Sensory Overload

Boy 2 is at his mom's for the weekend.
Boy 1 stayed home as he had a tennis match in S. Dakota last night and has a tennis tournament in Montevideo today. Plus, if the rain doesn't prevent him from doing so, he'll be doing some rock picking for one of my UPS crew that also farms.

If he gets rained out we're going fishing.

Actually, either way we're going fishing. I haven't picked up my license yet, but the fishing season opened a bit less than an hour ago, so that's on my mental "To Do" list. I've decided to do more stuff like that this year.

Whatever.

Anyway, I had to feed the boy and I felt like DQ.
He agreed with me on this, so DQ it was.
We get to DQ and place our order. (Whoa! Just about forgot to order his "plain", but that crisis was averted. *whew!*)
So while we're waiting, the kid who took our order starts humming.
I was thinking to myself, "Hmmm...that sounded an awful lot like..." when sure enough he sings, "Da da da da dahhhhhhh!" (Which would have been followed by "I'm Lovin' It!" if he had continued with the song.)
He realized suddenly what he was singing and stopped. He looked at me and we both laughed as this is the current theme tune to McDonald's that the kid working at DQ is humming.

It got me thinking about how much info we have crammed into us on a daily basis. When I was 14, my "Walkman" either played one complete cassette tape or one CD. Now kids have their handy dandy gadgets that hold several thousand songs plus more. Who really has the time to download SEVERAL. THOUSAND. SONGS?!!!

I've never bought my kids any hand held game systems. I figure they can save game time for those cold winter days when it's better to stay inside.
I was driving down a road in Marshall one beautiful summer afternoon a couple of years back, and within two blocks I passed two separate families who were just getting home from their trips with the parental units getting out of the front and gathering luggage while the kids, with their noses pressed up against the screen of their little hand-held games and strongly working up a case of what we used to call "Nintendo Thumb", were getting out of the back.

I wondered if those kids had ever seen a hawk on top of a telephone post...or a sunrise or a sunset reflected off a calm lake...or heard crickets in the ditches... or fed ducks...or seen smaller birds in flight, chasing larger birds from their nesting area...or seen a shooting star...or caught a frog and wiped the slime on their clothes... or sat and watched the Aurora Borealis on one of those few nights when we see them in MN.

The last one might not be a good example.
I myself haven't seen them since 1998, and I do a lot of night driving.
I have friends and coworkers who want me to call the next time I do see the "Northern Lights" so they can wake up their families and all see it for themselves.

This makes me happy.

I digress.

My kids had a friend over one time that couldn't carry a conversation that didn't involve the video game Halo. Everything the kid said brought any conversation back to that one topic.
"On YouTube there's this really funny video blah blah blah Halo!", for example.
To the best of my knowledge, this particular kid was never invited over again.
I need to remember to thank my kids for this.

I like YouTube. I have yet to think of a song that somebody hasn't put on there. From "Da Da Da" by Trio, to "Ponderous" by 2nU...if I can remember enough of the song I've been able to find it.
Today I was watching the video for "That's not my name" by The Ting Tings when Boy 1 asked me to put on "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus. And so I did.

When I was in college and taking video editing classes, the professor told us to change shots every 4 seconds as that's how long the attention span will stick with one scene during a video. Apparently the attention span has decreased, as there's a part of the Cyrus video that I'd guess has 12 different scenes in a 4 second span.

So...

Today I'm going to Montevideo to watch the boy play tennis. I'm dragging my trailer along and will be hitting any place that looks like it has plants and landscaping blocks and timbers as I have outdoor projects in progress.

Tonight, weather permitting, he'll be picking rock and I'll be building a 16x14 foot box garden behind the "swingy thingy" on the patio - with measuring and cutting and reinforcing and tilling and filling and chainsawing and planting and...

Tomorrow - I'm disconnecting the stereo components. I no longer need the DVD player as the PS2 and PS3 both play those. (Maybe the Wii does, too. I've never checked.) The receiver quit on me a couple of weeks ago so I wasn't surprised when I found the remote yesterday. (The remote's been missing for over a year. It was caught between the leather and a board inside the couch recliner. I had to actually get off the couch to turn the volume up to a nice blare when watching movies. How primitive-neanderthal-ape-man is that?!) And why isn't there something I can press that makes the remote vibrate? or my glasses beep? or my phone ring? or whatever tool I just set set down - somewhere other than where I thought I had - to rattle so I can find it? I don't have time to look for these things! I have 11 other things to see in the next 3.75 seconds!

Deep breath...exhale.

Yup. We're going fishing.