This is just wrong. A tattoo on a very young girl. Especially in that spot.
(Click the image for a close up view.)

Bullgrit

Last night, Calfgrit9 wanted some time to play alone in his room. So Calfgrit5 and I played together. We had a lengthy sword fight with our foam swords (bought from the Lego store in Downtown Disney). Then he rode on my back as a knight on his horse. This went on for 30 to 45 minutes until I needed to answer the phone.

While I was on the phone, CG5 went to his room to play with his Legos and Lincoln Logs. After a while, I gave the five-minute warning for bath time. The five minutes passed quickly, and he wasn’t ready to stop playing when I started his bath water.

He got right pissed when I turned on the stern-daddy voice, “It’s time for bath. You’ve had plenty of time to play, and you can play some more after bath if you don’t take too long with this.”

“Baths are stupid,” he said.

“Now, we don’t use that word,” I said.

“I don’t want a bath. I haven’t had time to build anything,” he argued.

“If you don’t come and get in the bath right now,” I warned, “you won’t have time to play after. And if you’re going to be bad, we won’t read a book before bed. You’ll just go straight to bed.”

“Nooooo!” he shouted in agony. (No book before bed is a sad punishment in this house.)

“Come on!” I raised my voice.

He stomped into the bathroom, and started taking off his clothes.

“You’re a bad daddy,” he said. “You’re the worst daddy, ever!”

I got him into the bath tub, and since he refused to wash himself, I had to soap him up and rinse him off, myself. He pouted and whined the whole time. He reiterated and confirmed my bad daddiness. I was “the worst daddy ever in a million years.”

When he was clean, I had to threaten the no book before bed punishment again to get him to get out of the water. As I dried him off, he asked, “Will you build a Lincoln Log house for me?”

“Do bad daddies build Lincoln Log houses?” I asked.

He looked at me with the towel draped over his head, and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Mm hmm,” I grunted. “Can you put on your pajamas without an argument?”

“Sure,” he said. He was suddenly a totally different child.

I built a Lincoln Log house with him before he got in bed. I don’t know if I’m a bad daddy, a good daddy, or just a sucker.

Bullgrit

I was talking to a coworker, and I noticed the calculator on his desk. It was a Texas Instrument job, (TI-86, I think), with a big screen for multiple lines and graphing. I mentioned, “Cool calculator,” and he told me some about it.

I said I have an older, but similar version from my computer science major days in college. “I still keep it with me, in my backpack,” I said.

When I got back to my desk, I picked up my backpack and pulled out my TI-36X SOLAR. I took it back to my coworker’s desk and showed him.

We compared the two intruments, and talked about mathmatical concepts that I haven’t thought about in 15 years or more. Concepts and terms that I only recognize by name, now, but that I used to use on a fairly regular basis.

I started my college career with computer science. I learned various computer languages, (Basic, FORTRAN, COBOL, C+, Binary, hexidecimal, etc.), studied calculus and logic, and was generally solidly in the mathematcal realm of college.

And then, two years into my major, I decided to switch to English. And that decision is a whole ‘nother discussion.

But I kept my calculator. For the first few months out of mathematics, I would play around with the various functions on it, just for fun. Eventually, though, I lost all skill with it. Now it’s in my backpack for use as a basic calculator — I only use the main functions of the gray and blue buttons.

I kind of miss mathemtatics, at times.

Bullgrit

The worst thing about going through this exercise regimen is that the hour-and-a-half (and more) of my evenings it takes, really cramps out the other activities I need to do in the evenings. When I’m finished with the workout, cooled down, and showered, it’s usually about 10:00 p.m., and I’m ready to collapse into bed. So that means other things, like writing a blog post, get put off.

The best thing about going through this exercise regimen is the fantastic feeling coursing through my body right after finishing a routine. I almost always feel like I shouldn’t be finished yet, like I have more energy to burn. But the particular muscles I’ve been working that evening are pretty much wasted, and I really couldn’t do even one more push up or pull up or jump or squat.

I’ve completed phase I of P90X — 4 weeks done, 9 more to go. I still find the Yoga X routine to be very aggravating, but I still love the system as a whole.

I’ve lost some weight, and I’m starting to get some tone all around. I got a compliment on my calves this weekend when I was out running beside my boys on their scooters. Plus I was happy to be able to keep up with my boys on their scooters, without having to stop and pant every few minutes. It felt good to run around our house playing tag, too. I was raring to go.

This whole workout system is proving to be one of the best hard processes I’ve ever put myself through.

Bullgrit