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National Adoption Month. Where Do Storks Come From?

“Father?” Said the almost five year old. “Listen, there is something I’ve been thinking about. You and I have been watching a lot of classic television programing lately. Shows like Tom and Jerry and Dumbo and I’ve noticed that in them, often a Stork drops off a baby to Moms and Dads.” “Yes?” I answer while thinking, “Here we go. It’s time to talk about his adoption story. Where’s Mom? It’s something her and I have had on our to-do list but just haven’t gotten to. Damn you MarioKart.” “So in these shows,” He continues. “The families always receive their babies from flying Storks. They are dropped from the moonlit sky and the little ones float in under a full parachute safely to land on the doorstep of their eager families. I’ve seen a Stork drop little elephants, giraffe and humans. All sorts of things. But what I’m wondering is this. Who brings the Storks?” “Uh, I’m not sure I follow?” “Well. A Stork flying around with a baby llama is quite a sight. Clearly that’s not the Storks child. […]

On Fatherhood: Almost 40 With a 4 Year Old

How different his world is in 2014 than mine was when I was his age in 1978. This is the blessing of the late blooming father. Had I begun the child rearing phase of my life a decade or more ago things would be different. We could enjoy the Hunger Games together, we could both simultaneously suffer from Bieber Fever and I could have eaten all of his leftovers without worrying about calories. Not so when 35 years separates us. Now I can easily justify saying, “When I was your age.” “When I was your age, we called a thirty second video clip a commercial.” Will I be able to teach him to appreciate the things that made me who I am today or is he too far removed from my generation? Will the coming of age moments for me be relevant for him? Will the movies, books, video games and music mean anything now or will they be campy and ironic to him? I’ve begun compiling a list of media he will need to consume (and appreciate) as he

I Fear My Son Will Think I Don’t Read

I fear my son will think I don’t read… or listen to music… or vacuum since that task has been assigned to the robot. It’s been years since I bought a physical book and I can count the number of physical CD’s I’ve purchased in the last decade. I have neither of these things lying around as conversation starters for him to ask about. That being said, I read on my Kindle every day and spend hours around the house with my iPod and at least one earbud jammed in my skull. For all he knows though, I’m watching My Little Pony on the tablet or doing “the letter game” since that’s what a tablet is used for in his world. And for physical copies of music, I listen to vinyl with him since he likes to watch the turntable spin around. He probably thinks the evolution of media is from cassette to CD and then on to vinyl. I’m sure he assumes the retro Fisher Price turntable Target sells was just recently invented too. I’ve wondered how his world

6 hours ahead to 3 hours behind

On Woensdag (Wednesday), we left Amsterdam for Reno. Well, we attempted to leave Amsterdam for Reno. The daily Usairways flight from AMS to PHL was full and rather than roll the dice on one flight we figured a safer bet would be to roll the dice on two relatively full flights out of Frankfurt. And if we didn’t make these flights? Hey, we get to spend the night in Germany! Fortunately, we had three days to meet my folks and grandparents in Reno. This was Wednesday and we were to meet them Friday. We bought two tickets for the ICE train to Germany. It’s a high-speed train that tops out at 175MPH between cities! Although the room we were in held six, we only shared it with one lady who played Sudoku in German. Sudoku is the international language of road warriors. Upon arrival in Frankfurt, we only had an hour before the first of our two options for the states so we sprinted straight for the ticket counter. This flight was to Charlotte and from there we had a

Assimilation

The whole houseboat is IKEA! We’re in a neighborhood a bit outside of Central Amsterdam. Although it’s only a 30-minute walk or an easy tram or bus ride into the center of it all, we are far enough away to feel more local. Buying a cup of coffee yesterday down the road, a man asked, “Did you guys just move in?” “Nope, here for three weeks though, we’ll see you soon,” I say “Cope back,” He answers, “We have great food.” This windmill is down the road. Day one – Philly to Amsterdam. Departed at 6pm – landed at 830am. Our trip started in Philly thumbing our way onto an eastbound flight to Amsterdam… Although there were still a few seats in the back open, we dropped a hundred bucks on the upgrades to sit up front. Awkward though as passengers walked by to their seats in steerage making comments about the first class ‘accommodations.’ “Could you imagine spending a thousand dollars more to sit up here?” They didn’t know about the dessert choices. I kept reading my complimentary copy

The summer of fun just got ‘funner’

With her off for the summer, I ‘bid’ to have some weeks off with her. I was awarded six weeks from the end of June through early August. Eager to kick the summer off, I asked for—and was granted—a drop of a trip at the end of June that leads up to my vacation. Now, I have the last ten days of June off, effectively extending my six-week vacation by an additional ten days! Our plans include a few days in upstate New York with her family in an area she discovered on the show “Cash and Treasures.” We’ll follow that with three weeks on a houseboat in Amsterdam, where we plan to relax, see some good shows, and enjoy great food. Then, we’ll top it off with a week in Reno with my family, running around dude ranches and the like. And then—still a few weeks at home in the new house!

I’m thankful for warm lemonaide and chicken.

A four-day trip the week of Thanksgiving took me to Columbus, Ohio. Since I was to spend the holiday alone in the hotel, S. decided to drive up from visiting her grandparents in Pittsburgh. She had our cousin Troy with her, so we figured we’d play in Ohio for the night and let him see what a glamorous life in a hotel is like. A friend in Columbus was going to take us out for dinner until the “what do you plan to do for dinner” conversation started up in the cockpit with my first officer. He also had some friends in Columbus and said he planned on meeting up with them for dinner. My co-pilot was from Uganda, and the friends he mentioned were also from Eastern Africa. They planned on eating at a Somali restaurant he knew about that served goat. I could think of no better way to celebrate the holiday than with my vegetarian wife, some goat, and a bunch of Africans. I asked if we could join them and if we needed to wear anything

I was a Nintendo Fanboy at Five AM

I got to Walmart at 4:30 am armed with a large coffee and my hacked PSP, ready to play an hour and a half of ExciteBike on a Nintendo emulator until the store opened. The Wii was to go on sale at 6 am, and I was number 11 in line. Rumor had it there were at least 20 to go around and only one purchase per person. I was feeling pretty good except for the fact that it was too cold to play my PSP, and soon my coffee would be gone, with nothing to keep me warm but the glow of the Coke machine I was leaning against. By the time the store opened, there were more than sixty people in line. A few were there to buy “X-mas gifts,” but upon further questioning, we all learned the game was for them. The crowd was all over twenty except for one kid with his mom. There was a mix of guys and girls in the line, and not all the girls were there with their boyfriends/husbands. I was

C.S.I. Baltimore

We were woken up by several very abrupt knocks on the front door at 2 am this morning. Luckily, I’m feeling under the weather and had called off a two-day trip. I say ‘lucky’ because if I had not called out, my alarm clock would have been going off in about an hour, and I’d have been pissed. With Bella, the 60-pound pit mix, away on vacation this week, I thought I could ignore the knocks for a bit until they assumed we were gone. Had she been here, she would have let us know someone was there before the knocking. After a few more forceful pounds on the door, I looked out the window to see who it was. A Maryland State Police car had the one-way road blocked outside our house with lights flashing. Still, when answering the door, I let out a bellowing, “Who is it?” “Maryland State Police! Open the door!” Knowing my innocence, it was actually kind of fun. If only they were filming COPS. I opened the door to be greeted with a flashlight

And it only cost a quarter

Jesuit high school. All-boys. Shirt and tie. A Beanie for freshmen, Catholic guilt baked into the curriculum. Everyone else had cars or rides or parents with flexible schedules. I had the city bus. The H.A.R.T. Line. Hillsborough Area Regional Transit. Big red heart logo, which, after a few sunburned summers, faded to a kind of medical-waste brown. The buses didn’t allow smoking anymore, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t smell the ghost of menthols past—or whatever mysterious stew had been simmering in the vinyl seats since 1983. Looking back, I’m convinced the whole thing was a character-building exercise from my parents. Some warped suburban rite of passage: “Let the boy take the bus. It’ll either toughen him up or teach him to get better grades.” That, or they just really loved the phrase “twenty-five cents a ride.” Enter: Diggs. Richard Diggs. Bus #7. We called him Dick Diggs because it felt right. He was a barrel-chested, don’t-make-me-turn-this-bus-around kind of guy. I met him on day one. Fresh shirt. Stiff tie. Armed with a quarter and a lot of misplaced confidence.

My theme park – My babysitter

I grew up in the theme park Busch Gardens and its water park sister, Adventure Island. They were my babysitters. They were my Grandma’s house. They were home. They were where I went when school was out for the summer, where I went when I was too sick for school or where I went when the parents didn’t want me around for the day. They were where my sister and I did our homework and worked on after-school projects. We weren’t latchkey kids. We were turn-style key kids. “Pick you up at the gate at 5” was as synonymous as “Don’t give your grandma a hard time.” Growing up, my parents both worked in management there. He was the VP of Marketing. She did the same for the Special Events department. Both titles had their own distinctive perks for two spoiled theme park kids. Marketing, through the eyes of a child, was more about trade than advertising. We had plenty of coupons and free food cards to eat wherever the current ad campaign was partnered. One month it may be

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