Tag: observations

Dad Brog #109: My kids seem to only have my weaknesses

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Up until recently, I’ve been thinking that #2 seemed to be the more sturdy of my daughters, seeing as how #1 can’t eat eggs without it coming back out in some unpleasant fashion.  She gets this unfortunate ailment from me, seeing as how almost to the day I turned 30 years old, my body has decided to revolt against eggs.  I can still eat things with eggs as an ingredient to a small extent, but I can’t fry up eggs or hard boil them and eat them without a fairly predictable and unpleasant result a few hours later.

Some say that peoples’ dietary tendencies have a tendency to change every 7-10 years, but it was actually very recently where I indulged in a quiche, and most definitely paid for it later in the day.  A decade later and my body still doesn’t like dealing with eggs any more than when I was 30.

However, not only can #2 eat eggs, she loves them.  Scrambled, fried, Korean-souffle style, she really enjoys eggs, and doesn’t have any ill effects like her sister or dad does.  For that reason alone, I figured she was the more resilient child.

Until just a day ago, I was getting texts from my au pair asking if #2 had any allergies.  Subsequent photos came in, and there were some rashes on my daughter that were unnerving to see, resulting in me leaving work early and taking her in to urgent care, because I wanted to get some professional opinion on what I was already suspecting.

At the tail end of the cruise, my group did a load of laundry on the ship, so that we could get it out of the way while on the ship, as well as the fact that with as many outfit changes my kids were doing, we had to.  As is often the case with lots of cruises, nothing is free, and I had to purchase an individual wash cycle, a dryer cycle, and because we didn’t bring any, some laundry detergent, which was a plain, regular single-serving size of Tide.

Long story short, I quickly pieced things together, and made an educated guess that it was a detergent-related rash that #2 was dealing with, because some articles of clothing from the cruise laundry were coming back into circulation, as well as the fact that, not specifically with Tide, but again, a detergent allergy is something that has happened to me before as well.

In my case, it’s Purex, or whatever the fuck they put in their formula, that triggers my body to have a rather unpleasant hives-ey/rash-ey reaction, and it’s pretty evident that Tide has the same effect on my daughter.

Needless to say, swapping out the afflicted articles and replacing them with not-Tide washed bedding and clothes have already stabilized things, and I’ve learned that Tide is 100% on the blacklist for shopping in the future

But it’s apparent that my second child has picked up a weakness from her dad, just like her sister has.  It’s too early to tell yet, but I’m hoping, considering how much they’re already taking after me, that they get some of my strengths and don’t just continue to grow with weaknesses of mine without any sort of balance.

Get no-hit, still win game

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is why baseball is so great: Minor league Chattanooga Lookouts defeat the Rocket City Trash Pandas despite getting no-hit, 7-5

There’s so much to love about this whole debacle.  Baseball is the one sport where things seem to go tits up and oddities occur way more frequently in any other sport.  Perhaps the dynamic of the game allows for weird shit and anomalies to occur than all the others, but all the same, it tends to feed the narrative about how there’s always to be had at every single game.

Sure, it’s easy to get caught up in the epic name “Rocket City Trash Pandas” which used to be the boring old Huntsville Stars, and I’m sure there are hipsters out there who want to declare this an unofficial no-hitter because it occurred in a 7-inning game, which means it was probably on a doubleheader day since that’s the rule in MiLB, but it doesn’t change the fact that the ending of the game caps off a fantastic example of a baseball shit show, one that I could only have wished to have been able to have seen live in person.

I can only imagine the excitement of the likely small crowd, at feeling like they were on the cusp of seeing not just a win, but a no-hitter, seeing as how they were up 3-0 going into the final frame.  But then baseball being baseball, and the inconsistent level of talent at the minor league level, suddenly comes a barrage of walks and guys getting hit by pitches, and suddenly the shutout is gone, and the Lookouts are making the game very interesting.

And then comes the center fielder completely missing a layup of a flyball which should have ended the inning and preserved the win and the no-hitter, and the Trash Pandas are now suddenly down to the visitors.  Moar bullshittery occurs, and when the dust settled, the Trash Pandas were now on the wrong end of a 7-3 score.  The only thing that was certain, barring a miraculous tie in the bottom of the inning, was the no-hitter that was somehow preserved, since in spite of the seven runs that had scored, nobody had gotten a hit.

Naturally since baseball is the cruelest sport of them all, the bottom of the 7th still saw the Trash Pandas not go out without a fight, and they scratched out two runs to close the gap before the Lookouts closed out the game.  That they won without a hit.  So the fans that were there, not only went from elated to shocked, they also had their hopes brought back up with a small comeback, only to be extinguished a second time.

I barely watch any baseball or any sports as it is anymore, because being a dad comes first and foremost, but it’s instances like this are what always entertain, keep me engaged, and feel the worth of keeping my ear to the ground.  Baseball is awesome, and this is a story that has the potential to be a genuine never-be-broken instance, or at least an extremely obscure trivia answer.

Wrestlemania: suck it, Cody

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was chatting with some of my bros over the two-night extravaganza, and I explained that no matter how much my level of involvement to professional wrestling ebbs and flows and wavers throughout the passage of time, there’s always a conceited effort to watch Wrestlemania.  It always comes back during Wrestlemania, and Mania and the Royal Rumble are the two shows a year that I feel very strongly about watching live.

This year’s Wrestlemania had a pretty stacked card on paper, and I felt that the WWE had done a pretty decent job of building up a respectable card from top to bottom, and wasn’t going to be anchored solely by Roman Reigns and then everyone else.  The Rey and Dominic Mysterio feud caught fire real late, and went from a cliché match to one that had some heat behind it, and as much as I hated the relegation of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens because of the existence of Cody Rhodes, there was still a large amount of interest with their match against the Usos, because the Usos can have great matches against anyone, much less the level of talents that are Sami and Owens.

On paper, I was actually looking forward to night 1 more than the second night, because I thought that the card was better quality than then night 2’s card.  But after both shows, I actually thought night 2 was the stronger show, and it really wasn’t even close.

I thought almost all of the matches on night 1 were underperformed by all those involved, which was a little head-scratching considering the level of talent that was on the card.  John Cena had a pretty uninspired match with Austin Theory, and was disappointing, Rey and Dominic had too many people get involved with their match which watered things down, Charlotte and Rhea had an uncharacteristically below-par match, and despite it being the best match of the night, I genuinely felt that the Sami/KO vs. Usos match could’ve been better.  They were the best by default, because most of the matches prior weren’t as good as they could’ve been.

Night 2 was heavily weighted by the Intercontinental championship match, with Gunther continuing his torrid 2023 defeating both Drew McIntyre and Sheamus in a brutal shit-kicking smack-fest everyone knew it was going to be, and despite my tendency to think that the main event matches are typically predictable and academic, the Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes match served up the drama of genuinely not knowing who was going to win, which made it that much more exciting as it played out.

But speaking of Cody Rhodes, one of the things holding back the anticipation of the show was the almost seemingly inevitably that he was going to be the guy that was going to dethrone Roman Reigns, which as a fan irked the shit out of me, because of all the speculation that he has a world title reign baked into his contract, which is what was a big draw in being able to bring him back from AEW.

So seeing him take the L was kind of surprising to me, because I thought for sure it was going to be the night where the Roman Empire came to an end.  Not just because of Cody’s ludicrous contractual obligation to be WWE champion at some point, but Roman had been carrying the company for over 900 days at that point, and Joe Anoa’I probably was due for a long-needed vacation.

No matter though, because unlike a lot of wrestling fans out there, I was over the moon that Roman retained and the greatest championship run since Bruno Sammartino continues on.  I think I’ve made it abundantly clear that I’m just not a fan of Cody Rhodes, and I’m quite pleased to see him finally lose a match since he returned to the WWE.

Continue reading “Wrestlemania: suck it, Cody” →

Dad Brog #108: Unless they figure out how to open doors

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

First, that’s a quote from Jurassic Park.  Obviously.  Secondly, my kids already know how to open doors.

However, they didn’t know how to unlock the doors… until now.

Since we converted #1’s crib into a bed, I fully baby-proofed the room and anchored all the furniture to the walls, and when we put her down for the night, we’ve locked the door behind us, so that she couldn’t open the door and go exploring around the house unsupervised.  And when I say locked the door, I mean locking the door from the inside so that we’re technically locked out, needing a key to get back in.

Since we got back from the cruise, #1’s sleep behavior has been off-kilter, and she has been a little more resistant to going to bed the last few days.  We don’t need the camera monitor to know that she’s upset about bedtime, based on some of the screaming she’s been doing in disagreement, but usually it stops after a while, and we can see that she’s passed out in bed.

But just the other day, along with the screaming of unhappiness, came some audible footsteps of her running to the door, and before we knew it, the sound of a door opening, and the frantic footsteps of an ornery three-year old charging down the hallway, and we realized that one of the raptors has figured out how to unlock doors.

Hold onto your butts.

Dad Brog #107: Finally had to use the Ladies’ Room

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One specific dad story/milestone I have from the cruise, is that for the first time ever, I’ve had to take my children into a women’s bathroom.  Typically I’ve just taken them into the men’s room with me, but with at least #1 needing actual toilets since she’s potty trained, it’s imperative that I have to have a stall available to me when I enter.  And as I’ve alluded to, the Magic is smaller than my previous Disney cruise (Fantasy), and it never felt more like it than the availability of restrooms.

Naturally, #1 says she has to go potty right after I’m left with both kids on my own, and thankfully there’s a set of restrooms nearby.  I go into the men’s room and sure enough both stalls are occupied, and after about two minutes it’s obvious the assholes in them are taking vacations, so I leave.  I see a cast member nearby, and I ask him if it’s okay if I use the women’s room since I have two daughters in tow, and they give me the green light.  I enter the women’s room, see one of the stalls is occupied, so I announce my male presence, I have daughters, the men’s room is full, and I need to use the stall.  I get the green light from an understanding woman, and it’s into the stall for my girls and I.

As #1 is doing her business, I hear the door open and a woman enters, so I announce my presence again, as to not freak out any women who hears a man in the room, even if I’m speaking to daughters.  She’s cool about it too, and I start making jokes about how I’m proud of my daughters and how a bunch of gross boys are hogging the men’s room, and we take care of business and get out hastily.

Ultimately, this was one of those situations where I’ve read about how other dads have handled it on the internet, but I didn’t think I’d really ever run into the situation myself.  But as I’ve said, the Magic isn’t the Fantasy and felt like it in terms of size, and into the ladies’ room I went.  Hopefully this will not be a regular occurrence over the next few years, but if it does, I only hope it goes as positively as this one did.

Dad of the year, right chere’.

Dad Brog #106: the Girls’ first Disney Cruise

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For #1’s third birthday, mythical wife made the decision that we should go on a Disney cruise.  I’m usually so drowning in dad life that I don’t really have much capacity to think about vacations and trips, and I’m pretty much down to go along with any of mythical wife’s ideas as long as it doesn’t tank us financially and I have the capability to take the time off of work for it, and this was no exception.

It would be a daunting task taking a three-year old and an 20-month old, but we were also being accompanied by my mother in-law as well as our au pair, so with an adult-to-kid ratio of 2:1, it seemed more plausible.

Overall, despite the fact that there were points of the trip where everyone, including myself, hit burnout points of exasperation in dealing with a kid or kids, I would still say it was a positive and memorable trip as a whole.  Sure, it’s not something I like to admit that I lose my cool at times, but the combination of my kids being so drastically out of their routines, not napping, the choppy rocking of a vessel that I had expected to be a little smoother, and piss-poor air conditioning all over led to some instances where it was easy to boil over and get pretty annoyed at circumstances, but that’s basically what parenting is sometimes, having expectations that don’t get met, and being flustered as a result.

Countless times throughout the trip one or both of my kids would be fussy and intolerably cranky, and when this occurred, it just sandbagged everything around us.  I didn’t want to be the parents of the loudest kids in the room, which fortunately rarely occurred, but at the same time I’d like it of my kids behaved like angels all the time, which is the utmost pipedream for parents all over.

A thought I had is that my kids have been raised with such structure and routine, that putting them in an environment such as a vacation cruise, where their settings and beds are different, the food is richer and restrictions have been relaxed, and they’re basically not on a very structured schedule anymore, leads to what felt like chaos.

It was these moments of frustration and despair that I began to think about all the other parents I know, who have basically stated that they don’t feel that it’s worth taking their kids to Disney or any Disney-related things like cruises, until they were like 8-10 years old, where they might be a little more manageable than basically two toddlers.

But on that same token, I’m grateful and glad that my kids can already say they’ve been outside of the United States, and although they won’t really remember much, I’m happy that my girls have stepped foot in Mexico and been outside the country, which is something that I really couldn’t say until I was an adult.

And no matter how much my kids might have acted like pills at times, one of the consistent things was that the sight of any Disney princess or seeing Minnie or Donald Duck, immediately snapped them out of their angst and into awe-struck children who were all smiles and hugs when given the opportunity to meet them.

I had the foresight to go ahead and plunk down for the unlimited photo package, and I would highly recommend it to really anyone who takes a Disney cruise and has the expectation of wanting at least 5-6 good photos from the on-site photographers, because that’s the threshold in which it basically pays for itself.  My party ended up with 142 photos, which are basically the best souvenirs I could ask for.

Overall, this was a vast improvement over the vacation experience from two years ago where I was taking a 16- and a 2-month old to Disney World and absolutely everything in the world was a colossal undertaking, and I know that as the kids age these things will become easier.  I had high expectations for the Magic based on my experience on the Fantasy, and they fell short because of all the differences I was unaware of.

But damn, after this vacation, I could use a vacation.  I love my kids, but I’m completely incapable of relaxation when I have to be a dad.  I wanted to at least one opportunity to run a train on the breakfast buffet at Cabana’s, but that didn’t happen because of needing to tend to my kids’ needs first, and the fact that the lines and demand for it was way harsher than I had expected, and it was impossible to get in line.

But at least I was able to get another La Parka lucha libre mask when #2 and I spent a few hours walking around Cozumel on our one shore day.  Shit was so cheap that I didn’t feel right trying to haggle with the locals, even though I used to enjoy such in the past.

I’m not perfect but I still did the right thing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So I’m out doing my food delivery moonlighting, and I get a ping that has me making a pickup at a Taco Mac.  I get to the Taco Mac, and as I’m walking into entrance, I’m pleased to see some bagged orders waiting at the host stand, hoping one of them is mine, so I can grab it and be on my merry way because time is money, and I might be able to eke out one more fare before it gets too late.

Unfortunately, neither of the orders are mine, and when the hostess has to go to the back to check on it, I know I’m in for a wait, which is always an annoyance because again, time is money, and when I’m waiting, I’m not earning, and I’m always concerned customers will take their frustration out at getting their food late on me, by virtue of pulling back tips.  The hostess comes back and says sorry, it’ll be like 10-15 min, is that okay, to which I roll my eyes and don’t give a real committed answer because I don’t want to cancel the fare because there’s no guarantee I’ll get another one as good immediately, but I also don’t want to wait that long.  I opt to wait, and resign myself that this is probably the last one of the night, and I go sit in an adjacent booth.

My foot hits something, and when I look down, I see that it’s a wallet.  Immediately my brain starts popping with the opportunity of finding some rich schlub’s wallet, and the prospect of an immediate payday, but at the same time, I don’t want anyone to really see that I found a wallet, lest anyone think I’m some sort of crook, even though my thoughts are immediately wondering how much cash could be in it.

I discreetly pick it up and a minute later, I pull it up onto the table like it was mine all along and I’m rooting through it, because there’s no harm in looking.  I see the driver’s license of some older white male, 6’0, white hair, lives in the same city as the restaurant.  I find a voter registration card, and based on his look and where we are, no surprise that he’s a registered Republican.  There’s no platinum or black cards anywhere to indicate that he’s particularly wealthy, but the address points to an area of some very affluent homes regardless.

And then we get to the cash, at first I find only a five a bunch of ones, but then I discover that there’s a second pocket, to where he clearly separates larger bills from the smaller ones.  Even still, there’s a few twenties, and we’re looking at $91 in cash here.

My mind is racing at this point, and I’m seeing the scales of justice in my head as I could easily hand this over to the hostess and be done with it, but at the same time having watched the lackadaisical and lackluster behavior of the host staff, I didn’t trust that they would do the right thing with this wallet, and if they were going to pilfer the cash, why shouldn’t I do it myself and benefit from it instead?

Which brings us to the other side, where I could be a complete shithead and just walk away with the wallet, keep the $91, toss the rest into the garbage and be done with it.  Brian McJoneserkowski has a bad Monday but ultimately lands on his feet after he freezes all his cards and goes to get a new license and loses not even a hundred bucks.

Because that $91 is basically a really good night of doing food delivery.  That $91 offsets the cost of breakfast for my household plus in-laws this morning.  That $91 is $91 that I didn’t have that I now have, which would be useful because I never feel comfortable financially and it would be a nice little break to get for once.

All this decision pondering was going on through my head while I was waiting for my tardy order to arrive, and I knew that I had to come to a decision soon, because once the food came out, I was on the clock to get it to the customer.

A part of me was pondering doing the real hero thing and delivering it back to the person’s home, but it was close to 10 pm, and I don’t imagine how well received it would be for some rando to show up at someone’s home at that late at night to return a wallet, and considering they were a white male and I was a minority, I’d probably get shot and/or arrested for suspicion of theft.  Because if this didn’t get resolved tonight, there’s no way I was going to give it any thought in the following days, and then I would’ve ended up keeping the cash and throwing the other effects away and have done the shithead thing in the end even if I didn’t intend to.

Ultimately, the decision I made is that in spite of the temptation to abscond with a free $91 and the fact that I admit to being tempted, and I admit to rooting through this guy’s wallet with not-quite so honorific thoughts in my head, at the end of the day, I’m no thief.  I’m not perfect, as I’ve so disclosed, but I’m not a thief.

To get around my distrust for the hosts, I went to the one worker who probably deals with left behind wallets and personal effects on a regular basis: the bartender.  I dropped it off with her, and hopefully she does the right thing and puts it into a safe or something, and isn’t sneaking off into the back to pocket the $91, but at this point it’s no longer my concern.

In the end, I know that I did the right thing, even if I took a very roundabout and questionable route.  Hopefully Charles McRepublican the III sobers up in the morning and has the wherewithal to get in touch with the Taco Mac and discover that some honorable paragon turned his wallet in without stealing any of his effects, and hopefully this earns me some positive karma that will benefit me in some positive fashion in the future.

I also think about the fact that I’m a dad with kids, and even if they weren’t with me, I’d have a hard time looking them in the eyes and trying to convince them that dada’s a good person, so even when they’re not around, I still feel like I need to be setting a good example for them, regardless of how tempted I might’ve been.