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With great anticipation TheDadReport.com crew headed down to DC to visit the newly re-modeled National Museum of American History. Not good. My advice, do not plan anything around a visit to this museum. The space itself is divided up into East and West wings with a center hall, all rightee. In doing so, it renders each little space in the wing(s) oddly compact and without life. For example: Popular Culture. You wait in line, the first thing you see as you enter is an electronic portrait of Stephen Colbert, uh, okay. Not the first person I think of as representing U.S. Popular Culture but okay, he’s funny and timely. That’s pretty much the highlight right there. Once past “Colberrrr”, you see Archie Bunker’s chair from All In The Family, a few shoes, a few baseball unis, Kermit and you’re out the door. Wow, not much to US pop culture. And the space is devoid of character. The little area where Archie’s chair resides has zero graphics on the wall, nothing indicating more to see ahead. It looks like a temporary exhibit where someone said, “uh, where are we putting this fricking chair?” “Just put it in a glass case and shove the whole shit out the door there to the left.”

To be fair there are a couple of exhibits worth your time. The Star Spangled Banner is super cool and well worth it. This exhibit is nicely designed, you see the flag and then read the history on the way out. Nice. I also enjoyed seeing Julia Child’s kitchen. It is her actual kitchen from her Cambridge, MA. home. Though I can see it only being of interest to a certain age of visitor. You can hear many parents telling their kids who Julia was. A lot of blank stares and “uh huhs” ahead. “Bon Appetit!” indeed.

The other exhibit worth mentioning is The First Ladies. The docent told us the exhibit will get larger, though it’s worth the time now. Take a look at all of the First Ladies portraits around the room and see if you can tell who the first one was to actually smile. As we sport 2 daughters, the First Ladies Inaugural gowns was a big hit. By-the-by, can someone take a better portrait of Michelle Obama? It may have been updated since we were there, but it looked like someone took Michelle’s pic with a cell phone. Come on.

So that’s it. It has a few things worth seeing but I’d skip it if I had a time crunch. I recommend the Natural History Museum, especially with kids in tow. A tip on parking: The Ronald Reagan Building. Located only a block away, you can park on weekends for $10 a day. Very convenient to the museums as well as the Washington Monument. Plus, it has super clean bathrooms and decent food court. It’s a nice place to stop for a drink or food and relax.

In the car the other day talking about Niagara Falls. Erin (who recently broke her pinkie) pipes up and sez: “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, I might break my other pinkie.”

In the car the other day, we’re all talking about salads.

Erin, “I love the salad at school.”
Us, “Oh yeah, why?”
Erin, “Cuz it’s always fresh, there aren’t any tomatoes, hardly any lettuce and lots of croutons.”

Jesus. How many times did I say that to Lisa when she so gently inquired as to my plans for the heap of old computer crap I was hoarding. Yeah, I’m gonna fix some 20yr old Macs and sell them on Ebay. For what, maybe $20.00, maybe? “I need to go through each computer and get any upgrade cards I put in, I’m gonna sell those on EBay too . . .” Yeaaahhhh. It’s funny the roadblocks you put in front of yourself when you don’t want to do something. Like, say getting a colonoscopy cuz yer getting near 50 years old. “No one, including a gastro Doc is touching the button, got it?” That’s a fight for another day, back to the computer crap. Read more »

Looks like I’m late on this one, but get thee to Maryland Day tomorrow. The weather is going to be great. This is a must for all ages, but a super must for families.
Wind tunnels, FREE Ice Cream, Insect Zoo, Robotics, Music, Kayaking, Rock Climbing, Art, Music . . . and that’s just the first hour. Maryland Day simply can’t be described, you have to actually go to understand how great it truly is.

I wrote about it last year after the fact. I hoped to get the word out sooner this year, oops. :-) Been kinda busy.

It was just too nice today to sit around. So, last minute TheDadReport crew ran up to Baltimore to catch the Orioles vs. Yankees (cuz the Nats were out of town). It was hard to tell who the home team was. There were as many Yankee fans as O’s fans. Reminds me of a Nats game last year vs. Cubs, it was a sea of Cub blue. Hate that shit. In fact just today Tom Boswell wrote about Gnat President Stan Kasten inviting Philly fans down to Nats town, wtf? Put real MLB playas on the field and we won’t have to ask hated rivals like Philly to bring down some more of their obnoxious ilk. For that matter, you could put my daughter’s softball team out there and I’d still never want a Philly, Cub, Marlin or Met fan in the house.  Read more »

Okay, Saturday was beautiful so TheDadReport crew headed up to one of our favorite places, historic Frederick, Maryland. We put the girls through an hour of unbelievable, grueling, medieval-like torture called “looking at antiques.” After the umpteenth groan, Lisa had to bust out the, “look we go to places for you all the time and don’t complain . . .” talk.  They don’t know how lucky they were.  I was gearing up the, “do you know how many hours I’ve stood in Aeropostale* for you two ingrates” speech.  They chilled tout de suite.

One place we always visit is the Candy Kitchen, I recommend it.  Freshly made fudge and other goodies, sugar-free items as well.  Also, this time we went to a place some friends told us of, the Frederick Coffee Company and Cafe. We had a simple nice lunch, just what we were looking for, ie: it wasn’t McFatty’s. Give the Chicken Salad a try, it was great. We didn’t have coffee, but our friends say it’s very good. A favorite restaurant for lunch, (white table cloth) is Firestone’s, made even better by the fairly recent Frederick County smoking ban. There are a couple very cool toy stores in town. We like Dancing Bear Toys and Gifts, pop in there you won’t be disappointed. They have a fantastic array of interesting and fun toys as well as nicely chosen books.

As we’re strolling along, we come to a place I’ve wanted to investigate, the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Or, as Lisa and I affectionately refer to it, “The Chopped Limbs and Blown-Off Chins Museum.” I should have known better than to take a 7 and 11yr old to a Civil War Medicine Museum. Hey, it’s a museum, it’ll be educational . . . plus admission was free that day. So what if they’re scarred for life, pays ‘em back for all the antique crap we got earlier in the day. Piss and moan about walking through an antique store and we just may make you look at a pile of amputated limbs. Oh, wait, they already saw that. Read more »

This morning, me and Mrs. Dad Report decided to run down to Einstein Bros to pick up a few bagels. We’re sitting at the light where Franklin Avenue runs into Colesville Road. As the light changes on the Colesville side from green to yellow, a minivan coming down Colesville (South) tries to stop. He slams on the brakes and starts skidding through the light. At the same time there is a man walking down the sidewalk on the same side of the road.

As the van is skidding, the driver oversteers and the van flips over onto its top and is skidding toward the man walking. Fortunately the man was aware of what was coming and nimble enough to move out of the way. The van skidded to a halt, half in the street and half on the sidewalk. Read more »

Took the DadReport crew to UMD the other night to see the lady Terps beat up on BC. Driving home from the game I’m thirsty as a rat with anti-coagulant poison boiling in his throat. So I decide to pull into McDonalds for a Grande Elixir of the Gods.

As I’m pulling into the drive-thru Erin pipes up from the back seat:
“What are we going to McFatty’s for?”

I’m driving down University Boulevard in Langley Park today minding my own business. “Beeooowwipp.” Wha? I look in my rear view window and a PG cop is pulling me over.  Jesus Christ . . . my mind is racing . . . all my outstanding warrants, an open liquor bottle. Damn it’s tough hiding a still smoking crack pipe as Johnny Low is walking up to your car. Oh wait, that’s on Cops, not me, relax.

“My name is officer Johnny Low, PG Police, this stop is being recorded. License and registration please . . . “ sez he.
“Uh huh” sez me.
“Your brakelight is out.” sez he.
“Uh huh” sez me.
“Lot’s of accidents here on University” sez he.
“Uh huh” sez me.

So he walks back to his car with my ID and reg to do what they do in their cars. At this point I gotta admit I’m kinda gangsta leaning/scrunched down in my car. “Yeah yo, broken brake light and shit, that’s right. What’you looking at?”

I can see people driving in the opposite direction looking over at me. Hhhmm . . . they look like I look like I’m guilty of something more than a brake light. Damn, so that’s what I look like when I’m “tsk tsking” at that obvious perp the thin blue PG line has accosted. Good, another “one” off the streets. That look I’m getting only grows when PG cop number 2 pulls up behind Johnny number 1 lights flashing. Man, my street cred is through the roof. “Yeah, took 2 of dem bitches to stop me yo . . .”

“Here’s your work order for the light. You have 10 days to get it done. Have a nice day. You’re free to go.” sez he.
“Uh huh” sez me.