The Drive In || Saturday, April 26, 2008

Tonight we took advantage of one of Maryville's veritable gems: the drive in. Now, historically, we've had some interesting times at the drive in. Like the time we took a car that didn't have a working radio. Or the time we went, but forgot the diaper bag, and had to create a makeshift diaper out of a blanket and some tape. On that scale, tonight was rather uneventful. I personally had to suppress a riot (i.e., keep Jodie from kicking the asses of the smokers parked next to us), Myers fell on his head (I okay daddy. I OKAY. OKAY!!!), and I stepped on a capri sun and got sticky between my toes. Aside from that, things went well. We got to see Nim's Island (Bailey has been begging to watch it since, o, a month before it came out). Things didn't go well enough, however, to take advantage of one of the best deals in town. Did you know that you can get a season pass to the drive in for two adults and two children for $100, and that you can come as often as you want? Two new release movies a weekend, all spring and summer. How great is that? Anyway, I'll end the Parkway plug there. If they had a non-smoking section, we'd be all over it.

Preparing a Child for a life in the outdoors || Friday, April 25, 2008

We can mark the calendar with a major milestone in the preparation for Myers to be a future outdoorsy Grizzly Adams type. Tonight, just a scant hour or so ago, as the shroud of early night wrapped itself around our yard, he peed on his first tree. Talk about a way to celebrate Arbor Day :)

Advocacy of Revolution || Monday, April 21, 2008

Okay... so, without equivocation, I do not support the overthrow of the American form of government. Even though it was founding father Thomas Jefferson who said "a little rebellion now and then is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government," I think the ideals of our system are sound. I could possibly go for some regime change, but no full-blown revolution. So, that's my official stance. That being said, I was looking through the Tennessee Code Annotated today (the big book of Tennessee laws and policies), and was shocked to find this clause regarding teachers and the "advocacy of revolution."

49-5-202. Advocacy of revolution. —

(a) No person who advocates the overthrow of the American form of government or who is a member of a political party subscribing to a political faith which advocates the overthrow of the American form of government shall be employed on either a temporary or permanent basis in any school in this state financed in whole or in part with public funds.

(b) Any person who violates this section commits a Class C misdemeanor and shall also forfeit office.

I don't have to support an overthrow of the government to be worried by this. Thankfully, no one ever reads the TCA. This also kind of relates to a great story I heard on Morning Edition this morning... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89803687

To give you a teaser for the story, it mentions a former Brittish minister of information who said (and I paraphrase) "If we're not careful, we will sleepwalk our way into a surveillance society."

Camp Bailey Myers Birthday || Sat., April 19, 2008

What does a rave have in common with Bailey and Myers's birthday party? Glowsticks and a healthy supply of grass.

It's time for the annual birthday celebration. The nice thing about having two kids so close together is that we only have to plan one party. I mean, they both know the same people, have the same family, run in the same circles. This year we went with a camping theme (a stretch for us, I know). We set up a tent in the yard and filled it with balloons, made a homemade papier mache hornets' nest pinata, set up a fire ring for smores, and cooked out turkeyburgers and chicken dogs (I know... it sounds like some kind of inbred meat project... but a statistic to chew on... 17% of greenhouse gases in the world are emitted by cars, trucks, vans, etc. 18% is produced by the beef industry, covering everything from methane gas to nitrogen fertilizer to agricultural production to be fed to cows to cost of transporting food to cows, cows to slaughter, meat to stores, etc. IF every American ate 20% less meat for a year... less, not even cutting it out.... it would be the equivalent of everyone driving a hybrid for a year... wow.... Where's the tax credit for vegetarians?). All in all, a great party. As always, Jodie made a kickin' cake. This year, to add to the theme, she put down a base layer of green icing and then some candy grass we got after Easter to add a layer of realism. It looked great, but the kids freaked out. One kid said at least 30 times "This is gross! It's not even real grass." Yes, folks. He wanted real grass, and around time number 29 I was ready to shove some grass down his throat :)

In the end, any party that ends with a fire is pretty good in my book. We asked Bailey today what she wanted the theme to be next year so we can start planning... SO, I beam with pride as I say this... next April get ready for a kayaking party :)

1st Soccer Game || Saturday, April 12, 2008

So, we've found Bailey's sport. Who knew she was a soccer prodigy? It seems I'm sentenced to the life of a soccer dad for the next dozen years or so. She's flat good. She's fast, plays tenacious defense, has excellent ball handling skills, and she's the only one of the team to grasp the concept of "during a throw in, throw the ball towards the goal you're trying to score in."

Burning one for 4-2(0) || Wednesday, April 02, 2008

A few weeks ago we decided to make an impromptu trip to Cades Cove one day after Bailey and I got out of school. The past several times we've gone, we've seen more Ohians than animals, but this time we lucked out. First of all, I've always wanted to see a controlled burn. Periodically in the Cove and other areas in the park forestry people conduct a prescribed burn to both clear brush and perform a role in the life cycle of the forest. For example... cool random factoid... Usually when you see masses of dead trees in the national park, it's usually the result of an exotic species of fungus, bug, etc. that has decimated that trees population (think American chestnut, fir trees, hemlocks). When you see a huge mass of dead pine tree, however, the culprit is usually a totally native tree beetle that feeds on the insides of the pine tree. You can usually tell because if you pick up some of the bark off one of the dead trees, there will like little lines burrowed in on the underside of the bark from where the beetles ate and traveled. Well, it turns out that pine trees require fire in their life cycle to germinate the seeds. SO, the theory goes, pine beetles live in harmony with the pine trees, until the beetle population starts to get too big. Once it starts to get too big, they start to kill a lot of pines (more beetles = need for more food). The pine trees die, fall over, and dry out. Now, instead of being a pine tree, it is dry fuel for an impending fire. With each tree that dies, the possibility of a fire increases. Eventually, there will be a fire, the dead trees will burn, the living trees will burn some, the seeds will germinate and begin to grow, and the beetle population will be burned back into check. Good stuff, this whole balance of nature thing.

The catch is... in millions of years of evolution, the pine trees never had anyone to protect them from fire. Enter the park service. With protection and the prevention/early distinguishing of fires, all the dead pines pile up. And pile up, and pile up. And pine beetles reproduce and kill more trees. And they pile up, etc. Long story short, now they have controlled burns to help simulate the life cycle.

ANYWAY, there was a controlled burn on Sparks lane. The road was closed so we couldn't get too close, but neat none the less.

Also, we saw 77 deer and about a dozen or so wild turkeys.

Halfway around the loop we stopped for a picnic at the Cable Mill. After the picnic, Bailey drove back about the last 3 miles of the loop road (which made Jodie nervous, mainly because I didn't hit the brakes whenever Bailey would steer us off the road. Ahh... the stuff of memories. "Andy... Andy.. ANDYWE'REGOINGTORUNOFFTHEROADANDHITTHAT
TREEOCRAPWEREOFFTHEROADTHERESTHETREE"

Needless to say, Myers enjoyed it. Have some pictures--