Category: family

forget about the battle for president. don’t worry about whether bush or kerry will win. that political battle is meaningless. the real political campaign for the year finished yesterday. it was the race for president of the parkview baptist elementary school. i know this because adam, my oldest son, was one of the candidates. i was his graphic designer.:)

there were 10 kids running for president so adam wanted everything that he did to stand out. therefore, we decided to use allot of humor during his campaign. the funniest thing we could think of was defacing mount rushmore with adam’s face. we decided to replace thomas jefferson (after all what did jefferson ever do? the whole declaration of independence thing is over rated) so i cut out a picture of adam’s mug and placed it over jefferson’s face. now i know some of your budding andy warhols could do much better than i did. you could probably take adam’s face and make it match up perfectly with mount rushmore. yet, i felt pretty good with my attempt. after all for the elementary presidential race it was “top-notch”. i was sure his poster would win the campaign for him.

i was so sure of the win that i began to map out adam’s life for him. after all, the elementary school presidency is just the beginning. this election would start adam’s political career and soon i would have a representative, senator, and/or president for a son. one day i would be known as the father of the president of the united states. everyone knows that its the father of the president who determines how good of a president he is (that was clinton’s problem – his dad was missing in action). i was on my way because of my political son.

of course, we do live in louisiana so i should have expected the election to be crooked. i’m not sure how but i know that the whole thing was rigged. some girl won the election. those feminists ruined everything. they always do. everyone knew that adam’s posters were better. now i have to figure out another way to live vicariously through my kids.

this morning my wife, pam, and youngest child, noah, decided to challenge me to a game of “trouble.” they had been playing all morning and felt that they had the definite advantage within the game. they were cocky and prideful in they’re approach to playing me. “surely,” they thought “we have more skill in the game of “trouble” than robert does.” they exchanged knowing laughs as i approached the table. little did they know that i am the king of “trouble“. i rule that game.

i won’t go into the terrible details of the game. it is enough to say that i allowed them to get all their pieces out while i kept my at “home” and yet i still won. it was so bad that half-way through the game noah was reduced to tears and begged to be let out of the game. i relented and allowed him to surrender gracefully. pam on the other hand was a different story. even when it was obvious that i was going to win the game she still refused to acknowledge it. therefore, i had to trounce her into the floor. there is no family loyalty within the game of “trouble.” at least pam now knows who the king of “trouble“

today was the district pinewood derby championship for cub scouts. adam’s oscar meyer hot dog mobile placed second in his pack so we weren’t really expecting much. we had not taken care of the car very well between the pack meeting and the district meeting. adam had played with the car and it had been bounced around a fair amount. the only work we did on the vehicle was take one of those computer air cleaners and “blow out” the axles and re-graphite them before the race. i figured that was about as good as we could do. his first race came and the guy placing the cars on the track started smiling the second he saw adam’s weinner mobile. after he placed it on the track he had to call adam back up to him to make sure that the weinner wagon had been placed with the right side as the front of the automobile.

when the race started the dominance of the dog began. it zoomed past everyone in it’s first race. pam, adam, noah, and i were all so surprised we screamed. this is a big mistake at a cub scout race. everyone there is trying to look like it doesn’t matter to them, all the while they ae secretly sceaming to defeat all the other vehicles. the terrell family had such low expectations that the win caused us to forget our inhibitions and begin to loudly celebrate. after all we really figured this would be our only win, so we had to seize the moment. surely we had just been placed with all the bad cars and won by being the best of the worst.

nope, it turns out we were actually good. adam won the next four races and throughout those wins other people began screaming for the fast food racing down the derby track. it was really odd because adam started having other kids who had already raced or were waiting to race come up and tell him “i’m rooting for you.” the dog just kept on winning. it was like watching a sleek grey hound with mustard all over it streak down the track. it could not be stopped. before we knew it adam was in the final round and was set to race against the two other fastest cars in the district. the race was over 1/2 a second after it started. by then this piece of flying sausage had already taken the lead it would need to win. there was no contest. adam and the blazing frankfurter had won first prize in the district.

we were now excited because we had seen the other vehicles and we were convinced that adam’s hotdog would win either the “best design” or “judges’ favorite” categories. all the other cars looked like regular pine wood derby cars. nothing really interesting. it was going to be a double win for sure for the hotdog that we had expected nothing from. yet, it was not meant to be because apparently these judges really liked boring cars … maybe they were amish or something. they picked two other cars.

still it was a great day for packed meats.

btw, this entry makes the 100th entry in my blog. i would love to celebrate with you this wonderful moment. therefore, i am spinning around and dancing while i type this entry – actually spinning around and dancing then typing a little and then spinning around and dancing so more. please join me in this celebration by spinning around and dancing while you read this entry – or re-read it since this is the end of the entry.

i would have never have guessed it but apparently human genetics somehow fits into the world of stinging insects. the two people who regularly read this blog know that i have had a string of skirmishes with a certain member of the insect kingdom. i am proud to say that i ultimately became the victor in my battle with the yellow jakets of the world. they chased me away a few times but eventually i defeated their outpost hidden within my front yard. i figured the war was finished – after all i killed them.

apparently yellow jackets are members of some type of insect mafia and therefore they operate in devilish manners. since, i beat them they decided to go after members of my family. i guess they thought they would go after my oldest child first because adam was at the park the other day with some friends and was stung for the first time in his ten year old existence on this world. what was it that stung him? a yellow jacket.

it would appear that the war is raging once again after a bried lull and the yellow jackets are fighting dirty now. you don’t mess with a fellow’s family. now my battle is personal. i will rid the world of these insect instruments of evil and i will do it while inflicting as much pain on them as possible.

we just found out that adam’s hot dog pinewood derby car was so fast that it qualified for the district pinewood derby competition. this means that the hotdog will now be taking the banner of “pack 205” to another competition to display it’s agility and strength.

the view tonight wasn’t that great (it has to happen every now and then). i hate it when things don’t go great and so i’m moopping around a little. some people eat chocolate when they are down, others listen to music, but i have a better strategy. i watch “the outlaw josey wales” whenever i’m down in the dunps. there is just nothing like a good dose of clint eastwood to make things seem better.

today was pinewood derby day for the terrell household. noah went frst and his vehicle “hot wings” a hugely large pencil type car did decently. three years ago when i first tried pinewood derby cars with adam we were last with the car never actually making it across the finish line. this was noah’s first year and my goal was simply for noah’s vehicle cross the finish line on its own each time. it did! in fact it finish in third place all but one time. this was a great start for noah’s pinewood derby experience.

adam’s car was the story of the day. adam wanted his car to look like a hotdog. so that’s what we did, we made it look like a hot dog. it was quite funny to look at. it wasn’t like the oscar meyer wiener mobile which merely resembles a hotdog. adam’s car looked exactly like a hotdog. we figured that we would win the “judges’ favorite” award and just give up on doing anything speed-wise. of course, the fates had a different plan in mind. apparently GOD’s must perfect aerodynamic design is hotdog shaped. that can be the only explanation for you see adam’s hotdog car was a speed demon today. the first race was composed of three very sleek, speedy designs versus the demon dog of racing. everyone received a good laugh looking at the starting gate – car versus dog. when the dog was released it was a different story. the dog leaped from the gate with the speed of a greyhound.

go dog, go! (this is for all the dr. seuss fans in the house)

it was amazing to see a hotdog two lengths ahead of all the race car shaped vehicles. the crowd roared, adam’s face beamed, my dad the hotdog designer cheered, pam the painter stood slapping, and i the axle perfecter screamed in disbelief. we all thought this was a fluke until the second race where upon the speedy hotdog again humiliated the rest of the crowd. it raced 4 times and on the last race finally had a bad run, being beat for first by a very slim margin. when they calculated all the speeds it turned out that adam’s hotdog demon had the second fastest average speed – missing first place by 25 one thousandths of a second. it was truly fast food.

next year i believe we will again reject the fast looking race car designs. maybe we’ll have adam’s vehicle like a blazing hockey stick or speedy refrigerator.

friday through today have been days of vomit at the terrell household. friday keebler (the terrell family cat who thinks he is a dog) began to barf all over the place. cat vomit is not one of the more pleasant things in the world. in fact, the only thing worse than cat vomit is actually having the watch the cat throw up. when keebler throws up it involves his whole body. it’s like the puke begins at his tails and has to be forced horizontally towards his mouth. it’s very painful to watch and the overall sound of the cat gagging just makes the experience that much more painful. thankfully, i never saw him throw up.

what i did end up seeing was cat vomit all over the house. then keebler got to see me down on my hands and knees cleaning up the barf. the stupid cat has now cost us the price of s steam cleaner and a decent amount of elbow grease (it’s pam’s elbow grease that has been used but i still feel the pain of it).

after a weekend of cat puke i walked into the house this evening to see noah (my 7 year old) tossing his biscuits into a large pot. he had just finished a bag of cheetos which gave the vomit have a lovely tint of color. the poor fellow has thrown up one more time since earlier today. i don’t like it when my kids are sick (i’m not real thrilled when the cat gets sick but i really don’t like it when my kids are sick). of course, noah is thrilled because he knows that the puke will keep him from having to go to school tomorrow. i dread the day when he is old enough to stay home by himself and has learned how to fake being sick.

i took the boys and the potato cannon out for it’s initial trial run. this was the first time that my boys had experienced the joys of flying a spud over 350 feet. you should have seen their faces. there is just something about seeing a tuber travel through the air around 400 feet. when i told them what was going to happen you could see they’re disbeief. they were thinking “sure! i bet this potato is going to fly that far.” when i told them that the power for the experiment was going to come from a two second spray of hairspray their lack of faith in my common sense only increased. yet, all that changed when they pressed the ignition switch. when that potato flew my sons belief in me increased dramatically. they loved it and i had a blast introducing them to it.