Jason and Carisa Stairs' Page

Beardyman and Flutebox

2009-05-16T08:23:00.000-06:00

I didn't know a guy playing the flute could be cool:

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Somebody Stole the Liberty Bell Today

2009-04-14T09:55:00.001-06:00

Somebody stole the Liberty Bell today

By Bob Ford

Inquirer Sports Columnist

Somebody stole the Liberty Bell yesterday, unhooked it from its case, and carted it off when no one was looking. We won't see the Liberty Bell ever again, and a part of us all, of what makes our city special, is lost.

They sawed William Penn from the peak of City Hall yesterday, too, right about midday, right about the same time. The planter's hat and the flowing coat, the beneficent smile bestowed upon his little green town. We won't look up and see Billy again, and the skyline will never look right.

A bulldozer rumbled down the parkway during the lunch traffic and it took out the steps at the Art Museum. Putting in elevators or some such refinement. No more running up the steps, no more lounging on the steps. No more steps at the Art Museum, and we always intended to take one more jog to the top and turn and see the city.

They filled in the Schuylkill and razed the boathouses, closed the pretzel factories, and turned off the cheesesteak grills. They closed Forbidden Drive, paved Fairmount Park, and made people stop parking in the middle of Broad Street.

It all happened yesterday.

The day Harry Kalas died at the ballpark.

"We lost Harry," team president Dave Montgomery said. "We lost our voice."

We lost Harry on the road, which is very nearly home to the baseball lifers like Kalas. We lost Harry as he was preparing for another game, this one in Washington. He would have had his scorebook and his notes in the booth with him, and the statistical numbers and columns that supply the canvas of a game for which artists like Kalas can add the brushstrokes.

He didn't get to see this game, but, probably, he had seen it before. He had seen them all.

The Phillies will do their best to honor him, but there is no statue that can be erected more impressive or lasting than the indelible body of Kalas' work. He was a comfort in time of need - and Phils' fans know all about that - and a friend in the darkness of a drive through the night. He was the narrator of a city's soundtrack, the background conversation at countless events in millions of lives.

People asked Harry to put his voice on their answering machines. They handed him telephones and asked him to wish their wives a happy birthday. They spun the radio dials, caught just a word, perhaps just a name - WAAAH-rin Cro-MAAAHR-tee - and knew where they were. They were at the corner of Kalas and Baseball, and there was no finer intersection at which to spend time.

Harry's voice wasn't gravel, but it had an edge. It knew things and knew that you knew them, too. It wasn't a Philadelphian's voice, by any stretch. He kept the round Midwestern pronunciations he grew up hearing in Naperville, Ill. But Kalas liked to play with the words, to put them together and turn them into dramatic recitations that were his alone.

A simple baseball call like "Swing and a miss, struck him out" became a magical victory of good over evil, the emphasis punching through just as the ball had punched through the batter. That very phrasing was the final play-by-play from Kalas that most Phillies fans will remember, as Brad Lidge ended the 2008 season, and Kalas declared the team world champions.

We will hear it only in retrospect now, that wonderful instrument he possessed. Just as nature blesses pitchers with great arms and batters with great hand-to-eye coordination, something was given to Kalas at birth that he couldn't really take credit for, but he could certainly put to good use.

A couple of years ago, I was in line at the Wawa, getting some coffee, on the way to the airport and an Eagles road game. A dozen others shuffled around the store, look for their own coffee, getting through another gray morning. And then the voice boomed out, seemingly from the heavens.

"Aren't you sup-POSED to be in In-DEE-ah-NAP-olis by now?"

People almost dropped their coffee, and their eyes darted to the ceiling and all around. Of course, it was just Harry, three back in the line, holding his coffee, having some fun. And everyone had a story to tell when they finally got to the office.

"Hneh, hneh, hneh," Harry snickered.

He could laugh, but that snicker was more what he was about. It was the expression of an insider, someone who got the joke more than even the teller might realize.

Harry got it all. He got baseball, and he got life on the road. He got how lucky he was to have that voice that everyone knew and that manner that made everyone his friend. He got Philadelphia, got it so well that he became part of the civic landscape. He got us, and that's not easy.

The birds stopped singing in Rittenhouse Square yesterday. The tugboats on the Delaware couldn't sound their horns. When the carriage horses took their customers past Independence Hall, there was no clop-clopping on the cobblestones. The factory whistle wouldn't let anyone leave work. Kids burst from their school rooms and didn't utter a peep.

Philadelphia went quiet yesterday afternoon. Harry Kalas died at the ballpark, and the city lost its voice.

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End of an Era

2009-04-13T12:26:00.001-06:00

A sad day for baseball and the city of Philadelphia. I used to lay on my grandparents floor as a child and fall asleep listening to his voice. A Phillies game will never be the same.

Harry Kalas dead at 73.

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5th Wedding Anniversary

2009-04-10T15:05:00.003-06:00

Today is our 5th Wedding Anniversary. We are going to go out and have a nice dinner alone to celebrate but right now I am sitting at the Honda dealer waiting for our civic to have the front-end aligned for the second time. (The first time just made it worse so we had to bring it back in.) So, since there is a computer here and I have the time to kill I figured I would make a post I have meant to write for some time now.

Almost a month ago, a friend from work had stopped over to visit before he and his wife went to AC for the evening. They had tickets to see Bret Michaels' (former front-man of the hair band Poison) Rock of Love tour.

We were down in the basement with Jack when Tom said, in reference to the concert, "I bet there will be a lot of S-L-U-Ts there tonight" and Jack, without missing a beat said from across the room, "sluts?". Tom's jaw dropped open as he looked at me wide-eyed. I said, "Tom you can't spell things around him, he can read." Tom said that I had to be kidding...that he had to have known that word, to which I replied, "Yeah, I say 'sluts' to my 3 year old all the time...Jack, what is B-I-M-B-O?" To which Jack answered emphatically, "bimbos!" Tom spent the rest of his visit a little dazzled.

That's our boy Jack, who was made possible by this day, 5 years ago. Happy Anniversary Carisa. I love you!

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SNL

2009-03-11T08:49:00.002-06:00

Carisa and I have started watching Saturday Night Live again recently and I think it is starting to get funny again.

The Rock Obama:

Ray LaMontagne:

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Tips for the Workplace

2009-03-06T09:26:00.001-07:00

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Adventures in Parenthood and Weather

2009-03-02T18:12:00.002-07:00

Never a dull moment.

Yesterday we were home for my grandfather's 85th birthday party...Happy Birthday Pop-Pop!!! At the same time I had dropped my car off at my dad's so he could fix a broken engine mount while we were at my mom's house for the party...so we were traveling with two cars. While I was home I was also re-formatting my mom's laptop...busy day. All day we were listening to the news about the big storm coming from the coast. We knew we needed to get on the road but the weather, where we were (2 hours from the coast in PA), didn't look bad and I figured if it started to look bad we would just stay at my dad's house (we had to go there first and pick up the Taurus).

We finally left my mom's around 7 PM. When we got to my dad's there were just a few innocent looking flakes starting to occaisionally fall from the cold sky. Dad had fixed the engine mount, replaced the windshield wipers, filled the washer fluid and changed the oil. Thanks Dad!!!! We decided that we wanted to just get home and sleep in our own beds so we hit the road.

When we got to Philly, it was snowing but not laying...the roads were just wet. We continued on heading right into the storm with Carisa in the Honda with the kids following behind me as I drove the Taurus.

As we crossed the Walt Whitman Bridge heading toward Atlantic City it was coming down fast and beginning to lay. At this point, we could still see the lines on the road but as we continued to travel, a drive that normally takes two hours, the snow began coming faster and faster until we could no longer see the lines on the road and the cars out there became fewer and fewer. Eventually we were on the Atlantic City Expressway going 35 mph, traveling deeper into the storm, only able to guess where the road was by judging where the middle was by the Pinelands on either side. Each of us had our blinkers on to help us keep track of the other.

White knuckling the steering wheel, Carisa and I had the occasional cell phone conversation verging on panic and talked down with calm words that we were "almost there" and "would make it by taking our time". The snow was falling so hard that as you watched it continuously blowing sideways in the beams of the headlights it would begin to mess with your vision until it felt as if you couldn't see anymore and you would have to find something to look away to in order to break the spell.

With the 2 hour drive now pushing 3 hours we were crawling along at 25 mph on the expressway; getting closer to our exit nerve wracking mile after mile. Once we arrived and I thought it was over I found that the exit had not yet been plowed and I went from memory that the actual exit normally comes before the exit sign? Making a guess as to where the exit was (the smooth white snow between the tree?) we continued on; trying not to stop for fear that we would not get started again. Traveling on the last road home felt like traveling through a snow tunnel with visibility extending only a car length out in front.

When I got home I planned on hugging my wife and kissing the carpet, but as I was getting Jack out of the car he woke up into a coughing fit, the kind that has occaisionally overcome him before where he coughs so much he vomits, and cannot breath. He was hysterically crying and wheezing for his breath, arms trembling out in front of him as I rushed him into the house directly to the bathroom. While shutting the door and throwing the shower on high heat to generate some steam I tried to convince him that he needed to stop being so upset; tried to rationalize to my 3-year old that if he just calmed down, he would be able to breath again. Carisa started a nebulizer (steroids) treatment we had from one of his previous episodes when he had been hospitalized. When that was done Carisa wrapped him in a blanket and took him into the cold air outside, but the blowing snow soon drove them back in.

Did he have to go to the emergency room? Did I have to take the car back out into the storm?

As Carisa and I pretended to be calm so that he would become calm, we called the Children's Hospital (CHOP) and I spoke with a nurse who sounded almost as anxious as I was pretending not to be. She told us that it sounded like the croup and not an asthma attack and that the 5-10 minutes we had him in the steam was not enough and we needed to do 20. If he was still having trouble breathing after that, we would discuss different options.

Thankfully, after spending 20 minutes in steam so thick that all was dripping, we brought him to our bed and turned on the TV. His breathing seemed better. At least he was in better spirits and talking to us as if nothing was wrong between breaths slightly tainted with wheeze. We watched TV with him until midnight at which point we turned off the light to go to bed; to spent the rest of the night restlessly tossing and turning, listening to his breathing in fear that it wasn't over.

Jack slept through the night (Lili was of course a different story) and we awoke to a bright snowy blizzard still ongoing. From the double stress of the night I had a knot in my back that made it hurt to breath. Besides from being exhausted, everyone had made it and we were home. Now it's just another day.

Never a dull moment.

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Long Weekend

2009-02-17T10:15:00.003-07:00

I had this past Monday off for President's Day. It was generally a nice weekend. Carisa and I spent a good part of Sunday and Monday cleaning up our backyard which has been a mess ever since we moved in. We filled close to 20 fifty-gallon trash bags with leaves and debris, dug up 4 tree stumps, and stacked about 50 bricks. The yard looks pretty good...unfortunately I forgot to take a before picture. We still have some more work to do before throwing down grass seed in the spring but we are well on our way.

Besides that Lili came down with a 103 degree fever due to vaccinations she received last week. Monday night she did not sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time so I took a personal day on Tuesday to recuperate.

That's about it...been busy. Reading the news about the Republicans and how they just keep proving more and more every day that they always put party before country. President Obama reached out his hand so that the country could find a solution to our economic crisis together...and the Republicans turned their back on him...some of them even stating that they want it to fail. Thanks Repugnicans! Thanks a lot! Oh yeah, and thanks for getting us into this mess. Great job.

It times like this that I think back to the handful of Republican friends that I actually lost because I tried to discuss issues like this with them...healthy debate between educated adults. Well, they couldn't have that because the facts don't generally go the way of Republicans and those debates actually killed the friendships. I couldn't believe it. I think back to them now and wonder how that debate would go now because guess what...your party sucks! Sorry to be so blunt, but the politicians that are out there in charge of the Republican party right now are despicable and I hope they go the way of the Whig party. Our country would be better for it. Sorry to get so crass here, but they make me sick. Lincoln must have rolled around so many times in his grave by now that he has probably drilled himself more than half-way to China by now.

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Happy Birthday Carisa!

2009-02-10T10:46:00.001-07:00

All my love!

-Jason

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Happy Birthday Neena!

2009-02-09T07:46:00.002-07:00

Happy Birthday mom! You don't look a day over 45! Love from all. Have a great day.

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Weekend in NYC

2009-02-08T17:49:00.002-07:00

Carisa's big 3-0 is soon here and to celebrate, our mom's came up with the idea that they would stay at our house with the kids while Carisa and I went to New York City for the night...and it was great!

We arrived Friday and wandered around Times Square before having an amazing dinner at a favorite Thai restaurant of Carisa's called Pongsri. If the weekend would have ended after that dinner it would have been worth it. However, afterward we went on to catch the Tony Award winning Broadway musical called "Avenue Q" which is essentially Sesame Street for adults; nothing more appropriate for us (or funnier than watching muppets talk about adult topics, occaisionally curse or flip the bird and yes...there was muppet sex). It was hilarious.

Saturday morning we woke up and went to Rockefeller Center, and wandered around the ice rink before catching an NBC Studio and Rockefeller Center tour. During the NBC studio tour we saw the Saturday Night Live set where they were rehearsing for that night's show. It was pretty sweet.

We were going to have dinner at Bobby Van's Grill to top off the weekend but we were both so tired that we decided to get on the train and get back to our childrens who missed us terribly and we them.

It was a great weekend. Thank you, moms, for making it possible and Happy Birthday to my sweet Carisa. I love you so much! I miss our times of traveling the world together and look forward to doing it again with you and the kids. I hope you enjoyed your 30th as much as I did. Happy birthday sweetness.

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Jack Doesn't like the Police...or Me, by Jason

2009-01-29T17:28:00.003-07:00

I was just on the phone with my cousin Matt and I made the comment that I was in baby jail (I am home watching the kids and while getting Lili off of the steps...again, I was behind the bars of the banister). Jack heard me and said matter of factly, "I don't like when the police put me in jail."

After I got off of the phone I was taking them into the basement for some Sesame Street when Jack said, again matter of factly as he walked down the steps in front of me, "I don't like the police. I don't like the police...I don't even like you."

...made me laugh.

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Sick Kids on the Weekend

2009-01-27T14:52:00.002-07:00

There's a good chance I will be working late tonight so before I get started I wanted to procrastinate and give an update now that the site is back up.

Friday night was nice; instead of sitting at home we took the kids over to a friends house and let them run around in a new environment. It was a nice evening. Then we came home and I went to bed at 11 while Carisa remained in the basement working on the computer. At 11:30 I awoke to Lili crying while half-asleep in the other room. When I finally woke up enough to realize what was going on I went to her crib to find her and the crib pretty much covered in puke. That was just the beginning.

Carisa stayed up with Lili while she vomited at least once an hour (sometimes every 10 minutes) until 4 in the morning at which point they both got some sleep until 6. (To give you a better idea of the night Carisa had, let me point out here that a 1 year old can't tell you that she needs to go to the toilet to vomit...she just does it...usually all over you. Have I mentioned yet that I am pretty sure Carisa is a saint?) The last time Lili puked was at 11 AM on Saturday which was enough to make us change our plans for going out Saturday night. Sunday things picked up a little bit and we went to Mimi's for dinner before coming home and going to bed.

Around 11:30 Jack came into our bed and we let him stay. I am glad we did because at 12:30, with everyone including Jack asleep, we were awakened all of a sudden to Jack coughing a very dry barking cough and crying hysterically like he had been attacked. I tried to get him to calm down while Carisa went to the other room to deal with Lili who had been awakened by the commotion and was now screaming.

I tried to get Jack to calm down. He was so hysterical that it was making his coughing worse which was making it hard for him to breath which was making him hysterical until finally he threw-up in my hand. At that point I told him to please calm down and stay in bed while I went to the bathroom to dump the puke out of my hand and he got out of bed to run hysterically crying to look for his mommy. At that point Carisa ordered me to wrap him up in a blanket and take him outside...the cold air would help open his airways. Saint.

So there I was with him wrapped in my comforter on the front porch while I stood there barefoot and in my shorts. Eventually it got pretty cold but he did calm down. He stopped crying and he started breathing easier although he still was wheezing. I am not sure if it was the cold that helped or the distraction of him wondering what we were doing standing outside on the porch at 1 in the morning. Either way it worked.

I soon brought him back inside and got him back into bed while Carisa gave him a nebulizer treatment (which we still have from when he was 1 and had RSV) and set up a humidifier. Eventually we were all able to calm down and drift back to sleep as Jack's breathing returned to normal.

Monday came and was a horrible, horrible Monday. One of those exhausting, dizzy Mondays that makes you beg for Tuesday to arrive. After dinner, of which Jack didn't eat very much, we were downstairs when Jack said his tummy hurt. I asked him if he had to "puke" (his new favorite word after the Lili debacle) and he said yes, so I took him upstairs to the toilet and he did...just a little bit of water as if he had drank too much and needed to relieve some pressure. After that everything seemed fine.

Then close to midnight he came into our room and said his tummy hurt. I took him back to the toilet and he proceeded to empty out the day's contents before getting back into bed and spending the rest of the night whimpering softly about his tummy which hurt. Carisa took care of him while I tried to get some sleep in to the other room in order to show up at work with some level of functioning. Saint.

So now it is Tuesday and everyone seems to be a little bit better. I don't think there is anything worse than your kids being sick. Now we are just wondering when will it be Carisa's turn, or mine.

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We're Back!

2009-01-19T19:14:00.001-07:00

After I failed many times, Jamie worked his magic and now we are back. Sorry for the long down-time!

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test

2009-01-09T19:51:00.006-07:00

The site was down, but if you are reading this then it is back up!

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Happy 2009

2009-01-01T07:42:00.006-07:00

2009 already. Happy New Year everyone!

2008 was a blur. I would like to take this space to review the year, but I don't think I could remember enough. We started the year out with the arrival of Lilianna Elisabeth who will be 1 year old this Saturday, January 3rd. I was still adjusting to my new job while we lived with Carisa's mom waiting for our house to be finished. During the first week of March, I went on a business trip and the house was finished early so Carisa moved into the house while I was in New Orleans. Eventually we got settled in and the summer came. Carisa and the kids spent time at the beach. The fall came, the winter came, financial melt-downs and historic elections. Now we have gone from Christmas to New Year's and now it is on to Lili's birthday and then Jack's. That's pretty much all I remember at this point. Sleep deprivation.

Here are some other recollections to song:

I wish you all a happy, prosperous and peaceful 2009!

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Why G.W. Bush should be frogmarched before the Hague | Crooks and Liars

2009-01-01T07:28:00.008-07:00

Why G.W. Bush should be frogmarched before the Hague | Crooks and Liars

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Jack and the Lights

2009-01-01T07:28:00.007-07:00

Lili has not been sleeping so well. The other night, she was screaming unlike any child I have ever heard scream before. She can be quite the terror at night. Basically, Carisa/we are trying to cut off night-time feedings (so that is mostly Carisa since there is not a lot that I have to do with that). Anyway, Lili doesn't like it.

So she was screaming loud enough that she woke Jack up who came into our room to "sleep" [Lili's still screaming]. I asked him why he would want to come into the screaming room and he replied that he wanted to sleep with us. It only took him a minute or two to realize that the screaming wasn't going to stop so he asked if I would take him back to his room and sleep in his room with him. I thought that was a good idea.

I took him to his room and put him into bed. I had to go back to tell Carisa something or other so I told Jack I would be right back. A minute later I came back to Jack, laying on his back with a puzzled look on his face. I asked him what was the matter and he said, "Something was in my room." Being interested in the paranormal I took him seriously and asked him what was in his room (in the past he has told us that a boy/man was outside his window saying, "what"). He replied, "Colored lights". I asked him where they went and he said they "blew out the window". [His window which had the blinds down and the heavy dark curtains closed so no light could come in from the outside.] He told me that the lights came in through this door and then were "sticking to the ceiling, fan and closet" before they blew out of the window.

I thought it was all pretty neat. Carisa, meanwhile, was still in the room with Lili who was still screaming her head off. I asked the "lights", if they were friendly, to go entertain Lili and help her settle down for Carisa's sake. At that point Lili stopped screaming. I asked Carisa the next morning if she had done something to stop her from crying and she said no, that she had just stopped. So, whoever or whatever those lights were, thanks.

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Jason's Cousin was on TV!!

2008-12-16T15:10:00.003-07:00

Jason's counsin Rob aka Jerry Roberts who lives out in Minnesota was on the local news program not too long ago to talk about prescription help for seniors... Here is the video!!

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Whoa, That Was Close!

2008-12-14T13:12:00.001-07:00

Good reflexes. Would have been sweet if he caught it and threw it back.

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Jack This Morning

2008-12-08T16:06:00.002-07:00

"Woah, Joe...that's what Neena says." [pause] "Can I have some M&Ms?"

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New Things

2008-12-07T19:33:00.002-07:00

On the left, Jason has added a couple of new items. One is a connection from his www.pandora.com account. Pandora is sweet. You should check it out. You put in a favorite song or artist and then Pandora creates a custom music station for you. You can also have friends and share stations. So, the thing on the left shows you some of Jason's stations. Also there is a connection to Jason's Twitter account. He feels bad that he doesn't update the site more often so he set up the twitter account which will allow him to send text message updates of what he is doing which will be displayed on the left.

We could just update the site more, new pictures, etc or we could just do things like this. ;)

Enjoy.

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POTUS

2008-12-05T11:48:00.001-07:00

Pretty neat to think that all (except for Washington) lived (or soon will live in the White House)!

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So Much

2008-11-14T11:54:00.002-07:00

So much has been going on that I have thought about writing on here...from the election (which we pretty much covered) to work, to home and the kids, to the house and sheds. So much going on to write about and no time to write about any of it. Unfortunately there is also too little sleep and therefore too little memory to remember what it all was that I wanted to write about.

Anyway, I just wanted to write that much at least.

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WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-05T18:51:00.002-07:00

We did it, we got our country back after 8 long years, it feels so good for the good guys to finally win one!!!

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