My son asked me why I had hair on my toes last night. After some chuckling we told him that everyone gets hairy as they get older. His look after learning this information can only be described as: what are you weirdos talking about.

This exchange reminds me of a story my mom loves to tell about me. She was trying to get me to eat some spinach before leaving the dinner table and she told me it would make me look like Popeye. At learning that the food I was eating would turn me into a squinty eyed, bulldog jawed, weirdo, suffering from gigantism of the forearms I screamed “I don’t want to look like Popeye.”

I can only imagine that my son probably thinks that within a couple of weeks he will look like a little hairy monster. Oh, the torture we put upon our children, ain’t it grand?

My wife and son have been away visiting family. I couldn’t join them because of some things I had to take care of at work. Knowing I would be missing them greatly I tried to stay busy this weekend by:

• Going to dinner with some old friends.
• Drinking some beers with some old friends.
• Playing some golf.
• Volunteering at a marathon (notice I didn’t say run a marathon).
• Hacking on my Tumblr blog.
• Going for a bike ride and stumbling on a mystery.
• Playing kickball in the park.
• Hanging out with my parents.
• And putting my son’s train set back together.

Thanks to all my friends who re-arranged schedules and spent time away from their busy lives to humor me this weekend.  The wife and son come home tomorrow. Cant wait!

Stopped and took some pictures of this abandonment near my neighborhood.

A weather vain on the roof of the play hour at my folk’s house.

There is a toy box in my parents basement that contains all sorts of wonders from my youth. When my son is old enough I plan on letting him dig into the piles of Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures. I picture it being something like this passage from an article by Alice Bradley about her son and husband’s love affair with all things Star Wars.

Then, one fateful day a couple of weeks later, Scott headed down to the basement and brought up his beloved Star Wars lunch box. It was dented and broken, the hinges no longer functioning, wrapped in masking tape to keep the parts together.

A label was taped across the top: FIGURES. Henry danced around Scott as he pried the box open. The top popped off, and there was every known character from the Star Wars universe. Princess Leia. Luke Skywalker. Darth Vader. Han Solo. Han Solo in Hoth battle gear. Boba Fett. Death Star Engineer #6. And ships too: X-wings and A-wings and B-wings; every variety of wing was crammed into that tin lunch box.

“Maybe we could give him just a few of these?” I said, but Henry was already elbow-deep in the lunch box, hyperventilating. “What do you think, buddy?” Scott said, but Henry could barely hear him.

Someday soon.

This quote by Paul Rand made me laugh …

It is important to use your hands, this is what distinguishes you from a cow or a computer operator.

(via)

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I love this kid.

Wired does a pretty good job of explaining why you’re getting jacked at the pump and why it may get worse. The usual villains are either excused (oil companies) or poked again (suppliers). But even after reading it I have to agree with what commenter, The Vagabond Astronomer says:

News of the potential find of a large offshore oil field near Brazil (potentially 33 billion barrels) should have helped the price. Instead, they continued up. People within the industry keep saying that there is still plenty of oil and that the drop in demand is what is causing the price to go up (I know, I know… Whiskey Tango Foxtrot). Someone somewhere is not being completely honest.

Something is rotten …

Right before the whiffle ball smacked into my camera.