Scott.Buffington.me

A crisis?  Not really, but some disappointment definitely was prevented.  Every year since my son's first Christmas in 2001 I have purchased my son a Hess Truck, only this year for what I think is the fourth time it is not a truck but a race car.  Pretty much since October every illness my kids have gotten I have also picked up in some way shape or form, easily this is a record for cold and flu for me.  For roughly a week and a half since October 20th or so I have been healthy, it is really quite frustrating.  To make a long story short, I kept putting off stopping in at a Hess station to buy this years Hess Toy Truck, err vehicle.  

Finally today I decided was the day, I had intended to go and do this last week, but sinus pressure and a serious headache kept me from venturing out.  I had this belief that these things rarely if ever sold out and I was wrong.  I visited my normal stop and a sign on the door read that the Hess Toy Race Car was sold out.  I asked inside if they knew of other stations that still had this years Hess toy.  They said they had just sold out and that they believed all the stations were sold out.  I knew of a small Hess station that I figured would not get the amount of traffic this station does.  On my way I passed another Hess station that still had the signs up.  I went inside and was informed they had sold out last week.  My last chance was the small out of the way station I knew of, otherwise that meant I would pay double the price on Ebay and the gift would not arrive until the New Year.  Checking the final station I was told they were sold out, but that a Hess station in Marysville still had some.  I was out on lunch and if I was going to make the trip to Marysville it would be after work.  The lady behind the counter then asked me how many I needed.  I said one would be fine, but I usually purchased two as we kept one in the box.  She sent the other guy in the back and he came back with two.  I do not know what the story was with that, but I was thankful I found the one item that my son looks forward to each year.  

In the future this will not be an item that I put off purchasing.  If by chance Hess would stumble upon any of the numerous mentions I have given them over the years.  I love the creativity of the various vehicles.  But you guys have not done a tanker truck since 1990, I think a tanker truck once every 20 years is okay without you being repetitive.  You have repeated some of your other themes during the past 20 years, for example I see numerous fire trucks.  I think we are ready for a tanker truck of some type again.   

Like last Summer I spent a week unplugged from email and phone calls while spending a week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  I confess I did use my iPhone a few times to check the weather, relatives fiddled with the phone more than I did, but I did not read email, twitter or answer any calls the entire week.  I am still catching up on about 200 personal emails and and my Google Reader subscriptions.  I know I will have a lot of work emails to catch up on Monday morning, but like last year, being unplugged from communications and many of my Internet habits is somehow liberating.

I spent part of my last evening away from daily life and the Internet sitting atop the highest sand dune at Jockey's Ridge State Park watching the Sun set while the boys ran up and down the dunes.  It was a relaxing end to the week before we had to pack for the long drive home.  Note to self, take the kites to Jockey's Ridge next year.

Fun show at Hershey Park Stadium on Friday night and I can now say I finally saw Bruce Springsteen Live, something I have always wanted to do.  I just have never had an opportunity before and was extremely disappointed I could not make the show last August.  Friday was a beautiful night with temperatures in the low 70s and a packed stadium of 30,000 brought out a lot of energy from Bruce and the band.  This was the first stadium show of the tour and the second show featuring Jay Weinberg, Max Weinberg's 18 year old son.  Jay was AWESOME!  He thundered the house all night long on the drums.  I thought the show might have been the longest of the tour so far and I confirmed that at 2:58 it was indeed the longest show so far featuring a tight 27 songs.  The show began at 8:19 p.m.

"Hello Hershey, are you ready to be delivered?" Bruce asked as the band took the stage.
1. Badlands
2. Spirit In The Night
3. Outlaw Pete
4. Radio Nowhere
5. Out In The Street
6. Twist and Shout (sign request, tour premiere)
The sign read: "If U play Twist and Shout" I'll burn my Hannah Montana CDs"
7. Working On A Dream
"Good to be here tonight in the wonderful home of candy" Bruce said to the crowd.
8. Seeds
9. Johnny 99
10. The Ghost Of Tom Joad
11. Raise Your Hand
Bruce collected signs, there were so many.
12. Give the Girl a Kiss (sign request, tour premiere)
I met a guy from the Baltimore area and he said many people thought Bruce would play this at the Hershey show in August of 2008 but he did not.  Bruce picked up a sign that was a big Hershey kiss and on the white wrap it read: "Give the Girl a ...."  This was soundchecked earlier in the afternoon.  "This is very obscure," Bruce said. "Being we are in Hershey, Pa. we'll play it."  Then he was asking the band "How does it start? What's the first guitar part? Oh, just sing it... Who knows this one?"
13. Trapped (sign request)
"I've seen a lot of signs for this one," Bruce said.
14. Waitin' On A Sunny Day
15. The Promised Land
16. Backstreets
17. Kingdom of Days
Bruce mentioned how Patti was home recovering from falling off a horse and that she was also home because it was, "Prom night. My daughter is 17. Security!"
18. Lonesome Day
19. The Rising
20. Born To Run
House lights go up, 30,000 people in Hershey Stadium go crazy.  Even the kids, many 10 years old and younger were singing every word to every song.  You could feel that Bruce and the Band were feeling it.

Encores:

Before the encores Bruce said "I love all the signs but it's getting a little ridiculous."  He then mentioned "18-year-old Jay Weinberg taking over for his Dad. he's the first guy to sit in that seat for 35 years except for his pop. If you want to sit in that seat - that's saying something."
21. Hard Times
22. Thunder Road
23. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
24. Land Of Hope And Dreams
25. American Land
26. Rosalita
The band was ready to leave when Bruce shouted out "We'll do one more!"  He called Jay and the others back out as they were leaving the stage.
27. Bobby Jean

Show over at 11:17 p.m.  I first discovered Bruce Springsteen when I was 13 years old during the "Born in the USA" craze, immediately dug the story telling style of his songs.  I quickly realized he had a whole lot of other awesome music way before that.  Though I have always had a soft spot for "No Surrender" and "Glory Days" both off "Born in the USA", neither one was played at this show.  But so many other great songs were played that I cannot say I was at all disappointed.  Let me tell you, this was three hours of music, with no long guitar or drum solos while the rest of the band disappeared, there was no intermission.  It was three hours of the Boss rocking the house and the entire E Street Band doing their thing.

Zoey Michael
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

Zoey Michael Buffington was born February 13th, 2009 at 8:47AM. She weighed 7 pounds, 4.5 ounces and was 19 inches long. Both mother and daughter are doing well and resting comfortably at home.  Big brother and both big sisters are very proud.

Not really.  They had a laser version of the famous Christmas Story BB gun at Bass Pro Shops.  They were selling the real thing too.  But we will just settle for trying out the laser version for now and stick to nerf and super soakers at home.  Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.

Green
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

As I mentioned before, I was going to attempt to create a Lego version of the classic green versus tan army men for my son this Christmas.  After some late Friday nights in which I sat constructing green and tan tanks and jeeps in Lego format, as well as some time perusing Lego parts websites to build my individual soldiers, I have both sides completed.  Roughly I have almost 20 soldiers per side, more than enough to rekindle this classic rivalry. 

I got creative while choosing heads and tried to choose Lego heads that looked tough and rugged, few of those chosen would meet military regulations as far as haircuts.  But I was not aiming for that anyway, I was aiming more for the old GI Joe look.  If you look closely you will see beards, gold teeth, various smirks and even a terminator looking fellow on the tan side.

As far as the uniforms I tried to mix and match, much like what I have seen while watching World War II movies, I did not want the uniforms for either side to be identical.  I wanted the colors to match but the uniforms to be vary slightly.  What I have is one set of Lego soldiers who are clearly green and a second set of Lego soldiers who are wearing browns and tans.

Tan
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

Mixed in with the Lego soldiers are some Best Lock soldiers that came with the tanks and jeeps, all these parts and pieces are Lego compatible.  Some of the complaints with the alternative Lego sets are that they did not lock together as well as Lego.  Personally the bricks went together about as well as any Lego sets I have built, but I was not overly concerned as I intended to glue each piece so that the tanks and jeeps were permanently together.  The Best Lock tanks are great and fit into what I was trying to create perfectly.  I took a few liberties and put some of my own touches on the tanks to better enable multiple soldiers to man the tanks.

I think I came up with a toy idea that my son is going to be absolutely thrilled with this Christmas, and certainly a toy that none of his friends will have.  If this is as successful as I hope, perhaps both sides will get some reinforcements in the future.  Go GREEN!

It has been a tough past ten days or so.  We had to say good bye to our Beagle, Hunter yesterday.  I have never been good about taking photos of the pets.  Occasionally they show up, but for the most part I have not done a lot of pet photographing.  This is an old photo, Hunter was much whiter in the face now than in this photo.  Still, up until about ten days ago he was as full of life as a puppy.  With children and so forth Hunter took a back seat through the years but he was liked by the kids who always laughed at his floppy ears and he would gladly lick their hands and face. 

We thought Hunter was out of the woods after having a few teeth taken care of last week.  But Thursday and Friday of last week he continued to regress and worsen.   Sunday he was beaten and I had to make the decision to say so long to our 11 year old Beagle. 

Hunter was the last of my pets from my single days, I got him as a puppy in February of 1998.  He provided a lot of Beagle challenges, laughs and lastly sadness.  Hunter was part of several daily routines for me for the past 11 years.  Hunter, you will be missed.

Check.

Every boy, at least in the US, even those in the current generation most likely had Army Men in their toy arsenal.  You know those molded plastic, usually green and tan soldiers that burst on the scenes again in the 1990's as a result of the popular video games and of course Toy Story.  I had a huge collection including the Navarone playset when I was a kid.  My collection was boosted by older brothers and I literally remember coating the basement floor with battles for Navarone, culminating with the fall of the top floor and the destruction of the big guns.  I saw the movie (with Naverone spelled different) as a kid prior to getting the play set for Christmas in the late 1970's.

If any of you dads have tried to collect a variety of Army Men now for your kids, you quickly learn that there is not much variety and there are some that literally have no use except to destroy using some Sid from Toy Story method.  I picked up a couple bags a couple years ago to use as awards for Jake when a job was well done.  The molds were horrible, no detail and they would rarely stand on their own.  This pretty much eliminated the purchase of this toy in the future.  Even though the quality of these Army Men is horrible, Jake still plays with them, the kid actually has an amazing imagination and really plays with all his toys.  It is enjoyable to listen to his stories unfold and I know one day I am going to really miss his imaginative play.

If you do not know, Jake is from my first marriage.  Because he has two full time households there has occasionally been some duplication of toys.  I try to come up with ideas that are as imaginative as his play and I have mostly been successful.  Each Christmas around October I start thinking of ideas.  This Christmas I have decided to construct the classic Green versus Tan Army Men in Lego form.  For those not up on their Lego, Lego has never made modern military sets.  Knights and Star Wars is about as close as you can get.  In the Lego world some creative fans of Lego have been constructing even molding their own Lego modern military equipment and upon seeing some of the creations earlier this year I have held onto the idea. 

I am not going to go crazy, but I have managed to find some websites where I can acquire the various torsos, legs, heads and yes even helmets that I can use to construct the two sides.  Fortunately there are some compatible Lego like sets that have tanks and other military vehicles.  By mixing and matching and using some creativity I should be able to put together my own Dirty Dozen for both Green and Tan.  In the end, I am not going for actual scale here. If you remember our Army Men, the tanks and aircraft looked like they were built for troops half the size of our Army Men.  My Lego versions should be much more impressive than even the originals and they will see Jake through his imaginative youth. 

Late night weekends will likely see me constructing the Lego vehicles and troops for a Christmas Even invasion.  Once I get some models finished I will post some photos.

I promised some big news once I got the blog settled in at the new domain.  So without further ado, Julie and I are expecting our fourth child in February.  We will now be outnumbered by two!  We decided a while back to have one more, giving us a very full house.
 
Once we find out if it is a boy or a girl the decision on whether we repaint the famed pink bedroom will be made.  I had not anticipated repainting a room so soon, but Emma and Riley will be bunking up in the larger light green bedroom.  Early trials with Emma and Riley sharing a room have been met with mixed results.  Although I think we just about have all the kinks worked out.  Sometime around the middle of February an exhausted stork will be delivering our next special package.

1) Big two car garage. (There is always something to do in the garage)
2) Home office slash datacenter. (Somewhere to put my computers aka servers)
3) Dry relatively comfortable basement. (I have about two tons of free weights, meaning a basement is a must)