DadTalk

A Visual Look (Yuck) at American Food

For a visual image of what our schools and families are feeding kids, take a gander at Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. The well-known British chef goes to Huntington, West Virginia, a town considered the most obese in the country and tries to single-handedly fix their dietary habits.

I realize the show isn’t perfect – Jamie’s personality is too brusque for my tastes – but just take a look at what schools feed our kids: Pizza for breakfast! Mashed potatoes from pellets! Purple milk!

Also, note how nasty people are to Jamie Oliver. While I can’t believe the chef was all that surprised by the school cooks’ reaction to his proposed changes, it is indicative as to how the culture wars have impacted America and how difficult it is to change engrained behaviors.

Think of it this way: Americans scream bloody murder when the federal government interferes with their lives. And yet look how the school administration CLINGS to the federal guidelines as if the rules are gospel.

If you have time, watch Part II, also. It kind of wild watching the kids not know what a tomato or a potato look like.

It will be interesting to see if Jamie – whose own self-righteousness seems to be hurting him – can prevail.

Freezer Mystery Solved

I solved a mystery today. No, not the meaning of life. That’s next week. No, this has to do with a freezer and a bathroom.

You see, every now and then, all the food in our deep freezer starts to melt. That’s because home builders – either because of code or to save money – put ALL the ground-level garage outlets on one GFCI outlet.

For those who don’t know, GFCI’s are the outlets that have the black and red buttons that POP when you drop a hair dryer into a tub filled with water. Those who do know usually scream at the TV whenever someone “dies” that way.

In our rental house, the GFCI outlet is in the kids’ upstairs bathroom. So, whenever the freezer light fails to come on, I go there to restore power.

Stupid, I know, but short of running an extension cord along the ceiling of our garage to the Genie door-opener outlet, I’m not going to spend $200 on a rental house to install an always-on outlet.

So if I know all this, what’s the mystery? Well, I couldn’t figure out WHY the GFCI outlet kept popping. Was it the freezer sucking up too much power? Was it the night light bulb burning out and causing a short? Was it my cell phone charger outlet, which shares the same GFCI?

Well, this morning, I found the answer. I was walking by the bathroom while Lael was coming out. She mumbled something like, “who left the light on?” and proceeded to punch the TEST button on the GFCI outlet. (How did she know to do that?)

Off goes the nightlight and off goes the deep freezer. Doh! I explained nicely to Lael that the GFCI is NOT a light switch and to please never touch it again. Mystery solved.

Letter to My High School Coach

I recently learned my high school cross country coach had major surgery. After writing the letter, I thought I would share it with my readers, because this person had such a huge impact on my life.

Hi Coach,

Through the miracle of Facebook, I received an email from Adam Zajac, who received an email from John Healy, explaining that you just had quadruple bypass surgery. I hope you are recovering well!

In case you’re wondering, I now live in Arizona with my wife and two children, ages 7 and 4. I think we may have another runner in Seth; he has strong distance potential. Lael, the younger one, seems to be more of a gymnast.

As you may have guessed, I’ve moved a lot over the years. Here is where I’ve been, in order: Indiana University, Arizona, Florida (where I met my wife), California, Chicago and then Arizona again.

Beware cellguaro

While driving to Pinnacle Peak for some hiking during the kids’ spring break last week, I started following a truck carrying a suspicious-looking saguaro. I tried, but couldn’t get a good picture – while driving – using my new Blackberry Tour camera (see crappy image after jump.)

Unfortunately, the truck went the opposite direction, so I figured I wasn’t going to get a good shot. Fortunately, I found another crew installing what I’m now calling cellguaro: a microwave cell phone tower disguised as a saguaro.

When I lived in California, I noticed many a fake palm tree, which clearly hid cell phone towers, but a fake saguaro is truly an odd site (though way better than ugly metal towers.) The crew asked me to spread the word so that more would be installed around town.

As you can see by my last picture, cellguaros may last longer than the real thing. (Recent rains caused many saguaros around Scottsdale to topple over.) By the way, we had a fun time on the hike.

Overheard ‘Lael, don’t. Daddy will get mad’

“Lael, don’t. Daddy will get mad,” Seth says two or three times while I am working.

“What is Lael trying to do?” I ask as his words finally cut through the fog.

“Lael wants to thumbtack the blanket to the floor.”

“Lael NO! That’s very creative and very wrong.”

“Dad, do you want to know why Lael wants to thumbtack the blanket to the floor?”

“No. Just don’t do it.”

Need I say more?