Something bothers me about the recent coverage of the “bomb” attacks on London.

The reports say that the “bombs” consisted of:

• gas
• nails (presumeably for shrapnel)
• an ignition device

Guess what! Gasoline doesn’t explode, it just burns. When you add gasoline, nails and fair you don’t get a bomb, you get hot nails…and a trashed car.

The only way someone would have been injured is that if they passed the car and thought; “Hey, free nails!”

I do get why they’re overstating the effectiveness of the “bombs”. The authorities want people to feel like they’re being protected and there’s something to be said for letting the terrorists think that gasoline explodes like in any Die Hard movie. I don’t have the heart to tell them otherwise.

I do find it slightly amusing that the first “bomb” was set outside a club called “Tiger Tiger”.

Tiger Tiger burning bright. In the forests of the night,. What immortal hand or eye oh shit it’s really burning! ¹

^1. William Blakes first draft when he knocked his candle over mid-verse.

Tonight I noticed that parenthood has added a new layer of creepyness to Stephen King movies. There’s almost always a child who’s special, creepy, or creepy special.

Tonight Hayden made a make believe prince with his fingers and flew him around before bedtime. After he was asleep we watched The Shining. Now if we can just get him a tricycle to ride we can complete the whole feel.

Trip #1 consisted of a 3 day weekend trip to Frederick, MD.

The intent to of the trip was to celebrate several things, but the forerunner was Brie’s aunt’s 40th birthday.

All in all it was a very good trip. We set out late on Thursday and drove back on Sunday. I finished one book on the way down and one on the way back. Hayden did absolutely wonderfully on the long road trip considering he’s only recently started potty training.

On Saturday morning we hit an impromptu farmer’s market within walking distance of the hotel and picked up fresh fruit and dairy products to snack on and have a picnic on the way home.

We spent Saturday afternoon hanging out with Brie’s family and Hayden played with his cousins. It was a nice casual affair and several people noticed that I am in better shape than the last time they saw me.

A sitter was arranged for and we attended Brie’s aunt’s semi-formal party in an art gallery for her 40th birthday. There was an open bar, a scavenger hunt, free mixed cd’s of the birthday girl’s favorite songs, appetizers and a DJ who played songs from and in the same genre of the mixed cd.

It was a great party and I was really struck by the celebration and vitality for a 40th birthday. Though a fair amount of that may be due to most of the music being in the vein of Sir Mix-a-Lot, but I hope I’m that energetic and happy when I turn 40.

We wound up giving in on one more parental moral high ground and borrowed a portable DVD player for the trip. We managed to hold off on it until the last 2 hours on the way back and finally relented. A 7 hour straight drive without picnics and potty breaks made for an impatient Hayden (among others) and in order for all of us to tolerate each other we needed a distraction. Finding Nemo to the rescue!

By the time we got home we were all pretty exhausted and tired of each other. I think we’re going to have to institute a rule that any time we have a car trip in excess of 6 hours the following work day is also sacrificed as decompression time so we all get a chance to sleep in and not hate each other in the morning.

Photo Gallery from our recent trip to Gatlinburg with various friends and our brief stop to see Scotty and pet a baby elephant.

Apparently I’m on hiatus. This comes as news to me as I fully intended to talk about last weekend’s trip, the books I read and probably some internets I found interesting.

However, between the road trip last weekend, the road trip this weekend, the laundry in between and crying myself to sleep the last few nights because I haven’t picked up Resident Evil 4 for Wii I seem to have wound up in an unintentional hiatus.

We’re off for another roadtrip tonight and have no intention of bringing a laptop this time.

See you in a few days!

In the meantime, enjoy these internets:

• They’re making a action figure of Stan Lee. STAN LEE!
• You can send people real mail from the internet for free!. You know, if you hate holding pens or something.
• And on the subject of baby names:

Yoinked from Yvette.

Mostly I just wanted an excuse to have enough zombie related posts to create a Zombies category.

49%

I assume I would score higher if I wasn’t willing to drive across town to rescue my wife and child.

According to Hayden anyway.

Hayden has declared that Baby2.0 will be named “Bloo-Bloop”.

He was going to go with “Gur-Gurk”, but I guess he thought the baby just wasn’t going to look like a “Gur-Gurk”.

We’ve arrived at our destination and will be gathering with family shortly.

We drove halfway last night after my volleyball game and stopped at a random hotel.

It was surprisingly busy for a medium sized midwestern town on a Thursday night. We got the very last non-smoking room. Getting the last room meant that:

• We payed way too much money
• We got a suite with a whirlpool bathtub in the bedroom

For some reason I doubt that the whirlpool parked every so suggestively in front of the television was intended for family usage. We decided to bend it to our will and take a bath in the morning while watching cartoons.

Our fears about driving 7 or so hours with a toddler in mid potty training were completely unfounded. We have had zero accidents and the pull-up we put on Hayden for the majority of the trip was completely dry, even though we did not stop nearly as frequently as we go as home.

We’ve also wrecked complete havoc on Hayden’s schedule and he’s been an absolute doll regardless.

Time to relax a little bit before it’s time to be social.

If yesterday’s post didn’t make any sense, then you didn’t click on the image in said post:

Yesterday was “Blog Like It’s The End of The World Day”. Everyone participating was supposed to blog as if we were in the midst of a zombie uprising.

Hmm…having a zombie category might be worthwhile for me.

We’re off to a family thing for a few days, so if we don’t post don’t worry that we’ve been eaten.
Miss us!

Our supplies are holding up pretty well. We’re out of fresh produce but we’ve got a number of canned goods. Man I’m glad I was too lazy to donate those to charity.

We’ve still got water, but I’m not sure if I trust it. How can I tell if it’s still clean? We’re collecting rain water on the roof just to be sure.
We haven’t seen anyone normal for 3 days, not since our neighbors made a break for it in their car. I hope they made it out alright.

It’s getting difficult to sleep at night. I’m trying to fashion some headphones to block out the noise. Not for everyone of course, that wouldn’t be safe. We’ll take turns getting good rest.

We’ve spend most of our day patrolling to make sure all the boards are secure and in our free time we’ve been inventing new card games. I think we’ll be able to ride this out if Brie doesn’t get tired of poker in general.

It just got quiet. I’ll be back later.