Skateboarding Still Isn't A Crime

My cracked Santa Cruz skateboard still has life in it! The coned Slimeballs may need to be rotated, though, after tonight's session. Those old wheels were practically smoking as I carved big, beautiful, beefy lines down the hills in my hood.

It's been awhile since I felt the raw fear that the death wobbles deliver. My trucks and deck turned to Jello beneath my feet as the shadowy forest whooshed by. What a rush!

My foot was off the board as I contemplated bailing, but it would have been suicidal to try and slow my rocketing momentum at that point. All I could do was keep my creaky knees bent and flow down the concrete slope.

For a skater born in the mid-seventies, I was pretty pleased with my ollie, but my flip tricks need a little work. Maybe I'll have to settle for just surfing sidewalks in style. Nah, I don't think so.

New Features

Deliberately Unintentional doesn't get updated as often as CNN or MSN; however, I have added a Twitter feed, so scroll down and see what I'm yappin' about. Or better yet, just follow @kattmaiser on Twitter.

Also, you may have noticed I added a Picasa slideshow box to the right side of this blog. If you don't see a new story or a recent tweet, scroll down and see if there are any new snaps floating by. The iPhone's camera isn't the best, but it does the trick.

Thanks for your patience and support.

Monkey Bars, Handlebars and Rock Bars

Last weekend was a nice mix of my new reality and a taste of the old days thrown in for good measure. Although we visit a lot of parks as a family and I sneak away for a run every other night, it's nothing like the pre-kids days of 36 holes of disc golf, three-hour bike rides and 10-mile hikes. Not to mention Sunday morning mimosas.

On the way home from work I stopped off to crush a bucket of golf balls at the driving range "rapid fire" style, as I had to pick up the boys from daycare. The driving range has been my proxy for a real round of golf for the past few years. Sending a few dozen beat-up balls for a ride with the swing of a loaner driver always satisfies.

Following an evening of beers and Nationals baseball on the couch, I took the boys up to the local elementary school's playground. It has a nice mix of slides, platforms, swings and climbers. Plus the playground is on a hill next to a big open athletic field, which affords some nice sky views. I love the wooded hills here in Virginia, but sometimes it's nice to emerge from the trees.

After a rejuvenating nap, we piled into the man-van for a short ride to a local lake for a stroller/backpack hike. The wind was ripping, but the sun was warm on our faces. Having my little guy babbling and pointing things out along the walk was pretty cool, too.

Our family is beginning to outgrow our little shed. Bikes, trikes, gardening gear, inflatable pools, baseball bats and balls, skateboards, snowshoes, camping equipment, tools, toys and old car seats are hung and piled in every available space.

So now I've laid the groundwork for why I took my wife's bike for a spin instead of my own much more masculine two-wheel, steel horse. The chick bike was simply the easiest to retrieve from the cluttered shed. I promise, it wasn't because her seat is like sitting atop a mountain of cotton candy, or because all 21 of her gears work perfectly. Nope, it was just easier to reach....

Speaking of chicks, we enjoyed a really good Mothers Day brunch in a D.C. neighborhood called Adams Morgan. The venue, the Asylum, was pretty interesting. At night it hosts rock bands, but their kitchen has a really diverse menu including vegetarian/vegan options. Needless to say, my wife was quite pleased with her meal and my huevos rancheros were fantastic. The mimosas kept mommy and daddy smiling as a certain three-year-old acted his age.

The National Zoo is just down the road from Adams Morgan, so we parked the man-van on a side street, loaded up the strollers and walked a few blocks to the entrance. For those of you who have never been to D.C., the National Zoo is a Smithsonian institution, which means admission is free. You really can't beat seeing prowling tigers, lounging lions, climbing gibbons, playful orangutans and pandas for free. The season is still young and it was early, so the crowds weren't too thick.

I had planned to end the weekend with a grilling session and a few beers in the backyard; however, a frozen pizza the size of a hula hoop had forced the freezer door ajar while we were out. The pork chops and corn-on-the-cob had to wait.

All in all it was a very fulfilling weekend. The right balance was struck between me time and family fun, which isn't always an easy thing to do these days.

The Boys of Summer

I think I should quit my job and just focus on preparing Cannon and Colton for the Major Leagues. Social Security is moving toward bankruptcy and who knows how long it’ll be before Wall Street gambles away my meager retirement savings. I figure training a couple kids to play professional baseball is probably the safest bet for my long-term security.

However, there is one small hole in this plan - I stunk at the game when I was a kid. I was always a fan of the game, but I never applied myself. Maybe it was because my first coach was always in court or jail for drinking and driving, or maybe it was because I found early success on a skateboard. Either way, baseball was part of my life growing up - and still is - and I hope the game is part of my sons’ lives.

I remember playing tee-ball, utterly clueless to the complete rules and nuances of the game. Yet I understood “see ball, hit ball, run.” I remember playing Optimist baseball at Galloway Park and watching Darin and Jeremy crank moonshots deep into the field over the hapless outfielders (there weren’t any fences back then). I remember playing catch with my father in the backyard on hot, muggy afternoons with the scent of freshly cut grass wafting on the breeze (we still do our best to break out the mitts when I'm in town). And as awesome as it was to see the St. Louis Cardinals play at old Busch Stadium, hanging out under the bleachers at a Waterloo Indians game eating dogs and salted peanuts in the shell was almost as fulfilling. The glare of the lights, the smell of stale beer, the crack of the bat in the cool evening air, and the roar from the crowd as a foul ball looped over the grandstands and smashed a windshield are all very vivid memories to this day.

It's fair to say baseball has been a big part of Cannon's first three years. After all, he did walk out of Camden Yards in his diaper on Fathers Day a two years ago, and he was at RFK Stadium for the final Nationals game before they moved into their new digs. Both Cannon and Colton accompanied Angie and I to a Single-A Potomac Nationals game on Fathers Day last year, which was really a lot of fun and very reminiscent of a Lootown Indians game.

The past couple weeks Cannon has been making consistent contact with the ball off the tee, but he’s also been consistently hitting me with the bat. In case you’ve forgotten, the thin, yellow whiffleball bat really smarts. The stinging pain is a small price to pay though to watch him square up to the tee and take his hacks.

His younger brother Colton’s temperature is also rising with baseball fever. When he’s not scurrying off with the bats or knocking the ball of its perch, he can belt the big plastic ball all the way to the fence with a little help from me. From the way his little eyes light up and his toothy smile that spreads from ear-to-ear, I can tell he likes the feeling. Catching the ball is still a bit like playing catch with mannequins, but at least one of the two boys has a glove. I'll just keep throwing balls at them until they figure it out.

Now would be a good time to thank my old friend Rob for adding to our collection of soft baseballs, because we've had a few good living room dodgeball battles since we saw you in March. My sons are welcome to throw every ball in the house at me and hit me with their bats, just so long as they give me free tickets to their professional games in the future.

It may be a tad premature to discuss the placement of their plaques in Cooperstown, but I have much more confidence in the Baseball Hall of Fame voters than the U.S. government or my financial broker. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy every backyard pitch, every ball smacked off the fence, every slap to the shins and every ballgame I can share with my boys.

Stop the Train! Our plans have changed.

The Metro is a great way to get around the D.C. metro area. The cars are clean, the riders are polite, the stations feel safe and many of the outer lines are above ground. It's usually pretty reliable. Usually. But I'll think twice the next time I gamble the success of a date night on the reliability of its service.

Hiring a babysitter is a rare occasion for my wife and me. At $15/per hour, we choose our nights carefully. So when our train crawled out of the Springfield station slower than a sunburned drunkard on a Jersey beach, we began to doubt our chosen mode of transportation. The conductor's voice crackled over our car's speakers. It was hard to make out what he said, but it sure sounded like he said all Blue and Yellow trains were terminating at Crystal City due to police action at the Pentagon City station. Though the cherry blossom trees ringing the Tidal Basin across the Potomac River were merely a couple miles away, they might as well have been in Japan. This train wasn't going to D.C.

Our plans had been fairly modest but had promised to forge some new memories. We were going to experience the cherry blossoms at dusk on the final weekend of the festival, and then walk to The Pour House on Capitol Hill to find out who the true Skeeball champ was. Now we were trapped one stop from where we'd started, the clock was ticking, the frustration was mounting and the train wasn't moving.

The night could have been ruined before it even began, but we decided to take control of the situation. A quick look at my iPhone revealed that there was indeed a police situation ahead and it was a bomb threat. After living in New York City for four years and around the D.C. area for five, we knew that this wasn't going to be resolved quickly. Suspicious packages aren't taken lightly, especially ones near the Pentagon. So we bailed on our D.C. plan and hopped out to catch the next train to Old Town Alexandria.

Just across the street from the King Street station we saw a Hilton Hotel with an attached bar called Seagar's. We needed to regroup, relax and relaunch our date night. Upscale hotel bars are always fun. The bartenders are always professional and the wine and beer options are plentiful. Well, almost always. We should have recognized the impending disaster when a large vase full of cut cherry tree branches greeted us in the lobby. Slap! Thanks for the reminder, Hilton!

So we bellied up to the posh bar on comfy stools and admired the back-lit bottles of expensive booze and exotic wines. I ordered a bottle of beer an Angie chose a nice red. I don't know what ever happened to my beer, but the bartender returned to tell us that Angie's wine was out of stock. This was not a short process. We sat there for ten minutes empty-handed, our night teetering on the brink of disaster, and we began to wonder why we had left the house to begin with. The barman finally returned (without my beer) and asked Angie for a second choice. We politely declined and told him we'd try another watering hole.

Luckily, O'Shaughnessy's, a true drinker's pub, was only a block away. The bar is located above a deli on King Street and seemed like the answer to our prayers. Unfortunately, the bar was one of the few that still allows smoking, but the windows were open and a good breeze was keeping the air fresh. The portly barman said he was doing me a favor when he discouraged my attempt to order the house ale. A game of pool would have been nice, but an almost comical "Out of Order" placard informed us that pool would not be played this evening.

We looked at the Washington Post's Going Out Guide application on my iPhone to locate a good restaurant. We were surrounded by options, so we knocked back our Sierra Nevadas and joined the throngs of early evening revelers on the street below.

We popped into Tiffany's Tavern for a quick one and asked if anyone had heard of The PX, a modern speakeasy we'd just read about. The first woman hadn't heard of it, but her coworker had. With loose directions to look for the blue light on South Columbus Street, we headed down the road.

After a firm rap on the door, a well-dressed woman opened the door a crack and I told her we were there for The PX. She opened the door and allowed us to enter, but I was disappointed she didn't use the traditional sliding window to check us out first. She escorted us up steep stairs past a hardwood bar to a small sitting room. An ornate chandelier dangled from the high ceiling. A smartly dressed couple sipped cocktails on one couch. A pair of women chatted quietly on another sofa. Angie and I settled in for some nice red wine. The atmosphere reminded me of some of the eastern European lounges in Astoria, Queens we used to frequent.

After being escorted back down the stairs, we headed to the Overwood for dinner. The wood-fired kitchen is off the normal tourist route by a couple blocks. I appreciated the large glass facade and enjoyed a potent pint of Old Rasputin Imperial Stout and some spinach artichoke dip before my steak arrived. Our meal provided a nice cap on an evening that nearly never started. The episode reminded me that good food, good drinks and good company can rescue a date night from the ashes. And I'll ride Metro again, but if our plans begin in D.C., our vehicle may be parked there too.

Ragin' Against the Machine in the Man-Van

My one-year-old is now a punch dancer. Oh, you're not familiar with punch dancing? Punch dancing is simply headbanging from the safety of a car seat. Shoulder harnesses and lap belts seriously restrict spontaneous physical reactions to heavy metal. But the punch dance channels the driving double bass beats of hard-hitting bands through clenched fists. My sons have taken Dad's lead, pumping their little fists like mini-pistons in a powerful V-8 engine to the rocking tunes blasting over our humble man-van's Infinity surround sound system.

Now that my one-year-old is facing forward and has joined our rolling party, he's interacting with his older brother and learning the nuances of the man-van. I'm always revved up to finally get my boys buckled in for the short ride home from daycare after a long day of work. Hanging out with these two is always a blast and helps keep me young. I miss their enthusiasm for life as I navigate the sad, stale office life of adults. And I could play with X-men characters and Matchbox cars all day, everyday.

So when my three-year-old asked for a jam, I changed the station from NPR to the rock station faster than guitarist Kerry King picks out crushing chords for Slayer. A glazed look fell over his face as he found the beat and started punching the air to Rage Against The Machine's Killing in the Name. I know, the song title is a tad inappropriate for young kids, but lead singer Zach de la Rocha growls most of the lyrics. Don't judge me. Ever seen the fight scene at Toad Hall in the finale of Disney's Wind in the Willows? Spoiler alert: Pistols, battle axes, throwing knives and murderous weasels. Yeah, 1949 was a boom year for quality kids' programming. Barney would've been hunted to extinction.

Headbangin' dads out there, let me tell you there's nothing more special than hearing your oldest son say, "He's doing the punch dance! He's punching!" Their combined laughter was like super premium fuel for my punching fist, and I bashed the air and nodded my head to Rage's beat with unbridled pride.

Leprechauns Don't Wear Togas

Chicken souvlaki and a Greek salad on St. Patrick's Day? The horror! Sadly, our plans to introduce the boys to the joys of Irish folk music, Irish stew, soda bread and Guinness mustaches proved to be about as elusive as a leprechaun.

Maybe it was naive to think we'd find a table at Kate's Irish Pub on their busiest day of the year. But I was surprised to see the cluster of eager entrants bedazzled in cheap party favors and plastic shamrocks waiting at the door. A sign in the window noted the $5 cover charge, so the party had already begun by the time the man-van rolled to a stop in front of the gaudy crowd and Angie hopped out to assess the situation.

Almost as soon as she penetrated the heaving, green crowd, she was back again. "It's packed and F-bombs are dropping left and right." Immediately we knew our St. Patty's Day plan was a bust. So much for singing along to the Irish Rover with a mouthful of beef and carrots.

Fairfax County has a dearth of bars, especially traditional Irish pubs. Looking back on our neighborhoods in Queens, NY, we really took for granted the plethora of good watering holes found on every block. Real Irish bars staffed by real Irish bartenders were never more than a stumble away.

So rather than return home as my son so adamantly requested, we settled into our usual table near the windows at Saratoga Pizzeria. My son's green, plastic top hat was crinkled and dented from wearing it all day at daycare, but he still received a number of compliments on it.

I guess the night wasn't all bad; the feta cheese was fresh, my chicken was seasoned perfectly, my Greek beer was served in a frosty mug and the pita bread was grilled just right. Still, St. Patrick's Day should be celebrated in a pub with Guinness, Irish pub grub and lots of singing. And, I'm pretty sure no one has ever seen a leprechaun in a toga.