Category: School

Labor Day Weekend – Goodbye Summer and Hello 9 month of Gray Skies!

~ K ~ 1 Comment

As you can tell, Labor Day Weekend is bittersweet for me.  It marks the end of summer for both my children and me.  No more midweek sleepovers for my daughter, no more sleeping in late for my teenage son, no more weekend outdoor parties, no more me staying up late reading novels: it is all gone after this long three day weekend.  Gone like all my hopes and dreams.  Sadly, it is back to reality: We will hold hands, lift our chins high, and head back into the regular schedule of school life.  We will forget all the fun of summer and instead welcome the cool embrace of autumn.

 To be clear, the regular schedule of school life has already started.  The kids went back to school this past Thursday.  I still don’t know why our school district thinks it is a smart idea to go to school for two days, then have the Labor Day.  Do the kids learn anything for the first two days? 

 I even cracked the door to my office, sat at my desk, and did some work as well.  The cat took her usual stop and sat by my keyboard.  Yes, everything is back to the normal school life schedule of our family.

 Fondly, I look back at summer and wonder where the time went.  It seemed like yesterday I was on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., taking photographs, and enjoy the sunshine.  Please, take a moment and shed a tear.

 Now, all I have to look forward to is the upcoming schedule of work and nine months of gray skies.  My friends (that live in states that see the sun) always ask: “How can you live in Seattle with all the gray skies and rain?  Don’t you want to kill yourself?”

 Anyone from Seattle has the same answer: “Well, the summers are really nice.”

That’s it.  That is the only good answer.

Well, maybe there is a little more to it than that.  We have mild winters with no real crazy bad snow storms.  We don’t have a huge bug problem like other places.  When it is sunny, it is beautiful around here.  On a clear day, we can even see Mt. Rainier while we are stuck in traffic on southbound Interstate 5.

Side Note: Traffic around here sucks.  It doesn’t matter if it is a rainy day or a nice clear sunny day; some nitwit will crash into another person and cause a 9 mile back up on the interstate.  Nothing says Seattle rocks like crawling along an interstate highway in the rain.

Good bye summer, I’ll miss you!

 As always, I need your comments to make my existence worthwhile.  What are you going to miss most about summer?  Do you have any plans for Labor Day?

TV Show: Hawaii Life – four more episodes!

~ K ~ 4 Comments
Ah, a piece of paradise!
Ah, a piece of paradise!

The new TV season of the show “Hawaii Life” has started and we have been catching up with old episodes.  The last four episodes (we have watched) have featured two property searches on the Big Island and two property searches on Kauai.  You’ll be pleased to know, I watched these from the comfort of my couch with the gas fireplace blasting!  Ah, warmth.

The four episodes I watched this time around and their price range:

Living Off the Big Island (up to $500K)

From Boston to the Big Island (up to $300K)

Boogie Boarding on Kauai ($600-800K)

Single Mother Shops on Kauai ($400-600K)

The Big Island appears to be a little more affordable than Kauai, Maui, and Oahu.  At least the properties that were shown appeared to be more affordable.

The lower price range houses (under $300K) are fixer uppers.  Some are just update issues but all appear to be livable.  Nothing a few hundred thousand dollars of remodeling couldn’t fix.

Townhouses and condos might have HOA fees as much $511 per month (as we saw in the Boogie Boarding episode).  To be fair, we have condos here in Seattle with crazy high monthly maintenance dues and fees as well.

Much like the southern United States, you also get to deal with bugs and termites.  Home inspections are very important in everything state but in Hawaii, you might run into mold in greater numbers because of the high humidity.  But hold on, the various islands and the location where you are on that island can also influence the mold situation.  Recently, my friend moved from one part of Kauai to another and he ran into the mold issue.

He has lived on Kauai all his life and he has never had to deal with mold.  He moved from a drier area to a wetter area.  More dampness equals more potential for mold.  The house might not have mold in the actual structure but your clothes boxed up and stuck in storage might get a moldy smell to them.  Good airflow is one of the keys to fighting mold.

On a side note: I’m really beginning to hate the show’s tagline “You don’t have to be rich to live in Hawaii; you just have to want it.”  One reason is that whenever the real estate brokers say it, they just look like some stoner surfer dudes.  Forced smiles on their faces.  Oh please.

The “Hawaii Life” show is also just a 22 minute long sales show.  Whoever thought up this reality show was a genius for turning a sales show into a reality show.  It is always the same real estate company and guess what it is called? “Hawaii Life”!  Surprised, huh?

And on an ending note, this is my 200th post!  Yeah me!  I get a gold star!

Worthless Advice: Back to School Tips from Your Uncle Kev

~ K ~ 2 Comments

I sometimes forget that I am here to help my readers in their life.  Now, I know everyone doesn’t have kids in school and some of my readers look to me as an inspiration to when they make the choice to have children.  Seriously, I am an awesome father that knows how to raise awesome children.  Who wouldn’t want some worthless advice from me?

For those of you with children, you will probably learn from my worthless parenting advice that you have been raising your children all wrong.  Yes, you are incorrect in the way you parent your offspring.  Perhaps there is still time for you to reverse those bad parenting habits you have learned from the so-called “experts” out there.

One of the major things we worry about is when our kids go to Back to School and whether they will survive.  Will they be able to make it through a day without us?

To prep your child for the first day of school (and the beginning of another exciting year of learning! Oh yeah!), you should set up an imaginary school at home.

 Bullying:

Have your children dress up in the worst possible clothing combinations and make fun of their clothes.  This teaches them that bullies come in all shapes and sizes and they aren’t safe anywhere….even in their own home!

Lunch:

Ask your kids what they want for lunch.  To simulate a school lunch, take these tips to heart.  If they want hot pizza, make sure it is cold and half cooked.  If they want a cold sandwich, warmth it up so it taste terrible.  Make sure the milk is warm too.  Nothing like that taste of spoiled milk to ruin your child’s appetite!

School Supplies:

Do you get those crazy school supply lists?  We do.  I merely view them as suggestions.  If every parent bought everything on the list then the teacher would have way too many school supplies.  You should be that one parent that holds out and refuses to be a puppet in the educational supply purchasing machine complex that is controlled by our robot overlords.

Backpacks:

One way to strengthen your child’s back is to overload their backpack with useless stuff.  Throw in their favorite rock you collected from your back yard.  Add in a brick from the neighbor’s walkway.  Have them take cans of food back and forth to school.   What doesn’t break their little spines and spirits makes them stronger!

Reading:

Did your kids read during the summer?  Well, if they didn’t your kid is probably in the same boat with about 80% of the other kids in their class.  Not to worry, you can still have them read a cereal box or an old phonebook.  That counts as reading doesn’t it?

Good luck with your student this year!  Only 179 more school days for my kids until Summer Vacation 2014.

First Day of School! Happiness returns to my Home!

~ K ~ 8 Comments

Back to School!Today was the first day of school for the Kent School District here in the rainy Puget Sound area.  To be honest, I cannot remember any first day of school being so rainy.  Sure, maybe we did have a rainy day on Kauai when I was a kid but usually in the Seattle area we luck out with no rain on the first day of school.  Most years, we enjoy a nice September of great sunny weather (and wish our kids were out of school in September instead of rainy June).  Last year, we had awesome sunny weather until October 1st.

That doesn’t mean that our Labor Day Weekend is always good.  We’ve had Labor Day Weekends full of solid, miserable rain where we were stuck in the lake house the whole three day weekend.  On the bright side, this upcoming Labor Day Weekend is looking fairly good according to the TV weather folks.

Yet happiness has returned to our household with the first day of school.  Over the summer, the kids did argue and have a few fights.  I know that is shocking considering what an awesome father I am and how well behaved my children are.  I also may have forgotten to feed my daughter lunch a few times during the summer.  But in my defense, she is 10 and knows how to make a sandwich.  Besides, I was doing yard projects and my hands were dirty….well, not really I wear gloves…gotta keep my hands soft.

The kids returning back to school is always a mixed bag for me.  I like having my kids around but I need them to go back before I go nuts.  The internet and Xbox can only entertain your kids so much during the summer before you actually have to do something with them.  You know, take them to a beach, do a vacation together, etc.

However, our summer is now over.  It just blew by in a hasty mess of activities, summer camps, vacations, and trips and still left me with the feeling that I didn’t do enough with my kids.

So for the next 9 months of school, I’ll plan a really fun summer of 2014.  We’ll do a bunch of hiking, road trips, vacations, river rafting, and stay weeks on end at fancy resorts paid by my hugely successful Blog of Worthless Advice!  So hit that “Like” button now.  Make some insane comments and have your cute photo below this post!

Please kill me now…another “Informational” Meeting!!

~ K ~ 3 Comments

Please kill me now…another “informational” meeting…..

Last night I got stuck going to my son’s “informational” meeting for new parents at his high school.  It is our second time through this school but he is doing the Jump Start program which is new.  The meeting was scheduled to be an hour long and that should have been my first warning sign.  Any meeting that is an hour long is mostly a meeting of wasted time and worthless advice.  The two papers that the school handed out could have easily been emailed to me.  In fact, I think this whole “informational” meeting should have just been uploaded onto YouTube video.  Then I could have had the option to ignore it online instead of being subjected to a hot stuffy theater stage for 55 minutes.

On the bright side, it did end five minutes early.  Or I feel asleep.  One of the two.

Getting back to my annoyance…..Yes, I understand parents like to know what is going on in their kid’s life.  Sure, these informative meetings are helpful for some people.  But really, when you basically go over the same information that I have in my hand (as a piece of paper), you are wasting my time.  I’m not saying it is worthless advice. I’m saying it was a waste of my time.  Time better spent relaxing at home and enjoying the last summer evenings before school starts.

 I know better.  I knew I should have skipped this meeting.  This isn’t my first time at the rodeo.  But I thought I should go.  And I was strongly encouraged by my wife to go.  Hmm, the same wife that is out of town on a “Girl’s Trip” with her two best friends.

So blinded by love for my wife and children, I thought I should show my face and be a good parent.  You know that kind of stuff where you look like a good parent but are really just going through the motions.

Ahh, high school….

It’s not like I’m totally against the idea of having an informational meeting that will aid parents when they send their children off to high school.  I’m just against the wasting of my time with a meeting that really didn’t need to happen.  It didn’t need to occur; a simple tactful email with the two documents attached to it could have accomplished the same thing.  Think of all the valuable time that could have been saved!  Hours and hours!  My time wasted, my friends’ time wasted, teachers’ time, people I hate…their time was wasted as well.

That time is gone forever.  And I am forever reminded of the pain of that lost time whenever I drive by that school.