SparkDad

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

As some of you might have heard I am lucky enough to be one of Chevy’s Weekend Warriors! I get the privilege of driving a 2011 Chevrolet Silverado Texas Edition for the next 40 days.

I picked up the truck from one of Houston’s Area Chevy dealers on Friday morning. The truck is very big! It dwarfs my little Nissan Pathfinder!

The one that I picked up has very nice 20” wheels and a clean white paint job. The interior is charcoal gray and well appointed.

It is extended cab which means that it has a back seat and “suicide” doors that open to the front of the vehicle.

The pick up day was perfect because we had a big Cub Scout camping trip planned for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Let me tell you I put the truck to the test on cargo capacity.

One of the other Chevy Weekend Warriors measured his truck in Garret Lengths and Garret Rolls ( you have to just watch the video ).

I have a ton of footage that I took over the weekend that I am working on in Microsoft Moviemaker. Chevy did not choose me for my steady hand or video skills. Actually I am not sure why they chose me! I am bald and old!

So far my favorite feature is the Bluetooth connectivity to the truck. With a few easy steps you can pair your cell phone to the truck, make and receive calls. The quality of the voice is very good! The truck is even smart. When a call is being received or placed, it mutes the radio for obvious reasons, but also it increases or decreases the temperature setting on the air conditioner to reduce air nose. How smart is that!

Be sure to check out the www.gottalovechevyhouston.com website, follow us on Twitter at @chevyhouston, #chevywarriors and on Facebook. At the website you can sign up to win numerous prizes in the sweepstakes!

I have already been receiving comments like “Nice truck!”. I am now just waiting to be a part of the “Chevy Gives Blogger New Truck” headline : )

See Ya! – Spark Dad

I know that each of you remember that Christmas or school photo day where you looked like this! I know I do. This week was a momentous week at the Spark Dad household. Both Pork Chop and Skeeter lost a tooth this week and on the same day.

Skeeter had been wiggling his tooth all day in a frantic race to beat Pork Chop in losing his tooth.

So while Pork Chop and I were at football practice Mama pulled Skeeter’s tooth with the good old string around the tooth trick.

When Pork Chop and I returned we convinced him that pulling his tooth was a good idea and that he would get to enjoy some tooth fairy money. I pulled out the Flip Camera and began video taping thinking that it would be very cool. So we wrapped his tooth and Mama pulled the string. It tightened up and slipped up around the gum but did not pull the tooth! As you can guess by now the death shrill began and Pork Chop was in full tears! It was terrible. Off with the camera!

We began icing the tooth so that we could pull without as much pain but finally decided that Ora Gel was in order. I was off to the store. On the way back I got a call saying that the tooth was history. Uncle Dee bribed Pork Chop with five bucks if he left Mama pull the tooth.

So I would say that Pork Chop made out like a bandit!  – Spark Dad

                       Pork Chop                                                 Skeeter