Family

Alegría

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Cirque du Soleil’s Alegría came to Austin for a 5 night run at the Cedar Park Center.

Last night I took the family to see opening night.

I’ve seen many Cirque shows on TV; Bravo or A&E, I forget which would play the shows and many times run marathons. Wife and I always enjoyed watching them. Of the shows, Alegría was always a favorite. So that it came to town and we could see it live? Awesome.

The kids have never been to any sort of circus, or experienced anything quite like this. We played some promo videos we found online. Daughter of course was excited about it. Youngest wasn’t too sure but did think it’d be neat. Oldest? He made up his mind that he was going to hate it, of course. 🙂  In the weeks since the ticket purchase and leading up to last night, everyone’s respective sentiments towards the show only strengthened. I just encouraged Oldest to go in with an open mind and let it be what it will be; even if he ends up not liking it, he’ll have the experience. I was taken to many events as a child that didn’t appeal to me at the onset and afterwards I knew I’d never do again. However I know my life is a bit richer for the experience. Besides, I’d remind him of all the times he knew he’d hate something and ended up liking it in the end.

And so we went. We decided to have dinner out, and since it was Ash Wednesday seafood was on the menu. I found this little place in Cedar Park called CR Surf & Turf (Yelp listing). Seemed to be decently reviewed and sure enough, the place lived up to the review. It’s a little place, but business was steady and the place was generally 75-90% full the entire time we were there. Service wasn’t horrible, but wasn’t great (e.g. no one ever refilled Wife’s water, or even came by after the food was delivered to ask how things were). Still, the folks were friendly and if you needed anything it was easy enough to ask. The place isn’t too fancy either, but who cares. What’s important is the food and my my my my my…. it was good. We started with a fried calamari. We expected it to be like everyone else does it: little bits of squid, battered and deep fried to a brown, served up in a mound on a plate with cocktail sauce. It was far from that. A light golden batter, meaty cuts of squid, and a fantastic addition of sautéed onions and other things including some sliced fresh jalapeno (sorry, I can’t remember it all). But my my it was delicious, and so different from the norm. Just fantastic. Everyone had their different plates of food and it was all done very well. The fish was delicious, cooked just right. Even scallops, which are so easy to screw up, were done right. Anything fried (e.g. Oldest had a plate of fried stuff) was a very light batter, crunchy, and didn’t feel heavy. I had grilled asparagus as a side, and it was cooked just right… nothing overdone or underdone. And everything came to our table hot… like freshly cooked hot. Just awesome. I’m telling you folks… this was some really good stuff. If the place wasn’t so far of a drive away I think it’d be a regular place for us. Highly recommended. But anyway…. this isn’t a food blog, but the place was so good I had to give them some credit.

So we get to the Cedar Park Center, find our seats. I always try to get good seats for things and this was no exception. Section 122, row C. It gave us a great view of the entire stage, and comfortable viewing as well (no craning your neck to see everything). One thing I’ll repeat about the Cedar Park Center is the place is tiny and the seats are cramped, but there really aren’t any “bad seats”… even the cheap nosebleeds aren’t going to be terrible. I’d say the only “bad seats” would be the ones directly to the left and right of the stage, since you’d be obscured at times (e.g. the large net at the end for the Aerial High Bar performance).

What can I say about the show other than it was well-executed. I’ve seen the show numerous times on TV, but seeing it live was wonderful. The talent, the skill, the ability of the performers is amazing to watch. The kids were certainly wow’d by a lot of things. Of course, I think for them the best part was watching the clowns. I can’t say I blame them… the clown act was updated a bit and was hilarious, especially the use of some running gags. I know Oldest liked the Fire-Knife Dance too.

Speaking of Oldest… at intermission he comes up to me:

“Dad… I’m going to have to eat my words.” And he gives a slight smile.

Yeah I know, Son. I heard you laughing. I saw you hold your breath during some of those death-defying feats. I saw your attention totally captured. It’s all good. 🙂

Giving Obama credit where he’s due

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Over at The Daily Kos there’s an article about President Obama and how he conducts his day:

…last month, when Mr. Obama convened Congressional Democratic leaders at the White House for a marathon negotiating session, another priority intervened.

His 11-year-old daughter, Malia, had a band recital.

Thus did the president of the United States ditch his own health care talks — temporarily, at least — to slip off to Sidwell Friends School for a few hours to listen to Malia play the flute. When the recital was over, he returned to the White House, and everybody went back to work.

I think that’s most commendable of him. He refuses to miss things important to his children. Because while to you and me he’s Mr. President, to Malia he’s Dad.

The article continues:

…He knocks off work at 6 p.m. each evening to have dinner with his family, and has given his schedulers strict instructions that, if he must have night-time activities, they are to take place after 8 p.m. That includes matters of war; in November, as the commander in chief wrestled with sending more troops to Afghanistan, he called an 8 p.m. meeting of his national security team, in deference to his role as father in chief.

He has dinner with his family each night, and then no doubt some time to help his children with schoolwork or just read them a bedtime story and tuck them into bed and kiss them goodnight. Good Daddy.

Of course, some people have a problem with this:

“People elect you not to be a good family man, they elect you to fix their problems, and that’s the cold-hearted reality of it,” said John Feehery, a Republican political strategist. “And all those folks on the Hill, they’ve left all their families at home; they don’t have the luxury of skipping back home in the middle of the meeting to catch their daughter’s recital.”…

John Feehery… go fuck yourself. No we didn’t elect him to be a good family man, but for all the talk of how the President should a good role model why are you and others giving him grief for trying to be a good husband and father? Barack Obama is obviously a man unwilling to sacrifice his family, and let me tell you his job is one that could easily destroy his family. He holds his family in high regard and wants to be there for his wife and children. All those folks on the Hill that left their families at home? They have the choice as to where to spend their time, and they’re choosing to not spend it with their family. That’s their problem and their mistake to make. That’s their loss that they’ll never get back.

You see… this hits home for me, very personally. What I’m about to say some people will probably wish I didn’t air so publicly, but it’s the way things were and you can’t escape it. Better to learn and grow from the mistake so as to not repeat it.

My father has been involved in politics the majority of his life and almost the whole of mine. During my growing-up years my father was a member of the US House of Representatives. He was doing a job he wanted and loved. My father was good at it and one of the few politicians I consider a true public servant. Trouble was, the nature of the job coupled with my father’s passion for it left me mostly without a father while I grew up. Much of the year he had to be back in his home district to do work. When he was in town, many days he’d be up and out the door before I woke up and wouldn’t be home until after I had gone to bed. I didn’t get to see my Dad much while growing up. This isn’t to say he didn’t want to spend time with me or the rest of the family. We would make efforts to do things, for example, I’ll never forget those 3 weeks touring Europe when I was 16 years old; but usually they were big things like trips. While those were nice, it’s those little day to day things that end and add up to mattering more.

I recall being in grade school, probably 4th or 5th grade. It was a special week at school because parents were invited to come have lunch with their children at school. Each class or grade rotated as to the day for the parents to come, and my older sister’s day was the day before mine. I was sitting at the lunch table with my friends when my parents came over to the table. Obviously they had just finished having lunch with my older sister and were coming to say hello to me. When my friends caught sight of my Dad they erupted in hails of “Hi Mr. Daub!” “Hey, Mr. Daub!”… just a chorus of my friends acknowledging my Dad. It was such a proud moment for me, to see my friends regarding MY Dad in such esteem. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow when they’d have lunch with me. Earlier that week I had made placemats as part of the class project, and I was all ready to go.

Then tomorrow came. I got my lunch and sat at the table. I put one placemat to my left and one to my right. And I waited for Mom and Dad to arrive. And I waited. And I waited. Other parents were coming in and the chairs were filling up. I remember one Mother asking if the seat next to me was taken. It broke my heart to say “no” and let her take the seat instead of my parent. Lunch ended, and my parents never showed. I was devastated.

Dad was up on The Hill.

It may seem like a small thing, but it’s those little things that add up to a child. Then next thing you know, your child is an adult and living their own life. That whole “cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon” thing.

I used to hold it against my Dad for the fact he was never around when I was growing up. Of course I no longer do. As an adult with a job and family and responsibilities and so on, I know how it can be and understand. Nevertheless, we are ultimately the ones in control of how we spend our time and lives, and we must realize what is most important to us because time will march on and moments will pass that we’ll never get back. Malia doesn’t really care about health care talks, but she does care that her Dad was there to see and hear her play her flute. To her, that matters more than anything. Mr. Obama knows this, and he’s obviously unwilling to let his daughter down.

My father will never get back the lost time with me as a child. I will never get back the lost time with my father. It’s why when I became a father myself I decided to not repeat my father’s mistake. I swore I’d do all I could for my children, to be there, to teach them, to have experiences with them, and just enjoy life with them. Doesn’t matter if it’s some big fancy trip somewhere or just spending 2 hours at the auto-shop with Oldest waiting to get a flat tire patched up (which we did yesterday). It’s still precious time together. It’s one reason I chose to work from home, because it puts me around my wife and my children all day every day. I don’t get to miss a moment of my wife or kids, and I’m always around for them.

I may be critical of our President in many areas, but here I can only give him praise.

Mr. Obama, you’ve earned some high respect in my book. Even if you fail as a President, I sincerely hope you continue to be a success as a father.

Teaching knots

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’m working on an effort where every day I teach my kids something useful. Doesn’t really matter the topic, just a little something every day.

I only just started a few days ago and so far we covered things like stopping bleeding, RICE, different hammers and how to use them, and today we started on knots. I’ll probably stick with the knot thing for a while, because hey… I like knots. All that Boy Scouts growing up.

I wanted to share an excellent website that teaches knots, called Animated Knots by Grog. Covers all your major knots from things like rescue knots, household knots (including tying a tie), Scouting knots, fishing knots, whipping and coiling, and even fun stuff like the monkey fist. Yes, we’re going to tie one of those eventually.

12 Steps to Raise a Juvenile Delinquent

/ hsoi

Not too long ago, Jay G was lamenting the state of parenting. Chris Byrne was then motivated to write about 5 rules for good behavior.

In that vein, yesterday I read a friend’s Facebook status that linked to this, 12 steps to raise a juvenile delinquent. It’s all in the same vein, just a different approach in the writing. Reprinting:

  1. Begin with infancy to give the child everything he wants. In this way he will grow up to believe the world owes him a living.
  2. When he picks up bad words, laugh at him. This will make him think he’s cute.
  3. Never give him any spiritual training. Wait until he is twenty-one and then let “him decide for himself”.
  4. Avoid the use of “wrong”. He may develop a guilt complex. This will condition him to believe later, when he is arrested, that society is against him and he is being persecuted.
  5. Pick up everything he leaves lying around. Do everything for him so that he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility on others.
  6. Take his part against neighbors, teachers, and policemen. They are all prejudiced against your child.
  7. Quarrel frequently in the presence of your children. In this way they won’t be so shocked when the home is broken up later.
  8. Give the child all the spending money he wants. Never let him earn his own.
  9. Satisfy his every craving for food, drink, and comfort. See that his every sensual desire is gratified.
  10. Let him read any printed material, and listen to any music he can get his hands on. Be careful that the silverware and drinking glasses are sterilized, but let his mind feast on garbage.
  11. When he gets into real trouble, apologize to yourself by saying, “I could never do anything with him.”
  12. Prepare for a life of grief. You will likely have it.

Credit says: “Taken from a pamphlet entitled Twelve Rules for Raising Delinquent Children distributed by the Houston Police Department.”

Remember: you are (supposed to be) the parent; act like it.

There is no begging, no pleading, no bargaining with your kids. Limits are essential. Saying “no” is good for them.

Thank God for my Leatherman Wave

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Ah…. Christmas morning.

The sounds of children tearing into wrapping paper as they open their gifts.

That’s the easy part.

The hard part is Dad having to tear through all the packaging to actually extract the toy. 🙂

I am so thankful for my Leatherman Wave. Knives for cutting out packaging. Pliers and wire cutters for removing those !*%@ing twist tie-downs. Screwdrivers to open and close battery compartments.

For my Leatherman Wave, I am thankful. 🙂

Merry Christmas, y’all.

The things my kids do and say….

/ hsoi

Oldest also received a deer call in his Christmas stocking from Grandpa.

He’s sitting at the back door making some doe sounds, seeing if he can get a buck to wander into the backyard area.

Youngest is sitting next to his brother adding in his own calls like…. “She’s available!!!”

Heh heh. 🙂

C-SPAN archive

/ hsoi

I learn via The Volokh Conspiracy about C-SPAN working to put their entire video archive online. You can find it here.

I don’t know what you might want to use it for, but me? I want to see people I know. Growing up as I did, I went to (public) school with the sons and daughters of many US Congressmen and Senators, amongst other things. I recall when Dan Quayle became Vice-President and his son, Tucker was monitored and chauffeured every day at my high school by US Secret Service agents. We all knew each other due to the circles our parents ran in, but that didn’t mean we were friends (e.g. I’m not friends with Danielle Delay, Tom Delay’s daughter, but I knew her and if she’d claim she remembers me she’d probably recall me as some dork, which would probably be a fair assessment given the social circles we were in during high school… seems this person at DailyKos remembers her from high school too). I was good friends with a few kids tho; we could bond on a level that few other kids could.

So flipping through the archives and coming across the fathers of my old friends, kinda fun.

What do I really want to see?

My Dad.

Being able to go back and find archived footage of my Dad? That’s cool. I can’t get the archives to dredge it all up (can’t tell if it’s just not online or if their servers are slow/hammered), but I’d love to see things like his first speech on the floor of the US House of Representatives.

I did see some old pictures. But I guess I’ll have to wait for the video footage. Once it’s up tho, I’ll have to show my kids so they can see what Grandpa did in a past life.

My Secret Talent

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Well, I guess it’s not going to be much of a secret any more.

I sew.

Yes, some people love the dichotomy. Big me with my guns, motorcycles, martial arts, beer, hunting, etc…. and sewing. One of these things is not like the other.

I learned to sew out of necessity, to mend things. As a child I watched my Mom sew things to mend or adjust clothing. I’d often pull out the sewing kit myself just to dink around. As a kid, one Christmas my sisters and I bought our Mom a sewing machine; she never used it, but my sisters and I would always fiddle around with it. Fast-forward to about 5 years ago and I caved in and bought a sewing machine because it was much less painful to sew patches on Scout uniforms with a machine than by hand.

Make no mistake — I am not a seamstress. I do not have mad skillz. I actually think about taking some classes to learn how to sew things like clothing. But for now, I can do some things.

I made a toy pillow and mattress for Daughter’s doll crib a few years ago. We pulled the doors off Daughter’s closet and I fashioned some neat curtains for it. I’ve done a few other things too, tho no clothing because the notion of that intimidates me (at least until I can get more training; man knows his limits).

My latest project: blankets and pillows for my nephews.

A couple years ago Wife’s brother’s wife made some blankets and pillows for our kids that were pretty neat. When thinking about Christmas presents for my sister’s boys, I thought making them blankets and pillows would be neat as well. I asked Sister what colors the boys liked and headed over to Jo-Ann Fabrics. The plan was to make them double-sided blankets, with one side being a “novelty” cloth and the other side being this fuzzy fleece; fun and warm. When Daughter and I got to the store, they didn’t have much of the fuzzy fleece nor did we find much for cloth in the colors and patterns we wanted. We picked what we thought might be good, then I called Sister to ask her what she thought. Snapped a picture of the cloth, sent it to Sister (iPhone love!). I asked her to be honest and she said there was a good chance some of those wouldn’t be well-accepted. Fair enough, that’s why I was asking. While talking on the phone I was staring at a shelf full of camouflage cloth and asked her what the boys would think about that. She said it’d be great and the would love it.

So here we are.

Picked two different camo patterns so they boys could tell their blankets apart. Both fleece.

Originally we wanted to sew a fleece “blaze orange” on the other side of both blankets. Unfortunately with the bolts of orange fleece they had, only one gave us enough to do what we wanted (I wanted 2 yards, the other bolt only had 2 1.5 yard pieces). So we grabbed some of that black fuzzy fleece. Thus one blanket has camo on one side and hunter blaze orange on the other, and the other blanket is camo and the fuzzy fleece.

Jo-Ann’s also had some regular camo cloth, so I picked up a yard of two varieties and some poly-fill and made some very fluffy pillows too. I felt really geeky because I was all excited to find just bolts of Realtree AP. Gosh… now I could sew my own hunting clothing. 😉  In fact, Daughter wants me to make her a t-shirt with the leftover camo cloth; again, clothing intimidates me but who knows… maybe Jo-Ann’s will have a pattern and I can give it a try.

All very soft, very warm. Daughter helped me sew things, did some good product testing, and gave her seal of approval. No they aren’t perfect (there are obvious spots where things aren’t in nice straight lines), but they work and should hold up well. I’m generally pleased with the work and hope my nephews enjoy them.

First Roast

/ hsoi

A lot of Wife’s family are coming over to our house today for the annual Christmas season gathering. Should be fun.

I decided one of the roasts from my recent deer hunt would make for a fitting course. I also found some feral hog backstrap in the freezer and since we needed a little more meat to feed everyone, I thought making both would be good.

I decided to try out the crock pot approach.

Simple enough: flour, salt and pepper the meat then brown it in the skillet just to seal things up. Roughly cut up potatoes, carrots, onion. To the venison I added some whole cloves (started sticking them in the meat but it was so tedious I stopped and just put them in the pot). The pork got a mushroom-based broth. The venison a beef-based broth. Both enough liquid to cover everything (meat and veggies). A couple bay leaves in each. Also added a sliced up bell pepper and minced garlic to the pork.

Going to slow cook them for about 8 hours on “low” and we’ll see how they turn out.

It could be great. It could be a big disaster. Either way it’ll be fun to learn. 🙂

Updated: They turned out pretty good.

The cloves with the venison was an interesting twist. First, you have to like cloves (I do). If you do, give it a try. It added a really nice flavor to the venison. Nothing too strong, just a nice and different flavoring. The cloves also made the potatoes taste really cool. I don’t think we’ll use cloves all the time, but certainly it was cool to discover this mix.

The bell pepper made all the difference for the pork. It turned out very tender and just so flavorful from that one large bell pepper.

One key thing to do when serving is to keep all of the liquid the meat cooked in. Put some roast on your plate, shred it, then ladel some of the liquid onto the meat. Mmm.

Morning with Daughter

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

Had a fun morning with Daughter.

The main purpose was to go to the gun range to have her try out the AR with the scope. But we made a morning out of it, stopping for breakfast at Denny’s. We were going to go to Waffle House but there was a Denny’s on the way and Daughter wanted to try it because she’s never been to one. No problem, we changed plans and stopped at the Denny’s for breakfast. I figured as long as we were doing firsts, I had a t-bone steak and eggs for breakfast; never done that before but always wanted to. It was terrible, but I loved every minute of it. 🙂

We were surprised how many people were out at the range this morning, given the temperatures were just above freezing. Apart from that tho the morning was very nice, so it made sense some people were out. We settled over on the “E” range because no one was there so it would give us the most flexibility. The one downside was I wanted to start her at 25 yards (thus originally I hoped to use position 41 on the “A” range), but 40 meters would have to do and frankly I didn’t think it’d be a problem.

Got settled in, got her set up on the rest. Still, she was too short. Luckily we found an old office chair and we could raise the seat up some, which got her there. Set up the targets on the 40 meter rails, and let fly. Daughter did quite well. A few days ago I had a talk with the kids about trajectory, “height over bore”, zeroing, point of impact vs. point of aim, and things like that. That this rifle was sighted to be zeroed at 100 yards, thus when they shot at the closer targets they wouldn’t hit where they were aiming. I told them, for, now, to keep aiming dead center on the target and just watch where the bullets impact and strive for good groupings. I’m glad we had the talk before we went as it made it much easier to handle things on the range.

Daughter shot for a bit, then I shot for a bit. I was pretty happy with my shooting, with some pretty tight groups. I did have some fliers and I know it’s because I am not used to that heavy single-stage trigger. I know the trigger also was giving Daughter some troubles, and I think that convinced her to dry fire the rifle at home to work on it. Between the cold air, the steady cold breeze, and the heavy trigger, I know it was giving Daughter troubles in breaking the shot. She had no trouble getting on paper and putting the bullet basically where she wanted, but doing it in a timely manner was rough. It’s just going to take practice with the rifle, but I think she’ll be fine. Next time we go out I’ll try “walking” the target rails on the “E” range (it’s a silhouette range), starting at 40 meters, then 50, then 75, then 100 and see how they do. I am pretty sure that as long as they can keep things steady, they’ll do fine out to 100 yards/meters.

Daughter didn’t get as much trigger time as she wanted — she was just too cold. So we packed it up and she sat in the car while I worked with my XD-9 a bit. No targets, just shooting into the berm. I’ve been re-reading the Brian Enos book and I wanted to do some stuff with grip, relaxation, and “floating the gun.” I picked up some good feedback and some points to ponder. I’d like to try running a lot of Bill Drills at this point and see how I do, as that’d give me a lot more tangible feedback. The cool thing was how much I stopped thinking about everything else and just let my eyes “drive the gun,” as Enos puts it. It really does make a big difference. As well, while I see lots of merit to the Todd Jarrett “grip 20% tighter kung fu action grip”, there’s also Enos’ take of being more relaxed and just letting the gun do its thing. You can’t be limp wristed, but yes I find the gun works a lot better when I have a “medium” grip and just let the gun do what it does. There’s a balance to find. More things for me to play with later.

A good morning. Not just because I got to go shooting, but because I got to spend time with Daughter. That’s the best part.

Updated: I forgot. Daughter got to learn some things about ammo. We were shooting Georgia Arms Canned Heat. Daughter pressed trigger, it went “pop” not “bang”. She looked up, puzzled. Her first misfire. I took care of it. I pulled back the charging handle and when the case ejected I noticed a lot of powder still in the case. Ugh. Good thing I had a cleaning rod with me. Bullet was only lodged an inch or two into the barrel, but I explained how this could be a bad thing. When I examined the case I immediately saw the problem… and I showed it to Daughter and asked her if she saw it (I didn’t say what it was), and she saw it. The primer wasn’t fully seated.

I’ve generally had good luck with Georgia Arms stuff so I’m not really holding this against them. But these things can happen. Glad Daughter got to experience and learn about them.