The Uncool Dad

K1 has been planning on being a werewolf for Halloween since May.  He’s had his heart set on being the scariest kid out trick-or-treating.  We found a really cool costume that I thought could use minimal embellishment to make it super awesome.

It is the costume pictured here which included the head, hands, and ripped shirt.

About a week before Halloween we got a letter home from K1’s principal.  He asked that for the Halloween parade at school, all costumes be kept “tasteful” with no blood, gore, or weapons of any sort.  Many districts around here have canceled Halloween at school altogether so we figured this was a fair compromise to keep it in our school.

So the question of the week – was this costume tasteful?  There is no blood.  No gore.  No weapons except for the awesome looking teeth.

We debated whether the werewolf would be the “real Halloween costume” and we needed a second costume to wear to school.  A mummy?  A ninja (with no nun-chucks or throwing stars)? A super hero?

No decisions yet.

On Wednesday, we decided to do a dress rehearsal as I was very concerned that he wouldn’t be able to see very well though the mask.  He tried everything on and surprisingly he could see very well.  But went he looked at himself in the mirror he shrieked!  “Too scary!” he yelled.

By super-brave kindergartner was scared by his own costume.  So now what?

I grabbed my scissors and went to work on the mask.  My wife sat him down with some makeup.  And this was the result.  Kind of scary.  Extremely cute.  Tasteful.  And the best werewolf in town!

Tonight I took my 6yo son shopping for his Halloween costume.  Our first stop was The Halloween Store, which is temporarily occupying the Circuit City that used to be there.  I suspect that on November 1 it will become The Christmas Store.

The Halloween Store is set up in sections and as soon as you walk in, you are in the middle of costumes for women. It seems that women’s costumes are broken down into five categories:  slutty cheerleaders; slutty doctors/nurses; slutty teachers; slutty cops; and sluts.

It took some effort to get my son to leave this section but we made it to the kids section and looked through all the great monster costumes. He decided months ago that he wanted to bea werewolf and he found himself an excellent costume.  I tried my hardest to convince him to be Teen Wolf, complete with a Beavers basketball uniform, but he vetoed that and our werewolf has tattered jeans and a flannel shirt.

In order to make it to the cash register we had to walk through the girls costumes.  There were the standard Disney princesses and few girl superheroes which were pretty cool.  But I was shocked to also see a bunch of costumes for 10-year-olds that were … ummmm … slutty.

Red Riding Hood, witches, hippies, vampires, and angels.  Thigh high stockings, stilletos, miniskirts, and bare midriffs.  I picked one up to check that this was really for girls and indeed it said ages 10-14.  But I put it down quickly in case anyone thought I was a pervert. And I definitely wasn’t going to try and sneak a photo.

Seriously, what the hell?

I know my kid would love this on his wall.  Hell, I would love it on my wall. It is awesome.

For $45 you can get this from Etsy seller lildecalshoppe.

Product Features

* Made from 7 year high quality vinyl
* Measures 65 x 45 inches
* Available in many other colors. Please email color choice or black will be sent.

We use a durable high grade matte finish vinyl which gives a painted look and feel to your wall. Decals are self adhesive making them easy to apply and remove, leaving no residue behind. This material is specifically made for interior walls and will last a very long time indoors.

Each decal comes with easy to use instructions and the tool to install it.

I have no idea what 7 year vinyl is but I bet it’s a whole lot better than 5 year vinyl.

Like many of you, I make a run every morning to the local Starbucks for a giant cup of their java goodness.  Around here I have two options for coffee on the go – S-Bucks or the horrible liquid served by the Dunkin Donuts across the street.

A couple of weeks ago my barista was handing out samples of Starbucks VIA.  I had heard about this.  Starbucks is now making instants coffee.  I had two reactions before tasting it.  1 – Gross!  2 – Why?

Instant coffee sucks ass.  In my mind the only people that drink it are 55-year-old bachelors who drink it for breakfast with their scrapple and eggs.

But Starbucks tells me this isn’t your Uncle Frank’s instant coffee.  They call it Starbucks VIA Ready Brew.  “It’s microground,” says the girl in the green visor. “It’s really good.”

You know what?  It was really good.  I was hard pressed to tell the difference between the VIA and my regular coffee.  So I started thinking on the fly how these individual packets of coffee would come in handy.

The light really went off in my head when I was told it tastes just as good with COLD WATER!  Yes, you don’t have to have hot water – it tastes just as good cold.

Starbucks has already provided a lot of answers in their guide to VIA.  These include:

1. At work where there is no Starbucks coffee.
2. On a plane – just ask for hot water.
3. When you’re running late, grab a cold bottle of water and a packet for an instant ice coffee.
4. At the kids’ events.
5. Any time you only want to make a single cup instead of a whole pot.

VIA comes in a medium and an extra bold roast and is available and 3- and 12-packs.

Malcolm Gladwell currently has a piece in the New Yorker titled Offensive Play – How Different are Dogfighting and Football? It’s an excellent, yet disturbing article about football and brain injuries. One that has me questioning my future parental decisions.

I’m a football player.  No, I don’t currently play, but I did through high school and college.  I coached 14-16 year olds. And like many of you, I am a huge fan of the sport at all levels.

My six-year-old son is also a fan.  We spend Saturdays watching Penn State and Sundays cheering the Eagles.  Before reading this article, I had big dreams of watching him play for a 96-year-old Joe Paterno.

Gladwell describes several studies looking at the brains of football players, mostly linemen and linebackers.  In these studies, researchers found that the brains of football players looked a lot like the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.  They also frequently shared similar symptoms. Memory loss. Dimentia. Loss of cognition.  And this was not just of NFL players, but also of college players.

So what impact does this have on my kid’s football future?  What kind of father would I be if I allowed my son to take on this type of risk?

I have a few years to consider this and look further into the subject.  But for now, he can continue with t-ball and soccer.

I have a horrible memory.  Even when I try to be organized and responsibly record and save information, I forget where I keep it.  But that’s not the case with Evernote.

Evernote is an online application with an interface that can be downloaded.  It’s a note taking system on steroids.  It’s a second brain that you can used to remember everything.  Yes, everything.

First, Evernote allows you to store anything.  Jot down notes. Store photos. save clips from websites.  Save emails.  Create to do lists.

Everything you capture is automatically processed, indexed, and made searchable. If you like, you can add tags or organize notes into different notebooks.

Search for notes by keywords, titles, and tags. Evernote magically makes printed and handwritten text inside your images searchable, too.

There are so many uses for Evernote there is a FriendFeed group where users continue to share all the new ways they think of.  Some of these include:

1. Snap a photo of a business card with your phone, and have an easy way to store and access contacts.
2. Capture plane tickets and confirmation numbers, hotel invoices, and receipts for your expense reports.
3. Keep a file of anything cool you want to buy for yourself or as a gift, whether it’s online or out in the real world.
4. Keep notes from your meetings all in one place. Take a picture of a whiteboard and you’ll be able to find it later.
5. Plan your next trip. Clip web pages, maps, and itineraries. Capture sights, sounds, tastes, and anything else.
6. Research web sites and clip pages directly from your browser.
7. Keep a record of your favorite wines by snapping a photo of the label when you find one you like.
8. Remember the things you were supposed to remember. Create to-do lists, jot down random thoughts, leave a voice memo, and more.
9. Create notes right from Twitter and save tweets that you like.

Sign up for Evernote.

I’m not cool.  I’m uncool.

I went to a pretty rough high school where many of my classmates had cool parents.  I didn’t have cool parents.  None of my close friends had cool parents.

Cool parents let their kids and their friends drink at home.

Cool parents didn’t believe in curfews, or really any rules or limits on their kids.

Cool parents didn’t care of their kids experimented with drugs.

Cool parents refused to accept that their kid could be responsible for any wrongdoing.

Cool parents were fine with the C’s and D’s their kids got in school.

None of the kids I knew with cool parents went to college.  All of them live in the same small town.  Some had babies before finishing high school.  Some are alcoholics.  Some are drug addicts.  Some are in prison.

They are probably cool parents themselves.

Like I said, I’m not cool.

Several years ago I signed up for something called GrandCentral.com.  I worked at the office, at home, and also traveled a lot.  I needed a solution that would allow me to provide people with a single number and they could reach me wherever I was.  GrandCentral provided this plus a few more features.

After a while, GrandCentral stopped enhancing their product and they closed the service to any new users.  This caused some concern but the ability to have one common number was awesome.  Plus, there were rumors that they were going to be purchased by Google!

Well, Google did buy them.  And nothing happened.  For a while, anyway.

Then not so long ago, they rebranded the product as Google Voice and added a lot of new features and functionality.  Here is why you should try to get an account.

One phone number for everything.

When you join, you need to select a phone number.  When I started, I selected a Manhattan area code because I thought I’d be cooler.  When someone calls that number you tell Google Voice to send the call to any number of phone numbers – home, office, cell, whatever.  You can manually set this or schedule it so that it calls your office during the day and home during the evening.  You can even direct specific callers to certain phones.

Intelligent voice mail.

You can send specific callers straight to voicemail and take calls from others.  You can have callers say who they are and then Google Voice will call you to decide whether to take the call or not (but that’s obnoxious). And you can record personalized outgoing messages depending on who is calling.

Make free calls.

With Google Voice you can make free calls to the United States and Canada.

Get voicemail sent to your e-mail.

Google Voice transcribes all of your emails (sometimes they are far off, but I find that humorous) and they can be sent to you by email or text message.  These messages also contain links to the audio of each message.  There are also apps for the blackberry and iPhone that allow you to read these messages.

Have people call you without knowing your number

Do you have a blog or other website and you would like to speak to your readers or users?  Google Voice can provide you with a widget that you can embed on your site.  If users click on it and enter their phone number, Google Voice will call them and also call your number.

How do you get it?

Current Google Voice users are able to send invitations to their friends, much like how GMail was first circulated.  I currently have a single invitation left and can be convinced to send you one (hint: I’d love to get a Google Wave account).

If you don’t know anyone that currently has an account, you can go to google.com/voiceinvite and register for an account. You will be put on a waiting list and provided an invitation in time.