Thursday afternoon of last week, I was set to take V to his gymnastics class. He was stir crazy, so we left early, taking his bike to the park to ride around for a bit before class.

We did our thing, loaded his bike back into the car, and started to pull out. There were some other families coming from the sidewalk to the parking lot, and a couple of kids climbing into the mini van parked next to us, so I looked around very carefully, and started to back up very very slowly. I’ll note that my vision was especially good, as the top and windows were down on the Jeep.

As we started to back out, some loud mother came around behind me, give my Jeep the “talk to the hand” gesture, and started shouting.

“STOP, STOP, STOP.”

“EVERYBODY GET HOLD OF YOUR CHILDREN. WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN.”

She then stopped another car trying to leave the lot, and directed me to back out in front of that car, screaming instructions all the while.

Vanya was concerned by the shouting. “What’s the matter, Papa.”

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Willie Lyles, Parkinson’s, star receiver makes himself ineligible with some violation that we don’t understand, probation because of a years-ago violation recruiting a player who LSU refused to take because of said violation, and oh yeah, I heard something about a fight at a bar.

That probably adds up to the worst August in memory, although it could be a lot worse. Miami’s bad month will plague the program for the next decade. Our messes will be mostly forgotten in a week plus two days.

A quick video to remind us of why we pull for the guys wearing purple and gold.

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We all know that you should wash your hands after using the toilet. Unsaid, but equally well understood is the fact that there are some places where it’s just fine not to wash your hands after you use the toilet. Let this serve as my attempt to quantify when and when it is not okay.

Not surprisingly, the specific rules differ depending on whether you’ve gone #1 or #2. (Let’s face it, when you go #2, there’s just the thinnest, flimsiest piece of material in the world between your hand and poop.)

It’s okay to NOT wash your hands, no matter which number you’ve gone when…

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Last time I wrote about our trip to upstate New York, I concluded by saying that I had more videos, pictures, and stories. You may have seen the pictures, and videos are here (although the best of them are embedded in this post). That just leaves us with stories to tell.

That just leaves us with stories, and one story is important for context before we get to the video.

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Theskinnyonbenny family had one long, full day to be tourists in Washington D.C this summer. We did the normal wandering around of governmental buildings and monuments.

Vanya started the day tired and whiny. I would complain that it was hotter than hell, except that I’m posting this from Louisiana in August, where the devil himself won’t visit a house that has the air conditioning turned off.

After we walked around for a while, we stopped at this little store to load up with cold drinks. Vanya did some little favor for the cashier, and the man gave him a big, fake hundred dollar bill. While we were sitting outside and drinking from our plastic bottles, Vanya went back in and did him some other nicety, and he came back with two more over-sized fake bills.

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Have you ever come back from a nice dinner to find a friend in the pool out back, naked as a jaybird, and both hands over his head, one holding a rusty machete and the other holding an open bottle of Patron?

Have you?

Don’t you wish you vacationed with me?

Don’t you wish I blogged more often?

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The theskinnyonbenny family spent last week on Lake George, in upstate New York. Or I guess more accurately, we were on a little spit of the lake that dumps into a river. We could boat or drive to the lake, but poor landscaping prevented the picturesque view that we deserved as tourists from far away.

We got to try many of their local restaurants, and one experience motivated me to post a review on Yelp or some similar site. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the place,and Mrs. theskinnyonbenny wasn’t able to find it for me, so I post most of my review here.

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Are we entering a new golden age of music? For the past 10 years or so, I could count on one new album every 12-18 months that would really, really get me excited. Albums that were new, creative, great, and instantly excellent.

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