Once again, I’m late on my monthly review of a new piece of audio entertainment. It’s been one thing after another and excuse on top of excuse. While I was commuting home on the train today, I was listening to the subject album for the review and penning my thoughts down. Late again. Writing about what you like should not be this hard though. But it’s after a tough day of work where you are in meetings with the man, interrupted by needy co-workers, and had an overall bad day.

I hopped off the train and marched over to my ride in a hurry to get home and grab my bike in order to get a little riding in before the autumn monsoon hits the Seattle area for the next six months. I’ve been thinking about canceling my satellite radio account. I don’t spend enough time in the car to warrant the ridiculous amount of scrilla I pay for this service. However, on the drive home…..it hit me.

Glad I didn’t cancel it yet because I heard a song that changed it all for me. From beaten and bewildered to hopeful, optimistic and realistic.

It got me thinking and reflecting about a couple nights ago where I was short with the kids. I bring this baggage home from work and sometimes count the minutes until the loudness created by my offspring finally goes to bed. I don’t want to be that dad. I want to be the dad clutching every moment to that very last second and enjoying it until it’s gone. Eagerly awaiting that next moment with them. I am that dad.

It’s a feeling I felt brewing inside me. Value things more. But not just that, show that things are of value to you. A bad day, a bad week, a bad month doesn’t diminish the value of those things in your life. An epiphany of sorts, if you will.

I’m going to hold Son #2 just a little tighter and a little longer at bedtime. I’m going to make sure he’s at peace by rubbing his back to relax him. Then make sure when I lay him down in his bed he knows that his dad loves him.


I’m going to build that train set with Son #1 all over our bonus room, off the table, onto the windowsill, under the foosball table, and around the couch. Oh yeah, and we will play Lego Batman until his mother unplugs the Wii. He needs to know that he is the best.


And the running, jumping, sliding, and stomping on our refinished hardwoods? Well, maybe I can loosen up a bit and enjoy that those moments of destroying my house are finite. One day in the very near future, I’ll be boxing those kids up and helping them move in to their own houses. And believe me, I’ll be running and sliding on their hardwoods. You only live once.

The simplicity of holding my wife’s hand, a tender kiss, and a well timed honest compliment are the intricate fibers the weave a tight relationship that weathers those bad days. It’s not weak to be in love especially when her heart is shelter.


Everyday can’t be the best day but you got to let it go. I’m going to make a better effort to drop those bags of the day at the door. The kids are tough and push my buttons on routine frequency. But those moments of soulful bliss with them are worth it.

Those of you reading this entry and relating to the challenges of your day, you’re not alone. Listen to the song here on this blog’s playlist, take the lyrics to heart and hug those kids of yours, don’t let the mundane job make you light your break room on fire, forget that fifth period teacher sweating you for your homework or who you will take to the Homecoming dance, don’t worry about mowing the lawn today your grass is brown, so what if you’re car is broke down or needs service because it’s a piece of junk anyway, do what you can right now and don’t hesitate to make the day better.

Sometimes one small thing like a song can reboot your soul. Turn it up.

Anyone that knows me knows that I take my automotive obsessions quite seriously. Meticulous cleaning, detailing, and customization. I also have two young children who suffer from the inability to successfully navigate processed food products in to their mouths while partaking in vehicular transport. With the context laid, it’s no surprise that I wrestle with the awareness of one of our cars, which is the predominant mode of transportation for the kids, resembling a mobile processed food delivery device.

To be fair, the kids need to eat and more often than not you’re in motion to and from some nondescript retail or grocery store or soccer practice. Therefore, it’s easy to stop at the nearest cholesterol castle surrounded by a moat of saturated fat for a quick heartache happymeal. In a recent turn of events, Son #2 has been vehemently resisting crispy chicken in lieu of French fries. He’ll sort through the chicken and toss the undesirable fried poultry bits to the floor in a quest to uncover the golden potato treasures like a desperate archaeologist.

But Son #2 isn’t alone in his automotive inconsideration. Son #1, while he loves chicken with the crust and tots, he has a severe disregard for accuracy in consumption and even less for food stowage. And this entry is about him.


As with many things in life, you learn to fight the winnable battles unless you have a sadistic desire to constantly beat your skull against a brick wall. I’m learning that no matter how much I ‘suggest’ the need for cleanliness of the vehicle and the lack of the fried mystery meat product aroma and caffeinated brew stains, my meager voice goes unheard. As a matter of fact, my requests are creatively twisted into song or elaborate story by Son #1.

The other night after soccer practice, we needed to provide sustenance to the youth of the family and stopped at a ubiquitous comfort food capital for deep fried goodness. And as predictable as rain in Seattle, Son #2 removed the poultry products from his tray, tossed them to the floor, and went about ingesting his French fries. Likewise, Son #1, because he must dance while he eats, performed his best imitation of what a small tornado would look like inside of Carl’s Jr. if both were trapped in my wife’s backseat.

Knowing my aversion to food ‘tossage’ on floor mats, you can imagine my dismay in what was next. Eloquently and calmly, I explain to Son #1 that French fries do not belong on the floor of the car. In an equally eloquent and oh-so sincere response, I’m told that there are ‘only’ 30,000 French fries on the floor. And in fact, food objects such as French fries will make cars jump better. Son #1 continues to explain that the 30,000 fries will make my wife’s car jump 30,000 feet. A pretty bold claim, if you ask me. For the mathematically inclined, it seems there’s a linear relationship between the quantity of French fries residing on one’s floormats and the distance which that vehicle can be propelled through the air.

Son #1’s concept is fatally flawed in several areas. Let’s do some simple math here to dispel this claim:

One order of medium French fries at a leading fast food establishment is approximately 40 fries.

Therefore, 30,000 fries would equal 750 orders of fries (30,000/40 = 750).

Statistically, the average French fry is 4-inches in length. If we assume that each fry is on average 1/4-inches x 1/4-inches square, we find that the average volume of a single French fry is 1/4 cubic-inch 1/4*1/4*4 = 1/4).

So, the total volume of 750 orders of French fries with 40 fries per order is 7,500 cubic-inches (750*1/4*40 = 7,500).

This is 4.34 cubic-feet of French fries.

The average mid-sized sedan has approximately 100 cubic-feet of interior volume which is roughly a 60/40 split between front and rear areas. That means 40 cubic-feet of interior space is in the backseat.

Densely packed, the total quantity of fries would take up over 10% of the backseat volume. It’s safe to say that none of us would pack efficiently when it came to French fries. Therefore, we can safely say that this would be a loosely packed volume of 20%. No room for much else.

Despite being moderately intriguing to fill a mid sized car with fries, I find that this increased volume usage has nothing to do with the ability of a vehicle to propel itself into the air.

Let’s talk additional weight instead.

One medium order of fries weighs approximately 5.5 ounces. Taking our earlier calculation of 750 orders, we find that the total quantity of fried goodness weighs 4,125-oz which is about 258-lbs (750*5.5 = 4,125).

Automotive performance can be measure by many metrics. But when it comes to jumping a vehicle into the air, I can’t imagine one more important than the power-to-weight ratio.

The typical mid-sized sedan doesn’t possess a jaw-dropping power-to-weight ratio. I don’t think I can jump over Long Beach harbor in a Honda Accord. Already being at a power-to-weight disadvantage, adding an additional 258 pounds will only erode any slight performance the automobile had to begin with.

Let’s assume the average mid-sized car weighs 3,200-lbs. and has 250HP. That means the average mid-sized car has a power-to-weight ration of 0.08HP/lbs. (250/3,200 = 0.08). Not great.

Add 258-lbs. to that which is approximately 8% weight growth and you get a P/W ratio of 0.07HP/lbs. (250/(3200+258) = 0.07).

The lower the P/W ratio, the worse the performance. No mid-sized car is jumping farther with 8% weigh growth.

What about that distance of 30,000-feet?

30,000-feet is approximately 5.68-miles and I’m fairly certain that the record for jumping a car with even one fry is significantly shorter than this distance. In fact, Travis Pastrana set a world a year ago for jumping his Subaru 274-feet. Do I really need to do the math here?

I will. 30,000-feet is a 10,850% increase over a documented world record automobile jump.

While my theorems and attack at Son #1’s stunt credibility may not be thorough enough to win Nobel Prize for scientific discovery, I’m fairly certain based on applied mathematics here that 30,000 fried potato products would severely limit the airborne capabilities of a mid-sized passenger vehicle and it couldn’t jump 30,000-feet.

Deep-fried performance improvements: none. Stories: large. Fries: many. Got to love Son #1 for trying!

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. I think John Lennon said that. Succinct and straight forward in its synopsis of our adult lives. Lately, I’ve felt like I can’t keep up with life’s speed. I’m busy scribbling down my ‘to-dos’ on a Post-It note so that when I get home I can knock them out one by one and feel some sense of accomplishment when two or three more things to consider pop up before I can even get to my first item. The list constantly gets longer and time constantly gets shorter.

For the last 30 to 45 days, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of that time trying to craft some vague representation of a list of ‘must-dos’ before we moved in to our new house. I ran out of time, the month was ending, and we had to be out of our rented ghetto-cage known as an apartment. I think we all suffer from some form or degree of procrastination. So that being said, it’s a good thing that we all run short on time and are forced to make decisions and execute on our plans before time runs out. If not for time being in short supply, we’d all sit on our couches with our Starbuck’s lattes, make our lists of things we need to do before we get older, and never get to what we had laid out to accomplish. I hate Starbuck’s and its laziness fostering brewed products.

So if life is what happens while you’re busy making plans, then parents are the dam that slows the flowing waters of life letting you catch your breath. There’s no way that any of our plans could have been successfully executed in the last month if it weren’t for my parents. Through every bend, around every corner, and next to every speed bump, they’ve been there to support me and my wife in our decisions. I’m so thankful, grateful, and appreciative of everything my mom and dad have done to support this difficult decision of starting new our next chapter.

That being said, I’m not always the most vocal about my appreciation and blessings. I’m more apt to externalize how much I’m annoyed by an individual’s behavior, profess my philosophical ramblings, or pontificate the inabilities of Washington drivers to operate their automobiles on paved or unpaved roadways in rain or shine than I am to issue a thanks. Now this isn’t because I don’t care or a result of being unappreciative. It’s just that I’m inherently negative. Smile? Why? Just try to not piss me off, please.

Moving on. I really do appreciate the support of my friends and family I’ve received over the years. Friends came out of the woodwork to be there for me when I lost my brother. It’s funny, I felt back then like that was the worst possible place to be in my life. Emotionally, it probably was. However, from the logistical nightmare of being the head of a household yet inherently hobbled by your immaturity, planning to sell a home, move a family, live in temporary housing, find a new location to begin our next chapter, and settle in to our new home was a daunting activity to go through. Painstakingly making your best educated decision on relocation while trying to mitigate financial damage and emotional distress of your little boys and wife all while starting a new job stretch you to your personal limits. Because of that, you need help. You need others. You need family and friends. I’m very lucky to have unconditional support from my mom and dad during this rough phase of stress and starting again.

It’s been much harder than healing from grief. Maybe that’s an unfair comparison but cerebrally now I find the stakes of life being much higher. But the rewards are that much more gratifying as well. But in both cases, the real key in successfully righting the ship and navigating those unstable waters of emotion and ambiguity is having a lighthouse to guide your way home. My mom and dad have always been this. But it has been much more distinct these last few months.

Unconditional. An overused word used too frequently to describe relationships. But I couldn’t find any more appropriate word to succinctly to summarize it all. A natural born writer, I’m not. An emotional rat’s nest of incongruent thoughts, I do represent that. My parents have really come through recently supporting all of this.

Support of moving, taking care of the dogs while they routinely escaped the yard, missing car shows and swapmeets, painting dining room walls, installing overhead storage, pressure washing walls, babysitting, sweeping floors, taking our shit to the dump, smashing cardboard, remodeling and destroying a well, providing meals and a place to sleep when our apt was less than desirable or when we need to be at the new house early the next day, co-piloting during the actual move, and providing hope that this decision will work out.

And that’s the short list of contributions in an effort to keep my words per entry down. I’m lucky. Feel like I’ve had some bad luck and made some questionable decisions at times over the years, but their guidance and values have always allowed me to sail away from the wake of devastation. That’s the value of having a bright lighthouse.