Dollywood’s new attraction: Timber Tower
A podcast about Dollywood’s new Timber Tower ride.
Freaktoe Becoming a Volunteer Football Fan
Okay, so the Tennessee Vols lost to Georgia for the fifth time in six games, but Freaktoe and I had a good time at Neyland Stadium on Saturday.
Our comp tickets — thanks, Jimmie Miller, Esq., and Hunter, Smith & Davis! — were high up in the lower section at the south end zone, Section K, Row 63 to be exact. They gave us a great view of the Pride of the Southland’s Power T formation:
as well as the team running through the T:
I took several other pictures, but we were a bit too high to get anything very good. Freaktoe had two Cokes, peanuts, popcorn, and a few M&Ms, and we were only one row from the top and about 20 feet from a bathroom, so we only had to tick off two people instead of ten for Freaktoe’s five bathroom breaks.
Here’s a free tip to fathers taking young daughters to football games: less Coke, more peanuts.
The loss — and especially the as-yet-unknown-extent of beloved Jason Allen’s hip injury — put a damper on things, but we had a pretty good time. Freaktoe was actually quite into it when Jonathan Wade intercepted D.J. Shockley’s pass and ran it back for what should have been ruled a touchdown. (Rick Clausen snuck it in on the next play, and we got our seven, anyway.)
It’s a bit strange to hear Freaktoe telling people that we just had terrible field position all day. There’s hope for her yet.
In the A-Child-Can-Dream-Can’t-She file: About halfway through the 4th quarter, Freaktoe asked, “Wouldn’t it be great if we actually made a touchdown?”
Yeah, that would be nice.
Gnat Gets Her Shots
James Lileks documents one more ordinary day of a loving father before the “bolt-cutter transitional day” of tomorrow. An excerpt:
Wednesday is our last day before school. We’ll go to the gardens we visit every year at summer’s end, where I shoot the video of her in the same place, binding the years together. She has no idea what this means to me. Just as well. Just another happy day with Dad; the fact that I release her to kindergarten in a day, and this feels like a great flaming bolt-cutter that severs tomorrow from all the wonderful yesterdays – well, of course she has no idea. In a sense, it’s nothing new. She’s done pre-school for the last two years. We’ve had dozens of transitions – the day the high-chair was replaced by a real chair, the day the inedible gorge-raising microwave mac n’ cheese in a nukable cup gave way to the real thing, the day she no longer laid on the floor and gurgled at fabric toys but stood up and tottered over to the bin to pick out something she wanted, the day she first said “I can do it” when I tried to help with the computer. All those moments come and go; every day is the alpha and omega. She still takes my hand when we walk down the stairs; she likes to do the Charleston to Paul Whiteman tunes; she still says “you can fix everything about computers” when I use SysAdmin privileges to boot into Classic mode so her game can run. She still casts a wishful eye at those whore-bot Bratz, but knows that both Dad and Mom disapprove, so they’re out. For now.
WARNING! Net Nanny violation toward the end of the piece.
Time Well Wasted is Exactly That
Brad Paisley’s new album (why do we still call them albums?) — Time Well Wasted — hit the stores (does anybody still buy music at the store) today. I downloaded mine this morning before work and listed to and from, during lunch, and during my run tonight. The verdict? While he doesn’t meet the exceptionally high standard he’s set for himself, Time Well Wasted is, well, time well wasted. And that’s a good thing.
A former musician myself, I have a great appreciation for well-crafted lyrics set to interesting music played well. It’s not often that music surprises me and makes me nod my head and smile. In fact, I often don’t like a song the first time or two that I hear it, generally because there’s nothing novel about it. But that’s not the case with Brad. With each of his albums, I hurriedly read through the song titles and anxiously listened to the song, waiting for the twist. Famous People? Ah . . . “But when you get back to Beverly Hills, you can tell all your friends that you met one of the most famous people in the country.” Little c. Make a Mistake? “You over-think things, you say what if we’re not meant to be? Well, you know what? So what? Make a mistake with me.” That’s Love? “You’re staring at a burnt steak. You bite the bullet and you clean your plate. And you go on and on about how great is was. That’s not a lie. That’s love.” And of course there’s The Cigar Song. And musicians cannot help but shake their heads in awe of the Make a Mistake guitar work. And the “mistake” at the end.
That’s why like Paisley’s music so much. His albums are packed with nod and smile moments. An outstanding guitarist and singer, performing music that is interesting both melodically and structurally, seasoned with amusing lyrical (and sometimes musicial) twists, Brad Paisley has me grinning and nodding my head in appreciation of his talent more often than any other artist in any genre.
That said, there are a few nod and smile moments in Time Well Wasted, but it’s not quite as packed full of them as his other collections. The World is a nice song with a nice lyrical twist for the hook and some nice lines along the way. “To the world you may be just another girl, but to me, Baby you are the world.” Emphasis on “are.” And that brings me to something else Brad does well. He has a knack for lyrical cadence and melodies that naturally emphasize the right words, making it sound effortless. Prosody, I think they call it.
I have mixed feelings about Alcohol, pardon the pun. One of the things I’ve liked so much about Brad in the past is that I can listen to him with my daughters. He’s about family, he’s clean, he sings hymns, etc. And I know the song mostly describes the negatives of alcohol — “I can make you believe any lie,” “I can get you fired from work,” etc. It’s portrayed as potentially damaging and embarassing. On the other hand, it’s sort of an anthem to the drink, sort of a party song. “You had some of the best times you’ll never remember with me. Alcohol!” Everybody sing! But it’s a catchy song. So really, I’m ambivalent about it. But what do I know? I had a lot of the same thoughts about Whiskey Lullaby.
Waitin’ on a Woman was the first nod and smile moment on the album for me. It was written by Don Sampson and Wynn Varble. It’s about an old married guy talkin to a newlywed on the bench at the mall, both of them waiting for their wives. Get used to it, says the older guy, I’ve been waiting on mine since 1952. “She’ll take her time, but I don’t mind waitin’ on a woman.” Emphases on “woman.” It’s songs like these and Little Moments and Ain’t Nothin’ Like on Mud on the Tires that I really appreciate about Paisley. He has a special way of taking an everyday observation, something common to most everyone, and he gives it perspective, finding the love in simple, ordinary things.
He said the wedding took a year to plan
You talk about an anxious man, I was nervous
Waitin’ on a woman
And then he nudged my arm like old men do
And said, I’ll say this about the honeymoon, it was worth it
Waitin’ on a woman
I’ll Take You Back (written by Brad, Robert Arthur, and Tim Owens) was the next song and the next nod and smile moment. The twist? He’s not taking her back. Except under extraordinary circumstances, those akin to when pigs fly, or when hell freezes over. One line made me laugh out loud, a tough task, especially when I’m alone:
Let’s say I get bucked off a bull and fall and hit my head
And then I get amnesia and forget the things you said
I lose my better judgement and I take up smoking crack
Right then, that’s when
I’ll take you back
The chorus is good, too, and I’ve venture to say it’s the only song you’ll hear this year with the line, “Waa, waa, waa, waa, waa.” Which, by the way, is very hard to type fast. Sort of a tongue-twister for typing. Oh, and the guitar work is excellent. Sort of remniscent of the riff in Life in the Fast Lane by the Eagles.
Rainin’ You (Brad and Tim Owens) is wonderfully simplistic and has a beautiful falsetto chorus. Love is Never-Ending is a nice, if sort of unique in a structural sense, song.
Flowers (Brad Paisley/Chris DuBois/Lee Thomas Miller) is a song about a guy’s unrequited attempts to apologize to his girl a dozen flowers at a time. The novelty comes in the delivery: the flowers are his hostages, and he’s threatening to kill a dozen at a time until he gets what he wants. Stop the senseless killing!
I’ve got a Visa in my wallet
And I’m not afraid to use it
* * * *
Tell me, how many flowers have to die?
For some reason, I didn’t get When I Get Where I’m Going when I downloaded the album from iTunes.
Easy Money, again, I’m sort of ambiguous about.
Yeah, we’re laughing all the way to the bank
‘Cause it all just seems so funny
A bunch of guys like us
In a big tour bus
Making that easy money
Sorry. Can’t relate. I’ve noticed that sometimes as artists get more successful, they lose touch with normal people and can’t connect with them like they used to. Country artists aren’t as susceptible to this as other artists because Country artists are more likely to record other people’s songs, and those other people generally are not “stars” in the sense we’re used to. So I hope this isn’t an indication of that. I thought Celebrity on Mud on the Tires was an indication otherwise. I guess this is tongue and cheek — I’m sure they’re actually working quite hard — but it doesn’t do the job like Life’s Been Good (So Far) by Joe Walsh.
I was disappointed — at least the first time or two — with the instrumental, Time Warp. The song has to be a record for the most number of notes in any single song. The musicianship is impressive, but the song just didn’t resonate with me. Nothing “singable” about it, which might be an odd thing to say about an instrumental, but I think the best instrumentals have a hook that can be hummed. Still, this song once again shows just how techically skillful Brad and the Nashville studio musicians are at their craft. Impressive indeed.
I was also disappointed with the religious song. The song selected wasn’t as good as the religious songs on Brad’s other albums, it was too short, and I didn’t care for the scratchy-record quality.
Finally, Time Well Wasted (Ashley Gorley/Kelley Lovelace) is quite good. Again, it’s another song celebrating the simple things in life. Just because you don’t get something done, doesn’t mean you haven’t lived. In fact, it might just mean the opposite.
All in all, Time Well Wasted is exactly that.
I’m going to go ahead and post this in rough draft. It’s late. I’ll polish it up and add links later.
Attack of the Protein Deficiency, Slappy’s Lament, and a Parent’s Wonderful, Awful Idea
Background: We all went to Splash Country yesterday. It was hot and sunny, and we all got completely worn out.
More background: Freaktoe needs protein first thing in the morning. Don’t know why, but when she doesn’t get it shortly after she wakes up, she’s a different kid.
Still more background: Freaktoe is now 9. Slappy is 3. And by the way, I don’t really call our eldest Freaktoe anywhere except on this blog, but I do sometimes call the little nugget Slappy.
Fade in. It’s a little after 8:00 a.m., and I had a little more than 30 minutes to feed the kids before I needed to get myself ready so we could all make it to church on time. Slappy, still groggy and resembling a miniature homeless person, was wandering back and forth in the hall, begging anyone who would listen for her morning sippy cup of milk. Freaktoe was in front of the computer. I couldn’t immediately tell how long she’d been there, but it would become apparent soon enough.
“Freaktoe, time for breakfast. We’re out of bacon. What’s it gonna be? Peanut butter toast or vanilla Carnation?”
“Muffins.”
Not one of the choices, I thought before Slappy chimed in, whine-meter on 11. “May you get me some milk?”
“Just a minute, Slappy. We don’t have time for muffins.”
Freaktoe lost it immediately, which told me two things, neither of them good: (1) the protein window of opportunity had opened and closed; and (2) things were about to get ugly.
“Peanut butter is disGUSTing! I want muffins!” Stomp, stomp, stomp she went down the hall. When she was gone, Slappy re-appeared and reminded me that she wanted her milk. As if I’d forgotten the thirty appeals in the last sixty seconds.
Well, I sent Freaktoe to time out and turned my attention to Angela, who, in her defense, was busy doing something useful, I just can’t remember what. “Where’s Slappy’s sippy cup?”
Angela and Freaktoe responded at the same time. Freaktoe, as always, was first and loudest. “I HATE . . . Both sippy . . . PEANUT BUTTER . . . cups are . . . I WANT . . . dirty . . . MUFFINS!
After the echoed subsided, I drummed up every last ounce of false enthusiasm I had and said, “Slappy, how about some milk in a big-girl cup?”
Then Slappy lost it, bristling against the added pressures of growing older. “I don’t want a big-girl cup! I want a sippy cup!” To emphasize her point, she threw herself on the carpet and thrashed about like a beached flounder trying in vain to convulse itself back into the surf. Okay, then. Noted.
Before I could deal with that, Freaktoe started intentionally making choking noises over in the time-out chair. “Ack! Ack! Ack, Ack!” She started doing this within the last two weeks. Don’t know why. One of life’s little mysteries.
“Freaktoe, stop acting like a baby.”
Freaktoe didn’t care for this comment. She broke out in tears and went running down the hall to hide and cry. For a moment, I could hear nothing but “DON’T CALL ME A BABY!!!” rising and falling in pitch like a passing ambulance. As it faded, Slappy’s lament filled the void. “I WANT A SIPPY CUP!”
Breathing deeply, I fixed some peanut butter toast for both Freaktoe and Slappy and poured some milk into a small plastic glass for Slappy.
The cacophony of Freaktoe’s distant bawling and Slappy’s not-distant-enough screaming continued while I drank my chocolate Carnation. Eventually, though, I had Slappy and Freaktoe sulking, but sitting at the table trying to keep from diluting their peanut butter with residual tears.
It was quiet. The squall had passed and left little damage in its wake. Patience and wisdom had prevailed, and the girls had come to terms with life’s terrible disappointments. It was smooth sailing from here.
“Freaktoe, whatcha want to drink? Milk or water?”
“Water,” she says.
And then I had an idea. A Grinch-ish, wonderful, awful idea.
What would happen if I now washed out the sippy cup, filled it with milk, and gave it to
. . . Freaktoe?
Oh, how the sparks would fly!
Well, there’s no good way to finish this story except by lying, because I didn’t actually do it. I’m generally not a fan of intentionally inflicting permanent emotional damage on my loved ones. I’m happy to report that Freaktoe ate her protein and Slappy drank her milk out of a big-girl cup.
And I still have my sanity. But it could go at any moment.
The Education of Freaktoe
Still been busy with the job and with the Hillbilly Holiday videos. On the videos, I believe I’ve ended up with five of them:
- The View
- The Family
- The Fear
- The Sounds
- The Moves
The View is the only one that’s done, and I think it turned out pretty well. I’m going to see if I can post it for download when I get them all done.
But right now there’s that small matter of the homeschooling snake. Last week to notify the state that Freaktoe’s going solo. It appears that in Tennessee, homeschoolers have three options: (1) register with the Local Education Agency (”LEA”), a.k.a. your local school district; (2) register with a Church Related School (”CRS”), a.k.a. an umbrella school, as a homeschooler; or (3) “attend” a CRS (and still educate your child at home) as a satellite. Call them the Big Brother, the Umbrella, and the Satellite.
Big Brother
So what’s the difference? If you go the Big Brother route, you have to register with the LEA before August 1 of each year. Contact the LEA — you can find yours here — and get a couple of forms from them. You can also download the forms here. You’ll have to tell them the names, ages, and grades of your kids, and you’ll need to generally describe what subjects you’re going to teach. You’ll also have to give your own name and address. If you’re teaching K-8, you’ll need to tell them you have a high school diploma or a GED, and if you’re teaching high school, you’ll need to tell them you have a bachelor’s degree. You’ll then need to tell them how many hours you plan to teach per day (minimum of 4 hours per day for 180 days per year), and you’ll need to attach proof that your kid is up to date on immunizations. Don’t worry, it’s all on the forms. Much simpler than most private school application forms.
If you go this route, 5th, 7th, and 9th graders will need to take standardized tests during the school year. When it’s all said and done, your kid gets no diploma from the LEA.
Umbrella Schools
For some of the more paranoid types, the forms appear to be a deal breaker, and so they associate themselves with a CRS. There are two ways to do so: CRS homeschooling, and CRS satellite.
If you go the CRS homeschooling route, you don’t need to register with the LEA for elementary education, and you don’t need a bachelor’s to teach high schoolers at home. But you still have to test, and you still have to register high schoolers with the LEA. Unless . . .
Satellite Schools
. . . you go the CRS satellite route. Under this scenario, you’re basically treated as a staff member of the CRS and your home is treated as an extension of its campus. You don’t need to register with the LEA. You don’t need to test. You don’t need a bachelor’s to teach high schoolers. But . . .
. . . you do need to comply with your particular CRS requirements. There’s a list of Tennessee CRS’s here. They’re all different, so choose carefully. They may offer diplomas and other benefits, but they cost money and they have their own requirements, such as hours taught, curriculum, etc.
What To Do?
I’d say that for this year, we’ll go with Big Brother. We’re not especially paranoid. Freaktoe will be in 4th grade, so testing and teaching high schoolers without a bachelor’s are not issues. Even if they were, I’m ambivalent on the testing issue, and Angela has a bachelor’s. In elementary education. Finally, diplomas are not an issue in the 4th grade. Throw on top of all of that the flexibility and cost (free!) of the LEA option, and we have a winner — Door Number One, the LEA.
Downloading the forms now.
Another snake bites the dust.
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By the way, Kay Brooks’ TNHomeEd.com is by far the best source of information on homeschooling in Tennessee that I’ve found. Check out her site for all of the above information in much more detail.
Beaverdale Estates
My 90-something Grandma is moving, leaving the only home I ever knew her to have in the quaint little town of Richland, Iowa, not far from where the ice cream cops hand out citations for good behavior, and setting out for an elder community in Des Moines.
Naturally, everyone’s a bit uneasy about the transition, and because I’m a lawyer in the long term care industry, I’ve been asked to check out the place and its people.
I could be the facility’s worst nightmare, but that’s not me. So let’s just have a look around, shall we?
The community is called Beaverdale Estates. It’s not an assisted living facility, but a retirement community. (The continuum of long term care goes from skilled nursing facilities (SNFs, pronouned “sniffs”), which is what we do, to nursing facilities, to assisted living facilities (ALFs), to apartment and retirement communities targeted toward serving seniors and home health services.) I’ve heard that the only sector more heavily regulated than SNFs is nuclear energy, and from my experience, I don’t doubt it. You can find out just about anything you want to about SNFs and NFs, as they are subject to annual and other surveys, and the results of those surveys are public information.
ALFs are not nearly (not yet) so regulated, so it’s more difficult to find information on them. And it’s even more difficult to find critical information on retirement communities.
I was able to find out, however, that Beaverdale Estates is owned and managed by Holiday Retirement Corp., which is apparently the largest retirement housing company in the world. Here’s some puffery from their website. Their site also offers some specifics on Beaverdale Estates, and the place looks nice.
But biggest doesn’t always translate into best, right? So let’s dig a little deeper.
Holiday meets Better Business Bureau membership requirements and has a satisfactory record of having resolved customer complaints. Search for yourself here. Type “Holiday Retirement Corporation” into the search box.
A free Hoover’s factsheet is here, and it includes options for more information for a fee.
A search in the Westlaw allcases database revealed only a couple of workers’ comp cases, some complicated bankruptcy case in Connecticut involving a claim by a Holiday affiliate against a bankrupt debtor, and a slip and fall case filed against Holiday in Louisiana, which Holiday won on summary judgment.
So, based on what little information is out there, it looks good. Go visit, have a meal, talk to the folks. Assuming those things check out, it appears that Granny will be in good hands.
And she deserves the best.
On Lions, Witches, Wardrobes, and Demoninational Differences
Rain.
Rain.
Horrid headache.
Because of the rain.
Five inches of rain, remnants of Tropical Storm Cindy. Don’t know where she came from, just know she’s some unwelcome windbag visiting from somewhere south of here, making my head pound.
Go away.
And so it’s probably just a lazy evening of reading until it’s late enough that I can fall asleep secure in the knowledge that I won’t wake up until it’s time.
C.S. Lewis tonight. Amazing guy. Proof that the tenets common to all Christians are sufficiently multi-layered to hold our interest for eternity without succumbing to the perverse temptation of making things interesting by focusing on the minutiae of our denominational differences.
Mere Christianity, indeed.
Odd. When I first typed “denominational,” it came out “demoninational.” Hmmm. Nothing to it, I’m sure. Probably a result of too much time listening to Rindercella in anticipation of Hillbilly Holiday, 2005. But still, hmmm.
Anyway, I learned the other day that Disney’s releasing Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia this Christmas season. Check out the trailer for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe here. Can’t tell if it’s the only one planned, or if they’re going to do some or all of the others. I predict they’ll get 90% of the Harry Potter crowd and almost all of the Christian families crowd who generally don’t see many movies.
Notwithstanding people like this, I think it’ll be huge.
December 9, 2005. Plan to be there.
In the meantime, do like Freaktoe and I are doing, and read the books. She just finished The Horse and His Boy, and I, just having finished The Magician’s Nephew, am starting The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Or, if you just want to watch something, rent Shadowlands.
And thank our God for Clive Staples.
On Minimizing the Freak in Freaktoe
Well, it appears that Freaktoe’s uh, persistence, has finally worn down my poor wife, at least with respect to the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring, which they brought home from the library a couple of days ago. So now I’m watching it to make sure nothing has crept into the extended and unrated portions that might put the “freak” back into Freaktoe. An ancillary benefit, of course, is that the extended version is, according to most reports, a dramatic improvement on the already excellent film. Hollywood Jesus catalogues the differences, and so far — Frodo just disappeared at the Prancing Pony, and Pippin is considering whether a pint might actually be too large for a hobbit — I agree that the additions are improvements.
Still, I have not yet been able to find anything rating the content of the extended portions, so I’ll just have to keep watching.
Only three hours to go to discharge my paternal obligations.
Life is hard.
Lileks on the Age of Sultry Hussyism
I froze. The Bratz are now Baby Mommaz. Yes, the hooker-in-training dolls have children. Bratz are the main reason I do not keep a supply of bricks around the house, because everytime the commercials come on I wish to pitch something kiln-fired through the screen so hard it beans the toy exec who greenlighted these hootchie toys. The Baby Bratz are as bad as you can imagine: “Bottles with Bling.” Judas on a stick, why not just refit the Bratz so they have Real Oozing Gonorreal Flow Action?
. . . .
I know I am old and so out of step it’s a wonder I don’t just appear as an indistinct smear, but was it really necessary to push the Age of Sultry Hussyism down to the infant stage?
Right on, James.
Angela oftens returns from shopping to present a well-rehearsed full-on rant regarding the scarcity of age-appropriate clothing for our girls.
