Dog love on Instagram

Have you seen Yogurt the Pirate Dog? This is a trend on Instagram, pet love in the form of full accounts dedicated to the little stars. Yogurt is a one-eyed, floppy-tongued female chihuahua with a breathing problem and a following of almost 19,000 people as of this writing. She fits in that category of something that is so ugly it's cute. There are plenty of those kind of animals on Instagram. Here are a few animal-specific profiles for your family to oogle over:

• Dogs
• aikebulldog
• _humphreythegreat_
• little_aussie_scout
• phillipsfurchildren
• olivethefrenchbulldog
• kaceylamaney
• charlie_the_labmix
• chihuahuacharlie
• finntheaussie
• penny_thecavalier
• sammyofawesome
• tcthebeagle
• rosiegirlfriend
• Cats
• 4everfriendscattery
• oliver_the_kitten4
• mimichan_the_cat
• mrmickmarsbar
• thekiricat
• miss_smokeybelle
• kittycentral_
• instablackcats
• ohjellycat
• mrbruceleecat
• tuxxypoo_the_tuxedocat
• sushirulz
• prada_puss

Want to find some trends in Instagram pictures? Go to Statigram and search for a hashtag (like "dogsofinstagram" without the #). It's amazing what you might find. My personal favorite:

http://statigr.am/tag/gooberthepitbull/

I might be biased though.

Hot Cheetos and Takis: Implications of music and family

Get to know the people behind the production in this interview by The FADER.

If you haven't seen the recent buzz about the Hot Cheetos & Takis video (above), and the kids of the Minneapolis North Community YMCA extracurricular rap class Beats & Rhymes, known as Y.N.RichKids, you have missed out on a lot. These aren't just cute kids with a professional music production and a few videos. These kids have, in this parent's opinion, embodied the potential of music to be more than just background noise for kids. In a music market overrun by adult themes, it is the non-profit programs that have been instrumental in developing child-level music appreciation without the degradation of their status in society.

What does that mean? I mean to have you watch the video, the rest of the videos on their web site, and consider what they could be rapping about. The most controversial song I've heard so far on the free downloads (that's right, FREE) of music from Y.N.RichKids is "G.F." on the School House Rap album, about a boy seeing a pretty girl and wanting her to be his girl. Compared to what that could be, the spectrum of lyrics that could go along with a more adult subject like relationships, the song is more middle school "like" than the complexity of "love". In all, I am very impressed with the lyric choices, the subject matter and the professional polish of the music this program is producing. It's something I am not ashamed of letting my kids listen to.

Now, in full disclosure, rap is not generally the favorite of our family. I grew up with rap and hip hop in the 80s and 90s, but my tastes turned to guitar-related music as I was learning guitar and rock myself. Morgan has always been more into pop, country, rock and punk. The kids vary from pop music to tweenpop, though each has their own personal taste (Aiden loves rock and punk, Alayna is more into tweenpop like Sabrina Gomez and Demi Levato, Brooklyn likes pop like Bruno Mars, and Bella likes classic rock). However, it's not like they haven't heard rap and hip hop before. I listen to crossover hip hop and spoken word, like The Roots, Flobots, Scroobius Pip, KRS-One, or crossover beats like Portishead and Massive Attack, something with a message that doesn't include being a thug. Fooling yourself into complacency by rapping about how horrible of a human you can be is just not something I care about, nor is it something my kids should be interested in.

There are some exceptions. I've always been impressed with Eminem, Jay-Z and many of the rappers that came from the 80s. Maybe that's why I like Y.N.RichKids. It reminds me more of that old school sound and cadence, but with more contemporary producing quality.

We need more of this in the mainstream. Where are the record deals for the kid-friendly artists? Sure, the Aquabats have a TV show, but you don't hear them on any mainstream radio. The general public likes controversial. It sells. Meat dresses and naked wrecking ball videos are what sell music to adults that have money.

I haven't bought music in a long, long time. I don't download it illegally either. As I said in a previous post, there is plenty to hear on free radio and public downloads. And as my economic status improves, I'm not adverse to buying a song on iTunes or Google Play if it's something I really like. But album-based consumerism is dying. I'm more likely to find what I want on Pandora or iTunes Radio and then go out and buy it because I want to add it to a collection. And I am adding Y.N.RichKids to that collection.

Aiden is learning trombone, for what reason I still have not worked out. We showed him a video of Mighty Mighty Boss Tones as an example of what that could mean to him as an artist (incidentally, the guy playing trombone in that band is black, like the trombone player included in The Roots touring team). If he wants to try to create something, a recording perhaps, with that instrument, I can work out a hip hop style song on open source software and let him write it himself, using his trombone as a melody.

This is a true implication of what music could be for a family, an expressive channel without the adulthood if needed. Some kids have been through more, and maybe want to express that through song. That is completely fine, as long as the family considers what public performance of such songs can cause, the consequences, both good like support and bad like ridicule, that would occur from such promotion. But include music in your child's life, and do it early. Not just Elmo or nursery rhymes, but real music like Y.N.RichKids, Aquabats, or someone Greasy Kid Stuff plays on their radio show.

Join us as a family enjoying music. As a family.

In the nosebleed section

Some pics from our first family Blazer game, courtesy of Dream Big Community Center here in Vancouver, WA. We needed the family time. Brooklyn was way over stimulated, Aiden couldn't focus on the game with his friend Keelen along, and Bella nearly fell asleep at the beginning. But it was all worth it to hear the roar of the crowd, the lights and music. It was even worth our first game being another loss for Oregon's great basketball project.

Alayna coming home!

Today, the new parenting plan officially giving Joe custody was signed by a judge! We have to wait about a week to get a certified copy from the court house. We are all VERY excited, especially Alayna. Don't get me wrong, she loves her mom, and her mom loves her; but Alayna's life at our house is very different than the one she lives at her mom's.

At her mom's house, she's an only child. She doesn't get a lot of interaction with kids outside of school, and they (from what we know) lead a very adult focused life. At our house, we have 3 other kids. There is ALWAYS something child friendly going on. We live a very child focused life. Very few of the activities we plan are for Joe and I; a good 98% of them are for the kids.

We've already spoken to the local school about Alayna and her special needs. She will be getting a full IEP evaluation (PT, OT, speech, social skills, academics, etc) EVERYTHING will be evaluated. We're expecting that she'll qualify for PT for gross motor skills, possible OT for sensory, speech/social for social skills development, and academic support. Alayna is very bright, but we don't know that she's ever really been pushed to reach her full potential.

The plan is to get her as much support through the local public school as possible and then decide if she needs more outside support. We'd also like to get her into counseling to help her work through all of the huge changes going on in her life right now. We think it would help her to have someone not involved (Joe, me, or her mom) to talk to about her concerns and feelings without having to worry about the feelings of the person she's talking to.

We are all very excited to have her home full time; however during the summer she'll be home every other week so that she can also spend time with her mom. Once school starts in September she'll be visiting her mom every other weekend.

And next week, Alayna turns 12 years old! I'll have a nice big post about that. I can't believe how big she's gotten and how fast time has gone. My little princess that could barely walk and talk when I first met her is almost all grown up!

Bad stuff happens, and has...

Made with deviantArt muro by Joe

Seems like the last few weeks has been a lesson in dealing with the negatives of life. A customer of mine and good acquaintance who frequented my work died, shot by a crazy friend's neighbor at a party. Our friend, Jennifer Peters, died from her fight with cancer. Then just this last week a girl our family has known for a very long time, Morgan for 15 years and me for 10, died from a hit-and-run when she crossed SR503 in Battle Ground. It's not what anyone wants to go through. Add the frustrations of work and having so much stuff in such a small apartment, it forces you to consider what you can do to counteract this feeling of hopelessness, like the world is fighting against you.

It seems so cliche to say, "Use these tragedies to learn a lesson and make yourself better." But why shouldn't you make that the first thing you do in times like this? A friend dies in a shooting, so you make a point to consider the places you frequent and the people you let your children hang out with. A very good person dies of cancer, and you decide to donate your time in some way to cancer survivors. Someone gets hit on a busy highway so you donate money to a cause that provides traffic safety education to children. And in the midst, you remember these people not as tragic stories of loss but instead as inspirations to greatness.

As my quick little sketch above states, bad stuff happens. There's really not much you can do to be affected by the sublime events of life; sometime, somewhere, some way, you will be caught up in the ripple effect of a tragedy. It's inevitable. The question you have to ask yourself is what you will do when it happens. Will you let it take over your thoughts, coloring your world with a dark overtone and a haze of depression? Or will you focus the light in your life on your dark spot to clear its effect on you away?