Another night at the races

Posted on August 7, 2005 | Filed Under Family, Sports

Friday night my father, Michael and I went to the stock car races about 15 minutes from our house. This is the second time this season that we went and it was more fun this time than the last.

Michael really likes to watch the “junkers.” You know, the $300 cars that are held together with string and bubble gum. There may not be much money in the cars, but the drivers sure do take the race seriously. They are banging in the corners and jockeying for position every single lap.

Of course, this usually leads to many accidents — that in turn gets Michael laughing and jumping. All three of us pick a car in every race — we don’t bet or anything, but we have a lot of fun picking on each other when we don’t finish well.

The Sportsman series was there this weekend, which is a step down from the MASCAR. These guys put a lot of time, energy and money into their race teams and it shows. Very serious racers in this class, but the accidents are few and far between. Unfortunately for a few, one car lost its engine going into turn three on the last lap and sent three cars flying off the end of the race track.

My father was very involved in racing when he was younger, so he knows a lot about the cars and the setup. He said on Friday that he never raced one, but I think he was probably in one driving at one time or another.

I would love to get behind the wheel and race. I probably wouldn’t last long after bumping a few people off the track, but at least Michael would be screaming and laughing the whole time.

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I’m cool. No, I’m really cool!

Posted on August 2, 2005 | Filed Under Family, Music

Don’t take my word for it, just ask my daughter. I found out recently that I am the coolest father in the whole town! That led to me taking Nicole and two of her friends to a concert last night.

Nicole’s favorite band, Hedley, is led by one of the Canadian Idol contestants from last season. A few weeks ago there was a segment on the local news that Hedley was coming to town, so Monique went online and stayed there until she came away with four tickets in the second row.

The plan was this: Monique would take Nicole and her two friends to the concert and I would stay home with Michael. Worked for me.

The plan was fine until this week. Nicole decided this week that I was so cool that she needed me to take her to the show. I felt bad for Monique because Nicole fights with her a lot, but I have to say that it’s been a long time since I’ve been called cool or anything even resembling cool.

So, off I went with three pre-teen girls following behind — okay, actually I was following behind, but I was really out of place. Luckily, I wasn’t the only parent at the concert that was totally out of place.

Nicole had a lot of fun. She managed to get up on stage with the band and danced around for most of the last song. After the concert was over, I stood in line with the girls for over an hour so they could get an autograph and a picture.

It all worked out pretty good. The girls had fun and I’m apparently still cool!

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