Father's Day is fast approaching.  Actually, much faster than I had originally thought.  I thought I still had another week left yet, but whadda ya know, it's THIS Sunday.  And if your dad is like MY dad, dad's are extremely difficult to shop for.  My dad started life as an auto mechanic, then became an aircraft mechanic for the major air carriers for decades, and is currently working his "retirement job" working on those really cool drone craft we hear about so much in the news.  So tools and tool related gadgets have always been a safe bet for him.  Over the years, however, he's accumulated every known tool and gadget known to mankind.  So, what the hell do you buy some tool/gadget geek that has everything?

Well, as a public service announcement, I have a couple of really cool gift ideas for you.  Just because that's the kind of guy I am and I'm tired of shirts and ties.  As an added bonus for y'all, at the end of this post, I have a FREE giveaway for one special dad, or mommy wanting a cool late daddy's day present.

So, anyway, Growing up with my dad, I spent a lot of time in and around engines with him.  Being the less experienced of the pair, I was usually the one that was voted to hold the flashlight.  It was a pain in the neck to figure out where he needed the light and to actually get the light where he needed it past and around his head and hands.

And now, that I am a geek myself, I spend a lot of time inside computer cases, behind my TV fixing some issue or another (I watch a lot of TV if you haven't figured that out yet), or inside my Xbox trying to fix red rings of death.  And, of course, I have passed the flashlight carrying baton on to MY son (and/or daughter) and have them "attempt" to hold the flashlight steady for me.  In the case of Princess K, the flashlight's beam usually ends up somewhere on the wall or ceiling, shining in Super Michael's eyes, or upstairs in her bed.  Which, of course, leaves me in the dark trying to to solder my fingers to the inside of my TV.

Well, I found a nice little solution for this dilemma and it comes in the form of the Petzl Tikka 2 Plus headlamp.  This little baby fits comfortably on any size head (even malformed large ones like mine) and will faithfully shine in the exact spot you are looking.  It has two brightness settings: SUPER DUPER BLINDING mode, and normal mode.  The super duper blinding mode will light up your work area like nobody's business.  I read the instructions on the box about NOT looking directly at the light and promptly looked directly at the light and couldn't see right for half an hour.  But man, is it nice and bright.  It uses the cool sci-fi LED light technology, so the bulb lasts for what could virtually be called forever, and the battery life is measured in the very long variety.  It uses 3 AAA batteries, which makes it much easier to replace batteries.

I've used this guy when futzing around in the car, and compared to my normal "feeling around until I found something in the dark" mode, having this nice bright light handy makes working on the car much easier.  I can now safely see every dirty surface in my car and actually managed to not come in the house covered in oil.

I do have other LED lights that you can place on a platform, or hang off something, but your big dumb head always gets in the way and this is just so much more convenient then having to move a light every few seconds.

Now, another mode which I thought just really made this thing super cool was it's two color modes:  white and red.  I know, I know, what is red for?  But, just work with me here.  I have a telescope that gets dragged outside on occasion to teach the kids about the stars and planets and generally when I'm setting it up, I'm pawing away in the darkness trying to figure out which lens is which to put in the telescope.  In the process, I get fingerprints all over the glass lens and it's just a mess. With the red light mode of the Petzl Tikka 2 Plus, I can see what I'm doing without ruining my night vision, read star charts outside, and find the lens I was looking for without getting finger prints all over them.  Well, MY fingerprints anyway.  There are still usually little tiny fingerprints all over EVERYTHING in the house, the lenses included.

Switching back and forth between the two modes is a breeze by just holding the button down for a couple of seconds.  Once in a particular mode, say red mode, the light stays in that mode until you switch it back to the other mode, which is handy if you are turning the light on and off outside and don't want to blind yourself or the people around you with the VERY bright white light on this.

Finally, there's an extra mode for the two different colors.  Flashing!  So, you can either have the headlamp flash in white or red.  Now, supposedly, this can be used in emergency type situations. Maybe you are an emergency worker and need to bring attention to yourself, or you're lost on a trail somewhere and need to being attention to yourself.  Or maybe you just need to annoy the other people in the house.  Whatever works for you.

This also comes in handy if you are a tent camper, or just tent camp in the backyard.  Putting up tents with this thing at night time is a breeze.  No longer do I have to either hold the big flashlight on my shoulder, or the little pen light in my teeth while trying to set the tent up.

Next up on the Super Mega Dad's Father Day wish list is Netflix.  Any normal dad watches movies, and Netflix makes it SO much easier to watch thousands and thousands of movies.  You simply login to your Netflix account, add movies to your queue, and movies start coming to you in the mail.  You keep the movie as long as you want, then mail it back when you are done with it and then are sent even more movies from your queue.  At any normal time, my queue has upwards of fifty to sixty movies, but I've heard of people with hundreds!

Netflix also offers up a streaming service that allows you to watch movies over your computer, or over a streaming Netflix device.  Microsoft just added this ability to the Xbox 360 at the beginning of the year and this was the main reason I subscribed to this service.  The only drawback here was that they don't have any first run movies on the streaming service, mostly just older movies, but it's still pretty cool.  I even watched an old Battlestar Galactica:1980 episode to remind myself how horrible it was.

Netlix offers a pretty easy way to give a gift membership, so try it out for your dad.

Now you shouldn't have ANY excuse to buy lame ties or yet ANOTHER dress shirt.  You're welcome.

And now, for the giveaway.  The people at Petzl were kind enough to give me an e+lite to give away.  This is the smaller cousin of the Petzl Tikka 2 Plus model that I'm using, but is still a really cool light in it's own way.  It's really light (as in not heavy, weighing in at almost a third of it's bigger brother) and has the same light settings I mentioned above.  The batteries last as long as 45 hours in their "economy" mode (vs. 140 hours for the Tikka 2 Plus) and the bright light shines at a blinding 16 lumens (vs. 50 lumens for the big boy).

The kids will hold a random drawing of the people that leave comments to this post.  Please put something like "sign me up for the light" or something similar in your comment to let me know you want to be added to the hat and I'll have the kids pull a name from the hat and we'll announce the winner next week.  Please make sure you leave your email address in the email field so that I can contact you for your address to send this.

One final thing, the folks at Petzl let me know that these headlamps won't be available to purchase until September 2009, so maybe it's good this post is a late Father's Day gift idea edition.  There's always Christmas right?  But, hey, whoever gets the light gets it before anybody else in the states so you can show it off to your friends and family and annoy them with the flashing red light. :)

One last thing, I got an award from my buddy Otter over at Life of a New Dad. I will post all about this sometime next week when I have more free time and when I know that my server isn't going to crash for extended periods of time.

So, there you have it.  Happy Father's Day, and don't forgot to check out all of my buds over at Dad-Blogs.com!

About one year ago, for Princess K's two year checkup, I was sitting in the doctor's office asking him about what tact I should take for potty training Princess K.  We had a very tough time potty training Super Michael, and I was not looking forward to going through the same mine field with Princess K.  He suggested that we just let Princess K decided on her own schedule and that she would just eventually decide for herself that she was ready for the big seat.

At first, that all sounded really great and dandy and we were all ready to follow the doctor's advice.  We bought her big girl panties and a new princess potty seat and told her that when she was ready, they were ready for her.  We bought her pink Dora and Princess pull-ups so that she could pull down her own pants when she had to go.  We even bought special stickers for her as a treat if she went on the big seat.  Nothing seemed to entice her to go.

For six months, she peed and pooped in her pull ups just like they were diapers.  She would cry and throw temper tantrums anytime we would even mention going on the potty.

About a month ago, we were informed that Princess K would be moving up to the "3's" room at daycare and that the kids in the "3's" room needed to be potty trained.  The daycare did nothing, in my opinion, to help her learn to go potty on the big potty.  If we put panties on her, she would hold it all day and the daycare people told us she stayed dry all day, but as soon as she got in the car, she would let loose and pee all over her car seat.  If we had a pull-up on her, she would have the same one on when we picked her up and it would be extremely full by the time we got to the car.  The daycare girls assumed she was potty trained because she was "dry" anytime they checked her.

The day for her to move to the "3's" room was fast approaching and she was nowhere near being potty trained.  I would sit her down on the potty and would sit with her for an hour while she cried the entire time.  As soon as she would get off the potty, she would run into the living room and pee all over the floor.  It was all very frustrating.

In the meantime, I would ask other parents what they did to potty train their toddlers, and everybody would tell me how easy girls were to train, and boys were always the hardest.  It should only take a couple of days to potty train, and then we would be free of diapers forever.

Well, six months into this adventure, I can say girls are NOT easier than boys.  It is a huge myth.

What DID finally work?

Princess K just decided one day that she wanted to wear her Princess panties and go potty on the big seat.  We didn't ask her to do it, we didn't bribe her with anything.  She started out the day wearing Pull-ups, and ended the day wearing panties.  She has not worn a pull-up or diaper since.  We went through the same process with Super Michael, but I think we completely blocked out that part of our lives because of the pain involved.  He just decided one day he wanted to go potty all by himself as well.

She has been going potty on the big seat for the past couple of weeks religiously now.  She has had a couple of accidents here and there, usually in the middle of the night, or having to wait for other kids at daycare to finish using the potty, but she has been really good about using the potty.  Most of the time, if she has to go in the middle of the night, she'll come and tell me and I'll tell her to go use the restroom.

She's very proud of herself now and proudly announces the fact that she's gone pee or poop in the toilet.

There IS one draw back of her using the big seat now:  She clogs up the toilet CONSTANTLY.  She hasn't yet learned to wipe her butt with anything less than a full roll of paper.  Just this morning, I had to fish out several pounds of toilet paper from the potty because it was just too much to flush down.  I now have plungers next to each toilet, because I WILL have to plunge at least once or twice a day because of her clogging the toilet.  However, I would MUCH rather unclog the toilet then change her diaper any day of the week.

Now, what is the moral of this story?  I have learned that there is no such thing as a particular sex that is easier than the other.  I.E., girls being easier than boys.  It is a complete and utter myth.  What is true, just like the doctor said, they will go potty on the big seat when they are damn ready to do so on their own.  All the stress that we go through does nothing to speed up the process.  Some kids are just ready before others, and these are the "easy" kids.  If it just happens to be a girl, well, the parents think that girls are easier.

As parents, our job is to go out and buy the cool underoos that the kids will be excited to wear and not poop in and buy the really cool potty seat that they'll want to sit on.  Some kids will want to get in those underoos RIGHT NOW because they are so UBER awesome, while others might have to talk themselves into it over weeks or longer.  All the pushing and shoving that we do won't help in the least and could quite possibly delay the final result.  We can gently remind them that the potty is there, as well as the cool underoos, but pushing just doesn't work at all.

Each kid is unique and will take whatever time they need to learn this process and I feel so much better now that she has learned to go potty all by herself.

And now that we are saving money on not buying diapers (and the more expensive pull-ups) all the time, PLUS we're saving money at Princess K's school because she's in the potty trained room which costs less we're looking into getting Super Michael into some sort of Karate classes.  Out of choices like Soccer, Football, etc, he decided he wanted to get into Karate.

So, stay tuned to hear about our adventures in choosing a Karate school!  I'm a complete and utter newbie at this whole Karate thing, so if anybody has any suggestions, please let me know. :)

You have got to hand it to the kid.  He wanted to tell a joke in front of the whole school the last day of school, and he did.  I'm pretty proud of him.  He has no problem getting out there in front of everybody and just putting it out there.  Things like this, I try to support him as much as I can and go over the top on praise.  I want him to be comfortable in front of large groups of people like this.  He didn't blink an eye!  Atta boy!

Today was officially the last day of school down here in the Inland Empire.  It's a bittersweet day for the kids because, well, it's the last day of school, and it's the last day until the fall that they will see most of their friends.  It's also bittersweet for the parents as well in the fact that their little babies will be home (in some cases) all the time now, and the fact that those little hooligans will be home ALL SUMMER LONG.

In my case in particular, he's home ALL SUMMER LONG.  I DO enjoy having him around and going to the office with me, but MAN, does he make a mess and getting either of the kids to clean up after themselves is like trying to get the California Legislature to agree on a budget, which, as some of you may be aware, is not going so well right now.

On a good note:  Super Michael is now officially a second grader.  He has passed first grade!  Besides the fact that he (as well as a good portion of his class) wanted to be held back to stay with his teacher, he's pretty excited about it.

Which brings me back to his teacher, Mrs. H., once more.  We couldn't have asked for a better teacher this year.  We were told by other parents that she is the best first grade teacher at the school, and having had her as a first grade teacher, I can say that those parents were correct.  You could really tell with how the kids reacted to her and how they were around her that they all loved her and respected her.  Just watching her interact with the kids was a joy and you could really see that she has fun with her job and really takes an interest in each and every child that comes to her classroom.  Having a teacher like this really makes learning fun and painless for the children and you could tell that all of the kids loved to go to school each and everyday.  Super Michael was sad when the weekends came because he wouldn't be at school and looked forward to Monday to see his friends and teacher again.  Like I said above, he really wanted to be held back so that he could stay with her.  It is my utmost hope that Princess K has her as a first grade teacher here in a few years.  So, Mrs. H., thank you SO much for being our first grade teacher.  We will miss you greatly.  Have a well deserved, relaxing summer break.  If we could afford it, we'd buy you a trip to Atlantis in the Bahamas to play with the dolphins. :)

So, that's it for the first grade adventures.  Next up: Second grade adventures.

Coming up soon on the Adventures of Super Mega Dad:  Princess K has officially been potty trained and is doing really well with it.  I've been meaning to tell the whole story on the next edition of Super Mega Dad for awhile!

I just thought this was just too cool not to pass on to all of my Blogging mom and dad buddies out there.

Go to this NASA link, fill in your kids names and print out a certificate and when the "Curiosity" rover takes off in 2011, your kid's name (or your name for that matter) will go with it. My six year old is the perfect age to really think this is cool and in two years when this thing goes up, it will give him a reason to follow the mission and have "ownership" in the whole thing.

NASA has been doing this the past few missions, but this is the first time I've taken advantage of it and being a big 'ol nerd myself, I thought it was a pretty cool thing to get the kids interested in space science.

To give you an idea of how big of a nerd I am, back when I was a young lad of around nine or ten, I talked my family into taking a family vacation down the road a little ways here in California to Edwards Airforce Base.  For those that follow the news, this is where the space shuttle lands (and just landed this past weekend) when the landing facilities in Florida are not available for whatever reason.  The shuttle wasn't landing during our vacation, unfortunately, but they had a lot of space shuttle stuff there including the original test ship, Enterprise.  In addition, Edwards is a facility that test flies a bunch of experimental aircraft so they had a lot of stuff centered around that too.  It was really a great vacation and I still remember it as one of my favorites even now.  So much so, that after the shuttle landing this past weekend, I thought it might be a good day trip for us.  Granted, since September 11th, it's much more locked down now, but is still supposed to be fun.  Super Mega Mommy would be bored out of her skull, so maybe it'll just be and the kids running around.

I also learned awhile back that ANOTHER base near us is trying to get in the running to receive one of the soon to be retired space shuttles, so woohoo, my little nerd brain gets all atwitter with the possibilities.  The only thing that could be better would be getting a Star Wars and Star Trek museum opened up in town and opening up my very own Best Buy!

The day started like any other day in the Super Mega Household: a nightmare-scared toddler that slept in the "big bed" with mommy and daddy all night while kicking me and sleeping on top of me, kids that wouldn't get up when told to get up, toddler crying all the way to daycare, coworkers complaining that stuff doesn't work via email.  But this normal morning hid a secret.  I secret so hideous and time consuming, it would shake Super Mega Dad to the core.

We shall start the story where Super Michael decided to wear his red Cars vest to school because it's "cool".  Generally, not a problem.  It was slightly chilly this morning with a slight fog hanging over the landscape, so it figured into the equation and it was enough to keep the chill off. 

I scoot the kids off to the car for our trek around the valley to the different schools and office and notice that we were only a couple of minutes behind.  Not bad, I think to myself, this is a rare treat being "almost" on time to school.  Just as I'm buckling Princess K into her car seat, she proceeds to inform me that she has a Poppy pull-up (YES, I'm STILL fighting her on potty training, but that's a story for ANOTHER day).  We run into the house, change out the stink pants and are off within five more minutes.

The rest of the trip to Super Michael's school and across the Valley to Princess K's daycare, Princess K cries in her shrill little toddler girl voice that is specially designed to pierce ear drums that she does NOT want to go to "baby school" and wants to stay home with daddy.  She tries different tactics while driving over to school, including trying to get me to take her to the park we passed, take her to my office that we passed, take her to the donut store we passed, and take her to mommy's work.  None of these worked and eventually we pulled into daycare.  After the teachers pried her off of me, I headed off to the office.

Meanwhile, at Super Michael's school, he was about to head off to the "multi-purpose room" to practice the "Little Read Hen" play which they have been practicing for what seems like MONTHS.  Note: he was still wearing that very same red Cars vest that he came to school in, but as the play progressed, and as he spent time under the hot, hot fluorescent lights we place in schools these days, he took the vest off and (from what I've been able to piece together from varied reports) handed the vest off to his teacher to hold.  Now, we all know that Mrs. H. is da bomb when it comes to being a first grade teacher, but what we didn't know about her was her ability to lose track of Red Cars Vests!  At some point during the practice round, the Red Cars Vest must have leapt from her hands and hid itself deep in the recesses of the multi-purpose room. 

We don't really know if the Red Cars Vest just up and decided to cavort with other nasty jacket, sweater, and vests on it's own accord, of if some terrible jacket and sweater gang that roams the multi-purpose room swiped it while Mrs. H. had her back turned, but we can only speculate at this point.

And OF COURSE, Super Michael was completely and utterly oblivious to the whole situation.

Finally, upon coming and picking up Super Michael after school and making sure he had everything, I noticed that he was missing his Red Cars Vest.  I questioned him on it's possible whereabouts and received the normal and very frustrating "I don't know" answer.  He was gently instructed to go back in and check his classroom for the vest and by this time he remembered that he had given it to his teacher to hold during the play, but failed to ask for it back after the play.

After asking the teacher about the possible location of the missing vest, he was instructed that the vest was possibly in the multi-purpose room's lost and found and that the multi-purpose room should be open.  After trekking across campus to the multi-purpose room to search for the missing vest, we find that the doors are totally and utterly locked.  Kicking the doors, we turn around and chat about our next course of action. "Are you SURE your teacher said the multi-purpose room?", I ask Super Michael.

"I think.", Super Michael guesses.

"What about the office?  Would the lost and found possibly be in the office?", I inquire, grasping at straws.

"Maybe.", is the unsatisfying answer from my oblivious kid.

So, we turn toward the school office to ask about our vest.  Unfortunately, the school office does not contain the lost and found, but it IS definitely in the multi-purpose room!  Ah-ha!  At least we now know for sure the location of the lost and found!  File this little piece of information for future reference because I have a feeling that Super Michael and the lost and found will get to know each other really well.

I ask what the probability is of getting into the multi-purpose room to search through the lost and found and am told that I need to talk to Miss Something Or Other, you can talk to her over at some place.  I ask Super Michael if he knows who this is and if he knows where she is and he responds with "Yep!".

We exit the office with high hopes and with a name to track down.  I ask Super Michael to please point us in the right direction to talk to Miss Something and he responds with "Who?". 

"Miss Something.  Remember, I just asked you if you knew who that was and where you could find her and you said, Yep, you knew her?"

"Oh, no, I don't know her. What does she look like?"

So, with my head now downcast, I head in the general direction of where I think Miss Something should be.  We get there, and I start asking people that look like they know what they are doing if they know Miss Something.  I finally find a person that knows Miss Something, but asks me what I need her for and I explain our situation.  She tells me, "Oh no, you don't need Miss Something, you need Miss Toni.  She's over by the busses."

Again, probably not very brightly, I ask Super Michael if he knows Miss Toni and where the busses are. "Oh yeah, I know Miss Toni.  She hangs out by the busses!".  All right, I think to myself, he sounds much more confidant this time.  This might be the ticket!

We start walking away and I ask him, "Where are the busses at?"

"I don't know.", is the answer I probably should have known was coming.

"I thought you said you knew where they were.  What about Miss Toni.  Do you know who she is?", I ask.

"No, what does she look like?", I get in response.

By now, I'm thinking, should I just give up and return to the office.  We've already spent a good 15 minutes searching for this thing.  We have plenty of other jackets.  But, by now, it's just the principal of the matter.  I WAS going to find that jacket, and I WAS going to find Miss Toni, whoever she was, and I was going to find the busses, wherever they were.

I start asking around at the campus and am slowly making my way to the possible location of the busses.  We turn a corner, and sure enough, the yellow Twinkie were parked right in front of us across the field!  We made it!

We walk over to the busses and I start asking for Miss Toni and sure enough, there she is!  And she even has the keys to the multi-purpose room.  Right then and there, Miss Toni became my new best friend.  I even waited patiently for her as all the kids loaded onto the bus and chatted with her about forgetful, oblivious kids.

Eventually, all the kids filtered down to the bus, and she was able to lead us back to the multi-purpose room.  She even told me that she saw that particular vest and couldn't understand why some kid would just leave it there because it was so nice and cute (as I glared at Super Michael).

As we're walking over to the multi-purpose room, and an area we had already passed, I noticed something red out of the corner of my eye just laying on the ground.  Could it be?  We get closer to it, and sure enough, it was the Red Cars Vest!  It was a couple of buildings over from the multi-purpose room and it looked like it had been through a drunken frat party and had a really rough morning, but it was still in tact and was definitely Super Michael's Red Cars Vest!

We sat there and wondered how it could have made it's way from the multi-purpose room to that location and what wild adventures it had in the meantime.  We still wonder if it fell into the wrong crowd, or was coerced into some sort of evil jacket gang.  We may never know.

So, the moral of the story?  Always write your kids names in their stuff!