shawnp0wers

I'm a bloggy blogger who blogs.

Fire and Smoke, Awesome Edition

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Yesterday I blogged about my day of awesome. There was one little thing I left out — the family bought me a combination early Father’s Day and birthday gift in the form of an awesome grill!

If you think an awesome grill would have propane fire, quite frankly you don’t know the awesomeness that is charcoal. Here you can see me with my ninja cooking utensils and my chimney starter full of burning briquettes. (If you don’t have a chimney starter, go buy one. You’ll be thankful you did.)

Just out of frame is a bowl of soaking hickory chips. I debated whether to use hickory or mesquite, but since it’s the beginning of summer, I figure I can alternate all year. Because really there’s no wrong answer. Mmmmmm…

I hope your weekend is half as good as mine. I’d wish it to be as awesome, but I fear you might explode. 🙂

The Best Day Evar!

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If you follow me on Twitter, you know that today I went fishing. It was the first time in about a decade that I’ve gone, and while I didn’t even get the slightest hint of a nibble, it was awesome!

Then the day got better. I sent an email to the staff at school, and even on a holiday weekend — I got a couple replies with good fishing spots in the area!

And THEN it got even BETTER! My family went to a graduation open house (Hi Kari!) and afterward our kids didn’t want to leave. We found them rides, and Donna and I went out for ice cream and a walk around town. It was the closest thing to a date we’ve had in months, and it was extremely awesome.

AND THEN Donna agreed to go two tracking with me to try finding the remote fishing spot, which Google is showing off in the photo above. The road was deep, loose sand — and we almost got stuck! Thankfully we didn’t, but it was just scary enough to be exciting.

Granted, I didn’t get any work done today. Granted I’m way behind. But it’s also a holiday weekend, and the first day off I’ve taken since before I can remember.

I hope YOUR day was as awesome as mine, but honestly, it doesn’t seem possible. 🙂

Let’s Just Pretend

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It’s Monday. If it’s not Monday when you read this, chances are it’s one of Monday’s six miserable siblings. Like my pasta-addicted buddy Garfield, I hate Monday. So here’s my tip to make Monday, or any other day, full of awesome. (Or at least less full of suck…)

Pretend.

Yep, that’s right, just pretend. Pretend you’re having a great day. Pretend it’s fun. Pretend Monday’s insidious thorns are cute, but nothing to ruin a day. Smile at everyone. Be silly. Walk with a limp for no reason. Talk like a pirate. Tape M&M’s to your face. Whatever you do, pretend you’re having fun. Because here’s the secret: You will.

And remember, tomorrow is Tuesday. 🙂

Send in the Zombies, I’m Done with this Brain

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They say fear is the mind killer. I’d guess the one that wrote that never had migraine pain. Unless of course it’s the fear a migraine won’t go away. Because that might actually be true.

Don’t worry, I’m not getting suicidal or anything — I’m just swinging precariously at the end of my sanity rope. (Yes yes, there’s an argument to made as to whether I ever had that rope to begin with…) See the problem isn’t so much with the pain, it’s with the consequences. Spending 60 hours a week with a headache so bad you can’t function (or at least not well) takes its toll on other aspects of a person’s life.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I kept up with my early-adulthood trend of doing jobs that were manual labor type. But I went and started using my brain. So all those things I need to get done can’t be done by a temp. That sucks. I’m not brilliant or anything, but I have unique and specialized skills. Ah, notoriety, thou art a heartless wench.

Friggen migraine. Ok, I’m off to go take another prescription assault on my liver. If you know any zombies, send them my way. I think my brain might be a bitter, bitter snack, but I’m fed up with it myself.

On Raising Girls

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My oldest girl turned 13 this past weekend. Those of you following me on Twitter or Facebook probably heard about the big party she had, and how her old man struggled to deal with 15 teenage girls. Honestly though, the party was fine, the girls all behaved (for the most part), and Amanda made me proud. She and her sisters are good girls, and while the next 10 years will most likely be filled with stress and drama around the Powers house — I’m confident they’ll turn out to be the successful young ladies we’ve raised them to be. Mind you, by successful I mean oh so much more than financially successful. I certainly hope for that, but really it’s only a small part of success.

Why am I confident our girls will turn out OK? Quite honestly there are many reasons. One, we really won the lottery when it comes to progeny, and the 3 girls are fine examples of human beings. That means they are good little lumps of clay. That also means they need to be molded. While I don’t claim to be a great parent, I think we’ve done pretty good so far. The next decade will really tell the story, but I wanted to share some insight at this point. Perhaps I’ll look back at this and bitterly laugh at myself, but even if that’s the case, I doubt I’d change anything in the past.

Discipline and Punishment are Not the Same Thing

Donna and I are strict disciplinarians. We were even more strict when the kids were younger (seriously). Being strict when your kids are young means that you earn credibility early on. You earn respect. You earn trust. If there is one thing I wish I could convince young parents it is that discipline is not mean. Children crave discipline, whether they know it or not. Ask any decent sports coach. A team with discipline is a more effective, and happier team.

But here’s the rub: Discipline is hard. I’m no Dr. Spock, but if you think discipline is just punishing a child when they misbehave, Ur doin it rong. Discipline is an elaborate dance involving consistency, firmness, fairness, and most of all, communication. No, life isn’t fair — but as parents, you certainly ought to be!

Kids are Smart. They’re Immature Sometimes, but Smart.

There is a drastic difference between a child that is angry at you for punishing them, and a child that thinks you are incorrect for punishing them. No, you can’t always convince a child they need to be punished, but if you’re open with them, they’re more likely to respect your reasoning.

The funny thing about discipline and consistency is that if you explain to your child why you’re punishing them — even if they vehemently disagree, they’ll understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. Very often, if you don’t punish them, you lose all credibility. Again, even if they don’t admit or realize it, kids like discipline.

Put Away the Shotgun.

The strong father figure cleaning his shotgun is fine. Really. I have no problem with putting the fear of God into a young man as he’s given the responsibility of caring for the father’s daughter. For me, however, I’d look absurd cleaning a shotgun. Guns aren’t my thing. Oh, I’m intimidating, and any boy will tremble before he takes out my daughters — but my weapon of choice is psychology. Your mileage may differ.

Here’s the thing though, you can be as scary as you want, your daughter is the one that will ultimately make choices on how the evening goes. There is nothing more formidable than a confident young lady that trusts and respects her parents, knowing they trust and respect her in return. Let me repeat that, as it’s so vital, there is nothing more formidable than a confident young lady that trusts and respects her parents, knowing they trust and respect her in return. Sure, I can be the muscle, but it’s her life, she has to be the brains.

And with that, I’m going to go talk to my kids. You should do the same. (Not my kids, but you know what I mean…)

Pranks Are Lame, Long Live TMI Day!!!

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Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed a good April Fool’s Day silliness as much as the next online person — but this year, I think the pranks just seem a bit too 2007. So I say, this year (and possibly the next 2010 years) we try to out-awkward each other. I declare today, “TMI Day!”

I’m doing my TMI-ing on Twitter. Feel free to join me. I’m using the #TMI hashtag. It should be fun, like that time I peed on an anthill, and while I wasn’t looking, urine-covered ants crawled up my leg leaving little damp trails. #TMI

Shawn’s Super Quick Netflix Wii-view

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Got my disk in the mail, and thought I’d stop home at lunch to try it out. Here are my thoughts, shot out into quick bullets:

  • The interface is the best Netflix interface I’ve used yet. It’s easy to navigate your queue, similar titles, recent additions to the streaming library, etc.
  • Activating your Wii is painless, and done online. (Like the PS3 and Roku) No need to try typing your email address and password into the Wii.
  • For those of you that have a hacked Wii with a USB drive for storing games — good news, the Netflix disk rips quickly, and runs from USB with no problems whatsoever.

So basically, I have a Netflix disk for a Wii if anyone wants to use it. AND, I suspect you’ll be able to download the Netflix Wii ISO from nefarious sites everywhere shortly. Heck, if you twist my arm I might rip it myself. (But I’ll never admit it online, because that would be RONG. 🙂 )

And now? Back to work… ttfn

UPDATE: Wow, look, a fancy download link for a WiiNetflix.iso file. I’m not claiming to be responsible, but, um… Yeah. You can trust the link. 🙂

UPDATE THE SECOND: Yes, it’s only 37MB compressed. It expands to 4.7GB. Also, contrary to popular belief, I’m not a douche. 😉

UPDATE THE LAST: You don’t need an ISO file anymore, there is a Netflix channel. If you need to install the new shopping channel so you can download Netflix, but don’t want to update your system, check out THIS LINK. Cheers!

Some Visuals of the House

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Here is our burned house. Don’t let the outside fool you — it’s totaled. If anyone would want to preserve it, it would be the insurance company, and even they agree demolition is the only option. Also, the contents are a total loss. Here’s what it looks like though:

The house we’re putting up in its place will be bigger, and sport a half basement. Here’s the floorplan:

Click on floorplan to embiggenate

The basement will only be rough plumbed, and we’ll finish it in the future. We plan to eventually have a kitchenette, bedroom, and bathroom down there, along with a media center. Since this house will cost about $50K-$60K more than insurance will pay, we’re going to be scrimping everywhere we can…

Anyway, just wanted to update everyone! Hope you’re having a great day. 🙂