Technology Rally

Technology is a double edge sword. I love technology, learning new gadgets is fun for me. As an individual person, I enjoy figuring out how things work, but as a parent, I want to fight the monstrous force of the technology wave.

Kids should be kids, enjoying the fun play of interacting, make-believe, and experiencing real life. Television, video games, app games, Facetime, texting sucks the life out of creativity, and frankly it's just interfering with my fantasy of what a perfect childhood should be. Of course, my fantasy is exactly that, a fantasy. I'm almost sure this is how my dad felt while raising my brothers and me. I always chalked up his ramblings about the good old days as him just being sentimental. Truthfully, 90% of the time it was sentimental, but there is another 10% of him just wanting us to experience what he experienced. Our childhood experiences make us who we are later in life.

I want my children to use their imagination, be creative (drawing, writing, music, playing, performing, etc.), and function socially, essentially be well-rounded adults someday. Having three children in three years provided a built-in social structure so I believe I've exceeded the social functionality for all three of my children. They excel in their communication skills especially when they are screaming at the top of their lungs at each other over clothes, toys, markers, pencils, paper, glue, etc. It does wonders for their vocabulary levels.

Back to the technology rant, this past Christmas was an exceptional Christmas for our household (view Coming Out of the Dark Ages post back in November): new television, dvd player, and the kids received their own Ipod Touches. I held off as long as possible, but Child #1 was dying to get one because all her friends had one. I wasn't too keen on the idea, but one of my friends made an appealing argument to get them.

Long story short (too late), all three of them have an Ipod Touch. Until this past week, I didn't know how powerful these little gadgets could be. Not the technology, but the leverage they provide for a parent. Child #1 and Child #2 were grounded from their Ipods and TV for a whole week. By default, Child #3 didn't watch TV or play on her Ipod either because all three of them spent their free time the entire week playing make believe and board games. They created a daycare, library, retail store and grocery store. In the end, my fantasy of providing the perfect childhood for my children incorporated technology, but the fantasy is becoming real.   

To all those parents out there that are on the border of buying some kind of technology for their children, go ahead and make the purchase but remember to use it against them and stick to the punishments. I know it is easy to give in. DON'T. Force them to endure the punishment. It will only provide them with beneficial real life experience. Happy Parenting!

Alternative Workout

Since I wasn't able to run outside today, do to our lovely snow storm last night, I decided to hike through the foot of snow on the lake. Here are some photos I captured on my hike.

An island on the ice.

Land vs. Island

Park Bench

Snow covered trees.

Fallen trees.

No water under the bridge here.

The Lake!

Have a great day!

Cold vs Flu

A few weeks ago, I caught some kind of cold. Some might've said it was the flu, but I would have to argue this. Ironically, this cold appeared a week after my treadmill broke. I wasn't running outside either because of the deadly freezing temperatures, therefore I was lacking exercise. In return, my body went through withdraws and I got sick. The flu shot is not something I would ever consider (that will have to be a different post).  Oddly enough, I had a sore throat for a few days. No other systems, just a sore throat. To make this even stranger, no one else in my house was sick. The sore throat disappeared, I became congested and a persistent cough magically appeared. Apparently there are two kinds of influenza-a stomach flu and a respiratory flu. With deductive reasoning, I had the respiratory one. I wasn't run down or anything, but the cough took about a week to go away. It felt more like a cold then the flu, but I gave it another week before I ventured out into the great Wisconsin cold to run.

Today was my integration back into running, post-cold. My lungs burned so bad I thought I was going to die. It brought me back to my good old days of competitive swimming. Chlorine isn't always the best chemical to inhale six days a week. Occasionally, my lungs would burn after an intense practice. Between the cold and the exertion, I was hacking up a well conditioned cardiovascular lung. It took two hours to calm the spasms, but in my Dr. Hansen diagnosis I think I might actually have had the respiratory flu. Non-doctors can be wrong too. Yes I am admitting I might've been wrong. It doesn't happen very often so you can mark it down. Oh yeah, I've written it down for you.

I will test out my theory with another run tomorrow out in the cold. I know I can hear all your awww's in sync. Feel my pain.

Keurig Elite Coffee Brewer

Most of you know, I'm not much of a coffee drinker. Actually I've never even stepped foot in a Starbucks before. If that doesn't illustrate it for you, I don't even own a coffee maker in my house, never have. On the flip side, I am a tea drinker during the colder months in the wonderful world just south of the Frozen Tundra.

This past Christmas, the parents gifted the Handyman a Keurig Elite Coffee Brewer (which you can purchase in many retailers, but at Kohls you can at least wait for a 30% coupon to purchase it).



An interesting gift I wasn't sure how I felt about because I knew there was a hidden agenda behind it. I wasn't sure if my parents felt sorry for the Handyman (he likes to drink coffee only when someone else makes it, hence why I don't have a coffee maker because it would just sit there unless I made the coffee) or if it was self serving for when they come over to visit. Plus I didn't really want a gadget to sit on my already overcrowded counter tops.

Anyway, it took me a little while to warm up to the gift, but my curiosity over powered my initial hesitation and I opened the box only because it claimed you could make tea or hot chocolate with it. It even came with a sample variety pack. How cute is that.

In my attempt to try all the coffee samples, I started out with a french roast. Nope didn't like it so I added whip cream to it. Now it is more tolerable, but still not a must have. Continuing through the variety pack, the only one I really liked was the tea sample so I ventured to the store to see what they offer beyond the variety pack. I find a french vanilla box and I have a coupon for the Nestle Coffee-mate.

At this point, you're probably asking yourself wasn't the Keurig gifted to the Handyman. You would be right, but I showed him how to use it and he made one cup of coffee and never touched it again. I was determined to make use of this thing.

Using the creamer is definitely the way to go. We also received the optional K-cup adapter where you can use coffee grounds too. I've been putting my tea bags into it to make my cup of tea, which works marvelously (and I'm saving on electricity because it only takes a few minutes to warm up versus warming water up on the stove). On the other hand, the Keurig K-Cups are much more expensive than using coffee grounds. In comparison to Starbucks prices, you would be saving 90% of the cost of a $5 Starbucks coffee I have to admit the convenience is worth it. If you want to be really frugal, you can even reuse the K-cup once and still get a descent cup of coffee out of it. I actually prefer the second cup. It's not as strong.

Now that I am hopped up on caffeine, I can spend more time writing. During my experiments, I realized that anything more than two cups of coffee makes me shake (my body doesn't absorb caffeine all that well). I may have to stick to the tea more often. At least, I know my limits. The caffeine headache is definitely going to be hard to withdraw from.
 
Have a great day!

  

Wisconsin Drama

Wisconsin is an unusual state. Though, I'm not an indigenous cheese head, my children are born and raised Wisconsin stock, therefore I'm once removed. Over the years, I've come to appreciate the opportunities Wisconsin has to offer for me and my family (this is true as long as they continue to let me escape once a year otherwise I might feel like a trapped wild animal and start foaming at the mouth, but that would never happen). It's not a state that the faint of heart can endure day in and day out. Let's take the weather for instance. Wisconsin weather is so unpredictable, occasionally, we get rain, ice, snow, and sun all in one day. The famous saying here is "If you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes, it will change."

As you saw in my previous post on ice fishing, we were out on the ice two weekends ago. Well last weekend the weather decided to warm up to a balmy 40* to 45*. You all know that the freezing point is 32* so you can only imagine how the ice looked, black and dangerous. Since the lake wasn't frozen completely, the ice wasn't strong enough to endure the warmer temperatures. This is what happens when you don't get your shanty off the ice in time.

 Last week, we watched the little camper slowly slip lower and lower through the ice. Mother Nature must've felt sorry for this poor soul because the temperature dropped yesterday to a high of 7*. Lucky for us, today it's a crisp -6*, windchill -21*. The camper is now stuck in limbo. On the other hand, the DNR (The Department of No Results) is going to be on the owner faster than a cougar chasing it's prey. A fine will follow and the problem of removing it from the lake. This is Wisconsin drama first hand.

In Wisconsin, you have to be ready for anything. These temperatures are supposed to continue all week, but I wanted to show the open water again. I risked frost bite (not kidding, it's that cold outside) in the two minutes it took me to take these pictures. My hands were so frozen and red I was a little nervous until they warmed up.In the sake of risking my skin health for this blog, I was able to capture some pretty cool pictures. Check them out.

It was like the hot springs in Yellowstone except minus the cold weather. Though I bet Yellowstone is pretty cool in the winter too. The water is warmer than the air producing steam. Very mystical. I love taking photos of cool things. Enjoy! My favorite is the last one.