Are We Overprotective Parents?

Hey there. I got to thinking... Are we overprotective of our kids? The thought came up when my wife was telling me how one of her workers was complaining how his pops didn't let him ride his bike out on the street. He was 10 or so years old and could only ride his bike in his back yard. Mind you, his pops is/was a private detective so I can see where he would not want his kid on his own. My wife then said that we let our kids ride their bikes in the yard too and not on the street. He asked when she planned on letting them ride their bikes around the block, and her answer was, "When I'm walking right behind them." lol

Now... It's been a couple of days since our boy left for summer camp. We all miss him and we swear that we hear him sometimes at home. We're parents that talk to our kids daily. Even when we were in New Orleans, we called home to say goodnight to the kids. Having our son be at camp is tough since we are not allowed to call. Might make the kids homesick, we guess.

Anyways, it made me think on whether or not we're keeping the kids close to the vest. I know that when I was kid, I left through the front door in the morning and I wouldn't come back until waaaaaaaaay later in the day. And this was before I was 10 years old. I chalked it up to it just being the times and how things are different now.

As a child, my brother and I were always up to mischief and we were not in the house much. I feel as if the kids are always in the house doing 1 of 3 things: playing video games, playing with each other, or watching TV. We had to mandate a rule to make them go outside and play because I am sure that if it were up to them, they'd hang out in front of the TV all day. Every day, when we get home, we force them to go outside and play with the dogs for at least an hour. This gets them outside of the house to get some much needed outside playing time. And even then, they're in our yard and no further than that.

So I'm thinking, are the kids in the house because we don't let them take off and explore? I mean, how much exploring can you do walking down the street? Its weird because when I was a kid, I knew where my friends from school lived, so if I wanted to hang out with a friend, I'd walk to his house. Since we live in a different city from where the kids go to school, they don't have that option. Maybe that's the problem... I don't know. It's something that my wife and I will have to figure out. This is a big reason why we felt that camp would be good for our boy. To be outside, with his peers, enjoying nature and other activities. Our daughter has expressed an interest in camp and wants to go next year. My wife says that she's not sure if she can deal with 2, soon to be 4,kids away without communication. Come Saturday, we'll get a chance to speak to our boy and see how things played out. Until then, later.

TruTV - It's Not Reality, Actuality

Hey there friends. I love watching truTV. I remember when the campaign to transition Court TV to truTV circulated and the one thing that really caught my attention was the slogan. truTV - It's Not Reality, Actuality. I truly believe that this is the best slogan for a TV station. There are many "reality" shows out there now that boast it's cast as "looking for love" or "surviving" somewhere, but when word gets out about what went behind the scenes, how can you classify it as "reality TV"? The surviving shows have buffet tables for the cast and crew between takes and all these looking for love shows seem so fake and scripted that you know the "winner" will not end up with the host just so that there can be a next season. It's not "real enough" for me. I'll watch these kind of shows with little to no reaction from me. I need something that will cause me to think, something that will cause a reaction, something that is real. I need to experience the truTV effect.

What is the truTV effect? It's fairly simple. Have you ever watched a show and then squirm at the sight of a doctor cutting open a corpse? How about seeing a baseball hit a guy in the head and you jump up and go, "Wow, did you see that?" Or have you ever had the "ouch" reaction to the classic video of an object to the groin. Many squirm, many say ouch, many simply grimace. This, my friends, is the truTV effect. Why do we react this way? I'd say it's because we know that someone experienced what we saw. This is not a fictional show. We are seeing an open body, someone really got hit in the head and that person on TV is really feeling that excruciating pain of being hit in the groin. We see that and we feel that. That's why the programming on truTV has the the truTV effect on us. Here's a good example of the truTV effect in action.


These shows are real stories. Some are not for the faint of heart and if you feel that a young one should not be exposed to some of the content the shows have, then you should monitor the shows on the channel before allowing them to view. It's the only way to go when you have a channel that will show you life as it happens. For example, Operation Repo is a show where the repo man goes out and repossesses your vehicle. Think about that for a second. How can you stage that? How can you script a show like this? A person is coming, with a tow truck and camera crew, and is going to repossess your vehicle. What do you do? Do you fight him off? Do you run for it? This show captures all the crazy reactions that people will do to keep their car. Language is vulgar, punches are thrown, and tears are shed. These are actual reactions, friends!

Another great show is Forensic Files, my personal favorite, and is one of the best shows on TV, period. There's no dancing around it, a crime has been committed (or someone is accused of a crime) and investigators are out to uncover the truth. It's insane how the forensic investigators go through every nook and cranny to find evidence. How it's all pieced together to "re-enact" the situation. The projection of the bullet, the splatter of blood, the hair fibers found on a coat, shoe impressions, etc. etc. If you want to feel the truTV effect, then you need to watch this show. It will amaze you how little evidence it takes to uncover the truth. I regularly watch this show and point out to my wife the one piece of evidence that tied everything together. It's a show that talk about well after it's over.

Need more of a visual? Check out some of the videos that playing on truTV video to get a better glimpse of truTV. Experience the truTV effect for yourselves. Look for it in your guide and start seeing some real reality TV, no... Some actuality TV. Later.

Mission: Shed, Almost Complete

Hey there. It's been forever, it seems, but I finally got our shed up. After months and months of cement bags sitting by the side of the house, the foundation for the shed was set in place. All last week, I started to build our shed after work. Knowing that I would not be able to complete it all at once, I built the frame first and decided to wait until the weekend to really tackle the job. Sometime during the week, my wife told me that she hired her brother to come and help me during the weekend. I figured it was ok, since we sent our boy to summer camp for the week, he would be a good help and someone to talk to while building the shed. He helped me put up the walls of the shed but he was really helpful when it came to put up the roof beams. I don't think I would have been able to that on my own so I'm glad he was there for that. We left the shed, partially complete Saturday night and I continued the work on Sunday. I managed to get the roofing 95% done. Roofing was a HUGE pain to do. Not so much because the sheet metal was heavy, but because I couldn't reach some of the openings on the roof to screw in the bolts. It was frustrating me and it came down to me not screwing them all in and having to get on the roof of the shed to do it. I still need to do some now but that will have to wait until next weekend. I need to screw in the last 2 pieces of the shed. Since the roofing is at an angle, I need to finish off the highest point of the shed (I can't think of the name right now but you'll see what I'm talking about in the pictures).

The dogs thought it was their mansion. They walked in and out of the place like they owned it. The girls are pretty happy with it. They kept walking in and out of it and they helped where they can. My wife is glad it's finally done. We can finally move some of our stuff outside to create even more space for the baby. We've been storing all kinds of stuffs in our closets so it's going to be nice to get all stuff outside. It's also going to make our yard look a lot better. We have bikes and tools and all kinds of stuff that is just lingering in the yard. Finally, we'll have a place to put all that away. I strongly recommend you guys get one, if you don't have one already. Check out the pics of our shed. Later.

I Submitted a Short Story

Hey there. I haven't logged on to Associated Content in awhile, so I decided to check it out and see if there are any topics that would interest me to write about. Right there, on the front page, I see the task to write a short story. A flash-fiction, actually. Hmmm... Interesting, so I went ahead and checked it out and AC provided 3 sentences for you to start your story with. The sentences seem a little dark, implying some kind of bad news of sorts. I went with, "She still couldn't shake the previous night's dream." and ran with the "horror" thing but with a twist at the end. Check it out. I called it, "The Devil's Pawn". Click the link below and let me know what you think of it. Thanks!

The Devil's Pawn

This is Sparta

Hey there. I've seen the movie 300. I thought it was good. In my opinion, it could rank as high as Gladiator as one of the best ass kicking movies ever. The problem with it is that there should have been MORE ass kicking and less of that narrator. Anyways, I was looking for something to laugh at and stumbled upon this gem at TheChive. I damn near spit out my water. lmao I love me some lists, especially those of funny pics or epic fails. This one just grabbed my attention and wanted to share it. Later!

Stop Remote Confusion Now

Hey there friends. Do you still have too many remotes in your home? Did you not read this post and say, "Hey, that's a great idea. I need one of those!" A Yamaha neoHD would be perfect for any tech savvy owner that loves to experience technology at it's best. Or for those who simply want to make things a little easier for the family.

Yesterday, I had my brother in law come over to help me build my shed. We spent most of the afternoon outside building the thing. After we called it a day, we came inside to watch a little TV. He was confused by the remotes we had on the table. He's not at our house much so he struggled to find the right control to turn the TV on. It quite funny actually, since he walked over to my wife and asked her to turn the TV on for him. This is where the Yamaha neoHD would make things simple.



I don't blame him. It's happened to me where I would be at a friend's house and I'm hold 4 remotes, pushing the on button on each in hopes of finding the TV remote. With the Yamaha NeoHD, all the remotes can be eliminated since you can program your remote devices to be used by it's user friendly device. You hook up the device to your TV and then program all your remote devices (TV, DVD, Stereo, gaming console, Ipod, etc.) and easily navigate through the user menu to select and activate your device. All through a small and simple remote. Who would not want this device?

Also, you can enter the Yamaha neoHD Sweepstakes for your chance to own your own Yamaha NeoHD. You can gain an entry by Tweeting: “I just entered to win a #neoHD b/c I have too many remotes, visit (blog.izea.com) to enter” or you can go to blog.izea.com and leave a comment on their Yamaha NeoHD post. Simply leave a comment about how you can benefit by having your own. I've left my comment and would love to see why you would like one too. Leave a comment here and let me know if it's something that is worth entering a contest for. And for those friends with a Facebook account, don't forget to search for NeoHD to become a friend and keep up to date with all that is the Yamaha NeoHD. Check it out, friends. This is definitely something that we should keep an eye on. Later.