Tonight after dinner at my Mother-In-Laws house, we were sitting around just chatting about the days events. I was talking about a website I created for my uncle that was having issues.

“Uncle Peter’s site went down” I said, followed closely by “he texted and asked me to call but since I was in the office and didn’t have his files, I didn’t.”

Hannah, who was standing next to the table with this look of anguish on her face said, “He’s blind!?”

We all looked at her with the, huh? look and I said “what sweetie? Is who blind?” to which she replied, “well, you said his sight went down so I thought Uncle Peter was blind.”

We all laughed, as I tried to explain that his website had stopped working. Hannah got mad because we laughed. Maybe one day she will see the humor.

Hannah just completed her third Feis (1st as an Advanced Beginner), the Inaugural Buckeye State Feis, and she did quite well. If you take a look at the picture, you will see a 1st place ribbon for her reel, a 2nd place for her light jig and a 3rd place for her slip jig.

Way to go Hannah!

I see this sign in the town where I work all the time, and although I know the intent of the sign, I can’t seem to get past the unintentional ‘literal meaning’. I find it a very unsettling.

Mouseover the pic to see what I mean.

I was Christmas shopping in a department store and was checking out, being assisted by an older woman. Her appearance made me think she might be Pentecostal, I mean, she had the PHD, the glasses, the outfit etc…. not that it matters, I am just trying to set the scene.

She was sharing the register with a much younger woman, hip, well dressed etc… who had just gotten off the phone. She turned to the older woman and said, ‘Steelers lost.’

The older woman got this kind of confused look on her face and said ‘who Steelers’ or something like that, and the younger woman replied ‘the Pittsburgh Steelers’ with this duh, everybody knows that, attitude.

I saw a look of relief on the older woman’s face as she said, ‘oh, my dogs name is Steeler.’

I just had to laugh. It was one of those Abbott and Costello moments you only see on TV.

From the local newspaper:

Dayton stimulus request includes prostitution plan

Couldn’t they just put in a few McDonalds, or maybe a Starbucks?

Actually the story is about ridding the city of prostitution but its hard to tell based solely on the headline. :)

When we were traveling last week we stopped at a Bojangles in Kentucky for a quick meal. We walked in and this young lady asked if she could help us. Reading her name tag, I said something like, ‘you sure can Gloria’ and with the words barely out of my mouth I noticed this large grin on her face.

Gloria looked at me and said, ‘no one ever uses my name, its always girl or hey you.’ I always try to use a name if I see it, and her response made me realize this wasn’t the first time I had gotten such a response. Another time I said hello to a young black woman working at a store and as she smiled she said, ‘you are the first white person to ever say my name right.’ We both laughed.

Its not hard to treat someone like you would want to be treated so take a second and put forth a little effort. Say hi, use their name, smile… it might be worth your while :)

While I was mobilized I spent 3 weeks in Malaysia which a Navy colleague refered to as the ‘Land of NKR (not quite right)’. I actually thought it was fine but his title did inspire me start gathering my own NKR moments. Here is the first installment of things I noticed on my recent vacation to Florida over the Thanksgiving break:

Its just not the same…

Walking in a Winter Wonderland really looses its meaning when played on steel kettledrums at the beach.

Words on the butt…

We have all seen those bathing suits with words written on the bottoms like Cheer, Pink etc… When a toddler is wearing one that has been pulled up over an obviously full swim diaper, it takes on a whole new meaning when it says JUICY.

Can you hear her now?

I spotted an elderly Amish women in traditional Amish attire, with bonnet, riding an adult size tricycle while talking on a cell phone.

Have any NKR moments to share?

Having me as a father gives the children an early education on the fine art of sarcasm, but Hannah hasn’t grasped all the nuances quite yet.

Last night on the ride home from dance class, an NPR correspondent was talking about trying to book a hotel room for the upcoming inauguration and said; “If you want to get depressed, Google Washington D.C., hotels and inauguration.” My beautiful half-full child responded, “why would you WANT to get depressed?”

If she can see that, why can’t NPR? :)

For some reason, the kids have just been funny the last few days, for example:

Last night while on the way to Grandma’s house I was scanning the new Sirius lineup in my truck. I landed on a French station and just for fun, I asked the kids what language they were speaking. Hannah piped up right up, I mean within a second and said “French!” followed closely by a “huahn, huahn, hauhn…” That’s probably not spelled right but picture a snooty Frenchman laughing, very funny stuff.

Well tonight, we went out to eat at a local restaurant and bar that has some great burgers. On Saturday they have live music and Noah, my 12 year old guitar aficionado really wanted to hear the band play. They started at eight so I didn’t make any promises and told him we’d just wait and see if we were going to stay that long.

While we ate, we were talking about what kind of music the band might sing. Considering the neighborhood and the bar I said they might be rock or country. Around 7:30 we were still eating and two guys came in to set up, one guy wearing a football jersey and backwards ballcap and the other a leather coat and cowboy hat. Noah leaned over to me and said “cowboy hats are never a good sign.”

They got the equipment set up and tested, and did the mandatory strumming of the guitars and the “check, check, check” to which Hannah replied, “why do they always play that song.”

We listened for a few songs, there were two acoustic guitars and they did covers, not too bad really. They played Hotel California for Noah and he told me they were doing power cords, like, I would know the difference. On the way out he said “at least they weren’t one of those country bands that make your ears bleed.”

You think they try to be funny or are just naturally gifted like their Dad? ;)

If you read my last post, you probably know I moved this site to a new server quickly and am reconstructing things.

If by chance you came by to see my Irish Green and Red movie, I found it!

Enjoy

Good evening…. I just completed moving my website from one host to another and I had to do it in a hurry. Unfortuantely, since I needed to move it so quickly, I have not had the opportunity to work out all the bugs.

I have hidden some of the photos and the Ireland movie for now and will have them back online as soon as possible. Everything you see should be ok but if you find a broken link, please let me know.

Sorry for any inconvience.

If you want to contact me in the meantime email me at damnitmike (at) mikeward.com.

We all know the Yankee Doodle classic with the line that goes, ’stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni.’ Well, last night Hannah came in singing;

‘found a stack of feathered hats in his macaroni’

Has there been a Yankee Doodle re-write nobody told me about?

Had a few this week:

We had no power for three days due to a wind storm last Sunday. After two and a half days we had to empty the fridge because of spoilage and we put a candle in the fridge so we could see since it was dark outside. Hannah said, is it safe to put a candle in the fridge and I said ‘don’t worry honey, it goes out when you close the door’. I know thats not a kids say but the look on her face was priceless.

When the power returned it was dark and the people across the street had lights on on just the first floor. When Hannah saw that the second floor was dark she said “the people across the street only got half their power back.”

Finally Noah, the fair-haired boy who just entered 7th grade remarked; “I’m afraid I am going to have to start shaving before the end of seventh grade.” Not funny to you probably but he was serious and bowling balls need shaves more than he does.

I am afraid to admit that the Kids Say are fewer and farther in between. They are just growing up too fast.

A lot of people have asked about the avatar I use for my Twitter profile so I thought it would be easier just to point them here.

Back in 1994 I was working for Midwest Micro, a local company that was competing with Gateway. I worked in the advertising department where I was a manager.

We advertised in many of the Ziff Davis publications, Computer World, PC Computing and Computer Shopper and the creative director planned these elaborate multi page spreads that appeared in these publications. Most were 4 to 10 pages, full color, always with a theme.

Well October was drawing near and the boss wanted to advertise ‘monster savings’ so he planned this Halloween spread, he also asked if I wanted to be part of it. I said sure, even though it meant shaving off the moustache I had sported for years, I thought it would be fun.

The result is in the avatar. I spent a few hours in makeup and had a huge hose clamp around my neck that had Pentium computer chips attached to it. My picture took up most of the page on page two of the spread and appeared in a couple million magazines.

So, I joke, but yes, that was the extent of my modeling career. If you ever stop by the house, I still have the October 1994 PC Computing if you want to see. :)

I just watched Michael Phelps get his first gold at the 2008 Olympics. I saw his Mom in the stands, I heard the National Anthem. I wept.

I wondered if I would ever see any of my children represent the United States in a similar feat. I realized it really doesn’t matter, I love them for what they are, anything else would just be a bonus.