HaigLaw's Xanga

Generational Toys

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:40:43 GMT

My esteemed and beloved father-in-law honored me in his Christmas letter this year -- the kind where you tell the world what your whole clan has done the past year, all 4 generations, and get it all on one page -- by saying that when I'm not sitting on a bench somewhere, I'm playing with my toy helicopters, but that it's totally selfless because I do it solely to share joy with little kids.

Actually he exaggerates, but then he's 83, so he can be forgiven for forgetting a few times when I do it for the sheer solitary enjoyment, as in my immediately-previous blog, Mosquito Fix. As one of my most-loyal 3 readers, he surely had read that.

Not that teaching younger generations how to play with my toys is not a big job! It certainly is, and one I take very seriously. Making work out of play is something I learned from my late father, the honorable Professor D.J. Haigler, Ed.D. -- which explains why I sometimes forget things, being an absent-minded professor's son. Daddy didn't have much time to play, so he insisted on doing it very efficiently. No time wasted.

So my son Justin and I were very serious about our play this past Thanksgiving in Dallas. I got him a toy fighter, we went over to his church, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, and he flew the plane up on top of the building. I took some stills & video of that, but they didn't turn out too well, so you'll just have to take my word for that.

Then he took me over to HobbyTown USA, where I bought an EFlite Blade CX2 toy helicopter, and here I am left, opening the box at his house.

Notice he's sticking the camera in my face when I'm trying to get something done.

Wonder where he got that from?

Not only that, but he interviews me about the dang thing, while I'm simply trying to concentrate on how to charge the batteries up.

How in the dickens can I explain how to fly the dang thing when I've not only never flown it, but have not even charged up the batteries yet?

Where is the patience of the younger generation? Watch the video embedded below and see.

Mosquito Fix

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:08:51 GMT

My regular readers -- all two of you -- will recall that my usual cover story for playing with my toy airplanes is to have some kid over for dinner, whom I can then teach how to play with it.

But some days, I'm left to admire the toy alone, right.

They say the difference between the men and the boys is the price of their toys, but, really, these toy helicopters are not that expensive. Maybe $39 at Radio Shack.

So I really should feel free to play with them whether I have a kid around as a cover story or not.

But work does interfere with my fun most days.

Today, however, I took the day off, and it being a slow-news day, got Becky to video me playing with the thing again.

And, naturally, now that I got the video uploaded to Facebook, I'm sharing it here:

Highland Festival

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:41:20 GMT

Today we attended the Highland Jazz & Blues Festival at Columbia Park in Shreveport. We caught some songs by A.J. Cascio & the Two-Tone Blues Band, left.

The place was mobbed, right. We had to park 2 blocks away to find a place.

There was a cute chubby baby dancing to the music, below left.

And my sweet babe was smiling to the music, below right.

We got some footage of the band playing the Slim Harpo favorite, "I Got Love if you Want it."

That video was uploaded to Facebook and can be seen by clicking on it below:

Helicopter bonding

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:18:52 GMT

What does an old guy do with an almost-4-year old? Heck if I know, but I had to think of something yesterday. This young couple with 3 little kids -- 2, almost 4, and almost 6, stay with us occasionally. They're kinda between houses. It's a long story too long to blog here.

Anyway, the dad was at work, and the 6 year old was invited out with another family, and the mom was upstairs with the 2 year old -- which left me downstairs to entertain the 4-year old. After he asked me how the dishwasher worked, and I decided he was a budding engineer, I thought maybe, just maybe, he might be old enough to fly one of my toy helicopters. I think the minimum age is 5 or 6, which explains why I do it so well.

Anyway, here I am with little Jackson, left, and one of the toy helicopters.

The kid was a natural. I couldn't believe it. He'll probably klep out of engineering school.

He had sense enough to notice that I had just the right touch and he didn't, so he actually suggested that I guide his thumb on the control so he could feel exactly how I did it. Once I showed him, he picked it up right away. Wonders never cease, even for an old guy.

When his dad got off work and his brother got home, he had to show them how to do it, and here they are, below right.

I thought -- a little child shall lead them.

I usually teach the dad, and let the dad show the biggest kid, and then have the biggest kid teach the next younger one, and so on.

But this time, it was the other way around. Even old guys have to be flexible.

I got some video footage of them flying it, and here it is:

Doggie Kisses

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:27:00 GMT

Last weekend I visited with my son & daughter-in-law in Dallas, along with their Boxers.

Here is Justin, right, with the three dogs, Roxie, left, the mother, Abby, center, the daughter, and Chloe, right, the granddaughter.

Yeah, right; 3 generations of Boxers. And since these dogs are Justin & Kati's only children (so far), they are more like kids than dogs. Which, of course, makes Roxie my granddaughter, Abby my great-granddaughter, and Chloe my great-great-granddaughter. Yeah, I know -- I don't look that old.

So, what do granddaddies do with their grandchildren? Right -- get down on the floor and play with them.

Here I am, below left, doing my granddaddy duty.

That's Roxie to the right, not yet involved in all the action.

Maybe she's more sedate, being the mother.

But this was not a very sedate occasion. As Becky said on Facebook, I was not maintaining much judicial decorum.

Speaking of Facebook, here is the video of all the action, including these dogs singing to me after the frolic:

Stroller Adventures

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:08:29 GMT

Saturday we spent most of the day getting Grandson D.J. a stroller, putting it together and trying it out.

But first, here's a cute picture of him at breakfast, left, sitting in my children's high chair, which of course means it's over 35 years old.

Kiersten had the stroller she wanted all picked out, having researched everything ever written on the internet about strollers.

The one she chose does not wipe his nose or feed him a bottle, but it does do just about everything else.

Her main requirements were: big wheels for rough terrain and ease of folding so she could put it into her car trunk.

This of course meant she wanted to practice putting the floor sample into her trunk before she bought one. Most places, that's called shoplifting. I would tell you how we managed to get that floor sample out into the parking lot and into her trunk, but I think instead I would like to exercise my right to remain silent and not incriminate myself.

Here Kiersten is, right, trying to implement the "fold with only one hand" feature.

As you can see, she had to use both hands. Partly because, we now can say based on experience -- the floor sample had not been assembled properly. They probably didn't read the instructions.

Which is a mistake we did not make after we got ours home. I say "we," but as a typical male, I don't read instructions. That is women's work. Division of labor. That is because, I explained to Kiersten, women are better at multi-tasking.

Here she is reading the instructions to me, left. She felt men were better at multi-tasking, since they were hunters, foraging for food. I tried to explain, no, that was one thing only -- hunting and foraging for food is one and the same thing. She didn't get it. So I had to get Becky to resolve the argument. Becky agreed with me that women are better at multi-tasking. Of course she did. Otherwise, I would not be telling this, would I? What is the world coming to -- with 30-somethings not understanding the differences between the sexes better than that? I give up.

No: raising a baby, going to college, and holding down a full-time job -- now that's multi-tasking, and that's what my daughter does. No way I'm gonna do that, or ever did that.

After we finished putting the stroller together, I offered my hand and said, "Congratulations, pardner."

She, right, said, "I've got snot on my hands."

I said something I think only a father could say, "I've had your snot on me before."

She laughed, as you can see. If you can't -- maybe it was one of those moments when you had to be there.

The baby was asleep through all this adventure, left. But we did eventually let him ride in his stroller, I promise.

Here he is, right, giving his mama a happy smile after his first ride.

And now, for the rest of the story, you will just have to watch the video of these adventures that I uploaded to Facebook -- that's all there is to it:

Jesus Bunny

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:43:34 GMT

Yesterday our grandson D.J., who is only 6 months old, came to see us. Naturally, he brought his mom, our daughter Kiersten, with him, as he doesn't travel much without her.

Here he is, right, with his granddaddy and his "Jesus Loves Me Bunny," which Kiersten says is his favorite toy, and which, naturally, we gave to him when he was 3 months old. Granddaddies know what babies like.

Grandmommies know how to get a smile out of their babies.

Grandmama Becky, below left, is no exception.

Here she is, with the bunny (which Kiersten says not to call "Jesus Bunny," for short, so as not to confuse him with the real Jesus), getting a smile out of D.J.

As to who's getting the most sugar from this baby, Granddaddy gets the prize for this, and naturally I have proof of that in a video posted to Facebook.

figure 8's

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:55:13 GMT

Yesterday, I flew 3 toy aircraft. Here I am with the 3rd one, a Wal-Mart Switchblade, left.

As shown, it's in its whirligig mode, with the blades at a 90 degree angle to each other. That way, it flies in a counterclockwise circular motion like a flying saucer.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, we videotaped some footage of me flying my Spiderman toy helicopter, which I've blogged several times before, including two archived here. What's different about this one is -- at first it was flying unstable, and flew into a turning ceiling fan, which ripped its blades off. I put it back together, and it flew better than ever. Thus I was able to fly figure 8's, and, viola, this title.

Then we went out to a nearby industrial park with lots of pavement and open spaces, and flew my Microfighter, which I've also previously blogged here.

After that, we went over to Wal-Mart and bought the Switchblade, and went back to the industrial park and flew that.

All of the above is preserved for posterity on the video below, entitled "figure 8's," which is a little joke about the amount of control I've been able to exercise over these toys. The upload of this video slowed to a crawl, so I uploaded it to Facebook instead. Click there to watch it.

pretextual bonding

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:41:37 GMT

Male bonding with a purpose was the theme of two men's meetings I attended yesterday:

1. Men of CRI-Community Renewal International, at the University Club for lunch, right.

2. Men of Grace PCA-Presbyterian Church in America, at the home of Will Broyles, below left, for supper.

The theme of the Men of CRI meeting was opportunities for community service.   One such opportunity was helping the staff place "We Care" yard signs in volunteers' yards on an upcoming Saturday.

Another was mentoring school children at schools in challenged neighborhoods, which was the topic of the talk of speaker Richard Carruth, right. Richard & his wife Kathy are the owners of King Hardware & Fancy located in Uptown Shopping Center at 4834 Line Avenue, Shreveport.

The theme of the Men of Grace meeting was supposed to be poker and pizza. It was scheduled to start at 7 p.m., and by 8:30 when I had to leave, no poker had started, so I guess the food was the main event.

Here is David Kimball, a Shreveport tennis pro, left, sitting very close to the queso and chips.

David wasn't the only one, however. For the first hour, all the men were observed congregating around the queso bowl, at least until after the pizza arrived.

The fact that no one was in a hurry to play poker made me wonder whether men are really into pretextual bonding -- that is, whether we men have to have some excuse to get together, but the excuse doesn't seem to matter very much.

Reminds me of Sen. H.L. Richardson's hilarious book What Makes You Think We Read the Bills? (1978)

In chapter 4, "Ze Mooz" (the moose), Senator Richardson writes about a lobbying trip to Alaska supposedly to shoot a moose, but all the elected leaders do is sit around the lodge, eat and drink, and never actually go out on the hunt.

But what do I know? Maybe they played poker after I left. Will said there was a 3-card version that even I could learn.

tethered family

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:05:00 GMT

Sometimes it appears our family is tethered together by food, as most of our favorite family pictures are around a dinner table, like, left, at Chili's yesterday for lunch.

But I think that may be more accurately explained by the fact that food forces us to sit close enough together to get a good group shot.

As evening came on, son-in-law Cezar suggested that the girls playing tether-ball would be something good for me to film.

So I did, and am always thrilled when I can get an action shot and catch something in mid-air, like a ball, with Mary Beth, right, poised to hit it.

This tether-ball game got me to thinking -- what are we as a family tethered by? And, to me, the answers are easy: love, faith, good parenting, and last, but not least -- games and toys that we adults can tell the kids how to play. The telling never works, so we have to show them -- which means we get the first turn. I always say -- a kid is a great cover story for any game or toy you'd look silly playing with by yourself. Blest be the ties that bind.

And so, here below, is a video of Rachel playing tether-ball with MB, 10, and IB, 7. There may be some deep, psychological significance to this -- like, maybe, her parents wouldn't let her play tether-ball when she was a kid. But I think the more-likely explanation is simply, she's a good mother who enjoys time with her kids and teaching them how to do stuff. Here's exhibit A to prove that: