Hobbiests

I know I have pointed this out on numerous occasions, but one of the great joys of seeing our guys grow up is watching them develop their own interests, personalities, and passions. This was brought home to me tonight as the three boys pursued three very different activities in various places in the house.

 

Almost 9-year-old Cooper, our little jock, had a rare night off from baseball, and was using it to lay flat on the couch watching ... wait for it ... baseball! The Cubs v. the Cardinals to be specific. While baseball is his passion, Cooper will frankly watch any old competitive thing you care to show on TV - major or minor sports, boys, girls, men or women (or horses or dogs, frankly). He would probably watch a coin flip channel if there was such a thing.

 

His almost 9-year old twin Hayden, our little performer, had Amazon Prime music cranked up on the TV in the next room, where he was loudly doing karaoke to Train, Fun and Meghan Trainor songs. This involved holding his fist like a microphone and lots of "rock" moves, including warnings to me that he was going to try to do the splits. Yikes! He and a friend are gearing up for auditioning an amusing duet at the school talent show at tryouts this Wednesday.

 

12-year old Owen, meanwhile, is now months into the odd hobby of modifying store-bought Nerf guns. This involves the purchase of specialized batteries and motors on the internet, soldering, electrical work, sculpting of plastics, and lots of painting using spray paints purchased from the constant trips he request I do with him to AutoZone. At the end of the process, once bright orange or yellow Nerf guns are deconstructed, and reconfigured to shoot faster, further and stronger, and are painted with auto paints to look much "cooler" than the original orange and yellow they typically come in. He first learned to do modifications by watching countless YouTube videos, and has now started developing his own variations. Most recently, he has put some of his modified guns on eBay. While we assumed this would be futile, he confidently assured us it would not be. No one was more surprised than Deanna and I when he received a $50 offer on one of them and then proceeded to reject the offer in a strongly worded email that emphasized the fact that he was looking to make a profit on the gun and that $50 would not do the trick. Tonight, he was busily negotiating with someone different who was offering $80 plus shipping. Taking that deal.  The fact that anyone is willing to pay that much money for something one of my kids created is, quite honestly, stunning to me. Crazy times we live it. Crazy times indeed.

Owencyclopedia

RedPlanet in the house! Today, loyal reader, finds me fast approaching my 49th consecutive ride on this roller coaster around the Sun. This, as I see it, will move me at last out of my "middle 40's" and solidly into my "late middle 40's."

 

I've realized a lot of things in recent years, as the sands of life continue to shift beneath my feet. One thing I have learned for sure is that I actually know very little. Sure, I continue to learn things here and there, but my accumulated knowledge amounts to pretty much nil in the grand scheme of things.

 

Thankfully, though, there is no deficit of knowledge here on CloudEight, thanks to having our own living, breathing Owencyclopedia, or "Owen," as we call it for short. We've had it for 12 years now, but only recently learned that it knows everything. Maybe it always knew everything, although I appear to recall that it asked a lot of questions of me in the past, an apparent acknowledgment that it still had things to learn. This is clearly no longer the case, as I am reminded on a daily basis, as it now makes loud and assertive declarations of "fact" about almost any subject at the drop of a hat.  A sampling of the knowledge we are regularly blessed with:

• Every product made by Apple is incredibly awesome, and every electronic product made by anyone else is terrible by comparison;
• Plays are boring;
• The movie, regardless of which movie it is, is never as good as the book [this may be actual fact!];
• Our other two kids are stupid and annoying;
• Math will rarely, if ever, be needed in real life;
• AT&T is horrible, worst DSL provider eeeeeevvvvvver;
• The reason the internet is slow at our house is because I, Owencyclopedia, have never heard of the brand of router you bought;
• That song sucks and should be turned off. Now;
• The Owencyclopedia did not lose [insert almost any noun]; somebody must have taken it;
• That car is awesome, while that other one is decidedly not;
• The Owencyclopedia is not tired.

The Owencyclopedia provides succinct and frank movie reviews, and only needs to see a trailer to tell you if it has any merit, rates how funny various insurance commercials are, and has identified Jay Cutler as the source of the Bears suckiness. The Owencyclopedia can even predict the future, as it seems 100% sure the Cubs will still suck this year (although some would argue that is a pretty safe bet in any year!).

 

We are indeed truly blessed to have such an easily accessed resource right here in the house. Gone are my days of cumbersome Google searches, internet research, or old-fashioned manual reading of books. The Owencyclopedia is voice-activated, and often even provides facts that aren't even solicited by us! I strongly suggest you get one of your own. I could loan you ours, but sadly, I wouldn't be able to get the computer or wireless network to work without it....

Anyone Home?

Howdy there Cloud Eight fans! Happy 4th; be careful with those fireworks! What? Oh, missed the 4th of July apparently.

Well, a shout out to our fighting men and women then!! Thanks for keeping us safe! Huh? Oh, shoot. Wait, wait, just kidding - don't shoot me fighting men and women! I meant like, shoot, I missed Veteran's Day.

Well, I am at least thankful not to have missed Thanksgiving and a chance to thank you, my loyal readers, for sticking with me despite my increasingly infrequent posts these past couple of years. You guys are the best! Eh? Thanksgiving was 7 weeks ago?

And what's that? You haven't stuck with me? What do you mean blogs are passe? What is everyone doing then? Twitter? Snapchat? What the heck are those? Is anyone actually there? Hellllllloooooooo?!?!?!

Huh.

Well.

No one around. And who can blame them, I haven't been here myself. Heck, my profile doesn't even have the kids current ages!

 

So, it is just us, my last remaining reader. That is, assuming you are not simply here because you Googled naked Scarlett Johansson and I just wrote that - psyche!. I will assume instead that you are someone who enjoys the occasional blog entry capturing this or that about parenting. Or you are my Mom (Hi Mom!).

 

And if you do enjoy the occasional blog entry capturing this or that about parenting, I am glad you are here, as opposed to somewhere more "now" you could be. Way to be old school. I may be throwing in the odd fondue recipe or 80's music reference in your honor!

 

At any rate, dear reader, we are going to have some fun here at Cloud Eight this year. I plan to hang around more than usual. It is, quite frankly, nice to be back. We will laugh (hopefully), and we may cry (but only about bad things that happen to our sports teams); there will be kid cuteness (less and less frequent unfortunately, now that Owen is 11 and the twins are 8), and there will definitely be sports, bodily function humor and over use of the phrase "at any rate" to transition to the end of an entry.

 

At any rate (see what I mean!), thanks for visiting today. Think about subscribing, so that you don't miss a single 2015 post, at the low, low rate of free - see the subscription options to the right. While I will be around more, I can almost guarantee that the volume of posts emanating from CloudEight will not be crashing your server. And if you don't subscribe, peek back around now and again to see what is up here, say hi, or simply be disappointed again that there are no naked pictures of Scarlett Johansson. See you soon!