Michael has made me proud once again.

I’ve mentioned his audio-abilities in times past, and he’s once again proven himself a chip off the old block.

One of the things I like to bore my poor family with is the game “Where Have We Heard That Voice Before?” For example, pointing out the fact that the character “Charles Muntz” in the Pixar movie “Up” is voiced by Christopher Plummer, whom we’ve seen in “The Sound Of Music.” Or that the voice of “SpongeBob Squarepants” is the same guy who narrates “The PowerPuff Girls.”

Okay, so I apparently have a lot of  spare time.

But that aside… Michael  scooped me tonight on a voice.

While watching one of the typical Disney channel tripe shows “Wizards of Waverly Place,” Michael suddenly blurted out: “It’s him! It’s the voice of the wrench on Handy Manny!”

I listened to the character, a fellow named Dexter. Yes, he does indeed sound like that wrench.

“I think you’re right, Michael! Let me look it up.” I quickly dashed to IMDB to check out the character actor and find out if it’s really him. “What’s the wrench’s name?”

“Uh… Rusty! It’s Rusty!”

“Good job, Michael. It is Rusty.”

A quick look at Handy Manny under the cast list revealed the name of the voice actor responsible for doing Rusty the Wrench. Cross-referencing the actor’s other work revealed that, indeed, he DOES play Dexter on Wizards.

I grabbed Michael and hugged him. “Michael! You have made me so proud! You’ve done it! You picked out a voice!”

He practically beamed with delight.

It could be nothing… and it could be the first steps down a career path. The kid has a great ear, and I’m so proud he’s working on honing it.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, because I can really go to town on creativity, and give the neighbors a good show.

Here’s what we did for Halloween this year. (Ten points to anyone who can figure out why I named the haunt “Knochen Wohnhaus”)

Things to note:

1) Epic Chandelier in the entryway, constructed of spare junk found at Goodwill

2) Auntie Drizelda the ghost in the living room window. This was hard to see; I don’t think anyone actually noticed her unless they knew about it ahead of time.

3) The graveyard containing two ghouls – Sister S and her friend T, who, after trick-or-treating themselves, decided it would be fun to scare people by being weird. It always works for me.

4) Leota the upstairs ghost. Simple, effective, creepy. Highlighted by two black lights.

5) Lack of fog. I had a new fog machine, and it works great – but no timer, so it wouldn’t emit fog unless I actually pressed a button, which I rarely did, because I was out with Michael and his mommy most of the night trick-or-treating.

6) The creepy background sounds, a compilation of scary sounds I’ve picked up over the years, and a few made by Michael and his sister.

Summer.

For children, that delicious stretch of endless sunny days filled with adventure and glee.

Okay, maybe not all the time. Most of the time it seems to be ceaseless ennui smeared with thick clots of slack-jawed television viewing. One of the teenagers has practically worn her favorite spot on the couch clean through to the springs.

It’s rained a lot. While the rest of the country has been sweltering under the “Heat Dome” (something we Oregonians have heard of but haven’t experienced; we view it with a detached fascination, like what most people feel when they see a moon rock behind glass), we here in the great Pacific Northwest have been pelted with rain beyond even what we consider normal for the year.

The good news is that my water bill is way down. I’ve only had to water the lawn once this year. And we only turned the air conditioner on once this year too: yesterday afternoon.

Because yesterday, it got above 80. Heavens!

And yesterday, Michael’s mommy and I decided that it was high time Michael got up on his bicycle and practiced riding. I took off his training wheels last year, and informed him that he’d be riding on two wheels before the summer is up, even if it killed us both. And of course I mean that figuratively.

In order to make things a little easier on him, we decided to haul him up to one of the cul-de-sacs toward the top of the hill in our neighborhood, since our own street is too steep and too busy for a wobbly little boy to get any good practice on.

Lucky us, when we got there, who should drive by but the mother of one of Michael’s kindergarten buddies. With said buddy riding in the back seat. She leaned her head out and shouted a greeting, and after pulling into her driveway hurried her little boy into the garage to fetch his own bike.

So for the next half hour, it was bicycle training day for Michael and his friend.

“The only thing J can’t seem to figure out is how to get back up on his bike after he rides a little. I always have to help him on,” Michael’s friend’s mother said to us, watching the little guy pedal down the street.

“The curb! Have him bring his bike over to the curb and stand on that, then lift his leg over and push off. It always worked for me,” I said.

“That’s a great idea!” She hurried over to J to show him this new technique. Meanwhile, I plopped Michael on his seat for the thousandth time.

“Okay, little man. Let’s try for ten seconds this time.”

“Daddy… I’m too heavy for this. I scraped my leg. I’ll never get this.”

“Don’t say that. Look, J is up and riding just fine! If he can do it, so can you. Just find your balance.”

“I don’t have any balance.”

“Yes you do. I saw you pull yourself back upright before you crashed last time, so I know you can do it.”

I tried to be as encouraging as I could as I ran along side him and got him up to speed.

“Okay, sport. I’m going to let go. It’s all you!” I let him go, and he pedaled briefly, got scared, braked and instantly crashed.

“See? I can’t do it!” he cried.

“Yes, you can. You just have to not be scared of it, and don’t stop pedaling. When you stop, you fall. You can’t stay balanced if you stop. Just don’t be afraid.”

“Okay…”

We tried it once more. I ran along side him and pushed him forward. He pedaled… and stayed up!

Seven, eight, nine, ten… he was doing it! Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen seconds of riding on his own!

Then he rammed the curb at the end of the cul-de-sac.

“You did it! You rode! You can do it!”

“Yeah! I’m going to go by mommy now…” and he turned his bike around, got up and had me roll him past his mother, who was getting the whole thing on video.

He didn’t last but nine seconds this time… but he knows he can do it. He’s past the tipping point; it’ll just be a matter of a few more practices, hopefully with J, to get him really riding strong.

It’ll be then that he’ll discover the joy and freedom of riding his bike, going where the wind takes him (with all safety in mind, of course).

His friend came running over to congratulate him on staying up, then invited him over to play. Michael gave us a look and we said yes, then he and J dashed across the street and into his house. His mom exchanged phone numbers with us, and after a brief discussion about the impromptu playdate, my wife and I bid them goodbye and walked on down the street and around the corner to our own house.

Michael was on his first playdate, after having really ridden his two-wheeler for the first time.

Summer has officially begun for one little boy.

We’re watching the playoff today, Green Bay at Chicago.

We want the Bears to win of course, since the Seahawks couldn’t bring it last week.

And if we’re going to cheer on Da Bears, there’s protocol involved:

Thanks to Melisalw for spurring me on to show the proof!

Way back in ’05, we drove to Disneyland.

If you’re interested, it’s 989 miles from our house to Anaheim. This doesn’t include the side venture to Sacramento to visit Grandma B, though that did help break up the trip nicely.

We had a great time. It was Michael’s first visit to the original Magic Kingdom, and his first major road trip. The girls were excited to ride all of the really fast roller coasters and things, go on the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean a few times, and maybe get a few souvenirs.

Michael was just excited to walk around and see, touch, smell and taste everything. I took a few snippets of video while we were there, and sent one in to the Disney web site.

They’ve been doing this promotional thing this year, asking for guests to submit pictures, videos and stories of their memories.

This is our submission, one of our favorite moments from that great week we had so many years ago:

Getting In To Character

One of the things that makes that place so special is how the characters interact with the guests, and with each other. It turns an ordinary visit into an extraordinary one. I cannot wait until we can go back.

Anyone else have any memories they want to share?

It’s Halloween, and you need a costume idea for your son.

He’s little.

He’s red-haired.

He’s mischievous.

What to do… what to do…

"Where's me shillelagh?"

Pants, jacket, shirt, shoes, vest from Goodwill: $28.00

Hat and felt from craft store: $9.00

Making a costume that fits your kid’s personality to a T: Priceless.

We had a nice little weekend.

Saturday, after surprising Michael and his sister with a quick trip to the doctor for a flu vaccine shot, we went to a local pumpkin patch. It was for a good cause, so we didn’t mind the huge crowd or the jacked up pumpkin prices. That and we had a chance to see the little western town these people had built on their property. It was inspiring, to say the least; if I were in the position to purchase a plot of land right now, I’d probably do it. Just for the potential of being able to build a western town on it. Or maybe a castle.

Lugging pumpkins back to the car was not fun; it’s hilly terrain, and of course the car was parked on the crest of a hill about 200 yards up. I got quite a workout, carrying two. And fortunately, Michael did not have a meltdown on this trip. He told his mother several times how sorry he was that he broke her glasses last year.

Didn’t get nearly as much done on my Halloween decorations as I would have liked, so I don’t have any progress to show yet. Hopefully later this week. Next weekend for sure. Tombstones need to be painted, graveyard needs to be constructed, upstairs ghost needs to be  hung, Lurch the doorman needs to be set up, doorway decor needs to be hung, new graveyard ghoul effect needs to be finished up… lots to do.

Having earned enough stars to pick a treat-ish activity (that is, he behaved well enough in school since we implemented his new plan that he was able to earn 21 good behavior stars), we took him bowling. Our local bowling alley is pretty cool; has enough of the retro styling leftover from its early life in the sixties to make me happy, and is modern enough to have all electronic scoring and “cosmic bowling” events from time to time (lights off, black lights on, glowing pins and psychadelic lighting).

Until now, I had not believed it possible to roll a gutter ball with the gutter bumpers activated. Michael proved that theory wrong by launching the ball up and over the bumper rail, letting it slowly roll across the top of the bumper down the end of the lane. Until now I’d never seen a bowling ball stop rolling forwards and then start rolling backwards after having been thrown down the lane. Overall, though, he did pretty well; came out with a score of 65.

Michael wanted to carve his pumpkin immediately after we got back from the pumpkin patch, but I held him off until Sunday. I told him he’d have to supply the design and clean the pumpkin out himself. Knowing his intense distaste for all things slimy and sticky, I figured that would deter him from wanting to carve this weekend. I was wrong. Not only did he stick his hand inside the pumpkin and pull out seeds, he actually seemed to be enjoying himself while doing it. Unprecedented! But understandable. I told him it was good to get his hands sticky with pumpkins. I explained that the feel of the insides, the slipperiness of the seeds, and the smell of freshly carved pumpkin is part of the richness of Autumn and should be savored. I think he caught on. He tried to convince me to carve mine up, but I said no. He talked me in to drawing a design for it, and I agreed to that.

There’s a lot to do between now and the 31st.

A first progress report on our Halloween 2010 haunt.

Michael and I put together a very rough prototype for an effect known as “Pepper’s Ghost”, using a clear reflecting surface and a hidden “ghost” that appears to show up as a transparent figure.

This one is constructed mainly from duct tape and cardboard, but I have the mirrors and plexiglas panel for a much larger and less obvious construct that I’ll put together some time between now and the end of next month.

Here’s a sample of what the trick-or-treaters will see:

More reports as work progresses…

My mom is visiting.

We couldn’t wait for her to arrive.

In fact, we arranged to construct a Mother-In-Law’s quarters on the grounds just for her.

I even sprang for some spider spray. G’nite, mom!












(In all seriousness… the tent was my mom’s idea. She’s wacky like that. You never know what she’s going to bring with her.)

What happens when you lose your first tooth on the day you turn six?

It’s the best day ever.