Sadly, My Tolerance Never Really Got Much Better

Zak has one of his little friends over for a sleepover tonight. The basic agenda doesn't seem to have changed much from when I was a kid -- eat, play, eat, play, turn a movie on, eat, talk about how you're going to stay up all night, then promptly fall asleep.

I remember my last sleepover. It was sophomore year of high school, February break, Kevin Alvaro's house. We were probably too old for sleepovers in the same way we were too old for trick-or-treating, but that didn't stop us from ending up with bags full of candy on Halloween. Simpler times.

I had volleyball practice early the next morning but my dad agreed to pick me up and take me on his way to work, so I was in. It was the same quartet of us that had been hanging out together since third grade -- me, Kevin, Tommy Sand (of monster ball fame) and Jim Bourdeau.

We spent the night down in Kevin's basement, like we had for years. But this time there was one extra ingredient -- some of Kevin's dad's beer.

Yep, we were pretty cool. I think I polished off an entire half a can all by myself before passing out deciding to go to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning for practice I was NOT feeling well at ll. I somehow managed to get myself together, gave Kevin's mom a mumbled decline on breakfast and made it to my dad's car when he arrived.

He must have noticed the lovely shade of green I was wearing, because he asked if I was all right. I assured him I was fine -- just a little tired. He didn't press the issue, and we drove the remaining few minutes to the high school in silence. He had a pretty big grin on his face when I got out of the car, though.

I practically sprinted to the locker room, threw open the door to one of the stalls and emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet. As I knelt there clutching the bowl our coach came in. He put a hand on my shoulder and simply said, "Sucks, doesn't it?"

I spent the entire practice just lying on one of the locker room benches. I was supposed to see some movie called The Breakfast Club with a few friends after practice, but that was definitely out. So one of the other players gave me a ride home. But not before insisting I roll my window down and stick my head outside the whole way.

And thus ended my sleepover career, in less than glorious fashion. That was one of the last things the four of us did together, too. As we got older we made new friends, developed new interests and so on. But we had more than our share of good times before we drifted apart.

Zak may only be seven, but I still make sure he sleeps in the family room for these events. And I don't keep my beer in the basement, either.

I wonder if that Breakfast Club movie was any good...

The Rockets' Red Glare Leads to Relaxation in Parenting Standards

We're pretty protective of our kids in this neighborhood. Bike helmets even for tricycle riders, green plastic men with "SLOW" written on them when anybody's playing in the street, a chorus of adults yelling "Car!" as soon as the telltale sound of an approaching engine is heard. That makes our love affair with fireworks all the more surprising.

No less than four families had invested in their own personal shows this year. Like Dave & Buster's, they were eventually combined so the rest of us freeloaders didn't have to walk so far to enjoy them all.

Zak and Taryn were enthralled. They loved holding the sparklers and morning glories. They loved watching the fountains. Taryn turned to me at one point, the Fudgsicle ring around her mouth clearly visible in the pyrotechnic glow, and shouted over the crackles and pops, "Daddy, this is AWESOME!"

Zak shared her opinion, and sat as close as he dared to watch. He and another boy provided the highlight of the night when an especially loud whistle scared them into scrambling from the curb back to the camping chairs where most of the grown-ups were seated.

My family didn't really buy our own fireworks when I was a kid, so I frankly enjoyed tonight's show as much as any of the children did. As it was winding down, we could see over the rooftops from a few streets away some other fireworks of a possibly less legal variety in Colorado. One guy sighed and said, "We could probably still make it to Wyoming and back before midnight..."

I know a streetful of kids who would have been happy to make the trip, whether there were enough car seats to go around or not.

$209 Million is OK, but Somehow Emery Boards Provide an Unfair Advantage

Danelle walked by as I was sitting at my laptop earlier this evening and asked what I was chuckling about. "Red Sox beat the Yankees," was my reply.

It doesn't matter that it's only July. It doesn't matter that neither team is even in first place in the American League East. It doesn't matter that most casual fans are equally sick of BOTH teams. I think as long as I'm alive the Red Sox beating the Yankees will always be a Very Good Thing.

Let me pause here and try to dispel the notion that the Red Sox are "just as bad" as the Yankees. People often try to paint them as equally guilty of somehow buying their recent championships, mainly because they're both "big market" teams. The Red Sox don't even have the second-highest payroll in baseball. They're fourth behind the Tigers, Mets and of course the Yankee$. In fact, the difference in payroll between the two squads is a whopping $75 million. That's more than the TOTAL PAYROLL of 13 other teams, nearly half the league. The gap in spending between the Yankees and everybody else is so huge it just defies logic to lump any other club into the same category with them.

Mind you, I don't fault the Yankees for dishing out the salaries they do. The system allows it, and as a fan I would want the owner of my favorite team to do everything possible within the system to win. It's clearly the system that's flawed.

The Tampa Bay Rays having the best record in baseball to this point in the season and the 29th highest payroll is absolutely a great story. But why should the Rays and so many other teams have to start with such a huge disadvantage over other clubs in bigger markets or with more favorable economic situations? Sport is supposed to be decided on the field, and not influenced to such a ridiculous degree by the size of an owner's wallet.

Granted, being able to spend more doesn't guarantee you anything. Despite their huge payroll advantage, the Yankees haven't won a World Series since 2000 (that was SO much fun to type). But as I've heard some members of the sports media point out their ability to outspend the competition gives them a huge margin of error compared to other teams.

If the Yankees drop a ton of money on a pitcher who doesn't perform up to expectations -- or perhaps given their recent track record in this area (Brown, Clemens, Johnson, Pavano, etc.) I should say WHEN they do -- they can just go get somebody else. Most teams simply can't afford that luxury. When the Yankees can afford to pay more than anybody else to acquire talent, they end up with better players which puts them in a better position to win. The math really isn't that hard.

It's like everybody's running a 100-yard dash, and the Yankees get a 10-yard head start. Sure, they MIGHT not win. But given the option of being in their position or back at the regular starting line with everyone else, which would you choose?

That's why I prefer salary caps. The NFL has it right when teams in markets like Indianapolis, Denver (2007 notwithstanding) and Green Bay can be perennial contenders mainly because they make good personnel decisions and have good coaches. When teams can quickly turn their fortunes around by making a few good moves and not languish in last place season after season because they can't pay for top talent. When fans of every team can go into each season with legitimate reasons to be optimistic that this might be their year.

How a sport that is so obsessed with "the purity of the game" can focus so much attention on the unfair competitive advantages supposedly gained by things like cork and Vaseline but continue to ignore the payroll disparity elephant in the room is simply beyond me, and a disservice to all its fans.

This post was supposed to be about my long and usually disappointing history of rooting against the Yankees. I'm not sure how it took a left turn into the larger issue of labor models in professional sports leagues, but I guess that's all right.

Actually, everything's all right. The Red Sox beat the Yankees. :)

Lookout Mountain

Even with a broken wrist and Zak and Taryn's company, Wednesday was still hike day! I did ratchet down the degree of difficulty quite a bit, as we just went to Lookout Mountain.
The Nature Center was FANTASTIC. The place looked like it had just been built yesterday -- completely spotless and everything in working order. Recycled materials throughout and helpful staff. The kids especially enjoyed putting on headphones and listening to different animal sounds.
Zak brought our old digital camera and took this fetching portrait of Taryn. Everybody had granola bars, so I'm not sure why she insisted on eating the map.
Of course, put a camera in the hands of any 7-year-old and you're inevitably going to get a picture like this.
A short hike -- less than a mile and a half for the whole loop -- but lots of wildflowers. Mountain Harebell here, as identified by a member of the Nature Center staff.
Yarrow, I think. Taryn said her favorite part of the hike was "when you and Zak took pictures of the flowers."
MMMOOOOOOTTTHHHHHRRRRAAAAA!!!!
Definitely Blue Flax.
The view to the northwest. Oddly, I couldn't find an unobstructed overlook.
Downtown Denver just visible through the haze to the east.
If I needed to put a radio tower somewhere, I'd probably pick Lookout Mountain, too.
Another Zak shot, and a darned good one. These Variable Checkerspots were all over the place.
The Nature Center staff were at a complete loss to identify this small wildflower, and so am I. UPDATE: Jefferson County Weed and Pest Management Specialist Alicia Doran e-mailed me with a positive ID -- Orange agoseris. Thanks, Alicia!
Sulphur Flower.
Another Checkerspot on a daisy.
And yet another. Hard NOT to take pictures of such colorful and willing subjects (insert Paris Hilton joke here).
My largest wildlife sighting yet this season -- an actual deer! Like how I focused on the weeds in the foreground for...um...artistic effect?
We actually spent three hours there between potty breaks, resting on benches, exploring the Nature Center and actual hiking. A fairly flat walk -- I highly recommend it if you have little ones!

The Growing Dominance of the Right

Here's my very preliminary list of things that are proving annoying/difficult to do without the assistance of my left hand, in no particular order:

1. Turning left. I drive a standard, which some people (including Danelle) hate doing with TWO good hands. It actually hasn't been that bad in general, but left-hand turns are tricky. Especially from a dead stop when I need to shift from first gear to second halfway through the turn.

2. Opening jars. I've resorted to thighmastering them for leverage.

3. Shampooing. It actually just dawned on me that I can make this a little easier by squeezing the shampoo directly onto my head. Hey, every little bit helps.

4. Pushing a shopping cart. Made that much harder today thanks to the additional cargo weight from Safeway's buy-two-get-three-free special on Diet Coke.

5. Making a tuna fish sandwich. Double the frustration -- first getting the tuna fish from the container to the bread, then spreading it.

6. Toweling off after a shower. Let's just say that every part of my body doesn't get as dry as I'd like.

7. Putting on deodorant. Left pit, no problem. Right pit, I look like I'm doing an impression of a one-armed monkey.

8. Tying anything. I wish I'd never outgrown Velcro sneakers.

9. Putting Taryn's bike helmet on her. She'd rather not wear it anyway. And how much damage can she really do to herself on a bike with training wheels? I'll save my larger rant on being hyperprotective of our children for another day, but I was 22the first time I ever wore one.

10. Playing World of Warcraft. Solo PvE stuff isn't too bad, but PvP moves too fast to try to keep up with all the keystrokes and macros one-handed. Instances are pretty much out of the question for my tank, too, since I can't multi-task well enough to keep aggro off of other party members. Apologies to you non-geeks reading this who have no idea what any of that meant.

11. Putting toothpaste on my toothbrush. The brush doesn't tip over once I have it balanced on the bathroom counter as long as I don't touch it. Of course, you sort of have to touch it to put toothpaste on it.

12. Typing. This will likely result in blog posts written in caveman soon just to save me some hassle. "Movie good. Make laugh. Go see."

I'll try to spare you all much further whininess about this wrist situation. I'm familiar with the proverb about the man who felt sorry for himself for having no shoes until he saw a man who had no feet. But for this one more time...WWWWAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

At My Current Pace, Expect Another Serious Biking Injury in 2020

"You did a number on it."

Those were my doctor's first words to me after she looked at the x-rays of my wrist. Not quite as ominous as "Do you have your affairs in order?", but definitely not what I was hoping for.

She went on to give me the more detailed diagnosis that I had a comminuted fracture of one of my wrist bones, a small break at the end of my ulna and some ligament damage. So I'm apparently going to have to put my baton twirling aspirations on the backburner for a while.

The timing of something like this happening is probably never good. But I'm especially bummed since Zak and Taryn are staying home with me starting tomorrow, and this is undoubtedly going to put some sort of cramp in what we're able to do together for a while.

The reality of becoming Mr. Mom was hammered home effectively by the nice nun who admitted me to have my x-rays taken. She asked if I still worked for the Broncos and I told her no. She asked who I worked for now and I told her nobody, so she said she'd put down unemployed. I laughed and replied that I was going to be a full-time dad starting tomorrow. She paused, then said, "I'll just go with 'homemaker,' then." I had to laugh again.

So no activity at all with my left hand until I go see the specialist on Wednesday. No driving, no typing, no cat's cradle -- you get the idea.

This isn't my first solid mountain biking injury. Back in 1996 when we still lived in Texas I hit an exposed root going down a steep incline and flipped over my handlebars, landing square on my right shoulder blade. I popped right up but the pain put me right back down to the ground.

Fortunately I was with a couple of buddies who walked me and my bike the mile or so back to the car, called Danelle and then drove me to the emergency room. I got x-rays and the doctor who looked at them told me it looked like I'd just been "rode hard and put up wet" and I should be fine, but he referred me to an orthopedist for follow-up just in case.

When I got home and told Danelle the diagnosis, she suggested I look in the mirror. I could have passed for Quasimodo's brother -- my right shoulder looked a good six inches higher than my left.

Needless to say, a quick call was made to that orthopedist to schedule a follow-up. He took one look at my x-rays and said, "It's separated all right. When do you want the surgery?" Turned out that when I landed on my shoulder blade and drove it in, my collarbone was driven up and all the connective tissue in between was completely torn.

I wasn't expecting to hear the "s" word, so I asked if non-surgical treatment was an option. He said sure, but my right arm would always be about 10% weaker and I'd have a "cosmetic deformity." So I asked what the downside was of surgery. He just shrugged and said, "Surgery."

So I got an inch-and-a-half screw put in for six weeks while things healed. Danelle thought it would be neat to watch it get taken out, but changed her mind when they gave me a local anisthetic, cut my shoulder back open and stuck a screwdriver in there. The sound of screwdriver on bone is a little disconcerting, especially when it's your bone (or your spouse's).

The surgery was apparently a success since I really haven't had any problems with the shoulder since. I wore the screw on a cord around my neck for a while but lost it, so my only remaining memento of the experience is a pretty cool scar.

My mom probably summed it up best when I told her about my latest misadventure. "You and mountain biking; you don't crash often but make up for it when you do."

Hopefully I won't have anything more than a scar to remember this experience by, too. In any event, this certainly isn't going to make me take up running.

And yes, I typed this whole thing with my right hand. :P

A Picture May Be Worth A Thousand Words, But Seven Pictures Will Cost You 80 Bucks

I've dished out some praise to a few organizations for superior customer service in this blog, including Bonfils Blood Center, AMC Theatres and The Melting Pot. Well, it's time to write about a company on the opposite end of the service spectrum. And I'm in just the right mood to do it; I fell mountain biking this afternoon and hurt my wrist, which I can still barely bend and will probably have to get checked out by my doctor tomorrow. So I'm already tired, grouchy and uncomfortable, and typing this with one hand isn't helping.

The company in question is Lifetouch National School Studios. They took Zak and Taryn's school pictures. I'd actually forgotten they'd gotten their pictures taken until they came home with three fat envelopes last week. Each contained 10 8" x 10" photo sheets in various combinations -- two 8" x 5", four 5" x 4", eight wallet-size, and so on. Lifetouch took each of their pictures separately and then one of the two of them together, hence the three envelopes.

I didn't remember ordering that many prints, which was precisely the case. We didn't -- they send them to you and you have to send back the ones you don't want and pay for the ones you keep. This seems to have very little to do with parental convenience and everything to do with hoping people will be unable to bear the thought of discarding images of their darling offspring and just buy them all. Didn't we all eventually drop out of BMG and Columbia House for having to constantly opt out of receiving CDs instead of being able to just opt in for things we wanted?

Lifetouch does at least understand volume pricing. The more prints you order, the cheaper they are per print. At least, that applies for prints within the same package. You only get a price break on prints in different packages if you buy the COMPLETE package. We wanted to buy four prints from one set, two from another and one from another. But we couldn't get them at the seven-print price. We had to pay the four-print price plus the two-print price plus the one-print price, which ended up being a difference of more than 20 dollars.

Then when it came time to pay, the instructions on the payment envelope made it very clear that "a service fee may be charged for any returned checks." But they didn't say who the check should be made out to, nor did the instructions on the price list. We finally found it on the other side of the payment envelope by the credit card info. Way to hide the most relevant info in favor of threatening people with additional fees on their already overpriced pictures.

So in the end we spent $80.95 on seven prints through a process clearly built to be as benefical as possible for Lifetouch and maximize their revenues as opposed to being convenient for the end customer. Then again, why should Lifetouch care? It's not like parents choose who takes their kids' school pictures. As long as they provide good deals to the schools, their business will probably continue to do fine.

They didn't count on an annoyed blogger with a painful wrist injury. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: I've heard it said that having a problem with a company can be good, because it provides the company the chance to really prove their worth. On that note, I've had a fairly productive e-mail dialogue with Lifetouch Customer Service over the past few days. Here's the last message I received from them on July 2:

"The pricing for the seven sheets you want to purchase would be according to the price insert for seven sheets. You will want to total the amount of sheets you are purchasing regardless of which package they are from. The buy one complete package of portraits for full price and purchase the second complete package of portraits for half price only applies to Complete Packages.(example: Your packages consist of 10 sheets....your first set of 10 sheets will be full price....your second set of 10 sheets would be half price). You may mix match to make a complete package of portraits and you may still mix and match if you only want seven sheets.

"The Family Approval program is used so parents don't have to pay for portraits up front(no obligation to purchase), every child is photographed, and you don't have to wait for an extended amount of time for return of your portraits.

"Portraits that are not purchased are returned to Lifetouch. They are then shredded/destroyed (for safety) and then recycled.

"Thank you for you suggestions. I will definitely pass them along. We are always trying to find ways to better serve our customers.

"I apologize for the confusion. I hope I have been able to clarify and not cause more confusion. Have a great day!"

"If you need further assistance or have additional questions please feel free to contact me. It has been a pleasure assisting you."

It seems they may be more guilty of confusing materials than malicious intent. And whether you agree with their practice of having parents "opt out" of prints or not, at least their defense of it focuses on benefits to the customer rather than to the company. So thumbs-up to Lifetouch for their response to this point. I'll let you know if they refund my $21 or not.