Random, disorganized, and strangely whimsical musings of wisdom and advice from a father to his son.

Incandescent light bulbs will become a thing of the past, mysterious relics of a bygone era characterized by black and white televisions, record players, silly putty, and some new fangled thing called stereo surround sound. Me? I’m still trying to understand why compact florescent light bulbs seem to produce some sort of bluish glow.

You will play sports. Or at least be active in some sort of competitive activity. Some parents take competition too far demanding perfection. Some parents stay away from it at all costs as if they are better for avoiding conflict. I’m going to tell you this right now: You will lose, and you will fail. You are going to fall down, and you are going to get hurt. You will make mistakes, and you will drop the ball. However, it is important to note that through these adversities you will learn how to deal with life. How to make things right when the ball doesn’t bounce your way, whether it is your fault or not. You will learn how to overcome all these things. You will also win, and succeed. You will stand tall, and come out unscathed. You will make the right decisions and you will hold your hands up in victory. Maybe you will win more than you lose, and maybe you will lose more than you win, but when it’s all over, the lessons you learned will remain.

Embrace the works of Cecil B. DeMille, Stanly Kubrick, Fritz Lang, Christopher Nolan, George Pal, Ray Harryhausen, Ishiro Honda, and Akira Kurosawa, among others.

Do not augment your vocabulary with unnecessary sound effects.

The M-16 really does get a bad wrap. Sure, it’s complicated and must be taken care of in a way that should seem completely unnecessary. But, let’s not forget, it has been in service since the Vietnam War. There is a reason for that. So, when the Zombie Apocalypse occurs remember that AK-47’s are good for their reliability, M-16’s are good for their accuracy, but no matter what weapons you have on hand, you need a crow bar. It is the most versatile tool/weapon combo you can possess.

Floss. If you are watching TV and your hands are not actively engaged in an activity (such as, but not limited to eating chips and salsa), it is an excellent opportunity to floss.

Become a film scholar, even if you don’t go to school for it. Learn to study film on an academic level and it will lead you to a greater appreciation of the entertainment industry and life in general, possibly on a profound level.

Don’t over use hand sanitizer.

How does a society as advanced in technology as ours screw up such a simple thing as water? In your lifetime you will likely always get water out of a plastic bottle with a label on it saying something to the effect of “Ozarka,” “Aquafina,” “Dasani,” “Fiji,” or any number of other name brands. NAME BRAND WATER. Something seems fundamentally wrong with this. When I was a kid, things were much simpler. You want a drink of water? There’s the garden hose.

NEVER say anything derogatory about minor league athletes. Do not refer to them as “scrubs” or call their team a “joke” or the league they play for “fly-by-night.” Athletes in the big leagues play because the gifts that God gave them are adequate enough to garner audaciously ludicrous salaries to do something that comes naturally to them. Of coarse major league professionals do work very hard to maintain a high level of play, so we do not want to downplay their efforts; however, the minor league athlete plays solely for the passion and love of the game. That is to be respected and admired.

Educate yourself about other cultures. It might just lead you to a better understanding of your own.

I don’t know if you are going to public school, private school, or if you will be home schooled. As of right now nothing is off the table, but whatever the case may be, learn all you can. Learn enough to really piss off your teacher. If you can enrage your teacher with your knowledge rather than your antics, you have done something spectacular.

Don’t ever let someone corner you in a crazy people church and guilt you into “getting saved.” Your mother and I will expose you to a variety of religious ideas. We will give you advice and express our feelings on the subject, but we will never tell you what to believe. Your relationship with God will be personal and your own. Maybe you will embrace Christianity, or LeVeyan Satanism, or Hinduism. You might be a Pagan, Atheist, or Muslim. Perhaps you will find salvation in Buddhism, or Taoism, or Gnosticism. But if you join an honest to God cult, daddy’s going to punch you in the face.

Do not wear orange!!! EVER!!! That is unless it is treated as a minor color or as an accent on a piece of Thunder paraphernalia. Even so, it should be a shade of reddish-orange indistinguishable from either red or orange. Possible exceptions include acceptable band T-shirts such as daddy’s Everclear-South Park character shirt. Now, daddy did permit mommy to put you in orange diapers as a baby. This is because you pooped in them.

Learn to spell “necessary.” If you ever have anything intelligent to say to your PaPa he is going to tell you to spell “necessary” just to get you to shut up. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

Brush your teeth daily… maybe even two or three times a day.

Back on the subject of religion. Take a couple of hints from Christianity and LeVeyan Satanism (yes you can use both). Christianity teaches us to be nice to people, while the cardinal sin of Satanism is stupidity. So regardless of what religious institution shapes your personal relationship with God, I want you to be nice to people, meaning don’t be an asshole, and try not to be stupid. This means not getting mad at your cashier if your ink cartridge is more expensive than you wanted it to be. It’s not your cashier’s fault, and to talk to him or her like they are the lowest form of life on Earth is not only mean but stupid.

Enjoy the cuisine of other cultures.

I want you to respect and admire the legacy of Tom Landry. If this means you will become a Dallas Cowboys fan, it’s ok, I will still love you. But don’t you ever bring that blue and silver star into my house.

Enjoy the beauty of architecture. When you travel across a city’s central business district, stand in awe of the beauty of human engineering. Skyscrapers are a great metaphor for the enduring human spirit. They show our ability to overcome adversity and rise above our own limitations.

Whatever religious path leads you to enlightenment, remember to educate yourself, and learn about a variety of beliefs. Knowledge is the key ingredient to the free will of mankind, without which faith is blind, and the worst kind of faith is blind faith.

Love music. Classical music is fantastic. The works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky are influential and beautiful. I want you to look at Film scores in the same way. How can anyone listen to John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Danny Elfman, and Elmer Bernstein and not see all the grace and beauty, the emotion and passion, and the profound sense of beauty inherent in the classics?

You are going to be involved in a scene. Everyone is. Are you going to be a jock, prep or punk? Goth, skater, or mod? Swing kid, rivethead, or hipster? Maybe greasers will make a comeback. Realize that anyone of these subcultures is pretty awesome for various reasons, but they all hold some inherent stupidity. So regardless of whether you decide to be a freak, hippie, or gamer, just take the good aspects and ignore the stupid ones. And if you choose to be emo… well, I guess I’m obligated to love you anyway.

Considering that this is an inter-faith family I guess I can accept certain unavoidable truths, so, when Opa decides to put you in Oklahoma State paraphernalia just to annoy Daddy, I will TRY to be accepting and understanding, but I make no promises. However, if you ever come back from Texas wearing burnt orange because Granddad found it funny I will fill the Red River with gasoline and set it on fire.

Never shave your face with a LadyBic.

Try to be articulate. If you are making a joke about your migraine avoid saying that you feel like your head is going to explode. It’s too obvious. Say something along the lines of, “I feel like the inside of my head has been infected by a gelatinous extraterrestrial creature with restless leg syndrome.”

Many films contain important messages. The Lion King is no exception. However, the principle message The Lion King is one of the greatest in cinema history, “Ah, yes, the past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it, or you can learn from it.”

You will never know what life was like when hot dogs came in packages of six and hotdog buns came in packages of eight.

Believe it or not there was a time before Pilsbury made Toaster Strudel.

When you were born, DVD’s were still a popular form of media and bluray was surging onto the market. It won’t be long until a movie is nothing more than a file on your hard drive. This, too was becoming popular when you were born. When I was born video cassettes, commonly known as VHS tapes, were fairly new. A VHS was this rectangular box thing with a magnetic tape inside. These VHS tapes were inserted into a VCR (Video Cassette Recorder), and the information was then transmitted to a television. VCR’s were programmable with timers that could be set to record things from broadcast television at specific times. Your grandmother and great-grandmother were shocked and amazed that at the tender age of four I was able to program our brand new VCR. The way technology is progressing, you’ll probably hack into the Pentagon.

Change your sheets weekly.

You will likely never know the joys of early morning, Saturday morning, and after school cartoons. More than anything, the loss of these cultural icons represents the downfall of all that is good and holy in American society.

Grammar and enunciation!!! The proper sentence is: “You will never see me out there scuba diving.” Taking some liberties with grammar and enunciation is fine, but I don’t want to ever hear you say, “Y’aint nev gun see me ow der kooba divin’!”

You were born five weeks early. Two days before you were born Oklahoma City tied a record for the highest temperature ever recorded in January at 76° F. You were born in a blizzard that brought us 12 inches of snow… I think you did it on purpose.

Seriously, don’t hack into the Pentagon.

They are called “sloppy joes” for a reason. If you can eat it without a spoon, fork and/or 3-4 Brawny paper towels (or 6-8 of a lesser brand) it is not a sloppy joe. If it’s a REALLY well made sloppy joe it should require a change of clothes when you are done.

WARNING!!! Just a word before I get started

My wife has this goofy obsession with "mommy bloggers." An obsession that I don't fully understand. She talks about these people, especially the ones with Youtube channels as if they are close personal friends. Of coarse I do the same thing with urban development bloggers. Whatever...

I started my urban development blog earlier this year, and since then, she has been pressuring me to start a "daddy blog." It made sense. I mean, I like to write about incredibly random things for no apparent reason. I finally decided, she's right. Even if the only people who end up reading this are the same seven friends from Facebook who read the Fantastic Adventures of Oklahoma City, that's fine. At least I will have fun writing.

NOW THEN... a few things that I will explain before I get started.

First off... I really should have started this over a year ago. Unfortunately I did not, so rather than being some sort of journey into parenthood, this blog is likely going to be similar to watching a movie or TV show that starts in the middle of the story and recants the journey to the present in flashback, ala NBC's Revolution. What that means is, I'm not just going to start from the beginning. This is not a memoir. I'm going to start from right now, and if I think of something that happened a year or so ago that I feel the need to extrapolate upon, I will do so. Expect stories such as the birth of my son, the trip to Ft. Smith, the "The Great Landlord Crisis of 2012," etc. to be told at some point.

Secondly... As the title suggests, I am a father with three jobs. As such, blogs will likely be irregular. I may be off the grid for weeks at a time, or I may post every other day. The best thing to do if you would like to follow these blogs is to like me on Facebook. If you are a personal friend, you will likely already be a Facebook friend. If you are not a personal friend, I have a separate Facebook set up for ALL FOUR of my blogs. Click the link HERE to go to that page. This will be the best way to keep up with the random nature of my blogs.

Thirdly... Speaking of random. I am that. Very, very random. I regularly attempt to be entertaining, and in doing so I may go off on some incoherent babbling session. As I say, I do this in the futile attempt at being entertaining. Typically, I fail. Meh... whatever. I enjoy it.

Finally... A word of warning. I have a pretty foul mouth. Ask my mother. It is true. And while, for the most part, I attempt to keep my language in check, I cannot assure you that there will be no instance where certain words may be used for their dramatic effect. Deal with it... I'm not trying to be a dick (ah, see there it is!), but for the love of GOD!!! If you are reading this, I'm going to assume you are an adult. I'm going to assume you are fully capable of going into an R-rated movie with out supervision of a parent or guardian. I'm sure you can take it. If you can't, get the fuck over yourself...

That is all.