PM4K8 (Pumping Music For K8)

Natalie Portman's Shaved Head (no kidding, that's the groups name) may be one of my new favorite things on this planet.


natalie portman's shaved head - sophisticated side ponytail from thatgo on Vimeo.

Nature Fort 08 August Edition

The fort then:

The fort now:

PBS Hip-Hop Battle

Bob da Builda' & That weird pumpkin dude

VS.

Bert & Ernizzle

DANGER: Loose gravel

You would think the total numbness over most of my knees would serve as a good reminder as to the dangers of loose gravel on streets when hitting it at a high rate of speed on a bicycle. Despite flying over my handle bars when I was 12 and grating the skin on both knees down to something that resembled raw ground beef, I have yet to learn this lesson. I blame the poor learning curve on almost 20 years time and the inherent forgettable nature of numbness.

In my defense, Minnehaha Park is pretty damn dark at 9:30 and a dark road of loose gravel looks pretty similar to a dark road of tarred and packed gravel. Of course, when I say gravel, I mean tiny shards of broken glass engineered to look like gravel. Trust me and my bloodied thumb, Minneapolis streets are paved with little evil shards of glass waiting to collect the flesh of those going foolishly fast through a busy park at night. St. Paul streets on the other hand, are all made of a space age polymer engineered by NASA that contours to your body as you sleep... and they're paved with gold.

Once again my amazing karma/luck/guardian angel/spirit animal/whatever saved me from myself. I have two little scratches that only required the removal of a few bits of rock when I got home. It could have been much worse. If the minivan didn't slam on the brakes as it came barreling around the corner to see me and my bike prone in the middle of the street I would probably be typing this with a stick held between my teeth.



Nice bike ride otherwise. Saw a family of 7 raccoons, a great sunset over Lake Nakomis, a red fox, a big bright full moon, and a plethora of little bats zigzagging through the evening sky.

88 mph and 1.21 Gigawatts

Today at Arty Pants Q met his future self. It appears Q will, in his early 20's, be employed at The Walker reading children's books to kids more interested in the ginormous freight elevator right next to the "story time" area.

Seriously this dude looked exactly like a grown up version of Q and had the same name.

Now where did I put the keys to the DeLorean.

Hero of The Week: Gever Tulley

Gever Tulley has been on my short mental list of candidates for Hero of The Week and a post over at Geekdad reminded me of that. Gever is one of the founders of the Tinkering School, a camp that my boys will definitely go to... hell I would go to it myself. The following speech from Gever helps reaffirm my parenting philosophy in the face of criticism from the helicopter parents.

Steve's Face and a Windy Vagina

During my senior year in high school I was briefly in a band we called Steve's Face. And by "in a band" I mean I just wrote the songs. And by "wrote the songs" I mean I wrote a bunch of lyrics and suggested wacked-out concepts to Dave, the prodigy. Dave took care of the whole music part of the writing process. We were like Elton John and whoever the hell that other guy is that wrote Elton John's lyrics. The third guy in our revolutionary crew, Jason, was the guitar playing frontman. If nothing else, Jason had the excess part of the frontman persona down pat.

Our songs were quite varied. There was a heavy thrashing tune called Steve about a kid and his vulgar relationship with his mother. There was Land of the Lazy Eye, a psychedelic ballad, again, about Steve. I wrote a little ditty titled The Anarchy Polka, pretty self explanatory. We even had a Mariachi style piano number that was going to include gun shots and us yelling "eye eye eeeyyyee!".

Then Beck released Odely. It blew my mind. It was everything that I was dreaming for Steve's Face but a million-gazillion times better than anything we could ever dream up. Steve's Face was soon disbanded. What was the point? We'd been bested... times infinity.

Anywho, my point in this story is that the same sort of thing has happened again. This time with the blog The Wind In Your Vagina by Black Hockey Jesus, a fellow daddy blogger. This guy is always hilarious and often touching. He takes smartassery to an whole new level in blogging and writes like I can only dream to.

This time however I'm not giving up. I'm instead comforted that there is at least one other guy out there that might have a hard time telling respectable adults the title of his blog.

So there, the title of this post has been explained.

Korte's, go for the bread, stay for the flashbacks

The boys and I took a quick walk to Korte's, the closest neighborhood grocery store, for the bread that K8 has repeatedly reminded me that I forgot to purchase on Friday. As I picked out one of the loafs Q hadn't already smooshed this song started to play over the PA. Instantly, my 80's geekery kicked in to inform a very unimpressed Q that the song playing was the theme from Short Circuit, an awesome movie about a robot. I have since been launched into a whirlwind of nostalgia and rediscovery.

I've always had a crush on Ally Sheedy but didn't see Breakfast Club or War Games until high school. Now I remember it was her role in Short Circuit that sparked the passion of a 12 year old version of me.

Short Circuit is probably part of the reason why I proclaim Wall-E to be one of the best films ever made. Top 20 at least. Wall-E looks like Number 5's love child from a drunken tryst with a trash compactor.

There is a fan site: Johnny-Five.com

Here's the original trailer.



And a picture of a promotion for a contest that I would have killed to win... still would.



And a What Would Johnny 5 Do tshirt.

We're so excited and we just can't hide it.....

NBC Olympics

Old School Olympics tshirts

Things I've learned since last Thursday

1. Brackett Park in Minneapolis may have become our new favorite park in the Metro. With a super-cool modern playground, a fenced in wading pool, clean bathrooms, a fair amount of shade, and even a skatepark Brackett is hard to beat. Follow the link and read about the rocket.

2. The most direct route to Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park from St. Paul according to the DNR map online is not the best route. Turns out many "County Roads" are, in fact, gravel roads... and those gravel roads lead to a bridge closed to automobiles about 1 mile from our destination.

3. Digging for fossils can be a very fun activity provided you avoid the Wild Parsnip and you don't fall down the cliff of loose limestone. Amazingly we avoided both and found one good fossil. Some other little girl found a nice sized cephalopod fossil. I was jealous. Q was more interested in getting back to the campsite to "make fire".

4. Bringing a pack of 6 Cheddar Brats for the two of us left me with a comfortable margin of error that the slight pitch of the cooking grate took full advantage of.

5. Avoiding horse poop on the shared hiking trails turned a 3 mile hike into a 5 mile hike.

6. Q is not a big fan of bats.

7. Watching hundreds of fireflies just outside the tent window with a three year old is awesome.

Pumping music for K8

The Bird and The Bee

This Week....

we spent a lot of time in the giraffe tent,



suddenly got brave at the park,



and picked up these camo Keen's on clearance at REI for Q.



Now I'm packing up for Q and I to go to Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park for Q's first camping trip. "On to a'venture."

Feed Me!

I think we could go for a hiatus on buying clothes for the boys for a while but this shirt I found at babesta.com is really bad ass. Orange, lion, and graffiti font, the trifecta of cool in this house.

Hero of The Week: Feliciano Dos Santos

Let’s wash our hands
Let’s wash our hands
For the children to stay healthy
For the uncles to stay healthy
For the mothers to stay healthy
We build latrines

That's a rough translation from one of the songs by Feliciano Dos Santos and his band Massukos. Having grown up in the remote Niassa region of Mozambique, Santos is all too familiar with the horrific toll poor sanitation can have.

One of the biggest pop stars in Mozambique, Santos is now using his icon status to fight the diseases that plague so much of Africa. Many of those diseases are ones that we often think of as being eradicated. Santos himself walks with a limp from his battle with polio.

Click here to watch a great profile on Santos and his work from PBS's Frontline/World.

Like little phoenixes from the ashes

How in the world did these two handsome devils emerge from my genetic output? The only theory I have is that K8 passed on 100% dominant traits while I am a mass of purely recessive. Lucky for them.

Buying Locally in A Global Marketplace

When looking for events for the the whole family on the weekends, I've found that the best way to get K8 on board is to find something that bears possibility of her getting unique handmade earings. That was the case for the Stone Arch Arts Festival and is the case with Art in The Market at Midtown Global Market this Saturday.

Art in The Market has been happening once a month since March up through August 9th so we're jumping in at the tail end. The event showcases 10 local artists and their paintings, photographs, jewelry, etc that were all selected by a panel of judges.

If you've never been to the Midtown Global Market you should check it out this Saturday... or any other day if supporting the local art scene isn't your thing. If for nothing else go there sometime for lunch for the exotic array of food all under one roof.

just some videos worth watching...

every morning to set you in the right mind before you leave the house.


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.


(HD) A More Perfect Union from Andrew Sloat on Vimeo.


Too much candy from Capucha on Vimeo.

1234 Monsters walkin' 'cross the floor.

In a full circle musical moment for Q, one of his favorite songs gets reworked for bumpin' on da Street.

Keepin' Cool

On these crazy hot days there are few things better than a frozen treat molded into something fun. Like rockets (via swissmiss)


or Lego people (via Geekdad).

Hero of The Week: Rick Smolan

A photographer with an amazing and touching story to tell.