Tabib Boy Scouts

I have thought long and hard about the things I want to impart to Kaden as he grows up. Of course there are values, morals and religion, but I've also done a lot of thinking about the practical/working knowledge I want to pass down. The "Tabib Boy Scouts" is my plan to at least document what I would like to teach him. Keep in mind this is not a substitute for the actual Boy Scouts, I would have loved to have been involved in scouts as young man, but never had the opportunity. I plan to offer up the actual scouts to Kaden as well, but below is the working "Tabib" list as it stands so far...

Arms
How to safely fire a gun*
How to clean a gun

Art
Basic graphic design
Basic painting

Automotive
How to change a tire
How to change oil
How to wash a car

Bicycle
How to change a tire
How to true a wheel
How to assemble a drive train
How to set up brakes and handlebars

Camping
Basic knots*
How to build a campfire*
How to pitch a tent*

Computers
Basic knowledge of programming
Basic knowledge of networks
How to assemble a computer
How to trouble shoot basic problems

Electronics
Build a MAME cabinet
How to hook up home entertainment hardware
How to solder
How to understand a basic circuit diagram

Gardening
Basic planting technique
How to operate lawn equipment

Home Maintenance
Basic drywall repair
How to install ceiling fans or lighting

Photography
Basic concepts

Woodworking
How to operate power tool (I got a miter saw over the weekend)
How to use hand tools

* may overlap some with the actual scouts

I have no doubt the list will grow considerably overtime. Some of the items I will need more practice with (ex: oil change), while other items I'll be starting from scratch on (ex: programing). If you have any suggestions for things I should teach him or even better if you would like to share in imparting some knowledge you possess let me know.

Site Watch
Art of Manliness

Kaden Two Months

Above is the first of three new videos I am working on...

Kaden Two Months (above)
Mother's Day
Kaden Goes to Pittsburgh

Make sure to watch it at Youtube if you can, it will have a higher resolution. Also, look for the other two soon, although they will be here, so all you have to do is keep checking back on the blog.

Father's Day Log

Over on GeekDad (my favorite new blog) Curtis Silver posted a rise and fall, time stamped log of his Father's day activities. I enjoyed reading it and thought I'd give my own Father's Day tale the same treatment...

7:22 am I awake to the sound of Crystal getting out of bed for what is probably not the first time. She heads to Kaden's room to presumably feed him. I cover my head with a pillow and fade to black before she even makes it down the hallway.

8:31 am Round two of my body waking me up, this time I listen and rise like a zombie to find Crystal and Kaden. I don't eat their brains, but find them playing downstairs and join them.

10:14 am We play, eat cereal and generally lounge around till it is time for Kaden to feed again. Crystal takes him to the glider and I head to the shower.

10:49 am The three of us pack into the car and head to the military surplus store. I have needed new cargo shorts for months now. Between bike rides and yard work I have two pairs of shorts left without holes.

11:11 am We pull up to the store only to find the lights off and the store hours posted with the word "closed" next to Sunday.

11:13 am Well crap, what do we do now? Lunch!

11:26 am We decide on Carytown for lunch and make our way there. I point out the train station to Kaden from the front seat. From the back seat Crystal informs me that he is asleep.

11:56 am We arrive at Carry St. and park on the same block as the restaurant we plan to eat at. We leave the stroller in the car for the time being and walk over to Coppola's.

12:07 pm Kaden is still asleep while Crystal and I enjoy turkey sandwiches, sodas and conversation.

12:44 pm We head back to the car and pick up the stroller. Kaden is still counting sheep as we walk down to our local gaming store. Crystal checks out the board games and I hunt down some more dice, static grass and game markers for my growing D&D fascination.

1:04 pm On the way back to the car Crystal and I get a craving for ice cream and Kaden's craving for sleep is still winning out. We stop by and Ben & Jerry's and consume some tasty chocolate treats.

1:42 pm We arrive home in time for Kaden to eat lunch and then play with him till he gets sleeply yet again.

2:11 pm Crystal goes off to play with jewelry and I sit down to play some video games.

2:45 pm Kaden is up! Crystal brings him downstairs and gives him to me to change.

2:48 pm Midway through changing him my streak of not getting peed on for the first two months and three weeks of his life is broken. I catch it right in the chest and then dodge out of the way only to have him readjust and get me a second time. He and I both think it is pretty funny.

3:01pm I change clothes and go back to gaming.

4:12 pm We pack up and head to my parent's place for a cook out with Crystal's family and my own.

4:29 pm At my parent's Crystal heads upstairs to feed Kaden and I go to Gabriel's room to bother him.

4:32 pm I find a plastic battle axe and shield in his room and hit him with it as he explains that his girlfriend bought it for him as a joke when she found out he played WoW.

4:57 pm I get called downstairs to cook burgers and hot dogs.

5:19 pm Foods On! We eat till we can't anymore and retire to the family room to chat and watch Kaden being cute.

7:16 pm Home, food and sleep call to us, so we say goodnight to the family and head to our humble abode.

8:02 pm It's bath time for Kaden, we splash, play and get him cleaned up for bedtime.

8:32 pm Kaden is down for the count, so Crystal and I sit down to watch TV and enjoy each others company.

10:31 pm Sleep calls to Crystal next, I kiss her good night and retire to my office to post pictures from the weekend and play video games.

1:02 am The day is long over and my eyes will barely stay open. I snuggle up to Crystal and fall asleep to thoughts of building model trains with Kaden.

Pictures from our cookout on Sunday are here and pictures from Crystal's cousin's son's first birthday are here.

Scalped Hangover of the Damned

Scalped
Continuing my disdain for most all cape and cowl comics, don't worry I love you Invincible, I picked up the first to volumes of Scalped. The story is set on the most economically depressed reservation in the U.S. Unemployment is high, drug and alchohol addiction are the norm and crime is everywhere. Dashiell Bad Horse the main character has returned to the "rez" after a fifteen year absence and is hired by the corrupt leader of the tribe to "clean up" the area. The writting is great, the story is complex and the art is just the right amount of grimmy to covey the location of the tale.

The Hangover
Our first movie since parenthood had our faces aching from laughter when the credits rolled. The story follows four friends to Vegas for a bachelor party just days before a wedding. Shenanigans ensue and the story is told in in flash back chunks of a night the guys can't seem to recall. Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms really shine in the film, bringing the funny none stop. Bradley Cooper, although playing the straight man still has funny moments, but overall it is nice to see him again since we enjoyed his roll on Alias. Long story short, go see this movie, you will laugh.

GTA4: Lost and the Damned
If Sons of Anarchy was a video game LATD would be it. More than a year after GTA4's release I didn't think I would be playing it or an expansion. The original game had a strong story that tapered off as it reached hour 20 or so. The wrap on it was pretty weak, but twenty hours is twenty hours no matter how you shake it. LATD is a more compressed bite of GTA tastiness featuring a motorcycle club (Lost MC!). Without the price tag of a $60 game looming over their heads, they (the developers) put together a story that is trimmed of fat and well paced. The story is great, but what really grabs me is the motorcycles. I love weaving through traffic at 90 mph making my own lanes and not missing a beat. It reminds me of Lucas Burnell's work, but with engines.

Down Goes Yogg

The screenshot above is why I raid and play World of Warcraft. We (Afterlife) have been working long and hard on Yogg-Saron, the last* boss in Ulduar, for the better part of this month. The coordination, team work and support required to get 25 people all working toward a common goal can be daunting. The reward of a cleanly executed boss kill is worth it though. Now that the race to Yogg is over, there is still plenty to do, Algalon will take a while to get to I'm sure.

On the lore side of things I started reading Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, Christie Golden's newest WoW novel. She has written my favorite WoW books to date and so far she is delivering with Arthas as well. Ulduar mentioned above has some great lore as well. More info on the titans, old gods and Algalon's plan is to cleanse the planet of flawed mortals (that would be us). I really dig the integration and build up of story and game play elements Blizzard builds into there raid dungeons. Hopefully the next instance won't lose some of that flavor in favor of easy to build tournament style raiding.

In other news, the Penguins won the Stanley Cup Friday night! City of champions! I wish I could have been in Pittsburgh to celebrate it...

Kaden goes to Pittsburgh: Part 2

Part two and the thrilling conclusion to our trip to western Pennsylvania starts with a Sunday morning trip to downtown Pittsburgh. We started the day by going to pick up my cousin Ruth and tour her apartment. Her roommate(s) and she had a bike room, I approve. On the way to the Strip district we saw an older gentlemen loading a parrot on to a bike he was getting ready to ride. I have seen a lot of things on bikes, but a bird is not one of them. As you can see from the picture below it was pretty rad.

Brunch in the Strip was had on the balcony of a nice restaurant, of which the name escapes me at the moment. I did find out that I don't like Straub and I love Penn Dark, which was brewed only a few miles from where I drank it. The rest of our time in the Strip was spent shopping for dinner and other bits. After we were done in the Strip we made our way down to the Point which is a park that sits at the intersection of two rivers that form another. The Point was host to Pittsburgh's Arts in the Park festival. Which had on display live bands, tasty food and art work for sale/show. As a part of our trip to the point we got a chance to tour the KDKA news room of which my Aunt is an employee. Finally we went down the river and took some great shots of Kaden and Heinz Field. Go Steelers!

Monday was mostly uneventful, we got up early and got on the road. Kaden was the picture perfect image of a calm, cool and collect baby the whole way home. Save stops for barn yard animal cutout photos, feedings and dirty diapers of course.

Sunday: Mellon Arena
Consol Energy Center

There be pirate cyclist in Pittsburgh

Lunch in the Strip

Shopping in the Strip

Ruth and Kaden

Kaden and Crystal at Penn Mac

Arts in the Park at the Point

Crystal, Aunt Jill, Kaden, Ruth and Dad at the Point

Dad, Kaden and Heinz Field

Kaden and Crystal at the KDKA weather desk

Kaden at the news desk

Kaden producing the news

Monday: Virginia Farm Market (almost home)

Goat and a rabbit

Our tired little boy

I took just as much video as I did photos, which was a lot, so expect a video on the site soon enough.

Kaden goes to Pittsburgh: Part 1

In the whirlwind two months that have been Kaden's first moments in this life, we have shown off our baby boy to most everyone we know in Richmond. The only visits left to make are Libya (a 2010 plan is in the works) and Pittsburgh. This past weekend we got the opportunity to check off western PA with a road trip up north. We left Friday at noon and cranked out the normal six hour trip in eight hours, with stops for feeding and diaper changes along the way.

We got into Pittsburgh relatively late Friday night, where we were staying with my Aunt Jill and Uncle Jack. They had cold beer waiting for us and hugs and kisses for Kaden. Saturday morning we were up bright and early for breakfast, lunch and dinner engagements up and down the Pennsylvania and Ohio border. Breakfast was in New Wilmington where Kaden met his great grandmother. Lunch was had in Edinboro to see an assortment of aunts, uncles and cousins. Kaden got to dip his toes in the same lake my Mom spent her summers as a child. Finally dinner was on deck in Mars with Kaden's great great Aunt Helen Anne, that's right two greats, meaning my great grand mother's sister. By the time we got home for the Pens game Saturday night Kaden was beat from a day long tour of my Mother's family.

Sunday and Monday will be in Thursday's part 2 post, but the rest of Friday and Saturday is in the pictures...

Friday: Kaden all packed up for a road trip
Stop number two on the turnpike

Saturday: Kaden meeting his great Grandma

Family

Kaden and me

Next was a stop at Edinboro to see family and the lake

George Jr, Addy and Aunt Jill

Kaden got his feet wet

And was not a fan

He got his toes sandy too

Aunt Jo, Kaden, Mom and me

Kaden poses by a classic

George and Kaden

Dad and his team

Sleeping Kaden playing the roll of football

Aunt Helen Anne's for dinner

Enjoying the weather in Mars, PAKaden sporting the Black and Gold

He is one cute little boy

Like I said above, Part 2 will come on Thursday and have a whole new batch of pictures. Kaden did better than anyone could have asked or expected from a two month old. He either slept or just hung out the whole way up and back. The occasional fussiness was only to tell us he need food or to be changed.

Electronic Three and Other Somesuch

E3 is boiling over this week with coverage all over the webs. Monday through today brought announcements that I'm geeked about...

Modern Warfare 2 - Game of the Year 2009!

Metal Gear Solid Rising - First MGS game on the 360, ah...awesome!

Left 4 Dead 2 - Seems too soon, but if they want to call an expansion a sequel so be it.

Crackdown 2 - The first one was better than the Halo 3 beta most people bought it for.

Shadow Complex - I'm down for a little metroidvania action on Live.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - The first one was the last good Wii game I played.

God of War III - After loving 1 & 2 it looks like I'll miss the third installment.

Assassin's Creed II - Hesitantly excited about this sequel.

Splinter Cell: Conviction - All four games previously released have been awesome sauce.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - Missed the first, now missing the sequel.

Castlevania: Lord of Shadows - Might get my God of War fix here.

The Saboteur - Assassin's Creed in WWII, sure I'd play that.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - You have to do a lot to beat WoW, but the trailer is interesting in and of itself.

Guild Progress
Oh I'm raiding again, I should mention that first. When Kaden was born I took a break from WoW understandably, but once we settled into some semblance of a baby routine, I wanted back in. My raid schedule has been 9pm to 12am for forever and that is usually well after he is off to bed.

Ulduar came out while I was on break and my guild hit it hard with two 25 man raiding groups. Before I even came back they had pushed all the way to Yogg Saron. In the four weeks I have been back I have been geared to the teeth, but also seen our attendance drop off dramatically. Be it real life shenanigans (see the paragraph above) or lack of interest we have not gotten a solid three days of raiding in since my return.

Some of my new loot: Worldbreaker Headpiece, Worldbreaker Tunic, Worldbreaker Legguards, Amice of the Stoic Watch, Runeshaper's Gloves and Ice Layered Barrier

Roses for Northside

Our usual start time for rides is early, not at the crack of dawn mind you, but we generally get started around 9amish. It beats the heat in the summer and usually gets us back to our respective ladies in time for afternoon activities. Saturday Grant was already committed to helping out his lady, many flowers needed moving, so we started our ride at 1pm. We could have been tempting the weather Gods with an afternoon start in late May, but thankfully they smiled upon us with cool breeze and a moderate temperatures. All in we spun a 33 mile out and back from Grant's in Northside to downtown Ashland by way of the ABC.

Le Fleurs

Rollin' in Hanover

My knees

Grant

Classic car hotness

Lakeside

Bryan Park

Back to the Northside

The rest of the pictures can be found here.