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.

Are your kids ready to party like rock stars?

~ K ~ 2 Comments

It’s 12:15 am and the kids are bored.  Sure, some parents would say that they should be in bed asleep but I disagree.  Is that really preparing your children for the future?  How will they ever be able to stay up all night and party like rock stars if they are asleep by midnight?  Doesn’t the party just get started around 11 pm?

To encourage the children to go to sleep, I like to read them the latest Department of Labor Statistics report about the recent drop in the U.S. employment rate.  Of course, the authors were a bit off the mark with their lack of taking into account the discouraged workers that aren’t included in the report’s figures.  However this report did help to push the Dow Jones (and my heart rate up) to the 15,000 mark.

If that doesn’t put the little buggers to sleep, I usually like to talk about my bad experience at the local coffee shop where the coffee shop was out of my favorite flavor.  Whoa.  Hold on.  It is a bit unsettling for the young minds of today and it does threaten their fragile belief in the miracles of coffee shops on every cover.  What injustice is it that one can’t rely on their local coffee shop in this crazy world?  It’s like not having the sun appear in the eastern sky every morning.

I try to avoid things that would give the kids nightmares.  Like the time I had to park way out in the south parking lot of the mall and walk in a light Seattle rain drizzle without a hat!  You have to have boundaries when it comes to storytelling.  It is a thin line between an educational lesson and a nightmare that haunts you forever.  Be careful when you talk about how your latte was too foamy or not quite hot enough.  Children’s young minds are very impressionable.

If all else fails at getting your kids (or the kids that other parents dumped on you) to sleep, start making a list of all the chores you’ll be doing the next day with them.  You might as well make this time into a proactive and productive planning meeting.  Nothing else says I’m a winner than a very long “To Do List” written in purple color crayon on an old PTA newsletter.

vacuum-4Dust off the old broom and rev up the vacuum cleaner, we have a house to clean and dreams to ruin!

Kevin’s Self Help Therapy Session

~ K ~ 2 Comments

Welcome to Kevin’s Self Help Therapy Session

As you can imagine, I have no formal training as a therapist but I can dish out worthless advice like everyone else.  And if you happen to be a therapist and are offended by this post because I mentioned worthless advice…well, you should probably take notice of the title of my blog.

Now let’s get into some therapy…

Do you feel loved or hated?

Sure, you think everyone hates you and no one loves you.  Maybe you are a jerk and you just haven’t accepted it yet.  The truth is that people don’t really like you and don’t think you are that funny.

Now, how do you feel?  Does that make you sad?  Do you feel angry?

Now let’s talk about how your parents didn’t support you or encourage you.  Let’s explore how they ignored you, forgot you at swim practice, and didn’t pick you up at the movie theater.  Doesn’t that just make you so upset?

Sometimes I feel unloved (just like how you feel everyday of your sad life), yet I still know that my advice will be there to lift me and others (people like yourself) up to the next level of recovery.  The ladder of recovery is a long one but with great individuals like myself guiding self-destructive souls like yourself, we can accomplish something (like screwing the cap back on the toothpaste).

Give yourself a hug and pat yourself on the back (because I really don’t care for physical contact).  We’ll see you at the next session.

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!).

Girl Scout Troop Adventure: Indoor Rock Climbing Gym and the Wall of Doom!

~ K ~ 4 Comments

Last week during Spring Break, we took our Girl Scout Troop to the Stone Gardens Indoor Rock Climbing Gym in Bellevue, Washington.  The Girl Scout Troop loves to go to this place and play for two solid hours.  And I enjoy allowing them to challenge themselves in the safety of indoor climbing gym wearing the appropriate safety gear.

The only person to get hurt was yours truly.  In my misguided notion that I have superpowers, I fell attempting to leap from one climbing handhold to the other on the free climbing wall.  I realized that my arms don’t quite stretch as far as an orangutan as I fell backwards towards the floor.

Sure, the fall was only onto my back from a good ten feet up (maybe higher but we won’t tell my wife that) and I almost gave myself a concussion, but it was fun.  At least that is what I kept telling myself.  My friend Mark (the other dad to attend this event) got a really good laugh that I hurt myself.  He showed me pictures of me doing a really good job of climbing and a picture of the rock face where I had been before I fell.  He wasn’t quick enough to capture my rapid descent to the matt and the aftermath.

Luckily, I was able to hold back the tears and keep up my macho appearance in front of my daughter and her fellow Girl Scouts.

One worthy tip to note is if you have a Boy Scout or Girl Scout Troop is to inquire with different venues if they offer a non-profit rate.  We saved about $5 per climber since we were a non-profit group.

 

Thanks for reading!  Your comments are always welcome!

Let’s Work on Peace!

~ K ~ Leave a comment

A quick note to say that it greatly saddens my heart with the acts of violence we have all heard about lately.  While most of us seem to be sane, it is hard to understand the logic and the thought process of the people who commit these acts of violence.

Keep your heads up and let’s move forward.  Work on Peace my fellow humans.

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.