Len Tukwilla, Driftwood Sculptor, Papa

Frankie and I share a fascination with art. She's 4 and I'm ... not 4. We are approximately equally talented artists. Depicted here is the sum of my talents.

I also do a mean spider.

Today, we attended a fun birthday party at her buddy Aaron's. We spent the rest of the afternoon mowing grass, playing a Cranium game, playing with her princess dolls and creating "art". Frankie dictates what I should draw and I create it for her. I don't know why Mommy has blue hair, but everything else is pretty much correct. I think the color on the ladybug is a tad off too, but you get the idea. If I were a Buddhist, I would find my mantra somewhere in chalk drawings. As bad as I am at it, I love it and so does Frankie. I wonder what she'll think when she realizes there are better artists than me.

Update:
Yay! It rained tonight. We get to do it again tomorrow!

MoMo2 Today! @ 11:45 for wings/light lunch and maybe a string.

Quaint but enjoyable today. The infamous Walker and Anne and Sarah showed up for a light lunch.

How's MoMo²? Better than I thought. I got a dish called "bulgoki rice" which was tender beef strips served with rice and some lettuce. A bit small for $6.99 but was very good. I noticed a bunch of tasty looking appetizers (tofu, spring rolls, etc.). I gathered the appetizers the others got were just fair. And, the cashier told me no bumpers on the bowling alleys, so kid bowling's out. Walker said the Karaoke rooms are small (fitting about 10 people or so) and are kind of fun (although it would take a bottle of Jack Daniels to get me to do Karaoke).

So, looks like a nice place to meet friends for pool, bowling and a snack (and, Karaoke), but not exactly kid-friendly.

Earth Day @ Glen Echo

This was taken close to Glen Echo Ravine the evening before Earth Day. Glen Echo's a fun spot in Columbus. It's a relatively large park and, on a nice day, it's filled with dogs little kids and adults looking for some peace in the middle of the city. We use it as a path to Dairy Queen and have a game of Poohsticks on the way (I never win, I'm Eyore).

Saturday morning we grabbed our shovel to plant stuff in the ravine and also bagged up a bunch of trash (although, it's a pretty clean park). Aside from tearing up my hands because of how clumsy I was picking up trash and planting trees, it was a fun way to spend the day. Lots of dogs, lots of kids, lots of sun and lots of friendly neighbors making the park a better place.

Friends of the Ravines site.

Happy Frigging Monday

1. I go around the dump truck in the Starbucks lot and the guy almost gets out of his truck and comes after me. I stood there waiting for him because, frankly, I would've buried him this morning.

2. I gave a respectful but mediocre review on Amazon and the author emailed me a bunch just to make sure she voiced herself how unfair it was. I deleted the review and will probably be sued.

3. I can't wait for the rest of the day to unfold.

Dandelion (experiments)

Frankie and I were out walking the dog in the warmth of Friday afternoon while she was riding her bike and picking her favorite flower in the whole world - Dandelions. I suggested we should take some of the bouquet she picked for me and experiment with them.

We took a few shot glasses and filled one with tap water [Before pic right], one with salt and water [left] and the third with sugar and water [middle]. By nightfall, the salt water flowers were just about dead and wilted (Frankie informed me Dandelions sleep at night). The next morning the salt water and sugar water dandelions looked nearly dead. The ones in tap water were ok. Not sleeping. We tried to rescue the others by placing them in the tap water glass but the results shown below look like we had some success with the sugar water Dandelions, but the salt ones were still "sleeping" [After pic droopy dead ones are from the salt water].

Before	After

We try to get Frankie to explore her world through experimentation. Don't know if it's working, but she's having fun lately.

Downward social comparison: I realize I'm not so bad a parent

It's Frankie and my weekly night on the town and we're into phase III at the Columbus Public Library in the kids section. The kids section. It's pretty loud and rowdy all the time. Frankie's 4; it's where we should be. There's no one in this section above 5 years old (aside from parents) and it gets loud. No surprise.

Tonight, Frankie kept yelling "Papa, looky" and would direct my attention to something she created online. I'm on the computer next to her and I dutifully look over whenever she has something to show me. So, what's the problem? Oblivious Parent-Man across the table.

His little girl, beside him also across the table, tells Frankie and every other individual (alive or inanimate) in the entire library to "shut up". Oblivious Man just sits and reads. After the fifth time she told Frankie to shut up, I informed the father his daughter is saying shut up, it's inappropriate and maybe he should say something to her. He continues reading and grumbles something to his daughter and goes back to reading and the girl continues her behavior.

She's going to be a peach by the time she's 7. Good job Dad.

Cross posted at Indie Bloggers (thanks Stacy!).

MoMo2 Lunchtime Blogger Meetup Sometime?

MoMo² is a place in the Olentangy Strip shopping center next to Big Lots. They open at 10:30 and have "fusion food" and bowling and Karaoke (but no one will go anywhere near the Karaoke machine, Karaoke machines are evil). Being a parent, most of my nights are booked, but maybe there's some interest in a blogger meet-up for a quick bowling match and light lunch.

Any interest? Leave it in the comments.

*Blogfathers has a good post.

*Turkish Cuisine on High and Dodridge may have closed, but Cafe Shish Kebab (favorably reviewed on Sopressata) is a great substitute - and, kid friendly. A great addition to Columbus restaurants.

Spagio: A "Review"

I have a different perspective on evaluating restaurants now.

We went to Spagio on Grandview Ave this past Sunday for brunch before the opera. First, we didn't have to wait long to be seated. 1 star.

Booster seat or high chairs available? Only high chairs. 1/2 star.

Activities available while waiting the painstaking minutes it takes for the server to get the food? Plenty, they had blank white paper covering the entire table!! Frankie drew her masterpiece shown above. I'm the mid-sized bald guy on the far right with the huge eyes. 1 star.

More than mac 'n cheese and fries on the kids menu? Definitely! Frankie got a generous portion of french toast with lots of fruit on top. She was clam-happy. 1 star.

Check delivered immediately after the child's last bite went into her mouth? Yes and the receipts returned almost before Frankie ran out of the restaurant. Little slow, 1/2 star.

Food? I forgot what I ate, I think it was good but was too busy making sure Frankie was busy and well-behaved. 1 star I guess.

Tally ... 5 stars out of a possible 6. Not bad. Thumbs up on "kid-friendly cuisine".

City Center's future?

The largesse of suburban shopping centers cannot be more evident after reading today's Dispatch piece on Easton's Security Guards getting new Seqways to zip around (to catch those criminally insane shoppers). This is shown above the fold in today's business section.

Below the fold?

Macy's is considering will (based on recent trends) pull out of City Center.

This sucks. Both the editorial decision regarding the relative position of these stories and the grim reality of shopping in the city. My wife, daughter and I LOVE City Center. It's one of the few places to go in Columbus for a more diverse experience and the shopping is (or, used to be) good. Should be interesting to see what comes of City Center in months to come. I'm not optimistic.

Homemade Foaming Handsoap - Part III

Shit!

This is the reporting method of choice when a scientist asks a question, makes a hypothesis, tests the hypothesis and finds it to be a failure.

My recipe and preparation were disclosed in Part II of this gripping saga. I diluted the soap solids to ca. 5% by weight and poured it into one of those air-filling dispensers and the image above shows a couple squirts from each. The top soap is mine with a wimpy foam and the bottom is the generic equivalent of Dial foaming handsoap from Target. Target's is much better. I shouldn't have diluted it so much. It's too much trouble to concentrate. Next attempt I'll dilute the mixture to 10% solids by weight and see how that looks. And, just for kicks, I'll dilute the current attempt just in case I'm wrong in the opposite direction.

Stay tuned ...
Part I
Part II
Part III

LOTS and lots of new Columbus Blogs

Columbus is exploding with blogs. Sites for art, sports, food, unusual Columbus finds and other local funstuff that escapes the Dispatch. Check them out on the links section. Newest ones entered at the top of the list.

Today's daily affirmation

Don Imus will not only lose his job, but go homeless and die.

Apologies made because you get caught are pathetic. Hopefully, Don Imus won't get even more popular because of this and become some high priced guest speaker. What an asshole.

Update 12-Apr-07
Holy shit! Affirmations do work! Imus was fired. Yayyyy.

Oh, and Don:

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                                _ |=-=| _ 
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                           / \|   |   |   ||\ 
                          |   |   |   |   | \> 
                          |   |   |   |   |   \ 
                          | -   -   -   - |)   ) 
                          |                   / 
                           \                 / 
                            \               / 
                             \             / 
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                               |         | 
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                               |         | 

Please, someone go look for this cat!

I saw this posted yesterday in front of Clintonville Community Market on a walk with my family. I thought it was kind of funny for a minute and then almost wept when I imagined the little kid creating this. It's so sad.

Homemade Foaming Handsoap - Part II

In a previous post, I revealed how astonishingly easy it is for me to be amused. By handsoap. No, I'm not Patrick, SpongeBob's brainless, starfish friend, but I have pursued my attempt at homemade foaming handsoap one step further.

My first recipe is as follows:
palm oil, 150 g
coconut oil, 50 g (both oils melted in a ca. 600 mL glass bottle)
water, icy cold, 240 g
potassium hydroxide, 90% w/w, 42 grams

I mixed the KOH with icy water (very exothermic and the icy water makes this part pretty non-smelly, resulting solution about 100-deg-F). Then I added it to a mixture of palm and coconut oils (melted and cooled to ca. 100-deg-F) and added some more water (ca. 100 mL) and shook the crap out of it. It was initially pretty lumpy and two phases. (I think I'd use an immersion blender next time.) For the next day, I shook this high tech glass mixing jar (old mayo jar, Hellman's) and let it set with the lid loosened (just in case the mixture got exothermic or something) and placed the entire jar inside a deep plastic bowl (just to contain anything unexpected). Within several days of leaving it alone, the resulting solution became homogeneous with a bunch of foam sitting on top.

So far, there's roughly 200 grams of solid soap in this mixture (roughly the amount of fat used). After some reading, foaming hand soap is mostly a result of the dispenser, but, equally important, it needs to be pretty dilute; somewhere between 4-10% solids by weight. If I shoot for a first guess of 5% solids (w/w), this would dictate taking this mixture and diluting it (ideally in deionized water) to a total weight of 4000 grams (roughly a gallon). I'm going to let it sit a while longer. After Easter, I'll dilute it and put it in bottles (I scored 5 of those pump bottles on ebay this morning for about a buck each, including shipping) and will let you know the results.

I'll probably also scent the mixture with lemon verbena essential oil if the soap foams nicely (not going to waste it until I know it works).

Parents of small children, you may be reading about the development of your xmas present.

Where to buy stuff:
1. Oils can be purchased here.
2. KOH can be purchased at the Science Co.
3. Hellman's Mayo can be purchased at Giant Eagle, but you have to eat 600 mL of it or dump it in the drain and use the bottle.

Part I
Part II
Part III