modern day dad

FakeTV Burglar Deterrant Keeps The Fake TV Glowing

I've bought a lot of hair-brained electronic crap in my life, and so when I told my wife about FakeTV, she just assumed this was another one of those things. And while I can't say for sure that this thing fulfilled it's purpose (and I'm happy about that, believe me), even my wife had to agree that it's a pretty cool little device.

The basic premise behind FakeTV is that burglars won't bother to break into a house that they know is occupied, and the number one way they can tell a house is occupied is the faint glow of a television being watched in the dark. The problem is, if you go away on vacation, most all televisions don't work on traditional power-timers. And leaving a television on for 24 hours while you're away on vacation is not only expensive, it's bad for the TV. That's where FakeTV comes in.

FakeTV is this little box (very little box actually) that you plug in and leave behind a closed curtain or the opposite end of a room from a window. When it gets dark in the room, FakeTV pops on and starts emitting random light patterns that, when viewed through the window from outside your house, makes it look like there's a TV on. It has three settings (on, dusk plus four hours and dusk plus seven hours) and works with low-power LED lights.

I've had one in my house for a month now, and while I can't say it's actually deterred a real life criminal, it turns on and off just like it's supposed to. And from outside my front door, it really does look like someone is watching TV.

Now I just have to hope criminals aren't reading my blog.

Check it out at FakeTV.com

The "New" Southwest Airlines Sucks

My family and I took a trip on Southwest Airlines last weekend, and from the perspective of a parent traveling with small children, it was a big let-down. Gone are the egalitarian days  when the first person who showed up got to board the airplane first and a family got to pre-board. Actually, gone is any concern for a family traveling at all.

Car seat meets gyroscope.

Although I am (I must admit) a fan of "reality" television shows, American Inventor on ABC isn't something that I've been watching. I'm sure you can pretty much guess the premise of the show - the inventor/contestants try to prove their invention is the best, thereby winning the prize of getting the invention produced and marketed. What I didn't realize was that one of the contestants has a new type of car seat for children (pictured above with his invention). This is what it says on the ABC website:

Spherical Safety Seat - A new kind of infant car seat where the baby sits inside nested spheres instead of the usual seat. In a collision, the spheres spin and automatically position the child's neck and back so that they are perpendicular to the impact force, thus shielding the baby from the destructive force of the impact.

It's a pretty cool idea and according to some fan websites I've read, he's the front-runner in the contest. I guess he's not the first person to play spin-the-baby in a car seat (also be sure to play the Safety Egg demo), but if he does win I'll be very interested to check it out.

Watch the finale of American Inventor tomorrow night at 8/7c on ABC [via my Goddaughter Megan - thanks!]

To the gate father. And step on it.

I was all set to blog about this new high-tech crib some over-zealous design students in England came up with - the IntelliCot - but typically Greg from DaddyTypes beat me to it. So go read his post - he's right on the money.

But while I was perusing Shiny Shiny I saw this new kind of luggage for kids - Trunki. I guess the idea is you let your kids pack their stuff up, and then once you get to the airport you can tow them to the gate via the tether. It's an interesting idea, but it looks like more of a distraction that might actually make things more difficult in the long-run. Am I the only one who's tried to pull one of those old-school 80's suitcases with the four wheels on the bottom through an airport only to have it topple over constantly? And that was without a wriggling kid. I'd love to see one in action sometime though.

More kid's luggage on MDD - Student designer update.

Trunki by Magmatic Design [via Shiny Shiny]
The Intellicot post at Shiny Shiny [via Sean - thanks!]

LA recap.

We spent this past weekend in LA, without the Madame (thanks to the modern day grandma and pop-pop), for a weekend of December shopping. "Shopping" is really an excuse to get away from home, stay at a nice hotel, and remember what it was like traveling without a small child. LA definitely doesn't give you that traditional "Christmas" feeling, but with temperatures in the high 70s I wasn't complaining. I'm too tired to think of anything clever to write about this morning, so here's my quick recap:

• Hotel. We stayed at The Standard in Hollywood, which we had stayed at back in 1999 soon after it opened, but this time it was kind of a disappointment. The location is great and the lounge is a fun place to hang out, but the services were definitely sub-par. There were small things like no shampoo in the room, but the big thing was the building itself. The floorboards in the room above ours were in serious disrepair, and the creaking from the people leaving Sunday morning in the room above us was so loud it was impossible to stay asleep. The price for the location is still great, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it.
• Shopping. When I go to LA I like to shop in places I can't find here in Vegas, so we spent most of our time checking out places on Melrose. I finally got to check out a Fatboy bean bag chair at Fitzsu, and I got some great vintage kids stuff at Jet Rag (which I'll probably blog about later). The best store we went to was Not Neutral to check out some kids furniture. The worst was (unfortunately) Grommetville, who had a sales girl who was the opposite of helpful, and kind of made us wish we hadn't trekked all the way out to Silverlake.
• Food. I have two restaurant recommendations for you. The first is the Gardens of Taxco, an authentic "Mexico City style" (as they say) restaurant, which apparently means no menus and and endless stream of food that you didn't really order. And they have the best mole sauce I've ever tried.
  The other is Yamashiro, an Japanese palace built in the Hollywood hills in 1914 with amazing views and great food. Apparently it used to be known for great views and average food, but they've got a new chef now who is (in my opinion) doing his job right. It was a unique, only-in-LA kind of experience, and the perfect cap to a great weekend.

NYC recap.

I still feel like I'm recovering from our long weekend in New York. Here's a quick roundup:

• Weather. Sucked. It rained every day and was cold. But I didn't go there for the weather.
• Travel. Traveling without a toddler is really great, and Jet Blue is now officially my favorite airline. Live television, leather seats with extra room and they don't skimp on the drinks or snacks. I'm not sure I'd be able to put Madame on mute until she's older (like their ad suggests), but I'm willing to try.
• Shopping. Great. We didn't do much shopping, but we did hit the places we can't get to that regularly, including picking up a few sweet gifts at Bombalulu's.
• Friends. The best. My modern day godson is a beautiful, almost perfect baby whom I rarely let go of. It's amazing how much I forgot what a small infant was like.
• Food. We had some of the best meals while we were in NYC, and while the wood burning grill in the Gramercy Tavern is still a personal favorite, the best meal we had was at this crazy Asian restaurant in the meat packing district called Spice Market. From the outside it looks like an ugly building, but inside it feels like you walked right into a kung-fu movie. Combine the tavern scene in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with some sort of shadowy, red-lit Asian club and you kind of get the idea. And the food was outstanding.

An autumn vacation.

I haven't written anything this week, and it think I'll take a few more days off. Modern day mom and I are leaving soon for a long weekend to New York City to visit friends and meet my new modern day god-son. We're not taking the Madame, and although we'll miss her, we're really looking forward to going on a trip with just the two of us. If there are any recent must-see things in NYC you can recommend, drop me an email or leave a comment.

I'll be back next week with lots of stuff to write about into the holiday season.

Have monitor, will travel.

I think by now I've settled into my dad-hood pretty well and I'm all but adjusted to my new life. Even more, I think I've gotten over most of my selfish, personal sadness at the lifestyle (freedom, really) that I left behind. The one thing that I miss the most though is being able to travel like an adult.

We take Madame everywhere, and usually it works out for us pretty nicely. So a few days ago we went away for labor day weekend to someplace without family, where we could relax and get away for a while. It was great, but it really brought home the fact that some of the things that are so easy to deal with your child at home (or in someone else's house) are almost impossible in a hotel room. And I'm not talking about breakfast or bath time. The thing that sucks the most is (unless you've got a suite with a door) is everyone is pretty much going to bed at the same time. That is of course, unless you've got a room by the pool.

It was really just dumb luck on our part. We arrived, went to our room and realized we were adjacent to the pool deck. In the old days I probably would have been annoyed that my room had no view and would likely be loud. But we quickly realized that with a monitor (that we didn't bring) we could hang out at the pool while Madame took her nap during the day, or when she went to bed in the early evening. So after a quick trip to Walgreen's to pick up a monitor (who knew they'd have one there? My wife did as it turns out) we were in business. Let me tell you, it worked like a charm.

So if you want to salvage an adult moment or two when you're traveling, throw the monitor in the suitcase. And request that crappy room by the pool. You'll probably be the only one who loves it.

Two shops to check out in LA.

Even though our tip to LA two weekends ago was not without it's trials, I was able to find a couple of cool kid's stuff boutiques to visit. Both of them were near each other in Silver Lake, a cool neighborhood in LA that I had never been to before but wish I had. (It seemed to me to be kind of like a place where the urban hipsters in LA move to when they can't afford - or want - to live in West Hollywood.)

The first one we went to was Grometville, mostly because I wanted to pick up some bath tub stickies I had read about in DaddyTypes. Grometville is a pretty typical baby boutique store with a lot of clothes and cool gift items. Actually a lot of great gift items - I particularly liked the double snapsuit set for twins from Wry Baby that said "Stop Copying Me"  that I had never seen before. We picked up some stickies and a gift for a friend and then headed a block down the street to another shop called Furthur Kids (no website, here's a link to their entry in CitySearch). Furthur Kids had more toys and some furniture and was equally worth checking out (we got a sweet tambourine for Madame there).

Then we made a quick trip for dad to Han Cholo in Echo Park for a sweet belt buckle. But unfortunately they only had it in silver plate - and if I ever bought a buckle for $1200 I'd have to kick my own ass.

Lessons learned in LA.

We just got back last night from a long weekend in Los Angeles, and it was a good trip. Every time we travel with Madame we get a little better at doing it, and we learn a little more. The difficult part is she keeps growing and changing, so just when we think we know exactly how to handle things, she decides to change the rules. So, at almost 13 months, this is what we learned:

• Damn the baby needs her nap. We knew that this trip would be a lot different from her usual weekday schedule where she gets a nap in the middle of the day, but we figured it would be OK. We thought she would sleep here and there in the car on the way to stuff, and in the end she'd have the same sunny disposition she usually has. That, as it turns out, was completely wrong. By the end of the day she was cranky and beside herself; barely able to function. Which brings me to my next revelation.
• You can really only do one thing per day. Going out in the morning for some shopping, then lunch, then a museum, then dinner out is way too aggressive. I have to learn that this isn't my old life, and even though there's tons more I want to do, I need to pare it down. Because ultimately stuff starts getting less and less fun the crankier she gets.
• King Tut was a let down. Where was the golden death mask, the boyhood throne and the big senet game I remember seeing when I was a kid back in the 70s? The exhibit was still worth seeing, but if you do get to go, know that it's not the same as what you may remember. And don't bring your 13 month old, at least to LACMA. The exhibit is way too crowded, people don't move, and even though strollers are allowed, eventually your kid will start to loose it; no matter how much of a nap she got on the way there.
• Caffe Angeli wasn't exactly what I thought it would be. On Saturday we had dinner on Melrose at this Italian rustico restaurant called Caffe Angeli. I had read that the chef had re-worked the restaurant to cater to parents who wanted a great meal in a place where their kids would be welcome too, so I thought it would be perfect. (Apparently they do fun things for kids like give them pizza dough to make into shapes for their own personalized pizza). Although the staff was extremely friendly and accommodating, and we had very early reservations; we were the only family there with a child of any age, which wasn't really what I had in mind. But my dinner was very, very good (and if Madame had been less cranky it would have been great).
• The Boston Red Sox are still the greatest sports team ever. We took Madame to her first Red Sox game on Sunday in Anaheim, and the Red Sox won in dramatic fashion. It was great, but I do pity anyone who lives in southern California and has to drive north/south on any freeway. US 5 is absolutely miserable.