Monday, September 26, 2011

Top 10 Stupidest Sounding NYC High Schools

We've started looking at high schools for Samuel. Here are ten that he hopefully won't be attending:

10. Flushing High (Queens)


9. Automotive High (Brooklyn)


8. Banana Kelly High (Bronx)


7. Food and Finance High (Manhattan)


6. Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High (Bronx)


5. ACORN Community High (Brooklyn)


4. High School for Violin and Dance (Bronx)


3. Urban Action Academy (Brooklyn)


2. Peace and Diversity Academy (Bronx)


1. Bread and Roses High (Manhattan)


Bonus: CSI High (Staten Island)

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Happy birthday, Jim Henson


Jim Henson has always been near the top of my Most Admired list. I loved his unbounded creativity and penchant for visual punchlines.

In celebration of his birthday, here are a few others from my list...

Dr. Seuss: And what happened then...? Well...in Who-ville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day!


Steven Spielberg: Redefined the action movie genre. Humanitarian. Seven kids. How cool is that?


William Wegman: Dressing up dogs in funny costumes! How cool is that??


Anne Geddes: ...enough said.


Carl Sagan: Billions and billions. He made science cool. Or me nerdy, not sure which.


Woody Allen: When I imagine the perfect gig, it involves writing and directing a new movie every year for 40 years.


Paul McCartney: Or writing a classic song every month for 50 years.


Everyone who has made the world a better place by virtue of the love they give, the laughter they incite, or the people that they inspire.


Who do you admire?

Monday, September 19, 2011

Surrogate Mom Is Left With Twins When Couple Changes Their Minds


Apparently a couple that had contracted with a surrogate mom decided 27 weeks into it that they didn't want the babies after all.

Why am I never around when stuff like this happens?

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Wisconsin


Just got back from a weekend in Madison, Wisconsin. I was making some instructional wrestling videos with my favorite ex-teammate Barry, celebrating his 50th birthday, and watching his daughter run a great high school cross-country race. Heck, I even went to church this morning, and lightning didn't strike me.

I hadn't been on a wrestling mat in 20 years, so I'm a little sore. The bad news: Barry politely suggested that I not wear my circa-1990 wrestling shoes. I guess it would be like an old football player walking onto the field with a leather helmet. The good news: he said I could probably sell them on eBay for $100.

Here's to good friends, fond memories, and all the really important things we didn't have in our lives 20 years ago.


Sunday, September 11, 2011


I am proud to be raising my children in a city that symbolizes America.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Ethanism


"What would you do if you were a dentist and you found out halfway through the exam that the guy was wearing false teeth?"

Monday, September 5, 2011

The end of summer


Ethan: Summer doesn't last long enough.

Todd: Yeah, I know. But is it better to be sad knowing that it ends every year or happy knowing that it's going to come again every year?

Ethan: I think sad. You have to go to school for nine months just for three months of summer.

Todd: What do you think it should be?

Ethan: Maybe twelve months of summer, and school the rest of the time.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Real, live, actual camping


In summer as in life, we never quite manage to check everything off the bucket list, but I'm happy to report that Ethan got his wish to go camping.

We went to the Delaware River Family Campground, located on the New Jersey/Pennsylvania border. It's a Mom-and-Pop-owned throwback to the '50s, with a camp store, swimming pool, and cinder-block restroom building with hot showers and plywood stall doors.

We own no camping equipment, so we stopped at Wal-Mart on the way and picked up the cheapest tent we could find--which turned out to be two 2-person tents for $20 each. We only had two sleeping bags, so we bought two more. Jen insisted on buying an inflatable mattress, which is in violation of international camping rules, but we allowed it anyway.

Everyone else at the campground had behemoth-sized tents. Some had an extra tent just to cover their picnic table and food. One group had set up a big-screen TV.


We looked like Camp Barbie with our two teeny tents.


We swam at the pool, played in the game room, then went to the camp store and got corn dogs, soda, bottled water, firewood, a firestarter brick, marshmallows, marshmallow roasting sticks, extra bottled water, Jiffy-Pop popcorn, a long handle with which to hold the Jiffy-Pop over the fire, and one more extra bottle of water, to make absolutely sure we wouldn't die of thirst before the camp store re-opened at 8am.



Jennifer and Ethan fell asleep at 10:30 and slept like rocks all night. Samuel and I both looked out of our tents at each other at midnight, confessed we couldn't sleep, and hung out by the embers of the fire for another hour. Samuel eventually slept in the car, and I crawled into Ethan's tent for fear that he would otherwise wake at 3 in the morning and find Samuel missing and freak out.

My back and neck are killing me. But I was pleased to see Ethan so happy--singing by the campfire, toasting marshmallow after marshmallow.