i'm that dad who challenges kids, wether they are my own, known or some random kid i've never met, to employ their manners (e.g. saying 'thank you' or 'please') when something is done for them. recently i went out of my way to give one of alex's friends a ride. when i delivered him to his destination, a group sleep-over, he began bounding up the front walk without as much as a 'see-ya'. i called to him:

TROY
ethan!

ETHAN (10)
yes.

TROY
is there anything you might want to say or do to acknowledge that something was just done for you?

ETHAN
i don't think so.

TROY
truly.

ETHAN
oh. that. (with this, he bows in a courtly way and says with a regal flourish). i thank you kind, old sir for the ride in your lovely chariot.

he then turned and resumed his sprint into the house to meet his friends. the mom hosting the party stifled her laughter as i looked at her. when i gave her that 'really' look she shrugged her shoulders and reminded me that i did chide him for a thank you. this was the first time this kind, old sir had the grumpy, old phrase 'kids today' roll through his not-so-kind, old mind.

the recent news that microsoft was looking to buy mojang's minecraft had the elementary playground in a frenzy. at one point a kid ran up to anthony, shouted the news in his face and when anthony didn't really respond the boy grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him and screamed that he was totally under-reacting to the news. alex and i had a timely dad-lunch scheduled later that day. our entire hour was filled with talk of the sale.

after going over the perils of tinkering with something at its peak (never mess with a winning game) i asked alex what he thought Notch, the rumored hold-out owner should do. without much of a pause alex said, "well, he seems to love what he does and given how many people play minecraft i guess he has enough money to pay for his house and live, he should probably not give up the thing that makes him most happy."

to my emphatic retort of, but alex, it's a billion dollars.

his reply. i'm often struck at how quickly kids can boil down adult decisions.

after a little more digging into the story we learned that while Notch loved the creative and creating side of his minecraft project, he very much did not love the business side of things, so the release of the project made more sense than initially thought.

when the news of the sale finally hit, every minecrafter i knew, young and old alike, were visibly pensive at what was in store for their beloved technology in the hands of an organization known for fumbling easier slam-dunks than this.

for school, bella (13) was asked to write an essay about a family member. this was her response. it's crazy how much she knows about my/our past. at her age, i was never that plugged into my parents, or anyone who wasn't me for that matter. i find her curiosity and empathy both impressive and humbling. if i'm ever in need of a biographer, i for sure know who i'm tapping.

while sitting in the car the other day waiting for the boys to get in, i noticed our neighbors had a walk-out deck above a first floor sunroom they had. the porch had a brick wall surrounding it that came up between the knee and thigh. the weather this particular day was crazy-lovely and i was thinking how neat it would be to have a setup like that where on nice weather nights, you could sleep outside in the night air and looking up at the night sky through gently swaying tree branches (akin to this experience). when the boys got in the car they noted my reverie.

ALEX (11)
whatcha lookin' at dad?

TROY
that porch. see over there. look above that room. you can walk out on there. do you see it?

THE BOYS
yeah.

TROY
i was thinking on nice days like today, you could pull a sleeping bag out there and sleep outside. because you're high up no one could see or mess with you. doesn't that seem like it would be cool?

ALEX
yeah it does.

TROY
i would sleep out there all the time if we had one of those.

ALEX
you should have one built on the back of our house.

TROY
yeah. i was kinda studying that thinking if we could.

ANTHONY (8)
but dad. if you did that, that would be like a thousand cuddles.

TROY
what?

ALEX
if you and mom built one of those on the back of the house, we would lose a thousand cuddles because you'd be busy.

TROY
you know anthony. i think you're right. that does look to be about a thousand cuddle project.

in giving this some thought i don't think we have nearly enough CUDDLE-ACCOUNTING in our society or personal lives as we maybe should. every life commitment (e.g. home improvement, continuing education, job change, home upgrade) should have a new line item added to the ledger sheet that reads LOST CUDDLES.

younger (and shorter-haired) versions of marta and bella.

and boy, seeing bella that small already blows my mind. ...

i was talking to bookpimp on the phone catching up. i saw marty walk by twenty minutes earlier, giving a wave indicating good night. twenty minutes later i heard a dustup in the boys room. moments later alex meekly walked towards me and said, "i accidentally got gum in anthony's orange-a-tang and he's mad." anthony's orange-a-tang is a neon-orange stuffed orangoutang he saved from a give-away bag a few weeks earlier and has since had spot welded to his hip using it for both comfort (e.g. sleeping and reading with) and defense (e.g. rapidly windmilling it's long frame over his head to keep marauding ticklers at bay). a few moments after alex's report, a sour-faced anthony appeared with our kitchen scissors in one hand and orange-a-tang in the other. i asked bookpimp to hold on a moment while i looked in on the damage, which was not that great. i took the stuffed animal and scissors from anthony and carefully cut the small clump of gum-matted fur off the monkey's back. as i handed the limp primate back to anthony, anthony asked:

ANTHONY
will it grow back?

TROY
will what grow back?

ANTHONY
his hair.

TROY
oh. uh. i don't think so bud.

with this anthony turned and left the room, orange-a-tang pinned under his arm. lifting the phone receiver back to my ear, i then told bookpimp, who overheard the conversation, he just witnessed another piece of evidence supporting the fact that we, marty and i that is, may not need to bother saving for college. i have such examples from each of my children thus making me occasionally refer to their college fund as my mountain house account.

were marty sitting in on this conversation, she would be quick to tell you that given the accounts present state my mountain home may more resemble more of a suburban duplex outside of tempe AZ.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. a phase

marty was called out in something called the water bucket challenge. when this happens you have 24 hours to either have a bucket of ice water dumped on you or pay $100 (i think).

when marty told the kids about it, they each had a different reaction.

BELLA
oh! who are you going to challenge next. you can call out three people.

ALEX
do you have a hundred dollars to pay them? you should pay them.

ANTHONY
can i do it? ("it" being have water poured on him)

marty then added that that pretty cleanly summarized the personalities of her three children.

on the drive up to nebraska for the ms150 bike ride, the single comment i remember more than any other was, "dad. i think it might be time for a new car."

i blame the thirty degree temperature drop we experienced between our start and end point. well that and the fact that my car doesn't have air conditioning OR heat at the moment which meant early on we had to roll the windows down and c...

on paper, gap-toothed children should not be appealing but there is just something about small toothless humans that is crazily adorable. as my youngest starts passing through these milestones, i find myself quietly sentimental for the parts of this life experience i will never inhabit again. this emotion begins revealing the fervent pressure many newly married couples get from their parents to ma ...

for those wondering about the back story with the last gallery posting, it is this.

it was the day of bella's annual save the children carnival, her third. she did her recruiting. she completed her planning. she hung her flyers. on the morning of, when we pulled into the lot where the carnival happens, there were three large construction dumpsters on the blacktop of her space, consuming more than a third of the lot and blocking the spaces reserved for half of her booths. upon seeing this i turned to her. her unblinking face was frozen in disbelief at what she was seeing. then, her face began to soften. it continued to sag until tears were seconds away. i put my hand on her knee and said it would be ok. we still had lots of space and would adjust. predictably, she said space or not it was still ruined with these giant, ugly things right in the space. her sound logic continued as she quickly adding strong observations like "who wants their children playing on a construction site" or "they're taking all the shady spots".

after stopping the car, we walked to the dumpsters to see what was in them. after climbing up and peering over the edge we were greeted by this (see photo). the carnival was on the day before father's day and that cardboard box was front and center. i nudged bella with my elbow, pointed at the box and said, "you're all good. grandma nyla has your back."

i could see bella, still rather flummoxed at the luck, dismissed my comment. as we hopped down from the dumpsters i stopped her and said: i don't know if she ever believed me or not but things did go just fine.

you may not believe me either. if so, how many people have you met in your life named nyla?

in watching anthony get dressed, i don't think there is space for less possible contemplation.

his dresser drawers are labeled with the different sorts of clothing (e.g. shorts, pants, short-sleeve shirts, long-sleeve shirts, etc).

after asking if it will be a hot or cold day, he goes and pulls the relevant drawers open and pulls out whatever is next in the stack.

and the indifference doesn't stop there. in addition to not caring what is on top of the pile, once it gets unfolded and pulled onto his frame, he is equally unconcerned if the garment lands inside-out, backwards or both. if upside down was a possible option, i'm certain, upside-down would happen from time to time.

of the variety of possibilities, backwards pants look the funniest. especially when they are unzipped. and raising an open zipper on a pair of worn-backwards pants, is the only scenario that gives anthony enought trouble to ask for help on.

and if you're wondering what anthony says to the litany of children (and adults) at school who comment on his clothes, he just shrugs his shoulders as if someone said there might be rain later today.

i once heard a elderly, sage woman say, the best fashion statement is having a fit and trim body. if you subscribe to that theory, then you will find anthony to be a great example of that maxim as he always looks like a million bucks regardless of how his clothes might be draped on his frame.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. left field

i'm a not-broke-don't-touch-it kinda guy. as such dearmitt.com has been quietly existing on the same server for the last fourteen years. in case you haven't been watching, a thing or two has changed internet-wise since 2000 so i thought it might be time for an upgrade.

in addition to running on shiny, new hardware (which if the move went well, you shouldn't notice at all) there have been two changes, both modest enough.

first, you can now travel back ten years in time using the MonoRail Archive Viewer (which lives just below the the latest posting). the archive viewer used to only offer 7 years worth of memories but can now proffer you an additional three.

the second and surely more meaty of the two features is the site now offers a proper, meaningful SEARCH function. for reasons i cannot explain, google's cataloging of my content was ridiculously terrible (they thought i mentioned circumcision twice). given their reputation and record for success i'm sure the problem resides somewhere on my end but i'm too busy talking about circumcision and hating on walgreens to figure out our marital disconnect so instead wrote my own search engine. there's a link on the right-hand side of the monorail page ( WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR > > >) that will take you there.

there is a nifty feature on the search page i think some of you might enjoy. you will find two buttons below the search box. one that says "SEARCH ALL dearmitt.com content" and the other which says "view all updates from the LAST 30 DAYS". the SEARCH ALL option will, obviously, scour all the main nooks and crannies of the site: the monorail, the main gallery, the troyscripts, the family gallery, the reading section. a few of the galleries and sub-pages are not yet part of the main search. this may get fixed down the line but there's a reasonable chance it might not get fixed down the line. it kinda depends how many circumcision debates i get into in the years ahead.

the second button, or the LAST 30 DAYS button, might be a good fit for folks who swing by every few weeks as it will nicely lay all of the content, no matter what section of the site it got posted to, before you in a clean orderly line. additionally for your convenience, you can bookmark right to that page using this link.

i hope you enjoy the new digs.

i get an irrational and unexplainable amount of satisfaction in seeing one of my children lost in a book.

if you're wondering if i experience this bliss when i see other people's children read, the answer is no. when i see children reading who are not mine i think, "well at least they're being quiet". ...