Many of you probably know him as Freddie Mercury and if that doesn’t ring a bell then you would know him as the lead singer of the rock band Queen (if you’ve never heard of Queen then you are dead to me).  On my way to work this morning I was listening to “Bohemian Rhapsody” (oh you know that one?) and thought to myself what a damned shame it was that he had to pass away at such a young age.  Who knows what kind of mark he could have made on the 90’s and he would have totally rocked the band reunion craze.  I also can’t figure out why (despite the timing) we are all so surprised that he was gay and had AIDS.  This is a guy who wore low cut spandex leotards and lipstick on stage and was the leade singer of a rock band called “Queen” for petes sake.  I have to admit that, as a child of the 80’s, I never really “got” just how good of songwriter and peformer he was but in my older age I have a new appreciation for his work.  If you get a chance this week dig up a recording of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “We Will Rock You”, or “We are the Champions” and imagine yourself in a boisterous crowd at a live concert.  Oh yeah…

While at the grocery store last night my wife took our 2 year old, Liam, down the snack aisle.  In the meantime Harry and I ran to the back of the store (why the hell is the milk always on the opposite of the store and in the very back?…they design stores like that on purpose just to piss me off) to get my wife a half gallon of her uber speacial skim milk so that the poor dear could have cereal in the morning.  As we came back they were coming out of the snack aisle and Marilyn informed me that Liam had just said “cookie!”  This was very surprising news since neither of us had heard him say this before and he has been getting very frustrated that he can’t tell us what he wants.  Needless to say much love and encouragement was poured over him in the checkout line as we let him play with the Keebler peanut butter filled fudge cookies we picked out to celebrate the moment.  As for the cookies?  Well even though we thought we had purchased them they must have gotten misplaced somewhere in the checkout line and could not be found in our bags of groceries . however we’re still stoked that he’s picked up a new word since we are taking him this next week to get evaluated by speech therapist since he is lagging behind in his talking.  For now though he can have all the cookies he wants.

My small contribution to the arts, once a week I’m showcasing a web site of an art gallery, museum, or other culturally significant entity. This weeks showcase:

The Weinstein Gallery

This art gallery is located in a main gallery and several smaller galleries up and down Geary Street in downtown San Francisco near Union Square. Evie and I visited the main gallery and several of the smaller galleries during one of our brief outings while Marilyn attended Blogher08. Several of the galleries are located right across the street and down from the Westin St. Francis so if you missed this gem you really missed something special.

The main gallery hosts a sampling of works from several artists but the highlights were paintings by Marc Chagall, Rolph Scarlett, and sculptures by Ruth Bloch. Many of the cubist oil paintings by Rolph Scarlett appealed to me and I felt some even crossed over ever so slightly to impressionism. Many of his paintings are just so-so but there were 4-5 really outstanding paintings including one urban landscape that blew me away.

Other notable artists in the smaller galleries were Robert Kipniss and Charles Becker, both of which should be hanging on my wall (and will be someday God willing). Robert Kipniss dabbles in a little bit of everything but his works are characterized by lack of color (but in a very good way). A few of his works were reminiscent of pointilism until you examine the work closely and see the paint was brushstroked on. There was not one of his works that I didn’t drool over which is highly unusual. Charles Becker is a realist painter and the really outstanding works in the gallery were his classical still lifes. You could practically reach out and eat the fruit and he makes it look good enough you want to do just that. Both of these artists are exceptional and a must see.

So if your in downtown San Francisco and have some time to spare check out the Weinstein Gallery. You’re sure to fnd something that speaks to you.

A few days ago Marilyndrove down to get me so we could take Evie to her 4 month well baby appointment.  While driving down the street I suddenly realized:

me: aww crap
her: what?
me: I forgot to renew my drivers license
her: well what did you do that for?
me: I dunno…just that sorta bear I guess

My drivers license expired on my birthday last month. For most people (and for me under normal circumstances) renewing ones drivers license is not such a big deal but when it came time to renew this year I had Very Special Circumstances. Those of you who read my wifes blog have already heard this story so you’re excused from the rest of this post. For the rest of you I went in about 6 weeks ago for emergency surgery to repair an umbilical hernia. This was 2 days before my birthday which was also the day my drivers license renewal was up. Long story short in the hubub of recovering from surgery, being out of town at the time and extending our stay because I couldn’t travel, and the time suckage that is my life in the summer I completely forgot about my drivers license until the moment above. The good news is that the State of Nevada gives a 60 day grace period to renew your license so I’m good as long as I get it done in the next week or so. Just another reason that I suck.

Welcome to my blog!  This is my 4th attempt of having a blog of my own with previous failed attempts including a personal angst blog, a political blog, and a gaming blog.  They all fell flat for one reason or another but this time around I was inspired after hearing about the growing population of daddy bloggers and how well received they have been in the blogging community.  My primary reason for starting this blog is to have an escape from the (sometimes overwhelming) daily grind and hopefully provide myself an anchor for my sanity.  Being a parent is the most important job I do so it makes sense that I would start a daddy blog.  That’s not to say that I won’t be discussing alot of other things as well since I have such a wide variety of interests.  The one thing that I won’t be discussing here is my job or employer, not because I’m afraid of retaliation but because this is my escape from the dysfunction that rules my existence for 8-10 hours every day (except weekends).  Now that this blog is designed (mostly) and up and going I realized that I need a) readers, and b) posts for them to read.  As for readers I figured why reinvent the wheel?  My wife already has alot of readers so I’ll just steal some from her (thanks sweetie!).  As for posts….well lets get to it!