Helium article on crude content in kids' shows

If anyone has thoughts I'd be interested.

http://www.helium.com/items/1158450-are-disney-and-nickelodeon-shows-really-appropriate-for-all-ages

Someone must be reading this because it has all of a sudden become one of my five highest paying articles. Strange.

I sold another Helium article! Only for fourty bucks but it only took me a half hour to write it. I love it when I have surprise sales in my account. It is actually on the topic "Autumn in Park City, and I am not sure who the publisher is." I would like to see whether I can see the final version or not, some of them don't like you to. But I would like to get some bylines in these.

I wish I could link to the article but it isn't officially in my account anymore.

Note that all the shark articles are written by Drake. He is writing some articles in my account because they have a promotion where people that have my number of stars make three dollars up front if they write things off a certain list, and that's pretty good money for him. He made fifteen dollars today and yesterday, and not just from me like he usually does so it's much better.

Drake is starting web content!

I am pretty excited that Drake is old enough to be into stuff that interests us lately. He is writing web articles for Helium, the service that plays the middleman between writers and readers nowadays, hopefully substituting eventually for editors and academics in that no one will have to ask permission to write stuff eventually anymore.

In general it is very exciting that Drake likes to talk about the things that we like to talk about. He talked with us about panspermia a few months ago. So awesome that we have created a person that actually likes to be like us. It makes us feel lots less lonely on the planet in general.

It makes me hope that he won't need to feel like he needs to be a sheep to have his views sound sophisticated to people like his teachers, who generally use intimidation to try to bully kids out of any preexisting value system so they can stuff their own down their throats. I am not even asking that Drake accept my value system. All we ask is that he think critically about things that he is told at school. That's all. That's enough, too. Because they get 'climate change' in FIRST GRADE! Like a first grader could be expected to understand climate change in any way. And because it masquerades as science, teachers get to preach it, even though it is anything but.

Drake is starting web content!

Mitt and Mac

So are Anti Mormons seriously going to whine about McCain choosing Mitt Romney for Veep?

What could they possibly argue would be so bad about having a Mormon as VEEP, anyway, they have no power at all. Seriously there are probably Mormons right now with more actual political power. He might be loosing some by accepting. Look what happened to Algore.

If they whine about this, or talk about sabbotaging the election, seriously it will betray the fact that people have put up with their crap in the party for too long. Most of us don't even believe they are true conservatives anyway.

And most of us think this is in fact a run for president, not a run for religion. I have said it before and I will say it again, if you give the atheists on the left a window to criticize religion it will be the last one that any religion has to see the light of day.

They don't believe in the free practice of ANY religion. It was one of the three prongs of Marxism - anti God, anti family and anti country. AKA one new world communist dictatorship. So we had all better be defending each other's religions in this party. I heartily endorse the rights of Snake handlers to be elected Vice president if they have the qualifications, and may I be smitten dead if I say otherwise.

Harry and the perma-chap

Dogs are so funny with their smell thing. When we were at GnG Morgan's house last week it seemed like Harry was going nuts with his face snorting around half way in the dirt. It made sense when they said that deer normally come into their back yard. The deer didn't come that night, however, probably because Harry had marked the territory. I wonder if they know to stay away from all houses with domestic animals. Grandma Collard talked a lot about deer coming there but I don't remember too much about wild animals coming to other houses I have been at with dogs or cats.

And Harry can sniff them out, too. Last night Harry went nuts and when we let him out he went straight to a spot in our yard where a guy was SLEEPING IN THE IVY on the other side of the fence! Slade saw the guy's arm sticking out and at first thought it might have been a dead body or something so he asked the guy if he was ok. I would have preferred to let him alone but it just was strange and unexpected. He was just drunk sleeping it off, but good work Harry. I guess not so easy to hide in our yard now, whoever would want to!

Dogs noses look so funny and Drake came up with a good word for that black skin that they keep moist: PERMACHAP.

Haha. Permachap - very clever, and it sounds like the kind of thing Slade would think of as they are all very clever and funny with words. The kids are getting so clever at this age it is a lot more fun than duck, ball, etc.

Freelance writing headed north

Happily it looks like my 'will write for free' days are over! I got rehired by the guy that I have done a few travel articles for for fairly decent prices. Very exciting. I love getting paid for just playing around.

Archer's debut

Here's the number Acher did in his play. Which I won't mention here because I wasn't supposed to tape it so I don't want it Googlable. But I have mentioned it elsewhere. It was only the dress rehearsal. And too bad because they only worked on this for two weeks so he did keep getting better in the performances. But I really see a bit of musical theater stardom here. Chase did well, too, but his confidence level is different and it limited him a bit, and I think he will get there too someday.



Thanks again to those of you who take a peek at the blog and compliment the kids' efforts, even if they are kind of hohum and pedestrian by objective standards. It makes them feel really good that they have people keeping tabs on them and commenting on them once in a while!

Stay tuned for the rest of the clips on these performances. I have a suspicion watching this that some of the other recordings are better, so I will keep trying to find better ones, even though none of them are probably that great. It is amazing to me that they had only practiced this musical one and a half weeks by the time this was taped. Well done, FG theater!

Anaheim, the happiest bulldog on earth!

So most of my lake pics are on Slade's phone, and sadly the video that I took on my laptop of Drake getting seranaded at MG had that weird mismatch of the video and audio, so don't have much yet about the last leg of our journey.

But since most of the hotels, even the ones that call themselves 'pet friendly' like this one in Anaheim charge usurous fees, it was really nice of Donna and GandG Morgan to let us bunk Harry with them. Hope the smell goes away some day. And that also goes for Sarah and Jim Black who bravely withstood all seven of us visiting with the beast in question.

BTW, we went to the Utah Shakespeare festival and saw School for Wives by Moliere, which was OK, and Taming of the Shrew, which was absolutely excellent and I suggest anyone go see it if they are in the area. We ran into Michael Wilcox there, and he was nice and pretended he remembered me, but he actually DID remember Sarah (Black, Slade's sister).

Anyone know anything to do in Vegas? (With kids, G rated, etc.)

We are in Vegas recouperating today from our Lake Mohave experience. Last night we went to Macaroni Grill for the whole thing where they sing Happy Birthday in Opera style for Drake's 13th. He was so embarrased he was going to die until she actually started singing, and then he was pretty impressed. Mostly he is excited that we don't get to call him a preteen anymore. Actually I still will when I feel like irritating him, which is a lot.

So the kids mostly want to watch the Olympics and laze around the hotel today recouperating from waterskiing, and Slade is down with that. He can seriously sleep around the clock if he wanted to I am pretty jealous. But I'd like to find something to do. Slade does want to go out with only me to some type of show.

Riverbottoms

Saturday we arrived at Mohave Lake for a bit of dragging children behind a speedboat. Don't really know why it struck Slade to do this, because lake water is too cold for him and he's the only one that can drive a boat anyway. But we gave him a few of his demands and the kids appeared to like it.

One of the first things that happened is that Archer jumped into the lake with his glasses on and they went plunk down to the bottom. So that's about 250 bucks there. He also dumped the flag that you're supposed to wave when there's a skier in the water.

We 'camped' by the riverside, and by camping I mean most of us huddled in a tent that was uncomfortable crowded, hot, and patrolled by a hot and bored bulldog all night. They kept having to get him up and dump him in the lake so he wouldn't overheat. I slept in the boat, but I got attacked by some pretty feisty insects. August in Arizona is a pretty harsh place.

But it was fairly fun. Actually I am not sure what people do for about fourty percent of the fun on their vacations without bulldogs. They are a pain but the kids absolutely love seeing what he is going to do in new situations, etc. He didn't like the boat so mostly he hid in a hole under the front deck until the boat stopped. We also learned he can swim for about five seconds. Fun times.

Harry gave us a scare

We were in Anaheim yesterday and I was taking Harry on a walk and all of a sudden he got really overheated. He made this wheezing sound like he was going to die. He crashed in a puddle in some guy's yard and wouldn't move. The guy hosed him off and finally he was able to walk toward home and Slade came and found us and carried him home.

The whole thing made me think of what it has been like most of human history with the health of loved ones. Pretty much your kids or your spouse would get sick and be dying and there would be nothing you could do but watch them suffer.

When we were coming back into the hotel it was pretty funny because the sight of Slade carrying a giant bulldog was probably pretty impressive and unusual. When we got to our floor some guy was walking a little tiny dog on a leash from the other direction, he saw us and he immediately turned around the other way, no questions asked. It was classic Morgan family.

But all is well now, Harry is ok after a long bath. But he shed so much hair there was enough for another animal afterward. My guess is it is some kind of automatic thing with increased temperature.

Trip, etc

So we are off on our big family adventure. We are having a good time so far. We stopped at numerous places along the coast. Here are some pics.

We are in Eureka this morning and will wind up in Bakersfield tonight.


One of these pics was a random one from Sadie's play rehearsal. I meant to post the vids of Archer and Chase's solos before I left but it took me too long. That will get done as soon as I get home, promise. They both did completely awesome. It was a true thrill. A payback for every difficulty as a parent that night.