OldGuy's Tree House

Victoria's Secret Too Hot for Minnesota Gophers

First Day of Summer Vacation

Not for me but for The Princess.

As I was having my morning coffee today I realized that it was The Princcess's first day of summer vacation as school ended yesterday

Remember how that felt ? You woke up early because you thought you had to get to class then it hit you.

Summer !

So you went back to bed, and maybe you slept, but probably not because now you were all excited.

Vacation !

Two months of sleeping as late as you wanted to. Every day . Except today, because today you had things to do.

Summer !

Two months of no reading unless you wanted to, and then it was probably comic books.

Vacation !

Two months of no writing, unless it was to write a note to your parents saying you were gone to a friend's place for the day. Nah, we didn't write notes, we just went and prayed our parents didn't find us because we were probably doing something we weren't supposed to be doing, like jumping our bikes over their pool.

Summer !

Two months of playing hide and seek or cowboys and Indians until long after the sun went down because you didn't have to get up for school tomorrow.

Vacation !

Two months of your mom shouting "Don't slam the screen door" but you never heard her because you were long gone.

Summer !

Two months of swinging on the Tarzan swing at the lake with your friends, every one of you trying to go higher or farther than the other guy.

Vacation !

Two months of jumping on your bicycle in the morning and riding until the sun went down or until your legs gave out, whichever came first.

Summer !

Two months of swimming, and fishing, and catching tadpoles. And tomorrow you'd ride a rocket ship to the moon.

Vacation !

Remember that feeling ?

Kids, Sleepovers, and Groundhogs

The Princess went to a friend's cottage over the weekend along with several other girls for a birthday party. The party was basically two fun-filled days of swimming, boating, tubing, waterboarding etc. She had a fantastic time. The girl's mother sent us a slide show of pictures. The first pic shows The Princess driving one of the boats (yes, they all got a turn, supervised of course). The second one shows her "steering" one of the rafts. Although it's a bit far away it's pretty obvious she's grinning from ear to ear. Anyway, as I said, she had a great time. Next Saturday she goes to another friend's sleepover birthday party. Apparently there's shopping involved.

Which brings me to my next point. I can't remember the last time The Princess was home for the whole weekend. It was probably around her birthday but then she had a sleepover birthday party herself.

My social life was never this good and I was a pretty popular kid.

On another note, a musical one to be exact, I was listening to the radio last night. It was tuned to one of the kids favourite stations so a rap song came on. I was kind of enjoying it, it had a pretty decent beat, until I heard the following line "You can take it to the momo." I called the Princess and asked if I'd heard right and she replied "Oh yeah, I love that song" and started to dance. I repeated the question in an "are you frickin kidding me ?" tone of voice. A momo ? What the heck is a momo ? Anyway, I Goggled it this morning and I think it's got something to do with a hotel, or maybe a girl. I'm not sure. I think the guy just made the word up because it rhymes with solo. I told The Princess you can't just go around making words up but she said you can if you're a rapper.

I was reading a local paper this morning and there was an article about garage sales. The writer suggested going to garage sales put on by gay couples because they always have the best stuff. Now, I don't attend a lot of garage sales but I'm pretty sure I've never seen a sign stating "Garage sale Saturday June 30th. Gay couple, lots of good stuff."

And lastly, I saw a groundhog this morning. Now you know how much I like groundhogs right ? Anyway, this one was sitting along the side of the path where I get off the bus in the morning. He couldn't have been more than two feet away, in fact if I'd leaned down I could have touched him. He looked up at me and said "Top of the morning to you my good man. What wine goes well with grass ?" then went back to enjoying his breakfast. I suggested a dry white wine would complement the sweet taste of the grass without overpowering it, then offered him the bottle I happened to have with me. He was very appreciative and said if I brought the kids next time he'd happily pose for a photograph in return.

Best Father's Day Ever

So last Sunday was indeed Father's Day and it was the best one ever.

The day started when The Princess presented me with a card, a decal, and a keychain. She made the keychain at school. The Princess said that most of the kids made sporty keychains for their dads but mine is different. Knowing of my love for books she made me a book with a bookworm on it and attached a long braided piece. It's big, it's bulky, and it barely fits in my pocket but The Princess made it so I'm using it. Besides she wrote "I love daddy " on it so that says it all.

We went out for breakfast at an excellent restaurant in Westboro (a trendy suburb) and had a wonderful meal. After breakfast we walked around as it was Westfest so there was lots to see and do. We almost got on television as they were filming a cooking show but a torrential downpour put and end to that business.

Back at home Mrs. OldGuy took the kids shopping (they'd been wanting to go all day) for presents for daddy. The Lad presented me with a handsome journal and a lovely pen. He has a similar journal and he says he really enjoys using it as it allows him to write anytime he wants and he can also write stuff he would prefer not to put online. I'm going to get a lot of use out of that. I guess that's the idea. The Lad is convinced (because I've talked about it so many times) that this is going to be my year to finally get something published. Not necessarily anything fancy, just something. The Princess gave me the book "The Last Lecture", which I'm now reading. It's a wonderful book , thouroughly enjoyable.

Later we had a huge meal of barbecued steak and potatoes accompanied by a glass of red wine. Pumpkin cheesecake wrapped up dinner just fine. After dinner there were a few more cards with spending money and a new shirt from my wife's grandmother.

All in all a truly wonderful Father's Day.

On a completely different note, mainly my absence from this place lately. Truth is I've found it hard to write. Seems every time I sit down to blog I look at the screen for five minutes then give up. I have several story ideas and one half-finished poem but I just can't seem to make any progress on them. I guess I have writer's block. Anyway, the journal should help, and there's a little competition going on at work that seems to have stirred the creative juices again so hopefully I'll have something new soon.

Anyway, that's all for now folks. Have a great day.

Self Improvement

According to this morning's round of spam I can improve my life by buying a new watch, increasing the size of my you-know-what, changing my underwear and running background checks on all my friends.

Looks like it's going to be a busy weekend.

A Fairy Tale

A couple of years ago, before I got my digital camera, I spotted these trees on my way to work one morning. I remember thinking that it was as if a prince dressed in royal purple and his bride, dressed in virginal white, had been frozen in time on their wedding day. I've been waiting ever since to get a picture and this year the trees were indeed in full bloom for a while. Notice how the white tree has a couple of long branches extending into the purple one, almost as if she's holding his hand.

It's a truly beautiful sight. I just wish the picture did it justice.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Well, even at the ripe old age of 10 The Princess can still crack us up.

Last night during dinner a commercial came on the television (yes; we sometimes have it on during dinner, but to kid suitable stuff, so we're not terrible parents just not perfect ones). The commercial feautures a couple of guys in an old-fashioned station wagon, surf boards on the roof, going to the beach. Then the announcer comes on and says that if you buy a pair of board shorts (surfing-style shorts) you get a free woodie. The Princess asked what a woodie is and we all chuckled (especially The Lad). Mrs. OldGuy replied that she thought it was a surfboard, to which The Princess replied "it can't be, the guy just told his friend to get in his woodie, not on it." The Lad almost choked on his food as he stuggled to keep a straight face.

Eventually we explained that a woodie is an old-fashioned station wagon with panels and they're giving away replicas of them with every purchase.

Not a Whole Lot of Blogging Going On

Just a quick post to say yes, I'm still here. Things have continued to be quite busy lately so I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and write. Also, I was working on a little Photoshop project this week that took up what little free time I had.

Anyway, I intended to sit down and write a story and perhaps a little post this weekend but the monitor on our home computer crapped out last night (I'm posting this little tidbit from work; shh... don't tell anybody) so unless I can convice the lad to lend me his laptop it'll be another few days before I post anything worth reading (if any of it is worth reading).

Anyway, it's Friday, the weekend is almost here, and I'm outta the office in 30 minutes, so have a great weekend folks.

P.S. Jen, I haven't watched the CSI Miami finale yet, I'm going to do it tonight (yes, on the lad's laptop).

"Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens."

As a Catholic I've often felt conflicted believing in God and aliens so this announcement came as a huge relief.

The Poem Below

This is not a new poem, in fact it's the first one I wrote a couple of years ago. I wrote it for a friend who had just started a web site a few of us used to hang around called "Lilliebet's Lair." She wanted something on the first page to make people feel welcome and this is what I came up with. I've always been rather proud of it so yesterday I was trying to show it to someone only to discover the site no longer exists.

I decided that I really wanted it here, so here it is.

Lilliebet’s Lair

Welcome friend to Lilliebet’s Lair
Come on in and pull up a chair
The owner Liz and the barkeep Bill
Have put on a fire to ease the chill

Leave your worries at the door
And have a pint or three or four
Love and laughter can always be found
And food and drink aplenty abound

The band comes in on Friday night
They’re not the Stones but they sound alright
The rest of the week it’s your turn to sing
Tell a joke or do the highland fling

This ain’t your place if you winter in Spain
Drive fancy cars and sip champagne
But if beer and buses are more your style
Then come on in and sit a while

Comments page

I found the comments page template and applied the Tree House's style to it. The formatting is all wrong and the banner is missing but it's a start.

I think what I'll have to do is modify the main style sheet then save it as a separate style which I can then apply to the comments page.

In the meantime it's fully functional so feel free to comment. :)

All is Right With the Tree House Again

I did a little more work on the back end last night and everything is now as it should be on the main and archive pages. Fonts are all back, things are spaced correctly, and the place looks good. One very minor issue is that the "Fresh Nuts" category only shows 4 entries (with a space when viewed in IE) even though I've set it for 5. I figured out last night it's because my "Happy Birthday To Me" banner/post doesn't actually have a title so MT isn't picking it up. Putting a title in looks silly so I've left it out. As soon as I have 5 posts with titles again the issue will resolve itself (anyway, I only put up non-titled posts 2-3 times a year).

Now I have to format the comments page, but not today. I think I'm just going to kick back and relax.

Although it was a bit of a pain straightening everything out I have to admit I enjoyed it too. I finally learned how the newer MT pages are structured and they're not as complicated as I thought. In the end it's still all HTML and CSS and knowing which pages to concentrate on and which ones to ignore.

Cheers and have a good weekend folks.