This is so Awesome

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Where I babble on like an idiot

Mobile post sent by cyberjazzdaddy using Utterz. Replies. mp3

Mobile post sent by cyberjazzdaddy using Utterz.  Replies.  mp3

So tonight as I write this I'm missing another event. I must make a confession. I've become a bit of an NPR groupie. I listen to hours of NPR podcast each week, and now some of my favorite shows are on there. I find myself being more fond of these radio programs than I am of TV (even Lost!).

And some of the people from these shows have come through town and I have missed them because I could schedule around to see them. It's getting very frustrating. I missed Kurt Anderson's visit (he's from Studio 360), I missed Krista Tippit (from Speaking of Faith), even missed a concert by David Sedaris.

And tonight, the supreme paper cut with lemon juice in it---This American Life is having a life simulcast event from New York that is not being shown in our area! Two digital theaters around here and neither are hosting this event! The closest theater is two hours away. I might have been able to drive, but again---schedule. Sigh.

But the wife and I console ourselves in the thought that we may one day get to Chicago for a live taping of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

One can only dream.

Dad blew up the microwave

It started with a pancake.

Don't under estimate the pancake. They can cause a lot of trouble.

Last Saturday morning was very crazy, with kids having to go in all different directions for different activities and mom at work. I was trying to get them ready and popped a plate of left over pancakes in the microwave to heat up for breakfast for the youngest two. They drag their feet sometimes when offer toast or oatmeal. But never an argument with pancakes. I couldn't lose.

I walked out of the kitchen for a moment to check and see how the 'getting ready' progress was happening in the boys room, shoes getting on, teeth getting brushed, all that. On my way I looked over my daughter's shoulder who was at the computer watching a home made lightsaber battle video on Youtube. Quite a well done one, at that.

While I was watching, Lemur came into the room to stand beside me.

"Dad, I think you should come see this," he said, obviously referring to something in the other room.

"What, buddy?" I asked, unsure of what little nothing of a something had caught his focus, derailing his progress.

He saw what was playing on the computer, and his interest was immediately diverted.

"After this." he said, and settled in to watch the rest of the video with us, huddled around the monitor.

After a moment, I began to hear the beeping of the smoke detector, like it was thinking about starting to scream.

Immediately, I went to investigate. As I turn the corner into the kitchen, I see smoke rolling out of the still going microwave! Lemur is right behind me.

"That's what I was going to show you."

(We have since had several discussions about how if smoke is coming out of ANYTHING, that is NOT a discussion that can wait---even if there is a good video playing on Youtube. )

Looking at the cooking timer, there is still 7 minutes counting down. Somehow, while intending to set it for 30 seconds like I have done a million times before, I had set it for 10 minutes or something instead.

I hit the door button to stop the cooking. A heavy, thick, acrid cloud of black tar like smoke floped heavily out of the front of the oven and began to take over the room. I rush to the back door and open it, hoping to create a cross current to take this nastiness outside. As I get just around the corner from the kitchen, opening the door to the outside, I hear a noise behind me that sounds like an armload of plates had just been dropped on the floor.

Turning to run back into the kitchen I holler, "What was that!??"

A wide eyed Lemur is standing in the other door to the kitchen, with a fascinated, bemused and slightly shocked look on his face.

"The plate blew up!"

I looked on the floor and it was littered with a all different sized fragments of Correl plate. Inside the blackened microwave there were more. Apparently the plate had gotten very hot, and when I opened the door it had begun to cool too fast. The pressures pushing against itself, expanding and contracting like a crazy science class demonstration, had caused such tension in the plate that it had exploded, blasting all over the kitchen. I was so glad that for once my kids had exercised some wisdom to stay out of the kitchen as I ran through. I can't stand to think of what could have happened if they had wanted to get a closer look at the devastation.

The Bear was in the living room, standing in front of the T.V. watching cartoons, as I made my way to open the front door and get the air flow moving.

"My throat is scratchy," he said, doing a funny little dance while not taking his eyes off the cartoons for a moment.

I ushered them all to a place in the house where the smoke wasn't flowing and opened some more windows so they could take in some fresh air.

I unplugged the oven and took it to the garage. There was no saving it now. Even if we could clean it up, everything we cooked in there from now on would have a slight taste of ashtray. So out it went, pancakes and all. They were still just setting inside, two little black disks. They hadn't burned up like in a fire with a flame. They just turned into perfectly shaped pancake charcoal briquettes, like left over special effects from an Indiana Jones movie.

Later that morning, leaving the house with the lingering smell of mistake, I went to the ever present Wal-Mart to find a replacement oven for the recently deceased. If I hadn't, I think we may have starved to death. One thing I learned after carting the new one home and setting it up in our kitchen---those things look a lot smaller on the store shelves.

So now I have this monolith in our kitchen that mocks me every time I walk through. This monument that tries to politely hide it's smile when I come into the room, but I can tell what it's thinking. . . "You are such an idiot".

The next day as we were trying to get ready for church, I was dealing again with the challenges of getting bodies out the door in the morning and tried to re-play my trump card breakfast offering, determined this time not to mess it up.

But, alas, I no longer have a sure fire winner in my morning meal arsenal. Bear's only reply to the offer. . .

"No! Pancakes blow up!"

To paraphrase Ghostbusters. . .

"When someone asks you if you want a 36" t.v.---you say YES!"

This week, my parents will be getting an LCD flatpannel, so today we became the proud inheritors of their old 36" tube TV! An unexpected event that spawned much happy-dancing.

It is, of course, dramatically larger than anything we've had before. Too large, in fact, to even fit into our living room entertainment center. Even in our planning for the future we never saw a day when we'd get into something like this.

So far, when all the kids have come into the 'playroom' (where we ended up putting it), the first thing out of their mouths is 'woah'.

It is an unbelievable upgrade over the little 19" they had attached to the Playstation. Lemur even made note that now the Star Wars Legos game is several times bigger on the screen than actual Leggos.

In other news. . .

After I hooked everything up, the little Bear was primed for an outing. The place he wanted to go? The place of greatest adventure in his mind? Wal-Mart.

But an odd thing, happened. When we pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot, he immediately broke into tears. I know many socially active folk have done the same, but for him it's different. He at first wouldn't even allow me to say that it was in fact Wal-Mart we were parked in front of. When he gave to that point, seeing as I wouldn't concede it, he then went on about how this wasn't the Wal-Mart he wanted to go to. But it's the only one we have. So, I asked him, where was this other Wal-Mart he wanted to go to. He said he wanted to go to the Wal-Mart in the sky, pointing his little index finger to the roof of the car.

The Wal-Mart. In the sky.

I have no idea.

Sounds like some sort of Texas metaphor. It will be of those mysteries that dies with the universe. So we headed back home. Which was fine with me.

That's where the Wal-o-Video was.