Should you drink with your kids?

Interesting article in Time (and it even has an Arkansas connection) about ways to prevent binge drinking in teens by letting parents drink with them ... kind of the way it's done in foreign countries.

Our friend Mark once told Jennifer and I about letting his two children drink as they were growing up. His son asked for a beer at 12 or 13 and he let him have one, thinking that if he drank it around his parents it wouldn't be a big deal once he got older. Sounds like Mark was right ...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1816475,00.html

Pubs in peril

I miss going to Papa's. But it's not high beer prices keeping me away, it's the smoke. Not the case in jolly ole England ...

LONDON (AP) — Raise a pint to the old British pub: Dark-paneled, fixed on the English landscape — and, more than ever these days, empty.

Beer sales in British pubs have slumped to their lowest level since the Great Depression, including a 10 percent drop in pints drawn in just the past year, an industry group said Monday.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hNk_VoQeywApudn_ScR4rJB3VrLgD9273BU01

Avoid the ham

On Sunday, I spent the evening puking, thanks to a case of food poisoning.

Through a process of elimination, the culprit had to be a piece of lunch meat I had on a wrap.

Deep down, I think Jen was a little glad I got sick. After all, she's been dealing with morning sickness for a few weeks now. She was probably glad I was the one with my head in the toilet instead of her.

I hate the previous owner of our house

With the baby en route, the den is going to go from the man room/PS3 haven to an office and (eventually) playroom. We didn't want the old lousy carpet out there, so I'm going to rip it out and install hardwood flooring out there.

After Thursday night, I decided to get a jump on pulling up the carpet out in the den. Mainly, I wanted to see how difficult it is going to be and check the condition of the old garage floor. It didn't take long for things to get complicated. Why? Because of this ...




Yep, that's right. Parquet flooring underneath the carpet. Flooring that's in pretty good shape.

So now do we just go with that or put hardwood down on top of it?

UPDATE: All the old carpet is gone, as are the two (2) carpet pads that were underneath. What I thought was a wooden floor underneath turned out to be some sort of tile, laid directly on the cement garage floor.

And Peppas thought the Cowboy was wild

Chicks kissing at the Cowboy in Fort Smith don't compare to this ...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Nine British women were facing prostitution charges after being arrested at the weekend for taking part in an oral sex competition in the Greek holiday island of Zakynthos, police said on Monday.

Six British and six Greek men, including two bar owners, were also charged in the incident, which took place at Laganas beach in the south of the Ionian island, which lies off the west coast of mainland Greece, police said.

The women, who came to the popular resort on holiday, had been paid to take part in the competition, which was video recorded and was to be posted on the Internet, police said.

The men were charged with encouraging obscene behavior.

In recent years, Laganas has established itself as one of Greece's most popular destinations for twenty-something holidaymakers and is known for its wild party scene.

Around 15 million people -- a fifth of them British -- visit the eastern Mediterranean country each year, drawn by its soaring summer temperatures, azure waters and sandy beaches.

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN1441724120080714?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews

8

As most of y'all know, today is my wedding anniversary. Of course, given the amount of alcohol consumed at the reception (you know who you are), perhaps you don't remember July 15, 2000, all that well.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank Jen for eight great years of marriage. Every day I'm thankful you came into my life.

I love you.

(This counts as a card, right? Or do I still need to run to the Hallmark shop?)

Another Squad vacation ends

Well, OK, it wasn't really a vacation since Jen and I were sleeping in our own bed. But it was still good to see some of the usual suspects.

It was a typical reunion. Lots of laughter and love with some beer and pizza for good measure.

Highlights of the three-day weekend included:

• Peppas rolling into town with a keg of Yuengling (the best American beer you'll ever taste) for the party and several cases to tide us over for a few months.

• Brown's laughter turning into a wheezing fit.

• Dr. Kevin (Sacramento's top-rated relationship expert who is on air from 4-7 p.m.) telling our waitress from Varsity she should dump her boyfriend, and giving solid reasons why she should.

• Watching somebody struggle through a fierce hangover on Saturday.

• The hilarity of CZ's dad and uncle at the shower on Saturday night.

• Staying up late so I could be sure to wake Sean up off the couch, so he could wake Tammy up so she could be at the Tulsa airport by 6 a.m. on Sunday

• The surprise baby shower at Calico County.

• Nash being the first out and me second out in an impromptu poker tournament Sunday night, while Peppito and Mrs. Nash split the $80 pot.

• Sitting up with Brownie and Kevin until 3 a.m. on Sunday night/Monday morning, at which point they and Samantha left for the Tulsa airport. Good talk, fellas. Good talk.

Wish the Martins could have made it. Wish SK could have made it as well. Maybe next time we'll be able to get everybody together.

Matt Jones busted

Not pot, but felony cocaine possession.

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/breaking/news-article.aspx?storyid=113418&catid=17

Guess Jen won't be wearing that Jaguars' jersey this fall, because he'll get cut by Jacksonville after this. But, on the bright side for Steve and Brownie, with a felony arrest Jones is now eligible to play for the Dallas Cowboys.

Borat was in Fort Smith

Seems mixed martial arts will be skewered in his next movie ...

In Fort Smith, the city's convention center hosted "Blue Collar Brawlin"' the next night. Fort Smith police Sgt. Adam Holland said 18 off-duty police officers provided security at the event.

During preparations, Holland said organizers told him a character named "Straight Dave" would goad a planted audience member into the ring for a fight. The two men would then wrestle, rip away some of their clothes and share a brief kiss reminiscent of one between Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell in the film "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."

Producers said "there would be a romantic embrace," Holland said. "They said it was kind of to essentially make fun, poke fun at wrestling - two guys rolling around on the floor, all sweaty."

Instead, an elaborate array of mounted and handheld videocameras caught the crowd of 1,600's reaction as the two men "went right up to the line" of the city's morality laws, Holland said. The two men stripped down to their underwear, kissed and rubbed on each other, the sergeant said.

The audience, as well as local fighters drawn to take part in the show, became enraged.

"It set the crowd off lobbing beers," Holland said. "They had beers in plastic cups. Those things can get some distance on them actually."

Holland said it took officers about 45 minutes to clear the convention center, as the two actors sprinted away through a specially set-aside tunnel.

Those in attendance were told by several signs on display that they'd be filmed, Holland said, and signed waivers before the event.

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/fake-ark-bouts-showing-men-kissing-draw/n20080707181609990001?ecid=RSS0001

I might be sick

The storied Pittsburgh Steelers football franchise has been secretly shopped to potential buyers amid continuing divisions among the five sons of the team's founder, Art Rooney Sr.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB121546397767833575-lMyQjAxMDI4MTA1NzQwNjczWj.html

I'll now curl up in the fetal position under my desk and cry.

Steelers again dominate the NFL

Dan Rooney is voted the owner with the best reputation in the league ...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=williamson_bill&id=3424282

While Hines Ward was voted the smartest non-QB offensive player in the league ...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=williamson_bill&id=3429516

A post I never expected to make

It's July 1. And I'm freaking freezing to death.

It's one of the side effects of Jen's pregnancy. She's hot, and constantly bumping the air down. Not because she's big, but because of the melange of hormones coursing through her body.

In the car, she cranks the air to the coldest setting and puts it on the second-most powerful setting. Normally, when we're in the car, I know to turn the air down after a few minutes because Jen gets cold. It's one of those little things that becomes a habit after 10 years of being with the same person. But now, when I do it out of habit, Jen immediately reaches back over and cranks it back up.

Now that we've got the new 3 1/2 ton air conditioner, we can crank that bad boy down to refrigerator-like levels of cold. Jen just went to bed and asked me to bump the air down. The thermostat read 75 when I walked up to it. So I had to lower it to 73 to get it to kick on.

So here in a few minutes, I'll crawl into bed and pull the comforter up to my neck. It's getting to the point that I've considered pulling my fleece pants and slippers out of the closet.