Photo Finished

I write about my failures as a family portrait photographer on our recent trip West at DadCentric today. Here’s the start and one of my many bad photos to entice you. Cheers!

The poetic among us would find rich metaphoric comparisons between the taking of our yearly family portrait and my annual health checkup.

I kinda froze here: one is a figurative pain in my tuchus; the other is literally.

:: snap :: ... and exhaaaaale -- good.

Though a notoriously mediocre point-n-shooter, I undertook the job of family photographer this year because I now own a decent camera and we were going on a scenic week-long trip out West. The breathtaking, soul-enriching beauty of the Grand Canyon and such should surely override my technical ineptitude and my motley crew's many flaws, right?

Yeah. Right.

Continue reading at DadCentric >>

Go West, Uncool

If you only read my blog feed or Facebook page or blog title (ye of ultra-short attention span), you were probably under the impression that, as usual, I was home last week.

Sucker!

Those who follow my Twitter feed knew that The Uncools actually took a trip West to explore this beautiful and diverse land of ours, to create memories that will last a lifetime, and to show our children what makes America the best dang country in the world without true universal health care! (Take that Bahrain … wherever the heck you are.)

So, just where did we go?

A Girl and Her (First) Dog

While I wipe the still occasional snot stream from Murphy’s recovering nose before bathing him in medicated shampoo to ease the itching of his latest relapse of that bizarre autoimmune disease making him bald, my mind sometimes wanders back to the days when I owned an equally loveable dog who wasn’t quite so defective expensive needy in the health department.

So of late, I think of our first dog, Kiner.

We had Kiner, another yellow Lab, for about two years before his spoiled world of endless games of catch and pig ears was invaded by Li’l Diva’s arrival. One of the most frequently asked questions My Love and I would get about bringing up baby was not about diaper cream (Dr. Smith's), projectile vomiting (only once ... at a place of former employment – ha!) or strained peas (eeewww). It was:

Tips for the Boy Appreciated

Excitable, formerly known as Thing 2 to you old-school “Uncool” types, hits double digits in a month.

The big 1-0.

Dear Lord, I’m frickin’ OLD!

But this is not about me. It’s about him.

On his 6th birthday, I offered him a mess of life lessons on this blog. Hence, four years later, I’m tapped out. Drained. Spent. Pffffffft.

Here and at DadCentric yesterday, I asked readers to give my boy some advice for his 10th year on Earth and (cue cavernous echo effect) BEEEEE-YOOOOOoooond.

So pass on your words of wisdom to the boy in the comments. He probably won’t heed them, but he doesn’t listen much to me either these days.

Go on. I dares ya!

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Some Dads Quietly Have It All. Thanks.

This DadCentric piece I wrote last week is especially appropriate because it is the day before the tax filing deadline. I’m sure my dad will be franticly cranking out his clients’ returns late into tonight and tomorrow night. – Un.

I once worked with a person who claimed to be an action hero -- SuperWoman, to be exact.

She wrote a newspaper column about social issues facing women balancing career, husband and kids. Many weeks, her writing boiled down to one point: only working mothers know the burden that comes with this attempt at, in her generation's words, "having it all."

I didn't wholly buy into her premise then when I was a single, childless guy in my 20s and I really don't now as a 40-something father of two. But I won't speak for my entire gender, as she purported to do. I will only speak from my experience. I will speak of my father.

Continue reading at DadCentric >>

The Fatherhood Trifecta

A recurring topic among us in the “dad blogger community” is our general lack of community.

Unlike the many, many moms of the blogosphere, we generally lack “tribes” and “support groups” and other generalized labels to put in “quotation marks.” We rarely rally together, quickly or intimately, for better or worse, in real life or the digital one, like our feminine counterparts in this parenting gig.

Some say it’s society. Some say it’s genetics. Being guys, most of us just say, “Whatever.”

David of It’s Not a Lecture wants to change that. He’s attempting to get at least one father in each of the 50 states (plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico because he’s the inclusive type) to write “a simple blog post” that describes three things they love about being a father under the Twitter/blog banner of #DadsLove.

The first post, which he wrote, went up Wednesday, and I have this to say: simple, my paper-thonged butt. Check out David’s little slices o’ wisdom.

So, fellow parenting dudes (and dudettes without whom we wouldn’t be here), I’m here to represent the little utility infielder of the Northeast – Connecticut.

Here goes:

Not Just for Happy Hour Anymore

I’m sorry this photo is so fuzzy … … but Li’l Diva only had time to down one eye-opener before she took it.

"Dance Moms" Lacks Dads: Thank Heaven or WTF?

Despite all the complaining we dads do about our being portrayed by the media and entertainment industries as inept or uninvolved, we really should be thankful.

After all, we could have our own reality show on the Lifetime network proving it.

Of late, my tweenage daughter Li’l Diva(formerly known to all you as Thing 1) has been subjecting me to DVR marathons of her two favorite shows: Toddlers and Tiaras and Dance Moms. We've had a few talks about the kid, in particular -- young girl, exploitation on both of these ratings winners and, despite that recent F in Spanish, my daughter is bright enough to recognize the ridiculousness and evil extremes shown on these shows. She has been sucked into the cartoonish over-the-top drama of all overbearing moronic adults (um, nearly all mothers -- just stating the facts) and nothing more, she says.

"So how do you think I would do if I was on Dance Moms," I asked, which is apropos because she has been taking dance for the past 7 years. For first several of them, I'd hang out with the estrogen set during lessons, mostly drinking coffee and reading the newspaper because they would never talk to me. Must have been my cooties.

"You wouldn't last," she said. "You get mad too easily. You'd be angry at the teacher and the other moms and you'd pull me out of there pretty fast."

So wise, my daughter. If only she'd rinse her plates and put them in the dishwasher, she'd be perfect.

Whenever I've watched Dance Moms with her, my reaction to said moms constantly bitchin' and moanin' about the dance teacher's constant bitchin' and moanin', the questionable taste in costumes and routines, the apparent favoritism, and the snarky backstabbing and sniping at each has been the same:

Continue reading this post at DadCentric >>

Take Me Out to the …

Forecast: Hangover and Heartaches Ahead

I plan to have a hangover tomorrow morning.

The type of hangover depends completely on how the Mets fare today — Opening Day of baseball season 2012.

If they win, it’ll be that giddy, just-fell-in-love kind of light-headedness.

If they lose, it’ll be your typical one of misery, regret and heartache. The kind we Mets fans are likely to become accustomed to game after game this year.

Sports prognosticators almost universally have picked my Mets to finish dead last in 2012. And not in an endearingly inept manner, as their inaugural team of has-beens and never-would-bes were 50 years ago under the guidance of the legendary Casey Stengel, who was known to nod off in the dugout. No – they are expected to land in the cellar with the loud, ugly thud of sub-mediocrity.

So, Ye Baseball Gods above, today we supporters of the Orange and Blue pray …

“I know you know that you're an April Fool”

My shenanigan for today is to offer you a refuge from the usual April 1 hijinks. Seriously.

Song/video: “April Fool,” Ronnie Lane

If you enjoyed the tune, there’s an excellent BBC documentary on the artist, the late Ronnie Lane (whose birthday is today, hence the song), available in six parts on YouTube called The Passing Show. Talented musician who had a long streak of bad luck, personally and professionally, but a poet’s soul and a minstrel’s heart.

I wanted to post a video of his most famous song with The Faces but frickin’ YouTube blocks the embedding, so instead here’s the link to “Ooh La La.”

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