In late September Benjamin’s mommy showed him, and me, that she can climb a tree. Even after 16 years of marriage, she surprises.*

Every time we make a getaway to our favorite nearby woods — Arbor Hills Nature Preserve in Plano — I’m at once glad that Benjamin is getting out on the trail and sad that it’s the best we can offer him without driving three hours or more.

That said, within Arbor Hills’ 200 acres we get a small taste of almost everything I love about the outdoors: trails, hills, streams, wildflowers, and waterfalls. When we step off the paved path and hit the trail, we leave 99% of the other people behind.

In a high spot on the back corner, there’s a glade with several large patches of prickly pear cactus. Similar to my childhood home, in that spot I can throw a rock in every direction — except one — and not hit a building. Unlike back home, it happens to be multi-level, multi-family housing, but a quick turn and a short memory fix that.

A negative review of this haven had me shaking my head. The person gave it one out of five stars because her dog got bit by a copperhead during their visit. Although that must have been traumatic, it doesn’t seem quite right to slam a place called “Nature Preserve” because there was — eek! — wildlife there.

Plus, it could have been a rattlesnake. Or one of the bobcats that roam the area.

In all my hours spent in the woods growing up and as an adult, often in places miles from civilization, I’ve felt threatened by a snake only once, and that was near a farm pond known to be infested.

That lady’s dog notwithstanding, Arbor Hills is great because “wild” takes on a completely different meaning than in its visitors’ everyday lives. In the suburbs of the nation’s sixth-largest city, we’re fortunate to have it at all.

   

* Shannon doesn’t like the opening picture of herself because her eyes are “half-closed.”

“Daddy, will I get fruit foot again?”

“You mean Fruit by the Foot? I don’t know, maybe.”

Despite his query regarding the post-game snack, Benjamin’s interest in attacking the ball has gone up in direct proportion to the number of games he has played. Well, I suppose not even going out on the field would rate a zero, but it’s close enough to one for my purposes.

My only gripe about his third game is that I missed the entire second half.

(click any pic to enlarge)

Typically, each time I’m on after-hours support it lasts about 10 days. Then the other two guys in the rotation take their turns and back it comes to me. For this game, as fortune would have it, I got a call with about one minute left in the second quarter.

I told Benjamin’s grammy what was up and headed off to the car. I set up my laptop and magically connected to the customer’s site with a series of 21st-century pulleys and levers made by Verizon and Cisco. Huddled over my screen with the windows down, I’m sure I looked like quite the nerd to the drivers parked on either side of me.

On the way back to the field I saw Ben’s coach walking the other way with his gym bag and his wife. “Hey, I had a support call. How was the game?”

“It went great,” coach said and continued toward the parking lot.

As I approached Benjamin carefully peeled and ripped off a length of Fruit by the Foot and pulled it in with his lips and teeth as he chewed. He swallowed and rinsed it down with a gulp of Capri Sun.

There’s something not quite right about a sweaty athlete sucking refreshment from a tiny straw protruding from a silver pouch. It’s more of a wide-mouth container or plastic squirt bottle event, isn’t it? Something where the drink is as likely to run down the player’s face as it is to go down his gullet.

Instead, there the boys were, pursing their lips to draw out the sweet nectar. Ah well. Nothing wrong with that. Anything else would be playing to stereotype.

Coach is getting more serious at practice. Tuesday he went over a couple different formations for the boys to use, and Benjamin was listening more than not.

Then I got another support call and missed the last half of practice.

At least that time I got to sit in a large, shady gazebo, with decorative fountains splashing into ponds on either side and a light breeze blowing.

Saturday’s game should offer more fun for everyone. I might even shoot some video this time.

* The post title is an homage to the Everclear song titled, “Volvo-Drivin’ Soccer Mom.” (video not work safe)

They’re kind of boring, from an outsider’s perspective.

Well-adjusted is great for those living it. It’s generally easier on the pocket book, the nerves, and the mental stability of everyone in the house. While a little spontaneity is welcome, constant unpredictability frays the brain.

I think I just summed up parenthood in one sentence.

When creating entertainment that will make its mark on the world, dysfunctional generally is the way to go. A single episode of the longest-running television show in history, “The Simpsons,” is perfect evidence of this. If Bart, Homer, and the rest got along great all the time, then why would anyone watch? Just to see Barney’s lips flap when he burps?

Although we’re not quite as messed up as the Simpsons, there are dysfunctional things going on in our families. While they might make for exciting reading, this is not the place to share them.

A whole lot of people have to die before I can even consider that.

I used to believe that all those screwed-up families on the screen were gross misrepresentations of real folk. The more people I meet, however, the more wrong I become. Even if I aired everything out here, it wouldn’t come close to what I’ve heard from others.

That makes me glad that, on an entertainment scale, our families rate fairly low. What’s bad for my (eventual) million-selling memoir is wonderful for our home life.

“Daddy, do we get to ride in one?” Benjamin said.

“No, son. Most people who go to the Balloon Festival don’t get to ride in one,” I said.

“But I want to ride in one,” he whined.

“That’s not how it works, Ben,” Shannon said.

“But I want to ride in one.”

We repeated this conversation about three or four times that very long Saturday as the launch time slowly approached.

(veritable photo blowout coming after the jump)

Our plan was to watch the balloons launch and then go home, so we could get Benjamin to bed on time and he and I could report back early in the morning to see the sunrise launch.

We thought we had left in plenty of time to get to the hot air balloon launch, but then so did about 500,000 other people (give or take). Rather than trying to catch colorful snippets here and there from inside the car in stop-and-go traffic, I parked so we could at least watch from a parking lot. Lots of spectators with folding lawn chairs were content with a similar fate. Two or three balloons were in the air when we parked.

Shannon and I figured we ought to at least try to get closer, so we walked. Balloons two-toned and multi-colored passed silently overhead. Every few seconds another one climbed above the distant tree line and drifted our way. Most sported a recognizable brand name — All State, EDS Credit Union, ReMax — the kind of companies that can afford to sponsor a $35,000 balloon.

We walked a solid 45 minutes before reaching the ticket booth. Children scampered along a steep, grassy hillside to our right. Some rolled down it, their arms and legs tucked in close for maximum speed.

The launch was over, but we paid $5 each (Ben was free) to get in the gates. Our plan was unraveling. Pleasantly, but unraveling nonetheless.

Oddly, we saw lots of people holding helium-filled Mylar balloons with the title of the show “Yes, Dear” emblazoned on them. I wasn’t aware that the show was enjoying a resurgence. In fact, I’m not sure it had a “surgence” in the first place.

The food alley (not pictured) was so densely packed with people that I could not take more than one step without having to turn out of somebody’s way. After about 10 minutes in the corn dog/cotton candy line, Benjamin and I ditched Shannon to scope the other eating establishments.

Mobile phones make these events much simpler for a family to manage. It was the first such event where we both had one, and they proved invaluable. Benjamin got his aforementioned festival food while Shannon and I enjoyed chicken tomatillo soft tacos from Blue Mesa Grill.

Apparently our new plan was to watch the balloon glow event. None of us had seen such a thing, and it sounded like fun.

“So, I guess this means Benjamin won’t be getting up with me to see the morning launch,” I said.

“Ah, no,” Shannon said.

We were farther back than I had hoped, but once it got dark the balloons glowed brightly enough that it didn’t matter. Sometimes they glowed in unison, sometimes at random.

The show over, we hiked back up the hill, with one stop for Benjamin to pose with his mommy. Oh, and the new light saber he had picked out at the junk toy tent. I’m glad I got those pictures, because by the next morning he had smacked it inoperable.

   

I reported to Alvis’ house the next morning at about 6:20 a.m. and we made it down into the valley in plenty of time for the launch. In fact, we got there before they had rolled their balloons out of the baskets.

The mist hung in the valley as the ballooners (balloonists?) unfurled their colorful fabrics. Men with ropes, as if in some mighty tug of war, helped eased the balloons up as they filled with hot air. One by one the bulbous behemoths lifted off, at the wind’s mercy.

Alvis and I snapped away with our dueling Nikon DSLR’s. That early in the morning, I was not surprised to see more than a handful of other people similarly serious about their photos, and most sporting the same brand of camera.

   

On our walk out we met a man who gave us lens envy. He had a 400mm f/2.8 lens on a Canon DSLR. For perspective, imagine the camera lenses you see on the sideline of college and professional sports events.

“Oh, you’re shooting Nikon, I’m sorry,” he said and laughed. “No, just kidding. I have friends who use Nikon.”

“So, are you just a hobbyist, or are you shooting for somebody?” I said.

“I just do it for fun.”

He then told us that he had about $35,000 worth of camera equipment stolen while on vacation. Alvis and I left wondering what his day job was and how we could get one. Or, why the guy didn’t just buy his own hot air balloon instead of taking pictures of them.

   

(Note: the vignetting effect on these photos was unintentional. It was caused by my cheap, consumer zoom lenses.)

The assignment was to identify shapes and then make a pattern out of them. No more specific than that, and the simplest he has had thus far. I figured it would be easy enough, considering that Benjamin had known at least five shapes for quite some time.

I dug through a plastic container of wafer-thin foam shapes and picked four each of circles, squares, and triangles of various sizes. Two of the squares, still attached to one another, served as the rectangle.

Quick, related sidenote. The other night when Benjamin said he didn’t know how to read yet, I said, “There’s at least one word you’ve known for a while.”

“Which word?”

“It’s on a sign that has eight sides.”

“An octagon?”

I had forgot that he knew that shape. “Yes. Do you remember the word?”

“Stop.”

“Can you spell it?”

“S-T-O-P.”

“See, you can read that word.”

That shape was something we had taught him, so while it still impressed me, I wasn’t surprised at all.

Back to Wednesday night.

At the kitchen island, where he always does his homework, I presented the shapes to Benjamin. He quickly identified the three (what I call) most basic shapes: triangle, square, circle.

I slid the rectangle toward him and said, “What is this shape?”

“Two squares,” he said.

“Yes, but together, what do they make?”

“A rectangle.”

Building on that same line of thinking, I combined two triangles. They didn’t make a square as I had hoped they would, because they were equilateral (look it up, I had to). They made a rhombus, which I didn’t have to look up but which I wasn’t going to ask Benjamin to identify.

Instead, I turned the shape slightly and presented something simpler for his consideration. “What’s that shape?”

“Ummm…”

Figuring he wasn’t going to pull that one out of his hat, I blurted, “It’s a diamond.”

“Diamond?”

“Yep.”

Benjamin reached out his tiny fingers and turned the shape slightly.

“It’s a rhombus,” he said.

(Note: I composed this post, resized the photo, and posted both using Puppy Linux 4.00 (”Dingo”) on a Toshiba Portege 7020CT with a Pentium II and 192 MB RAM)

Ben didn’t hesitate to go out on the field with his teammates during Saturday’s game. He got his foot on the ball a couple of times, but his team was badly over matched by a group that we joked was loaded with first and second graders. Those boys were a head taller and four steps faster than most of ours, and only our one guy who sized up to them made much headway.

All this after I had just told Ben that you don’t have to be the biggest player to be the best at soccer, and that Tatu, one of the greatest indoor soccer players ever, stands about five inches shorter than I (I’m not quite six feet tall).

Oh well. At least they don’t officially keep score.

(click any pic to enlarge)

The interesting part to me? The boy who kept up with the opposing team was the only one who complained that he and his teammates had their collective rear handed to them on a platter. Benjamin has a competitive nature in some things, but it hasn’t quite caught on in soccer yet. If and when it does, we will see an increase in how intensely he focuses on the game, versus his current interest in the ice someone dumped out of their cooler.

At practice Thursday, sitting on the park bench watching the boys work with the coach, I wondered how much older than Ben our tallest player was. I had never spoken to him or his parents and knew nothing about him. When he ran up to grab his water bottle from the bench next to me, I couldn’t contain my curiosity.

“So, when did you turn five?”

He took the water bottle away from his mouth and swallowed, took a breath. “When I lived in Houston.”

“Oh, okay. Well, when was that? January, February, March?”

“It was February.”

“Gotcha.”

To a five-year-old mind, his first response was a perfectly natural answer. He knew exactly when he turned five and he told me. Why wouldn’t that be all I needed?

JuJu was the toughest runner I ever saw.
(commenter on woopig.net online forums)

Benjamin enjoys soccer practice, but he refused to take the field with his teammates for their first game. Saturday’s impending contest has me a bit on edge.

I’m hoping my son finds a sport he likes, instead of ending up a “one and done” like his old man.

When I was a kid I tried each sport available to grade school children — baseball, basketball, and football. I played one season of each, with actual play time during at least one real game. Sometimes more.

In baseball, I never got a hit. In football, I never scored. In basketball, the same, despite a great screen by my brother (yes, we were on the same team).

Naturally, over the years I have developed wonderful excuses for all of the above.

The one season I played baseball, it was the first year of swinging at a ball as it raced past us instead of as it sat still atop a tee (which I hadn’t done, either). That adds both a big decision (swing or not) and a considerably tougher challenge once that decision is made.

The pitchers usually were a year or two older than I was, and most of my teammates had played at least one season of tee ball. The closest I got to a hit was a foul ball that I almost outran as I yelled exuberantly to a teammate on first, “Run, Lance, run!” The ball trickled outside the baseline about five feet before it reached first base, and my heart sank.

I preferred walking around outside the ballfields, eating snowcones and wondering just how long a can of Skoal has to be in someone’s back jeans pocket before it makes that cool white ring.

I remember basketball the least of all. I wasn’t a starter, and the few times I entered a game I pretty much did the standard things without garnering the ball or much attention. Two moments stand out in my mind.

For the first, someone passed me the ball and my brother stood directly in front of me to screen the defender. “Shoot!” he said. Although Charles may have picked on me a lot, he always wanted me to do well and on the rare occasion it was needed, he took up for me without flinching.

Behind the best screen my brother could set, I sent the ball toward the hoop. It was not an airball, but it didn’t go in. It was the only shot I took in organized basketball.

The other memorable moment was when I was called for a foul that I was sure I didn’t commit. I wasn’t very upset about it until the coach pulled me. Then I whined my way back to the bench and the end of my basketball career.

For football, I never signed up until seventh grade. When the coach was asking what position everybody wanted to play, I stood watching the other boys clamor for their favorites. Then he came to “left tackle and right guard.” Apparently one was defense and the other offense, and of course at that age everybody plays both sides of the ball. I raised my hand. “I’ll take it,” I said.

Oh, I took it, all right. I took all the punishment those bigger boys could deliver — right up until JuJu Harshaw came along. I jumped up and bounced off my blocker and, for once, saw the ball in someone’s hands and knew exactly where to go. I dove down and drove my shoulder into JuJu’s midsection and wrapped my arms around him. It was a textbook tackle.

But JuJu was still standing.

I slid down so that my arms were around JuJu’s ankles. One of his feet slipped out and, intentionally or not, repeatedly stomped one of my arms while I held fast to his other leg. It was a relentless piston of muscle and shoe.

“Somebody tackle him!” I yelled. “Come on!”

Finally, someone delivered a blow that sent JuJu to the turf. I stood up, my arm throbbing with pain, and walked straight for the sideline. While I didn’t actually yell for my mommy, I found her right away. Through tears I tried to hold back I told her I needed immediate medical attention — stat.

She took me to one of those Medi-quack places and they determined that nothing was broken, but I probably had some deep bruising. I should be fine, but I might want to lay off football for a while. Excuse me, doc, have you seen JuJu?. Didn’t think so.

JuJu went on to score touchdowns at the collegiate level for the Arkansas Razorbacks (note the opening quote) before getting in trouble with the law and subsequently booted from the team. Now he umpires college baseball games.

Trying to come up with some way to get Benjamin excited about soccer, I remembered that former indoor soccer great and head coach of the Dallas Sidekicks, Tatu, lives in a large house behind our neighborhood. Somehow I think, “See, you could live in a house like that if you get really good at soccer,” is neither 1) effective motivation for a five-year-old, nor 2) an appropriate message to send when there are much worthier measures of success, and when pursuit of a good education has a much better chance of leading Benjamin to whatever it is for him.

All I can hope is that he goes out there and tries. That this time he won’t be intimidated as we weave our way through more than 30 games to reach his tiny field. That I won’t sit watching my son sulk as his teammates implore, “Come on, Ben, we need you out there.”

After all, it isn’t like Juju’s on the field.

Today’s a different take on Wordless Wednesday. I’ll turn it back to the readers to provide the words. I’ll just say that I shot this photo on Saturday, September 13.

Here are a couple of questions to get you started:

1. What is going on here?
2. How was this picture taken?

As usual, click the pic for a better look. Be investigative or creative (or both) — it’s up to you. That is all.

It’s a good thing I don’t live in New Zealand.

Apparently Air New Zealand will pay me if I shave my head and stand in a line at one of three airports (or all three, I suppose, if I make the rounds).

The catch (besides the whole smooth pate thing) is that they would first decorate my head with a temporary tattoo promoting a new check-in system. If I lived in New Zealand, this might be an easy second job, and one I could work around my unpredictable day job hours.

One application of the tattoo lasts up to two weeks, you say? Hmmm… that could have implications at the office. Better re-think this. Plus, a move to New Zealand probably wouldn’t work out for me right now.

I have at least two baldy friends reading this. Maybe you guys should do this in your area. In essence, you’d get paid for your good head.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/odd_new_zealand_bald_billboards

My lovely wife noted in the comments area a few days ago that I forgot to include the above photo of us at the concert. It’s just one of the symptoms of using two cameras at an event.

We had just spent a few minutes with Shannon extending the camera out in front of us for the “smile and hope it looks good” shot. The joy of digital cameras is knowing when you need to try again, or realizing that your head looks even more ridiculously large when the camera’s so close.

Even better is when a nice woman behind you offers to take the picture and can tell that your wife blinked her eyes (for which she is quite infamous), then gets a good one.

She then laughed and said, “Dude, your wife’s hot, but, um, Dong King called, and he wants his hair back.”

(Image and words prepared and posted from a Toshiba Portege 7020CT laptop - Pentium II with 192 MB RAM, running Puppy Linux 4.00, Geany Text Editor, the GIMP - Gnu Image Manipulation Program, and Sea Monkey web browser. Yes, I became too obsessed and, yes, I am stopping now before it gets way out of hand.)