Grandpa Has Red Hair

This 13-minute video was originally intended as a Father's Day gift for Grandpa Blair. It is a candid interview with the C-Monster where we tackle burning questions around sharks, echos, and hair color.

Best Day Ever!

Last summer our neighbor held a garage sale. While making plans to purchase everything there, Cayden came across a radio-controlled boat.  He was sorely upset when we wouldn't buy a 3-year-old an 18" radio-controlled boat. Needless to say, the 18" radio-controlled boat gods have smiled on Cayden.  Instead of sending the boat to D.I. our kind neighbors have signed the deed over to Cayden.


For the last several days we have withstood his constant imploring. Today we surprised him though and went to a park that has a small creek running through it. He was fascinated by the water. I asked him if he wanted to drive his boat in the water.  


Cayden: "I no bring it Dad."
Dad: "I brought it. It's in the trunk of the car"
Cayden: "Yea!"

As we were piloting the vessel down the creek Cayden said -- more than once:
"This is the BEST day ever!"


Best. Day. Ever. 


Four Birthdays. 
Four Christmas Days.
Fifteen minutes driving his boat in the creek at the park: Best day ever.


It was the best day ever until the boat got temporarily stuck on some debris in the creek. Unfortunately, nothing looks temporary to a 4-year old and Cayden was sure we would never be able to retrieve the boat from the creek that spans all of four feet.  


Cayden shrugged: "Now this is the baddest day ever..."


Fortunately, we prevailed and got the boat back to safety, to which Cayden responded: "Best day ever."

Cayden Cam Archives

Came across some old Cayden videos. Makes me think we need to take more video of Cole. Here's an oldie but goodie.

One of the Reasons to Have a Phone that Records Video

Nuff said...

Looking over Battle Creek

It's time for another round of BlackBerry pictures. This time we have videos too. Lucky ducky you!

Cole is very smiley lately. This smile is infectious.

Adobe recently announced the new location for our Utah offices. It will be on the other side of I-15 from Thanksgiving Point (in front of Cabellas), but won't open for about two years. Either way we arexcited about a permanent location in Utah even closer to Davis county. One of the fruits of the company field trip to the new location was this real hard hat that Cayden has since claimed as his own.

First of all -- Cayden is fine. No injuries. Second of all -- I had no idea this was going to happen when I started filming. I am a good parent.

Priorities. Check.

Cayden and I took a hike up Dry Canyon a while back. Cayden got tired as soon as we left the parking lot and insisted on riding on my shoulders...and holding on by grabbing my hair.

On a bike ride / hike up Battle Creek Canyon one morning before work (one of the benefits of working for a software company) I came across this HUGE waterfall. The trail passes right by the top of the waterfall. If you are not careful coming down you will be on your way off the world's most dangerous high dive.

Yesterday we took a trip to the Vineyard pumpkin patch / corn maze / petting zoo / playland. This was my first trip to a corn maze so I thought I would take it slow. You know, kid's non-haunted corn maze in the middle of the day with a 2-year old, stroller, and 3-month old.

On our trip to the pumpkin patch / corn maze / petting zoo / playland, they had this crazy fast slide. I like Cayden's confused look of "Is this what's supposed to happen?"

Yesterday I treated myself to a great bike ride / hike up to this lookout point over Battle Creek canyon.

An Emergency Room Worth Waiting For

And now something that has vexed me for a while now:

If you have traveled north or south on I-15 lately, you have undoubtedly seen these billboards. Through the magic of modern technology, these billboards are able to tell you precisely how long the wait is at the specified Emergency Room.

Although impressive, I wonder how this is valuable to anyone. I have never been on the freeway and thought to myself "I'm bored. Where should I go at this very minute? Hey, the emergency room wait is only 12 minutes! Let's stop by."

I think of situations that require an emergency room as ...well, emergencies. When you have half a tank of gas you may look around for the best price per gallon and then make your decision accordingly. When you are on zero miles to empty, you have a gas emergency. In this you situation, you head for the nearest gas station, regardless of the price, and pray that it is downhill. Accordingly, if I fall out of a tree and break my arm I'm not inclined to "shop around" for the ER with the shortest wait time.

"What? Your water broke? Sure the ER here in Orem is right here, but look at the wait! There is an ER up in north Ogden where the current wait time is only five minutes."

Pictures From My Phone

It has been a while. I thought finishing school would open up the blogging channel again, but it hasn't really helped -- mainly because I have not really found anything I want to write about. And when I do, I am not close to a computer.

A lot has happened in the last several months. But I don't have the time or desire to tell you all about it. However, my phone has been with me the entire time and snapped a few fuzzy pics. Maybe it will serve as a proxy for me telling you about my life.

So here we go:

Back in July we went to the 4th of July parade in good old K-town (Kaysville). This is Cayden waiting for the floats candy.

This is a skunk. Hard to see -- I know. I took this picture of our dark patio, through a glass window...with a camera phone. While we were up at Bear Lake with Suzanne's family we left our trash bag out on the patio one night. It was found by two skunks. The funny thing was we were able to watch the entire thing unravel right through our sliding glass door, but we were powerless to do anything about it. We tried banging on the door gently as we wanted to scare them away, but not really "scare" them. It was not worth the risk of opening the door to shew them away. These were skunks, not cats. We even tried laser pointers. No luck. We went to bed and cleaned up the mess in the morning.

Mike Smith and I up behind Timp on one of our several Alpine Loop rides. This is a real climb and we are real men.
I got the "blue screen" of death on my work computer a while back. You techy readers and ISYS majors can let me know what's wrong. Maybe my kernel's infected or corrupted...I was just checkin' the specs on the end line....I'm retarded. At work I have two 20" screens right next to each other, so the BSOD is even more intimidating.

See.

A month or so ago I took a business trip to the DC area to visit a couple of clients, one of which was Gannett, the parent company for USA today. If you have ever stayed in a Hampton Inn, then have unknowingly paid $0.75 for a USA today. Don't believe me? Check your last hotel receipt. Anyway, this is their headquarters. And they say there is no money in publishing.

Oh, we had a baby in July! Cole Douglas Blair is now over a month old. Yeah, I know...I'm not very good at communicating stuff like this. I need a social agent. Anyways, Cole is cute as a button and likes to cry at night. Older brother Cayden is adapting well but was slow to warm up to younger brother's name.

"Mom, Cole is the name of a store!"

A couple of weeks ago we enjoyed Lindon days. We moved to Lindon too, by the way. Part of Lindon days includes a free car show, which is right up my alley. Because they are cars. And it's free. Check, check. For those of you who argue that the Ford Crown Victoria has not ever changed body styles, I submit that you are wrong. This is a late 50's model. The paint job may not be stock.

An evening trip to Wal-Mart yielded this strangely peaceful picture in the parking lot. It looked like something serious was happening that involved pillars of light and everyday low prices.

And finally: the helicopter. In Provo, we shared a backyard and a series of abused toys with Cayden's best friend Parker. In Lindon, it is just the C-Monster, so we felt like we needed something for him to do in our seriously large backyard. On KSL.com we found one of these Lifetime helicopters that someone obviously felt too intimidated to attempt to build.

I brought it home in a box and put it together one night while Cayden was asleep. I started shortly after Cayden went to bed. FOUR HOURS later, the helicopter was finished. Now Cayden tells all his friends about the helicopter his dad built. So it was worth it.

In this pic, Cayden is cleaning off the propeller. I am pretty sure somewhere in the 100-page manual that came with this helicopter there is a picture of a child doing exactly this, with a big red X through it. It is kind of amusing -- the top of the helicopter reads "Stay clear while propeller is in motion." Good to know in case this thing actually takes off.

So that's it. Pretty much everything that happened in the last three months is included in these 10 photos. Now you are caught up. See you in 3 months.

Hmmm.....

Let's be honest: if you buy Kmart's "My First Airzone" trampoline, you're basically buying a cage to contain your child.

The Thrill of the Hunt

It is really quite amazing that Easter has come and gone. We spent the weekend at home with families and survived three Easter egg hunts without incident.

Easter Egg Hunt #1: The Kaysville City Hunt

Some things you can be late to without a problem. An Easter egg hunt is not one of those. Saturday morning Kaysville city held its annual Easter egg hunt at 10am sharp. As is usually the case, we were running a little behind that morning and with the unexpected task of cleaning snow off the car, we left a little late. At 9:57am we rolled into the park. The challenge then became finding out where we were supposed to be. In an effort to prevent 12-year-old boys from stealing eggs from 2-year-old toddlers, Kaysville city splits the hunt across four baseball fields.

The problem for us was identifying which of the four fields was for 0-3 year-old children and getting the C-monster there in less than three minutes. After running ahead to spec out the fields I found that Cayden's field was on the far side of the park. I ran back to Suz and Cayden. Suz is a little preggers right now so they were not moving extremely fast. I picked Cayden up and started running. As we were running Cayden asked "Why are you carrying me." Without exaggeration, I arrived to the front line where hundreds of small children were anxiously awaiting the signal and put Cayden down. No less than five seconds later, the voice on the PA system said "GO!"

Chaos broke out and I did my best to keep the C-monster in view as he moved from egg to egg. Within two minutes every egg on the field had been claimed and the field was empty. Had we arrived at 9:59am, we would have been out of luck.

Easter Egg Hunt #2: The Blair Family Hunt

With all six of her grandchildren now living in Utah, my mom was more than excited for this hunt. She cleverly devised a system where each grandchild was assigned a color of eggs to search for. All the child needed to do was find eggs that matched the color of his or her basket. While some eggs contained candy and money, others contained slips of paper indicating a prize they could then claim from grandma. The eggs were then hidden by the adults according the the color/grandchild difficulty matrix. Three of the oldest grandchild's eggs were never found, suggesting the difficulty matrix may need to be tweaked...or eggs should only be hidden by a responsible adult.

In theory this was a brilliant plan. In execution, it took quite a bit of training to teach Cayden to pick up yellow eggs -- only yellow eggs.

Easter Egg Hunt #3: The Todd Family Hunt

With 18 grandchildren on the Todd side (at time of publishing), grandchild-specific coloring schemes are not an option without a professional-grade paint mixer. The hunt began in a frenzy. As I followed Cayden around I noticed he was picking up a lot of eggs and putting them back down, but very few were making into his basket. This catch-and-release approach had me concerned and then I noticed that all the eggs in his basket were orange -- just like his basket. Just as I was putting this together Cayden placed another egg back on the ground stating: "Not orange."

"No Cayden, it's all fair game." I said. "You can pick up any egg." After a slow start, we picked the pace up and grabbed as many eggs as we could.

Because the grandchildren had already been to several egg hunts and likely accumulated too much candy to safely consume, Suzanne's Mom decided to fill some eggs with nickels instead. Another great plan in theory. From a strictly fiscal perspective, however, for a child nickels are not as liquid of an asset as candy. Once back inside, some of the children pushed the nickels aside and filtered out the candy. While most of the children did this, one entrepreneurial grandchild recognized an opportunity and helped several children liquidate their fiscal inventory by exchanging his surplus of candy for their otherwise useless nickels.

All in all, it was a successful weekend for Cayden and a tiring weekend for mom and dad.

"Xx"-tra Long Bedtime Stories

Let me begin by saying that it is always a privilege to read a bedtime story to the C-monster. Sometimes privileges can be tiresome though. At the end of the day all you need is a long bedtime story with tiny font. Did you know there are three naughty trains that say no before "The Little Engine That Could" finally says yes? Besides being a lot of rejection for a little kid to handle, that is a long story.

That is why it is always a little disheartening to open a book to find a gigantic "Aa" on the first page. I know the alphabet well and know there are 25 letters that follow "Aa." Ultimately, that makes for a long bedtime story. Sometimes that forces mommy and daddy to cheat a little. There is a little part of me that worries Cayden will get to the first grade and discover that there are letters between "Dd" and "Pp."

Perhaps the saving grace of such a book is waiting to see what the author choose to do with "Xx." I have seen an "Ii"ce cream truck and I have seen a "Ff"ire truck, but I have never seen an "Xx"-ray truck. Really? An X-ray truck--is that the best they can think of. And eXcited starts with and "Ee" not an "Xx."

Check out my GUSSELS!

Well, it doesn't get much cuter than this. The C-Monster is now about 3 weeks into his P90x training, and the results speak for themselves. Just check out these before and after pictures!

The C-monster does not always get his syllables right. As a result, he is showing off his gussels here (muscles.)

"Oh what fun it is to be THREE"

Short but sweet, this home video is a perfect representation of the C-Monster. Watch for a flash of orange!

P.S. Don't blink.

The 12 Days of A Blair Christmas

Christmas has come, and Christmas has gone. Two weeks of no school, no obligations, and no schedule are done. So now it is back to school for the final semester -- ever. I'm serious the time, no more school after this.

However, in honor of the two weeks of bliss, I have documented 12 days of a very Blairy Christmas:

• 12 Additional inches of snow that Alta received (17)...compared to Park City (5)...on the day I chose to go to Park city
• 11 Puking relatives
• 10 Days of no school
• 9 AA batteries burned in flashlights
• 8 Extended family dinners
• 7 Nights at home
• 6 Nights at the in-laws
• 5 Pounds gained then lost
• 4 Snowshoe treks
• 3 Christmas Parties
• 2 Snowmobile days
• 1 BABY DUE IN JULY :-)

Kids Pray the Darndest Things

Cayden is getting to the point where he is starting to understand how prayers work. We have been working on it so that when the Bishop comes over and asks to pray we are not totally embarrassed.

The cute thing is he is now realizing that you can pray to ask for things. A couple of weeks ago he had a bad case of diaper rash that made his "bum" hurt. At dinner we were about to say a blessing on the food and Cayden asked Suzanne to bless his bum so it would not hurt. She did. I fought back laughter.

Last week we were saying prayers with him before we went to bed. He has the "Heavenly Father" part at the beginning down pat. It is touch and go after that. Anyway, Suzanne was trying to get him to repeat what she was saying in the prayer.

As a little bit of background, we had just carved pumpkins or "pum-pins" and Cayden was distraught that we did not have any candles to put in them. As a result, the prayer went something like this:

Suz: Please bless Grandma and Grandpa.

Cayden: Bless candles

Suz: ...Please bless Grandma and Grandpa.

Cayden: Candles!

Suz: Ok...please bless us that we can get some candles at the store tomorrow.

Cayden: and treats!

Blogservation #2

Cayden is watching TV and I am on the laptop. He is watching a PBS show, Caillou. Have you seen it? Caillou is perhaps one of the most annoying little cartoon boys you could imagine. The voice...so painful.

Anyway, what I cannot figure out is why is Caillou bald? He is obviously old enough to have hair. His younger sister, Rosie, has a moptop, so why is Caillou bald?

My theory: the show's storyboard artists are lazy. Why add labor-intensive details like hair to the main character? He is in every scene. At least Caillou has a line for a nose. While googling Caillou to see if I was spelling his name correctly I came across the show's home page where they had the frequently asked questions page. Guess what number one was...

WHY IS CAILLOU BALD?

Their response was less than satifactory:

Generally, for children, Caillou is a larger than life image of a preschooler. The fact that he is bald does not seem to bother preschoolers in the least. Not only do they never mention it, but when asked to think about why Caillou has no hair, our focus groups just laughed and replied: "He just doesn’t have any hair!"

Thank you PBS for dodging that one. If I went to the doctor and asked why I was bald and all the doctor could tell me was: "Well, it doesn't seem to bother other people" I would ask for my co-pay back.

During my Caillou "research" I came across some pretty amusing comments from viewers who compared his voice to nails on the chalkboard and Chinese water torture.

Ultimately, I am not too upset by the hair thing. I think I am probably more upset that I just spent the last hour researching a show about a four-year-old cartoon boy. There is an hour of my life I will never get back.

Band-Aids

Today I replaced the 25-year-old light in our bathroom with a shiny new one. If you have ever been to your great-grandmother's house, you have seen the light I am talking about. It features two glass domes hanging from gold chains attached to the ceiling by hooks. Classy.

As always, Cayden helps dad with anything involving tools. After I got my toolbox out of the garage, Cayden went and got his "tools." He actually has a toy tool set. While I put the light on he got all of his tools out and went to work.

Shortly after I finished I asked him to pick up his tools. He was not interested. A few minutes later I was walking across the floor and accidentally stepped on one of his "tools." I said "Ouch! Cayden, can you pick up your tools? I just stepped on one and it really hurt!"

He made no attempt to pick up the tools. Instead, he brought me a band aid. The squeaky wheel gets a band aid.

A Bachelor's Week in Review

In case you have not heard. Suzanne took Cayden and left me...

...To go to Utah for vacation. I have to work, so I could not go home yet. As a result I have been living the life of the bachelor for a week now.

Being a bachelor is fun...the first day. I dropped Suz and Cayden off Saturday and went right to work vacuuming. I borrowed a friend's vacuum with enough suction I was legitimately concerned it would pull the carpet up. I vacuumed the apartment and detailed the car, bringing both back up to "Rand's OCD spec." Then I hopped on my bike and rode 30 miles, never once worrying if I would get back late.

Sunday I had church and a Priesthood meeting to occupy most of my time. My hope to ride my bike as much as possible was crushed on Monday when it was forecasted to rain. Figures. So, I got up early and ran. I only run when there is not time to ride or it looks like weather will be a problem. It did not rain by the way. I stayed at work until just after 8:00 pm working on some projects to get caught up. I got home and after about 30 minutes figured out how to turn the oven on so I could cook a meal my loving wife and lovingly made for me before she left. By about 9:30 pm that loving meal was ready and even gave me some leftovers for Tuesday.

By Wednesday, the bachelor lifestyle was wearing on me. I got home a little later than usual and met up with a friend to go for a bike ride. Half way into our 20-mile ride I learned that this ride would be approximately two times longer than any ride he had done before. I got home even later. Thursday I did the same ride by myself (quicker) and got home in time to try and remember how to do laundry. I could not use the laundry room on our floor because someone neglectfully left their clothing in both washers LONG after they was finished washing. I finished the wash (on another floor) just in time to go to bed. I realized that I had not opened the curtains since I closed them Sunday night. Kind of depressing.

Friday finally came and after a long day of waiting for the weekend I came home to enjoy a night of peace and quiet. After talking with my mission president on Facebook (who would have thought, right?) I cooked a Totino's pizza and watched a Denzel movie. Totino's pizza and Denzel had me feeling good again about the bachelor lifestyle, but I finished the movie and it was not time to go to bed so I actually started reading a book! I need help.

Saturday morning I hopped back on the bike and did not come back until I had racked up 40 miles. Clouds started to roll in and I made the decision then and there that if it started to rain, I was going to get wet, but I was not going home. Fortunately, the rain held off until I returned home.

It is now 5:46 pm and I have ridden all I want, napped all I want. I changed the oil in the car, went to the store to buy Oreos, filled up on gas, threw away all the old food in the fridge, and tried to clean the grime off the wheels of the car.

I have been to the grocery store exactly twice now. During the two trips combined, here is exactly what I bought:

• Peanut Butter
• Butter
• Syrup
• Marshmallow Maties
• Deodorant
• Oreos (yes -- the first time I was too cheap to pay $3.00, but the second time I was desperate.)
• Milk
• Little Caesar's pizza on the way home
• Almost bought toilet paper, but did not. I could not find it and did not want to look any harder than I was already looking. I think I will have enough to get me through. If not, I will spool some onto a stick from the bathroom at work.

The floors are still vacuumed and the car is still detailed but I am ready for Suz and the C-monster to come back. During this time of solitude I have learned a lot about life and myself:

• Number one. Do not wash the car and clean the windows at night. You will be disappointed with your work in the morning.
• Number two. You can turn the temperature to whatever degree setting you want, but the oven is not on unless the dial is turned to "bake".
• Number three. Marshmallow Maties are tricky to purchase. Do not select a bag by the one that has a lot of marshmallows in the clear cellophane window of the bag. You will only be disappointed when you find nothing but oats in the middle.
• Number four. Be grateful for your family. Tender.

When You're Here, You're Family

Time for a relaxing trip to Olive Garden. Why? Well, it has been a long time -- and we have a gift card. Which makes it about the same price as our usual fare (Wendy's, KFC, McDonald's, etc.)

We could not find a babysitter. Either because all of the young women in our ward have seen the C-monster in action, or they are legitimately busy. Could be either. So the three of us went to Olive Garden last night. We thought we would let Cayden try sitting in a normal chair. He did alright. Until he discovered the chair had wheels on it. Then he started scooting around the dining room. I tried to distract him by drawing a car, a truck, a bike, and a snowmobile in that order on his kid's menu with the free crayons.

Fortunately, his $5.25 pizza arrived just in time for him to decide he was no longer hungry. I remember visiting my brother's family years ago and watching his kids NOT eat pricey meals at restaurants and thinking "I will never make that mistake."

Instead of eating his pizza, he was content to eat one bite of each of the bread sticks. He then found that he could stick them on his fingers and it made it look like he had big swollen fingers. Frustrating, yet funny -- I know. The sliding chair made me nervous and I finally found a high chair we could strap him in. Which...he did not like.

Do not misunderstand. It was still fun to go out and eat with our little family, but your realize you are no longer young when you sit at Olive Garden and wish you were at McDonald's.

On the way out I took him in the bathroom to wash the bread stick garlic off his hands. I had to use the bathroom and thought we would see how long he could stand still in one place. (Number One only, I'm not crazy.) So I had him stand inside the stall with me against the door and told him to stay still. As soon as he heard me "tinkling" he started poking his head around to see what was going on. Then the Italian music (that for some reason is always broadcast at concert level in Olive Garden's bathrooms) started to get to Cayden and he started jumping around.

This time was not as bad as in the Chili's bathroom the other day. I told him to be still and he did a good job until some bouncy music came on and I saw just one leg start to bounce. It spread precipitously to the rest of his body and in less than 10 seconds he went from standing motionless on point, to running around the bathroom with his arms out jumping, all the while proclaiming "I'm an airplane, I'm an airplane."

All in all, life has changed with the C-monster, but I would not change it for the world! Oh, tender...

Friday night we celebrated the birth of a new weekend by going to McDonald's. Cayden loves McDonald's, and actually -- we kind of like it too. Not really because of the food, but because of the Playland. It keeps Cayden more or less entertained while we enjoy our fine dining. We had a two-for-one Big Mac coupon. Sweet!

Cayden enjoys it that much more when there are other kids there he can play with. He likes to join in their games as if they are old friends. In fact, he seems to adopt himself into other families quite easily.

Yesterday was no different. There were two families there with 11 kids between them. As the only white child, Cayden was still pretty easy to track. Eventually the two families left and Cayden had to look for other kids to follow. Pretty soon a seven-year-old girl came over to Suz and I and said: "Hey, is that your kid?"

Cayden walked around the corner. "Yes" we said.

"He keeps following me and sitting down in the chair next to me. And when my mom gets here with our food, SHE is going to sit there."

"Okay" I said, "We'll make sure he moves."

The story would have ended there, but only 10 seconds later this same anti-social girl came over to talk to me about Michael Jackson. You can't make this stuff up. This girl had learned from her mother that MJ took a lot of drugs and that is why he died.

All I could think to say without laughing in surprise to this girl's sudden gabby nature was: "Oh, really?"

"Yep, and he even has little kids and now there is no one to take care of them."

True again. I did my best to maintain a smile without a laugh and she followed Cayden into the play structure and asked if he wanted to play. Go figure.

She had nothing to say about Farrah.

Ta-da! New Design, Same Whitty Remarks -- and a Story to Boot!

I would like to take a moment and introduce my blog's super new layout that is both visually stimulating and aesthetically pleasing.  The entire concept was created from scratch by my wonderful wife.  More examples of her visually stimulating and aesthetically pleasing work are located at Purple Tulip Designs. 

In many cases re-designing your blog is like getting a haircut.  Nobody notices the haircut, but they all have great things to say after you tell them you got one.  This re-design is different.  This sensational new blog layout is like the haircut I got my freshman year at BYU.  

Yes, I will tell you the story: 

I think my parents parted my hair on the left side of my head from the day I had hair long enough to be parted.  That part took up permanent residence for nearly 18 years.  Just the part alone would not have been so bad.  It was the spike that made the ensemble work.  So that part was holding down the left side of my head while the rest of my hair was carefully combed eastward, completing the look.   As I hit middle school, I completely reinvented myself by replacing the left-hand spike, with a 'feathering' technique on the hair to the right.  I grew so accustomed to combining my hair in this delicate, yet deliberate fashion that I could not try anything different. 

It would take a near disaster to shift my hair paradigm.  That disaster occurred one day during my freshman year at BYU at the Bon Losee Academy of Hair.  Bon Losee was a beauty school located in Provo.  Freshmen got cheap hair cuts and beauty school students got real practice with human hair.  It was a win-win...if you did not care how your hair looked. Being a bargain-savvy shopper, I thought I would give Bon Losee a chance.  Had I known that the fate of the left-hand part hung in the balance I never would have gone.  As I sat in the chair I kept telling myself: "This will work out."  

Trish, the young girl cutting my hair that day appeared very nervous as she grabbed my hair with one hand and positioned the scissors with the other.  I instinctively knew this was new to Trish too.  I could tell that she still did not know how to grab the hair. 

Regardless, Trish gave it her best effort.  I saw clump after clump of hair fall silently to the ground.  When she was finished she had to have her manager come and 'sign off' on my hair cut making sure that it lived up to Bon Losee's standards and that Trish had not severed an artery or one of my ears. 

As part of the $7.00 hair cut you get a free wash and scalp massage.  As I laid there and watched Trish learn to wash hair, I told myself again:  "It will work out." 

I got home and took a shower.  You never know how a haircut really went until you take a shower.  Something happens on the drive home that I have never been able to figure out.  Either the hair gets shorter or my head gets bigger.  Either way there is less hair up there than when I leave the barbershop.  On this occasion I got out of the shower and looked at my hair.  Something was awry.  There was not enough hair left to support the part.  I tried in vain to comb some follicles west and other follicles east, but they sprung back in place.  Dire circumstances had necessitated a drastic change.

The 'Caesar' cut was born.  You know what I am talking about: push the hair forward rather than to the side.  Spike it up in front and you are done.  It was new, European, and hip.  Nearly ten years have passed and there have been variations, but for the most part, I am still rocking the Caesar cut.  You go with what works.  

This blog, like that first Caesar cut, will not go unnoticed. With the help of my loving wife, I am starting a new chapter in my blogging history.