the wife just about had it with kids this past week. So in order to give her some much needed alone time, I took the kids out to the park. Actually, it was pretty much a no-brainer since it was sunny and temps reached into the 60s this past weekend. Definitely a nice change of pace after the long stretch of winter weather here in the area.
Since the kids were bored with the usual play areas in our vicinity we decided to make a trek across town. We hit one in Morrisville on saturday and did a different park in Cary on sunday (yes, the wife needed sunday afternooon to herself as well).
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the kids and I recently visited the Dinosaur Trail at the local life and science museum. The kids loved seeing the life-sized representations of these long-gone creatures.
The boys’ favorite spot turned out to be the fossil dig area. I suppose that’s no surprise since boys and big piles of dirt have a long history together 
meh. It’s too bad none of the dinosaurs were animatronic.
ugh, I was up late last night cleaning out my dad’s laptop. He recently mentioned to me that he had some problems with intrusive pop-up ads and such so I took the laptop home with me yesterday to see what was up. And just as I suspected, my dad’s computer had accumulated a nasty array of viruses and spyware. I’m not completely sure how it happened, but the internet security suite I bought for him last year was no where to be found on his hard drive. Since my father isn’t that computer savvy, he’s not certain if he deleted the program or if some malware had a hand in uninstalling it.
In any case, I had to scan the harddrive multiple times to get all the junk off his computer. After the cleanup, the computer kept on giving out error messages for missing .dll files related to some of the viruses. thankfully going through MSCONFIG and deactivating the related files in the registry did the trick for those errors.
I can’t believe his laptop was infected like that. What are my parents doing on the computer to end up with such malware?? must have something to do with all the korean videos that they watch so incessantly. They’re retired so as you can imagine, their daily routine involves going on the web to read up on the latest korean headlines and watch korean soaps. So it was imperative that I fix their laptop overnight so that I could get it back to them in the morning. It wouldn’t be right of me to deny the ol’ folks from their daily routine, now would it?
yeah, I screwed up. with all the kids involved in some sort of sporting activity on saturdays, it’s getting a bit tough keeping their schedules straight. for some reason I thought my middle child had his soccer game at the same time as my youngest. but I was wrong. the middle child totally missed his game b/c of me. sorry son!! but at least I got my other two kids to their respective games on time. as MeatLoaf sang all those years ago – “but don’t be sad because two out of three ain’t bad“.
The nice thing about having an 8AM soccer game is that there’s no problem finding a parking spot near the field. Plus after the game, you still have the rest of the morning to do other errands.
Unfortunately, my child ran out of gas pretty early on during the game due to lack of a proper breakfast. Getting the kid to the field by 7:45AM is tough as it is without having to worry about preparing eggs, pancakes and bacon. For the early games, it’s cold cereal, period. no questions asked. sorry kid.
Thankfully, the team still won this one, 3 to 1. I guess some of the other kids have parents that can get up early enough to make a decent meal before the game.
anyway, good job team!
Soccer season is back. we got a brand new coach and a bunch of new kids.
… and we STILL lost the opening game.
but it was close. hopefully this new team of 3rd graders will do a whole lot better than last season…
We recently took the kids to Wet ‘N Wild at Emerald Pointe in Greensboro. It had been quite some time since my last visit to a water park. I guess now that our youngest child is old enough to handle himself in a pool setting, we figured it was finally time for a visit. Wet ‘N Wild has expanded quite a bit over the years and is now the largest water park in the Carolinas and the 12th largest overall in the United States.
Like most amusement parks it has the usual downsides – inflated food prices, questionable restroom cleanliness and some obnoxious teens here and there but for the most part, Wet ‘N Wild is still a fun visit for the whole family. There are a variety of rides and a new section specifically for the younger set which was great for our younger ones. Even though we went on a weekday we still ended up enduring some relatively long wait times for the newer rides like “Dr. Von Dark’s Tunnel of Terror” and “Dragon’s Den”. But if waiting in line on hard concrete in a wet swim suit isn’t your thing, there’s always easy access to the huge wave pool (Thunder Bay Wave Pool), Leisure Lagoon (for the younger kids) and Shipwreck Cove (a pool for older kids).
Oh there is one ride that didn’t have long lines at least from what I saw. It’s the “Daredevil Drop” which is the slide with a straight 76-foot drop. I guess the height and the near vertical drop scares off most riders but you have to try it at least once. Once was good enough for me, thank you. whew!
The only snafu that occurred during our visit was losing my locker key. I had my wallet and car keys in the locker and was sort of freaked out when I couldn’t find the locker key. Like a dork, kept the key in a velcro’ed side pocket of my swimming shorts thinking it’d be secure but after a couple rides, it was gone. Thankfully the park staff was quick to help retrieve my items out of the locker before anything *happened* to them. what a relief! I’m definitely going to be more mindful of the key the next time I rent a locker that’s for sure. Again kudos to the helpful staff and also to the lifeguards who all seemed very attentive to the folks in the pool.
This Old Man gives Wet ‘N Wild a big thumbs up!
We’ll be heading back there real soon! 
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my kids just busted the remote to the TV in the play room. yeah, I know what you’re thinking – no big whoop. just get a $5 universal remote and be done with it. well, I’ve already tried a universal remote and the problem is that there’s a “feature” missing on those “universal” remotes. turns out that there’s no way to access the AUX mode (A/V inputs for the nintendo and the VCR) without the original remote control. and after doing some searching on the net, there appears to be a whole industry centered around people losing/breaking their remotes. you can find an endless number of websites selling overpriced replacement remote controls for the frustrated consumer. after spending a couple hours digging through online manuals and various discussion forums, I finally found that there are some “compatible” 2nd tier alternative remotes that apparently work on this particular TV brand via ebay. It’s approximately half the cost of an authentic replacement model but should be able to perform all the necessary functions of the original remote. we’ll see in about a week or so.
I had sort of a “wake up call” last weekend. As it so happens, I’m turning 40 this year and the wife and I have long thought we’d better start taking better care of ourselves (physically) before it’s too late. Like your typical parents of young kids, we both “let ourselves go” over the years, primarily focusing on our kids needs and forsaking our own. So taking the time to stay physically fit and such, fell by the wayside. So anyway, since our kids are getting old enough to ride their bicycles beyond our little cul-de-sac, the wife and I bought ourselves our own bikes to ride along with the kids.
Here’s a fun fact for ya: I haven’t been on a bike since college!
So, as you can probably guess, I overexerted myself while riding with my oldest son this past weekend. We were simply riding around our subdivision which sounds harmless enough but I have to point out that it’s NOT COMPLETELY flat around here. There were several “steepish” inclines that we had to go up on during our ride. and obviously my legs weren’t used to pedaling so hard and by the time I got back home, I nearly collapsed. I was out of breath, thirsty and perspiring like crazy. and then on top of all that I had excruciating leg cramps for the next hour. man, I was a wreck.
I didn’t realize that I was overdoing it until after the fact. So apparently I have to take it even “slower” the next time out with my son.
boy, I hope I didn’t embarrass my son too much!!
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