Help Fathers be Dads

I recently came across this article on MSN Lifestyles and thought it appropriate for this blog. This article talks about how Fathers can become Dads by investing time and sharing their interests with their children.

Personally, there isn't another thing that I would rather do that be with my children; my family. So many guys seem to think that being with their children is babysitting, and 'womens' work. They don't know what they are missing, or maybe they do and their so self centered that they don't care...

Hopefully this article is passed on to those fathers who need a nudge (clue) on becoming a dad...

Growing Fast

I was surprised last night by my son's willingness to give me a hand with a delivery I needed to make. So, I asked him to give me a hand while going to the recycling center this morning. Again, a surprise!

To make it interesting for him, I let him jump in the truck and start it up. We hook a small trailer to it to carry the over-sized stuff. So, while the truck was warming, I asked him if he'd like to back it up to the trailer. He remarked that he didn't think that he could do that, but I told him that I had confidence and trust in him.

He took the bull by the horns, and backed it up almost as though he'd been doing it his whole life! Keep in mind, he'll soon be celebrating his twelfth birthday.

I share this because I once again have seen my son growing up before my eyes. How I wish I could slow things down a little bit! It seems that every time I look at him, his taller, wiser, closer to becoming a man....

Last Day of Hunting Season

Where we live, the hunting season opens at the end of September and runs through today. Now that it's out of my system, I can get back to posting! Yes, I've been out in the woods for the past three months and have found my say safely back home!

What does hunting have to do with being a dad? Plenty! If any of you are hunters, you'll know what I mean! Hunters learn a lot about nature, life, and themselves.

One thing that is taught in the outdoors is patience. You learn to sit quietly and observe. You learn to accept and work within the environment that your subjected to. You learn to prepare. You learn perseverance. You learn respect.

If you are a hunter, please share your thoughts with us! BTW, small game season ends in February, and Turkey season is right around the corner. See you out there!

Georgia's Baggy Pants Ban

Have you heard about the amendment sponsored by councilman in the State of Georgia that would ban baggy pants? This past week there was an interview on TV with this guy...

As I was watching, I couldn't help but think of how this new fashion statement compares to when Elvis Presley became popular. Wasn't there this same kind of negative attitude towards youth and change then? Didn't the 'older' generation discourage kids from dancing a certain way and listening to rock and roll or even ban certain types of dancing and music altogether?

Wait, what country is this happening in? The land of the free? Apparently the land of the free needs more rules and regulations. With our freedom we all have choices. This means we must decide how to conduct ourselves. Maybe we have forgotten the level of responsibility that we must have to keep our freedom. This responsibility includes considering how the choices we make effect others and their freedom.

Consideration for others begins at home, as does self respect, social etiquette, and personal financial responsibility. When did we as a country stop teaching these things at home? When will we, as a country, start? Isn't this one of the responsibilities that come with our freedom? Will we ignore our responsibility and simply continue making laws that infringe on our freedoms? I hope not...

Win $2500!

Over at Ashwin’s blog, you will find one crazy blog owner!! You can win $2500!! To enter just copy this text and paste it in your blog!! But hurry, this competition will not last long! So get posting!

Flat Panel HDTV Drawing!!!

Be sure to visit 5 Minutes For Mom
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This is an awesome opportunity for someone to win a TV valued at $799.00! Be sure to enter!

Grand Isle Boat Trip

We took our first ever boat trip this weekend and had a great time! Sure, we've overnighted on the boat before, but stayed in the local vicinity. This time, it was a little different!

My oldest, his friend and I set out from Westport to Grand Isle. According to the GPS, the destination was about 35 miles North. I haven't ventured far from home port, so gauging how much fuel was required was a bit discerning.

Anyway, before departing, my son and I made a checklist of what we wanted to be sure to bring with us. After spending an our or so putting this list together, we started packing. Having this checklist was very helpful! It kept us focused and made sure that we didn't forget anything necessary or important.

So, we set out on our adventure at about 13:30 hours. Before arriving at our first waypoint, we stopped in a small cove to get out of the wind, have some lunch, and go for a swim. The boys really liked this spot because they were snorkeling and the water was clear, and the lake bottom was interesting. We stayed here for an hour or two...

We had used a little more than a quarter of a tank after traveling about 15 miles. So far so good. But I don't like to be without a half tank at all times (who can depend on a boats fuel gauge anyway?) and had checked our nautical map and found a marina on Shelburne Point called the Shelburne Shipyard. So, we set course for Shelburne Point.

About 6 miles later, we were at the Shelburne Ship Yard. On our approach, as we rounded the point, the city of Burlington appeared. With the sun making its decent in the West, the city was aglow in the afternoon light.

After topping off the fuel tank (we took on 12 gallons), we set our course to Sandbar State Park, about 15 miles north...

About three quarters of an hour later, we arrived at our final destination. Along the way, we passed the famous G. Stone in his huge jet boat. Quite a site to see when he dumps the throttle! The rooster tail must be 30 feet high!

After cooking up some bass filets and green beans, we went for little swim. The wind had started to pick up a little out of the North, so we looked at our map and saw that Kibbie Bay was relatively protected, and decided to anchor there for the night.

Once we arrived at Kibbie Bay and found anchorage, we put up the camper canvas. The water was about 3 feet deep so we felt that we were pretty safe if we were to sink or something! We could easily walk to shore.

After getting the canvas up ( it was getting cold outside as the sun set) we set up the DVD player to watch a movie. After a little while, the cabin area started to warm up from the heat coming off of the motor.

The DVD Player started giving us some trouble. First, it would just stop playing, freezing the frame like someone hit pause or something. We messed around with it for a while and got it working again. Then after a few minutes, the sound went silent. More messing around. Finally, after turning it off and then on again, it worked. Now for some MIB II!

After a while, we all decided to call it a night and went to bed. It was a beautiful evening. The sky was perfectly clear, the moon full and reflecting its shine across the water.

We woke up around 7 o'clock, and cooked some eggs and ham for breakfast. Nothing like breakfast outside on the water! For some reason, it always seems that food tastes better outdoors!

We finished breakfast, and the two boys decided to try a little fishing. This plan didn't last very long because after a few casts, my son lost his rubber worm. Being that we were in just a few feet of water, and that he could see it lying there next to the boat, he decided that he'd go in after it. He learned that he should always have something on his feet when walking where he's never walked before!

It's a good thing that we re-stocked our first aid kit, because he darn near lost his little toe after cutting it on something that he stepped on. Oh, and yes, he did retrieve the rubber worm!

Anyway, we doctored up his toe, put our breakfast stuff away, pulled up anchor, and headed out for home. The first stop was to the nearest marina which was only a few miles away, to top off the fuel tank. We took on twelve gallons. Not bad, I thought!

We stopped in Mallets Bay for some swimming and snorkeling. I 'held my breath' to see if the doctoring we did on the toe was going to hold up. Not a singe complaint. As a matter of fact, I think that he had forgotten about it for a while.

We stayed there swimming for an hour or so before heading back. We stopped once more in Shelburne to top off the fuel tank, and in Charlotte to go swimming one last time.

All in all, we had a wonderful trip and are looking forward to doing it again this summer!

General Patton, Iraq and Iran

This video from Youtube.com was mentioned on foxnews.com today. If you haven't seen it already, watch it now. Turn down the volume, some of the language might not be appropriate for all the ears that might be around you. Funny at times, but truly provoking. Let me know what you think.

Frugal Parenting

In todays world of immediate gratification, we need to teach our kids to keep a level head and to be patient when it comes to material things.

Today I posted on Money and Credit the fifth of five posts about frugal living, this one called The Frugal Parent. Take a look at it and please feel free to leave comments with any more tips and advise that you can offer.

Listenin' to music with my boy...

All day I work. Toil with the day to day demands of the boss and clients. Then, totally spent, I come home. What a supreme pleasure and honor it is to be with my two boys. To see them playing in the yard, having squirt gun fights, getting totally soaked and laughing and loving! It's an awesome privilege to be their dad!

Now, at the end of the day, I'm sitting here with my oldest, listening to music from The Fray, "Over My Head" is playing, and he's helping make sure that my punctuation is correct!

Every day is Father's Day for me!

What do your kids think they'll earn?

On Money and Credit, I wrote about a recent survey recently released by Charles Schwab called "Teens and Money", a poll of 1,000 Amercians aged 13 to 18 from a variety of backgrounds, which found that 73% believed they would earn "plenty of money' when they were adults.

Liz Pulliam Weston had an article today talking about this report, a very good article I might add. It's called "Why your kids expect to be rich".

In the article, Liz suggests 3 things that parents can do:

Talk with your kids about their career aspirations. Once they get beyond the "I want to be a ballerina-veterinarian-astronaut" stage, you can start having real conversations about their interests and what jobs might suit them. Research together what those jobs actually pay, advised Kristine Dixon, Schwab's director of consumer education. You can get average hourly earnings for different professions from the U.S. Department of Labor's National Compensation Survey (this is a .pdf file; data for specific jobs start on Page 7) or see typical salaries across the country with Salary.com's Salary Wizard. Contrast that with what people typically spend on shelter, food, transportation and other living expenses in your area. (If you're comfortable revealing details of your family's finances, you can show them what you spend.)
Give your kids some hands-on experience with money. If your children's only money skill is knowing how to successfully nag you into buying something, they will be woefully unprepared for the real world -- either that, or you'll still be supporting them when they're 50. Better to start turning chunks of cash over to them now, either in the form of an allowance or in payment for work around the house, and let them make decisions on how to spend it. As one poster on the Your Money message board put it, "Let them learn when a lesson is cheap." By the time they're in high school, they should be assuming more responsibility for their own living expenses, as I wrote in "Why allowances don't work."
Adjust your own attitudes about money. Recognize that even if you do win that raise, or that lottery jackpot, you'd adjust pretty quickly to the improvement in your circumstances and would soon want even more. That's not to say you shouldn't be ambitious or want to improve your family's financial circumstances -- far from it. But expecting money to be the magic-ticket solution to all your problems is just as unrealistic for you as it is for your teenager.

Get Ready For School!!!

I can't be the only one out here with 'issue's' around getting ready for school. Every single day, its just one thing after another... "I'm still eating my breakfast" or "I can't find my sneakers".

We need to be in school by 08:10. How much time do you think it should take to get ready for school? Half hour, forty-five minutes, an hour?

We've been up as early as 06:15, and we were still running out the door nearly late!

Oh well! Why worry? It's not that big of a deal I guess. I'm just glad to be a dad!

They got this all wrapped up!

Okay, so what does this have to do with being a dad?

Well the owner of this truck is supposed to be moving on in life, leaving for another adventure. His friends didn't want him to leave, so they shrink-wrapped his truck in plastic, anchoring it to a tree.

Obviously, its not going to be so easy for the owner of the truck to leave; his truck is wrapped in plastic. But more than that, he will see how his moving on effects his friends, how much they wish they could keep him... how much they'll miss him.

Certainly they're glad for him, happy to see him happy and looking forward to the opportunity that awaits him.

It makes me wonder about the day that my kids will be moving on in life, leaving for another adventure. How will I react? Who will I take to baseball and basketball? Who will go to the dump with me? Who will come downstairs and give me a hug in the morning? Who will I take fishing?

Surely, I'm not going to want to see them go, but I will be happy to see them happy, looking forward to the opportunity awaiting them.. such a huge part of my life... how does a parent prepare? Maybe I should start stocking up on plastic wrap...

They're watching

How many times have we heard that we ought set an example, and not be an example? How often is that advise unheeded?

I know that it is hard, but when we have young impressionable people looking to and counting on us to teach them how to be adults, we really don't have the luxury of acting how we might feel.

We learn to socialize by watching how others socialize. We don't learn social skills by having heart to heart talks or by asking to 'do as I say, not as I do'.

What are we doing when our kids are watching? How can we expect them to do anything different when we're not watching?

Let's remember as we go about our days, our kids will copy us... We are mentoring our kids whether we want to or not.

Basketball Fever

I have been running a temperature lately. Each weekend since March, we've had a basketball tournament to go to. Its not so bad, I truly enjoy the opportunity to be with my wife and kids, but the excitement at the games is more than what I think I can take!

This weekend isn't unlike the others. Today we are packing up and heading south a few hours to the next game. We stay over at a hotel (has to have a pool for mom and the lil' brother!) bringing our cooler packed with food to save on dining out.

The dogs go to the vet who boards them for the weekend while we're out. They don't seem to mind the weekends overnight with their dog friends..

Oh well, I count myself as lucky. Lucky to be able to have this chance to chase around all over with and for my kids.

Kids and Restaurants

Over at Be A Good Dad, there is a post about kids and restaurants. I commented that I remember as a kid going to the Howard Johnson’s for lunch and ice cream with my family each Sunday after church. What a FIASCO! Looking back, its a wonder we didn’t get thrown out of the place! And mind you, it wasn’t just us kids misbehaving, Mom and Dad usually joined in the fun too!

The post at Be A Good Dad has some good ideas on keeping the kids occupied and entertained while waiting for their meal (but there aren't any suggestions about making sure mom and dad behave appropriately!)

Educating Kids for global competition

This post also appears on Money and Credit, another of my blogs... Because it is so important that we make sure our children have the same competitive advantages as do children in other countries, I think that this should also appear here on this blog.

Is the global competition for your paycheck a good or bad thing? Do you feel that this competition will work to drive up wages, or bring them down?

Whether or not it is a good or bad thing, the global competition for your paycheck is real.

How are we positioning ourselves to be marketable and competitive in the global workforce?

Visit Vince Cordic's Internet Marketing Tactics and read a post and be sure to watch the slide show about globalization in the 21st century; truly an eye opener.

Oh, and for more info., Be A Good Dad is hosting a carnival. Be sure to check it out!

We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.
Haida Indian Saying