It had been a rainy weekend, and I and the boys really needed to get out of the house. And I needed some time without the boys all over me, needing me every minute of the day. Sometimes it seems like the children are just crawling over me — and sometimes they literally are. So I had the idea to take them to Jumpin’ Beans, an indoor, blow-up, play ground.

I had never been to Jumpin’ Beans, but Cowgrit had taken the boys there a couple of times over the years. The place is great. There are tables set up around the play area, and the mesh “windows” let parents see right into the area. There’s even a big-screen monitor set up showing a high-camera view of the play area.

There were less than a dozen other kids in the business, so there was less potential for crashes between running and bouncing children. I took two bottles of water for the boys, and a PC Gamer magazine for me. I expected to be able to sit in peace — though not in quiet, but I can tune out the roar of the play — and read my magazine for a little while. We got there just before 4:00 Sunday afternoon, and the business closes at 6:00. I hoped I’d get the full two hours of relaxing time while the boys played out all the energy they’d had bottled up all weekend.

But it seemed like every few seconds one of the boys, especially Calfgrit3, came out of the play area and wanted my attention. CG3 wanted a sip of water, wanted to tell me something “awesome” that just happened, wanted to give me a high five, wanted to run over to a different part of the place (so I had to get up and move to keep him in my sight), etc. Every time I tried to read my mag, he interrupted me. Or Calfgrit7 came to the nearest mesh window to tell me something.

I’d read a few sentences, and then be interrupted. When the CG went back to his play, I looked at the magazine page, looked for where I had left off, and read another sentence before being interrupted again. Oh my God! Can’t they just play and leave me to read for 10 minutes? I love my boys, and I love it when they’re excited, but for the love of sanity, I just wanted a little non-daddy time this weekend.

To see if the reality matched my perception, I decided to test the situation. When CG3 ran back to play, I noted the exact time. When he or CG7 came back and wanted my attention again, I noted the exact time. I ran this test for 15 minutes, and I found that my perception was exactly reality.

The longest time I was left alone was 2 minutes, 30 seconds. The shortest amount of time was 45 seconds. That means, during that 15 minute test period, I was interrupted from trying to chill out and read about 10 times; about once every 90 seconds.

Well, at least Jumpin’ Beans burned out most of the energy they had bottled up. It probably would have killed me to have to wear them out that much, all by myself.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I was going through my Web browser bookmarks, deleting those links that I never visit. I have a folder in my bookmarks list titled, “Junk.” This is where I put those odd sites that I think are interesting at the time I find them, but I really don’t have a use for. I know this concept isn’t unusual — you probably have such bookmarks too — but I need to cull some of the useless crap from the clutter. Here’s some of the links I’m deleting:

Starship Dimensions — scale illustrations comparing the various fictional starships from TV and film.

The Ultimate Showdown — funny song and video.

Manamana — manamana.

Lolcats — cat pictures with captions.

Retro-MTV — recording of MTV from 1983; Hey kids, see what MTV was like when it was good.

Suggestive doodling — video shows an artist drawing what looks like naughty bits, but it cleans up nicely.

Mark of Chaos — trailer for a computer game, based on a table-top war game.

Do girls fart? — this is a never-aired segment from the Mythbusters show on Discovery.

My life in a cube — funny illustration blog about working in a cube farm.

This list only scratches the surface of my Junk folder. I also have a subfolder with some interesting results from a vanity search (Google search for your own name). According to Google, I’m a Baptist pastor in Illinois with a side agenda against taxes.

Having gone through this folder and looked at some of these links again, I’ve decided to not delete most of them, yet. They’re pretty fun sites. Although I’ve got to do something to get manamana out of my head before I go to bed.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Not Viewed: DVD

I’ve been told by friends that this movie is really good. I’ve read comments on message boards that this movie is really good. I would love to see this movie. It’s a World War II tale about a German U-boat (“das boot” = “the boat,” in German). I’ve rented this movie twice from Blockbuster in the past couple of months, but had to return it, late, both times without having watched it.

As part of some kind of promotion that I signed up for a couple of years ago, I get monthly free rentals (non-new releases) from Blockbuster. I usually use these coupons to rent old movies I’ve already seen, years ago, but for two months now, I’ve used a coupon for this movie I haven’t seen.

Several weeks ago, Blockbuster in our area (their “test market”) went back to late fees. They reduced the cost of renting movies to around three bucks, and made all rentals for three days. I have come to absolutely hate this. Both times I rented Das Boot, I ended up getting tied up in stuff and couldn’t find the time to watch it in the three day period allowed. So I had to return the movie, a day late, unwatched.

Fortunately, because I used my coupon both times, renting it cost me nothing either time. But ironically, returning them a day late has cost me sixty-six cents both times. I won’t rent from a Blockbuster store again (even for free) if they keep the 3-day limit. I need a week to manage the time to watch a movie — especially this movie, that runs three and a half hours.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com