NHL’s “Naked Gun” Moment and Turning Six

Family, Fatherhood, Humor, Life, NHL

Last night as NHL was getting ready to go to sleep, I was setting some programs to DVR and making sure we had enough room. While checking to see if an episode of “The Spectacular Spiderman” was one I hadn’t seen, I accidentally hit play. NHL only saw the first couple of seconds, but that was enough for his “bedtime procratination sense” to tingle. He asked to see it and I told him that I’d show it to him another day. He asked what happened in the episode, so I explained the story briefly.

Me: “Spiderman found a black costume that made him stronger, but it also made him mean to people. He didn’t like being mean, so he took off the costume. This episode tells how he took it off.”

NHL: “Who’s Howie?”

As this point, I couldn’t contain myself. I burst out laughing and had to leave the room. I told B who also burst out laughing. As I caught my breath, I told a confused NHL that he just said something very funny even though he didn’t know it. (I didn’t want him thinking I was laughing at him.) It was all-too-much like something from the Naked Gun movies. Yes, I am serious and don’t call my Shirley.

All this is just a roundabout way of saying Happy Birthday to my now-six-year old NHL. Last year, at this point, he couldn’t read at all. Now he’s reading whole books to himself (and us). Last year, he couldn’t ride on a bike two feet without help. This year, he can ride almost all the way around the block without needing help. (Only some uneven sidewalks stand in his way.) Last year, he didn’t know any math at all. Now he’s adding and subtracting like a pro. He keeps learning so much that it is sometimes hard to keep track of it all. He’ll display some piece of knowledge and I’ll have to stop and ask “NHL, when did you learn *THAT*?” This can be good, like with reading various complicated words, or bad, like playing Mario Kart Wii with me and telling me that he’s going to “kick my ass.” (Yes, I told him never to say that again.)

While tucking him into bed last night, NHL told me that he’s going to miss being five. He was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to do things that he liked doing because he’ll be six. I told him that he’s had a lot of fun being five, but that every year he’ll be able to do more, not less. He’ll still be able to do the things he loved doing when he was five, but he’ll be able to find new things that he loves doing that he wasn’t able to do before.

I watch NHL grow with mixed emotions. Part of me finds it amazing to watch him grow into such an intelligent young man, but part of me wants to keep him a baby forever. As he gets older, I’ll miss the hugs and father-son cuddle moments that were so much a part of his younger years. But then again, I guess I’ll take my own advice and look forward to finding all of the new things that we can do together that we weren’t able to do before.

Happy birthday, NHL, from your very proud dad!

(For B’s Happy birthday message to NHL, hop on over to TheAngelForever.com.)

Cooking with TechyDad: Tie-Dyed Cheesecake

Cooking, Disney, Photos, Recipe

On our trip to Disney World, we sampled many great foods. Everything from Morrocan to Canadian to, well, good-ol’ US of A food. The food that stuck in our minds the most, though, came from the hotel we stayed in. The Pop Century Resorts’ restaurant had Tie-Dye Cheesecake. A delicious, rich cheesecake, swirled with many different colors, was served atop a “crust” made from red velvet cake. *YUM!*

Being the cooking enthusiest that I am, I decided that I couldn’t let Tie-Dyed Red Velvet Cheesecake be just a fond Disney World memory. I *had* to make it myself. A quick Google search turned up this recipe over at Slashfood. If you follow my wife’s blog, you know that we made it and what the result was. Long story short, the cake, while good, was not what I was hoping for. Instead of a multi-colored cheesecake with red velvet crust, we got a red velvet cake with a multi-colored cheesecake icing. The basic recipe was sound. We just had to fiddle with the proportions. So we decided to halve the cake portion and double the cheesecake portion. We also decided to substitute red velvet cake for Strawberry cake.

» Read more

Cooking with TechyDad: Eggplant Italian

Cooking, Recipe

Finding good eggplants here is a rare occurance. Unfortunately, most eggplants I look at are bruised and/or squishy. So when I find good eggplants, I snatch them up. Last week, I found a pair of good looking eggplants so I bought them and tossed them into my fridge. Luckily, I had a recipe that I wanted to try them with.

I took the eggplants, peeled and sliced them and soaked them in salt water for 5 minutes to help remove the bitterness. Next, I combined some cottege cheese, eggbeaters, salt a pepper in one bowl and tomato sauce, basil and oregano in another. Then, in a non-stick cooking sprayed crockpot, I layered the eggplant, cottege cheese and sauce. Four hours on high later, it was dinner time.

B loved it. She declared it “amazing” and had seconds. In fact, she loved it so much, that my poor side dish (pasta with a tomato sauce, zucchini, broccoli and mushrooms) was pronounced “meh.” It wasn’t that she didn’t like the pasta, she did. It was that it just didn’t hold up in comparison to the eggplant.

Here are some photos of the results:

[nggallery id=49]

And, of course, here is the all-important recipe:

Eggplant Italian
Book: Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly – Healthy, Low-Fat Recipes for Your Slow Cooker by Phyllis Pellman Good
Recipe by: Melanie Thrower
Makes 6-8 servings
(Ideal slow-cooker size: 4 or 5 quart; and oval cooker works best)
  • 2 eggplants
  • 1/4 cup eggbeaters
  • 24 oz fat-free cottage cheese
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • black pepper to taste
  • 14 oz can tomato sauce
  • 2-4 Tbsp Italian seasoning, according to your taste preference (I used 1Tbsp dried Oregano and 1Tbsp dried Basil)
  1. Peel eggplants and cut in 1/2″ thick slices. Soak in salt-water for about 5 minutes to remove bitterness. Drain well.
  2. Spray slow-cooker with fat-free cooking spray.
  3. Mix eggbeaters, cottage cheese, salt, and pepper together in bowl.
  4. Mix tomato sauce and Italian seasoning together in another bowl.
  5. Spoon a thin layer of tomato sauce into the bottom of slow cooker. Top with about one-third of the eggplant slices, and then one-third of the egg/cheese mixture, and finally one-third of the remaining tomato sauce mixture.
  6. Repeat those layers twice, ending with seasoned tomato sauce.
  7. Cover. Cook on high 4 hours. Allow to rest 15 minutes before serving.

Per Serving: 120 calories (10 calories from fat), 1g total fat (0g saturated, 0gtrans), 30mg cholesterol, 940mg sodium, 17g total carbohydrate (4g fiber, 11g sugar), 11g protein, 15% DV vitamin A, 4% DV vitamin C, 8% DV calcium, 4% DV iron.

Here’s wishing you good cooking!

Chef TechyDad

Spotlight on PR

Blogging, Internet

When I started blogging, I looked at other blogs to see what other Daddy (and Mommy) bloggers were doing. One thing that interested me was product reviews. When I worked for a computer magazine, I had the chance to do a few hardware and software reviews and I loved it. The chance to try a new product out, see how good it was and write a balanced article detailing the product’s strengths and weaknesses just appealed to me. Unfortunately, I had no clue how to connect with anyone to start reviewing products.

Enter Tara from Feels Like Home and Adreinne from Adrienne’s House. They have started “Spotlight on PR” to help bloggers connect with PR professionals. I would like to thank both of them for their efforts (as well as my wife for alerting me to this.)

Spotlight on PR

A big welcome to everyone just stopping by from Spotlight on PR. My name is TechyDad. Ok, it’s not really TechyDad, but I prefer to keep a measure of anonymity online. Back in the young and innocent days of the web, I used my real name when posting online. After being married and having two wonderful children, however, I began to question the wisdom of posting my full name and real city of residence all over the place. My wife, TheAngelForever, had started a blog a few years back and kept herself anonymous so I decided to follow suit. Thus, TechyDad was born.

Despite my short time blogging under the TechyDad name, I’m an old-school ‘Net user from way back. I remember using Gopher back in college on my college’s VAX computers. (To those who don’t know what I just said, Gopher was a pre-web information network and VAX were old text-only terminal computers.) I’m a web developer by trade, but also enjoy cooking, photography, gardening, reading, writing and a lot of other eclectic hobbies. As I said before, I’m married to TheAngelForever and we have two wonderful sons. NHL is almost 6 (just 10 days to go as I write this) and JSL is 2.

My blog, like myself, is an eclectic mix. One post may be about a programming project I’m working on. The next might be about a minigolfing trip with NHL. The one after that might be about copyright law and the one following that might be about a new gadget I’m drooling over. To paraphrase Forrest Gump: My blog is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.

I’m always interested in new projects and would love to hear from people with ideas for product reviews, interviews or pretty much anything else. You can contact me via e-mail at TechyDad at TechyDad dot com or by using the “Contact Me” link at the top of this page. In addition, you can check out the “About” link for more information about me. (Though, to be honest, I copied a lot of that information into this blog post.) I look forward to starting some interesting conversations.

1 … 270 271 272 273 274 … 300