Tallahassee to Atlanta for TMBG

It's been forever since They Might Be Giants came to Tallahassee.   I found out in December that they would finally be making an appearance in March.  I wanted to take my kids, who are fans of the three kids CD/DVDs they have put out.  I found out the minimum age was (I think) fourteen to get in.

I knew they did kids shows from time to time, so I looked at their other shows going on around the same time and located a kids show in Atlanta the following weekend.

So the Tallahassee show as a lot of fun.  It was kind of weird seeing the crowd.  I first saw TMBG when I was in middle school, and I don't think there were too many people older than I am now at that show.  This time there where only a few people who looked like they where probably in high school.
They even played the one song I was looking forward to, which is She's An Angel.
They played a good number of music off of their kids album.  It was a good marker to see who was a parent in the crowd, as only few people could be seen singing along.
Another really great thing about this concert is that both Kim and I were able to go ... TOGETHER.  It was awesome.  we never get time together to do anything that's just fun for the two of us.  I love going places with my kids, but it is nice for just Kim and I to do something awesome together every one in a while.
The following Friday I got my Vanagon cleared out, and most of our stuff packed for the trip.  I packed enough food so that we would have to stop along the way either.
One rather scary thing about this trip was that I had never driven my Vanagon more than around sixty miles outside of Tallahassee.  I was planning on driving there and back in the same day, an almost 600 mile trip.
We took the US27 route to avoid Interstates, and perhaps see some cool small towns.

The morning was cold, and the bus has no  heat, so I packed lots of blankets, which Aurora said didn't make her warm enough.  I had the car DVD player setup as well, and we started the trip with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Athena's pick.
The van ran great on the way there, and the girls ate the sandwiches and apples I packed for them.  We made it the whole way stopping only for gas, and odd looks at the van from the locals.
The van ran great the whole time, and was actually able to maintain speeds up to 70mph, when not going up a hill, which is pretty good for one of these vehicles.
We arrived twenty minutes before the show started, to the discovery that the show was soled out.  I felt pretty dumb.  Reminder to self, don't drive the kids six hours away for a show you don't already have tickets for.  The lady at the box office told us to come back when the show started to see if there was availability.  Indeed there was and we had entry.
The security guy made me go back to my car to leave the camera.  Note number two, keep camera in pocket when trying to get it into a show.  Other parents didn't have their camera on display upon entry and where snapping photos of their children and the band the whole time.
They Might Be Giants where much more into this show than the one in Tallahassee.  There was a lot more energy on stage.  It was really cool to see a packed room with children and their parents singing and dancing along to TMBG.  As a function of parents who get their kids into good music, it was obvious most of the parents there where pretty awesome parents, which is something I can't say for most places I go to take my kids for children's events.
Aurora was tired and sat down for the whole show.  Athena spent most of the times either dancing, or in my arms watching the band.  Towards the end of the show Athena made a friend and danced with her.
The kids favorite part started during the song bed.  At the end of the line "and so directly to bed I go" a canon shot out papier-mâché over the audience.  The kids where really thrilled to catch the falling pieces of paper.  This happened a few more times throughout the show.

A sock puppet, called "The Avatars of They Might Be Giants" did a show and sang a couple of songs, which the kids thought was pretty funny too.
After the show Flansburgh handed out stickers, which we all three got, and I followed up with receiving a high-five from Flans.
Afterwards we grabbed some Greek food, and headed home.  The DVD player seemed to have broke itself while we were at the show, so there where no movies, or any other entertainment, for the drive back.
Athena fell asleep first, and Aurora went out only later on in the night.  We got home around 11:30pm, and I was quite famished from the day.

From Tragedy to Fun

On Thursday I came home to a dark house. It seems that we were not so prompt on paying our utilities bill, though we had mailed the check the previous day. Kim was having dinner with some coworkers, and did not have her cell phone on her. I took the kids to the Riverside Cafe to eat and figure out what to do.

The restaurant sits literally on Saint Marks River, and while the food is mediocre, the atmosphere is quite fun, though the sand flees are not. We ate with pelicans a stone's throw away, and a man and his guitar strumming some old country tunes. The kids really enjoyed themselves.

On Wednesday we had promised Athena that we would camp out in the Vanagon on Saturday. It is something we had been telling the kids we would eventually do, and now we where committing to it. This became my rescue plan. We would sleep in the Vanagon and use our cell phone as an alarm clock.

When we got home we played in the van until Kim got home and I explained the situation to her. We loaded up all of our food in our refrigerator likely to spoil and hauled it over to Katie's house. Then when we got home we got everything ready for the next day. We picked out our clothes, made lunches (PB&H sandwiches), put our tooth brushes and a hairbrush in the van. The idea was that when we woke up we could get ready as fast as we could and have everything already ready for us.

Athena, Arianna and I slept on the bottom while Kim and Aurora took the pop-up. Things went pretty well, but at some point in the night Arianna became restless. I changed her diaper and put more just in her sippy cup, but she was still uneasy. At some point Kim got up and started holding her. She said I could go up top, so I did and fell asleep, and Kim says that the two of them went to sleep shortly after that as well.

Around 3:30 am the phone's alarm went off. I turned it off and double-checked that it was in fact set for 5:30 am. At that point it had become chilly outside. Kim had grabbed some thicker blankets and we covered ourselves and the kid sup with that.

We where again woken up at 5:00 am. I turned the alarm off, made sure it was set for 5:30 am and went back to bed.

It did in fact go off at 5:30 am, but this time we went back to sleep. I woke up again at 6:05, and we where out of there by 6:50 am.

The kids had a good time and overall it worked out pretty well. Kim and I didn't get stressed out and the lights where turned back on Friday morning. It's pretty rare that we get behind on our bills like this, but I'm glad we where able to turn it into an oppurtunity.

Google Notebook

I started using Google Notebook today to keep track of my pending tasks at work. It is a perfect fit for my needs. Last week and this week I have been swamped with work and have had a difficult time keeping track of everything. My geny reminded me of Google Notebook so I gave it a try and it is a perfect fit.

One day I will wake up in a Google house, eat Google food, and use the Google restroom and I will be too complacent to realize I've been pwned.

RACHEL!

Today Rachel is coming to pay us a weekend visit. She could do us a kinder favor and move to Tallahassee, but there's not sense in beating a dead horse.
When Kim and I lived in Orlando Rachel was always there for us when we needed her. And, we did need her quite a bit.
Even better than Rachel visiting is that she is bringing over her twins, Malachi and Magdalene. They will be turning one at the end of next month, and we will be heading out to Orlando to celebrate the occasion.

Newman Family Reunion

We just got back from a great trip to Sanibel Island. Kim's family had their first family reunion in over ten years.

We woke up on Friday at 4am and left ~5am. Kim agreed to drive first. The girls and I all fell asleep before we even left Tallahassee. When I woke up we where in Tampa. I couldn't believe Kim had driven that far without asking me to take over and/or the baby waking up. At some point we all woke up and I did have to drive for the last two hours.

Kim thought it would be a good idea for us to pack a cooler with bread and lunch meat. I tried eating a sandwich but it just didn't hit the spot for whatever reason. The sleep in the car was not a very comfortable sleep and I did not feel very well rested when I woke up.

We showed up at our hotel around 2PM. A lot of Kim's family was already there and hanging out at the pool. I was both tired and hungry. I was also pretty crabby. I went to diner and grabbed something and then took a nap. When I woke up I felt much better.

At the pool Aurora was having a great time playing with everyone and showed little interest in me. So Athena and I had a great time hanging out around the stairs. She also used a floaty that her cousin rejected. She loved the freedom of running around the pool in the floaty.

Kim's family is always extremely nice, and they were all loving our new baby. Unfortunately for Kim, Arianna was interested in Kim only. She wouldn't even let me hold her. Kim spent a large portion of the time in Sanibel couped up in hotel room taking care of Arianna.

At night the sand fleas became very much unbearable.

Dinner was grilled out near someone elses' hotel room. There were plenty of burgers for the taking. I really wanted to do more, but after dinner I was beat, and I didn't want to spend the following day tired because I didn't get enough sleep so I knocked out as soon as I could.

The next day I started off at the pool and then took Athena to the beach with her new beach toys she had been dying to try out.

The sand at Sanibel is very shelly. It is roughly 50% sand and 50% shells, seriously. We made our sand castle and Athena said we where making oatmeal, because of the consistency of the sand. So we spent over an hour making oatmeal.

Sand fleas grow from very tiny bugs that will bite the crap out of your leg to these large one-inch bugs. I caught a few of them and through them in the bait bucket. They apparently make great bait. The crazy thing about them is that as babies that are practically invisible and very aggressive. As adults they are fairly easy to spot and when you catch them they just play dead.

After lots of beach and pool time we had a cool crab boil. Large shrimp that had not been sprayed with pesticides was mixed in with corn on the cob, pork, sausage, and potatos. After filling up, and then eating some more, I took Arianna so that Kim could get some decent rest for the night. Arianna fell asleep in my arms and I hung out at the pool some more to chat with various people.

I eventually went to bed to make sure that I also got enough sleep.

The next day we ate breakfast and headed home. The girls and I had a great time. Kim and Arianna were pretty much stressed out. Arianna was stressed because she was out of her routine in an unknown place. Kim was stressed because Arianna was crabby and only wanted her. So Kim was not able to spend as much time with her family as she was hoping to.

Mafia

One of the most ridiculous games that I like is called mafia. The game usually consists of around ten to twenty players and a narrator. Each player is either a member of the mafia or a townie. The roles can be distributed in many ways, but it has to be in such a way that only the mafia members know who the mafia members are, and nobody else knows anyone elses roles. Additional roles can be added as well. For example, a doctor may be able to keep the mafia from killing a certain player at night, or a cop may be able to investigate at note and have that persons role revealed only to the cop. There are usually around 3 tonies for each mafia members.The first time I played there where only townies and mafia. To pick roles the moderator made a stack of cards equal to the number of players with a King for the number of mafia members that would be in the game. The cards would be shuffled and then distributed to each member. Each member would look at his or her card and then face it down in front of them face-down.The day would begin with everyone closing their eyes, the mafia then opening their eyes so they know who each other are, and then closing their eyes and everyone opening their eyes.During the day time phase, everyone discusses who they believe to be in the mafia. They get to lynch one player per day. Once a decision has been made the role of the lynchee is revealed and night falls. All members close their eyes and then the mafia open theres. They silently point around to make decision on who to murder. Once they have all agreed, through pointing, who to murder they close their eyes and everyone opens their eyes. The narrator then anounces who has been killed. This repeats until there are either only mafia or only townies.The best part of this game is how ridiculous it is. During the first couple of days you have no way of knowing who to lynch. Some people will look guilty and you can tell they are mafia. Others may be apparent by their eagerness to go after anyone and everybody except certain people. Someone has to be picked. As the game goes on you can start figuring out who is who by who has voted for who and how they react to being accused of being in the mafia. The game is all psychology. If you are in the mafia you have to do your best to act like a townie. Sometimes you may have to vote for another mafia member, so when (s)he is lynched you don't look suspicous. Other times you may have to work hard to help move the town in to lynching it's own members. Only the mafia knows who is and isn't in the mafia. They can use this to help sway opinions the way they want.As a townie you have to try to keep yourself from being lynched and you have to figure out who is mafia based only on actions and reactions. Each time you vote to lynch someone, and they turn out to be a townie, you have brought your team closer to loosing.We have recently started playing online at my favorite website http://www.dslreports.com/ You can read the original game at http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18139855 and see an aggregation of all games at http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18433948 All sorts of crazy twists have been added. The game I'm currently in is pirate-based. Starting Monday I will be hosting a version where the town has been invaded by body snatching aliens. Doing a little role reversal, the good guys have to pretend to be aliens, and get to take one out each night. During the days everyone pretends to be pod aliens and tries to lynch a town person.The hilarity that ensues in each of these games is impossible to accurately convey. The game is both ridiculous and addiciting. When a game ends it is fun to go back and reread the whole game knowing who has each role. The reason people vote the way they do becomes obvious. The tricks used by the mafia to try and get the townies to lynch each other is very interesting. Some times the whole town will line up, day after day, behind a mafia member pretending to be the crusador out to win the game. Other times a mafia member will just lay low, try to neither draw or distract attention away.If you get a chance, get your friends together and play. It may seem stupid at first, but once you get in to it you will be hooked. I absolutely gauruntee it.