Thank You Marvel Comics. Now, if you don't mind picking up the counseling tab for my toddler...

Yesterday, because it was family day, I took my wife and 3-year-old son to go see the movie "Kung-Fu Panda."

Now, because Justus is *only* three years old, I am quite careful about the movies that I expose him to. After the debacle last year at the Elmo Makes Music concert, I learned that one can never be too careful.

So I read all the reviews about this movie, using helpful internet resources for parents, such as Kids In Mind, and I talked to about 20 people I knew who went to see it with their kids and whose opinion I trust. They all said that the movie would not be too intense for Justus, and that the scary scenes weren't too scary.

I know, it sounds crazy, but just because a movie is rated "G" doesn't mean a little kid can handle it. The movie "Cars" by Pixar is incredibly innocuous, but there is a throw-away scene with a harvester that chases Mater and Lightning that really frightened Justus.

And don't get me started on Finding Nemo. Stuff like this and this are freaking terrifying even to me, and I'm an adult.

A pansy, perhaps, but an adult.

So I was so careful. I wanted this whole experience to be very fun and positive for Justus.

So imagine my surprise when the doors of the elevator opened up on the second floor of the theater to this:



Justus screamed in stark terror, and just about climbed up the polished metal walls of the elevator. I had to spend about 10 minutes just getting him into the theater. And tonight, as I was putting him to bed, we had to talk about what a statue was, and how it was just fake, and how he didn't need to be scared of it.

"But what happen if the big green guy from the theater comes," Justus whimpered.

I told Justus that it was just a statue, but that if any bad guys came, Daddy and Justus could beat them all up, and that God would help (kind of weird theology). Justus said that if God were there, he would beat up all the bad guys and then Daddy and Justus could just go to bed (better theology). And then we prayed for good dreams.

But still, the whole thing kind of sucks.

*sigh*

BTW: Kung Fu Panda is FANTASTIC

Kevin Garnett: Holy Crap

And you wonder why the Celtics won the 2008 NBA Title. Defense, baby, led by KG, who won the league's award for Best Defensive Player.

This may be the second-best photo I've ever seen of the NBA, if only because it features two of the premiere players of this generation. The best pic, is, of course, this one.

If I were still teaching English, I would show this picture and have my students write 500 words about what it means to them.

Man, I'm fired up just looking at it. (click on the picture for a larger version)

Daddy, Please I Fly

I was putting Justus to bed and he said to me, "Daddy, please I sleep on the ceiling."

Uh. Well, son, it's okay with me, but you'll have to ask your mother.

The whole thing reminds me of this classic Calvin & Hobbes cartoon.

Father's Day 2008: Not Exactly What I Had in Mind

So every Father's Day for the past couple of years, Nicole's side of the family has this patriarchal gathering at her Uncle Kurt's house in Redlands. Her 80-year-old grandparents fly in from Florida, her brother drives in from LA, her Dad and step-mom drive down from San Francisco, and we make the 6-hour trek down to San Bernardino county.

Let me recount the weekend's festivities:

DAY 1:

1. We left for LA, excited because this was the first trip in our new Honda Odyssey mini-van.

2. It was also the first time that we attempted to take a 6-hour car trip with two kids both under the age of three.

3. Halfway down to LA, Nicole suddenly began to get a fever.

4. About four hours into the trip, Nicole had developed a fever of 102.5

5. After describing the symptoms to her over the phone, Nicole's mom, who is an RN, made an over-the-phone diagnosis that Nicole had pneumonia.

DAY 2:

1. While our relatives were watching the kids, I took Nicole to the Urgent Care in Fontana.

2. I discovered that the general rule of thumb in Urgent Care is "If it isn't urgent, we don't care."

3. After waiting an hour, I was able to convince the nurses that my wife really was sick.

4. After determining that Nicole's lungs were indeed filling up with fluid, and that she had decreased capacity in her right lung, the doctor prescribed some anti-biotics.

5. The doctor also prescribed some cough syrup that contained an opiate related to codeine and vicodin.

6. I put Nicole to bed after having her take the antibiotic and the cough syrup containing the opiate in the codeine family.

Day 3

1.We discover that Nicole is really allergic not only to codeine, but all opiates in that family.

2. Nicole has a very bad allergic reaction to this opiate, and gets an incredibly bad headache.

3. This headache was so severe, it makes Nicole nauseous and she starts throwing up.

4. After talking with Nicole's mom, we decide to stop giving Nicole the medicine with the opiate in it because it appears to be killing her.

5. Nicole sleeps most of the day.

Day 4:

1. Although that codeine derivative really reacted poorly with Nicole's body chemistry, it did an exceptional job knocking her out, allowing her to sleep comfortably.

2. Without it, she didn't sleep very well.

3. Neither did I.

4. Jaelle decides to wake up at 5:51 a.m.

5. I get up with Jaelle, and decide to drive around, to kill time until everyone gets up. I try McDonald's New Iced Coffee. It's pretty good. I drink a large, just to stay awake.

6. Nicole is miserable and sleeps most of the day.

Day 4:

1. Nicole still not feeling much better.

2. I realize that there is no way I can mentally or emotionally handle driving six hours in a car with my sick wife and two kids under the age of three.

3. We pow-wow as a family and someone suggests I buy a one-way ticket from Ontario, CA to San Jose. I go to Southwest.com and find a ticket for $100. I could drive back to San Jose with Justus while the rest of her family could help watch Jaelle while Nicole rests. Then, Nicole could travel on the one-hour flight with Jaelle. Sure, it's tough, but it's one hour of misery instead of six or seven.

4. Nicole agrees to this plan of action. So does her family.

5. Which is good because I already bought the ticket. She leaves at 7:40 p.m. and lands at 8:50 p.m.

6. I pack up everything in the car and get ready to do my impersonation of Speed Racer.

7. I prepare my secret weapon for the car ride. If Justus gets antsy, I have a portable DVD player that Pastor Bill loaned me, coupled with the movie "Monsters Inc."

8. I leave Redlands at 1:12 p.m. From here on out, I have 390 miles to go, so I count in miles, not time.

9. After 90 miles of singing, talking, and eating together, Justus tells me that he wants to get out of his car seat. I pull out the secret weapon and hand him "Monsters Inc." Justus is excited.

10. I pull over to get gas and some energy drinks and hook up the DVD player for Justus.

11. The DVD player doesn't work! What? What? How could this tragedy befall me? I was so careful in my preparation!

12. Justus begins crying because I promised him Monsters Inc. This is not good.

13. I ask the gas station clerk if there is a Best Buy or anything nearby. He says, "There's a Wal-Mart right down this road a half a mile."

14. I drive to this Wal-Mart, put Justus in a cart, run into the electronics department, buy the cheapest DVD player I can, pay for it at the electronics counter and run out of the store. This takes 8 minutes, maybe.

15. I hook up the DVD player and the headphones and Monsters Inc.

16. I find it vaguely ironic that a movie about monsters is actually the least scary of all the Pixar movies for my three-year old. The only parts he gets nervous about is the Mr. Waternoose, who is a scary crab-looking guy.

17. Mile 180 - Justus is done with the movie and that third McDonalds Iced Coffee is really moving me. We stop for a brief respite. I buy another Iced Coffee.

18. Justus asks me if he can watch the movie again. I don't care if it does rot his brain, we'll read and do math puzzles when we get home. I press play again.

19. Mile 280 - Justus is done watching Monsters Inc for the second time. He has got to be tired, I figure. I am right. He falls asleep. I have at least an hour, which could be up to 80 miles, depending on my speed. I push down on the accelerator. Things are looking up! Nicole is on the plane in 30 minutes!

20. Mile 320. Justus wakes up. What? That was like 30 minutes.

21. Nicole calls. Her flight has been delayed 2 hours. She is freaking out because she is all alone in an airport with Jaelle, and she has pneumonia. She starts to cry. This is bad.

22. Mile 321. I realize that I am completely and utterly helpless. I can't help Nicole. I can't fix her problem. I can't send someone to help her because chances are TSA wouldn't let them through without a boarding pass. There is nothing I can do. Well, almost nothing. I give Nicole a pep talk. Along the 5, to pass the time, I listened to a whole bunch of AM radio. One of the stations had this pastor who was talking about the difference between knowledge, belief and trust. Knowledge, he said, is when you know or can articulate a set of facts. Belief is when you take that set of facts and decide to intellectually assent to them, and trust is when you start living your life based on that set of facts. Christians, this pastor said, often know about God but don't believe or trust Him.

"Can you give me an example of how this plays out in the real world," the interviewer asked.

"Sure," the pastor said. "It's like worry. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us not to worry and he even gives us the reason why we shouldn't worry - because there is a God who knows us and cares for us and acts on our behalf. And yet, lots of Christians worry all the time. They know the facts, but aren't living their lives based on this reality."

I remembered this line as worry about Nicole and Jaelle began flooding over me. I told Nicole, "Well, it does no good to worry, because Jesus tells us not to. I believe that you can make it through this. Either a kind stranger will come and help you out, or Jaelle will fall asleep, or God will give you the courage and patience and strength to tend to her and make it through this situation, even though you have pneumonia. So Justus and I will pray for you, and we'll call you back in a little bit to give you a bit more encouragement."

This pep talk helped Nicole. I was glad because frankly, I didn't have anything else. Justus and I began to pray for Mommy and baby Jaelle.

23. Mile 353. Almost through the infamous Pacheco Pass. All of a sudden, I look up and about a 1/2 mile ahead of me, a black SUV drifts left of center directly into the path of a semi-truck. There's a huge explosion, and everyone slams on their brakes.

24. Shaken up a bit, I realize that the overturned semi is completely blocking the road. Knowing that this is the main thoroughfare to 101, and that I have less than an hour to get to the airport now, I turn around and make the first turn down the first country road I see.

25. After navigating by attempting to go West at any chance I get, I navigate on small farm roads, eventually getting myself to what appears to be a semi-major road. I keep going West.

26. I call Jon on my phone, hoping that he picks up and isn't busy. He does. "Dude, I need you to GoogleMap some stuff and help me find 101." I say. I give him landmarks and road names and he helps me navigate through to the 101.

27. Mile 387. I pull into my garage. Unload everything, frantically clean the house, turn on the A/C, get Justus some food, and call Nicole. She is about to board, and sounds chipper. I am encouraged that she is encouraged.

28. After vacuuming, doing the dishes, making the bed, cleaning the bathrooms, doing the dishes, unloading the dishwasher, cleaning the counter, and doing two loads of laundry, I sit down on the couch to watch the second half of the Lakers/Celtics game. I watch Kobe single-handedly win the game with his defense.

29. I hop back in the car to go pick-up Nicole. Baby Jaelle is asleep, and Nicole is not doing too bad for having just traveled by herself on an airplane with an infant. I drive home, and put everyone to bed, then collapse into bed myself

Epiphany
I realized something from this frantic, crazy day. I realized that being a Father doesn't mean what I used to think it means. I thought being a Father meant that you had to be strong, always know how to fix everything, and be able to navigate around the problems of life.

The problem is that there are some storms of life you can't navigate around. And sometimes, you can't even protect your family from them. When the going gets tough, in those situations, the tendency of us all is to turn inward and focus on ourselves.

But being a Father means that you put yourself aside and even when you don't feel like it, you dig deep and make sure that your family, your kids, your wife, have what they need. You do what you can to give something to them, even though you feel like you're on empty. You put yourself aside and encourage them, or help them, or meet their needs.

That's what Dads do.

It's funny - I imagined, going into Father's Day, that the perfect day would be to sit in a new easy chair as I chowed down on some tri-tip while watching the NBA Finals (with no interruptions) on my brand new 72-inch plasma TV.

But that night, as I walked around the house turning off the lights and making sure all the doors were locked, I looked at my wife (who was lying in bed properly medicated and safe at home), my daughter (snoozing in her crib with her pacifier and bunny blanket) and my son (snuggled up in his Curious George blanket).

And that's when I realized that this Father's Day was just...perfect.

Father's Day Pictures

Picture Magnets
For Father's Day, Nicole had her friend Laura dress Justus up in some big boy clothes and take some pictures. Apparently, he was a natural, posing and smiling. The pictures were then printed onto magnets that I can hang anywhere that is metallic.


My goodness, if you look up "dapper" in the dictionary, you'd find this young man's picture.


Not sure if Justus just beat paper in a rousing game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" or if he's throwing up gang signs. Either way, this looks a bit like a magazine ad to me.

Old College Buddy.

My old college buddy Drew Powell lives in LA and has been pretty successful at breaking into the business down there. He was on an episode of "The Office" earlier this year, where he played a bartender who hit on Pam.

You can see him in this new Jack-in-the-Box commercial. He's the runner. Funny guy.

Chaos Theory, Dinosaurs, and Feminine Hygiene Products

Shown here, the so-called "butterfly effect" in which small variations of the initial condition of a dynamic system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. This is also called "Chaos theory."

One of my favorite books of all time is Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. The novel (which was made into a mildly successful movie) is based upon the idea of Chaos Theory. In the novel, mathematician Ian Malcolm's interpretation of chaos theory asserts that Jurassic Park, as a complex physical system, will progress in a drastically unpredictable manner that will inevitably result in disaster, regardless of the precautions that have been taken. The idea is that a series of little tiny unknown variables add up and compound upon each other until the outcome seems completely random (and altogether tragic).

This is exactly what happened to me Monday morning. Let me explain.


The First Variable: The Early-rising Daughter
It was 7:14 a.m., and since Jaelle had decided to wake up at 6:06 a.m., I figured "Hey, why not kill a few birds with one stone. Whilst everyone is sleeping, I can take Jaelle, who is happy, fed and highly portable, and go grocery shopping."

The Second Variable: The List
After making my way successfully through the produce aisle, getting everything I needed, I happened to peer down further at the list. To my horror, the list included not only groceries, but also a list of products that my wife needed. They are products that only women need. And they are products which I - as an only child who had no sisters - am still, to this day, embarrassed to talk about or mention. Let's just say they rhyme with "Taxi fad."

The Third Variable: My General Discomfort
For being a really loud guy, there are certain things that make me really uncomfortable. For example, I don't like the word "panties." It is my third least favorite word in the English language, behind only "pimple" and "moist." So when I went to the grocery store, I had no idea I was going to be buying panty liners and maxi pads. This is like asking me to to to Kragen and buy the correct socket wrench set to repair a Dodge Hemi Engine. I don't have the first clue what to look for.

The Fourth Variable: Massive Selection
It would be simple enough if there were only one type of maxi pad and one type of panty liner. Then, I could just rapidly cruise by the area, grab the product, throw it into the cart, and go on to the Doritos. But there was at least 15 feet of shelf space devoted to these products.

I scanned the selection, trying to figure out what to buy. One of the products had the word "jumbo" on it. I avoided that, because no woman wants to be associated with the word "jumbo" ever. I knew that.

Some of them were scented. I didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Some of them offered "maximum protection" while others offered "maximum comfort."

Oh crap.

Of those two, which is the most important variable? Protection or comfort?

Then I got really confused. Some of them had wings. Wings? Wings? Are these going to be flying around aisle 9? Do I need to get a butterfly net to chase these things down? I broke into a cold sweat.

The Fifth Variable: Raw Fear
After standing in front of this aisle for a good 8 minutes, I began to panic. I realized that I simply didn't have near enough information to make this decision. And the longer I stood there, the more afraid I became that someone would notice me. It's like when your kid is going to the bathroom in a public restroom, and you're there, just hanging around outside the stall and someone walks in and looks at you. And you feel the need to say something like, "Are you okay in there, SON." Just so you dont' get reported as a weirdo bathroom stalker, or something. That's the kind of fear I had. I was half expecting to hear someone come over the intercom and say:

Attention Shoppers: Will the clearly nervous and agitated man in the Tampon Aisle please move away so that our other shoppers can have access to the feminine hygiene products. Thank you.

The Sixth Variable: The Text Message
All of which led me to take out my phone and text the following message to my wife:

"Hey. If you're up, call me. I have some questions about maxi pads."

The Seventh Variable: The Lack of Omars in my Life
According to my cell phone address book, I don't know anyone whose name (last or first) begins with "O." No Oscars. No Orenthals. No Oswalds, Olivers, Olivias (Newton John or otherwise), Obadiahs, or Octaviuses. Nothing. My list of friends includes no one with an "O" name.

Which means, therefore, that my cell phone address book goes directly from the "N" people to the "P" people.

The Eighth Variable: The Address Book
Therefore, my phone's address book contact list goes like this:

• Nicki Kozma (my cousin)
  
• Nicole (my wife)
  
• Pastor Bill Cell (my boss)

The Ninth Variable: Being a Large Man
I have large hands and my cell phone's buttons are quite small, meaning it's easy for me to press a button I don't mean to press.

The Final Outcome: Chaos
All of which led to that text being sent, not to my wife, but to Pastor Bill. My boss. At 7:14 a.m.

*sigh*

Financial Skits = YouTube

Editor's Note: This post contains the same video files as the previous post, only in a lower-resolution, fasting-loading format from YouTube.

Skit 1: The Impulsive Spender
This skit illustrates the problem with people who blow their budget with impulse buying.




Skit 2: The Compulsive Spender
People who are compulsive buyers buy not because they "need" something, but because they're trying to fill a void with material possessions. This skit shows how ridiculous this dysfunction can be.




Skit 3: The Revenge Spender
People who are "Revenge" spenders are disciplined for long periods of time, and then get tired of the discipline of budgeting and blow their savings on something lavish. This skit illustrates the problem with people who "get revenge" on their budget - but really hurt themselves.




Skit 4: The Boredom Spender
This skit illustrates the problem with people who buy things simply to alleviate their boredom.




Skit 5: The Special Interest Spender
This type of financial dysfunction is caused by a person with an out-of-control hobby that siphons off hundreds - sometimes thousands - of dollars. As you can see from this skit this can result in real marital tension.




Skit 6: The Status Spender
Status Spenders are people who buy things not because they need them, but because someone else has it. This results in envy and coveting, which this skit shows is never a good thing.