The baby titans awoke at 4:00 this morning. They’re cute as hell when they wake up smiling, but I’d rather be sleeping…
In other news, I’ve almost caught up with my email backlog.
Category: Chillin’
First day of the new academic year (Thai/Buddhist Year 2553)
Babies woke up at 3:30AM and are just now going back to sleep, as we head out for work. Not fair.
On the positive tip, we found a new nanny in less than 48 hours being back, and that’s a goddamn huge accomplishment. It also may allow us to get more than a couple hours sleep every day from now on. Yay.
We are home.
We made it back home safely, and I recommend that every parent try a 20-30 hour journey by planes just for kicks.
Our trip was extended by nearly a week when Mina caught roseola or something similar that left her dotted for a while; Korean Air extended our tickets for free and we took the opportunity to visit Mika and Adam up in Monterey/Pacific Grove/Seaside. Details will probably follow in some fashion.
To everybody – family, friends, and even random strangers – who made our trip possible and enjoyable, thank you. It meant a lot to be able to expose the kids to all of you and yours.
//
Meanwhile, my Crown lies immobile in the driveway, battery dead (even though I disconnected it before we left).
Our Cefiro is apparently finished at the body shop, and we’ll go check it out today. Speaking of which, I’m up at six in the morning because Max stayed up all night planting plastic animals in strategic spots where I will step on them later.
Need sleep.
Will report back soon.
Play it faster, play it faster!!
Talking to my dad’s older sister today, I learned something very important. My father has the only western name (as opposed to Japanese) among all his siblings because his oldest sister named him after a popular actor at the time, Dave O’Brien (real name David Poole Fronabarger). The other thing of great importance is that Dave O’Brien had a memorable role in Reefer Madness.
That is all.
Yub Nub – Pwning interspecies relations since 1983
You need to watch this video for your life to be complete. Really.
Via my bro.
BONUS: A subtitled barbershop quartet rendition, if you’re into that sort of thing
UPDATE: If you’re nerd enough to have come this far, you deserve a top shelf link: Total Recall: The Musical
A quick note about the Garmin nüvi 1450t
I bought one today for navigating around my home country… Took it home from Walmart and thought it was broken because it wouldn’t sync with the satellites. Eventually decided to look it up online and one Amazon reviewer said that it took quite a while to acquire a satellite signal upon first use – so I took it outside, restarted, and let it sit on a plastic table for a while. Almost ten minutes later, it was good to go.
It’s funny, though, if I hadn’t read this review on Amazon, I would have thought it was defective for sure.
Band of Brothers it ain’t
Dear The Pacific,
I wanted to love you, I really did.
But you disappoint weekly.
Sincerely,
J
J
A respite from hot season
Yesterday was positively cold and today was as pleasant a day as it gets here; cool enough for long sleeves in the morning and warm enough for short sleeves in the afternoon. I don’t know what I did to earn this respite from what should be mind-shockingly hot days strung together into weeks into months into… but I’ll take it.
baby update via chat (i am sooo lazy edition)
me: whats up
M: yo you on skype?
me: nah, I’m at work
M: you suck!
me: next time we skype you’ll freak out though
M: i want to see the baby!!!!!!!!
me: mina can talk now
M: and the max!!!!!!!!
wtf
me: not with words but with cooing and gurgling
M: are you serious?
me: yeah she’s a trip
i just dropped off max at school
i just realized that we sent him to school a lot earlier than they do in the states
M: um YEAH
me: but there was nothing really that rushed about it
he was bored of being with us all day
i even stopped teaching extra classes to be with him all the time
but it had the opposite effect
he’s not even very outgoing; he just needs different stimulation all the time
M: i cant wait to take him to chuck e cheese
me: I’m going to enroll him in the preschool on my uni’s campus from april
he will be three minutes walk away from my office
M: that will be cool…you can go visit him on breaks
me: haha you’D never guess how disruptive parent visits are
they either cry because they miss you or becuase they don’t wnt you to go again
M: well, you can go spy on him then
me: yeah thats more like it
he’s picked up so many habits from his classmates tho
M: does he cuss?
me: now he talks nonstop when hes in the mood
M: bite?
hahah
me: no he doesnt cuss yet and i’m trying to watch my mouth around hm
M: good luck with that
me: he doesn’t bite anymore but he has power in his slaps now
M: i wish they were here sooooooo bad
me: thats what they do all day i guess is slap each other and take away toys from each other and stuff
M: yeah, sounds like little kids
me: the thing is, nam won’t spank him very hard so he thinks its a game when she says no and tries to punish him
its kinda funny… she slaps his hand or something and he gets this crazed look in his eyes like IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?
M: damn dude
and then you have to step in?
are you good cop or bad cop?
me: and then i have to spank him or talk to him in an angry voice and he melts and wants mommy and the tears start flowing…
me and nam?
what do you think?
the thing is, good cop bad cop doesn’t really work with kids that well in the long run
M: yeah are you the good one or the bad
me: well with max im bad cop
for sure
maybe with mina it will be opposite
the thing is, good cop bad cop doesn’t work unless you use bad cop first… but with kids, the parent closest is the first to go, so set roles are impractical
M: true
i think you will be different with mina too
me: yeah nam is already kind of irritated when i hold her so much and whatnot
“she’ll expect to be held all the time” and whatnot
and actually, that already happened so… my bad, i guess
who knew i would be good at good cop
bad at good cop?
M: well shes
a cutie pie, i dont blame you
me: she gets so angry when you lay her down
she wants to sit up, but she can’t support herself sitting upright yet
M: she’s feisty i like it
me: i prop her up on the sofa and she slides down into a reclined position, clawing at the air furiously with all four limbs to upright herself,
M: awwwww