Bath Time

Grace's bath is a time Scott and I both cherish greatly. Seeing this naked girl with all her rolls brings 'cute' to a whole new level. Wanted to share a pic of her all clean and cute as can be. Scott's response when I showed him this picture, "Babies are awesome!" I'm amazed every day at how much fatherhood has changed him. Grace has surely rocked our world as we know it, in such a magical way!

Flying High

If there is one thing that Scott loves more than his job with the Air Force Reserves, it's talking about his job in the Air Force Reserves. He'll take any opportunity to show anyone the C-17 if they show any kind of interest (yeah...all you gotta do is ask.) So when I was watching our two neighbor boys earlier this week, Scott came up with the idea to have me bring all the kids on base so he could show them the airplane. At first when I surprised them with the news when they came to the door that morning they seemed a bit disinterested. Mind you, they think Scott is the coolest guy to walk the Earth, so I was first surprised by the reaction, but I suppose typical from 7 and 10 year old boys. However, once we entered the flight line on base they perked up and became wide eyed. Soon after stepping onto the plane one of the boys asked Scott where the guns were. "What is it good for?" was his response when Scott said it didn't have any guns. The maintenance guys on the plane got a kick out of that question. Scott spent the next hour and a half showing how they carry tanks, cars, helicopters, supplies, and letting the boy sit in the pilot seats with all the controls. They loved it, as did Grace. Her proud daddy sure enjoyed having her on the plane for the first time.

More Snow

The Name is Du-Mass

There's a bit of reading in the following text so I'll make this introduction short. This is a story about first impressions. This is a story about checking your work - and not just spelling and punctuation, but gender assignment. This is a story about humiliation.

As part of my work towards the pilot ratings and certificates I'm seeking, I'm also taking some ground courses associated with flying. One of my current courses is Air Taxi Operations. An assignment I'm currently working on is a report on a small aviation business. I chose a Pacific Northwest operator call SeaPort Airlines. I had done quite a bit of research on SeaPort, but was unable to find all the information I needed on the web or otherwise. I decided to contact an employee via email to see if I could obtain the missing pieces of information to complete my report. All I had was a name and an email address.

The following excerpts are from correspondence with Noel McDermott, Assistant Director of Operations, Portland.

Ms. McDermont,

I'm a student at the Northwest Aviation College in Auburn, WA ...(a lengthy email about my report and the information I was looking for...)

Scott Templin

The first email response from Noel...

Scott,

Three things:

One – I’m a dude, and not that you’d know this from the website, but I’m married too (so at a minimum it should have been Mrs.)

Two – I believe my name is spelled correctly on the website that you got my contact information from. I’ve known of numerous letters to prospective employers or industry contacts that have made a “wall of fame” for their humorously gross errors in titles, yours is close.

Third - (the information I had requested for my report)

Noel McDermott

My response...

Noel,

Thanks for the quick, in-depth, reply and my most sincere apologies for completely snarfing your name.

In response I will say three things as well:

1) A quick recap of a conversation I had with my wife. Me, "Hey honey, is 'Noel' a boy or girls name?" My wife, "It's a girl's name. Why do you ask?" Me, "I'm writing an email. Thanks."

2) The misspelling of your last name lies squarely on my shoulders. A mistake I surely hope I would never have made if I was submitting a resume, as I would have checked everything in triplicate before submission. The "Ms" is also my doing as my schooling taught me it was a non-marital expression for any female. Miss for unmarried, Mrs for married, and Ms if you were unsure. Again - reference part 1 for the gender assignment mistake.

3) ... (expressed thanks for him providing the information, even after my blunder)

More recently this morning I received the following email.

Scott,

After much contemplation, I’ve decided that with the humorous additions from your pre email conversations, this does indeed make the wall.

Fly Safe,

I informed Mr. McDermott I would also be posting the emails on my wall-o-shame, I mean, blog.

So kids, what did we learn today? I like to think the lesson is obvious. If not, watch the appropriate YouTube video. LINK HERE

Snow Shock

I've lived here going on 13 years now and there is still a shock factor when I see snow fall in Western Washington. Yesterday was a mix of snow and sunshine, so much so it felt like I was back in my home town of Denver. We are expected to see more snow in the coming days. Scott sure loves it. The second we woke up this morning he jumped out of bed, threw on his long underwear and snow gear and headed outside to play (and shovel...yes, there was even enough to shovel!) I think Punxsutawney Phil's prediction this year is going to be dead wrong.

ROYGBIV

You find out some interesting things about yourself when you have kids, like the rules about which toys they can and can't have. I thought I had a few years before something like this would happen. I thought this type of oppressive supervision only started when kids started getting into violent video games. I thought wrong; it starts when they are born.

If you have children, you have likely noticed that many baby toys having multiple repeating parts will color these parts in many different colors, the idea being, I believe, that exposing the child to more colors will not only make the toy more interesting, but help them learn the colors as the parents point to each one and say "red, blue," ect. As I became more aware of how common this phenomenon in baby toys really was, I made what I felt was a critical parenting decision. I decided that if we bought any toys for Grace which included a string of multiple colors, that said sting of colors must conform to the arrangement of the color spectrum - ROYGBIV. If a toy is going to be two things at once (fun and colorful), why not, even if it's at an unconscious level, add a third layer; SCIENCE!

It may have been a few years since some of you had a physics class which used a prism to convert white light into the color spectrum. (Think Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon album cover) Even so, I do believe most everyone is familiar with the acronym ROYGBIV enumerating the colors from the longest wavelength to the shortest. It's a rainbow people!

In the short time since I have made this "crazy" limitation on our daughter's toys, I have learned two things. 1 - There are very few toys which adhere to this simple guideline. 2 - The toys that we have found that do conform to this guideline are friggin' cool. After playing with Grace and her toys which conform to ROYGBIV, I've concluded that the toys that do not comply are most likely designed by artists who are concerned with form and matching and often produce toys which I feel are one dimensional. ROYGBIV toys on the other hand, are designed by engineers who are passionate about their creations and insistent about adding hidden layers of enjoyment and learning in what seem to be simple toys.

Kids toys really don't come with directions. They are suppose to be simple, self-explanatory, and ultimately mind expanding. Directions would ruin that last part, putting limitation on how a child who is learning about the world around them, should and should not interact with this new thing. Besides, babies don't listen to instructions anyway. Translationally, adults, like myself, who play with these toys while playing with their children must also "discover" the toys. The lack of instructions isn't just for the kids, it's for the parents as well. I will admit, and Sarah will testify, to how excited I've gotten while playing with these ROYGBIV toys and I "discover" a new and awesome aspect about their design. It is a testament to the engineers that they can design such toys that excite two individuals playing with the toy even though there is a 30+ age difference between the two kids. (Yes, I am still a kid and I love having a new playmate. Sarah will also testify to this)

I won't explain in length more specifically why I like the two ROYGBIV toys we have purchased for Grace so far, but I will tell you which ones we have. In the photo above, Grace is playing with linking alphabet letters. There are a lot of these out there on lots of different online stores. Thank me later when you take the extra minute to find the ones that take ROYGBIV into account.

The photo below is the other toy I've come to really love due to ROYGBIV. The Fisher Price Stack and Roll Cups will have you finding new facets to what you thought were simple, changing radius sphere halves. Find it online or at your local baby superstore.

You can also check out the photo shoot of Grace and the ROYGBIV link letters at our Picasaweb Page: ROYGBIV

Finally, I'll leave you with an awesome video...

Click HERE for the link.

Stink Eye

I was recently informed on multiple occasions by highly influential members of Grace's network that there were not enough photos of Grace being regularly uploaded. To comply with the requests we have uploaded most of the photos of Grace from her and Sarah's visit to Phoenix. We had some of the photos up before, but now a whopping 74 shots, including the one above are available at the link below.

Picasaweb - Grace in Phoenix

Grace Picks the Superbowl

When I got up this morning thinking about preparations for the big game today I was also wondering who might win the game. As I've been quite busy over the past couple of weeks, I have not checked the Vegas odds on who should win the Super Bowl and by how much. I remembered a story about an octopus in Germany who, during the wold cup, picked a perfect bracket. The octopus, named Paul, would be given two containers, each with a piece of food in it and a flag representing the game contestants. Whichever container Paul opened and retrieved the treat from, that team was predicted to win the match. Like I said a few sentences ago, Paul picked a PERFECT bracket during the 2010 World Cup. Read about Paul the Octopus' accuracy in sports betting HERE.

I got the bright idea this morning of performing a similar experiment with Grace. Not only is she smarter than an octopus, but infinitely more cute - therefore, if Paul got every choice correct, Grace should as well.

Without further ado... the XLV Super Bowl Champion,

as predicted by Grace... (drumroll please)

The stage is set...

Total & complete lack of interest...

The carpet is more interesting than this game...

Oh, this box looks good...

Go Packers!!

For those of you wondering, Great Grandma Grace is favoring the Stealers. We can predict that at least one of the two Graces will be correct.