but mainly the CEO) have dorky relatives that have taken some good names. Several possibly acceptable candidate names were disqualified thusly.

3. Per the CFO, it is unacceptable to name the boy primarily for the purpose of having his initials spell “DOH”.

4. Similarly, naming the boy for the purpose of playing a joke on one of my sisters is also disallowed.

Those are some tough guidelines to work within, but I am confident we’ll come up with something suitable soon. It is a good feeling though knowing that we’ve got “Tank Wayne” in reserve.

This might be a sign that the CEO needs to get some new clothes. Or lose some weight. Or both:

I just now went to re-buckle my belt after using the facilities at my office. Quite to my surprise during the re-fastening process the buckle broke. It’s just a cheap leather belt I got from Eddie Bauer more than a decade ago that I have worn just about every day since, but still. It didn’t occur to me that it might ever break. At least I was able to jury-rig it so that I could keep the belt on (going beltless looks too weird even for me) but it is not now doing anything functional. I’m hoping to avoid inadvertently mooning anyone for the rest of the day, inadvertently being the key word there.

Also, my new office chair has wheels on it that are much, much too effective. It moves so easily it’s like it’s got a mind of it’s own. I swear that the thing (very sensibly) tries to flee when I am about to sit on it; it is pure dumb luck that I haven’t fallen on my ass yet when I go to sit down. It’s bound to happen eventually. I hope there aren’t any witnesses when it does. For the folks that will come running toward the sound of thunder coming from my office, I’ll just tell people that I was doing a back-handspring but couldn’t stick the landing. As long as there are absolutely no follow-up questions that explanation should work just fine.

Earth Day celebrations began early for Kjel.org. On Saturday morning the CFO was reading the paper and saw a story about an overdose and the drug deal leading up to it. It included this paragraph:

The eight-month painstaking state and federal investigation revealed how the drug deal was set up within a 24-hour period through cell phone calls and text messages. Transactions took place in the parking lot of the Skyline Restaurant, a popular burger joint on Northwest Skyline Boulevard, and outside Bridlemile Elementary, considered a popular hangout for pot-smoking high school students.

Let’s have lunch at the Skyline! the CFO exclaimed after reading the above. We proceeded to pick up the Chiefs Educator and Bride and then headed on up to the Skyline Restaurant. It was packed: any publicity is good publicity I guess. We were lucky to get a table that held the five of us.

The CEO is rarely closer to death than I was during the five or ten minutes directly following my destruction of the Skyline’s Swiss and Mushroom Steakburger (#13 on the menu if I recall). I believe that the caffeine in the beverage I enjoyed with my burger is the only thing that kept my heart from stopping during that perilous period. That burger was simply unconscionable: at least three cows and god knows how many acres of rain forest gave their lives so that I could enjoy that burger. When it arrived at the table the CFO thought it was a joke of some sort. No joke, baby. I’m gonna eat that thing. It was about the size of your average frozen pizza, but also six inches tall. Even cut in half it took two hands to lift. The Chief Educator had a similar challenge in front of him and he was showing no weakness so I too attacked with vigor. The eating process was quite nice, but after the last bite the enormity of what I’d just done started to sink in. I pondered it while eating a couple of onion rings. Suffice to say I went forth from the Skyline and ate no more.

The CEO passed the remainder of Saturday in a beef related coma; I don’t remember a bit of it. On Sunday the lad was good enough to sleep in so Mommy and Daddy followed suit. When we all finally awoke and were ready to face the day we pondered what to do. The boy made our decision for us when it turned out he was stir-crazy and needed to get out of the house. So a grand Earth Day tradition was started: the Earth Day Drive. We loaded up the Subaru and tooled around for a while. We stopped at a gas station to fill up a few propane canisters for the new grill (for when I am again ready for meat), and finally found our way to Gabriel Park. The lad got to run around and play on the big toy and slides. He was in such a hurry to get down the slide that he would launch himself at it instead of sitting down first; he went down the curvy slide, er, fancy-style a few times. He shook off the resulting head wounds pretty quickly. Here’s the lad being spotted by a newly very-pregnant-looking CFO as he climbs toward the slide:

Jr. would get super-staticky when he went down the slide; check out the crazy hair:

We finally went home and Jr. crashed hard; when he was asleep I fired up the lawnmower and gave our “yard” it’s inaugural 2007 mowing, and then poisoned some weeds out on the HQ’s perimeter. All in all, a fine Earth Day for Kjel.org.

A prediction I made a while ago is coming to pass: last night the Jr. VP slept in pajamas with a certain Wiggles t-shirt worn over them. Tantrum averted. And it’s a damn good thing I had his Ichiro shirt on hand this morning. Baseball is no Wiggles, but it’s close.

As more details come out the CEO has had quite a startling revelation: turns out that the Chief Educator is damn smooth. I won’t share all the details of his smoothness here, but he (or the Chief Bride) can if they wish.

The happy news of the Chiefs Educator and Bride pending nuptials contains one tiny kernel of sadness: the surprise wedding the CFO and I were planning to throw for them in August 2008 is now called off. It was going to kick ass. We were going to plan a beach trip with the four of us, but beforehand secretly invite a big bunch of friends and family out to the beach as well. Our group would basically take over an Oregon coast beachfront hotel, K-Sig house-dance style.

Everyone would be at the hotel ahead of time. The four of us would show up, go out on the beach and everyone would be there and yell “Surprise! You’re getting married!” I’d have a tuxedo jacket (maybe a tuxedo t-shirt?) ready for the groom, and a veil for the bride. The rest of the wedding party would be in Hawaiian shirts or hula skirts as appropriate. Noho’s and the Pelican Brew Pub would cater, and a Hawaii-style band would play. I’d have a judge on hand to make it official, with special vows written for them by the CEO. A party at the beach and at the end of it the two of them are married? Awesomeness potential: very high. Hell, maybe we’ll do it anyway.

Imagine if you will the CEO winning the Powerball, the Jr. VP winning both the Heisman and the Cy Young (in the same year), the CFO winning the Nobel (a real one, not the stupid Peace Prize), the Mariners winning the World Series and the Cougars winning the BCS. Combine that with a steady diet of South Park, Jack Bauer, Kobe steaks, Homer Simpson, fly fishing, Chuck Norris, single malt Scotch, major league baseball, Chinese sausage, golf at Edgefield, trips to the beach, Captain Ron Rico, beer pong, World Cup soccer, Ulysses Everett Mcgill, cheese, the Old Barn, gambling, college football, bacon (in all its glorious forms), and four kegs of Anderson Valley IPA. Over that whole mess imagine an extended Eddie Van Halen guitar solo with a certain one armed drummer backing him up.

The amount of awesomeness contained in the above scenario is roughly 1/10th the amount of awesomeness contained in the news the CEO learned the other day: The Chief Educator and * [his lovely roommate] are engaged to be married. Well done, Chief Educator. Well done.

* Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of having to block out her official Kjel.org title for national security reasons. I may start referring to her as The Chief Bride, at least for a little while.

1. The new grill is everything I hoped it would be. I finished putting the thing together Saturday afternoon. At least I thought I was finished. There were four fairly substantial nut and bolt combos still in the hardware pack even though I was to the end of the assembly instructions. Dammit, those look important. As it turns out, they were. 20 minutes later I found the step I’d skipped (step 38, part c), installed the bolts thereby ensuring that the side burner wouldn’t fall off while I was using it, and to the deck it went. I just don’t see myself using the stove again in the near future if the food can be grilled. The big outside burner would also be awesome for making a batch of homebrew. I don’t have the gear for it right now, but if anyone does and wants to come over feel free.

2. Kjel.org made a big mistake this weekend: we bought the boy some Play-Doh. The mistake isn’t that Jr. doesn’t like Play-Doh. Quite the contrary, actually. I believe that we could leave him at the kitchen table for 8 hours and he would happily play with the Doh. In the course of playing with the Doh a fair portion of it winds up on the floor. From there is gets onto the bottom of feet, and from there it gets ground into the furniture and carpet. After an hour of so of trying to police the Doh, the CFO and I made a command decision that perhaps Play-Doh should be an outside toy, only to be used on the table out on the deck. This decision was unpopular with a certain lad. Most unpopular. A tantrum ensued that only the prompt application of pizza to boy could check. Thank Jebus we had some pizza on hand, otherwise he might still be pitching that fit.

3. Finally, a weekend with baseball on TV. It just doesn’t seem normal for a sunny spring Sunday not to have the Mariners playing in the background. A certain boy in our house is already saying “Yay baseball! Yay Mariners!” As the grass in (or the grassy patches of dirt and moss that make up) our yard gets a little drier, it will soon be time to get out the wiffle ball and bat and see what the kid’s got. I’m already looking forward to charging the mound the first time he tries to brush me back; secretly I’ll be pretty proud of him. It won’t stop me from drilling him when he comes to the plate though.

4. The Jr. VP can come across as a bit of an authoritarian at times. Sit Down Mommy! is not an uncommon phrase overheard at the HQ. Stop Daddy! is also often heard. I am not sure how to inculcate in him an appreciation of the right to personal autonomy. I mean really, what sort of two year old could possibly have a problem understanding that concept? To be fair to the Jr VP, often when he says Stop Daddy! I am doing something to him that a nicer Daddy would probably have already ceased. And the last time he employed Sit Down Mommy! he was using strategery to try to prevent an unwanted nap from being thrust upon him.

5. I have a new nickname for Tank: Wombstretcha. I wish I could say that I invented it, but I can’t: it’s actually the name of some band playing at a club in Tigard we drove past the other day. It’s a fine band name, but it is also a great kick-ass nickname for a -3 month old waiting to be born. The CFO absolutely loves it. Loves it, I tells ya.

When we get home in the evening the Jr. VP likes to sit at the kitchen table and have a snack while Daddy opens up his laptop and/or starts thinking about dinner. After, or sometimes during his snack the lad likes to color. He has a big tub of crayons and a bunch of scratch paper kept in reach on the kitchen table. “Only on the paper” comes out of his mouth as he’s coloring, since he’s heard someone say that to him a couple of (dozen) times before and now he knows to remind himself. A nice time is had coloring until, invariably, the lad tries to color with the white crayon. And, no matter how hard he presses, nothing happens. I curse you to lowest depths of Hades vile fiend!* he yells at the seemingly unmarked white paper. Maybe I should get him some colored construction paper?

Actually, it is white crayon itself that most infuriates the Jr. VP. Frankly I’m surprised he hasn’t broken it into fifteen pieces and flushed it down the toilet yet. I hope that’s how he gets rid of it anyway. I am a little bit afraid that in a fit of anger Jr. might fling the white crayon down the heating vent, or into the oven, or in some other inconvenient location, and then forget to tell Daddy about it. I really probably ought to hide that thing. Or at least assign one of the flying monkeys to guard it.

* Or something like that.

Dammit. Usually Kjel.org overpays Uncle Sam just a tiny bit over the course of an average year, and he turns out to owe us some money at the end of the year. It’s why I usually do our taxes early. This year, I’m waiting until April 15 to file them. Infer from that what you will.

If you are over at the HQ during the next month and I’m making dinner with the new grill, it will likely be hot dogs instead of ribeyes.

Jr. has his two stuffed puppies; they are his pals. He likes to carry them both around and feed them and make them talk and fly (fly puppy!) and generally be good little puppies. But now, he has also acquired two nemeses (nemesises? nemisi? Had to look that one up: n. pl. nem·e·ses (-sēz’) ) as well. Meet the Flying Monkey:

Like his two canine pals, his two primate nemeses arrived separately but within short order of each other. He got the first monkey as a gift from the CEO about a month ago (I got it free at work). I figured that he likes monkeys, and liked to throw things, so this would be a perfect toy. Not the case. When you launch the monkey using his slingshot tubed arms he lets out a blood-curdling screech which scares the ever loving crap out of the Jr. VP. “NO MONKEY!!” The monkey is not allowed to touch his other toys, neither Mommy or Daddy can touch the monkey, but we also can’t hide it because it makes Jr nervous to not know where the monkey is. The monkey currently hangs on the HQ’s mantelpiece, on a hook originally intended to hold a stocking. Jr. glances up at him every once in a while to reassure himself that the monkey is not on the move.

The CEO’s parents sent the lad a small Easter basket this year. It had some tasty candy inside, but it turns out that the candy was guarded by a second flying monkey! My parents probably thought along the same lines I did: he likes to make monkey sounds and throw things — he’ll love it! Not the case. In fact, I’m not sure that Stinkboy has ever been more conflicted: he loves candy and will do most anything to get it, but he couldn’t get past the monkey guard. It was time to teach Stinkboy a lesson about teamwork. And small squad infantry tactics: I was gonna fix the monkey in place by hitting him from the front, enabling Jr to make a flanking move for the candy. We were about to launch our attack when for some reason the CFO just went ahead and removed the monkey. My teachable moment was gone; not really sure why she did that and I was a more than a little bit unhappy about it. Monkey #2 now hangs on the mantle next to his cohort. They look quite nice up there, if a little bit confusing.

So anyway, if you are at the HQ and notice two stuffed monkeys with masks and capes hanging above our fireplace, please don’t take them down unless you want the Jr. VP to have a conniption. Conversely, if you are over and really want to see a toddler freak out, grab one of those monkeys and launch it at him. You won’t be disappointed.

I think that “Tank Wayne” has a nice ring to it. Since Stinkboy is overall on the side of justice, it only stands to reason that this next one will be generally evil. Might as well give him an appropriate name to go along with it:

The Classic Middle Name
It only occurred to me in the early 1990s that “Wayne” was a popular middle name among a few of the most heinous murderers of our time, e.g., the clown John Wayne Gacy (who killed almost three dozen boys and young men in the late 1970s and buried most of them beneath the floorboards of his Des Plaines, Ill., home) and Elmer Wayne Henley (sentenced to six consecutive life terms in 1974 in Houston for his role, with ringleader Dean Allen Corll, in the murders of 27 young men). I began to publish periodic lists in 1996, and soon readers made sure I never missed a one that made the news. This is a mighty impressive (so to speak) group, and below is an alpha listing.

Click the link above to see the impressive list of people who Tank will share a middle name with.

Kjel.org bought a new grill this weekend. The buying process was pretty painless, and I am happy to report that the Beaverton-Hillsboro Hwy Home Depot gets the Kjel.org stamp of approval: the sales woman was exceedingly friendly and seeing that I had the boy with me she took it upon herself to wheel the big heavy box all the way out to the Suby after I’d paid for it. The grill itself? Haven’t used it yet, since it is taking me forever to build the thing. I’m sure the professionals could have the whole unit assembled in 30 minutes, but it took the CEO that long just to get the damn thing out of the box and get all the styrofoam and bubble wrap off.

It’s no so much that it is difficult to put together, it’s just that there are so many pieces; the instruction manual is 27 pages long if that gives you any sense of what I’m looking at here. Plus, everything is attached with tiny (like 5 mm) screws and locking washers and so forth. Maybe that is fine in some countries, but come on, let’s think just a bit about the U.S. market for high-end grills: a lot of the people buying them are going to be, shall we say, big boned. Locking nuts the size of a tic-tac are not that easy for a fat-fingered guy like the CEO to manipulate.

And to top it off, there are in fact three sizes of screws and assorted hardware involved here, but they all look pretty much exactly the same. As I found out repeatedly, they are not. There was a point Sunday where I considered pulling out my hacksaw to fix one of the screws, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned by now it’s to think twice or even three times before I start sawing through things. As it turns out I was looking at a wrong screw, not that the screw itself was in need of repair.

Since the Mariners have played a total of three (three and half, maybe) times so far this season and haven’t actually completed a game since Wednesday of last week, the baseball monkey on the CEO’s back is in need of serious feeding. Luckily the internet is here. I regularly read a handful of the M’s websites; I’m always looking for more. The best new one by far is the blog of Geoff Baker, the Seattle Times reporter assigned to cover the team. His comments today looking ahead after all four scheduled games in Cleveland were called:

Just got back from Jacobs Field, which is still covered in a foot-and-a-half of snow on many parts of the field. There is, of course, a tarp covering the infield and they have removed snow from a portion of the outfield. Trouble is, it’s still snowing, the temperatures are getting a little warmer but hardly playable and…and…well, that’s it.

They’ve called off not only the games involving Seattle, but now, a three-game series with the Los Angeles Angels due to start tomorow [Tuesday] has been moved to a different city as well. The two options are Milwaukee or Houston. I’d take Houston, personally, but I’m sure it’ll go north just in time for a spring blizzard or something. The Indians leave here at 7 p.m., so they will obviously know by then. (Just found out at 11:33 a.m. PDT that it will be Milwaukee).

As for the Mariners, they are continuing to keep their rotation in order, meaning Jeff Weaver tomorrow in Boston and then Felix Hernandez on Wednesday against Red Sox ace Daisuke Matsuzaka in what is looking to be the pitching matchup of the year. Seriously, to get a duo like this squaring off at a setting like Fenway Park, with all the hype thrown in, is just too much to ask for this time of year. So, hats off to Cleveland for this one.

I am very much looking forward to Wednesday. Some additional awesomeness is that the game doesn’t start until 4:00 PM out here (the latest start you’ll see for an east coast game) so I’ll actually get to listen/watch some of it. Man I hope things are looking mighty hectic at the office at about 3:30 on Wednesday, because it’ll be very tempting for the CEO to up and skedaddle if they are not.

Unless the CEO has been completely misinformed about this whole genetics thing, the odds of the Jr. VP ever playing major league baseball are pretty damn slim. If he is ever going to get a shot in the MLB he needs a gimmick. I plan on teaching him a knuckle ball as soon as he’s old enough to throw, and hopefully turning the lad into the next Wakefield. Lately though I’ve happily noticed that the boy appears to be ambidextrous. Awesome — perhaps he can follow in this guy’s footsteps:

The pitch was nothing remarkable: Pat Venditte, Creighton University’s temporarily right-handed pitcher, threw a fastball past a Northern Iowa batter for a called strike three. It was his next windup that evinced this young pitcher’s uniqueness and, perhaps, professional future. As his teammates whipped the ball around the infield, Venditte smoothly, unthinkingly, removed his custom glove from his left hand and slipped it on his right. Moments later he leaned back, threw a strike left-handed to the next batter, and finished the side in order. Venditte is believed to be the only ambidextrous pitcher in NCAA Division I college baseball, the ultimate relief specialist. . .

“I don’t think twice about it,” said Venditte, whose father, Pat Sr., taught him to throw with both arms when he was 3. “You grew up with it, you love it, you want to keep playing as long as you can.” Venditte has improved so much in the past year that major league scouts are starting to consider him a possible late-round pick in this June’s amateur draft because of his versatility. “He could be an economical two-for-one,” Jerry Lafferty, a longtime scout for the Philadelphia Phillies, said last Friday while assessing the 21-year-old Venditte from behind the backstop.

This summer we’ll start working on throwing a whiffle ball. If an ambidextrous knuckleballer can’t find work in professional baseball then something in the world just isn’t right.

God how I miss Jay Buhner.

Picture from Lookout Landing.

The M’s are supposed to play the Indians in Cleveland in about two hours. Not sure the game is going to happen: weather.com says that it is currently 30 degrees and snowing heavily in Cleveland. Not exactly baseball weather. Maybe the game will be delayed until tonight when I can actually watch or listen to it? Maybe I get a doubleheader tomorrow? Either way, this shapes up nicely for the CEO.

At lunch today I stepped out of my office into the sun and walked across a little park toward a sandwich place I like. The grass was freshly cut, the flowers were out, and it smelled just like springtime ought to smell. This is nice I say to myself while inhaling deeply. The all of sudden, I caught a whiff of something different. What is that? Mon Dieu that smells good! Screw the flowers! I realize that I am walking past a vent for the kitchen at Carafe , and that something very very tasty is being cooked inside, likely involving frites and duck fat. I forget all about dumb nature and focus on the smells coming out of the restaurant. It was glorious. Hell, I might still be standing out there inhaling those wonderful fumes if I didn’t have an early afternoon meeting today.

Similar to an argument me and the CFO have had recently, but at least our spat didn’t involve the government or make the papers:

Couple fights to name baby ‘Metallica’
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Metallica may be a cool name for a heavy metal band, but a Swedish couple is struggling to convince officials it is also suitable for a baby girl. Michael and Karolina Tomaro are locked in a court battle with Swedish authorities, which rejected their application to name their six-month-old child after the legendary rock band. “It suits her,” Karolina Tomaro, 27, said Tuesday of the name. “She’s decisive and she knows what she wants.” Although little Metallica has already been baptized, the Swedish National Tax Board refused to register the name, saying it was associated with both the rock group and the word “metal.”

I was reminded yesterday that the Lucky Lab makes a magical pizza. The pizza itself tastes pretty good, but the taste isn’t the reason the pizza is magical. No, the magic predictably comes a few hours after the pizza is eaten. And it is consistent. The production came the first time I ate at the Lab and I thought it was a fluke. Twice and I thought it was a coincidence. But every time? Magic. It’s really a shame that the CFO was not here to witness it. I hope the HQ is sufficiently aired out by the time she gets home tonight.

Finally, the winter is over and 2007 can really begin: the M’s are on TV tonight. After yesterday afternoon’s victory the Mariners are tied for first place in the American League West, and ahead of the A’s, Red Sox, and Yankees. I’m going to enjoy it while I can.

The Jr. VP likes to play a game where he does something to try to get you to do it to, and then he takes advantage of your action to do what he really wants to. The classic move is him jumping off the couch and saying he wants to play, but when you get off the couch he jumps back up onto it and steals your spot. Lately he’s plays a game where he’ll walk bow legged like a sumo wrestler, and then once you do it too he’ll try to run underneath your legs. Apparently that is very fun. The problem though is that the CEO is just not tall enough for this game to be remotely safe. I end up jumping over him as he comes flying in, because he certainly isn’t about to duck. I’m very happy we’ve avoided accidents so far in the playing of this game, since I think Daddy comes out much the worse for wear in this particular type of collision.

Not on this one though: in some ways it sucks now that Jr is old enough to remember things. When he was exactly one day less than one years old, he pulled a stool over on top of himself, got a big shiner and cried a bit, but was back playing with the stool the next day. Two weeks ago Stinkboy did a sailor-dive off the changing table and hurt his head. Daddy caught him by the ankle as he hit the ground and prevented him from breaking his neck, but his head still hit the ground and it scared the bejesus out of the both of us. The Jr VP remembers that fall, and remembers it unfortunately quite well. Every time he is on the changing table or anything else elevated, he says in a nervous little voice “No fall?” At least when I am close now he responds to his own question with “I gotcha, don’t worry, Daddy gotcha” which he has heard more than once or twice in the last two weeks when in that situation. He doesn’t like changing clothes or diapers up on the changing table any more, and I’m not about to force him. Daddy is not a fan of the ground, but I’m willing accommodate him on this one.

I wish Jr had a fear of something that Daddy could more easily kill and thereby make the both of us feel better. Daddy just can’t do much about gravity other than try to catch Jr when gravity gets a hold of him. Why couldn’t the boy be afraid of clowns or hobos or something like that?

One thing he is not afraid of is bugs. He impressed our visitors last night when he found one on the ground in the HQ, said “Spider!” (in his language every bug is a “spider“), went and got a kleenex, picked up the bug and squashed him and then put the crumpled paper and dead bug in the garbage can, all while Daddy was chanting Kill The Beast! I was impressed. His Mommy will ask him to employ that service for her in the future I bet.

Tonight the boy will be bathed and made presentable for Mommy; luckily the HQ is getting cleaned tomorrow too. All will be made clean for the arrival of Mommy! Yay Mommy!

The Jr. VP ended up skipping Little Gym yesterday morning, since he slept in until about 9:30 or so. I took a shower, got dressed and ready to go, had stocked the diaper bag etc. by about 8:45, but he still didn’t wake up. Crazy. He slept ~13 hours Friday night on top of a mammoth Friday afternoon nap, and another long one Saturday afternoon. He’s asleep again I type this. Obviously a tired boy, or one so traumatized that he just wants to sleep.

He’s been extremely good, especially considering all that is being asked of him. He and I actually had all kinds of fun on Saturday, once we were up, dressed, and ready to deal with the real world. We went on an errands trip to some of our usual haunts: Texaco, Thriftway, the park, A-boy, then to the Chief Educators. I had made crazy promises earlier to the boy about getting to see Uncle Chief Educator and * [his landlord] but they were out. Stinkboy was mad, but he got over it pretty quickly and we went back to having fun. One of the games we played yesterday involved harrassing Mr. Squirrel. Mr. Squirrel would come up one our deck and start looking for chow in the flower pots. At that point Jr. throws open the door and yells “Hi Mr. Squirrel!” Five minutes later the rodent is back looking for food on our deck. Throw open door and repeat. This game went on for an hour. Below is the boy patiently waiting for his target to return; I believe Mr. Squirrel is on the tree to the right but he’s tough to make out.

Today we went over to visit at the Chief’s house and have some brunch. Jr. showed off his eating prowess: the words “more bacon please” came out of his mouth no less than 10 times. Our hosts acted surprised, I’m not sure why. Nature and nurture are powering the boy — how could he not want more bacon? We couldn’t get him to jump on *’s head when she was sleeping on the couch, but otherwise he was a very good boy over there too. He even messed with the Chief by not saying what the Chief wanted him to, but saying anything and everything else. Well played, young sir.

Later this afternoon we’re picking up my youngest sister and brother-in-law from some food industry tradeshow downtown and then the four of us are going out for pizza. I got a feeling that Jr will enjoy his dinner this evening too.

Even with the fun we’ve been having, when he got up today he peeked into our bedroom looking for the CFO. “Mommy soon?” Stay tough my amigo pequito, Mommy will home in two more days. A couple of boys are going to be very happy then.

* Actual Kjel.org title withheld at the request of the Ace Tomato Company.

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