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All Hail Father’s Day

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I have amazing kids and an amazing wife. It sounds cliche, but I honestly consider myself the luckiest man alive. My children aren’t perfect of course; we have our share of tantrums and sibling arguments and tears, but so does every family. That’s life. That’s part of growing up and learning. That’s what being a family is: learning to love each other despite our differences.

Father’s Day is probably my favorite holiday of the year. For several reasons. One, it’s all about ME! On Christmas it’s about the kids mostly. We’re celebrating the birth of Jesus of course, but it’s the kids who get all the attention. They get all the presents. And that’s fine. That’s how it should it be. I love seeing the delight on their faces.

But on Father’s Day, it’s all about me. It’s Daddy’s day. Everybody loves Dad and tries extra hard to give him a wonderful, Daddy-focused day.

That makes it better than my birthday. I didn’t do anything to have a birthday. That was my parents’ doing. If we should celebrate anyone on the day of my birth, it should be my mother, who endured quite a bit of labor pains to pop me out. I didn’t do jack.

But becoming a father . . . that’s something I did do. That nine-year-old and seven-year-old and two-year-old and eleven-month-old that are my kids and the joy of my life, THAT I did. And I’m darn proud of those kids. I’m thrilled to be their dad. It’s the greatest honor I have in this life. I love them more than the world itself. They make me extremely happy. And they gave me an amazing Father’s Day.

I got to sleep in. They sang to me. (Happy Father’s Day is exactly like Happy Birthday, in case you didn’t know.) Luke, my nine-year-old, sang me an original song that included beatboxing and lyrics about how awesome I am. My two-year-old Layne, not to be outdone, also sang me an original song, which didn’t make much sense, truth be told, but which was sweet nonetheless. My son Jake gave my a thousand hugs and hung on me awhile. My almost-one-year-old Meggy Moo My wife made me an amazing dinner. AND I got gifts. What father could for more than that?

A horse by any other name

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This past Saturday was the Kentucky Derby. I’m not that interested in horse racing. As in, at all. It’s always struck me as slightly cruel. Riding horses for recreation is one thing, but whacking the horse with a crop and essentially whipping it repeatedly to make it run faster doesn’t seem especially kind.

But one aspect of horse racing that I’ve always found fascinating is the names these horses have. The winner of this year’s derby was I’ll Have Another. As in I’ll have another shot of whiskey. Or I’ll have another card in blackjack. Or I’ll have another punch to the face, please. It makes me wonder where these names come from. Are horse names derived from silly story of the horse’s infancy? Are they like the stereotypical Native American name? As in, the child cried a lot when it was born so they named it Howls at the Moon. Or Eagle Screamer. Or Please Make the Baby Stop Crying.

So where did I’ll Have Another get his/her name (I’m not sure the horse’s gender, and I’m too lazy to look it up). Did it love sugar cubes and kept begging its owner for another one whenever he/she (owner gender is also an unknown) broke out the sugar cubes. “Wow, this horse keeps coming back for sugars cubes. Eureka! Let’s call it I’ll Have Another.” Or does it really like getting whacked with a riding crop? Hmm.

Were I a racehorse owner, I’d name my horses names that force the crowd to question the winning horse. Such as I Was Robbed, or The Winner Cheated, or I Meant To Lose. I can heard the announcer now. “And coming in second place is I Meant To Lose.”

Other great racehorse names:

Oh No He Didn’t

I Swallowed A Bug

Stop Whipping Me

Also, one of my favorite radio campaigns was doen by an agency in New York known as DeVito Verdi for National Thoroughbred Racing and turns the idea of funny racehorse names into pure comic genius. Enjoy.

And here’s the actual derby race with the announcer.