What Holden is learning from Disney
The other night I was reading to Holden. Our bedtime routine is such that we normally read two books after we go up to his room for the night. He gets other books read as he requests throughout the evening, but at bedtime he always gets two books.

This night in particular, one of the books was Snow White. At one point in the story, the Queen was described as 'Wicked and Vain'. A page or two after this the following coversation takes place:

"Daddy, what's a woman?"

"Buddy, you know what a woman is."

"Yeah..." And he seems to ponder for a moment.

"Daddy, when... when you... when you are a woman, you are wicked and vain."

Now I know that this is coming from his Disney books where the 'Woman' of the story is a wicked queen or a wicked stepmother... or both. While the 'Girl' character is the heroic one.
Needless to say, I corrected him. But not before making note of this 'slip' and making sure to point it out to the guys at work...

It's really amazing how many of them must have read the same little golden books when they were children.... 'cause they seemed to have reached the same conclusion Holden had.
- posted by Tony @ 1:37 AM 0 comments

 
"The wind began to switch, the house to pitch..."

I'm going to preface this by saying that, to my knowledge, everyone we know is safe and relatively damage-free.

Sunday evening at about 5:25 PM a tornado struck Fairview Heights and O'Fallon, IL. At the time we were at Big Gram's house celebrating her 75th birthday, or rather, we were just about to sit down to the dinner that was to begin the evening. We were outside watching the clouds roll in as we hauled Gram's present, a bird bath, to the back of the house. The sky grew dark quickly, clouds swirled, and to the west, somewhere just beyond where I approximated the Mall to be, I saw dirt flying straight up...

I've seen funnel clouds before... I've driven along side of one along I-270 just north of Granite City. I've stood in the middle of Scott Air Force Base's flight line and watched funnels form, lower they rise back up into the clouds. I've never before seen dirt fly straight up in the way it did that evening. At the close end of the next block to the west, what I am assuming was the sheet metal roof of a shed or some similar shelter flew into a tree, the lowest point of the shed was easily fifteen feet from the ground.

And as worrisome as the sights were, the sound was what caused me to start shuffling everyone inside as quickly as possible and get everyone in the house moving toward the basement. I have always heard that a tornado sounds like a train approaching. Having heard that as a child I always imagined the sound to be of a whistle, because, when I heard a train approaching, I always had heard the whistle announce it's arrival. I made the logical connection that perhaps the high winds when pressed through the tress would bring about a sound similar to a whistle. What I heard was, what I can only imagine would be, the sound one might hear when you lie your head on a train track as it came barreling down a mountain. It was a roar that you could feel as much as hear.

We were lucky. A multitude of buildings in Faiview Heights and O'Fallon were destroyed or severely impacted. Had the tornados stayed on the ground during the entire incident, it's likely that we would have been much more seriously impacted.

Stay safe,
Have a plan,
Love,
Tony

- posted by Tony @ 7:58 PM 0 comments

 
Another Trip to the Science Center.
Today we took a trip to the St Louis Science Center. Holden was psyched to see the "Big Mean Dinosaur" again. We were also going to be meeting Kimberly, my playwrighting partner, and her son Walkir. They were on a week-long spring break vacation, with thier first stop in St. Louis. We were able to spend a few hours at the Science Center and see the dinosaurs and visit with Kimberly and Walkir.

The Dinosaur was a rather interesting experience for Holden, though. Thankfully it doesn't appear to have caused any lasting trauma, but it was a fairly traumatic experience to come upon the sight of a two-story headless dinosaur. They were apparently doing some repair work on the T-Rex. If you are at all aware of the layout of the Science Center, you know that coming in from the main entrance and going past the ticket booth you are greeted by the moving roaring head of a full sized Tyrannosaurus Rex hovering over a freshly wounded Triceratops as a Pterodactyl hovers over-head. Imagine the travesty of rushing to the glass barrier overlooking the scene of carnage (Which Holden sees as Mommy Dinosaur looking at the boo-boo that the baby dinosaur has while it's sleeping) only to have the foamy, mechanical stump of a neck to greet you, as the head of your favorite dinosaur lying next to the exhibit. We are probably going to need to start saving for the therapy.

With our guests to the city with us, Holden wasn't quite able to get to do all of the things we have done in the past at the Science Center. We were unable to get to the Discovery Room to play at the water table, and Julie didn't get to try to get Holden to sit through one of the science exhibits. We did however get to put Holden and Walkir into a Low Rider simulation as part of the Chicano Art Exhibit. And in the end we got to sit and eat popcorn while the adults chatted, so that helped Holden get past the water table and the headless dino.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
Tony
- posted by Tony @ 5:00 PM 0 comments

 
One year later...
... well, not quite a year, but I didn't feel like waiting four more months to post this.

It was good enough for Battlestar Galactica. It was good enough for DC Comics. It's good enough for Mastville. We are jumping forward one year... ok, not quite a year. We are jumping forward eight months.

Events of note from the past two-thirds of a year will be revealed in the next few posts, most notably Holden is now a superhero, Julie is now a cropper, and I am now a playwright. We've gone on an official vacation that didn't involve visiting someone who lived out of town.

More will follow soon enough. You've waited eight months... you can wait a few more days to get caught up on what is going on here in Mastville.

T
- posted by Tony @ 2:40 PM 0 comments

 
We're havin' a heat wave...
Another weekend gone...

Holden and I got our hair cut on Saturday Morning, then had breakfast at McDonalds. Holden was the hit of the Hair Saloon, having no less than three of the ladies there (which I think was actually all that were there at the time) following him around watching as he sweeped the stalls with the two full sized brooms he hauled around.

A quick trip to the grocery store not only gave us food for the week, but also gave Holden the opportunity to ride in the Helicopter in front of the store. Two rides actually, once on the way in and the second time on the way out.

We hussled home to get out of the heat, give the little guy a nap and wait until Julie got home from work.

After the nap, we dropped Holden off with Grandma and Grandpa and we headed off to the dinner and a movie while they headed to Uncle Doug's house for dinner and playing with cousins.

Julie and I saw The Wedding Crashers. A two second review: Good movie, haven't laughed that hard in a theater in a LONG time. Be warned, this one isn't for kids, but if you enjoy comedy that's written completely for adults, you'll probably enjoy this one. It's refreshing to see someone make a comedy that is rated 'R' and not just another movie that's hacked up to try to get a 'PG13' rating.

I made a 45 minute 'dash' through the front yard with the mower Sunday morning, though with the heat and humidity it felt like it was at least an hour and a half. Fortunately, I started at 9:00 AM and was only feeling woozy by the time I came in. Having not advanced to the "nausea and blacking out" part of heat exposure.

Julie picked up Holden and the rest of the day was spent inside, relaxing and napping (for Julie and Holden).

More later,
T
- posted by Tony @ 11:22 PM 0 comments

 
Just an update
Busy week for us. We printed and mailed (with the help of some of the other parents at Holden's Daycare) approximately 300 donation solicitation letters for the 2nd Annual Arlington Care and Learn Trivia Night.

As we were folding letters, licking envelopes and organizing all of the letters, the T-Shirt fundraiser Julie spearheaded got the shipment of shirts in, so we weren't able to take the evening we were planning to have "off".

Now that these are done, we're waiting and hoping for donations to start rolling in. Also, I need to get in contact with the other folks who have volunteered to write questions and get started on the meat of the night and make sure that all of our categories are lined up.

Julie will be working again this weekend, it's been a tough few months for her, but she's getting a lot of recognition at work for all that she is doing there. Plus the extra cash from the overtime has garnered a lot of recognition at home.

Holden and I will have another "dude" day on Saturday with a run at the Hair Saloon for a Father/son haircut... including a scalp massage for me.

The only other bit of news is that I'm going to be writing a comic book for Dark Elf Designs, the company that is supposed to be publishing "The Sorrow" comic book.

There isn't much to tell about it yet, but it'll be a new title set within the realm of Greek mythology. I'm looking forward to digging into the old stories and putting a fun, adventurous slant on them.

That's all for the moment...
T
- posted by Tony @ 11:03 PM 0 comments

 
Science is Fun!
Holden, Julie and I spent a few hours at the St. Louis Science Center today. Initially we went there to see the circus exhibit that they had, but we ended up going to the discovery room instead. Holden had tons of fun playing with the race cars, the dinosaurs, the water table, the tee-pee, and the marble tower. Not to mention he had lots of fun watching the killer water course that I built on the water table... much to Julie's amusement.

We played around in the Human Experience and Cyberville, but the big draw of the Science Center was undoubtably the Big Dinosaurs. Anyone who's been to the Science Center knows the pair we are talking about. The T-Rex was a bit intimidating at first, but it didn't stop us from having to go back to view "her" over, and over, and over. The triceratops was the "baby dinosaur" and was "sleeping". We didn't feel the need to explain the whole dinosaur circle of life thing to the little guy just yet.

After leaving the Science Center, we stopped off at Union Station. We stopped off to get all of us some lunch, Mommy some fudge, and Holden REALLY ticked off. Apparently they've closed the Disney Store there, which might not have been a major issue except that we had been hyping going to the "Buzz(Lightyear "Toy Story") and JoJo(Tickle "JoJo's Circus") Store" and to get him away from the "Big Dinosaurs".

Fortunately, we were able to bring him down with the help of Mint Chocolate Fudge and a dollar's worth of fish food to be dumped into the pond.

He didn't make it across the bridge before falling asleep on the way home.

Later,
T
- posted by Tony @ 10:12 PM 0 comments

 
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday, Mom!

Have a great day!

Love,
Tony, Julie and Holden
- posted by Tony @ 8:06 AM 0 comments

 
Keeping busy
The three of us have been keeping busy. Julie's been putting in long hours recently including working at least one weekend day each weekend for the past month or so. This has given Holden and I some fun special Saturdays and Sundays hanging out together.
Holden is on and off, literally, with his potty training. He's talking constantly and sometimes gets to far ahead of himself. He's taken to "reading" books along with us and has developed a "Snuffy" fetish. Snuffy is, of course, Mr. Snufalufagus, the big hairy elephant-like creature that occasionally shows up on Sesame Street. The one video we have of the character has Snuffy acting out "On Top Of Spaghetti" while the song is being sung. This has caused Holden to relate any spherical object, especially if it has a reddish or brownish tint and has a textured surface, to the "Meatball" from the song. And if you know the song, you know that the meatball rolls away. So at anypoint during Holden's concious day there is a 75% chance that he's holding, talking about, or pushing then chasing a 'Meatball'. All of this topped off with the chanting of "Meatball, roll away". With all of the rolling meatballs, Holden stays VERY busy.
I'm working and writing and playing Guild Wars, but otherwise there isn't too much to report from my end.

Julie and I are working on the Arlington Care and Learn Trivia Night again this year. I'm heading the question committee and will be the MC for the night while Julie is soliciting the donations and will be in charge of collecting and organizing them as they come in. Naturally we'll both be helping out each other a LOT.

That's all for the moment,
T
- posted by Tony @ 9:00 PM 0 comments

 
Can we get someone from the CDC in here?
Ok, since the last update on Saturday, Holden has been out 3 more days from school. Today, he’s finally back for his second day of school this week.

Sunday, he developed some type of stomach virus, leaving he and I to spend Monday at home, recovering.

Tuesday, seemed to be a better day for everyone involved and everyone went to work/school. I went to a meetup writer’s group meeting in the evening and it looks like I’ll be attending future meetings too.

Tuesday night was a bad night. By the time I got home from the meeting at 9:30, both Holden and Julie were in bed. I sat in front of the TV with the ReplayTV remote and a notepad. I was going to watch the episode of The Amazing Race that I recorded earlier in the evening and take some notes on the writing project I’m working on for Aegis Studios.

Holden started fussing (read: screaming).

By 12:30 AM, I completely abandoned any hope of watching the rest of The Amazing Race that night, as it took me that long just to make it through the first 25 minutes (including commercials that were fast forwarded through). After about 1:30, the rest of the night is a blur… I know that sometime around 3:00 AM I finally got to sleep and wasn’t awakened again.

Wednesday, Julie took a turn staying home with him and made an appointment to see the doctor.

The diagnosis was a middle ear infection that had broken through and had developed an outer ear infection.

He finally got some relief in the form of Tylenol, Motrin and a once-a-day antibiotic and had a 4 ½ hour nap.

He stayed home again on Thursday, but that was more to catch up on sleep and recover more fully before entering the germ zone at school. (On Wednesday, only 6 of the 15 kids registered in Holden’s class attended.)

And now here we are on Friday, Julie wasn’t feeling well this morning and a sore throat and stuffy nose kept her up all night. I’m tired because I was playing around the DVD burner half the night, and Holden seems to be doing pretty well. We are all at work/school today and, knock on wood, will be able to stay for the rest of the day without incident…


- posted by Tony @ 11:41 AM 0 comments

 
The Monkey finds new places to climb
This afternoon, Holden and I had Boy's Day Part II.

For Boy's Day part I, Holden and I were home sick yesterday after he came home from daycare Thursday afternoon with a 99.9 degree fever.

Today, Julie was invited to go wedding dress shopping with her cousin, Michelle. We were a little surprised at this early shopping trip because at last report Michelle and Jason weren't getting married until after they both graduated college. We were very reassured that the wedding isn't going to be until September.... 2006!

Far be it from me to try to figure out women's "wedding logic" so I told Julie to go while Holden and I stayed home and watched Roadrunner cartoons. (I've created a new fan with the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 that I got for Christmas.)

The morning and afternoon passed as one would expect. Eventually, Holden let me be fooled into believing that I convinced him it was time for a nap.

At about the two hour mark, I thought I heard a thump from his room. Hearing no crying or cries of "Daddy!!!" I decided to just let him play for a while in his room, giving him some time to explore.

About 15 or 20 minutes later, he started calling for me so I climbed the stairs and made my way to his room.

I opened the door slowly, as Holden has a habit of standing RIGHT BEHIND the closed door. I saw him back pedalling slowly to avoid the door. As he did he smiled and presented me with two bowling pins, one in each hand. "F'you, Daddy!"

That he would have found some toy or treasure in his explorations of his room wasn't surprising, and that he was presenting his prize to me as I walked in the room, again, was not surprising. What is surprising is that those bowling pins were on a shelf...about 4 1/2 to 5 feet off the ground!!

Daddy: "Um, what do you have, buddy?"

Holden: "Candy Cane!"

Daddy: "And where did you get the bowl- candy canes from?"

Holden: "Up there!" pointing to the shelf.

Daddy: "And how did you get up there, buddy?"

Holden: "I climbed. I climb on the blue couch and get it."

Daddy: "Why don't you show me how you climbed up there?"

Holden then walked over to the blue dresser which is under the shelf in question. At the base of the dresser was a toy parking garage playset. He stepped up onto the playset, then took another step onto the raised elevator shaft of the playset. He turned and looked at me, his waist level with the top of the dresser, leaning over the dresser, reaching his little hand toward the shelf, and announced, "I get them like this."

Daddy: "Of course, you did."

Holden: "Course you did"

So, needless to say the playset was moved across the room, and here is hoping that he doesn't feel the need to climb up onto his dresser again. But somehow we just know that the feeling will definitely come upon him again!

- posted by Tony @ 5:44 PM 0 comments

 
The Population of Mastville keeps growing.
Welcome to the World, Tiera Renee Mast!
- posted by Tony @ 8:37 PM 0 comments

 
Happy Martin Luther King Day
Holden had a fun day today spending MLK day with Grandma Karen and Grandpa Paul. While Julie and I were at work, Grandma, Grandpa and Holden got to watch a series of movies together… well, not the whole movies, just about five to ten minutes of each.

We all met back up at Grandma and Grandpa’s house after dinner to celebrate Austin’s birthday (Monday) and Ron Gallucci’s birthday (Tuesday). Between us, Mom and Dad, Doug’s family, Big Gram, Butch and Geri, and the Gallucci’s, there were 17 of us for Austin’s Birthday.

It was a big crowd and Austin got all kinds of neat presents including Laser Tag, The Indiana Jones Trilogy on DVD, some Playstation games and a number of other movies and toys.

We did have one near catastrophe though, the blaze of candles on Ron’s cake nearly had us scrambling to call 911. I still think we need to check the batteries in the smoke detectors, because the cloud of smoke after the candles were blown out should have set off the alarm. ; )

We also celebrated Christmas with Doug and Shawn and the kids. I think the hit of the Christmas gifts was a tie between Holden’s bike/scooter, Austin's K'nex Roller Coaster and Abby’s Barbie Princess and the Pauper DVD.

- posted by Tony @ 11:16 PM 0 comments

 
Something else for her to obsess about
We finally got Holden to bed last night (at 10pm – that’s past Mommy’s bed time!). Later, I thought he heard some kind of knocking going on in the upstairs hallway but thought if Holden had really climbed out again, he would start yelling, “I can’t hear you!” or “I climbed out of bed.” I never heard any talking so just assumed the noise was the cat or the dogs playing at the base of the stairs. Around, maybe a bit after, midnight, I went to check Holden…and couldn’t get his bedroom door open. Holden had climbed out of bed and had fallen asleep in front of the door! When he woke up this morning, I asked him if he climbed out of his bed last night, and he said “Nooo...” So, then I asked him if he fell asleep on the floor by the door, and Holden answered, “I not see Daddy under the door.” He must have fallen asleep while trying to peek under the door for me.

- posted by Tony @ 1:21 PM 0 comments

 
The Sorrow
The Sorrow has been with us for some time now. And it can be with you too for only $11.95.

No… seriously.

My first published work is now available for sale here. The Sorrow is a book that myself and some others have gotten together to write for charity. I’ll post the story here if there is interest. After any profits on the book are made, they will be donated to the National Association to Protect Children also known as Protect PAC. I wrote one of the stories, co-wrote the origin of the character as it appears in the book, and edited the entire volume.

This organization fights to protect children from those who would do them harm and fights to change the laws that either allow abuse to continue or insufficiently punishes abusers.

There is going to be a comic book based on the title character in April ’05 (or so I’ve been told).

Join the fight, pick up the book.

- posted by Tony @ 6:14 PM 0 comments

 
The Newest Resident of Mastville
Welcome to the world, John Clayton Mast!

- posted by Tony @ 6:00 PM 0 comments

 
Holden's 2 year check up!

- posted by Tony @ 4:03 PM 0 comments

 
An Update to the website... Really?!?
Ok, so this is the first post at Mastville’s newest addition.

A Blog.

We’re going to try this out and see how it works, and if it works for us. We might be playing with formatting and content, but rest assured that we’ll get updates out to you that are a bit more frequent than once every presidential election year.

Let us know what you think. There is a little link there at the bottom for comments. You can always email us tony@mastville.com, Julie@mastville.com, or Holden@mastville.com.


More to come, and more updates to the website VERY shortly.

- posted by Tony @ 1:21 PM 0 comments