When I was in school...

"How do you think the whole 'gym clothes' thing works?" my wife asked.

"Well, when I was in school," I said, "we just kept them in a locker and brought them home every Friday to be washed."

This will be the first year our daughter changes clothes for gym, and we were going over the school supply checklist one more time.

Why is it that my "when I was in school"comment seemed totally acceptable.  Of course I can use my experience and apply it to today's situation...but if my parents had used that kind of thinking 20 (30?) years ago, it would have been totally irrelevant.  How could their school experiences have any relationship at all to me in the 1980s?  Nonsense, I would have thought....things have changed too much since the olden days when my parents were in school.

Years are somehow getting shorter and shorter every year.

Gamer - Old School Style

My son is a gamer.  If it was up to him he'd be playing video games from the time he gets out of bed until the time he gets back in bed.  Oh wait...that is what he does.

Of course his games are much more advanced than what I had back in the day, but I can remember spending many an hour in my basement on the Commodore 64 playing games.  My all time favorite was MicroLeague Baseball.  Compared to today's sports video games it hardly qualifies as a sports game, but I loved it.

It was all about strategy and statistics and it was AWESOME.

I'm sure there were days my mom wondered if I would ever leave the basement.  

If I would ever go outside again.  

If I would ever do anything but play that game.  (much like I think those things about Andrew today.)

The best thing about MicroLeague baseball was when we bought the General Manager/Owner upgrade  disk that allowed us to build our own teams.
I proudly present to you the starting lineup of the Bay City Pumas:

• SS  Jake McKinnon (character from Another World - one of my teen years summer guilty pleasures)
• CF Mike Nesmith (or "Woolhat" as his teammates called him)
• 2B Mickey Dolenz (I still regret trading him to a friend's team....not even sure who I got in return...maybe Ed Asner.)
• 3B Nathan Tomlinson (of course batting clean up and playing third base - just like Mike Schmidt)
• 1B Rick Springfield (probably the first player I created)
• RF Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver
• LF  Tony Dow (sometimes I used the character names, sometimes I used the actors names)
• C Tony Schiavone (Shout out to my NWA wrestling fan days)

My pitching rotation was anchored by Hugh Beaumont (google him...you'll know him.  I'm pretty sure he is the winningest pitcher in MicroLeague Baseball History).

And with a bench filled with people like Bobby Brady, Hercule Poirot (They aren't all from TV, I did read too), Maxwell Smart, and Sam Drucker (you may need to google him too) I had the coolest team ever assembled.

More stories from Target

Thoughts from my weekend working at Target.  (maybe I should change the name of my blog to adventures with a Target employee....but that would mean admitting I've been there long enough to have lots of stories....my plan was just to work there for the 08-09 school year)

First of all, if you have not done your school supply shopping yet, what are you waiting for?  If you can't find any yellow folders, or red pens, it's not Target's fault.  They've had them out since early July! At this point, the selection is well picked over.

I don't claim to be a great parent.  If you've read this blog before, you'll know I regularly admit to being pretty clueless most of the time.  But I heard a couple things at Target over the weekend that makes me think there are others out there struggling with it just as much as I am.

6 year old girl to her mom, "I picked out a backback!"  Holds up a plain green backpack.
Mom to 6 year old daughter, "Are you sure you want that one?  All of your friends will have backpacks with designs on them."
Girl goes and picks out another one.
Mom says, "Not that one....how will you feel when all of the other kids have fancier backbacks than you?"

Really?  Wow.
Or  this one...again, it's a mom and her 6ish year old daughter.

Mom: "Pick out a new towel for your bathroom.  What ever you want."
Girl grabs one and hands it to mom.
Mom: "Not that one....it doesn't match the colors in the bathroom."
repeat
repeat
repeat
eventually....Mom:"Here, let's get this nice red and yellow striped one."

Not so much "what ever you want," was it.

I felt bad for those kids....but I feel bad for the parents too.
They're obviously just as clueless as I am.