Being Stupid

I made steaks for dinner tonight (they were quite tasty).  Despite the warnings in the manual for the grill, and multiple close calls, I forgot to burp my grill before opening it while grilling at 650°.

Since the grill is air tight, the only air that comes in goes into the bottom vent and comes out the top vent, a sudden rush of oxygen will ignite spectacularly. I had my eyes closed so I didn't get to see what the flash looked like, and I've never heard a sound quite like it so I can't describe that either. But it did burn off a bunch of hair on my arm, face and head and I got a very mild burn on my arm.

I may not be able to describe what it looked or sounded like, but I can tell you what it smells like. The burnt hair and skin smell like burn popcorn.

If anyone is looking for effective and efficient hair removal techniques, a flash from a Big Green Egg will do quite nicely.

Toys

I bought a book/app for Jeremiah. It is a version of the book "The Monster at the End of This Book." It is an interactive story narrated by Grover. It's his new favorite app, of the 15 that he has on my iPad. It seems like the highlight of his day, when he gets to play games.

Today, while Jeremiah was waiting to use my iPad, he said "Dad, I really like sharing your toys."

Birthday Surprise

For my birthday, Jenn worked very hard to get me a black iPod Nano. She also worked hard to keep it a secret. In order to keep Jeremiah from spilling the beans, she had to wait until yesterday to make the purchase. Impressivly, Jeremiah kept quiet until about 30 seconds before Jenn handed me the present. We were all sitting in the living room and Jenn told Jeremiah that it was time to give me my present, to which Jeremiah responded "Is it an iPod?"

To Jenn's credit, Jeremiah told her about her birthday present almost a full 24 hours before we gave it too her.

Also, the iPod Nano is the best iPod I've owned (and I've owned a lot).

On a completely unrelated note, I figured out how to write blog posts from my iPad.

The Fearsome Bovine

My son is afraid of cows. I don't know why, but he's made it very clear that cows scare him. Real cows don't seem to bother him. His toy cows make him uneasy, but he still plays with them. The cows in his mind scare the crap out him. He has cow related nightmares about twice a week.

We were talking the other day about cows and he said that they scare him. I asked why and he said that they were coming to get him. Apparently he's old enough to be convinced that cows are out to get him, but not old enough to understand that the idea is absurd.

With the amount of beef and cow related products our family consumes, I'd think that the cows should be afraid of us.

Strangest Farm Ever

Our dinner this evening included rice and sauce. While eating his dinner, Little Jeremiah sang the following version of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm"

Old MacDonald had a rice
E-I-E-I-O
With a rice, rice here
And a rice, rice there
Old MacDonald had a rice
E-I-E-I-O

A second verse followed but he replaced rice with sauce. Feel free to sing along.

Adventures in Pronunciation

We have been working on the pronunciation of various words. Among them are caterpillar, which becomes "katty-paddle" and lobster which becomes "monster."

I submit the following as evidence.

In Which We Go Clothes Shopping

I took little Jeremiah with me when I went to the mall to shop for T-Shirts. As soon as we got to the first store, he began running around inspecting every item that was in reach. While carrying out his inspection, he provided a running narration (as he does in all aspects of his life) including "Hmmmmmmm" and "This one's cute." This continued the whole time we were shopping, despite my insistence that "Cute" is an adjective for women's clothing.