The next Dick Weber

I took Dylan on a long-promised bowling trip tonight with Grandpa Bill at the Oasis of Loganville, Ga.

He had a blast, bowling three games and even breaking the century mark (102) in the third game.

Of course, he had rails, but he’s 6 and he gets it. After an 80 and a 75 in the first two games, I told him his goal was an 80 in the third game.

He was easily on pace, with a 69 through eight frames, when he hit a strike — with no help from the rails, I might add — in the ninth frame, which brought cheers from the bowlers three lanes down.

Then he opened the 10th with a nine, and I knew if he got a spare, he would break 100. When he picked up the 10 pin, he got high fives from one of the girls from three lanes down.

Of course, after the strike and the awesome spare, he closed with an anti-climactic 3 in his final roll.

(Not that it matters, but I bowled a 117, cursed my shoes, removed the left one and finished with a 203 and a 188 wearing only one shoe.)

Dylan spent $1 on some ski-mobile spy-action video game, which was quite entertaining to watch, especially when he repeatedly ran into gates, trees, walls, buildings, etc. Then I took him to Sonic for an orange slush and popcorn chicken.

A great night.

Like your turkey organic?

Quick quiz: Who's the turkey in this picture?

The Clemson Poultry Science Club is offering 50 organic turkeys for sale this Thanksgiving.

Want to know more? Read here.

The definition of stupidity

This was too good to pass up.

A man groped the nurse helping to deliver his baby. He was arrested and missed the birth altogether.

Story here.

Maybe it’s you (or us … or just America, in general)

I am all to aware about the myriad of reasons why newspapers are failing and journalism, in general, is in decline.

And journalists — newspaper journalists specifically — who blame the reader (the consumer, essentially) should usually be admonished, and rightly so.  The consumer (reader) simply wants the product (information) faster and in a way traditional newspapers can’t (or won’t) provide it (via TV, the Web, handheld or social media, etc.).

But where the reader can be held accountable is in WHAT information they want. Not enough people seem to care about the things that really matter anymore. Maybe that’s a problem with America, in general.

Here’s a prime example I find humorous.

The city of Atlanta is in the midst of its most important mayoral election in decades. The health care reform being debated in Congress, as well as in the court of public opinion, will affect virtually every Amercian in some way. We’re fighting a war in Afghanistan. And the H1N1 strain of the flu — swine flu, if you will — is spreading faster than expected and is killing our young people.

Yet, these were the three most popular stories on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for last week:

1. UGA football player arrested, suspended

2. Winder man dies from rattlesnake bite

… and my favorite …

3. Man gropes nurse who was helping deliver his baby

The last one is so good, I might just have to post it myself.

They don’t make ‘em like they used to

I thought this was interesting. I found it on the auto page at AOL.com.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air in near perfect condition and decided to crash it head on at 40 mph with a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu to illustrate what progress in safety had been made in 50 years of American car manufacturing.

Take a look. I took particular note of how fast the airbag in the 2009 Malibu deployed. The driver never sniffed the steering wheel, much less the windshield.

As for the driver of the Bel-Air, well, he didn’t hit the windshield either. But that’s because he had a steering column coming through the back of his spine.

Dylan and Danny

Two of my favorite people -- Dylan and Danny Ford.

I went to the Spartanburg Touchdown Club meeting on Friday at Wild Wing Cafe in downtown Spartanburg to hear former Clemson football coach Danny Ford speak.

Dylan loves Wild Wing, and since he had a big program at school (that his grade wasn’t even allowed to attend) and then early dismissal, I took him along.

He was excited to wear his Clemson jersey and take his clemson football to have Coach Ford autograph it, even though he has no real idea who Coach Ford is. Coach of the 1981 national champions somehow doesn’t mean as much to him as to me.

He got to eat chicken fingers, hang out with the grown-ups (the thrill of missing school played a role, as well) and get his picture made with someone who his daddy liked a lot. And he loved it, especially since Mommy and Ella didn’t get to come along.

The picture doesn’t mean a lot to him, but hopefully one day he’ll understand why it does for me.

Hogwarts, S.C.

Dylan reluctantly pets the dragon. Hagrid would be proud.

In yet another installment of  Daddy and Dylan Day, Dylan and I went all wizard last Saturday.

The Roper Mountain Science Center in Greenville County hosted “The Science of Harry Potter.”

The program, which is an excuse to get kids and parents into the science center, married its exhibits with themes from the Harry Potter series of books by J.K. Rowling.

The program, open from 9 a.m.-1 p.m., was a lot to take in. There was no way we would be able to see everything, and there was a lot.

Among the activities:

• Hold mice, snakes and a dragon.
• The chance to meet and hold these Hogwarts creatures … tarantulas, giant toads and a python.
• Quidditch demos … Well, this is as close as you can come to quidditch without being able to fly. There was a Harry Potter day camp back in the summer where the kids played quidditch, apparently. Some of the pupils were brought back to demonstrate the sport. There were hula-hoops suspended from trees branches for the rings. Soccer balls were used, and a tennis ball was the golden snitch. And did I mention there was no flying? Dylan was not impressed.
• Old-fashioned broom making
• The younger kids made bitty brooms from small sticks and yarn.
• Among several demonstrations at the planetarium, there was a chart showing how all the names of the Black family (as in Sirius) corresponded with astronomy.
• The kids could take a tour of the forbidden forest and discuss the botany of wands.
• There were readings from “The Tales of Beetle the Bard.”
• Wandmaking … using pretzels, chocolate and sprinkles.
• Learning to write with quills.
• Herbology … making your own herbal tea bag.
• Meeting a live barred owl.
• Photo opportunities with the Sorting Hat.
• Potions lab … activities such as making slime, smoke, etc.

Dylan loved it. Even if the ties to Harry Potter weren’t always so strong. Really, the whole point is just to get you into the science center. Once you’re there, there’s almost no choice but to learn. And it was well worth the $9 total it took for us to get in.

When Harry Potter camp comes up next summer, I think we’ll be there.

Daddy & Dylan Day, Part II

Dylan and Grandpa Bill at Atlanta's Turner Field on Monday night. It was Dylan's first major league baseball game with daddy, and the Braves won 4-0.

Monday night was Dave Ramsey Night at Turner Field. As a result, the seats in the sections at the end of the upper deck, in both right and left field, were all $1.

It seemed like the perfect night to take Dylan to his first Major League Baseball game. The Braves were winning and still in the wild-card hunt. The seats were cheap.

Brooke called my dad, and he said he was interested. So I picked Dylan up early from school on Monday and we drove down to Atlanta. Brooke and Ella stayed with my mom, and Grandpa Bill, Dylan and I headed downtown.

After a quick dinner at Arby’s, we caught the MARTA train at the East Lake station. Dylan had been looking forward to the train ride as much as the game. As it turns out, it was easily his favorite part of the evening.

Our seats were not bad, but that didn’t mean Dylan had any intention of staying in one. It was a two-plus-hour effort to get him to be still. He was in the aisle, on the steps behind us and three rows down at the railing.

At one point, he was leaning at the railing and yelling below, “Hey you, hammer head! Hey hammerhead, up here!” I thought, “Oh my God. He’s yelling at a person.”

Boy, did I feel stupid. When I reached the railing to admonish him, I realized he was yelling at an actual hammer head. Braves sponsor Home Depot holds a race similar to that of the sausages in Milwaukee, only it’s a hammer, a saw, a paint brush and a drill that race around the outfield wall.

Dylan and I missed a Chipper Jones home run while we were in the souvenir shop. That’s where I spent 20 minutes convincing Dylan that we didn’t need a red foam tomahawk for $5 (I must have 10 in a box at home) or an $8 red big foam finger.

(The souvenir shop is also where a I was approached by a hot latin chick about the 2009 Little League World Series T-shirt I was wearing.)

We bought two drinks for $9 and a bag of peanuts for $6.25. Ouch.

We stayed through the seventh inning, and then we left to let Dylan play in the big Cartoon Network playhouse and then take some pictures with some big statues. (The most disturbing of which shos Dylan sitting on Ty Cobb’s lap as he slides into a base.)

Dylan complained about the walk back to the MARTA station as much as he complained about the walk to the stadium. I guess it was to be expected. But for the most part, while a bit hyper, he was good.

Will he ever be a baseball fan? Enough to sit through a game? I don’t know. And that’s fine. If it’s not his cup of tea, I won’t push it on him. But I can hope.

Daddy & Dylan Day

Cloudy With A Chance of Meat Balls

Dylan has complained lately to Brooke that he never gets to spend much time anymore when it’s jist “him and Daddy.”

And he’s right. Since Ella was born and Brooke has been working, almost all the time he’s been with me, he’s had to share me with the little girl.

So, with last Friday being a day off from school for him, he asked Brooke if she could get a babysitter for Ella so he could have me all to himself. She said yes, and made it happen. (Thank you to the un-named babysitter).

I had two movie passes that we get each year at work on our birthdays, so I figured we’d do a movie. Because of scheduling, the best choice was “Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.”

So Dylan and I went to lunch — Chinese buffet, his choice … funny, he wants to go to the Chinese buffet, yet he eats only the French Fries, chicken nuggets (his name for the sweet & sour chicken, minus the sweet & sour) and Jello. Then we took in the movie, in Disney 3D, no less.

Quick movie review: Awesome. Clean. Mr. T rocks. Neil Patrick Harris rocks as Steve the monkey. As far as kids movies go, pretty darn good.

Anyway, this was the first Daddy & Dylan Day. And I’m hopeful for lots more.

Hurry up and die, newspapers

That’s the sentiment of Newsweek blogger Daniel Lyons in his Sunday blog post, a reaction to the proposed Newspaper Revitalization Act.

I’m not disputing that newspapers are dying, or that they should be, or even the reasons why Lyons asserts they are. But I find it interesting that Lyons ignores the fact that virtually every successful Internet journalism venture requires capital from somewhere else … another medium.

In fact, it would be interesting to see how Lyons feels about newsmagazines.

Like newspapers, they are dying a slow (albeit, a little slower, yet just as certain) death. Both Time and Newsweek, the nation’s foremost mainstream news mags, have shrunk in recent years. And they’ve certainly tinkered with their formats to try and keep readers or bring in new ones.

That being said, it’s Newsweek’s print sales, not advertising on a Web site — or even more specifically Lyons’ blog — paying Lyons’ bills.

But it’s OK if Newsweek goes under. Like Lyons says, journalists will get other jobs, right?