#AtoZChallenge: R is for Blogger Recognition

Lots of you know Eric.

He writes a dad blog called All in a Dad’s Work. He’s a good dude and an Orioles fan. (It could be much worse.) He and I share tons of common friends. He writes a post called Go Ask Your Father, which looks a lot like Go Ask Daddy. He’s a good guy.

(My lawyer says I should ask for a taco for every Go Ask Your Father post he publishes. I like the idea of getting tacos mostly.)

Eric nominated me for a blogger recognition award long ago. When these things happen, I give thanks and disclose my plan to someday – someday – do the challenge, whether it’s posting pics or writing underwater, etc.

Go Ask Daddy About firewood, Kickass quarterbacks, and loooong shots

We tell the kids stuff not to do all the time. Here’s 42.

1. Don’t eat cookies in bed. Share them on the couch with dad.
2. Don’t leave the door open!
3. Don’t leave the fridge open.
4. Don’t drink daddy’s soda.
5. Don’t drink daddy’s rum.
6. Don’t play your saxophone after eating a KitKat.
7. Don’t run in the street.
8. Don’t pick the cat up by the tail.
9. Don’t text in church.
10. Don’t quote Macklemore songs in church.
11. Don’t use your tablet after you’ve eaten a rack of ribs.
12. Don’t yell, “don’t listen to coach!”
13. Don’t wear sweatpants with words across the arse.
14. Don’t wrestle by the fish tank.
15. Don’t leave your soccer ball at the bottom of the stairs.
16. Don’t use a throw pillow as a placemat.
17. Don’t spit sunflower seeds in the living room.
18. Don’t retaliate for a foul.
19. Don’t leave bubble gum in your pockets.
20. Don’t talk to the refs.
21. Don’t pick your nose if the Kiss Cam is going.
22. Don’t grab a catfish around the fins when you’re taking the fishhook out.
23. Don’t use the same hand to eat Double-Stuft Oreos as you do for baiting your hook.
24. Don’t change the station if Electric Light Orchestra is on.
25. Don’t sneak pizza slices into your jacket pockets at CiCi’s.
26. Don’t fall down in the shower the morning of game day.
27. Don’t try to call time out in a soccer game.
28. Don’t pop more than three M&Ms, or any candy, in your mouth at once. Savor them.
29. Don’t root for the Seattle Seahawks, externally.
30. Don’t let go of the Wii remote.
31. Don’t pass up a chance to watch soccer on TV. Or in person.
32. Don’t walk barefoot in a dog park.
33. Don’t disparage your president, the pope or Kesha.
34. Don’t put an egg in the skillet, and go upstairs to paint your nails.
35. Don’t pay retail for banana chips.
36. Don’t forget to stand up for your friends. And even those who aren’t your friends.
37. Don’t sing or cry with your mouth full. In church, at least.
38. Don’t skimp on the cheese.
39. Don’t forget mother’s day.
40. Don’t say anything bad about Samantha Ponder within earshot of daddy.
41. Don’t drink dad’s rum when it’s in his Coke (Thanks for this, John).
42. Don’t burn crepe myrtle.

Go Ask Daddy About Pizza Placement, Tropical Trappings and Straight Shooting About Strawberries

photo credit: M’sieur Sub ! Photo de famille via photopin (license)

We have this silly rule, the kids and me.

It’s instituted because, 100% of the time, winter, spring, summer or fall, at night and by day, from school, from training, from detention (no, they don’t actually get detention), the girls, each of them individually and together, enter my car and my day with two words:

“I’m hungry.”

If there’s something on the way home, we’ll stop. (As long as we haven’t slumped into overdraft yet.) Grace has begun a subliminal campaign (whispering QT, for QuikTrip and their slushies and donuts, when she gets in the car with me.)

Go Ask Daddy About Genetics, Likenesses and the Bottom Rung of Fast Food Quality

photo credit: Leoraul Prop Shot Lighting, Finn Stormtrooper Helmet via photopin (license)

Back in my day, there wasn’t such a thing as a spoiler.

Well, unless you went to see The Cannonball Run before everyone else and could tell your friends how Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. place in the race. So that was me, age 9, in the middle of a Greeley, Colo., movie theater, with mind blown.

Before mind blown was even a thing.

I was watching The Empire Strikes Back – Episode V, for you dinkledorphs who insist upon that – when one of life my life-altering utterances occurred right there on the big screen. [It was hokier than I remember. See it here]. When Leia tells Han that Luke is her brother.

Product Review: Marie Tries Out the jimmyCASE

Photo by HMP

And then there was one.

Over the years here at Coach Daddy, two of my three daughters have written guest posts. Marie, middle child Marie, she of few words and fancy footwork, remained the lone holdout. Until today.

Marie is on the blog today to review a cool iPhone case.

She got to check out an iPhone 6s Card holder from jimmyCASE. Marie’s a girl who takes her phone seriously. She bought her own iPhone 6, with screen protectors. She’s the girl in the bunch that takes care of her stuff way better than dad ever did.

All those iPhone users out there – you really should check out the jimmyCASE.

Go Ask Daddy About Undergear, Chinese Manufacturing and the Battles That Can Rage in Our Mouths

photo credit: DocChewbacca Sacred Water of Fuji Temple via photopin (license)

We’ll get our new kits today.

That’s soccer lingo for new uniforms. We’ll play our opener Monday. New kits, new coach, new season. I have a good feeling about it all. Every time I think it’s time to retire, something like this happens. Some place asks me if I’ll teach. And I say yes.

I’m particular when it comes to kits – I don’t have a say in this case, so I hope for the best.

I have a few hang-ups. Quirks, really. Harmless. I’m partial to prime numbers. That’s not so strange, but perhaps that I was once a fan of multiples of threes, then made the switch to prime numbers? Maybe that makes it strange.

Go Ask Daddy About Device Diversions, Writing Weaknesses and Couponing Questions That Shall Never Be Asked

photo credit: v_mats D16B2649-1 via photopin (license)

A kid will call a dad out.

The younger the kid, the rawer (is that a word?) the call-out. I’ve navigated three daughters through the unfiltered years, without many stings. There was that day on the Barbie doll aisle with one daughter, who, noting Mattel’s plastic diversity, asked, “why would I want a black Barbie, dad?”

I sailed through that one with honesty, not damage control.

“I think little girls like to play with dolls, no matter what,” I explained. “But sometimes, we want toys that look like us. These dolls look like different people.” And it was true. I remember complaining that there were no Mexican kids on Peanuts.

Go Ask Daddy About Tunes, Cephalopods and the Dirty Origins of Mankind

photo credit: Jürgo Stormtrooper paste-up via photopin (license)

What do you call someone who is post-Millennial?

I know I could find it on Google, but that’s not important. See, that’s where my kids are. That next generation. They’ll be the ones poking fun at you, millennials, for your antiquated ways. At least, their kids will be the ones.

So when a kid of mine travels with me, beside me in the front seat because the youngest among them is now 12, the conversations between Generation X and Generation Next happen anyway.

Sometimes, with Marie, it’s welcomed silence. On mountain roads coming from or going to Warren Wilson with Elise, it’s one really long story, interrupted by snack breaks and naps (her, not me.) With Grace, it’s a combination of those.

Go Ask Daddy About The Olympiad, Stuffed Animals and How Many Horses One Dude Really Needs

photo credit: Reiterlied End of a Trip via photopin (license)

Mexico isn’t known particularly for its ultra-fast Wi-Fi.

At least, not in room 101 of the Fiestamericana Resort, and it’s 4 a.m., and you’ve just questioned the wisdom of having just called room service for a bacon cheeseburger. You root around your email and answer blog comments, but not much more.

Not at the end of a day that you’d kind of wish would never end.

Some moments in life can become transformative before you even realize there’s room to transform. During our company trip, leaders challenged us to #challengewhatspossible. Although that sounds an awful lot like business speak, there’s more to it than that.

Go Ask Daddy About Crustacean Cravings, Noodle Knowledge, and Incredible Heroes

photo credit: Reiterlied Seaside Lunch via photopin (license)

I’m all about culinary diversity.

You won’t believe me, given the playtime the Gastronomic Trinity – cheeseburgers, pizza, and tacos – gets here. But I’ve eaten Indian food for the first time recently, thanks to my millennial/liberal friends. Took a break from the burger joint and everything.

(They can keep their sushi, though, actually.)

I love some Pad Thai, also. I hadn’t had it in my first 43 years on earth. Sometimes, the sense of adventure in food comes without me knowing it. I accidentally ate alligator once. I ordered fish on a stick in a rural north Florida town.