Category: Family

4th of July: Let’s blow some stuff up because we are Morons!

~ K ~ 6 Comments

Ahh, Happy 4th of July to all my readers here in America (and the rest of you across the world).  This is the American holiday that we use as an excuse to buy fireworks and blow stuff up all in the name of freedom.  Americans like to buy fireworks, and shoot them off in the false belief that we are being safe.  It is really just an excuse to buy dangerous flying toys and injure ourselves.

As a typical guy, I love explosions just like the next hot blooded male.  Show me a great movie with lots of explosions and no realistic plot, throw in some hot babes and I am all over it.

However, as a fairly intelligent person, real life fireworks scare the crap out of me.  I have no real expert knowledge of fireworks, how they are made, how much gun powder goes into them, etc.  It is out of my range of expertise and I’m OK with that.  I know that they explode and I have a good chance of getting hurt.  That is all the knowledge I need to have to tell me to stay away.

Already this morning, I saw on our local KIRO TV news program (in the Seattle area) we already had someone headed to the hospital because of the homemade fireworks bomb he made.

Now, I enjoy watching the professional fireworks shows but I’m not into lighting fireworks off myself.  Over the years, our family has had the bad luck of fireworks tipping over and shooting right at us.  So it isn’t that the fireworks are dangerous as much as the people lighting them off.  I think my living room is a perfectly safe spot to watch the fireworks and not get blown up by untrained monkeys.

Don’t get me starting with the “safe” fireworks like sparklers.  Who thinks that handing a child a piece of burning metal is a smart thing to do?  Can I see a show of hands, please?  Call me a downer but a sparkler is burning at 2000 degrees F and can burn metal.  Hmmm, seems like a safe toy for a child.  My daughter had the sparks from the sparkler fall on her foot a few years back.  No permanent damage but she now knows the dangers of fireworks.  And don’t I feel like a stupid ass parent?  You bet.

Don’t get me started on sparkler bombs.  Just Bing or Google sparkler bombs and you’ll get tons of videos, how to articles, and step by step instructions to make a dangerous weapon of death.  I watched a few YouTube videos and when you have a lot of questions and most of the answers from the makers are “I don’t know” then you know you are dealing with a bunch of idiots.

I am all for free speech and free knowledge but there are some stupid people out there that don’t need to know how to do this stuff.  They just aren’t smart enough to handle the knowledge and use it in a responsible manner.  (Now if that doesn’t sound like government censorship, I don’t what does!)  However, I think we can all agree that some people just aren’t smart enough to handle some things.  Fireworks just so happens to be one of them.  Give someone just enough knowledge to be dangerous and look what happens.

Perhaps this would be a good time to wish everyone a safe and sane holiday here in America.  I’d give you a warning that you should be safe on the 4th of July but you’d just file it under worthless advice so I’ll skip it today.

And you thought I was a downer…look at this picture!

Uh Oh, Kevin is Back into his Blog….

~ K ~ 7 Comments

Oops, did I forget to blog for the past six weeks?

I must apologize for being one of those terrible bloggers that builds up a massive audience of three readers and then let’s them wonder if I will every write again.

I have a million excuses of why I did write anything on my blog.  Was it Writer’s Block?  Perhaps my life was just so busy I didn’t have time?  Or maybe I just ran out of good things to write about?

To be honest, it was a little bit of all the above items.  I usually like to make my blog entries something that just makes my three devoted readers just rave to their 30 cats about what an awesome writer I am.  Yet, I have let these folks down by not writing and thus making them think that maybe I’m not quite the amazing writer they imagine I am.

I was overwhelmed with work, the ending of the school year for my kids, and blah, blah, blah.  Life just got busier and I put my blog on the back burner.

Putting your blog on the backburner is a frightening easy thing to do.  You tell yourself that you’ll write tomorrow…or on the weekend….or next week.  And see what happens?  Six weeks later and I’m trying to reconnect with my readers yet again.

And a lot of stuff has happened in six weeks.  We had a flood at our family’s cabin, deadlines for projects came and went, we have awesome completed our front porch rebuild, we made our first summer vacation trip to Silverwood Amusement Park (and Water Park in Idaho), and we set up the pool for the summer.

I know, I know.  Pretty darn exciting stuff, huh?

My new commitment for my blog is to actually write more in July and in a summer craze of creativity I shall honor my commitment to you (my dear readers!)

Again, thanks for reading and I hope to see you commenting on how wonderful it is to have me back!

Death of a Blogger

~ K ~ 13 Comments

Death of a Blogger…..

I follow a lot of different blogs for various important reasons (that you clearly wouldn’t understand).  Some of them are funny, others are annoying, a few are informative, and the last ones are just blogs that I enjoy the writing style and the thoughts of the author.  My WordPress Reader always offers something exciting and new most evenings.  I get multiple blog post updates in my email inbox daily (which is a whole other issue for our next therapy session).

However, one thing I don’t know much about is the death of a blogger.  All of the suddenly I’ll have a craving for a certain blog and I’ll go to that blog only to discover it is gone.  It doesn’t exist.  I’m left hollow and empty.  I think to myself (most because I’m the only person that actually listens to me) “Is  it my fault they are gone?  Did I not offer enough of my worthless advice to them to keep them motivated?  Did I not write enough for them and they lost their inspiration?”

Alas, it is an extremely tough burden to carry when you inspire an imaginary stalker and your mother to keep reading your blog for guidance.  What if I wasn’t posting enough and that is why that blogger gave up?  I mean, I let them down and their blog is no more, gone, shut down, lying in the dust of the internet desert of shifting trends and topics.  The front page isn’t even their last entry; it is merely an uncaring generic WordPress page stating that the blog no longer exists.

I really want you to understand is that you can come to me first before you eliminate your blog.  I want you to let me know, if you plan to kill your blog.  If you think your creativity has died, perhaps your life isn’t crazy or insane enough, maybe your ten cats have left you for the neighbor with the endless supply of tuna (albacore not the crappy dark meat stuff),  or your latest quilting project didn’t work out (I love the fruit coasters), you can drop me an email and I’ll help keep you going.  Heck, I’ll even do a guest post on your blog so you have some content (worthless advice but content nevertheless).  That is the kind of self serving kind of worthless advice dispensing, fake therapist/writer/self help guru I am.

Keep the comments coming on my worthless advice blog posts.  I need the ego post so my blog doesn’t shut down in a fit of rage or a big sissy crying fest.  Either one would be most unpleasant and cause undue stress to my already fragile ego.  So click the “Like” button and then go a step further and leave a witty comment.  Oh, and leave your website link and I’ll link it back to your blog so you feel loved.

Hawaii Life TV Show: Honolulu

~ K ~ 2 Comments

A few of you might remember that my parents still live on Kauai and I went to high school on Kauai.  I like Kauai and am enjoying the TV show “Hawaii Life”.  The show is most likely produced by the real estate company “Hawaii Life” because they make Hawaii look awesome.  On the flip side, “Dog the Bounty Hunter” shows the meth heads, wife beaters, and bond jumping thugs of Honolulu in such a positive light.

The most recent episode of “Hawaii Life” was about a couple that lived on Oahu looking for a condo in downtown Honolulu.  The couple was recently married and living with her parents but looking to move out.  Ideally, they wanted to live in downtown Honolulu since it was close to his job.

I have a few friends that live on the island of Oahu so this particular episode was interesting to me.  As a father, I would prefer to live in a house with my family rather than a condo with no yard.  As a married couple (with no kids), I could go with a condo living and a nice view to enjoy.  No lawn to mow?  No bushes to trim?  No leaves to rake?  Where do I sign up?

As long as I have access to some good grocery stores and can go for a walk, I’m happy.  Throw in some good golf courses, some sandy beaches, and a library, I’m good to go.

When you live in Western Washington, you see about 220 days of cloudy gray skies a year.  On the eastern side of the great state of Washington, that ratio of cloudy weather to sunny days flip flops to 200+ days of sun.  Sure, winters are colder with actually freezing temperatures and the chance of snow and ice, but there is sun and blue skies.

Am I complaining about wet Seattle again?  Yes, I am.  I live here and I can complain…it’s a great combination.

Back to the show “Hawaii Life”….the couple picked a nice condo, the real estate agent made a good commission, and everyone is happy.  Except me, sitting here in wet Seattle, with the temperatures in the 40’s and raining.  Life is perfect and you should move here to Seattle.  We could hang out and be friends in person (versus you reading my blog and wishing you could talk with me in person).

The parents must have been really delighted to finally get their daughter and their son-in-law out of their house.  I’m sure they wanted to take care of their daughter and husband forever….

April, the month of doom for my blog….

~ K ~ 3 Comments

April has managed to kick me in the butt.  I’m busy at work and my blog has fallen to the wayside (like my children…well, I think I have kids or at least I have a vague memory of them).  It’s not like I don’t want to write in my blog but I feel guilty writing when I know I have work to do.  It seems like endless projects like to pop up to steal my time away. Quite annoying, eh?

Keep in mind that we have all been told that if something is important, you’ll make time for it.  I make time for work, for my family, and the millions over projects.  Blogging is important but it doesn’t pay the bills and hence why I’m still a photographer (and not a bestselling writer!).

I like writing but I also like to make sure my writing is something to be proud of.  Sure, not everything I write is prize winning but I want you to read it, to enjoy it, and want more.

Is that too much to ask for?  To have readers that care?  Readers that worship me?

Now, I’m going to make the effort to finish off the month of April with a bang in the blog department.  Let’s pump out some great blog entries for you to thinks about and enjoy.

Thanks for reading.  Leave those comments (good and bad!).

It’s April & I’m way behind on posting Worthless Advice!

~ K ~ 2 Comments

I can’t believe it is already Monday April 15, 2013 (now it is April 16) and I haven’t done any blog entries since last month.  I got a bit swamped at work and just didn’t feel like writing.  A fairly lame excuse to say the least and I’ll admit to that.  We also were busy with family trips and mini-vacations so I’ll throw in some more lame excuses while I’m at it.

The end of March, we (the little people who live with me and my wife) spent a couple of nights in Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast.  We lucked out and got some great weather.  Sunny weather to be exact.  We had nicer weather those two days in March than we did last August on the Oregon Coast.  Anyway, the weather was good, the local community seems pretty nice (but everything seems nice when you are on vacation), and the food wasn’t bad either.

If memory serves me correctly, we stayed at the Surfrider Hotel.  Overall, our hotel wasn’t bad either considering we got a Groupon deal on it.  The pool was inside and old school style but the hotel was right on the beach.  We had a lovely balcony over the sand, free wifi, cable TV, etc.  Pretty sweet.

After two nights on the Oregon Coast, on the way back through McMinnville, we stopped at the Hotel Oregon and had a great lunch on the rooftop bar.  Again, the sun was out and we enjoyed their rooftop deck.  The Hotel Oregon is run by the McMenamins Brothers and we like the quirky style they have throughout their restaurants and hotels.  The food is reasonable priced and the atmosphere is great for those that like that pub feel.

We spend a third night in downtown Portland (Oregon) at the Sheraton.  I like the Sheraton chain and we weren’t disappointed.  My wife also got a good deal on that so instead of sleeping in the car, we stayed there.  (There goes another life lesson my children could have learned about being homeless and living out of your car).

Not to worry, the city of Portland (like Austin, Texas) likes to pride itself as being weird.  The downtown homeless bums did their best to put on a good show for my kids.  On a side note, we do have homeless people in our downtown suburb city but my kids aren’t exposed to them.  And we have them in downtown Seattle but we hardly visit downtown to experience them.  I know what you are thinking: my kids aren’t being exposed to crazy homeless people like they should.  I agree with you, I’m a terrible father.  I promise to work on that.

We also squeezed in a visit to my friend Chance and got to see his new family.  Again, we had great weather and the afternoon temperatures in Portland were 77 degrees in March!  Unheard of!

Overall the trip was a good one.  We certainly lucked out on the weather for this kind of trip in the month of March.  We are looking forward to going back to McMinnville to check out their Evergreen Air and Space Museum and Water Park.

March: The Month of Killing my Children’s Memories

~ K ~ 7 Comments
Bears not included
Bears not included

We had a rare weekend of sunshine here in the Seattle area and it was wonderful.  These days are few and far between so when they do appear, we take advantage of them.  We had a little warmth of 50 degrees plus the sunshine for the past two days.  It was today that I killed my children’s memories.

Actually, I started to destroy their memories two weekends ago when I took down the swing set in the backyard.  This weekend I destroyed more childhood memories by tearing down the play tower.

While I may be removing the play structures from our backyard; we aren’t throwing them away in the landfill. I moved the swing set to my cousin’s house for her daughter to enjoy and play on.  I always underestimate how long a project will take to complete.  I always think that something will take 15 minutes but then it turns out to be 2 hours later and I’m only half complete.  The same thing happened with the moving of the swing set.

The floor of the playhouse on the swing set was rotten out so I put in a new floor.  And then the climbing ramp, needed to be rebuilt so I did that.  Then I thought I had better make a new railing because we had taken out the slide and there was a big hole.  A child could fall through that.  While my cousin’s daughter isn’t a moron and I know she wouldn’t fall out of the playhouse, I don’t know if her friends are that smart.  Last thing my cousin needs is some kid getting hurt on the swing set and complaining that they dislocated their shoulder.  Jeez, like I’m responsible for your kid being stupid.

I also figured my cousin could find her own broken glass and rusty nails to throw underneath the play set.  Give it that urban playground feel to it.  I can’t do everything for her kid.  What kind of example is that?  Bad enough I gave her a swing set when we all know she should be sending her daughter out to the local park.

Now our swing set has moved onto another backyard and I have a huge empty spot in my backyard to fill.  Maybe a nice fire pit would be a welcome addition to the backyard.  Any thoughts?  Suggestions?

The picture I found from this website: http://www.tcnj.edu/~hofmann/playground/Playground.htm

Sorry, in my neck of the woods (pun intended), we don’t have black bears.

Overreacting to Problems: How to Make Mountains out of Mole Hills.

~ K ~ 5 Comments

dishwasher2I love to overreact and make small incidents into extremely big deals.  Today, I did just that to my children.  My kids are now 10 and 14 years old and they love to bicker.  They argue about who’s turn it is to do that or who’s turn it is to do this.  We have a loose chore schedule (because we believe in keeping our kids guessing at all times) of emptying out the dishwasher when the dishes are clean.

This morning, I announced that this afternoon, when they got home the dishes would be clean.  At this point, you would think that my kids would argue over who was going to empty it out.  To my surprise, my daughter said it was her turn.  Good job daughter!  Step up to the plate and do the job.  Where she gets this sense of “doing the right” thing I’ll never know.

However, my 14 year old son had to say “Yup” right after she said it was her turn.  She was offended by this comment and told me he didn’t need to add it in after she said she was going to do the job.

This is when I lost it.

To my wife’s and my defense, we harp on the “getting along with your siblings” thing in our house.  For the most part, they are good kids except for stupid nonsense like this.  So, I went overboard and took away all electronics for the day.  No TV in the morning, no Xbox, no Kindle, no iPods, etc. and it doesn’t stop in the morning.  It is all day.  Once they get home after school, the “no electronics policy” is still in effect.

In reality, I never do this kind of stuff.  Frankly, I like the electronic devices because it keeps me from having to socialize with them and they can watch cute cat jumping videos on YouTube!  Isn’t that what the internet was invented for?  Cat videos and reality car chases?

And think of all the great education they’ll miss out from watching “Family Guy” ,“The Simpsons”, “Wizards of Waverly Place”, and countless others.

I hope they enjoy reading a book, drawing a photo, doing homework, staring at the wall, petting the cat, folding clothes, etc.  And the weather sucks here today.  They can’t go outside.  Well, they could but they would be miserable.  It is pouring down rain and windy so going outside doesn’t look appealing to anyone.  Even the cat and dog have no interest in stepping out the backdoor.  Hmm, might be a great day for some yard work chores.

My Worst Critic….

~ K ~ 4 Comments

red penI have a reader that is one of my worst critics.  She finds fault in almost every blog post I produce.  She is offended about how I portray myself as a sarcastic person.  She is clearly upset with my style of writing, complaining that it isn’t true, that never happened, etc.  She also doesn’t like my parenting tips.

This critic is my ten year old daughter.

She doesn’t like my sarcastic tone.  I explain to her that my Blog is titled “Blog of Worthless Advice” and that it is meant to be funny, not serious.  She doesn’t like how I give the impression that I hate kids (I don’t really hate them).  She also wants me to brag more about being an Assistant Scoutmaster and a Girl Scout Leader (although some of her friends think that is odd until they hear about all the fun stuff we do).

Now, you can see why I avoid swearing on my blog (oh, and I can curse like a sailor if I wanted to).  I know that she will soon be logging on, reading my blog, and coming over to critique my last posting.

Jeez, it certainly is hard being a blogger.  Putting yourself, your thoughts, your writing style out there for the world to see (if they can find you).  It is one thing to have a nice imaginary stalker like Cyndi out there but it quite another to have a ten year old critic giving your last post a big thumbs down.  It is a good thing I get to review and approve the comments….

Thanks for reading!  Let me know if you need someone to tear down your blog and make you feel bad.  I’ll send my daughter over with her red pen of death.

The red pen photo is from the Website  http://www.fendrihan.com.  I don’t get a commission but it is one sweet looking pen if you want to check it out!

8 Things You Should Do to Make Your Kids More Self-Reliant at School

~ K ~ 3 Comments

I like to teach my kids one positive thing each day of their miserable little lives.  Going to school is an excellent way to show them how to overcome adversity; the adversity that I help make for them!  Sure, you could home school your kids (and I admire anyone who takes that challenge on…but really I can barely take care of myself and you want me to teach my kids something?  Isn’t that what the TV and the Internet is for?) but then you’d miss out on using these 8 Great Parenting Tips.

I created this helpful list that will make sure your kids learn something at school besides “book smarts”.  These eight great parenting tips will make them learn “street smarts” as well teach them some common sense.  Actually, we live in the suburbs so they might not learn “street smarts” but I would argue it will make them more self-reliant (totally awesome skill to have…especially when their father clearly doesn’t care about them).

  1. Forget to give them Lunch Money (or put money in their lunch account).  Have you ever forgotten your lunch at home or forgot money to buy a lunch? Why not give that same experience to your kids?  Remember how you had to beg others for spare change or maybe get an apple from them so you wouldn’t starve?  Once you “forget” the lunch money, your kids will learn how to negotiate with their friends to get something to eat.  Trade a favorite pen for three raisins?  Great deal!  Is your kid shy?  Hungry is a great way to motivate your child to overcome their shyness, learn to talk to others, and get something to eat!
  1. Forget to Turn in their Field Trip Permission Slip.  I always remembered the poor kid that had to stay behind in the main office while the rest of the class went on an awesome field trip.  Even if the place we were visiting sucked big time (like the sewer plant), we’d still come back and tell that loser kid that it was the best field trip we had EVER been on.  It was great.  We could say things like “Remember that time on the field trip when…Oh, yeah.  You didn’t go on it.  I bet you still had fun back at school, sitting in the main office, doing worksheets, having a school lunch with the secretaries.” Loser.
  1. Forget to pick them up after school.  Kids are always running late and taking forever to do things (like put their shoes on….even after you told them ten times you were leaving in five minutes).  They are always making you late or holding you up.  This is the time to return the favor.  I usually wait until it is pouring down rain and then “forget” to pick them up.  Nothing like spending 15 minutes in a cold downpour to teach them about being prompt and on time.  Which leads us into:
  1. Have them underdress/overdress for school activities (or the weather).  Don’t you hate it when you leave the house, it is nice and sunny outside, then it turns miserable and you are underdressed?  Or you forget your raincoat and it is pouring down rain?  You should always send your kid out in the wrong outfit.  Is it cold out?  Have them wear flip flops and shorts.  Is it blazing hot?  Make them wear a wool sweater and long pants.  Pretty soon they’ll learn to pay attention to the weather forecast and figure out what to wear.
  1. Miss their School Parent-Teacher Conference.  By now, you know if your kid is smart or as dumb as a box of rocks.  They need to learn that you are way too busy to waste time talking with their teacher about how good (or bad) they are doing.  That is what the phone or email is for.  Why do you really need a face to face conference with a teacher who your kid is only going to see for 9 months?
  1. Don’t send them with School Supplies.  Again, if they learned anything from my suggestion #1, they should be able to get by without you wasting any more money on school supplies.  Teachers know that at least one kid isn’t going to be bringing school supplies; that is why teachers ask for so much.  Your kid should know how to beg or borrow or trade for their school supplies.  This builds negotiation skills they’ll when they need to buy a car later in life.
  1. Forget School Photo Day.  One of my personal favorites (since I am a school photographer).  Nothing like being in the school yearbook looking like a clown because your parents didn’t brush your hair and you worn that dirty T-Shirt.  Your kids will love to be used as an example by other parents when their little brat argues with them about what they are wearing on School Photo Day.  They can flip open the yearbook, point to your kid’s photo and say “See?  Do you want to be like this kid?  He looks like he fell out of a garbage can!  I bet he smells like it too.”
  1. Don’t save/pay for their College Education.  Do you want your kids to feel entitled?  This is what happens when you save up for college.  Worst yet, you pay for college without saving for it.  This is probably the worst gift you can give your kids.  They are going to off to college without a care in the world, they are going to party up, and they won’t be paying for it.  Is that preparing them for the future?  Are they going to study harder when they are paying the college tuition bill or when you are paying for it?  Are they going to care more or less about getting good grades when they are paying that huge tuition bill or when you are doing it?  Teach them something about the responsibility by making them pay for college themselves.

Don’t hold back on making sure your kids learn how to be self-reliant in life.  Review these eight simple parenting tips and commit them to memory.  Make sure you are being the best parent you can be by reading my blog for future great parenting tips.

What do you think about 8 Things You Should Do to Make Your Kids More Self-Reliant at School?  Feel free to leave your sarcastic comments.  You know you want to…