Carve A Cool Jack-O-Lantern This Year - It's easier than you think!

I always wanted to have a go at making a jack-o-lantern with a fancy pattern.  J was old enough to enjoy it this year so we gave it a try.  Turned out pretty well (see pic above), it wasn't as tough as I thought it would be and there’s still time for you to do the same this year!

Introduce The Kids To Classical Music With These High Energy Baroque Tunes!

sillyDaddy loves him some Baroque!

J and D throw a nightly dance party in the living room and they love to bust out moves to either classic rock, childrens' tunes or, you guessed it, fast paced Baroque.

Early Baroque Hottie

In sillyDaddy's humble opinion the Baroque and Classical are two of the most enjoyable of all the musical periods.  Sure, they all have good stuff to offer but generally I find the Renaissance/Medieval periods and earlier to be a bit too druid; the Romantic and later - a bit too schmaltzy.

Listening to baroque even produces a documented mood enhancing benefit.  Granted, you have to occasionally suffer a little harpsichord but hey, it's all good.

Tip: choose "allegro" movements which have lots of energy if you want your kids to dig it.

Don't know where to start?  sillyDaddy can help...

Re-purpose Baby Food Jars To Store Your Miscellaneous Hardware (And prevent archeologists from finding your skeletonized remains)

As a boy, I always loved going into my uncle's workshop.  His father built (and I mean "built" literally) the home where my cousins were raised and where he and my aunt still live.  His workshop contains equipment accumulated over two generations and his work bench shelves are lined with jars filled with hundreds of random pieces of hardware.

There's something really nice about looking around that shop and thinking about how the equipment and hardware has been used and about all of the projects and all of the problem solving that's gone on there.

I wanted to recreate some of that same feeling in my much smaller shop.  I don't have a lot of equipment but I do have a growing collection of miscellaneous, loosely organized hardware.  To make my shop extra cozy, I decided to use some of J and D's very first baby food jars to store my odds and ends.

I was sharing my idea with my grandmother and she suggested I mount the jars to the bottom of each shelf to free up all the space below.  Hey, I guess they're right; senior citizens, although slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose*.

Here's how to do it:

Get The One Free Program I Download For All My Relatives

CCleaner is a program that deletes all kinds of stuff that bloats your computer and makes it run slower.

I've used this absolutely FREE application for over a year and I've installed it whenever a family member has asked me to work on their pc.

This application helps to optimize your system and protect your privacy by deleting all kinds of third party applications, browsing history and unwanted cookies and it cleans up your registry files.

You can set it, as I do, to run when you start up your computer.

The download is easy and it's FREE!

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Grid Of Life - stay on the grid if you want to live!

[UPDATE: The Grid O' Life has been updated with some new information.  Bad news for folic acid and coffee lovers (in fact I'm pretty sure that if you wash down your folic acid with coffee your pancreas will explode).  Good news for Vit D.]

I've tracked medical journal articles related to a bunch of key health topics for the last couple years.

The articles were interesting but I wanted to connect all the dots so I could really begin to use the information - especially considering sillyDaddy's age and the pesky linear nature of time.  I also thought it would be a cool thing to share with family and friends.

So I spent some time recently putting the findings into a simple grid to make the info a bit easier to consume (click on the image below).

No, it's not an all encompassing list.  It's a compilation taken from the legit journal articles I've read over the last couple of years.

A green cell indicates a positive effect.

If something catches your eye I recommend you go to ScienceDaily and conduct a search to read the associated reports.  ScienceDaily pulls the latest articles from a range of journals from across the world.

BTW Dad, if your doctor recommends statins for your high cholesterol, RUN!

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Do Your Children Push The Boundaries? It May Be A Sign Of Future Leadership Abilities

Your last nerve.

Kids plucking your last nerve?

Considering the "I have to run down to the 7-11 for cigarettes" ploy, never to return, even though you don't smoke?

Well check out this article published today in ScienceDaily - your little envelope pusher may be the future leader of the free world!

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Make A Batch Of Bugs!

I'll show you how to make a cool batch of lady bugs and butterflies – and I’ll tell you the secret that the pastry chef fascists don’t want you to know!  (what…too much?)

Cocktails With eM

eM isn’t a big cocktail drinker so when she asked me to make her something the pressure was on. 

Get On-Line Crime Reports For Your Neighborhood

This free site takes information from participating police departments and plots crimes against a Google Map interface...

Make Jewel Encrusted Rings For Your 3-Year-Old!

Dude, you have to be secure in your masculinity and leave all the macho bull s#it behind when it comes to doing stuff for your little girl.  Case in point

I recently made these cool rings for J.  I also made one for eM so that they could have a matching set...

Darth Vader (LMAO!) - so worth the 46 seconds

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Prevent Housework Arguments!

You don’t need a PhD in marital counseling to know that perceptions about who is, and isn't, pulling their weight around the house can fuel some pretty heated “discussions” (although it helps if a PhD has written a related article).

eM and I both like the house tidy but I’m way more detail oriented than she is (believe me, it's a curse).  I used to occasionally get ticked off because I didn’t perceive that eM was doing her fair share of the housework.  What I finally realized was that she wasn't slacking, in fact eM works her ass off, she just wasn’t noticing the same things I was noticing so they weren’t a priority for her like they were for me.

And eM was doing lots of other things for the team, like managing our household cash flow and all of the grocery shopping, things I wasn't thinking about while I was focused on the cleanliness of a particular room.

There were also occasions when eM thought I was taking care of a task and I thought she had it covered. As you can imagine, hilarity ensued.

So, once again, eM and I saw eye to eye on the need for a plan.  Here’s how we went about taking all the ambiguity out of our household division of labor...

You Have A Smoke Detector – Why Not A Flood Detector? A product you need and never knew existed!

We’ve had a couple of water intrusions in our house.  The first came when I wisely put a fine mesh screen over a storm drain in the bottom of the stairwell outside our basement door.  The first big rain sent leaves down the stairs which promptly piled up on the mesh creating an watertight seal, sending the water that was meant to go down the drain directly under the basement door.

The second was when eM 1) neglected to change the lint screen on the outlet hose from the washing machine and 2) didn’t check to make sure the drain was clear in the outlet tub.

I realized I needed to find something to give us the heads up when water starts flowing where it’s not supposed to...

Save over $800 In The Next 12 Months On Your Energy Bill – Without Replacing The Windows!

In December of 2008 we got a shock when we opened our power bills (get it?  shock - power...).  Our combined power bills were up 22% versus the previous December!

I did some further digging and discovered that our cost per unit of energy had gone up 32% during that same period - greedy utility company bastards!

I immediately started working on a plan to turn things around.  Since January we’ve saved over $493 (and 31 cents!) on our combined energy bill versus the same seven months last year.

I’ve often heard that the greatest savings comes from replacing old windows.  Our home was built in 1960 and the original, horrible, single pane windows are still in place.  We’d love to replace them but that’s just not in the budget, even with available stimulus plan money.  I needed a plan that didn’t involve a massive cash outlay...

Express Your Innermost Dad!

If you’re a dad you probably use this expression frequently.

Why not memorialize it in a t-shirt.

And why not make one for everyone in the whole blaspheming family?...

Welcome to Slime Fest 2009!

Ahhhh yes.  Slugs come from miles around just to crawl on our screen!

Look closely and you'll see there were five slugs on the screen at the kids bedtime and two more arrived about 15 minutes after I took this picture.

WTF!

Is our screen made of slug crack?  Is this retribution for the pounds of salt I poured on so many of their brethren in my youth?  Is dragging their bodies across the screen sexual in some way?

Whatever's going on, it's freakin' us out man!

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Enjoy decent scotch on a budget! (And here's an idea for drinking it in the summer)

Back in the pre-eM, J & D days I was crazy for the single malts.
I spent time pondering scotch on oh so many levels - even thinking about what kind of ground the water flowed over before it was collected and used by the distillery.  Yes, I know...

Anyway, if you're like me and you're on a budget it's extremely hard to justify spending the cash to keep a supply of the single malt stuff.

A friend's dad recommended the well known blended Dewer's so I gave 'er a swirl.  Good, but I thought it a little bland.  I've tried a few other blended scotches since then and I've settled on Johnnie Walker's Red Label (just a reminder that I am in no way paid by any manufacturer or service provider).  Nice flavor profile and you can buy it in a big 'ol jug and often on sale!

 

Now some of you may be thinking, "sillyDaddy, scotch isn't a summer time drink."  Well I've got a simple "recipe" that I find INCREDIBLY refreshing.

CommandCentral - how to add an additional monitor without buying a new video card

Here's a shot of my cozy home work station.

You may have noticed that I have a few monitors.

If you're not a software developer you may not need four.  But everyone could use a second monitor!

If your PC doesn't support two monitors you may have thought your only choice was to take your machine to your local tech store and have an expensive video card installed.

You have another option!

All you need is an available USB port on your PC and a VGA-USB adapter.

I've shopped around A LOT and found the best value at the moment (just a reminder that I am in no way paid by any manufacturer or service provider except for the random GoogleAds that are on this web page).

DIY Framed Earring Organizer

As I've mentioned before, eM has many wonderful qualities. Organization, however, is not among them.
She takes her earrings off and usually drops them on the nightstand - perfect level for D to come along and pick one up for an impromptu earring tasting.

I read about this idea and thought it might help her keep her earrings organized.  It was pretty easy and, as you can see from my pic below, it ended up looking pretty good.  Best of all she's actually using it and D hasn't put anything crazy into his mouth for at least 30 minutes.

 

I had a bunch of old framed pictures in the basement.  The frames are in good shape so I picked one out, removed the glass and backing but kept the nice double mat.

I took a trip to the local craft store and bought a black plastic mesh usually used for crochet for about a $1.  I fit it to the back, threw in some extra tacks and glue and let it set.

I already had the glue, tacks and matted frame so my total cost was about one dollar!

If you're reading this and you likie, leave a comment and I'll shoot a pic of the back.

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Horrific Playroom Scene

I work from home on Fridays.

This is the tragic scene that unfolded before my eyes when I opened my office (the guest room) door.

What horrific scenes have you witnessed around your house?

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Welcome to sillyDaddy

Hello friends!

Try as I might I couldn't find a blog that combined

1. Real world parenting tips for the first time dad
2. Real world marriage tips for the first time husband
3. DIY help for both household projects and crafts
4. Technology tips
5. Reviews about things I need and products I can afford
6. Written from a regular guy's perspective, i.e. a guy who's not a professional writer, or wealthy, or living in NYC without a car, a yard or a house to maintain (not that there's anything wrong with any of those things).

If you likie what you read, then please use one of the numerous methods in the column to the right to follow along.

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