SparkDad

Morning Blues

If only kids came with an instruction manual like the Silverado. This is a photo of Stickman and Porkchop in the morning. The bed head is standard fair for the morning, along with the whiney attitudes.

Now to be fair, Stickman gets going and handles his duties in the morning easily. Porkchop on the other hand, presses my buttons every morning.

So to combat the whining without yelling or bringing out the 3’ paddle, I started video taping the fits. Now do not get your hopes up, I will NEVER post any of these videos. I told Porkchop that I would be recording his little whine-fits and then we would review the tape, just like in football. Problem 98% solved.  Occasionally he will act up and I mention the video tape and he will stop. You just have to love technology.

Good Food

I get a lot of complaints from Mama that I do not cook healthy enough or with a wide enough range of foods. So I have started cooking some foods that are different.  This is a recipe that I made up one afternoon. It was a great light sandwich and the kids loved it!

iPod + Silverado = Awesome

When asked what my favorite feature of the Silverado is, I have to focus in on the awesome iPod jack. This is not just an iPod jack. When you plug your iPod into the jack it becomes fully integrated into the Silverado.

You can control every part of the iPod seamless from your steering wheel controls. Browsing through your playlists, artists, albums, genres or podcasts is super easy.

You can select individual songs or shuffle the entire iPod.  In addition the speakers are awesome! I have to admit that I pushed the limit on the audio system the other day while coming back from dropping off Porkchop. I cranked up Pillar – Bring me Down, rolled down the windows and enjoyed a great jam session. – Spark Dad

Last Sunday, Mama and I headed out to the Texan’s game. Now, you must know that I have never been to a Texan’s game where they actually won. In fact most of the time when I go they get their butt’s handed to them. So from what I can tell I am bad "juju” for the Texan’s. All of you Texan’s fans can send me $10 per week to not attend the games and insure a win. : )

So in support of my “juju” theory, the Texan’s lost 34-10.

Even though they lost, it was still a lot of fun. Mama and I went to church and then headed to the game. We stopped and grabbed some beverages for the cooler on the way so that we could enjoy a cool drink.  We drove up in the Silverado and got a great parking spot but unfortunately all of the tailgaters were in a different lot!

We worked on video of the truck for a little bit and then headed into the game. We got to our seats at the end of the 1st quarter and it was 14-0. Not good : (

If you look closely at the right side of this picture you can see why they lost! Fumbles, no offensive line, failure to show up and bad “juju”.

Lets hope that this week the Texan’s fair better. I am NOT going to the game, so they should win. See the video that Mama and I made here.

In other news, Pork Chop’s team tied their game last Saturday. It might as well have been a loss. They were ahead two touchdowns at the half and simply gave up, like the Texan’s, in the last half.  During the game one of the opponent’s boys broke his leg! His femur of all things. Which has Mama and I scared. We have decided not to let him play next year because of the risk of injury and most importantly head injuries. Any thoughts on young kids playing tackle football?

Stickman played soccer game on Saturday and he was phenomenal! He scored two goals and is having great fun! Some of the other parents tell me that he is “fun” to watch! I love to see him having so much fun!

Stickman’s team, the Tigers, were winning 6-0 at the half. His coach set them down and told them that the other team was trying very hard and that with this lead is was a good time to practice passing. He did not tell them to quit or to lose, but to be good sportsmen. I respect his coach more and more every day.

More soon!

- Spark Dad

When you think of summer, you think of kids out of school running around playing with other neighborhood kids. Here in the Houston area those thoughts have to fast forward to fall. The weather in Houston has finally cooled. Now don’t get misunderstand me, during the day it is still hot. But in the evening and mornings it is under 80 degrees and on our street the kids are out in full force.

There are about 10 kids in elementary school on our street and here are a few of the boys in the back of the Silverado. Yes they look a little intimidating but I promise none of them, despite the bloody Halloween knife, are Dexter.    

Speaking of Halloween were are prepping for our 6th annual party! Last year we had about 60 – 70 guests all in costume. We have a great time, good fun for the entire family!

This week I have been working on the graveyard for our front lawn. I built it once and tore it down because Mama had a different vision : ) The final product was worth the extra effort. 

The wood is left over from Hurricane Ike. We saved some of it for building Halloween props. Our entire fence was destroyed in that nasty hurricane, but it went to good use on this project.

We cut the wood up and pounded them in to the ground. Then we layered  more and made an awesome arch. There is some new wood in the arch for stability, but everything else is recycled from Hurricane Ike.  My wife went to Home Depot in the Silverado to get the new wood and other necessary supplies. She loves to drive the truck, except when parking, because it gives here a clear view of the road. Much different than the Nissan Altima that she drives that hugs the ground.

If you look hard you will see our Graveyard Man, as the kids call him, sitting in a chair in the back close to the house. We will begin decorating inside the house in the next few day. We do a lot of decorating inside as well.  There will be giant spiders and rooms with entire room scenes such as a a haunted house and mad scientist laboratory.

My wife is dreaming up all sorts of fun games for the party as we speak. She has a “pin the tail” on the pumpkin game and of course the Mummy Wrap.

I am off now to go to make an appearance with Great Day Houston on behalf of our Local Houston Chevy Dealers!

See ya! – Spark Dad

Tuesday night was football night. In addition it was Soccer night. On top of that it was a late night for Mama at work.  So the question is how do I duplicate myself to get to two practices at the same time?

Mama arranged for Stickman to ride with one of his team mates on the soccer team.  We had never been to their house so I finally had an opportunity to use the navigation portion of OnStar.

Now being a man, I would not really “need” the navigation piece. I do not follow directions nor look at maps and would absolutely not want a woman ( OnStar’s voice is a pleasant sounding woman) to tell me where to go…

I am of course kidding! With the address in hand I quickly pressed the OnStar button on the rear view mirror and waited. The OnStar representative was on the phone very quickly offering assistance. She looked up the address for me and sent the directions to my truck.

I am not unfamiliar with navigation as I use it all of the time on my Android phone, but OnStar is nice because their is no map to look at, making it a very safe way to get from point A to point B.  We arrived at the teammates house and then we were off to football!

Pork Chop , shown above, plays tackle football for the Pearland Patriots. He plays on the five and six year old team. I know that you are remembering the news story last week, but his team was not the group that got into the melee. In fact his coaches are some of the most professional and dedicated coaches that I have ever seen in youth sports.

While he was at practice I slipped away to the Silverado so that I could check out all of the interior. I had not really spent any time just looking around in the truck since we camped he first weekend.

The first thing I noticed was the very nice center console. There is a lot of storage room in it. It has a place to store pens on the side, several compartments in the inside to store paperwork, wallets and as you can see here my camping knife.  Under the top console is a larger one that is big enough to hold a small to medium sized purse and maybe even a small laptop such as a netbook.

After I checked out everything that opened and closed I moved on to the awesome radio. I like to listen to a variety of music and news stations.  Some of the great stations that are on the dial are Bloomberg Radio, CNN and Fox News. Of course there was almost every sport as well including MLB, NBA, NHL and a station dedicated to the various college division.

My favorite right now is 90’s on 9. I graduated from high school in 1991 so this is right up my alley.  I have used XM Radio before and it is very nice on long road trips. We often drive 10 hours up to Northwest Texas and I spend a lot of time hunting for radio stations. This solves the problem.

Well I am feeling very bad today so I am going to end this post!

- Spark Dad

* This month I am a part of the Chevy Weekend Warriors team hosted by the Local Houston Area Chevy Dealers. As a Weekend Warrior I am provided a Chevrolet Silverado to drive, gift cards to subsidize gas usage, gift cards to various stores such as Academy to complete missions to highlight vehicle features and my blog is highlighted on www.gottalovechevyhouston.com. All of my opinions are however my own and the Houston Area Chevy Dealers do not guide my posts. I will tell you when I do not like something on the vehicle.

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Yesterday while updating my plug-ins for WordPress, I noticed that the WordPress theme that I use had an update. So of course I updated it.

Today I notice that the Spark Dad logo is gone! Then I notice that there is abnormal space in all of my previous posts! Yack!

Let me tell you I am angry : (

On another note , I was informed by my eldest son that the nickname Skeeter is no longer acceptable and that he would prefer Stickman. Therefore I will no longer refer to him as Skeeter. They do not read the gay blog but they do know what I call them on the blog.

See Ya!

- Spark Dad