Zach vs. Mitch King

My 20-month old son Zach received Mitch King jersey for Christmas. Those of you who aren't familiar with Mitch King should be ashamed of yourself. He just finished up a stellar career with the Iowa Hawkeyes after anchoring the defensive line for 4 years. He was 1st team All Big Ten, and was named Defensive Lineman of the Year in the Big Ten. Seeing Zach run around wreaking havoc in his Mitch King jersey got me thinking about how he'd stack up against the 270 pound lineman.

Mitch King: The most disruptive force in the Big Ten.
Zach: The most disruptive force at daycare
Advantage: Zach. I'd rather spend a day getting kicked around by football players than battling toddlers.

Mitch King: Causes opposing quarterbacks to crap their pants.
Zach: Craps his own pants.
Advantage: Mitch King. Even though Zach's craps can be tremendous, they can't stack up to causing a grown man to poop himself.

Zach: Weighed 10lb 12oz at birth.
Mitch King: Birth weight unknown.
Advantage: Zach. I don't know how big Mitch King was, but I bet it wasn't nearly 11 pounds. If he was that big at birth, the announcers would have told us about it every game just like they informed us Shonn Greene moved furniture last year. Also, Zach was 3 weeks early.

Mitch King: Cut his hair before the biggest game of the year and still dominated.
Zach: Dunked his head in the toilet and thought it was hilarious.
Advantage: Mitch King. Zach is a frigging idiot.

Mitch King: Speaks in tongues before games to fire up the troops.
Zach: Speaks in tongues all the time due to limited vocabulary.
Advantage: Mitch King. Again, Zach is a frigging idiot.

Zach: Head butts anything that gets in his way.
Mitch King: Butts heads with o-lineman that get in his way.
Advantage: Zach. He doesn't wear a helmet.

Zach: Smiles too much.
Mitch King: Never smiles. Was ready to tear someone apart at the pep rally before the Outback Bowl, probably for smiling at him.
Advantage: Mitch King. Smiling all the time makes Zach look like a slow kid.

Even with an obvious bias toward the fruit of my loins, Mitch King still wins a close match up. It might be a different story in 20 years.

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Knoxville Trip-Day 6

Day 6-Coming home
We left Knoxville at about 6:30am, this time with little hope that Zach would sleep. He didn’t disappoint at first, as he continued to yell Mama and Dada. He faded off sometime before Nashville, so we continued on to Clarksville for breakfast.

A lesser family would have had a coronary on the spot from eating at the Waffle House two days in a row, it only gave us indigestion. Sarah took the second leg and drove to Troy, which is just north of St. Louis. We grabbed lunch at McDonalds and were disappointed the outdoor play area was closed. It was about 45 degrees, but with the kids being cooped up for several hours they would have gladly risked frostbite to play outside. I drove the rest of the uneventful drive home. We were greeted by 20 degree temps and the knowledge that we had to go back to work in a couple days.
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Knoxville Trip-Day 5

Day 5: New Years Day at the Waffle House
It’s not a trip to the south without going to a Waffle House. We met Jennifer and Cheryl at about 10 to find the local Waffle House packed. Aparrently, this is a fairly rare occurrence. We waited about 10 minutes and then crammed the 8 of us into a booth. Luckily, a booth across the aisle from us opened up before the food arrived so we could spread out. We stuffed ourselves with cheap breakfast food and went to Cheryl’s house to watch some football. I’m a die-hard Iowa fan and they were playing South Carolina in the Outback Bowl. I was fortunate that Iowa built a lead early and put the game out of reach. If it had been close (or, perish the thought, Iowa lost) Jennifer and Cheryl would have seen a very different side of me. I tend to get a little emotional (swearing, throwing objects, etc.) when the game is tight or Iowa is losing. I kept the Mr. Hyde part of my personality in check as I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Hawks destroy South Carolina.

After the game, we toured PJ’s (Cheryl’s husband) shop. Him and his father own a shop that specializes in cars from the 50s, muscle cars, street rods, hot rods, corvettes and custom one-off creation. And yes, I pulled that description directly from their website(www.b-rodorcustom.com ). I’m not huge gear head, but I do have an appreciation for cars. I left thoroughly impressed, the work they do is really cool. They had projects in all stages and apparently weren’t struggling due to the recession. They had plenty of work to do in the forseeable future.
We went back to the condo that afternoon for our last evening in Knoxville. We (meaning Sarah) did some laundry while I packed up the mountains of crap we had brought along. I called it a night earlier than usual, as we were heading out before dawn and I knew would be driving the first leg.
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Knoxville Trip-Day 4

We had no real plans for the day. We decided to take a drive through the Smokey Mountains that afternoon before going to a New Year Eve’s party that night. We drove south through Alcoa (wouldn’t you know it, there is a huge Alcoa plant there) and Maryville (unfortunately, no Maryville plant) before climbing into the mountains. The drive isn’t terribly difficult, it’s curvy but not too steep. The route we took wound along a stream and had several places to pull over and stop. We stopped briefly twice to take pictures and wander around. The stops were brief because the temperature was hovering around freezing and we weren’t exactly dressed for cold weather.

We headed back toward Knoxville to attend a New Year’s party hosted by a couple of friends of Jennifer. The guy’s name is Keith, I don’t recall the woman’s name because I was too pre-occupied with her fantastic rack. I was fairly certain they were artificially enhanced (my suspicion was confirmed later that evening) but that didn’t stop me from being very impressed. It was a pretty standard New Years party, the kids played upstairs and the adults sat around drinking and eating. Zach managed to stay awake until midnight and was well behaved the entire night. He dropped a tremendous crap shortly after we arrived and pooped out of his diaper. Luckily we had brought pajamas along so he had something clean to change into. He ran around all night smiling at strangers and vacuuming. We could have sold him that night for a healthy profit. Instead, we headed back to the condo with all 3 of our children.
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Knoxville Trip-Day 3

Knoxville is home to a better-than-average zoo, so we decided to visit it on Tuesday. The temperature was in the 50s so we were comfortable in jackets. The zoo had all the standard residents. Zach really liked the elephants and giraffes, but the gorillas freaked him out. We determined likes large animals that are at a distance. The gorillas scared him because they were in their winter homes behind glass. Two of the gorillas were running around and coming very close to hitting the glass. Zach apparently didn’t like his odds against a 400-pound gorilla.

The zoo didn’t take us terribly long to go through. After about 3 hours we had seen everything and were ready to head out. I was glad admission is half-price during the winter. It’s normally $17 for adults and $13 for kids 2-12 so it would have cost us $60 to get in. That seems like a lot for 3 hours of entertainment, but $30 was about right. By comparison the Omaha Zoo is regularly priced at about $12 for adults and $7 for kids. Omaha has an indoor rainforest, an indoor dessert, and a huge aquarium. I’ve taken the kids to Omaha 3 times, and every time we are there for 6-8 hours and I have to talk the kids into leaving. Maybe my expectations for zoos are too high, but for something educational I like see it reasonably priced. I’ll step off my soapbox now.
Sarah, Cheryl and Jennifer wanted to go to a movie that night so I had kid duty. We had a healthy meal of leftover pizza and then played a rousing game of hide and seek. As you can imagine, playing hide and seek in a two bedroom condo is difficult. There are very few hiding places so we exhausted all the good spots in no time flat. Next, the girls wanted to play Trivial Pursuit.
I’ve always been a big fan of Trivial Pursuit, but it’s an effort in futility when playing with a 7 and 8 year old. The game was released 15 years before they were born, so we had to modify the game a bit. Anytime they landed on a piece of the pie, they automatically got it. There were also a lot of hints and clues. I was beaten soundly, but that was ok. The kids had a good time and they were ready to settle down after the game.
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Knoxville trip-Day 2

Sarah’s (the wife) favorite past-time is shopping, so that was the first order of business. We met up with Jennifer and Cheryl to get lunch and split up. We ate at the Tennessee Brewery something-something for lunch. We split the largest calzone I’ve ever seen and decided I would take the girls to the Tale of Desperaux while the womenfolk took Zach and Lydia shopping. I told Zach to stay strong and don’t fight it. Shopping trips are inevitable, just find your happy place.

The movie was better than average. It was watchable, which is more than I can say for a lot of kids films (see: Hufalump or anything with High School Musical in the title). The glrls both had $10 of their own money to spend, so I took them to a couple stores. They couldn’t decide on anything so they left empty-handed. I bought Zach a University of Tennessee football. I figure he deserved it for taking one for the team. We hung out in the library (also known as Borders) before heading back to the condo late that afternoon.
We settled on Litton’s for dinner that night. It’s a local favorite (it has to be good, Peyton Manning’s picture is on the wall) and it didn’t disappoint us. Litton’s offers huge portions of reasonably priced food. The atmosphere is a bit unusual as it becomes abundantly obvious that the restaurant has been expanded several times. The expansions appear haphazard as the décor, flooring, funishings, etc. don’t match from one room to the next. The waitstaff is great and if you’re going to Litton’s, save room for desert. You’ll be glad you did.
After stuffing our faces we retired to the condo and got ready for our next adventure, a day at the zoo.
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Family trip to Knoxville

We just returned from 6 days in Knoxville...well, ok, 4 days in Knoxville and 2 days of travel. I have to head back to work on Monday and I'm having a hard time remembering what I do for a living. I'm either a telemarketer or a shepherd..or maybe I herd telemarketers. Hopefully I'll figure it out before Monday. Here's my trip report for day one, once again proving that getting there isn't half the fun.

I got a lot of strange looks from people when I told them where we were going over our holiday break. I’d say we’re heading to Tennessee, and they would assume Nashville or Memphis. I’d correct them and say we’re going to Knoxville, and they’d ask what’s in Knoxville. I’d say “What’s not in Knoxville?” and that’s about where the conversation would end. It was probably easier that way, otherwise I’d have to explain we were visiting my wife’s “family” (they’re not technically family, they are my wife’s cousin’s cousin, if that makes any sense). The bottom line is they are hospitable, willing to put us up in their parents condo, and a lot of fun to hang out with.
We set off at 5:30 am for a 12-hour car ride with our 3 children. The girls are 8 and 7, so they are old enough to entertain themselves. They are also old enough to ask a million times how much farther. Our son is a year and a half and is not the greatest traveler. We had hoped all 3 of the children would sleep for the first few hours of the drive, and we were wrong. I made a tactical error by not taking interstate 80 as I figured going straight south would get me out of the ice faster (when Iowa is not getting mountains of snow, we get some hellacious ice storms. One went through the night before we left). The problem is I-80 is heavily travelled, so the ice was probably not as bad.
Between the weather and the kids, the first leg of our drive was torturous. We stopped in Hannibal, MO (motto: we sure hope people don’t get tired of Mark Twain) for McDonalds. I re-fueled and headed toward St. Louis. We expected light traffic through St.Louis, andwe were right. We also spotted our first Waffle House. In addition to being the gateway to the west, I’ve always felt St. Louis is the doorstep to the south. Zach was excessively loud throughout the first leg, and he continued it into our second leg. He has a limited vocabulary, it’s a lot of Mama! Dada! And everything he says has an exclamation point. He eventually faded off to sleep and once that happened we decided we needed to go as far as we could. We made it to the Kentucky/Tennessee border, opting to stop on the Kentucky side for KFC. I reasoned Kentucky Fried Chicken should be better in Kentucky than anywhere else. We stuffed ourselves with greasy chicken and the wife took over driving duties the rest of the way to Knoxville.
Our hosts in Knoxville, Jennifer and Cheryl, along with Lydia (Cheryl’s daughter) and Pappajohn’s Pizza greeted us upon our arrival. In spite of our slow start, we made to Knoxville in just over 12 hours. We ate, visited, had deep conversations about our respective family’s neurosis, and called it a night.
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