DR. DENIM: Another shot I love, "beaming C.J." Does this kid look happy or what? 

THE LAST RITES OF THE WELFARE STATE: Is this genius or a kind of utopianism? Regardless, I love radical rethinkings like this.

AND THE OTHER TWO: Mom and Mikey sometimes seem like they're attached at the hip. The boy is in a major "Mommy" phase.  

MY LITTLE DUDE: Holy cow, is this kid growing up fast. 

FEELING VERY WRONG: I've read Eric Haney before, and I respect his career. Here he is taking apart the war, the torture, the Bush legacy. It hurts to read it.

I haven't written much about Bush and the war in a while. What's to write? I believed in the war. And I believed in the president. I read, I researched as best I could, and I voted for what appears to have been a uniquely incompetent administration. That I did so with the best of intentions leaves me with a clear conscience, but a heavy heart.

IDOL PREDICTIONS? Wow, if this site is reliable it sort of takes some of the fun out of it.

MCCAIN! So where do I send my money for the McCain in '08 fund? At this point he's my guy. Looks like I'm not alone.

GOD OF FINLAND: I'm a big Conan O'Brien fan, so I really enjoyed this story about his recent weird trip to Finland.

INVENTOR OF VERBIAGE: Me and my pal Dick were having an argument at lunch over the proper pronunciation of Cannes, as in "the Cannes Film Festival." Having been there -- hmmph -- I told him it was pronounced "can." Being kind of an intellectual snobby type, he assured me it was pronounced "con." Anyway, being the kind of nitpicker-dick that I am, always having to be in the know and whatnot, I rushed back and proved my point and e-mailed him about it. Although he was unimpressed with my victory, he was especially taken with the new expression I invented to describe what I'd done. I told him I'd done my "Goo-diligence," meaning that I'd used Google to...you get it.

And I was so proud of myself, and feeling so protective of my new term, that I rushed here to show it off to y'all.

BTW, "verbiage" has only two syllables. And you don't "pronunciate" something, you just pronounce it.

I am such a grammar prig.

THRILLWAUKEE PART THREE: And so Licky woke up at 4AM and has been up since. Unbeknownst to me, that is. I did hear him start yelling around then, but I thought he put himself back to sleep. Turns out Eileen went in there and has been rocking him for the past three hours. I awoke with a full-blown, husky-voice cold. That'll be fun for my flight tonight. Full sinuses on a little Canadair regional jet. Wah. Meanwhile C.J.'s jonesin' for an early A.M. swim. And Eileen wants a Starbucks.

THRILLWAUKEE, PART TWO: And so we rejoin the story with C.J. down for a nap, Michael down for a nap, and Eileen's Marshall's bathing suit looking to spend the weekend in Chicago in its bag...

And let me backtrack for a second to recount how we found Michael this morning. It's 6:00AM, his standard waking time, and we hear a very nonstandard croaking sound coming from his room. Nothing scary, but he sounds a little off. And well he should, since a quick inspection reveals the kid is wearing what is essentially a snot mache mask, with bloody accents all around his nostrils where he's fingernailed his discontent. Just gross. Snotbubbles rising and falling in his nostrils like a lizard's flamboyant throat thrust out in the sunlight, out and in, in and out. Yucky.

And so it's midday now, and our maniac friends and their family are arriving in Milwaukee, and I'm about to make the call that says we're OUT, we won't make it, when...

...C.J. bursts from his room and shouts, "Let's go to the hotel!" He's reborn, animated, cheeks aflush with health and anticipation. "Vamos!"

What the heck. We retrieve a clean-nosed Licky from his bed, he too wearing the glow of rediscovered health, start shoving diapers and sandals and DVDs into my couch-on-wheels, and we head-ass up to Milwaukee.

And it's been worth it. We have a giant suite with an adjoining bedroom. Licky's sprawled out in a pack-and-play next-door, and the other three of us are in here amidst left-over pizza and french fries and Kirkland Shiraz. Our friends and their frenzied progeny have just retired to their own rooms, and we're set for a 7AM rendesvous down at the water-park.

And there's a Starbucks in the lobby!

And C.J. just walked up and said, "Daddy, what planet are we on now?"

I often wonder that very thing. I'm pretty sure it's just called...

Planet Kid.

THRILLWAUKEE, PART ONE: I don't post much of late, but this seems like a good time to sling one out there into the ethers.

We had this big plan this weekend, where our maniac family and a few other maniac families were gonna head up to the Milwaukee Hilton and exploit the waterpark therein. Slides. Hot tubs. Zero-depth mayhem. Trouble was when we woke up this morning Licky was a sinus-addled mess, and C.J. was a grump. No matter. We forged ahead, even reserving a second, adjoining room so that Licky would have his own dark crib-room to mewl and puke in (reference, anyone?) as he pleased. Alas, that all changed when, near noon, C.J. clutched his tummy, screamed "Poopies are coming fast!" and stormed up the stairs to unleash rampant diahrrhea. "I want to go to bed right now," he cried, clutching his belly. "My bottom has a bug in it."

And so he literally put himself to bed, climbing in under the covers and racing off to dreamland in record time.

It seemed like all was lost then, Eileen's new Marshalls' discount suit all for naught.

Oh, shit, the pizza's here. To be continued.