🍉 Go Ask Daddy About South American Seeds, Latin American Moves and One Tough American Chick

photo credit: Star Wars Celebration 2015 via photopin (license)

It’s back.

Two years ago, I held a kid selfie contest here on the CD. The rules were simple: Send in a selfie your child took with your phone. It must be there already; no staged shots for the contest. (It’s the honor system, and Smoky the Bear will know if you break the rules.)

Send your photos to epacheco@redventures.com, by Friday, June 3. I’ll post entrants on Go Ask Daddy for June 10, and open the contest to an open poll. I’ll determine a winner by June 17. The winning kid will receive a prize package valued at a minimum $3.

Get those selfies in!

photo credit: Nuts via photopin (license)

1. Where do peanuts come from?

The world loves peanuts – except of course Hayden, and many like her, who are allergic.

Peanuts grow everywhere. They originated in Bolivia and Peru. To be even more specific, they come from the foothills of the Andes. By the first century A.D., otherwise known as my junior year in college, peanuts had crept north to Mexico.

European settlers got ahold of them and took them worldwide, along with “My Dad Went to the Andes Foothills and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt” T-shirts.

2. How many people read your blog?

Today, excluding European explorers, 57 souls have visited my URL and read 80 posts.

Like Rockies middle relief pitching, the numbers wax and wane. This month, Coach Daddy averages 103 clicks a day. For 2016, it’s a 105 average. My best month saw 171 daily. My worst: My second month, with 17 clicks. I was grateful for every single one.

My best day ever saw 706 clicks, in the midst of the BlogHer Voice of the Year hubbub. All in all, more than 123,000 people have clicked from 160 countries, including Syria, Djibouti and a place called the Isle of Man. My top 10 nations:

1. United States: 93,763
2. Canada: 7,620
3. United Kingdom: 3,658
4. Australia: 3,356
5. Switzerland (Thanks to Tamara!): 2,321
6. India: 1,389
7. Philippines: 859
8. Germany: 601
9. New Zealand: 458
10. Mexico: 423

I’ve yet to garner a visitor from Greenland, Sudan or Iran. I have 1,958 blog subscribers, and more than 3,000 Twitter followers, but they might be sticking around for my poetic waxing about cheese. I’ve written 594 posts.

People have found my blog with keywords as strange as how deep is water polo pool, things a grown man should never do and hope solo hot. I’m most proud, though, that two web searchers found my page after an inquiry of cheeseburger.

3. What dance moves did you do in Zumba?

Did, as in past tense. It’s been months since I’ve been back, girls.

I’m still signed up, and I get email notifications.

Maybe after soccer season and allergy season and El Nino. I could identify Zumba moves as well as I could microbial fuel cells or distinguish between a minipad and a maxipad with wings while staring at the female hygiene aisle at 3:30 a.m. On low battery.

Zumba incorporates elements of the Cha Cha and Merengue, which are fly, unless you look in the mirror.

They say you can add your own style to your Zumba moves from your instructor.

I did that. I’d get carried away on that Latin beat, and remember my heritage, and all of a sudden, I look in the mirror, and the svelt millennials around me, and I swear it look like I’m on invisible fire like race car pit crews sometimes do.

Zumba incorporates elements of the Cha Cha and Merengue, which are fly, unless you look in the mirror. Then, you look more like the intersection of joint inflammation and muscle relaxers. Plus, hearing the music, I have a hankering for queso dip right after.

photo credit: suzukichick via photopin cc

4. How can you tell if a fish is tropical?

They have a pineappley taste to them.

Tropical fish come from tropical waters. Tropical waters fit around the globe neatly between the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees north) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5 degrees south). The Mickey Mouse platys and zebra danios in our tank are tropical.

My research today also tells me that mama platy probably had babies, which became snacks for all the other fish recently. We bought a tiki head to put in the tank for fry (a masochistic name for baby fish) to hide in the next go-round, rather than become sushi.

5. Is Abby Wambach the U.S. captain?

She was, in her final moments with the U.S. women’s national team.

In the 79^th minute of the U.S.’ World Cup championship last summer, Wambach, in her final game, came on to replace Tobin Heath. Carli Lloyd, in the midst of an incredible hat trick performance, immediately bestowed the armband to Wambach.

Wambach has 249 international caps and 183 international goals, the most of anyone, all-time. An incredible 77 of those came on headers. That means Abby’s noggin would rank seventh on the USWNT’s career scoring list.

Abby Wambach even took a selfie with the Commander in Chief once.

Wambach and Christie Rampone, both captain-caliber players playing fewer minutes at the end of their careers, unofficially conceded the captain’s armband to Lloyd. Lloyd turned it back to Wambach, who turned it back to Rampone for the medals ceremony.

She even took a selfie with the Commander in Chief once.

But she’s ineligible for the kids’ selfie contest on the CD.

Sorry, Abs.