After Affects

Isn't the picture below-

full of beautiful 7th graders.  I know what you're saying, "What vibrant skin they have."  Here at the Summit Institute of Urban studies were evaluating the After Affects of prolonged fun.  Everyone reading this BLOG should be familiar with the renowned researcher, Cire Sleinad and his recent book titled, "Fun, the key to DYSfunCTIONAL."  Or his later work, "What goes fun, must come down."

We began our study by taking the (3) loverly young girls pictured above and placing them in a fun-control environment.  Specifically, we dropped them off at a birthday party held at Main Event (bowling, rock climbing, miniature golf, laser tag, arcade and, their favorite - Skeeball.).  We left the three specimen in the custody of a "Main Event Party Specialist" and equipped them with a "Main Event Fun Card."

Add a little salt, a dash of worchester, blend on high for about twenty, and what do you get...

Yeah, kids today just can't handle their fun.

Annie and Idol... Got Your Camera?

American Idol aired their first show of the season this week... Jessica completed her auditions for the Annie musical for Summit, and received feedback from the "judges" this past week as well. Coincidence? No, it couldn't possibly be an innocent coincidence that both of those things kicked off at [practically speaking] the same time.

Due to licensing issues, We [The Daniels Clan Production Company] were unable to gain access to actual audition footage and the live comments from the judging panel; however, we were able to review a transcipt of the post-audition comments made by the judges to Jessica Daniels. Below are a few of the "meatier" comments-

"I genuinely believe with all my heart that we have found (a worldwide star) with you. Congratulations."

"It was a brilliant, brilliant performance."

"I would call that a vocal master class."

"The only problem is, nobody can top that now."

"It just reminded me a little bit of 'Phantom of the Opera'."

"The vocals were immaculate."

"I'm going to make this brief. Brilliant."

As you can see, the feedback was unanimous - Jessica Daniels will be your next "American Idol" in the upcoming release of Annie, by the Summit Christian Academy Production of said musical.

Drama 4 Jessie & Steph

Tomorrow isn't a big day for just Jake (see blog update below on
football). Both Jessie and Steph auditioned for the upcoming Summit
play - Annie.

Both received callbacks from their initial performances in audition
#1. . . and did AWESOME in their 2nd callback auditions. The casting
decisions will be announced tomorrow, Tuesday 1/12.

Jacob Equipped for Tackle Football

Jacob will go to his first 11-man tackle football practice tomorrow (Tuesday, 1/12).  Let's not forget that Jacob is a 3-year veteran of Flag Football; however, he's never been in pads, never been tackled and he's never tackled anyone in pads.

To say that Jacob is EXCITED is an understatement.  He's been harassing Mom and Dad for weeks to sign the release papers and get him on a team... we hesitated, and hesitated... and hesitated some more... In the end, we decided to "release" Jacob on the poor hapless children of National Youth Sports (http://www.nysonline.org/).

Jacob's practices will be on Tuesday and Thursday, with a game once a week through the end of February.  Games are on Saturday, just like the NCAA.  Here's a shot of Jacob suiting up-

Looking good, my man (we're big fans of CAMO)...

Perspective: Ford vs. iPhone

Maybe my kids will understand this- It's the winter of 1985, although you can't tell by the weather; afterall, it's San Diego, CA and the weather looks the same every day. Except when there's a Santa Ana, then you know it's not winter. Our hero, me, has just turned sixteen, and it is SWEET. I'm fresh from scoring a 72 on my driving test, and now I head home for the BIG GIFT. What do you get a sixteen year-old man-child that just passed his driving test back in 1985? Yup, a 1979 Mach 1 Mustang, yellow with a big black racing stripe and 350horsepower... yeah, that's what you get him.


But I got a 1980 Ford Pinto - white, with powder-blue vinyl interior. I supplied the fuzzy dice, proudly hanging from the rear view. I know you've heard General Motor's famous tag line- "This ain't your Grandfather's Oldsmobile." Well, this sure was my Grandfather's Pinto - literally.

Fast forward four-years to 1989, yours truly is keeping his head barely above water at college in San Luis Obispo. I sell that lucious babe-magnet of a car (afterall, I am dating my future wife - Barbara O'Keefe) for $500, hard CASH.

Fast forward (again)- It's winter in Austin, TX and the year is 2009. Our hero (me) is in the AT&T store looking at iPhones with said wife. I'm about to fork over almost $600 for a pair of iPhones, two cases, insurance (for when one goes through the wash) and some bluetooth earbuds. My oldest daughter, Jessica is looking at me like I'm a nuthouse fairy for hesitating to make the purchase. She doesn't understand that this is more money than my first car was worth... two iPhones I can hold in the palm of my hands. One of which Stephanie is bound to step on with the other being destined for the spin cycle in our Maytag. Are you ready for some more irony?

What's auto insurance (in 1985) for a sixteen year-old in a white 1980 Ford Pinto? Well, it's about $100 a month or $1,200 a year, and you can bet I won't be getting speeding tickets in that car. I acutely remember paying $10 a week to fill that bad boy's gas tank. Total cost of ownership on the Pinto for 1-year (insurance, gas, an oil change or two... ) ~$1,750. What's it cost to run an iPhone for 1-year through AT&T nowadays... it's easily more than my first car!
 
No... my kids won't understand, maybe in 2033?

Merry 2010!!!!!

Geocaching

We completed our second Geocache as a BIG family (Barb's sisters and their kids were with us).  Geocaching uses the iPhone's GPS to show where you are in relation to these hidden caches. It was started by the boy scouts.  They started using plain-old GPS to stash secret caches of goodies that are hidden all over the world.  Now there's a website which tracks the locations, and any one can leave a geocache. When you stash the cache, have your iPhone GPS enabled, go to the geo cache website, and "register" the new stash.  The website grabs your GPS location and "posts" the new stash on the website for others to find. It costs a few bucks to register online. Here we are finding one near our house. . .

Ashley (front & center, right of Jessica) found the Cache
















Below is a shot of Stephanie riffling through the goodies in the GeoCache

Here's a group shot of the entire GeoCache team (backrow starting on left- Christina (our niece), Jessica, Ashley (our niece), Aunt Debbie, Destiny (our niece)... frontrow starting on left- Brianna (our niece), Crystal (our niece), Stephanie, Jacob and Grace (our neighbor's daughter).  Yeah, I know, an impressive team).

Here's the URL to the geocache website... http://www.geocaching.com/

Men / Women... differences?

There's the fairer sex, and there's, well... men.  We've all heard about the differences and controversy over whether the differences are: nature or nurture?  No discussion of sexism is complete without at least touching on the subject of driving.

While shopping for a new car (when we actually traded in the Suburban - taking advantage of the "cash for clunkers" deal) we spent a little time in the show room.  I snapped off a few pictures of the kids playing their respective roles in demonstrating the distinct differences between men, women and driving.

Here's Stephanie at the wheel-

Here's Jacob-

Enjoy.