iPhone Fan

Well I guess now they can say "too hot ? " there's app for that !

Finger savers on these cold morning rides

I can not recommend these gloves highly enough. They are light, warm and water resistant. I got them off E-bay for $20.00. Money well spent. Especially as I can keep riding through winter !

Scooters

Of course that's what he would do just to rub my nose in the fact I can't even ride one. That'll learn me for buying stuff in pairs from Grays online. The idea was I would scooter with him to and from choir practice . I fell off and destroyed a new pair of jeans the first time I rode the thing. Think I'll get a Myki card.

I love Lego,

You really are only limited by your imagination. This is ultra cool: http://bit.ly/ltc9ix .

Not a single person flinched

We eat dinner together as a family,  it's an important time for us, we all eat at the dining room table, the TV is off and we focus solely on ourselves and our accomplishments for the day. Everyone gets their turn and often stories are acted out , hilariously I might add. Serious stuff is discussed as well and as much as I think we are trying to  teach the boys about the world , I'm learning just as much from them.

I remember one dinner not so long ago that will always stick in my mind.


It had been a long day , we'd completed basketball training, choir practice, another long day of work etc. We were finally able to sit down together as a family and focus on ourselves over another superb dinner created by the human dynamo wife , affectionately known as Squeaks (that's a another story ).

Everyone was chatting away, when the oldest son says "oh wow " put his fingers in his mouth and promptly slams down a tooth with a piece of meat (almost like a tail) attached to it right in the middle of all the food and plates. Everything went silent. 


NOT a single person flinched. Which is in itself interesting as the wife is quite uncomfortable around blood.


I froze. All eyes were on the bloodied tooth.

He went and fetched a tissue and he continues on talking with the tissue shoved in the hole where the tooth was to stop the bleeding. The conversation kept going, there were plenty of dentist jokes bandied around , dinner finished and eventually we drifted off to our after dinner / pre bed tasks. Another family dinner completed that would always be remembered.

That day I realised two things :

1) We are a hardcore family

2) That the ritual of dinner we have established is entrenched and nothing can disrupt it.


I cherish these times and I know that eventually my two little guys will grow up and have their own families and I am going to to remind them of the importance of eating together at dinner and I hope they have just as much fun as I do.

Weekly Podcast wrap up

As I walk or run to work I listen to podcasts to catch up on what's happening in the world and try as best I can to keep up with the ever changing world around us.

I do NOT listen to anything when I ride, as with the headphones on I can't hear cars or anything else I should be avoiding and it tends to distract me plus I've seen to many accidents and near misses by cyclists to risk it. If you can't hear it coming up behind you it may just run you down !

Well its time to wrap this weeks podcasts.This week I tuned in to :

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/podcast
http://www.economist.com/digital/apps
Freakonomics http://bit.ly/iQiFwA
http://science.howstuffworks.com/stuff-you-should-know-podcast.htm

Some good listening and some real heart break on this American Life about infidelity and the effects on all those around .

That's it, and as my good friend Justin always says "stay upright "

Video games for all

I am not going to lie, I love playing video games. In fact according to the numbers from The Australian Bureau of Statistics,  35% of gamers are parents, so I am not alone. It's not easy with two boys under 12 in the house as the games I play are definitely not kid friendly and are rated MA15+ the highest current rating in Australia. So how do you incorporate the two things together? Well we are trialling some of the games that I would not normally play but are friendly to the growing minds constantly present, whilst still being fun. I know people will argue that they are just games and they are no different to cartoons but I say they are, as a cartoon has no interaction with the child, they just sit and receive the information / message and move on. The video games require constant input and decisions to be made. So we made a short list and then debated which games to buy. The criteria was that everyone could play the games and that they weren't 1st person shooters (wife gets motion sick and they are mostly inappropriate anyway )

So here is the list of games we settled on :

Game                                          Console                             Via                               Price
Lego Star Wars 3                          PC                                Steam                         USD39.95
Minecraft                                        PC                               Minecraft                      E14.95
Plants vs Zombies                            PC                                Steam                          USD9.95
Lego Indiana Jones                     Wii                                EB Games                 AUD39.95


I'll  monitor usage and publish the results later on.

Oh and we also have placed limits on how long each game can be played for (lets see how that goes !)

Does this apply to Australia ?

I was reading the Freakonomics blog http://bit.ly/kniYko this morning about owning a home  vs. renting and got to wondering whether it applied to Australia.  I found there is a lot published about this topic and it's certainly igniting debate.It was covered by Crikey and the maths was hotly debated. I have a mortgage , that's just what I thought you did when you were old enough and could afford it. But now I think that if I had the chance over  again I might not. Not because I don't believe in owning property but that perhaps I could do better with the money. Who knows , hindsight sure is a wonderful thing.

Golf is a great way to practise maintaining patience in all situations

No matter where the ball lands or how many times you swing at it, maintaining your cool will result in the younger members learning resilience through your composure. What that's the idea anyway........

I don't even.......

Me - "Hey Chris (oldest son) , do you want to kick the footy in the park ?"
Son "Nah, you kick like a pony"