I wasn’t the greatest driver when I was young. I don’t think my parents ever knew about all my poor driving habits, including a few incidents of being a bit too tipsy to see the lines properly, backing up with the back windshield so fogged that I actually bumped into a parked car, and general vehicular mayhem, including racing other kids and similar. It could have been the car: My hand-me-down car for high school…Read More
October weather in Colorado has a tendency to be all over the place. I mean, all over the place. And this month is no different: last Sunday, Oct 14, I was up in Breckenridge, stuck in my hotel due to a snowstorm. Between 8-10 inches and sub-freezing conditions made for a tough day throughout the state. Seven days later we were at Anderson Farms in Erie, Colorado (north of Denver and east of Boulder) sweltering in…Read More
[[ A guest post by film critic and father Christian Toto ]] This so-called film expert got Family Movie Night wrong. Again. I thought my boys (ages 7, 9) would love Billy Crystal’s cowboy antics in the 1991 comedy City Slickers, just re-released on Blu-ray. Slapstick comedy is right in their wheelhouse, the broader, the better. Or maybe I was too curious about my own reaction to the movie all these years later, given its…Read More
Driving the 2018 Chevrolet Equinox FWD Premier made me really ask myself why I’ve been playing it so safe with my vehicle color choices. If I think back across every car I’ve owned, I started with light blue, then faded yellow (hand-me-down Chevy Malibu. Thanks Dad!), then grey, gold, light blue, grey, blue, white, white. Yawwnnn. This Equinox cleary didn’t fit the mold in its bright and cheery Orange Burst Metallic which I renamed “burnt…Read More
My youngest has made the big leap from a private school to public school for her high school years and it’s quite interesting. I went to public school throughout my own educational journey; I don’t think I even realized that there were alternatives! My ex, however, went to private school, a rather prestigious K-12 institution in Kansas City with lots of elite, wealthy families. Very different experiences, even through college: she went to a private…Read More
In curious ways, the new biopic First Man mirrors the experience of a trip to the moon, alternating between breathtakingly exciting and boring as watching paint dry. Don’t get me wrong, First Man is a really good movie and a fascinating insight into the emotional journey of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to step foot on the moon. But it’s also dull at times, heavy with dialog and too reliant on a wooden Ryan…Read More
There’s something undeniably appealing about a good conspiracy theory. I mean, what if there is a secret cabal that’s ruling the world, what if there really is an Illuminati controlling the actions of millions, what if there really are aliens? And they’re among us?! Self-avowed “world’s leading expert on UFOs, the unexplained and conspiracy theories” Nick Pope acts as writer and on-screen host for the documentary Aliens At The Pentagon and it’s an entertaining 66 minutes…Read More
I received an email survey from a college student at Ohio University asking about life as a single parent and, more specifically, as a single father. Instead of just answering it back in email, I thought it would be fun and interesting to turn it onto – ta daaa! – a blog post. So here we are. If you’re a single parent, I invite you to answer the questions in a comment below too so…Read More
My youngest is a freshman at a public high school in Longmont, Colorado. So far, so good, she’s on the volleyball team and making friends in all her classes. She went to her first high school football game a week or two ago and there were a group of kids hiding behind the bleachers vaping. Her friend warned her, “don’t go over there, coach will get mad!” I asked her later about how many kids…Read More
So, you’ve got a new car? That’s super exciting – both for you and the kids. The anticipation of getting a new vehicle can be great fun – get the kids involved by guessing what colour you’ve chosen, what it’s going to look like and promising them rides if they behave really well all week! There are loads of things we swear we’ll never do when we get a new car – from being adamant…Read More
My youngest is on the local high school volleyball team and she’s doing great. I’m a proud Dad and show up for all their games, whether at home or to the further reaches of Colorado oforn away games. The volleyball season is pretty darn short, however, just a few months, then it’s over for the entire school year. Which is a bit odd, really, since games are always indoors so they could certainly play throughout…Read More
It’s a pretty typical coming of age story with a dose of Harry Potter, but The House with a Clock in its Walls is an entertaining read. The book has some tension and suspense, but mostly it’s straight “horror” teen literature. Which is why it’s surprising that the film adaptation turns out to be teetering on the edge of being too frightening for its very market, children and tweens who want a good scare, but…Read More
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #HarvestSnapsVeggieCrisps #HarvestSnapsGoodness #HarvestSnapsLove I like snacks, particularly between meals. What better way to improve my daily intake than by switching and grabbing a bag of Harvest Snaps as my go-to snack option. It’s far healthier than my usual fare! What you might not realize if you haven’t tried Harvest Snaps is that they’re actually made from veggies with a seasoned…Read More
Imagine waking up and simians are running the world, with us humans left as mute, downtrodden workers, slaves who are rounded up from their wilderness areas to become property owned by apes, chimpanzees and orangutans. The world’s upside down, and if you’re the kind of human who fights for your rights, well, there ain’t nothing more worth fighting for than the rights of sapiens, right? That’s the premise of the cult classic 1968 sci-fi hit…Read More
There were a lot of great action films released during the 1980’s, from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Back to the Future to Ghostbusters. There were also a number of iconic sci-fi films that starred the Austrian action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, including The Terminator, Commando and the sly The Running Man. “Ah-nold” became iconic with his enormous muscles and thick accent, and rarely did…Read More