I’m almost a genius

While letting my mind wander as Max played on the slides today, I thought I had come up with a great product idea. A diaper bag designed with dad in mind! And it is a great idea…that is already out there in the market place.

I really like the cargo jacket version offered at Dadgear. A jacket emblazoned with a unique logo and loaded with the tools you need is close enough to batman’s utility belt for my juvenile brain. The changing pad hidden away in a back pocket really sold the secret agent/ superhero aspect for me.

If you wanted to go upscale, you could look to ultra chic dad-on-the-go Brad Pitt for inspiration and go to a fancy storksak bag. 240 dollars is a little pricey for my tastes, though.

Honestly, I know I won’t buy one of these bags or jackets, no matter how cool they may be. Our repurposed promo satchel has done just fine for the last year, and I like to dream that we are approaching the end of the diaper era. Someday, someday.

EULA for arguments

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could have your opponent in any given disagreement read and acknowledge a set of argument rules before the first verbal volley is launched? As an example:

1.You, the opponent, agree that any one storming away from this argument automatically cedes any claim to being right. You leave, you lose.

2.You also agree that this argument will be limited in scope to the immediate issue at hand. All past misdeeds, errors in action or speech, or miscellaneous issues are now past their statute of limitations and are inadmissable. Raise the issue when it happens, or let it go.

I know it’s not as cut and dry as that. There can be instances where the current argument is being triggered by a repeated behavior, so it makes sense to look at the past occurences of the same issue to demonstrate its habitual nature. And sometimes it might be a big enough emotional catastrophe that you need an extended amount of time to gather your composure and come up with a plan of action. But most of the time, forgetting to take out the garbage two weeks ago has nothing to do with who’s going to pay today’s phone bill. It’s a shame the garbage incident made you angry back then, but you can’t deposit that anger into a metaphysical savings account and withdraw it at some later date. If it wasn’t serious enough to deal with at the time, it’s not important enough to keep holding a grudge over.

The idea of an end-user agreement for arguments may make its way into a stage play-we’ll have to see how I feel about it after a few days.

London Attractions Worth Your Time

We went out to Fanshawe Pioneer village for the first time yesterday, and my two year old Max had a fantastic time.  I’m not even sure that I have ever been to the village before, and that’s very odd considering my childhood spent here. I was impressed with the size, layout, and overall effort that has been put into the whole area, and I can ‘t wait for Max to be old enough to really experience the educational aspects of the place. That’s not to say that it wasn’t fun running around from building to building and up and down every flight of stairs, but it will be nice when he and I can talk about the history being presented to us.

I sincerely hope that Londoners (and visitors to our city) will embrace this location and include it into the regular rotation of family outings. It makes me sad to imagine that the hard working historical interpreters might spend their days idly waiting for visitors, instead of teaching and entertaining.