Author: evancparker

“my hair deserves the best, that’s why i use summer garden vegetables exclusively.”

June 29, 2010
it’s a boy (but not ours)

June 29, 2010

mightbabyboig and family just had a little boy — which got me to thinking maybe a boy wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world after all (not that i’ve got much choice in the matter). fwiw, the main reason i’m posting is to taunt the lady sparkler, that i got to hold sammy before she did. thbhthbthbthtbhbthbt.

p.s. dear mightbabyboig — dude. update your blog.
babyproofing

June 28, 2010

photo of the week // week thirty-seven

if friday morning wasn’t enough of a wake up call for babyproofing, sparklet decided to up the ante on sunday and pull herself up on the toy box, the couch (to reach the cat) and one of our arm chairs (again, for the cat).

so, i spent the rest of the day at home depot.

shortly after the first burst of pseudo-crawling back in may, i spent a weekend tidying up the electrical cables and generally trying to make some more space for toys and movement.

with her doing pull-ups, however, we’ve had to start strapping down all the tippy furniture we have and trust me when i say, it’s all tippy.

a by-product of living in a smaller space is that everything we own is a normal height, but only about half as deep (and we all know that height + depth/2 = tippy).

to make matters worse, we have no overhead lights in our living room or either bed room, and have to rely on those tall “urn” floor lamps — which give us all the same tipsiness as the furniture, but with the added bonus of lots of shatter-upon-impact glass.

so, we’ve bought a metric ton of straps designed to prevent furniture from falling over during earthquakes (“quakehold!“) and have been using them to secure pretty much everything to the wall — three lamps, a desk, a television cabinet, the hall table, and the ever important toy box.

top that off an improvised latch (adjustable bungee cord fastened around the closet door handle) to keep sparklet out of the litter box, and we should be good to go …

… except she just knocked the bejeezus out of her head on the toy box, so i’m off to the store to buy a swimming pool noodle to pad the box’s front edge.

who says necessity is the mother of invention?
sarah harmer @ the birchmere

June 27, 2010

i always get nervous when i see people live for the first time.

invariably, they look like its either the first time they’ve ever picked up a guitar, or that they started playing about two weeks before their tour started and have pretty much mastered the three chords required to play their “best” song.

no worries for sarah harmer — she ripped the lid of the birchmere tonight, and looked ridiculously comfortable doing it.

there wasn’t a bad song from the bunch, with “careless”, “basement apartment“, and finale “lodestar” standing among the best live songs i’ve ever seen.

this live music thing seems like a good hobby to get into.

SET LIST: Late Bloomer · Around This Corner · One Match · Careless · Pendulums · Captive · The Thief · Marble in Your Eye · Coffee Stain · Dandelions in Bullet Holes · Silver Road · The Ring · Basement Apartment · New Loneliness · Escarpment Blues · Washington · The City · Came On Lion · Uniform Gray · Loadstar
missing the point

June 27, 2010

baby sparklet seems to have primarily mistaken her new handlebar for a foot rest. i’ll chalk that up to a high level of creative innovation. maybe.
hike: matildaville trail, great falls national park, va

June 25, 2010

sparklet’s first hike. didn’t make it long (45 minutes) or far (definitely short of two miles) but it mostly worked. she hates wearing a hat, tho — that lasted all of about 30 seconds.

trail information:
Trailhead: 38.997516,-77.255065 (Google Maps); Length: 1.8 total miles; Elevation Gain: < 100 feet; Trail Type: Loop (Canal Trail, to Matildaville Trail, to Old Carriage Road); Skill Level: Easy.

See All the Photos on Flickr:
matildaville trail, great falls national park, va
stand up, sit down

June 25, 2010

it’s been quite a 24-hours for little miss sparklet. yesterday she started regularly sitting up by herself (she’s been doing it accidentally or with parental assistance for the last couple of weeks) and then this morning she pulled herself up onto her feet, in order to get into her toy box.

crazy. next she’ll be asking for keys to the car …

See All the Photos on Flickr:
blocks
fighting with the paparazzi

June 24, 2010

she’s been in her new position for less than two weeks, and the lady sparkler is already having to fight off the paparazzi (at a birthday party for the huffington post, no less).
why i’m not as excited about the U.S. as you are

June 24, 2010

i’m as happy about the united states making it through as everyone else within a 3,000 mile radius of my door step, and the nation-wide elation that’s come from landon donovan’s extra time goal has been really pretty awesome to behold. but, here’s my problem:

that was way more exciting than it needed to be.

unlike most years past, the U.S. men’s national team is legitimately good. the team is easily in the top half of the countries participating in the Cup this year, and they have a class of players that (while not the super-elite) they are certainly regularly competing in the top tier of football/soccer.

so, while the U.S. advancing to the round of 16 is great … it’s also the bare minimum of what they should do this competition.

a united states draw against england would normally be a good result, but considering it was (at the time) the worst game england had played in the last two years, a draw just isn’t good enough for the talent that is on the U.S. squad.

they should have won, and won outright.

during the next match (against slovakia) they again fought for a draw against likely the 6th worst team in the competition. commentators can say all they want about the (wrongly) disallowed goal that would have give then U.S. the win, but that misses the point — they should never have been in the position to need that winner in the first place.

the coverage of the final match especially drove me crazy, the now “legendary” 1-0 win over Algeria (the 8th worst team in the competition). commentators referred to it as the U.S. “superbowl” of the Americans’ world cup, and landon donovan’s winner as the “greatest goal in the history of U.S. soccer.”

rubbish.

our “superbowl” at a minimum is the upcoming match with Ghana — even though our opponents’ are ranked worse than Algeria, they should have a strong home continent advantage being the last African team in the Cup.

our “greatest goal in the history of U.S. soccer” will be the goal donovan scores to win a (still hypothetical) next match with Uruguay or South Korea to send the U.S. to the semi-finals.

one of the things that drives me the most batty about U.S. Soccer, is that we always play down to our competition. we fight, we work hard, we run everybody else to the ground. but, in the end, we don’t think we’re good enough, and everybody else is all too happy to help make that come true.

don’t get me wrong — it’s good that the boys advanced through the group stage, and even better that they finished at the top of the group. but “top of the group” should have been with two (or even three) wins, and “advancing” is what we knew we should do way back in early June.

for the U.S., the “real” world cup starts now.

PHOTO: by g55 (Ginger Gregory), courtesy of a Creative Commons license.
baby zoo animals

June 23, 2010

there’s been rash of baby animals being born at the national zoo — gorilla, red panda, kiwi, hornbills, etc — and because we never really make it past the petting zoo, we hadn’t managed to see any of them.

it’s crazy hot right now, which has mostly kept us inside in the afternoons, but we made a rare exception and drove over to the zoo to run in an see the new baby gorilla in her (mercifully) air conditioned enclosure.