You didn’t know?  Well now you do…

WDFH FM 90.3 Ossining

Two local bands will be featured in the coming weeks.

First up are The YaYas:

The YaYas are Catherine Miles (vocals), Jay Mafale (guitar) and Paul Silverman (piano) and they came into being after attending a couple of open mic nights while attending college.  After their second appearance the club owner booked them for a full gig, the only trouble was that they only knew six tunes.  Rather than turn down the gig they learned more songs and became a band.

They play story driven folky pop songs that can be heard on their current album Paper Boats and play frequently in the greater Westchester area as well as other parts of the US.  In fact at the end of January they’ll be in sunny Florida while we’re all freezing up here.  Anyone wanna go on a road trip?  Their performance airs on WDFH FM 90.3 on Tuesday January 31st at 9:00 pm.  If you happen to be in Florida with The YaYas you can always tune in online here.

Next up…Hope Machine:

The core members of Hope Machine are Fred Gillen Jr., Steve Kirkman and Eric Puente.  They’re named after the Woody Guthrie quote, “about all a human being is anyway, is a hoping machine.”

The band is a fly by the seat of the pants operation that plays folk music in its purist form, without pretension, without limits and often without rehearsal!  WDFH listeners are certainly in for treat when they tune in to hear this performance on February 7th at 9:00 pm.

Please help keep local radio alive by making donation today!

SUPPORT LOCAL RADIO

No, not a Chevy pickup…my early 60s Electrolux Model G vacuum cleaner!  We inherited this from my Grandmother a few years ago and it has outlasted just about any other household cleaning device or appliance we’ve purchased since.  The thing is made of steel and damn near indestructible.  It’s like a little gray army tank.  I’ve dropped it down stairs and rolled it down my steep driveway, but nothing fazes it.

I seem to recall getting a new hose for it at some point and when we brought it in to the shop they agreed that unlike today’s vacuums, this one will last forever.  If you’re in the market for a new vacuum then pass up the new hi-tech vacuums that sell for between $500 and $1000 and see if you can find one of these puppies on Craigslist or Ebay.  I’ve seen them really cheap, but make sure you grab it quick before  collector snatches it up.  Yes, there are people who collect vacuum cleaners…don’t judge.

When I was growing up and we went on a family trip or to any kind of event my Dad would always ask us on the way home, ‘what was your favorite part?’  It got to be a bit of a running joke and we’d try to beat him to it by asking the same question of him before he could ask it of us.

I didn’t understand why he was doing it at the time, as a kid I don’t think you’re supposed to understand those things.  As a parent myself I now see my Dad’s infinite wisdom…ok maybe not infinite, but I think he was onto something here.  It forced me to think back about what I had just seen or done while it was still fresh in my memory.

Fast forward a bunch of years to the present and now there’s a website that can attach our kids’ memories to a ticket stub for everyone to see.  With a few clicks you can upload a ticket stub to StubStory and either let your kids type the story themselves or have them dictate it to you.  Older kids can use this as a writing exercise that’s actually fun.  Younger kids with good memories are hilarious once they get talking.  Make sure you get it all in there…the good, the bad and the ugly.  If they want to talk about the long line at the bathroom or the smell once they got in there, let them.

If you went to Disney World and your kids took pictures with Mickey you can upload those pictures too.  Sometimes looking at the pictures can jog their memories and they’ll start talking about something that you never knew was happening at the time.  So go find your old ticket stubs and have fun with it.

http://stubstory.com/

According to Home Media Magazine, Borders will close their remaining 399 stores starting July 22nd.  The store’s 10,700 employees will lose their jobs.

Home Media Magazine

Every year around Father’s Day we have to make some awkward decisions.  Do the wife and kids spend it with me or does she take the kids to see her Father?  You’re probably thinking, well why can’t you all get together?  Yeah well that’s not my idea of a good time so I usually opt out and stay home in a quiet house.

This year was a little different because my wife had to work which left me home with the kids until mid-afternoon.  Here was a chance for me and the kids to spend some ‘quality time’ together doing something I wanted to do.  Easier said than done.

I spent the morning doing the usual: breaking up fights, cleaning up spilled cereal and trying to talk the crew into doing something ‘fun.’  I had suggested that we go out for a hike while getting home in time for Dad to watch the NASCAR race and for the kids to play Wii or with Legos or a Lego game for Wii…you get the idea.  As usually it was met with a chorus of ‘nooooooooooo’ and ‘whyyyyyyyyyyyyy,’ but I stuck with it and eventually dragged them all down to the car kicking and screaming.  I DID have to bribe them by packing some m&m’s in a bag for later.

We headed over to Westmoreland Sanctuary in Bedford, NY where the boys have been on many school trips in the past.  One of the highlights of those field trips has always been digging around in the pond with nets to see what creatures they can unearth.  They seemed excited to get dirty so I let them have at it for a while.  We found some tadpoles, dragonfly larva and a few small fish and remarkably no one fell in the water.  Now that they were in a good mood I urged them to hit the trail with me.

Rather than risk getting lost I decided to stick to the trails we had been on before with Cub scouts.  Within the first few yards the three-year-old faceplanted twice while trying to run amongst the roots and rocks.  No harm done.

We climbed on the big rocks, watched out for animals and heard the loud call of a piliated woodpecker, but we never managed to spot him.  My daughter got down on the ground and pointed out the ‘comfy grass’ which her oldest brother correctly identified as moss.

Inevitably the boys had to pee so they reveled in the freedom of peeing into the void off a large ledge.  Ah the simple pleasures of life.  There was some whining of course and a few complaints of, ‘can we go to the mall next Father’s Day,’ but we soldiered on.  We saw a big frog, some cool orange mushrooms and spent a good fifteen minutes throwing things off a cliff.

The trail circled back to the pond and I knew we’d end up with the nets and the bucket again.  They seemed to move a little faster when I told them that.  Our last wildlife sighting was a TINY frog which everyone took turns holding and consequently getting peed on.  I told them it was probably payback for earlier in the hike.

Another round of scoop and scope at the pond then we headed back up to the nature museum.  On the way everyone exclaimed how much fun they had and asked if we could come back again.  I assured them that we’d be back several times over the summer and eventually hit all of the trails.

The highlight of the museum was watching a corn snake devour a dead mouse whole.  I chased my daughter around while receiving urgent updates from the boys.  “Only the tail is sticking out now!”

We ended up spending longer than expected so I only managed to get home to see the end of the NASCAR race, but it was worth it.  My wife came home, there was the traditional card and homemade gift presentation then they were off to Manhattan for dinner.  I fired up the grill and made some burgers for myself, took a nap and enjoyed the peace and quiet.  All in all a perfect Father’s day.

My kids don’t listen to me.  My wife says they do, but I don’t believe it.  If they ARE listening to me and actually hearing me then they’re ignoring me…which come to think of it might be worse.  If only there were a way to know for sure.  This morning I think I came up with a solution.

Someone needs to create a fun kid friendly video game that parents can program with all of the rules of the house that get repeated 1,000 times a day.  Things like:

1. ‘Turn off the lights when you leave the room.’

2. ‘Flush the toilet after you poop.’

3. ‘Stop pummeling your brother.’

4. ‘Clean your room.’

That sort of thing.  These rules along with other random quotes will appear on the screen for the kids to shoot, capture, hit…you can choose your own level of violence depending on the age of your child.

There will be a points system and a reward can be earned for the once who can identify the most rules correctly.

This phenomenon also applies to visual selection of objects.  For example…go into the wasteland that is your child’s room and tell him or her to pick up all of any one item like cars or Legos.  They don’t have to clean the whole room, just identify that one item and pick all of them up.  After a few minutes they’ll wander out with one in hand and claim to be done, ‘I only saw one…here.’

Now take them to the nearest giant toy store and hide some of those same items on random shelves.  Tell them they can have all the cars or Legos they find that are out-of-place.  They will need more than one cart to carry them all.

Another one of the Great Mysteries of Parenting.

HEY!