It was almost two years ago exactly that I showed you how bad of a dad I can be. That was when I started Clone on his stirring his drink habit. ItÂ’s funny; to this day he wants ice in his drink and a straw with which to stir it. Well apparently other habits of mine heÂ’s picked up. You may have noticed that I tend to sample beers every now and then. ItÂ’s purely for the education of you, my dear readers.

In the sampling of the beers, I have a certain ritual I go through. First I pour the beer into a glass. Holding it up to the light I can judge color, clarity and head. Then I smell the beer. A couple of long, slow inhalations through the nose gives me a thorough appreciation of the aroma. Finally I take the first drink. Clone has seen me do this at least once a week for almost a year now.

A couple of months ago he started asking me if he could smell the beer. I’d take a whiff and then he’d say, “Dad, I wanna sniff it!” So I’d let him take a quick sniff just to see what he would say. Usually he says it smells good and that when he gets older he can drink it with me. So it shouldn’t surprise me that last Wednesday when I was doing my review, I had to set my beer down to grab a pencil and paper to jot down notes. When I turned around, guess what I saw? That’s right:

Fortunately for me, I had just finished downloading some pictures from an employeeÂ’s baby shower on to the computer. My camera was sitting there, ready to go so I quickly picked it up and tried to catch in the act. Unfortunately he was backing away when I snapped the picture. It was hilarious. He had his nose right to the rim of the glass with his hand fanning the scent toward his face. His eyes were closed as he inhaled deeply.

Then he smiled.

I am such a bad influence.

Posted by: Contagion at 04:43 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Ktreva's Birthday is coming up soon, so I thought she's been a good wife. I should get her something special. Today on lunch we went and picked out her present. But I can't let you know yet... it's a surprise.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This past weekend Ktreva and I took Clone to see Rockford AirFest 2007. All last week we could hear the planes arriving and practicing. We could watch them from our front porch. Clone would get so excited heÂ’d run all over the house trying to see them. It took quite a bit of convincing that by the time he could hear the jets, they were already past.

We decided that maybe he’d enjoy getting to see the planes up close. Surprise! We nailed that one on the head. In fact he was so excited with in the first 15 minutes of being there, I think he actually short-circuited his brain. He didn’t know what to point to, where he wanted to go, or anything. He couldn’t even complete a sentence. Here is, I kid you not, an actual transcript.” WOW! Dad look at.. Over there is… Momma! Do you see the.. Dad, that way I want to… Look up there it’s…. Wow! Can we go… DAD!!!!!!” Then I think he had a mental overload as the sound of the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive failing came from his head.

When we arrived a squadron of P-51 mustangs were doing a demonstration. At the end of it they flew the missing man formation in honor of all the men and women that have given their lives in the service of our country. Folks, I will honestly admit that not only did I feel a lump in my throat as that formation flew right over my head, but I damn well misted up.

P-51Â’s in a missing man formation

We spent some time looking for a place to watch the show. We had just finished setting up our chairs when this longhaired hippy came up and started begging for beer. I wasnÂ’t about to give him any since he was already had a beer in each hand. Then I realized thatÂ’s no hippy, itÂ’s T1GÂ…. in bad need of a haircut. (Seriously I have a picture for proof). We also bumped into Ragingmom. It was like a mini-ubercool blogmeet.

I brought my camera with to take some pictures. There were some people around me that made the comments “Why bother? All you’re going to get are dots in the sky.” I figured it’s digital. It’s not like I’m out any film. And even if I had been, I still would have tried. Normally I don’t share a lot of my more artsy photos as I take pictures mainly for me, but I really liked some of these photos. I ended up taking 620 pictures. I only wish I had brought the zoom lens with, I figured the wide angle would be better for the ground shots. Since I really didn’t end up taking any, I should have brought the zoom lens. Oh well.. next year. Also I edited the shape of some of the photo's in order to cut out dead space and reduce their size.

Part of the show had a P-51, an F-15 and an F-16 flying in formation together. It was pretty cool to watch these three generations of planes flying together. Watching them though, I could help but to think that the P-51 had to be straining to keep up the speed and that the F-16 looked like it was about to fall out of the sky because it was moving so slow. But it did make for some great viewing.

From top to bottom. P-51 Mustang, F-16 Falcon, F-15 Eagle.

The main attraction this year was the US Navy Blue Angels. This was the first time I actually was able to see them perform. It was truly amazing. At times they looked like they where actually touching each other they where so close. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the Blue Angels in action. Click to enlarge any of the photos.

There is not a larger picture of this one, it flew right over my head.

The leader flipped his plane upside while in formation at 400 MPH

A six-jet formation

Six Jet flyby.

I do have one question for my readers. The US Navy has the Blue Angels, The Air Force has the Thunderbirds (At last years show), The Army has the Golden Knights parachute team (Also at the show this year)Â… What do the Marines have? Seriously, IÂ’m sure they have something; IÂ’m just not sure what it is.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:36 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 What do Marines have? Guns & attitude :-)

Posted by: Harvey at June 04, 2007 10:45 PM (L7a63)

2 Marine pilots fly for the Blue Angels. You know Don & Roma on WLS? Their son Hunter is a Marine and flew with them.
Your pictures are so much better than mine! All I got was clouds.

Posted by: Raging Mom at June 05, 2007 04:51 AM (l+Chn)

3 Harvey, I was waiting for someone to say, "The Marines are too busy actually working to play" or something like that.

Ragingmom: Thanks for the compliment. I have a total of 620 pictures everything from the Red Baron Flight Squad to Fat Albert (The Blue Angel's C-130)I just couldn't share all of them.

Posted by: Contagion at June 05, 2007 06:07 AM (Q5WxB)

4 I am so geeked because this year at the Willow Run Airshow the Blue Angels will be back.

The last time they were at the airshow was a couple decades ago.

We can see the show (except low flying stuff) from our back porch.

Posted by: Quality Weenie at June 05, 2007 10:12 AM (R6yie)

5 While Fat Albert is a USMC plane, and there are Marines on the Blue Angels' team, it's still listed as sponsored by the Navy. I think the Silent Drill Team is about it for the USMC.

They'll still give you goosebumps, though.

Posted by: That 1 Guy at June 05, 2007 08:04 PM (Vw0J6)

6 Hell I thought the Marine's were sponsored by the Navy

Posted by: BloodSpite at June 05, 2007 09:57 PM (ZTGJT)

7 I skipped it this year since I just went last year. Saw the Angels fly right over my house a couple of times though.

Posted by: Shadoglare at June 06, 2007 09:04 PM (SKQFl)

8 Awesome pictures!!! We're going to have to make it donw for that next year!!

Posted by: Richmond at June 08, 2007 11:52 AM (e8QFP)

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