Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to everyone. I hope that the Easter Bunny made it to your house and dropped off lots of stuff for you. At our house the bunny comes right at dawn so you have to make sure you stay in bed until it's light out. If you get up too early, you might scare him away and he won't get a chance to put out all of the candy filled plastic eggs for you to find. Bunny's are very skittish, you can't be too careful. We also colored real eggs, and had a very good time. We're looking forward to a week of egg salad sandwiches. We're also looking forward to ham dinner and the split pea soup that must always follow the cooking of a ham. Have a fun day with your family and enjoy the traditions.

Note: I wrote this post Saturday night, so I technically didn't miss my post today. It was a busy day, soccer, several parties with the kids' friends, and the fact that for most of the day I thought it was Sunday because the kids had the day off school yesterday. I made it though. Barely.

Sleeping In

My wife is a hard worker. Long days at the office, balancing work and home, all of that. She wakes early to get her day all organized before the kids get up for school so that she can do things in peace. I take the opposite tack, and I sleep in until they're awake and eating breakfast so that I can wake up slowly with fewer demands for my immediate attention. That's during the week, it's even better on the weekends. Because my wife wakes up early during the week, her internal clock wakes her up early on the weekends too. Awesome. By the time I get up, breakfast is sometimes not only started, but finished as well. In my early morning haze of pre-caffeine confusion, the world that I walk into can be weird. Last weekend I walked downstairs to find this guy waiting for me. He assured me that our house was free of bad guys, and that I was safe. What a wonderful world.

ETC: Houston Livestock Show

Moo.

I grew up going to the county fair in Michigan. The fair ran for a week, everyone went when it was open, and you had fun. Coming from that background, nothing could prepare me for the spectacle that is the Houston Livestock show and Rodeo. This event runs for 20 days, and has over two million visitors during that time. There is a rodeo every night followed by a headline concert. The junior livestock shows are much like at any county fair, but the stakes are much higher. The grand champion junior steer sold for $460,000 this year. It's like every county fair in a medium state all happening at the same time. It's a spectacle worth attending.
We've attended the rodeo and the concerts a few times in the past, and they're a really good time. We usually just go to the livestock show though, we cruise the animals, go to the petting zoo, go on a few rides, and generally have a fun day out and about.
The story of a trip like this is really best told through pictures, so click through the jump to see how the day went.

Roly Poly

A roly poly. Not a great picture, but a really cool creature.

My kids have no fear of bugs. When they were little and a bug would wander through the house, they used to freak out. I was all calm and a super-dad and I showed them there was nothing to be afraid of. I'd pick them up and put them outside to go live their little buggy lives in peace. I'm not sure I thought things all the way through (common theme with my parenting) because now my kids pick up everything and want to talk to them and carry them around. I don't mind bugs, but I don't like them enough for it to be cool to carry them inside and sit down on the couch with them and have a conversation.
Lately the kids have been picking up roly polies, or pill bugs, or whatever other name they have in your part of the world. They're pretty neat. They're easy to catch, and they curl up in a protective ball, and they're harmless, and they're everywhere. I'm expected to be the resident storehouse of information about all things, so when I was asked more about them I had to choose between looking it up, or making it up. The older my kids get, the harder it is to make things up and have them believe me, so I chose to look it up. As it turns out, roly polies are actually woodlice, and woodlice aren't bugs at all. No, woodlice are actually terrestrial crustaceans. That's right, they're land crabs. They breathe through lungs located in their back legs, and they need to be moist to keep breathing through those legs. How weird is that? They primarily eat dead plant matter and are responsible for a huge percentage of the plant recycling that's done on earth. One source estimated that as much as 80% of all plant material makes it's way through a woodlouse at some point. Roly polies are cool.
I'm probably stretching things by including roly polies as a pet post. They're just so neat though, and I had made it through 36 years without really learning about them, I thought I should share. Anyway, my kids pick them up, and talk to them, and bring them in the house, they're practically like kittens. Go flip over a rock in your yard and find a roly poly, a land crab, and pick them up. They're pretty neat.

Bacon Corn Bread Muffins

This is one of the recipes that my wife thought up during our spring break bacon week. We were eating bacon almost every meal, and it was getting hard to come up with new things. For a starchy side I decided to make corn bread muffins, my wife suggested I add bacon to them. Bacon corn bread muffins, that's a good idea! Nothing revolutionary, you're just adding bacon to corn bread and cooking it in a muffin tin, but they were delicious. They really are much better than regular corn bread muffins, and that's saying a lot, because corn bread muffins are delicious to start with. I use Jiffy brand corn bread mix to make my muffins. I know, you're all sitting there slack jawed at the thought of me baking from a box, but let me explain. They're good. I've tried a half dozen other corn bread recipes from scratch, and none of them are as good as Jiffy. It's cheap, it's made in Chelsea Michigan, and I'm a fan. I make no appologies.

Bacon Corn Bread Muffins - makes about 9 muffins
1 box Jiffy Corn Muffin mix.
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
3 slices of cooked bacon, chopped finely
Mix the box mix, the egg and the milk, add the bacon and mix. 
Let it sit for five minutes. Really, it's important, it makes the muffins better.
Restir gently and fill muffin cups 1/2 full. Using paper cupcake liners keeps them from sticking, highly recommended.
Bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

Corn bread muffins are good.
Bacon corn bread muffins are better.

Forensics

Take a look at that picture. It's pretty cool. Looks like a fossil, but it's not. It's a recent death. A justifiable homicide if you ask me, and there are many many more like it. I'll give you a chance to search your brain and figure it out, then click through the jump and find out what it is.

Because Race Car

Why no Saturday post?
Because Race Car.

Why buy hatchback?
Because Race Cone.

Why am I talking like this?
http://becauseracecar.org/
I had a spectacular day autocrossing with the Houston SCCA. It was a practice day so instead of 4 runs through the course and real competition, I got 34 runs through the course and just wrote down my times to see how much better I got. I got a lot better. I stayed after and helped them clean up cones and set up for today's event which I'm missing because my wife had to go away for business. Someone has to watch the kids I suppose. A few years before my kids can come drive with me at an autocross, but I'm looking forward to sharing the fun with them.