Dave Mancuso dot Com

My dad was down in Sarasota a few weeks ago and went on a fishing trip out in the ocean (the Gulf, I guess). The weather was bad. Really bad. The tossing and turning had everyone ill, and several people were vomiting over the side of the ship.

But not my dad. At one point he decided to eat his lunch. He unwrapped his hoagie and began to munch away. At least he had a good lunch, if no fish yet.

Unfortunately, after a few tasty bites he noticed that people were looking in his direction and then turning green. And then leaning over the side and giving vent to their emotions (and whatever else was in their stomachs).

Feeling guilty, he wrapped his hoagie back up and regretfully put it away.

But then he was hungry. And no one caught any fish, either.

It just brings a tear to my eye.

🙂

I was forwarded an email about spiders lurking under toilet seats, biting innocents, and causing their painful deaths. The email looked like a hoax and sure enough, had the infamous words at the end “send this to everyone you know”–a dead giveaway for an email hoax.

A quick check of snopes.com revealed this page. Yes, the “arachnius gluteus”–the formidable “butt spider.”

I would have read further, but I’m still nursing the needle puncture in my finger from the pay phone I tried to get change out of today.

Yes, that was another email hoax reference. Go read Snopes–you’ll be more hoax-aware for it.

It’s cute if you have Flash installed and twenty minutes to watch it (it seems to follow your mouse pointer at times, too). It’s actually still going as I write this.

I would write more, but we moved mountains today and I’m beat. I fell asleep for a few minutes watching the link.

Oh, the link! It’s here.

Drew generated a Code Adam in Toys-R-Us today when he ran away from us and disappeared in the store. Oh, joy.

Not so coincidentally, Drew received the first true spanking of his life today after he was found. Unfortunately, Drew’s denim shorts and thick, padded training underwear ensured that my hand hurt a lot more than his hindquarters.

Referencing the Code Adam spanking post, Drew wants me to tell everyone that he only wears the training underwear when he runs out of regular underwear–“that underwear” was only from when he was “a baby.”

(As an aside, why he was wearing Mommy’s underwear on his head last week remains a mystery. I am not making this up. Refuse to let a kid watch TV and he bounces off the walls sometimes. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.)

…and no real post tonight.

I am totally slammed by the 270 plus (or so) laptops I’m updating this week. As I write this, I have 8 laptops updating at work and another 9 laptops here at home doing network updates through my home network.

I’ll pull it off, though–I always do. I may have to stay until the wee hours to get these suckers done by the weekend.

I’m insane sometimes.

🙂

I ask my five year old daughter Alyssa “Do you want some macaroni and cheese with that?”

“No.”

I clarify. “Are you sure you don’t want some Mac and cheese? Because–“

Alyssa cuts in. “Daddy, I said NO! PERIOD. END OF STORY!!”

The next ten minutes are spent explaining to Alyssa that she is the child, not the parent, and while Mommy and Daddy might say “END OF STORY” sometimes when Alyssa isn’t listening, she cannot, or she risks very bad mojo.

Oh, and loooong timeouts.

Her reaction? “Oh. OK. No problem.”

My daughter is five going on twenty-five.

(these travelogues were assembled from scribbles on the back of napkins found in the van, the writing becoming more frenzied as the trip continued…)

1:00 pm–Hitch up trailer. Leave Etown for Outer Banks.
1:03 pm–Drew asks why it’s taking such a long time.
1:20 pm–Stop for gas at Sheetz. Drew amazed and excited about Sheetz. It is apparently different from every other convenience store in existence. Alyssa nonplussed.
1:45 pm–Stop in York at the StuffMart (Walmart) for camping supplies.
2:20 pm–Walk out of StuffMart dragging Drew and Alyssa, who behaved not well.
2:22 pm–Failed to start van. Van won’t start. Just clicks, but battery is strong.
2:37 pm–Banged starter with rubbet mallet. Nothing. Gave up on van starting. Called AAA.
3:15 pm–Traced problem to starter. No one can see van until tomorrow. Suckage level of the day has just risen dramatically. Stranded, twenty miles from home. Vacation has become surreal so soon?
3:30 pm–Discuss possibility of setting up camp in Walmart parking lot. Walmart reputedly lets RVs camp overnight, but don’t think poptop trailers are what they had in mind.
3:45 pm–Unhitch trailer and roll it over into parking space under light pole so that van can be freely towed. Suggest to wife that we chain trailer to light pole. Twenty minute debate ensues. Decide to leave alone in end and turn attention to mutinous children. Do we have plank for them to walk?
4:10 pm–AAA shows up. AAA bangs starter with metal sledge hammer I provide. Van starts. After momentary amazed stare reminiscent of Back To the Future, there is much rejoicing.
4:20 pm–AAA leaves. Call place where I got van. Discuss problem. Decide it’s either a fluke or something that will not come back for a long time.
4:30 pm–Rehitch trailer, decide to “continue the deployment.” Leave again for Outer Banks, stubbornly ignoring starter issues. Decide not to turn off engine at all for rest of vacation.
4:33 pm–Drew asks why it’s taking such a long time.
Midnight–Cross border into North Carolina, after several hundred miles, dinner in van, and gas tank refill–all without stopping engine.
1:00 am–Pass Nag’s Head, enter Cape Hatteras National Seashore, driving south to camp at Buxton.

Coming in Chapter 2: “Mosquitoes Attack, or My Wife and Mosquito Genocide.”

…but I did finish The Da Vinci Code. The plot and characters were good, but what amazed me was the detailed research that the author wove into the story. The interweaving of the wiccan goddess elements with Catholic elements seemed a bit much, but apparently this is all actual theory in parts of the academic world. The Priory of Sion, Opus Dei, the Holy Grail, and the Knights Templar–all real legends/societies.

Huh. A good read.

(with apologies to the Harvard Lampoon)

The Background, By The Numbers:

1) We camp a bit, usually in tents since we sold our last VW camper in 1998 (one moment please, while I observe a moment of tearful silence for my departed Vanagon Westy).

2) We found a great deal on this poptop trailer camper:

(OK, it actually fell into our laps, since our neighbor put it up for sale right in front of us, directly across the street)

3) We bought it, but then discovered that each of our two Subarus were too weak to pull it without retrofitting the poptop with brakes and getting a Class II trailer hitch.

4) We then discovered that no one could seem to find a Class II trailer hitch that could be installed on the Subaru–they’re pretty much Class I machines.

5) Then, being me, I decided to let the tail wag the dog and started looking for a vehicle to tow the poptop. I looked at Ford Explorers mostly, but then found this beast:

It’s a 1993 Ford Econoline E-150 conversion van with all the trimmings–including mood lighting (no, I am not exaggerating). It fits a long range goal of mine: to own another camper van. GTRV makes a Ford version of the old VW poptop van, and this is my (relatively) low cost way to see if I can make the transition to an American van.

Oh–it had 98,915 miles on the odometer.

Armed with the van, the poptop, food, packed clothes, and the kids, we began our trek on July 24, 2003 at 1:00pm. Our plan–to make the Outer Banks by nightfall.

But we didn’t get very far.

Coming in Chapter 1: “The Horror…the horror”